-In Duggan's recent post he said that he thinks the Yankees should trade Romine for a starter in the National League, and not sign Lee. I am personally not one of those people that go "we must sign Lee or we will never win the World Series again!" That being said, I am not willing to trade Austin Romine any time soon. Romine needs to see AAA and be a very solid insurance option for the Yankees if for some incredibely odd reason Jesus Montero doesn't become the great player he seems like he will. While that is very, very, very, very unlikely, I'd like to keep Romine around due to the fact that you can never have too much insurance. Hopefully Romine's numbers will improve, and if not he looks like he'll be a high average low power solid fielding catcher.
-My prediction is that Francisco Cervelli will start game four at catcher, but that's an early guess. I wouldn't put him in there, not because of offense only, but because he has been a worse defensive catcher than Posada this season. Cervelli had more errors in less games, and a worse caught stealing percentage.
-Going with Cliff Lee has a very good chance of haunting the Rangers. You don't play to win the series in seven, you play to win it in six. Say the Rangers are down 3-2 in game six, and decide to stick with Lee in game seven and Lewis in game six. If the Rangers lose, there is no game seven, and Lee has been wasted.
-Brendan Prunty wrote about a Kevin Long drill. You don't hear too much about his drills themselves, and it's a nice read.
-Since I got three of the four CS teams correct in my preseason picks, and all four of my DS picks correct in my latest predictions (I like to brag!) I'll make some more predictions:
-The Yankees will win in six games and the Giants will win in seven. I had the Giants and Yankees in the World Series in my preseason picks and I'll keep it that way.
-Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez will both either have great series' or terrible series.' I can't see either of them having average series'.
-The Yankees will continue to score, making it easy for the pitching. Still, the pitching will need to hold the Rangers offense.
-Curtis Granderson will continue to hit the ball, and will receive a permanant spot in the two-hole for the rest of the ALCS.
-The Yankees will lose game one, win game two, win game three, lose game four, win game five, and win game six.
-Yes, I did just say C.J. Wilson will beat CC Sabathia. I think the Rangers will come out like the Phillies did last year in the World Series and make all the wagoners jump. Once the Yankees win game two, they will have smooth sailing from there.