WasWatching.com

Nick Lachey's part owner of the Tacoma Raniers. A little fun fact that means absolutely nothing.

As for Giambi, partying is a lot easier on the body than raking.

I guess since full-time DH is in his future, maybe he'll play 150+ games again?

Keep partying, Giambino. Keep it moving. When the cat's away, the mice come out to play.

I just wish he raked now as hard as he still parties.
--------

Um, yeah -- .971 OPS, sixth best in the AL (behind only the true monsters in the league, Hafner, Man-Ram, Papi, Thome and Dye) and by far the best on the team (Alex was 13th, Jeter 15th, Cano 17th).

Besides -- it was friggin' (Pre-)New Year's Eve. What do you want him to do? It's not like it was July or something.

baileywalk, LOL, when I read those first comments, I was thinking along those same lines.

Steve would make a great reporter: Find the most insignificant piece of information, and then find a way to turn it into something negative about a NY player.

Yeah, a .970 OPs is nice - but, they're paying him like a guy who has an OPS of 1.100 (which he was from 2000 to 2002).

Nice try, Steve.

1. Players decline with age (and lack of steroids).
2. And when a player signs with us as a free agent, I usually expect at least a 10% decline, factoring in umpires and bad luck.
3. Jason isn't juicin anymore like half of the people with a higher OPS than him.

If you're concerned about the Yankees paying him for a 1.100 OPS I think you should either:

1. Cast your concerns to the Yankee management who offered him the contract and/or

2. Let us know how his attendance (based on the Pulitzer Prize laden Star Magazine) at this event will affect his OPS next season.

FWIW, I do find it interesting that Big Stein once got on Jeter's case for partying too much - yet, they never say boo about Giambi.

FWIW, I do find it interesting that Big Stein once got on Jeter's case for partying too much - yet, they never say boo about Giambi.
===============
It's not that interesting, when you think about it. Bobby Meacham, Dave Winfield, Reggie Jackson, to name but 3 players have incurred the Boss' wrath at one time or another, Winfield to the point that Steinbrenner paid to get dirt on him. Who knows why Steinbrenner did the things he did?

Maybe it's because Jeter was/is the face of the franchise?

I think Stein's beef with Jeter was due to a particular event that happened during the season (his own birthday party), not in the off-season.

a .970 OPs is nice - but, they're paying him like a guy who has an OPS of 1.100
-----------
Alfonso Soriano: $17 million for a .911 OPS
Carlos Lee: nearly $17 million for a .894 OPS
Manny Ramirez: $20 million for a 1.154 OPS in contract year with Indians;
Jason Giambi: roughly $17 million for a 1.137 OPS in contract year with Oakland; .971 OPS this past year.

Sorry, Steve, your idea of what someone should be paid for what they produce is severely inaccurate. The Yankees, in the current market, are getting their money's worth, at least offensively, from the Giambino. Jason Giambi is being paid right in line with what he produces, according to the current market. In addition, you might even consider Giambi a bargain. Considering most players demand more money to play in New York (taxes, cost of living and the like), a player of Giambi's productivity might be asking for $18-20 million in the current market.

Todd Helton: '06-'10:$16.6M/year for a .880 OPS in a hitter's ballpark, in the National League.

DonnieDosTresBaseball - how many of those players are useless in the field, like Giambi at 1B?

I knew that was going to be your response...

Carlos Lee is nothing more than a DH, who hurts his team by playing the outfield. Alfonso is a corner outfielder, not a CF, and he's average, if not below average, defensively. Manny is a LF, and a renowned terrible one at that. Helton: Is his defense really worth the $16.6 with his terrible OPS in hitting-friendly Coors and in the weaker NL.

Also, Giambi is average, if not below average, defensively. However, he hits better when he plays 1B, but Torre refuses to play him at 1B more often than not.

~~~Giambi is average, if not below average, defensively. ~~~

If Giambi was average at 1B, then the Yankees would not be chasing anyone with two legs and one arm to play 1B in 2007.

When the Yankees signed Giambi, I remember reading that they more or less wanted to turn him into a fulltime DH back then.

You're so predictable, Steve. LOL. I put "below average" in there. The purpose of the "below average" was to put him on the same level as Man-Ram, Lee, and Sori.

Though, to contradict your statement, the Yankees are looking solely because of his current injuries & injury history, not because his defense is sub-par. Also, as rbj noted, we intended to turn him into a DH eventually, and although I disagree, that time has come.

I've got to ask a question, Steve. Why is it that you never answer the "meat" of my posts? Are you a piranha? You always feed off the bones. You take the least significant line from my entire post and attempt to pick it apart.

My post the other day about George Brett/Tim McClelland went unanswered because, of course, you're wrong and I'm right.

DonnieDosTresBaseball - if I answered everything that everyone posted here my fingers would start to bleed from overuse. But, if you prefer to take that as meaning that you're right on everything, more power to ya.

I know one thing, I wouldn't want Steve anywhere my "meat".

IRT the Brett/McClelland post of mine, it was specifically directed as a response to your statement introducing the pine-tar incident.

By posting on this site, I am looking for a healthy, intelligent debate on the Yankees. But I have a problem when you ignore all of the relevant information that I post and twist one piece of that information around so that you don't have to admit that I might be right about the other info.

Jason's glove is adequate. Not great, but okay. It's his throwing that's damn scary. He can be barely good enough for most of the regular season, but he's not the guy you want out there in the playoffs or critical games. He's bound to blow a sure 3-6-3 DP, mess up a flip to a pitcher covering first, or fail to nail a runner at home on a bunt. It always amazed me that other teams didn't press him more on his throwing limitations. Pickin's look pretty thin inside and outside the organization. Who would have thought an all glove - no stick first baseman would be that hard to find. Same goes for the back-up catcher.

On Giambi hitting the New Year's party... Just living like his dad's hero, #7. At least he doesn't crank it during the season like Mickey, Boomer Wells, Billy M., Whitey, and a bunch of other dudes. One word of advice big guy...If you're going to climb into a celebrity bed at a VIP lounge, you'd better start having DJ pick the bedfellows. I would suggest there be at least one girl, preferably hot, and not stumble drunk.

All this said, I think Giambi is in a better season than he's had recently. The steroid stuff has died down. The media isn't chasing him like they were. His divorce is settled (I think). Most importantly, not playing the field will save his legs some, a very important component of his particular swing. I think having Damon around to keep it loose really helped him last year and will do so even more this year.

Steve, Just hug the guy already. His words are saying to answer his Brett/McClelland post, but if you read between the lines I think he's saying, "love me daddy".

LOL, Garcia. I'm not Alex Rodriguez.

Donnie - this one's for you:

http://www.waswatching.com/archives/2006/06/making_comments_1.html

#15 - he's getting divorced? I missed that one. Anyone have a link?

All this said, I think Giambi is in a better season than he's had recently. The steroid stuff has died down. The media isn't chasing him like they were.
================
I don't think that had much of an effect on him;

OPS
2006: .971
2005: .975

The splits are different; he swung 30 points from OBP to SLG.

Who would have thought an all glove - no stick first baseman would be that hard to find.
==========
They're out there; Minky, for example. JT Snow could probably be coaxed out of retirement. What'ss Travis Lee doing?

Bro's Before Ho's

------------------

I always like the Snoop version better:
Pimps up, Hoes Down

Donnie, Glad you saw the joke there......

Donnie made some good points comparing Giambi to others with comparable OPS's in his post. I dont understand why Steve has to focus in on Giambi's only failing, his defense while turning a blind eye to the bulk of his statistics. The fact is for a 1st baseman, defense is of the least importance of all the skills. Offense is the biggest priority and Giambi aside from his injury plagued (aka steroid withdrawal) 2004/half of 2005 has been everything he was advertised as and is being paid exactly in line with what he has provided statistically

I have begun to notice a pattern with Steve's opinions. He picks on guys like Giambi, Moose and Arod.

Giambi is attacked because in Steve's opinion, he parties too much and doesnt live up to his contract. However, the facts clearly show that Giambi has indeed lived up to his contract and provided offensive about as well as he should. So then Steve picks on his defense even though his defense is completely irrelevant because he plays first base and isnt as bad as it has been made out to be either.

Moose gets picked on because Steve perceives that Moose has failed in the postseason, while completely ignoring Moose's superior regular season performance and the fact that his performaces in the post season arent that far off from his regular season averages.

Arod gets insulted because he cant hit in the clutch and chokes in the postseason. However, any statistics used to measure clutch hitting in the regular season supports that Arod is in fact about average in the clutch although Alex has failed in the postseason with the Yankees, it is just a small sample size of 20 games which had they occurred during the regular season would be considered a slump. And most importantly, it has been shown numerous times by sabermetricians that there really is no such thing as "the skill of hitting in the clutch."

All of this leads me to the pattern I have noticed which is this: Steve seems to hate every Yankee player that the Yankee organization has spent money on, whether it be through huge free agent contract like Moose or Giambi or acquisition through trade like Arod or Randy Johnson. And to prove this even more, Steve seems to favor those "homegrown" Yankees who have little to no value like Andy Phillips or Darrell Rasner even more than guys like Moose and Arod who have produced as best they can in Yankee pinstripes. Apparently for Steve, if you came up through or are currently part of the Yankee farm system, you can be as big a failure as is possible like Andy Phillips or can be a zero power Jason Tyner wannabe like Brett Gardner and he will tout your limited abilities like they are going out of style. But if you get paid like you deserve to be paid from a team that can afford to pay you the money, Steve will find even the tiniest negative part of your game to criticize.

Steve, why cant you just be happy that we got the production from Giambi, Moose, Arod, RJ, and all the other "big ticket" Yankees that we did rather than hating on them because we decided to forgo the precious farm system. Because if you think Darrell Rasner was going to pitch better than Moose in the past few postseasons or Andy Phillips was going to hit better than Giambi than I feel bad for you because you probably think Santa still comes down the chimney on Christmas and the Tooth Fairy still looks under your pillow.

Since we are piling on Steve, then I just thought I'd point out that Steve is also a member of Al Qaeda, he kills babies, and he's really a Sawx fan.

Don't forget that I also ate the last chocolate chip cookie too.

~~~However, the facts clearly show that Giambi has indeed lived up to his contract and provided offensive about as well as he should. ~~~

Yeah, I think Giambi really got hosed in that 2004 MVP vote. BTW, the next time that Giambi manges to play in 140 games in a season will be his first time since 2003.

Chewbacca - FWIW, Rasner came over from the Nationals. But, that's just a fact - don't let it get in the way of anything.

Also, I'll make you a deal - search the entire history of this blog and show me where I said "Andy Phillips was going to hit better than Giambi." If it's out there, I promise, I will rename this blog "Chewbacca's Corner" or something like that in your honor. I'll also throw in a WasWatching.com T-Shirt and autographed copy of my book. Heck, I'll even dedicate my next book to you too.

These comments and the post that spawned it a completely nonsensical wastes of time.

Steve,
I didn't sleep last night because I was up searching websites. After an exhaustive search, I must retract the Giambi divorce comment. I can only conclude that I bungled a reference to his earlier marriage. I graciously accept the scorn of WW and march to the gallows. I'd still want DJ helping him with his bedfellow selections.

Other than that.... Assuming he's healthy (and not playing the field will help), I still see Giambi hitting north of .290, 39-45 dingers, 400+ OBP, SLG ~600, and 125-135 RBI's.

On that topic, compared to '06 I'd see the following offensive production in '07... (+ means better in '07, - means worse in '07, 0 means the same in '07).

Damon: +
Jeter: -
Abreu: 0
A-Rod: +
Giambi: +
Matsui: +
Posada: 0
Cano: -
First baseman TBD: 0 (compared to Andy).

We'll get more out of the back-up catcher (TBD), because we couldn't get less. Melky as the 4th outfielder will be less productive, but still pretty good.

I don't think Jeter or Cano will fall off the table. In fact, I see them both having somewhat better power numbers, but lower BA's. Jeter's BA will drop ~20-30 points, but he'll still be a force at the plate. Cano hits more dingers and his walks/OBP improve, but the BA drops 20 points or so.

I'm sure there is some numberhead out there that will crank the stats to death and give us the "real" answers.

In short, once again, we'll have the best, or nearly the best 8 in baseball. Pitching holds up and we'll be fine. We've got enough pitching depth to cover an injury or two and some bullpen help as needed during the regular season. The post season prospects will rise and fall on how well our top 2 or 3 pitchers perform, and (because, once again there will be no "great" team in baseball in'07) some luck.

Thanks for the follow-up!