Archive for News
Peña up; former Yanks on the move
Posted by: | CommentsUpdate 4:02 p.m.: The Yankees have made a roster move this afternoon. Ramiro Peña has been recalled from AAA Scranton, and Anthony Claggett has been sent back down. Peña will back up both the infield and outfield while Claggett has been nothing short of terrible for the Yanks this season. When Chad Gaudin gets here, either David Robertson or Mark Melancon will hop on the Scranton Shuttle. I think Melancon stays. We’ll know soon.
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As we await the start of what could be another epic Yankees/Red Sox contest this evening and as I readjust to East Coast time after a grueling day of travel, let’s talk about a few former Yankees who have seen their uniforms change stripes today.
As John Smoltz showed his age last night, Jason Giambi has been doing so all summer for the A’s. The seven-year Yankee vet who returned to the Bay Area this past winter was unconditionally released by Billy Beane today. Giambi is hitting .193/.332/.364. While the .139 IsoD is impressive, his batting average and slugging are both fourth-worst in the Majors, and the A’s have opted to give their younger first basemen extended looks.
I wonder if Giambi will land anywhere at this point. For what it’s worth, the fourth-place Blue Jays aren’t interested. It’s tough to call Giambi an impact bat, and he’s on the DL right now with a strained quad. If he’s finished, he sure went out with a wimper.
Another Yankee to symbolize the excesses and failures of the recent past found himself traded today. The Indians have dealt Carl Pavano to the Twins. This move came after the Twins put a waiver claim on Carl. For what it’s worth, the Twins are 4.5 games out of the AL Central but 9.5 games behind in the Wild Card race.
This move could be a risky one for the Twins simply because of Carl Pavano’s endurance. Right now, Carl Pavano has thrown 125.2 innings this year. He threw a combined 145.2 innings over four seasons for the Yanks. Despite his age and experience, he is definitely in the injury red zone right now. The Twins will rely on Pavano for depth, but that, as Yankee fans know, is a dicey proposition. The 5.37 ERA and 1.37 WHIP are hardly appealing.
Finally, Tom Verducci really likes the Yankees right now and doesn’t think things are looking up in Beantown. A Bronx win tonight would certainly cement that feeling.
Catching up with the exes: Tomko, Pavano, Small
Posted by: | CommentsTo while away the afternoon now that the Yanks and Orioles have wrapped up their series, let’s check in on some ex-Yankees in the news these days. We start with the disgruntleds:
Brett Tomko
To make room for Sergio Mitre yesterday, the Yankees designated Brett Tomko for assignment. They have ten days to trade him or they can release him or ship him down to the minors. Tomko is not a happy camper about his tenure on the Yankees. “I don’t think I got a fair shot,” he said to reporters as he packed up his locker. “I pitched great in spring training and didn’t make the team. I pitched great in the minors, got called up and didn’t get much of a chance. I understand other guys are pitching great. But it could have been different. I can’t see the point in coming back.”
This is a clear example of the Yankees’ expectations not lining up with Tomko’s. At 36, Brett Tomko is a journeyman with a career ERA+ of 92. He isn’t the future of anything, and he’s not getting better. During his time on the Yanks, he allowed runs in seven of his 15 appearances and just wasn’t a trustworthy or impressive reliever.
“It’s hard when you throw once every 10 days. Your stuff can’t be the same,” he added later. “I never felt like I got a chance to show them anything. I wasn’t pitching much. As much as I want to be here and be with a winning team, I want to pitch. It would be great if they traded me in the next 10 days to help me out. But if not, I’m sure something will come up. Plenty of teams need pitching.”
Tomko won’t accept a Minor League assignment once the ten days are up, and the Yanks probably won’t find a team that needs a mediocre, ineffective and touchy pitcher. So much for him.
Carl Pavano
Try as we might, we just can’t ignore Carl Pavano. Today’s Pavano story though is something of an oddity. In what can only be described as an attempt by a reporter to create the news, Ken Rosenthal asked a Yankee official if the team would be interested in reacquiring Carl Pavano from the Indians.
The reply? A resounding no. “We’ve seen that movie,” Rosenthal’s source said. “Our players would go crazy if we did that.”
Pavano, for what it’s worth, isn’t having a terrible season. He’s 8-7 with a 5.13 ERA, but he’s managed to make 18 starts — one more than his single-season high with the Yanks. He also hasn’t been walking many batters. Yet, the Yankees hate him. The players hate him. The Front Office hates him. The fans hate him. He won’t — and shouldn’t — be back.
Aaron Small
Aaron Small was an odd addition to the Old Timer’s Day roster this year. While he went 10-0 for the Yanks in 2005, he was out of baseball a few months later after going 0-3 with an 8.46 ERA in 2006. Now, we learn that Small made his way to Yankee Stadium just six weeks after a bad bout of encephalitis. Small was in a medically-induced coma for eight days as doctors combated the virus that led to a life-threatening swelling of the former pitcher’s brain.
Small recovered from this ordeal and is slowly rebuilding his strength. This scary story makes his appearance at the stadium this past weekend all the more meaningful.
Forbes says Jetes is the most overpaid
Posted by: | CommentsVia Pinto comes the not-very-surprising word that Forbes has named Derek Jeter as the game’s most overpaid player. Jeter is making $21.6 million this year, and according to the financial magazine, that salary pushes him far above the average for the position. The only problem with their methodology is that it’s, well, non-existent. Jeter made less earlier in the contract and is now getting paid for what he has done. He is also, as Bud Selig pointed out, a baseball ambassador. In the end, Pinto points us to Jeter’s value at Fangraphs. He might be overpaid, but it’s not nearly as cut-and-dried as Forbes would have us believe.
Aceves to start Thursday
Posted by: | CommentsPer the Yankee beat writers on various blogs and Twitter, the Yanks have told Alfredo Aceves that he will start on Thursday in place of the injured Chien-Ming Wang. It will be Aceves’ first start of the season after he has appeared 21 times out of the bullpen. On the year, he is 5-1 with a 2.02 ERA in 40 innings. He has struck out 34 while walking just seven, and opponents are hitting just .208/.252/.354 off of him.
For now, Aceves’ start is a one-time event. The Yanks will not need the fifth starter again until well after the All Star Break, and the roster could look quite different by then. I had hoped to see Phil Hughes transition back into the rotation, but Aceves is more stretched out right now. He threw four innings with a low pitch count of 43 on Sunday and could probably go five or six innings if he again keeps that pitch total down.
News roundup: Jim Leyritz, Mark Teixeira, Mo, sports media
Posted by: | CommentsA few news items of note on an afternoon before a long weekend:
- Another sad story comes our way concerning Jim Leyritz. The former Yankee and former MLB.com personality has been arrested on charges of domestic abuse. Leyritz’s ex-wife Karrie called the police after Jim, according to the Sun-Sentinel report, “dragged her out of bed, struck her twice and pushed her on the floor.” The Miami Herald has a different take on the situation. Leyritz’s lawyer denies the assault, and police say the former Mrs. Leyritz changed her story a few hours after initially reporting it to the police. Leyritz goes on trial Sept. 14 for his 2007 DUI arrest following an accident that left another driver dead.
- At 11:59 p.m. this evening All Star Game balloting ends, and as of earlier this week, Mark Teixeira found himself just 40,000 votes behind Kevin Youkilis for the AL’s first base slot. Head on over to MLB.com to vote. Yankee fans can vote for Teixeira 25 times per e-mail address, and while you’re at it, vote for Ian Kinsler too. He’s holding onto a very slim lead over Dustin Pedroia.
- Joe Posnanski has profiled Mariano Rivera. Do you need to know anything more about it? Just read the article.
- From around the Yankee Blogosphere: Rebecca looks at some top MLBers who had success at AA. The Jesus Montero buzz is building. Fack Youk revisits Dave Righetti’s Independence Day no hitter and wonders what could have been if the Yanks hadn’t moved Righetti to the pen. Sound familiar?
- Finally, for the sports journalism junkies among us, Harvard’ Nieman Journalism Lab just wrapped up a four-part series on the shifting media power in sports. With more teams forming regional sports networks, more leagues creating their own TV networks complete with allegedly unbiased news coverage and more blogs gaining readers every day as newspapers see their circulation numbers decline, the world of sports journalism is undergoing something of a paradigm shift. In the series at NJL, Justin Rice focuses mostly on baseball to explore how sports coverage has responded to and embraced the Internet and where sports media is going.
Mo earns Player of the Week honors for RBI walk
Posted by: | CommentsFresh off of his first-ever career RBI, Mariano Rivera took home Player of the Week honors this week. He will share the award with Jermaine Dye who went 12 for 24 on the week but had just five more RBI than Mo. Rivera is being recognized by MLB for his courageous at-bat against Francisco Rodriguez last night. Just the third regular season plate appearance of Mo’s long and illustrious career, it ended on the seventh pitch as Rivera drew a walk with the bases loaded. A few minutes later, Rivera became just the second pitcher to record 500 career saves.
In other Rivera-related news, Rebecca Glass reports that current Sirius XM host and one-time Red Sox manager knew Mo was special as early as 1996. The Statistician Magician, also a Red Sox fan, salutes Rivera as well. When Mo is eventually inducted into the Hall of Fame, I plan on going to the ceremony. I’ve seen two other induction ceremonies, but his will be truly special.
Heyman on the Yanks: Nady, Girardi
Posted by: | CommentsOver the weekend, Jon Heyman has chimed in with two Yankee-centric items of note. Let’s break them down.
First, in a piece about the best and worst free agent signings, Heyman checks in on Xavier Nady’s prognosis. Heyman wonders about Nady’s future: “One person said first surgeries have close to a 90 percent success ratio while second surgeries are as low as 20 percent.”
Will Carroll at Baseball Prospectus had a different take in Friday’s Under the Knife. Carroll said that Nady “should be fine” for Spring Training. Nady, clearly, isn’t a pitcher and should have a slightly different rehab path. Unless the scar tissue presents a problem, I don’t see why Heyman’s source would be right.
In another piece, Heyman handicaps the managers on the hot seat. Girardi, says Heyman, won’t be fired this year no matter the ups and downs of the Yankee season. He will however have to get the team into the playoffs.
Heyman notes that Girardi is the “handpicked successor to the legendary Joe Torre.” While Girardi is under contract for next season, Yankee officials higher up in the food chain than Cashman may not be keen to welcome Girardi back in 2010 if the Yanks can’t make the playoffs this year. They didn’t spend all of that money this winter to stay home in October.
Quick Hits: Nady, A-Rod, Jeter, Andy Phillips
Posted by: | CommentsA few quick notes a few hours before the Yanks and Mets square off in an overhyped Subway Series. It’s the last weekend of Interleague play.
- Joe Girardi appeared on the FAN this afternoon to chat about the state of the Yankees. While he didn’t come out and flat-out state that Xavier Nady will not be returning this year, the Yankees are not counting on any further contributions from the X Man. Nady is off to see Dr. Lewis Yocum in California, and an announcement concerning surgery will come soon after that. Nady should be ready for Spring Training, no matter where the free agent-to-be lands this winter. Jose Tabata, by the way, is hitting .258/.333/.320 at AA. Still young for his level, Tabata has stalled out a bit in his development.
- Also on the FAN, Girardi said that the team will not carry three catchers when Jose Molina is ready to return. Molina’s return isn’t yet on the horizon; he is still building up strength in his legs. When he gets back, Francisco Cervelli will return to AAA for regular playing time.
- Just one week after the Yanks benched A-Rod due to fatigue in his surgically-repaired hip and promised to give him regular rest, the team appears to be backing away from that plan. A-Rod has started four straight games, and the Yankees won’t rest him against the Mets. “It’s our home city, and I think our guys enjoy the Subway Series,” Girardi said yesterday. “Alex feels good, feels like he’s got a lot of energy in his legs. He feels good, so we’ll let him keep going.” Fack Youk takes the team to task for straying from the plan less than a week into it, and without knowing more details about this decision, I’m inclined to agree with the critique.
- Derek can now run for President. Today is Cap’n Jeter’s 35th birthday. It seems as though he made his Major League debut just yesterday when in fact it was fourteen years ago on May 29, 1995. The Yankees were in Seattle, and Jeter went 0 for 5 that day. Scott Bankhead drew the loss after allowing a lead-off home run to Rich Amaral in the bottom of the 12th inning.
- Finally, news on an old friend: Former Yankee farmhand Andy Phillips has signed to play in Japan. Phillips, who has bounced around the league since leaving the Bronx, will earn $400,000 to play for the Hiroshima Carp.
Some pre-game stuff
Posted by: | CommentsJust a couple of items of note before we get to the game tonight:
- When the lineup was posted today, Melky was playing right and batting sixth. Rob Thompson then took down the lineup, and Nick Swisher went into a closed-door meeting with Brian Cashman and Joe Girardi. When they emerged, the lineup went back up, with Swisher in place of Melky.
- All of the hitters were later called into a meeting. Does anyone like meetings? I guess they kill time, but they usually accomplish little else.
- CC threw a bullpen and declared himself fine to start on Friday against the Mets. So that’s one less thing to worry about.
- Xavier Nady is starting in right for Scranton tonight.
- I laughed a bit at this.
In-market Yankees streaming broadcasts available in July
Posted by: | CommentsWhen we first heard of YES and Cablevision offering streaming Yankees games in-market earlier this month, it was pretty exciting. As it stands, you cannot stream Yankees games via MLB.tv if you are in-market. It’s understandable, at least under normal circumstances. If MLB.tv allowed in-market broadcasts, I certainly wouldn’t have cable TV. That’s not only lost revenue for cable companies, but for YES and other stations, since cable companies pay them per subscriber. Of course, this new deal wasn’t coming without a catch: you have to be a Cablevision subscriber, using Cablevision Internet to access the broadcasts. So right away it’s not as awesome.
Today we learn of some further details on the deal. Right off the bat we get another downside: it’s going to cost you, to the tune of $49.95 for the rest of the 2009 season, or $19.94 for 30 days. If the experiment is successful and carries over into 2010, expect that to cost you $100 for the whole year. That is, of course, on top of your current TV and Internet bills.
While the price seems steep — especially if you’re already paying for MLB.tv on top of it — there are certainly some practical uses for it. For instance, my parents like to spend time together by watching movies three or four nights a week. Yet my dad, who is as die-hard a fan as they come, has to miss games because of this. If he were willing to pony up the $100 — which he is most certainly not — he could stream the game on his laptop while watching the movie. Best of both worlds.
Even so, I don’t foresee this plan being too popular. Beyond the desire to watch other program and the Yankees game at the same time, there aren’t too many practical uses for streaming video that’s already in TV while you’re in your house. Maybe the use of Optimum Wi-Fi will add to the draw, though most of the hotspots seem to be on Long Island (they’re in NJ at the train station, but how long are you going to be waiting at a train station during a Yankees game?).
Anyway, this all begins on July 8 for the Yankees-Twins game. You can learn more and sign up at Optimum.net. I’m truly interested to hear if anyone plans to purchase this package, and why.
