Kourtney Kardashian shows us how to eat a KitKat

This isn't an interesting video but KitKats are unequivocally the GOAT of chocolate candies so I just want to say one thing - If you have KitKats in your home or at work and you aren't keeping them in the freezer then you are a buffoon.  They're literally the only candy you can pull right out of the freezer and immediately eat.  You'll fracture your jaw trying to gnaw on a frozen snickers.  Milky Way, Hershey's Kiss, M&Ms, all the same deal.  But no matter how far the body temperature of a KitKat drops it's not enough to harden those three deluctable flakey wafers inside those frozen chocolate sticks.  You could sit there with a bag of frozen minis and eat them like fucking potato chips.  Leave it to a classy chick like Kourtney to be snacking on sloppy, melted KitKats all over her family's white Bugatti grain leather sofa.

Disgusting

Your premature Yankees winter wrap-up

It seems early to be wrapping up the offseason.  I don't remember the last time we sat here on January 11th and had as many big names still on the free-agent market as there are today but logic would dictate the Yankees are just about done restructuring for 2016.  And while it's never out of the realm of possibility for Cashman to make an unforeseen splash, I wouldn't expect the depth chart to look a whole lot different today than it will on April 4th before the rematch with Dallas Keuchel.

There were a few swaps made in the Bronx this winter but the pieces that moved around weren't necessarily the one's we'd expected going into December.  The market for Brett Gardner seems to have followed that of every other major league outfielder without a job right now...Ivan Nova is staying here while his value is low...and it looks like the Andrew Miller trade talks were just a ploy by Cashman to see what kind of haul he could get back while the closer market was booming.  

The Yankees mirrored their 2014-2015 offseason this winter; buying low on once highly-touted prospects who are still young, cost-controlled and with uncertain potential.  One of the most depressing fallouts from the wildcard loss to Houston was the realization that the 2016 Yankees were pretty much going to be the 2015 Yankees, just a year older.  But Cashman deserves a tip of the cap - I did not expect the dynamic of the team to change as much as it has since that abysmal night.

The first real move the Yankees made this offseason was bringing in Aaron Hicks in exchange for John Ryan Murphy.  JR really had himself a nice season and was fun to watch but he became expendable with Gary Sanchez's resurgence in Scranton and the AFL.  Hicks, a former first round pick who's just 26-years-old, will play the Marcus Thames/Andruw Jones/Chris Young role and stands to be an improvement in the field.

While the deal for Chapman garnered a lot of attention for many reasons (some good, some bad) the trade for Starlin Castro was the most impactful move the team made this winter.  He makes the lineup younger, gives them balance from the other side of the plate that they desperately needed and fills what was a glaring hole at second base.  He's a 25-year-old, three-time All-Star who's already amassed 991 career major league hits.  This guy can ball.  He may have baggage, he may be coming off an awful year but I think players like Starlin Castro can always be a change of scenery away from realizing their true potential.  I'll miss Adam Warren but he too became expendable.  Once he was relegated to the bullpen last year he became a ghost.  If they stuck him there again with this unit he'd be even harder to find.  I'm sure we'll all be clamoring for him when Pineda goes down with an oblique strain his third turn through the rotation but it's not unreasonable to think that Nova and/or Bryan Mitchell would be capable of stepping in and patching things together.

Trading Justin Wilson was curious.  To give away a top reliever who was essential to the team last year just to avoid his "money-making years" didn't sit well with a lot of fans but it hardly seems relevant now.  The Yankees have their big three and whatever money they saved on Wilson they gave to a better reliever and managed to enrich their minor league starting pitching depth in the process.  It goes without saying how the Chapman deal changes the entire complexion of the bullpen.  These are 6 inning games now.  The rotation, loaded with question marks from top to bottom is now prepared to go into each and every start with a massive safety net.  Three of the top five relievers in baseball back-to-back-to-back.  That's Brian Cashman just looking at Major League Baseball in the year 2016 and swimming with the current.

It seemed impossible to upgrade next year's team without mortgaging the future and/or locking into more longterm crippling contracts.  But Cash managed to make this upcoming version of the Yankees younger, more balanced and more talented and he did it all without carelessly throwing money around or trading any blue-chippers.  The Blue Jays are still scary, the Sox are on the upswing but there's plenty of reasons to think that the 2016 Yankees as presently constituted can go bumper-to-bumper with any team in the American League.

Is it okay for me to wear a facial mask?

So I was eating lunch with a girl I work with a couple of weeks ago and I was telling her how no matter what I do I can't clear my face up (this is how you socialize when you work at a school and none of the guys are normal).  So before Christmas break she bought me this exfoliating mask.  Aztec Healing Clay.  Apparently the internet was buzzing this summer about how it's a must-have for any pizza-face out there.  Now I don't look like Robert The Bruce but I do struggle with acne.  Blackheads, inflammatory redness, the works.  My skin's also oily af.  The grease runoff from my face should probably clog my shower drain.

Bottom line is I needed to do something about it.  I'm 25 and nothing I've ever done my entire life has helped.  Clearasil, neutrogena, proactive.  All garbage (I'm pretty sure accutane works like a charm but you can't drink on it for like two months).  I was a little dubious about accepting this gift but then I thought about it - it's 2016.  There's no doubt guys are getting more in touch with their feminine side and chicks dig it.  The days of inviting the hot, rugged guy nextdoor over to fix the sink in his pocket-T and stone washed Wranglers are over.  The days of falling in love with the guy down the hall who wears exfoliating masks on Sundays are just beginning.

In all seriousness, cleaning your skin takes a lot of discipline.  It's tough to will yourself to rub rough, abrasive cleanser on your face every night right before you go to bed.  Half the week I'm too drunk to remember to brush my teeth before I fall asleep.  That's why I can get down with this mask.  It's so easy.  Just add water and whip up a little paste in a dixie cup, spread that shit on, put on some football and let the chemicals go to work.  And it WORKS.  I mean I haven't seen any tangible results yet.  I've been doing it for two weeks and I still look like fucking Jake Coker.  But my face is PULSATING.  I'm talking like 200 beats per minute.  It got so stiff it felt like I was being frozen in carbonite.  That's how you know something is doing it's job.  Shouldn't be too long before people start accusing me of airbrushing my IG pics.







#Lush

Laces Out

 

I thought yesterday's Bengals loss was as bad as it gets.  That's as bad as it gets.  If I was a Vikings fan at that game I'm not kidding I think that would be the end for me.  I'd just sit there and die.  No feeling in my body, forced to chug my beers before they become frozen cylinders all to watch Blair Walsh shank a game-winning chip-shot field goal.  Cannot get any worse than that.  The sentiment going into this game was that no matter what happened this Vikings season was going to be looked at as a success.  Not anymore.  Not after that.  That's the kind of loss that sets your team back about a thousand years.  The good news for them is I think Blair Walsh has already assumed the identity of a missing female hiker and joined the Minneapolis police department.

Marshawn Lynch OUT tomorrow against the Vikings

Not really sure what happened here.  All week long you had Pete Carroll fawning over Marshawn Lynch, talking about how he looks as good in practice as he's ever looked.  He literally said "he's playing."  The OC was talking about giving him 20-25 carries.  Now he's out.  Not questionable.  Not a game-time decision.  Out.

I love Marshawn Lynch and I hate questioning the toughness of NFL players from my couch while I'm getting tummy-aches from mild wings and angry orchards but this is a total bitch move.  He didn't re-aggravate anything.  There weren't any setbacks.  He basically just decided he didn't want to get on a bus and spend the weekend on planet Hoth.  "Have fun fighting off diuresis guys.  Maybe I'll see you in Carolina."

But that kind of seems like Marshawn Lynch in a nutshell.  On the field he's always run like every play was his last but off the field he seems isolated from the team.  Like he's just there to play football, collect a paycheck and go home.  Ever since this spring when he inked what will probably be the last substantial contract of his career he just hasn't looked the same.  Between that and the Seahawks transitioning into a pass-happy offense we may have just seen the last of Beast Mode.

That shouldn't affect this game though.  In the absence of Lynch and Jimmy Graham, Russel Wilson has been playing with his hair on fire.  He's been the best player in football for the last two months.  Surely the weather is going to yield plenty of variables Sunday but I would be SHOCKED if Minnesota makes this a game. 

The Bullpen To End All Bullpens

First of all, I don't have a problem with the Yankees getting Chapman.  Yea they bought low on a guy who's value has diminished because of the potential domestic violence suspension looming over his head, but it isn't Brian Cashman's fault that Aroldis Chapman is available.  Should Cashman just sit on his hands while the Red Sox or Blue Jays swoop in and acquire him for cents on the dollar?  Is it on Brian Cashman to investigate the case and stand up against domestic violence when the criminal justice system and MLB won't?  Sure it's going to be more difficult to root for a guy like Chapman than it will be for guys like Dellin and Andrew Miller but I'm at a point in my life where I'm ready to accept that not all professional athletes are glorified souls.

As for the acquisition itself, it probably isn't a stretch to say this is the most obnoxious medley of talent ever assembled within a major league relief unit.  It looks more like a roster you'd put together in Dynasty Mode playing MLB The Show.  Arguably the three best relievers in all of baseball pitching back-to-back-to-back.  But an embarrassment of riches?  Not necessarily.  There are plenty of teams in baseball that can get by without having a 7th inning guy who averages 14 Ks per 9.  But the Yankees get a starting pitcher past the 6th inning just about as often at they manufacture a run against Dallas Kuechel.  With a rotation of question marks, a lineup of bloated contracts and no real solution in sight the best way to make the 2016 Yankees better than the 2015 Yankees is to bolster the bullpen even further and give them an advantage in the late innings that no other team has.  That's modern day baseball.  Six, maybe seven innings from your starter and then your relievers hold the game in their hands, even more so in the postseason.  You absolutely cannot win anymore without a lights out guy at the backend.  You know that feeling when the other team's big guy goes to the mound in the ninth and you know you have no shot?  Imagine that feeling with nine outs to play with.

I'll admit at first I was disappointed when I heard that Eric Jagielo was in the deal.  He wasn't on the major league radar but he was a late first round pick two years ago out of Notre Dame and still has a lot of potential in his bat.  He was hitting .284/.347/.495 in Trenton this season before he messed up his knee and missed the rest of the year.  His problem is he doesn't have a position.  He made nine errors in 39 games at third base in 2015 and scouts say he is an absolute butcher, perhaps even too much so to plug in at first (not that it would've mattered with Greg Bird slated to live there for the next fifteen years).  The second biggest piece, RHP Rookie Davis hadn't moved the needle much since his 14th round selection out of high school in the 2011 draft but he had just started to generate a little fanfare this past season with an impressive showing in A+ Tampa.  He registered a 3.70 ERA with a 9.7 K/9 and a 1.7 BB/9 but didn't fare so well upon being promoted to Trenton (4.32 and a 6.5 K/9).  He's low-mid 90's on the gun and doesn't have great secondary pitches so he projects more as a 3-5 starter/bullpen arm.  The last two prospects were essentially throw-ins (light-hitting infielder Tony Renda and Caleb Cotham).  You can argue the Yankee pitching pipeline took a hit with this deal by losing Davis but they just added two young arms a couple weeks ago by trading Justin Wilson.

To a man, the bottom line is this is still a bargain.  Chapman's asking price over the summer was probably something like Jorge Mateo AND these four guys.  Craig Kimbrel's as well.  This winter the Yankees have managed to improve their current 25-man roster while holding onto their most coveted blue-chippers.  Over the last few years they've tried very carefully to toe the line between getting younger and competing for a championship and now they're sort of right in the middle.  As presently constituted I'd say they're among the top 4-5 teams in the American League.  After the season plays out, who knows?

Yankees trade Justin Wilson to the Tigers for prospects

At first I definitely thought this was a curious move.  Two days gone by, two quality relievers out the door.  With Andrew Miller floating on the trading block it looks like Cashman is about ready to dismantle the entire 2015 bullpen.  I'm on the record as saying that I think trading Andrew Miller is a mistake and I think now that Wilson is gone the chances of making that move are much slimmer.  So as long as the two rocks at the back of the pen are still in place I think I can get on board with this deal.  The entire trade is contingent on whether or not Luis Cessa and/or Chad Green develop into legitimate major league starting pitchers.  If that happens then I think it's worth it.  Let’s remember, James Pazos came up last year for a cup of coffee and showed flashes of a bonafide major league set-up man .  Jacob Lindgren is cut from the same cloth as Wilson and has a ton of upside.  Chasen Shreeve is still salvageable.  Any one of these guys could step right in and fill Wilson's role.  

So in the last two days the roster turnover has been Justin Wilson, Adam Warren and Brendan Ryan for Starlin Castro and two pitching prospects.  Not awful.  A few organizational weaknesses going into the winter meetings were age, the starting pitching pipeline, second base and right handed hitting.  All four have been addressed in the last 48 hours.  By no means is Cashman done prepping for 2016.  I'm sure talks for Gardner are still fluid and it sounds like Miller isn't off the table yet.  We should be holding out hope that he can shock everyone and make a move for Teixeira.  Find a contender who can use a gold-glove first basemen with 30/100 potential, eat some of that contract, get something back that can help you in 2017 and let Bird get comfortable at his new home for the next 15 years.