"Today we salute you stressed out college student during exam week. As you sit in your lonely cubical in the library, doped up on Starbucks & Aderol, you think to yourself, am I ever going to need to know this stuff in life? The distractions are tempting and you have suddenly diagnosed yourself with ADD along with advanced delusionary schizophrenia with involuntary narcissistic rage. I'm sure by now you know exactly what everyone is doing because you have checked your buddy list 800 times. Summer is just days away, and your prozac prescription will be in tomorrow. So crack open an ice cold Bud Light after that last exam, because for most of us summer will be spent in rehab."

A-freakin-men. Except in my case it'll be Miller Light. And many of them.

Well, a lot has happened in the offseason since I last posted here. Matsuzaka is all but part of the Red Sox, the FA market for pitching has exploded with Gil Meche getting 11 million per year from KC, and the Yankees re-signed Andy Pettitte and are trying to sign Kei Igawa to a cheap contract.

We'll see what happens.

Just a word about this Daisuke Matsuzaka mess, and about the Yankees this offseason.

Remember last season, the Cardinals aggressively pursued AJ Burnett, and when the Blue Jays signed him, they tried to re-sign Matt Morris. However, Morris was pissed off that they didn't pursue him aggressively, and he left them for the Giants.

If the Yankees were to post a large bid for Matsuzaka, they would have probably hurt their chances of signing good free agent pitching this offseason. The Red Sox clearly have no qualms about losing out on other free agent pitchers who are going to demand an obscene amount of money from them ("You paid him 100 million, so you must have money to spare."). Cashman saw this as more of a problem than Theo did, clearly. And in that sense, you have to give Cashman a hand for knowing what he's doing.

So what does this mean? It means that Lilly would probably ask for 8 million from the Sox and 7 million from the Yankees. It means Zito would ask for 15 million from the Sox and 13 million from the Yankees. And when you take into account the amount of young pitching the Yankees have been stockpiling over the past couple years, the demand for free agent starters appears to go down, thus driving the price down. Of course, they ARE the Yankees, so all FAs know they have money to spare, but Brian Cashman is holding more cards this year than in recent years.

As of next season, the Yankees already have 7 potential starters: Chien-Ming Wang, Mike Mussina*, Randy Johnson, Carl Pavano, Scott Proctor*, Jeff Karstens, and Darrell Rasner. In the system, Phillip Hughes, Tyler Clippard, and Humberto Sanchez could be starting in 2008, if not sooner. Cashman will likely want at least one free agent pitcher (putting my money on either Ted Lilly or Gil Meche) to solidify a rotation full of question marks, but he doesn't HAVE to get one.

Either way, it's an exciting time to be a Yankees fan. Brian Cashman is clearly behind the helm without Steinbrenner breathing directly down his neck, and the team is gradually getting younger. 2007 won't be as big a transition year as 2008, but I'm interested in seeing what happens nonetheless.

The AL East is going to be disgustingly competitive this year, mark my words. And watch the O's and especially Devil Rays start to get into the mix.

I don't care what anybody says, but the Buffalo Sabres are good for the sport of hockey. Amazing performances like last night's 3rd period comeback from a 3-goal deficit, in addition to the flashy play of people like Ryan Miller and Max Afinogenov, are bound to get some attention.  Hopefully it will re-emerge from the niche that it has been in for the past few years and reclaim its place among the "Big 4" sports.