Friday Afternoon Linkapalooza: 1/24/14

The next person who talks about how KUH-RAYZEEEEEEEEE cold it is outside is getting punched right in the throat. I don't care if it's a 5-year-old girl. POW!! Sorry, sweetheart. You just got Vietro'd. It's bad enough that the social media explosion has made everybody think they need to announce everything they're doing in their lives at all times, but it's even worse when that extends to mindless commentary on things as basic and trivial as the weather. Yes, it gets cold in the winter. I'm aware. You should be too. This is not a new phenomena. Stop Instagramming screenshots of the wind chill from your phone and get on with your life. By the way, it's going to be negative degrees in Wisco all day next Monday and Tuesday. That throat punch threat probably won't last much past 7:30 Monday morning. Now onto the links!

- On Monday, Chad Jennings of LoHud commented on how much Derek Jeter has to prove this year after what happened last season and all that's gone down this offseason.

- EJ Fagan of IIATMS/TYA listed his top 10 international Yankee prospects.  Looking forward to seeing what Molina, Rodriguez, and Palma do this year.

- On Tuesday, Greg Corcoran of Bronx Baseball Daily profiled burgeoning pitching prospect Shane Greene, who could start to sneak into the spot start candidate discussion before too long if he starts the season in Triple-A.

- Mike Axisa of RAB reminded everybody how important CC Sabathia is to the Yankees this year and how he might be able to fix the problems that dogged him last season.

- On Wednesday, William Juliano of The Captain's Blog questioned what the Yankees bailing on the luxury tax avoidance payroll plan means for their true payroll goals and commitment to winning moving forward.

- SJK of NoMaas praised the front office for putting their money where this mouth is this offseason while also questioning why the lame attempt to trim payroll in 2013 even happened in the first place.  Fair question that I still need time to digest before addressing.

- Jonathan Aron of Yanks Go Yard mused on what this coming season has in store for Brett Gardner now that he's changing roles again.

- On Thursday, Roberto E. Alejandro of Respect Jeter's Gangster asked the most important Tanaka-related question that nobody has asked yet.

- SG of RLYW put Tanaka under the CAIRO projection microscope to set an appropriate level of expectation for 2014.

- Jason Cohen of Pinstripe Alley introduced his plan for how to fix the Yankee farm system.

- On Friday, Derek Albin of Pinstripe Pundits took to the ZiPS projections to see how fair the Tanaka contract is.

- El duque of It Is High... argued for why the Yankees should go ahead and sign Stephen Drew.  Part of me thinks Drew is waiting because he wants to come here.  Most of me thinks it's just Boras dangling the Yankee threat to force Boston's hand.

- Daniel Burch of The Greedy Pinstripes suggested taking an Andy Pettitte-esque workload approach to Hiroki Kuroda next year to help keep him fresh later in the season.

Little throwback action for this Friday's jam, a little "You've Got Another Thing Comin'" by Judas Priest.  Classic heavy metal song.  If you think you like metal and you don't like this song, you simply do not like metal.



Enjoy your weekends, everybody.