August 2, 200421 yr http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/stor...yson&id=1850117 3. Yankees A week ago, the Yankees were supremely confident they were going to go roaring into August with Randy Johnson in their rotation. Instead, they wound up with Esteban Loaiza. Not that there weren't sound baseball reasons for sending Jose Contreras (and $4 million) to the White Sox for Loaiza. Clearly, Contreras was never going to find that New York state of mind that allowed him to win the big October baseball games the Yankees live for. And Loaiza is a two-time All-Star. But he's also "not throwing very well," warned one AL scout. "He's lost velocity since last year." And another scout, asked to compare Loaiza's stuff to Contreras' stuff, said: "Not only does Contreras have better stuff. It's two grades better. Contreras has No. 1 stuff if he can ever figure out a way to be more consistent. If I'm the Yankees, I wouldn't feel real good at all about running Loaiza out there in October. He's a guy who has had one good year. And it just happened to be his contract year." The Yankees knew, heading for the deadline, they didn't have a win-the-World Series kind of rotation -- not unless Kevin Brown and Mike Mussina make a remarkable return to health. And now that the deadline has passed, they still don't have a rotation to rival the ones they brought to their previous half-dozen World Series. But what really makes them a deadline-day loser is that, if they'd just had a couple of big-time prospects, they would be sitting there with the Big Unit right now. Instead, we asked one scouting director to run through their system, level by level. And he couldn't find even one potential impact player. But that's the price the Yankees pay for constantly living for today -- until unhappy tomorrows like this one finally arrive. And as a Padres fan, seeing the Dodgers as the BIGGEST trade deadline loser really made my day. LoDuca and Mota were both Padres killers, and the fact that Charles Johnson wouldn't waive his no-trade clause really bit them in the ass. Twins also made the list by not getting Benson
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