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How the Yanks can avoid becoming the Braves -- 洋基交戰守則

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The Yankees have devolved into a high-arc softball team, a collection of heavy-swinging, heavier-legged stars who can’t get out of their own way. An embarrassment of riches has become a mere embarrassment. With a $208 million payroll, the Yankees can’t even buy a first-round playoff victory over an opponent laying out less than half the wage.
The 2005 Angels exposed Joe Torre’s team the way the 2002 Angels did, small-balling the Yankees into next season. A franchise that won four World Series titles in Torre’s first five years has now been knocked out of five straight Octobers. The Yankees have been reduced to the second coming of the Atlanta Braves, regular-season juggernauts that can’t blaze their way to a parade.

How can they recover their long, lost dynastic form? Here are 10 suggested vehicles to big-market redemption:


1. Get more athletic


Enough of the overstuffed likes of Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield. The Angels preyed on the Yankees’ lack of speed in the field and on the bases, making them look old and older. The Yanks need a high-charged dose of what Chone Figgins and Orlando Cabrera gave the Angels. They need a Juan Pierre, who drove them mad in the World Series two years back.


2. Sign B.J. Ryan


Or someone else who can be a reliable bridge to Mariano Rivera, greatest closer of them all. Rivera is the Yankees’ most important player, and too often they can’t get him the ball. Tom Gordon has been a big-game bust as a setup man. If Rivera is Torre’s Jordan, the manager needs a new Pippen.


3. Pray A-Rod becomes Elway, not Marino


John Elway waited until the end of his career to finally win the big one, something Dan Marino never did. Problem is, Alex Rodriguez idolized Marino as a high school quarterback in Miami, wearing the same No. 13 then that he wears now.

A-Rod has gone 4-for-32 in his last nine playoff games. After managing 48 homers and 130 RBIs in the regular season, Rodriguez failed to deliver a single homer or RBI against the Angels. "I played great baseball all year," Rodriguez said after the devastating Game 5 loss to the Angels, "and I played like a dog the last five days." Now A-Rod’s on a short leash in New York; he’d better follow Derek Jeter’s lead sooner rather than later.


4. Bring back Joe Torre


Torre makes his share of tactical mistakes, but he did the regular-season job of his life this year, winning his eighth straight division title despite a pitching staff wrecked by injury. His calm and reasoned approach is more crucial than ever now. The Yankees need new players, a different style of players. They don’t need the combustible likes of Lou Piniella. George Steinbrenner owes Torre $13.1 million over the next two years, and he’d be a fool to eat that money to make the manager disappear.


5. Make Giambi a full-time DH


The $120 million signing of Giambi was the beginning of the end of the Yanks as the baseball world knew them. Giambi can’t run, can’t catch and can’t throw, and he did the team no favors when he became the face of the steroid plague. But he proved this year that he can still hit. The Yanks have to remember that’s all Giambi can do, and never again let him take the field with a glove in his hand.


6. Trade Sheffield and Jorge Posada

Sheffield is another one-trick pony who doesn’t move well and doesn’t hustle enough. The Yankees need more youth and athleticism in the outfield, so they should trade Sheffield and then thank Bernie Williams for the memories and send him on his free-agent way. At catcher, Posada doesn’t even bother to attempt to tag runners on plays at the plate anymore. It’s time for him to go.


7. Remember defense wins championships


On a $390,000 salary, Figgins made a better division series play at third than A-Rod ($26 million), and a better division series play in center than Williams ($12.9 million). If Brian Cashman stays as GM, he has to make a stronger commitment to defense. He can’t have a center fielder without an arm and a first baseman without an arm and a catcher who has little interest in protecting the plate.


8. Re-sign Hideki Matsui


Despite his dismal showing against the Angels, Hideki Matsui is a keeper. He’s one of the few Yankees who would’ve fit in perfectly with the four-out-of-five championship bunch. The Yankees shouldn’t throw crazy free-agent money at Matsui, but they should make an honest effort to keep him.


9. Send Robinson Cano to boot camp


Cano has a chance to be a special player. A chance. But he plays second base the way Fred Couples plays golf - without a care in the world. Cano needs to get mentally tougher and to treat his responsibility more seriously, or he could imperil another Yankee postseason in the near future.


10. Hope for a bigger (and better) Unit


Who would’ve thought the Yankees would acquire Randy Johnson one year, then hope he pitched as well as Aaron Small, Shawn Chacon and Chien-Ming Wang the next? Johnson killed his team in Game 3 before filling a too-little, too-late relief role in Game 5. He’s got to be the old Unit - not an older Unit - in 2006, or the Yanks will run their streak of parade-free Octobers to six and counting.

台長: SD.S.P.
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