Yankees Opening day Roster

Well tonight is officially opening night for Baseball and the Texas Rangers will take on the Houston Astros. I mean seriously of all the good pitching match ups that they could have put on, the MLB wanted to feature Matt Harrison versus Bud Norris. Tomorrow though there are a number of interesting games including CC Sabathia facing Jon Lester as the Red Sox take on the Yankees in the Bronx. Obviously the Yankees roster had a lot of turnover after the off season and then even more after all of the injuries so the opening day roster looks very different then it will likely look after the Disabled List clears up a little bit.

Rotation:
CC Sabathia, Hiroki Kuroda, Andy Pettitte, Ivan Nova and David Phelps
one of the only places that isn't terribly different than we expected as Hughes got off to a late start and will miss his first start or two.The Yankees are going to need the top of this rotation to be outstanding if they want to survive until the wounded come back. Don't forget Pineada waits in the wings too.

Bullpen:
Mariano Rivera, David Robetson, Joba Chamberlain, Boone Logan, Cody Eppley, Adam Warren and Shawn Kelley.
Its was a surprise when the Yankees DFA David Aardsma especially because of how bad Eppley has been this spring. It was an even bigger surprise when the Yankees DFA Clay Rapada and it likely means that his shoulder bursitis was very bad. Warren will get sent down when Hughes gets back and Phelps will move back to the bullpen. Eppley and Kelley both have options so either could get sent down when Rapada gets back and I would bet that if Mark Montgomery is lights out in Scranton he will be up with the big league club before too long. Girardi typically puts together great bullpens and I have no reason to suspect that this year will be any different.

Catchers:
Francisco Cervelli, Chris Stewart.
There was really no chance of not these two guys, there was some ideas that Romine could make the club but Brian Cashman said that he was going to take these two. Stewart will catch CC on opening day but I expect that Cervelli will be the primary catcher. It wont make much of a difference, the Yankees will not be getting much production out of the catching spot.

Outfielders:
Vernon Wells, Brett Gardner, Ichiro Suzuki, Ben Francisco and Brennan Boesch.
Wells, Gardner and Ichiro will be the starters until Granderson comes back, with Francisco and Boesch being the backups. If I had to take a guess I would bet that Francisco will get some time at DH against lefties so he very well might be the opening day DH with Lester on the mound. Neither Francisco or Boesch were on the roster at the start of Spring training and its doubtful that they will last the whole year as the Yankees don't typically carry five outfielders and when Granderson comes back there likely wont be any space for either of them. Yankees are banking a lot on Francisco, Boesch, Wells and Ichiro boucing backfrom bad 2012s. I know Ichiro was good with the Yankees but his last two years in Seattle were awful.

Infielders:
Lyle Overbay, Robinson Cano, Eduardo Nunez, Kevin Youkillis, Jayson Nix, Travis Hafner.
It looked like Juan Rivera would be the everyday 1st baseman until Tex came back but the Yankees picked up Overbay just a few days ago and cut Rivera. Because Overbay is a left handed batter I expect that Nix will start at third and Youkillis at first base against lefties, but its possible Overbay will need to play against lefties. Nunez was going to need to play for Jeter quite a bit anyway, but now he will need to be the starting Shortstop until Jeter returns and we have no idea when that will be. Hafner is the DH and will not play the field at all, but even then we have to hope he will stay healthy because they are really screwed if he goes down early.

Well there you have it the Yankees opening day roster and as I said in my earlier post there will be a lot of fluidity in this roster for probably the entire season. Lets see what a new Yankee season has in store!

Mariano will announce retirment after 2013 season.

Joel Sherman reports that Mariano Rivera will announce his retirement after the 2013 season. The press conference is scheduled for 10am ET at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa. We all expected that this was the case and Rivera had mentioned that he would have retired if his injury had not been season ending.  I will try to write a longer piece about Mariano Rivera later as i'm sure all Yankees blogs will, but for now lets just comprehend that this will be the last year Mariano Rivera plays for the New York Yankees. I count myself lucky that I have seen the Sandman close and it will be great to see Mariano's farewell tour.

Mariano Rivera wants to return for 2013

He's back

Via George King: Mariano Rivera has informed the Yankees that he wants to pitch again next season. “Rivera contacted us and wants to play,” said Brian Cashman, who admitted to not being surprised by the decision.

Rivera, 43, blew out his knee in early-May and said he wanted to pitch again the next day, but a few weeks ago he told Cashman that he was having second thoughts. The two sides will discuss a contract in the coming week according to King, and this sounds like something that could happen relatively soon. Then again, the Yankees and Rivera have a history of contentious negotiations. Another one-year deal in the $10-15M range is likely in the cards.

This is welcome news and now we only have to worry about how he will pitch after his injury and most of a year off.

Yankees free agents

The Yankees have a total of 14 players hitting free agency, with the key free agents being Russel Martin,  Nick Swisher, Hiroki Kuroda and depending on the status of Mariano Rivera, Rafael Soriano. The last three of these guys will receive a qualifying offer, but the only one with any chance of accepting the $13.3 million dollar qualifying offer would be Hiroki Kuroda, as Soriano and and Swisher will receive large muti year deals. The Yankees seem likely to move away from Swisher, despite him being the best Right Field option for the Yankees and as I said before the Yankees will only look to retain Soriano if Mariano Rivera retires and even then he may be looking for a deal bigger than the Yankees are willing to provide, considering they have several internal closer options.
Russel Martin is an extremly critical retention for the Yankees and he will likely get a multi year deal from them, because he and and AJ Pierzynski are the only everyday catchers on the market. The Yankees have also expressed intrest in brining back Ichiro Suzuki and Raul Ibanez on short term deals, but I don't know how much playing time Ibanez would get due to the rotating DH for the veteran Yankees. Some people really want Ichiro to return, but he should be the Yankees B or C options due to his age.
Andy Pettitte joins Mariano Rivera as someone who is going to either sign with the Yankees or retire and it remains to be seen what either will do at this point.
There is also a chance that the Yankees will retain Eric Chavez and Jayson Nix, but after that none of the Yankees free agents are likely to be retained on anything more than minor league deals and i personally doubt that Nix or Chavez will return. If the Yankees do not retain any of their free agents then there will be a number of holes to fill, that will require a venture into free agency as they will not be able to fill them internally.

Mariano is Baseballs all time save leader

Mariano is Baseballs all time save leader. Let that sink in, Mariano Rivera now at the age of 41 has acheived his 42 save of the year and become baseballs all time save leader with 602 saves. Its very frustrating for me because I was supposed to be at today's game but I had a last second meeting this morning and couldn't go. For awhile it looked like AJ would pitch well enough that he Mariano Rivera would not be necessary as the Yankees were up 5-0 after the 3rd inning and Burnett had struck out 7. Then he had a shaky 4th but got through it with giving up one run on a homerun. Then in the 5th the wheels came off and Burnett gave up 3 straight hits including a home run to Michael Cuddyer and was yanked for Corey Wade who loaded the bases and gave up one run on a ground out before striking out the next two batters. The Yankees tagged on another run on an A-Rods single and Granderson hustling in from second. The Twins twice threatened in the 6th but Logan retired the lefty and it was cruise control from there. The only threat to 602 saves for Mariano was the Yankee offense but Nick Swisher's GDP ended that threat. Mariano Rivera came in and his first two pitches were bad, but after that it was vintage Mo with a ground out and a fly out, then we all gathered around the TV as Mariano got called strike, a foul ball before having a perfect cutter on the outside corner to strike out Chris Parmelee looking. It was picture perfect ending in the same way that Derek Jeter's home run 3,000th hit was.

The only question now is where will Mariano be ranked all-time in the greatest Yankees. Sliding into home ripped Kevin Kernan here for ranking Mariano 5th all time behind Ruth, Gehrig,  DiMaggio and Jeter. Sliding into home is right though; Mariano is the Greatest closer of all-time and nobody will ever be as good as Mo is, but he is in my mind 8th alltime in the list of the greatest Yankees  ranking behind with the top ten looking like this:
1. Babe Ruth
2. Lou gehrig
3.Mickey Mantle
4. Joe DiMaggio
5. Derek Jeter
6. Yogi Berra
7. Whitey Ford
8. Mariano Rivera
9. Bill Dickey
10. Jorge Posada
The best part is Mo will be around for another year at least and we all need to make sure we get out and see Mariano while he is still here. I got to see him get the save against the Mariners on July 26, 2011 and his entrance to Enter Sandman was epic especially for a Metal head like me. However I will always regret not going to today's game, but I had a friend who had tickets to the game where Derek Jeter hit his 3,000th so I guess now we are even. In case you missed it here it is:

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.