Good and Bad News 3/30/11

                Today is the last day before Opening day and the Yankees have announced some good news and some bad news.

Good news:

For one baseball will start tomorrow at 1:05 pm at Yankee stadium and that is great news. Curtis Granderson is not only ok but he will be starting tomorrow, this is great news and I’m sure that he is fully healthy as I doubt the Yankees would start him tomorrow if he was not. Also  the Yankees have been able to add Luis Ayala, Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia to the 40-man roster without releasing anyone which leads to the bad news.

Bad news:

Colin Curtis, Reggie Corona and Damaso Marte are all starting the season on the 60 day disabled list and Francisco Cervelli and Pedro Feliciano will start the season on the 15 day disabled list. Cervelli is recovering from his broken foot so that was expected. Feliciano on the other hand went from a sore tricep to being diagnosed with a rotator cuff strain. That’s very unfortunate especially since Feliciano was signed due to his ability to be a workhorse and he has never been on the disabled list before. Hopefully Feliciano recovers soon he has been shut down for at least 10 days.

Other news:

The Yankees made it official and Gustavo Molina will start the year as the backup catcher for the Yankees until Cervelli comes back. Also if you haven’t heard Brett Gardner will bat leadoff tomorrow with Jeter in the 2 hole and I guarantee you that Michael Kay will talk about Jeter in the 2^nd spot for the entire game tomorrow.

Yankees update 3/26/11

The Yankees wasted no time and announced that Ivan "super" Nova and Freddy Garcia will get the 4th and 5th Starter jobs out of spring training and the Yankees will try and use Bartolo Colon as the long man. Girardi has says that Colon will fill the role that Alfredo Aceves did in 2009 and early 2010, where he will spot start, do long relief work and work as a regular reliever as well, personally I still think Alfredo Aceves could have filled the role of Alfredo Aceves very well.
Also the Yankees decided to mess with my prediction for 5th outfielder by not only acquiring two more potential back up outfielders but also by likely going without a 5th outfielder for the season. However Curtis Granderson's Injury has thrown a wrench into their plans and if they start the year without him then they will bring one of the Outfielders with them to opening day. In addition to the potential backup outfielders I discussed in my article the Yankees acquired Justin Maxwell from the Nationals and Chris Dickerson from the Brewers. In addition to that Colin Curtis, Greg Golson and Chris Dickerson have all decided to hurt themselves in varying degrees, Curtis jammed his shoulder, Golson had an oblique injury and today Dickerson pulled a hamstring (possibly just cramping)  in the game after going 3-3. If Dickerson does have a hamstring injury, then the most likely candidate is Justin Maxwell, because the Yankees still seem hesitant about Greg Golson and they seem to not want to rush him back from his oblique injury.
Also on the topic of injuries Pedro Feliciano is still battling a sore tricep and for the first time in his career he may end up on the Disabled list. If he does the Yankees do have some good bullpen depth options and another lefty in the pen. In my mind the most likely candidate for the bullpen in place of Felliciano is probably Romulo Sanchez who is already on the 40 man roster and is out of minor league option so the Yankees could get some use out of him before putting him on wavers. If not Romulo Sanchez then the likeliest candidate is Luis Ayala who has been very good this spring; Mark Prior also is still an option, but he will likely need to get more work in AAA before he is MLB ready despite a great spring.