Posted by TMS:

I hear a lotta peeps complaining about how this team is put together, where were all these complaints at the beginning of the season when everyone was raving about the offseason acquisitions we'd made? i don't get it... back then people were talking about how we had the "best bullpen in baseball", how our starting pitching was probably the best in the majors, how our lineup was stacked & would probably put up record numbers this year... u can't pin the blame on how the team is constructed whenever things don't pan out quite the way people thought they would & some key players go down to injuries during the course of the season... no one has a crystal ball to predict injuries or bigname players not performing up to their abilities.

as for the managerial criticisms, i think Torre made some horrible managerial decisions that potentially cost us at least 2 championships over his tenure, so he's the last guy to absolve of blame... having the IF playing in w/a man on 1st & 3rd & 1 out w/Mo on the mound vs. Arizona in game 7 of the '01 WS cost us that series w/o a doubt... if he'd have had them at DP depth that bloop shot by Luis Gonzalez is a potential douple play that ends the inning w/the score tied... having Jeff Weaver on the postseason staff could have cost us game 4 in '03 when he gave up the game winning hit to Alex Gonzalez... he should never have been on the WS pitching staff to begin with.

so far Girardi hasn't done anything to impress me as manager of this team... his handling of Phil Hughes has been badly planned out IMO... he rushed ARod back before he was obviously ready because he was desperate to win games... it spurred the Yankees to a winning streak but they should never have been in the position to rush him back in the first place w/the team he had to work with... he hasn't done a bad job but he's far from getting any praise from me so far.

I didn't rave once about our offseason acquisitions and infact I spent most of the offseason arguing that we shouldn't be signing every free-agent and instead should be looking to build through our own farm-system and making some trades. The only FA signing I was fully onboard with was the CC signing.

so u weren't happy about the Mark Teixieria signing? who would u have rather gone after instead of Teix & AJB via trade this past offseason? to get better players than that you would have had to give up just about all of our top prospects, including Joba, Hughes, Kennedy & Jackson... if u wanna build up through the farm system, u should be happy w/the way the team's been constructed... we added elite talent w/o giving up any of our top prospects in the process.

Ditto with NYK4ever, except on Tex. I was really happy about that signing. However, I think we hardly solved much. Even if he pitches great for the rest of the season, I've always been wary of overweight pitchers, so I was a little dissapointed by the size of CCs deal. And we all know how I felt about Burnetts signing.

the size of the deal means nothing. only way to get players to come to ny, and top notch players, is to pay them out of the ass. that's the market. if we don't ante up for CC or Tex, then we, well, don't have CC or Tex. and that makes us a much worse team.

Posted by TMS:

Posted by nyk4ever:

Posted by TMS:

so u weren't happy about the Mark Teixieria signing? who would u have rather gone after instead of Teix & AJB via trade this past offseason? to get better players than that you would have had to give up just about all of our top prospects, including Joba, Hughes, Kennedy & Jackson... if u wanna build up through the farm system, u should be happy w/the way the team's been constructed... we added elite talent w/o giving up any of our top prospects in the process.

Actually no, I wasn't happy with the Teixiera, I said on more than a few occassions that something just doesn't seem right with him. He's already been on 4 teams in his career and that's pretty strange for a top young player. I think there is something missing with his game. Sure I look stupid now for saying that, but I still believe it.

And no, I wasn't near happy with the Burnett signing, I still think it was a horrible signing. I'm not up for giving injury risks 15+ million dollars a year after they had one good year in a contract year. Burnett this year has so far proved that he's an overated pitcher. I expected this from him.

but u still haven't answered my question... who did u expect to go after to construct this steam better than it was constructed? u said u wanted to build up through the farm system... we've held onto all our top prospects... in order to bring quality players here in a trade we would have had to give up a lot of those prospects u wanted to build up with... for God's sakes we gave up Jose Tabata for Marte & freakin' Nady bro... u have to expect we would have had to give up a ton more for any one better than Teix or AJB, no?

How are we letting the farm system work if signing a guy like Burnett pushes Hughes out of the rotation? I mean cmon, I know Hughes was/is a question mark but if you pencil him in as your 5th starter you're not losing much if he ends up sucking and honestly you can go get a guy from any team for any trade to do close to what Burnett does and cost 75% less.

Why do we have to trade for those types of guys? You can't make the playoffs every year. Look how great the Red Sox rebuilt, yeah they missed the playoffs one year because they took their lumps and knew it was going to happen, now they are reaping the benefits. Signing big name band-aids like Teixiera or Burnett, who hardly solve any of our problems, is only delaying the inevitable, which is what is happening.

The Yanks might make the playoffs this year but they aren't built to win anything, this team is a collection of players that don't fit together.

Posted by nyk4ever:

Posted by TMS:

Posted by nyk4ever:

Posted by TMS:

so u weren't happy about the Mark Teixieria signing? who would u have rather gone after instead of Teix & AJB via trade this past offseason? to get better players than that you would have had to give up just about all of our top prospects, including Joba, Hughes, Kennedy & Jackson... if u wanna build up through the farm system, u should be happy w/the way the team's been constructed... we added elite talent w/o giving up any of our top prospects in the process.

Actually no, I wasn't happy with the Teixiera, I said on more than a few occassions that something just doesn't seem right with him. He's already been on 4 teams in his career and that's pretty strange for a top young player. I think there is something missing with his game. Sure I look stupid now for saying that, but I still believe it.

And no, I wasn't near happy with the Burnett signing, I still think it was a horrible signing. I'm not up for giving injury risks 15+ million dollars a year after they had one good year in a contract year. Burnett this year has so far proved that he's an overated pitcher. I expected this from him.

but u still haven't answered my question... who did u expect to go after to construct this steam better than it was constructed? u said u wanted to build up through the farm system... we've held onto all our top prospects... in order to bring quality players here in a trade we would have had to give up a lot of those prospects u wanted to build up with... for God's sakes we gave up Jose Tabata for Marte & freakin' Nady bro... u have to expect we would have had to give up a ton more for any one better than Teix or AJB, no?

How are we letting the farm system work if signing a guy like Burnett pushes Hughes out of the rotation? I mean cmon, I know Hughes was/is a question mark but if you pencil him in as your 5th starter you're not losing much if he ends up sucking and honestly you can go get a guy from any team for any trade to do close to what Burnett does and cost 75% less.

Why do we have to trade for those types of guys? You can't make the playoffs every year. Look how great the Red Sox rebuilt, yeah they missed the playoffs one year because they took their lumps and knew it was going to happen, now they are reaping the benefits. Signing big name band-aids like Teixiera or Burnett, who hardly solve any of our problems, is only delaying the inevitable, which is what is happening.

The Yanks might make the playoffs this year but they aren't built to win anything, this team is a collection of players that don't fit together.

the problem is most Yankee fans don't share in your viewpoint bro... most fans will complain & blame the team management if the team doesn't make the playoffs or make it far into the postseason... they expect success every season w/this team, & then blast those in charge when that isn't achieved & say the team should have rebuilt instead, completely contradicting themselves in the process (not saying you bro, but others)... they sit in their armchairs & cheer for the big name acquisitions when they happen & then turn around & blast the GM for getting them if they don't work out... it's like clockwork... u hear these morons calling in to every sports talk radio show all the time... "i knew it all along... blah blah blah" yeah ok there bud... come on, u know this is prevalent amongst Yankees fans... they demand excellence every year & if they don't get it they whine like little babies who got their binkies snatched outta their mouths mid-suckle... how do u expect Yankees' brass to rebuild & go w/the youth during the Inaugural season of their brand new billion dollar stadium? it wasn't gonna happen... the fact that we were even able to hold onto our youth is enough of an accomplishment in my eyes... if they'd jettisoned them all away to go all in for a championship this year i think that would have been an objectionable decision, but they didn't... we now have a future to look forward to because we still have good young talent in the pipeline ready to come up... u already see Melky, Pena, Cabrera, Gardner, Coke, Joba & Hughes playing roles on this team & there's another group ready to come up in a year or 2 that will see playing time as well... u gotta be encouraged about that, no?

aj didn't push out hughes, andy did. and that's only a 1 year insurance policy b/c hughes didn't show us anything last year.

i understand why folks aren't enamored with aj...but if we didn't sign aj, and wang performed this poorly, we really would be in trouble.

Also, without Pettitte or AJ coming here, we probably would have never discovered that Hughes can be (or at least so far looks like) an awesome reliever. He's probably still be starting and posting a 5 1/2 ERA. It's a small sample but I love how he's looked so far out the pen. Maybe some day he'll start again but I see nothing wrong with being a strong reliever. If Hughes and Aceves both played the role of Mendoza for the next 10 years, I'd be happy with that. Mendoza was a very good, very important pitcher.

If Hughes is better than Wang again mopping up they really ought to consider making the switch. Wang is not terrible anymore, but he's also not very good.

Filthy inning by Hughes, now the Yanks need to make something happen against the Braves pen before they throw out Gonzalez/Soriano

at least they got shut down by a quality young pitcher for a change... not that that's any consolation.