Precious Roy

I had no rooting interest in the game, and yeah, there were some pretty bad calls. That pass interference seemed like bullshit to me, and apparently just touching the ball carriers helmet with your hand is now facemasking. Plus a lot of the flags were thrown really late. A bad call is one thing, but a late flag on a bad call?

Other than his stong arm, he doesn't field very well. Bullshit. His defensive numbers were fine last year. He had a better Range Factor and Zone Rating than Ichiro, Andruw Jones and a lot of other respected center fielders. You already mentioned his cannon of arm which is a major tool for a centerfielder. His fielding % wasn't great but that probably has something to do with having to cover so much ground to make up for the defensive liabilities we had in left, and Abreu's range being diminished. Plus wasn't he a left fielder in the minors? There's no way anyone can actually watch Melky Cabrera play and say he doesn't field very well. None. The guy is good.

The trade is official. Garza/Bartlett/Eduardo Morlan for Young/Brendan Harris/Jason Pridie I like the deal for the Twins. Young is an outstanding talent and should benefit from the change of scenery. The Twins have a culture of being competitive and a loyal fanbase, it's a good place for a young player to be, better than Tampa anyway. I wouldn't be suprised to see him outproduce Torii Hunter in the next couple of years. Harris seems like an upgrade over Bartlett at SS. Not a bad deal for Tampa either. They have a glut of young OFs and got a potentially very good young pitcher back in the deal.

Rod Diddle is jealous

It will be interesting to see how Flair's angle plays over the next couple months. It was special tonight because it was in Charlotte and it was against World Champion Randy Orton. But if/when they start feeding him midcarders every week will it continue to build momentum? It was a great start for the angle, but they need to be very careful proceeding, make every week, every match be special in it's own way. It's a predictable storyline, even tonight against Orton I'd imagine most people saw that exact finish coming. Sustaining and keeping the audience invested in it depends on how much effort and creativity they put into it week to week. I know Flair is up to the challenge, I hope the company can hold up their end of the bargain.

The thing of it is, we're so early into the process right now, and off the top of my head I can't think of a situation where arguably the best (and in my opinion he is the best, all things considered) pitcher in the sport has been in the trade market like this. I think it's kind of a unique situation where you consider the team that's putting him on the market has him under contract for next year but has basically given up on signing him, which all potential trade partners are certainly aware of, and the trade market as it stands right now consists only of a handful of major market teams who can afford to pay him $20+ million a year, and then there's the big if where the trade hinges on him signing to an extension and that effects the deal, because there's no point in giving up a bunch of top prospects for a one year rental when you could wait it out till the trade deadline/08 free agency. And apparently Santana also has some sort of no trade clause. The Twins don't exactly hold all the cards here, they're hoping that a bidding war materializes because they want to get maximum value while they still can, but the more teams that agree that the Twins are forced to deal him the lower the starting bids will be, and then it comes down to teams upping their bids against each other. There's so many variables involved, and whatever is going on now is basically a game of chicken between the Twins and the few teams with the resources/wherewithal to make a trade of this magnitude.

Are you seriously comparing Hughes/Jackson/Melky to Lester/Coco/some guy named Lars??? The Yankees wouldn't trade Hughes alone for those 3. Hughes is a grade A top young pitcher, one of the highest rated in the sport. He's the kind of guy trades are built around. Lester.....isn't. Lester is comparable to a guy like Ian Kennedy, nice pitcher who projects as a middle of the rotation guy, the only difference is Lester has a little more major league experience, but he's certainly not in the same class as Hughes. Hughes is higher rated than Buchholz, so if you want to start comparing our packages, heh, start by including him. As for Crisp, everyone in baseball knows the Sox want to unload the guy. I'm sure the Twins would happily take him as a dump off in a trade, but he won't mean shit as far as the bread and butter of the deal goes. Hell, I love Melky, but he won't mean shit to the Twins either. They'd happily take the guy, but he's not even close to mattering in the grand scheme of the trade. You have to part with a blue chipper and two good prospects? Well that the fuck are Hughes and Tabata then? Christ, the Yankees offering Hughes is tantamount to offering the #1 pitcher in their system, if that can't facilitate a deal I don't know what can.

I agree. Unfortunately I don't think a deal will get done without Hughes involved. Chamberlain and Cano are untouchable, and Cashman will do everything in his power to not part with Hughes, but if he really wants Santana that's probably the price that he'll have to pay. I'd be okay with that. I'm really high on Hughes, but this is Johan F'n Santana. If we can get him to a 5 year extension as part of the trade and we aren't giving up the rest of the farm in the process we have to do it. Hughes/Tabata as the core of the package should get it done.

Knicks beat the Jazz 113-109. With the win over Chicago it's a sort of impressive homecourt bounce back after that horrific west coast trip/8 game losing streak. At least I guess you can say the team hasn't quit yet. @ Boston on Thursday so yeahhhh....good to get a couple wins under the belt

anyone got a decent stream link?

If JBL is coming back for a Mania match why not with CM Punk? It would fit the M.O. of a young wrestler who JBL has never worked with getting put over, it writes itself from a character standpoint, counterculture youth v. conservative establishment, and I think it could be a pretty damn good match under the right circumstances. Not to really compare Punk to an Eddie Guerrero or John Cena from a match quality standpoint, but in some aesthetic respects he wrestles with a similar style to those two, and JBL has had his best matches with that type of opponent. Flair's retirement match should be with HHH. Nothing else makes as much sense. And in turn that should make Chris Jericho the logical opponent for the WWE title, which also makes the most sense because there's virtually no other spot to slot him on the card that does him justice. I'd say drag out Jericho's chase of Orton, McMahon gets involved and says he can't just walk in after being fired 2 years ago and expect a title match, he has to work his way back up the ladder, give him an impressive win streak, have him win the Rumble (just a hunch but I'm thinking SD/ECW will get the EC for Taker to earn the title shot, I can't see him winning back to back Rumbles), and then do the match at Mania. Jericho gets the title as his reward for coming back, Orton is slotted as Cena's stepping stone when he comes back, and Jericho transitions the belt back to Cena at SummerSlam in a nice little bookend feud. Nobody wants to see HHH v. Orton anyway, they've been trying to build that match for like 4 years now and it's already happened a bunch of times, it's not worthy of being a Wrestlemania main event at this point.

Do not want Mike Lowell as a 1B. Didn't even want him under the assumption that A-Rod was gone. This team is old and overpaid enough as it is, when we have a open spot to fill we should be trying to get younger and preferably cheaper players. And I have a hard time believing they'd pay him 15 million a year to play first base, that's ridiculous even for the Yankees. If they did sign Lowell, god forbid, and I know this would probably never happen, but he should be playing third, A-Rod should move back to shortstop, and Jeter should shelve his ego and accept a demotion to first base. That's the only way signing Lowell makes any sense whatsoever.

THE LEAGUE was balancing things out. Their cover was almost blown last week. Black Ops undercover agent. He's got a super secret 00Belichick radio piece in his ear

I don't understand why they're playing Ben Wallace when he's clearly injured. He's playing around 25 minutes a game and has yet to hit double digits in rebounds. Just sit him down and roll with Smith, Thomas, Noah and Gray, they can't be any worse than Wallace at this point. And what happened to Aaron Gray, I thought Skiles liked his low post ability but the guy is nailed to the bench. The Bulls have too much talent to be this bad though, they'll still make the playoffs.

4 million a year is a bit much for Romero, but the relief market is so inflated due to the lack of reliable arms out there and the fact that every team seems to be in a constant flux in the pen. Not a terrible deal or anything, but they should hope to unload him if he has a good year, he's not worth that much coin.

Big western swing for New York. This is a tonesetter. 2 out of 4 is a must, and all games must be hard fought. I can excuse a loss to Phoenix, but LA on the back to back is a must win either way. They shouldn't lose to Sacramento, but I think that's the game Artest comes back, so that's a wildcard. Denver is due for payback, it's a character check game for the Knicks. I honestly don't care if they win that game, I just hope they step up and punch someone in the mouth.

You ban Joe Morgan while people like Czech run free? Shameful.

Because Beltre isn't actually being shopped, it's just idle speculation by sportswriters, "hey, Beltre would be a nice replacement for A-Rod, print it!" and all of a sudden half the Yankee fanbase thinks it's a realistic possibility. And even if he was available the Mariners would ask for far more than he's worth to us. If we could get him for some secondary prospects, sure, do the trade, but that wouldn't be the case. The Yankees don't need to try and replace A-Rod's production all at once or even worry about getting it back from the next third baseman. Their starting pitching should be improved next year with Hughes and Chamberlain in the rotation, and they need to focus on getting Pettitte back. They also need to think about complimenting their pitchers with a better defensive unit, so whether the guy can mash or not, I want a no questions asked good defender at third. They have enough good hitters on the club that I'm really not worried about the offense suddenly being anemic, Cano will be moved up to the middle of the order where you'll see him become a big time run producer, Giambi at even 75-80% is an OPS machine and hopefully he's healthy next year, the defense and the bullpen are where the focus needs to be right now.

They should. He's one of the 'bargain bin' guys I expect Cashman to consider. By all indications I think he's after a Feliz/Crede type who plays good-great defense and adds a bit of a power threat to the bottom of the lineup, but can also be platooned with Wilson Betemit. All this Miguel Cabrera, Scott Rolen, Miguel Tejada, Adrian Beltre etc. talk is driving me mad, that's not what this team needs.

4th year The Colts played a heck of a game with a couple starters out of the lineup. Honestly I was more impressed by them than New England, they moved the ball with relative ease, Addai was great, and their defense was effective v. the run and got more pressure on Brady than any team to this point. They just couldn't stop Moss and the offense couldn't deliver a knockout punch when they needed to. If it's any consolation to the Colts (and I'm sure it isn't) they made the Pats look mortal and put an end to a couple of their ridiculous merits (scoring on their first possession of every game for example). Might have even provided a bit of a gameplan for the rest of the league. The Pats are just so fucking talented and so well coached that they can be outplayed and still win the game. Ridiculous.

The Suns get raped in that deal

Forget the "clues" I thought it was obvious just from the style of the video that it was Jericho. And pretty much the entire internet saw the thing and said, "must be Jericho". And you know there's been rumors for like 6 months that Jericho was coming back. Whatever, they want to punish the audience for having access to the internet in 2007? Fuck them

nice

Kobe has really been an idiot when it comes to Bynum. That kid has the talent to be a great center, and great centers help you win championships. I think in some part it goes back to the rift with Shaq. Kobe didn't like being the sidekick to the big man, and now it's like he's resentful of the fact that they're trying to groom another one. And really, would Jason Kidd or Jermaine O'Neal win them a championship right now? I don't think so. I don't remember Shaq throwing Kobe under the bus when he was straight out of high school and shooting the Lakers out of the playoffs. He didn't complain about the development of a high school kid holding him back. He took Kobe under his wing and suffered the growing pains. Kobe is spoiled. He needs to step back and realize the potential he has with Bynum and that his blossoming should occur while he's still in his prime, instead he's been selfish and impatient, and it doesn't surprise me that Lakers fans and media are turning on him. Personally I think the Lakers' front office has done a pretty good job putting that team together, other than perhaps the Butler for Kwame Brown trade (though you can at least see the rationale behind it as they had a bit of a positional jam there).

I've had some time to think about this and I guess I'm pretty apathetic about it. I would have liked to see A-Rod continue playing for the Yankees and hopefully improve on his legacy with the team by winning a couple rings, but whatever, he's choosing to leave and I really don't care, almost relieved in some ways. It says a lot about a guy when he can win two MVP awards for your team and you're ambivalent to him, but that's A-Rod. I always pulled for the guy but like others here I'm going to associate him with an era of frustration and bloated mediocrity, and mostly how poorly he hit in the playoffs. Would have liked to see him get the monkey off his back, but hey, that's his problem not mine. I just hope the Yankees don't go back on their word and try to negotiate with him. He's made it clear that he'd rather play elsewhere, let another foolish team give him 30 million +. The Yankees could get two superstars or build their entire bullpen with that kind of bank.