Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Soriano: Happy Yankees Have Confidence In Him

In a brief conference which ended a short while ago, the Yankees introduced set-up man, Rafael Soriano. He officially became a Yankee yesterday after results of his physical revealed he is in great health.

There wasn't much controversial back-and-forth between Soriano and the NY sports media, which was to be suspected since the only real controversy surrounding this acquisition seemed to be more about the Yankees front office squabbling over bringing Soriano aboard. I was sort of hoping that some reporter would dare ask Cashman, who was suspiciously brief in his introduction and quick to pass the mic to Girardi, his feelings of being overruled on this signing. Didn't happen, of course.

But one juicy tidbit, somewhat relative to Cashman's autonomy being ignored, was Soriano's confirmation that Mariano Rivera did indeed use his "power" to bring his new jedi aboard.

"Mariano is one of the ones who did something for me to sign with the Yankees," Soriano told Wallace Matthews of ESPN New York, who mentioned rumors of their relationship. "I'm going to learn a lot from him. He's one of the greatest closers and the communication between he and I is wonderful. We're going to do a lot of good for the team."

When this bit of information came to light over the weekend, many fanatics were somewhat unnerved by its implications. That no matter how great Mo is and no matter how great his legacy as a Yankee already is and will be, forever, no player should have the "power" to influence moves; that that should be left for management to decide. Well, my answer to that is, if you don't believe that Mariano should be allowed that kind of influence, you haven't really been paying attention to who he is in Yankees Universe. The phrase "a God" pretty much comes to mind. Even more so, Mariano knows good pitching and would never put his name on the line, I believe, if he didn't believe that Soriano was the best option, right now, for the team.

Soriano, like so many others given the opportunity to play for the Yankees, seemed humbled by his new home and was very thankful to be given a chance to prove himself on the big stage.

"[This is] one of the most important days of my career to represent this uniform," he opened with. "I feel very happy...that the Yankees have a lot of confidence that I become part of this team."

So, Soriano is officially a Yankee. Like this move or hate it, fanatics, there's no arguing that today, the team officially made their bullpen one of the best in baseball. Let the comments commence!

Follow Rasheeda Cooper on twitter: @ra_cooper

3 comments:

  1. OMG, I was just over on Lenny's page speculating about Mo and Soriano, but I had not read your post, my hunch was right....but far beyond what I have ever imagined, :-)))

    Great post...I would have cited you but I did not read this till after I commented, LOL

    BTW, didn't know Peter Gammons is now on the MLB network???

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  2. http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/yankees/yankees_introduce_new_setup_man_ohh0foh6pnNQFkNoCR5jhJ?CMP=OTC-rss&FEEDNAME=

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  3. When it was first reported that Mo had indeed gone to management to convince them to sign Soriano, I thought that maybe Mo might have spoken kindly of him and that his comments were possibly overblown, but apparently Mo made some behind-the-scenes moves to get his buddy in. If Mo trusts his skill, I'm all for it.

    And on that note, I think all the hoopla about friction in the front office is fodder. The offseason is so dry right now, that I guess people need a scoop to run with. I have no intention of blogging about any of that here, because I don't believe at all that Cashman's job is in jeopardy. You never get fired for trying to save the boss some money...lol.

    And yeah, Gammo had been making "guest" appearances since the network's inception, but became a regular sometime last year. He does a pretty good job and, he's a cheerleader for the Yankees. Might explain his "soft" interview of A-Rod in '09.

    Thanx for posting Carlos!

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