River Avenue Blues

Update: Yankees still don’t have any interest in Kyle Lohse

by 39 Comments

February 28th: Scott Boras contacted the Yankees about Lohse but were told they don’t have any interest according to Buster Olney. I’m guessing this happened shortly after the new of Phil Hughes’ back injury broke. As I wrote last week, I do think the Yankees should explore signing the right-hander, but the contract would have to be pretty favorable.

February 21st: Via Joel Sherman: Brian Cashman confirmed the Yankees still do not have any interest in free agent Kyle Lohse despite Phil Hughes’ recent back trouble. They would have to surrender their first round draft pick to sign the right-hander.

Lohse, 34, has gotten to the point where he’s been so overrated that he’s now underrated. He’s pitched to a 3.11 ERA (3.58 FIP) in 399.1 innings over the last two years, but he doesn’t miss many bats (5.72 K/9 and 15.5 K%) or get ground balls (40.9%). Instead, he limits walks (1.80 BB/9 and 4.9 BB%) and uses those fly balls to keep his BABIP low (.265). Plenty of journeymen have turned into quality starters with St. Louis only to turn back into journeymen after leaving (most notably Jeff Suppan and Jeff Weaver), which makes Lohse quite scary. If the Yankees could get him cheap, say one or two years at $5-7M annually, I think it would be worth exploring even giving up the pick. I don’t see Scott Boras taking that though.

Open Thread: 2/28 Camp Notes

by 66 Comments

Chris Stewart got ejected for arguing a bang-bang play at first. Seriously. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Nathan Denette)
Chris Stewart got ejected for arguing a bang-bang play at first. Seriously. (AP Photo/Nathan Denette)

Bad news: the Yankees lost to the Blue Jays earlier today, their fifth consecutive Grapefruit League loss. More bad news: about an hour later, they lost to the Astros to make it six straight losses. The home loss to Toronto featured two hits by Juan Rivera (single and double) and singles from Ichiro Suzuki and Mark Teixeira. David Phelps was the star of the day, throwing three scoreless innings. He had to go to the bullpen afterwards to make sure he reached his pitch count.

The minor leaguer-laden road squad in Kissimmee blew a four-run lead thanks to a grand slam from former Yankee Brandon Laird. Shane Greene served that one up. Zoilo Almonte and Melky Mesa had two hits apiece, including a three-run homer for Melky2.0. Eduardo Nunez beat out an infield single and pulled the first baseman off the bag with an errant throw. What else is new. Frankie Cervelli threw out a pair of attempted base-stealers and is 4-for-5 in throwing out runners this spring. His throwing has been really, really good so far. Here’s are the box scores (home game, road game) and here is the rest from Tampa…

  • Mariano Rivera threw 18 pitches in a simulated game and was able to test his surgically repaired right knee by fielding a comebacker, fielding a bunt, and covering first base. “This was perfect, now it’s time to do it in a real game,” said Rivera. [Sweeny Murti & George King]
  • CC Sabathia threw a total of 46 pitches across two innings in a simulated game. “I felt a lot better today, just commanding the baseball,” he said, adding he doesn’t “have that little pain in (his elbow) anymore.” Still no word on when he will make his Grapefruit League debut, but I imagine it’ll be relatively soon. [Dave D’Alessandro]
  • Andy Pettitte threw a bullpen session today while Boone Logan is scheduled to face hitters in live batting practice tomorrow. Nothing new on Phil Hughes (bulging disk), he’s still doing his pool workouts with no set date for picking up a ball. [Chad Jennings]
  • Kevin Youkilis (oblique) did some fielding drills and looked fine. I’m guessing he’ll return to the lineup sometime this weekend. [Chad Jennings]
  • In the least surprising news ever, Joe Girardi confirmed Sabathia will start Opening Day. [Mark Feinsand]

Here is tonight’s open thread. All three hockey locals are in action plus MLB Network will air a Spring Training game as well. Talk about any of those games or anything else here. Have at it.

Cashman confirms Yankees have made “significant offer” to Cano

by 101 Comments

Via Dan Barbarisi: Brian Cashman confirmed the Yankees have already made a “significant offer” to impending free agent Robinson Cano. Hal Steinbrenner confirmed the two sides have had a “conversation or two” about a new deal earlier this month, but Cashman confirmed an actual offer was made. Apparently there is a significant difference in valuation during talks, so I’m guessing this recent offer was well off Scott Boras’ mark. I’m sure there are still many offers and counteroffers to come, but this is notable because the team is breaking it’s “no extensions” policy (which they’ve already done once for Robbie, of course).

Hot .GIF Action: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Betances

by 37 Comments

Perpetual prospect Dellin Betances threw a scoreless inning on the road against the Astros this afternoon, and to quote Houston’s announcers, he was “scary wild.” That’s pretty typical for the right-hander, who had a nightmare season a year ago and has struggled to harness his admittedly impressive stuff over the last six years. The 25-year-old ranked 23rd on my preseason top 30 prospects list, and today he walked two, struck out two, hit a batter, and uncorked a wild pitch. We’ll start with the good stuff, like the big fastball in the .GIF above. More to follow — click to embiggen — after the jump.

[Read more…]

Yankees rank fifth in ESPN’s Future Power Rankings

by 20 Comments

In an Insider-only feature (1-15, 16-30), a panel of ESPN experts ranked baseball’s 30 franchises based on “how well each team is set up for sustained success over the next five years.” The list was created using weighted rankings in five categories — Major League talent, farm system, finances, management, and roster flexibility — and expressed on a scale of 1-100. The Cardinals (84.3) top the list by a significant margin. Hard to argue with that. The directionless Rockies (19.2) were dead last.

The Yankees ranked fifth (65.9), down quite a bit last year (79.6), when they ranked second. They trail the Cardinals, Rangers (77.4), Rays (68.1), and Nationals (67.0). As expected, they graded very well in the financial department — despite the plan to get under the $189M luxury tax threshold — but were merely middle of the road everywhere else. As the write-up notes, their long-term Major League talent level is murky given the impending free agencies of Robinson Cano, Curtis Granderson, Hiroki Kuroda, Phil Hughes, and others. Can’t say I disagree with that.

Spring Training Game Thread: Split Squad

by 206 Comments

(AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
(AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

The Yankees are playing a pair of split squad games this afternoon. Half the team will stay in Tampa to play the Blue Jays while the other half travels to Kissimmee to play the Astros. You get one guess where the projected big league regulars will play. Hey, when you’ve made it to the show you don’t have to travel in Spring Training if it can be avoided.

Grapefruit League records mean nothing, but hot damn it would be nice if the Yankees won one of these games today just to keep up appearances. They’ve lost their last four games, including yesterday’s error-filled laughing stock. They’ll surely start winning some of these meaningless contests once the projected big league starters get into game action — Hiroki Kuroda will start tomorrow, coincidentally — but for now we’ll just have to wait. Here is the lineup for the home team in Tampa, which will be managed by Joe Girardi…

  1. CF Brett Gardner
  2. RF Ichiro Suzuki
  3. 1B Mark Teixeira
  4. DH Travis Hafner
  5. LF Juan Rivera
  6. C Chris Stewart
  7. 3B Dan Johnson
  8. 2B Jose Pirela
  9. SS Gil Velazquez

And on the mound is the right-hander from the St. Louis suburbs, David Phelps. Here are the second string pitchers and positions players courtesy of Chad Jennings.

Available Pitchers: RHP David Aardsma, LHP Clay Rapada, RHP Branden Pinder, LHP Juan Cedeno, RHP Chase Whitley, and RHP Jim Miller will all come out of the bullpen

Available Position Players: C Bobby Wilson, 1B Kyle Roller, SS Addison Maruszak, 3B Rob Segedin, LF Thomas Neal, CF Slade Heathcott, RF Ronnier Mustelier, and DH Gary Sanchez will all come off the bench. I guess Pirela will play all nine innings.

Here is the lineup for the road team heading about 90 minutes northeast to play the Astros, which will be managed by bench coach Tony Pena…

  1. SS Eduardo Nunez
  2. 2B Jayson Nix
  3. RF Zoilo Almonte
  4. LF Matt Diaz
  5. CF Melky Mesa
  6. C Frankie Cervelli
  7. 3B Corban Joseph
  8. 1B Luke Murton
  9. DH J.R. Murphy

And on the mound is the right-hander from the suburbs of Houston, Brett Marshall. Here are the second stringers, again courtesy of Jennings.

Available Pitchers: RHP Dellin Betances, RHP Mikey O’Brien, RHP Shane Greene, RHP Kelvin Perez, RHP Corey Black, and RHP Zach Nuding are all coming out of the bullpen.

Available Position Players: C Austin Romine, 1B Greg Bird, 2B Walt Ibarra, SS Cito Culver, 3B Kevin Mahoney, LF Ramon Flores, CF Adonis Garcia, RF Tyler Austin, and DH Francisco Arcia are all coming off the bench.

Both games are scheduled to start a little after 1pm ET and can be seen on MLB.tv (no local blackouts). Only the home game will be available on YES. Enjoy.

Poll: Replacing Curtis Granderson

by 89 Comments

(AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
(AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

The dust has settled a little bit following the news of Curtis Granderson’s fractured forearm on Sunday. The Yankees will be without their 40-homer center left fielder for the next ten weeks, meaning he will miss the first month of the season. It’s a big loss, no doubt about it, but they are lucky it happened so early in Spring Training. Things would have been a lot worse had he gotten hurt on March 24th instead of February 24th.

As expected, the Yankees insist they will plug their new outfield hole from within. The Johnny Damon talk has already fizzled out while the Alfonso Soriano talk never really got going. The only unsigned free agent outfielder who is both healthy and actually capable of playing the outfield everyday is Scott Podsednik. Thanks, but no thanks. The Yankees will stick with their internal options and see if (hope?) a better alternative pops up next month as camp winds down and roster spots are finalized. Here is a quick look at those internal options, listed alphabetically.

Zoilo Almonte
Almonte, 23, is a switch-hitter who managed a power-heavy 120 wRC+ with Double-A Trenton last year. He hit a career-high 21 homers and also stole 15 bases, though his miniscule walk rate (5.6%) and strikeout concerns (22.7%) seem to make skipping over Triple-A a risky proposition. Zoilo’s pop is legit, but the rest of the package is lacking.

Matt Diaz
Diaz was in the running for the right-handed outfield platoon bat role before Granderson’s injury, so it seems natural that he would be among the favorites for the job now. The soon-to-be 35-year-old hasn’t hit in three years (80 wRC+), due to in part to various injuries — getting stabbed in the hand by a palm tree and dealing with the subsequent infections chief among them. Diaz is on a minor league contract and was a total shot in the dark by the front office, who hopes he can recapture his 2006-2009 form (117 wRC+).

Adonis Garcia
Here’s the darkhorse. The 27-year-old Garcia signed for $400k last summer and has impressed with his bat ever since, especially in winter ball (.292/.319/.481 with six homers in 39 games). As Baseball America wrote earlier this month, the right-handed hitter “is a better fit on a corner outfield spot and doesn’t have an impact bat, but he’s shown a knack for hitting and surprising pop for his 5-foot-9 stature.” Garcia is not on the 40-man roster, which could hurt his chances.

Melky Mesa
Mesa, 26, is the best all-around player of the bunch. He can swing-and-miss from the right side with the best of ’em (career-low 23.5 K% in 2012), but he’s hit at a better than average rate at each rung of the minor league ladder, including a ~125 wRC+ split between Double-A and Triple-A last year. Mesa has power and speed — at least 19 homers and 19 steals in three of the last four years — to go along with standout defense and a strong arm. Among players in the organization who could legitimately see big league time this summer, Melky2.0 is probably the second best defender behind Brett Gardner. He got his first taste of the show last September.

Ronnie Mustelier
Everyone loves the right-handed hitting Mustelier, the 28-year-old Cuban defector who has managed a ~144 wRC+ since signing for a measly $50k two years ago. His strikeout rate (13.0%) is strong, his walk rate (6.7%) slightly less so. The concern with Mustelier is his defense, which is poor and has gotten him moved down the defensive spectrum form second base to third to left over the last 20 months or so. He can hit a fastball though.

Thomas Neal
Neal, 25, seems to be the afterthought in all this. The righty swinger managed a 144 wRC+ with 12 homers and 11 stolen bases in Double-A last year, making his big league debut with the Indians in September. He has some Triple-A time under his belt (277 plate appearances) and is solid defensively. Neal is a long shot, but he shouldn’t be written off completely. Like Garcia and Mustelier, he is not on the 40-man roster.

Juan Rivera
Like Diaz, the Yankees inked the 34-year-old Rivera to a minor league deal so he could complete for the right-handed bench bat role. The former Yankee is, by far, the most experienced and accomplished player in this post. He’s hit to the tune of a 92 wRC+ over the last three seasons and despite being a strong defensive player once upon a time, he’s now comfortably below-average. Rivera’s best attribute is his ability to put the ball in play (12.9 K% since 2010).

* * *

Ramon Flores is on the 40-man roster, but I have no reason to think the Yankees will jump him from High-A to MLB just to plug a one-month hole. Same goes with top prospects/non-40-man players Slade Heathcott, Mason Williams, and Tyler Austin. If you want some projections for the players mentioned in this post, SG has you covered. Otherwise, time to vote…

Who should be the regular left fielder while Granderson is on the DL?
View Results