A clone of Mark Teixeira, with one or two fewer chins.

And Epstein isn't even the GM anymore.

It's very important for Mike Lupica to convince himself that the Red Sox are a small market team. The Red Sox would never attempt to buy the World Series title because buying things is the worst thing a business can do:

"By the way?

Does anybody believe that five years for Sandoval and four for Ramirez is the same as seven years for Jacoby Ellsbury and seven for Masahiro Tanaka and more than $300 million laid out?

Really?"

You just asked three questions in a row in the most passive-aggressive non-statement in the history of pseudo-journalism ... even though "by the way" isn't a question ... and even though you're asking an extremely specific question to which the answer is probably "no."

It's a non-answer to a non-question that nobody was asking.

But we still get the point. The Yankees are stupid and bad and all their players will get injured. The Red Sox are smart and good.

No, let's not gloss over that. Or the fake website which intended to osbscure the criminal facts. Or the fact that the Feds seem oddly disinterested when juxtaposed with another MLB player.

"Let's also not gloss over that PED suspension with the Giants back in 2012. He hit .346/.390/.516 that year; take that season out of the equation, and his four-year numbers look a lot more pedestrian."

They had Travis Ishikawa, but they lost Travis Ishikawa.

"The Yankees had plenty of problems in 2014, but among the most glaring was the lack of a capable backup first baseman."

Never really thought about it.


"With Mark Teixeira unable to consistently stay on the field due to various injuries, the club was forced to scramble."

I remember McCann screwed up a couple of plays.

I think the bigger problem might be the days when Teixeira was healthy and, you know, playing first base and batting fourth.


"Maybe Teixeira proves to the Yankees this offseason and during spring training that he's ready to take a heavier workload."

I certainly understand the desire to use the words "Teixeira" and "heavier" in the same sentence, but I'd say the starting first baseman is a bigger problem than the backup first baseman.

Don't pick on the Mets.

Funny how the press continually used steroids as a frying pan to bang over the heads of the people they dislike. As if Scott Boras has anything to do with this:

"Maybe Scott Boras should spend a little less time making snarky — and generally unfunny — comments about the Mets and do a much better job denying that he ever told Anthony Bosch to whip up a fake medical history for Manny Ramirez the way Bosch used to whip up steroid cocktails for all of his Biogenesis friends."

As I'm being snarky and generally unfunny.

No, for real, that was supposed to be funny. The phrase "whip up" used for dual purposes. Blows your mind with the word play. Maybe not funny, but clever.


"I’m not sure what Joe Girardi could have said about Alex Rodriguez that would have satisfied everybody.

You ever wonder who A-Rod thinks is a weasel, by the way?"

Joe Torre.

Never welcomed ARod to the Yankees, blasted ARod in a book, batted ARod eighth in a playoff game, and is now MLB's Vice President of Baseball Operations in Charge of Thug Punishments.

So is it a coincidence that MLB uses a large amount of resources and shady tactics going after ARod and his crew?

I mean, I can't see behind the curtains, obviously. I was surprised to find out that MLB had positive Biogenesis drug tests and they kept this information private.

But why the obsession with Bosch and Sucart while (as far as I know) ignoring all the other suppliers, mules, and hush men?

Failed drug tests?

First I have heard about the failed drug tests. I can't understand why MLB wouldn't just suspend the players according to its own rules. I also don't understand why MLB would hide the fact that its drug tests might actually be effective.

Bullpen? What's a bullpen?

I agree that the game has changed quite a bit and bullpens are more important that ever.

Of course, this observation is about 25 years late:

"It’s a changing game where, as both the Royals and the Giants demonstrated, the bullpen is everything now. As Cashman discovered last year when CC Sabathia went down and was hardly missed, and the subsequent loss of Masahiro Tanaka was likewise hardly felt, you don’t need a 250-inning, 20-win horse to compete. It’s nice if you have one (or two if you’re the Los Angeles Dodgers), but the vast majority of starting pitchers now are out of the games after six innings and/or 100 pitches, and if you don’t have the relievers who can consistently get you those last nine outs, you’re sunk."

Sure, it's nice to have a starting pitcher who pitches 250 innings, like Mario Soto or Dave Stewart, but Dennis Eckersley and Randy Myers have shown the baseball world the importance of bullpens.


As for the idea that Sabathia and Tanaka weren't missed? Let's suppose they both come back in 2015 and pitch light's out. Both are Cy Young Award candidates, as their salaries would more or less indicate. If that happens, the Yankees are instantly the best team in the AL instead of .500 slobs.

Tanaka was 12-4 and on his way to 20 wins when he got hurt.

You might as well say the Mets didn't miss Matt Harvey.


"This is why re-signing David Robertson is Cashman’s absolute top priority and why, if Chase Headley and Brandon McCarthy get over-market four-year offers elsewhere, the Yankees will simply move on."

Robertson is better and more important than Headley or McCarthy. The success of the 2014 Royals has nothing to do with that.

Besides, I don't know if anyone noticed, but the Giants won the World Series ... and the MVP was a starting pitcher workhorse. His name is Madison Bumgarner and he is good.


"With Robertson in tow, and Dellin Betances supported by Wilson and emerging system lefty, Jacob Lindgren, plus Shawn Kelley and Adam Warren, the Yankees could potentially have one of the deepest bullpens in the AL."

They already have one of the deepest bullpens in the AL, and it's certainly an important component.

But I'll also say that a knockout closer is wasting his time on a bad team.

So of course the Yankees should sign Robertson.

Then maybe buy Teixeira a gym membership and tell him to hit a HR once in a while with men on base. That way, perhaps the Yankees will have actual leads in the ninth inning and Robertson can get a lot of saves.


"The point is, as long as he has a strong and deep bullpen, Cashman doesn’t need to have a superstar-laden lineup (although he does need to have a relatively healthy lineup, which could be no small order considering all his over-30 veterans)."

This is such a weird conclusion.

The Yankees had a star bullpen last year ... and they missed the playoffs.

The Yankees had Robertson and Mariano the year before that ... and they missed the playoffs.


The Yankees have been obsessed with bullpen depth since at least 1996. Nobody remembers Mariano setting up Wetteland? Nobody remembers Yankee closers winning the World Series MVPs in 1996 and 1999?

Sure, Mariano was the foundation for a long time, but the "bridge" to Mariano included pitchers such as Tom Gordon, Mike Stanton, Jeff Nelson, Kerry Wood ... remember when Phil Hughes, and Joba Chamberlain were great setup pitchers? ... and they also had quite a few high-investment 8th-inning busts, such as Juan Acevedo and Todd Williams.

If anything, the Royals are mimicking the Yankees.

2014 AL MVP

 BBWAA

Name	Points
Mike Trout	420
Victor Martinez	229
Michael Brantley	191
Jose Abreu	145
Robinson Cano	124
Jose Bautista	122
Nelson Cruz	102
Josh Donaldson	96
Miguel Cabrera	82
Felix Hernandez	48
Corey Kluber	45
Alex Gordon	44
Jose Altuve	41
Adam Jones	34
Adrian Beltre	22
Greg Holland	13
Albert Pujols	5
Howie Kendrick	3
James Shields	3
Kyle Seager	1

 Felz Poll

Name	Points
Mike Trout	28
Miguel Cabrera	9
Jose Abreu	7
Victor Martinez	6
Jose Bautista	4
Michael Brantley	3
Corey Kluber	3
Robinson Cano	2
Nelson Cruz	1

2014 NL MVP

Not too much buzz with the MLB awards this year, but here are the results:

 BBWAA

Name	Points
Clayton Kershaw	355
Giancarlo Stanton	298
Andrew McCutchen	271
Jonathan Lucroy	167
Anthony Rendon	155
Buster Posey	152
Adrian Gonzalez	57
Adam Wainwright	53
Josh Harrison	52
Anthony Rizzo	37
Hunter Pence	34
Johnny Cueto	22
Russell Martin	21
Matt Holliday	17
Jhonny Peralta	17
Carlos Gomez	13
Justin Upton	10
Jayson Werth	9
Denard Span	8
Yasiel Puig	8
Devin Mesoraco	5
Lucas Duda	3
Freddie Freeman	2
Justin Morneau	2
Dee Gordon	1
Troy Tulowitzki	1

 Felz Poll

Name	Points
Andrew McCutchen	18
Giancarlo Stanton	17
Clayton Kershaw	16
Jonathan Lucroy	6
Adrian Gonzalez	4
Buster Posey	1
Anthony Rendon	1

MVP analysis according to Felz.

• No one on the Yankees received a single MVP vote.
• Nice to see Lucroy finish 4th in the NL.

2014 AL Cy Young

 BBWAA

Name	Points
Corey Kluber	169
Felix Hernandez	159
Chris Sale	78
Jon Lester	46
Max Scherzer	32
David Price	16
Phil Hughes	6
Wade Davis	3
Greg Holland	1

 Felz Poll

Name	Points
Felix Hernandez	20
Corey Kluber	17
Max Scherzer	7
Jon Lester	3
James Shields	3
Dellin Betances	1
Chris Sale	1
Jeff Weaver	1

2014 NL Cy Young

Not too much buzz with the MLB awards this year, but here are the results:

 BBWAA

Name	Points
Clayton Kershaw	210
Johnny Cueto	112
Adam Wainwright	97
Madison Bumgarner	28
Jordan Zimmerman	25
Cole Hamels	17
Zack Greinke	6
Doug Fister	5
Jake Arrieta	3
Craig Kimbrel	3
Stephen Strasburg	3
Henderson Alvarez	1

 Felz Poll

Name	Points
Clayton Kershaw	24
Johnny Cueto	12
Adam Wainwright	12
Madison Bumgarner	2
Cole Hamels	2
Wily Peralta	1

Check mate, rest of AL East.

They all have lost the benefit of the doubt.

Even badminton players:

"By the way, I read the other day that Rodriguez could have been a baseball immortal without PEDs.

But how could anybody possibly know that he wasn’t using drugs from the time he was a kid?"

Would you please cite a source for once?

All of these arguments with "people" who said "things."


Who, what, where, when, why ... the most fundamental basics of writing.

Who? Somebody.

What? Something.

When? The other day. The other day? He seriously is citing a vague something he read the other day?

I won't even cite something on this stupid blog without trying hard to attribute it. The pseudo-journalistic traits of Mike Lupica's writing are pathetically amateur.


We don't know if ARod was using steroids since he was a teenager. I now think that scenario is more likely than not.

Made a ton of money for himself, made a ton of money for other people, got caught, lost a lot of that money, lost his HOF creds, which he may have never achieved in the first place without the help of steroids.

But, without proof, I can say the same thing about hundreds of MLB players.

Not the HOF credentials part. Jason Grimsley, Jordany Valdespin, Francisco Cervelli, and many others lost their scrub credentials.


Let's say you were tied to a railroad track and the train was bearing down.

You can divert the train by pushing a lever. "Yes" lever or "No" lever. Choose correctly or you will die.

Simple question: Did the following player take steroids?

David Ortiz? Yes.

Craig Biggio? Yes.

Albert Pujols? Yes.

Josh Hamilton? Yes.

Edgar Martinez? Yes.

Nomar Garciaparra? Yes.

Mike Piazza? Yes.

This is not proof, it's just common sense, an educated guess, more likely than not.

Obviously, I could list hundreds of ballplayers I'm fairly certain about.

Once I get into some tricky calls -- Randy Johnson? Rickey Henderson? Trevor Hoffman? -- and I might get smushed by the imaginary train.


The thing is, nobody is going to jail, or getting their contract voided, based on innuendo.

You can't prove that ARod has been taking steroids since he was 17 years old. If you can prove it, then prove it. If you can't prove it, then you're just piling on a specific player because it's fun.


The list of steroid suspensions in MLB is astonishingly small. The drug testing doesn't work. The Miami New Times did all their work for them. The fans, managers, coaches, owners, and journalists all played along for a long time.

MLB investigators found a lot of damaging evidence on ARod... more than on any other ballplayer. But ARod's the only person they have investigated.

Kenneth Star never got the Clintons with Whitewater, but he stumbled into Monica Lewinsky (not literally).

Nostradamus's quatrains are always accurate simply because people always find what they're looking for. If you take the 14th letter of the 28th page and then read backwards every 13th stanza, it spells BKUJ... but that translates to AROD in ancient Abyssinian tongues.

Put the same energy, money, and time into investigating every player in the All Star Game ... every player in the Magical World Series.

Don't be surprised if you find steroid cheats, tax cheats, hidden evidence, hush money, drunk driving, wife beating, greenies, greenies, greenies, greenies, parking tickets, and a various assortment of copyright violations because they forgot to clear the Van Morrison song on their home movies.

I think you'll find that ARod is not the biggest criminal in MLB by any means.

So did ARod take steroids for his entire career? Probably.

Same for last year's World Series MVP.

Who isn't being banned from MLB because he's the Embodiment of Boston Strong.

This guy is so close to Joe Torre, that he nominated Torre for the ALS ice bucket challenge.

"It should no longer even be in dispute that the Yankees should do everything in their power, and explore every possible legal option — with the full support of Major League Baseball — to make sure Alex Rodriguez never wears their uniform again.

This doesn’t just speak to their obvious and own financial interests, and the more than $61-plus million for which they could eventually be on the hook for with a guy like Rodriguez. It speaks to their brand. The recent Yankee past is littered with guys who turned up dirty on baseball drugs. But there is nobody close to Rodriguez."

I totally disagree that there is nobody close to Rodriguez.

If the Yankees are seriously upset about steroid use, then give back all the tainted rings and take Torre's plaque out of the Hall of Fame.

For starters.


Then, donate about $500 million to anti-steroid campaigns, fire Cashman for negotiating contracts with known steroid users, and challenge all other teams to rid themselves of anyone associated with steroids, past or present.

Is that a strong enough message for you? Is that too much of a scorched earth policy?

Or just do the easy Selig strategy. Blame it all on ARod.


"You will hear once again about the sanctity of the guaranteed contract in baseball. One of these days somebody ought to challenge that notion, now that it turns out that Rodriguez sold out the Yankees in the interest of getting paid — the only thing that has ever mattered to him, truly — and mounted these various and fraudulent legal challenges during which he sold out just everybody with whom he came into contact, starting with Cousin Yuri Sucart."

It's not the sanctity of guaranteed contracts in baseball ... it's the sanctity of contracts and guarantees in the United States.

They already challenged ARod's contract and partially won.

They already got back around $27 million, or whatever it was.


"Whenever somebody like Rodriguez gets caught like this, we hear about how this is a world of second chances. It is. But you have to say Rodriguez already had a pretty good second chance, after he first copped to steroids five years ago at a press conference in Tampa. That was the first time he came around panhandling to the public and Yankee fans and his own teammates, looking for a second chance, and redemption, you bet.

A year later, almost as if he were still in the shadows of the Canyon of Heroes after leading the Yankees to the 2009 World Series, Rodriguez went straight to Tony Bosch for drugs. That is the only issue that matters with Rodriguez. It’s not about the coverage, it’s not about baseball’s prosecution of him and defense of its policy, it’s not even about all those who thought investigative reporting on Rodriguez — when he was in the barrel — involved taking phone calls from his lawyers and his flacks."

Yeah, he's a dick.


"Now we hear he is on the road to redemption, as if that day with the DEA was supposed to be something as inspiring as St. Paul’s epiphany on the road to Damascus, instead of him being just another perp trying to save his sorry self."

I haven't seen anyone claim he's on the road to redemption.

I think Lupica "hears" a lot of things in his head, imaginary arguments with the opposition.


"Only now the Yankees are just supposed to take him back because of a contract. But if honoring its terms meant nothing to Alex Rodriguez, why should it mean anything to them? They’d have the high ground with Rodriguez. But then, ask yourself a question: Who doesn’t at this point?"

You can honor the contract by cutting him or maybe by sending him to the minors (though he may be out of options, whatever those are).

The team that welcomed back Jason Giambi has the moral high ground over nobody.

That's why a lot of us fans don't really care.

Baseball is not the place we turn to for moral guidance. If we did, then MLB and the Yankees have already let us down thousands of times while they take the money and run.

I think ARod may end up as a high-priced platoon at third base with Chase Headley. That's embarrassing enough. That's more embarrassing than the steroids revelations. That's probably the worst punishment he can receive for his crimes -- a slow descent into irrelevance.

Two Words: Steve Howe.

Of course Steinbrenner would fight to dump ARod's contract. Not to save the Yankees' image, but to save money.

Save me the mush, it's utterly ridiculous:

"At the same time, people always wondered why Steinbrenner could be so hostile to Winfield and engage in verbal warfare with so many other of his core Yankee players, yet go out of his way to give chance after chance to noted drug abusers Doc Gooden and Darryl Strawberry. The difference, Costello reasoned, was that Gooden and Strawberry never did anything to Steinbrenner, only to themselves."

Pettitte is probably going to get a plaque in Monument Park, OK? This idea of Embarrassing and Besmirching.

If you're serious about your anti-steroid stance, then just invalidate all the Torre-era rings.

Maybe a bold move like that would Save the Children.


"I would think by now, especially after all these new revelations and confirmations of everything that MLB prosecuted A-Rod for, Steinbrenner would be revolted at the thought of him ever wearing a Yankee uniform again. Whether he would go so far as to write him a check for $60 million and say goodbye and good riddance, no one can say. But we do know this: A-Rod himself has told his lawyers he can’t play without steroids — and proved that by beating the system right up until baseball launched its investigation of him. Does he really want to go to spring training and embarrass himself while being subjected to the daily media hordes and 'cheater' chants from fans everywhere?

This is why there has to be a meeting of the minds, between A-Rod, the Yankees and MLB, to negotiate as graceful an exit from the game as possible for him before he has to report for spring training. As bad as it’s been for A-Rod this past year and half, he was fortunate to never know what a Doberman Pinscher The Boss could be."

Madden has been pushing the ARod Apocalypse for a while now. Not sure what he'll write about in ARod's absence, but maybe he can drum up some fan interest in Brandon McCarthy, or something. A light conversation where you meet his family by the pool and talk about the pressures of playing in New York.

1) I think the remaining contract is small enough now that a buyout is a possibility. This is more of a cost-benefit analysis than a principled stand against steroid cheats. Just everyone needs to understand, you don't get to spend that money on other players.

2) The fans who are yelling "cheater"? If they are at Yankee Stadium, in the stands, it will be a miracle and a blessing for the Steinbrenners.

3) The latest unscientific poll I saw basically said 1/3rd of the fans are going to cheer for ARod. So is it really that much different than 2004?

ARod's willingness to endure embarrassment is very high. I think he will love going to Spring Training and playing baseball. I also think he's shot. The Yankees will pay him a lot of money to hit .240 and drive in 65 runs. A worst-case scenario.

All he needs is an online fake interview show and he's be the second coming of Mark Teixeira.

Francesa kisses ARod's butt in the search for ratings.

If anything, Francesa should kiss John Idzik's butt a little and try to get past the Jets' boycott of his show:

"The content and tone of the Pope’s sermon made it clear he wants to reprise his role of A-Rod’s designated interviewer/pro bono attorney in the next exclusive one-on-one. Short of reminding Rodriguez to bring his pillow to their next pillow fight, Francesa did everything he could to nail down the next one-on-one.

'Would I have him back on the show? Absolutely, tomorrow,' Francesa, without hesitation, told one of his callers. 'I would be stupid not to. No one would turn down an interview with him.'

Someone who takes lying seriously, or being used, might."

So says Bob Raissman, while writing another story about ARod. 

Look, it may not be hypocritical for the Daily News to criticize ARod while ignoring all the other steroid cheats ... but it's absolutely hypocritical for the Daily News to criticize people who pay attention to ARod in the search for ratings.

Francesa got the interview. Mad Dog would kill for that interview. Raissman would be so excited to get this interview, he'd pee his pants on the air at SNY.


"Even though his gut told him his client, er, interview subject was probably lying, Francesa portrayed Rodriguez as a martyr. And he portrayed himself as a pit bull saying he asked Rodriguez the same questions (are you still doing steroids, did you lie, etc.) '10 different ways.'

A few minutes later, Francesa said he asked the question '20 different ways.'

A few minutes later: '42 different ways. What did you want me to do, yell at him?' Francesa said on the air. 'Tell him, "You’re lying." '

Well, yeah."


Well, no.

Raissman, of course, is holding Mike Francesa to exceedingly high journalistic standards, even though Francesa is not a journalist and makes no claims to be a journalist.


Bob Costas was lied to by Jerry Sandusky. Go listen to it. It's chilling and it's also amazing. "I enjoy young people."


Even though I am not always the biggest Costas fan, this was a great interview.

What kind of skill does an interviewer possess to get a grown man to say, "I enjoy young people"?

Costas didn't act angry with Sandusky, the prison-bound child molester. The interviewer needs access to the interviewee.

This really is not news.

"The news that Alex Rodriguez has confessed to routine performance-enhancing drug use probably means we’ve eliminated the last person who might have believed in his innocence, the existence of witch hunts and the over-aggressiveness of Bud Selig: that person being Alex Rodriguez himself."

ARod is guilty.

Selig was over-aggressive with ARod.

It never even occurred to me that these two observations were mutually exclusive.

  
My evidence that Selig was over-aggressive with ARod?

• The penalties given to every other guilty MLB player. 
• The guilty former players who work for MLB. 
• The endless list of guilty players -- past and present -- who received no penalty.

It's not even a question of if, it's a question of why.

But we know why.

Francesa got ARod to lie on the air.

Why is Francesa getting grief? The interview was terrific and ARod was not under oath.

Francesa didn't shy away from the tough questions. He backed ARod into a corner and made ARod lie on the air.

Of course he'd have ARod back on the air.

Michael Kay wouldn't?

He lied to Mike Francesa.

What's the agenda?

It's very important for Mike Lupica to convince you that the 2014 World Series was great:

"People act as if the World Series wasn’t great or memorable until the end because it didn’t have enough one-run games, like we did in that magnificent seven-game series between the Twins and Braves in 1991.

If they really think that, they don’t know what they were watching."

Funny you should mention what I was watching. Netflix probably got a workout, if you know what I mean.

I believe Schwarzenegger's "Conan the Barbarian" was on one night, but I don't remember for sure. That's always fun, even when toned down for basic cable.

Also, I'm always a sucker for reruns of "Law and Order."

So that's probably how "people acted." They didn't "act" like the World Series wasn't great or memorable, these "people," when they "acted." They didn't have an opinion one way or the other.


"It had the Giants scoring 15 straight runs after the Royals led 4-1 in Game 4, and then it had the Royals coming back and scoring the next 10 runs after that. Go find another World Series in all of baseball history where anything like that happened."

Gee, when you put it that way, it sounds more boring than I thought it was.


"In the end, you know what the 2014 World Series really was?

A celebration of baseball.

It was a full-out celebration that made a lie out of the notion from fake baseball fans and fake baseball experts that if you don’t have home runs in baseball you don’t have anything."

Fair enough.

Baseball could use more fans, fake or otherwise, that's for sure.


Also, it is very clear that the author of this statement only watches about 20 baseball games per year, and maybe about 120 total innings. Maybe I'm underestimating ... I'll change that to 120 innings when Harvey and Tanaka are not pitching, how's that?

When it the last time Lupica pushed his weight around to score seats for a mid-week game between two #5 starters, White Sox vs. the Yankees?

Do you think Lupica could name the Mets' starting five without looking it up?

Real fans care about that game simply because they're real fans. Fans of actual baseball, not just fans of player gossip or GM moves.

Real baseball experts ... well ... I have ten years of archived material calling out this guy's dopey predictions. (Sonny Gray is going to win the Cy Young ... I never saw him pitch, but I looked it up on fangraphs because I had a column due on Sunday morning.) I mean, Lupica  is the kind of self-professed baseball expert who couldn't get the $10 question on "Beer Money."


He hate homers so much, but his relationship with one of his sons was apparently built on the backs of McGwire and Sosa ... or maybe the author of that book is just a fake baseball fan.


Sorry, pal, it's not going to work.

Selig's legacy is steroids.

I see the narrative you're trying to push. The Wild Card World Series, the banishment of ARod, the Salvation of Selig, all rolled up into one ... the Little World Series that Could ... the Thinking Man's World Series ... the Old School World Series for Aficionados of the Game.

Stupid and incorrect.

You are the fake baseball fan, you are the fake baseball expert, and your Favorite Commissioner is a fraud. Madison Bumgarner didn't wash away your sins.