What Are The Yankees Thinking?!!

Congratulations are in order for members of the Boston Red Sox organization and their fans. You have just won the 2006 World Series. Thanks to your acquistion yesterday of 25 year old Marlins starting pitcher Josh Beckett you just might have won a lot of things. And you don't even have a General Manager yet!

Anyone who thinks that this trade wasn't a slam dunk you're retarded. The Red Sox now have a rotation of Curt Schilling, Beckett, and Matt Clement. Lowell a righty pull hitter should tee off on the Green Monster and you only had to give up a SS prospect who was blocked by Edgar Renteria anyway for the next three years and a pitching prospect who wasn't one of your top 3 according to my calculations. Those pitchers would be last year's first round pick Craig Hanson, last year's bullpen savior Johnathan Papelbon, and ballyhoed lefty starter Johnathan Lester. It was a steal of a deal for a team that was on the verge of trading away Manny Ramirez and rebuilding.

What bothers me the most about this is the Yankees could have had Lowell, Beckett and much, much more from the payroll slashing Marlins. In fact, reports are that they Marlins offered them Beckett, Lowell, leadoff hitting centerfielder Juan Pierre and 2b Luis Castillo for Chien Ming Wang, Robinson Cano, and prospects! If you break that deal down you get an established all star secondbaseman with speed and a good glove for a kid whose value's never going to be higher in Cano. (Trust me he's not going to be the next Rod Carew) You swap out another half season wonder in Wang for one of the top 5 young pitchers in the game in Beckett. And for good measure you get Pierre to lead off and play centerfield allowing you to get out from having to overpay free agents like Johnny Damon and Brian Giles to come to NY. Then you can have the time to focus on the bullpen and go after BJ Ryan. And I didn't even mention the fact that you get Lowell who you can turn around and trade to a team needing a thirdbaseman like the Twins, Devil Rays, Red Sox, Dodgers, Padres, and Phillies for bullpen help.

A Yankees lineup with Pierre and Castillo in it would be dominant:

Pierre, Cf
Jeter, SS
Sheffield, Rf
Giambi, 1b
Rodriguez, 3b
Matsui, Lf
Posada, C
Phillips/Sierra, Dh
Castillo, 2b

And a rotation of: Johnson, Beckett, Mussina, Pavano, Chacon/Wright

Which begs the question: What were the Yankees thinking when they said no! With that team, the Yankees and not the Red Sox would have just won the 2006 World Series on a Tuesday in November!

*Check out some guy on espn.com who agress with me here: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/051122