Hence, why I stick to the Banter and occasionally peruse NoMaas for giggles and RLYW for crunched numbers.

But when it comes to Cashman - and Phil Hughes - I feel the same way Knuckles does. I avoid those pieces at WW.

ARod's pretty good.

Matsui's good.

Bobby Abreu for garbage is pretty good.

There's more, but I think most of the problem for the Yankees these days is that the rest of the division isn't going to roll over and die like they used to earlier in the decade. The problem isn't that the GM is inadequate.

If I had the time and inclination, I'd take his article and substitute names and places and moves with various of Billy Beane's mistakes. Hence one could prove Beane is also a bum.

I agree, though, that I'd like to see more context and/or a similar evaluation applied to other GMs. Simply refuting other people's points by saying "Cash has $200m+ !! The other GMs don't!" is a very lazy way of refuting people who disagree with his position.

I think Steve makes some valid discussion points, but he doesn't want to discuss anything. He's way too absolute in his thinking. Anytime you don't share his viewpoint then he accuses you of having blinders on.

He makes a point of saying that if you don't like something about him then don't come back, so I took his advice. He loves to stir the pot. I wonder if he does it so that he can keep his hit rate up. He's either gonna rip ARod, Hughes, or Cashman about every 3 posts. Though he has been tame with ARod lately. But I can't say the same for myself.

I think Steve makes some valid discussion points, but he doesn't want to discuss anything. He's way too absolute in his thinking. Anytime you don't share his viewpoint then he accuses you of having blinders on.

He makes a point of saying that if you don't like something about him then don't come back, so I took his advice. He loves to stir the pot. I wonder if he does it so that he can keep his hit rate up. He's either gonna rip ARod, Hughes, or Cashman about every 3 posts. Though he has been tame with ARod lately. But I can't say the same for myself.

7 My answer to that is, if Brian Cashman is just like every other general manager, why is it so important that Brian Cashman is the GM of the Yankees?

The single biggest problem the Yankees had in the playoffs last year was Chien-Ming Wang. Anyone going to suggest that having him on the team was a mistake?

People get banned because they are rude, or deranged, or are looking to make some trouble for other commentors, or they made libelous comments about the site and/or its author - either at the blog or on their own blog.

as you were then...

i dont understand why you argue with Lombardi on his site. i refuse to get an account on his site because i feel like his arguments suck, and i feel like i could get trapped arguing facts against his whimsical opinions until my head popped off my neck in disgust.

the site was great until neyer linked to him and then he decided that he was going to be the yankee fan version of the national inquirer.

WW is a waste of time. His hatred of certain players and people really gets tiring.

I don't know about banning, but I know for a fact that he's deleted posts where he gets shown up in the comments.

Talk about playing through the pain. Santana's a stud.

18 Johan and C.C. really do have fire in their bellies. Considering that CC's belly is much bigger, I think the Yankees will be better off if they wind up with him ;)

Cashman's made mistakes - particularly in his attempt to find pitching (Jaret Wright? Oy. Worse decision than Pavano, IMO). But he's also ran into some ugly luck at times. The Vasquez trade, for instance. That was a good trade, fer goodness sakes, but it blew up in his face. The failure to draft decently for years is partly on him (and he's acknowledged that). This year's draft, one the other hand, may end up being a disaster even though the Yanks appear to have handled it properly (they went after the right guy with their 1st pick, and the guy just decided he was going to college no matter what). He's made good trades, so-so ones and some bad ones (I'm still annoyed about the Ted Lilly). On balance, however, I think he's pretty good and has a sound plan in place now.

As for Lombardi... he hates on Cashman, ARod and Hughes, mostly I think because he gets a rise out of people that way. I rarely check his site and have never registered there, but I've seen enough to know that.

I know you and I have had our disagreements on ARod and his relative worth, but it's still not as a bad as dealing with WW Staff. He rarely, if ever, will concede a point.

I do think he brings up some great points, but then he mixes it in with his opinion. His opinions, I feel, he often confuses them as fact. Javier Vasquez is a great example, if you say that was a good trade then you are a Cashman apologist. I don't remember seeing anyone say that was a bad trade, but as soon as he fails then its Cash's fault. His stance is always "it's Cash's fault", I think that's a simplistic way of looking at things. Even knowing what I know today, I still think that was a trade that had to be made and up until the all-star break Javy was a good pitcher for the Yanks.

I think Cliff and Steve are both pretty savy with their use of certain SABR stats, but where Cliff differs is that he presents you the information/numbers and people discuss it in the comments. Cliff will offer his opinion in the comments, when we are discussing the facts that he presented and we are giving our opinion. But, I never see people getting contentious with Cliff as I would see with WW Staff.

I think Cash is great, but my primary reason for wanting him back is to have some continuity in this rebuilding plan. With the junior Steinbrenners in control, I fear that a new GM would want to make a "splash" and we'd be seeing a bunch of FA signings, lost draft picks and half of our young talent shipped away on quick fixes.

1. The post violates the community standards.

2. The post was accidentally grabbed by a SPAM filter and deleted before it could be recovered.

3. The post was made to an entry that had some sort of publishing issue and had to be removed and then republished, losing any posts made to it when it was first published with the technical issue.

The third case is rare. But, when SNY.tv began publishing their New York Baseball Today Video clips there were some posts that had to be redone, and, if someone made a quick comment to them the minute they were published, the post may have been lost in the republish.

But, a post has never been deleted because it differs from the opinion of the author (within the guidelines of the community standards).

My take on all this is that we need Steve Lombardi at WW because he offers a differing viewpoint about Cash. I want someone to challenge the normal viewpoints about Cash (and Phil Hughes for that matter). The Nomaas guys celebrate Cash like he's the Messiah and Steve demonizes him. I do think that he backs up his opinions with numbers too. It's like a lot of things in life, no one has to read it.

I am a bit ambivalent about having Cash back because I see all the mistakes and I read a quote from him today which suggests CC isn't on the radar. But I also see changes that are occurring and I like most of them because it seems like Cash really wants to build a team.

Oh, and I don't post very often on WW because for some reason it's difficult to log in, unlike here. Maybe it's the fairpole software that makes the banter so great, but WW always seems to not recognize me, and I'm sure I haven't been banned because I've only posted several times (usually in support of Steve).

Are you using IE as a browser? That could be the issue. E-Mail me if you want and we can talk about it. Thanks.

Sorry for the preposterously and poorly constructed sentence.

But hopefully you get my point :-)

I truly do think that beyond a certain point (which in CC's case is $100 million - no one will offer him less and hope to sign him) it's extremely possible that it's "enough" for him to take whatever he perceives as a better situation for him.

That may be naive, but that's what I think.

As for WW...ugh. I got into it on a thread there once and that was it. To the many points above, they never concede a point, usually at the expense of logic and in the face of facts.

Nah...nevermind. ;)