I’ve referred to it before, and I’ll refer to it again because it’s appropriate. The Yankees have become the latest victim of a number from the Broadway musical “1776:” “Here a Lee, there a Lee, everywhere a Lee, a Lee.”
Cliff Lee has been everywhere for the Yankees in the last two post-seasons. He was in the World Series last year when the Yankees played Philadelphia, and this year he is in the American League Championship Series, where the Yankees are playing Texas.
Lee was on the mound at Yankee Stadium Monday night for Game 3 of the series with the Rangers, and the result was the same as it was when they met twice in the World Series: Lee won, the Yankees lost.
There is only one way for the Yankees to guarantee a different outcome and avoid a three-peat next year. They have to sign the left-handed pitcher when he becomes a free agent next month.
Ordinarily the Yankees would have no problem accomplishing that goal. Talk in baseball circles makes it seem that most people assume the Yankees will get Lee. But the Rangers will not let Lee leave without a fight.
“We want to keep him,” Chuck Greenberg, the Rangers’ new managing partner, said. “We made that clear from the moment we took over the team. That hasn’t changed. We’re focused on proceeding with that objective.”
The dynamics have changed in Texas in two ways. One is the new managing partner, Greenberg, a Pittsburgh lawyer, who helped Mario Lemieux gain control of the Pittsburgh Penguins National Hockey League team.
Assuming Rangers’ ownership at a propitious time, Greenberg plans to build on what he has inherited. He will be aggressive in trying to retain Lee.
There is also Nolan Ryan, the club president and Greenberg’s partner. Ryan, a Hall of Fame pitcher, has changed the pitching culture with the Rangers, telling pitchers they have to work deeper into games and letting them know they will not be pampered, as has become the practice throughout the major leagues.
Ryan knows that Lee, who doesn’t like coming out of games, would be a perfect leader for the Rangers’ pitching staff and role model for their young pitchers.
But at what cost can the Rangers afford to re-sign Lee? They can’t expect to outbid the Yankees, but who knows what might appeal to Lee.
How many millions will satisfy him? Will ego be a factor? Will he accept less than the $23 million a year CC Sabathia got from the Yankees two years ago? Did he have a relationship with CC in Cleveland that he would like to resume in New York? Will the Rangers’ success or failure in this post-season influence his thinking?
“Obviously the more success you have the easier everything becomes,” Greenberg said. “The history of elite players leaving a world championship team in the face of that team trying really hard to keep him is relatively rare. So the better we do the more the bonds continue to grow and it can only help.”
But money, what about money, particularly the Yankees’ money?
“We cannot control what the Yankees or any other club offers,” Greenberg said. “We can only control our own decisions. We know we’re going to have to be aggressive and we’re prepared to do that.
“We think we also have enormous advantages from a lifestyle standpoint. That doesn’t mean it’s a great place to live so let’s have a big discount. We don’t mean that at all. We recognize that Cliff is going to get a very, very lucrative contract. But he’s going to be at that rarified level where he has the luxury of making a lifestyle decision. We hope that that bodes well for us.”
“So far,” he added, “our whole focus has been on relationship building. For a pitcher of Cliff’s stature to be passed around as routinely as Cliff has been, to my knowledge, is without precedent in major league baseball. We want to show Cliff and his family that we operate like a family business. We just happen to have different last names.”
All of that is a good sales pitch, but most free agents prefer money to words, and if money is the only thing that matters, the Yankees will get Lee. They will pay whatever it takes, if only not to have to face him in the post-season ever again.
There is, on the other hand, one not-so-small financial factor in the Rangers’ favor. Texas does not have an individual income tax. The Yankees will factor that fact into their offer, but who knows how that will affect Lee’s thinking?
The Yankees wouldn’t be the Yankees if they didn’t do everything they could in pursuing Lee. Beyond their usual pursuit of a top-flight expensive free agent, they have had enough of Mr. Lee as an opponent.
In their three post-season encounters, he has a 3-0 record and a 1.88 earned run average. Knowing that they would have to face him again in Game 7 if there is a Game 7 with the Rangers, they might consider taking the honorable way out and lose Game 6.
The Yankees aren’t the only team that has had trouble with the baseball version of Paladin, television’s have-gun-will-travel man. In eight starts this post-season and last, Lee has a 7-0 record and a 1.26 e.r.a. He has allowed only 6.6 baserunners per nine innings, he has struck out 67 in 64 1/3 innings and – this is the piece de resistance, as far as I’m concerned – he has walked only 7, not even one per nine innings.
“I’ve never seen anybody in post-season be as consistent as he has been,” Ryan said.
In two starts against Tampa Bay in the division series this month, Lee walked no one in 16 innings. That he struck out 31 was just an added bit of brilliance.
Against the Yankees Lee walked no one in the first three innings. Then shock of all shocks, with two out in the fourth he walked Mark Teixeira with a 3-2 count. He would not make that mistake again.
In fact, Teixeira was one of only three batters who saw three balls from Lee. He threw two balls in a row to only five batters besides Teixeira. He is a manager’s dream.
In other games against the Yankees, some of Lee’s teammates displayed the nightmarish side for managers. What do managers hate most? Walks. Are there walks they hate more than others? Yes, walks when their team has a lead.
In Game 4, for example, the Rangers led the Yankees, 7-3, in the eighth inning, but Derek Holland, who had allowed no runs and one hit in the previous 3 2/3 innings, walked the leadoff batter, Curtis Granderson. Darren O’Day replaced Holland and struck out Marcus Thames but walked Alex Rodriguez.
Clay Rapada then replaced O’Day, and he walked Robinson Cano. From having no one on base and getting no hits the Yankees walked to the point where a grand slam would tie the game. Rangers’ relievers gave them the opportunity as a gift. It was like getting a get-out-of-jail-free card in a game of Monopoly. It wasn’t what Ron Washington had in mind.
The manager made one more pitching change in the inning, bringing in Darren Oliver, who stopped the walking and Washington’s agony by retiring Nick Swisher on a fly ball and Lance Berkman on a grounder.
That sort of thing does not happen when Lee pitches. He throws strikes, not down the middle of the plate but on the inside corner, the outside corner, up in the strike zone, down in the strike zone. And because he throws strikes, he gets an occasional close call from the umpires. It doesn’t hurt to get a close call in a critical situation.
Against the Yankees, though, Lee had no critical situations. In five of his eight innings in Game 3 he faced only three batters, and in the other three innings he faced four. That the Yankees had faced Lee only five weeks earlier and also a month before that meant nothing.
Asked if he changed anything from previous starts, Lee said, “Not really. I mean, I do the same thing every game. I’m going to throw strikes and I’m going to throw fastballs in and out and see how they swing and I’m going to make adjustments on the fly.
“For me, that’s way more important than scouting reports. Scouting reports, you go in having an idea, but the other team is making adjustments in how to plan, too. You don’t know where they are going to line up with each other. So you’re going to be able to make a pitch, see how they swing and make the adjustments. That’s playing the game. I mean, it’s a game of never-ending adjustments. The pitchers make adjustments and the hitters make adjustments and that’s the game.”
It’s a game Lee plays better than most, especially in the post-season.