Yankees Appear Closer to the Bottom Than Top

Laps, wind sprints, calisthenics and hours in the outfield with Frank Howard. Oh, how the New York Yankees worked this spring! Sweat they did. No time--much less energy--left for golf. If perspiration were a guarantee of success, the Yankees’ magic number would be a single digit by Aug. 1. It has been a taxing spring.

Opening Day for the Yankees was Tuesday, and the team is no more ready to meet its challenge than most of us are ready for the demands of April 15. Even with all their conditioning, the Yankees are in dreadful shape. And it has nothing to do with physical fitness. Seldom since the CBS-ownership era has a Yankees team begun a season with less legitimate hope for success. Seldom in the Steinbrenner era has a Yankees team been so poorly equipped. With the starter’s gun about to deliver its message, the Yankees are more apt to win a sprint medley than a division championship. And there is every reason to believe they will be far behind the field before the gun lap begins.

Too bad for Dallas Green and his carefully administered program. It might have worked if the Yankees had remained whole. After all, this was to be the season in which a team could steal the American League East championship, and Green was primed for grand theft. The division is without an outstanding entry. But, far from outstanding, the Yankees barely are standing at all. At this juncture--without Dave Winfield, solid infield defense and a pitching staff that can offset those deficiencies--the Yankees appear closer to the bottom than the top.

Fifth place could be the Yankees’ final resting place for the second successive season. But the 1989 deficit is bound to be far greater than the 3 1/2 games that separated the ’88 team from the playoffs. The Yankees’ victory total has decreased--97 to 90 to 89 to 85--in each of the last three seasons. This is not the time to expect a reversal.

Examine the Yankees closely and you discover their total is less than the sum of their parts. The opposite is essential if a team is to overachieve. The personnel is not at all complementary. A pitching staff without strikeout expertise needs more than a doubtful double-play tandem. A team so dependent on left-handed pitching requires better left-side defense. A team with weak-hitting shortstops needs quality pinch hitters. The Yankees have two of the former and none of the latter. A team destined to see an inordinate number of left-handed starting pitchers needs right-handed power in the middle of the batting order, Steve Balboni notwithstanding. But with Winfield absent, Rickey Henderson, the leadoff batter, is the primary source of everyday right-handed power.

And perhaps the most damaging element is the depth. The Yankees are as thin as Kent Tekulve on the major-league roster, and their Triple A roster is almost translucent. If injury strikes another of the prime-time players, the Yankees will be reduced to a shameful level.

What the Yankees do have is Green, whose brief history as a manager indicates an ability to elicit effort and positive thinking from his players, and a starting rotation that--even with John Candelaria’s rebellious right knee--seems more durable than its immediate predecessors. And there are Don Mattingly and Henderson. But, to use one of Green’s favorite phrases, what exactly do they bring to the party?

The Yankees’ hopes must rest primarily on the rotation. Green, who oversaw the overhaul of the staff, said, “The pitching is what will hold us together.” The manager’s words may have been more wishful thinking than confidence.

Just the fact that Tommy John is the opening night pitcher says something. It’s an inspirational story line of achievement and overcoming the odds, but Green maintained John’s winning a position on the staff was more a function of how the other pitchers in camp performed. And no one was able to outpitch John.

With Al Leiter still trying to equal his potential, Candelaria is the closest thing the Yankees have to a No. 1 pitcher. Candelaria has the ability to dominate opponents in three of every five starts. No other Yankees pitchers have that. But Candelaria has pitched 190 or more innings but twice in this decade and never since 1983. With that history and knee that may require regular draining, Candelaria may become the new Dock Ellis--five and fly.

If he does and John shows, as he did last season, a tendency to be markedly less effective--or gone--after the sixth inning, relief will have to be summoned early in at least two of every five games. The other three starters should provide more innings. Or should they? Leiter never has pitched 130 innings in a professional season. The Padres swear Andy Hawkins’ shoulder will give out sometime this summer, and Dave LaPoint’s need for a fourth day of rest is one of the reasons Green will use a five-man rotation.

The best-case scenarios for the three are these: With his own ability and Billy Connors’ guidance, Leiter will blossom into a young, healthy Candelaria; Hawkins--12-6 in April and 42-52 thereafter--will benefit from opponents’ unfamiliarity with him, and LaPoint will be more effective than he was last season--3.25 ERA and 14-13 record in the season of the pitcher.

The bullpen, often the club’s undoing last season, should be stronger with Lance McCullers available to reduce the late-inning workload that appears to have eroded Dave Righetti’s effectiveness over the years. Problem is McCullers, consistently the hardest thrower on the staff, was not too effective this spring, and the nasty habit he developed last season--giving up home runs--has followed him to the Yankees.

Righetti, unused for most of spring training, is a bit of a question. Then again, this team might not provide him as many leads to protect as other Yankees teams have. Dale Mohorcic and Lee Guetterman appear to be able set-up men. Richard Dotson, a reluctant reliever, is a spot starter and long man.

The undeniable problem this staff presents is that McCullers, Leiter and Candelaria are the only genuine strikeout pitchers and Hawkins is the only right-handed starter. Left-handed pitchers are preferable, particularly in Yankee Stadium, and non-strikeout pitchers are acceptable if the defense behind them is reliable. But consider these potential problems:

The Yankees ranked 13th in defense last season and have lost their most reliable infielder, Willie Randolph. What Randolph did best--turn the double play--is the greatest deficiency of his successor, Steve Sax. Sax still is tentative on pivots. Only the Astros turned fewer double plays than Sax’ Dodgers last year, and that wasn’t only because the Dodgers had a strikeout staff. Beyond that, Sax doesn’t go to his right nearly as well as he goes to his left and is known to be reluctant to make throws from the other side of second base.

All that puts greater emphasis on the shortstop and the left side in general. With Rafael Santana gone and Wayne Tolleson hurting, the shortstop is a 27-year-old journeyman who thought he would be history by the first cut this spring--Alvaro Espinoza. His chances of making the team were such that he wasn’t even given his own locker in Florida. He had to share.

Espinoza probably will share his by-default assignment as well, with Randy Velarde. And how confident will Velarde be now that he knows he couldn’t beat out a player with 102 major-league at-bats and a .235 career average? Neither one is apt to hit much, so Green will need some pinch hitting. But the broadcast booths--with Bobby Murcer, Lou Piniella, Tommy Hutton and Jay Johnstone--may make for a better bench than what Green has available to him.

Green was uncertain about his double-play combination when Santana--quite skilled at delivering the ball to second base--still was playing. “We won’t turn the great double play,” he said last month. Now what? Even when Tolleson returns, what then?

Mike Pagliarulo, while he has impressed Green with his work ethic, has not impressed the manager with his quickness, and he doesn’t play so far off the line to allow the shortstop to compensate for Sax.

The rest of the defense should be adequate to good. Mattingly owns Gold Gloves, Roberto Kelly might someday. Neither Don Slaught nor Jamie Quirk is a particularly gifted catcher, but they’ll do. Henderson, if he chooses to, can play left field as well as anyone this side of Kevin McReynolds.

Winfield’s glove and arm work will be missed in right. But, of course, his absence will be most noticeable in the batting order, even with Balboni serving as the right-handed designated hitter. In the last two seasons, Balboni has been more productive against right-handed pitching (.233 average and 35 homers in 532 at-bats) than against left-handers (.199 average and 12 HRs in 267 at-bats).

Slaught will do some damage. But Tom Brookens, Pagliarulo’s right-handed relief at third, and Balboni together won’t provide what Winfield would have provided. And Green has deep doubts about Gary Ward. Mel Hall and Ken Phelps provide left-handed punch, but with Green forced to platoon in right, at third and DH, and to a degree, behind the plate, opponents can defuse the Yankees’ left-handed starting batting order by replacing a right-handed starter with a left-handed reliever for one turn through the order.

Opponents may stockpile left-handed pitching for visits to Yankee Stadium more than ever. What the Yankees need is for one of their platoon players, preferably Pagliarulo, to emerge as an everyday force. Otherwise, the hit-and-run will replace the home run as a primary weapon.

Green has preached execution and identified it as a way to overcome other shortcomings, but a team has to put a man on third base with less than two outs before it can worry about scoring him.

No matter what, the offense is likely to be too dependent on the top of the order. Henderson, Sax and Mattingly can do as much damage as any three-batter sequence. But there never are assurances Henderson will perform. With no Winfield or Claudell Washington to push him, just how much can be expected? Sax should be benefit from batting between Henderson and Mattingly. But what will Mattingly provide this year with diminished protection--30 home runs and 115 RBI as he did in 1987 or 18 home runs and 88 home runs as he did last year? The Yankees will need as much as he can provide and more.