[新聞] Where Have You Gone, Gary Sheffield?

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On Baseball
Where Have You Gone, Gary Sheffield?

from nytimes.com
By MURRAY CHASS
Published: May 22, 2007

Where is Gary Sheffield when the Yankees need him? He plays for the Detroit
Tigers these days, courtesy of the Yankees. General Manager Brian Cashman
traded Sheffield to the Tigers last November rather than give him a contract
extension and trade another high-priced right fielder instead.

By defeating the Red Sox, 6-2, at Yankee Stadium last night, the Yankees
trimmed Boston’s lead over them to a still formidable nine and a half games.
It was but a slight sign of life in what has been a moribund season for the
Yankees.

The easy excuse for their plight is a series of injuries to starting
pitchers, the failure of an overworked bullpen and, most recently, an anemic
offensive output from their talented, high-priced hitters. But Sheffield is
absent from that collection of hitters, as is Bernie Williams.

Would their continued presence have made a difference? Just as there’s no
crying in baseball, there are no do-overs. The Yankees made their decisions
last winter, and they are stuck with them.

They had no place for Williams, whose presence in the starting lineup
preceded Cashman’s tenure as general manager. At age 38, Williams had
clearly lost some of his skills and could no longer be considered an everyday
player. Whether he could have delivered more on a part-time basis than Melky
Cabrera is debatable, but Cabrera is hitting .220 in 35 games.

Despite his age, Williams was seen throughout the league as a tough out in a
clutch situation. Sheffield was seen as a tough out in situations clutch and
otherwise.

For two years, before an injured wrist limited him to 39 games last season,
Sheffield was the most feared hitter in the Yankees’ lineup, hitting 70 home
runs and driving in 244 runs. He was also the toughest hitter in the lineup,
playing with injuries if at all possible. He played most of the 2005 season
with a shoulder injury, refusing to sit out and missing only eight games.

Sheffield made hitters around him in the lineup better. He took pressure off
other hitters. He instilled a different attitude in the lineup. Without him,
it’s a different lineup even with Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter and Jorge
Posada.

‧

The Yankees’ front office knew all of this, but club officials had grown
weary of Sheffield, and he had no supporters among them. Sheffield, a
38-year-old outfielder, had a reputation for being a problem in the
clubhouse, but it was an undeserved rap. He was moved around frequently,
playing for the Dodgers, the Braves and the Yankees in a four-year period,
but he presented problems for front-office people, not his teammates or his
managers.

“This is one of the ultimate bats in baseball and one of the ultimate people
in baseball,” Detroit Manager Jim Leyland said when the Tigers obtained
Sheffield. Leyland managed Sheffield with the World Series champion Florida
Marlins in 1997.

So why was Cashman so intent on shedding Sheffield? He was intent on paring
the payroll and didn’t want to pay Sheffield a $13 million salary this
season. Nor did he want to give Sheffield a contract extension, which the
irascible Sheffield wanted. The Tigers gave Sheffield an additional two years
at $14 million a year.

The Tigers also gave the Yankees an injured pitcher in their Sheffield
package. The Yankees knew that Humberto Sanchez had an elbow injury and would
eventually need surgery, but they figured he was young enough that he would
overcome the operation, which he has had.

The Yankees made a halfhearted attempt to retain Sheffield by asking him to
play first base, but he wanted no part of it, especially if no extension
accompanied the switch.

But what if the Yankees had traded Bobby Abreu and returned right field to
Sheffield? Sheffield is hitting .240 this season, but after a slow start, he
has batted .308 in his past 16 games, with 6 home runs and 13 runs batted in.

Abreu, at 33, is five years younger than Sheffield, and he batted .330 after
the Yankees acquired him from Philadelphia last July 30. But this season he
is hitting .244, with a .323 on-base percentage and a .314 slugging
percentage.

He has achieved those meager statistics while earning a $15 million salary.
He has a $16 million club option for next year, which the Yankees can buy out
for $2 million. But Cashman was not about to trade Abreu, whom he loves for
his ability to get on base. Cashman is known among some executives of other
clubs as wanting to be Billy Beane East, after the Oakland general manager,
whose appreciation of the value of on-base percentage became well known
through the Michael Lewis book “Moneyball.”

‧

Did the Yankees make a mistake with Sheffield and perhaps Williams? None of
their former teammates who were asked that question cared to answer it.

“You can’t ask me that question,” Mike Mussina said. “It’s like me
saying I think they should still be here if I say yes we do miss them. That’
s not fair for me to answer that question. We have here who we have here.”

Do the missing ingredients make the Yankees a different team?

“It’s tough to answer that question,” Posada said, “because they’re not
here. They won’t be here. There’s not a chance for them to be here.”

Should they still be here?  "That's not for me to answer," he said.

Rodriguez also declined to discuss the matter.

Asked what Sheffield and Williams contributed to the team, Rodriguez said: “
That’s a rhetorical question. You know the answer to that. You have it
figured out.”

But you wouldn’t disagree that the Yankees might have made a mistake?

“I’m not going to answer anything about that,” he said. “You know how I
feel.”


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