http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/16/sports/baseball/16yankees.html?hp

"He did not speak to reporters, but he told others that he felt a pop in his foot while rounding third base, a strong sign of ligament damage that could sideline him for months, if not the rest of the season."

(snip)

"The injury is to the top of Wang's foot, the same general area that reliever Brian Bruney injured when he tripped while covering first base in April. Bruney was found to have a Lisfranc injury and is expected to miss a minimum of three months.

Wang has symptoms of the same injury, including swelling and the inability to bear weight on the foot; he left Minute Maid Park on crutches, in a soft cast. Bruney's injury was in the middle of the foot, and Wang's is believed to be in the webbing of his toes, between his big toe and second toe."

so does Cashman call Cleveland abotu C.C.? Do they stick with the 200million dollar rebuilding plan?

Over the last 5 years, we are gotten used to a team with tremendous offense but questionable pitching. Looking at 2010, this is not what I see. My guess is over the next 2 years we will need two position impact FAs, maybe at 1st and OF, if we want to maintain a power offense. Since offense sells seats, I think the Yankees will feel that way also.

Also, in looking at WinShares, while everyone clamors that 'we need an Ace to win', impact position players typically have many more winshares then impact pitchers.
http://tinyurl.com/4h92um
So far in 2008, of 36 players with 10 of more WS, only 3 are pitchers. In 2007, the best WS pitcher was CC, tied for 26th, with 24 WS. For comparsion, Cano had 21, Jeter (tied with CC) had 24, Posada had 26, and ARod had 39. I was surprised to see our Buddy Teixeira only had 12.

And 2007 was a career year for CC, posting a 143 ERA+ compared to his career average of 114.

So to me, CC is a panic move, but more importantly, one that is not a good fit for the direction the Yankees are heading in going forward.

Several of the pitchers you name are relievers. A rotation of Wang, Hughes, Chamberlain, IPK and ??? doesn't fill me with confidence. CC is a real pitcher, a good one and still pretty young.

I like the idea of letting young players develop, but I think you've become way too dogmatic about it. Sometimes you want to use young players as trading chips, and CC is exactly the kind of guy you want to use them for. I don't see that as setting back the plan a bit, unless you're rigidly clinging to the idea that all prospects muse be saved - and that all of them will be good.

I suspect the Indians will want too much for him, but I'd definitely make a push to get him. The contract they'd have to give him worries me not a bit.

Plus it is possible for Pettitte to come back for another year.

I find this intriguing. The talk all along has been that holding off on Santana is partly justified by the idea we might be able to sign Sabathia as a free agent, getting a ballpark-comparable starter without giving anyone up. This made sense to me (though I think Santana is considerably better, myself ... am aware that a different view can be defended).

Once we are into a trade, we are exactly where we were in the off-season ... Cleveland will not want much less, if anything less, for CC than Minny did for Santana, and our 'prize' prospects have come down somewhat in trade value, too, all three of them (Melky, IPK, PKH). Cleveland do not need a CF, anyhow.

I doubt Pettitte will be back. He was close to not doing so this year. Relying on the New Moose and Good Andy is a shaky proposition anyhow. OYF is surely right to say good position players help more than good starters, but we'll need both, especially a first baseman. Or is the Return of the Giambini seen as a multi-year idea?

The asking price is going to be Joba Chamberlain and two or three other top prospects. Is that really worth it? Keep in mind that IPK and Hughes can't be traded until they are off the DL. And even then, no team is going to trade for them until they show they have completely healed. The Indians are willing to hold on to Sabathia until the end and then take the draft picks until they are absolutely blown away. The Yankees are not going to get a steal hear, and it's very likely that whatever pieces have to head to Cleveland will cripple the Yankees for this season.

This makes not signing Colon even worse!

Agree CC ain't likely, nor likely worth the cost because he's a rental. I don't think he would cost Joba - the market just values prospects so much these days - but would probably cost far too much for 3 months of CC.

http://www.mlb4u.com/wiki/index.php/Trading_Rules

Players on the DL can instead be a Player to be Named Later, to avoid commissioner approval.

The Santana deal is a red herring that's irrelevant to this situation.

I don't think anyone is advocating that the Yankees make this deal at any cost. Obviously, if the Indians want Joba or Cano, the Yankees walk away. Maybe the price tag just went up - but since we have no idea what the price tag was or is, I wouldn't write it off just on that basis.

Plug in Giese as a placeholder for Kennedy? Yikes. I'm not at all convinced that Kennedy is a major-league pitcher at this point anyway.

My point is just that if they're going to trade some blue chippers, might as well add a pair more to the pot and get Bedard or Peavey, then just sign CC in the off season. I don't think anyone else is going to be able to sign CC during the season, be it Cleveland or a (possible) trading partner. I think being this close he'll want to see what the Yanks bid on the open market.

At least we know what Bedard's rough valuation is(was): a blue chip young OFer, 3 hot arms, and a pretty good old ML LHRP. If Tabata could sub for Jones (dubious), that would be worth considering.

I would then view the pursuit of Sabathia (for example) as a separate issue.

The only way ARod's homer went to right field is on a ricochet off that funky left field brick "thingy"!

Also, as you suggest, what they've done so far isn't good enough.

There is no way around it. If Wang is going to be out for a while, which certainly seems to be the case, then the Yankees season has taken a huge hit. I still maintain that Wang should have never been in a position to get injured to begin with, so the Yankees are now paying for their negligence, whether it was on the part of Meacham or the whole coaching staff.

If the organization really feels that Sabathia is worth it in the long run, then by all means trade for him. But that decision should be more or less independent of Wang's injury this season.

It really comes down to what your expectations are for this season. If the one wants to win this year, then one should probably pick up Sabathia and another pitcher, right? Because right now, assuming Wang is out for a long time, picking up Sabathia would be the equivalent of trading Wang(and prospects) for Sabathia.

I suggest instead that we step back and consider what has actually been lost (consider Wang for his career and his performance this year--even you can only muster that he "seemed poised" to go on a run; maybe yes, maybe no), and where the team actually stands, and what the goals for the season and beyond.

And I'm not sure I'd give up the farm from CC (assuming there's a long term deal in place) The Yankees are an old team, they need to work some young guys into the lineup especially at 1B and catcher. And at a corner OF. I guess it just comes down to what Cleveland would want.

What has been lost is a pitcher capable of giving you a good seven innings every time out, which equates to a 20-game winner if the Yankees offense is clicking. Those kinds of arms are few and far between.

On the other hand, if your final statement that such arms are "few and far between," then maybe the best course of action would be to pack it in for the season. And I am serious about. The very rarity of such arms means that 1] they will be very, very costly on the trading market, especially given the Yankees' position; and 2] the odds are very high that whomever the Yankees get will fall short of expectations, given the rarity of the commodity. Indeed, they stand a good chance of getting duped. So maybe it would be best to just ride out the injury and start planning for next season.

In other words, Wang was ill prepared to run the bases, and yet for some reason, the Yankees decided to take no caution with him, even after seeing how awkwardly he ran to 2B. From Girardi at the top right on down to Meacham, the Yankee coaching staff is responsible for this injury. Across town, Willie Randolph is on the chopping block because his players suck, but I am sure he hasn't made any one decision more detrimental than the one the Yankees staff made yesterday.

I posted this at RAB, too. Just wanted to see if anyone here had the same problem.

45 I didn't have a problem with my password, but also got a sold out message on my first attempt.

Nice rhetorical trick. Put another way: "Going forward, the Yankees will overreact to a freak occurrence and impose a bunch of unnecessary, after-the-fact rules."

; )

I think it's pretty common practice to take it easy with pitchers anyway. For some reason, the Yankees chose to withhold caution. Hopefully, they'll start doing it now, even if it is too little too late.
.

I'll just add a small thing: my sense is that Wang's 'awkward' running to 2nd was actually because he was ORDERED not to slide. In other words they WERE being careful with him. It is actually hard to stop on a base without sliding, but that's what he was doing, and I'll bet a shiny nickel it was on Pena's instructions (or even global pitcher instructions earlier). He looked awkward to us because we ALWAYS see people slide and he didn't.

On the CC point ... I will flatly assume that NOTHING is worth even talking about, absent an extension. Yankees will not deal talent for 3-4 months, and I even think more of Sir Hank than that, let alone Cash, who knows what he is doing here and clearly has a strategy!

Bedard is kind of interesting as there is so much feeling that Seattle needs to blow their team up and an 'ace' won't help for a year or three, so they might as well get young prospects. The problem is how wretched they look if they get too little back.

This is all a bit premature, anyhow.

Sorry, just couldn't resist.

And one more more thing ... for the moment, our 'target' is Tampa Bay, who have Crawford limping and Pena still down and are new to all of this (the summer, as I keep saying, hasn't even STARTED). We can be weakened (and would be by Wang being out) and compete. Period.

Also, it's really relevant because it's 10 years old, but I quickly searched the NYT database and found an article suggesting that AL teams were going to withhold their pitchers from throwing in NL parks to protect them from industry. At the least, it shows that teams have been concerned about their pitchers from the advent of interleague. Even Girardi said yesterday that getting a pitcher hurt on the bases was his worst nightmare. Well, if something is my worst nightmare, I'd take every sensible precaution to prevent it. Not sending Wang home from 2B seems to me as if it would have been a very sensible precaution.

36 Sorry, but I see that as the worst possible idea. Burnett's 31 and he can't stay healthy. Either way, the Yankees will have to overpay; the price tag might be smaller for Burnett, but I don't want Burnett. If you're going to overpay, do it for top quality.

All we'd have to do is throw in maybe Kennedy and a bunch of guys that Torre used to abuse (or would love to abuse)...

"it's not really relevant" and
"protect them from injury"

You win typo of the day.

9 I think Garcia's still recovering from shoulder surgery. Given the state of pitching (the Brewers took a chance on Jeff Weaver a while ago), I am a bit surprised that no one has taken a flyer on him.

Now I would not have Wang slide or try to bowl the catcher over, but basic running is fine. This is an incredibly freaky injury. You can't control for everything and this injury I cannot put in the "foreseeable & preventable" category.

And I don't think the contracts ban low risk behavior, rather high risk ones such as martial arts (I've got a couple of banged up knuckles myself) or sky-diving or motorcycle riding.

If a trade is made, I think we'll see a couple of starts from the guys in the pen, and they'll get rotated to the minors depending on workload.

If the AL never had adopted the stupid DH rule, we wouldn't be kvelling over this (i.e. Wang and all other pitchers would be expected to be able to run the bases, hit, bunt .... you know ... real baseball skills).

I agree that this was a freak injury, and could have just as well happened if he ran to cover 1B on grounder to Giambi.

I would however point out that this year, we have NOT yet benefitted from Joba the starter, but we are about to. So Joba may be an equal or better replacement for Wang.

31 "If the organization really feels that Sabathia is worth it in the long run, then by all means trade for him. But that decision should be more or less independent of Wang's injury this season."
I believe this is the perfect statement, and I believe Cashman is onboard. I simply can't see the Yankees making a panic move that might compromise our future to save this year... which may not be worth saving (at a high cost).

I think this is a wait and see until at least after the ASB.

I'm not arguing the point; I'm just calling attention to your subtle manipulation of language. Well played.

Provided the lineup does its job, that is. Still, Joba/Pettitte/Moose doesn't exactly inspire dreams of a World Series (let alone an ALCS) berth.

Lowe is likely going to end the season as a Type A free agent, any package for him has to be better than 2 first round picks. Which could work out for the Yanks, they could clean up in next year's draft provided they lose some players.

The asking price for any experienced ML arm is going to be two minor league ones at least. Karstens or Chase Wright won't get it done.

The asking price for CC will begin at Cano and Hughes. And it will likely end with the addition of a talented AA/AAA relief arm and Marquez/Horne.

It'll be interesting to see what the diagnosis is and what ultimately happens. I can be sure that Cash has been on the phone non-stop since yesterday.

There isn't any subtle manipulation of language. I think my point is very overt. I think the the Yankees shoudl have taken the precaution of not sending Wang. They did not. Whether they were right or wrong is open to debate, but that doesn't change the facts.