Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Andy Pettitte out at least six weeks with a fractured Ankle

In todays game against Cleveland Pettitte took a hard one-hop ground ball in the left ankle off the bat of Casey Kotchman and after testing it out he came out of the game. We all hoped it would be nothing but he fractured his ankle and will be out six weeks. This really stinks as Pettitte had been so good this year and now he will be out until August assuming everything goes well. He will however not need surgery which is good to hear. It will be intresting now to see how the Yankees ajust their rotation but Garcia is likely to make Pettitte's next start and Warren will probably spot start for CC on Friday. I will have a post in the future about the Yankees rotation options.

CC to the DL

The Yankees have placed CC Sabathia on the DL after an MRI showed a Grade I strain of the left adductor. That’s a big muscle in his upper leg, near his hip and groin. Sabathia first felt a “twinge” during Sunday’s start against the Mets but did not tell the Yankees until after yesterday’s bullpen session. This will be just the third DL stint of his 12-year career — he missed 23 days in 2005 and 29 days in 2006, both with right oblique strains.
The good news though is that because of the all star break he only will miss two starts and could be back to make his start on July 15th against the Angels. The Yankees said that they will start Freddy Garcia on Friday but apparently they are considering calling up Adam Warren to start as well. In my opinion I think it would be better to call up Warren for the simple fact that Garcia has been pitching out of the bullpen so he would be limited while Warren would be fresh. For anyone wondering why they are not calling up David Phelps its because he pitched Monday and they are probably going to use him on the July 7th double header against the Red Sox. Get well soon CC we need you.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Josh Norris' State of the system

A good look at the various levels of the Yankee farm system and how players are doing, including scout commentary. He has a write up for every level.

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Yankees Catching dilemma

In Spring Training Russel Martin was going to be the starter and we were all wondering if Austin Romine would be able to get the backup job from Francisco Cervelli, but Romine injured his back almost immediately and it seemed certain that Cervelli would be the backup. Of course then the Yankees traded George Kontos for  Chris Stewart and Stewart became the backup Catcher because he was out of minor league options and Cervelli was sent to AAA. Stewart has had some timely hits but he was brought in for his defense and five passed balls is not the way to stick if Defense is your reason to be in the majors. Remember Montero was supposed to take over behind the plate but the Yankees did not trust him behind the plate last season and then traded him to Seattle because he did not fit in well unless he was a catcher. I think we would all prefer Cervelli to be with the big league club but until Austin Romine comes back then the Yankees are going to stick with Stewart and it looks like Romine will be out until July. If Romine had been able to have a full year in Triple A they could have potentially platooned Romine and Cervelli but now his injury means he is not guaranteed to start next year with the Yankees as they may want him to have a full year in Triple A. The Yankees are full of good catching prospects but right now with Romine injured the Yankees are lacking at high level catching depth. This is also an extremly odd time for us as Yankee fans as Jorge Posada has been a staple behind the plate for over a decade and replacing a player like Posada is nearly impossible. The other big downside with the loss of Romine for the first half of the season is that the Yankees are going to need to resign Russel Martin because they have nobody who could start next year behind the plate except for Martin. I also really do not want to risk letting Martin go either because Gary Sanchez is a long way away from the Majors and Romine has a grand total of 35 PA above Double A.

Friday, June 15, 2012

Appreciating Corey Wade

Corey Wade the unappreciated bullpen asset
 Corey Wade signed a minor league deal with the Yankees on June 13, 2011 after he was granted his release from the Tampa Bay Rays AAA affiliate.Wade pitched one inning for the AAA Scranton Yankees before getting called up to the Big league Yankees and pitched to a 2.04 ERA over 39.2 Innings and was a defiant asset in 2011.This year Wade has been trusted with some more high leverage innings and has been extremely valuable to the bullpen especially with the loss of Mariano Rivera and David Robertson going on the disabled list. Wade has already struck out 30 batters this year in 27.1 innings after striking out 30 in 39.2 innings last year. Wade's arsenal consists of a four-seam fastball (86-90 MPH), a cutter (84-86 MPH), a changeup that breaks away from left-handers (79-83), and a traditional 12-6 curveball (74-77) and because none of the pitches in his arsenal blow anyone away Wade is undervalued despite impeccable control that has allowed him to walk only 5 batters this season and maintain a 6.00 Strike out to Walk ratio. But Wade is not a strikeout guy, he is a contact pitcher which is shown by his 87.7 contact rate and 91.5 zone contact rate which are both above average and he consistently hits the strike zone at an above average rate as well.
The funniest part about Wade is that nobody seems to know that this ability didn't come out of nowhere, as he was just as great in 2008 in the Dodgers bullpen before Joe Torre blew out his arm. Wade could potentially contribute to the Yankee bullpen for years to come as he is under team control for another three years and he has more value than former castoffs such as Brian Bruney. However Wade may not even fit into next years bullpen as the Yankees have arms in Joba Chamberlain, Mariano Rivera and David Aardsma returning from injury and wade could find himself trade bait or in the minors despite doing everything the Yankees could have expected from him. At the very least Corey Wade will continue to be a valuable bullpen contributed to the New York Yankees for the rest of this season and one that we should all appreciate.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

The Yankees make the right decision and demote David Phelps

David Phelps

Today the Yankees activated David Robertson from the 15 day Disabled list and sent down David Phelps to Single A Tampa so that he can stretch himself out before returning to AAA. This leaves Freddy Garcia as the Yankees long man and even though David Phelps outperformed him in every respect the Yankees made the right move in sending down Phelps. As good as Garcia was last year he has been almost unusable this year and his 7.66 ERA shows that, He has been less terrible in relief but unfortunately his lengthy warmup time means that he is not ideal to come out of the bullpen. David Phelps has been better than sweaty Freddy by far, but quite frankly Long relief innings usually come in blowouts or extra innings and while I would definitely trust Phelps more than Freddy he was wasting away in the bullpen. Phelps hadn't been used since June 2nd when he threw nine pitches recorded 1 out and put runners on 1st and 3rd before Boone Logan came in and gave up the walk off sac fly to the Tigers. The point is that Phelps had thrown nine pitches in 18 days and the Yankees decided that rather than have him waste away in the bullpen like Hector Noesi did last year they decided to send him down and stretch him back out as a starter.

The other reason why this is a good idea is that Phelps may be the Yankees best starter in the minors as all of their starting pitching depth has been mediocre. Dellin Betances, DJ Mitchell and Adam Waren have all been mediocre while Manny Banuelos has been hurt. The most effective starter for the AAA Yankees has been 39 year old Ramon Ortiz and once Phelps is stretched out he will be the primary call up candidate for a starter and at some point the Yankees will need one. I'm not sure what Phelps future in the Yankees organization is as he definitely has more value to the Yankees organization stretched out in the minors than wasting away in the bullpen.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Why is Cody Eppley still on the Yankees?

Do you know what I like less than a LOOGY? A ROOGY, a right handed specialist who can only get out right handed batters and hasn't been that great at doing so. The only reason that Eppley is on the roster is because of Robertson's injury and Mike Axisa from River Ave Blues wrote about how this is Eppley's big chance to prove that can contribute as all he had to do was outpitch Freddy Garcia. I do not think that Garcia will be on the team when Robertson comes back, but I do not think that Eppley should be on the team either. Because he is a submarine pitcher he is useless against left handed batters and its pretty evident with them hitting .313 against Eppley and reaching base at .389. However Right handed batters are hitting .250 off Eppley which isn't terrible, but their .357 OBP is terrible. Its nothing personal against Eppley, I like to see all the pitchers like him succeed, but Eppley is not the best option for the final bullpen arm and the plethora of bullpen arms in AAA means that he is easily replaceable. When Robertson comes back Garcia seems like he will be DFA which will free up a roster spot to add one of the two best bullpen arms with the AAA Yankees, Manny Delcarmen or Kevin Whelan. Both Delcarmen and Whelan have been good in AAA and Delcarmen was once very good in the Boston bullpen but fell off in the last few seasons and wasn't in the big leagues last season. Kevin Whelan made his debut last season and has served as the closer for the Scranton Yankees since and has always gotten a lot of strikeouts but he also walks a lot of guys. Neither Whelan or Delcarmen are on the 40 man but Garcia being DFA would solve that problem. If the Yankees want to use that 40 man spot for someone else then they could call up one of the guys already on the 40 man like Ryoto Igarashi or LHP Justin Thomas both of whom were picked up off waivers and have unimpressive big league experience. Other than Justin Thomas I think any of these bullpen options would be better than Eppley and would provide some potential quality innings which they aren't going to get out of Eppley.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Yankees select Ty Hensley

At 30th overall the Yankees selected high school RHP Ty Hensley out of Santa Fe High School in Oklahoma. Baseball America has Hensley at #23 in their top 500 and Kevin Goldstein has Hensley ranked #19 in his top 30. His father was Mike Hensley a former Cardinal and he will more than likely sign despite committing to Mississippi aka Ole Miss.
ESPN wrote about Ty saying: Hensley is a big right-hander with two above-average pitches now and the size to pitch at the top of a rotation, but the effort in his delivery and lack of command have him a cut below the top tier of prep arms. Hensley will hit 98 but pitches now at 93-94, pairing it with a power curveball at 77-81 with hard 12-to-6 break. The fastball doesn't sink or tail but does have some late life up, running up and in to right-handed batters. He gets on top of the ball well and really gets out over his front side, although he doesn't close that front side cleanly after release. He drifts off the rubber early and starts his arm very late, making up for it with big arm acceleration, but it's hard for him to repeat the delivery. There's huge potential here in the raw material if a club feels like they can clean him up and get him to throw more consistent strikes.
Ty will more than likely start in the Gulf coast league and could be a very exciting prospect. Check him out on twitter @Tyhensley17