Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Nine reassigned to minor league camps

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Yankees agree to terms with pre-arb players

The Yankees are doing the split squad thing today, with half the team staying home to play the Orioles while the other half is going on the road to play Johnny Damon and the Tigers. After getting rained out the past two days, I’m sure the guys will be glad to get back on the field and get some actual work in. Taking BP and throwing in the bullpen just isn’t the same.

Here’s the starting lineup for the game against the O’s…

Gardner, CF
Johnson, DH
Posada, C
Cano, 2B
Granderson, LF
Winn, RF
Miranda, 1B
Laird, 3B
Pena, SS

Scheduled Pitchers: Javy Vazquez, Al Aceves, David Robertson, and Royce Ring. Kei Igawa, Wilkins Arias, and Jeremy Bleich are also available if needed.

Also scheduled to play: Reegie Corona, Colin Curtis, Kyle Higashioka, Jesus Montero, P.J. Pilittere, and Jon Weber. Mitch Abeita, Austin Krum, and Justin Snyder are also available if needed.

Chad Gaudin and Sergio Mitre will be on the mound in Lakeland. First pitch for both games is scheduled for 1:05pm, and you can watch the O’s game on My9. Enjoy.

Photo Credit: Gene J. Puskar, AP

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Spring Training Game Thread: Javy & Ace

Those three will probably get about eight innings in before the season starts, which is pretty normal for veteran relievers. Mo won’t travel at all, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Marte and Park didn’t either.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Mo & Marte to take the mound on Tuesday

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Late-night reading: a roundtable talk on the Yanks

Two straight days without baseball because of rain, what a shame. A.J. Burnett and Andy Pettitte, the scheduled starters for the last two days, had to throw simulated games instead of facing real live batters. Such is life. Hopefully the rain lets up and we’ll get some games in over the weekend.

Here’s your open thread for the night. The Rangers, Devils, Nets, and Knicks are all in action, and I’m sure there’s some college basketball on somewhere. You know what to do.

Photo Credit: Chris O’Meara, AP

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Open Thread: Washed out

For months, there was no baseball. It is almost inconceivable now to imagine that the owners and players would be at such loggerheads as to allow a strike to happen, but as the owners pushed for a salary cap and the players resisted, baseball ended on August 12, 1994. I was 11 and devastated. That Yankee team was the best of my early fandom years, and when the World Series was canceled, the team and its fans were heartbroken.

As the days ticked on, the owners and players remained at a stalemate, and teams could not afford to sacrifice the season. Enter the replacement players. In an effort to field any sort of baseball team, the owners began the hunt for non-union players who would be willing to cross picket lines for a professional baseball paycheck or a dream fulfilled. As February neared, teams refused to unveil their assembled rosters of replacement players.

The first conflict to come up arose with the managers and coaches. These men were not players union members and were employees of their owners. Fiercely loyal to their players, as Buck Showalter explained, the on-field coaching staff members had to decide between their boss and their players. Most of them reluctantly went to Spring Training, hoping for a quick end to the strike. On the eve of Spring Training, Showalter did not have high hopes for his rag-tag bunch of players.

So who were these guys better suited to softball leagues than Spring Training fields, resembling the Bad News Bears more than the first-place Yankees? Well, for starters, one man who wasn’t there and opting against going stands out. As Jack Curry detailed, 20-year-old Derek Jeter, then the Yanks’ top prospect, refused to join the replacement players. For many minor leaguers not part of the union yet, the invitation to a Big League camp would prove alluring simply because many knew 1995 would be their best and only shot at breaking camp with a big league club.

“I wouldn’t go no matter what,” Jeter said to The Times. “Easy question, easy answer. If someone is out there striking for me, it would be like stabbing them in the back if I played. I wouldn’t do that.”

For those who went to camp, their only shots at fame came as replacement players, and the names are indeed forgettable. Joe Ausenio, a pitcher I once saw in the early 1990s in Oneonta, didn’t go, but his roommate Mark Carper showed up to camp. Showalter said those two would never have even been in consideration for the team a year before. Doug Cinnella, currently a Reds scout, was 30 and had bounced around the minors, playing for the Orioles, Expos and Mets before arriving in camp in 1995.

The other names sound even less familiar. John DiGirolamo dropped a pop up and couldn’t get a good swing off of Nelson Perpetuo in an intra-squad match up. Tim Byron was a teacher who had not pitched professionally since 1986. Scott Epps, a bad Yankee farmhand, summed up the replacement mentality. “I don’t think they see me as a prospect,” he said 15 years ago. “For that reason, I have to do what is best for me. Right now, this is an outstanding opportunity.”

When the games started, the results were ugly. Few fans showed up, and the quality of play was abysmal. Players — such as 250-pound Matt Stark, out of baseball since 1990, who crushed a metal folding chair when he sat down — made headlines for the wrong reasons, and as March wore on the players and owners had to find a solution. It took an injunction against the owners to get the players back on the field, but it was just in the nick of a time. A replacement season would have been even worse.

Today, the replacement players have largely faded from memory. A few — Kevin Millar, Ron Mahay, Shane Spencer — eventually reached the majors, but most faded from baseball’s history books. Those replacement players were denied union membership and were tarred with the feathers of the strike. It is a moment baseball would be wise to avoid repeating again.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Remembering the very forgettable replacements

So of course this is a concern for the Yankees, we didn’t need Randall to tell us this. If there’s one thing to take solace in, it’s that Sabathia’s career high 266.1 IP in 2009 is just 9.2 IP over his career high set in 2008, and was spread out over another month of playing. That extra month is pretty big. So yeah, there’s a good chance Sabathia’s performance will take a step back this year, but you know what? That’s exactly why the Yanks went out and got Javy Vazquez.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Worrying about Sabathia’s workload

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

RAB Live Chat

When Brian Cashman traded for Nick Swisher that November, he placed an even deeper reliance on the team returning to form. Not only did he need rebounds from his own players, but now needed one from an incoming player. He didn’t place a huge bet on Swisher — he cost the team only spare parts, players who wouldn’t have had a role on any future Yankees team. But at the time he was slated to start at first base, leaving the lineup with not only five players who needed to rebound, but also one, Xavier Nady, who almost certainly wouldn’t repeat his 2008 success. It was a pretty big gamble, though mitigated when the Yanks acquired Mark Teixeira later that winter.

Somehow, the plan worked out on all fronts. While Rodriguez missed the first month of the season, Posada missed a couple of weeks, and Matsui couldn’t play the field, the Yankees saw each of their rebound candidates take that step forward. This off-season Cashman cashed in a few of those chips, letting Hideki Matsui leave as a free agent and trading Melky Cabrera in the Javy Vazquez trade. Yet he apparently enjoys picking up players coming off down years, as his first major move this winter was to acquire Curtis Granderson from the Tigers. The case is a bit different than Swisher’s, mainly because the Yankees paid a lot more for Granderson, but the rebound necessity remains.

Granderson’s 2009 offensive season looks more like a follow-up to his 2006 campaign rather than his 2008. In 2006 he put his potential on display as a 25-year-old, hitting .260/.335/.438, good for a .333 wOBA while playing a mean center field. In 2009 he hit .249/.327/.453 while playing a just above average center field. He slightly improve his walk rate from 2006, to 10.1 percent from 9.7, and also increased his ISO from .178 to .204. If he had posted his 2009 line in 2007 we would have thought it completely normal. His defense regressed, but he made improvements in other areas. Even his batting average can be explained by a poor BABIP, .275, down from .333 in 2006.

Of course, 2009 did not come directly after 2006. Instead, Granderson posted an elite season in 2007, hitting .302/.361/.552, a .395 wOBA. He also continued to track down more fly balls than his fellow center fielders. His WAR that season, 7.3, was more than a win better than the next highest center fielder, Aaron Rowand at 6.1. He followed that with a quality 2008 campaign in which he hit .280/.365/.494, a .374 wOBA, though his defense dipped a bit. That dropped him in the WAR rankings, though his offensive component still ranked fifth among his peers. It was good enough, in other words, that his performance in 2009 came as a surprise.

The good news for the Yankees is that even if he repeats his 2009 he’ll still post a more valuable season than Melky Cabrera did. Of course, the Yankees are looking for a bit more than that, since Granderson, along with Nick Johnson, is charged with replacing two of the heavier bats from the 2009 Yankees. A return to his 2008 form seems a feasible expectation, though his 2007 appears to be an outlier in almost every sense. Still, a.374 wOBA, at .280/.365/.494, would essentially replace Damon’s 2009 production.

How do the projection systems see it?

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Unsurprisingly, this checks in right around Granderson’s career line of .272/.344/.484. It would represent a modest improvement over his 2009, but when the Yankees traded their No. 2 prospect for him in December they likely expected more. I’m confident Granderson can deliver, too. He clearly has the tools, and now he’s surrounded by much better hitters than in the Detroit lineup. He’ll also face a lot less pressure as he moves from the leadoff spot to the bottom of the order (though I think there are worse ideas than trying him in the five hole).

The gamble on Granderson is clear. Cash in two winning chips, Matsui and Cabrera, and put another one down on the table. Again, because of what theYankees surrendered its a bit bigger gamble than they placed last year, but I think still a winnable one. If it does pay off, the Yankees will reap the benefits not only in 2010, but also over the next few years of Granderson’s contract.

Photo credit: Gene J. Puskar/AP

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

2010 Season Preview: Banking on another rebound candidate