I'm glad they signed Molina.

I've decided that my favorite pro Bonds argument is "We're at war and the government is doing THIS?" Because apparently the war means the country should delve into anarchy.

Derek better pay up or he will be next for the criminal court.

I can't blame Mariano for going for that 4th year. If the Yankees can pay Alex all that money when they didn't have to, then Hank can pony up that 4th year.

On XM last night I heard fans calling in with impassioned pleas to "leave Barry bonds alone" because what about mcgwire? Ridiculous. I'm just glad it looks like they have a positive anabolic steroid test result (based on my review of the indictment) because maybe that will shut people up about him being innocent unless he admits it (ala Pete rose) or a positive test surfaces.

3 It won't shut them up. They'll insist he thought it was arthritis cream.

3 Or, some will inevitably turn it into a race thing.

5 that drives me up the wall more than almost any other cop out, which is why I find people like Jesse Jackson to be truly evil.

In my opinion when you play the race card because you have no better excuse, you can ruin people's lives. If you slap them with the racist label, its almost impossible to to shake that.

But more importantly, and more appropriately in this case, its a boy that cried wolf situation. If you play the race card early and often on situations that have nothing to do with race, people are going to be less inclined to believe people when there is a real, legitimate act of racism.

5 No point sticking you head in the sand. It is disingenuous. This is America. Race always plays a role in how athletes of color are perceived and treated by some people in controversial situations.

6 If Jesse Jackson is evil, then George Bush must be Satan incarnate. Seriously, who in their right mind considers Jesse Jackson evil? Last time I checked he hasn't ordered anyone into a war to save an oil company. My comment at 5 applies to your comment as well.

I think now's the time to offer Barry a contract.
$2M base and $600K for every 10 games played.

2 NY State must prove that Jeter resides in NYC for at least 183 days a year. If they can't, then it's grandstanding.

6 So who makes the call that a case of racism is "real" or "legitimate?" 'Cause I'm still trying to figure that one out.

When it comes to evil, true or otherwise, Jesse Jackson barely registers on the list. Let's have a little perspective here...

8 Here here. I may not agree with everything Jesse Jackson says or does, but he is far, far away from evil. The guy was fighting for civil rights when the police were clubbing black protesters for fun. If he's a bit over-sensitive to the race issue sometimes, I think we can cut him some slack.

11 Nobody is more evil than Curt Schilling. Can we get back to talking about baseball now?

Anyway, despite the hue and cry, and the gnashing of teeth and rendering of garments, the steroids (PEDs?) issue is the "Pittsburgh Drug Trials" all over again.

And too this shall pass...

Having said that, it would be nice if someone put together an independent study of the effects of steroids/PED's in baseball.

Isn't it sad that we're excited about re-signing Molina because he's the least bad backup catcher the Yankees have had in eight years?

14 Or how 'bout "This too shall pass..."

Gotta get my morning coffee.

13 Yes! And let me just say that I would have been in full support of Lowell for 3B, but am much happier with A-Rod.

But... one of the linked articles mentions the Yanks offering Lowell 4 years to play 1B??? AHH!! RUN AWAY!! In the 3rd year, they'd be kicking themselves when his production drops to Andy Phillips levels.

If Barry Bonds is being persecuted because he's a black man, why isn't Gary Sheffield under indictment?

Maybe the joke is on Gary and he isn't all the way black enough for the government to persecute?

Or maybe Barry is under indictment because the feds feel they can prove that he perjured himself and they don't give a rats ass what color he is?

14 I don't want any studies. I have to agree with Steven Goldman when he advocates for Selig to quash the whole thing by declaring amnesty for anyone who took steroids before the ban went into effect. It's dragging the league down and we need to get past talking about the past and who did what. We will never, ever be able to tell how many home runs Barry would have hit without steroids and the continued speculation and discussion just denigrates the sport.

Link to Goldman's Pinstriped Blog post:
http://tinyurl.com/2fy8dz

15 There really aren't any good BUCs. If you're good for a couple of years in a row, then someone trades for you and makes you a starter.

19 I'd agree with you and Goldman, but if people insist on bringing it up, may as well have a study and put the issue to bed.

Or, here's a topic... now that the Yanks don't have to trade for a 3B, they have more chips to make a run at Johan Santana. This thought is already well covered. But, here's the catch... if the Yanks snag Santana and don't have to give up Hughes or Chamberlain, will that tempt Pettitte back into the fold? Will he be able to taste another ring once he sees ARod back at the hot corner, Jorgie and (hopefully) Mo re-signed, and potentially the best rotation in baseball with Santana, Wang, Pettite, Hughes and Moose? (or sub Chamberlain for Moose if you think that he'd still be more valuable in the rotation in that situation)

15 Actually, Flaherty was surprisingly not terrible for a couple of years - put up OPS+ better than Girardi ever did in his career.

I like Molina, but his hitting as a Yankee last year was a total fluke. Expect his bat to be a black hole this year.

21 I understand the desire, but I don't think it actually would put it to bed. It would just raise more questions we can't answer. I'd rather see the money, attention and effort poured into a more effective testing program that included HGH and whatever comes next. If there are no more steroids in baseball, that will put the issue to bed.

23 I think he was pretty good on the BUC scale the first two years

17 It's not the 3rd year that concerns me - it's next year. In addition to his likely decline in numbers it's those numbers at first, the draft pick surrendered to the Sox and so on.

19 Agree largely. There is absolutely no way to know what steroids led to - in the sense of how many extra homeruns, strikeouts, innings played etc. How could this possibly be studied ethically much less soundly? There will always be a caveat when looking at most of the numbers assembled during this era.

21 Raf, comments get hidden pretty quickly sometimes, so I don't know if you got a chance to see my research from yesterday on the effect of throwing a ton of innings under the age of 24:

http://tinyurl.com/38hubk

For every Bert Blyleven, there is a Don Drysdale. For every Tom Seaver, a Larry Dierker...

23 Yeah, probably. 20 The other problem is that it's hard to develop any consistency when you see live pitching once a week. If you're not consistently decent, you get benched for the next journeyman BUC who's sitting home waiting for a call. I'm not saying the team should give the BUCs more ABs, but the system, in general, seems set up to fail.

Not to (re)open the can of worms, but no one on this board should be casting aspersions at Barry when the Yanks have had two admitted PED users on their team (and one still on their team).

I'm certainly not a fan of Barry, but the Giambino doesn't make me smile either, even if he is "clean" now.

12 I consider Jesse Jackson a blow hard and an opportunist. He annoys the hell out of me most of the times, but no one who has any comprehension of the Civil Rights movement could ever consider him evil. He stood when those cops were setting clubs, guns and dogs on protesters and the Klan and their supporters were bombing, murdering and lynching black people left and right.

18 Stop ranting and read what I said. There will always be people in this country who see and treat people through the lens of race and stereotyping. I'm not wrong.

19 I completely agree with Goldman.

10 Maybe the tax people have been following Derek around for the last year or so.

In the midnight hour, they cried Mo! Mo! Mo!

Seriously, I'm starting to think that Mo is not the guy I used to think he was.

15 et al re: Molina, what I'm hoping is that this large-ish contract for a BUC means the FO is going to spend & focus on the bench. Obviously, the starters are way more important, but depth is critical always and even more so when the team is as old as it is. I don't see anything wrong with having a $10-$20 mil bench, assuming they're all on short contracts.

Was it Goldman or Pinto or someone else who was making that point...

31 So that's who all those stunning women-in-tow were.

18 I still fail to see what that has to do with Barry Bonds current situation.

Yes, there will always be people who try to shoehorn any issue into a race issue. Doesn't make it any less wrong in this case.

32 Yeah, this definitely sours my impression of him personally. I can understand wanting a fourth year, but some reports are saying he wants more money. The current offer is shockingly high. If he wipes his nose with it, I can only assume he doesn't really want to be a Yankee anymore.

That being said, Hank's comments and strategy seem particularly pointed to force that impression. The offer is so high that it would be hard for Mo to debate about it at all without giving the impression that he's being greedy. And his comments anticipated any qualms Mo might have and pre-cast it as being greedy.

30 I can't ever dissociate him from this: http://tinyurl.com/2nzg9l. I'm not sure which of those hands is his, but one of them is.

29 Bonds was not indicted for steroid use, he was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice- slightly more serious matters.

24 ,26 I'm working with the assumption that "PED's" have been around since at least the '60s. I'm not asking to see how many more HR's would've been hit or how many more innings would've been pitched, etc. I am just curious to see if they really have any effect in the game. Power is nice, but baseball has and always will be a skill/tecnhique sport. Maybe they have an effect, maybe they don't. Quite a few things in baseball "make sense" (corked bats or protection in the order, to name but two baseball myths), but are disproven when put to the test.

27 Yes, I saw that. Thanks.

30 I read "I Am - Somebody" numerous times as a young'un. While I may not agree with everything he says, I agree that he is far from evil.

27 Absolutely right. I looked at it in a slightly different (and entirely arbitrary) way: take pitchers who threw 200+ innings at age 21, and see how many games they won after age 30.

Four of them had long careers: Sutton, Blyleven, Tanana and Simmons. And the last three all had to come back from arm injuries.

As you point out, Drysdale was essentially done at 30; so was Catfish. 14 out of 33 (since 1946) won 0 games after that age.

40 I found interesting, after YFiM asked about seasons above ERA+ of 120, that five of the pitchers who pitched 250+ innings before the age of 24 never had that kind of season, not even the one where they threw 250 innings. It probably points to a different baseball culture where innings were king and bullpens were small and in a mop-up role. Then again, folks looking for evidence that lots of innings isn't bad could point at that and say that those pitchers were out of baseball because they were mediocre...

Steroids do not help you hit more HRs per se. You still have to be able to see the ball and hit it squarely. Steroids help you recover quicker from workouts, allowing you to build muscle mass faster.

One of the downsides is that you can end up putting too much muscle (strain) on bones and tendons/ligaments, and then be subject to tears / ruptures.

42

was in response to 39 and other related posts.

41 Yeah, I was aware of having no sort of control. I suspect that I'd find that a lot of 21-year-old pitchers are done by age 30, regardless of IP. But, at the very least, throwing lots of innings doesn't seem to help.

Hey, remember when everyone laughingly believed it was the ball that was juiced, and happily bought McGwire/Sosa/Bonds merch?

As I've said before, as a fan who came of age in an era of steroids, I plan on being just as cumudgeonly towards young fans of the 2050s as older fans are today about the 1950s... It's when I grew up, I can't help but romanticize it.

36 I don't think that there is anything wrong with an athlete wanting more money. I have no problem with Mo wanting the 4th year or Alex wanting his big contract. IMO, the market sets the athlete's price. Mo may very well get offered that 4th year from another team and then he will have to make a tough decision.

46 If Mo gets a 4th year from another team that tops the 3yr Yanks offer then he should take it. I do not want him to get that 4th year from NY. I really think the 3rd(and the amt per year) is a gift already.

41 In this day and age, those mediocre pitchers would be recycled as relievers. It makes me wonder what the next "big thing" will be WRT pitchers. Who knows, maybe we'll see something where pitchers are shuttled between starting and relieving, similar to the way Tom Gordon was used early in his career.

46 Which team would that be? All the big market teams (Red Sox, Mets, Tigers, Dodgers, Angels, Phillies) have a solid, younger closer (well, maybe not the Tigers, but still). The Cubs... maybe, but they shelled out the big bucks last year and it's unclear how much of a player they are on the market this year.

This is a case of the player setting the market, not the market setting the price. If Mo demands such a monstrous deal, the Yankees should call his bluff. Nobody's going to offer the Yankees even 75% of what they've already offered. It is strange to me that A-Rod is villified for wanting a raise after the best season of his career, but Mo wanting a gigantic raise after his worst is met by some fans with totally different feelings.

42 One of the other downsides is that steroid use has been proven to be related to tumor growth (see Giambi, Jason - 2004).

48 True, and some of them were... look at the number of young pitchers who had their last good (ERA+ of 120) season well before the end of their careers.

The next big thing should be a revolution of bullpens into something resembling logical use of leverage. The baseball world is a slave to the saves statistic, and the negotiations of Mariano Rivera are Exhibit A. Pitching one inning three times a week does not have the same value as catching nine innings, five times a week. Sorry Mo, you're not worth position player money.

46 Oh, I don't have any problem with an athlete getting all the money they can either. But, the market set the price for top-level closers at less than $11M (Wagner, et. al.) and the Yanks are offering Mo $15M, implying that they value him 37% more than anyone else. ARod won't be making 37% above every other position player next year and certainly not when he's 38-40. At age 38-40, that's a very generous valuation for anyone and I really don't think the rest of the market will even come up to that level. They may offer more years for less money per year, and if that's more important to Mo, then so be it. Personally, I think the Yanks should explore that option, maybe offering the same deal they gave Posada, $13M for 4.

48 It used to be very common. Teams would have a 4-man rotation (which I believe teams should go back to). But the schedule also had plenty of doubleheaders, so there'd be at least one "swing man" - a guy who'd pitch in long relief but also start 15-20 times.

It is not easy to deal with superstars who are negotiating the end of their careers. One thing that is different w/ Mo this year is that the Yankees have a potential Plan B w/ Joba. Clearly the Yankees would rather see him as a starter, but at least they have him as a potential replacement should Mo bolt. That has never been the case before, really.

Not everyone walks away from the game like Mattingly, head held high and everyone on speaking terms. Look at Bernie. Look at Torre. I don't know how this will come off w/ Mo, but this is a pridefull man who feels he has four good years left.

Dunno what to do. God how I would hate to see a 42-year-old Mo getting knocked around and pitching the 6th in Proctor-esque fashion. That would just kill me.

Mo - take the three years and walk away with your head held high. PLEASE!

52 I'd like to see them play a little more hardball with Mo if he's gonna act like this. Every 24 hours our offer drops $100K per year. You want to wait 10 days, it'll cost you a cool $1M. A month, $3M (and he'd still be the highest paid CL in the game). I bet he'd change his tune.

Light day at the office, so here's my tak