"The Fault Dear Brutus...

...is not in our stars, but in ourselves."

You don't necessarily associate William Shakespeare with our national pastime, but in the quote above from Julius Caesar, the Bard offers sound advice which the Yankees and their fans should take to heart."


It is almost becoming silly to talk about the Yankees anymore as they "battle" to stay out of the cellar and are becoming an ever shrinking spec in the Sox rear view mirror (now 14 1/2 games back so stop talking about the 14 game deficit they overcame in 1978). But before the Bummers tumble completely into irrelevancy, I need to get this one off my chest.

As the wheels continue to fall off the $200 million lemon that has become the Yankees, Owner-in-Hiding George Steinbrenner, overturned soup pot on his head and wielding a rolling pin, crawled out of his bunker and fingered Yanks GM Brian Cashman for the unfolding disaster in the Bronx. The Boss, who is reportedly in various stages of mental and physical dissarray, snapped into perfect lucidity with THAT assessment.

While the New York and national media apologists (hello there Suzyn Waldman, John Sterling and Steve Philips) continue to pity the "poor" Yankees over their tarps-full of misfortune, Steinbrenner clearly has lurched uncontrollably into the truth: The Yankees current plight is not a case of bad luck, but rather of bad management.

To paraphrase ol' Will again, let us count the ways.

Let's start with the pitching. Was it bad luck or bad management for Cashman to dump Randy Johnson for two injured minor league prospects?

Was it misfortune when Cashman underbid for Dice K Matsusaka by nearly $20 million thus facing the double whammy of strengthening his chief rival while failing to shore up his own staff? The GM picked a peculiarly interesting time to put the Bombers on a self imposed budget reduction program, seeing as the Yankees needing to cut costs is like Jessica Simpson deciding she needs cosmetic surgery.

Was it then unlucky when the jilted Cashman OVERPAID for whatever Japanese pitcher he could lay his hands on which happened to be the eminently forgettable Kei Igawa? Was it also bad luck that Cashman had cut ties with former Yankee Mike Pagliarula's respected Japanese scouting bureau, as reported in the Globe Sunday, and decided to do his own scouting? Reportedly, if they had kept Pags' organization, they would have been told that Igwawa was not where they should be spending their money.

Cashman then went out and tried recapture the ghosts of Yankee past by bringing back Andy Pettite, who spent a couple of undistinguished years in AAAA Houston and re-signing Mike "Please Don't Make Me Be The Ace" Mussina.

So to recap, through the decisions above, Cashman made the CONSCIOUS DECISION to go into the season with a rotation of Chein Mien Wang, Mike Mussina, Andy Pettite, Carl Pavano, and Darryl Rasner. Take a look at that. That was the BEST CASE SCENARIO. Wang would have to continue to develop into the staff ace since the meek Mussina wanted no part of that. The 38 year old Moose would have to keep his stuff together and not grow old before their eyes. Pettite would have to come back and start pitching against real lineups with nine batters again. The fragile Pavano, who pitched in 17 games in 2005 and none in 2006 would have to go out their every fourth day and pitch like he did in the minors in Florida in 2004. And Rasner would have to...well...become a major league pitcher. Again. This was the best case scenario.

So what happened?

Shock. Pavano goes down faster than Howard Dean following the Iowa Causcuses in 2004. Mussina and Wang hit the DL early in the season and the Parade of Rookies begins. But let's take a closer look. Wang was activated April 24 (5 weeks ago) and Mussina came off the DL on May 3 (a month ago).

By contrast, the "lucky" Red Sox have had Mike Timlin, who was supposed to be their primary setup man, for two stints on the DL. He hasn't pitched since May 3. And the best pitcher in baseball, Josh Beckett is just coming off the DL after a couple of weeks. So how much worse is that?

The fact is the Yankees pitching coming into the season was a disgrace, considering their payroll, and everything needed to go perfectly for them to be merely adequate. But don't lay it all on bad luck.

Okay, so let's look at that Murderer's Row lineup. Clearly Cashman made another conscious decision that this awesome batting order would overcome any pitching woes and they would win a championship with offense instead of pitching and defense. The fact that this hasn't ever worked since the dawn of time when the cavemen were routed by failing to stop the rampaging sabre toothed tigers, never bothered Cashman. In fact, the young GM, who demanded full control of the baseball operation, wielded his new power by dumping the "fire in the belly" of the Yanks in Gary Sheffield to allow Walkin' Bobby Abreu to play right field.

Pause for reflection here. Cashman chose the light hitting, up-there-for-a-walk Abreu over Sheffield, who inspired fear in teammates and opponents alike with his practice swings in the on deck circle. Meanwhile Abreu has turned into the kid in Little League who annoys everyone by just standing there hoping for a walk to the point that the umpires have begun just ringing him up for spite. There is no question in my mind that the punchout last Saturday by Jeff Nelson on a pitch that was a foot outside was a message to the Swingless Abreu that he better get that piece of wood off his shoulder.

In the meantime, Sheffield is snugly in the middle of a frightening lineup in Detroit with Magglio Ordonez scaring the bejesus out of the league as usual. Come on, really. Do the Yankees scare you as much without Sheffield in the middle of the batting order? You think Abreu will inspire them by standing still in the batter's box? Apparently Cashmen thought so, since he had to choose between the two and he took Walkin' Bobby.

As for the rest of the lineup. Was it bad luck that Johnny Damon is disintegrating before our eyes? Isn't that why Theo refused to pay the big bucks for four years? Just think, the Yanks have two more years after this one to watch Damon atrophy in center field. It will be like Bernie Williams II.

And Juicin Giambi is fading fast as well and can't play first. More shocks. Cashman couldn't have foreseen that?

The fact is that if Arod, Jeter and Posada weren't having career years, the Bombers would be even further out of first than they are. Arod cooled in May and the wins dropped. God knows what is going to happen if the Captain and Jorge stop hitting.

So let's cut the crap. The Yankees have suffered some bad luck, but no worse than anyone else. They built their team around hitting with no regard for pitching and now they are getting neither. But don't worry, Yankee fans. Help is on the way. Part Time Roger will be there shortly to give you five solid innings every fifth day. That should fix everything. (But he won't be starting in Boston. I guess you'd have to pay him a lot more than $28 million to get him to do that. Or perhaps he has a family cookout in Texas and won't be available for the weekend.)

So we'll leave it to the Bard to summarize. To paraphrase Richard III, Yankee fans can simply say, "Now is the (summer) of our discontent...."And of their tortured team. "Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time, Into this breathing world scarce half made up."

I may never stop smiling.