Back Of The Rotation Becoming An Oxymoron Situation

It seems all my blogging and suggesting and hoping and praying, to both forces of Heaven and Hell, for some younger guys to get a real shot at making the Yankee rotation out of Spring Training has already done no good as Joe has all but narrowed down the ST battle for the final 2 rotation spots to 4 guys.  LoHud has all the details in this post, which made me want to throw up my dinner and then knock on the door across the hall in my apartment building so I could slap the 3-year-old girl that lives there.

The biggest thing I took from this post can be summed up in this sentence from the post itself:

"... but for the most part this appears to be an open competition between four guys."

Does that statement not make sense to anybody else but me?  Is this a "jumbo shrimp" situation?  "Open competition" between 4 guys?  THAT'S NOT OPEN!!!!

Before I delve into the stupidity of Joe making that decision, let's first examine the phrase "open competition," key word being "open."  Open implies that the competition in question will welcome all participants, in this case the participants being all of the pitchers in camp right now, be they current Major Leaguers, former Major Leaguers, Triple-A guys, Double-A guys, free agents, guys acquired through trade, and all pitchers invited to camp, roster or non-roster.  To say that an "open competition" is limited to 4 select people is, in fact, a completely un-open competition.  It is a competition by invite only, and if you aren't one of the lucky 4 to find the Willy Wonka golden ticket in your locker then you're SOL, friend-o.  In short, a competition that limits the number of participants who can participate and then automatically selects the 4 participants before the competition actually begins is not open at all.

A "Catch Up" Linkapalooza

There's been a lot of real good stuff coming out around the blogosphere in the last couple days.  Being the caring, giving individual that I am, I figured it would be nice to provide it all in one small, easy-to-open package.

- The guys at the newly formed The Yankee Analysts are churning out quality stuff at an alarming rate.  Mike J-D examined Kevin Millwood & Edwin Jackson as potential back-of-the-rotation options.  We were both in agreement that Jackson was a far better option.

- Mike Imbrogno from TYA had a great two-part series comparing the 2011 Yankee batter projections, first against the 2010 positional averages and then by spot in the batting order.  Bottom line, the lineup is going to be good this year.  No reason for concern there.

- Jamie Insalaco at Bomber Banter put something right into my wheelhouse with his commentary on the current Mets ownership fiasco and an open invitation to Mets fans to come join the Evil Empire.

- Cliff Corcoran at Pinstriped Bible has a fantastically in-depth look at every pitcher in camp who is competing for the last 3 spots in the 14-man pitching platoon.  If you aren't up to speed on any of the new guys, this is a great read.

- William at The Captain's Blog goes nostalgic and traces the complete history of Yankee Spring Training, all the way back to 1901.  That's just good hustle by William right there.

- "All A.J. All The Time" was the perfect title for this post by Jason at IIATMS, as he collects recent commentary on A.J. and shows the breakdown between 2009 A.J. and 2010 A.J.

- Continuing the "examine A.J." trend is Mike Axisa at RAB, who breaks down A.J.'s 2010 K rates by pitch type.  Admittedly, it's hard to draw any conclusions from this, but it does make it clear that the curveball will be a key for A.J. in 2011.

- And lastly, if you didn't already listen to the epically hilarious on-air battle between Francesa and Mike from Hackensack, do yourself a favor and check it out NOW at LenNY's Yankees.  Lenny hits the nail on the head with his 2 favorite parts.

I am definitely going to use the "because they are magical" argument a lot more when discussing the Yanks this season.

The Sandman Has Entered

He's bAAAAAAAaaaaack!  Via LoHud:

"The closer has arrived. Mariano Rivera got into town last night and will begin his usual spring training routine this morning. As usual, he’s not sure when he’ll finally throw off a mound, but it won’t be any time soon."

Yeah, because the mound doesn't deserve to have him throw off of it yet.  The mound can wait its turn to get destroyed just like everybody else.  Somebody do me a favor and hit the music!