Unusual Moves by the Manager

What I am about to write is in no way a negative criticism on New York Yankees manager Joe Torre. Over the years, Torre has been very loyal to his veteran players, which is a big reason why so many of his players like him as their manager so much. Coming out of spring training this year Torre has made three uncharacteristic roster moves that I was very surprised he made. Instead of going with the experienced veterans, he chose youth and new faces for the locker room.

The three roster moves I am referring to are Sean Henn over Ron Villone, Josh Phelps over Andy Phillips, and Wil Nieves over Todd Pratt. The most surprising of the three is choosing Wil Nieves over Todd Pratt. The reason for this is that in years past Torre has chosen older veteran backup catchers, that are very good at managing the pitching staff, as well as excellent club house guys. Using a young guy who has not seen much time in the majors goes in the opposite direction that Torre usually goes. It does not ensure that on off days for Jorge Posada the pitching staff which he manages so well, will be in the hands of someone who can come close to matching it. It will however give great experience to a young Yankee who could develop into a nice player. It can be debated whether the catcher position is a good position to try to infuse youth into, but it goes with the organizations overall effort to get younger. He did outperform Pratt in spring training, and it is showing signs of confidence from the manager to Wil and the rest of the youth in the organization.

The next move Torre made was to put Sean Henn on the roster over Ron Villone. I like Villone, but he is old and the Yankees do need some younger arms for the future. Also did you see Henn pitch? His stuff looked electric and after Villone's final debacle of an outing, Torre needed to give Henn a chance to show what he can do in the big leagues. Joe favors a few relievers each year, and each year he greatly over works them. It was evident by Villone's awful end to last year that his arm was just dead come the end of the season. The youth of Henn could allow him to stay strong throughout the season, if in fact Torre keeps with his precedent of using certain relievers for the majority of relief innings.

The third out of character move was to put Josh Phelps on the roster over Andy Phillips. Both players are young (Phelps is younger by about a year) so this was not a move to infuse more youth on the roster. This was very surprising because Joe Torre is incredibly loyal to his players, and Phillips has worked very hard for Torre over the last few seasons. This is especially surprising because Phillips missed a few weeks of spring training to deal with his mother who got in a very serious accident. While Joe said that would not affect his decision, Phillips could not have been playing at his potential due to missed time as well as the natural instinct to care about a loved ones health. I am not saying he made the wrong decision, just the opposite, however in years past Torre might have leaned toward a player who has played under him before, rather than a new one. Even more surprising in the decision is that Phillips can no longer be optioned to the minors without clearing waivers first, which makes it an almost certainty with his defensive talent that he will no longer be a Yankee.

I believe that the above mentioned roster moves that Joe Torre made were the correct ones. It went against what he has shown to be his usual instincts, and has put in place three players that have a legitimate shot of helping the 2007 New York Yankees win baseball games.

The Great Jmagulous makes his NBC debut

NBC Sports anchor, Len Berman, asks The Great Jmagulous what he thinks of Isiah Thomas' multi-year contract extention.

Tourney Travesty

I wanted to start writing this entry a little after six thirty pm March eleventh eastern standard time, however better judgement prevailed. If it were to be read on radio it would have drawn about 27 million dollars worth of fines from the FCC due to language content. It is now a little after ten in the morning on the 12th of March and I am still fuming about what transpired last night. For those of you who might not know, I wear orange and blue goggles so I have a bias in this situation, but there is NO WAY IN HELL that the Syracuse men's basketball team should not be in the field of 65 for the upcoming NCAA men's basketball tournament.

I am not sure where I should start because I have about a million things to say about this, and why it is complete and utter bullshit. I really want to know if any team from a power conference, especially one as deep as the Big East, has won ten regular season conference games and not gone dancing come March? Also how do two teams from your conference finish seeded lower than you in the Big East, yet one gets an eight seed (Marquette), and the other an nine (Villanova) while the Orange are left at home with no ticket punched for the tourney? Give me a break. Syracuse has beat a two seed in Georgetown, and an eight and a nine seed in Marquette and Villanova, but the tournament committee thinks that is irrelevant. Instead, a team that had a sub five hundred record in an incredibly weak division of the SEC makes the field as a twelve seed because they got blown out by Florida in the SEC championship game. They played and beat no one all year, and won against bad teams in the conference tournament and for that they are rewarded with a tournament birth. Whose ass were the heads of the selection committee stuck up the entire season. Clearly they were not watching the same games as the rest of the nation. If they were, Arkansas would not be in the tournament, and neither would Stanford or Xavier.

Don't get me wrong, Xavier had a good year, however an A10 team who loses in their conference tournament before the championship game to Rhode Island does not deserve a bid. The A10 had a very weak year, and in no way should be considered a two bid conference. The winner and auto bid of that tournament should be the only team to make the field, no questions asked, and of story.

On the other hand, Stanford can be very weakly debated, even though I whole heartily believe they were not tournament worthy. They had one decent win all year against UCLA. They beat a then ranked #17 Oregon in their own building. During conference play you are supposed to win your home games. It was a good win, but one in which I believe they should have won. They also beat Washington State and Washington, ranked respectively 23 and 24 at the time. Once again these games were at home and they should have been victories. Those two teams are not high enough caliber to rank them as quality wins. So Standford, an eleven seed in the tournament has had one decent win all season. (By the way, they only had 18 wins all year, hardly worth an at large bid.) They were blown out by Air Force (34 point loss) and Santa Clara, neither of which made the final field of 65. They were inconsistent all year losing to teams that they should have beat. This is not a trait that NCAA tourney worthy teams have. Even the chairman said that teams who qualify should at the very least play up to their ability when taking strength of schedule into consideration. When questioned how Stanford got in based on his previous statement, the Princeton AD and chairman of the committee could not come up with a valid reason. At this point neither can I.

You can always say that if Syracuse won a few more games, or didn't loose to the likes of Wichita St. (#22 at the time), Ok. St. (#24 at the time), Drexel, or St. Johns then they would have made it an impossibility for the selection committee to omit them from the final field. That is not the case, and the most disappointing(actually angering, maddening, outrageous, fill in the blank ____ etc...) thing about this is that at the end of the day Syracuse and coach Boeheim did enough to get themselves in the tournament. This was not a team that has to look back at some of those losses and ask "what if". This was a team who met all the criteria to make the NCAA tournament, and was flat out cheated and robbed. This is a blunder and absolute disgrace on the part of the NCAA tournament selection committee. I am to0 angry to continue any further.

Decision Making

After backing Isiah as a coach and a GM, I have to come back to the drawing board and rethink my stance. Last nights loss versus the league-worst Boston Celtics changes some things.

The Knicks only play good defense when their confidence is high, and that only happens when they're scoring. The team has one reason to blame for their loss last night: they got down by 23 points in the first half. The fact that they took the lead midway through the fourth quarter really doesn't apply. If they played the first half anything remotely close to the way they played the second, they would've been able to afford the late run by the Celtics that won them the game.

The Knicks started Malik Rose and Jared Jeffries at their forward positions last night. When you lose a player like Jamal Crawford, you would think you'd want to make up for his lack of scoring. Malik Rose is completely offensively inept. The team had no success getting the ball into Eddy Curry in the beginning of the game because he was being double and triple teamed. So where was the ball ending up? In Jeffries' and Rose's hands 20 feet away from the basket (not exactly where you want it).

Please, Isiah, think about your personnel. Channing Frye has virtually been lights out with his perimeter jump shot -- make him use it! That will only open things up for the rest of your offense, and you won't find your team down by 20 points at the half to the worst team in the league.

What's Worse?

What is worse…being the worst team in the NBA? Or losing to the worst team in the NBA? (Wait…if you lose to the worst team doesn’t that make you the worst team?) This is a question you could ask the entirety of the New York Knicks organization. From Mr. Dolan to Mr. Thomas, and all the way down to each player on the roster, there has to be a level of accountability for what went on last night. How can you as an organization allow the worst (by far) team in the National Basketball Association go into last nights game, and after twenty-four minutes of play have a twenty point lead? This is simply inexcusable. I blame everyone.

First let me start by saying I cannot understand how as professional athletes you do not come to play every night. Think about it, you have the one of the most desired jobs on the planet, and are living out every ones childhood fantasy. If that is not enough to get you motivated to play hard every night from the opening tip, then how about the millions upon millions of dollars you are being paid to play. I simply do not understand how the Knicks can continuously start out so bad against the worst teams in the league. To make matters worse they always make a comeback in the second half that falls just short. Not only are you showing the fans that you are capable of playing good basketball, you are also showing them that you do not give a rats ass about showing effort until your coach yells at you at half time. Which brings me to my next point...

Why is coach Thomas not telling them what he does at halftime before the game starts? This is not an aberration folks, this happens time and time again. The coach has a responsibility to make sure that his players are ready to play. Isiah is failing miserably in this respect. It is one thing to be outmatched by talent, but to lose because of lack of intensity and effort is just not acceptable from the players and the coach. This is the main if not the only reason why the Knicks have lost three games against the Celtics! That represents twenty percent of the Celtics total wins for the season. I am not even going to get into how bad the Celtics are because they have beaten the Knicks three times!

My time would be better spent trying to explain why the Knicks are so bad, and why they should be considered the worse team in the NBA. Sure, they have more talent that the young Celtics with an injured Paul Pierce, but to not be ready to play against a team with such a lack of talent makes the Knicks look even worse. It makes the Knicks look like the worse team, both in how they play, and how they are run. Losing Jamal Crawford is obviously a big blow to the team, also is not having David Lee in the lineup. However, even without those two it is not excuse to lose to the Celtics who have injury problems of their own, not to mention their “sharp shooter” is Brian Scalabrine. Everyone knows how good Pierce is, even injured he can put up twenty points, but the only other person on their roster that should even score a point is Al Jefferson. If you do not believe me, check out the Celtics record thus far, fifteen wins because of a high lack of shot making ability and huge deficiency is defense. So what do the Knicks do…they allow 57 points in the first half and can not even muster 40 points in the first half. Now look at the second half. The Knicks start to play a little defense (I will not even say they were playing great defense) and the Celtics magically are not hitting as many jumpers when a hand is in their face. Coincidence? I think not.

The Knicks talk in the locker room after wins about the push to the playoffs but they are just kidding themselves. There are certain games that playoff teams win, last night was one of them. Playoff teams win back-to-back games, the Knicks do not. The Knicks are not a playoff team, they cannot be a playoff team, because the last time I checked the worst team in the league does not make the playoffs.