Rankings/List

Now that the Milwaukee Brewers have officially completed their 2009 season, news of more and more players with minor injuries continue to come to light.

Casey McGehee will undergo surgery this afternoon to clean out some "loose bodies" from his right knee.  The potential NL Rookie of the Year has been playing through the pain since the All-Star Break, but the knee problems significantly lessened his range at third and his speed on the basepaths.  With a .301 average and 16 home runs, it did not seem to affect him much at the plate.

Welcome to the final edition of the Cubicle GM MLB Power Rankings for 2009. While the MLB rankings may be coming to a close, be sure to check in next week for our playoff predictions column.

If you haven’t had your fill of Power Rankings, be sure to check out our NFL rankings.

Joba Chamberlain is just 25 years old and is about to turn 26 and he's in his third year in the Major Leauges. In his rookie year he appeared in 19 games and looked like the answer to become the eigth inning guy and possibly the closer of the future for the Yankees.

Yet, in 2008 George Steinbrenner had different ideas about Chamberlain. Instead of being the eighth inning guy, he wanted him as a starter.

Chamberlain did appear in 42 games and made 12 starts which meant he had 30 relief appearances.

Round 1—RHP Eric Arnett, Indiana University

Concerned with the 108 innings thrown with the Hoosiers in the Spring, the Brewers opted to ease Eric into the professional scene. He generally worked in two-to-three inning stints.

With a mid-90s fastball, the 21-year-old posted a 9.20 K/9 strikeout rate with the Helena Brewers. 

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Recently, Michael Silverman of the "Boston Herald" published a list of Boston Red Sox trade deadline and other late July trades under Theo Epstein's stewardship (which you can see here: http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/baseball/red_sox/view.bg?articleid=11...).

In Silverman's list, he virtualy ranked the deals by the amount of success the team had after the trade. While that may be a big part about looking back past trades, it should not be the only way. This article is correcting some of the errors Silverman had made.

You probably won't agree with all my choices.

I'm not trying to demean or diminish his accomplishment, I'm just saying that while Derek Jeter may have passed the immortal Iron Horse for career hits as a Yankee, he has a long way to go to catch Gehrig in terms of getting on base.

And shouldn't the ultimate goal for every hitter be to get on base?

The American League won yet another All-Star game last night in St. Louis, which stretched their current unbeaten streak to 14 seasons.

They are 13-0-1 over that span, with the only blemish being the absurd 7-7 tie witnessed in the 2002 game. That mockery eventually created the current system in which most fans despise—regardless of what Commissioner Selig would like to believe.

The winning streak of the American League All-Stars made me begin to ponder the greatest streaks in New York Yankees history.

On Monday, we examined the performance of the Yankees' position players in the first half. Today, we hand out grades to the pitching staff, manager and new Yankee Stadium.

The Yankees are attempting to qualify for the postseason for an unprecedented ninth time in a decade. The Yankees of the 1950s went to the World Series eight times, while the Atlanta Braves qualified for the playoffs eight times in the 90s.

The Yankees stumbled into the All-Star break by dropping three straight games at Anaheim and are now 2-12 against the Angels and Red Sox, two teams New York will need to beat this October if it wants to capture a 27th World Series title.

But the Bombers still have the third best record in baseball at 51-37, lead the wild card by 2.5 games, and are just three behind Boston for the AL East lead.

So who is making the grade and who could use some extra help after class as we enter the dog days of summer?