Moose, you're a real sweatheart

[Ytown Tribe fan]

Gosh, Mike -- sorry your start was delayed by 15 minutes to honor "some guy" in Toronto. Bummer, dude.

http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/yankees/ny-spyside303947945aug30,0,3955285.story?coll=ny-baseball-headlines

[Crash Course]

Not shocked by this.
Mussina always gets his in a bunch whenever someone puts a pea under his pillow.

That's why this Yankee fan will throw a party when his contract is up - if the Yankees do not resign him.

[KCBOOMER]

Sometimes little things irritate us big time, but there is a time and place to complain about it.

[TimmyB]

It's so refreshing to know the Yankees have at least one prima donna... I was beginning to wonder.

[Makofan]

I think Moose was just steamed at seeing Cito again - and being left warming up in the bullpen again!

Classy move by the Jays though, putting Cheek up there with Bell, Fernandez, Stieb and Cito

[WiredTiger]

Has Mussina always been this way or has the whining started because he's winding down his career and hasn't pitched as well?

[Crash Course]

He's always been this way as a Yankee. I would guess he was this way as an O too. IIRC, there's a story about the O's being in contention, and the SPs realized that their 5th slot was killing them, so the pitchers voted on going to a 4 man rotation - - and Mussina refused to do it while the rest of the SP were willing to try it.

Also, on the YES broadcast yesterday, they were commenting about how, as an O, he was married to his pitch counts and would take himself out of a game when he neared 100.

[nyy26wc]

That's why this Yankee fan will throw a party when his contract is up - if the Yankees do not resign him.

When the Yankees signed Mussina, instead of Manny Ramirez, I gave them a stupidity award.

Can I assume you are agreeing with that?

Meanwhile, since they signed their free agent contracts--

Ramirez: 234 RCAA
Mussina: 52 RSAA

[Crash Course]

I dunno - I'm not sure that 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004 in NY would be much different with no Mussina and a Manny? As much as I think Mussina is a wuss, he did help NY some in 2001 and 2003.

Would the extra hitting of Manny, and the lack of Mussina, have helped NY in the last 4 years? Again, I dunno. Excellent question!

[nyy26wc]

I dunno - I'm not sure that 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004 in NY would be much different with no Mussina and a Manny? As much as I think Mussina is a wuss, he did help NY some in 2001 and 2003.

Would the extra hitting of Manny, and the lack of Mussina, have helped NY in the last 4 years? Again, I dunno. Excellent question!

Absolutely it would have helped. I refer you to my previous study about the equivalency of RCAA and RSAA.

The Yankees would have had to replace Mussina with a pitcher so bad that he would have been Neifi Perez level to get the RSAA of that spot in the rotation down so far that the extra offense that Ramirez provided wouldn't have negated the bad pitching. And this would have been especially hard to do since no pitcher in baseball history regularly posted RSAA's as bad as Perez posted RCAA's.

And this is coming from someone who likes Mussina. The data just doesn't support the idea that signing him over Ramirez made any sense.

[Crash Course]

What about the RCAA that NY would lose, from players they would have not signed (Matsui? Sheffield? Giambi?) if they had Manny?

[hmrsf]

Makes you wonder at the end of Ramirez, Mussina, and Rodriguez contracts who will be the better buy? I think we even had a thread on this one, no? Where is Gyb when you need him? :D

[KCBOOMER]

What about the RCAA that NY would lose, from players they would have not signed (Matsui? Sheffield? Giambi?) if they had Manny?


You jest, of course. They would have signed all those guys anyway. Had they not signed Mussina and had signed Manny for exactly the same deal the Red Sox gave him it would have cost the Yanks, on average $6M a year over the first six years (the length of the contract they signed Mussina to). Chump change in their world. In fact you might get lucky and the Yanks don't sign Contreras which would just about cover the differential.

You might want to contemplate that Mussina will cost $38M efor the next two years while Manny will "only cost" $42M. Granted Manny has two extra years on his contract.

[Crash Course]

You can only play 8 players in the field. If Manny was a corner OF or a DH, that means one of the Yankees COF or DH "signees" - Giambi, Matsui, Sheffield - would not be on the team.

[mgoettsche]

My guess is Sheff wouldn't be there, based purely on chronology. Manny still the better deal over the life of his career at Yankee Stadium.

The interesting question is: What pitcher would the Yankees have landed instead of Mussina?