Yankees Quick Hits

Just a few random thoughts to chew on today....I'm working on a piece over at Matsuzaka Watch that will be up this weekend. Yup, still committed to that blog despite the Red Sox affiliation. Love the player. The piece is a talk I had with Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus. I did a BP Radio interview with him that should be available for a listen in the next few days. Keep an eye out.

First Yankees point...I'm tempted to start listing the Yankees rotation as:

Wang
Mussina
Pettitte
Pavano/Clemens
Igawa/Hughes

I wrote a while back that I thought Rocket would opt for Fenway to go full circle, and even gave another comfy run in Houston a thought. I've come all the way back to feeling next to certain that he will be a Yankee in June. All the reasons have been talked about over and over and over, but I think what sold me was the appearance he made recently where he flashed his Yankees championship ring. It was probably a calculated move to get the Red Sox to absolutely go berserk with a contract, but it also makes me believe he's serious about coming to the Bronx. Clemens may be a selfish opportunist in a lot of ways, but I think the years he played in pinstripes and the friendships he has with Torre, Jeter, and maybe Cash Money mean enough to him to pass on a cheap ploy like that. His appearance at St. John's also seemed very much a hint. He talked around all the questions, but the atmosphere was telling. I'm going with the above rotation as my prediction for 2007. Clemens will pass the torch to Hughes.

Cash and company have been over here in Japan the last few days. They have been on tv in the news, and talked with the good folks at Hanshin that brought us Kei Igawa. I'm not sure exactly what's been on their agenda here, unlike the crystal clear meetings they had in China. I suspect they are looking to make some relationships with the people at NPB to keep the advantage in the market here. Not sure exactly what that means, but they're up to something.

Spring Training is just underway in Japan. All the cameras are out in force getting their feel good pieces in the can. The two free agents certain to head to the Majors next season are Koji Uehara of the Giants (see: Uehara Watch) and Kosuke Fukudome (soon to be a profile at Baseball Japan). By the way, that's FOO-koo-doh-may, not the more colorful word you may imagine. I should be writing quite a bit this weekend. My goal is the Matsuzaka Watch piece and the Fukudome profile, so head over and have a read. See you on the flip.