UNFRIENDLY FIRE
Troubled pitcher more trouble than he’s worth
TAMPA — Imagine you’re Aaron Boone, or Brian Cashman, or Hal Steinbrenner. It’s Wednesday night and you’re getting ready for the annual holiday that is the first pitchers and catchers workouts the next morning. You’ve got scores of COVID-specific details to handle plus the standard desire to launch your desired championship run with the right first step.
Then you get alerted that Domingo German, already on thin ice, has set Instagram aflame again.
At what point do you de- cide the right-hander’s upside doesn’t merit the agita he creates? The Yankees should be approaching that point. They must be, for the good of everyone else they employ.
After all, when your team’s player representative, Zack Britton, one of the more affable humans to ever roam the Earth, proclaims, “Sometimes you don’t get to control who your teammates are and that’s the situation,” as he did Thursday about his fellow pitcher, that speaks volumes about German’s status here.
On Thursday, after officially kicking off his fourth season as manager at the Yankees’ minor league complex, Boone acknowledged he had indeed spoken with German, who is trying to return from an 81-game suspension for violating Major League Baseball’s domestic violence protocols, about his latest screwup, an Instagram post Wednesday that proclaimed, in Spanish, “everything is over.”
“When I first heard about it last night and saw it, it was brought to my attention, I was taken aback a little bit and immediately concerned,” Boone acknowledged. “But I do feel like [it was] maybe a little bit out of context. A little bit overblown. And I am confident that he’s doing fine and doing well and ready to compete.
“But it is something we’ll continue to watch and as best we can try and make sure he’s in a good place. But I had the conversation about trying to be as smart and choosy as we can be about some of the things we’re expressing publicly.”
A perfectly rational place to start would be for German to lift himself from the social media game. Said Boone: “I don’t feel like I’m in a position to tell somebody how they’re going to express themselves or whatever.” Oddly enough, I feel like I am in such a position. For even if this specific post was truly out of context or overblown, German has long lost the benefit of the doubt.
German hardly became the first ballplayer to commit a terrible act of domestic violence, when he did so on Sept. 16, 2019. However, over the five-plus years of these protocols’ existence in Major League Baseball, it’s hard to think of someone who has set off more red flags since getting caught. In February 2020, while his teammates worked at George M. Steinbrenner Field, German, instructed to stay in his native Dominican Republic, was involved in a dune-buggy accident, making headlines despite his absence.
After the pandemic shutdown, which ensured that his penalty would keep him out of the game for over a year, German posted on Instagram last July that he had “left baseball.” Like the words he put up Wednesday, those sentiments quickly vanished, courtesy of the delete function.
In a vacuum, each of the 28-year-old’s more recent actions can be explained away due to immaturity. Collectively, in the wake of his worst moment, they paint a picture of a young man who doesn’t have his act together.
Britton, asked if German owes anything to him and his Yankees teammates, responded, “I think that’s something he’s going to have to deal with on his own and make better choices going forward.”
German, not yet eligible for arbitration, will be making less than $1 million this season. The Yankees can release him without breaking an economic sweat. Baseball-wise, while we’ve seen German pitch pretty well at times, especially in 2019 before his suspension began, he isn’t so amazing that the Yankees can’t prevail without him.
How about zero tolerance? How about one more distraction or declaration of stupidity and German becomes an ex-Yankee? When one of your most respected players seemingly wants nothing to do with him, it sounds quite reasonable, if not downright overly generous.
TAMPA — Domingo German is still a Yankee after serving a Major League Baseball-mandated suspension for violating the league’s domestic violence protocols, but that doesn’t mean his teammates have to be pleased about it.
Zack Britton said Thursday he doesn’t expect an explanation from German about what transpired that led to the ban, but he also didn’t sound thrilled German was still around.
“I think sometimes you don’t get to control who your teammates are and that’s the situation,’’ Britton said. “I don’t agree with what he did. I don’t think it has any place in the game or off the field or at all.’’
Later on Thursday, Britton defended his position on Twitter when someone profanely questioned why he was “worried about” German after German was “punished for his mistakes and you still don’t know the circumstances of what took place.”
“You think I don’t know the circumstances? Get a clue bud,’’ Britton said in response. “[I] was asked the question BTW, gave my answer. Don’t care if you are sensitive to it.”
German and Britton were both in attendance at the team’s minor league complex on Thursday and participated in the first workout of the spring after what has been a very turbulent year and a half for German.
The 28-year-old was suspended for 81 games last January after an incident with his girlfriend in September 2019. He missed all of 2020 and also seemingly retired from baseball in an Instagram post last season before taking it back.
Then on Wednesday, manager Aaron Boone said he — along with general manager Brian Cashman and bench coach Carlos Mendoza — spoke with German “welcoming him back” to the team.
German followed with another cryptic message Wednesday night indicating in Spanish that something was “over,” but later in the night deleted that message and wrote another one that said, “I’m ready” in Spanish.
Boone said Thursday he talked again with German about the messages on Instagram and acknowledged it’s worrisome.
“When I first heard about it [Wednesday] night and saw it, it was brought to my attention, I was taken aback a little bit and immediately concerned,” Boone said. “But I do feel like [it was] maybe a little bit out of context. A little bit overblown. And I am confident that he’s doing fine and doing well and ready to compete.”
He also cautioned, “but it is something we’ll continue to watch and as best we can try and make sure he’s in a good place. But I had the conversation about trying to be as smart and choosy as we can be about some of the things we’re expressing publicly.”
German figures to be in line to compete for the No. 5 spot in the rotation, along with a list that includes Deivi Garcia, Clarke Schmidt and Jhoulys Chacin.
On Wednesday, Boone said, “We feel like he’s in a good place coming in and now it’s on him to go out and kind of resurrect his career and compete for a spot on this team.’’
German is not making it any easier with the repeated mistakes, from the very serious to the less severe gaffes.
And it’s clear his teammates have taken notice.
“I don’t think he owes anything to me,’’ Britton said. “My job is to go out there and pitch and do my job. So that’s kind of what my concern is right there. But he doesn’t owe me anything. I think that’s something he’s going to have to deal with on his own and make better choices going forward.’’