Crazy Trade deadline day sees the Yankees get better

Martin Prado

Stephen Drew

The Trade deadline was pretty crazy today with some blockbuster moves happening, namely the A's acquiring John Lester from the Red Sox for Yoenis Cespedes and the Tigers getting David Price in a three team deal. The Red Sox were particularly busy today as they also sent John Lackey to St. Louis for Allen Craig and Joe Kelly, and most importantly they sent Stephen Drew to the Yankees in exchange for Kelly Johnson. The Drew trade was the first trade that the Yankees and Red Sox have made since 1997 and I would expect that the Yankees will try and sign him to an extension so that he can be their Shortstop next season, but they will probably wait and see how he does in the Bronx based on his terrible season so far in Boston.
The Yankees also acquired Martin Prado from the Arizona Diamondbacks for slugging 1st base prospect Peter O'Brien, Prado is under control for the next two seasons and is a very versatile player having played at every position except catcher and Center field, he also adds a much needed right handed bat. I know fans will be disappointed that O'Brien was traded because of his 31 homers but really that is all O'Brien is, he has no real position, doesn't walk, doesn't hit for average but he does have a lot of power so selling high on him is a good thing. Their is a funny thing here that Prado will likely be the regular right fielder but he has only played two innings in Right Field although he has played over 2000 innings in left field so the transition shouldn't be too big of a change. Next season the Yankees will have the ability to play Prado at either 3rd, 2nd or in RF depending on their need and I expect that he will backup 1st base as well. In order to make room for Prado the Yankees DFA Brian Roberts who had been their starting second baseman and has been terrible offensively and defensively. The Yankees also claimed RHP Esmil Rogers off waivers from the Blue Jays and he will join the bullpen, but no word on who he will replace but it will probably be either Chase Whitely or David Huff. 
Despite fan complaints Brian Cashman has been very good this season in terms of trades trading
Nuno/Solarte/De Paula/Johnson/O'Brien for McCarthy/Headley/Drew/Prado which is a great haul for the Yankees and while the rotation was not improved Michael Pineda starts his rehab assignment on Sunday and hopefully we can get some good news about Masahiro Tanaka as well.

Yankees shuffle roster with Nuno trade and Soriano DFA

After missing out on Jeff Samardzija the Yankees traded Vidal Nuno for Brandon McCarthy in hopes of getting some more innings out of there rotation, McCarthy has pitched poorly in Arizona with a 5.01 ERA in 18 starts but the Yankees are hoping that he can turn it around in New York but he will likely be better simply because he can throw a lot of innings and this team needs an innings eater. The Yankees also designated Alfonso Soriano for assignment, this was only a matter of time as Soriano had followed up his monstrous half season with the Yankees last year by hitting .221/.244/.367 with six homers over 238 PA. I don't expect that Soriano will be claimed on waivers as he is still owed a good chuck of money even with the Cubs paying a large part of his salary, but he can sign with any team after he clears waivers. The Yankees called up RHP Bruce Billings as the bullpen has been very taxed the last few games and its expected that RHP Shane Greene will come up tomorrow to start in Cleveland. After the pitching staff gets settled the Yankees will call up another position player and it will probably be one of Zoilo Almonte, Yangervis Solarte or Jose Pierela. If the Yankees hope to contend then these cannot be the only moves they make but honestly the team would need to see some improvement before making bigger moves.

Happy 40th Birthday Hideki Matsui!

Happy 40th birthday to the 2009 #WorldSeries MVP and the man they call “Godzilla”, Hideki Matsui. pic.twitter.com/dNBgj7q1RR
— MLB Milestones (@MLBMilestones) June 12, 2014

Godzilla turns 40 today and its now been five years since he was the world series MVP in 2009. He will be in this years old timers game, along with Johnny Damon. I had a post about Matsui when he announced his retirement and from his actual retirement ceremony as a Yankee last season, it was a great career for Hideki and I do not know if I will ever love a player like I did Matsui.

Connecticut in the 2014 draft

There were 23 players picked in the MLB draft from Connecticut this year and I am particularly pleased because two were picked by the Yankees  and two were picked from my alma matter Central Connecticut State University. For Central its the first  MLB draft picks since Evan Scribner was picked in 2007, so congratulations to J.P Sportman who was picked in the 27th by the Athletics and Nick Neumann who was picked in the 28th by the Pirates, best of luck to both of them. The Yankees two Nutmeg draft picks are RHP Austin DeCarr and 3rd baseman Will Toffey, The Yankees already signed Austin DeCarr for double his slot money so he takes home $1,170,200, which is good for him, but apretly Toffey will be a tougher sign as he is committed to Vanderbilt and it might be hard to pry him away with 23rd round money; fun note though both of these guys go to the same High school, Salisbury School.

DeCarr. (@Xaverian_Hawks)

 Austin DeCarr was the Yankees third round draft pick and because they took Jacob Lindgren in the second round, who is more of a relief arm that could have a quick impact and had no first round pick DeCarr is the Yankees highest drafted true prospect which is a bit of a letdown after last year in which they had three first round picks, its nothing  against DeCarr he is a good pitching prospect but when the first prospect you are drafting is in the third round then its probbaly not the best draft for the Yankees. I really do not know anything about draft prospects but mlb.com describes DeCarr with "He'll pitch at 92-93 mph, but can reach back for 95 mph when he needs it. His curveball shows flashes of being a plus offering, and his changeup gives him the chance to have a very effective three-pitch mix." Its also apparently only his second year as a full time baseball player but is apparently more polished than some other High schoolers, which may have something to do with the fact that he isn't actually a high schooler because he only went to Salisbury academy as a post graduate because he did not get drafted last year and is now 19, still a good prospect just kind of a weird not high school or college guy, so still technically a high school guy. Honestly though I am excited to see what this guy can do.
DeCarr was actually the second Nutmeger drafted, although he is really from Massachusetts but we will take him nonetheless,  Sean Newcomb was taken 15th overall by the Angels and is a junior at the University of Hartford and I wish him the best of luck on behalf of all Nutmegers. Best of luck to all of the Nutmegers who got drafted, you can see the full list here.

Weird Predictions 50 games in!

At the beginning of the season Brooke, Chris and I all came up with some odd prediction ideas instead of the normal home run leader and such predictions. Here is what we came up with based on absolutely nothing.

	Nick	Brooke	Chris
7th inning doubles	Alfonso Soriano	Brendan Ryan	Brett Gardner
Non-Nunez Errors	Kelly Johnson	Brendan Ryan	Carlos Beltran
Batters hit	Michael Pineda	Dellin Betances	Hiroki Kuroda
HBP	Kelly Johnson	Francisco Cervelli	Brian McCann

As of right now the Yankees have played fifty games and we have our leaders for all the categories
7th Inning doubles: Ichiro Suzuki 2
 That's right Ichiro leads the team with two doubles in the 7th inning and six players are tied for second with one, including Alfonso Soriano so I guess that means Nick is winning that category.

Non-Nunez Errors: Brian Roberts and Mark Teixeira 5
Non-nunez errors became a moot point as Nunez was traded to the Twins, but Johnson, Ryan and Beltran all have errors so they can defiently still catch up to Tex and Roberts.

Batters hit: CC Sabathia 4
CC was a surprise as the leader here as he hit four batters all last season, but he could easily lose the lead as he is currently on the disabled list, but of our predictions only Kuroda has actually hit a batter and he hit one so it will take some work.

HBP: Brian McCann and Mark Teixeira 3
fun fact Tex should actually be leading this with four but Tex was ruled to have swung at a pitch that hit him even though he obviously didn't, but you can't review that. So here is the only category where someone has the correct pick with Chris picking McCann.

So as of right now Chris leads with one correct answer. Update in fifty games, im sure you will all be keeping track.

The legend of Yangervis

Yangervis in action

The last two season Yangervis Solarte was one of the better hitters on the Texas Rangers AAA team, The Round Rock Express, but he did play in the PCL which is a league known for inflating offensive numbers and was not someone that would be considered a potential contributing big league player, keep in mind that his offense in AAA was something new as he had spent the previous seven years in the Twins organization not hitting, this is a guy who only signed with an agent because his uncle Rodger Cedeno asked his own agent to do so as a favor.  Which is why when the Yankees signed him to a minor league deal, nobody gave him any consideration as he looked like one of the many players that's brought in who had no shot of making the team. However Eduardo Nunez had dreadful spring, Brendan Ryan was hurt and so Solarte's great spring earned him a spot on the opening day team and he carried over his hot spring to a great start to the season and now its the middle of May and he still has not stopped hitting, in fact he is second in the American league right now in batting average.
On top of that Solarte is helping out in the field as he has played second base, third and even a little short stop and while he is not what you would ever call a good fielder, he inst a bad one either and his versatility really helps the team. In many ways I think that Yangervis is the player that the Yankees wanted Eduardo Nunez to become, a high contact infielder who doesn't hurt the team with his defense. The real problem for everyone is how Solarte just came out of nowhere and has been such a success, but I think we as fans are waiting for for bubble to burst; Solarte has been so successful and so out of nowhere that we don't believe it. Personally I have trouble believing it, he was 0-11 coming into the second game of the double header this weekend  and that doubt started creeping into my mind and then he went 2-4 with a clutch home run that was no Yankee Stadium special. If Solarte had been a prospect then Yankees fans would be ecstatic and not stop talking about this guy, but he really has not gotten much media attention despite his great play, really the Yankees have two Rookie of the year candidates on their roster right now in Solarte and Tanaka. Solarte has been a godsend for the Yankees as he has been able to be an everyday infielder for them on this team and turned the infield into a place where they must upgrade before the end of may into lets find a player who is better than Brian Roberts or Kelly Johnson before the trade deadline.
The thing everyone was watching Solarte for was his high BABIP to start the year and his .313 BA is supported by a .322 BABIP, but thats not so far out of the range of possibilities to be true and really we have no data to really know what Solarte should be doing and none of his batted ball numbers really jump out as way to good to keep going, his line drive percentage are right around league average and his ground ball percentage of 41% is a little better than the league average of 44%, obviously these numbers could change quickly but they are pretty exactly where we would expect this type of hitter to be at. Solarte's good line drive rate and low ground ball rate do help us believe that his numbers aren't just ground balls getting through but are coming from solid contact and if you have watched any of his game you would see that for yourself.
Another factor that some thought would hurt Yangervis is that often with guys first coming up they see a lot of fastballs but then teams start to adjust and diversify the pitches they throw the hitter and the hitter will regress, many people thought this would happen to Yangervis but now its May and he is still hitting, in fact according to fangraphs he has hit Sliders better than any other pitch and other non-fastball pitches haven't slowed him down much either.
There is also the fact that Solarte has been very good in terms of his walks and strikeouts, he currently sits at exactly 17 walks and 17 strikeouts which works out to 11% for each which is the lowest strikeout rate for anyone on the team with at least 100 Plate appearances and second in walk rate behind Mark Teixeira, although Yangervis is actually ahead of Teixeira in total number of walks due to Mark missing some time. His walk rate shows that he is not a hacker going up there and just getting lucky by putting the first pitch into play, he is showing plate discipline seeing 3.89 pitches per plate appearance which would rank him 4th on the team behind Gardner, Ellsbury and McCann. But we are still not believing this and it fells like Yangervis has really gotten very little press outside of New York and really not much local coverage either.
At this point we still don't know what Yangervis Solarte is, is he a flash in the pan or is he a legitimate big league contributed, at this point I don't know and I really don't think anyone really does but when I see him hit a home run like this:

I really think "maybe this guy can make it work, after all he wouldnt be the first guy to break into the big leagues as a solid player at age 26; Dan Uggla did it with the Marlins in 2006 after being taken in the rule 5 draft from the Diamondbacks and while he has been bad these last two years in Atlanta he was a very solid player for the previous seven seasons in Atlanta and Florida averaging around three Wins above replacement in each season, the Yankees would take that production from Yangervis in a second and they also have the versatility to acquire another infielder as they can easily play Yangervis at either Second or Third base. At this point even if Yangervis stopped hitting altogether, the Yankees have already gotten more production out of him then they would have dreamed of back when they first signed him and everything after this is just addign to the legend that is Yangervis.

Keep Alfredo Aceves in the pen

Alfredo Aceves

Last Sundays game against the Rays was not a good one as CC Sabathia had another poor outing in only three and two thirds innings and then in came Alfredo Aceves who wound up pitching the rest of the game and only gave up three hits and no runs. This caused some people to clamor for Aceves to be in the rotation based on that performance. I am here to tell everyone to hold off on that for now, because Aceves might be of more value where he is.

Alfredo Aceves was with the Yankees from 2008  through 2010, during his time with the team though he served as a versatile pitcher, starting several games, coming in for high leverage innings and doing that odd piggyback starter thing that the Yankees did with Joba Chamberlain where Joba would pitch 3-4 inning and then Aceves would come in for about the same. After the 2010 season  he was non tendered by the team after missing most of the season with a back injury of which the Yankees did not think he would come back from. Some fans were upset about this, including myself, especially when Aceves  ended up signing with Red Sox and pitched well  for them in 2011 with a 2.61 ERA over 114 innings, mostly as a reliever but with a few starts. The next two seasons did not go as well with Aceves pitching poorly in both the bullpen and the Red Sox rotation, he ended up being demoted to the minors last season and then cut him after the, he was with Orioles in spring training before opting out and then signing a minor league deal with the Yankees. Its easy to think that these five inning wipe away what has really been poor pitching the previous two season but lets be real, its very possible that his pitching on Sunday was a complete and total fluke. It would not be the first time a pitcher came in an d pitched well in a small sample size, I remember Lance Pendelton has a three inning relief debut a few years ago in which he was perfect and people were wondering if he could be something and he wasn't, he was just a nondescript reliever who the Rangers made look very good in one game.
I really hope that Aceves outing is a sign that Aceves can be effective in the future but for now I think the best place to keep him is in the bullpen as the Yankees really need someone effective in the back-end of their bullpen as the Chris Leroux and Bruce Billings of the bullpen have not just been bad, they have been astoundingly awful and while that may seem like a pretty minor but the complete meltdown of the bullpen in many of these games has turned a deficit into a complete blowout and squashed any chance that the Yankees had to come back in these games.Aceves looks like he could the guy that they need who can come out of the bullpen and give the team some length and be effective.

The other factor in this is a very simple one, Alfredo Aceves has been better as a reliever than as a starter.



The ERA isn't too different between starting and reliving, but the big one for me is his strikeout to walk ratio, as a reliever its 2.76 SO/W in 288.2 innings while as a starter its an even 42 walks to 42 strikeouts and this is over 15 starts. Everything about Aceves's numbers says that he is better as a reliever than as a starter  4.29 ERA as a starter, compared to  3.46 as a reliever and the Yankees already have some mediocre pitchers in their rotation, would Aceves really be any better? I personally doubt that he would be any upgrade over Nuno or Phelps right now, however he would probably be my top choice if the Yankees needed another starter but lets hope they do not need one anytime soon. Fortunetly it does appear as though the Yankees have any

So April just happened

It doesn't feel like April was that much of a success because the infield still stinks and we lost Pineda for a month on top of his suspension and Nova is out for the year, but the Yankees lead the division with 15 wins, which is actually tied for second in the American league. Its April and so small sample sizes still abound, remember Vernon Wells was hitting .300 at this point last season with six home runs and people were asking if Wells could be a brilliant move from Cashman, but Wells hit .216 with five home runs and twenty walks the rest of the year and everyone went back to deciding Cashman was an idiot. April is a lie and it has always been one, but the Yankees have shown real promise in a lot of areas, while they also shown that they will need to upgrade others at some point.
At the end of April the Yankees are currently fifth in batting average and 6th in OPS in the AL which is not bad, but their rotation has been unimpressive behind Masahiro Tanaka and Michael Pineda and that will need to change as Kuroda and Sabathia simply need to be better if the Yankees want to win this season and now with the injury to Nova they will likely need to look to trade for a starter or hope than Manny Banuelos can take a huge leap forward and contribute this season because he is likely their best hope in terms of a home grown starter who can be a positive force for the team, otherwise they will need to look to acquire a starter.Its obviously too early to look for who might be available but two names that jump out at me are Cliff Lee because duh and the other is Brandon McCarthy, there is nothing particularly special about McCarthy except that he has been a solid pitcher in the past and he is playing on the absolutely awful Arizona Diamondbacks who seem more likely than anyone to blow up their team and McCarthy seems like a guy who they would be likely to move, however Kevin Towers may decide that McCarthy, who was struck on the head by a line drive in 2012, is too gritty be traded or he may also decide he is not gritty enough; Towers seems to make odd decisions with personnel. Lee is pretty obvious but I doubt that the Phillies will move him because they also make odd personnel decisions and they are very unlikely to trade him in May when they may be playing well.
The other position that the Yankees need help in is there infield and its not really specific of where they would need that help as they need somebody to play either second or third and preferable a young player who could move to short stop next season, but trading for a player like would be hard as most of those players are either starting for a team or the team is looking to move an older veteran so that he can start. Obviously Brian Roberts has not been very good but its really too early for us to see who is interested in making deals and with the new playoffs it seems like teams stick it out much longer because they cling to this idea that they will be able to contend. The Yankees were tied to Didi Gregorius in the off season, but the awful Diamondbacks would seem more likely to try and move someone so that Gregorius can start everyday and they have two players that they could possible trade to clear a spot in Martin Prado and Aaron Hill both of whom would likely interest the Yankees.The player I think the Yankees would prefer is Martin Prado who is a versatile player capable of playing either third or second base, but I think the Diamondbacks are more likely to try and trade Aaron Hill who is strictly a second baseman and has not been a very good defensive one these last two years. In 2012 Hill hit .302.360/.522 with 26 Home runs  and won a silver slugger but only played 87 games last season after suffering a hand injury in April, he would obviously fit well for the team but I am not sure how the Yankees will feel about him being under contract for the next two season, they may find it a boon or they may not like it the money however is fairly reasonable at $12 million a season in 2015 and 2016 and Hill will be 34 when the contract expires so it is not a bad deal, we also have no idea if the Diamondbacks want to move him. Another player that the Yankees could have interest in is Chase Utley who while not an MVP candidate anymore is still a very good player and only under contract for next season, although he does still have vesting options for 2016-18 that depend on him having 500 PA in the previous season. Utley would likely be a huge addition for the team but he is also one of the better players on the Phillies and they do not have a younger player looking to push him out just yet, even at 35 I do not see the Phillies moving him unless they are completely lost by the trade deadline. Another player could be Nick Franklin of the Mariners and there is some intrigue here as the Mariners need help but Nick Franklin doesn't have a lot of history because he is a prospect and I do not really know what the Mariners are going to want for him, probably a similar player but the Yankees do not really have a good prospect who is stuck behind a solid major league starter and other than that I have no idea what they will want, especially in April. Other than these guys its still way too early to talk about a possible trade for anyone and honestly its too early to talk about a trade for these guys either but I did it anyway. The Yankees will need to make a move eventually though as they cannot expect Solarte to keep playing this well, it just likely will need to be later this year.

So who here can play the infield?

Goodbye Nunez

It came out in Newsday that Eduardo Nunez had asked for his release when he was informed that he did not make the team, the team obligated him and designated him for assignment to add Yangervis Solarte to the roster. However Mark Teixeira hurt his hamstring in the series against the Blue Jays and with the designation of Eduardo Nunez the Yankees have no real depth in their infield in fact every infielder they have is either on the 25 man roster or on the disabled list, so when Teixeira went down they had to call up a Austin Romine who has no experience at any position other than catcher. In fact of the three catchers on the roster right now only Francisco Cervelli has any experience at any position other than Catcher and he has eight total innings at third and second as a pro baseball player. That’s it, of all five catchers on the roster John Ryan Murphy played several games at third when they thought about moving him from catcher and Gary Sanchez has one inning at 1^st, every other game in their entire pro careers for all five catchers has been at Catcher or DH.

So what this means is that the Yankees are going to use Kelly Johnson as their everyday 1^st baseman and might use Francisco Cervelli there, they do currently have him taking ground balls at first, I doubt that they want to use him there but they probably do not want to use Kelly Johnson at first either. What irks me a little is how the Yankees knew that they had very little experience at first outside of mark Teixeira and they neglected to play any of their infielders at 1^st base, especially since they were trying get their young catchers into as many games as possible and evidently never thought to put any of them at 1^st during spring training.

Corban Joesph could help as he is playing at first in AAA Scranton and he played a game at first for the Yankees last season, but he is relatively new to the position as he has mostly played as a 2^nd baseman. He is also not on the 40 man roster right now as he was removed this offseason and so obviously the Yankees do not have a ton of belief in him and they would also need to remove someone from the 40 man and so unless another infielder or two go down then it seems unlikely he will be back with the team.

Obviously the depth situation will get better when Brendan Ryan gets back from the disable list but it’s not as though he will help with the current 1^st base issue and frankly we have no idea how long he will be out for, he may even be out longer than Teixeira will be. It’s still possible that the Yankees will acquire someone, I mean Stephen Drew is still out there and Eduardo Nunez can still be traded for someone by the 11^th. If you were wondering the Yankees could not add Nunez back to the 40 man unless he passed through waivers, which seems unlikely. These two early Infield injuries further emphasize how the Yankees have a real need in the infield, but so far they have not been able to make a move to bolster the infield. Until the Yankees make a move they may be grabbing players on the waiver wire to bolster their depth quite a bit until they have a more permanent solution. It’s still much too early to really find a team that might be willing to trade a piece and until then we are just going to have to hope that nobody else will get hurt. 

Eduardo Nunez Designated for assignment

Eduardo Nunez has been Designated for assignment to give Yangervis Solarte a 40 man roster spot. So this has been a rough week for Eduardo as he lost the competition for the last 25 manroster spot to Yangervis Solarte, then Solarte took his number and now Solarte has taken his 40 man spot as well. No word on if Solarte has also kicked Nunez's dog or taken his girlfriend too but I assume that both of those have either already happened or will happen shortly.
Seriously though I am pretty surprised that the team DFA Nunez as I assumed they wanted to keep him for infield depth but apparently not, it would have seemed a better idea to DFA Preston Claiborne but I guess the team had other ideas, they probably feel that Nunez can slip through waivers now that all the rosters are set.

Weird 2014 Predictions

So instead of doing the standard predictions for the season we decided that we would have some different predictions for at least April. If you have not already listened to the Podcast then do so, but here are our predictions and we will see if any of them are correct in a month.


-->

	Nick	Brooke	Chris
7th inning doubles	Alfonso Soriano	Brendan Ryan	Brett Gardner
Non-Nunez Errors	Kelly Johnson	Brendan Ryan	Carlos beltran
Batters hit	Michael Pineda	Dellin Betances	Hiroki Kuroda
HBP	Kelly Johnson	Francisco Cervelli	Brian McCann

A True Yankee Podcast 2014 Season

Nick, Chris and Brooke review the Yankees off season, discuss the acquisition of Tanaka and the loss of Robinson Cano. We also talk about what the Yankees still need to do and how this team looks going into the new season. Finally we make some interesting predictions about the teams performance through April. Also after our podcast Yangervis Solarte made the team over Eduardo Nunez, Nunez was optioned to Triple  A.

Michael Pineda is the 5th starter

He is still only 25

Coming into spring training the competition for the Yankees 5th starter spot was between David Phelps, Michael Pineda, Vidal Nuno and Adam Warren, but really nobody expected it to be anyone but either Phelps or Pineda. This was not a rigged competition where Pineda was going to win no matter what, but I think that they wanted Pineda to take this opportunity to show what he could do and that is exactly what he did. Phelps had a good spring, but in his two major league seasons he has not done anything to make people believe he is anything more than a back of the rotation starter and Pineda was an all star in Seattle and is still only 25, actually two years younger than Phelps.

Pineda and Phelps both had good springs, but more importantly for Pineda his stuff looked very good and his velocity crept upward as spring training went along, that slider of his looked very crisp as well. The Yankees have also expressed confidence in him, saying that he will have no innings limit this season, but they may just be trying to avoid any controversy around an innings limit.

Phelps and Warren will be in the bullpen, as might Vidal Nuno but I would not be surprised if all of these guys start for the Yankees at some point this season as teams always need more than five starters and the Yankees have not used fewer than eight in a season since 1975 and a team usually has a 6th starter that they use pretty heavily throughout the season.

The Montero-Pineda trade was two years ago and we still haven't seen the debut of Michael Pineda, but now it will happen on April 5th in Toronto and I for one am very excited about this and if Pineda does find success and Nova is able to be more consistent  then the Yankees could suddenly have a young power rotation with Tanaka, Nova and Pineda all young and under control for the next several seasons.

The 25 man roster approaches

For the most part the Yankees 25 man roster is set, we are really down to the last three or four spots on the roster and it seems likely that the Yankees already know who they will be taking with them. The Yankees do not have any obvious release candidates on their 40 man roster and so their options related to who makes the team a are somewhat limited. The 5th starter competition ended up being a two man race between David Phelps and Michael Pineda and it would seem that while you can make the argument for Phelps the Yankees love what they have seen with Pineda. I guess theoretically they could send Pineda down to the minors to start the year but I do not think that's what they are going to do. Obviously this does not really change the roster as Phelps will be in the bullpen and even if Pineda was sent down to the minors then I expect Nuno would simply go to the bullpen.

The bench and bullpen are a little more interesting as you have to take the 40 man roster crunch into account when looking at who will make the team. Five of the spots are pretty much guaranteed as Adam Warren, David Robertson, Shawn Kelly, Matt Thorton and presumably David Phelps are all going to be in the bullpen. That leaves two spots in the bullpen open and it seems likely that Dellin Betances will make the team but that still leaves a spot open in the bullpen. Chris Leroux and Matt Daley have been great this spring pitching a combined 18 innings with sixteen strikeouts to eight total base runners, however neither of these guys has faced many MLB quality bats this spring and while relievers do have a hard time facing quality opponents in spring training, neither of these pitchers is on the 40 man roster and would it really be worth designating someone to carry one of these guys on the 25 man roster? Neither Preston Claiborne nor Cesar Cabral has had a particularly good spring and haven't faced opponents any better than Daley or Leroux but their being on the 40 man roster likely gives them a leg up on them. If I had to guess I would say that the Yankees will probably go with Betances and Claiborne to fill out their bullpen as it would allow them to maximize their depth, remember Cody Eppley broke camp with the team last year after an awful spring but they did not wait long to designate him for assignment and that could be what happens here with Claiborne.I also expect that they will keep Nuno in AAA as rotation depth in case they quickly need a starter early on in the season. The bullpen will change as the season goes on and its very possible that Leroux and Daley will end up in the Yankees bullpen at some point this season but I expect they will go to Scranton to start the year.

The story of the bench battle is a little different as the only way Ichiro or Cervelli were not going to be on the bench was if they were traded away and it seems unlikely that a trade for either player will happen at this point in the spring, but it still remains a possibility. Their was initially only going to be one spot to battle for and it seemed likely that Eduardo Nunez would keep his job, but with Brendan Ryan going down with a variety of injuries it would seem likely that Eduardo Nunez will make the team based on the fact that he has major league experience, but of all the bench spot competitors he has arguably had the worst spring. With Sizemore still not looking 100% ready it seems likely that he will go to the minors to start the season, which really leaves Yangervis Solarte, Dean Anna and I suppose Zelous Wheeler to compete over the last bench spot, none of whom have any time in the majors. Solarte is a switch hitter who is raking this spring and had a very good last two years in AAA, however this is only 39 PA and Solarte played in the hitter friendly Pacific coast league the last two years. We see this all the time where a player hits the crap out of the ball in spring training and then goes to the majors or the minors and does absolutely nothing, the same is true for Anna or Wheeler but at least Wheeler and Solarte have actually hit this spring and they have all faced around the same quality of pitchers. Again just like with Claiborne, Dean Anna's being on the 40 man roster will likely be the deciding factor as they would not want to risk losing the depth given Ryan's injury, in this case if Anna is terrible then they can remove him from the 40 man and bring up someone from the minors or wait out his terribleness until Ryan comes back but if they lose him on waivers by designating him now then they would need Solarte to play even if he was playing poorly. The other factor in this is simply that Anna is regarded as a glove man and that is what the Yankees need to replace Brendan Ryan with right now and so it would be a surprise to me if Anna did not make the team.

Is it finaly time for Betances?

Betances in spring training

Dellin Betances was one of the top Yankee prospects a few years ago but despite some good signs along the way he was never able to harness his stuff as a starter and was moved into the bullpen. Betances has had a taste of the majors last season and in 2011, but was not successful in either brief September stint. However this Spring Betances has looked very good as he has pitched 5.1 scoreless innings, giving up only one hit and two walks, while striking out four batters and the Yankees are definitely trying to see if he can break camp with the team. Betances has great stuff with a great swing and miss curveball, a fastball that is mid to upper 90’s, a slider that he almost never uses and a changeup that has really yo-yoed around in terms of effectiveness.  This arsenal of pitches and Dellins imposing 6’8 body has made the Yankees keep him in the rotation for as long as they could but last season they finally relented and put him in the bullpen where he was much improved, putting up a 1.35 ERA in the Scranton bullpen as opposed to 6.00 as a starter. 

Betances was taken by the Yankees in the 8^th round of the 2006 draft and they gave him $1 million to sign but here we are in his 9^th year as a Pro and it might finally be his time, he does have another minor league option available for this season but the Yankees need help in their bullpen and Dellin can step right in and be the pitcher that the Yankees need and turn himself from a hard throwing prospect who could never put it together into a true major league contributor.  Dellin has definitely been frustrated with his slow progress and unfortunately he has been for a while, maybe especially because he is a gy who grew up a Yankees fan in Washington Height, Manhattan and he wants to be able to show everyone that the Yankees did not make a mistake by sticking with him and right now this spring training is probably the most important point in his career because he can do that.