Don’t let your imagination carry you away.

Your conjecture overlooks the fact that our Federal Court system has well established rules and standards regarding who may or may not testify as character witness. And that the Judge’s authority to manage the Court’s time allows him to disallow witnesses whose testimony would not meet the standard of relevance.

Since Bond’s case does not rely on “character” issues, character witness are unlikely to be called (let alone allowed). He is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice. The Feds will make a factual case that he lied and obstructed. The prosecutors do not even need to demonstrate that Bond’s has used or purchased PEDs. Just that his actions prevented investigators from answering the questions they sought.

As for Washburn – I would not even give up Igawa for his bloated contract. Who needs him…

Thats all I can say.

there has never been a time like this before in baseball. that’s why a team like cleveland that had the perfect model two years ago is temporarily out of touch with market conditions.

cashman has never done a youth movement before. how does anyone including him know how he’s going to deal with free agents at 26 years old 4 years from now?

the smart way to deal with this kind of newness, uncertainty, and changing conditions is to come up with solutions for multiple scenarios and be covered for all possibilities.

that’s why the yankees need someone more qualified to run the yankees. cashman doesn’t have that kind of experience or ability.

And CB, it’s hard to imagine many legal ramifications / liability to the Yankees for signing Bonds. The issue is did Bonds use steroids at the time he testified he didn’t? The likelihood that Yankees players co-employed with him now now would have anything of direct, not hearsay value to say on the issue is rather limited. And I’m not sure but HIPAA regs might get in the way of any line of questioning for Bonds employers. But we’re all speculating way too much here.

The PR ramifications on the other hand are huge.

Damon dh
Jeter ss
Abreu rf
Rodriguez 3b
Giambi 1b
Cano 2b
Cabrera cf
Molina c
Gardner lf
Chamberlain p

Washburn is sooo overrated – he isn’t even liked here on a sub .500 club. He has NEVER won anything even remotely like a big game. the fact that he likes living here and would prefer to stay here = he would get eaten up alive with the NY pressure.

Think Roy Smalley, THink Ed Whitson etc etc

The reason the Yanks want him to drop the no trade clause is they only want to rent him for this year. He does not fit in their plans.

Frankly the only reason they are interested in him – is they are tryin to remove the albatross in Igawa. CASH and the boys have no idea what to do with Igawa…..

Igawa was a colossal mistake.

I could see an Igawa and Ramiro Pena going for Washburn and Vidro. BTW- Vidro is worthless – he could be the least productive DH to ever play.

He is the equivalent to IGAWA as a DH –

THis would be a trade to remove garbage….

BIG V

I agree that this was an important precedent – it will also be interesting to see what happens as the contract is performed. It seems to me that there are a lot of potential problems.

Injury is obviously an issue – but there could be major problems on the upside too where Longoria could overperform the pay and demand a new deal, sit-out, etc.

The complications of all of these early long-term deals (Braun, Cano, Hanley Ramirez, etc.) should be interesting as they unwind.

True but Bonds is a jerk regardless.He would be a great hitter but we already have a guy who is kinda of a jerk and can’t keep himself from saying and doing the wrong thing.

He’s name is Alex Rodriguez.And Bonds is more of a DH guy.Posada and Damon and Matsui might need that position.