Wedge

glad to see us finally manage a win when we don't get much offense. Great game by Buerhle

yeah, sounds good to me, but would the Mariners bite at that?

who's Jay Payton?

so shouldn't Alexander Rodriguez by HR-Rod or RBI-Rod or H-Rod? I know it's dumb... but it's just really inconsistent and it irritates me.

ooo... it's starting to get a little dark outside...

yeah, I checked out the forecast. "isolated t-storms" from 7-9 it looked like. Well, if I go, I'll actually try to stay dry this time, I think.

so it's really rainy down south? I guess I'm up here in the nothern suburbs and don't get the same weather as the city any more.

I forgot... why is he k-rod and not f-rod?

bumpity... pin it?

Maybe we don't have the cheapest owner in sports, afterall.

By "the man" I meant you I don't think KW will just give a lip service offer. I think he'll make an aggressive bid and then a few counter bids up to a point.

If you have 2 set-up men and a closer with an ERA of 3, statistically, you will win 75% of games you take a 2 run lead into your half of the 7th. My math might be a little screwed up, but I think that's about right. Your chances of winning a game with a 1 run lead going into the 7th with the same bullpen is about 30%. If that bullpen has an ERA of 2, that should jump to about 47%.

shades of Billy Koch...

there's no point in the tradition if you throw back a fake ball

Whoa. Sweet! The man arrives...

fla accept for Pavano or Penny? I'd think they'd want a major league hitter, unless they're thinking of tanking the season.

and this isn't football where you have to get great 1st rounders to have a good team.

funny you should mention that. It seems like they've done it the other way... the sort of white flag way to get and sustain where they were. they traded for Smoltz and traded away Millwood. That's helped sustain their success. A lot of their success has had to do with the relative weakness of their division over such a long period, too. I care about winning, too. As long as we don't trade away too much, I think we'll be ok. I think there's a lot of stuff in our farm system that can keep us strong. When Kenny says we have a great Scouting Department, I think he's right. You don't need to look further than most of the trades he's made. The only one where he traded away an established player that he didn't get something back was the Durham trade. All the other trades seemed to get him something.

I've heard a lot of talk lately about getting a reliever, Guardado chiefly among them and a few others.

Let's see. Since 2000 I'd say: Buehrle Willie Harris Joe Crede Adkins Marte Cotts Olivo Rowand Garland (?) Rauch and Diaz are showing signs of being solid starting pitchers. I mean, guys do emerge. Crede, Buehrle, Rauch, and Rowand are really the guys that came up through our system. The other 7 we got in trades.

Exactly. The Yankees haven't exactly been drafting well lately. Of all the bally-hooed prospects they've traded away for big players, how many have worked out? The only one that comes to mind is Mike Lowell. Was one of the Boones traded away by the Yankees, too?

Maybe. But if we landed Johnson, we could just rent him for this year and cash him into prospects for next season, depending on the outlook. Johnson's value now and during the offseason, barring injury, should be about the same. Ideally, we could get good value back for him.

I think Kendall helps this team out the most. We aren't getting much production out of the Catcher position, so this would really help us out., Plus, if Frank stays out of the line-up for an extended period, you can DH him on days that he isn't good to catch. I like the idea of Kendall. If you want to get more of a power guy (which you'd only need if Frank goes down for an extended period), the guy you look at might be Del Gado. However, with Maggs returning, we should have enough power. Ergo, Kendall is probably the best bat we could pick up right now.