Slow Trade Deadline in NY

The non-waiver trade deadline has come and gone in new york and neither the Yankees or the Mets have decided to make any impact moves. The Yankees added Jerry Hairston Jr to the mix but his impact will be minimal. He can play all Outfield positions and secondbase. He will provide more depth on the bench. However how much better is he then Ramiro Pena?

The Yankees did not add anyone to coverup their biggest weakness; lack of depth in the starting rotation. with the next best option being Kei Igawa in the minors the Yankees are extremely thin at the rotation and an injury to any of the starters would be a killer.

They didn't have to go out and get Roy Halladay, the asking price was crazy, but they should have (and can still just not as easily) added another pitcher. Cashman did right not taking Jarrod Washburn as Seattle wanted Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain or Jesus Montero. I would have loved to hear that phone call. But the reports say that they possibly could have had Brian Bannister but they wanted the Royals to pay for the remainer of his salary. When has 650k ever stopped the Yankees before?

The Yankees head to August leading their division and one game behind the Dodgers for the top record in baseball. But their league just got a whole lot better their #1 rival just added a big slugger in Victor Martinez and the White Sox added Jake Peavy. Yankees Universe will have to hold their collective breath as they have to hope no pitcher will join Chien-Ming Wang on the dl. Andy Pettitte Tage) and Joba Chamberlain (never done this before) and even AJ Burnett (history) could all be one pitch from ending up there. Also the Yankees are faced with an innings limit problem with Joba Chamberlain and there doesn't seem to be a public plan on how to handle this.

A 200 million dollar payroll shouldn't have to make moves to keep ahead of its competion and its unclear if a move was totally necessary. But a move for a pitcher would have calmed a lot of minds by adding some depth to a spot of weakness.

Revisiting an article from Feb 2009

This article first ran on BleacherReport back on Feb 11th 2009. It was in response to being asked about who else I thought was on the 2003 steroid list.

When asked to write an article on the most likely guy in the major leagues
to be on the 103 person list of people who failed a 2003 steroid test, one
name popped into my head. I know this is going to sound like a bitter
Yankee fan, and I know it's against the rules to have a Red Sox player
named or tested for steroids, but this is my guy: David Ortiz.


Ortiz was basically a failure in baseball. Following a couple big homerun
years in the minors where he cranked out 30+ homeruns, Ortiz floundered in
Minnesota where he hit around 50 homeruns over his career. He was even
released by the Twins following the 2002 season. He was basically done in
baseball.


This is the article that I wrote back on 2/11/2009. It was following the
A-rod revelations. I was asked to write who I believe is the most likely to
be on the steroid list. My answer was David Ortiz. Today's NYTimes article
and Ortiz's poor play have confirmed this.