Yankees Sour On the Melkman

The Devils beat the Pittsburgh Penguins last night, 4-0 at the Civic Arena (excuse me, the Mellon Arena) in Pittsburgh, thus Martin Brodeur breaks Terry Sawchuk's 40-plus-year record with his 104th career shutout.

Rutgers won the St. Petersburg Bowl on Saturday night, defeating Central Florida, 45-21.

But I'm a little sour, because the Melkman is gone.

The Yankees traded Melky Cabrera to the Atlanta Braves for Javier Vazquez. There were also prospects involved in each direction.

Now, I know that Vazquez had a great season in 2009, and I've never blamed him for the 2004 ALCS Game 7 disaster -- maybe he wouldn't have been a lot better starting that game than Kevin (the Clown) Brown, but he couldn't have been much worse.

But I didn't want to lose Melky. Think about it: He's young, he's a good hitter, he can run, he can field, he's got a lot of spirit, and he should be just about to come into his own. If the Yankees are going to give him up, they'd better get a better pitcher than Javy Vazquez -- I'm talking Hall of Fame quality.

And this leaves the Yankees with only 4 outfielders on their entire 40-man roster: Nick Swisher, Brett Gardner, the newly-signed Curtis Granderson, and some guy I never heard of, picked up this off-season from the Dodgers, who barely played this past season.

This, after the Yankees let Hideki Matsui and Johnny Damon both get away. Matsui has already signed with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, but Damon is still unsigned. (UPDATE: He was signed by the Detroit Tigers, essentially as Granderson's replacement there.)

If the Yankees don't either sign Damon soon, or get a suitable replacement to play left field, which would enable Gardner to go back to being the outfielder-of-all-trades and the number one pinch-runner, then they have seriously weakened themselves, and I don't care what Vazquez brings to the rotation.

Big mistake -- unless Brian Cashman still has another card to play.

Of course, it could be worse: The Mets have still done little to improve their pathetic selves, and all the Red Sox have done to improve is get John Lackey -- who, let's face it, is not someone the Yankees are afraid of anymore, if they ever were.