Just to take a look:
Melky: 88 OPS+
Damon: 105 OPS+, avg D, noodle arm
Matsui: 106 OPS+ for a DH
Tabata: 104 OPS+… not bad for a 21 yr olf
AJax: 106 OPS+, at 23, pretty nice for good D in CF.

All in all, Cashman did pretty good. I do miss AJax but his K rate is alarming. I guess the story will depend on if K-Long really fixed Curtis or not.

I’m sure everyone would put up a brave front if it went down like that, but Damon and Boras would either bolt the first chance they got or demand a somewhat punishing contract extension or request when the time came.

The schedule is not in our favor, but the bottom line is all the head-2-head games with TB and Boston. The bottom line is the best team, or at least the hottest team will win it.

With all their injuries, it’s hard to believe Boston is still in this. Makes me think that if healthy, they may be way ahead by now. Youk, Cameron and Pillsbury are out for the year. Mightly Mouse may be also… or a least for a while. Let’s hope they can give TB a fight.

1) Leyland has publicly stated the team is not making the playoffs. A vet like Damon would not take that lying down.

2) Damon and Boras could likely make a “request” that he be waived so a contender can pick him up.

3) Had Tampa or the Yanks put in a claim before the Ded Sox did, he would most likely have been pulled back so they could discuss a trade for some good farmhands.

4) They can save two million on payroll, which for Detroit is not such a bad thing.

5) Leyland may have wanted to do Damon a favor before he leaves; Detroit may have wanted to do Boras a favor. They did a favor for him by signing Damon to a stupid contract in the first place, there might be a little quid pro quo coming their way this offseason, who knows?

Ded Sox did nobody or themselves any favors by blocking Tampa/NY from getting him and would just be kidding themselves if they thought any good would come out of bringing him back for an encore. A little 2004 magic? Lightning in a bottle? A good will gesture to their flighty fans? That all happens when Manny’s batting cleanup behind Bit Papi again. This will be interesting if Detroit does give in to the irony.

It is daunting that Nova, Moseley, Hughes are the starters in the Toronto homer dome.

Just win baby, we’ll figure out the rest later.

Tonight’s lineup makes me want to just lie on my back & give it a rest. Still have a couple of Tylenol /w codeine, maybe take one & wash it down with bourbon. That should ease the pain.

Actually, don’t most teams place many of their players on waivers at this time of the year?

If a guy is claimed, it might be by a team that could offer an interesting deal, if the guy clears waivers, all deals can be explored. If they don’t want to deal with the team who places the claim, they can just pull the guy off of – what’s the term – the waiver wires?

And if they really don’t want the player anymore and someone claims him, they can make that team eat the contract.

While I would like to add some sort of trailing index to the numbers I run, if I had more computational muscle at my disposal, “how a team is playing” can be as dependent on who they just played as it might be on how a particular team is playing. Facts emerge during a season, and can make one part of a schedule quite unlike another part of a schedule. For example, going into Texas for a road series is simply an unpleasant proposition. Getting Seattle at your home park should be an attractive proposition. Looking at the very recent past, splitting four at Oakland may be a greater accomplishment than taking two of three from Seattle at home.

I’m always afraid that the “who do you have left to play” can be ignored as a frighteningly near-immutable factor in deciding these races. Looking at the Yankees’ remaining games, it seems like they have a limited set of options: 1) Win the head to head series left with Tampa Bay 2) Play extraordinarily well to overcome the difficulty of the remaining series on the schedule or 3) hope for miracles like Los Angeles actually giving a damn against the Rays or Kansas City making a four game road set at Kauffman something other than a cakewalk.

My back is the thing that makes all thing unpossible in my world.

My two recommendations: acupuncture and the REV line of epsom salts. I’m actually sold on the idea that the REV stuff is better than run of the mill epsom salt.

To tonight’s game, yikes on the lineup.

And yikes to what’s ahead. It is rough that Alex had to go on the DL, because these two upcoming series are, let’s just say, very dangerous.

These two series, with a little over 23% of the season left, really represent the beginning of the stretch run, and we’re going into them without ARod. The safe bet is that the head to heads will decide everything, but (and I feel like I say this every year), the Yankees’ ability or inability to beat Toronto is going to have a huge impact on whether the Yanks finish in first, second, or out of the money.

Although the Rays only managed a split against Oakland, they did wipe four of the tougher games off of their schedule, and currently the Yankees have a markedly harder slate left than their rivals.

Here’s how it breaks down:

NEW YORK YANKEES

GAMES LEFT: 38 (17 home, 21 away)

OPP. WINNING %: .523
OPP. WINNING %, TBR EXCLUDED: .502
OPP. WINNING %, TBR, BOS EXCLUDED: .486

TAMPA BAY RAYS

GAMES LEFT: 38 (18 home, 20 away)

OPP. WINNING %: .496
OPP. WINNING %, NYY EXCLUDED: .466
OPP. WINNING %, NYY, BOS EXCLUDED: 441

BOSTON RED SOX

GAMES LEFT: 37 (18 home, 19 away)

OPP. WINNING %: .511
OPP. WINNING %, NYY EXCLUDED: .491
OPP. WINNING %, NYY, TBR EXCLUDED: .462

All percentages calculated using home and away splits.

The main takeaways?

We have 6 away games and 3 home games left against Toronto. Can the Yanks avoid being homered to death by the homer-happy Blue Jays? Or can they outpace the Jays? Scary start, with this lineup.

And when it comes to Tampa Bay, if the Yanks and the Red Sox don’t get them, we would need some good breaks to get any help down the stretch. The fact that Rays opponents outside of the Yankees and the Red Sox have a combined .442 winning percentage is a little unnerving.