It’s the first podcast of the new year. We start things off chatting about, what else, the Mark Teixeira press conference. It’s tough for guys to make poor impressions at these things, and Tex was no exception. He came off confident and aware of the pressures ahead. Another interesting tidbit: He says that being a switch hitter, it takes him longer to get into the groove because he’s working on two swings. His April splits lend some stats to that anecdote.
To make room on the roster for Tex, the Yankees DFA’d Shelley Duncan. This comes as no surprise. Like all DFAs, Shelley will hit the waiver wire. If unclaimed, though, he does not have the right to declare free agency. He’ll instead be forced to accept and assignment with the Yankees. If I had to venture a guess I’d say he’ll be in Scranton in April.
Then it’s onto the minor league contracts. The Yankees inked Jason Johnson, Angel Berroa, Jorge Vazquez, and John Rodriguez. They’re all no risk moves, so it’s tough to complain about them (but that won’t stop some people). It looks like Rodriguez could provide some level of reward.
We touch on the Nady and Swisher rumors and come to a conclusion: Keep ’em. Depth is valuable, and becomes more valuable as we get to March and April. Unless something good comes along (Aaron Harang?), the Yankees should just stand pat and see how the spring unfolds.
At the end, Mike discusses the case of Andy Oliver. He was drafted out of high school, but chose to attend Oklahoma State. Just before the playoffs this year, he was suspended indefinitely. Why? He used an agent/lawyer to negotiate his post-draft deal. Mike explains the whole thing. While I understand NCAA’s desire to keep their athletes amateur, it seems unreasonable to expect an 18-year-old to negotiate a deal without a lawyer.
Onto the podcast. It is available in a number of formats. You can download it here by right clicking on that link and selecting Save As. If you want to play it in your browser, just left click the link. You can also subscribe to the podcast feed, which will send it to you every Thursday. You can also subscribe in iTunes. Finally, we have the embedded audio player below.
[audio:http://riveraveblues.com/podcasts/RABRadioShow1809.mp3]We appreciate any feedback. You can leave it in the comments or email either of us.
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