New York Yankees

Yesterday I passed along a story that the Yankees had won a waiver claim for Ted Lilly and may have been pursuing him even though the trade deadline had passed.

The Yankees go for a four-game sweep of the Oakland Athletics tonight and their sixth win overall and have their best man on the job, CC Sabathia.

Here are some notes:

Making a much anticipated start, Dallas Braden will take the hill today against the New York Yankees, making his Yankee Stadium debut in front of the ravenous Yankee Stadium crowd.

Braden, LHP from the Oakland Athletics is having a subpar season individually, going 9-9 with a 3.28 ERA.  

This winter Derek Jeter will be paid a lot of money by the New York Yankees. 

The New York Yankees are a team that promotes their history better than any franchise in sports today.  Jeter is the living embodiment of the team's return to glory.  That makes his value unique to the Yankees, but not to the rest of baseball. 

He will make more money than any other shortstop in baseball in 2011 (and a few years thereafter) and by a significant margin.  This is undeniable.  There is no chance that Jeter or the New York Yankees end in divorce. 

Back in 2007, the Yankees had a starting pitcher in the minors who blew through several levels of play. He regularly hit the gun at 95-97 MPH, even as late as the seventh inning in one game for the Trenton Thunder.

He was good starting pitching prospect, but the Yankees needed his power arm in their bullpen. So Joba Chamberlain was in the bullpen for the 2007 post season.

He was tried as a starting pitcher and despite not being Wes Ferrell right off the bat, he still did well considering he was restricted in more ways that Stephen Strasburg laughs at him.

If you haven’t noticed, the young lefty phenom out of Cuba, Aroldis Chapman, finally made his debut for the Cincinnati Reds last night.

According to Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated, when the Dodgers put Ted Lilly on waivers leading up to the trade deadline, the Yankees made and won the claim for the pitcher. Then the Dodgers pulled him off of waivers, and no deal was made.

In a year of stunning rookie performances, Cuban defector and Reds uber-prospect Aroldis Chapman made his major-league debut on Tuesday, facing three batters in one inning of work. The 22-year-old was electric, hitting 103 mph on the radar gun.

Today is September 1st and the Yankees are sitting alone in first place. The Rays are just one game back though, and have proven that they will not back down this season. The Yankees are also seven games up on the Red Sox for the Wild-Card lead, but with six head-to-head games left against them, that lead isn’t exactly air-tight. The Yankees also have the toughest schedule of all three teams so nothing is locked in place. Get ready for what could be an exciting month.

Since being moved to the bullpen to work on mechanics, the performance of Javier Vazquez has improved. The Yankees are now seeing the type of pitcher they thought they were getting last offseason. His performance has improved enough for the righty to get another shot in the starting rotation.