River Avenue Blues

Game 12: Brother, can you spare some pitching?

by

Placing Joba Chamberlain between CC Sabathia and Chien-Ming Wang in the rotation was a great move by Joe Girardi. After all, Chamberlain still has some kinks to work out in his delivery, causing him to be inefficient from time to time. This means high pitch counts early in the game, leading to an earlier bullpen appearance. By surrounding him with two proven workhorses, Girardi theoretically placed less strain on the bullpen. Unfortunately, things haven’t quite worked out that way.

Wang has thrown just 4.2 innings over his two starts this year, meaning the bullpen has had to pick up 13.1 innings. That’s not good, especially since Joba has 10.2 innings in his starts. All the sudden, the bullpen workload is mounting. Wang has spent the week working on his mechanics, with the specific purpose of getting his sinker low in the zone, rather than at that belt-high level that so many hitters love.

In 21.1 career innings against the Yanks, Cleveland starter Fausto Carmona has struck out 11 and walked eight, a good sign for the patient Yankees. He’s also allowed 10 runs and 22 hits, and has a 4.22 ERA. He made just one appearance last year against the Yanks, lasting five innings and allowing three runs, walking five. Wang has 33.1 career innings against the Tribe, striking out 21 to 11 walks, allowing 11 earned runs for a 2.97 ERA. Before his injury he started twice against Cleveland last year, throwing seven shutout innings with nine strikeouts the first time.That’s the Wang the Yanks are going to need today. Even his second appearance — seven innings, three runs — would help out a ton.

The lineup:

Jeter, SS
Damon, DH
Teixeira, 1B
Swisher, RF
Posada, C
Cano, 2B
Cabrera, LF
Gardner, CF
Pena, 3B

And on the mound, number forty, Chien-Ming Wang.

Three Yanks highlight worst free agent contracts 05-09

by 29 Comments

Yanks fans are plenty aware of the poor contracts the team has doled out over the past eight, ten years. When your pocketbooks are that deep, it’s bound to happen from time to time. Thankfully, deep pockets also mean the ability to recover. At Jorge Says No, Josh goes over the worst free agent contracts from 2005 through 2009. Three Yanks made the list, and they’re fairly obvious: Carl Pavano, Kei Igawa, Kyle Farnsworth. A-Rod did not make the cut, although I disagree. The worst third baseman contract Josh found was Adrian Beltre, but he was eventually talked out of it, replacing him with Vinny Casilla. Sorry, but two years and $6.2 million for no production is still better than 10 years and $275 million for a guy who will be 42 when the contract expires. Make sure to check out the whole list; you should be able to name the whole outfield without peeking.

Yanks call-up Claggett

by 25 Comments

Via Chad Jennings, the Yanks have summoned RHP Anthony Claggett from Triple-A Scranton. No word yet on the corresponding roster move, but I doubt Hideki Matsui is hitting the DL. If so, they probably would have just brought David Robertson back since the ten day waiting period on recently demoted players wouldn’t have applied. Claggett was acquired in the Gary Sheffield trade two years ago, and gets his first call to the show the day after Sheff clubs homer number 500. Baseball America says his slider is the best in the organization. I’m assuming the move is just bullpen insurance should Chien-Ming Wang stink up the joint again today.

Fun fact: If CMW threw two straight complete game shutouts, his ERA would still be 5.96.

Update (1:42pm): Juan Miranda was sent down to make room for Claggett.

Filling X’s spot

by 31 Comments

We’re still waiting for the official diagnosis and treatment needed for Xavier Nady’s injured elbow, but everyone expects grim news that will sideline X for the remainder of the season. The Yanks called up Juan Miranda yesterday to replace Nady on the roster, but more than likely this is just a temporary solution. This morning MLBTR pointed us to a report indicating that two possible options are Jason Repko of the Dodgers and Austin Kearns of the Nationals. The problem is that both Repko and Kearns kinda stink.

Let’s just eliminate Kearns as an option right now. He’s hitting .167-.310-.375 this year after hitting .217-.311-.316 last year. He’s owed $8M this year with a $1M buyout on his $10M option for next year. Sure he sort of has a big name after being an elite prospect back in the day, but Kearns doesn’t offer the Yanks anything they don’t already have in John Rodriguez. So he hits righthanded, big deal. I’ll take a good lefty hitter over an inferior righty hitter any day of the week. Pass. Pass emphatically.

Repko, on the other hand, is only slightly less useless. In nearly 500 big league plate appearances he’s hit .229-.300-.375 but has a spiffy 8.9 UZR rating in the outfield (primarily in center). Melky Cabrera’s career line is .268-.329-.375 and his UZR is a combined -2.4 in the various outfield spots, but he’s four years younger than Repko. Where’s the upgrade? Really, the best replacement option would have been Delwyn Young, who the Dodgers traded to the Pirates the day before Nady got hurt. It’s just a case of unfortunate timing.

I understand that the Yankees have likely just lost an everyday outfielder for the rest of the season, but given their current roster construction, why does he have to be replaced with another outfielder? They’re already carrying four players on their roster capable of manning the big swath of grass past the infield, and all four of those guys can play center in a pinch. That’s normally what a team carries. They could use this opportunity to upgrade the black hole that is currently third base, perhaps by picking up Mark Grudzielanek. That, of course, assumes he would be willing to assume a utility infielder role once Alex Rodriguez comes back.

We do know one thing for sure, Brian Cashman won’t rush into finding a replacement for Nady outside of the organization. He’ll let the market come to him like he did with Bobby Abreu and … well … Xavier Nady.

Yanks, Nady still unsure of prognosis

by 11 Comments

Xavier Nady, the Yanks’ shelved right fielder, has been for an MRI and a CT scan. He knows he has some bone damage in his elbow, and he thinks he has some ligament damage there as well. However, the Yanks and Nady are just not sure about the extent of his injury, and they’re not sure what part of the elbow abnormalities are new and what remains as scar tissue. As Bryan Hoch reports today, Nady will soon be undergoing a second MRI in an effort to isolate the damage and attempt a diagnosis. There’s still a chance Nady could rehab the injury and return this year, but right now, I’m not expecting much from number 22.

More than a smattering of empty seats

by 66 Comments

100_3057

The expensive seats during Friday’s thriller as seen as from above. (Photo by leokitty. Click any images to enlarge.)

On Opening Day, the Yankees blamed the sponsored tickets for the underwhelming and under-capacity crowd of 48,271. What then is there excuse for yesterday’s dud of an attendance figure?

In only the second game of the season, the Yankees drew just 45,101, over 7000 fans under capacity, and people are starting to notice. “We saw that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that at Yankee Stadium,” Jensen Lewis said of the empty seats after the game.

A few RAB readers were in attendance at the game, and they were pretty surprised by the empty seats. For more pictures and thoughts about the empty seats, click through.

[Read more…]

Berroa pushes Scranton Yanks to 9-0

by 31 Comments

Matt Wieters doesn’t pull hamstrings, hamstrings pull Matt Wieters.

Triple-A Scranton (11-0 beat down of Rochester) at one point five straight Yanks struck out against an old friend …
Doug Bernier: 2 for 4, 1 R, 1 2B, 1 BB, 2 K
John Rodriguez: 1 for 4, 2 R, 1 RBI, 1 BB, 1 K
Todd Linden: 2 for 5, 2 R, 1 2B, 1 3B, 2 RBI, 2 K – 5 for his last 12 with 3 XBH
Shelley Duncan: 2 for 4, 3 R, 1 BB, 1 K
Angel Berroa: 4 for 5, 2 R, 1 2B, 2 HR, 5 RBI – > Cody Ransom, seriously
Eric Duncan: 1 for 4, 1 BB, 1 K
Phil Hughes: 5.2 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 6 K, 7-4 GB/FB – 64 of 96 pitches were strikes (66.7%)
Steven Jackson: 2 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, 0-3 GB/FB – 24 of 35 pitches were strikes (68.6%)
Brett Tomko: 1.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 3-0 GB/FB – 17 of 24 pitches were strikes (70.8%) … 4 baserunners, 7 K in 6.1 IP this year

[Read more…]