River Avenue Blues

  • About
    • Commenting Guidelines
    • Privacy Policy
  • Features
    • Yankees Top 30 Prospects
    • Prospect Profiles
    • Fan Confidence
  • RAB Daily Digest
  • Resources
    • 2018 Draft Order
    • Depth Chart
    • Bullpen Workload
    • Guide to Stats
  • Shop and Tickets
    • RAB Tickets
    • MLB Shop
    • Fanatics
    • Amazon
    • Steiner Sports Memorabilia

Update: A-Rod rep may have purchased documents from Biogenesis

April 12, 2013 by Mike Axisa 75 Comments

7:46pm: Mike Fish and T.J. Quinn say MLB has no physical evidence connecting A-Rod to payments for Biogenesis documents, so … what the hell is going on exactly?

5:31pm: Via Michael Schmidt: MLB may have evidence that a representative of Alex Rodriguez purchased documents from the Anthony Bosch-led clinic Biogenesis for the purpose of having them destroyed. Unsurprisingly, A-Rod’s camp has flatly denied the allegations. MLB has purchased documents from a former employee of the clinic to help further their investigation into players who may have received performance-enhancing drugs from Bosch and Biogenesis, and the league recently filed a lawsuit against numerous parties involved (no players) as well.

Filed Under: Asides, STEROIDS! Tagged With: Alex Rodriguez

Game Nine: Back to the Bronx

April 12, 2013 by Mike Axisa 286 Comments

(AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)
(AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

First, the good news: the Yankees are back home in the Bronx to open a three-game weekend series with the sudden division rival Orioles, who just took two of three from the Red Sox in Fenway Park. They used both Darren O’Day and Jim Johnson in each of the last two days, so the back-end of Baltimore’s bullpen might be a little short the next day or two.

Now, the bad news: the weather still sucks. After having the last two games against the Indians rained out, the Yankees are back home and are staring at another potential rain-interrupted game. It’s been raining on-and-off all day in New York, with most of the heavy stuff coming this morning. The forecast calls for another shower tonight and maybe possibly a playable window later on. Getting a little sick of this weather nonsense.

Also, some more bad news: right-hander Miguel Gonzalez will be on the mound for the Orioles. Between the regular season and postseason last year, he held the Yankees to four runs in 20.2 innings (1.74 ERA) with 24 strikeouts and just one freaking walk across three starts. Goodness. I guess it’s good nearly the entire lineup looks different right now than it did last year. Here’s the starting line…

  1. CF Brett Gardner
  2. 2B Robinson Cano
  3. 3B Kevin Youkilis
  4. DH Travis Hafner
  5. LF Vernon Wells
  6. RF Ichiro Suzuki
  7. SS Eduardo Nunez
  8. 1B Lyle Overbay
  9. C Frankie Cervelli

And on the mound is the would-be 2000 Olympian, CC Sabathia. He was called up to the big leagues and had to be removed from the Olympic roster. USA won the gold anyway.

Tonight’s game is scheduled to start a little after 7pm ET and can be seen on My9. Yep, the first My9 game of the season. Obviously the rain may change things. If they do play, and I really hope they do, enjoy the game.

Filed Under: Game Threads

Pettitte dealing with back issue, start pushed back to next week

April 12, 2013 by Mike Axisa 7 Comments

Andy Pettitte is dealing with a stiff back and will not start Sunday as scheduled, Joe Girardi announced. It first bothered him during his last start and then again last night. The left-hander threw his usual between-starts bullpen, however.

Phil Hughes will start tomorrow, Hiroki Kuroda will start Sunday, and then Pettitte will hopefully start either Tuesday or Wednesday following the off-day on Monday. They have to see how he feels the next few days before finalizing their plans for next week, obviously. The schedule allows the Yankees to push Pettitte all the way back to next Saturday before having to come up with a replacement starter, if need be.

Filed Under: Asides, Injuries Tagged With: Andy Pettitte

2013 Draft: Casey Meisner

April 12, 2013 by Mike Axisa 4 Comments

The 2013 amateur draft will be held from June 6-8 this year, and between now and then I’m going to highlight some prospects individually rather than lump them together into larger posts.

Casey Meisner | RHP

Background
Meisner attends Cypress Woods High School in Cypress, Texas, which is a Houston suburb. He pitched for the Texas Scout Team Yankees last fall, a showcase club the Yankees use the team to familiarize themselves with top Texas high schoolers during the Perfect Game World Wood Bat Championship each year. His college commitment is to Texas Tech.

Scouting Report
The first thing that stands out about Meisner is his size. He’s listed at 6-foot-7 and 185 lbs. so he’s tall and lanky with an awful lot of projection remaining. Meisner’s fastball typically sits about 86-88 these days, but he has shown 92 in the past, so there is some more velocity in there somewhere. His loopy mid-70s curveball looks like an out pitch on some days and still-developing pitch on others. A low-80s changeup that needs a lot of work rounds out his repertoire.

In addition to his size, Meisner stands out because he’s a very good athlete who has shown the ability to repeat his mechanics and keep his delivery in order better than most pitchers his size. He also throws strikes and draws rave reviews for his makeup and mound presence, which has been described as “business-like.” There are a bunch of short video clips on YouTube.

Miscellany
Neither Baseball America (subs. req’d) nor Keith Law (subs. req’d) ranked Meisner among the top 50 draft prospects in their latest rankings. Baseball America (subs. req’d) did, however, rank him as the 89th best high school player available in this summer’s draft. That’s roughly in the fifth to seventh round range. The Yankees love physically huge pitchers and players with good makeup, so Meisner sounds like someone who is right up their alley. We know he’s at least on their radar after playing for their Texas Scout team late last year. Meisner is a definite project, but he also has the tools to come out as a potential top ten pick in three years if he follows through on his college commitment.

Filed Under: Draft Tagged With: 2013 Draft, Casey Meisner

RAB Live Chat

April 12, 2013 by Mike Axisa 7 Comments

Filed Under: Chats

2013 Draft: Jordan Sheffield

April 12, 2013 by Mike Axisa 5 Comments

The 2013 amateur draft will be held from June 6-8 this year, and between now and then I’m going to highlight some prospects individually rather than lump them together into larger posts.

Jordan Sheffield | RHP

Background
A Tennessee kid who lives an hour or so outside of Chattanooga, Sheffield threw just three innings for Tullahoma High School this spring before blowing out his elbow and requiring Tommy John surgery. He had the procedure yesterday according to Maurice Patton. Sheffield is committed to Vanderbilt. He is Gary’s nephew.

Scouting Report
Listed at 6-foot-1 and 175 lbs., Sheffield sat in the low-90s for most of his career before sitting 94-95 with a few 97s during the Team USA 16-and-under trials last summer and the Perfect Game World Wood Bat Championship in October. He didn’t get much of an opportunity to show if the velocity spike was legit before the injury this spring. A power upper-70s/low-80s curveball is his top secondary pitch and a legitimate put-away offering, and his low-80s changeup is very much a work in progress. Sheffield showed pretty good control throughout his high school career. Here’s some more video.

Miscellany
Neither Baseball America (subs. req’d) nor Keith Law (subs. req’d) ranked Sheffield as a top 50 draft prospect in their most recent rankings, but both lists were published after the right-hander initially suffered the injury in early-March. Law called him a borderline top 100 guy earlier this week following the news of the elbow reconstruction. Sheffield was considered a tough sign before the injury, but the Yankees have a little bit of a history with buying guys away from Vanderbilt (Dellin Betances, specifically). There’s a decent chance he’ll go completely undrafted now. Sheffield is someone the Yankees could target with a late-round pick — sometime after the tenth round so they don’t risk losing draft pool money in case he doesn’t sign — just to see if he’ll turn pro should they have some extra draft pool money lying around.

Filed Under: Draft Tagged With: 2013 Draft, Jordan Sheffield

Mailbag: Cashman, Outfield, Catchers, Overbay

April 12, 2013 by Mike Axisa 43 Comments

Six questions this week, but some of them have short answers. Use the Submit A Tip box in the sidebar to send us any questions or links or anything else during the week.

(Gregory Shamus/Getty)
(Gregory Shamus/Getty)

Shai asks: If the Yankees do poorly this season, I can see the media/fans calling for Brian Cashman’s head. Do you think that Hal Steinbrenner would fire him if under intense public pressure?

Cashman and Hal reportedly have a great working relationship, but who really knows how things are behind the scenes. I would be surprised if Cashman — or Joe Girardi, for that matter — was essentially made the scapegoat and fired at some point this year. I don’t think Hal really cares about the public pressure and frankly no owner should when it comes to on-field matters. How many times have we wanted people fired over the years? If the owner acknowledged public pressure there would be a new manager every other week. Cashman could be fired if the team plays poorly, it could definitely happen, but it would surprise me.

Brad asks: Will Ichiro Suzuki and Vernon Wells platoon upon Curtis Granderson’s return?

My standard answer to the “what happens to everyone when so and so gets healthy” question is let’s wait to see everyone involved actually be healthy at the same time before we worry about it. I think that is especially true with the Derek Jeter/Eduardo Nunez and Kevin Youkilis/Alex Rodriguez situations. Worry about who plays when and where when the time comes.

Now, for the sake of argument, let’s assume Granderson returns as expected in early-May and everyone else in the outfield picture is healthy as well. The obvious move to free up a roster spot would be optioning Brennan Boesch down to Triple-A, replacing one lefty bat with another. That’s the easy part. After that, I think it depends entirely on who is playing well at the time.

Obviously Granderson will step right back into the lineup, but if Ichiro continues to not hit while Wells continues to produce, I do think Ichiro will wind up on the bench more often than not. If the roles are reverse when Grandy is ready, then I think Wells would sit. I don’t really see Brett Gardner being in danger of losing playing time. I think Girardi is just going to ride the hot hand, which is fine by me.

Mike asks: What is going to happen with the impending minor league catcher backlog? Eventually Gary Sanchez will be promoted to AA but that will take away time from J.R. Murphy who can’t move to AAA due to Austin Romine needing to play everyday. Who is most likely to be trade bait?

(Star-Ledger)
(Star-Ledger)

I don’t think there is much of a backlog, really. I think both Murphy and Sanchez will get promoted at midseason, and then Romine and Murphy will simply share catcher/DH duties for the second half in Triple-A. The Yankees have done that plenty of times before with their catchers, specifically Romine and Jesus Montero. I think Murphy and Sanchez even did it at one point as well.

I wouldn’t worry too much about playing time, all of these guys are high priority players in that sense. They’ll figure out a way to make sure they all get regular at-bats and enough time behind the plate. I suppose it’s not out of the question that Romine replaces Chris Stewart as the backup catcher later in the season (as part of the chain of promotions), but that would surprise me. The Yankees are enamored with Stewart for whatever reason. Anyway, as these things tend to do, it’ll work itself out. Don’t worry. Too many catchers is a good thing.

Mikey asks: Even though it’s early in the season, do you think the Yankees would be hesitant to make an upgrade over Lyle Overbay?

No, I don’t. I also don’t think it’s a huge priority right now. Mark Teixeira could be cleared to swing a bat today and begin playing Extended Spring Training games within two weeks. Overbay has been pretty awful with the bat but he has played well on defense. So yeah, I do think the Yankees would be willing to acquire a temporary first base upgrade, but I also don’t think they’re actively shopping for help at the position. If someone hits waivers or something, then they might pounce.

Anonymous asks: Not that the Yankees would trade him, but does Andy Pettitte have ten-and-five rights? Did his year off in 2011 reset the five-year clock?

The rulebook says ten-and-five no-trade provisions kick in “provided the player has spent the last five years with his current team,” so I guess that means the year off does reset the five-year portion of the criteria. It doesn’t say anything about the five years being continuous though, so I guess it’s open to interpretation. Pettitte and his agents would argue he has ten-and-five rights while the team would argue against them. Like you said though, the Yankees aren’t trading Pettitte. If they suck this year, he’ll go down with the ship.

Jacob asks: Given the Robinson Cano situation, when was the last time the Yankees traded away a homegrown star that was clearly their best player because they were out of the playoff race?

Forget homegrown and out of the playoff race, when was the last time the Yankees traded away their best player period? The only example I can come up with is Rickey Henderson in 1989. He piled up 3.5 bWAR in 65 games before being traded that June while the team leader ended up being Steve Sax with 4.4 bWAR (in 158 games). There was some animosity between Rickey and George Steinbrenner at the time, which led to the trade.

Other than that, I can’t think of an instance where the Yankees traded their best player. Gary Sheffield and Roberto Kelly weren’t the team’s best player at the time of their trades, and neither was Bobby Murcer back in 1974. Maybe I’m forgetting someone obvious, but I think the point stands: the Yankees aren’t in the business of trading their best players. They’re in the business of acquiring other teams’ best players. I fully expect them to work out some kind of monster extension with Cano this summer and make the whole thing moot.

Filed Under: Mailbag

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • …
  • 1409
  • 1410
  • 1411
  • 1412
  • 1413
  • …
  • 3810
  • Next Page »

Got A Question For The Mailbag?

Email us at RABmailbag (at) gmail (dot) com. The mailbag is posted Friday mornings.

The Estevan Florial Watch

Featured Articles

  • 2018 Top 30 Prospects
  • Yankees Payroll for 2018

Search RAB

Copyright © 2018 · River Avenue Blues