Please,stay on this non story, Roger Clemens..Same song second verse..Roger has his story,and he’s sticking to it..Right on to be convicted of perjury..In the scheme of “things”, who really cares..

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I was thinking the same thing. I’ve heard a couple of people state that they believe that Clemens has convinced himself that he was clean. I can’t really envision how that’s possible, but I’d be curious to hear a clinical explanation, if one exists.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/.....id=4160521

I will say that Roger sounds convinced he didn’t use PED’s. He doesn’t sound like he’s lying.

Whether he is or not is up to someone else to decide…

1+1 (performance option)? That’s more reasonable.

The Yankees have to get out of adding that “extra year” to a guy’s deal. That’s why the payroll and the roster is so messed up.

In this economic environment, nobody is giving JD a 2 year + an option deal.

Yanks Would be stupid not to offer him a 2 year deal with a option for a third. He can be a great 4th OF/DH next year. The Yanks will absolutely need depth in the outfield next year, Melky nor BG are everyday players, and there is no telling what A-Jax can provide next year.

Austin Jackson will be a better player than Melky. Much, much more upside.

I think its great that Melky has a hot streak right now and is playing very, very well.

I’m skeptical as to whether his play holds up all season.

To me, he’s the classic 4th OF. Get him 300 AB’s a year, and have him fill in for other guys in the OF, and he helps you.

A 550-600 AB guy? Not seein’ it.

I think Damon’s positives outweigh his negatives at the present time. Especially on this team.

Now, he could slide off the rails the rest of the way and it makes the decision not to bring him back an easy one.

However, if he doesn’t, I would bring him back (if possible) on a one year or one year + performance option deal.

As far as possible trade partners with any of the young pitchers, that’s when you go through the rosters and seek out teams that need pitching and have a surplus of position players.

For example, Cleveland. That Choo kid can play RF for me anytime. He can hit and is a very solid player. At worst, a platoon player. Although, I think he would tear up RF in the new stadium.

Cleveland really needs pitching in their organization. Perhaps that’s a match.

That’s just one example. If I had the time, I could dig through the rosters of other teams and find other example.

Just a tad short on time today.

That’s too high a bar to judge anybody’s job.

Under that premise, all but one GM in baseball gets fired after each season.

I judge a GM on progress, the state of the entire organization, and where the franchise is headed.

The fact is, since 2004, the Yankees have been on a downward trend every year. Each year has been a little worse than the previous year. That’s not going in Cashman’s favor.

The farm system? Sporadic success. Still have the bulk of the good prospects in A Ball. That’s not good because it means its too early to judge whether or not those guys are legimitate prospects.

Its also not good that there is such a talent drain among instructors and coaches at the lower levels of the organization. That slows progress for prospects.

AA is what seperates the men from the boys.

Realistically speaking, the Yankees have 5 legitimate prospects at AA or higher:

1. Austin Jackson.
2. Mark Melancon.
3. David Robertson.
4. Michael Dunn.
5. Zach McAllister.

They have a few other intriguing guys (DeLaRosa, Kontos, Russo for example) but really, only 5 legitimate prospects AA or above. That’s not good.

Add to it, they screwed up on Cole and Inoa last year and last years draft doesn’t seem to have yielded them too much. Again, not good.

Evaluating the situation objectively, those are all negative scores toward the GM.

The good?

As far as marquee, future faces of the franchise players go, he hit a HR with Mark Teixeira and CC Sabathia. Both on and off the field, those guys represent EVERYTHING the franchise stands for.

I do think he is pulling the organization, slow as it may be, in the right direction re: developing more talent from within.

He’s done a poor job managing the 40 man roster.

Overall as an organization, not just on the baseball side but, on the business side as well, the Yankees do the little things very, very poorly. That hurts them both on the field and off the field. Cashman obviously is only responsible for the on field stuff.

That said, when the 40 man roster isn’t balanced enough, they spent way too much time this year carrying 13 pitchers on the ML roster, and assorted other little things, that’s not good.

All that said, you can’t miss the playoffs 2 years running with a payroll exceeding 200 million bucks. That’s not good for job security. Especially in NY.