Cliff Lee is making one hell of an unforgettable post season runs. He been throwing complete games, shut outs, and doing everything you want your pitcher to do. He is already making a run as one of the best postseason pitchers ever with career postseason stats of 47.1 innings pitched, 43 strikeouts, 1.53 ERA, and .807 WHIP, putting him up there with Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, and others, which is great company to be in. Now of course he will have to play more postseason games to be considered as an all-time great, which brings me to the question will he get those post season as a Ranger or will he leave next year and go to the Yankees?
If he stays with the Rangers next year, the good side will be you will have Nolan Ryan as your owner and he is dedicated to bringing this team to the promise land. The problem is can the Rangers be a perianal team that goes to the playoffs year after year and will the Rangers spend the money to get the players necessary to be competitive year after year? I think the answer to the first question is no and the second answer is yes. I think they will spend the money to bring players in the problem will be they will always be in competition with the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, Dodgers, and other big market teams. The allure to go those bigger market teams where you will be in a big market, receiving sponsorship deals, and having the notoriety will allure a lot of the players. The other thing that will take some of the other big players away is the fact of the history of the other teams, and history is not something Texas has a whole bunch of in the baseball world. I do think though that Nolan Ryan will make a great effort to keep Cliff Lee and will not let him go down easily, because he is a huge weapon to have, and a proven winner against the Yankees that you know you are going to see in the playoffs. Will it be good enough the effort he will put in to get it done though? That is something we will have to wait and see.
Now if he goes to the Yankees they will have assembled a pitching rotation that will be almost unstoppable. You will have to face two number one pitchers in Cliff Lee and C.C Sabitha and a tough up and coming pitcher in Phil Hughes. Then you have to think Andy Petite will make one more return pretty much guaranteeing them a World Series. You would imagine the worse pitcher you would see is A.J Burnett and anybody that knows pitching and follows MLB Burnett has awesome stuff and can turn it on and be unhittable. The question you have to ask yourself though is if the Yankees do acquire Cliff Lee what does it do for the game of baseball? Will people get uninterested thinking that the Yankees have it wrapped in the bag? Will it start a spark for a salary cap? Only time will tell but the fact is Yankees are going to make a hard run at Cliff Lee and as Nolan Ryan has already said, “ we will have to see how much the Yankees offer, to even know if we are in the ballpark.”
So the question is where will Cliff Lee end up next year? The easy answer to that is simple it is wherever he chooses to go and only he knows the real answer to that. I think he will be in pinstripes especially if they do not win the World Series this year. It will be a chance to play for a historic franchise and pocket a whole bunch of money in the process. He will get to play with greats like Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Mariano Rivera, and others. For now we will enjoy the postseason and see what happens but soon as the postseason is over you will know this will be one of the big stories.
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