RECOGNIZING the need to put a younger starting pitcher between Randy Johnson and Kevin Brown, the Yankees yesterday acquired 39-year-old Al Leiter.
Leiter managed to perform so poorly in a National League pitcher’s park (3-7, 6.64) that the small-market Marlins actually decided it was better to pay him millions of dollars to go away than to keep him actively employed. In 2005, that makes him the perfect Yankee. He is both overpaid and over the hill.
At 39, Leiter is the eighth-oldest man to start in the majors this season. He will be slotted in the rotation tonight, one day after Johnson, the sixth-oldest, and one day before Brown, the fourth-oldest. In this group, 36-year-old Mike Mussina goes by the nickname “Kid.”
Leiter is here not because he is good, but because the Yanks think he has a chance to be less bad than Tim Redding, Darrell May, Aaron Small and Sean Henn. Even GM Brian Cashman could not put a smiling face on this acquisition. He said the Yankee scouting reports were not very good on Leiter. But at least the Yankees had scouting reports on Leiter. They obtained Redding blind, and now wish they had never seen him.
Redding lasted one inning-plus Friday night in a 17-1 debacle and became an ex-Yankee to make roster room for Leiter to become the team’s AL-high 11th starter. And that will probably go to a dozen on Wednesday in Arlington.
“I’ll do Wednesday when it comes up,” Cashman said when asked to reveal the mystery guest who will start that game. Yeah, who would want to rush a choice between Darrell May or summoning Aaron Small, whose last major-league start came in 1996?
May vs. Small would have been the choice for tonight, and Joe Torre found that so unappetizing he asked Cashman to get Leiter. Cashman did that with one hand on his cellphone and one holding his nose. After all, he referred to Leiter as “a band-aid,” not a solution. Which means the rotation conveyor belt is not done spinning yet. Does anyone have Hideo Nomo’s phone number? “I am right now in a desperate mode to improve our staff,” Cashman said.
That is going to be difficult. The starting market is thin, the Yanks have few prospects and Cashman has no desire to trade the best of them. He is talking about stabilizing until the rotation is whole again, but remember that whole again means the return of Brown and Carl Pavano, not Roy Halladay and Johann Santana. The Yanks are so desperate that they are rushing Brown back to start tomorrow without a rehab start, moving Torre to concede that could cost Brown his “sharpness.”
So a pitcher with a 5.48 ERA might be without his sharpness, pitching in a bandbox against the Rangers’ powerful lineup. Jason Anderson is already warming up.
And let’s be realistic, Brown is probably closer to his next DL stint than his next quality start. As for Pavano, he has so far proved brittle of mind and body, and he actually once had a worse start in Fenway (no outs, six runs) than Redding had Friday. That does not exactly fill anyone with pinstripe confidence. The Yanks have no belief Jaret Wright’s damaged shoulder will allow him back to effectiveness in 2005, and the team will be lucky to get Chien-Ming Wang back sometime in 2006.
That leaves the rotation as Johnson and Mussina and say a novena.
And even Mussina and Johnson did more surviving than thriving at Fenway. Mussina surrendered four first-inning runs Thursday, but kept the Yanks close by lasting six innings in a stirring 8-6 triumph. Yesterday Johnson nearly squandered a 6-0 lead, yielding two more homers during a 61/3-inning stint as the Yanks prevailed 7-4.
This all leaves the Yanks trying to win a division with two dependable starters, three reliable relievers and a strong lineup. Leiter comes to add to the problem for a team hunting solutions. He will be fortunate to last five innings tonight, more fortunate to still be a Yankee in a month.
