A Demonstration In Extreme Roster Rigidity

(I pictured Cash doing this in his office after yesterday's game)

I've tried to touch on the subject in more positive ways over the past few days, but after yesterday afternoon's debacle, I really don't have the energy to try to put a positive spin on the situation.  I really don't even have the energy to try to analyze or hypothesize what could be done to help the situation.  So instead, I'm just going to state the facts and the numbers that make up this ever-expanding 25-man roster of underperforming platoon players.

- 5: The number of position players- Chavez, Ibanez, Jones, Pearce, Suzuki- that should really only be in the lineup against an opposite-handed pitcher from them.

- 1: The number of players (Andruw Jones) from that group that can't even hit the opposite-handed pitchers that he should hit (.307 wOBA vs. lefties, .327 vs,. righties).

- 4: The number of relief pitchers- Logan, Eppley, Rapada, Lowe- who are only capable of pitching against same-sided hitters.  Logan now has a 4.67/5.23 ERA/FIP split against righties this season.

- 1: The number of players (Robinson Cano) expected to be a great all-around hitter that are having incredibly poor platoon splits this season (.228/.283/.330 in 212 PA vs. LHP).

- 3: The number of pitchers and position players- Joba, Martin, Stewart- who are garbage against both righties and lefties.

And that's not even counting C-Grand's very down year against both right and left-handed pitchers, and the fact that the Yankees sent down 1 platoon bat in Casey McGehee just to call up another one in Steve Pearce.  Only Derek Jeter and Nick Swisher are carrying their weight offensively and doing it against both righties and lefties right now.  There's nobody else helping the cause and no way to avoid rolling these same guys out in some order each and every day.

The worst part about this is that this situation existed before A-Rod and Teix went down.  It's always been there all year.  It's the strategy the Yankee brass chose to employ when constructing this year's team, and as injuries have forced these guys to play more and more the strategy has been exposed as flawed.  And as William Tasker of IIATMS pointed out this morning, there ain't a whole lot of anything available when rosters expand on Saturday that can help this situation.  Bad times.  Bad times indeed.