News Archives - River Avenue Blues

Saturday Links: Judge, Playoffs, Cave, Automatic Strike Zone

August 19, 2017 by Mike Axisa Leave a Comment

The Yankees and Red Sox will continue their three-game weekend series later tonight at Fenway Park. That’s a 7pm ET start. Remember when they used to play baseball on Saturday afternoons? That was fun. Anyway, here are some links and notes to check out until first pitch.

Yankees not considering moving Judge to first base

According to David Lennon and Bob Klapisch, the Yankees have not considering moving Aaron Judge to first base to unclog the outfield logjam and potentially address first base long-term. Judge did play first base in high school, you know. He moved to the outfield in college because Fresno State already had a pretty good first baseman. Even if the Yankees were considering moving Judge, they wouldn’t do it midseason. They’d wait until Spring Training.

Two thoughts on this. One, Judge’s right field defense is way too good right now to move him. He’s an asset out there, particularly his throwing. Move him to first base and you’re wasting his arm. And two, I think it’s only a matter of time until Judge winds up at first base permanently. There’s a reason you don’t see many players that size running around the outfield. It’s tough on the knees and tough on the body. That doesn’t mean Judge will have to move to first base next year. But maybe in four or five years? Yeah, it’s possible. Right now though, it is not a consideration for the Yankees, and that is absolutely the right move in my opinion.

Hal says missing postseason would be a “failure”

It seems the Yankees have gone from “World Series or bust” to “transition year” to “postseason or bust” within the last 18 months or so. Earlier this week, Hal Steinbrenner said it would be a “failure” if the Yankees missed the playoffs this year. “If we don’t make the playoffs, it’s a failure … It’s been a tough last two months for the most part. But I think they’re coming out of it … (We’re) going to have a strong last five, six weeks,” said Hal to Anthony Castrovince.

The continued shift in expectations this year has been pretty fascinating. The Yankees sold at the trade deadline last year and, for the most part, I think people considered this a “step back before taking a step forward” year. Break in some young players, deal with the growing pains, then gear up for 2018. Instead, the young players hit the ground running and the Yankees got off to a great start. They’ve been a .500-ish team for three months now though. It went from “rebuilding year” to “let’s shock the world!” to “please just get a wildcard spot.” If the Yankees miss the postseason now, it’ll feel like a disappointment. Five months ago, it was kinda expected.

Four Yankees among most improved prospects

Dan Szymborski used his ZiPS system to find the position player and pitching prospects who have improved their stock the most this season. In a nutshell, he compared each player’s preseason projection to their current projection. He lists 18 prospects total and four are Yankees:

RHP Chance Adams: 5.32 ERA preseason to 4.35 ERA now
OF Jake Cave: .617 OPS preseason to .709 OPS now
1B Garrett Cooper: .679 OPS preseason to .751 OPS now
RHP Domingo German: 5.70 ERA preseason to 4.88 ERA now

SS Gleyber Torres and OF Billy McKinney were among the honorable mentions. The Cave projection is most interesting to me because ZiPS basically says he made the jump from non-prospect to potential fourth outfielder this season. From the write-up:

Of the 1,400 projections for hitters run by ZiPS coming into 2017 (about 1,250 “official” ones and 150 for prospects at very low levels for which I have little confidence), only four players got a larger boost than Cave’s 92-point OPS boost: Ryan Zimmerman, Aaron Judge, Justin Smoak and Zack Cozart.

…

ZiPS still isn’t convinced Cave will be more than a fourth outfielder, but it’s damn hard to add 100 points of OPS to a projection in four months.

Huh. Cave will be a minor league free agent this offseason and I think it’s likely the Yankees will add him to the 40-man roster and make sure he doesn’t get away. He is going to be 25 in December, so he’s not super young, but hit .343/.387/.610 (176 wRC+) with 13 homers in 54 Triple-A games while playing center field, and you’re going to make yourself worth keeping around.

Electronic strike zone not on the horizon

No surprise here, but commissioner Rob Manfred told Anthony Castrovince the league is not close to implementing an electronic strike zone. The technology isn’t there yet, and even once it is available, Manfred is leery of moving away from human umpires. Balls and strikes are everything to umpires. I suspect they’ll fight an electronic strike zone tooth and nail when the time comes.

Personally, I don’t have much interest in an electronic strike zone. Yes, I would like the umpires to be better behind the plate, but I feel like an electronic zone would take more away from the game than it would provide. Consistency is boring. Also, I get the sense that shifting to an electronic strike zone would have some unintended consequences. We could see some pretty drastic shifts in pitcher (and therefore hitter) performance with an unambiguous zone.

Jeter becomes a dad

And finally, Derek Jeter is now officially a father. Derek and Hannah welcomed their daughter, Bella Raine Jeter, into the world on Thursday, it was announced on The Players’ Tribune (of course). Congrats to them. Not a bad gene pool to come from, huh?

Saturday Links: Jeter, Postseason Schedule, Players Weekend

August 12, 2017 by Mike Axisa Leave a Comment

The Yankees and Red Sox continue their three-game weekend series with the middle game later today. It’s a 4pm ET start. Here are some links and notes to check out until game time.

Jeter agrees to purchase the Marlins (again)

A few weeks after his agreement to purchase the Marlins with Jeb Bush fell through, Derek Jeter has another deal in place to buy the team, reports Barry Jackson. Jeter teamed up with rich dude Bruce Sherman and several other minority investors (including Michael Jordan) to buy the team. The sale price is $1.2 billion — that’s the second most ever paid for an MLB franchise, behind the $2 billion the Dodgers sold for a few years back — and Jeter is kicking in $25M.

Jackson says Sherman will be the “control person” while Jeter will run the business and baseball sides of the organization, so he’s going to have a lot of responsibility. The sale is not yet final — two other potential Marlins sales have already fallen through this year, so this isn’t a formality — but Jeter and Sherman do have all the money in place and everything else is order. Now MLB needs to give their approval and the other 29 owners have to vote. That’s going to happen at the quarterly owners meetings in October, apparently.

2017 postseason schedule announced

It’s getting to be that time of year. Earlier this week MLB announced the 2017 postseason schedule, and since the Yankees are in the race this year, this information is pretty damn relevant. Much better than being on the outside looking in like three of the last four years. Here is the full postseason schedule and here are the dates potentially relevant to the Yankees:

AL Wild Card Game: Tuesday, October 3rd
ALDS (both of ’em): Thursday, October 5th through Wednesday, October 11th
ALCS: Friday, October 13th through Saturday, October 21st
World Series: Tuesday, October 24th through Wednesday, November 1st

The regular season ends Sunday, October 1st, so there’s only one off-day between the end of the regular season and the AL Wild Card Game this year. That could cause some headaches for teams trying to line up their ace for that winner-take-all game. The NL has two off-days between the end of the regular season and the Wild Card Game this year.

Also, homefield advantage in the World Series is no longer decided by the All-Star Game. That’s good. I hated that. (Even though the AL won this year.) Now homefield advantage will go to the pennant-winner with the best regular season record. That’s how it should be, I think.

MLB releases Players Weekend jerseys

A few weeks ago MLB announced that, later this month, the first (annual?) Players Weekend will be held from August 25th to the 27th. The Yankees will be home playing the Mariners that weekend. Teams will wear unique uniforms (hats, jerseys, socks, etc.) and the players will be allowed to wear nicknames on the backs of their jerseys. It’s pretty awesome. Here are the Yankees:

This is so great. All-Starlin! A-A-Ron! Head and Toe! Aaron Judge told Erik Boland he was originally planning to put “AJ” or “Judge” on his jersey, but Todd Frazier talked him into All Rise, so here we are. Love Judge, but he could use a little more personality. Maybe pimp a homer every once in a while. (Looking at you too, Brett Gardner. “Gardner” on the jersey? Really?)

Anyway, as someone who may or may not have already purchased KRAKEN 24 and SIR DIDI 18 shirts, I love this whole Players Weekend idea. It’s fun. Baseball’s supposed to be fun. I couldn’t be any more tired of hearing about tradition and the way things have always been. Give me Players Weekend, The Judge’s Chambers, Clint Frazier‘s bright red hair, finger points into the dugout, give me all of it.

Yankees have not pursued Granderson

According to Joel Sherman, the Yankees have not pursued Curtis Granderson this month. He cleared trade waivers last week. The Yankees did try to acquire Jay Bruce from the Mets a few days ago, though that didn’t work out because the Mets wanted full salary relief. Granderson, like Bruce, is a left-handed power hitter, but he can only play the outfield. Bruce has some first base experience.

Granderson, 36, is in the final season of his four-year, $60M contract. He’s making $15M this year and it stands to reason the Mets will look to unload his salary at some point. Granderson is hitting .221/.327/.452 (105 wRC+) with 16 home runs overall this season, but since May 1st, he’s put up a .261/.384/.548 (143 wRC+) batting line with 15 of those 16 homers. The Yankees have an opening at designated hitter and could really use another lefty power bat, which Granderson would provide. Doesn’t sound like it’s going to happen though.

Saturday Links: Payroll, Bird, New CBA Details, YES Network

August 5, 2017 by Mike Axisa Leave a Comment

The Yankees and Indians will continue their four-game series with the third game later today, though not until 7pm ET. Man do I hate Saturday night games. I might have mentioned that a few times over the years. Anyway, here’s some news and notes to check out.

Payroll is frozen for 2017

According to Bob Klapisch, Hal Steinbrenner has told Brian Cashman payroll will remain frozen for the remainder of the season. The Yankees took on quite a bit of salary at the trade deadline in David Robertson, Todd Frazier, and Sonny Gray, though they got the Twins to eat the remainder of Jaime Garcia‘s contract. Apparently that’s it though. No more payroll can be added this season.

Two things about this. One, if payroll is indeed frozen, the Yankees aren’t going to get the bat(s) they pretty clearly need. Well, no, that’s not necessarily true. It just means they’d have to give up better prospects to get the other team to pay the remainder of the player’s salary. And two, man I hate hearing payroll is frozen. I mean, it’s Hal’s team and he can do whatever he wants, but the division is so winnable and the Yankees have played one postseason game since 2012, and they won’t take on more money if necessary? Blah.

Bird still the long-term first baseman

Not surprisingly, Cashman confirmed to Joel Sherman that Greg Bird remains the club’s first baseman of the future, even after his ankle surgery and what is essentially another lost season. That’s why they didn’t look for long-term first base help at the deadline like they did rotation and bullpen help. They sought out rentals only and, obviously, came up empty.

Bird, who will turn 25 in November, has resumed hitting following surgery and it’s possible he will rejoin the Yankees later this month. I never really expected the Yankees to pivot away from Bird as their first baseman going forward. They clearly love him, and they’re going young wherever possible, so it makes sense to try him again. Clearly though, the Yankees will need some sort of first base protection. Basically what Chris Carter couldn’t provide this year

New CBA includes draft penalties for payroll

MLB and the MLBPA finally completed the Collective Bargaining Agreement and got everything in writing last month, and according to J.J. Cooper, there’s a provision that levies draft pick penalties based on team payroll. Simply put, spend more than $237M on player payroll, and your top draft pick gets pushed back ten spots. From Cooper:

But the penalties really kick in for a team that spends more than $237 million in 2018. Not only will the franchise be hit with a 42.5 percent or 45 percent surcharge tax on top of the competitive balance tax, but the team will also see its first draft pick dropped 10 spots. That pick is protected, but that protection is relatively meaningless, as the penalty is applied to the team’s second draft pick only if it’s one of the top six picks in the draft. It would be hard to envision a team finishing with a top-six pick (meaning it had one of the six worst records in baseball) with a $237-plus million payroll.

These penalties are on top of the luxury tax penalties. So if your payroll exceeds $237M, you have to pay the luxury tax and your top draft pick gets moved back. Now a $237M payroll is substantial — the Yankees have only topped that twice ($237.1M in 2013 and $243.8M in 2016) — though salaries and revenues around baseball are only going up. It wouldn’t take much for many teams to get to $237M within the next two or three years. This new CBA is pretty terrible for the players. There are so may mechanisms in place designed to suppress salaries.

International play coming in 2018

As part of the new CBA, MLB and the MLBPA have agreed to move 13 series to foreign countries from 2018-21, reports Bill Shaikin. Commissioner Rob Manfred has made it no secret he wants to grow the game globally and this is one way to do it. Here, via Shaikin, are the international play details:

2018: Opening series in Asia, April series in Mexico, May series in Puerto Rico.
2019: Opening series in Asia, April and May series in Mexico, June series in the United Kingdom.
2020: Opening series in Asia, April series in Mexico, May series in Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic, June series in the United Kingdom.
2021: April and May series in Mexico.

The Yankees, as the most popular team in baseball and one of the most recognizable brands in the world, will inevitably be sucked into a few of these series. That’s not per Shaikin’s report. That’s just me saying. When you’re playing games overseas and trying to increase interest in baseball, you send the Yankees because people are going to pay attention. I foresee a trip to Asia and Mexico in the team’s future.

YES ratings up considerably in first half

Not surprisingly, the young and exciting (and contending!) Yankees have led to a substantial increase in YES Network ratings. Ratings were up 57% in the first half this season, including a 73% increase in the ages 18-49 demographic. YES has already had 18 games this year with a higher rating than the best game last year — Monday night’s game against the Tigers was the network’s highest rated game since Derek Jeter‘s final game at Yankee Stadium in 2014 — and ratings overall are the best in five years. Build a team with good young players, and people watch. Ratings are up now. Soon attendance will shoot up as well.

Saturday Links: Judge, Home Run Derby, Players Weekend

June 17, 2017 by Mike Axisa Leave a Comment

This nightmare of a West Coast trip continues this afternoon with the third of four games against the Athletics. I look forward to seeing what creative way the bullpen lets a late lead slip away in this one. Anyway, here are some random bits of news and notes to check out while you wait for the game.

Judge not yet invited to Home Run Derby

In about three weeks, MLB will officially announce this year’s Home Run Derby contestants. Aaron Judge, who leads MLB with 23 homers, has not yet received an invite, he recently told Brendan Kuty. “I haven’t even thought about it. I’ll wait to the day (I’m invited), I guess,” he said. Here’s what Joe Girardi told George King about Judge and the Home Run Derby:

“From watching BP, I have a better idea. Some guys don’t have the power to all fields like Aaron Judge has,’’ Girardi said before the Yankees’ 3-2 loss to the Angels in 11 innings on Tuesday night. “When you watch his BP, there are a lot of homers going to right and lot of homers going to center. Sometimes you worry about them doing something they don’t do during the course of a game. To me it would just be a normal BP.’’

As I said a few weeks ago, I am 100% on board with Judge participating in the Home Run Derby, and it would be a great thing for MLB and the Yankees. People can’t take their eyes off this guy. He’s someone you want front and center in one of the game’s biggest events. I couldn’t be any less worried about some sort of Home Run Derby hangover effect either. You see how this guy makes adjustments? Put Judge in the Home Run Derby.

MLB will have a “Players Weekend” in August

According to Jeff Passan, MLB and the MLBPA have agreed to hold a “Players Weekend” from August 25th to 27th in which uniform rules will be relaxed. Players will be allowed to put nicknames on the back of their jerseys, wear bright cleats, and put a personalized patch on their jersey. The jerseys will be sold afterwards with proceeds going to the league’s Youth Development Foundation.

Gimmicky? Sure. Harmless? Yep. Will the Yankees allow players to put a nickname on their back of their jersey? I mean, this was negotiated by MLB and MLBPA. I don’t think teams will be able to refuse it. Imagine Michael Pineda on the mound with a BIG MIKE jersey, or Gary Sanchez with KRAKEN. We might see it! Could be cool. The Yankees will be home to play Robinson Cano and the Mariners that weekend, by the way.

Judge has top selling MLB jersey

Speaking of jerseys, Judge now has the No. 1 selling jersey in baseball, according to Josh Kosman. A few weeks ago MLB announced Kris Bryant had the top selling jersey — followed by a whole lot of Cubs — with Judge nowhere to be found in the top 20. (Sanchez was ninth overall and the best selling AL player.) Judge has since smashed a bunch of dingers and jumped to the top of the jersey sales rankings. Pretty awesome.

Also, Kosman says the Yankees will soon start selling souvenir white wigs with Judge’s name at Yankee Stadium. Between that and The Judge’s Chambers out in right field, the team is marketing the hell out of him. As they should! Judge is everything you could want in a franchise player, right? He’s great on the field and humble off it. He represents the Yankees and MLB well. They should be slapping this guy on every billboard possible.

Yankees and Royals rained out, makeup game on Sept. 25th

May 25, 2017 by Mike Axisa Leave a Comment

This afternoon’s series finale between the Yankees and Royals has been rained out, the two teams announced. They’ll play the makeup game on Monday, September 25th. The start time is TBA. That was supposed to be the Yankees’ final off-day of the regular season. At least the Royals have to come to New York and the Yankees don’t have to go anywhere.

Here’s what the Yankees say about the ticket situation for today’s rainout:

Fans holding paid tickets for today’s postponed game (May 25) may use them for the rescheduled game on Monday, September 25, or exchange their paid tickets for any regular season game at Yankee Stadium within 12 months of today’s postponed game (subject to availability).

Fans holding Complimentary (COMP) tickets for today’s game must use them for the rescheduled game. COMP tickets or equivalent tickets bear no cash value and do not have any additional benefits that may be offered to ticket(s) with a dollar value.

The Yankees already have two makeup games on the schedule for the second half this year. They’ll make up this game with the Royals on September 25th, and they’re also due to play a doubleheader at Fenway Park on July 16th. That’s the first Sunday after the All-Star break. The Yankees and Red Sox were rained out on April 25th.

I suppose the good news is the Yankees get an off-day today to break up their 20 games in 20 days stretch. They’re halfway through it — today was going to be game ten. The Yankees will play three games against the Athletics this weekend before going out on the road for three games in Baltimore and four games in Toronto next week.

The rainout gives all the starting pitchers an extra day of rest, which means if the Yankees had any plans to call up a spot sixth starter at some point during this 20 games in 20 days stretch, they might not have to now. They could still do that, of course, but now they have the option of waiting a little longer or skipping it all together.

Masahiro Tanaka, who has been dreadful the last two times out and owns a 6.56 ERA (6.05 FIP) on the season, was scheduled to start this afternoon. He’ll presumably get the ball tomorrow instead. The Yankees haven’t announced their pitching plans, though I would be surprised if they used the rainout to skip Tanaka’s start.

Losing the final off-day of the regular season to a makeup game isn’t a huge deal. The Yankees will now close the season with ten straight games rather than six. Plus rosters will be expanded, so they’ll have all the extra bodies. And! The last place Royals could very well sell at the deadline, so they might be much less imposing then than they are right now. We’ll see.

Saturday Links: Happ, Zimmer, Sanchez, Mock Drafts, Girardi

May 20, 2017 by Mike Axisa Leave a Comment

The Yankees and Rays will play the second game of their three-game series later this afternoon. Here are some links to check out until then.

Yankees passed on Happ, Jimenez, Zimmer

This is pretty fun and interesting. According to Joel Sherman, during trade talks last year, the Yankees and Cubs agreed that New York would receive either Gleyber Torres, Ian Happ, or Eloy Jimenez in the Aroldis Chapman trade. Also, during talks with the Indians about Andrew Miller, it was down to Clint Frazier or Bradley Zimmer. Both Happ and Zimmer were called up within the last week, and both have hit their first MLB home runs already.

Sherman says the Yankees passed on Jimenez because he was furthest away among the three Cubs prospects, and they passed on Happ because he’s not expected to be much of a defender. Torres had the best all-around ability. The Yankees went Frazier over Zimmer because he’s two years younger and has fewer exploitable holes in his swing. (Zimmer had a 30.7% strikeout rate between Double-A and Triple-A last year. Yikes!)

I really do like Happ, though I am totally cool with passing on him for Gleyber. The Yankees picked correctly in both cases, in my opinion. Torres is a budding superstar. Frazier has a much better chance to be an impact bat long-term too. Something tells me we’ll all have one eye on Happ and Jimenez and Zimmer over the next few years. Either way, the trade deadline last year truly was a franchise altering event. The Yankees are in much better shape long-term right now than they were 12 months ago.

Sanchez among top 25 under 25

A few days ago Keith Law (subs. req’d) ranked the 25 best players in baseball under the age of 25. Not surprisingly, Bryce Harper claims the top spot. Manny Machado and Carlos Correa are second and third. Yeah. The Yankees have one player on the list: Gary Sanchez, who ranks 14th. He’s one spot behind Alex Bregman and one spot ahead of Dansby Swanson. Here’s the write-up:

Sanchez had a rookie season — well, half-season — for the ages last year, with 20 homers in 53 games, good enough to get him second in Rookie of the Year balloting and push the Yankees to trade Brian McCann and give Sanchez the starting job behind the plate. Sanchez has improved enough as a receiver to stay back there, though he is probably always going to be a bat-first, throw-second, glove-third kind of guy. I’m sure the Yankees will be fine with that.

Aaron Judge, who turned 25 last month, was not eligible for the list. I’m sure he would have made it had the list been players age 25 and under. The list is very position player heavy — Noah Syndergaard, Aaron Sanchez, Julio Urias, and Michael Fulmer are the only pitchers — and I’m guessing Luis Severino wasn’t particularly close to making it. That doesn’t surprise me. Sanchez is the only catcher in the top 25, and that is pretty darn cool.

Baseball America’s mock draft v3.0

Baseball America released their third mock draft of the year earlier this week, and now they have the Twins selecting Vanderbilt RHP Kyle Wright with the top pick. California HS RHP/SS Hunter Greene, the top prospect in the draft class, is projected to fall to the Padres with the third pick. The mock draft has the Yankees taking Alabama HS OF Bubba Thompson with their 16th pick. Here’s the write-up:

New York has been linked to preps this spring such as Huntington Beach first baseman Nick Pratto and Alabama prep outfielder Bubba Thompson, who’s likely to go in the 16-23 range. Pratto’s relatively modest spring offensively has pushed him down lists a bit.

The draft is a little more than four weeks now, so things are still pretty wide open. So far the Yankees have been connected to mostly high school players, though that doesn’t mean much. Last year they were mostly connected to high school arms and college bats before the draft, then bam, they went with a high school bat. Hopefully things get narrowed down a bit over the next month.

MLB.com’s mock draft v1.0

In other mock draft news, Jim Callis dropped his first full mock draft of the year last week. He has the Twins taking Louisville LHP/1B Brendan McKay first overall. It seems Minnesota has been connected to all the top prospects except Greene. Weird. Anyway, Callis has the Yankees taking California HS 1B Nick Pratto withe their first rounder.

One of the most rumored mid-round marriages is New York and Pratto, though this is more a floor than a ceiling for the best high school bat available. Burger and Canning are other potential targets.

Here’s my write-up on Pratto. Also, here’s my write-up on UCLA RHP Griffin Canning, who Callis connected to the Yankees as well. Burger is Missouri State 3B Jake Burger, who is one of the top power hitters in the draft. He’s probably going to end up at first base though, and it’s unclear if his less than picturesque swing will allow him to handle pro pitching. Meh. Doesn’t seem like the kind of player the Yankees usually target in the first round.

Girardi on new competition committee

Earlier this week MLB announced the relaunch of the competition committee, a 16-man committee that is “charged with studying all aspects of the game and advising the Commissioner and Club Owners on on-field matters.” They’re going to look for ways to make baseball better, basically. I guess automatic intentional walks and talking about pace of play constantly isn’t working as well as hoped.

Anyway, Joe Girardi is one of four current big league managers on the committee, along with Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, Cardinals manager Mike Matheny, and Orioles skipper Buck Showalter. Here is the press release with all the committee members. I do like that commissioner Rob Manfred is open to new ideas and seems genuinely interested in improving the game. I have no idea whether the new competition committee will result in any tangible improvements, but hey, at least they’re trying.

Today’s game rained out, Yankees and Astros will play single admission doubleheader tomorrow

May 13, 2017 by Mike Axisa Leave a Comment

As expected, this afternoon’s game has been postponed due to inclement weather, the Yankees announced. The Yankees and Astros will make up today’s game as part of a rare single admission doubleheader tomorrow. The first game will begin at 2pm ET and the second at 8pm ET.

Tomorrow is, of course, Derek Jeter day at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees are retiring Jeter’s number — fitting they’ll play two games on the day they’re retiring No. 2, eh? — and having a ceremony and all that. The ceremony is still scheduled to take place at the same time. Nothing has changed. It’ll all go down prior to the late game as scheduled.

As for tickets, only tickets for tomorrow night’s scheduled game will be valid for the doubleheader. If you had tickets for today’s game, you can’t use them tomorrow. The Yankees say you can exchange them for tickets to another regular season game at any point from now through the end of 2018.

I assume Luis Severino (today’s scheduled starter) and Masahiro Tanaka (tomorrow’s scheduled starter) will start the two games tomorrow. The Yankees have yet another off-day Monday, so the doubleheader won’t mess with the rotation. They’ll be able to keep everyone on turn going forward. No need to call up a spot starter or anything like that.

As far as I can tell, the Yankees and Astros will be able to call up a 26th man for the doubleheader. The rulebook says teams can add the 26th man “as long as the second game was scheduled at least 48 hours in advance.” Tomorrow night’s game was the regularly scheduled game. I think that means they’ll have the 26th man.

The ten-day rule doesn’t apply to the 26th man, so the Yankees could call up Chad Green even though he was sent down Thursday. Green is scheduled to start for Triple-A Scranton today, so if he doesn’t make that start, we’ll know he’s coming up. Bryan Mitchell and Luis Cessa started the last two days and won’t be called up because they can’t pitch for a few days.

Other potential 40-man roster call-up candidates include Ben Heller, Mason Williams, and Rob Refsnyder. The Yankees do have an open 40-man roster spot, so I suppose they could add someone like Tyler Webb or Joe Mantiply for the day. I’d bet against it though. We’ll see. I’m not even sure they’ll have the 26th man anyway.

The Yankees also have a doubleheader scheduled for July 16th against the Red Sox. They last played a doubleheader back in September 2015, when they were swept by the Blue Jays. The Yankees got steamrolled by Toronto in the second half that year. Hopefully tomorrow’s doubleheader goes a bit better.