River Avenue Blues

Sabathia plans to begin throwing after Christmas

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Via Jeff Bradley: CC Sabathia plans to begin throwing after Christmas following late-October surgery to clean out a bone spur from his pitching elbow. “That’s when I always begin throwing,” said the left-hander. “That’s normal. The past three seasons I waited until Christmas to begin throwing. Before that, I started earlier. But I have been giving myself a break the last few years. I should be right on schedule. Feeling great. The range of motion is back. I’m not worried. I’m excited about the season.”

Sabathia, 32, will be on a “modified” pitching schedule in camp but (unsurprisingly) the Yankees haven’t really explained what that means. The important thing is that he’s on schedule to begin throwing soon and is expected to be ready in time for both Spring Training and Opening Day.

Update: Yankees to re-sign Ichiro Suzuki

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(Leon Halip/Getty)

Friday: It’s a two-year contract worth approximately $13M according to Heyman. Other teams, including the Phillies, reportedly offered two years and $14-15M, so Ichiro took a slight discount to return to New York. Heyman notes the team considered a one-year offer worth more than the $6.5M average annual value of this two-year contract, but apparently decided against it. I would have greatly preferred a one-year commitment given the 2014 payroll plan and Ichiro’s age. Sounds like the deal is still pending a physical.

Wednesday: The Yankees will re-sign Ichiro Suzuki according to Jon Heyman, Ken Rosenthal, and Craig Carton. The deal is not done yet because the two sides are still hammering out some details, but it’s only a matter of time before those are worked out. It sounds like there’s a chance he’ll wind up with a two-year contract, which would not jibe with the team’s “one-year contract or bust” mentality in advance of the 2014 payroll plan. The club will need to clear a 40-man roster spot once the deal is official.

Ichiro, 39, hit .322/.340/.454 (114 wRC+) in 240 plate appearances for the Yankees after being acquired from the Mariners at the trade deadline. He didn’t hit much in the first six weeks after the trade (.271/.297/.398 in 140 PA), but was arguably the team’s best hitter down the stretch in the final three weeks of the season (.394/.402/.532 in 100 PA). Ichiro hit just .268/.302/.342 in over 1,200 plate appearances from the start of 2011 through the trade, so the Yankees are clearly banking on him being revitalized by playing for a veteran-laden contender.

In order to facilitate the trade, Ichiro agreed to a set of conditions that included batting lower in the order and sitting against tough lefties. He earned a higher slot in the lineup and full-time at-bats later in the season, but it remains to be seen how the Yankees will use him going forward. Does he automatically hit first or second and play everyday based on the strength of his strong finish? Or will he essentially have to re-prove himself and start the year at the bottom of the order and on the bench against tough lefties? I’d prefer the latter, but that’s just me.

One thing the Yankees will clearly get with Ichiro is premium defense. He’ll slide back into his natural right field position and provide both range and a strong arm (even if it takes him forever to actually throw the ball), giving the team its best defensive outfield alignment in quite some time. Ichiro is also a true global superstar who transcends baseball. This financial impact is often overstated (as we learned during the Hideki Matsui years), but there are plenty of marketing and merchandising dollars to be made by having him on the roster. It’s also worth noting that Ichiro is only 394 hits away from 3,000 for his MLB career, though reaching that milestone within the next two years seems unlikely.

With Kevin Youkilis on board and Ichiro on his way back, the Yankees addressed two of their biggest position player needs this week. They still lack a starting-caliber catcher and need a DH, but one will be far easier to find than the other. It’s also imperative that they find a right-handed hitting outfielder since they now have three left-handed starters who had varying degrees of success against southpaws over the last three years — Ichiro (87 wRC+), Brett Gardner (103 wRC+), and Curtis Granderson (112 wRC+). Scott Hairston seems to the be the only viable free agent option for that role, but a trade is always possible.

Mailbag: Mark Trumbo & Shaun Marcum

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I’ve only got two questions for you this week, but they’re good ones and the answers are kinda long. Please use the Submit A Tip box in the sidebar to send us anything through the week, mailbag questions or otherwise.

(Stephen Dunn/Getty)

Many asked: What about Mark Trumbo?

As soon as the Angels agreed to sign Josh Hamilton, everyone kinda assumed they would then turn around and trade one of their spare outfielders for a starting pitcher (like R.A. Dickey). Mike Trout obviously isn’t going anywhere and Vernon Wells is useless, so that leaves Peter Bourjos (a no-hit, all-glove center fielder) and Trumbo. Buster Olney reported yesterday that the Halos will hang on to the young slugger, but that’s something they would say even if they intend to trade him.

Trumbo, 27 next month, hit .268/.317/.491 (122 wRC+) with 32 homers this season. He was absolutely terrible after May, hitting just .237/.285/.434 in his final 417 plate appearances and .202/.246/.293 in his final 211 plate appearances. Things got so bad that he was regularly benched in favor of Wells down the stretch. Trumbo is a .259/.302/.478 (113 wRC+) career hitter who doesn’t walk (5.3 K%) and will strike out a bunch (23.9 K%). He’s also a disaster in the outfield since his regular position is first base. Pretty much all he does is hit homers, that’s it. If you’re only going to have one tool, that’s a good one to have.

Power, especially from the right side, is hard enough to come by that Trumbo has a lot of value. He’ll get pretty expensive through arbitration soon (eligible in 2014) because homers pay, though he could be a non-tender candidate within two seasons. Any team who wanted Trumbo could have just signed Mark Reynolds, who is only two years older and offers the same big power but will also take a walk. If the Angels do trade any of their young outfielders, they figure to seek a high-end starting pitcher in return and the Yankees just don’t have that to offer. They match up better with the Nationals, who could dangle a similar player to Trumbo (Mike Morse) if they re-sign Adam LaRoche.

(Jeffrey Phelps/Getty)

Jed asks: I realize that the Yankees’ rotation is pretty much set, but don’t you think that Shaun Marcum could be had for a pretty reasonable price? With such big question marks for Ivan Nova and Phil Hughes … seems like it might be a good idea. Marcum has been pretty solid for a while – I don’t understand the apparent non-interest across the league.

I’ve been an irrationally big Marcum fan for years, and a few weeks ago I wrote that the Yankees should not stop looking for rotation help just because they re-signed Andy Pettitte and Hiroki Kuroda. Signing a pitcher like Marcum to a one-year, prove yourself contract to round out the rotation — bumping Nova and David Phelps into the sixth and seventh starter roles — seems like a great idea if the team is willing to spend the money.

Marcum, who turns 31 today, pitched to a 3.70 ERA (4.10 FIP) in 124 innings for the Brewers last season while missing more than two months with an elbow strain. He managed 190+ innings in both 2010 and 2011 after missing 2009 with Tommy John surgery. Marcum has posted solid strikeout (7.48 K/9 and 20.1 K%) and walk (2.44 BB/9 and 6.6 BB%) rates since returning from elbow surgery, but he’s a big time fly ball pitcher (37.3% grounders) who will surrender the long ball (1.07 HR/9 and 9.5 HR/FB%). He has AL East experience after spending the first six seasons of his career with the Blue Jays.

I like Marcum mostly because he’s a total bulldog and extremely aggressive on the mound. His fastball lives in the mid-to-high-80s and he’ll shove it down a lineup’s throat all night long. As Keith Law wrote in his Top 50 Free Agents write-up (subs. req’d), Marcum “goes after hitters like they kicked his dog.” A knockout upper-70s/low-80s changeup is his bread-and-butter pitch, and he’ll throw sliders and curveballs while also sinking and cutting the fastball. His margin for error is quite small given the fringy fastball, obviously.

Brandon McCarthy, who has had at least one arm-related DL stint in each of the last six years and has only twice eclipsed 100 innings in a season, managed to get two guaranteed years as a free agent this winter. I have a hard time thinking Marcum will take a one-year deal to serve as New York’s fifth starter when other clubs will probably offer more opportunity. He grew up in Kansas City and I suppose the Royals could try to make him the final piece of their rebuild rotation, for example. I’d love to see the Yankees sign him for the back of the rotation, which would theoretically free them up to use Nova or Phelps in a trade. I just don’t see it happening.

Yankees agree to sign Bobby Wilson to minor league contract

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Via Buster Olney: The Yankees have agreed to sign catcher Bobby Wilson to a minor league contract with an invitation to Spring Training. He was non-tendered by the Blue Jays last month after they claimed him off waivers from the Angels earlier this offseason.

Wilson, 29, is a .208/.272/.321 (65 wRC+) career hitter in 447 big league plate appearances, all with Anaheim. He’s considered a good defensive backstop, and the various catcher defense rankings (2010, 2011, 2012) have ranked him anywhere from average to a top ten defender. Wilson figures to provide depth in Triple-A but could also win the starting catcher’s job in Spring Training given his competition.

Thursday Night Open Thread

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The best position player on the free agent market finally signed today as Josh Hamilton left the Rangers for the division rival Angels. The Halos have a scary good top of the lineup with Hamilton joining Mike Trout and Albert Pujols, but they still need to work on the rotation. Jered Weaver is great, but C.J. Wilson is coming off elbow surgery, Joe Blanton isn’t anything special, and Tommy Hanson’s shoulder is mush. Need moar pitching and moar depth, as the kids say.

Anyway, here is your open thread for the evening. The Bengals and Eagles are the NFL game, plus the Knicks are playing the Lakers. Talk about either game or anything else here.

Sherman: Yankees will need to go two years to re-sign Ichiro

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Via Joel Sherman & Jon Heyman: The Yankees are positive they will re-sign Ichiro Suzuki, but it’s going to take a two-year contract because the Phillies offered him two years and $7M annually. George King reports that a few other clubs made two-year offers as well, and the two sides are talking about a $12-13M guarantee.

I didn’t love the idea of re-signing Ichiro to be the full-time right fielder to start with, but giving him two years would be pretty terrible in my opinion. That goes double when you consider a) they didn’t bother to make a two-year offer to Russell Martin (who is far more difficult to replace), and b) the plan to get under the $189M luxury tax threshold in 2014. A 39-year-old corner outfielder who’s posted a 93 wRC+ over the last three years (84 over the last two years) isn’t deserving of a multi-year contract.