It's Thursday, and the Yankees once again have the night off. Former Yankees General Manager and Hall of Famer George M. Weiss has some suggestions to keep you occupied in the meantime.
The Red Sox play the Royals out in Kansas City tonight, which means they will be making a pretty late arrival to NYC tomorrow morning. The magic number is currently at 5 after a Sox win last night, but it could drop to 4 if they lose tonight. This means that the Yanks would have to take just two out of three to clinch the division at home against Boston. Something called Anthony Lerew would have to out pitch Clay Bucholz for that to happen, however.
The Twins and Angels are off, but Tigers are playing the Indians tonight and sending Justin Verlander to the hill. Detroit still holds a 2.5 game lead over Minnesota but those teams have 4 head to head games remaining against reach other, so anything could happen.
In college football, #4 Ole Miss (the highest ranking the school has had since Archie Manning played there) takes on South Carolina.
Peter Gammons has sure elicited some strong reaction after suggesting the MLB might want to "think" about adding one Wild Card team to each league. Craig Calcaterra thinks the system is fine the way it is. Kevin Kaduk concurs. Jason thinks it ain't broke neither. Joe from RAB would actually prefer the playoffs to be scaled down before they are expanded.
Joel Sherman is just about the only person I've heard agree with Gammons, citing the fact that it's nearly impossible for a team other than the Yankees and the Red Sox to make the postseason in the current format.
In related news, since the Blue Jays won't be contending any time soon, Joe from RAB suggests that the Jays trade Roy Halladay and get some value for him while they still can.
Fangraphs takes a look at A-Rod in the postseason since he's joined the Yankees and points out that over the same span, Derek Jeter hasn't been any great shakes either. An astute commenter points out that saying A-Rod "doesn't" hit well in the playoffs (like the post did) is much different that saying he "hasn't" which implies that he still could.
Speaking of FanGraphs, they released their iPhone app today. For $2.99, you get live WPA and most everything you'd expect to be available from the website. Yes, I've already downloaded it.
Jayson Stark ranks the playoff rotations.
Jon from Subway Squawkers wonders if the Yankees are a leading economic indicator.
Via Baseball Musings, Rays Index points out that before the Daily News crowns the Yankees' infield the best ever, they might want to take into consideration that the Rays' IF put up better numbers this year.
Jim Rice: Still an ass.
Our boy HowFresh calls out Plaxico Burress for the last meal he ate before he went to prison and shows him how it's done.
Terrible news for Giants fans.
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Good news on Hairston... he's only day to day.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nj.com/yankees/index.ssf/2009/09/ny_yankees_list_jerry_hairston.html
Good news indeed, thanks Anon. I bet Jerry is going to want to be a part of this postseason run. He's a FA next year and who knows when he'll be able to contribute to a playoff team again. He'll have a good amount of time off so let's hope he can get better and be ready for the ALDS.
ReplyDeleteJim Rice.... wow.
ReplyDeleteNo kidding. You would think a guy who was a borderline Hall of Fame inductee - a guy who got in during his last year of eligibility and got it largely because there were few other viable candidates up that year - would handle himself with a little bit of grace - particularly in the aftermath of his ill-advised Derek Jeter comments at the LLWS.
ReplyDeleteInstead, it's open mouth insert foot part two.