Friday marked an anniversary of sorts: it’s been one year since I had surgery to repair the torn labrum of my right shoulder. The operation itself was relatively minor — an hour-long arthroscopic procedure that required four small incisions to repair a hole the size of a quarter and left me with two plastic anchors …
In what’s become an annual tradition around these parts, I’ll once again examine the Yankees’ roster options as they retool following an unhappy October ending. In this installment, I’ll look at the team’s starting pitching; in the next, I’ll evaluate the free agent pool and trade options. The Yankees have made no secret of the …
Continue reading ‘Remaking the Yankees for 2005, Part I: Assessing the Rotation’ »
When it comes to the end of the baseball season, nothing hits home for finality, as far as I’m concerned, than when ESPN.com moves its MLB link off of the top of its navbar. As soon as the World Series becomes old news, the behemoth brushes Hot Stove diehards to the margins while football and …
While I’ve been spending a lot of time focusing on the Yankees — even recording a Baseball Prospectus Radio roundtable with the usual suspects (Belth, Corcoran, Goldman) to air this weekend — the Dodger fan in me perked up his ears at the hot rumor of a Shawn Green-for-Mike Piazza deal. Both the New York …
Anybody wishing to argue that the spend-happy New York Yankees have an unlimited payroll would do well to consider the mounting evidence against that notion. Last week the team declined its 2006 option on reliever Paul Quantrill (for $3.6 million), though he’s still under contract for ’05 ($3 mil). They also cut loose on first …
I try very hard to steer clear of any head-on political content in this blog. An astute reader could certainly cobble together a good idea of where I stand based on the views I’ve aired regarding, say, stadium finance, gays in baseball, and the politicization of the Hall of Fame. But I started writing about …
Part two of the Yankee post-mortem to which I contributed is up at All-Baseball.com. This portion deals more with the Yanks’ off-season priorities, who should be on the way out (I hold that Kevin Brown and Mel Stottlemyre should be, no surprise to any regular readers), how much they can spend, as well as the …
With the wounds inflicted by the Yankees’ loss to the Red Sox still fresh, I was invited by Christian Ruzich of All-Baseball.com to contribute my thoughts to a roundtable along with Alex Belth and Cliff Corcoran. The first portion of our lengthy post-mortem, dealing with the nuts ad bolts of the ALCS loss, is now …
Perhaps the most famous line of Michael Lewis’ Moneyball comes towards the end of the book, when Oakland GM Billy Beane watches his year’s work go up in flames as the A’s lose a five-game first round series to the Minnesota Twins. “My shit doesn’t work in the playoffs,” says a frustrated Beane. “My job …
“Kick in the idiot box and wait for the news in the history books/ It’s like junkies who hate their heroin.” — d. boon, lead singer of the Minutemen, “Shit You Hear at Parties” Yes Virginia, there really is no joy in Mudville now that the Yankees have struck out. Try as I might to …
Continue reading ‘It’s Never Too Early To Start Your Holiday Shopping’ »