In the good old newspaper days, the New York Yankees Clint Frazier would have been described in this morning’s tabloids as having “stared exclusively at The Post.“
"I’m done," Frazier said, after spending 10 seconds of his 34-second post-game interview engaged in silent, eye-to-eye combat with The New York Post’s Ken Davidoff. "They’re not asking me anything."
If you’re the fan of a baseball team that is loading up on young, talented prospects, what has happened to the former fifth pick overall in the 2013 draft is part cautionary tale and, oddly, part disappointing.
Frazier slugged a two-run home run in Tuesday’s 4-3 Yankees loss to the Toronto Blue Jays — the 11th home run this season for Frazier, who along with Melky Cabrera and Bernie Williams is just the third Yankees outfielder since 1987 to reach double-digit homers in his age-24 season or younger. He’s hitting .273. He is a flashy, daring offensive player who should be living large in the majors. Instead, he’s picked a fight with people who buy their ink by the barrel.
Frazier made three costly defensive miscues and had a heavy hand in an 8-5 loss to the Boston Red Sox on Sunday. It happens, right? The thing is, Frazier ducked out on the media — which with Monday’s off-day meant it was a matter to be discussed before Tuesday’s game. Except, Frazier essentially doubled down, telling reporters he didn’t regret it. That "to be fair, I don’t think I owe anyone an explanation, because it’s not a rule that I have to speak." He added that since he joined the Yankees, he had owned up to his mistakes, but that he was upset at "some stories that shouldn’t have come out … and it’s difficult, because the way I am perceived by people is not how I am."
Frazier was drafted by the Cleveland Indians in 2013 and was traded to the Yankees at the trade deadline in 2016 along with prospects Ben Heller and Justus Sheffield for Andrew Miller, the reliever who would have a huge role in the Indians getting to World Series.
The deal added quantity and quality to an already-deep minor-league system, and Frazier’s status among the Aaron Judges, Aaron Hicks, Giancarlo Stantons, Estevan Florials (their top-ranked prospect) and rapidly rising Antonio Cabello wasn’t helped by the fact he was limited to 15 games last season. But it was clear Tuesday that his perception that the media was harsh on him in his recovery from a concussion — plus a false story that he had requested Mickey Mantle’s No. 7, and that he was less than thrilled when he had to cut his long, bright red hair to conform to the new organization — were still issues he felt needed addressing.
[snippet id=3305549]
What must also be galling for Frazier, however, is the notion that much of his struggles are reported as part of the backdrop of rumours and hints that he will in fact eventually be traded as the Yankees close in on an expected addition of pitching closer to the trade deadline. He has been roasted for his defence, not just because it costs the Yankees games, but also because it’s damaging his trade value. That’s a bitter pill for a player who acknowledged to the Post that "I know I don’t fit the mold of what some of the past and current Yankees are … my entire life, I’ve always been kind of different. I’m just trying to fit into this clubhouse and be myself."
Yankees manager Aaron Boone said before the game that he had spoken to Frazier. "Obviously, it’s part of being a big-league player and playing here," Boone said of the media scrutiny and expectations that have been placed on Yankees players from time. "We want our guys to respond when they play a specific role in the game. That is part of being a pro and part of big-league baseball and being a New York Yankee."
During the telecast on the YES Network, play-by-play man Ryan Ruocco adroitly set up analysts David Cone and David Wells to discuss the matter by saying the two of them had different reputations when it came to dealing with the media. Boy, did they ever: I remember Wells pitching the final game of one season when he was with the Blue Jays and leaving the clubhouse before the game was over.
He did, however, leave his jockstrap hanging in his locker.
Point taken.
Maybe Wells has mellowed now that he’s gone over to the dark side, but he played it down the middle this time — although he relayed a story about difficulties he was having with Post reporter Joel Sherman, and how Cone interceded, sitting him down to tell him: "It’s about controlling the narrative." Cone expanded on that, saying he believed the key was "not taking yourself too seriously. Because they [the media] will come after you harder."
For the Yankees, media management is a matter of logistics as much as a philosophy. It is still a city (bless!) that reads baseball and the Yankees are very much a part of the daily diet. Joe Torre’s pre-game media sessions were Shakespearean theatre, to the point where media members thought he liked them, when in fact he’d figured out the longer he entertained the press, the less likely they were to be snooping around the entrails of the latest mini-drama. Joe Girardi never had the knack. Boone seems to be a little better, but he can’t match Torre’s combination of gravitas and Sinatra suave. Nobody can.
It’s not just a Yankees thing, though, to take care of your business right away. The idea of saving your teammates from cleaning up your mess is sacrosanct. The Greg Maddux- and Tom Glavine-era Atlanta Braves got it. One night at Olympic Stadium in Montreal, after giving up a home to Vladimir Guerrero Sr., John Rocker was slowly pedalling a stationary bike in the middle of the clubhouse, staring at a group of reporters around his locker. Maddux saw Rocker, walked over and stood in front of him. The message was received: Rocker did his interviews. The idea isn’t only to clean up the mess you made, it was also to get it done right away so everybody can move on.
[snippet id=4545751]
That was Frazier’s biggest mistake: coupled with Monday’s off-day, it turned the story into a 72-hour affair. It will be in the morning newspapers, and it will be talked about Wednesday. His manager, though, saw a small victory.
"It was good to see him come out and swing the bat well — give us the lead and later in the game where we created a good opportunity to score with the first two guys on," said Boone. "It was good to see him, you know, with all that’s been out there the last couple of days to have a focus and go out there and really focus on having good at-bats."
Now, the Blue Jays certainly aren’t the Yankees, but it was notable before the game that their own manager, Charlie Montoyo, spoke about how his team was handling a season in which they’re already 16 games under .500 and have at times had difficulty merely competing on the mound, at the plate and perhaps, most shockingly, in the field. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Cavan Biggio have done a splendid job keeping body and soul together. The same can now be said for Lourdes Gurriel Jr., who seems comfortable playing in left field and being kept away from the sharper objects in the drawer that can be found in the infield.
But the rest of this team — with the exception of Randal Grichuk and Danny Jansen (still) — is mostly spare, disposable parts. The future of three other pitchers — Aaron Sanchez, Marcus Stroman and Ken Giles — is largely out of their hands. This is a potentially toxic mix, with Stroman saying the other day that the atmosphere is "no fun," the word fun meaning something deeper than the joy that can be attained playing a game. (As a sidenote: people seem intrigued with a deal centred on Stroman to the Yankees and Frazier to the Blue Jays. Oof. That would be some kind of chemistry experiment.)
So Montoyo told everybody that he’d decided his club needed to waive one of the underpinnings of clubhouse life: he wants music played when the team loses, as well as the normal procedure of cranking up the tunes after a win. "I don’t like a quiet clubhouse," he said. "We learn from our mistakes and move on."
Which brings us back to Frazier — a young guy trying to fit in with the most iconic franchise in the game that has spent the past decade loading up on intellectual and analytical clout as well as prized young players while being able to overpay for the kind of margin of error that makes their competitors weep. It’s baseball’s nuclear code: the Yankees now have the smarts to go along with silly, silly, money.
Frazier smirked when he was asked if there was any redemption to be found in the homer. "It felt good," he said.
Then the man from The Post asked about motivation.
"I don’t need motivation through articles that are written," Frazier said, signalling the beginning of the end of the night, if not the story. Kids, eh?
[relatedlinks]
