guylaroche5

i'm sure all of those guys are still going to cheer for the jays, i always saw the rays as a 'second team' type thing

i read some comments on another site and i think my brain had a minor aneurysm

ty based ninja, see what you can do when you put down the tzatziki!

AA's interview on the radio convinced me he's gonna start the year in the pen as a setup man. Honestly I have no problems with this, I don't think Sanchez is consistent enough to be a big league starter and if you have a 100 MPH flamethrower in your system you might as well use him if you're going to compete.

not sure i like non-tendering potential trade chips, especially ones not named estrada

that's all pretty much correct, minus the picture

if we're under the assumption that the payroll is around ~140 mil we should stay far far away from both of them

nice timing on that offer right after stanton's deal lmao

On Friday, the Josh Donaldson trade woke us from our tryptophan-induced slumber. But more than putting the Blue Jays in prime position to have a great 2015 season, it raised an interesting question: Are the Yankees suddenly the worst team in the American League East? It sounds odd to hear that question, but if you take stock of the AL East right now, it's a fair one. There is obviously a lot of offseason yet to unfold. As mentioned in Buster Olney's column Sunday, only one free-agent pitcher has signed. So it's obviously too early for such bold proclamations that the Yankees will definitively be the worst team in the division. But as we stand here today, the Yankees look like they are certainly in a dead heat for it, if not pulling up the rear. Name, Team PA WAR Josh Donaldson, TOR 630 5.5 Evan Longoria, TB 630 5.4 Jose Bautista, TOR 637 5.2 Manny Machado , BAL 595 5.1 Dustin Pedroia , BOS 595 4.4 Russell Martin, TOR 553 3.9 Edwin Encarnacion, TOR 644 3.8 Adam Jones, BAL 665 3.6 Pablo Sandoval, BOS 560 3.6 Jacoby Ellsbury , NYY 595 3.5 Ben Zobrist, TB 560 3.5 Hanley Ramirez, BOS 525 3.5 Brian McCann, NYY 588 3.4 Steve Pearce, BAL 595 3.2 Brett Gardner , NYY 630 3 J.J. Hardy, BAL 630 2.9 Matt Wieters , BAL 489 2.9 Mike Napoli, BOS 560 2.7 Yoenis Cespedes, BOS 490 2.7 Jose Reyes, TOR 595 2.7 Kevin Kiermaier, TB 560 2.6 Mookie Betts, BOS 399 2.6 Chris Davis , BAL 595 2.4 Wil Myers, TB 595 2.4 David Ortiz , BOS 595 2.4 Martin Prado, NYY 630 2.3 Ryan Hanigan, TB 416 2.1 Shane Victorino, BOS 420 2.1 Christian Vazquez, BOS 384 2 Matt Joyce, TB 525 1.9 James Loney, TB 616 1.9 The FanGraphs depth charts, which combine both playing time and performance projections, have the 2015 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) totals for the division as follows: Red Sox: 40.1 Blue Jays: 37.4 Rays: 36.4 Orioles: 34.0 Yankees: 32.9 At this stage, playing-time projections are not going to be as airtight as they will come March, when the bottoms of rosters fill out and we see what injuries each team has entering the season. But it at least gives us a pretty good picture. And the picture isn't exactly encouraging for Yankees fans. When the Yankees have been at their best in the past two decades, it was because they had a few pillars to rely on. And while Brian McCann and Jacoby Ellsbury are good players, they fall short of "pillar" status, both in feel and statistically. At this moment, Ellsbury is projected to be the 10th-best position player in the division, as the table to the right shows. That is tops for the Bombers. In fact, only four Yankees position players rank in the top 30 players in the division. New York will be relying on bounce-back seasons from three of the players who appear just underneath this top 30: Mark Teixeira, Carlos Beltran and Alex Rodriguez. No one really knows what to expect from A-Rod. Can he play all season? Do the Yankees even want him to play all season? Will he play at all? Did his year in exile do his body good, or will his swing be so rusty that it won't matter at all? He's really one big unknown. Beltran also is hard to peg. If his elbow injury truly hampered him all season, he might get back to mashing next season. Last season was Beltran's worst at the plate in a decade, so that's a supportable argument. Beltran was 37 last season, though, and now that his trademark good defense and baserunning seem to have gone by the wayside, he is nearly a replacement player unless he gets back to mashing. While there is some hope that Beltran can get his groove back, such hope has all but evaporated for Teixeira. Tex hasn't played more than 123 games in any of the past three seasons, and heading into next year at 35, the 2015 campaign probably won't be much different. And after posting a 141 wRC+ from 2005 to 2009, he has posted a more mortal 117 wRC+. Teixeira can still be an above-average hitter and fielder, but his baserunning and playing-time issues leave him as a decidedly below-average player overall. At least he and the Yankees will always have 2009. Name, Team IP WAR Marcus Stroman, TOR 188 3.2 Masahiro Tanaka, NYY 188 3.2 Alex Cobb, TB 188 2.9 Clay Buchholz , BOS 188 2.3 CC Sabathia, NYY 188 2.3 Michael Pineda, NYY 162 1.9 Drew Hutchison, TOR 166 1.8 Chris Archer, TB 179 1.8 Koji Uehara, BOS 65 1.7 Mark Buehrle, TOR 191 1.5 R.A. Dickey, TOR 188 1.5 Joe Kelly, BOS 188 1.5 Jake McGee, TB 65 1.5 Drew Smyly, TB 122 1.5 Wei-Yin Chen, BAL 169 1.5 Looking at the division's pitchers, the picture is a little more enthusiastic. But there are, of course, a few caveats here. One, as mentioned above, the pitching landscape is going to change. There's little chance that the Red Sox roll into 2015 with their starting rotation as currently constituted. Second, the three Yankees who find themselves in the top 15 here are all injury risks moving forward. All pitchers are, technically, but the trio at the top of the Yankees' rotation all battled injuries last season. Will Masahiro Tanaka have more elbow trouble? Will CC Sabathia have more knee trouble? Will Michael Pineda have more shoulder trouble? If they do, the drop-off could be significant. The Red Sox and Rays collapsed in 2014, and between them and the Orioles' surprising run, plus Derek Jeter's retirement, the Yankees' performance as a club wasn't as big a story as it might have been otherwise. But next year, the team is out of longtime players in their final seasons to fete, and the Blue Jays and Red Sox spent November splashing the pot and raising the stakes. The Orioles and Rays have been relatively quiet thus far, as have the Yankees. If there isn't some noise from the Bronx soon, though, it's possible the Yankees might not only be looking at a third straight year of October tee times, but also a last-place finish for the first time since 1990.

honestly had izturis not had a hilariously bad 2013 i probably would have forgotten about his existence

this pleases me, I wasn't too fond of the idea of signing miller or robertson to 40-50 mil contracts

i'm not gonna whore my sarcasm out, it needs to be EARNED

i think it was time to get rid of my cartoon colby avatar, i started to feel like the guy who had gose as his well after he was traded...

http://i.imgur.com/kSWZckp.png All ABOARD seriously though i've been meaning to get a jersey, not sure if i wanna get stroman or donaldson

http://i.imgur.com/hbHlCu6.jpg

http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/134/b/3/fap_fap_fap__by_stevesjobes-d4zpb0f.jpg

can someone f***ing build a time machine? april can't come soon enough, LET'S GO

you can't be for real

it was complete sarcasm, i never thought we could get f***ing donaldson lmao

LMAO GRAVEMAN AHHAHAHAHAHAHA this is too good

gg i win the internets

we're obviously getting donaldson

the plot thickens

lmao, if you can't read the fine print it says "BRef wanted $15 to sponsor this page, but in Ruben's honor I ponied up $75 on a three year deal with a vesting option. 2015 can't come soon enough!"

why exactly do we need an ace? baltimore won 96 games and got to the championship series with a rotation extremely similar to what we have now