I'm beginning to wonder if the Yankees will ever get their act together this year. If the rotation continues to be a mess, they'll burn out their bullpen by Labor Day and it won't matter how many runs the offense scores. And while the rotation can't help but improve, it's a long way from adequacy, let alone strength. There are certainly a lot more questions than answers.
Aside from the emergency callups, the Yankees have the following options for their rotation: Mussina, Wang, Pettitte, Pavano, Igawa, Rasner, Hughes and Karstens. There's not a sure thing in the bunch. And even if they suddenly start pitching well at some point, they may not have a bullpen left by then.
The foundation of the recent Yankee championship teams was the rotation, guys like Clemens, Cone, Pettitte, El Duque, Mussina. Every year they had at least four starters who were rock solid. This year, they entered the season with a couple of "sure things" who turned out not to be so sure, and a bunch of questions. I don't doubt the Yankees will improve and make things interesting, but they have some serious obstacles to overcome. And Brian Cashman has some serious questions to answer about how he constructed this team.
Why does 'EEI continue to give Larry Johnson more air time? When the guy said a couple of times on Saturday that he loves a certain prospect, you just know that he knows absolutely nothing about the player. He's a surface "analyst." I just can't figure it out - he's the best they can come up with?
RE: The Moss trade
I was kind of weary about this trade like you were, Chad, but as you pointed out, he took a MASSIVE cut in pay to come here and is only here for one year, so it is ALL on Randy to man up and get with the program because if he doesn't, he shows the rest of the league that he isn't worth the big money or effort anymore while the Pats are only out $3-5 million and can just say "Well, he wanted to come here and we gave him a shot. Not our fault."
Honestly Chad, in your excitement have you gone online and ordered one of these yet? 
http://www.therealrandymoss.com/...rmoss/
mask.html
"Dillon's frustrations with Cincinnati primarily stemmed from losing. Moss strikes me as a player who couldn't give a damn about his team's place in the standings"
I disagree with this totally. First of all, Dillon beating his wife up seems independent of whether his team is winning or losing.
As for Moss not giving a damn, I bring up the playoff game vs. the Packers where he did the infamous "moon". Moss played through a bad ankle and almost single-handedly kept his team in the game that day. Nobody remembers that, they just remember Joe Buck almost (unfortunately) dying of a heart attack after Moss's TD dance. If Moss "couldn't give a damn" about his team winning they would have lost by 3 TDs that day.
Great point about the price for Duane Starks being higher than the price for Moss.
And last but not least, we (at least those of you who still listen to EEI on a regular basis) will hear about Zak DeOssie all the time, whether it relates to the Pats or not. It certainly beats hearing more about the appetizer menu at the new steakhouse, though.
CF,
Is there any reason to believe that the Yanks will bring in a better strategist? The names I've heard bandied about (and I'm sure you've heard the same), are Larry Bowa, Joe Girardi, and of course Don Mattingly. Girardi may be the cause of the pitching problems the Marlins are having right now, Bowa never struck me as a brilliant strategist, and seemingly nice guy, good hitter, and pretty good first baseman that he is/was, is there ANY reason to believe that Mattingly knows anything more about pitching than Torre does, or even anything at all?
When Don Mattingly takes over (during this season or the beginning of next), he'll be earning his money the same way Torre did: Dealing with egos and being mostly even-keel in handling the media. Anything on top of that would be gravy (and probably pretty unlikely).
To me, there are only two 55's- Willie of course, and the immortal Don Blackmon, he of the two dropped pick-6's in the first quarter of Super Bowl XX. If he had just managed to hang on to those two errant Jim McMahon throws...well, we'll never know...
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