May
02
Fan Confidence Poll: May 2nd, 2011
ByRecord Last Week: 4-3 (30 RS, 20 RA)
Season Record: 16-9 (139 RS, 102 RA, 16-9 pythag. record), 2.5 games up
Opponents This Week: @ Tigers (four games, Mon. to Thurs.), @ Rangers (three games, Fri. to Sun.)
Top stories from last week:
- An early week four-game set against the White Sox got off to a rough start when Phil Humber shut the Yankees down on Monday and Rafael Soriano blew an eighth inning lead on Tuesday. They rallied behind Bartolo Colon for a win on Wednesday then blew the ChiSox out on Thursday for a series split.
- The Blue Jays came to town for the weekend series, though the Yankees didn’t bother to get any timely hits in Friday’s loss. They came back and pounded young Kyle Drabek for the win on Saturday, then used a Curtis Granderson homer to take the rubber game.
- Injury Zone: Phil Hughes suffered a setback early in the week and a battery of tests showed that he may have Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. He’ll go see a specialist in St. Louis on Monday. Frankie Cervelli was activated off the disabled list, and Mark Teixeira missed a game with a sore shoulder. Robinson Cano is day-to-day with a bruised hand. Minor league hurlers Alan Horne and Jeremy Bleich are on their way back from major shoulder injuries.
- Say goodbye to Kevin Millwood, the veteran right-hander opted out of his minor league contract yesterday after the Yankees informed him that he won’t be added to the roster. Minor leaguers Myron Leslie, Jack Rye, and Jose Ortegano were all released.
- The Yankees announced a September concert at Yankee Stadium featuring Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax.
- If you’re a season ticket holder, some of your personal information was leaked.
Please take a second to answer the poll below and give us an idea of how confident you are in the team. You can view the (new and improved!) Fan Confidence Graph anytime via the nav bar above, or by clicking here. Thanks in advance for voting.
Given the team's current roster construction, farm system, management, etc., how confident are you in the Yankees' overall future?
38 Comments»
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Yankees News from YESNetwork.com
- Curtis Granderson leaves game after fracturing knuckle on his pinkie finger
- Teixeira to play for Double-A Trenton Thunder on Wednesday and Thursday
- Teixeira plans to play in Minors Wednesday
- Brian Cashman speaks to media about injured Yankees pitchers
- Alberto Gonzalez clears waivers, will report to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre
- Seattle Mariners option Jesus Montero to Triple-A
- Thriving with the Yankees, Vernon Wells fulfilling his father's dream
- Kuroda leaves early as Orioles win rubber game
- New York City Football Club names Claudio Reyna Director of Football
- Yankees, Manchester City to own NYC MLS team
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10. Osama was caught. NY morale is at an all time high.
+1.
Still 7. Concerned about the rotation. Although Garcia and Colon have massively exceeded expectations at this point, I wonder how long it’s going to last.
Still stuck at 9 despite the Hughes setback. I believe in the team’s management.
Th Red Sox got all the attention for a huge offseason this past winter but look at the Yankees pickups – Russell Martin, Eric Chavez, Bartolo Colon and Freddie Garcia. All are outperforming expectations.
Cashman knows what he’s doing. It helps to get luckky as well.
Russel Martin as many home runs as Crawford, AGon, Pedroia and Ortiz combined.
Colon and Garcia have been good stories. But I’m most pleased with Nova. To me, his youth makes him the bigger story. Hopefully he can keep it up.
Quick question:
What is the complete list of CF’s people would rather have than Curtis going forward?
Andrew McCutchen and Colby Rasmus. I think that’s it.
Hammy, Kemp, maybe Colby Rasmus.
Didn’t Hamilton play mostly left-field before his injury.
Yeah, I think I would go Kemp, McCutcheon and Rasmus long term.
For 2011, I would go Kemp and….crickets, tumbleweed.
By the way, my confidence remains at a self-consciously enthusiastic 9.
Farm has elite hitting prospect and elite pitching prospect performing well at high levels where they are incredibly young for their age.
A-Rod is slumping, but has shown enough to mean that the big club has three legit MVP candidates (A-Rod, Tex, Cano).
These three legit MVP candidates do not include a CF and Catcher in Granderson and Martin (two premier defensive positions) who (1) have succeeded at elite levels before (2) are succeeding at elite levels now, and (3) are still in the prime of their careers.
CC is having one of his best starts ever.
Bullpen is overpaid but deep.
Team has gotten blood from stone from Colon and Garcia, buying at least a full month of good starts before the inevitable mid season pickup.
And the deepest best bench the Yanks have had in a LONG time.
Agree with this. A very good rendition of the positives. The question is how they handle their “icon” situation. Jeter and Posada have been absolute anchors.
A nine here.
The Yankees set a new record low in attendance at the new stadium this week. Breaking the previous low from earlier this season.
How much money is generated from non-ticket monies? Parking, food, other goodies. $30 per person? Certainly, a $20 sold seat if better then a $50 empty seat.
The Yankees must be creative in selling seats. Family day? Buy 2 (adult) tickets, and get up to 3 others at 1/3 price? Couples Day? Wifey gets in for 1/2 price? The empty seats are bad for the franchise, lost money non-withstanding.
I know season ticket holders paid big bucks for their seats, but that’s life. The Yankees need to be agressive and do what has to be done to sell every seat.
Is price the issue? You can already go on Stubhub or RAB’s tickets and get tickets under <$50 if you want to go to the games.
I don’t think the Yankees own the parking lots. Hasn’t it been a big issue that the company set up to run them overbuilt and isn’t sustainable?
May or may not be a big issue for the Yankees. Would definitely seem that they’re losing money on concessions. They may have already sold the seats, and season ticket/package holders just aren’t showing. Also, I believe most of their revenue comes from TV anyway. No idea what YES’ ratings are, but they’re on national tv at least once or twice a week. I’ve heard that their games used to be televised on network TV in Japan, no idea if that’s still the case. A Yankee hat is still the default baseball cap almost worldwide. Doubt they’re hurting too badly.
Good. Maybe they’ll get some sense knocked into them and lower prices to a reasonable level.
Solid 7.
Glad Millwood didn’t work out. I saw that as an accident waiting to happen.
Rotation without Hughes, better than than expected. I hope their are decent pitchers available at the trade deadline to put us over the top.
Leaning towards a 6 with the potential of Hughes having a serious injury.
I’m at an 8 mostly because of the strength of the young prospects we should see in the not too distant future; Montero, Man ban, Brackman, etc. Plus Nova who’s already showing his value…..I just hope that after this year if CC opts out we don’t sign him to some ridiculous 7+ year deal. That would be a disaster IMO.
Dropped from a ’7′ to a ’6′. Will go back up to a ’7′ if Hughes doesn’t have TOS and just has some Verducci-effect dead arm.
The Yankees obviously have talent in the minors, but where is the pitching coming from? Even ignoring the failure rate of young pitching, I’m not convinced of the Yankees ability to develop ManBan (or anyone else) into a high-quality, long-term starter.
If Hughes is (basically) done the Yankees need two quality pitchers (a ’2′ and a ’3-4′ in pitching speak, depending on where you put AJ), PLUS they need to pay CC when he opts out, PLUS I’m not convinced AJ will be able to put up replacement level numbers in 2013.
With A-Rod’s contract, with Cano’s big payday coming, I just don’t see where the money OR the pitching talent is coming from.
There has never been an indication that the Yankees can’t pay for their talent. I certainly wouldn’t worry about that.
As for where the pitching talent will come from? Hopefully from the trade market this summer and from one (or more) of our top pitching prospects in 2012.
Cano has two team options for 2012 and 2013 well below his market value. Posada is coming off the books after this year, Swisher’s below market contract comes off the books after next year, Granderson’s below market deal the year after that. I don’t see where the doom and gloom is coming from.
The Yankees payroll has been stagnant for years. They haven’t needed to increase payroll to increase competitiveness even as their revenue has skyrocketed. If I were the MLBPA, I would be investigating them along with every other team for their lack of spending. If they wanted to, they could increase payroll by quite a bit.
These mostly seem like odd concerns to be… marginal concerns and what ifs that I personally would not base my grade on (though obviously this is your grade and not mine). Instead of looking at the core of the thing, you seem to be looking for faults on the margin.
Kenny Rogers and David Cone both actually had TOS, and both were fine afterwards. Perhaps Lowry and Bonderman had their careers derailed by TOS, but perhaps they were just two of the many pitching prospects who don’t work out. Seems odd to point to how few pitching prospects work out, and then implicitly assume that TOS is the reason two young pitchers didn’t work out.
Yankees can’t develop starters blah, blah, blah… How about some personal responsibility? How about a real analysis of the situation instead of a blanket fear?
Your pessimism knows no bounds… The Yankees can’t pay their players despite a $200 mill payroll, there is no way a single young starter emerges from their bumper crop of young talent, they can’t possibly trade for decent players, AJ will fall apart, etc. The sky is falling. Maybe nothing will work out and they’ll be a bad team in a few years, but there are certainly a lot of things that could work out… if a few of them do things will be fine. Uncertainty does not always have a negative result.
You could look at any organization and cite the same concerns, and draw a worst case scenario where they are a terrible team in a few years. Some things will go right for some of those teams, though. Given the Yankees track record, I have to assume that they’re not going to suddenly fall apart. Certainly they could, but I don’t think they’ll suddenly forget how to do the things in terms of talent acquisition and spending money that they’ve been doing for years.
Your pessimism knows no bounds…
And he still votes a 6. Yankees have issues, but the Yankees are good.
Yeah, the rating scale is not defined so it’s hard to say. To me, a 6 sounds pretty crappy. If you figure winning the most regular season games puts you in the playoffs at least and gives you as much a chance to win the WS as anyone… 6/10 of the way through the league would make you about the 18th best team. Last season that was the Blue Jays, who finished 85-77, 11 games out in their division, and 10 games out in the Wild Card. That’s my rating scale, though, and obviously other people are using different scales.
Yeah I’m not sure how a ’6′ meant my pessimism knew no bounds…and it was a ’7′ for me until Hughes ‘injury’ (or whatever).
I take this poll as a ‘future of the Yankees based on every factor’ thing. For me a ’6′ means that the Yankees have a decent shot to be several years out of the playoffs starting around 2013-2014, despite a #1 payroll. They also have a decent shot to continue their playoff run…just less of a shot than I had hoped.
I won’t repeat my reasons, but I didn’t think they were overly pessimistic. Pessimistic is saying ‘if CC goes down, the yankees are screwed’ – it might be true, but with CC healthy who cares? Saying, however, that the Yankees haven’t been so hot at developing starting pitching, and that the trade/free agent market isn’t looking that promising…well that just seems like realism to me.
Fair enough, I just think saying that you don’t see where the money will come from is a bit silly. If the Yankees wanna pay someone (let’s just say Hamels or Weaver after next year or whenever it is), they will. I’m not worried about the attendance being omgsodown or the budget, honestly… the Yankees won’t be hurting for money any time soon.
And it’s difficult to talk about the playoffs in 2014 or whatever because it’s hard enough to say what the Yankees are going to do at that point, nevermind other teams that we don’t live and die by. JMO.
8. Nothing really out there to change my mind. Ride the wave with the patchwork pitching staff. Believe in modern medicine and Phil Hughes. Have stars in your eyes when you look at Banuelos and Montero. Believe #28 is coming home.
6.
Hughes may have potentially lost a year of improvement. You can’t marginalize the loss of Hughes to this team and going forward if the condition will sap his abilities.
Granderson looks great though.
We currently have a player hitting .200/.300/.400 (Brett Gardner) and one hitting .400/.500/.600 (Eduardo Nuñez).
#roundnumbers
How the hell does Brett Gardner have a .200 ISO?
Still early in the season .Maybe 60 games into the season one can get a better overview.Questions like can Martin maintain an all-star caliber year ? Is Jeter done as a player or is pressing because of the 3000 hit milestone etc.? Can Arod stay healthy ? Can the geriatric ward of the pitching staff ,Rivera,Colon and Garcia keep it going ? Can Nova continue to prove he belongs at this level?
Will Swisher regress from his best season in 2010 ? and is Granderson for real ?
As it stands right now the Yanks are the best team in the AL.The Yanks have the look of a playoff bound team even though it remains a SSS.
I´m cautiously optimistic .
I gave my confidence level a solid 8. I believe the organization is in good hands going forward. There is much effort and good judgment with the farm system and their draft and trade choices. The team on the field has very good potential. If the pitching staff can keep it together. I’ll feel confident in another WS run.
I would go to a 9 if I see the Yankees continue to develop from within especially the pitching. I understand some are chips for the proven player but homegrown is special in my heart.
I’m at a 9 only because of Derek Jeter hitting lead off and Soriano in the 8th. We have the best 1-2 punch in baseball, AJ and Nova are back on track and Freddy is a solid #5. Gardner and Swish have shown signs of life again while A-Rod, Grandy, Teix, and Cano take turns carrying us. Soriano is still a concern until he strings together a few more good outings.
9 for me. Biggest offensive issues are Jorge and a replacement is ready and Jeter whose contract I will now refer to as the “Drek 4-3ter document”. Montero/Banuelos give us a bright future and we can still win with Jeter or Nunez at short fortunately.
To paraphrase the greatest movie: “Stop trying to make Derek 4-3ter happen. It’s not going to happen.”
It is OK to voice your opinion about Jeter which you are consistently in the negative. He had a down year and hit .270. How many SS would sign up for this BA. Presently, he has shown the inability to drive the ball. Is it old age, a timing issue, a stance issue, this is to be determined. If I hazard a guess by the end of May if results do not improve. We may have a batting order change.
Jeter has provided 15 years of nothing but quality play in every aspect of the game. He’s entitled to a grace period to iron out his issues at the plate. Every Yankee fan should want him to get it together without the added pressure of impatience on the fans forcing a premature judgment call by Girardi or Cashman.
Jeter will walk away when he knows its time. I do believe this. I have been a Yankee fan since ’55. Many SS have played but none as delightful as Derek Jeter.
I hope in this series he hits a couple of delightful balls out of the infield.
If Jeter feels he´s done as a player he will not play out the length of his contract and in MO he will simply walk away graciously.