It’s been quite the weekend for me. A two day blizzard started Thursday. Took me forever to get home and nearly as long to get into my driveway. Big birthday for me on Friday. If you’re going to be snowed in, it’s nice to have it on your birthday. Except we had no power from Thursday night until Saturday afternoon (after ConEd told us we’d be powerless until this coming Tuesday night @ 11pm). Spent Friday with friends, including others who were still without power. A better day than I anticipated. Despite the lack of heat, we stayed in our place Friday night, aided by a nice glowing fireplace. Woke up Saturday to 50 degree room temps. Spent the day with other friends (who had wonderful heat!) and a great dinner out with a larger group Saturday night to help me ring in my birthday. And Syracuse waxed ‘Nova to finish off the evening. Some fun in the snow today, followed by two basketball games, the gold medal hockey game and suddenly, it’s time to think about the week ahead.

As you can probably tell, I didn’t get to much online reading and stuff. Thankfully, some of you were good enough to keep me in the loop via email. Thanks and thanks for the birthday wishes, too!

Here are some of the things of note this weekend in baseball-land, some of which you have seen and others maybe not:

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The first couple weeks of Spring Training have been relatively drama-free for the New York Yankees. No PED confessions, no reporters hounding Jeter about whether he hangs out with A-Rod in the off-season or is about to marry Minka Kelly, in fact, everything has been very focused on the game of baseball. While it is still early, there were a few items of note coming out of Tampa today:

• Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes each pitched their first batting practice today. Each threw about 30 pitches and the batters saw a lot of changeups. Afterwards, the two young hurlers did their running together and joked around with the media. While they are clearly taking the competition for the fifth starting position seriously, it’s good to hear the kids are still having fun. Of course, they better be careful or Alfredo Aceves, Chad Gaudin or Sergio Mitre might win that spot (yeah, I doubt it, too).
• Marcus Thames signed a Minor League deal with the Yankees, but he is competing for a spot on the 25-man roster. Cashman let it be known that if Thames does not make the 25-man at the end of Spring Training, the outfielder is free to opt-out of the contract.
• The Yankees latest signing, Chan Ho Park, has yet to make an appearance in the Yankee’s training camp.
• Brett Gardner, Randy Winn and Curtis Granderson all worked out in left field yesterday. Today they were all in center. Obviously, its too early to know who will end up where for certain, but it is nice to see them all getting some work in at both spots.

Leading off today is a guest posting from Adam Adkins. Adam may be a regular contributor to IIATMS, possibly adding a weekly commentary to our in-season lineup. As the teams are coming together, we’re doing the same here. {I have made no edits to Adam’s work, only added some pictures and made the formatting consistent with our site.}

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Jorge Posada is old, 37 to be exact. He’s seen a lot in his days. He’s seen championships–5 of them. He’s seen October–14 times.

He’s seen it all from behind home plate, in fact. His career is arguably Hall of Fame worthy–6312 plate appearances (PAs) with a 124 Adjusted OPS (OPS+) from a catcher is pretty good–but could his career be nearing the end?

The answer: obviously. He’s 37! That’s ancient for a backstop. Proof:

• Mike Piazza’s last good season was his age-37 year. He flamed out one year later, 2007, with Oakland.
• Ivan Rodriguez continues to play–he’s 38 now–but hasn’t been effective offensively in six years, and is far removed from the prime of his defensive excellence.

Posada’s also been worked pretty hard throughout his career. Since 2000, he’s caught at least 135 games 8 times. The two times he didn’t? 2008 and 2009, both injury-plagued seasons. That, uh, doesn’t bode well for the future. But what were the Yankees expecting? They signed him to a 4-year, $52 million deal in 2008, which is almost certainly going to be a mistake when it’s finished.

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This is a perfectly written, explained and valid response from the MLBPA on the subject of HGH testing. It touches on the reasons why the Players Association is concerned about the validity of the tests, as well as their desire to work with MLB on including any scientifically validated testing methods.

This week, a British rugby player was suspended as a result of a reported positive blood test for HGH. This development warrants investigation and scrutiny; we already have conferred with our experts on this matter, and with the Commissioner’s Office, and we immediately began gathering additional information. However, a report of a single uncontested positive does not scientifically validate a drug test. As press reports have suggested, there remains substantial debate in the testing community about the scientific validity of blood testing for HGH. And, as we understand it, even those who vouch for the scientific validity of this test acknowledge that it can detect use only 18-36 hours prior to collection.

Nicely done, MLBPA.

This picture was taken by my father during Girardi’s playing days on the Yanks, from the 1996 season when he wore #45 for a period of time (switching with Cecil Fielder). My father was seated in friends’ seats, right up close, and managed to time this one perfectly. In the pre-digital camera age, no less! This is a scan of the picture, so the quality isn’t perfect, but it’s a classic. I’m sending a copy to Girardi, hoping he’ll remember this and sign it for my boys.

Class, please turn your books to page #236 as we discuss the two different types of testing for HGH:

Believe it or not, there are actually two distinct methods for testing, developed by two independent teams. The first test is called the “isoform approach”, which in the words of the researchers, “directly analyzes the spectrum of molecular isoforms in circulation: the pituitary gland secretes a spectrum of homo- and heterodimers and – multimers of a variable spectrum of hGH isoforms, whereas rhGH consists of the monomeric 22,000 Da isoform only.” In Layman’s, this means that synthetic hGH can differ slightly from the hGH made by your pituitary. An isoform just means a different type of the same protein, kind of like how you can have a red chair and a blue chair, but they are both chairs. This test was developed in Berlin, Germany led by Professor Christian Strasburger and appears to be the test used to catch out Terry Newton. Unfortunately this test only works for a few days after hGH use.

The second test is known as the “marker approach” which was developed at Southampton University in England led by Professor Peter Sonksen. It involves looking at GH-dependant biomarkers IGF-I and type 3 procollagen (P-III-P) which appear to vary differently from endogenous and exogenous GH. This test claims to be able to test up to 14 days after use, which is quite incredible for a drug once thought to be impossible to detect. The World Anti-Doping-Agency (WADA) is looking to combine these testing methods into one robust testing procedure.

Got that? It took me 3x to grasp most of it.

Let’s wait and see what WADA is able to concoct and what courses of action MLB take.

An important first step has been taken: HGH testing is coming to the minor leagues.

Over the past decade, the minor leagues have been the place where Commissioner Bud Selig has introduced new steps against the use of performance-enhancing drugs. The majority of minor leaguers are not members of the players union, which has allowed Selig to take drug-testing measures without the union’s consent. For instance, testing for steroids was initiated on the minor league level before the union later agreed to its use in the majors.

Selig plans to use the same blueprint with H.G.H., with a second baseball official confirming on Tuesday that Selig will now move to get the union’s approval to test for H.G.H. on the major league level.

Is this test bulletproof, however? This, I don’t know. But I do tend to trust testing gurus like Charles Yesalis when he weighs in:

“They have this test for some time and they only caught one guy,” Yesalis said in a telephone interview. “I wouldn’t bet my life on that test.”

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Methinks this was the reason why they created Twitter in the first place, so Ozzie Guillen can ramble at will, in 140 character bursts. Here are his first several Tweets, unedited of course!:

• going to eat in half hour why dye no have a job ?
• Iam tired from bad very bad golf
• 3 day of Spring Training and im already boreddddddd
• what I saw on the field today was a lot of grass…
• finally I am on this twitter thing it’s about time!

Thank goodness, Ozzie’s live and the braindump is upon us. Rejoice!

I was listening to MLB on XM on my ride home through the rain tonite and caught their interview with Yanks’ GM Brian Cashman. Thankfully, XM sent around part of the transcript of the interview.

Host/Jody McDonald: “With the acquisition of Curtis Granderson and Johnny Damon leaving you now have three guys for two spots – [Brett] Gardner and [Randy] Winn and Curtis Granderson – manning left field and center field. Are you going to try to make a decision as to what’s the best position for Curtis Granderson and leave him there? Is Curtis going to be asked to go back and forth between center and left? How’s it going to shake out as to where Curtis Granderson plays defensively this year?”

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There are just some things that make me smile when I read them… like when a player says the right things, not because he thinks he should but because he actually believes what he’s saying. To wit, Mike Lowell:

“I’m getting ready for a season,” he said. “I think I’m pretty intelligent in the sense that there’s no real playing time for me here, basically, barring a major injury, and I’m not really in the business of hoping someone gets hurt just so I get at-bats. For me, I feel like I’m more prepared and ready for a full season than I was last year, so why shouldn’t I play more than I did last year? Whether it’s here or somewhere else, I can’t control that.

“I have to separate two things. There’s the baseball aspect of it and the real-life aspect of it. I’m very comfortable where I am in my real life. I feel like I’m in a tremendously privileged situation. No one needs to feel sorry for me in life. Is my baseball situation not ideal? Yeah, it’s not ideal, and I don’t want to diminish the baseball fact, but you never know what can happen.”

Yet another reason Mike Lowell is universally respected around the game.