River Avenue Blues

Yankees shut out of Baseball America’s top 20 NYPL prospects list

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Just like the rookie level Gulf Coast League, the Yankees did not land a single prospect on Baseball America’s Top 20 NY-Penn League prospects list today. Short Season Staten Island was terrible this year, as the club was stocked with lower round draft picks from last year and college seniors from this year. The best prospect on the club was probably OF Ravel Santana, who was recovering from his devastating ankle injury and only produced an 83 wRC+.

The full top 20 schedule can be found here. The next relevant list is the Low-A South Atlantic League, which will be released on Wednesday. The Yankees will be well-represented on that list, as OF Mason Williams, C Gary Sanchez, and OF Tyler Austin are all but guaranteed spots, likely in the top ten.

Game 160: Obsessed

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(Jared Wickerham/Getty)

This might be news to you, but the Red Sox and most of their fans have a bit of an obsession with the Yankees. They would rather knock the Yankees out of the postseason this year as payback for their collapse last year rather than the Orioles, the team that actually knocked them out of the playoffs a year ago. Boston rolled over in Baltimore this weekend and lined up two of their three best starters for this final series of the season this week. You know they’re just itching to make life miserable for the Bombers. Here’s the starting nine…

SS Derek Jeter
LF Ichiro Suzuki
DH Alex Rodriguez
2B Robinson Cano
1B Mark Teixeira
RF Nick Swisher
CF Curtis Granderson
C  Russell Martin
3B Eric Chavez

LHP CC Sabathia

Tonight’s game is scheduled to start  little after 7pm ET and can be seen on YES. Enjoy.

Three Yankees among top ten second half jersey sales

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Via Bill Shaikin, Derek Jeter tops the list of jersey sales since the All-Star break. That’s nothing new, the Cap’n has topped the list for three years running now. New Yankee Ichiro Suzuki ranks third behind Jeter and Josh Hamilton while Robinson Cano is further down at number ten. Click the link for the full top 20. Since merchandise sales are split evenly among the 30 clubs (unless purchased at the ballpark), it’s nice to the Yankees help keep everyone else in business.

David Phelps starting in place of Ivan Nova tomorrow

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This surprises me a bit, but Joe Girardi announced this afternoon that David Phelps will start in place of Ivan Nova tomorrow. It surprises me only because I thought they would wait to see if they needed to use Phelps in relief tonight before making the call. Either way, it’s probably the right move. Nova’s been terrible and these games are too important.

Missing: A-Rod’s Power

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A-Rod’s last home run. (Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

On September 8th the Yankees lost a big game to the Baltimore Orioles. With CC Sabathia on the hill they dropped a 5-4 contest that ended when it should have been tied up. Worse, they lost Mark Teixeira again. What we didn’t know at the time is that the Yankees suffered another loss that evening: Alex Rodriguez’s power.

Things were looking so brightly at the time. A-Rod had returned to the lineup five days prior, adding some depth to a corps that sometimes featured Steve Pearce at cleanup. Through that game Rodriguez had gone 7 for 23 with two doubles and two homers, including a homer on that very night. Missing Tex for a longer stretch would surely hurt, but at least A-Rod was back with some power. Right?

If only that were true, perhaps the Yankees might have been celebrating a division title yesterday rather than just a playoff spot. In 89 PA since that game Rodriguez has gone 18 for 77 with just one extra base hit, a home run in a September 14 loss to Tampa. That amounts to a .234/.326/.273 line, which defies comment. Worse, he has now gone 65 PA without an extra base hit. I’m not going through his game logs, but I have to assume that’s the longest such skid of his career.

In some ways the lack of power makes sense. Hand injuries are no joke for major leaguers. Fans like to joke about what seem like minor injuries — David Wright’s injured pinkie, for instance — but they have real effects on a player’s ability to handle and control a baseball bat. It has been barely two months since Felix Hernandez broke Rodriguez’s hand, so his lack of power is understandable in that way.

Yet those first six games after his return made things seem optimistic. He’d collected at least one hit in each of those six games, and then added another three in the next game, a 13-3 drubbing that put the Yankees back in first place alone. Combined with his post-All Star game breakout, 15 for 47 with two homers and four doubles, and it certainly felt as though Rodriguez could provide quality, if not elite, production for the rest of the year.

As Mike noted earlier, the Yankees will get their A lineup back in tact tonight, just in time for the postseason. He notes the issues surrounding Teixeira, but there are just as many surrounding Rodriguez. Both have the potential to carry the middle of the order, but we’ve seen both slump horribly this season. If there was ever a time for both to catch fire, it’s right now. Given their ages and recent performances, it will be even tougher to bank on them in the future.

The Importance of Mark Teixeira

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(Christopher Pasatieri/Getty)

Barring something unexpected, Mark Teixeira will return to the lineup in tonight’s series opener against the Red Sox. He’s come through all of his rehab workouts without a problem, so the Grade I left calf strain that has sidelined him for (essentially) the last 31 team games seems to be a thing of the past. It’s unfortunate he wasn’t around for basically all of September, but better late than never I suppose.

As Joe outlined last week, Teixeira’s replacements haven’t exactly torn the cover off the ball during his absence. He might just be a .250/.340/.480-ish type hitter at this point of his career, but that’s still solidly above-average, especially in the power department. No, it’s not the Teixeira of 2009 or the offensive monster from 2004-2008, but it’s a productive hitter that can help the lineup, especially against left-handed pitchers.

The problem is that we have no idea what the expect from him at this point. Teixeira got his five plate appearances against the Orioles in his one game back earlier this month, but that’s it. He had a handful of Instructional League at-bats against minor league pitchers, but otherwise he’ll be stepping back into the box to face big league caliber pitching for the first time in more than a month. That comes with the injury territory though, any player who misses a significant amount of time has to deal with the same thing. The timing just stinks.

As much as the added bat will help, getting the defense back to normal is important as well. Nick Swisher has gotten the vast majority of the first base reps during Teixeira’s absence, which means lots of Raul Ibanez and Andruw Jones in the outfield. Now Swisher can play right, Ichiro Suzuki can move back to left, Ibanez can DH, and Jones can stay glued to the bench. First base defense isn’t the most important thing in the world, but Teixeira sure is good at it. His return and the trickle down effect helps the club’s overall run prevention.

The Yankees are set to play the three most important games of the season this week, games that will decide if they can jump right to the ALDS or have to a play a wildcard play-in game. The former is much, much preferable. They’re finally at full strength, at least in the sense that all the big names who can come back this year have come back. Getting Teixeira back strengthens the team defense if nothing else, though it won’t take much for him to improve the offensive attack as well. With their regular first baseman back in tow, the Yankees are as healthy as they’re going to get for the rest of the year.

10/1-10/3 Series Preview: Boston Red Sox

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Last three days on the job. (Jared Wickerham/Getty)

Important late-season series between the Yankees and Red Sox are nothing new, but this one has nothing to do with the standings between the two clubs. New York is tied atop the AL East and locked in a tight race with the Orioles while Boston is buried in last place, 20-something games out of first.

What Have They Done Lately?

Lay down for Baltimore, mostly. The Red Sox just got swept in a three-game series in Camden Yards that was so pathetic is appeared as though they were trying to lose. Maybe they were. Boston has lost five straight and nine of their last ten. At 69-90 (-51 run differential), they have the third worst record in the league and have secured the franchises first 90-loss season since 1966.

Offense

(Jared Wickerham/Getty)

The 4.6 runs per game average looks solid, but most of the damage was done a long time ago. David Ortiz (166 wRC+) and Will Middlebrooks (121 wRC+) are on the DL while Adrian Gonzalez (114 wRC+) is in Los Angeles and Kelly Shoppach (96 wRC+) is in Flushing. Since the big trade with the Dodgers, a span of 33 team games, the Red Sox have averaged just 3.4 runs per game. That’s unfathomably bad.

Among the players still on the roster, the best is Dustin Pedroia (111 wRC+) and I don’t think it’s particularly close. Cody Ross (114 wRC+) actually has better numbers, but I’m sure we’d all rather see him up in a big spot than Pedroia. At least I would. Pretty easily too. Jacoby Ellsbury (88 wRC+) has had a miserable and injury-plagued year, but he can still be dangerous. Jarrod Saltalamacchia (97 wRC+) hits homers and nothing else, plus both Scott Podsednik (83 wRC+) and Ryan Lavarnway (25 wRC+) get regular at-bats as well.

The rest of the lineup is a collection of retreads, has-beens, and never-wases. Pedro Ciriaco (88 wRC+) has killed the Yankees this season but done little else at the plate. James Loney (66 wRC+) and Mauro Gomez (93 wRC+) split time at first while Jose Iglesias (17 wRC+) and Mike Aviles (73 wRC+) do the same at short. Daniel Nava (103 wRC+) has had a nice-half year, and the rest of the active position player crop includes outfielders Ryan Kalish and Che-Hsuan Lin, infielders Ivan DeJesus Jr. and Danny Valencia, and third catcher Guillermo Quiroz.

Pitching Matchups

Monday: LHP CC Sabathia vs. RHP Clay Buchholz
One of the few bright spots in this disaster of a second half for the Red Sox has been Buchholz. The 28-year-old right-hander has pitched to a 4.22 ERA (4.46 FIP) in 187.2 innings overall, but that is broken down into a 5.53 ERA (5.20 FIP) in the first half (86.1 IP) and a 3.11 ERA (3.47 FIP) in the second half (101.1 IP). Buchholz still doesn’t miss as many bats as his stuff says he should (6.09 K/9 and 16.1 K% with no improvement in the second half), but he limits walks (2.97 BB/9 and 7.9 BB%) and gets ground balls (48.0%). He uses a low-to-mid-90s four-seamer and an upper-80s cutter to set up his low-80s changeup and upper-70s curveball. Buchholz has one of the best changeups in baseball, a pitch that anecdotally gives the Yankees fits. They tagged him for six runs in six innings (including five homers) back in April, but that was a different pitcher.

(Jim Rogash/Getty)

Tuesday: RHP Ivan Nova vs. LHP Jon Lester
It’s not quite a Ricky Romero disaster season, but this will be the final start of Lester’s worst season as a full-time big leaguer. He’s set new career worsts in ERA (4.94), FIP (4.14), strikeout rate (7.41 K/9 and 19.3 K%), and homerun rate (1.12 HR/9) while maintaining his usually strong walk (3.01 BB/9 and 7.9 BB%) and ground ball (48.8%) numbers. Lester is a three-fastball (low-90s four-seamer, low-90s sinker, upper-80s cutter) pitcher who backs them up with a mid-80s changeup and mid-70s curveball. The Yankees have seen both the good and bad versions of the 28-year-old left-hander this year and throughout recent seasons. There’s no secret here.

Wednesday: RHP Hiroki Kuroda vs. RHP Daisuke Matsuzaka
Six years after being declared the world’s best pitcher not in MLB, Matsuzaka will be making his final start for the Red Sox in the final game of the season. The 32-year-old owns a 7.68 ERA (5.53 FIP) this year and a 4.47 ERA (4.34 FIP) during his big league career, hardly what Boston expected when they sunk nine figures into him. Dice-K has racked up the strikeouts this year (8.10 K/9 and 19.4 K%), but he still walks too many (3.95 BB/9 and 9.5 BB%) and doesn’t get enough ground balls (39.9%). His stuff is pretty much back to normal after Tommy John surgery, meaning a low-90s four-seamer, an upper-80s cutter, and an array for offspeed pitches: low-80s slider, low-80s changeup, mid-80s splitter. The Yankees have not seen Matsuzaka this year but have seen him enough in recent years to know that he’ll work himself into trouble.

(Jared Wickerham/Getty)

Bullpen Status
Well, if nothing else, closer Andrew Bailey (3.46 FIP) is well-rested following the Red Sox’s latest stretch of awfulness. Right-hander Junichi Tazawa (1.82 FIP) and left-hander Andrew Miller (3.18 FIP) form a pretty dominant setup tandem, though Vicente Padilla (3.98 FIP) and Craig Breslow (2.51 FIP) will see some late-inning time as well. After all the roster turnover and whatnot, the bullpen is the strength of this Boston team.

Working the middle innings are old friends Mark Melancon (4.70 FIP) and Al Aceves (4.21 FIP), ditto funky left-hander Rich Hill (2.84 FIP). Scott Atchison (2.51 FIP) has pitched well, Clayton Mortenson (4.46 FIP) less so. Daniel Bard (6.38 FIP) is a disaster, and the rest of the bullpen is filled out by September call-ups Pedro Beato and former Yankees draft pick Chris Carpenter. Given the enormity of this series, I imagine Joe Girardi’s typical bullpen management is going out the window and he’ll use whoever he needs to use to win in all three games. Check out our Bullpen Workload page for usage details, then check out Over The Monster for the latest and greatest on the Red Sox.