No joke, Chuck Wipple and I were discussing the Yanks’ plans going into the deadline tomorrow, when I go “I think we’re in the market for a catcher more than people realize.” Of course I haven’t put out a trade-oriented blog since the Nady/Marte deal broke, so I’m gonna have to ask you all to take my word on this (which I doubt you will). Anyways, I have some mixed feelings about this move. On the one hand, Pudge is a definite upgrade over Jose Molina. On the other, who pitches the 8th inning for us now? My vote goes to Jose Veras, but it’s anyone’s guess who’ll actually nail down the job. Maybe Marte, maybe Edwar… or maybe Mo can just make life easy on us and go be Goose Gossage the rest of the season? Don’t get me wrong, I’d never be caught dead saying Kyle Farnsworth is irreplaceable. In fact, the way he pissed his pants in Fenway last Friday pretty much sealed his fate… and that outing Monday night didn’t exactly help his cause either. But our MLB-best 48-1 record when leading after 6-innings is going to be hard to reproduce the rest of the way without the services of Farnsy, or as one of my buddies affectionately called him “Suckworth.”
By the way, kudos to Max Kellerman, who was talking about trading Farnsworth this morning while his value was still relatively high. Granted, he didn’t even think we could get Ramon Castro for him (which I guess poses the question of whether the Tigers overpaid for him or not), but at least Kellerman had the right idea going. None of the so-called experts (a-hem, a-hem, Peter Gammons, John Heyman, a-hem, a-hem) even had this on their radar. Figures.
Oh well, here’s to trying to bash our way to a 27th World Championship. I mean it’s worked so well these past 7 years, why do it any other way?
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