And re Melky: You can pretty squarely and obviously blame Girardi for letting that foolishness continue.

I've given up on trying to figure out some the rational behind Joe Girardi's managing. He just does stuff.

Time for me to get a life.

I really wish the tough would just get going though, huh - that would be juice.

8 "dammit" has more panache, too >;)

I thought a pinache was that Mexican thing you smash at parties with a stick, and free agent set-up men fall out.

I didn't think it was that obscure of a reference, course out context it might not be so striking, but still.

Baseball can be a tough game to predict.

Belushi. Got it. My bad. Came on heels of pinache and seemed to indicate a plague descending! Ace Roolz!

OYF, join me again in the 'it could be a lot worse' room. I've been saying 'Be glad we aren't Tiger fans!' for two months.

In a weird, weird AL season, with the 'Three Kids Experiment' started (and really badly) and a new manager and two HUGE injuries (+ one to PKH), and no luck/success out of our back-up 1st base, DH, right handers, and our two top starters both in shaky shape, we are not remotely out of the playoff hunt in a year that needed to be seen as transitional, once Cash made the decision not to go for Santana.

And if we MISS the post-season (The Horror!) in the end-of-Torre-era transition, do we line everyone up and shoot them?

The fury and contempt and sense of entitlement coming off a segment of Yankeedom is, I suppose, predictable, but not very appealing. There's a new 'He SUCKS!' figure every 2nd day, it seems.

There was no reason for Detroit to sign Dontrelle long-term. Let him a season in the A.L. and earn his long-term deal.

Miggy should be OK, but that is a large contract indeed.

17 I don't think it's a sense of entitlement. The Yanks should be playing better, and Jeter, Melky, Cano, Wang & Pettitte need to step up their games

We are, along with your list of 'bad boys' getting great early seasons from Damon, Matsui, Giambi (impressively now) and Alex is just fine as will be, I suspect, Posada. Mussina is a huge, wonderful surprise, Rasner takes a bit of the edge off Hughes and Kennedy. Joba is fun and may be good. Some of these guys will (hate to be the one to tell you) SLUMP for awhile in the next 100 games.

"Should be playing better"? Want to run down the list of AL players and teams to which that applies? Along with the surprises on the upside? It is a long season, people fade, people arrive. Entitlement suggests it can't happen here. It does, it will, this year's team was and is a prime candidate to fall back after the hold-the-kids decision, and so far they have NOT fallen back so appallingly.

Imagine if we were fans of a team that:

Is in dead last place, with the worst record in the majors.
With a payroll of almost $120M.
That expected to contend ("everyone" said so!).
That traded away their 21-year-old MLB-ready best prospect (and a bunch of other prospects and quality guys) for a big-name pitcher who's been eh at best.
Who has a DH who's hitting .220/.265/.330 (OPS+: 64).
Who just benched their starting 1B (salary: $13M, OPS+: 90) to willingly play Miggy Cairo every day at 1B (OPS+: 50), because they have no other options.
And who just wasted their first round draft pick on a college reliever, who, at best, can only help out the one part of the team that's actually performing OK, and gives little to no help for contending in the future.

Friends, I give you, the Seattle Mariners.

The expectations of a Yankees fan is a bit different than, say, a Pirates fan. Should the Yanks be immune to slumps and injuries? Of course not. We've seen major injuries over the years, and we have seen the Yanks weather them. We've seen slumps before, they happen, the Yanks have weathered them.

Maybe we have a different interpretation of "entitlement," but I don't think people should idly sit by while players and managers do dumb things.

21 According to USS Mariner, the M's were projected to win 82-83 games if everything went right for them. 83 wins will not be enough to take the AL West. They also said that trading for Bedard will not remedy the other, bigger, issues that they have.

http://tinyurl.com/67s3eq

Even Silva was a move that looked not-dreadful in current economics ... he was a 13 game winner in Minny and moving to a weaker division and a serious pitchers' park ought to have made him a safe bet for 200 innings and 13-14 wins as #3-4 starter. So Seattle expected to have a killer 1-2 at top of rotation, a lights-out closer with good set-up men (they still have those). The offence was going to have to scramble or get lucky, but it happens. (They had and have their own kids-in-waiting.) It didn't, or hasn't in this case, and Miggy at first (he won the game last night!) is as clear a signal as the sport allows.

It really will be interesting to see if they start dealing pieces in the next 4-5 weeks or so. Rotoworld says the Blue Jays have backed off interest in Bedard (he isn't what they need, anyhow).

The problem with the M's trading for Bedard was that they gave up too much for a team that wasn't going anywhere. It's one thing if Bedard was the missing piece, but he wasn't. The M's are still a poor offensive and defensive club.

Thanks for the Silvanalysis. I don't think it tells anything all that new. The guy was at 950+ innings of decent major league starter. Everyone knows pitchers without power who rely on control (9 walks one season!) have little room if the control slips. The analysis says if they are facing David Ortiz such pitchers (righties) have troubles. Well, duh! Really.

I think the Mariners idea was as I said, a 3rd/4th starter. The analysis you cite says Washburn fits Safeco very well (Silva less so) so call him the planned 4th. As a 4th starter the only thing wrong with the signing is money, and a guy who goes 6+ every time for years is an asset... as the Yankee bullpen knows.

I think a case can be made, obviously, that Bedard joining a team that isn't quite there will not put them there, but I find this thinking a bit odd, too ... this means you don't go after an ace because ... you aren't good? You don't spend money and acquire talent because ... you aren't good?

A front end starter is a SMART pickup, by me. Signing a closer to big bucks on a weak team ... no. An ace. Go for it. You'll be a better team, more appealing to other players, and you'll show your fans you care (attention Jeffrey Loria).

With Bedard, it's like the Santana trade. Except the Mets were closer to winning the division than the M's are. The M's sacrificed offense, and defense as well as pitching to land Bedard. The talent is there, no doubt, but the M's are playing to win now when they don't have the chance. And this has a chance to bite them in the end, much like the Colon trade benefited the Indians.