Sunday, February 27, 2011

Spring Training assesment after day 2

Spring training began yesterday with the Yankees falling 5-4 to the Phillies at Steinbrenner field and we got our first look at some Yankees and Phillies starters and prospects. We saw even more Yankees prospects and more Phillies starters today as the Yankees beat the Phillies 7-3 in Clearwater.
We got our first look at Bartolo Colon and he went two innings with 2 Hits, 1 BB and 1 ER with no K's. People have been talking about how good Colon looked and while he didn't give up a lot and did hit 93 on his fastball, he has been pitching in the Winter league and so i expected him to be way ahead of the Phillies, but there is a lot more spring training to go and the Phillies are very good.To me through Colon could likely be the odd man out behind Garcia and Nova, but would he accept a AAA assignment.
Joba and Robertson both looked very good with Joba pitching a perfect 3rd with 1K, while Robertson K'd 2 and gave up a walk. These guys are going to be looking to win the primary RHP/7th inning role and I think they will make it hard for Girardi to choose.
Maxwell had a nice catch in the outfield, Curtis once again looked lost at the plate and Andrew Jones had a weird stolen base attempt where he kind of flopped toward second.
The Highlight of yesterdays game was Jorge Vazquez who won the Winter League MVP and went 2-2 Yesterday with a Home Run and 1-1 Today with a Home Run. He looked really good and he is making a case to be a solid piece of trade bait for the Yankees and i expect that we will see him if Tex or A-Rod get hurt as he can play 1st and 3rd.
Today Ivan Nova started and he looked great pitching two perfect innings with 2 strike outs and he kept the ball down and on the ground. I have to agree with Jack Curry that he looks like he could be 4th Starter , but one spring training start doesn't mean anything and he will have to keep it up for all of spring training and hopefully for the whole season.
Logan and Mitre were effective but a little shaky, especially Logan who seemed to be getting behind in the count on every batter.
Dellin Betances wowed everybody today with 3k's and 1 BB in an inning of work and was hitting 97 on the gun. His command wasn't great for his one BB, but the batters had no chance against him on his 3k's. He also credited Montero with his great outing and the two seemed great together. Speaking of Montero he impressed everybody with a great broken bat single that had a lot of power behind it and Yogi Berra said he looked good behind the plate.
Domenic Brown did not look good for the Phillies at all as he went 0-5 with 4 K's and that has got to make people with the Phillies a little nervous and look to Ben Francisco who looked good at the plate. If he has a good spring while Brown continues to struggle then he could possible earn the Starting RF job.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

The Rest of the Division

Lets take a look at the rest of the American league East and how they did this off-season and how they hope to fair in 2011. Every team in the division made some big moves and signing this off-season and it looks like the east could become more and more competitive as time goes on.

Baltimore Orioles: Key additions- Derrek Lee, J.J. Hardy, Mark Reynolds, Vladimir Guerrero, Kevin Gregg, Jeremy Accardo, and resigned Koji Uehar.
Key Losses- Ty Wigginton, Kevin Millwood

With the late signing of Vlad Guerrero as well as the additions of Derrek Lee and Mark Reynolds the Orioles offense has made up for their loss of Ty Wigginton and added some real pop to the middle of their lineup. They have also improved their pitching with the addition of Kevin Gregg and Justin Duchscherer. Buck Showalter has really turned the Orioles around and while at best they will be contending for third place in the AL East, Showalter has been able to maximize production from the Orioles and he could do a great job developing the team  for the next few years until they are hopefully able to contend in the division. There are some negatives for the Orioles and the main one has to be that while the team improved its pitching and offense, they are still likely the worst team in the east in every category. Also by signing Vlad they take Luke scott out the DH role and so he will be competing with Pie and Winn for the left field spot and it seems to me that it should be more important for the young orioles to get as much playing time as possible than for them to sign Vlad, because the Orioles need to build a team that will compete in the future and signing Vlad for a year doesn't really seem to help them do that.


Tampa Bay Rays: Key additions- Manny Ramirez, Johnny Damon, Kyle Farnsworth and Joel Peralta and a lot of other small pieces
Key Losses- Grant Balfour, Jason Bartlett, Randy Choate, Joaquin Benoit, Carl Crawford, Matt Garza, Dioner Navarro, Chad Qualls, Carlos Pena, Dan Wheeler, Rafael Soriano


The Rays lost a lot of players and traded away Bartlett and Garza, but this team made some good pic ups and some very surprising ones by adding old superstars Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon to go along with their current superstars Evan Longoria and David Price. Some have said that the Rays will be able to contend this year and that remains a remote possibility, but the signing of Manny and Damon should show people what the rays are trying to do. The Rays new coming into this year that it would be very hard for them to compete this year if they did well or awful, I actually remarked to my friend (a sox fan) that the Rays would likely lose all their free agents and trade a starting pitcher no matter how they finished the year. The Rays picked up Manny and Damon in order to keep people in the stands and let their prospects develop more in the Rays fantastic farm system. The Rays have showed in the past that when everything is clicking they are one of the best teams in baseball, but when one part of their team struggles the team runs into trouble as a whole, keep in mind this team has been no hit three times since July of 09 and two of those were perfect games. The Rays don't have the payroll to keep their big time free agents and unlike the Royals they know that when they are building they need to keep their fans interested and that is what the Rays are trying to do this year as you can note with incentives in Damons deal.


Toronto Blue Jays: Key Additions- Frank Francisco, Rajai Davis, Octavio Dotal, Jon Rauch
Key Losses- Vernon Wells, John Buck, Scott Downs, Kevin Gregg, Shaun Marcum

The biggest note from the Blue Jays was their dumping of Vernon Wells massive contract that had crippled them since 06. They got Juan Rivera and Mike Napoli from the angels and they promptly traded Napoli to the rangers and are looking to trade Rivera. They also traded last years opening day starter Shaun Marcum to the brewers for infield prospect Brett Lawrie. The Jays acquired Rajai Davis to take over in Center field and the rest of their additions are to try and keep their bullpen at the same level it was last year despite not having a true closer. Unfortunately they missed on Russel Martin and as a result lack an established starting Catcher, but they do poses J. P. Arencibia who is the top Cathcing prospect for the Jays and they failed to get a Starting 3rd Baseman so that they could move Jose Bautista to Right Field. With Vernon Wells Mega contract gone the Jays now have some financial flexibility and they showed that when they signed Bautista to a 5 year $65 million deal, which if he produces like last year will prove to be very team friendly. The Jays will be unlikely to be in the playoff race this year and at the trade deadline they could be looking to buy some cheap pieces to fill the holes. The first thing that the Jays are gonna want to do is get fans to the game which despite Bautista's 54 HR the average attendance actually fell by about 3,000 from 2009. Go to the game people of Toronto at the very least the Jays will hit a lot of Home Runs and its a lot more entertaing than watching the Maple Leafs suck year after year.

Boston Red Sox: Key Additions- Carl Crawford, Bobby Jenks, Adrian Gonzalez, Dan Wheeler
Key Loses- Mike Lowell, Victor Martinez, Adrian Beltre, Bill Hall

Many Red Sox fans still think that they are underdogs to the Yankees which is laughable and all you Connecticut Yankees/non-Sox fans know especially well that Sox fans will forever operate under this delusion that they they believe themselves the constant underdogs no matter their payroll. The Red Sox failed to make the post season and their ratings dropped 36%, so ownership knew that they need to win to keep current sox fans happy. My friend the Sox fan has been trying to justify to me how the Sox are still the underdogs despite their $142 million 7 year deal for crawford. The Sox have put a lot of faith into Crawford being able to keep his speed until his mid 30's and only time will tell if that faith is justified. The other big deal that the Sox had was their Trade for Adrian Gonzalez, the Sox have put off signing Gonzalez to an extension to avoid more luxury tax, but they will have to and they will have to hope that he comes back 100% from his shoulder surgery and if he does he will be a monster in Fenway. The Sox also appear to have accepted that Papelbon will have another shaky year and so they acquired Dan wheeler and Bobby Jenks to assist Daniel Bard (who could have been a Yankee) in moving on from him. Despite the claims that this will be the best Red Sox team ever they have to hope that a lot of things go right. Last offseason the Sox signed Lackey for 5 years $86 million and extended  Becket for 4 years $68 million. Neither of these guys pitched well, Becket due to Injury and Lackey due to being overrated and sucking, but the Sox seem to think that both these guys will bounce back and be fine, but he never looked good after his May injury last year and face it Lackey was overrated. Dice K only had 153 inning pitched and posted an ERA worse than Ivan Nova's and he also has a history of Injury problems and so the Red Sox are looking at John Lester and Clay Buckholtz to repat their great 2010 seasons. I'm not saying that the Red Sox pitching staff is bad I'm just saying that Dice-K, Beckett and Lackey will sink the Red Sox but its a lot to say that they will just miraculously be better. The Red Sox offense also has a lot riding on speculation, Yes if Gonzalez comes back 100% he will be fantastic, but their is also the concern about Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis, Ellsbury all staying healthy and Ortiz being productive and Saltalamacchia and Ellsbury hitting above .200. If the Red Sox stay healthy then they could run away with the division but 162 games is a long time and if the injury bug strikes again they could find themselves playing golf again in October.

To top it all off not a single spring training game has been played and anything can happen during a season let alone before it even beings.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Francisco Cervelli 2011

(Nam Y. Huh/AP)

Heading into spring training there has been a lot of talk about the Yankees catching situation with the newly acquired former Dodger Russel Martin and Top Prospect Jesus Montero both looking at the starting job. The Yankees have already said that Martin will be the Starting catcher but Montero hopes to win the job in spring training, however most expect that he will start the year in AAA before making his debut later in the season. One person lost in the Montero/Martin talk is current backup Francisco Cervelli, who despite being the backup last year actually started more games than Jorge Posada. Cervelli will likely start the year as the backup behind Martin, but could still catch a fair number of games if Martin doesn't feel 100%.

Francisco Cervelli endeared himself to many Yankees fans when he was called up in 2009 after both Posada and Molina were injured and he did a great job behind the plate. Starting off the 2010 season Cervelli was great at and behind the plate and some even said that the Yankees should trade Montero and Romine because Cervelli was clearly the future starting catcher for the Yankees. Unfortunately Cervelli made a lot of errors in the second half of the season and as a result his defense rating plummeted and he finished  at the bottom of the league defensive ranking, but anyone who watched the games saw that a lot of these errors were not due to Cervelli making true defensive errors but were more bone headed than anything else. Also he was has statistically been good at throwing out runners until this year when he posted his lowest caught stealing percentage ever and again he was good at the beginning of the year before falling apart around the second half. He did post a .359OBP but his batting average took a nose dive after a very hot April & May and he has never had any power , but oddly enough did hit more triples this year than he hit in his entire minor league career.

Despite the criticism of Cervelli he has was a good backup and he hits well enough to be the starting catcher on most teams and in a recent interview he talked about working with Robinson Cano on hitting and on his desire to be a Starting catcher and win a Gold Glove. Cervelli has been apart of a lot of trade talks with many clubs asking the Yankees about him and he was almost dealt to the Dodgers for Russell Martin. Unfortunately for Cervelli I doubt that he will ever be the Starting catcher for the Yankees due to their great Catching prospects, but he could be a long term back-up or he could be traded at some point in the future as he is definitely capable of starting for a number of teams. Many could project that Cervelli could be dealt some time this season when the Yankees trade for a Starting pitcher but I expect that Romine will be the most likely trade chip this season if a catcher is involved.
I expect to see Cervelli about once a week and I expect that now that he will be playing in the backup role his defensive stats will improve. Also hopefully we will see the return of his Rawlings S-100 protective helmet which earned him the nickname Gazoo.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Alfredo Aceves

There is a report that the Red Sox want to sign Alfredo Aceves and needless to say that is bad. In case you didn't know Ace made his debut in 2008 and since then he has posted a 14-1 record out of the bullpen and is an extremely versatile bullpen asset, he unfortunately suffered a back injury in may and was never able to recover before being forced to have surgery in November for an unrelated injury. Many fans found it puzzling that he was non-tendered at the end of the season  and that since he has not been resigned. I trust the judgment of GM Brian Cashman, but I have to ask "Why hasn't Ace been resigned?" This question is especially significant now that Red Sox have shown interest and with the Yankees rotation problems Ace would seem a solid move even if he has to rehab for awhile in the minors. Maybe there is some behind the scenes action going on that we don't know about, but honestly i don't even know why you would not tender a guy like Aceves. Hopefully Ace is back in Pinstripes in 2011, at full power and still 100% bald.

Friday, February 4, 2011

The Future of the Yankees Rotation

Well Friday 2/4/2011 is the day that Andy Pettitte officially announced his retirement and as much as I hoped he would come back I had a strong feeling he would retire this year. With the Yankees losing out on Cliff Lee and every other remotely desirable Free Agent Starter we have to wonder who will man the Yankees Rotation not just this year but for the next few years. If the Yankees had given Lee the rumored 7 year deal then he would have been pitching on the team until 2017 and he was 39. Right now the Yankees Rotation looks like:
Sabathia LHP, AJ Burnett RHP, Phil Hughes RHP, Ivan Nova RHP and one of the all RHP Sergio Mitre, Bartolo Colon, Mark Prior, Freddy Garcia and possible Andrew Brackman. Overall not something we hoped for especially with the Left handed heavy Sox. The Yankees will more than likely make a move for a 4th Starter who is hopefully a lefty and the Yankees have to hope that Burnett is better, Nova is a least decent and Hughes has a year like last year, the only player who I don't have any concerns about is Sabathia and he will continue to be a workhorse for the Yankees. The Yankees could try for a deal with any number of pitchers but they wont be King Felix, Josh Johnston, Johan Santana or anyone from the Red Sox or Phillies not named Joe Blanton. Unfortunately for the Yankees there are a lot of teams looking for starting pitching and the Yankees won't want to take any pitchers with long term deals due to some very good pitching prospects who are getting very close to being MLB ready. There is a good article about possible pitchers for the Yankees staff and the two I think are the most likely are Paul Maholm from the pirates who would likely take a scattered assortment of crap prospects for the 30 year old lefty, the other possibility is Edwin Jackson who could be trade bait for some decent relievers especially if the White Sox struggle.

The 2012 rotation could still feature 4 of the 5 starters from the 2011 rotation, but the Yankees rotation could see the addition of Japanese ace Yu Darvish who has said that he will post himself in 2012 and at 26 is considered to be the best Starting pitcher in Japan right now. I seriously doubt anyone would outbid the Yankees for Darvish if the Yankees want him and unless they find gold in both a trade and Nova they will want him. The dominant RHP would turn the Yankees rotation around and leave the 5th starting job for Nova or one of the Yankees other top Pitching prospects. This is of course hoping that Sabathia won't opt out which i don't expect him to.

In 2013 the Yankees will enter a slight conundrum as AJ Burnett will enter the last year of his contract and i'm willing to bet that the all of the Killer B's will be at or near MLB ready, however unless he is extended David Price will also be entering the last year of his contract with Tampa and the rays may look to move him for prospects. The Yankees could trade for the Lefty who will be 28 but the Rays may ask for more than the Yankees will be willing to give, especially within the division. If the Yankees did trade for Price they could either trade Burnett or move him down in the rotation. A likely package for Price could be Brackman, Nova and another top prospect. The Yankees could also sign Price in the off-season but they might not want to fork over the draft pick especially if the Killer B's develop the way they want them to.

2014 has a number of possible Yankees rotations including:
Sabathia, Price, Darvish, Hughes, Banuelos/Betances or
Sabathia, Darvish, Hughes, Brackman, Banuelos/ Betances or
Sabathia, Hughes, Brackman, Banuelos, Betances/Nova or any other combination of back end pitchers

The future looks bright for the Yankees rotation but still we ended the 2010 season thinking we would have a rotation of:
Sabathia, Lee, Hughes, Pettitte and Burnett and instead we are looking at  Sanbathia, Hughes, Burnett, Nova, Colon/Garcia/Prior/Mitre. The one good thing is that the current rotation will change as the season progresses and possibly before opening day. The worst part is that the offense could be awesome this year, but we will need a rotation to back it up.