He's got Em .... she's a keeper ...

But, those San Marzano tomatoes...dag, they are just the best for cooking.

The strike zone is just all over the place this year. For me it kills the game. Knowing the zone and NOT going after a pitch an INCH outside is part of the makeup of a great hitter. Now, the strike zone is anyone's guess. Hitters with a great eye might be at a disadvantage, as they may let close 'balls' go by, only to have them called a strike.

That strike 3 to JD last night was maybe the worse call I've seen. NESN showed the replay with their strike zone graphic, and the ball was literally a good foot outside. Remy said 'terrible, just terrible' and then went on a rant FOR instant replay.

The umping at home plate is just terrible and kills part of the fine art of the game.

See this AB was clutch, and ARod failed, hence he's a bad player regardless of what he does later in the game or next week.

At least the Yanks are making Lester work this time. 50+ pitches and he's not through the 3rd yet.

No Manny, no fear.

Once the realization sets in, I'm sure BB will once again be lively with early thoughts about 2009.

And, there are things to remain passionate about. I'm passionate about Moose getting 20 wins this season and 300 for his career. I want Jeter to move forward to 3,000 hits and beyond. I want to see homeruns by Arod to get him closer to Bonds. I want us to win our last game at Yankee Stadium against the Bosox (in fact, that's why I'm listening today) and I desperately want us to beat Baltimore on September 21 and close the park out with a win.

We certainly don't have playoffs to talk about, but we didn't have that from 1982-1993 either. However, I had to find things like Donnie Baseball to keep my interest. I know we'd all like to gear up for October baseball, but we can still be passionate about our team.

Bud may be right that allowing instant replay isn't going to open the floodgates as long as he's commish. But the day will come when Seligula is no longer commish, and then, who knows?

Whether a pitch is a ball or a strike affects a game just like whether a hit ball is a home run or not.

Is it just me, or does it seem like other teams' players (excluding relievers) don't quite collectively lose their minds and stop hitting to their historic performance as much as, for example, Giambi and Cano did in the beginning of this year.

Of course, when I write it, the sentiment seems ludicrous. Just look at last year's Mets.

Great pitching by Moose. No offense by the Yankees.

Go Yanks!

And no, no more expensive free agent "fixes".

I've been a Yankee fan for as long as I can remember, when I was ripping open that first set of Topps as a kid and getting that Ron Guidry card, it seems - I lived in NY (the state), I should be a Yankee fan. I sat through the years when they couldn't buy a win, and it really wasn't that long, though it seemed like it.

I'm a fan when they win, and a fan when they lose. It's just that when they lose there's not much to get excited. That and I'm getting tired of arguing the same things over and over ("We should have got Santana for IPK and melky" and "Hughes sucks" and "A-Rod sucks" and "Torre never should have been fired [sic]"). It's fatiguing.

What might have made a difference is if Cano had more aggressively charged the ball.

Ellsbury is just too fast to double up most of the time.

For 2005-2007, Giambi's RISP and RunnersOn numbers were well better then his OPS. I have always thought of Giambi as clutch. So this year is very unusually.

I think, for whatever reasons, "the Yank's performance, or under performance seems so mental and so emotional - like a collective funk" is very real, and more then any, the reason we are not in the PS.

I believe the underdog, 'nothing to lose' team (Tamba Bay?) does have a mental advantage. Consistantly high expectations are difficult to live up to.

I'm not saying the Yanks should just go out and spend money, but a team with a good blend of homegrown talent and free agents can win a world series. Just look across the field at Boston's acquisitions that were huge parts of their 2004 and 2007 championship teams (I'm not going to give an exhaustive list but Schilling, Ortiz and Manny from 2004 and Lowell, Drew, Matsuzaka, and Beckett from 2007 were all pretty prominent in their title runs).

The key is to have a good plan and build a team that does things together well both offensively, defensively and pitching.

In my opinion, the Yanks need Tex not only because he's a great hitter, but also because he's a Switch hitter and plays great defense (which makes him more valuable than Giambi who was a little less multi-dimensional). They need Milton Bradley because he will get on base a lot more than Bobby. The Yanks need a front of the rotation starter like CC Sabathia (who will blend quite nice with Wang and the youngsters) rather than hoping guys like Kevin Brown, Jaret Wright, Carl Pavano, Kei Igawa, Ponson, etc. etc. can catch lightening in a bottle.

It's not about whether free agency is smart or not because free agency is a necessary evil, but the Yanks need to make intelligent decisions. They need to hit more than they miss like Boston does.

He does have an option though, so there's probably a buyout not being factored in.

And CC? Tempting. But again, top dollar, buying high. Most long term pitcher contracts have turned out to be NOT intelligent. Is getting CC intelligent?

You just never know how a player is going to perform. It's an intelligent GUESSING game. It's the stock market. It's Vegas.

One of the issues, is the Sox and Mets of the recent past, and Detroit this year, are teams that will take big chances amd gamble the future for a year or 3 of a potential PS team. I think now Cashman is thinking of a different model. The Yankees don't want 2 or 3 PS's a decade. They want to build a sustainable model for long term dominance. Aside from MAYBE the Sox, no other team works on that kind of model.

Its almost a wonder we aren't all drunkards by now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWPATqJTZjE

now, it's over

The Yanks surely knew that Pavano was a .500 pitcher and that Jaret Wright and Kevin Brown were re-treads. My take is that the Yanks were actually hoping that those guys would be anchors, but overrated their performance based on selected good years.

One more run!

The WEEI radio guys stated that Tynan was in the ballpark today.

Uh, is Bruney OK?

Marte does the job.

start writing that update ...

So we get a starter, with many innings of a 3.15 ERA, and he sucks.
Boston gets a reliever, with an ERA of 3.3, and he has a better ERA here by almost a run.

Mo in save situations: 34.2 IP, 0.52 ERA, 15 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 HR, 3 BB, 39 K

Mo when the game is tied: 24 IP, 3.00 ERA, 21 H, 8 R, 8 ER, 3 HR, 3 BB, 28 K

Are the Sox giving up on Ellsbury? Is he better then Melky? Are we giving up on Melky?
I think Melky will start in CF next year as I don't see a tasty FA to replace him. He will however, be on a short leash.

OK .... THAT was funny! :0

in 3 of the 4 years preceeding his first year as a Yankee, Kevin Brown put up an ERA+ over over 150, including the final one where he put up a ERA+ of 169.

You can subtract for park and league, but that still leaves a reasonable assumption that the team was acquiring an above average pitcher.

Adding a couple of guys here and there that are past their prime by that much? Not a problem. Building a rotation and depending on a offense/defense built on those guys? Disaster waiting to happen.

Age ain't just another number.

Milton Bradley is a headcase, talented, but a headcase.

Ivan doing something offensive.

Moose
Vazquez
Brown
Contreras

With Lieber & Duque waiting in the wings.

I'd take my chances with that staff.

the 2004 rotation was fine actually, it tended older, but overall was middle-aged.

the problem was the bullpen ...

player age 2003 ERA+
vasquez 27 139
mussina 34 129
lieber 32 109
brown 39 169
contreras 32 139

i'd agree, that a pretty decent starting rotation to begin the year with.

When does the bottom drop out? That 2004 staff had an average age of 34. There's a lot that can go wrong and not much to build on the next season. Who'd the Yankees have in the minors? Brad Halsey and Alex Graman (and CMW starting to make waves in AAA).

Not surprisingly, the first thing that Cashman did when he took full control was stockpile arms. And he has been waiting eagerly for his arms and for a lot of bad money to come off the books, last year and this year. After next season, he'll just have Jeter, Posada, and Rivera left with big, bad deals (Rivera, I think will make it to 40 without declining too much). And then it'll be one - A-Rod, which, all things considered, isn't a bad player to have.

So it pains me to see Cashman work tirelessly and patiently to rid the team of big millstone contracts only to hear it from the fans/media who want the team to dump tons of money and years and prospects on the current flavors of the season having learned nothing from the last decade.

Besides, with all the pitching the Yanks have (or seem to have), they could, in theory, sign CC to a long-term, big money deal, and then (as long as no one gets hurt) spend no other money on free agent pitchers for at least 4 years (outside of signing Wang at some point). Who care if they spend $28M/year on CC if the rest of the rotation only costs, say, $6M or $7M?

Ditto in the bullpen. Next year can easily be "Mo and the 6 'kids'" - where Mo costs $15M and the rest of the bullpen costs maybe another $4-$5M, tops.

That's financial flexibility.

AND, the last time you attributed hindsight glasses to me they actually didn't fit because my comment about being concerned about Girardi playing with fire by allowing Rasner to continue to pitch with a 1-0 lead occurred BEFORE he gave up a homerun. But feel free to make up facts as you wish. Just don't expect me to respond in a non-snarky fashion when you do.

Kevin Brown, at the time he was signed by the Yankees:

1. Had been pitching in the national league; and

2. Was 39 years old.

It's NOT hindsight to suggest that the Yankees should have known that Brown was nearing the end of his career, unless you consider it to be common for a pitcher to continue pitching well into his 40's.

What I'm saying is the Yanks need to go out and get star free agents in the prime of their careers, like CC who is 27 years old. I promise that if they do, I won't suggest that "they should have known" if he gets hurt.

a) i don't care how you choose to take it, frankly.

b) in 78 you said, " ... Kevin Brown were re-treads. My take is that the Yanks were actually hoping that those guys would be anchors, but overrated their performance based on selected good years."

i pointed out that someone coming off 3 of 4 150 ERA+ years (and 3 out of 4 with good health and 200+ innings, including the last one) could be "reasonably" counted on to provide above average production. somewhat like the red sox reasonably counted on curt schilling to provide above average production in 2004 at the age of 37, even though he was coming off less successful, more injury filled year.

as for the now established meme that the "NL is the weak sister league", that wasn't nearly the case back then. it was specifically the struggles of NL All Star pitchers like Brown, Vasquez and Johnson that helped solidify the degree of that concept. since that wasn't in evidence at the time, i'd say that's using the luxury of hindsight in assessing the decision.

I've read many of your comments at the Banter and I am absolutely not surprised that you don't care how I take what you wrote. And it's your apathy to other people's feelings, in this case mine, which is the saddest part for me. Because by being antagonistic, you're embracing the Buzz Bissinger stereotype of bloggers.

I'll add that resorting to the "hindsight glasses" comment, as you often do, doesn't add very much to your arguments other than to show that you simply want to be the loudest person in the room, like some sort of blogging Michael Savage, and criticize the person rather than the idea.

Frankly, I find the "hindsight glasses" comments a bit boring, and more than a bit repetitive at this point, since it's become your standard comment to just about anything, much as Ed McMahon used to say, "you are correct, sir". It's just a meaningless tagline at this point. And, really, you're only saying that no decision in the past can ever be questioned because it's hindsight analysis.

Actually, even hindsight analysis can be useful. It's not simply that the Yanks made a mistake signing Kevin Brown (they did), it's about taking that mistake, acknowledging the mistake, and then resolving not to make that mistake again. It's taking the lesson and learning from it. Unfortunately, history is littered with plenty of examples where people and nations didn't learn from prior mistakes because they weren't willing to put on hindsight glasses and be analytical. I hope that Brian Cashman will and instead of signing older players who are well past their prime (even ones who are still performing) that he will invest the resources in younger talent.

Also, you've become so accustomed to criticizing hindsight that you even raise the specter of hindsight even when it's NOT hindsight (as in my Rasner example, which you tellingly chose not to address for the obvious reason that you were wrong).

At this point let's just agree to disagree. Please don't direct comments towards me and I will do likewise. Life's too short to get into pissing matches. There are many people I enjoy having discussions with at the Banter (such as William, OYF, Mehmattski) who often tell me, "You're wrong Jeb", but they do it in a respectful way and I really enjoy the debate with them. That's why I come here.