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Winning the battle to get traded
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New York Yankees’ Sergio Mitre delivers a warm up pitch in the second inning of a spring training baseball game against the Tampa Bay Rays, in Port Charlotte, Fla., Friday, March 19, 2010. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
On a spring-like Friday, Joel Sherman dropped the not-so-breaking news that the Yankees will probably trade either Sergio Mitre or Chad Gaudin before Spring Training is out. Both of these vets have bounced around the league, and neither figures to be too high up on the Yanks’ depth charts. The team can’t send either to AAA, and instead of wasting roster spots, the Yankees will try to turn their surplus into something at all.
But who will go? In writing about it here yesterday, Mike voiced the prevalent opinion that Gaudin will stay. The soon-to-be 27-year-old has a better career track record than Mitre and has posted league-average numbers in the American League over 463 innings. Mitre, meanwhile, is 29 and with no real record of success. He wasn’t a highly-touted prospect while with the Cubs, and he hasn’t been very effective at getting outs as a Major Leaguer.
Yet the allure of Spring Training stats is strong with this one. Last night, in the Yanks’ 6-2 loss to the Rays, Mitre started and was stellar. Facing Major Leaguers who will make up most of Tampa’s Opening Day lineup, he threw 5 innings and gave up two runs on a pair of hits and a walk. He struck out seven. Gaudin relieved him and wasn’t effective. In 2.1 innings, Chad allowed three earned runs on seven hits and three walks. He struck out just one and walked away with his third loss on the spring. The appearance effectively ended Gaudin’s hopes of landing the fifth starting spot.
On the spring, these two pitchers spot opposite numbers. Mitre has been the Yanks’ best starter. In 14 innings, he has allowed five runs on nine hits. He has walked three while striking out 14. Gaudin, meanwhile, has thrown 9.1 innings and has given up nine earned runs on 16 hits and five walks. He has struck out just five. Despite Mitre’s tradeability due to his lower salary, one might be tempted to say it is a no-brainer.
But the real question concerns Mitre. With a career K/9 IP of 5.5, e’s never been a strike out pitcher, and he’s having a Spring Training that makes one think of a flash in the pan. It’s true he’s another winter of strengthening away from Tommy John surgery, but nothing in his pre-surgical record suggests he will keep up this pitching success. Gaudin, at least, can rest on his AL laurels.
In the end, the Yanks don’t need to make a decision yet. They don’t need a fifth starter until late April and could juggle the rotation to keep both around until the right offer comes. When it’s time to trade one of them, though, I’d be far less sad to see Mitre vanish into the ether of the NL. He may be the Yanks’ Grapefruit League Cy Young, but history is littered with those pitchers who are Spring Training All Stars and revert to form come the regular season.
Sanchez, Pope sent down
Posted by: | CommentsVia Bryan Hoch, we learn this afternoon that the Yankees have made two more cuts from the Big League camp. Ryan Pope — 3 G, 3 IP, 1 H, 3 K — has been reassigned to the minor league camp, and Romulo Sanchez — 4 G, 3.2 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 4 BB, 3 K — has been optioned to AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Despite less than stellar Spring Training numbers, the Yankees will probably give Sanchez some Major League innings at some point this season if and when the bullpen needs some help. Slowly, slowly, the roster is getting whittled down.
A peek at some Spring Training numbers
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Nick Johnson has been a bright spot for the Yankees offensively this spring. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
We don’t spend much time on Spring Training results. They are largely irrelevant, and the teams themselves are looking more at process, strength and red flags than who wins, who loses and who compiles the biggest stats. Some games end with tied scores and others have a bottom of the 9th after the home team has already won so that a pitcher can get some extra work in. It’s a relaxed atmosphere where players who start often don’t even know who won or who lost.
With their win over Tampa Bay last night, the Yanks wrapped up their 15th Grapefruit League game of the year, and in 16 days, 10 hours and approximately 35 minutes from when this post is published, the team will face off against the Red Sox in a game that counts. So at Spring Training’s halfway point, let’s have some fun with numbers.
NJ leading the way
Nick Johnson, the man atop this post who was brought back to the Bronx to the be the OBP machine at DH, has led the team offensively so far. In 18 ABs, he’s hitting .389/.478/1.000 with three home runs, a pair of doubles and four walks. Robinson Cano is having himself a nifty spring as well with a .400/.444/.520 triple slash line in 25 ABs, and Mark Teixeira is right there with him. The switch-hitting first baseman sports a .333/.417/.619 line in 21 ABs.
Of those not likely to make the team, Colin Curtis leads the way. He has just ten at-bats this spring, but two of them have resulted in three-run home runs. His seven RBIs lead all Yankees, and the 25-year-old has certainly flashed some offense this month. Jon Weber is 8 for 15, and Kevin Russo is 6 for 17. Juan Miranda, auditioning for a trade or a bench spot, is just 4 for 23.
The guys fighting for spots and playing time are faring a bit worse. Brett Gardner has four walks but is just six for 25. Jamie Hoffmann has three hits in 21 ABs but has just one strike out. At least he’s making contact. Randy Winn is four for 21 with six K’s, and all four of his hits were singles. Spring Training invitee Marcus Thames is three for 21 with seven whiffs.
Aceves strong in the early going
For the Yankee hurlers, Alfredo Aceves has led the way. He has tossed a team-high 10 innings and has allowed just one run on three hits. He hasn’t issued a free pass and has struck out five. He should again turn out a solid season from the pen as he morphs into this generation’s Ramiro Mendoza.
Beyond Aceves, Javier Vazquez has turned in an admirable spring as well. In three outings, he has unsurprisingly surrendered three home runs, but he has struck out nine while walking just three in eight innings. If he can maintain that K:BB ratio, he’ll be just fine this summer. Sergio Mitre, another year removed from Tommy John surgery, has impressed as well. In nine innings, he has surrendered three runs on seven hits while walking two and striking out seven. Mark Melancon — 5.2 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 7 K — remains a sleeper candidate for the bullpen.
The guys who have struggled on the mound include some big names. CC Sabathia sports an ERA north of 8.00 right now, and Joba Chamberlain, coming off of a strong outing on Wednesday, has allowed 12 in 6.2 innings with a K:BB ratio of 5:7. Jonathan Albaladejo holds the title for worst of camp though. In 2 innings, he has given up 15 hits and 10 earned runs.
It’s tempting to draw conclusions from this numbers, but there’s nothing much here. Players have too few at-bats, and pitchers are working to get a feel for pitchers. As long as no one gets hurt, the results are secondary. We’ll worry about the results in April.
Photo credits: Colin Curtis via AP Photo/Brian Blanco. Alfredo Aceves via AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar.
To be 12 and a Yankee fan as the Mariners won
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When I was 12 years old, the Seattle Mariners broke my heart. A perfectly-placed double by Edgar Martinez in the bottom of the 11th inning on a Sunday night in early October sent the Yankees home after a thrilling ALDS. It was the first Yankee playoff appearance of my life, and while the memories of it would be erased by a half a decade of World Series dominance, it was a crushing, stinging defeat for this young baseball fan.
Now, that series with Ken Griffey’s tremendous display of power, David Cone’s gutsy pitching, the emergence of Mariano Rivera, Don Mattingly’s last hurrah, the Martinezes’ — Edgar and Tino — constant bludgeoning of the Yankees and, of course, Randy Johnson’s relief appearance, has been immortalized by Chris Donnelly in a wonderful new book. Called Baseball’s Greatest Series, Donnelly explores how the 1995 ALDS match-up between the Yankees and the Mariners, in his words, changed history. It brought about key changes in New York that led to a dynasty and saved baseball as we know it in Seattle.
What most Yankee fans sitting 3,000 miles away from Seattle know about that 1995 series concerns the way it changed the Yankees. The Yankees left New York up 2-0 on the Mariners and had to return east losers of three straight, the first of the three great Yankee collapses during their magical dynasty run. That loss — with the shaky John Wetteland in the bullpen, with Mariano Rivera underutilized, with Jack McDowell on the mound, with a tight and tense Yankee clubhouse and a cantankerous owner — led to the ouster of Buck Showalter and the dawn of a new day. Getting to that point, though, was a battle.
Donnelly begins his tale in New York with a history of the Yankees from 1981 to 1995. It is a sad tale and one we’ve told in bits and pieces this winter. George Steinbrenner turned from a crazy win-now owner into a meddlesome and obsessed win-at-all-costs-yesterday owner. The Yanks fell just short of the playoffs in 1985 and couldn’t recover for nearly a decade after Steinbrenner was suspended from baseball and the Yanks’ baseball minds could put together a better team.
Necessarily, the New York part of the story focuses on Don Mattingly. A lynch pin for the Yanks throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, by 1995 he was a shell of his former self, and that 1995 ALDS was his only playoff appearance as a player. Mattingly hit .417/.440/.708 in his last games as a Major Leaguer, but with the likes of Dion James, Randy Velarde, Tony Fernandez and Ruben Sierra all faltering behind him, it wasn’t enough.
In Seattle, meanwhile, the story is more vital for the Mariners. While the Yanks’ loss led to a dynasty, the Mariners’ victory ensured the Pacific Northwest that baseball would survive there. Prior to 1995, the Mariners were a sad franchise that never enjoyed much success. They played in a dreary dome that remained mostly empty for decades, and as 1995 dawned, the team needed a new stadium or they would decamp for Tampa Bay.
As the Mariners climbed back from a late-season 12-game deficit to make the playoffs, Seattle became, in the span of one year, a baseball town. The story ends not with a Mariners’ loss to the Indians in the ALCS, but with a new stadium for the team and a decade-long rivalry with the Yanks. As hard as it is to believe now, but the Mariners were three outs away from leaving Seattle. The Yankees just couldn’t get those three outs.
The Yankees, meanwhile, blew it. As would be the case in the desert in 2001 and in Boston and New York in 2004, the Yankees were on the precipice of playoff victory and couldn’t seal the deal. They headed west triumphant with a two games to none lead in the best-of-five series. They went down against Randy Johnson in Game 3. The Big Unit, a playoff bugaboo both pitching against and for the Yankees through 2006, struck out 10. In Game 4, the team jumped out to a 5-0 lead and was outscored 11-3 over the last six innings. Scott Kamieniecki, Sterling Hitchcock, Bob Wickman, John Wetteland and Steve Howe just couldn’t get it done.
And then there was Game 5. It was a tense affair for the Yankees. George Steinbrenner had grown to hate the popular Buck Showalter, and Showalter’s tense managerial style clearly had an impact on the team. But the Yanks had a lead heading into the late innings. They went up 4-2 when a Don Mattingly double unfortunately bounced over the wall. Much as he could not when a Tony Clark double bounced over the wall in Fenway nine years later, Ruben Sierra was not allowed to score on Mattingly’s ball. It was the first bad bounce to change baseball history.
David Cone stayed in too long, and the Mariners tied it up in the 8th. Mariano Rivera came in to clean up the mess, and the Yankees finally recognized the weapon that would fully emerge in 1996. When the Big Unit came in to pitch in relief, the Yankees were in trouble. They eked out a run in the 11th, but Jack McDowell couldn’t hold it. Joey Cora singled, Ken Griffey singled, and Edgar Martinez roped a double down the line. It was all over.
Donnelly’s storytelling as the games unfold is a pleasure. More than once, I had to put the book down to gather myself when I knew the inning or the game wasn’t going to end for the Yankees. As the team gathered in tears in the visitors’ clubhouse in Seattle, I thought back to my frustrations as a young baseball fan. After the strike-shortened season of 1994, baseball needed a thrilling postseason, but Yankee fans wanted wins. We knew Mattingly would retire; we knew Showalter would be fired. But we didn’t know what glory awaited.
Baseball’s Greatest Series doesn’t dwell much on the game past 1995, and it doesn’t have to. It’s a great complement to Buster Olney’s The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty in that it dissects a transformative moment in baseball — and Yankee history — and shows how it led to a different era for the game. It’s heartbreaking to read about the stunning Yankee losses, and Edgar’s double burns just as badly as Luis Gonzalez’s single. But it’s a more interesting read than a profile of the 1990s dynasty teams.
Donnelly’s story, in the end, is about baseball’s redemption after a pointless strike. It’s about the way George Steinbrenner loomed over the Yankees and how the team’s loss in Seattle turned them into a winner despite the Boss’ crankiest moments. It’s about how the Mariners needed that win and how, with a bounding ball into left field, Seattle erupted, New York cried and we had to wait, without knowing what 1996 would bring, until next year yet again.
Chris Donnelly’s Baseball’s Greatest Series: Yankees, Mariners, and the 1995 Matchup That Changed History
2010 Season Preview: Strength from the back end
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During their run through October in 2009, the Yankees made headlines for their pitching. Not only did their starters excel, throwing few clunkers in the 15 games it took the Yanks to grab their 27th headline, but they ran through the Twins, Angels and Phillies while employing just three starters. It was impressive, but it underscored a weakness in the back end of the Yankee rotation.
To address that problem, Brian Cashman made a pair of moves with Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain waiting in the wings. The initial no-brainer was to re-sign Andy Pettitte to a one-year, $11.75-million. Instead of debating about retirement, Pettitte, coming off a season in which he won the clinching games for the AL East, ALDS, ALDCS and World Series, finalized his deal in early December. The second move was a big one. On December 22, the Yanks sent Melky Cabrera, Michael Dunn and Arodys Vizcaino to the Braves for Javier Vazquez. The righty last threw a pitch for the Yanks in the 2004 ALCS, and his return to the Bronx offers him a shot at pressure-free redemption.
With these two in tow for the third and fourth starter spots, the Yankees can mix and match with the best of them. The rotation will be fronted by CC and A.J., a lefty and a righty, with Andy Pettitte, lefty, and Javier Vazquez, a righty, picking up the slack. With four veterans in place, each capable of throwing over 190 innings, the Yanks can use their fifth starter as a no-pressure spot for one of the kids, and if this rotation isn’t the best in the game, it’s certainly in the top five.
Pre-season accolades sound well and good, but what can we expect from Andy Pettitte and Javier Vazquez? The doubters among us may be tempted to look at the negatives. Pettitte, after all, will turn 38 in June and has had a minor history of elbow problems. Vazquez had a stellar year in the NL in 2009, but he left New York after falling apart in 2004. Yankee fans remember him for surrendering a Johnny Damon Grand Slam in a no-win situation and not his 10-5 first half that netted him an All Star game appearance.
First, let’s tackle Pettitte. In 2009, Andy made 32 starts and went 14-8 over 194.2 regular season innings. He had a 4.16 ERA and struck out 148 while walking 76. In the postseason, he threw 30.2 more innings and sported an ERA of 3.52. His 2010 projections are rosy indeed:
Basically, as one of the Yanks’ mid-rotation starters — the labels third or fourth don’t really matter — Pettitte is expected to regress slightly. We could see the regular season ERA tick up by approximately 0.10 runs while the innings, strike out and walk rates dip by a start or so. If Pettitte can match his projections while pitching in the AL East, the Yankees would be thrilled.
So what to look for in Pettitte’s 2010? Well, the biggest concern for him is the way he approaches pitching in Yankee Stadium. Early on last year, Andy was vocal about his dislike of the new ballpark, and it showed in his numbers. His road ERA was 3.71 while his home mark was 4.59. He surrendered 70 percent of his home runs at home, and opponents OPS’d nearly .130 points higher in the Bronx. At home, Pettitte will have to be a different pitcher to enjoy greater success, and in 2010, we’ll see if he can continue to pull a Mike Mussina and reinvent himself as a strategic thrower. Knowing that he can’t throw the fastball past too many hitters today, he’s well on his way to that goal.
And then we have Javier Vazquez. In 2009, he was great. He went 15-10 with a 2.87 ERA and finished fourth in the NL Cy Young voting. He threw 219.1 innings, struck out 238 and walked just 44. By issuing so few free passes, the 20 home runs he allowed didn’t come back to bite him. He is, however, third on the active home runs list, and that moniker Home Run Javy isn’t undeserved. His 2010 looks fantastic on paper.
The projections expect a top season for Javier Vazquez and numbers that would make him the team’s second best starter. The 23 home runs allowed may be on the optimistic side, but if he throws 204.1 innings with 196 strike outs and a 3.60 ERA, the fans would embrace him. For Javy, though, the key will be the bases on balls. Pitching at Yankee Stadium, he will, for better or worse, give up his fair share of long balls, but if he can limit the damage, much the better.
In a way, the Yankees are taking a gamble on their third and fourth starter tandem this year. The team could have opted to re-up with Pettitte and slot in both Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes in the fourth and fifth spots. At some point, after all, the team is going to have to develop its own pitchers and give the kids a chance to throw enough innings for a full season’s worth of work. On the other hand, when the team tried that in 2008, it backfired before April was over.
So the Yankees will head into 2010 with two guys pitching in their walk years occupying the middle spots of the rotation. We might be seeing Andy Pettitte’s final year in baseball. We might be watching Javier Vazquez’s redemption tour in New York City. We might worry about regressions and injuries, but that comes with the pitching territory across the board. The Yankees needed an arm to take the innings pressure off of CC, A.J. and Andy after a long 2009, and that’s Javier Vazquez’s job. There are worse men for the position. With two veterans in the back end, the Yanks’ rotation is sitting pretty for 2010.
AP Photo of Javier Vazquez by Kathy Willens. AP Photo of Andy Pettitte by Elise Amendola.
Single-game tickets on sale this Friday
Posted by: | CommentsOne of the questions most frequently asked of us concerns the Yanks’ single-game ticket sales. “When will it be?” fans wonder from December until nearly Opening Day. Well, the wait is over, As the Yankees announced via Twitter this afternoon, a limited number of single-game tickets will go on sale this Friday at noon via Yankees.com and Ticketmaster by phone. Next Wednesday, March 24, tickets will be available at the Yankee Stadium ticket windows, Ticketmaster outlets and Yankee Clubhouse Stores. The team hasn’t said how many tickets are available, but based on the number of season ticket packages sold, it won’t be many.
The Boston angle of the Ronan Tynan story
Posted by: | CommentsWhen the embattled Ronan Tynan departed New York for Boston, many in New York wondered he would defect to the Red Sox and grace (or torture, depending upon your view of things) Fenway Park with his rendition of “God Bless America.” If The Boston Globe’s Kevin Cullen has his way, that’s exactly what Tynan will be doing come Opening Day when the Yanks are in town. Cullen profiled Tynan’s move up to Boston in the wake of fall from Yankee grace following a joke made at the expense of two of Tynan’s Jewish neighbors. While the tenor continues to insist that some of his best friends are Jewish and that his joke was not meant to be malicious, he had to leave the city after few wanted to fraternize with him. Whether he takes the mic at Fenway in three weeks or not, I can’t say I’ll miss him too much.
Jeter, Rivera could be dragged into Clemens/McNamee fray
Posted by: | CommentsAs Brian McNamee and Roger Clemens continue their “he said/he said” spat, most people — and particularly the Yankees — would prefer it if this mess would stay far, far away from the Bronx. McNamee, however, has other plans.
According to the Daily News, in a brief filed on Friday and not yet available to me via the PACER system, McNamee has named a handful of current Yankees as potential witnesses in Clemens’ defamation suit against McNamee. Nathaniel Vinton has more:
The Yankees have never relished the destructive defamation suit former pinstripe hero Roger Clemens brought two years ago against his accuser, former Yankee trainer Brian McNamee, but bigger headaches for the club may yet lie ahead according to a new appeals-court brief issued by McNamee’s defense attorneys.
A footnote deep in the 60-page brief lists current Yankee stars Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera, and Derek Jeter as witnesses McNamee might call to the stand for sworn testimony about Clemens’ purported use of steroids and human growth hormone. Also listed among potential witnesses for McNamee is Angela Moyer, an alleged mistress of Clemens who tended bar near the Upper East Side apartment where McNamee said he visited Clemens after Yankee games to inject the pitcher with steroids and human growth hormone (Clemens has testified he thought the syringes contained vitamin B12).
The brief, which McNamee’s attorneys sent Friday to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, portrays Clemens’ defamation suit as nearly dead in the water. It comes in response to Clemens’ appeal of a lower court’s ruling last year that eviscerated the suit, which Clemens first brought against McNamee on Jan. 6, 2008, three weeks after a report by former Senator George Mitchell first publicized McNamee’s accusations. Mitchell was also listed as a potential witness. He and the others could also be summoned to testify as part of a defamation countersuit that McNamee himself brought against Clemens last year in a federal court in Brooklyn — and will likely pursue, at least in order to recover his monumental legal fees.
If McNamee’s brief is as convincing as the Daily News says it is, the Yankees could be free of having to send their star players to testify. McNamee’s side could file for summary judgment and hope to get the case’s original dismissal affirmed. However, McNamee will continue to push his countersuit in Brooklyn, and only a settlement would stave off a trial.
For the Yankees, Spring Training steroid stories are becoming old hat, and the Roger Clemens mess has been lingering like a bad taste in the back of the team’s mouth since the Rocket’s ill-fated 2007 return to the Bronx. Hopefully, this story will just go away, but then again, we’ve all been hoping that for years with no end in sight.
Nine reassigned to minor league camps
Posted by: | CommentsOn the same day we learned that the Yankees re-upped with their pre-arbitration players, we also heard of the first round of Spring Training cuts. Bryan Hoch has word of nine reassignments. Of the big names, Andrew Brackman is bound for Class A Tampa while Christian Garcia will go to Trenton and Wilkin De la Rosa will open the year in AAA. De la Rosa could very well see the Bronx later this year. Six other players — Wilkins Arias, Jeremy Bleich, Kyle Higashioka, Kei Igawa, D.J. Mitchell, Kevin Whelan — were sent to the minor league camp with no word of their ultimate assignments. At least the winningest pitcher in Scranton history will be able to improve upon his record.
Late-night reading: a roundtable talk on the Yanks
Posted by: | CommentsIf this were the regular season, we’d be going a little baseball stir crazy after two consecutive rainouts, and with the entire Grapefruit League slate canceled today, we can’t even do much scoreboard watching right now. For a great baseball fix, though, check out this roundtable fellow YES blogger Steven Goldman conducted with Jay “The Mustache” Jaffe and Cliff Corcoran. The three discuss the Yanks’ fifth starter battle, making too much out of Spring Training starts and the Joba-Phil debate. We’ve been talking about many of those issues at RAB, and it’s interesting to hear these three vets of the online Yankee space talking it up. No one much likes the idea of sending Joba back to the pen after getting him ready to throw an uncapped season as a starter this year, and the Yanks’ future plans for their young pitchers could very well be determined over the next three weeks.
