Damon would still be a productive member of that lineup and allow the Yankees to trade Melky, who has probably close to peaked. The problem with Damon is he’s a terrible left fielder which is why Cashman lowballed him for the reported two year $14 million deal.

I think Cashman had a number he would have accepted for Matsui which was probably pretty close to the $5.5 million they gave Nick, maybe a little less. Nick is a better option so I’m not sure Matsui would have returned anyway. At least Nick can at first.

If Matsui was still available, I bet that Nick Johnson would not have been signed.

Yankees sent couple of messages to Damon/Boras about their seriousness to bring him back but at their price when they got Granderson and when they let Matsui sign with Angels. They did not get the desired response and so now they are moving on with Nick as DH. I very much doubt if they want Damon back now. The priority has shifted to starters and reliever as it should.

I would not count on Wang coming back, but there are a lot of other options as you mentioned.

Even so, I’d be willing to trade Cano, Melky, Kennedy and McCallister for King Felix of Seattle.

Nettles and Munson are probably in the early twenties when comparing them to the Yankees overall history. Both players suffer from not having a tremendous amount of playing time with the Yankees. Players like Paul O’Neill, Willie Randolph, and Don Mattingly place above Graig and Thurman when looking at their total offensive contribution over their Yankee careers.

For your sake, I hope there is a game six in the World Series and it ends similarly to how the ALCS ended: Andy Pettitte throwing a gem and Mariano Rivera getting a swing and a miss. There are few experiences in life like Yankee Stadium in the postseason, so enjoy.

Consider, though, that when the Mets signed Johan Santana’s extension before the 2008 season, they gave him 6 years $137.5 million plus a club option for 2014. That averages just under $23 million a season. Sabathia’s deal is seven years averaging exactly $23 million a year later.

Now, New York, same market, no competition in negotiating for the Mets. The star players are going to make star money whether it’s the Yankees giving it to them or not. And the reason is because the money is there.

Baseball is flush with money despite the economy woes. This was a slightly down year but they are still doing very, very well. And all of that money has to go somewhere. It can either be in the owners pockets or in the players pockets.

The bad teams are already struggling with attendance. The problem is, so are the good teams. The Tampa Bay Rays didn’t draw well this year considering they went to the World Series last season. Baseball has over-expanded when some people were calling for contraction. The Florida teams probably could have been done without while the Expos/Nationals may have been better off folding.

Those extra teams take some of the pie that could have been dispersed to smaller market clubs. At the same time, teams like the Rays are building success without a huge payroll by simply being smart.

It’s easy to point at the Royals and Pirates and say they can’t complete. The problem is, they aren’t smart about how they develop and who they sign. The big discrepancy going forward will be between the smart teams and not so smart teams. The smart teams with money (Red Sox, Yankees) will be hard to beat.

The NFL is at a distinct advantage over MLB in that they have roughly eight home games a year, whereas MLB has eighty-one. It’s a lot easier to fill a stadium when the event is so rare.

It is next to impossible to get a salary cap in baseball without a major lockout. I doubt Bud Selig wants to go that route anytime soon.

Regardless, the Yankees have always outspent the other teams in the league. Back in the 40s and 50s, the Yankees used Kansas City as their own personal minor league system, often casting off their useless veterans for younger, more valuable players (Roger Maris, for instance, before the 1960 season). They have always been the team with the money to spend because they play in the largest market in the world.

I’m not convinced a salary cap would even fly with owners in baseball because, along with a cap, you need a floor. Many of the current owners, as you pointed out, are happy to keep their payrolls low and reap profits, some of which comes from the luxury tax the Yankees pay annually for their high payroll. A few teams don’t invest that money on the field and put it in their pocket. How quickly will they give that up?

It’s also worth noting that the Yankees payroll this year is actually less than it was in 2008. And if Cashman hadn’t convinced Hal Steinbrenner that Mark Teixeira was worth the extra dollars, it would be significantly less. That doesn’t make Pirate fans feel any better, but Cashman does seem committed to making the Yankees a little more fiscally responsible.

That is, until he sees a shiny new ballplayer on the shelf.

Now if only we could get NESN in Fairfield County.

I thought the call on Mauer’s hit was a terrible call and said so above. The Yankees will have the most opportunities to have calls go their way in the playoffs because they’ve been in fourteen of the last fifteen Octobers. The fact that you can only cite a game from 1996 and a game from 2009 makes me think these occurrences aren’t nearly as frequent as they seem.

I will say this about Tejada:

1) Jeter has been the better hitter. Tejada’s best years appear to be behind him while Jeter is in the MVP talk this season. Jeter has had a significantly better OBP throughout his career.

2) Tejada has been named in the Mitchell Report.

From that standpoint, I would have to give the edge to Jeter.

I like Jeter but I am by no means a Jeter lover by any stretch. I had him pegged for serious decline this year and am pretty surprised by the year he’s had.

I’ve found the hoopla surrounding this record to be a bit silly, but then, he’s been the foundation of the franchise for a long time. People want to celebrate him and I can’t argue with that.

I just wish the YES Network would pull back on it a bit.

I am not a Yankee hater by any means, but this is solely a team record. And it’s taken him almost 600 more at-bats to hit the number than the estimable Columbia alum.

Miguel Tejada is every bit the player that Jeter is–look at the numbers.

Yankee fans will say, How many rings does Tejada have?”

And I will say, “The same number as Don Mattingly.”