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2012 Minor League Awards

September 17, 2012 by Mike Axisa 46 Comments

The 2012 minor league season officially came to an end for the Yankees’ organization over the weekend, closing out a decidedly negative season for the farm system. Top prospects got hurt, others disappointed, and few stepped up their game and raised their prospect stock. There’s no way to sugarcoat it, this season took a lot of luster out of the minor league system.

Although none of the six domestic affiliates were able to capture their league title, Double-A Trenton did play in the Championship Series. Triple-A Empire State spent the entire season on the road due to extensive renovations to PNC Field in Scranton, but they still managed to win their division for the fifth time in six years. That was particularly impressive. All told, the six stateside affiliates combined for a 366-326 record (.529), at least the 30th consecutive season they’ve put together a combined winning record.

These awards are not intended to be any kind of prospect ranking. It’s just a recognition of who had strong years in the minors regardless of their age or prospect status. Once a year it’s worth it to just sit back and appreciate what the fellas did this season. Here are my 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 awards post for reference. Just as a reminder, the Player of the Year is disqualified from the Pitcher and Hitter of the Year awards just the shake things up. Nothing personal.

Minor League Player of the Year: OF Tyler Austin
I mentioned earlier that very few players stepped up and raised their prospect stock this summer, but Austin was the overwhelming exception. The club’s 13th round pick in 2010 hit .322/.400/.559 with 17 homers and 23 steals (in 25 chances) while advancing from Low-A Charleston to High-A Tampa, plus he also made a late-season cameo with Double-A Trenton. Among hitters with at least 300 plate appearances, Austin led the system in AVG, SLG, OPS (.960), and doubles (35). The 21-year-old did all of that while learning a new position, moving off third base permanently and settling into right field. A concussion did shelve him for a month, but otherwise Austin dominated the most advanced pitching he’s ever faced and put himself on the fast track to the big leagues. He was simply marvelous from start to finish.

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Eduardo Nunez and solving the DH problem

September 17, 2012 by Mike Axisa 75 Comments

This has been a bit of a nightmare season for Eduardo Nunez, who had a chance to really establish himself as a useful player for the Yankees going forward. Instead, he lost his utility infielder’s job in mid-May because he struggled with the routine play, then suffered a thumb injury that cost him two months after being demoted to Triple-A. He resurfaced when rosters expanded in September and was used sparingly at first, but this past weekend he took over the shortstop position while Derek Jeter nursed his left ankle injury.

Nunez, 25, took advantage of the opportunity by going 4-for-13 (.308) with a double, a homer, a walk, and three stolen bases. He would have had another double had Jerry Meals not gotten in the way, plus he made a nice baserunning play on Thursday by aggressively advancing to third from second a routine ground ball to short. Eduardo Scissorhands did show up and whiff on a routine grounder that led to an insurance run for the Rays on Friday, but otherwise he played short quite well over the weekend. He even made two very nice plays going into the hole to his right and showing off his strong arm.

I have to think that both Nunez and the team are happy with his play over these last four games, as he provided some nice offense from the bottom of the lineup while adding some of the speed they’ve sorely missed since Brett Gardner got hurt in April. The Yankees have been a very station-to-station club these last few months and Eduardo’s energetic legs really did stand out. Add in his ability to make contact — just a 10.3% strikeout rate as a big leaguer — and you get a player that provides a much different dynamic than the rest of the lineup.

The Yankees are reportedly committed to using Nunez at shortstop and nowhere else following his defensive lapses as a utility player, hoping that sticking to one position will improve his glovework. With Jeter expected to return to his usual shortstop position later this week, perhaps as soon as tomorrow, Eduardo is suddenly a man without a place to play. Joe Girardi did indicate yesterday that he will consider giving Nunez at-bats as a DH against left-handed pitching, a move that seems beyond obvious given Andruw Jones’ brutally ineffective second half. Frankly, at this point they should consider playing Nunez against right-handers as well. Raul Ibanez is 3-for-51 (.059) over the last month and looks completely worn out after spending way too much time in the field earlier this summer.

By no means do I think Nunez is a budding star or anything like that, but the players the Yankees have been using at DH most of the season have completely cratered in the second half. With Mark Teixeira on the shelf and not close to returning, the Bombers need as much offense as possible right now. Ibanez and Jones aren’t getting the job done, not even close really. Nunez doesn’t fit the typical DH profile — the big, lumbering slugger type — but he does have a productive offensive game built on contact and speed. The Yankees can use more of that and fewer hitless games from their regular DH combo down the stretch.

Fan Confidence Poll: September 17th, 2012

September 17, 2012 by Mike Axisa 45 Comments

Record Last Week: 4-2 (25 RS, 21 RA)
Season Record: 83-63 (704 RS, 607 RA, 84-62 pythag. record), 1.0 game up in AL East
Opponents This Week: Mon. OFF, vs. Blue Jays (three games, Tues. to Thurs.), vs. Athletics (three games, Fri. to Sun.)

Big inning gives Yankees series win over Rays

September 16, 2012 by Mike Axisa 37 Comments

Don’t look now, but the Yankees have suddenly won four of their last five games and seven of their last eleven overall. The second-half skid isn’t over by any means, but it’s good to see things starting to break right for a change. Sunday’s 6-4 win over the Rays gave New York an important series win over a division rival.

Russell Martin — (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

Steals, Bunts, Homers

The Yankees haven’t put up many crooked numbers this season, especially of late, but they struck for five runs in a third inning that featured a little of everything. Eduardo Nunez started it all with a walk — cardinal sin, walking the number nine hitter to leadoff an inning — and quickly stole second. Derek Jeter singled him in and took second on the throw to the plate, then moved to third on Nick Swisher’s sacrifice bunt. Alex Rodriguez plated the Cap’n with a single to center, then wound up on third after a wild pitch and a stolen base. That was the small ball portion of the inning.

With two runs on the board and a man on third with one out, the offense went back into power and patience mode. Robinson Cano worked a walk off the struggling Matt Moore, then Russell Martin followed up with (easily) the best at-bat of the game. Moore jumped ahead in the count 0-2, but three balls and a foul-off later, the count had run full. Martin reached out and drove the eighth pitch of the at-bat — a 94 mph fastball on the outer half — out to right for a three-run homer. They took the lead with the small ball approach and extended it with the long ball, so that inning had something for everyone. The dinger gave the Yankees a nice five-run lead and by the time Moore escaped the inning, he’d thrown 45 pitches and allowed the Bombers to bat around.

Better Than The Box Score

Hiroki Kuroda-001 — (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

Hiroki Kuroda’s pitching line — 6 IP, 4 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 2 BB, 10 K — looks a lot worse than how he actually pitched. He allowed just a solo homer through the first five innings, striking out seven of the first nine men he faced and nine batters through the first five innings overall. The three-run sixth inning rally by the Rays was a classic Murphy’s Law inning, highlighted by a bad bounce and a poor play by a fan.

Kuroda started the inning by walking Jose Lobaton — there goes that leadoff walk to the nine hitter again — which is obviously 100% on him. Jennings followed up with an infield single, then instead of popping out to foul territory, Ben Zobrist loaded the bases on a walk (again, on Kuroda). He’d popped a pitch up to the first base side earlier in the at-bat, and a fan in the front row reached for the ball and basically screened Steve Pearce from making the play for the first out. Instead of first and second with one out, it was bases loaded with no outs.

Evan Longoria plated two when a potential double play ground ball to third took a funny hop and bounced over A-Rod, continuing the Murphy’s Law theme. The first two outs of the inning came on a Matt Joyce double play, which scored Zobrist from third. Just like that, the 6-1 lead was 6-4. Kuroda definitely deserves the blame for the two walks, but otherwise the hardest hit ball of the inning was a foul ball down the line by Joyce. The Rays scored three runs on an infield single and two routine ground balls. Hiroki deserved better.

Uncomfortably Close

A two-run lead with nine outs to go used to be pretty automatic, but the primary late-inning relievers have been overworked of late and their performances haven’t been completely dominant. Boone Logan got the first out of the seventh by retiring pinch-hitter Ryan Roberts (he was originally brought in to face Luke Scott), then new middle man David Phelps took over to complete the inning. Ben Francisco hit a two-run ground rule double with two outs and pinch-hitter Carlos Pena was given the unintentional intentional walk, but Phelps escaped the jam by striking Jennings out looking with a fastball on the down-and-outside corner. T’was a gorgeous pitch.

David Robertson did his three-up, three-down thing in the eighth before giving way to Rafael Soriano, who recorded his 40th save of the season. The tying run did come to the plate following an A-Rod error at third, but Soriano got the game-ending double play from Keppinger a pitch or two later. He’s the first non-Mariano Rivera reliever with 40+ saves in pinstripes since (duh) John Wetteland in 1996 and the fourth player in franchise history to save that many games in a single season. Mo’s done it seven times, Wetteland did it once, and Dave Righetti did it once. That’s it.

Leftovers

Nunez was all over the place in this game. He walked and stole second to start the third inning rally, then singled (it was ruled an error but that was a bad call, in my opinion) and stole both second and third to create another run in the fourth. Nunez became the first Yankee to steal three bases in one game since Brett Gardner in the second to last game of the 2010 season. Overall, he went 4-for-13 (.308) with a double, a homer, and three steals in the four games at short while filling in for the hobbled Jeter.

Speaking of the Cap’n, his ankle injury cost the Yankees a run in the fourth inning, as he wasn’t able to run full speed from first when Desmond Jennings lost Cano’s fly ball in the sun with two outs. He would have scored easily at full strength, but what can you do. Just an unfortunate break. On the bright side, Derek’s third inning single was his 199th hit of the season. He’s one away from his eighth career 200-hit season and ten away from passing 1979 Pete Rose for the most hits by the 38-year-old in baseball history. Crazy.

The Yankees only had five hits as a team, but three of them came with runners in scoring position (out of eight at-bats in those situations) plus they drew six walks and Andruw Jones got hit by a pitch. Hooray for timely hits. No one had more than one knock, though Jeter (single, walk), Cano (double, walk), Curtis Granderson (single, walk), and Nunez (walk, error) all reached base twice. They also stole the four total bases to create some more offense. Nice to see a well-rounded attack.

Granderson nearly took a fastball to the head from Moore in that third inning, which I didn’t think was intentional at all. Home plate ump Paul Emmel disagreed and immediately warned both benches, which I thought was rather ridiculous. Joe Maddon kept yelled “you’re wrong” from the bench and got tossed. Emmel later ejected Joyce after jawing with him following a called strike three in the eighth, so that was two really quick hooks in the span of five innings. Really hate to see umps do that stuff, just let the players play and stop becoming part of the show.

Box Score, WPA Graph & Standings

MLB.com has the box score and video highlights while ESPN has the updated standings. The Orioles beat the Athletics, so they remain one back in the loss column in the AL East race. The Rays are a five back and a distant third. The magic number to clinch the division is down to 16.

Source: FanGraphs

Up Next

The Yankees are off on Monday, the final scheduled off-day of the regular season. They’ll welcome the Blue Jays to the Bronx for a three-game set starting Tuesday night, when Andy Pettitte makes his (hopefully) triumphant return to the rotation against Ricky Romero. If you want to catch the game, check out RAB Tickets.

Sunday Night Open Thread

September 16, 2012 by Mike Axisa 77 Comments

Joe Maddon — #BuryTheRays (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

I’m going to sound like a broken record here (that’s nothing new, actually), but man do off-days feel better coming off a win. The Yankees didn’t get the blowout that would have allowed them to rest their core relievers, but they did get the win this afternoon and that’s all that matters. Now they’ve suddenly won four of five and seven of their last eleven. They aren’t back in ass-kicking mode just yet, but things are definitely starting to trend in the right direction.

Anyway, here is your open thread for the evening. The ESPN Sunday Night Game is a pretty good one, the Nationals at the Braves (Gio vs. Minor). The late NFL game is the Lions at the 49ers. Talk about those games or anything else here. Have at it.

Game 146: Win and relax

September 16, 2012 by Mike Axisa 506 Comments

The Yankees are off tomorrow and boy would it be nice to give the four core relievers — Rafael Soriano, David Robertson, Boone Logan, and Joba Chamberlain — this afternoon off. They’ve been worked real hard these last two weeks and I’m sure two straight days of rest would be much appreciated. Hiroki Kuroda needs to take the ball deep into the game and the offense needs to really put up some runs. Not five or six, more. Win, stay in first, enjoy the off-day. Here’s the lineup…

DH Derek Jeter
RF Nick Swisher
3B Alex Rodriguez
2B Robinson Cano
C. Russell Martin
LF Andruw Jones
CF Curtis Granderson
1B Steve Pearce
SS Eduardo Nunez

RHP Hiroki Kuroda

This afternoon’s game is scheduled to start a little after 1pm ET and can be seen on YES locally and TBS nationally. Enjoy.

Poll: Brian Cashman’s job security

September 16, 2012 by Mike Axisa 95 Comments

YANKEES CASHMAN — (AP Photo/John Marshall Mantel)

The Yankees have won six of their last ten games, but that is barely a footnote in the second half slide that has brought they back to the pack in the AL East. Their ten-game lead has vanished, and when leads that size are blown around here, people tend to lose their jobs. Yesterday we examined Joe Girardi’s job security, so it’s only natural that today we look at his boss, Brian Cashman.

It hasn’t been a good year for Cashman in terms of his roster moves and decisions, not at all. Last season he hit on nearly everyone, but his only significant success story this year is Hiroki Kuroda, who has been better than anyone could have reasonably expected. The Michael Pineda trade is already looking like a disaster, Andruw Jones and Raul Ibanez have cratered in the second half, Jose Quintana is thriving for the White Sox, Justin Maxwell and George Kontos are performing well for the Astros and Giants, and there were no significant moves made at the deadline to shore things up. Here is a recap of the team’s moves over the last twelve months for reference.

Cashman’s off-the-field issues are worth mentioning, as his very public divorce and stalker trial haven’t exactly brought positive attention to him and the Yankees. That said, Cashman is the third longest-tenured GM in baseball and it wasn’t until this past offseason that something resembling a line of succession was established in the front office. He is under contract through 2014 and reportedly is very tight with Hal Steinbrenner, which could save his job if the Yankees wind up missing the postseason. Whether it should is another matter entirely.

What happens to Cashman if the Yankees miss the postseason?