Spring Training is coming to an end and the Yankees are getting ready to head north for the start of the regular season, which will begin April 6th in Baltimore. Over the next few days there will be much discussion of roster spots, rotation, position battles and batting order.
Some of these issues have already been settled- Joe Girardi has named Xavier Nady as the starting right fielder, some will be decided in the next couple of days - an announcement is expected in the near future on who will get one of the most coveted positions in all of sport, the starting center fielder for the New York Yankees. And still other ideas have only recently been brought up, like Girardi's thought of moving Derek Jeter to the lead off spot and having Johny Damon bat second.
However the largest weakness on this much improved squad will go on with no significant change since last season, there is still no strong eighth inning set-up man, also known as "The all-important bridge to Mariano". And the strangest part of it all is that the solution to the problem is on the roster. If the Yankees were to announce tomorrow that Joba Chamberlain is moving to the bullpen, they go from having an average group of relievers to, quite possibly the best in baseball, while only sacrificing their current fourth or fifth starter who would be limited by a season long inning count.
The argument against moving the hulking right-hander is that a big time ace is more important to a team than a relief pitcher, a front line starter will pitch upwards of 200 innings, while a set-up man will pitch in the area of 70, as well as the effect a number one starter brings to a playoff series.
However, these arguments just don't add up with what the Yankees have done over the last few months. In December they went out and got CC Sabathia, who - they're hoping - will be the opening day starter for the next seven years. As well as A.J. Burnett, who will be a very strong number two for the next five years, health permitting. Along with Chien-Ming Wang, it would seem the top three rotation spots in the Bronx are filled quite nicely for some time.
The same however, cannot be said of the Bullpen, sure at the moment the closer position is taken by the greatest reliever of all-time, Mariano Rivera, but he's going to be forty by next opening day. And Damaso Marte and Brian Bruney, who are going to be the set-up men this season, don't exactly inspire fear in opposing managers hearts, nor are they what would be considered closer-in-training material, Joba would fill both those roles immediately.
While it is true that a starter does pitch considerably more innings than bullpen dwellers, Yankee management has said there would be an inning cap on Joba of about 150, and this for a guy who is not very economical with his pitch count all leads to the fact that the average start for the Lincoln Nebraska native will be approximately five innings, just barely enough to have a significant impact on a game and qualify for the win.
If in the 'pen he will be used late in close games and as a "fireman", coming in with runners aboard and the contest on the line, which would be considerably more important outs than the first half of a game. This would insure that the limited amount of pitches available in that right arm are only used in key situations, maximizing the use of the youngster.
The fifth starter spot would go to Phil Hughes who, along with Andy Pettitte, would fill out the back half of a strong rotation. This would put minimal pressure on the man the Yankees refused to trade for Johan Santana last year, while allowing him to show what he has on the big league level.
Chamberlain as a reliever and Hughes as a starter is the best way for the bombers to get the most out of this season, and set themselves up for the future. Yet, for some reason they seem reluctant to take this route, saying that Joba will remain in the rotation. One can only wonder if they will be singing the same tune if by the end of April there is an obvious middle relief issue.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
My Two Cents Worth II
March Madness may very well be the best sports tournament we have in this country. 65 teams insure that big parts of America are involved, it's win or go home so there's drama in every game, and when it's all over there won't be any debate as to whether there should be a shared championship.
The six overtime game between Syracuse and UConn was an all time classic. It was not a "great game" because after the third extra session the teams were so drained that the quality of play fell off, but as far as effort is concerned, we may never see a game where so much was left out on the court. Special mention to Jonny Flynn who played an incredible 67 out of 70 minutes.
As a die hard Yankee fan who can't stand A-Rod, the dream for this season is that the hip doesn't heal properly and he's out for the season. With a replacement third baseman the Yankees get back to their old ways of playing baseball, winning with pitching, defense and timely hitting. And when the team celebrates the first World Series title in the new stadium, A-Rod is left watching it on TV somewhere.
For those of you who only follow the N.H.L. once the playoffs start, you can start a little earlier this season. There are so many teams who still have a shot at making the postseason, and so much riding on each game, that it's hard to tell that it's still the regular season. Emotions are at playoff levels, so should your interest.
Unfortunately the same cannot be said about the N.B.A., while there is a race for the eighth spot in the eastern conference, it's more of a battle of futility, as all the teams battling for the final seed are well under .500. And to be honest you can probably tune out pro basketball for quite some time, as there shouldn't be a whole lot of doubt in the western conference as Kobe and the Lakers run away with it. And in the East the drama will begin in the conference finals as the Celtics go up against the Cavaliers.
Does anyone really care about the World Baseball Classic. Let's be fair any sporting event that has a mercy rule is a joke. The teams get together about a week before they start playing games, the players are not in game shape and there is a pitch count that pitchers cannot cross. The problem is that there is no better time to have it, pitchers log too many innings during the course of a season to play it in November.
The thing that upsets me most about the current President is not his policies per se, it's the fact that most of his idea's were tried before and have proven to be ineffective. What kind of arrogance does it take to see something fail time and time again but still believe that you can do it the right way. Government run health care, and significant government involvement in the economy has been a major disappointment wherever it was tried, I'm not ready to say that Mr. Obama has the special formula to make them work.
The six overtime game between Syracuse and UConn was an all time classic. It was not a "great game" because after the third extra session the teams were so drained that the quality of play fell off, but as far as effort is concerned, we may never see a game where so much was left out on the court. Special mention to Jonny Flynn who played an incredible 67 out of 70 minutes.
As a die hard Yankee fan who can't stand A-Rod, the dream for this season is that the hip doesn't heal properly and he's out for the season. With a replacement third baseman the Yankees get back to their old ways of playing baseball, winning with pitching, defense and timely hitting. And when the team celebrates the first World Series title in the new stadium, A-Rod is left watching it on TV somewhere.
For those of you who only follow the N.H.L. once the playoffs start, you can start a little earlier this season. There are so many teams who still have a shot at making the postseason, and so much riding on each game, that it's hard to tell that it's still the regular season. Emotions are at playoff levels, so should your interest.
Unfortunately the same cannot be said about the N.B.A., while there is a race for the eighth spot in the eastern conference, it's more of a battle of futility, as all the teams battling for the final seed are well under .500. And to be honest you can probably tune out pro basketball for quite some time, as there shouldn't be a whole lot of doubt in the western conference as Kobe and the Lakers run away with it. And in the East the drama will begin in the conference finals as the Celtics go up against the Cavaliers.
Does anyone really care about the World Baseball Classic. Let's be fair any sporting event that has a mercy rule is a joke. The teams get together about a week before they start playing games, the players are not in game shape and there is a pitch count that pitchers cannot cross. The problem is that there is no better time to have it, pitchers log too many innings during the course of a season to play it in November.
The thing that upsets me most about the current President is not his policies per se, it's the fact that most of his idea's were tried before and have proven to be ineffective. What kind of arrogance does it take to see something fail time and time again but still believe that you can do it the right way. Government run health care, and significant government involvement in the economy has been a major disappointment wherever it was tried, I'm not ready to say that Mr. Obama has the special formula to make them work.
Monday, March 2, 2009
An Inconvenient Truth?
The calender says March, but it's a cold, snowy day here in the northeast, and I can't think of a better time to discuss Global Warming, and some of it's surrounding issues.
We have all heard a lot about the subject, and probably formed a fairly strong opinion on the issue, and your view is usually based on your political affiliation, as well as your choice of news medium, if you are a CNN watcher, it's likely you're a strong believer that man made global warming is a serious problem, and we need to stop putting all that CO2 into the atmosphere as soon as possible. If on the other hand, you watch Fox News on a regular basis and listen to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity on the radio, you're probably not all that alarmed, and may even believe the whole global warming thing is a hoax.
I am not a scientist and will not pretend to be one here, and I will not give an opinion on the matter one way or the other. I will tell you that there is a tremendous amount of information out there on the subject, and will give my thoughts on some of the things I have learned in my journey into this fascinating subject.
First off, if you doubt global warming at all, don't waste your time watching An Inconvenient Truth, this is not to say that what Al Gore has to say isn't true, but if you are skeptical going in, he doesn't do a very good job of convincing you, he spends a small amount of time explaining the science of how carbon dioxide warms the earth, but most of the film is the affects and possible future affects if the warming continues, if your not buying into the "cause", the "effects" seem rather meaningless.
Global warming doubters have a documentary of their own, The Great Global Warming Swindle was first aired by British TVs Channel 4, and parts of it are available on YouTube and other similar websites, this film does a far better job explaining the science, showing why they don't believe it and giving an alternative theory. They reason that the sun and sun spots are the greatest contributor to climate change, and show some graphs backing up their point. The second half of the presentation deals with how such a controversial scientific theory is so widely accepted in the mainstream as fact, how it became a political topic and some of the affects that global warming alarmist have on the developing world.
Following up on this seemingly far more convincing documentary, I have found that many scientists find the evidence put forth in the film to be questionable at best, including one who was featured in the documentary, saying that his opinion was misrepresented and would like all his parts removed before the film is shown again.
An interesting thing about the subject is the incredibly wide range of opinions that are out there, with just about everyone showing how the science proves their theory to be correct. There is the U.N.s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), who strongly believe in man made global warming. There are deniers some even claiming that over the past decade the world has cooled. And another group of people have decided that they cannot decide, and will err on the side of caution. One of the more interesting views I came across is that of the late Michael Crichton, who wrote the novel Jurassic Park that was later turned into a blockbuster movie, he says that while the world is getting warmer, and humans are contributing to it, the affect is minimal, so there is no serious immediate threat and there are other more important thing to worry about.
The IPCC says that CO2 is causing warming by trapping heat, almost like a blanket around earth. The deniers say that the warming which occurs naturally, causes more CO2 to be taken from earth and put in the atmosphere. The deniers claim that, we have had warmer temperature not all that long ago. The believers say that is faulty information, and temperature going back quite some time would look like a hockey stick, minor fluctuations over a long period representing the stick, and the sudden rise being the blade shooting straight up. Each side would have you believe that the other has ulterior motives, either being controlled by environmentalist or being paid off by major oil companies.
One non science question that still remained is, that with all the skepticism out there, and many reputable scientist denying it, why has global warming been reported as a fact in the news media, and accepted by so many as the truth. Everyone from politicians to major companies have spoken about our carbon footprint and going green as if it is an uncontested fact.
The answer as far as I can tell is that human nature is to look for a story, the next time someone comes up to you and asks "what's up?" simply respond "not much" and see how long the conversation goes. The news media has a vested interest in making things into major stories, more people watch TV, listen to radio and read newspapers if there is a major story going on. Climatologist have jobs because we think studying these things are important, if they were to come out and say there isn't much going on as far as climate is concerned, no one would pay any attention to them, and in time they may end up losing their job, that doesn't mean their studies are wrong but we can't forget who the studiers are. Businesses are about making money by keeping people happy, and if a decent number of their costumers demand something, they understand that they cannot afford to lose them and will therefore oblige, regardless of what they think of the science, plus you will not get a major objection from the deniers if your business does go green.
One of the reasons it has become so popular among the people, who may only like to hear one side of the story, is that many people like to get back at "the man". Some of us like to believe that the big important people are scheming against the average guy in a dark shady room somewhere. Many of the so called important people are the rich business owners, and global warming activists like to pick on big business as one of the main causes of climate change, so this becomes another avenue to fight them, and who could argue when we're talking about saving our planet.
For some of the above reasons many people conclude the science of global warming guilty by association, claiming the only people who believe it are loony lefties and wacko environmentalists, which would just be unfair to the many credible people who have studied and have reason to believe it.
There is so much information out there, on both sides of the ball, that each topic touched on can really be a full post by itself, I decided to condense it all into one post and give a bit on each part. As I said I'm not a scientist and will therefore not give an opinion one way or the other, but I do recommend that you look into the subject and give both sides a fair chance, and I hope you enjoy learning about this topic, I certainly did.
We have all heard a lot about the subject, and probably formed a fairly strong opinion on the issue, and your view is usually based on your political affiliation, as well as your choice of news medium, if you are a CNN watcher, it's likely you're a strong believer that man made global warming is a serious problem, and we need to stop putting all that CO2 into the atmosphere as soon as possible. If on the other hand, you watch Fox News on a regular basis and listen to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity on the radio, you're probably not all that alarmed, and may even believe the whole global warming thing is a hoax.
I am not a scientist and will not pretend to be one here, and I will not give an opinion on the matter one way or the other. I will tell you that there is a tremendous amount of information out there on the subject, and will give my thoughts on some of the things I have learned in my journey into this fascinating subject.
First off, if you doubt global warming at all, don't waste your time watching An Inconvenient Truth, this is not to say that what Al Gore has to say isn't true, but if you are skeptical going in, he doesn't do a very good job of convincing you, he spends a small amount of time explaining the science of how carbon dioxide warms the earth, but most of the film is the affects and possible future affects if the warming continues, if your not buying into the "cause", the "effects" seem rather meaningless.
Global warming doubters have a documentary of their own, The Great Global Warming Swindle was first aired by British TVs Channel 4, and parts of it are available on YouTube and other similar websites, this film does a far better job explaining the science, showing why they don't believe it and giving an alternative theory. They reason that the sun and sun spots are the greatest contributor to climate change, and show some graphs backing up their point. The second half of the presentation deals with how such a controversial scientific theory is so widely accepted in the mainstream as fact, how it became a political topic and some of the affects that global warming alarmist have on the developing world.
Following up on this seemingly far more convincing documentary, I have found that many scientists find the evidence put forth in the film to be questionable at best, including one who was featured in the documentary, saying that his opinion was misrepresented and would like all his parts removed before the film is shown again.
An interesting thing about the subject is the incredibly wide range of opinions that are out there, with just about everyone showing how the science proves their theory to be correct. There is the U.N.s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), who strongly believe in man made global warming. There are deniers some even claiming that over the past decade the world has cooled. And another group of people have decided that they cannot decide, and will err on the side of caution. One of the more interesting views I came across is that of the late Michael Crichton, who wrote the novel Jurassic Park that was later turned into a blockbuster movie, he says that while the world is getting warmer, and humans are contributing to it, the affect is minimal, so there is no serious immediate threat and there are other more important thing to worry about.
The IPCC says that CO2 is causing warming by trapping heat, almost like a blanket around earth. The deniers say that the warming which occurs naturally, causes more CO2 to be taken from earth and put in the atmosphere. The deniers claim that, we have had warmer temperature not all that long ago. The believers say that is faulty information, and temperature going back quite some time would look like a hockey stick, minor fluctuations over a long period representing the stick, and the sudden rise being the blade shooting straight up. Each side would have you believe that the other has ulterior motives, either being controlled by environmentalist or being paid off by major oil companies.
One non science question that still remained is, that with all the skepticism out there, and many reputable scientist denying it, why has global warming been reported as a fact in the news media, and accepted by so many as the truth. Everyone from politicians to major companies have spoken about our carbon footprint and going green as if it is an uncontested fact.
The answer as far as I can tell is that human nature is to look for a story, the next time someone comes up to you and asks "what's up?" simply respond "not much" and see how long the conversation goes. The news media has a vested interest in making things into major stories, more people watch TV, listen to radio and read newspapers if there is a major story going on. Climatologist have jobs because we think studying these things are important, if they were to come out and say there isn't much going on as far as climate is concerned, no one would pay any attention to them, and in time they may end up losing their job, that doesn't mean their studies are wrong but we can't forget who the studiers are. Businesses are about making money by keeping people happy, and if a decent number of their costumers demand something, they understand that they cannot afford to lose them and will therefore oblige, regardless of what they think of the science, plus you will not get a major objection from the deniers if your business does go green.
One of the reasons it has become so popular among the people, who may only like to hear one side of the story, is that many people like to get back at "the man". Some of us like to believe that the big important people are scheming against the average guy in a dark shady room somewhere. Many of the so called important people are the rich business owners, and global warming activists like to pick on big business as one of the main causes of climate change, so this becomes another avenue to fight them, and who could argue when we're talking about saving our planet.
For some of the above reasons many people conclude the science of global warming guilty by association, claiming the only people who believe it are loony lefties and wacko environmentalists, which would just be unfair to the many credible people who have studied and have reason to believe it.
There is so much information out there, on both sides of the ball, that each topic touched on can really be a full post by itself, I decided to condense it all into one post and give a bit on each part. As I said I'm not a scientist and will therefore not give an opinion one way or the other, but I do recommend that you look into the subject and give both sides a fair chance, and I hope you enjoy learning about this topic, I certainly did.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)