Maybe it’s not Carl Pavano’s fault that he hurt his shoulder in 2005, right after signing that $39 million, 4-year deal. Maybe it’s not his fault that, in 2006, he spent the entire season rehabbing a bruised ass. The car accident in August of that year that left him with two broken ribs? That’s just unlucky. Sure, he probably should have informed the team about the accident and the broken ribs, rather than show up for a minor league rehab start only to walk off the mound after a handful of painful pitches. But hey, nobody’s perfect. And surely it’s not his fault that in 2007, he went on the DL again with an elbow strain, and then had Tommy John surgery.

Don’t blame Pavano for his injuries. They could happen to anyone. But do blame him for his relationship blunders. You only get one chance with Miss South Beach, Carl. She was a hottie, and you let her get away. What a dope.

We’ve been having a great time up here in Boston. Our basketball team, the Boston Celtics (perhaps you’ve heard of them) just won the NBA championship last night by tearing the Lakers of Los Angeles limb from limb, burning their villages and abducting their women, who, let’s face it, were only too happy to be saved from their unsatisfying unions with the Tinseltown hoopsters. Earlier this year, our football team, the New England Patriots, made a bid for NFL history, winning an unprecedented 18 games in one season before appearing in the Super Bowl for the fourth time since 2001. (Somehow, I can’t quite remember what happened in the Super Bowl itself. Let’s just move on.) And of course, back in the fall, our major league baseball team, the Boston Red Sox, won its second World Series of the past four seasons. Boston these days is naught but trilling laughter, babbling waterfalls, and frolicking unicorns. (And gloating.)

Alas, our good friends to the south have not been so lucky. New York once had a basketball team. This was replaced some months ago by a sexual harassment boondoggle, and the Knickerbockers (as I believe they were called) have not been heard from since. Their football teams have had mixed success. One team, the Jets, has a fixation with videotaping rivaled only by Paris Hilton’s. The other team, the Giants, has fared better—but again, I’m suddenly drawing a blank about what actually happened with them last season. Strange. And finally, their two baseball teams have also left something to be desired. The Metropolitans recently suffered an embarassing front-office meltdown after suffering a humiliating sub-.500 start after suffering a truly mortifying collapse at the end of last season. And the Yankees—oh, the Yankees. Long looked to as the balm to soothe the frighted souls of tortured New York sports fans, the Yankees are currently only adding to the angst along the Hudson. Is there any hope that the Yankees will turn things around in time to save their city? Let’s take a look.

Their starting pitching has been bad, ranking towards the middle-bottom of the league in nearly every statistical category. Their defensive efficiency is in the bottom third of MLB. They’ve been beset by injuries. All of these were entirely predictable, but what has surprised so far is that their offense, while still one of the top five offenses in the AL, has not been enough this year to get them out of third place behind the Red Sox and the Rays.

So what do they need?

The obvious place to start is with their starting pitching, which has been inconsistent and injury-ravaged. Now, with ace Chien Ming Wang on crutches for the next six weeks, Yankees fans are anticipating a trade. At Yankees Chick, Maureen has an open letter to CC Sabathia. At River Ave Blues, Mike has a rundown of some other possibilities, acknowledging that the price for CC may be too high. Certainly, acquiring a durable, dominant starter would give the Yankees a huge boost and would set them for the postseason, where having a one-two punch in one’s pitching rotation is de rigeur.

But they may want to take a more conservative approach. After all, Mike Mussina is having a very good year. Andy Pettitte has actually been pitching better than you think he’s been pitching, thanks to a lousy BABIP. Joba Chamberlain’s transition to the starting rotation has been very promising. And Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy certainly have time to come off the DL and contribute. In fact, the Yankees are still so convinced of Hughes’ enormous potential, he’s still considered “untouchtable” in any trade deal.

Finally, and I can’t believe I’m going to say this, Carl Pavano is set to return in August. Now, no one in New York wants to count on Carl Pavano. And I freely admit that the concept of hanging your postseason hopes on a man with scarcely more than 100 innings of work since 2005—the man who once went on the DL with a bruised ass, for crying out loud—does have an air of the ridiculous about it. But it’s not like he’s Matt Clement. If the Yankees do decide they simply must acquire a starter, it might be a better move just to go for a relatively cheap innings-eater than spend a lot of prospects on a mid-season replacement for Wang.

Because while acquiring a Sabathia-level starting pitcher would certainly be an enormous boost to the team’s outlook, the Yankees still have a good shot at getting to the playoffs without making any moves at all (advancing is anther story). Keep in mind that their offensive attack has also been blunted by injuries. There was an uncharacteristic stint on the DL for Alex Rodriguez, an all-too-predictable injury to aging catcher Jorge Posada, and day-to-day aches and pains for Derek Jeter. Jason Giambi was, for much of the start of the season, mired in a terrible slump. Johnny Damon also began rather anemically. All of this combined for a slow start by the vaunted Yankee offense—emphasis on “slow.” The Bombers have never been known for their speed, and so far this year Yankee baserunners have been even slower than usual. (Cashman really ought to pick up a few defensively-minded speedsters to come off the bench.)

However, the Yankee offense is clicking on all cylinders at the moment, pounding their foes with 29 runs over their last three games. Have they turned a corner? Perhaps.

But I’m not entirely convinced. Because so far this season, despite scoring a lot of runs and hitting a lot of extra-base hits, the Yankees rank 9th in the AL in walks, tied with the Indians and just above the Baltimore Orioles. The four teams below them include notoriously free-swinging teams such as the Angels and Royals. Last year, the Yankees finished third in the league in walks. So for New York’s offensive outburst to stick, their hitters are going to need, in the immortal words of Axl Rose, just a little paaaaatience, yeeaaaaaaahhhh.

And that might not be such a bad attitude where their pitching situation is concerned, if the only option is a half-season rental that ends up costing them key prospects. Indeed, patience could be just the ticket, given that New York can unload a number of contracts at the end of this season if they so choose, including those of the aforementioned Mssrs Pavano, Giambi, Pettitte, and Abreu.

-What They Need Index-

I’m not sure which of these three things is the most ludicrous:

1. Jeff Kent returning to Los Angeles having exercised his one-year/$9m option after expressing despair and incredulity over the younger Dodger players and “why they don’t get it”. Good luck mending those fences, Jeff. It’s uh… gonna be awkward. At least the money’s good.

2. Paul Lo Duca telling the press that his new team, the Washington Nationals, has a chance to win (the) division. Like, this year. From what I understand, he was being completely serious. For real.

3. One of our favorites, Mr. Carl Pavano – the $40 million man – being asked by the Yankees to accept a minor-league deal. This is just pure schadenfreude on my part, I know. But I can’t help it.

For those of you who missed it (where the hell were you?), last week, we here at UmpBump nominated 27 deserving men to be the first ever recipients of The Douchies, an award that finally recognizes the douchiness of certain individuals employed by Major League Baseball. Close to 500 of you cast a total of 1746 votes in our four categories and I have to say, some of the results were surprising.

So here they are! Your winners of the 1st Annual Douchie Awards!

The Reggie Jackson Award for Best Display of Attention Grabbing is named after a man who has attained mythical stature as an attention-whore during his playing career. He was the forebearer to the modern, preening baseball player, putting the size of the contract ahead of most anything else. This award will be presented to the person who best personified Mr. Jackson’s penchant to run after the spotlight no matter what cost.

And the winner is…

Read the rest of this entry »

As the NYTimes reports, Pavano is the Yankees’ only choice.

TAMPA, Fla., March 24 — The side effect of Chien-Ming Wang’s hamstring injury, which will land him on the disabled list to start the season, is an idea so preposterous it seems hard to fathom: Carl Pavano could be the Yankees’ opening day starter April 2.

[...]

“It’s opening day, but there’s 161 other games,” Torre said at Legends Field, after the Yankees played to a 4-4 tie with the Toronto Blue Jays. “It certainly is an important game, but so are the other ones.”

Torre doesn’t want to alter the schedule for Mussina, and the other two possibilities are not necessarily better choices than Pavano. Andy Pettitte hasn’t started in a few weeks after complaining of neck spasms (that’s what happens when you max out on the bench, Andy).

The other option, Kei Igawa, has never pitched in the majors. But wait, what about the Fifth starter? Don’t the Yankees have one? Well, it just so happens that their schedule allows Joe Torre to have a four-man rotation for the first 17 games.

So who else but Pavano, who, as the Irony-laden Times’ report reminds us, would be pitching on 643 days’ rest.

It sure speaks volumes of what this disgruntled pitcher has have to endure that the Yankee-loving NYTimes, smelling the irony of it all, plasters it all over the lede of the story.

Then again, it might be the shot Pavano needs to make nice with NY fans and media. I’ll tell you what, he’ll have our support, lest we post some more bad news about him here and get the usual dump-load of filthy comments that accompany those posts. It’s becoming a nasty umpbump tradition.

Oh and another side effect to Wang’s injury? Proof of my total incompetence in pulling a successful fantasy baseball draft.

Yankees SP Carl Pavano is hoping that this year will be better than last. But he still hasn’t put all of his 2006 mistakes behind him.

Last September we told you Pavano was in a car crash in which he broke two ribs. Pavano, being the master of public relations that he is, initially didn’t report the crash to the Yankees and instead pretended like nothing had happened. But, once he took the mound, he realized he couldn’t pitch and was forced to fess up.

Today, the New York Daily News is reporting that the other driver involved in that crash is suing Pavano and the Yankees. From the Daily News:

Ernest DeLaura, 47, also named the Yankees as a defendant when he filed the lawsuit 2 months ago in Bronx state Supreme Court. Although the suit was brought in New York, DeLaura lives in Port St. Lucie, Fla., and the accident occurred in West Palm Beach, Fla.

DeLaura sought an unspecified amount of money in the lawsuit, which requested a default judgment of $5 million if Pavano and the Yankees failed to answer the complaint. DeLaura already has undergone shoulder surgery and faces a possible operation on his neck, said his lawyer, Paul Edelman.

Pavano was scratched from his start last night for personal reasons. Doubtful this suit will do much to further his relationship with Yankees ace Mike Mussina, or with the rest of his teammates for that matter.

Then again, it probably couldn’t hurt the burgeoning modeling career of Pavano’s fiance, Gia Allemand, who was sitting next to him in his Porsche on that ill-fated autumn evening. Allemand has quite a following here at Umpbump, and she is currently entered into Maxim Magazine’s “Hometown Hotties” contest, which she is destined to win since, as her grandfather would gladly tell you, “She is a hottie!” Winning that contest would put Gia one step closer to her ultimate goal: doing the nasty with Derek Jeter.

Meanwhile, the fashion design career of another of Pavano’s ex-lovers is kicking into high gear. Alyssa Milano, formerly of Who’s the Boss? and Charmed fame, has reached a deal with MLB to sell her line of MLB-themed clothing aimed at women and girls. As part of the deal, her clothes will be available in 11 ballparks as well as outside retailers.

Milano’s clothes aren’t popular with everyone here at Umpbump, but something tells me she’ll do just fine.

Yesterday morning as I arrived at the bookstore where I work, I clapped my hands with glee—a coworker was unloading fresh bundles of the New York Daily News, and on the back, the paper was chastising Mr. Yankee, Derek Jeter, for his childish “feud” with Alex Rodriguez, after A-Rod said Monday that the “blood brothers” were now just co-workers.

How disappointed I was this morning to see that Jeter had already made the inevitable, “No, we’re fine” comment. I thought we weren’t scheduled for a backpedaling until next week, Derek. What gives? I was looking forward to more erudite analyses like the following, from New York Post scribe Joel Sherman:

These have not been questions about his relationship with Jessica Biel or Mariah Carey or whatever starlet of the moment Derek Jeter was romancing.

When it comes to that, Jeter is right. His off-the-field associations have nothing to do with on-the-field results. Thus, he has decided to make them off-limits and I totally respect him for that.

But this was not about Page Six. This was about E-6, error on Jeter for malfeasance as a leader.

Ooh! Snap! What else you got, Joel?

Rodriguez attempted to recast the bond between the two and, perhaps, the power dynamics Monday when he admitted that their association had dwindled from “blood brothers” to “a working relationship.” It was, perhaps, a liberating moment for Rodriguez, a chance to stop having to act as if something existed that does not any more.

Jeter’s opportunity to take the cathartic baton came and went yesterday with the Yankee captain defiantly sticking to his cover story…

Cathartic baton! Quelle poesie!

Every story on this subject from the parking lots of New Jersey to the banks of the Hudson has focused on three storylines: Jeter isn’t doing his job as Captain where A-Rod is concerned; Jeter bailed out Jason Giambi when the slugger was caught using steroids, telling fans to cheer for him, yet leaves A-Rod to be booed mercilessly; and that all of this is starting to corrode Derek’s sterling reputation.

Won’t anyone come to Jeter’s defense? Won’t Mariah Carey or Jessica Biel or any of his other beards broads come to his aid?

Ah, wait….riding up on a white horse is none other than…Don Zimmer! Calling the negative press “a disgrace,” The Gerbil said of Jeter, “What do you want him to do? Put his arm around him and kiss him?” Given the frat-boy-humor t-shirts out there, Zim could have, perhaps, chosen his words a little better.

The irony about all of this is that A-Rod made his initial comments ostensibly to put to rest the incessant questions—which have swirled ever since that 2001 Esquire article—about the nature of his relationship with his “frenemy.” I say “ostensibly” because either A-Rod really is the PR naif he sometimes seems to be, with as many foot-in-mouth gaffes as John Kerry, or he is crazy like a fox. I can’t tell anymore. He started the interview saying, “I think it’s important to cut the [redacted]…You don’t have to go to dinner with a guy four, five times a week to do what you do. It [the relationship] is actually much better than all of you guys [the reporters] expect. I just want the truth to be known.”

Funny thing is, when I hear someone blurt out the T-word, I instantly suspect them of chicanery. So when, a few moments later, A-Rod innocently added, “People start assuming things are worse than what they are, which they’re not. But they’re obviously not as great as they used to be, when we were like blood brothers.” Well that’s a little passive-aggressive, don’t you think, Mr. I Just Want The Truth To Be Known. “The reality is, there’s been a change in our relationship over the past 14 years and hopefully we can put it behind us.” I can just see the wheels turning in the Yankee press corps’ collective brain: “So there IS something to put behind them! Aha!” But if A-Rod was trying to start trouble, then the question becomes: why? WHY? You’d think it would be the very last thing the beleaguered third baseman would want.

In other Yankees’ camp gossip, Bernie Williams is still MIA. The outfielder, who spent all 22 professional seasons of his career with the team, does not want to go to Tampa as a non-roster invitee, the only position the Yankees were willing to offer him this spring. But, of course, Jeter finds a way to make this story, too, about himself:

[Williams] has not returned calls from Brian Cashman, Joe Torre, [Jorge] Posada or [Mariano] Rivera. He did return Jeter’s call two days ago.

“He called me back,” Jeter said. “I’m not going to talk about what we talked about. I can’t relate to what Bernie’s going through. He’s been here what, over 20 years? Even I haven’t been here that long.”

Oh, hyuk hyuk hyuk Derek. You kidder.

At this rate, it’s a good thing that Mike Mussina and Carl Pavano have already cleared the air. Spring Training isn’t even a week old and there’s already more drama in the Yankees’ clubhouse than you’d find naturally occuring in a high school bathroom.

Most of the big free agents are off the board, but there are still some compelling names out there and rumors about impending trades persist.

Let’s take a look at some of those rumors:

1. Kenny Lofton to the Rangers. Lofton is an enigma. He’s a formerly elite player who used to be the best leadoff guy in the game. Now? He’s still pretty good. The last two seasons he’s been a reliable force at the top of the order for both the Phillies and Dodgers. Rumor is that Lofton is about to sign with the Rangers. He was asking for $6 million for one season. That’s a lot of money to pay a guy with history of injuries. On the other hand, he’s been relatively healthy the last two years and is good for .300, 40 RBIs and 30 stolen bases.

Let’s put it this way: the Phillies just traded two top prospects for Freddy Garcia, who will make $10 million this year, is in the final year of his contract and is essentially a one-year rental. Lofton won’t cost the Rangers a single prospect, just money. And he’ll bring stability to the outfield and the top of their order. So maybe $6 million isn’t so sillly.

2. Roger Clemens to the Red Sox. The possibility of Clemens signing with the Sox seemed remote when it looked like the Sox were going to sign Matsuzaka. But now it seems the world’s best pitcher will be heading back to Japan for at least one more year. So the Sox all of a sudden have an opening on their staff.

The other teams in the running for Clemens? It’s hard to imagine Roger will sign with the Astros again, after his buddy Andy Petitte bolted Houston. Plus, the ‘Stros just don’t look like they’ll be very good in 2007. That leaves the Yankees. It’s been said Clemens will be more likely to sign with the Yankees now that Petitte has returned to the Bronx. But I suspect Clemens would value the opportunity to pitch against his friend almost as much as he would enjoy pitching with him. So if I had to guess, I’d say Clemens will be a Sox come June.

Still, the Yanks would have a spot for Clemens if they manage to unload Carl Pavano. And speaking of Pavano…

3. Carl Pavano to the Cardinals. Newsday is reporting that the Cardinals have asked to see Pavano’s expansive medical records. Could the redbirds really be interested in taking the oft-injured pitcher off the Yankees hands? The World Series champs do need starting pitching, especially if they lose both Jeff Weaver, Mark Mulder and Jeff Suppan in free agency.

The Yankees probably wouldn’t ask for much in return for Pavano — just that the Cardinals take over responsibility for most of his salary. Come to think of it, that is a lot to ask.