EVIL~! alkeiper

McCarver again with that crap. Ask Dickie Thon about pitching inside, you jackass.

The problem with this line of thinking is that there is only one championship, and 30 teams fighting for it. Forget the $200 million payroll. It's not Joe Torre's job to assemble the team. All he can do is make a run with the roster he's given. The Yankees have not been more talented than all the other American League teams, so it's silly to outright expect them to win. There are good teams in the postseason, teams built to beat the Yankees.

It could happen. There isn't a single impact starting pitcher on the market outside of Andy Pettitte, for example. You can only do so much with money. You can't win unless you bring up stars through the farm system.

Two points to address. One, if you're paying your manager extra money to win championships then you run a pretty stupid organization. I doubt that was the Yankees' intention the last few years. Second, if you're an executive or person of prominence in any field, do you willingly accept a pay cut after 12 years of service? I wouldn't. I don't object to the Yankees changing managers. This was just a very slip-shod method of doing it. And let me stress that the proposed terms came to light because the Yankees held a press conference and announced them.

McCarver with more of the "players don't get to police themselves" crap. I read an excellent piece a few days ago, written sometime in the '80s. Essentially, HBP's in McCarver's era were much higher than average. The attitude carried by Drysdale, Gibson etc. was an anomaly and not a historical norm. Headhunting is stupid, stupid, stupid and MLB has every right to stamp it out.

Seeing the legends ceremony at Badd Blood was fantastic. I love those kind of ceremonies.

What's sad is that I make $9.25/hour at my job. Who the hell would work any kind of skilled job for $8?

I don't know if you can fairly assess an offseason based on one postseason series. The Sox certainly didn't lool too vulnerable during the division series versus the Angels. If the Sox made a critical error however, clearly it was leaving Clay Buchholz off the postseason roster in favor of underachieving veteran pitchers. While Matsuzaka and Wakefield fall flat, there's a hot prospect collecting dust the Sox could have used.

You know it's only 6am. Give them a break for a day.

Evidently someone from Fox also subscribes to SABR-L.

On the pitching side the Rockies have Jeff Francis (26), Jason Hirsh (25), Ubaldo Jimenez (23) and Franklin Morales (21). Francis isn't a free agent until after 2010, and they have the other three for 5-6 more seasons. Hitting wise they have Troy Tulowitzki (22), Ian Stewart (22), Chris Iannetta (24). Matt Holliday is a star. Brad Hawpe's trajectory I couldn't comment on, but he's been great at the plate the last two years and he has the best throwing arm in the Majors. You have a team with as much young pitching talent as any in the league, and enough position players to tide them over. I really like this club for now and the future.

The Rockies are for real. This team had a ton of talent in the minors, it was just a matter of when they would contribute. As it turned out, the kids came up much earlier than we anticipated.

The Rockies are the N.L. champions. Unbelieveable. To think this would not have happened had Tony Gwynn Jr. not gotten a two-out hit late in the season. This team was built almost entirely on home grown talent. Todd Helton is going to his first World Series.

It's getting to the point where I can catch the end of the game while eating breakfast before work.

I'm amazed the Texas Rangers drew their worst attendance in their first two seasons after relocation. Usually those are boom years. Maybe they hadn't expanded the minor league park properly. The Washington years were putrid. To the Rangers' credit though, their fans have always given them reasonable support. Not always great, but never in the toilet.

THIRD ROUND Minnesota 4 Boston 3 Torii Hunter gave the Twins the lead in the first inning with a three run double. The Sox scored two runs in the ninth but their comeback fell short with the tying run on base. San Diego 6 Chi. Sox 0 Jake Peavy pitched eight scoreless innings for the victory. Chi. Cubs 4 Kansas City 2 Alfonso Soriano's three-run home run in the second inning sparked the offense for the Cubs. Atlanta 7 NY Yankees 4 The Braves scored four runs in the fifth inning, including two on Kelly Johnson's triple. The Braves scored two insurance runs in the ninth on an E-5 and a passed ball. Oakland 8 LA Angels 5 The A's scored seven runs in the fourth and fifth innings, led by three RBIs by Mark Ellis. Chad Gaudin and Jered Weaver combined for five wild pitches. Colorado 6 Washington 0 San Francisco 11 Buffalo 6 The Giants dominated the mid-innings, breaking up a 3-3 tie in the fifth off Jeremy Sowers and cruising from there. Randy Messenger allowed three Buffalo runs in the ninth. St. Louis 9 Cleveland 3 C.C. Sabathia allowed seven earned runs in the loss. That leaves us with the elite eight. Tomorrow's matchups... Minnesota Twins @ San Diego Padres Atlanta Braves @ Chicago Cubs Oakland Athletics @ Colorado Rockies San Francisco Giants @ St. Louis Cardinals

That last pitch by Betancourt took 29 seconds. And 34 seconds for another one. The rule is 20, FWIW. Games are long enough without watching Rafael Betancourt's sloooooow, deliberate style. Thank god he throws strikes when he does throw.

Just for fun, I have a stopwatch on this.

It honestly never occurred to me that the Texas Rangers have gone second longest without even winning a league championship.

Nice use of sample size with the 0-2 count. If you look at Ramirez's career, he hits .178 at 0-2. After 0-2, it's .210.

Ugh. I already can't stand the never-ending season. You play for ten months out of the year, in 300 games lasting 5 hours each to make the playoffs, and then you're gone after a week. Everything about baseball needs to be more compact. The playoffs don't have to be longer, but I won't put up with meaningless teams playing longer than they have to. Simple solution: You don't have to watch. Well, I don't really have to do anything. But, I like to watch meaningful games, that's why I don't like the season being so long. What's the difference? There are the same number of meaningful games. Just more meaningless games. I don't know how many live games you attend each year. As someone who attends a great deal of minor league games a year (all but one utterly meaningless), there aren't enough of them. Keep in mind as well the minor league season is no more than 144 games. Baseball is not just a sporting event. It's an outing, similar to taking in a night at the movies. It SUCKS when I can't get a good seat to a game because it's too meaningful. I'd rather go to a meaningless game, sit close to the action and enjoy myself.

Buck and McCarver brought up umpire statistics and did a fairly good job with it. A couple of points though. -They said umpires' ERA. It's actually runs allowed, not just earned runs. -I thought it was disingenuous to bring up Questec. The two are unrelated.

I believe Dunn played a few times at first and was abysmal but I do agree that as long as they intend to keep Junior around, they'll have to shift Dunn back to first. I believe Hamilton used to catch, maybe they'll consider giving that a shot since they aren't strong at catcher to begin with anyways. Griffey has a player option for 2009, and if Bruce is solid in right field the Reds have no reason to exercise it. I forgot that the Reds also have Joey Votto at first base, so moving Dunn there is out. Josh Hamilton to my knowledge has never played catcher professionally, moving him there would be a bad joke. That leaves Dunn, Hamilton, Griffey, Bruce and Freel for the outfield. Bruce can get more experience at AAA but let's look at this rationally. You have too many outfielders (one with a team option for this year and one next). You have too few pitchers. The Reds should absolutely trade Griffey. He's down to a reasonable contract and his value is high and he's not the right fielder of the future. The Reds don't have a solid team but with Dunn, Bruce, Votto and Homer Bailey, they may have a hell of a core.

Jay Bruce is coming up and Josh Hamilton can't play center field long term. Someone is going to have to go. They should probably move Dunn to first base at least.

Ugh. I already can't stand the never-ending season. You play for ten months out of the year, in 300 games lasting 5 hours each to make the playoffs, and then you're gone after a week. Everything about baseball needs to be more compact. The playoffs don't have to be longer, but I won't put up with meaningless teams playing longer than they have to. Simple solution: You don't have to watch.