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Why are so many of us expecting failure from our players and then when they do have a rough period immediately jumping on the player. Lets give our guys a chance too.

I want the best players too, but we need to return to the old Yankee philosophy that won us 4 straight World Series. That was when we had a good balance of player development, smart trades and good free agent signings.

I hate this over reactive sign sign sign mentality that nets us Kyle Farnsworth and Carl Pavano. It didn’t work in the 80s and it hasn’t been working since 2001.

Lets not turn into a bunch of whining Met fans, ok guys?

The problem is he gives up a hit (usually a homerun) and becomes unglued.

He just doesn’t have the psychological make up to be a relief pitcher and he never will unfortunately because he has such outstanding stuff

I’d probably fail as a GM, but I don’t understand why you have to make EVERY decision with the overriding goal of maximizing offense.

So you take a hit at offense with Cervelli, v. Benji Molina. But you get a young, healthy, reliable guy who can play most of the season. He can run “average,” and avoid a double play now and then. You free up minor league positions, to keep the pipeline flowing. And he makes the league minimum.

I had an epiphany of sorts watching a Cardinals game a few years back. I was about 40 years old, a time in which many people begin feeling old…having aches and pains that don’t go away, etc. Among those, for me, is a shoulder impingement, the inevitable aftermath of years of throwing and trying to play ball sports with a body ill-equipped to do so.

Anyway, Jim Edmonds was running full bore after a fly ball. He dove, laying out in a full stretch/dive, caught the ball and landed in a sort of belly flop. The vision of watching his outstretched arm hit the ground at that speed and velocity literally made me feel a twinge in my own shoulder.

I thought to myself, I’d NEVER tried so hard on a ball or in any sport I’d ever played, as he did on that play. And he probably made plays like that, or tried to, dozens of times per year, for 20 or more years.

All professional athletes abuse their bodies. In the extreme. You have to be a genetic freak to play a sport 30 years and walk away relatively healthy. The pattern of evolution of things differs from player to player. Matsui’s collapse looks unique, but one way or another, most career athletes reach an end point like his, at least somewhere on their bodies.