Open Thread: 4/4 Camp Notes

April 4, 2012 by Mike Axisa 86 Comments

New York Mets v New York Yankees — Yay Andy. (Al Messerschmidt/Getty)

The Yankees wrapped up their exhibition schedule today with a big win over the Mets. Andy Pettitte threw 13 pitches and faced the minimum in his one inning of work (video), giving up a ground ball single that took a big hop over the first baseman’s head (runner was later thrown out trying to steal), a pop-up to shortstop, and a routine ground ball to second. Seriously, it was like he never left. Same old Andy.

Frankie Cervelli clubbed a two-run homer before a) getting demoted, and b) the minor league replacements unloaded on the Mets. Kevin Mahoney, Ramon Flores, and Hector Rabago all drove in runs. David Robertson practiced his Houdini act, striking out the side after putting men on the corners with no outs. Here’s the box score and here’s the final Spring Training update from Tampa…

“It was good to get out there…everything felt great,” said Pettitte after his outing. His plan is to be ready for the big leagues in about a month, and if today was any indication, he’ll be just fine. [Erik Boland]
“No pain right now,” said Michael Pineda when asked how he and his shoulder are feeling. He has not yet been told when he will pick up a bawseball, however. [Boland]
Hiroki Kuroda, Rafael Soriano, and Phil Hughes all threw their regularly scheduled side sessions, the final tuneup before the regular season. Mariano Rivera threw a simulated game yesterday, by the way. [Chad Jennings]
David Phelps won the James P. Dawson Award as the top rookie in camp. His reward was a spot on the Opening Day roster. I can only hope Phelps has a better big league career than the former winners. [Pete Caldera]

Here is your open thread for the evening. The Nets are playing tonight, plus there’s an actual regular season baseball game being played. The Marlins officially open their new ballpark against the Cardinals on ESPN at 7pm ET (Johnson vs. Lohse). Enjoy.

JobaWockeeZ

Wait what the fuck, Cervelli is in AAA? He’s capable of hovering a .700 OPS and we get someone 100+ points lower?

I highly doubt any defensive upgrade in games Martin doesn’t start will be worth such an offensive downgrade. Cervelli at this stage is basically the projection for Romine. He’s a fine backup catcher despite the hate I have given him.
- Plank
  
  He’d be an acceptable starter on some teams. There weren’t 30 catchers who had better batting numbers than Cervelli last year admittedly in limited time.
  
  The problem I have with the trade is that those 200 PA are going to go to an inferior player. It makes no sense to me, unless his defense is otherworldly good.
  
  Until I see otherwise I operate under the assumption that Nichols’ Law is real.
  - Plank
    
    Nichols Law:
    
    http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Nichols_Law_Of_Catcher_Defense
    - Needed Pitching
      
      too late. I already had to google it. I also had to google ad hominem. I come to this blog to talk baseball, not to google stuff.
      
      /shakesfist
      - Plank
        
        I just had to AltaVista ‘google’. Thanks a lot, jerk.
        
        Needed Pitching
        
        well played, Mauer
        
        Alkaline
        
        Ha!
1stbase

I”am assuming they want cervelli to play everyday in case an injury to martin, he’ll come up and be ready to go full time
- Professor Longnose
  
  Cashman was on the radio at about 5:00. He said that with the injury to Romine, he wanted to beef up the catching so as not to be left short in an emergency. Cashman didn’t say it, but the reports were that Cervelli went down instead of the new guy because Cervelli has an option.
  - MannyGeee
    
    Seems incredibly shortsighted, considering :
    
    – Frankie isn’t gonna pull a Nova and come back up from his assignment as the reincarnation of Pudge
    – Chris Stewart kinda sucks, and trading Kontos for him seemed like a knee jerk reaction to the Romine injury (was he out of options?)
    – Cervelli ‘excelled’ in the role of once a week giving it his all.
    – Russell Martin catching 150 games scares the shit out of me, and/or catching every game in April. Durability has not exactly been his calling card…
    
    Something is amiss, I just don’t get it.
    - Havok9120
      
      If you’re asking if Kontos was out of options, no. He has all three I think. Stewart IS out of options, however.
      
      And yes, I don’t want Russ catching that many games either. And not even because I think he’ll break down, just because we saw what kind of offense he’s capable of when rested decently and I’d like to see that throughout a season even if it means his 30 games or so (plus whatever random baseball injuries sideline him for).
    - radnom
      
      Point by point….
      
      1. Cervelli does not need to improve in AAA for this to make sense, just hang out there and not get worse. Shoring up his defensive fundamentals would be nice.
      
      2. Kontos is organizational filler who’s internet overvalue is fueled by his minor league stats. Fair enough, thats basically all you have to go on for a guy like that, but this trade shows exactly what the Yankees think of him.
      
      3. He was brutal at times defensively last year. For his role, thats a big deal.
      
      4. In what universe does this mean Russell is catching 150 games?
      - MannyGeee
        
        points 1 & 4 are related… Cervelli in AAA means that Russell plays alot more games and rests less, or that Stewart takes those starts Cervelli had…
        
        Kontos was not the guy you NEEDED to trade, so leet him be an org guy, dont trade him for a replacement level catcher…
        
        and I used ‘excelled’ loosely, but he was esssentially the same guy whether he played once a week or once a month. that has some merit. and some value.
        
        not butt-hurt about the whole thing, it just sorta doesnt make sense is all.
        
        radnom
        
        Cervelli in AAA means that Russell plays alot more games
        
        Says you. There is no evidence for this, and if the Yankees felt Cervelli was enough of an upgrade over Stewart to effect Martin’s playing time – why would the trade have been made? You’re projecting your own evaluations of the players on to the Yankee’s future actions.
        
        Sure they didn’t need to trade Kontos. They needed/wanted some extra catching depth though. Not sure what your point there was. If they could have traded someone worse for the same player i’m sure they would. Org guys can be exchanged as fodder to shore up areas of weak depth – which is exactly what happened here.
Nick

I just dont get why we would trade a decent bullpen arm for a guy who is a dime a dozen on the free agent market
http://twitter.com/_swarlesbarkely Drew

No mention of the Yankees signing Ramon Ortiz?
Justin Maxwell’s Silver Hammer (formerly Rainbow Connection)

Send Josh Johnson to AAA.
Justin Maxwell’s Silver Hammer (formerly Rainbow Connection)

“No pain right now,”

Technically, there was no pain last week either, right? It was ‘soreness’.

Remember when people were making a big deal out of whether someone who barely speaks English as a second language actually intentionally used ‘soreness’ instead of ‘pain’?
- RetroRob
  
  No, but I do remember when Sammy Sosa and David Ortiz suddenly lost the ability to understand and speak English when asked about their use of PEDs.
  - Plank
    
    I’ve lived in foreign countries for years and years. I can speak Korean well enough to live my daily life. If I was brought before the national assembly to testify under oath and penalty of perjury if I made a mistake in my words, I would without a doubt have a translator.
vin

I didn’t read the whole thing, but I’m pretty sure the “former winners” link isn’t correct.
- Knoxvillain
  
  I think Cano won it and he’s just trying to be sneaky.
  - vin
    
    Yeah, I wondered that… but I’m curious to see who else won it. I suppose I could search the site for it. I seem to recall Shelley Duncan winning it, but I may be wrong.
- http://www.riveraveblues.com Mike Axisa
  
  Oops, my bad. Fixed.
  - vin
    
    Thank you, sir.
- Needed Pitching
  
  after reading that list of former winners, I can only conclude that David Phelps is doomed to fail
JobaWockeeZ

So did we get screwed from a futures game again?
- RetroRob
  
  What do you mean? Was there a game scheduled somewhere?
  - JobaWockeeZ
    
    Usually there’s one for each team in one of their final games. Last year we didn’t get because there was a schedule conflict or something. Looks like we won’t get one again.
    - Justin Maxwell’s Silver Hammer (formerly Rainbow Connection)
      
      The YANKEES are VItimZ!!!!
      - radnom
        
        Funny?
- Havok9120
  
  The 8th inning was as fun to watch as any futures game I’ve ever seen (not many).
  
  It was pretty darn amusing to watch them bat around.
vin

The only way the Kontos/Stewart deal makes any sense is if:
A) There’s another deal around the corner (involving Cervelli or maybe Romine). Which probably would’ve happened already.
B) They’re giving Gus Molina the professional courtesy of releasing him so he can catch on with another team rather than spending the year backing up Romine in AAA. Obviously the Tatum deal had already complicated matters.

I’m mostly curious about Jose Gil. Doesn’t the team owe it to themselves (and him) to see if he can hack it in AAA?
RetroRob

Just tuned in the Cardinals/Marlins game, hoping to see a HR and the whatever-that-thing is in CF go off.

No HR, but I did notice who I assume is Terry Francona is announcing and he sounds horrible. He doesn’t have a strong announcing voice to start, but the biggest problem is he sounds off mic, or the mic is broken, or something.
- Havok9120
  
  I really liked him in the ST game that crew did (I don’t get YES feeds all the time =( ). That was the Yanks-Boston game, and he had a very interesting take, both on Boston and the League as a whole.
  
  Oh, and a foul ball that almost hit the booth got tossed into it by a Sox fan after an autograph and he thought it was the coolest thing ever. That made me like him even more.
  - RetroRob
    
    I haven’t heard enough of him to have a strong opinion on his announcing skills. I had an issue with how low his mic was set. Very distant. Couple that with his voice and he wasn’t that easy to understand. Perhaps they’ve corrected it.
http://www.riveraveblues.com Mike Axisa

That was the perfect Kyle Lohse inning. Fly ball to the warning track, two rockets right at the defense.
- RetroRob
  
  …and so far it’s working. No-hitter through six. I’m guessing Cardinals’ manager Mike Matheny is hoping for a hit so he isn’t forced to extend his pitcher nine innings on his first start.
Raza

So.. The Orioles lost to Norfolk State University… They had most of the starters playing as well. Smh..
- Raza
  
  NVM.. They lost to their AAA squad. Which is still pretty sad.
  - Freddy Garcia’s 86 mph Heat
    
    They also lost to a minor league team yesterday
    - Rey22
      
      Oh LOLrioles.
      - MannyGeee
        
        Yeah, laugh now…. The late August Orioles sweep is inevitable. Right as rain, it’s gonna happen.
        
        Those fightin Showalters really like to break balls when they finally get in mid-season form (and when i say mid-season form, I mean 25 games below .500)
    - RetroRob
      
      I think they lost to a University squad yesterday, and it sounds like they lost to their AAA team today. Not sure, though.
      - Alkaline
        
        Can they do a switch? Bump their AAA team up to the majors?
      - Havok9120
        
        That’s exactly what happened. Well played Buck, well played.
  - Freddy Garcia’s 86 mph Heat
    
    Of course they get a hit right after ESPN tells us about the last Opening Day no hitter.
    - Freddy Garcia’s 86 mph Heat
      
      Didn’t mean to reply this here.
- vin
  
  Man, I have to google “smh” every single time I see it. It just won’t stick in my head for some reason.
MannyGeee

I would like to recant my previous statements on New Goya Field in Miami… My previous comments we’re based solely on still pics.

After getting a chance to sit down and watch an inning or 2 tonight, I got to say the park has some nice flow to it… Outside of the lime green walls and the Virgin of Guadalupe statue in LF, I kinda dig it…
- Betty Lizard
  
  I know a lot of posters hate it, but I love it.
  
  –It looks like a fun place to watch a game.
  
  –It does NOT look traditional, staid or North American–it looks transgressive and Carribean (“lazy”!).
  
  –That home run contraption makes me think of Shiva.
  
  –I’ll never tire of catchers checking to see if the fish are OK after they hit the wall behind home plate.
  - radnom
    
    I feel like all the people criticizing it have never been to Miami.
    - Robinson Tilapia
      
      I was raised there. Still think the outfield thing is garish but, yeah, it strangely fits.
  - MannyGeee
    
    yeah, you know how those Carribean stadiums can be… all firey and what-not…
    
    /Salty’d
- Plank
  
  I haven’t been there, but I love the vibe they are going for.
https://twitter.com/#!/Paddock9652 Stratman9652

Is Francona actually phoning in his commentary from a remote area or is it just a bad audio feed? He sounds a million miles away.
- RetroRob
  
  I noticed that earlier. I can’t believe they can’t fix is. If it’s a bad mic, replace it!
  - Havok9120
    
    It sounds fine on ESPN3; how odd.
Karl Krawfid

Clay Rapada
“@asianmegan: @pada5something you still look better in black & orange” debatable

lol
- Alkaline
  
  That made me laugh. I’m rooting for this guy now.
Greg

By the way, Kyle Lohse has a perfect game going through 6 innings
- Greg
  
  Sorry he hit a batter, but a no no is still intact
Greg

Reyes singles off Lohse to begin the seventh
- RetroRob
  
  Clearly you jinxed it. The baseball gods will punish you: You have been traded and are now a Mets fan.
  
  I’ll ignore that I might have also jinxed it higher up in the thread.
https://twitter.com/#!/Paddock9652 Stratman9652

That outfield looks HUGE.
mustang

Only in RAB can we make the trade of 26-year-old minor league reliever for a 30 year old back up catcher (both will probably suck) into a 3 thread long fight with people on the edge of killing each other over the net.

If I never said this I will say it now I LOVE YOU GUYS (tear running down my face).
Plank

There’s been a lot of hostility around here. There are a lot of young bucks moving in since it’s the start of the season (good) but a lot of them (and old posters, for that matter) are saying overly strong things not backed up by facts (bad). The recognition of humor seems to be on the downswing as well.

I feel like the commenting guidelines should be updated. Comments should be made with the intent of moving a discussion along.

“Cashman is an ass” – bad
“Cashman is an ass because…” – good

There are way too many ad hominem attacks lately, too. This is a baseball website. It’s not the end of the world.
- mustang
  
  “This is a baseball website. It’s not the end of the world.”
  
  I like to follow brother Plank with AMEN!!!!
- Alkaline
  
  Well said. I’m one of the new bucs you mentioned, but I thoroughly enjoy the thought out discussions and opinions on this site.
  - MannyGeee
    
    wait till the in-game threads… thought out discussions and opinions go right out the window come the first blown hold by Soriano or the inievitible PastaDiving Jeter in the 3rd inning on Friday…
    
    enjoy the depth while you can
    - Alkaline
      
      Yeah, I lurk enough sites to know. I used to go to the forums on the yanks main site and read that info. Got the link to here from that site. Best thing I ever did, haha.
      - RetroRob
        
        Don’t worry. Even the game threads here have more to offer than those other sites.
  - mustang
    
    Welcome.
- Robinson Tilapia
  
  I heard LoHud had bedbugs. Must explain it.
  
  Yes, though. Very well put.
- Havok9120
  
  Indeed. We’ve gotten far too bored with Spring Training and its boiled over. Every regular (save the ones who now lurk/show up during the season) has been guilty of this at least once. Most of them us(do I count?) several times. I know I’ve been guilty of it a few times.
  
  Its baseball. We can disagree and nothing will change or be damaged. What’s more, if you disagree in one thread (or even, gasp, mulitiple threads) there’s no reason to turn that into a blood feud that lasts days, weeks, or longer.
  
  Besides, ST is over. Be happy peoples. =)
MannyGeee

off topic:

I saw some ‘missed queues’ from Reyes and Hanley out there tonight (costing them at least one run) and Ozzie looking like someone ran his dog over…

How long are we giving it before shit gets real in Miami? May 15? Ozzie is gonna knock one of them out? Big Z throws the gatorade jug at Hanley?

I mean, ‘Los Marlins’ just has Jets 2012 written all over it, doesn’t it?
- mustang
  
  May 15? How about April 5?
  
  It’s going to great to watch.
  - mustang
    
    It’s going to be great to watch.
- mustang
  
  Wow just went over their roster I think this is my team to hate in the NL.
  
  1-Overpaid SS
  
  2-Lf- who has been disciplined for texting too much.
  
  3- A nut bag starter.
  
  4- a big mouth manager
  
  5- an unhappy/ happy 3rd basement.
  
  Your 2012 Marlins a sportswriter wet dream.
  - Havok9120
    
    Yeah, both of them will love it.
    
    /notabaseballcityyet’d
Cross

Francona sounded like he was on a bad phoneline, and how awful was that anthem?

Cervelli really got screwed today. I don’t get WTF Cashman is doing with this trade.
Havok9120

I felt terrible for Cervelli today. Reading about his reaction and his quotes made me pretty sad.
- RetroRob
  
  I felt bad for him too since he had no idea it was coming. He emotionally wasn’t even preparing for it. It wasn’t on the radar screen as a possibility, not just for the Cisco Kid, but the media and the fans. I think that’s why it drove such a negative initial reaction.
  
  It’s not like there’s any great love for Cervelli here, but the first reaction was wonderment as to why the Yankees on the last day of ST would trade for a catcher who wasn’t any improvement over Cervelli (what value they deliver is in different areas), hadn’t caught any of the Yankees pitchers, and gave up a possible MLB arm in the process. It wasn’t as if on the last day of ST the Yankees decided, “OMG, there’s no way in hell we can have Franco as our back-up catcher, even though he’s been just that for the three prior seasons!”
  
  Yet once I looked at why the Yankees did it, it made great sense. Cervelli just got caught in a situation where he had a minor league option and Stewart didn’t. This was the only way the Yankees could keep both in the organization.
  
  Yet Cervelli will be back and he will be back this year. Yet he should get used to this. The good news is that Cervelli will still have opportunities to play on the MLB level a decade from now. He is an experienced MLB catcher and teams are always on the hunt for backups. The bad news is he is going to spent a lot of time bouncing back and forth, and soon he will also be spending a lot of time bouncing from team to team.
  
  What’s really going to suck is he goes from the Yankees to the Empire State AAA farm club. The team with no home.
  - Plank
    
    I wonder where guys like Nova, Cervelli, etc live during the season. Do they live in small places in case they get optioned to the minors? Do they get a sweet apartment in the city that a person making 480K would get?
    
    Do they just live in hotels? The mind boggles.
Chris

What is a “simulated game” for Rivera? 15 pitches, someone throws a broken bat up the 3rd base line then they play New York New York?
Billion$Bullpen

I think this trade that moves Franky to AAA is a case of Cashman making moves because he is overthinking things. Sometimes the best move is no move. I think that would have been the case here.