Yankees avoid arbitration with everyone

Ivan Nova, David Robertson, Brett Gardner, Francisco Cervelli and Shawn Kelely were all eligible for arbitration and the Yankees agreed to deals with everyone but Nova.

Francisco Cervelli signed on the 16th for $700,000 which was less than his projected $1 million but he did have almost no playing time the last two years and was suspended for 50 games this season.  I honestly thought he was going to be non tendered but the Yankees are keeping him at only somewhat above league minimum so its a deal for them. This was his first time through arbitration and so he has two years of team control remaining. Shawn Kelley signed for $1.7625M with a $25 thousand bonus if he appears in 55 games. Kelleys 4.39 ERA is helped by a 3.69 FIP and a ridiculous 11.98 K/9 (31.3 K%) in 53.1 innings across 57 games. Unless the Yankees sign someone I expect that he will be the Yankees setup man this year.  This is also his first time going through arbitration. Brett Gardner received $5.6 million in his last arbitration year which is a decent amount more than his projected $4 million but the MLBPA had said that they thought he would get more than $4million and they were right. David Robertson who projects to be this years closer earned $5.215M which was under his projected $5.5 million, he has one more year of team control and unless something goes horribly wrong his salary will increase quite a bit more than his roughly $2 million raise for this year. Saves pay in arbitration and he could easily rack up a  lot of saves this season. '
Ivan Nova remains unsigned but all that really means is that they could not come up with an agreement today and they will file an amount with the arbitration court and likely agree to a compromise, the Yankees have not gone to an arbitration hearing since 2008 with Chien Ming Wang. 

The Yankees signed Ivan Nova for $3.3 million and so they avoided arbitration with all five of their players signing them for a grand total of $16.58 million. Nova was projected at $2.8 million and so he received half a million more than projected, this is Nova's first time through arbitration and that's always the best for players because its when they starts making bigger money, Nova made $575K last year.

The bullpen takes shape

Matt Thornton

 The Yankees signed Matt Thornton yesterday to a two year $7 million deal and he is expected to be a LOOGY for next seasons Yankee bullpen. With him in the fold the Yankees bullpen now is David Robertson, Shawn Kelley, Matt Thornton, Preston Claiborne and a lot of question marks. To be honest I only put Claiborne on the list because Girardi mentioned him specifically when talking about sure things in the bullpen. That still leaves three spots in the pen open and while they can technically fill those spots internally it would probbaly be a good idea if they did not have to do so, however a lot of it depends on how they finish their rotation. If they sign another starting pitcher, whether it be Tanaka or anyone else that will leave Adam Warren, David Phelps, Michael Pineda, Vidal Nuno and any guy they happen to invite to spring training to compete for the 5th spot in the rotation and the long relief spot in the pen; however if they do not sign another pitcher then they will need to use their starting depth right away and the bullpen will suffer for it. The Yankees do have several players who will be competing for bullpen spots but they are very thin on veteran relief pitchers and while I have full confidence in David Robertson being the closer I am more concerned with handing Shawn Kelley the setup job, not that I have any issues with him being able to handle the 8th innings simply that I am not sure that he can be as good as he was for most of last season. Kelley was terrible in April and even worse in September so we are essentially basing his success on 30 innings and while I know he was injured in September its still a limited sample size to make this guy a key feature of the bullpen and if he stinks up.; Cody Eppley was effective for a longer period of time in 2012 and he was so bad in 2013 that he would up playing independent league baseball. All I am really saying is that while I know the Yankees could fill out their bullpen with internal candidates I think it would be really good for them to bring in some veterans to balance out the risk, they could decide to go after someone with a track record Fernando Rodney or go after a guy like Jesse Crain who is coming off a solid season but one in which he was injured for the entire second half. Personally I would like them to go after the Jesse Crain or Ryan Madson types, specifically Jesse Crain as he will likely be cheaper than someone like Rodney and stands a good chance of being more effective too. Thornton made a ton of sense for the Yankees because he is great against left handed batters and while he is no longer the great setup man that he once was the White Sox he will fill a need for the Yankees at a much cheaper cost than Boone Logan, but the Yankees still need to add a dependable arm so that they do not need to rely on Preston Claiborne or Dellin Betances in the 7th inning from the start of the season. The Yankees have had good bullpens with Girardi but they just lost the greatest relief pitcher of all time and there is probably going to be some drop off but they can help mitigate that by adding a veteran to this relatively inexperienced bullpen.

Jerry Meals and thoughts on the Baltimore series

Jerry Meals is blind

The Yankees split the series against the Orioles when they won 13-3 Sunday behind a offensive surge and a great performance from the bullpen. But the thought on every Yankees fans mind is that the Yankees were cost a game because of Jerry Meals horrendous call at first base when he called Mark Teixeira out when he clearly beat the throw. In my mind, which is probably biased, its one of the worst calls of the last three years behind only the Armado Galarraga call and the Jerry Meals 19th inning call. Apparently after Saturdays game Joe Girardi and Joel Sherman, the Yankees writer from the New York Post, got into a screaming match over something, we don't know what. But in the Sunday edition of the Post, Sherman wrote a scathing critique of the Yankees entitled "Blaming umps is loser talk". Yes the Yankees offense let them down, as did their Ace CC Sabathia but it doesn't change the fact that the Yankees did rally and tie it but were cost the tying run on a call that ended the game. Blaming the ump is loser talk, but their comes a certain point when you have the right to be frustrated by a terrible call and this was one of them; good teams take that frustration and put it out on the diamond and lets all hope that its exactly what the Yankees did today by blowing out the the Orioles. Overall I think the Yankees played really well this series, their offense stepped up but their pitching let them down in two of the games.

The Yankees had tied the game on Thursday and David Robertson of all people gave up the lead. Does this mean that Robertson is now not one of the the best relievers in the game? No it does not, Robertson for some reason wasn't throwing his curve ball and I think its because he was trying to cut down on his walks by throwing a cutter and its not as good of a pitch. He looks like he is going back to the curve after he used it more on Friday so looks like it wasn't an injury but only time will tell. The other story is one that certain people have been piping is that CC is not and never has been an ace. This story upsets me because its a sign of how short-term fans memories are, CC is struggling right now because he isn't getting the swings and misses that he should and I guarantee it is because of his arm problems this year. I do not know if this is a long term problem but we all need to hope it is not. Saying that CC is not the Yankees ace though is wrong and every pitcher struggles, Felix Hernandez gave up 6 runs the other day is he not an ace?

Also Mark Teixeira's injury sucks the Yankees really needed him back and if he is out for awhile then he may miss the beginning of the playoffs. The ideal scenario is that he is only out for a week and the Yankees can build that lead back up in the division. Next up comes the Red Sox who just got swept by the equally terrible Blue Jays and have won 1 of their last 10.

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.

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.

Boone Logan is last Yankee to settle on arbitration

Boone Logan and the Yankees avoided arbitration by signing Logan to a $1.875 million deal for 2012. By doing this the Yankees settled with their last arbitration eligible player and paid a grand total of $16.775 to their six arbitration eligible players. The list is as follows:

Boone Logan- $1.875
Logan was the Yankees only lefty out of the pen last season and while a solid arm he was inconsistent at times and could be the only lefty in the pen again this year. He did have some very good outing against the Sox in particular last season.

David Robertson- $1.6 million
This was Robertson's first arbitration year and its a nice pay increase from the league minimum salary that he was making the last 3 years. If he does what he did last year again he will get a good raise next year.

Joba Chamberlain- $1.675 million
While it may seem odd that Joba got payed more than Robertson considering that Joba only pitched 28 innings last year because of his injury. But arbitration is also largely based on service time and it was his second year of arbitration. He got a lot less than he might have.

Phil Hughes- $3.2 million
perfect example of how its based on service time. After his 2010 Phil Hughes got $2.7 million and with less than half the innings he pitched the year before he got a raise. Hughes however only has one year of arbitration left and so 2012 will need to be good for him.

Russel Martin- $7.5 million
After being non tendered by the Dodgers last season Martin had a good year with the Yankees and received almost double the $4 million he was paid last year. The Yankees had been talking about a two year deal with Martin before deciding on roughly the midpoint of Martins proposed $8.2 million and the Yankees $7 million. Hopefully the Yankees get another solid season from Martin in 2012.

Brett Gardner- $2.8
Like Robertson Gardner had his first year of arbitration and got a nice pay raise after making the league minimum the last three years. Gardner will look at find some offensive consistency this year in hope of signing a multi-year deal with the Yankees, while continuing to provide excellent defense.

All of these guys will be arbitration eligible again next year, except for Russel Martin who will be a free agent. Francisco Cervelli will also be arbitration eligible next season so he will have to try and stay healthy this year.