On the Yankees beat

Jim B.: throw me a bone why don't you ?

Bill Masse is so familiar with Phil Hughes since He managed him in trenton I'm worried that He may gives and relayed some hints to Bluejays and gibbons how to hit Hughes.

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/6265388

Houston deals for Colorado's Jennings..
that's good deal for Astros. I rather have Jennings than Carla Pavano

Ken : the only thing Blue Jays hitters will have to worry about when Hughes arrives on the scene is whether or not they said their prayers.

Jim Heyman on Michael kay's show said Jon Garland is much better right now than Andy.

Why Does Espn,foxsports and idiots like Lupica and Bondy hates the Yankees and loves the Redsox?

Is it because The Redsox never won the championship in 86 years and they're are lovable losers. The Yankees are labeled as "Evil Empire by "Lucifer" Lucchino. Why Does the City of boston and their fan wants to have all the championships in other major sports and greed.

The Celtics won 16 championships. Boston Bruins won 5 and Patriots won 3.

The Ny sports teams like the Jets have won 1 superbowl title since 1968. It's been 38 years . The New York rangers won stanley cup in 1994 coming off 54 years drought.How about the Knicks? They are worst run organization .

Why Does Redsox Fans and Yankees haters hates the yankees? Is it because The yankees payroll are so high who consists of mostly homegrowns who got overpaid like Jeter, Posada and Mariano .

Yankees are The only team in Ny that give me hope and happiness and Other sports teams such as Jets,Rangers and Knicks are awful and stinks. As a Yankees Fan I'm thankful that George spends the money to build a contender every year.Hopefully win the World Series .

http://www.yankeefanclubradio.com/

Yankees Fan Club Radio. All the Yankees fan who are interested please visit the website.

It's now the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees!!

http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/app/new...t=.jsp&sid=t531

I don't like the new name and it's not very original.

http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/clubs/t531/images/ads/shop300x250.gif

Here a link to the new hats

Not quite sure what people see in Jennings. He has an era of 3.78 last year while going 7-13 and and avg era of 5 while being a .500 pitcher. Granted he in Colorado but that effect has been considered overated for quite soem time now. Seems kinda dumb to deplete the farm like the Astros did on this stiff. Garland had better numbers and came from the better league so they greatly lost out. Doesnt really matter much to me how the Astros do, but just saying.

DG : I agree ,do you know which 2 pitching prospects they gave up ?...Houston had to make a desperation move because of the loss of Pettitte and possibly Clemens...Jennings is what ?56-56.

Ratings of players are so subjective even for the scouts. The so called experts. I chuckle at journalists like Lupica and Heyman who make these judgements assessing Red Sox talent higher than Yankee talent. Way back when JFK was president. I had an algebra teacher who said, "The only true section of the paper was the sports section." Lupica and some of our other reporters make this statement look like swiss cheese. The real truth is who has the most wins at the end of the year and recieve their WS ring in April before the home crowd. This is the undisputed truth.

I agree that Billy Masse will be a terrific manager in the big leagues someday. His players speak highly of him and the yankees should have kept him.

Larry M.: I once upon a time was an avid ESPN viewer ,now I can't stand listening to those morons,Foxsports just by affiliation to all that I've come to loath in news and sports I wouldn't give a hairsbreath of my time to...although I do like Kurkjian & Stark w/espn

Instead naming Larry Bowa as third base coach. In My opinion Bucky Dent should be named Third base coach instead Bowa. Bucky Dent who help the Yankees beat the Redsox. Does Joe torre hates Bucky Dent?

Jim A.: it's always more difficult to bait a good person in the publics eye ...Don't you think?

Guys and Gals,
I have a new topic I'd like to bring up for a bit. A bit of a poll if you will indulge me. I have to see if I'm somewhat normal or if I should head straight to the mental health clinic.

It involves sports superstitions. I have a ton of them and I wondered how many of you do. I won't watch my favorite football team play defense; I hold the remote in the same hand with my finger on the same button when the Yanks are batting; If the leadoff hitter gets a hit off the Yankees pitcher in an inning, I change the channel for a few minutes and look for the score update on ESPN (or if I'm at the game I go get a drink or something). This is silly, but I can't stop it. In 2003, after the game 7 against Boston, my hand was cramped from squeezing that remote for 4.5 hours (That was worth it though).
I tried to confide in my brother in law who is a big sports fan, figuring he did some stupid stuff too but he looked at me like I was nuts and gave me some sage advice "dude, you gotta cut that out".
You guys are my therapy group. Help.

Ruse,
That's what I was thinking when Heyman was saying this stuff, I was saying to myself that I could think of a lot of better guys to p*ss off than a 6'3, 235lbs supposed steroid user, but I guess he hid behind his pen.

Man, Houston gave up a lot for Jennings. Jeez.

Yankees set Guiel free
NEW YORK -- The New York Yankees didn't plan to offer outfielder Aaron Guiel a contract by Tuesday night's deadline, making him a free agent.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2695524

* The Braves non-tendered 2B Marcus Giles as a cost-cutting measure. He's never played SS and only a few games at 3B, so he doesn't make much sense for the Yankees as a utility guy.

Jim A: You should get some help or take up drinking. If you do drink I suggest drinking more. Please don't take me serious. But maybe this will help you with your issues. I was a freshman in A Catholic HS in Brooklyn playing basketball on the freshman team. Some of the guys on the team would approach the foul line and make the sign of the cross. The coach who was quite famous at SJU before taken a fall for some varsity players and their indiscretions makes this comment to the kid. If you think Jesus Christ is going to help you make that foul shot you will never make one. We all hit the floor laughing. So, if you think your little quirks are helping the Yanks or Crash Pavano on the mound we're in trouble.

Does this help if not it was a cute story.

How about this. Can Boras pay the 51mil to the Japan team? Would that make Dmat a free agent this year? Then turn around and make the Yanks a deal under the table to pay their orignal bid of 32mil to him to sign DMAT. Just a crazy thought.

[b]Gomez, Piniero, Guiel among non-tendered crop[/b]

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2695524

Cashmann go after Gomez and Piniero and sign them to minor league deal. thanks

Is there a possibilty Yankees that might sign Reitsma? He was former closer and setup man for Braves last year.

Braves' Giles, Reitsma hit free-agent market

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2695505&campaign=rss&source=MLBHeadlines

Jim A. kinda along the same lines as to what Larry had to say...I have Yankee fan/friends who are equally superstitious...if you can have control over the outcome of a game by some superstitious tick such as holding a remote etc. just think what you could do if you applied this magical power to world peace or climate change or the price of gasoline ....

[b]Toby Hall non-tendered [/b]

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-bbnotes13dec13,0,3763097.story?coll=la-home-sports

[quote]"The Dodgers retained left-handed pitchers Mark Hendrickson and Joe Beimel by offering them arbitration by Tuesday night's deadline, and cut ties with injured outfielder Jayson Werth and reserve catcher Toby Hall by declining to make offers....

Hall, who was acquired at the trading deadline, made $2.25 million last season and was made expendable when the Dodgers signed free agent Mike Lieberthal. Colletti tried to trade Hall but found no takers

I hope Cashman will sign Hall by tommorow night.[/quote]

Doug : I like the logic behind your idea ,but I think your 10 yrs ahead of time...All this craziness surrounding Matz could have been avoided if he stayed in Japan another yr to pitch ,bought out the remainder of his contract,then he could have signed w/NY which is his team of choice.

Word was Boras was thinking about trying to "buy" DMat's freedom. He was going to offer a pile of cash, pay the posting fee himself and them sell DMat to the highest bidder. I think the Commish squashed that idea.

It should be a done deal any second between DMAT and Boston because Steve Phillips was just on ESPN saying the deal will not get done and the Sox will go "all out for Clemens".
Phillips is ALWAYS wrong. Too bad, it would be fun to watch the Sox screw this up.

The Orioles are likely to non-tender both David Newhan and Todd Williams.Hat Tip:

Rotoworld

Correct me if I'm wrong but Williams looks like a quality reliever. I could see him getting a multi year contract, and I would bet he has a better year then Timlin. He would be a nice canidate for some low leverage work with upside. The O's revamped pen is pushing out some decent arms, I would be for a Williams signing, if nothing else than a throw sh*it at the wall to see what sticks move.

Todd williams = Chad's Bradford

Pineiro would probably be a pretty decent bullpen arm, but the problem is that in this crazy market, someone is definitely going to see him as a starting pitcher -- he might even get a mutli-year deal, look at Jason Marquis

someone should put a muzzle on Steve Phillips...isn't he the guy who failed to land A-ROD for the Mets a few yrs ago? among other things cost him his job as GM

COL non-tenders P Chin-Hui Tsao

DET non-tenders OF Alexis Gomez

LAA non-tenders P Jason Bulger

NYM non-tenders P Victor Zambrano

SDP non-tenders 1B/OF Jon Knott

QUOTE
The Reds also designated left-handed starter Brandon Claussen for assignment, opening a spot on their 40-man roster to keep Weathers.

QUOTE

Claussen had surgery for a torn rotator cuff on Aug. 14 after going 3-8 with a 6.19 ERA. The Reds got Claussen from the Yankees in the trade for third baseman Aaron Boone during the 2003 season.
Source: http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/6265524

It was all started by pro-redsox homer Buster Olney who writes on his daily Blog says Speculation that Orioles might bid over $50 million to block Matsuzaka against the Yankees and Redsox acquiring him.

I guess Cashman didn't think Olney Speculation on his blog wasn't true and have the time to read

- Rumor was Winning Highest Bid around that Time was around $30 million . No ones expecting to bid over 30 million. Next Day Buster Olney Announced that Redsox won the bid. How did the Buster Olney knows when Bid was sealed and Seibu Lions didn't announced after four days when Olney speculated Redsox won the Bid?

I think The Redsox acting "bad faith" on negotiations on Matsuzaka.

New England Sports Network (NESN -- the Red Sox' TV outlet -- reported Tuesday night that Matsuzaka (aka, Dice-K) would be on the plane when it leaves L.A. this morning.
Source: http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=..._id=24490&rfi=6

To KN: what direction, hopefully westbound.

Who is going to replace Masse? It seems foolish to let him go.
As Posado get older, Toby Hall can possibly get more AB's. I like Pinero at the back end of the rotation. I would also give Claussen a minor league deal and cut him loose if he can't cut it at AAA

The Red Sox have allegedly offered Matsuzaka $8 mil per year. I still believe a deal will be done by the deadline. If not I expect the Sox to jump right in and offer a huge sum of money to another Boras client, Zito.

The Blue Jays have offered Vernon Wells a contract that would pay him in the top 10 of all players in baseball.

Toby Hall and Joel Piniero are both interesting options. Piniero as a 5th starter wouldn't be horrible, he's a classic case of a guy who just seems to need a new environment.

Hall isn't a great defensive catcher but he's serviceable and he's familiar with the AL East which would serve him well calling pitches against certain lineups and he's relatively young. A huge change from the Yankee pattern of employing geriatrics as back-up catchers.

The player who would really interest me is Claussen. I would love to get him back in the system. Yankees have lots of good young right handers in the minors but only Ian Kennedy from the left side. Give him time to rehab his shoulder and don't press him like the Reds did and he should be fine.

Chip,

I couldn't agree with you more. I did not know about Hall's defensive limitations, but he seems to be the best out there and certainly an improvement over Fasano and Stennett.
Claussen can work out at AAA and give his shoulder a bit of time to heal.

Dennis:

On top of the offensive upgrade he would represent as a back up catcher over what the Yankees have had in the past, he's also more able to hold up if Posada (35 years old) has to miss some extended time like he did last season. That being said, Torre has always favored defensive specialists at the back-up catcher position, that could give Wil Nieves an edge over Hall in a competition.

Chip: Piniero lost 4-5 mph in velocity ,Hargrove banished him to the bullpen,and now they want no part of him...why would the Yanks want him? Explain?

Good point about the defensive specialist, but I have seen Wil Nieves and he doesn't excite me. The last good backup was John Flannery and he was great.
Pinero was a good pitcher a few years back, maybe it is mechanics etc... Give the Yankee coaching staff a crack at him. I don't see a downside, only an upside. Does anyone see if different? He doesn't have to get signed to a long term contract

Waste of a post. It'll be a cold day in hell before anybody in New York thinks a Boston opinion counts for anything whatsoever.

Actually, let me rephrase that a bit.

It'll be a cold day in hell before anybody ANYWHERE thinks a Boston opinion counts for anything whatsoever.