Constructing the ALCS Roster

The cool thing about the postseason is that teams that advance to the next round can adjust their roster, for whatever reason--maybe someone gets hurt, maybe someone is better against one team than another.

With the ALDS over, the Yankees can now construct their ALCS roster.

This roster will largely remain the same--the differences come down to basically whether or not, against the Angels, you want an extra pinch runner or an extra arm out of the bullpen.

For the ALDS, the Yankees went for the extra bullpen arm and stuck with just Brett Gardner and Jerry Hairston as pinch runners.

Here is the way I'd construct the roster for the ALCS, bold selections are explained below:

1) Derek Jeter
2) Johnny Damon
3) Mark Teixeira
4) Alex Rodriguez
5) Hideki Matsui
6) Jorge Posada
7) Robinson Canó
8) Nick Swisher
9) Melky Cabrera

10) CC Sabathia
11) AJ Burnett
12) Andy Pettitte
13) Chad Gaudin

14) Brett Gardner
15) Jerry Hairston, Jr.
16) Freddy Guzman
17) Jose Molina
18) Francisco Cervelli
19) Eric Hinske

20) Joba Chamberlain
21) Phil Hughes
22) Mariano Rivera
23) David Robertson
24) Alfredo Aceves
25) Phil Coke


Chad Gaudin/Joba Chamberlain: I put Gaudin in fourth starter's spot because, at the moment, I have more confidence in his ability than I do in Joba's. There are a couple of points here: Joba has not started since his final start of the season, which I was, uh, fortunate enough to attend in person. He was, more or less, awful.

While Gaudin, through the course of the season, was a roll of a dice once one hit the sixth inning, the five innings he did get through were much cleaner than those Joba pitched.

It's entirely possible, come Game 4, depending on what the scenario is, that Joe Girardi asks CC Sabathia to go on three days' rest and thus the Gaudin/Joba debate becomes moot. Still, Girardi has shown a tendency to play-by-the-book and it's hard for me to imagine him, in the ALCS, asking Sabathia to go on such short rest unless the Yankees were down 3-0 in the series.

There's no question about keeping Joba on the roster, merely a question of where he would best be used. If you think Joba, and not Gaudin, should be the game four starter, please feel free to say so in the comments.


Freddy Guzman: My major move here is that I take Damaso Marte off the roster and put Freddy Guzman on it. It's not just that Marte was completley ineffective in his one appearance, but that if Johnny Damon continues to struggle as he is, Girardi might give a thought to starting Gardner--the considerable loss of potential power may, in fact, be negated by the improvement in outfield defense--and having Guzman on the bench means that doing so would not leave Girardi without a pinch runner for Posada or Matsui.

I still remain of the opinion that if you're going to have someone not named Jorge Posada catch--which I don't agree with, but can live with--that your better option is Cervelli, who is a more than adequate defender and not an automatic out in the line up.

Since there's utterly no chance of Girardi removing Molina for Cervelli, however, I will have to let the three catchers stand as is. If the Yankees are going to start Molina, they almost have to carry Cervelli--as, in game 2, if Posada pinch-hits for Molina and then someone pinch runs, you still need another catcher.


It's extraordinarily tempting to want to add another pitcher. Six doesn't seem like enough, and while I still stay far, far away from Brian Bruney, there's a part of me that doesn't have any issues with putting Mark Melancon on said roster, even if he's just along for the ride in the sense that Jeter and Rivera were in 1995.

If you keep Guzman on the roster, and you don't remove either Molina or Cervelli, the tempting thing to do would be to remove Eric Hinske--Hairston is probably better defensively in the outfield, and certainly the faster runner--but the extremely superstitious person in me balks. Hinske's got some seriously good World Series luck that you don't want to touch.


It's pretty amazing how intricate the arguments can be when choosing between just one or two players that, all told, are not expected to have an impact on the series the way that Derek Jeter or Alex Rodriguez might, but then, it's not too hard to remember how Luis Sojo and Jose Vizcaino basically won the 2000 World Series for us, and then we know the importance of every spot on the roster.

"You Can't Predict Baseball"

A week ago, would you have believed me if I told you that on a trip to Seattle and Oakland, the Yankees would go 5-2, losing games started by Joba Chamberlain and AJ Burnett (to guys named Fister and, uh, Tomko) but winning games started by Chad Gaudin and Sergio Mitre?

Crazy, huh?

This is the beauty of baseball--more than perhaps any other sport, the unexpected can and does occur.

And, of course, this is exactly what happened.

The West Coast Swing has long been a dread of Yankee fans--and no eastern time zone fan enjoys that the Yankees will return yet again in late September--but this time the Yankees did quite all right out there.

Once again, the Yankees won their games in a variety of ways, blowouts and one-run games, and with the exception of Seattle's one clunker, the pitching kept pitching like it belonged on a playoff team.


That said, there are a couple of concerns:

Alfredo Aceves cannot possibly be healthy. I refuse to believe it. His number since his spot start in Minnesota have not been Ace-like.

Phil Hughes isn't pitching very often. I'm not sure why. I want to trust that the Yankees know what they are doing, but if the long term goal is for him to be a starter, it would be nice to have more than, say, 6.2 innings in the entire month of August.

Alex Rodriguez has kinda sorta stopped doing that home run thing. It's a good thing his average is on the rise, but I think we'd notice his relative power outage a bit more if it wasn't for the amazing seasons Jeter, Damon, Teixeira and Canó are having.

Jorge Posada looks like he could benefit from a week off at the plate. Of course, every time I say that he goes and rips an RBI double so what do I know...



These are all minor concerns; things to think about not necessarily as something wrong, but something to cause you to keep your eyes open.

At any rate, the Yankees are more than 30 games over .500. Life is good.

What should be done about Mitre?

The line on Mitre as a Yankee is pretty ugly: in five starts with the Yankees, he has an ERA over seven and, perhaps more importantly, a WHIP near two. Sure, he's not walking anyone, but when you have 38 hits in 23 innings, all you can say is "thank G-d he wasn't walking anyone".

The Yankees don't need someone to be a Hall of Fame Ace Stopper in their fifth spot.

They do need someone better than Mitre.

Now, to be fair, at this point of the season if your fifth starter is your only (significant) problem, your team is probably be in a good place. So don't get me wrong--the Yankees need someone better than Mitre in the fifth spot, but the team is still riding pretty high.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand.

At this point, Mitre is more or less giving the Yankees what Sidney Ponson gave them. While playoff fortunes rarely rest on the fifth starter, that's still no decent reason that the fifth starter shouldn't be a little more adequate than that.

There was speculation last night that Alfredo Aceves, who pitched four innings in relief, was being stretched out to start again.

I'm not so sure this is the case. The last time it happened, Aceves came out with a sore shoulder and the bullpen seemed to collapse in Anaheim (though the crap starting pitching the Yankees got could not have helped, either).

What seems more likely is that Girardi wanted to avoid using other relievers--especially since Joba Chamberlain is starting tonight and has had efficiency problems throughout the season.

Would Aceves be a better option than Mitre?

At this point, if Aceves was healthy (and it's a very, very big if), the answer is probably yes.

Unlike last time, the Yankees now have Chad Gaudin in the bullpen--and although Gaudin is (probably) not as good of a pitcher as Aceves, he, a starter with the Padres, could certainly fill the long relief role and thus no one has to worry about the bullpen collapsing because the short relievers are being overused.

That said, I don't see the Yankees going that route.

Aceves has been so valuable out of the bullpen, and the Yankees have struggled enough (relative speaking here) without him there that I don't think the Yankees touch him.


On the other hand, they could give a start to Chad Gaudin. Gaudin had not-very-inspiring numbers at San Diego--the most notable pitcher's park in the league--so that doesn't imply a ton of confidence, but at this point the devil the Yankees don't know might be better than the one they do.


Whatever the Yankees do, there's one thing they shouldn't--and that's to let Mitre keep starting every fifth day. Against the Athletics and Orioles is one thing; against the White Sox or the Rangers is something probably guaranteed to fail.