On a completely unrelated note.......
.........how good would the Yankees be with Randy instead of
Jose Contreras in the rotation?
Using VORP, Randy has been worth 42 runs over a replacement pitcher. Conteras, on the other hand, has been worth 2! Yup, that's less than the immortal
Bartolome Fortunato. Over the rest of the season Randy would be worth roughly 20 runs over Contreras. That would be a scary team. Not to mention having to face Randy, Javy, Moose, and Kevin Brown in the playoffs. Who would go to the pen?
Also, if the Yankees do rip off the D-Backs, they will have an incredible $188M already committed in contracts for 2005, including 11 individual contracts over $10M. They'll have $65.5M tied up in their rotation alone. There are 15 MLB teams with entire payrolls less than $65.5M! Wow.
Curt