In & Out

A little bookkeeping to begin this Thursday. As you probably noticed yesterday, Jeff Karstens and Jim Brower were dispatched back to AAA after their Tuesday debacle, this in order to make room on the roster for Edwar Ramirez, back from SWB, and Sean Henn, returning from absentia. Roger Clemens is also back with the team. Henn pitched 1.2 scoreless innings in relief yesterday. Also gone: Chris Basak, who was DFA'ed to make room on the 40-man roster for Andrew Brackman, the Yanks newly signed first-round draft pick. Brackman is now on his way to Tampa, by way of Dr. James Andrews. Brackman signed a 4-year Major League contract with a club-record $3.3 million bonus (courtesy Scott Boras), hence the need to clear space. The Yanks have options for 3 additional years. As Peter Abraham reports, the Yanks signed five additional top-round picks yesterday, all for over "slot money," so the team now has pretty much all of its key draftees under contract. Even a 10th rounder was given a $1 million bonus. (He no doubt slipped down that far as he was expected to attend Rice.) It's easy to sneer, but this is exactly how the Yanks should be leveraging their financial resources.

Otherwise, a dispiriting day for the Yanks yesterday, but they lost no ground to the Sox or the M's in the wild card. Mo looks cooked. Of course, he looked cooked earlier this season, and then returned to form with 19 consecutive saves. The stats look good. The Yanks can't ever seem to put away the O's, this year. Maybe they're the new Angels. The good news is that no one seems to be able to touch Joba Chamberlain, and he's available tonight as the Yanks go against Detroit. Another bright spot, Shelley Duncan's Spencerian debut. Phil Hughes is learning how to pitch at the ML level.

Many of us are still thinking about the Scooter.

Comments

[LocklandSF]

Also, that Duncan kid looks like a freaking animal at the plate, it's like you picked up at bat at the deadline, except you didn't have to give anything up.

[AndrewYF]

Picking up Giambi, Hughes, Chamberlain and Duncan (not to mention the excellent aquisitions of Molina and Betemit), I'd say the Yankees had the best trade deadline out of anyone. Aside from Farnsworth and Villone, there is not a 'wasted' spot on the roster. That is huge.

[NeffSox]

Shelley Duncan has as many homeruns (6) as JD Drew.

Just wanted to throw that one out there if anyone didn't know.

[yankeemonkey]

I'm assuming that by "making room for Roger Clemens" you actually mean "making room for Edwar Ramirez", no?

[YF]

you got me ym. these morning posts are a killer. duly noted and corrected.

[LocklandSF]

Oh, anyone remember when I said Roger was stupid to put his team at risk by hitting a batter after the warning and risking suspension and YFs told me I was wrong.

Yeah...

[LocklandSF]

It's in the "Tempers in Toronto" thread, I'm only pointing it out because I so rarely guess these things right. I'm like 1 for 4543489 in predicting how situations like this will play out.

[John - YF (Trisk)]

"The biggest culprit was Clemens, he should have never hit Rios. All these years of the Yankees getting hit and now the Yankee pitchers decide to retaliate? Rocket was cruising, he put the Yankees in a bad spot and even worse could have cost the team the game."

Not all YF's Lockland...

[DAW]

I wonder what gives with Mo? After he threw 30 pitches Sunday, I kind of wrote off Monday's BS because of fatigue; yesterday, however, starts up the question of age again...

[LocklandSF]

Noted, Trist, noted. :-)

[YF]

good calls lock, trisk. credit where due.

[Nick-YF]

When people disagreed with Lockland it was because one of his arguments was that Clemens had put that actual game at risk. The Yanks were up 7 to 0 in the 7th, so yeah, I would have to agree with those posters who disagreed with that part of the argument. But, yeah, it wasn't ideal that Clemens was suspended, but given the fact that A-Rod was being targeted repeatedly, it seemed pretty inevitable that whoever was pitching had to retaliate for him. Say he doesn't, I could so imagine the NY tabs running headlines about how A-Rod is not defended by his teammates (think Jeter from last season). Would we need that controversy? And trust me, those headlines would be all over the tabs. It's A-Rod after all.

[LocklandSF]

Well, I said he potentially put two games at risk, so I was only half right, but had the Jays put up a 7 spot after he was ejected, which is difficult but not unheard of, I would have been very right. I did say it was a LONG shot, but still a risk and some people disagreed with both points. Come on Nick, cut me some slack, when the sun shines on a dog's ass, you don't move him in to the shade. :-)

[IronHorse-YF]

The solution would have been to bring in Farnsworth to bean Rios, which would have accomplished 4 things:

1. Let him take out his ever-building aggression on someone;

2. Give a face-saving reason for him not pitching for 5 games, which he practically didn't do anyway because he stinks;

3. Give Yankee fans a reason to not boo him as badly at home - at least not until his next blow-up on the mound;

4. Do more damage to the Jays (he throws harder - I don't really mean that he should have hurt anyone of course) while doing less damage to the Yankees (i.e. keep Clemens in the rotation for his next game);

Of course, knowing Farnsworth, he would have missed his spot and Rios would have grooved 98-mph meatball over the fence.