This Week on the Blog

This was a pretty eventful week for our three most active teams.  The Yanks continued their up and down ways, but got one of their key picks signed, the Rangers changed GM's and signed FA's, and Phil Jackson started putting his plan into full effect as he signed a bunch of tough roll players to start filling out next year's roster.  Things will probably be a little calmer this week.  Let's take a look.

Yanks: the Bombers will continue their homestand and have another day off on Monday.  They're also drawing closer to the deadline for signing picks, so we might see some more movement there.  Let's hope they don't blow up the farm for any trades.

Rangers: new GM Jeff Gorton sure has his work cut out for him. His first priority has to be re-signing Derek Stepan, who can file for arbitration tomorrow.   Gorton might have to make a trade to make that possible, and may also want to make a trade to improve the team.  They wisely just made depth signings at the opening of free agency, so no kids will be blocked -- unless AV is just mental.  But Gorton might want to start looking to get younger again on the back end and move one of their 30 and over D's.   We'll see, I don't think he'll try anything splashy, but do expect him to extricate the team from the cap crunch while retaining the young core, including Stepan.  

Going forward, because of both their cap situation and their dearth of firsts over the past few years, the Rangers will once again have to find other ways to add talent - like when they added Hayes last August.  Not sure there's a Hayes level talent to be found, but that's one of the tasks in front of Jeff Gorton.

Knicks: who are these guys?  Seriously, after a really nifty draft that saw them add the Zinger and Grant, as well as stash Hernangomez -- they've had an equally nifty opening to the NBA free agency period.  Instead of maxing big names, the Knicks added solid team guys,  including two established vets and two 24 year old forwards with upside.  They got their rim protection and a shooting guard who can hit threes.  As of right now they only have the 2.8M exception available to add talent - but dare we say, we expect them to use it intelligently?  Yikes!   Is this still Earth?

Giants:  The Giants still could announce extensions for Eli or JPP or Prince any day now, but might also be tempted to dip into the Supplemental Draft on the 9th.  This would be a throwback to the days of George Young, but the Tackle from Clemson must be checked out given the injury to Beatty and their being one talent down on the current OL.  There are 7 or 8 players in the Supp, so maybe they'll even be interested in someone else - though I think there is only the 1 OL.

Let's see intelligence abound.   Have a great week and thanks for following.