Link Dump: Joba, Posada, Jeter, Oliver, A-Rod

We’re all waiting anxiously for Game Two of the ALDS tonight, so here’s some links to hold you over.

• Alex Eisenberg at Baseball Intellect took a look at Joba Chamberlain’s mechanics (with .gif’s!), hoping to find what’s wrong with his command and velocity. He determines that Joba has a bit of a timing issue, and essentially it’s causing his arm to drag a bit. Eisenberg advises Joba to “sit down a little more, keep your hands low, [and] aggressively step-over into foot plant” to solve the problem. What he said.
• Scott Ham at The Bronx View took a look at all this Jorge Posada-Jose Molina nonsense, showing that it may have been “a rash decision on Girardi’s part” to stop letting Posada catch AJ Burnett after the rough patch late in the year. I wrote something similar back in August. This backup catcher in the playoffs stuff isn’t unprecedented. Paul Bako was Greg Maddux’s personal catcher in 2000, and started behind the plate in Game One of the NLDS over Javy Lopez, who hit .287-.337-.484 with 24 homers that year. The result? Maddux gave up six runs in the first and Bako was pinch hit for in the second inning. Then there was the whole John Flaherty-Randy Johnson mess in 2005.
• The Legacy of Derek Jeter, in picture form.
• Remember all that noise about Andy Oliver winning his case against the NCAA, essentially eliminating the “no agent rule” for amateurs? Well, the two sides reached a settlement that a) sends $750,000 of the NCAA’s money to Oliver, and b) reinstates the “no agent rule.” So much for that. Apparently kids fresh out of high school are supposed to negotiate multi-million contracts on their own. Oliver was the Tigers’ second round pick (#58 overall) last year and signed for a well-over-slot $1.495M bonus.
• This isn’t Yankee related, but it’s a great read from a very, very frustrated Royals fan.
• Finally, via Ed Price on Twitter, Dr. Marc Philippon does not believe A-Rod will need a second surgery on his hip this off-season. The original procedure in March was supposed to be a stop-gap, but A-Rod has responded very well to the treatment. We’ll have more on this over the weekend, but it is definitely good news.