This two-for-one scenario would be a horrible trade – unless you foolishly believe the Yankees are one player away from being a championship team.

I think Nick mentioned this – Clemens was very good but rarely “lights out” for the Yankees, even during his Cy Young season.

Players 1-5 73 13 .178

So maybe if we had RJ, Clemens, Schilling and Kofax we would have won.
But when your 1 thru 5 guys AVERAGE .178 OVER 3 games, what do you expect.

By the way, the average ERA for those 3 games was 4.01. Thats 4.01 against the best offense that year in MLB.

Notice the 2 players with the highest BA for those 3 games.

On a lighter note, in the “Ain’t it a Shame” category: Schill out until all-star break.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2069075

I looked it up and found this from the Boston Herald regarding the August 8, 2001 game in Oakland:

“In the third inning with one out, the A’s Johnny Damon lined a ball down the right-field line that rolled into the corner and directly into the bottom of a beer cup lying in foul territory. As Nixon caught up to the ball, he looked down, paused, and then threw up his hands to indicate he could not make a play on the ball. It was the perfect non-throw … citing rule 9.01(c) and the Oakland runner had to return to second on the dead ball . . .”

(9.01(c) basically gives the ump authority to make a ruling on something not covered by the rules)

JohnnyC is correct. Gammons desperately railed again Randy Johnson and the Yankees potentially trading him last season because he knew that meant that the Yankees’ starters would have been solid match for his Red Sox in the ALCS.

Trading for Randy Johnson may have had its costs, but he can contribute more to the Yankees than Beltran in the playoffs. If RJ rounds into form by the end of the season and then all the cries for Beltran will die down.

BTW, has anyone noticed that after all the years of claiming that the Yankees have nothing in their farm system to trade or to help them out, now just about every baseball expert talks about Cano and Wang as bait in potential trades or being solid young players?

Here’s some logos.
http://www.logoserver.com/SPBL.html

I just hope they don’t trade for Clemens, keep Wang, sign Burnett over the winter and have this as their rotation next year:

Mussina (based on tenure)
Pavano
Burnett
Wang
Wright

No lefties, which is where Halsey would have come in handy. They’ll need to focus on finding quality lefty relief (move along Stanton, move along). I guess Jarrod Washburn could be a possibility as a lefty starter.

BA OBP SLG
D. Jeter – 2004 ALCS .200 .333 .233
A .233 SLUGGING%. Geez… maybe we should have traded Jetes.

Making decisions for the present and future of a club can’t be based on a small sampling/issolated play. This is Steinbrenner-we better get Mondesi thinking.

He currently has a .723 OPS in Las Vegas, compared to Jorge’s .847 in NY. Any regrets I ever have about the RJ trade will not be due to Navarro.

Joe needs to carve out 15 minutes with Posada and tell him to wake up a little bit, that’s all.

In 2007, at 16mil, will RJ be what Brown is now? I mean, a 3yr – 48mil contract to a guy who is ALREADY 42??? (And don’t bring up Clemens, who is a freak of nature, and tries to commit suicide by exercise daily).

And give Posada a break. Do you have any idea how banged up a catcher gets during the year? Do we REALLY want him DIVING HEAD FIRST into first base? How many catchers give you .292 / .370 / .486. He took one in the eye last year because he didn’t duck!