Aaron Guiel is joining the team tomorrow, so someone else has to be sent down. Beam?

-- The fans and players both snubbed Sizemore, who has the highest VORP among AL outfielders. Guillen appropriately corrected this omission. Had Sizemore been on the roster already, Guillen could have chosen outfielder David DeJesus as KC's representative, making room for another deserving pitcher.
-- Guillen presumably did not know about Rios' injury at the time when he made his initial selections. If he had, he could have a) given Rios' spot to DeJesus or b) given the spot to Gary Matthews (as the Rangers' rep) and then selected Carlos Guillen (who is more deserving than Michael Young) at shortstop.
-- Guillen's selections of Konerko over Hafner and Buehrle over Liriano/Verlander/Haren/Schilling/Mussina/... are reprehensible.
-- The league's selection of Hernandez and Pierzynski for the 32nd-man ballot makes no sense whatsoever. They aren't even the best catchers who missed the cut.

Let other fans get worked up over the Red/White Sox v. Mets show. I'll just relax and hope Jorge gets some needed rest.

http://tinyurl.com/create.php

http://tinyurl.com/f9qxn

i particularly fret about the pitchers..

an even more worse thing is the HomeRun derby.. that screws up ur swing so badly.. Abreu had a tuff time correcting his swing after his HRDerby exploits..

i don mind posn players but i would like our pitchers to stay happen.. but for guys like MO that wont happen till he retires..

regarding the Ozzie Guillen thing.. that guy needed his ring last year.. else.. no one would put up this much crap.. even a GM like Ken Williams..

Guillen is a disgrace to the coaching community.. he has a series of incidents that are deplorable.. how he got away with his Marriotti bashing is beyond me..

"uld like our pitchers to stay HAPPEN"

it should read

uld like our pitchers to stay HOME

That said, as Rob Neyer pointed out, MLB is supposed to advise on the manager's selections - and MLB has clearly dropped that ball, big time.

5 6 Guiel at least has some power, and knows how to take a walk. If this means Bernie is back to bench player/lefty masher, that's fine with me. I'd still prefer Kevin Thompson, but oh well.

And, as for Wilson, another case of Cashman bowing to Torre's tendancies I suspect. He's a true Tanyon Sturtze/Small mold, a "vet" with a career of mediocrity to crapitude, who gets the nod over the kid with the short but good minor league career, purely because Torre can't handle another kid. Why not White here? I don't mind Wilson if he does okay, but he should get no more than 2-3 shots at it...

He was DFA'd by the Kansas City Royals. That means the worst team doesn't want you.

"That means the worst team doesn't want you." That reasoning worked for T-Ball, but it doesn't work here.

Guiel is not T-Ball Long. Here are Guiel's career minor league splits:

.290/.387/.515/.902 OPS

and Long's:

.274/.345/.435/.780 OPS

In fact, Guiel's numbers remind me of this minor league line:

.296/.368/.516

Anyone want to guess who that line belongs to?

And anyway: Who cares what his Minor League line is? The guy is 33, has 888 Big League at bats under his belt and is terrible.

Johnny Damon CF
Derek Jeter SS
Jason Giambi DH
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Jorge Posada C
Bernie Williams RF
Andy Phillips 1B
Melky Cabrera LF
Miguel Cairo 2B

Guess Nick Green's moment in the spotlight is over.

The bad news is that that likely means a Bernie/Guiel platoon in RF.

Colter Bean is getting the start in Columbus in Wilson's place.

And the much-maligned bottom of the order draws first blood. Yeah, Andy! Yeah, Melky!

Odd that I don't get the ESPN feed tonight, they're just showing ESPN News.

New York Yankees center fielder Johnny Damon left the game due to an injured chest.

I hope.

9-1 now. Sweet.

Steve Phillips? on ESPN has been talking about the ARod booing, which he thinks is sick. He ventured that ARod might NOT want to finish his career as a Yankee, and said that Yanks might consider letting him go, as the constant booing effects the whole team.

I don't know if that's true, but it is interesting for Phillips to speculate such. These assholes that boo might cost us the best all-around player in the game.

With Damon, you kind of have to expect these things. That's the reason the Sox let him walk; he's injury-prone.

That kind of crap scares me: not only is the pressure on to "improve the team" asap, but also, the not so subtle hint of "make the playoffs or else." Sigh, good old George

i think it was his way of acknowledging Cashman..

from quotes prior to his bday to Torre.. i think the King understands the injury role n i genuinely think he is patient..

Kay says Wilson might take Chacon's start on Sunday.

:)

For the umpteenth time (and sorry to keep banging on this) but I would love to know exactly who in the organization poo-pooed the last minute Beltran offer before he signed with the Mutts...

They're giving him the A-Rod treatment.

And I like A-Rod fielding like an All-Star, for that matter.

Great teams are always strong up the middle, so how we could leave that one to chance is still beyond me...

That's why, unlike many of the handwringers among Yankee fans, I'm not that worried.

Sawx up the middle -- Ghost of Tek, AGon (worst ss in mlb?) Loretta, and Coco Chanel.

(Plus they've got bottom of the rotation problems at least as big as ours, and bullpen questions as well.)

It would be nice if the D-Rays could pick some up too, if we're to gain a game tonight. Might be asking too much to expect D-Ray relief to protect a 3 run lead against the heart of the Red Sox order.

i wanted him.. but i liked what the Yanks did in that offseason..

no one expected this version of Johnson.. i think he was very good to great even the last year for Arizona..

so the dropoff was amazing and unexpected..

regarding Beltran.. we all should not forget what happened last year..

he had a terrible year.. and i think he is playing way out of his mind.. he will regress soon..

and for the 7 year.. he will be at 35 contract end.. exactly where we are at with Bernie.. i think they saw the patterns and wanted to hold off..

Money was a huge part too..

now.. given that age thinking.. i could not get the Damon signing..

but i dont really feel sorry for missing out on Beltran.. lets judge him after 4/5 yrs.. not 2 good months out of 1 and a quarter Met years..

BoSox now have just two innings to get those three runs.

All the moves look bad in retrospect, but what other available players were that much better? Clement? Milton? Hanging on to Javy or Lieber? I'm genuinely curious.

We had the chance to solidify a good part of "up the middle" for years to come — especially with the emergence of Cano, but passed on it.

I'm just thinking this year and beyond...

As for Randy Johnson and his cliff, he did pitch well in his last year in Arizona, but he was 40. Giving a 41 year old 3 years is not smart. They did it because that was the only way they could get him, and they did indeed need pitching very badly, but it was a fairly desparate move. There's probably no chance they make the playoffs last year if they hadn't made the move, with Randy pitching well down the stretch, but that's beside the point.

Anyway, back to the game. Sure, let's bring in Mo with an 8-run lead! Makes sense to me!

131 I prefered Clement to Pavano. So far, I wasn't wrong about that. I also suggested the Yanks hold on to Javy and Lieber, so yeah, pretty much. Vazquez, Leiber, Clement, Moose, Wang. Is that not better than what we have now? What if I told you we'd have Halsey around for trading/LOOGY/sixth starter and, oh yeah, Dioner Navarro.

135 Clemens pitched well last year at what, 42? I always figured the 3d year was not going to happen. Pay for 3, get only two, but they would be fantastic two years. Sigh.

And in Tampa Bay the Sox' big boys went down easy in the eighth, so it could be an easy ninth too.

And Jorge is saying on the postgame (radio) that Moose is fine.

But the Yankees chose 2 injury-prone, likely to be average with the potential to be above average pitchers instead of an All-Star (dare I say, potential HOF) CF, when they needed to fill a hole in CF badly.

As to what they should have done to fill their pitching needs? I'll admit, there isn't an easy answer. Not trading for Randy Johnson would have made it easier financially. But there just wasn't much to work with. And it goes to show the organizational philosophy of developing/stockpiling pitching in your farm system while looking to free agency for hitters is a good one.

Melky is indeed PotG.

Hmmmmm.....

And I think I saw the Yankees' favorite bat boy. The one who looks like Irabu and swept the dugout every inning last year. Until Randy Johnson told him to sit down and took the broom himself. :-D

i did not consider the personnel we lost..

i for one thought it was a lock Leiber would be back. and i was hoping Vazuqez would stay..

i donno about Halsey.. he is ok.. and navarro's star has fallen off..

if u want to look at the overall offseason.. guys lost vs guys added.. it was a lousy one..

but i was just speaking from the point of beltran v add pitching..

and i for one thought Pavano was going to be a solid 2/3 type pitcher..

we found out its not gonnab..

but right now.. Halsey n Vazquez n navarro

are not doing the Liriano/Nathan/Bosner thing to us..

Again, it was myoptic. Randy was for 2005, Beltran was for our future. It was a mistake, but the collapse to the Sox dictated our off-season mindset.

132 I wasn't trying to say that Sawx are great or even good. Up the middle they're pretty darn poor, which is one of the reasons why I think we can leapfrog them, even without making any major moves.

136 Vazquez, Leiber, Clement?

Leiber 5.79 era .288 era against.

Clement, Sawx got a half a season out of him, now he's injured.

Vazquez, 5/15 era playing with a great defense behind him. Has been getting absoutely shelled of late. And it's only the first half of the season, and we know what he's like in the 2nd half.

I'm not even sure that trio is preferable to Wright/RJ/Pavano. At least Pavano and Wright had the good sense to get injured and not stink it up.

With the win today Moose becomes the first pitcher in AL history to have double-digit wins in fifteen straight seasons. Joe gave him... something or other, I didn't catch it.

Damon: felt the oblique earlier today. It's more in the front. He felt it in bp. He won't play tomorrow, they'll evaluate tomorrow.

8.0 ip, 1 hit 0r 0er 2bb 11k's

Mo time: Mariano Rivera may not have the best statistics among the American League's four All-Star closers, but White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, who will run the AL team at next week's game in Pittsburgh, plans to use the Yankees closer if there is a save situation.

The other closers on the team are Boston's Jonathan Papelbon, Toronto's B.J. Ryan and Chicago's Bobby Jenks.

"Mariano Rivera is on the team, Mariano Rivera is my closer," Guillen said. "It's not Bobby Jenks. Mariano Rivera is a [likely] Hall of Famer and this is maybe his last All-Star Game. What this guy has done in baseball, he should be my closer."

Final thought regarding off-season moves from 2004: it's obviously easy to say any move would have been better than signing Pavano, since he never showed much and then got hurt. But I'm mainly convinced by the arguments that fiscal restraint on pitching would have enabled moves in other areas and given us more bargaining chips.

I can't really say that having Vasquez/Lieber/Clement would have warmed my heart...all either injury prone or just prone to being lit up. I did want to resign Lieber, but settling for Vasquez and Clement would have been settling for substantial mediocrity. With RJ, there was at least the probability, however small, of stretches of greatness for a couple of seasons.

It's also easy to look in hindsight at how poorly these decisions turned out, and it is quite right to point out that the focus needs to be on developing pitching from within. But taking a snapshot of 2004, it was inconceivable that the Yankees would turn their backs on RJ and Pavano completely...it just wasn't the culture of the organization to show that kind of restraint.

"How about A-Rod?

Call me insane, as you do most every day, but why not Alex Rodriguez to the Cubs?

You could dump Aramis Ramirez, Jacque Jones and a reliever on the Yanks and get back a guy still in his prime to rebuild around at shortstop.

On the surface, it probably seems crazy, and maybe the Cubs would never take on that contract, but they've spent plenty of bad money over the years. And just in Ramirez, Jones and Ryan Dempster you would make up for A-Rod's salary, and that's money well spent for a change.

With Derrek Lee and A-Rod, you'd be on your way to having a legit infield again, offensively and defensively.

Not trying to start a rumor or even suggest anyone has had the conversation, and knowing the Cubs, they probably wouldn't dream of it.

Merely asking the question."

Johnny Damon expects to miss Thursday's game after leaving with a sore abdominal muscle tonight.
It was first reported as an oblique injury, but Damon said that wasn't right. He first felt a pain during pregame batting practice, and then while taking a swing in the on-deck circle before his first at-bat. "At first I thought it could be a small, little hernia," he said. "I'll try to be back as soon as I can." Bubba Crosby or Bernie Williams will start in center tomorrow. Jul. 5 - 11:30 pm et

Encouraging then that it appears NOT to be an oblique injury.

Letting Lieber go was a big mistake, too. After investing 2 years of rehab, a solid season in pinstripes then to bail after a $2M difference of opinion on his value made little sense.

The Unit should have been here in '04, but we would have lost Cano if the D'Backs hadn't guessed wrong. If that deal went down, it was Johnson starting game 7 of the ALCS, not Kevin Brown. The only upside to that is now we have an All-Star secondbaseman for years to come, but I would have taken the ring. We had all the horses that year, except for the pitching.

Apologies for the ramble, but all said the Yanks made solid moves to deliver a fearsome offense and just guessed wrong on the pitching on most counts.

Monday morning quarterbacking on all of this is easy, but jeez, when you have to do it real time and guess that Hughes will not deliver what a D-Train or Zito will/could for the Yanks, or visa-versa, that's tough.

With few exceptions, with what we had to work with and who was available at the time, I can't fault most of these moves. You get your David Justices' and you get your Ed Whitsons'...

Bernie in CF? Is Guiel strictly a RFer, then?

Cardinals got Jeff (DFA) Weaver from the Halo's today for a minor league OF... and the Mutts called up Jose Lima.

Think there's a quick fix out there for anyone's pitching woes? Yeeesh!

I have a feeling it's going to be Bernie in CF, anyway. It's a southpaw on the mound, and Joe usually plays Bernie against lefties.

I assume Guiel will be in RF, but his numbers against lefties are pretty bad. Worse than Bubba's.

Yeah, right...

But Bubba did run into Jeter. Remember? It was along the 3rd base line. Jeter was running full tilt like he did with that "into the stands" play. He would have caught the ball except Bubba was running full tilt from RF. They collided at the wall. Bubba almost went into the stands. Jeter kind of pulled him back.