Submitted by Paul Mack, Sep 23, 2008 12:08

It's very intriguing that the Yankees double A affiliate, the Trenton Thunder and their triple A affiliate, the Scranton/Wilkes Baare Yankees both won their respective championships!?! Maybe I'm wrong, but do these championships mean anything? If not, why play them? Can you remark on the futures of Hughes, Kennedy, Jackson, Christian, Melky Cabrera, Cervelli, Phil Coke, Alfredo Aceves, Mark Melancon, Betances, Sanchez, Stewart, Duncan, Carson, Gardner, Ransom, Nunez, Russo, Bracken, Daniel McCutchen, Steven White, Jeffrey Marquez, Heath Phillips, Scott Strickland, Dan Giese, Steven Jackson, Billy Traber, Scott Patterson, Chase Wright, David Robertson, Alan Horne, Darrell Rasner, Chris Britton, Mark Melancon, Phil Coke, Jason Jones, Zachary Kroenke, Jonathan Albaladejo, Sean Henn, Bo Hall, George Kontos, Jason Jones, Chase Wright, Eric Hacker, Anthony Claggett, Daniel McCutchen, Steven Jackson, Oneli Perez, Bo Hall, Jhonny Nunez, Jose Valdez, Kevin Whelan, David Robertson, Jeffrey Marquez, Josh Schmidt, Steven White or J.B. Cox all with good statistics throughout double and triple A!!! The Yankees will look to get younger via trade in the outfield until fully confident on Jackson, Gardner, Christian and Cabrera. Names mentioned are Holliday (too rich), DeJesus, McLouth and Matt Kemp. Mark Texeira is available @ first but other than Blalock, the market is thin. I would hang on to Giambi if Texeira is unavailable. If Cano is traded, I hope he's not, Orlando Hudson is available. Jeter is a lock for a minimum of three years and A-Rod for 9. Catching duties will be left for Posada, Molina or Rodriguez until Cervelli is ready. As far as pitching, the Yankees NEED to get two guys, 1) CC Sabathia 2)Burnett or Sheets. A rotation of Sabathia, Burnett/Sheets, Wang, Mussina and Pettitte with Hughes as the sixth man would be an incredible rotation. Revenues will double @ the new stadium to over 1.5 billion dollars so a payroll of $230 million is not out of the question. The rotation could be Veras, Bruney, Marte, Chaimberlain and Rivera with Aceves, Geise, Sanchez, Coke and Hughes as the long men. I think this year's offense was an abomination and wouldn't repeat itself. I don't think things are as bad as you portray, you must be a nervous Red Sox fan, so just win one game so you don't have a repeat of 1978.

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