Thiis Week on the Blog

It was a weird week.  Though the Knicks and Rangers both won a game, they also lost. The Yankees finally fired their pitching coach, and the Giants became buyers at a trade deadline where most expected a fire sale. Interesting times.  So let's take a look at the coming week.

Yankees: The Yanks have lost people since they were eliminated. CC made his retirement official.  Jay Bell quit the AAA managing job, and Carlos Beltran took the Mets job. Of their own volition, the Yanks got rid of Rothschild and most of their long term minor league pitching gurus. This is a situation that get tricky.  Thus far, the Yankees have been meeting with college pitching coaches, though, not all of the ones they'd like to, because some have refused to meet with them. That's weird. College baseball is fun, but in terms of exposure it's nowhere near as popular as college basketball and college football are, relative to the the NBA and NFL, and those coaches rarely turn down pro jobs. So it seems odd that college coaches would turn down an opportunity to meet with the Yankees. And yesterday, the Arkansas baseball coach - whoever the hell that is - told reporters that his pitching coach, Matt Hobbs, wasn't going anywhere.  Wow.  You'd think that the Yanks could get their first choices. We'll see what happens, but this is odd.

Giants: The press seems to have a learning disability.  This week Dave Gettleman sent a 3 and a 5 to the Jets for DL Leonard Williams.  As a result the media went backinto it's "Daniel Jones at 6!" idiocy.  If the Giants re-sign Williams before the new League Year starts on March first, the Giants will owe the Jets a 4 instead of the 5.  If they delay the signing for a day or two, can they keep it a 5? We'll see, but that's true of the deal en toto.  Williams was pretty great before the Jets changed coaches and Bettcher's system is very similar to the one in which Williams had flourished.  So he could be better in the Giants D (which would make exactly one guy who is). He's also just 25 but enough of a veteran to provide leadership to Big Dex, Dlalvin, BJ and the rest of the Giants young DL.  So he's a guy who adds talent, and possibly positive leadership for kids.  Not bad.  We'll see how it plays out.

In other news, CB Sam Beal is eligible to be activated from the DL.  It's unclear if he'll be activated for Monday's game, but he has to be activated after it if he isn't.

Rangers: The Rangers just won their second game in a row, and for the second game in a row Fil Chytil scored a goal.  This one was a toe drag wrister off an end to end rush that was started when Libor Hajek chipped a puck to him in defensive end.  It was spectacular and broke a scoreless tie toward the end of the first.  In the second Strome tipped one in from Panarin and both of them now have 6 game scoring streaks. That was all the Rangers needed as Georgiev was terrific again over the course of the 2-1 win. Chytil was absolutely robbed of a goal in the third or he would have had 2.

The Rangers had all sorts of jump today, just like last game.  And if this is the way they keep playing, the rebuild really looks good.  The past two games have been reminiscent of when Torts took over a mostly young team and taught them to play hard.  This version of the Rangers is even younger, but has more fire power. In other Ranger news, Vitali Kravstov just scored his first KHL goal

Knicks: The Knicks need to learn how to win.  Also, like last year, the rotations or pretty puzzling - like why is Alonzo Trier on the shelf?  And how can RJ Barrett, who's good at everything bad at free throw shooting?  Hopefully, he'll find the touch. They are easy shots. And in the last two games, his jumper's been off.  Hopefully it's not snowballing.  Kevin Knox looks better, but still has to stop playing like he's worried about getting hit in the face down low. The special guest Knicks have been as inconsistent as the kids so far, and each of them has been trying to play "hero ball" down the stretch in 4th quarters. That's really how they've lost of few of these. The Defense has been much improved, empty possessions caused by vets going iso and missing are what have cost them.

So there are.  The Yanks will continue their coaching search. Any Giant win down the stretch will hurt their draft position, although if Daniel Jones steals a game or two they will be acceptable.  The Rangers may have turned a corner and expecting wins beats the opposite. The Knicks are still a work in progress, but the best players have been the real Knicks and not the guest stars. Have a great one.