I got a position for the Edge ... Left Out.

Jeter is going to play shortstop for the Yankees forever.

He's not just the best shortstop ever. He's not just the best Yankee ever. He has conquered Death.

Jets are in AFC Championship Game, Yankees are Desperate, Yankee Fans Should Worry.

My name is Mike Lupica and I am a hack:

"The signing of Rafael Soriano by the Yankees this week produced as surreal a Yankee press conference as the one a million years ago when George Steinbrenner fired Dick Howser and tried to make it sound like practically a promotion."

It was not really a million years ago. That is a middle-school-level rhetorical device known as hyperbole.


"Maybe Soriano will work out great for the Yankees, and there will be nights when he and Mo Rivera lock down games from the seventh inning on.

Maybe Soriano will be worth the closer money the desperate Yankees threw at him, and be Mike Stanton and Jeff Nelson all by himself."

The Yankees are not desperate.

Put another way, even if the Yankees are desperate, the Soriano signing and the subsequent press conference are not evidence of this supposed desperation.

That is a middle-school-level logical device known as a tautology. Lupica is claiming the Yankees are desperate and his proof of this is using the word "desperate" to describe the Yankees.

A "desperate" move would have been trading Cano, Joba, and three draft picks for Soriano.


Also, the Yankees are not expecting Soriano to be "Stanton and Nelson all by himself." That is a middle-school-level rhetorical device knows as a false equivalency.

But if Soriano was really that good, then the "closer money" would be quite a bargain. The Yankees would have two players in one and plenty of money left over for a good starter.


"But if you are a Yankee fan, you better worry about how this all played out, because this was the week when the Yankees once again looked like they were being run by a Crack Baseball Committee out of the past."

Which Crack Committee out of the past? The one that won 4 titles in 5 years?


"Or maybe just being run by no one."

Or maybe not.

Maybe the Yankees are really being run by someone.

Maybe the Yankees missed the World Series by two wins last season and maybe the Yankees have missed the playoffs only one time since 1995.


Lupica would write this article regardless of the actions of the Yankee front office.

The Yankees would have been desperate if they had done nothing and they would have been desperate if they had signed Lee.

The Yankees were expecting to sign Lee and are waiting patiently -- not desperately -- for starting pitching depth.

For some reason, it's very important to Mike Lupica to try and make Yankee fans worried.

Welcome to New York.

This is the kind of thing you don't say out loud:

" 'This certainly will help us try to win a championship, there's no doubt about that, so that's in the plus column,' Cashman said. 'But I didn't recommend it, just because I didn't think it was an efficient way to allocate the remaining resources we have. We had a lot of debate about that.' "


Also, no need to insult free agents:

" 'He's opting not to play right now but that might change, it might not. I told him, "Don't Brett Favre us. You got to be all in and fully dedicated to play." Do I need him? I need him, but I don't want him to play if his heart's not in it.' "

Yankees save winter.

After reading Kevin Kernan's opinion that the signing of Rafael Soriano has saved the Yankees' offseason, I have a question about Kevin Kernan.

Is he:

1) Optimistic?

2) A shill for Yankee management?

3) Drunk?

"So much for not getting Cliff Lee. So much for not holding on to their No. 1 draft pick. With Soriano and Closer I, Mariano Rivera, the Yankees now have a 1-2 punch at the end of the game that saved Brian Cashman’s offseason and will save the Yankees time and again in 2011."

Yeah, but who's pitching the first seven innings?

I totally wonder about Matt Garza's arm and nerve.

"I kept thinking that Matt Garza might somehow end up with the Yankees.

Garza was the most expendable of the Rays' young starters because he was the closest to free agency, and he's coming off an up-and-down year.

But if you ever wondered about Garza's arm and his nerve, go back and take a look at the Game 7 he pitched against the Red Sox in 2008."

Thank you for settling my nerves. I was losing sleep over this. In fact, the Matt Garza discussion has been dominating New York sports radio for several years and I was getting tired of it.

Ummm, who's Matt Garza, again?

"Go back and look what he did that night after Dustin Pedroia led off the game with a home run."

As if Mike Lupica remembers a specific play from a specific game.

"He did to the Red Sox that night what Josh Beckett did to the Yankees in Game 6 of the 2003 World Series."

Ha ha ha.

May as well put Josh Beckett's 2003 Game Six on Lupica's gravestone.

WE GET IT. Beckett beat the Yankees and this makes you HAPPY. It was in 2003, for cryin' out loud.

I know nothing.

I thought Larry Walker was one of the best all-around players I saw and a HOF shoo-in.

I believe this is sarcasm.

"The Red Sox were slated to win about 95 games last year. They won 89 despite injuries to Pedroia (a former MVP) and Youkilis (a possible future MVP). Add them back, along with the new players and a healthy Ellsbury, and 100 wins doesn’t just appear plausible. It seems downright inevitable.

So does a date with history.

The 2001 Mariners won 116 regular-season games to set the American League record for most wins in a single season and tie the 1906 Cubs for the major league record (though the North Siders accomplished the feat in 152 games). Both those teams failed to win the World Series. The Cubs lost to the White Sox in six games in the Fall Classic. The Mariners didn’t even make it that far, falling to the Yankees in five games in the ALCS.

The Red Sox have no intention of suffering a similar fate. The way they are constructed, they could surpass the 116-win mark, but nothing less than a World Series title will make Boston happy.

The 2011 Red Sox possess all the pieces to have a season for the ages. If everything falls into place and the breaks go their way, they could do more than set records and become champions. They could do more than take their place on Immortality Peak and end up being mentioned in the same sentence as legendary clubs of the past: the 1929 A’s, the epic Yankees teams of the ‘30s, the 1970 Orioles, the 1976 Reds.

The 2011 Red Sox could accomplish a feat that has never been done. They could unseat the 1927 Yankees as the greatest major league team of all time.

That would be something to celebrate."

Maybe it's not sarcasm.

But does this guy really think the Red Sox are going to win over 116 games? In the AL East?

I'm always amused by pre-season predictions which (1) focus on the additions and ignore the subtractions, and (2) insist that the team's season will be relatively injury-free.

How could he possibly know that the roster will stay healthy?