jacksonianmarch

Beckett was on his way to a career yr when a back issue flared up and made him pedestrian. You are gonna have to face the facts here guys. Beckett is a dominant starter when he's 100% healthy. When he is not, he either goes on the shelf or fights though it and is a below average pitcher. He's the JD Drew of pitchers. And he seems to be hurt at the wrong times. Yrs 1 and 2 in Boston, he was fine. Yrs 3 and 4 have seen him limp into the postseason. Might be time for him to shed the "ace" title and for him to get more rest during the season so he is fresher for the postseason

2001 was the most dramatic WS IMO. 2 game tying homers in the 9th inning on back to back games then a game 7 collapse by the best playoff pitcher of all time with a lead in the 9th? I hated it and I still have nightmares about that one game, but it had to be the best WS in my lifetime anyway

Left handed Orlando Hernandez? Dude, El Duque was a great find, especially for a guy who debuted at age 32, if you believe the BDay he gave. Rumor has it, he was 36 or 37 when he signed. If Chapman is 26, he is still worth a TON of money

Getting back to INTL signees... Dominican Instructs have started and two yankee signees have looked great. Christopher Cabrera, the 16yr old signee that the Yankees nabbed for around 400K looks really good. He's topping out at 96mph although his offspeed stuff and control needs a LOT of work And Gary Sanchez, the 2.5mil bonus baby came through in his first game. He hit a go-ahead 2 run bomb to dead center in the rain shortened affair. For those that dont know, the Dominican Instructs are a collection of DSL, VSL, Short season and A ball players. They are usually your best and brightest from those teams, so the competition is typically pretty good, especially for a 16 yr old catcher

No shout outs for your favorite baseball doctor?

He would need to lose about 18mph off his fastball to be Igawa. But I cannot say you are wrong when it comes to production. I truly have no idea. When it comes to big time INTL FA's, we have really not done a good job of getting guys who are already established. We did a good job with guys like Cano, Wang, Montero, etc, guys who were very young coming out of their countries. But of the big ticket guys like Igawa, Contreras, Irabu, and El Duque, only Orlando was well worth the cost

Too early to tell. I would hope that he has a workout for all teams involved. There is one thing definite about Chapman, he has one of the best left handed fastballs we have ever seen in terms of velocity. RJ in his prime matched him, but thats about it. If he is 21, then he could potentially throw HARDER, which blows my mind. He can comfortably sit 96-98mph and can max out at 102-103mph. That's video game fastball right there But along with that come questions about his secondary stuff and his command. I have heard more conflicting reports from scouting sites and from scouts themselves who have seen him pitch. "He's got a lights out slider ZOMG!!!" "His slider is inconsistent" etc, etc, etc. I dont have any reports on him having a third pitch, although his work in the WBC was out of the pen IIRC, so he may not have needed a third pitch. What I can tell you is this. If he is 21 yrs old, then his basic package and basic tools is better than any pitcher at his age, period. Left handed, young, 100+mph FB, plus potential slider. Sounds at the very least like a clone of Billy Wagner. But it sounds like teams are going to try him in the rotation and see how it goes for him. He might be worth well more than $60 million, but the unknown quantity plus the lack of workouts has me skeptical that he will ultimately be worth it. Now as a fan, I want to see him in Yankee pinstripes, price be damned! Even if he ends up as Mo's successor, he'd still be worth something

Even Gom was a bigger man than you in this thread. Regardless, every thread you infect becomes a fight. I would assume you have figured out that you have a problem, but you don't care. Regardless, your crap will eventually lead to a ban. You have some serious issues that you need to let out.

you are an idiot

Your salary is calculated by AAV there captain. So while the Yankees did pay Swisher $5.3mil this yr, the cap number is $7 million. That's what I look at, cause that is what the yankees will get luxury taxed on

We got him with $21mil and 3 yrs left on his deal. That's where I got his salary from, cause that's the AAV that the yankees are paying

He was a moron in game 5 and game 3. But he did well last night and his two biggest ideas worked out very well. CC on 3 days rest, and holding CC for Game 7. Now, we are set up for success heading into the WS

Sweet

Mid 30s Japanese pitchers are typically red flags since they are of slighter build than most, and the throwing programs in Japan have the pitchers throwing SO much.

Logic did not dictate starting CC. For once, I agree wholeheartedly with Girardi. You get CC for 1 game. 1 game between games 6 and game 7. It isnt like he will throw 8 innings in Game 6 and come back for more in Game 7. That never happens. And it isnt like he has no other options. He has the winningest pitcher in postseason history to turn to who had been really solid thus far in the playoffs. Fact is, if it got to game 7, you had your hammer. If it ended in 6, your ace starts game 1 of the WS. Makes a whole world of sense

I dont make predictions aside from how long the series is gonna go. Especially since the yankees could just hide in a hole offensively at any time. But, I will say this. The Yankees should be the favorites in this series. And I think it goes 7 games.

mlbtraderumors.com Sorry, they have all the updates on these guys with sources

How did this turn into a Mauer thread anyway? Anyway, a bit of news on this Monday... Yusei Kikuchi is entering the draft in Japan, so he is not coming to the states for a LOOONG time. The Sox are interested in Greg Zaun for backup catcher duties if and only if, Varitek declines his player option portion of the mutual option Ben Sheets is going to pitch in 2010 and in all likelihood will come in healthy. The Brewers are the favorites to resign him, but dont rule out the Red Sox, who have shown no reluctance in filling their #5 hole with injury reclamation projects. I honestly think that a healthy Sheets would do a lot of good for Boston, but they need to fill that #5 hole with someone they can count on for innings over lights out dominance. Aroldis Chapman's agent is telling teams that it is going to take a $60 million contract to sign his left handed client. That might be too steep for a guy who looks like he's gonna be a closer rather than a starter, but we'll see how it shakes out. Joakim Soria is going to be on the block as is Joe Nathan And from the sounds of it, Derek Lowe and Kenshin Kawakami will be on the market as the Braves are trying to shed enough payroll to keep Tim Hudson around. If they cannot, then Hudson may hit the open market, completely healthy s/p TJS. He could command a pretty nice salary and I would assume he could be a target for the sox and the yanks

You said that NY had to sweat their balls off to win the series. That comment assumes that there was a ton of difficulty in dispatching the Angels. Well, we won in 6, so it didnt go 7 games. Then, consider that we lost 2 games where we had a lead late. We won the first game by 3, the second game was really the only game in doubt late that went our way. Game 4 was won by 9 runs and Game 6 was won by 3. We were 13 runs better in the 6 game series, AND, we hit under .200 with RISP and had to be close to a record with LOB. I would argue that the series wasnt THAT close at all and that our offense was terribly uncharacteristic in that series and we still took it in 6. Like I said before, if we get similar pitching performances but our offense actually hits above the Mendoza line with RISP, then this wont be a series at all. Especially with NY having the home field. I do agree with you on the premise that our offense cannot play like it did vs the Angels. If we come out and leave double digit baserunners on base every game and hit under .200 with RISP, then we are probably going to the wire and quite possibly will lose the series. The Phillies are the better offensive team, so we need our offense to be up to snuff to keep up with them.

Find something biased in there captain.

Especially when both teams are in the northeast. Completely stupid.

The Yankees had to sweat their balls off to beat the Angels? We had a late lead in all 6 games and won 4 of them. If we had any offense with RISP, we would have swept them, and no game would have been close. BTW, Yankees going to their 40th World Series. This will be the 7th World Series in my lifetime. This is f***ing awesome. That being said, the Phillies are a great team. I think they are a better offensive team than the Angels, but I would take the Angels pitching staff all day long. The Phillies have one pitcher that scares me and a pen that is even less impressive than the Angels s***** pen. If we work pitchers and actually hit maybe .200+ with RISP, then this wont even be a series

But the best hand to have on deck is CC in all cases except late in the game when Mo is available.

The Phillies have been really smart with Pedro sans his 130 pitch performance. In perfect conditions, he is their 2nd best starter right now (Hamels sucked thus far in the POs). But he has lost all of his margin for error. If its 75 or 80 degrees, his FB is 90-91. If its 45 degrees, he's sitting 87 and 88mph. Plus, he's an injury risk in the cold. This is why they didnt throw him in Colorado. Cause when his heat is 90-91, his changeup and breaking balls are much more deceptive. You bring down the heat just a little, and it takes away the velocity difference. You put him in the WS at night in the Bronx or in Philly and you are talking about mid 40s temps and potentially some rain. That is absolutely not ideal Pedro weather

The only thing missing from Mauer prior to this yr was power. He had the OBP, he had the AVG, and he was one of the best defensive catchers in the game. At his position, defense and intelligence takes precedence over big offensive numbers. He does it all with big offensive numbers, which is why he is much more valuable. If he puts up another 20+HR season with his standard mid .300s BA, he will cement at least a top 3 spot in baseball in terms of worth