Maybe It Isn't Jeff Nelson

The last great season for Yankee fans was 2000. It was the season that David Justice saved a slumping offense, capping it off with ALCS MVP honors. It was a season when Glenallen Hill went from being a fourth outfielder to having such a torrid hot streak, he made Shane Spencer look like Rey Ordonez. It was the Rocket's second season as a Yankee, and he made it a great one, capping it off with a masterpiece in Game 2 of the World Series, shutting down the Mets after throwing a bat at Mike Piazza.

What do these guys all have in common? They made it to the Mitchell Report.

When all is said and done, there was an astounding number of juicers on the 2000 Yankees. You thought the Bash Brothers A's were bad, but the Junkees, living up to their nickname more then ever, are easily the most-juiced World Series champs ever.

Here's the complete juiced-up roster from the 2000 season:

David Justice
Roger Clemens
Denny Neagle
Chuck Knoblauch
Andy Pettitte
Glenallen Hill
Jose Canseco
Jason Grimsley
Mike Stanton

Maybe this excerpt can explain Hill's hot streak:

Radomski recalled meeting Hill at a social function in 2000 when Hill was still
playing in Major League Baseball. Radomski said that Hill told him that he was getting human
growth hormone in San Francisco and was “not feeling anything.” Radomski thereafter sent Hill a “sample bottle” of human growth hormone without charge and told him to try it. Hill tried it and told Radomski that he “felt everything you told me I would feel.” Radomski told Hill the human growth hormone Hill had been taking likely had spoiled. Hill purchased two kits ofhuman growth hormone from Radomski.

Now, I know some of the Yankee fans will point out that, upon further review of the Mitchell report, many of these players didn't order PEDs until after the 2000 season. However, when there's smoke, there's fire. These guys were Grimsley's teammates, and had plenty of access There are many more transactions that Mitchell doesn't know about. But once someone's on the list, I think it's fair to speculate that they took PEDs even before the dates mentioned in the report.

But forget Jeff Nelson: this might be the real reason the Yankees haven't won since that year.

It's the Curse of the Juice.

Some fans think the records held by juice-users should be erased. Perhaps, on that basis, the 2000 World Series should be taken from the Yankees. But if they're cursed, hey, that's fine with me.

LaTroy Hawkins? Nice

I'm actually happy to see that Old York picked up Hawkins to be this year's Luis Vizcaino. Hawkins was pretty good as a Twin, but he's been spotty since then. He's bounced around a bunch of times, and looking at his stats over the past few years, I can see why. But the interesting thing is that his strikeouts are way, way down. This past year he stuck out 29 (walked 16) in 55.1 innings.

Essentially he had a couple of really good years, and those were in '02 and '03. You can throw '04 in there, too, but since then he's been nothing special.

What's also interesting is that he's never had the nerve to be a closer. They've tried him in that role in Minnesota and in Chicago (with the Cubbies) but his constant implosions always put him back into middle relief.

Like I said, I'm glad that Old York is getting a guy who'll be 35 and will probably be relegated to mop-up duty by mid-June. It's too bad he's signed for only one season.

Sayonara Shemp?

The rumors linking Hideki Matsui to the Giants is hardly surprising. Surprising in the sense that the Yanks would be willing to give up on such a PR source, but not surprising that Sabean and the Giants would take someone past his prime.

But the Yanks’ plan appears to be as follows: move Damon to left, and go after Aaron Rowand for center field. I think the Yanks are a sleeper on this one, especially after Rowand had a monster series against them a few years ago. The Yanks are one of the few teams that can overpay for the guy, who had a career year at the perfect time.