Major News!

So, the big stories over the past few days has been the DFAing of Andy Phillips and Bronson Sardinha. You may know Bronson Sardinha as that pinch runner who kind of looks like Melky Cabrera when he has a helmet on. I imagine he'll clear waivers and accept a minor league assignment. Phillips on the other hand, has elected free agency. Andy always seemed like a good guy to me who played his hardest, despite not being the greatest ballplayer. He's been through a lot off the field as well with his wife dealing with cancer and his mother in a terrible car accident. Basically, he's just one of those players who's hard not to like even if he doesn't have the greatest stats at the end of the day. That said, he's a pretty solid first baseman and he put up an 88 OPS+ this year which isn't awful for a backup(and was actually exactly equal to that of Andruw Jones and his terrific 2007 campaign which is going to make him near $40M over the next 2 years). So, I hope Andy catches on somewhere and wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors(copyright). I'm sure some teams will be interested in him.

I've also read some whispers that the Yankees are in the lead for lefty reliever Ron Mahay. Depending on what kind of deal he wants(hopefully not in the Linebrink territory), this could be a solid signing. Despite a career WHIP of 1.41, Mahay has kept a decent career ERA of 3.87 while pitching the past few seasons in the AL West, so his transition to the East would not be nearly as drastic as some of those Giants relievers I had been discussing. This past season, in time split between the Rangers and Braves, he posted a tremendous 2.55 ERA and a passable 1.33 WHIP over 67 innings. His K/BB ratio wasn't anything impressive, but he's done a decent job of preventing runs from scoring in the AL for several seasons(with the exception of a lousy 2005). That's really all you can ask for. Furthermore, Mahay was absolutely filthy to lefties this season. He faced 117 left-handed batters and gave up just 20 hits and 8 walks with one HBP, holding them to a .189/.250/.292 line. That's impressive. He wasn't quite as dominant against righties, but still held them to a .242/.377/.379 line. What we can gauge from this is that Mahay doesn't give up a lot of extra-base hits(or hits at all for that matter), has a tendency to walk righties, and dominates lefties completely. I'll take that. Mahay was classified as a Type B, so we would surrender our second round pick to the Braves in the 2008 draft(I'm assuming they offered him arbitration, but not 100% positive). However, Vizcaino is also a Type B and recently declined arbitration, so we could just regain that second round pick from wherever he signs, or have at least two solid relievers in front of Mo going into next year, if he stays.

The bullpen was certainly a major weakness for us last year, so it deserves some extra attention. I think I'll hold off on a full analysis until a few moves are made.