Mariano Rivera Jr commits to Quinnipiac!

Finally we have some real Connecticut related news as Mariano Rivera Jr, son of Mariano Rivera, committed to Quinnipiac university in Hamden, Connecticut. Mariano Jr toured the campus back on December 8th and picked Quinnipiac over Fairfield University (also in CT for those of you who don't know) , South Florida and High Point.
Mariano will attempt to walk on to the schools Baseball team and he stated that
“I’m already working out every day and I’m training with my dad,” he said. “I’m going to work on my mechanics and get my speed up a little bit.”
This is pretty awesome for me because Quinnipiac plays in the Division I Northeast Conference  which is where my school, Central Connecticut State University, plays and it would be pretty cool for to see Mo Jr play there, especially if his dad decided to drop by. Check out Matt Eisenberg's article in The Quinnipiac Chronicle  here for more information.

The upcoming Toronto series 4/19-4/20/11 and Notes

The Blue Jays came into the season strong with a 4-2 record, but they now stand at 7-9 with several poor performances from their starting pitching and their offense sputtered after the series opener against the Red Sox and they only managed one run in each of the three games they lost to the Red Sox. The Pitching matchup will be featuring Kyle Drabek going against A.J Burnett. Drabek is 1-0 with an 1.93 ERA in 3 starts while Burnett has a 3-0 record with a 4.67 ERA in his 3 starts. Wednesdays game will feature the very uninspring pitching duel between a Bull frog that has found his way into Pinstripes, aka Bartolo Colon who has posted a 3.97 ERA in 3 relief appearances and Brett Cecil who has a 1-1 record with a 6.19 ERA in 3 starts. There is no official word of whether or not A-Rod will play in Tuesdays game but it has been stated that he will play in Wednesdays game. A positive for the Yankees is that if they need to exhaust the bullpen they have Thursday off before heading to Baltimore for an Easter weekend series. The Blue Jays have really struggled the last 3 games and lets hope the Yankees will spoil the Blue Jays home opener.

*If you haven't heard about the J triplets tearing up the international league.  Jesus Montero, Jordan Parraz and Jorge Vazquez have been absolutely destroying AAA pitching Jesus Montero is hitting .452   and Jorge Vazquez has a very impressive .340 with 7 HR and 17 RBI's in only 11 games. Jordan Parraz who I wrote about in a previous article is hitting .356 with 3 triples and 2 HR. Also if Justin Maxwell raises his BA to match his .435 OBP then I can start calling them the J Quintuplets.
*Curtis Granderson is hitting .333 against lefties and .194 against eighties. I never thought I would have to say this but Granderson you need to start hitting RHP as well as you are hitting lefties.
*Check out CC's Commercial

The first "I know its April but Jesus Montero" article

Well the Yankees are getting set for game two against the Twins with CC taking the mound and Russel Martin behind the plate. In his limited action as a Yankee Martin has been pretty good offensively and defensively, but again the sample size is too small to make any real assessment of him overall. The question I really want to pose is, If Russel Martin is able to return to his old 2007 form and become a real offensive force as well as a very good defensive catcher would the Yankees decide that he will be their starting catcher of the future and what would that mean for Jesus Montero?
If Martin does return to his old form then then the Yankees have several options of what they could do with him
A) They could keep him as their starting catcher. After all he is only 28 and is much better defensively than Montero or Cervelli.
B) The Yankees could trade him midway through the season for a starting pitcher.
C) They could let him go after the year and if he gets class A free agency then they would get a draft pick.

Those options are all assuming that he does return to his old form and doesn't flop in the Bronx, because if he does flop then he will be backing up Jesus Montero before you can say oh' Canada.
Jesus Montero is the Yankees top prospect and probable the must hyped prospect since Derek Jeter, but Montero's key chip is his bat because his defense behind the plate is poor despite his strong arm and most scouts do not think that he will be able to stay behind the plate. Would the Yankees trade Montero or would they move him somewhere else? Unfortunately the most likely place to move him would be 1st base or right field and both those places are currently taken by Mark Teixiera and Nick Swisher and I doubt that the Yankees would cut either loose even for a prospect like Montero. Montero has been a big trade chip that teams have asked the Yankees for and he was almost traded for Cliff Lee last season and despite loosing out on the backup spot this spring his status as the systems top prospect remains intact. If the Yankees did decide to trade Montero who would they trade him for? I can't see them trading him for anything but a starting pitcher but who? Obviously if the Mariners made Felix available the Yankees would trade Montero for him but other than that who else would they be willing to part with Montero for?

I think that these pitchers are the only ones that the Yankees would be willing to trade Montero for:

• Clayton Kershaw (23, lefty and has a sub 3 ERA and over 200 innings pitched)
• Trevor Cahil (same as Kershaw but a righty and just under 200 innings pitched)
• Josh Johnson ( had a 2.30 ERA last year in the NL east with 28 starts)

Other than Felix those are the only pitchers that I can think of that I would trade Montero for and the teams could have some possible interest in a trade with the Yankees. I'd love to trade for Matt Cain but the Giants don't need a catcher, 1st baseman or right fielder and the Phillies aren't going to do a trade and the Yankees wouldn't deal Montero to the Rays or Sox. Do you have any other pitchers that you would trade Montero for and would you do any of these trades?

4/3 Yankees and other notes

The Yankees failed to sweep the tigers as Hughes and Colon both got roughed up by the Tigers 10-7. The two teams combined for 14 HR, with 7 of those coming in today's loss. Here are some notes on the Yankees:

• Burnett looked okay, but he was apparently sick during the game so hopefully that means he will be even better next time around as he should likely be facing off against Francisco Liriano and the Twins.
• This first series was utterly forgettable for Brett Gardner and Derek Jeter as both combined for 4 hits and those all came in Saturdays game. But it is only 3 games so should be nothing to worry about.
• After Eduardo Nunez's error in Saturdays game I already want Ramiro Pena back.
• Russel Martin is hitting .455, A-Rod .400 and slow start Tex has 3 HR and 7 RBI's after 3 games. (He had 9 RBI's all last April) check it out
• I know its one start and its one start against one of the best offenses in baseball, but I am really concerned about Phil Hughes. He looks like he did last year after the all-star break and his velocity is still down. He gave up 5 runs on 5 hits in 4 innings. He could not put batters away racking up 1 K in 90 pitches.He needs to make a change NOW because his next start is against the Sox in Fenway.
• Bartolo Colon was a mixed bag with 5K's in 4 innings, but he gave up 4 runs and 6 hits in 4 innings. Mitre did better than that. However its only April, but I still would prefer Aceves.(who is in Sox AAA to start the season)
• The Sox got swept by the Rangers and while both teams offense's looked good the Red Sox pitching was very poor and their $142 million dollar man got bumped down to 7th today. Dropping Crawford in the order from 3rd to 7th really surprised me as its the 3rd game and they just payed him 142 million small market scrappy dollars and i wouldn't want to start off 7 years by dropping him down after two games.
• Bad news for the Rays as Evan Longoria was put on the DL for an oblique strain and he will miss at least 3 weeks according to Joe Madden. Also Manny and Damon have combined for a grand total of 1 hit and Damon was scratched today due to calf tightness.
• O's are in first, Toronto and the Yankees are both tied for second and the Sox and rays are on pace for 0-162 seasons.
• All that confidence that Brewers fans about this season was crushed by the Big Red Machine. Its only April, but the Brewers looked really bad in Cinncinati and so does my pick of them to win the NL Central.
• Matt Holiday had an appendectomy. Could the Yankees try and trade for Chris Carpenter?
• The Astros look awful. Is Brett Myers as good as that one start suggests and could the Yankees target him?
• The Yankees play the Twins for the teams only meeting in the Bronx this season. Lets hope the Yankees take over from where they left off in the ALDS.