2010 MLB Season

[JSngry]

Not this one.

[Brad]

I'm not one either but they have a glorious history, love 'em or hate 'em, and so they're going to have their fans.

At least one half of the nightmare WS is gone. Now it's up to the Giants to do their job

[JSngry]

Hey, I used to be a Yankee fan. Loved'em in the 70s, the whole Martin-Steinbrenner-Reggie thing. The post-65 era was mentioned earlier...that was right around the time I started getting into baseball, and it was really sad - es[pecially for a kid - to see a virtually crippled Mickey Mantle & a suddenly old Whitey Ford and an increasingly irrelevant Elston Howard playing for a team that was so bad. When the Yankees came back, I cheered loudly and longly.

But then, as time went by...look at these numbers: http://espn.go.com/m...ew-york-yankees

Team Salaries (US$)

01 New York Yankees 206,738,389

02 Boston Red Sox 160,913,333

03 Chicago Cubs 146,609,000

04 Philadelphia Phillies 142,728,379

05 New York Mets 136,022,942

06 Detroit Tigers 122,864,928

07 Chicago White Sox 105,530,000

08 Los Angeles Angels 104,161,666

09 San Francisco Giants 98,586,333

10 Los Angeles Dodgers 95,358,016

11 St. Louis Cardinals 93,940,751

12 Houston Astros 92,355,500

13 Minnesota Twins 90,309,166

14 Seattle Mariners 86,910,000

15 Atlanta Braves 84,423,666

16 Colorado Rockies 83,172,000

17 Baltimore Orioles 81,202,500

18 Milwaukee Brewers 81,108,278

19 Tampa Bay Rays 72,323,471

20 Kansas City Royals 71,405,210

21 Cincinnati Reds 68,200,542

22 Washington Nationals 62,349,000

23 Toronto Blue Jays 61,484,400

24 Cleveland Indians 60,778,966

25 Florida Marlins 55,239,500

26 Texas Rangers 55,168,114

27 Oakland Athletics 50,839,900

28 Arizona Diamondbacks 48,452,166

29 San Diego Padres 38,199,300

30 Pittsburgh Pirates 34,933,000

This is the "natural order of things" the way that the Wal-Mart-ization of America is the "natural order of things"..maybe at first, but at some point it becomes... I can't go on without getting into politics, and this is a baseball thread, and thank god for baseball, truly the greatest, noblest, and truest invention of the American athletic psyche.But like the rest of the American psyche, much has gotten battered, bruised, and broken and a fundamental healing is sorely needed. The destruction of, or at least a period of recession from the notion that geography & money = entitled perpetual destiny = the "natural order of things" would be a healthy first step towards that healing.

Edited October 23, 2010 by JSngry

[Dan Gould]

There's only one problem: The revival of the Yankees was predicated on the rise of free agency and George Steinbrenner spending more than anyone else on Catfish Hunter and Reggie and others.

So why did you cheer that team but suddenly decide that its the incarnation of evil now?

If we found the data is there any doubt that the Reggie-Billy-Catfish-Goose Yankees had the highest payroll then too?

[Quincy]

If we found the data is there any doubt that the Reggie-Billy-Catfish-Goose Yankees had the highest payroll then too?

As it was w/ Ruth, Gehrig...

[Matthew]

I'm actually very excited about the World Series this year, all three clubs remaining play very attractive baseball, not station-to-station by any means. Bud Selig probably hates what's left, but I think baseball fans are in for a fun ride.

[paul secor]

Hey, I used to be a Yankee fan. Loved'em in the 70s, the whole Martin-Steinbrenner-Reggie thing. The post-65 era was mentioned earlier...that was right around the time I started getting into baseball, and it was really sad to see a virtually crippled Mickey Mantle & a suddenly old Whitey Ford and an increasingly irrelevant Elston Howard playing for a team that was so bad. When the Yankees came back, I cheered loudly and longly.

But then, as time went by...look at these numbers: http://espn.go.com/m...ew-york-yankees

Team Salaries (US$)

1 New York Yankees206,738,389

2 Boston Red Sox160,913,333

3 Chicago Cubs146,609,000

4 Philadelphia Phillies142,728,379

5 New York Mets136,022,942

6 Detroit Tigers122,864,928

7 Chicago White Sox105,530,000

8 Los Angeles Angels104,161,666

9 San Francisco Giants98,586,333

10Los Angeles Dodgers95,358,016

11St. Louis Cardinals93,940,751

12Houston Astros92,355,500

13Minnesota Twins90,309,166

14Seattle Mariners86,910,000

15Atlanta Braves84,423,666

16Colorado Rockies83,172,000

17Baltimore Orioles81,202,500

18Milwaukee Brewers81,108,278

19Tampa Bay Rays72,323,471

20Kansas City Royals71,405,210

21Cincinnati Reds68,200,542

22Washington Nationals62,349,000

23Toronto Blue Jays61,484,400

24Cleveland Indians60,778,966

25Florida Marlins55,239,500

26Texas Rangers55,168,114

27Oakland Athletics50,839,900

28Arizona Diamondbacks48,452,166

29San Diego Padres38,199,300

30Pittsburgh Pirates34,933,000

This is the "natural order of things" the way that the Wal-Mart-ization of America is the "natural order of things"..maybe at first, but at some point... I can't go on without getting into politics, and this is a baseball thread, and thank god for baseball, truly the greatest, noblest, and truest invention of the American athletic psyche.

Hear what you're saying, & I wish that the Yanks would bring up more farm bred players instead of just spending money.

But - look at the top 6 money spending teams on your list. Were the Red Sox, Cubs, Mets and Tigers the top # 2, 3. 5, & 6 teams in basball? Anywhere near? Anywhere near the playoffs even? #2, Boston had injuries and came the closest, but the rest weren't in it at all.

Anyway, it's all just entertainment - except for the guys who get off on calling sports call in shows. Even though I follow the games, I know in the end it makes no real difference to my life who wins. And I said the same thing last year when the yanks won it all.

Congratulations to the Rangers' fans. You guys suffered long enough.

[MartyJazz]

(snip)

FWIW, when the umps blew that call, I had a hunch that would actually work out in the Rangers favor because, even though the run scored, Swisher's still batting and he's been in a horrible slump this entire series. Sure enough, Swisher grounded out, but then the next batter doubled. Had that call been reversed, instead of a tie game, it's a 2-1 game and the Yankees would still have been batting.

(snip)

Not necessarily. With Swisher on 1st, perhaps the 1st baseman holds him closer to the bag and then is able to snare Posada's ground ball before it caroms off the bag for a double. On another note, I look at the replay and wonder how the home plate ump could have missed the call. There's no way for the ball to ricochet the way it did unless it hit Swisher which it obviously did.

[JSngry]

I cheered because I like to see people who were down get back up. simple as that. That, and the fact that I was younger and more naive

The Ruth/Gehrig payroll was high, no doubt, but there was no free agency then, was there.

No problem with high payrolls or high salaries per se. It's the American way.

No problems with investing in proven talent. It's the smart thing to do.

Big problems, though, with the arrogance & decadence that comes when "addressing some issues" devolves into simply "buying somebody better". It's certainly not just the Yankees, but they certainly embody it more blatantly, more brazenly, (and not coincidentally, more successfully) than any other franchise than, maybe, the Dallas Cowboys, who, thank god, are sucking royally and hopefully fatally these days.

It's not a question of process nearly as much as it is one of degree, of "pendulum swing".

Really, really can't go any further w/o getting political, if I haven't already, and if I have, apologies.

On another note, I look at the replay and wonder how the home plate ump could have missed the call. There's no way for the ball to ricochet the way it did unless it hit Swisher which it obviously did.

FWIW, Harold Reynolds did a great demo on MLBN last night of how a breaking ball routinely & naturally bounces in the other direction upon hitting the ground. But not to the extent that that one did...

But - look at the top 6 money spending teams on your list. Were the Red Sox, Cubs, Mets and Tigers the top # 2, 3. 5, & 6 teams in basball? Anywhere near? Anywhere near the playoffs even? #2, Boston had injuries and came the closest, but the rest weren't in it at all.

Kinda my point, in a way..."follow the leader" too often devolves into "swallowing the big lie"...

[Chalupa]

I think the Giants finish it tonight vs. the Fightin's. The Phillies, unlike the Giants and Cody FUCKIN' Ross, just have not shown up this series. Sanchez, game #2 notwithstanding, owns the Phils. I think it would be asking too much of the baseball gods to defeat him twice in the NLCS.

I may have to revisit my WS prediction of SF in 6 after seeing the Rangers dismantle the Yanks. But I think the Giants have the pitching edge and that means everything at this time of year. Pretty crazy that a team like the Rangers that has 1/4 of the payroll of the Yankees can beat them so soundly. Watch for the Rangers' payroll to JUMP exponentially next season if they re-sign Lee, which I think they will. Don't underestimate the draw of being a "Yankees killer" in the negotiations. It worked for the Red Sox when they were trying to sway Schilling.

And everyone - please pray that the next time MLB's TV contract is up for grabs someone other than FOX gets it so we can finally be done with Joe Buck and McCarver.

Edited October 23, 2010 by J.H. Deeley

[Dave James]

I've been a Yankee fan since I was six years old. That was 1954. In that time I've seen a lot of thick and just as much thin, but I've never wavered for a second when it came to my commitment. For all intents and purposes, I was born a Yankee fan and I'm sure as hell going to die one too. Here's the only question you have to answer for yourself. If you owned the Yankees and the baseball rules, as stupid as they might be, allowed you to spend whatever amount you wanted to bring a winning team to your city and to your fans, would you not spend it? If you can honestly answer "no", and putting any pathologically based hatred of the evil empire aside, please tell me why.

[JSngry]

No.

Just to piss off Yankee fans.

Seriously, it's not the Yankees per se, really, it's not, it's the economic pathology that they have perfected. They certainly didn't invent it, nor are they the sole practitioners of it, nor is it confined to sports.

But hell dude, if you've been a fan since '54, you're exempt from all of this. However, please be advised that the image of box seats full of obviously well-to-do movers and shakers of The American Way Of Live all sitting there in those Yankee jackets on top of their grand three-pieces feeling entitled to a pennant becuase of the money spent - and everything that flows from that - creates a negative resonance in many parts of America that extends far beyond the borders of sports.

Edited October 23, 2010 by JSngry

[Quincy]

The Ruth/Gehrig payroll was high, no doubt, but there was no free agency then, was there.

No problem with high payrolls or high salaries per se. It's the American way.

No problems with investing in proven talent. It's the smart thing to do.

Big problems, though, with the arrogance & decadence that comes when "addressing some issues" devolves into simply "buying somebody better".

The Yankee wealth has almost always been dominant factor in baseball. "Home Run" Baker (back when hitting a dozen earned you the nickname) sat out the 1915 season over a pay dispute. The Yanks came in and paid the A's $25k for the rights to the big shot power hitter, then paid him the staggering amount $24k for 3 years. In other words, they've done the ARod thing before. The Red Sox couldn't afford Babe Ruth's salary demands (he wanted 20k, double what he had been earning) and the Yankees offered 125K, some interest bearing notes and a 300k loan for him. No other club offered anything in that ballpark. While player movement wasn't the same back then, the resources of the Yankees made it possible for them to sign young talent and buy talent from poorer teams 80 years ago much like they do today. After all, the Broadway play isn't called Damn Those Recently Rich & Powerful Yankees.

Btw, as noted before, I am not a Yankee hater (sorry Matthew & Dan). I have far more admiration for an organization that tries to field a winner than whatever they've been doing in Pittsburgh, KC and so on.

Also, so the M's spent around $860k per loss.

[JSngry]

But I think the Giants have the pitching edge and that means everything at this time of year.

It all depends which staff shows up....Colby Lewis showed cojones the size of Gil Hodges' head last night (and in Game 2), but for the year? 12-13 C.J. Wilson, equally schizo. Tommy Hunter looked none too collected in Game 4, but 13-4 for the year.

So...who knows? Other than Lee, no real steady performers here. Could go either way.

Gotta love the Rangers/Giants catching matchup here, if that's what it comes to (and it's kinda weird how the two series have been running "parallel" so far) Molina vs Posey...the proven vet vs the most impressive youngster...you want to talk about an unsung hero for the Rangers this series...as great as Pudge Rodriguez was, he never really developed a reputation for being a great handler of a staff...otoh, I still kinda feel that if Game 5 would have been a night game, and Molina was catching, that Wilson would have calmed down, we'd have gotten to Sabbathia, and Game 6 would have proven unnecessary.

But that would have really sucked!

Edited October 23, 2010 by JSngry

[Chalupa]

I would like to see a salary cap for baseball. It's worked for the NFL. However, I think they should also have a salary floor. It's not fair that teams who are getting money from luxury tax/revenue sharing are not re-investing that money into making their team better. A cap will probably never happen though, not because of the Steinbrenners - as many seem to think, but because of the opposition from the player's union.

[JSngry]

The Ruth/Gehrig payroll was high, no doubt, but there was no free agency then, was there.

No problem with high payrolls or high salaries per se. It's the American way.

No problems with investing in proven talent. It's the smart thing to do.

Big problems, though, with the arrogance & decadence that comes when "addressing some issues" devolves into simply "buying somebody better".

The Yankee wealth has almost always been dominant factor in baseball. "Home Run" Baker (back when hitting a dozen earned you the nickname) sat out the 1915 season over a pay dispute. The Yanks came in and paid the A's $25k for the rights to the big shot power hitter, then paid him the staggering amount $24k for 3 years. In other words, they've done the ARod thing before. The Red Sox couldn't afford Babe Ruth's salary demands (he wanted 20k, double what he had been earning) and the Yankees offered 125K, some interest bearing notes and a 300k loan for him. No other club offered anything in that ballpark. While player movement wasn't the same back then, the resources of the Yankees made it possible for them to sign young talent and buy talent from poorer teams 80 years ago much like they do today. After all, the Broadway play isn't called Damn Those Recently Rich & Powerful Yankees.

Btw, as noted before, I am not a Yankee hater (sorry Matthew & Dan). I have far more admiration for an organization that tries to field a winner than whatever they've been doing in Pittsburgh, KC and so on.

Also, so the M's spent around $860k per loss.

Well yeah, I remember when the KC Athletics were essentially a Yankee farm team...

I'm just saying that there's a difference between buying talent that you know you can essentially keep without worry and getting into a "my dick is bigger than yours" economic climate and then leading the way, no, reveling in it. It may be what you "have to do", but there's just something fundamentally...repugnant about that line of reasoning to me after it reaches a certain point. And that point, in and out of sports, has long ago been reached and passed for me.

Anyway, that's my problem, and it's really not about baseball proper, so...no more about it from me. Play ball!

[ghost of miles]

I'll say it one last time: congratulations to the Rangers. Jsngry's son was exactly right about "they've got something special going on." Last year it was the Yankees that had something special going on, and they had a great ride. This year the Rangers have had a great ride and it may well conclude with a World Series parade, which anybody with any kind of baseball heart can at least acknowledge will be a tremendous, joyous thing for followers of a team that's never even been to the Series, let alone won it. When a team gets on that kind of ride, you can see and feel the love they have for being on the field come out. Last year's Yankees team buzzed with that kind of energy (hence A-Rod's quote the day after winning the WS, that he wished the team could just keep playing, even a pickup softball game, because they had so much fun on the field together...this year's team had that kind of feeling only rarely), and this year's edition of the Rangers sure has it as well. I think the Giants have it to some extent too, which is another reason why a Texas-SF World Series would be a blast to watch.

That said:

I've been a Yankees fan since 1974. Here's a nice little spiel that was reposted last week at Pinstripe Alley:

Incoming rant on Yankees-fan bashers

She may go a little over the top at times, but given all the s*&% that gets hurled at Yankee fans everywhere, I don't blame her one bit.

The Yankees went through their own more recent sucking period in the 1980s and early 90s, when Steinbrenner was indeed trying to buy a championship. Whatever one thinks of his right to do that, I don't think it's a smart way to build a winner. There's no chemistry, you tend to overpay for players about to pass their prime, etc. And it was not much fun being a fan during those years; at least the late 1970s team had a certain soap-opera entertainment factor to it ("Bronx Zoo" and all that), but the 1980s/early 90s offered little pleasure of any kind, save for watching Don Mattingly.

As I've mentioned before, Steinbrenner's suspension in the early 1990s paved the way for the team we're still watching. Gene Michael was able to develop a lot of outstanding young players, and the dynasty team of 1996-2001 was built almost entirely on farm-bred players and shrewd trades. Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte, and Mariano Rivera all came up through the farm system. Paul O'Neill, Scott Brosius, Tino Martinez and David Cone all came from trades. That's quite possibly the greatest baseball team of the past 50 years (in terms of success over a multi-year period). I don't know how anybody could hate that team, either--it had a great chemistry, it was successful but not arrogant, confident but classy, and it always seemed to find a way to win. In a way it's almost appropriate that NY lost in Game 7 of the 2001 WS in the 9th inning, because several key players were leaving anyway, and the pop was about to go out of the bottle.

As for the ongoing Yankee coverage, blame the media! What the hell are the Yankees supposed to do about it? Part of it's just geography, that New York remains in some ways our most significant cultural center.

I'm also tired of watching small-market team owners use the luxury tax not to maintain their young star players, but to stash it into their coffers instead. Sorry, that's not the Yankees' fault either. Talk to Bud Selig (and good luck with that) about it.

I don't believe the Yankees are entitled to win the World Series every year, let alone the ALCS or the AL East, but damned if I won't root for them to try. I'll doff my hat without hesitation to the teams that beat us, but I'll be damned if I whine, carry on, bitch, moan, take unseemly joy in the defeat of a rival, and rant/rave with classless, irrational hatred... a hatred that frankly is irrational at this point in baseball history. It's 2010. George Steinbrenner is dead. The Yankees have won one World Series title in the past 10 years. Can we all just move along?

*Quick p.s.: Somebody mentioned the lack of hot young players on the current team. What do you call Robbie Cano? (Not to mention Phil Hughes, who will be an excellent pitcher if he ever overcomes this problem he's developed with two-strike pitches.) No, Cano alone can't be the basis for keeping the team at a contender level, and the age problems NY faces are real. Go over to Pinstripe Alley and you'll see plenty of fans hoping that we don't go all crazy on the free-agent market this winter and try to sign Cliff Lee, Carl Crawford, Jayson Werth and whoever else. That's also why many of us did not want the Cliff Lee trade to go through in mid-season this year; we didn't want to lose Jesus Montero, who's one of the most promising hitters in the minor leagues right now. I'd rather see us work on bringing up the generation that will replace the Core 4. Pettitte may retire now. Posada's almost surely gone after next season. Rivera might have two years left; Jeter perhaps three or four.

*Dave James: when I say I'll "root" for another team in the postseason after the Yankees' exit, it's a pretty light-weighted term. I just enjoy watching the game itself, and it seems like I inevitably end up pulling for somebody.

Edited October 23, 2010 by ghost of miles

[Neal Pomea]

I don't see why in the world Major League Baseball has to be reduced to Yankees v Red Sox drama. It is not that way at all for media coverage and fan attention when it comes to the NFL, the NBA, the NHL, college football and basketball, etc. The reduction in baseball (by the media) is bad for the game overall, in my opinion.

[BERIGAN]

If we found the data is there any doubt that the Reggie-Billy-Catfish-Goose Yankees had the highest payroll then too?

As it was w/ Ruth, Gehrig...

Hey, Tinker, Evers, and Chance didn't play for bottle caps! :bwallace2:

[Dan Gould]

They weren't good enough to enforce any demand on salary like Ruth could. They were stuck with what the Cubs offered.

[paul secor]

I have no problem with Yankee haters. There are plenty of boorish Yankee fans who love to lord it over other team's fans (tho none on the Big O that I can think of). If they get some flack in return, that's how it should be.

[Dave James]

They weren't good enough to enforce any demand on salary like Ruth could. They were stuck with what the Cubs offered.

Only the best of the best could challenge ownership before Curt Flood took MLB to court over the reserve clause. Reading about how the owners negotiated back in the '40's and '50's makes your hair stand on end. Everything was done on a year to year basis and players were paid solely on a "what have you done for me lately" basis. Even when a guy had a good year, the owners still found ways to put the wood to the players. That's why very solid and serviceable players like Gino Cimoli wound up driving a UPS trucks after they retired. When the Yankees finally ended up breaking the $100,000 a year barrier for Mickey Mantle, most of baseball thought the world as they knew it had ended.

[Tim McG]

I would like to see a salary cap for baseball. It's worked for the NFL. However, I think they should also have a salary floor. It's not fair that teams who are getting money from luxury tax/revenue sharing are not re-investing that money into making their team better. A cap will probably never happen though, not because of the Steinbrenners - as many seem to think, but because of the opposition from the player's union.

I disagree.

The cap or whatever else one may think of will not happen and precisely because of the Steinbrenners.

The crazy money MLB salaries are upon us thanks to the Steinbrenners and only because of the Steinbrenners. Make no mistake. And I have 206 million reasons why that's true.

[Tim McG]

Let the NLCS Torture begin.

Go Giants...please?

Edited October 23, 2010 by GoodSpeak

[JSngry]

I'll say it one last time: congratulations to the Rangers. Jsngry's son was exactly right about "they've got something special going on." Last year it was the Yankees that had something special going on, and they had a great ride. This year the Rangers have had a great ride and it may well conclude with a World Series parade, which anybody with any kind of baseball heart can at least acknowledge will be a tremendous, joyous thing for followers of a team that's never even been to the Series, let alone won it. When a team gets on that kind of ride, you can see and feel the love they have for being on the field come out. Last year's Yankees team buzzed with that kind of energy (hence A-Rod's quote the day after winning the WS, that he wished the team could just keep playing, even a pickup softball game, because they had so much fun on the field together...this year's team had that kind of feeling only rarely), and this year's edition of the Rangers sure has it as well. I think the Giants have it to some extent too, which is another reason why a Texas-SF World Series would be a blast to watch.

That said:

I've been a Yankees fan since 1974. Here's a nice little spiel that was reposted last week at Pinstripe Alley:

Incoming rant on Yankees-fan bashers

She may go a little over the top at times, but given all the s*&% that gets hurled at Yankee fans everywhere, I don't blame her one bit.

The Yankees went through their own more recent sucking period in the 1980s and early 90s, when Steinbrenner was indeed trying to buy a championship. Whatever one thinks of his right to do that, I don't think it's a smart way to build a winner. There's no chemistry, you tend to overpay for players about to pass their prime, etc. And it was not much fun being a fan during those years; at least the late 1970s team had a certain soap-opera entertainment factor to it ("Bronx Zoo" and all that), but the 1980s/early 90s offered little pleasure of any kind, save for watching Don Mattingly.

As I've mentioned before, Steinbrenner's suspension in the early 1990s paved the way for the team we're still watching. Gene Michael was able to develop a lot of outstanding young players, and the dynasty team of 1996-2001 was built almost entirely on farm-bred players and shrewd trades. Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte, and Mariano Rivera all came up through the farm system. Paul O'Neill, Scott Brosius, Tino Martinez and David Cone all came from trades. That's quite possibly the greatest baseball team of the past 50 years (in terms of success over a multi-year period). I don't know how anybody could hate that team, either--it had a great chemistry, it was successful but not arrogant, confident but classy, and it always seemed to find a way to win. In a way it's almost appropriate that NY lost in Game 7 of the 2001 WS in the 9th inning, because several key players were leaving anyway, and the pop was about to go out of the bottle.

As for the ongoing Yankee coverage, blame the media! What the hell are the Yankees supposed to do about it? Part of it's just geography, that New York remains in some ways our most significant cultural center.

I'm also tired of watching small-market team owners use the luxury tax not to maintain their young star players, but to stash it into their coffers instead. Sorry, that's not the Yankees' fault either. Talk to Bud Selig (and good luck with that) about it.

I don't believe the Yankees are entitled to win the World Series every year, let alone the ALCS or the AL East, but damned if I won't root for them to try. I'll doff my hat without hesitation to the teams that beat us, but I'll be damned if I whine, carry on, bitch, moan, take unseemly joy in the defeat of a rival, and rant/rave with classless, irrational hatred... a hatred that frankly is irrational at this point in baseball history. It's 2010. George Steinbrenner is dead. The Yankees have won one World Series title in the past 10 years. Can we all just move along?

*Quick p.s.: Somebody mentioned the lack of hot young players on the current team. What do you call Robbie Cano? (Not to mention Phil Hughes, who will be an excellent pitcher if he ever overcomes this problem he's developed with two-strike pitches.) No, Cano alone can't be the basis for keeping the team at a contender level, and the age problems NY faces are real. Go over to Pinstripe Alley and you'll see plenty of fans hoping that we don't go all crazy on the free-agent market this winter and try to sign Cliff Lee, Carl Crawford, Jayson Werth and whoever else. That's also why many of us did not want the Cliff Lee trade to go through in mid-season this year; we didn't want to lose Jesus Montero, who's one of the most promising hitters in the minor leagues right now. I'd rather see us work on bringing up the generation that will replace the Core 4. Pettitte may retire now. Posada's almost surely gone after next season. Rivera might have two years left; Jeter perhaps three or four.

*Dave James: when I say I'll "root" for another team in the postseason after the Yankees' exit, it's a pretty light-weighted term. I just enjoy watching the game itself, and it seems like I inevitably end up pulling for somebody.

Edited October 24, 2010 by JSngry