Via Jason comes word that Johnny Damon’s right foot is the first of his many nicks and bruises bound to accumulate over the season. An MRI and X-Rays on the foot came back negative, and Damon is listed as day-to-day. These minor injuries that Damon seems to attract are exactly why the Yanks were not as keen to trade Hideki Matsui as many of their fans were this winter.
Checking in on some old friends
Chad Jennings at the SWB Yankees blog has up a Where Are They Now? post about former Yankee farmhands. With Tyler Clippard and his spring WHIP of nearly 2.00 destined for AAA, Jennings checked in with Matt De Salvo, Josh Phelps, Ron Villone, Andy Phillips and T.J. Beam, among others. My favorite piece of news is that Kevin Thompson has a legitimate shot at sticking around with the Pirates. Yikes.
Game Thread: Wang’s redemption
Sure, it’s only Spring Training, but the Yanks could really use a good outing from their anointed ace Chien-Ming Wang today. Wang is making his third start of the spring today, and his last outing was alarming. He lasted less than one inning and gave up a whole lotta runs and hits.
Today, Wang faces a Blue Jays lineup consisting of guys who will be on the team come Opening Day. He is slated for around 50 pitches, and it would be great if he could last four innings. Following Wang will be Darrell Rasner, Kyle Farnsworth, Heath Phillips, Jonathan Albaladejo and Ross Ohlendorf. The game is on YES and MLB.tv at 1:15 p.m. and the slow Spring Training version of Gameday will be available here.
The lineup:
Cabrera CF
Jeter SS
Abreu RF
Rodriguez 3B
Giambi DH
Cano 2B
Duncan 1B
Lane LF
Molina C
In other Yankee news, five players were reassigned to Minor League camps. Juan Miranda landed in AAA, and Austin Jackson, Collin Curtis, Jose Tabata and P.J. Pilittere were sent down as well. No big surprise there.
Honoring Yankee Stadium through overkill
ESPN, the oh-so-pro Red Sox sports network, plans to pay tribute to the final season at Yankee Stadium through a series of 30 vignettes focusing on famous moments in stadium history. The first ten will debut on March 22 and air during the lead-up to Opening Day, and the next batch are set to hit prior to the All Star Game. Considering ESPN’s penchant for running the same commercial over and over again, I’m guessing we’ll all be sick of these promos rather quickly.
A dissenting opinion on the Cervelli-Johnson collision
In my younger and more vulnerable years, I caught for a variety of baseball teams at different levels. I caught for eight years and bore the brunt of my fair share of dings, bruises, black-and-blue marks and home plate collisions. So when I saw Elliot Johnson run into Francisco Cervelli and the Yanks’ young catcher come up in pain, I was empathetic.
What I did not feel was outrage or this sense of injustice that seems to be emanating from some — but not all — Yankee blogs and from the Yankees and their fired-up manager himself. In fact, to me, the collision looked like a clean play between youngsters trying hard to make an impression with their Big League coaches. Cervelli’s injury was an unfortunate freak accident; it didn’t stem from any malice between the two players.
Back during my baseball days, I would spend the months from the spring through the summer playing ball. After school or in school, over the summer and into the fall, I would be on the diamond playing games. I wasn’t great, but I wasn’t terrible. I could hold my own on my high school varsity team and could have played in college too if athletics had been a priority.
Every year in March, my high school team would fly south for our own spring training. Seven or eight years ago, the weather in New York in March and April was unreliable, and with a short season, we had to get as much practice time and as many games in as possible. During out trips to Arizona and later on during our season, we would play games that didn’t count against out-of-league opponents. Some of these teams — the ones from Arizona — were really good; others — the ones from up north getting in practice in the sun — weren’t. During the season, we would play games against out-of-league teams such as Iona Prep and tense in-league contests against Poly Prep or Hackley that would determine how and when our season ended.
But day in and day out, one thing held true: No matter who we were playing, we came to win, and once we as a team stepped on to the diamond, it was very, very hard to turn it down until after the game was over. We would, in March, play to win. We would play hard; we would play tough. If that meant a tough slide or a play at the plate, so be it. Even if the games didn’t count in our overall record, we couldn’t just dial it down out of some sense of fairness. Baseball is baseball.
So now look at the Cervelli/Johnson collision. A then-23-year-old was rounding third heading home with a 21-year-old catcher blocking the plate. As any baseball player knows, you have to score, and in the split seconds between the base path and home plate, instinct takes over. Did Johnson have time to think to himself, “It’s Spring Training. I shouldn’t barrel over the catcher. I should try to slide around”?
As a former player, I can safely say, “Of course not.” Johnson knew what he had to do; he knew it from years of playing baseball, and he couldn’t just turn it off. That’s not how it works at any level. Once a baseball player hits that third base bag, years of baseball training and instinct take over.
What surprises me too are the reactions from the Yankees. Joe Girardi, an intense player and an intense manager, should know this. Shelley Duncan, mouthing off about retribution, should know this. Clearly, Don Zimmer knows this. He’s spoken the most sense over the last few days.
What happened over the weekend was unfortunate. It was also a bad accident. It involved a player trying to field his position and a runner acting as any baseball runner does. Maybe — but doubtfully — a veteran with years of experience would have tried to find a way to avoid a collision. Maybe another catcher tries a swipe tag. But Cervelli stood his ground; Johnson stood his; and neither the twain shall meet. This collision shouldn’t involve retribution; it should simply involve Cervelli’s healing as fast as he can and everyone else’s remember that a baseball player can’t just turn it down five feet from home plate.
AL East Player Rankings
This is Part Two in my series of ripping off ideas from Jason Churchill at Prospect Insider. Yesterday I took a look at the best tools in the AL East, and now I’m ranking the best overall players. There’s no set formula used to determine the rankings, I basically went on track record and how I think everyone will perform this coming season. There’s not much separation between spots four and, like, 21, so don’t get too worked up if you disagree with a ranking. This wasn’t nearly as easy as you think.
I followed Jason’s lead and included some projected stats in the rankings, although my foray into sabermetrics won’t last much longer than this post. Thanks to Jason for giving me the okay to steal his ideas; I really appreciate it. The good stuff is after the jump.
M.A.N. eACTA
I know this isn’t Yankee-related, but I’m sorry, this has to be one of the greatest posts in FJM history.