Yankee Lineup is Still Tops

Good article on Yahoo sports about how the Yankee, Red Sox and tigers lineups compare. The end result is the following;

Expected runs/game for everyday lineups
Best Likely Lineup Worst
Yankees 6.35 6.20 6.02
Red Sox 6.10 5.95 5.71
Tigers 5.97 5.86 5.60

The flaw with the article is the projected Yankee lineup which had both Matsui and Giambi in it. While the Big G probably will get a bunch of ABs his inability to play the field guarantees that he and Matsui won't play together for a significant amount of time.

Odds and Ends

First, Joe Torre won the 'This week in Baseball' manager of the year award;
" Torre won the award in fan voting, which was conducted exclusively at MLB.com."
Fans like Joe? What fans? I certainly don't know any of them.

Andy's new contract was made official

Wang wants a long term deal and I bet the Yankees don't give it to him. The Yankees always take this stance and it ends up costing them in the long run.

Bruney will probably be back next year. I like Bruney despite his wildness. He doesn't get hit much, strikes a lot of people out and keep the ball in the ballpark. Worth a gamble for another year.

Pavano is still a moron .

Finally, we await the George Mitchell report tomorrow morning. While respectable media outlets can't guess on the names that will be included, I can. Here is my list of probable brand-name players to be mentioned(excluding the no-brainers like Sosa, McGwire, Bonds, Palmeiro);
Mike Piazza
Roger Clemens
Miguel Tejada
Todd Helton
Greg Vaiughn
Brady Anderson
Brett Boone
Troy Glaus
Randy Johnson
Eric Gagne

And some players I would love to see on the list;
David Ortiz
Curt Schilling (How great would that be?)
Johan Santana (Price would go done significantly then)
David Eckstein (Because he annoys me)

Some players that would really bother me to see on the list;
Alex Rodriguez (Can't make the pain of Bonds go away if he's on the list, and imagine that hate for him if he is?)
Andy Pettitte - His ties to Clemens bother me, one of the true good guys in the game
Derek Jeter - Very little chance of this (where are the HR's?!?), but still would shake the very foundation of Yankee-dom
Mariano Rivera

Fun With Google - Yankees Style

Since it is a slow news day I thought I would use google's Keyword tool to see some of the popular Yankee related seraches. We already know Latroy Hawkins sucks but what else can google tell us?Lets look at some Yankee keywords and see what it reveals;

What? - Derek Jeter

• "derek jeter cologne" - please people you have to be kidding me
• "derek jeter jessica biel" - ok, I won't judge
• "derek jeter hurricane" - this is the batting machine he plugs
• "derek jeter dating"

What this tells us? Jeter is a whore with women and for money. Who can blame him? Its his world and we just live in it.

What? Alex Rodriguez

• 6 of the top ten searches are picture related
• "Alex Rodriguez contract" - no shock here
• "Jason Varitek and Alex Rodriguez"-Boston fans I guess
• "Alex Rodriguez wife"

What this tells us? Arod has a huge contract, a popular wife and people love looking at him. The picture thing kind of shocked me. His picture searches and his searches in general seemed larger then Jeter's which surprised me. Also, I expected Alex Rodriguez sucks to be a lot higher.

What? - Joe Torre

• "fire joe torre" - third on the list

What this tells us? Good luck in LA, you won't be missed.

What? - Yankees

• "yankees suck"
• "damn yankees"

What this tells us? People love to hate the Yankees.

What? - Red Sox

• "alex rodriguez" - the 15th most popular red sox search term was Arod
• "babe ruth" - 17th on the list
• "johnny damon" -11th
• "yankees" -5th
• new york yankees"-12th on the list

What this tells us? Despite their recent success Red Sox nation still feels inferior. They can win twice in four years but little has changed. In the end, they will always be losers and can only think about their team in the context of how they are stack up against the Yankees. Thanks google for reminding me we are THE TEAM and no matter how many times the Red Sox win that will always ring true.

A-Rod to Return?

Mike Lupica apparently has sources close to A Rod who claim he is interested in trying to make things right with the Yankees;
"There is only one way to make this right, if Rodriguez wants to stay: He goes to Tampa. Again: There are people close to the player, closer than Boras right now, who believe he is ready to do it and do it soon. That he knows he’s not going to break all the world’s records the way he did when he went to Texas. That what the Yankees were fully prepared to offer, a deal that could have gone to a total value of $230 million over the next eight years, was the best one he was going to get."

As the list of potential suitors for ARod got smaller and smaller it was only a matter of time before team Boras tried to bring the Yankees back into it. Boras needs two of following teams in it to achive what he wants; Red Sox, Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, and Angels. Having two big market teams will create the bidding war he desires. Right now the only team with expressed interest is the Angels.

This bit of news comes on the same day as Hank Steinbrenner waffled a bit on his hard line stance;
"Whether something did happen or not," Steinbrenner said of a Rodriguez return, "I am not going to comment on that situation."

Quite a bit different then his original comments.