CC Rider

Yesterday was a good day for me.

I finished my taxes only to find I was getting a big, fat refund, and CC Sabathia looked about how I expected him to.

The Yankees' two big off-season acquisitions for the just north of Manhattan Project - Fat Man (Sabathia), and Little Boy (Mark Teixiera), were ugly in their debuts for the Bronx Bommahs. Fat Man's return to the American League, a place where his career stats have always screamed number two starter, was uninspired. The Yankees would-be-ace failed to get out of the fifth inning, giving up six earned runs in four-and-a-third innings for a rousing 12.46 ERA .

I don't expect that Sabathia will be this bad during the course of the season. But I also don't expect him to be good. He dominated the hitter's B-League, tearing up the NL Central, but has only thrice in his eight seasons had an ERA below 3.60 over the course of a full season. And only twice in the AL has he managed an ERA below that number (last season he was at 3.83 before the trade). Additionally, this is a man coming off the two highest inning total of his career (241 in 2007, and 253 in 2008), and he's not exactly a fitness freak. And I addressed that in a previous post when I wrote -

I look at the Yankees off-season and can't help think that they learned nothing from the Carl Pavano signing. Nor have they learned anything from the history of fat pitchers.

The CC Sabathia signing might work well for them in the regular season for the first year or two, but eight seasons? That's nuts.

Sid Fernandez, who had weight issues, last started more than 20 games at age 29. Former Red Sox reliever Rich "El Guapo/the human zeppelin" Garces was respectable until the age of 30. At 31 he posted a 7.59 ERA and was out of baseball after that season. Once dominant Bartolo Colon had an eight season stretch wherein he pitched fewer than 200 innings only once (188 in 2000) and averaged 32.6 starts per season. When he turned 33 he went away - compiling a total of 35 starts and fewer than 200 combined innings over the final three seasons of his career. Sabathia turns 30 in 2010.

The future is not bright for him.

As for Mark Teixiera, I expect he will likely be in line with his career averages when the smoke clears, but putting up a big donut in four at bats, leaving four men on and only getting on base once - not the start that Hank and Hal were hoping for, I'm sure.

Rapid Fire

And not the Brandon Lee flick...

A-Rod, known better in some circles as Slappy McBluelips, is in the news again for yet another boneheaded thing. Slappy posed for a series of sultry photos for Details Magazine, which included a shot of the man making out with the person he loves the most - himself.

There are a lot of stupid things he's done - the hand slap, the yell rounding third, the steroids (rumored to go back as far as high school - which would explain no significant spike in his career stats), his series of contradictory explanations regarding the steroids, getting caught with the stripper in Toronto - but somehow I don't see this flying in the locker room.

The more I think about it, the less likely I think Julius Peppers ends up in New England. I believe that the Pats may have called the Panthers to see what it would take, but I also think that the numbers don't add up - yes, signing him would make it likely that some of the other players would have to be allowed to walk, but I also think for Peppers to come into the fold, he would have to take a considerable cut from what he would make as a franchise player. The Pats aren't going to pay more for Peppers than they do for Tom Brady.

That doesn't even take into account that I find it hard to believe that the Pats would pay out big money to someone who has never played the position.

Also, staying with Peppers, for somebody who wants desperately out of Carolina, he's virtually handcuffed himself by not signing the franchise tender. Without the tender signed, Peppers remains a free agent, however no one will touch him due to the compensation that would be owed to the Panthers - two first round picks. As a free agent, Carolina does not actually hold Peppers' rights and cannot trade him, but are handcuffed in free-agency because, until Peppers signs elsewhere, the team has to have the money available on the books in case Peppers signs the tender - so, even though he's not signed, he counts against the cap. How's that for a kick in the nuts - Peppers, in effect, can't get out of Carolina because he hasn't signed the tender, and Carolina can't improve until they're rid of Peppers, and he's not actually under contract.

For my money, I still say the Pats sign Jason Taylor to small money to play opposite Adalius Thomas. I expect the signing won't happen until sometime after the draft.

The Yankees brain trust cannot be happy with the spring that their big acquisition, CC Sabathia, is having. In fewer than eight innings pitched he has an ERA in excess of 7.00. The Yanks went out and spent big money on a pitcher pushing maximum density that racked up 90 innings in his last 12 starts (not including a brutal start in the playoffs against Philly where he failed to get out of the fourth inning). He had more complete games in the second half last season than he has had in any one whole season in his career. I can't help but think the big money for Sabathia over the long term, and possibly even the short-term is a bad idea.

The Celtics have been hit with some injury issues, but I think there's still enough time for them to get healthy going into the playoffs.

Ditto for the Red Sox going into the regular season.

Good luck to all with their brackets.

Cleaning out the junk drawer of my mind for the new year

Just some random observations about a variety of things...

First, I want to address the NFL MVP - Peyton Manning got that on reputation alone. He did not deserve it this season as he was as culpable in the Colts record through the first seven games as he was responsible for digging them out of the same hole. A lot of people with the MVP vote claim the Colts would have been horrible without Manning under center, but I don't buy that they would have been any worse than 3-4 through seven games before Manning came back if they had Jim Sorgi taking the snaps.

Consider - Sorgi, for his career, has seen action in 15 games (14 if you don't count the one time in 2006 when he came in to take a knee). In those 14 games, Sorgi is 99 for 156 for 929 yards, 6 touchdowns, 1 interception and a QB Rating of 89.9. As that was a lot of partial games, break that down to five games with an average of 20 completions on 31 attempts, 186 yards, and 1 touchdown per game. Certainly passable and capable of winning three or four games over a seven game season.

There are at least five players that have had a bigger impact on their respective teams - Michael Turner, Matt Ryan, Chad Pennington, Ed Reed, James Harrison all significantly change the equation if they're not on their teams, and it's unlikely that any of their teams make the playoffs without them.

The Falcons were exposed as young and inexperienced in what I thought was one of the more boring playoff games I have ever seen.

I like the way the Red Sox rotation is shaping up, and have a hunch that a lot of people are going to panic because the Sox aren't overspending to get the big, sexy names in free-agency. If this works out the way I think it will, the Sox off-season is going to be compared to the Patriots' 2001 free agent signings. A lot of really solid guys that help make a winner, but aren't the biggest names out there.

How many times does Scott Boras have to publicly screw the pooch before his clients begin to get worried. He was publicly neutered in the last Alex Rodriguez negotiations, blinked in his game of chicken with the Sox during the Daisuke Matsuzaka negotiations, he got lucky in the Mark Texiera sweepstakes in that the Yankees swooped in and pretty much bid against no one, overplayed his hand with both Jason Varitek and Manny Ramirez.

Let's look at Ramirez for a second.

It's well known that Ramirez, likely on the advice of Boras, engineered his exit from Boston in an effort to get out from under his option years. That's not going to sit well with other general managers who will wonder if Ramirez will pull the same stunt on their teams.

Reportedly, Boras told Ramirez that he could get a four year contract for an average of $25 million per year, more than the two option years at $20 million each that the Sox would have had. Since the end of the season Ramirez has received a two-year $45 million offer from the Dodgers (since rescinded), and a three-year incentive-laden deal with a club option for a fourth year from the Giants. I'm guessing the dollars aren't in the right neighborhood based on the following from KPIX in San Fran -

The chances of the Giants signing Ramirez, a 36-year-old left fielder, were unclear. A team spokesperson told CBS 5, "it's not happening."

There was a lot of speculation that Roger Clemens would get a pardon from family friend George W. Bush and in so doing, avoid the legal implications of the federal charges that are likely to stem from the FBI investigation. Looks like charges aren't even going to get filed until after Bush leaves office. Sucks to be Roger.

I look at the Yankees off-season and can't help think that they learned nothing from the Carl Pavano signing. Nor have they learned anything from the history of fat pitchers.

The CC Sabathia signing might work well for them in the regular season for the first year or two, but eight seasons? That's nuts.

Sid Fernandez, who had weight issues, last started more than 20 games at age 29. Former Red Sox reliever Rich "El Guapo/the human zeppelin" Garces was respectable until the age of 30. At 31 he posted a 7.59 ERA and was out of baseball after that season. Once dominant Bartolo Colon had an eight season stretch wherein he pitched fewer than 200 innings only once (188 in 2000) and averaged 32.6 starts per season. When he turned 33 he went away - compiling a total of 35 starts and fewer than 200 combined innings over the final three seasons of his career. Sabathia turns 30 in 2010.

The future is not bright for him.

Congrats to the Cardinals who have finally won a playoff game after a 60+ year absence from the post-season.

I don't want to hear any excuses today regarding the Colts. They were beaten by a depleted 8-8 team - a team without its best running back, their best linebacker, and with their best receiving threat, Antonio Gates, hobbled by a high ankle sprain. The Chargers didn't even play that great a game, twice giving the ball back to the Colts in the red zone while threatening to score. And then the Colts defense imploded during the final drive - that was some of the ugliest play-off football I have ever seen.

On a final note - Matt Cassel is about to cash in on a great season. More power to him. I figure we'll know the status of Tom Brady well before the draft. If Brady is on or ahead of schedule, I expect that Cassel will be packaged for draft picks. If he's not, the Patriots have a salary cap issue to address.

Happy New Year all!

News, notes and the weekend's meltdown

I'm going to start with Sunday's fiasco.

It was a complete clusterf#@k.

From top to bottom, this was an almost epic failure by the team. Yes, there were two blatant pass interferences missed by Ed Hochuli's crew, but that would have been irrelevant were it not for the the dropped passes, the missed blocks, the muffed kick returns, and the blown coverages.

Yes, Cassel had a bad game, throwing several interceptions, but he was hardly the goat of the game. Two drives ended with blind side strip sacks courtesy Matt Light being tossed around like he weighed one-hundred pounds, giving the Steelers short fields to work with. One drive never started because Matthew Slater coughed up the ball on the Patriots 20 on a kick-off. Then there was Randy Moss dropping three catchable passes - one in the endzone before a missed field goal attempt.

And that was just the offense and special teams.

That doesn't even take into account the fact the defense couldn't get off the field unless they were aided and abetted by the Pittsburgh offense.

Overall, the only player that I can't fault from this past weekend's travesty of a game is Kevin Faulk who accounted for 121 yards of the team's total offensive output of 267 yards. Almost half.

After this travesty, the Patriots are likely going to need to run the table in order to make the playoffs, and even that won't guarantee them a spot as they now have to rely on others to lose.

At this point, however, I'm convinced that even if they do make the big dance, they're going to be done after only one partner.

Hopefully the latest news will help a defense that ha been brutal the last couple of weeks -

On Wednesday the Patriots welcomed linebacker Rosevelt Colvin back to the fold. Colvin, who inked a one year deal with the Patriots, will help to shore up a depleted linebacking corps that now has injuries to Adalius Thomas, Bo Rudd, Shawn Crable, Eric Alexander, and Pierre Woods, and is playing with an injured Tedy Bruschi. Theoretically, if Colvin can get up to game speed, he should also help with the team's lackluster pass rush, which in turn will aid the inexperienced secondary which has been getting carved up as late.

Word is the Patriots have contacted Victor Hobson as well, who was with the Patriots in training camp. With Colvin in the fold, I think Hobson is unlikely to join the team, but it would not surprise me if he did, considering Bruschi is listed as questionable on the injury list.

Trading on the Gridiron for a walk in the Park

As the Red Sox are taking a deliberate approach to shaping the roster for 2009 - exploring trades, feeling out free agents, and offering arbitration - the Yankees are aggressively pursuing free agents like CC Sabathia, offering the pitcher a 6-year $140 million contract roughly two weeks ago.

Curiously, there has been no movement from the Sabathia camp, which begs several questions - Is he waiting to see if Mark Texiera signs with the Sox, freeing up money for a big contract from the Angels? Is he looking for more money? Or is it possible he just doesn't want to play in New York?

If the issue is the last, it begs the question of how effect the Sox chief rivals are going to be - if the big free agents are spurning the money because they don't believe they can win in the Bronx, what does that mean for the Yankees in 2009? Are we looking at a team that will truly have to give in to the philosophy of rebuilding, or is there any chance tat they will be able to buy their way into...well, being competitive as in past years? If that's the case, then what are we looking at? A team that has shifted from overpaying for highly talented players just past their prime, to a team overpaying for mediocre middle of the road players in the prime of their careers (see Nick Swisher).

While I'm not convinced it's happening yet, it is interesting to think we might be witnessing the death rattle of what had been one of the most dominant professional franchises in North America over the last decade and a half (when championships and post-season appearances are considered). If this is happening (and until Sabathia spurns the offer, I'm not sure it really is happening) after the first season in which they missed the playoffs in more than a decade, it makes me wonder if the Yankees, even with all that cash at their disposal, are going to be able to buy their way back into contention any time soon, or if they really are going to have to build from within.

From the Park to the Garden...

Two quick final items...

The Celtics are looking like they're still hungry. So far the team seems to have picked up where they left off after their championship season. I can't say for sure that they are going back to the finals again, it's early for that, but they certainly look like they're favorites to make it back. Even so, I think the Pacers and the Hawks look tougher this season than they did last.

Over on the ice the Bruins are looking pretty good, but they looked good early last season as well. With any luck, they keep the good play up and go deep in the playoffs.

For years they have either been a just miss, or a one and done team. With recent championships from the Sox, Pats, and C's, I think the pressure is on the Bruins to perform.