yankees228

Yeah, I think Law is assuming his future is in the outfield.

Keith Law came out with his top 100 prospect list today, and he was pretty kind to the Yankees. 4. Montero 13. Banuelos 68. Sanchez 73. Betances 88. Brackman I don't have Insider, so I have no idea where he has the Sox prospects. Additionally he was Trout at one and Harper at two. What do you guys think, going forward, Trout or Harper?

If I understand this exercise correctly, outside of the preliminary power rankings, past success means nothing. As an example, if JJ Hardy outperforms every other SS over the first month of the season, he should be considered the best SS when we do our April power rankings. Ital or Dipre, if I'm wrong, please correct me.

No clue. Based on the lawyer comment, my first thought was steroids, but who knows.

And obviously this is good news for the Yankees, although likely unrelated to the Ensberg thing. http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/01/26/source-very-strong-possibility-that-andy-pettitte-pitches-in-2011/

This is interesting. Really not sure what to make of this, but from what I've heard about Ensberg, I don't think he'd be making stuff up for the hell of it.

It's interesting, but also unsurprising, that there was so much variety. I'm also not surprised at all that WB was one, and while I didn't have him there, he is certainly deserving of that spot. I'm obviously pleased with my ranking, and it makes me think that people really took defense into account.

That's something we've known since the Soriano press conference, when Girardi mentioned it.

Ah I gotcha. I agree, that's a great commercial.

Ital, are you a Bama football fan?

Yeah, it all depends on what you value. Based on how you constructed your team, I'm not surprised that you liked my team (and for the same reasons, I liked yours as well).

Nice, looking forward to it.

Haha that sounds good to me. I just want to know where my team falls, because I can really see it fitting in towards the top or towards the bottom, depending on how people view it.

I'm very curious to see how the rankings turn out. I feel like this could go a lot of different ways.

I have no doubt that he is a wizard defensively, but I think this is an odd choice to try and show that. He does that in very smooth fashion, but I think most shortstops make that play.

@ Dipre and Diony Fair enough, we can agree to disagree on whether or not it would have been worth it, and we've both laid out our arguments so there's no sense in continuing. But it was certainly feasible.

To this post and to Divinity's. Based on the money they've spent this offseason and what they still have to spend (according to reports), they could have afforded to spend 35 million dollars on those two players.

They're always thinking about the present and the future, and Haren was a move that would have helped on both fronts.

I find it very hard to believe that a professional baseball franchise was only thinking about the present, and not the future. If what you said is the case, then lots of people need to be fired immediately. As for Vazquez, while he was good in those months, he did so with a ridiculously low BABIP, and his velocity remained unimproved. After what he did in the first two months of the season and with the weather beginning to cool down, it would have been foolish to expect Vazquez's success to continue. As for his second half, those things tend to fluctuate. All you need to do is look at his first half of 2010, which goes against his career trends. It's possible that he would have struggled in the second half, but all signs pointed in the opposite direction. Additionally, you can't say everyone thought one of those pitchers would be a luxury. I was on this board, numerous times, stating that I thought the rotation was in a great deal of trouble moving forward, and that failing to acquire Haren was a mistake. The Yankees definitely agreed with this notion, otherwise they wouldn't have been willing to part with Jesus Montero for 2.5 months of Cliff Lee. When it comes to this offseason, they still would have had the necessary money to go after Cliff Lee. What has happened this offseason proves that, because after all the money they've spent, they still have approximately 20 million dollars left to spend.

There's no way Haren would have been able to repeat his previous success with the Yankees. He would have surrendered more home runs pitching half his games in Yankee Stadium and going up against better competition. However, Haren doesn't compound the problem with walks, so while he would give up more HRs, it's likely that many of them would have been of the solo variety. Haren still would have been a very good pitcher, capable of producing a 4-5 fWAR annually and he would have immediately stepped in as the Yankees' second best pitcher. Judging by what the Diamondbacks were rumored to be asking of the Yankees and what they eventually got from the Angels, the cost in players would not have been a steep one. And his cost (11 million dollar AAV), while high, would have been easily afforded by the Yankees, a team that just gave out more money than that to a relief pitcher. Would Haren have been the perfect fit for the Yankees? No, but then again, few pitchers are when you consider the stadium and the competition. I just think that when you couple where he would slot into the Yankees' rotation with the cost of the acquiring him, it was a transaction worth making.

I was really upset that they didn't trade for Dan Haren, but I'm not sure I understand what would prompt this feeling. At the time (last summer) the Yankees were the defending champions and had the best (or second best) record in baseball.