Thursday, March 7, 2013

Mariano Rivera To Announce His Retirement After The 2013 Season

(Courtesy of Getty Images)

It hardly comes as a surprise.  I've been implying that this announcement was coming for a while now.  But it's still newsworthy when Mariano Rivera is planning to announce his retirement and it certainly appears as though that's what's happening again.

Joel Sherman first reported the story a few hours ago, tweeting that a press conference has been scheduled for 10AM on Saturday at Steinbrenner Field at which Mo is expected to announce that he will retire after this season.  Mo himself wouldn't confirm the report when asked at camp today, but it sounds like this is the real deal.

Of course, the original plan was for Mo to retire after last season, but that plan got derailed when he suffered  his season-ending ACL injury.  Now he's recovered and appears to be on track to start the season so it's as good a time as any to get the formalities of announcing this out of the way.  As I said last week, it's never fun to think about Mo retiring, but if it gives us another shot at having a true "Season of Mo" then I guess I can live with that.

Triple-R Game 2013: Remain

(Can't knock the hustle.  Courtesy of Barton Silverman/NY Times)

It took a major backseat to the Mark Teixeira injury news, but I kicked off the 2013 edition of the Triple-R Game yesterday with my projected regressors and I have to say I was a little surprised that I didn't have more guys pegged for that category.  As negative as a lot of the talk has been about where this team stands after its offseason, and justifiably so, there aren't many players I see taking a big step back this year.  I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it stages a more positive stage for the other two R categories.  Today we'll take a look at the less exciting of the two, the group of players I expect to repeat their 2012 performances.

Mark Teixeira Injury Thoughts & Afterthoughts

(Photo courtesy of Don Pokress/Newsday)

(Originally published at IIATMS/TYA)

Well this has been a fun start to the 2013 season, huh?  Not exactly what any of us had in mind or expected after a long, frustrating offseason, but I guess for the sake of consistency and tying plot points together you might as well have an injury-filled preseason to reinforce just how bad the offseason was.  Mark Teixeira, whether he rebounded from last year or not, was one of the most important players in this lineup and now he's out for 8-10 weeks with a sprained tendon in his right wrist.  To be honest, I'm still trying to process everything that relates to this injury in my head, so rather than attempt to formulate a smooth, logical response post I'm just going to go with the old "Ts and AferTs" standby and at least get my thoughts out.