Today is a great day for Yankee fans everywhere, even 97 years later the feeling is still the same as it was on this day all those years ago. The greatest Christmas present the Yankees organization ever received, George Herman Ruth, was sold to the Yankees by the Red Sox 97 years ago today. That was the beginning of the end for the Red Sox and the start of something very special for the New York Yankees. At the time of the trade the Red Sox were the more prestigious team at the time, the Yankees were a fairly new franchise, and the Red Sox already had 3 World Series titles under their belt compared to the Yankees none. The Red Sox created a monster that couldn't be stopped, as well as cursing themselves into 86 years of infamy.

Everything about the deal makes me happy, the fact that the Red Sox created the winning machine that is the Yankees, the fact we paid 1.3 Mil in today's money for the greatest player ever, and the fact it cursed the Red Sox for 86 years. There's nothing about the deal that didn't lead to greatness in the Yankees organization. I want to thank the Red Sox for giving us the player who built the foundation for our franchise. After all our stadium was called the house that Ruth built. Ruth brought our great franchise the first 3 of our 27 World Series championships, without him who knows how long we would've had to wait until getting our first. He brought the winning championships routinely attitude to the Yankees, without him the standard of extreme excellence may have never been set, and the Yankees might've never been the greatest sports franchise in history. Thanks to those idiots up in Boston we'll never have to worry about that, they traded the best player in the world to their arch rival for next to nothing, which ultimately led to 86 years of Yankee domination and Red Sox irrelevancy. Oh thank god for stupid people, we can all agree whoever was on the Red Sox side of that deal was an idiot, and whoever made that deal for the Yankees is a genius. Like taking candy from a baby, the Yankees took Babe Ruth from the Red Sox 97 years ago today, and no one will ever forget.

Can't say I'm surprised, I've known this was coming ever since I heard Chapman and Cashman were talking like two days after the World Series. Chapman is a physical specimen, he's 6'4", 212lbs, and he's thrown more fastballs over 100 MPH since 2010 than the next seven guys on the list combined. Clearly he's a once in a generation, maybe even a once in a lifetime talent. I stated my reasons for concern with signing Chapman long term for this amount of money, when the Yankees submitted their offer a few days ago(Read Here). I'm not going to talk about my concerns with Chapman since I already did that, so let's just appreciate what we have while we have it. Chapman is the most dominant closer on the planet, sure there's guys over the years that have stacked up against him, but he's consistently remained in the elite closer category, while those guys fell off. A bullpen with Adam Warren, Tyler Clippard, Dellin Betances, and Aroldis Chapman, is a bullpen I'm very confident in. 6 quality innings from our starting pitching and were in position to get the win. I like our chances a lot more to sneak into the wildcard game now that we have an elite bullpen. Our starting pitching might be horrendous, but if we can get a lead late, we're keeping it. Cashman is doing a fantastic job of building for the future while keeping the team competitive now, that's an almost impossible task to do, and Cashman is finessing this plan to perfection. I'll enjoy every second of the overpowering pitching that occurs in the 8th and 9th inning almost every night and worry about Chapman's arm falling apart when it actually happens. Another tip off the cap to Brian Cashman, keep killing it boss, you're making all the Yankee fans proud.

Time for the longest offseason of talking about how great the Red Sox are going to be to begin. My god, it's not even fair that they can do this, like c'mon they're good enough, don't let them have one of the best pitchers in baseball. Chris Sale has the lowest ERA of any AL starter in the last 5 seasons, the next two lowest ERA's in that time span are Felix Hernandez and David Price, Price is also on the Red Sox. The Red Sox now have two pitchers with the lowest ERA in the AL the last 5 seasons along with the reigning AL Cy Young award winner, Rick Porcello. Safe to say they have the best rotation in all of the American League. 

The Red Sox did have to part with their top prospect Yoan Moncada, this is a huge loss for their future since this kid is supposed to be an absolute stud. There were other prospects included in the deal, but Moncada was the gem the White Sox wanted. Sale is under contract through the 2019 season, in addition to him being signed the deal is an absolute bargain, the most they'll have to pay him is $15 million in 2019, absolute steal for an ace like Sale. On the bright side, he'll probably be gone by the time the Yankees are competing for pennants again, and we won't have to deal with Moncada killing us for the next 15 years if he turns out to be what everyone says he will. Red Sox are clearly in win now mode, I hate seeing them win, but it might as well be while the Yankees rebuild since it's not like they'll be competing with the Red Sox for division titles for at least the next two seasons. Brian Cashman actually went on to call the Red Sox the Warriors of the MLB after hearing this news, that's funny because my least favorite basketball team is the Warriors, so it's a great analogy to me. Red Sox are trying to do what the Yankees did in the late 90's, have a young brilliantly talented core, and sign the best available guys on the market for whatever cost to ensure championships. Year 1 of that plan failed, if this continues to fail, and the Red Sox don't win a championship over the course of the next three seasons, this was all for nothing. I'll be laughing my ass off while Red Sox fans return to a state of misery, I'll love every second of it, and then the Yankees become an all-star team in 2019 showing the Red Sox how you build a real dynasty. Optimism is a great thing.

Honestly, what took so fucking long, this should've been done the day after Jeter called it a career. The Yankees have had hundreds of great players come through their organization. They've had many Hall of Famers and many players that'll be remembered for as long as this game lives on. When you think Yankees though, there's one person that immediately comes to mind that's associated with the Pinstripes, Derek Jeter. Babe Ruth  was the greatest player ever, but he was a fat drunk. Mickey Mantle, Joe Dimaggio, Lou Gehrig were all legends of the game, but not many people are still alive that got to see them in there hay day. Reggie Jackson, Thurman Munson, Don Mattingly, Bernie Williams, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera all legends of the game, but none of them shined quite like Derek Jeter. 

Jeter was a star from the beginning, his first full year as starting shortstop for the Yankees he won a World Series ring. Talk about fairytale beginning to his story. He also won the rookie of the year award, don't even like saying that phrase after how badly Gary Sanchez got robbed of it, but I digress. He then went on to win four more championships, go to 15 all star games, 5 gold gloves, 5 silver sluggers, and he finished in the top 10 of MVP voting 8 times. Safe to say the awards are there. He also had 3,465 hits while maintaining a .310 batting average throughout his career, consistently for 20 years being one of the best hitters in the game. Jeter also earned the nickname Mr.November with his glorious walk off home run in game 4 of the 2001 World Series. He also won the World Series MVP the year prior to that against the Mets in the Subway Series. Jeter was also the last captain the Yankees had, he was one of 5 Yankees ever to spend their entire career as a Yankee and be a captain. Lou Gehrig is the only other one that spent his entire career with the Yankees, is a hall of famer, and had the longevity of Jeter. Now, Jeter isn't a hall of famer yet, but you'd be dumb to think he won't be a first ballot hall of famer. I'm even thinking he might be the first unanimous first ballot hall of famer, regardless he'll be in Cooperstown in a few short years. 

Jeter was also the heartbreak kid of NYC. Every women in New York was in love with Derek Jeter, didn't matter if she watched baseball, cared about sports, every female in America knew Derek Jeter, and wanted to bang him. The guy was the biggest stud this city has ever seen and somehow he manipulated the entire media to the point there was never a bad story broken about him. He never was in any scandals, almost never saw his personal life on display, he was just low key slaying any girl he wanted to because he just had it like that. There will never be another Derek Jeter. You either loved him, or you hated him out of jealousy, but no one had an actual reason not to like him because he's essentially perfect. Thank you No.2, The Captain, Mr.November, Derek Jeter for blessing my childhood with outstanding entertainment provided by your unreal athletic ability, and master skill in the game of baseball. You are my childhood hero along with ever other Yankee fan under the age of 30, you showed us all that it is possible to be a superhero. Thank you. 

Now I'm going to post a bunch of memorable Jeter Moments and sound bites and cry for the rest of the day.

Almost a month ago to the day I blogged that Brian Cashman and Aroldis Chapman were having discussions about a possible reunion. At the time I was very excited about the possible return of Aroldis Chapman to the Yankee bullpen, but I'm beginning to have second thoughts. With the reality of the situation hitting me when I saw Bryan Hoch, Yankee reporter for MLB.com, tweet that the Yankees are still pursuing Chapman, I began to realize why this may not be the best acquisition.  Obviously every Yankee fan at first is going to be hyped to get the flame throwing lefty reliever back. If you know baseball though, this might not be the best business decision in the world.

Chapman will be 29 by the start of next season, it'll be his seventh full season in the league, and he'll be coming off a postseason where he was clearly overworked. A few red flags shot up for me when I really started thinking about this, a guy thats prides himself off being able to overpower the batter with a 100+MPH fastball, is something we've never really seen in the MLB before. At least not to the velocity that we've seen Chapman throw. How long can his arm truly hold up throwing this hard, for this long. Most closers last about 7 years at the top off their game to begin with, most of those closers also don't rely on a freakishly fast fastball to get batters out either. If it were a 3 year deal I'd be able to live with it, but Chapman wants a 6 year deal, and anyone that thinks he can do what he's doing for 6 more years you've got some serious faith in a guy thats ligaments in his elbow are bound to tear at any moment. Maybe he'll be one of the greats like Rivera and Hoffman, who just dominate the final inning of baseball games for nearly two decades. Only difference is those guys weren't flamethrowers like Chapman, it's a different style, and I don't think Chapman's style allows him the longevity of those guys. Also, if I'm paying a guy $100 million over 6 years to be my closer, he better be top 3 best closers in the league all 6 years, which I don't think Chapman will be able to do. Too high risk with not enough reward for my liking. We're just getting out of the huge long term deals, let's not get right back into old habits with this signing.

Now, the part I didn't mention about Bryan Hoch's tweet was that he said the Yankees were still also in talks with Kenley Jansen. Give me Kenley Jansen over Chapman. A lot of people might say it's a similar situation because it kind of is, but the difference is Jansen has a number of filthy pitches in his repitore. He uses mostly a cutter, does that remind you of any great Yankee closer, oh yeah only the GOAT Mariano Rivera. He also mixes in a sinker and slider to keep hitters off balance, whereas Chapman is mostly just trying to blow 103 MPH fastball by you. Jansen is made to last longer in this league, we could probably get him for a little cheaper than Chapman, and he doesn't have a history of domestic violence. Jansen along with Chapman is being pursued by probably every team, let's be honest though, were the fucking Yankees, if we really want somebody, we're going to get them. I'm sure we're at the top of most free agent's dream destination anyway. Either way, we'll probably get one of these guys, when we do it'll return our bullpen back to it's once dominate status. Let's just hope it's Jansen, I can see him being elite for 6 more years, and for the sake of our future dynasty, we're going to need him.