River Avenue Blues

Adams & Romine open AzFL season with doubles

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A few winter ball assignments have trickled in: IF Walt Ibarra, UTIL Ronnie Mustelier, and OF Jose Figueroa will all play in Mexico while IF Ali Castillo, UTIL Jose Pirela, and LHP Vidal Nuno will play in Venezuela. OF Zoilo Almonte is already confirmed for the Dominican Republic as well. Leagues in Mexico, Venezuela, and the Dominican Republic open this weekend while Opening Day in Puerto Rico is still a month away. These aren’t the only winter ball assignments, there will be plenty more.

AzFL Scottsdale (4-3 loss to Phoenix) season started on Wednesday
3B David Adams: 1-3, 1 2B, 1 BB — still playing the hot corner I see
DH Slade Heathcott: 0-3, 1 BB, 1 K
C  Austin Romine: 1-3, 1 R, 1 2B, 1 BB, 1 K — hoping he has a huge few weeks out here
RHP Dellin Betances: 1.2 IP, 1 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 1 K, 1 WP, 3/0 GB/FB — only 13 of 28 pitches were strikes (46%) … this was his first outing since late-August due to shoulder tendinitis, and Keith Law says he was 89-93 with two pitches to the backstop … I wouldn’t read much into him coming out of the bullpen, lots of pitchers for only so many innings out here and they have to be flexible

Yankees shut out of Baseball America’s top 20 EL prospects

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Just like the Short Season NY-Penn League and the Rookie Gulf Coast League, the Yankees did not place anyone on Baseball America’s top 20 Double-A Eastern League prospects list. In the subscriber-only chat, Matt Eddy said RHP Brett Marshall was one of the final cuts. He also singled out OF Zoilo Almonte for his power and OF Abe Almonte for his ability to be a speed-oriented fourth outfielder down the road. The Yankees placed five total prospects on the Low-A South Atlantic League and High-A Florida State League lists.

The next and final list of interest to Yankees fans is the Triple-A International League, which will be released Friday. That will be another shutout because Empire State was a very veteran team this year once LHP Manny Banuelos got hurt and RHP Dellin Betances crashed. IF Corban Joseph and RHP Chase Whitley are interesting but hardly top 20 material. Ditto RHP Adam Warren.

ALDS Travel Day Open Thread

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(Rob Carr/Getty)

I don’t think the Yankees and Orioles needed a full day to travel from Baltimore to New York, but they got one anyway. Both clubs actually dealt with mechanical problems with their trains up to the Bronx last night, and Mark Feinsand says the Yankees ended up busing their way up from Charm City. They arrived home at 6:30am ET. So maybe they do need the day off after all.

Anyway, here is your open thread for the off-day. The Reds and Giants (Cincinnati up 2-0 in NLDS) are already playing while the Athletics and Tigers (Anderson vs. Sanchez, Detroit up 2-0 in the series) will follow at 9:07pm ET. Both games are on TBS. Talk about them or any other non-political topics here. Have at it.

MLB tentatively announces start times for ALDS Games Four & Five

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MLB announced today that Game Four of the ALDS begin at 8:37pm ET on Thursday unless the Tigers and Athletics have to play a Game Five. In that case, the game will begin at 7:37pm ET. Game Five, if necessary, will begin at 7:07pm ET on Friday unless the Nationals and Cardinals have to play a Game Five. If they do, the Yankees and Orioles will have their game bumped up to 5:07pm ET. Got it? Good.

Coming home to Yankee Stadium

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(AP Photo/Bill Kostroun)

As I said this morning, splitting the first two games of the ALDS in Baltimore isn’t ideal but it’s far from the worst case scenario. Game Two was eminently winnable — the final 13 Yankees to bat could have either tied the game or given the team the lead with one swing — and the Yankees were a lot closer to finishing the first two games of the series up 2-0 than down 0-2. Now they get to come home for the rest of the ALDS thanks to MLB’s convoluted scheduling.

Like almost every other team in the history of baseball, the Yankees are a better team in their own building. They hit better at home this year (119 vs. 109 wRC+), they pitched better at home this year (3.67 vs. 4.06 ERA), and they won more games at home this year (.630 vs. .543 winning percentage). The Yankees were a really good team on the road this season, but they were even better at home. As much as I dislike this year’s playoff schedule, it does work in New York’s favor for this series.

I’m sure that by now, you’ve already been reminded that the Orioles actually won six of nine games in the Bronx this year. I don’t put much stock regular season performances carrying over to the postsason, but I know there are a lot of people who think it’s meaningful. The piece of the pie that’s missing is the fact that four of those six wins for Baltimore came against pitchers who aren’t even on the Yankees’ playoff roster — Ivan Nova (three) and Freddy Garcia (one). Seriously, in three starts against the Orioles at home, Nova allowed 19 runs in 16.2 innings. That information has been ignored while that “six wins in nine games” stat has circulated.

Anyway, the Yankees are coming back home for the rest of the series and only need to win two of three to advance to the ALCS for the third time in four years. I really, really hope they win the next two to ensure an off-day between the two rounds, but the most important thing is simply advancing. We can give out style points later. Hiroki Kuroda gets the ball in Game Three tomorrow night, and he’s an offspeed machine who works the edges of the zone well enough to take advantage of Baltimore’s middling walk rate (7.8%) and high strikeout rate (21.3%, third highest in the league). Splitting the first two games isn’t great, but the Yankees are still setup well for the remainder of the series in their own park.

Getting beat by Chris Davis

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(Patrick McDermott/Getty)

The first two games of the ALDS have been similar but different. Similar in the sense that both were extremely close games for almost all nine innings, different in the sense that the Yankees had the big ninth inning in Game One but not Game Two. As thrilling as Sunday night’s win was, the Orioles weren’t just to roll over and give New York the rest of the series. They were hot on their tails for the division in September and aren’t going to go away quietly.

One similarity between Games One and Two of the series is that Chris Davis has really put a hurting on the Yankees. He went 2-for-4 in both games (all singles), and all four hits came off lefties CC Sabathia and Andy Pettitte. The 26-year-old Davis actually didn’t show much of a platoon split in the regular season, posting a 121 wRC+ against righties and a 111 mark against lefties. For his career, those numbers are 104 and 86, respectively, but there are sample size issues (only 416 plate appearances against southpaws).

Davis performed well against same-side pitchers this year (and last year for that matter), so he shouldn’t be considered a platoon bat despite his strikeout woes. He hits for big time power and as we’ve seen these last two days, he can also slap some singles. If you go back to the last three weeks of the regular season, Davis hit .352/.418/.746 with eight homers in Baltimore’s final 20 regular season games. The guy finished the season on fire and he’s carried it over into the postseason, and right now he’s making the Yankees pay.

In the first two games of the ALDS, Davis has seen a total of 18 pitches in his eight plate appearances. Ten of those 18 pitches were sliders, the other eight some kind of fastball (four-seamer, cutter, etc.). Davis has taken just six pitches in the series — three fastballs on the inner half and three pitches in the dirt (two fastballs and a slider). Here is a plot of the dozen pitches he’s offered at (via Texas Leaguers)…

The two hits in Game One came on fastballs — the red square and upside pink triangle, to be exact — while the two hits in Game Two came on sliders, including that one just hanging up near the top of the zone. That was the two-run third inning single off Pettitte. Davis has swung and missed three times in the series, all three times on those down-and-away sliders. Based on his heat map against lefties (blue is good for pitchers, red is bad), throwing him fastballs up-and-in and sliders down-and-away is a pretty good plan of attack for left-handed pitchers. Pettitte hung some sliders and got burned while that inside fastball Davis hit for a single was actually just a broken bat bloop. Can’t really blame Sabathia for that.

With both Clay Rapada and Boone Logan in the bullpen, the Yankees should have no trouble matching up with the Orioles’ big left-handed batter in the later innings. Hiroki Kuroda and Phil Hughes are scheduled to start the next two games though, so the whole fastball up-and-in and slider down-and-away approach goes out the window for the right-handers. Here is Davis’ heat map against righties (via Baseball Heat Maps)…

As I said before, blue is good for the pitchers and red (or in this case, green) is bad. What the map is telling us is how Davis performs on pitches in these locations compared to the league average, so he’s been effective on pitches up in the zone but not so much down at the knees, particularly away. Kuroda should have no trouble getting the ball down with his splitter, but it will be a challenge for Hughes. He pitches up in the zone with his fastball, which is why he gets so many fly balls and swings and misses. Phil will have to be careful with Davis come Game Four.

The Yankees have done a pretty good job of keeping Adam Jones (1-for-8), Matt Wieters (also 1-for-8), and J.J. Hardy (1-for-7 with a walk) in check during the first two games of the series, but Davis is the one guy who has really given them trouble each time through the lineup. He will strike out a bunch (30.1% strikeouts this year), so going after him with offspeed pitches down in the zone will be important these next two games. Catching too much of the plate like Sabathia and Pettitte did could result in big problems given Yankee Stadium’s short right field porch.

Moving A-Rod down to … somewhere

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(Rob Carr/Getty)

If you’ve been reading my stuff for the last few years, you know I’m a big fan of tinkering with the lineup throughout the season. Mark Teixeira stinks in April? Fine, drop him down a spot or three and give the hot hand a few more at-bats. Raul Ibanez is hitting well? Great, maybe bump him up so he gets a chance to do damage with more men on-base. Lineups aren’t all that important in big picture, but they can very important in one individual game or, by extension, a short playoff series.

The Yankees have used almost the exact same lineup for the first two games of the ALDS, which means a top six of Derek Jeter, Ichiro Suzuki, Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Cano, Nick Swisher, and Mark Teixeira. Jeter and Ichiro have done a swell job of setting the table, going a combined 7-for-17 (.412) with a double in the two games. They generated a first inning run in both games and outside of the Cap’n’s inning-ending ground ball to third with the bases loaded in the fourth inning last night, they’ve come up with some timely hits.

Teixeira has also produced well in the ALDS, with a pair of two-hit games (plus a walk thrown in). All four hits are singles, though at least two would have been doubles for someone with even average speed. Tex isn’t the fastest guy in the world to start with, but his calf injury has him in the Jorge Posada and miscellaneous Molinas pantheon of slowpokes. Cano has a run-scoring double in each game and Swisher reached base three times in Game One before coming up empty in Game Two.

And then there’s A-Rod, the most polarizing player in recent Yankees history and everyone’s favorite whipping boy. He drew a walk and struck out three times in Game One, then singled in struck out twice more in Game Two. Robert Andino stole a surefire run-scoring single away from him in the first inning last night with a diving stop at second, a hard-hit ball just hit to the wrong place. A-Rod is a career .271/.380/.484 hitter in the postseason, including .254/.381/.463 with the Yankees, but his failures get magnified more than anyone else’s.

So, naturally, after two disappointing games to open the playoffs there is talk of moving him down in the order or even benching him for the Eric Chavez. That second idea is a little ridiculous but the first one isn’t, yet Joe Girardi maintains that he won’t change the lineup because he “(believes) these guys are going to come through.” It’s the standard stock answer he’s been delivering all year, and on a number of occasions he switched up the lineup despite indications that no moves were coming. There’s no reason for Girardi to be truthful about this stuff, announcing that any hitter will be moved in the lineup serves zero benefit.

Now, there are valid reasons to move A-Rod down in the order for Game Three of the ALDS (and beyond), but you don’t need to focus on his recent playoff performance (.169/.282/.203 since 2010) for evidence. Frankly, what he or anyone else did in 2010 is pretty irrelevant in 2012. The case for moving A-Rod down comes from his performance since coming back from the hand injury, which features a .261/.341/.369 batting line in 129 plate appearances. I’ve mentioned this before, but hand injuries tend to linger. If he doesn’t have enough strength in that left hand following the broken bone, he won’t be able to grip or swing a bat properly. That certainly appears to be the case now as Alex just isn’t hitting for any power.

So the question now becomes where do you move him? Flip-flopping him and Teixeira seems like a fine idea if you buy into Teixeira turning it around following his slow return from the calf injury, or they could just move A-Rod down to sixth and bump everyone up a peg, allowing Cano to bat third. The generic lineup optimization answer is that the best hitter should hit fourth because the number three hitter will come up with the bases empty and two outs quite often, but as I said earlier, Jeter and Ichiro have been a two-man wrecking crew atop the lineup for the last four weeks or so.

Moving Cano up to third makes sense and it really doesn’t matter who the Yankees have hitting behind him because it won’t prompt the Orioles to pitch to him in a big spot anyway. Unless the Yankees reanimate the corpse of Babe Ruth, Robbie will be pitched around no matter what in a big spot. Finding someone to take advantage of those situations behind Cano is important and I have no idea who that is — Teixeira? Swisher? Ibanez? Russell Martin? Who knows. It’s not A-Rod at this point, who simply is missing hittable pitches and not really driving the ball when he connects. There are valid reasons to move him down in the batting order, and they stem from his hand injury and his performance since coming off the DL. Not his recent playoff history.