Strike Over, and Out

A few notes:

• Take things one year at a time. That's the mantra with the Johnny Damon signing. For 2006, the Yanks desperately needed a centerfielder, and there was bubkes on the market, other than Damon. I'll go into this in some additional detail next week on BP, but for 2006 (and probably 2007) this was the move to make.

• People are, I think, making too much of this "Yankees Gain is Red Sox Loss" angle. As my brother reminded me yesterday, the Yanks gaining Damon's value and the Red Sox losing same could account for an 11 win swing, as per BP's Wins Above Replacement Player stat (Damon's value was about 5.5). But everyone forgets what the Red Sox gain in this transaction--$10MM they'd earmarked to re-sign Damon. The Red Sox aren't going to replace Damon with a replacement-level player--they have enough money and talent in their system to get a better-than replacement centerfielder.

• Next week, when I look back at 2005, I'm going to tally up the number of times I apologized not having posted more frequently, here. I love having a blog all to myself, but I'm open to any suggestions to make my blogging better. That could mean taking on a partner on this blog, so that there's daily content, or else moving to someone else's blog to perform the same function. No announcements imminent, and I'd welcome any input in the comments section.

• Got to catch a late show of Syriana last night. I was dead exhausted, so I dozed off at least four times during the movie. From what I was conscious to witness, I'd have to go with Roger Ebert's impression of the movie, which is that the movie was intentionally made so that the plot was impossible to follow. I think of this like one of those paintings with the endless, impossible stairway that's going up and down at the same time. It sounds strange not to pan a movie when you actually fell asleep watching it, but I think I'd give Syriana another chance.

• During the movie, which I saw at the Angelica, just at the stroke of midnight I felt the New York Subway system rambling back to life. Maybe the first time for me that a distracting noise in the movie theater was also welcome.

Away for the weekend. Have a Merry Christmas!