Wednesday Night Open Thread

by 27 Comments

FanGraphs Q&A with Matt Thornton
2014 Yankees ZiPS Projections

Rumor has it Carlos Beltran will be introduced at a press conference on Friday, though the Yankees have not yet officially announced anything. If true, the announcement should come within the next 24 hours or so. I’m guessing the Yankees will wait until after the holidays to finalize the Brian Roberts and Matt Thornton signings. That will give them some time to get the 40-man roster situation figured out.

This is your open thread for the evening. Every local hockey and basketball club is in action except for the Islanders, so lots to talk about. Anything goes here. Enjoy.

FanGraphs Q&A with Matt Thornton
2014 Yankees ZiPS Projections
  • http://www.penuel-law.com/ Cuso

    Oooh!! Baseball is on tonight! Sweet!

    Meh…on a side note: anyone notice the mass amount of Yankee-bashing articles out there today?

  • Adam

    Zips projections came out today and are not encouraging.

    • Jorge Steinbrenner

      What time is first pitch at the stadium tomorrow?

      • http://www.twitter.com/thewallbreakers Scully

        Thank you.

      • Ice

        HAHA! Typical. You were so spot on last year with your predictions. YAWN CITY.

        Is the egg even off your face yet??

        • Macho Man “Randy Levine”

          What predictions were those? The ones you dreamed up to attack him?

          • Jorge Steinbrenner

            Robinson Tilapia says:
            December 18, 2012 at 8:22 pm

            TEH YANKEEZ WILL GO 162-0 NEXT SEASON EVERYTHING IS PURRFECT CAN I HAVE SOME MORE MILK MOM

            He got me.

  • Marcos

    IMO the Yankees are not as bad as some are predicting. The strating lineup even with the loss of Cano is MUCH improved and as long as we can get Tanaka and hopefully resign Reynolds our 25 man roster is extremely solid.

    C- McCann
    C- Cervelli
    1B- Tex
    2B- Roberts
    2B- Anna
    SS- Jeter
    SS- Ryan
    3B/2B/OF- Johnson
    3B/1B- Reynolds
    RF/DH- Beltran
    RF/LF/DH- Soriano
    CF- Ellsbury
    LF/CF- Gardner
    SP- CC
    SP- Kuroda
    SP- Tanaka
    SP- Nova
    SP- Pineda
    CL- Robertson
    Setup- Kelly
    LOOGY- Thornton
    LOOGY- Cabral
    Middle- Claiborne
    Middle/Long- Warren
    Swing Man- Phelps

    I like this roster!!!

    • FLYER7

      Id swap out Cervelli for Murphy, Claiborne for Betances and break camp…I think Noonie and Cervy make for trade bait for some minor league depth

      • CS Yankee

        +1

        Except that they’ll likely keep Anna down & either Ichi or Wells active.

        Thinking the biggest long shot to be playing come September would be either Pineda or Roberts…I would bet Arod has a better chance than those two guys.

    • hsedsie

      And what happened to Ichiro and Wells?

  • KennyH123

    Reynolds occasionally hits one out. Otherwise, he strikes out all the time, cannot play a position effectively, and is a .205 hitter. Hoping he signs tells you all you need to know about this roster.

    This is a potentially a bad team. Fragile aging lineup, nobody even close to Cano to scare the other team, and still NO PITCHING.

    • Get Phelps Up (looking for a new name)

      Reynolds has hit .205 or under in a season exactly once in his career.

    • Alkaline

      While it’s a potentially bad team, it’s also equally a potentially good team.

    • CS Yankee

      Beltran, Sori, McCann & Teix strike fear…Robbie did too but he also gave away a bunch of AB’s

    • JRod

      An utterly fatuous and factually incorrect assertion.

  • Alkaline

    You know what I dislike about not getting Choo? I can’t make any Choo puns now.

  • Marcos

    I agree losing Cano hurts, but losing Cano while adding McCann, Ellsbury, Beltran, Tex and Jeter is a much improved offense from last year. The concern I have is with the pitching staff. It has the potential to be real good but also real bad…. But that was the same problem the Red Sox had last year and look how it turned out for them

    • Alkaline

      I don’t know what reasonable expectations are, but I would love for Tex to come back and play a huge role. He’s a big X factor.

  • Kenny

    “According to Sports Hochi in Japan, the Rakuten Golden Eagles are prepared to offer Masahiro Tanaka an $8 million salary to stay with the team next season.
    It would be the largest single-season salary ever for a Nippon Professional Baseball player, per Patrick Newman of NPB Tracker.”

    • CS Yankee

      & likely less than half of his AVV to pitch stateside.

  • Mandy Stankiewicz

    “Mariners officials are signaling to agents and others in the industry that they could be nearing their payroll limit, according to Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. Rosenthal opines that, if true, this makes the decision to spent the majority of their available funds on Robinson Cano shows that there was no plan in place for the Mariners.”

    http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2013/12/mariners-could-be-nearing-payroll-limit.html