WHY THERE'S NO JOY IN MUDVILLE

What the hell just happened? Could it be that all the razzing against Jon Heyman's "mystery team" nonsense was inappropriate? Heyman was right. My apologies Mr. Heyman.

Well, it looks like the Phillies won the battle, although in fairness to the Yanks and Rangers, the Phillies showed up late to the party and played the "fond memories card" with Lee to get him. At the end of the day, they did and for only $100 million, that's $50 million less than the New York Yankees. Now the Yankees are embarrassed, sitting there with there dick in their hand and wondering what went wrong. We had the most money and the most years on the table. That was what Lee wanted right? Well, It didn't matter, we lost, and we didn't just lose today, we're about to lose more in the next few days and years unless we have a strategy to combat the evil Red Sox lineup in our division. The strategy we had failed. The Phillies just pulled a "Shock and Awe".

• Currently, the Yankees have our ace CC Monster. Got to love the dude, but how will he be after that "minor" knee surgery? Spring training will say it all.
• We have a kid named AJ with demons in his head. Will he bounce back? Let's pray he has a good season.
• We have the youngster Phil Hughes. I like him in the 4 or 5 slot.

Ladies and gentlemen in Yankeeland... that's it. Cliff Lee was supposed to join forces with CC Sabathia and be the 1,2 punch the Yankees needed to kick everyones ass. They were suppoed to be like Koufax and Drysdale, Schilling and Johnson. It was supposed to be CC and Lee for years to come. Now all we have is CC and "Number 2." Get it? We have shit.

I never really ever blasted Cashman for making bad player moves in the past because let's face it, a player can look good on paper, and may play much better for a certain team, but it can all change and they can totally blow it on a big stage like the New York Yankees. But I have to blast Cashman today. This strategy of putting all their eggs in one basket was a horrendous error that just exposed the New York Yankees. There are many holes to be filled, the rotation is major.

Plus, waiting cost us. All the top free agents after Lee are now signed with new teams. They're all gone. What are we going to do now? Sign Carl Pavano? No way. If that were to ever happen, there would be a "Fire Brian Cashman" fan page on Facebook, trust me. Here's the list of free agents... TAKE A LOOK. Who would you want? Make a comment, let me know.

I can pretty much predict how everything will go down from this point forward.

1. The Yankees will come out with a statement saying in some way or another that they really didn't want Lee any way. Oh Wait, it already happened: “Anybody who would leave $50M on the table obviously doesn’t want to pitch in New York. Thank God we found out in time.” - - anonymous New York Yankee official. Stupid fools.


2. The Yankees are aggravated at Brauckener, Lee's Agent and also AJ's agent by the way. Don't be surpised if an AJ trade happens between now and the trading deadline, espcieally is AJ sucks. That will be a signal to Brauckener that business with him is over. Real mob shit.


3. Then, I bet the Yanks make a knee jerk panic move and try to get Zack Greinke in pinstripes. If that means trading one of our outfielders away, Gardner, Swisher, they'll do it. They will be panicking to fill the holes and it will backfire.


4. They'll look at a pitcher like Mark Buehrle. There is a lot of talk lately about Buehrle being available by the White Sox right now, no doubt Cashman called Kenny Williams about it. Buehrle, I like more than Greinke and I know Buehrle can handle the pressure, but who would the Yankees give up?


5. Pettitte. Big question mark. The Yankees now have a lot of money that they didn't spend on Lee so they need to offer Pettitte more than they normally would to get him back. That is the biggest issue right now. I told you Pettitte would not come back if Lee didn't sign with New York. I bet I'm right, unless the Yanks throw a lot of money at him and Jeet, Mariano and Posada have a conference call with him, he won't.
   

As you can see, the Yankees did it to themselves. They can't blame anyone BUT themselves. They blew it big time and hopefully the knee jerk moves that are about to take place don't mess with the rest of the team. If that happens, you have ballplayers that are out of their comfort zone, irritation and panic. The next few weeks need to be handled brilliantly before the Yankees fans all turn against them. It's already happening. One of my friends has swore he will find something else to watch this baseball season. Yes, we will have dark days ahead, maybe even as dark as today, but they Yankees can right this ship, they just can't push the panic button or it all goes down the drain.

Please comment and let me know what you think and follow me on Twitter @BleednYankeeBlu and join the group Bleeding Yankee Blue on Facebook, just type it in.