It's like revision week here at AB4AR when it comes to roster discussions. Spring Training is bearing down upon us (and the players who will actually be participating in it), and the Yankees continue to add pieces to the roster competition. First it was sorting through all the cheap 1-year signings and MiL players to determine who were the leading candidates to take the final 4 open roster spots. Now with the additions of Juan Rivera and Travis Hafner, and the ever-uncertain situation surrounding Alex Rodriguez's future with the team, it's time to once again take a look at the potential batting orders for the Yankees in 2013. I probably don't need to remind anybody of this, but I use the word "orders" because there is more than likely going to be a lot of lineup juggling and platoon splits from Joe this season to maximize the output potential of the players he has and keep everybody as healthy as possible.
I'm a Buster Olney fan. I think he's one of the best baseball reporters in the business, if not the best, and take his information and thoughts on the Yankees more seriously than probably any other beat writer or MSM reporter. That's why I was a little surprised to find that Olney's "What Yankees need to go right in '13" Friday morning blog post (Insider Only) was so ordinary. It's not that anything he said was wrong or untrue, it's just that a lot of it seemed so obvious and so basic that it didn't feel like a true Yankee-centric post to me. Have the Yankees really become this boring this offseason?
Everybody's so caught up in talking about A-Rod's retirement that's never going to happen until his contract is up that they missed Teix getting an early start on his next career after he retires from baseball. On Broadway. It certainly looks like the normally robotic first baseman was ELECTRIC in his cameo performance in "Rock Of Ages" on Tuesday, although there's no word on whether he pulled another hammy doing the dance steps.
Teix, so hot right now. Teix.
(Photo courtesy of Playbill. More can be found here)
I've got no team rooting interest in the Super Bowl this weekend (Packers fan), but that doesn't mean I'm going to be entirely neutral. I'm rooting for Beyonce to fall down during her lip-synched halftime show, and more importantly I'm rooting for Ray Lewis to lose. There might not be a bigger piece of shit in professional sports than Ray Lewis. He's a lying, phony, self-righteous, self-absorbed overrated fraud who wraps himself in religious banter to cover for his shortcomings and mistakes. At best. At worst he's a murderer. And yet the mainstream sports media has conveniently forgotten all about that and gotten in line to wash his balls for the last 10 years because he does a goofy dance and says "God" a lot. What a bunch of crap. I'm glad he's retiring, I'm glad I never have to see him jump off the top of a pile after a 5-yard gain and celebrate like he just won the lottery again, and I hope he goes out missing a tackle on the final play of the game that leads to San Francisco's game-winning score because that's what he deserves. Ray Lewis is hot human garbage. Now onto the links!
- On Monday, Derek Albin of Pinstripe Pundits pictured a worst case scenario where the Yankees were sellers at the trade deadline and mused on who they might move in that scenario.
- Mike Jaggers-Radolf of TYA asked if Mark Teixeira was the key to the Yankees' success in 2013? Given the events that have transpired this week and the omnipresent age-related concerns, I would say he's going to be a big determining factor.
- El duque of It Is High... did something similar, but in a much awesomer fashion, by calling out all the Yankee fans who are siding with the Steinbrenners and rooting for A-Rod's contract to be voided.
- Rebecca Glass of This Purist Bleeds Pinstripes had an even more interesting take on the A-Rod PED story, choosing to turn the spotlight on MLB and the MSM for their blatant double standard when it comes to handling steroid cases versus domestic/sexual violence cases. You know, real ACTUAL crimes.
- Hunter Farman of Yanks Go Yard wondered if Pat Venditte could make his way to the show this season. Considering his recent injury and low value as a prospect I would say no, but it's always worth asking about a guy with Venditte's unique skill set.
- On Friday, Daniel Burch of The Greedy Pinstripes profiled Greg Bird, a 5th round draft pick in 2011 who hasn't found his traction yet in the Minors but does have some real upside.
This week marks the 1-year anniversary of the Linkapalooza becoming a weekly feature on AB4AR. Actually the real anniversary was on Sunday, but I didn't want to jump the gun last Friday. Didn't seem right. Anniversaries always need to be celebrated and it only seems appropriate to mark this momentous milestone with some Queens. The Linkapalooza started with QOTSA last January and it celebrates its first birthday with QOTSA today. Gotta love consistency
(Where does this new guy fit in? Courtesy of the AP)
After all the hard work I put into my first shot at ranking the contenders for the final 4 roster spots earlier this week, the Yankees had to go and screw it all up by signing more guys. I'd be a little more upset, both personally and semi-professionally, if those players weren't potential upgrades over most of the others in contention. But since they were, I guess I can get over it and move on with an updated list. The 2 newest players added to the mix have a leg up on their competition by having more Major League experience under their belt, but I wouldn't quite say they are shoo-ins given their age and individual shortcomings as defensively useless players and injury risks.
So here's take 2 of my pre-ST rankings for the final 4 roster spots:
** UPDATE 3:21 PM- Canzler has been DFA'd to open a spot on the 40-man for Travis Hafner. I'd say he's not a sure bet to clear waivers. **
We're now less than 2 weeks away from pitchers and catchers reporting to Spring Training, which will signal the end of the 2012-2013 offseason and start the transition towards the 2013 regular season. The Yankees released their list of non-roster invitees to camp yesterday, all 44 of them, and combined with the guys on the 40-man roster they should make for a very entertaining camp. There's a heavy dose of young MiL players and prospects in this 44-man group, with a sprinkling of older veteran players, mostly the guys who've been recently signed to MiL deals to compete for bench jobs. Full list of non-roster invitees and a few quick thoughts on the group after the jump.
(Yeah, I used the all caps "breaking news" tag for this signing. It's a Major League player with legitimate offensive value, so I'm a little excited about that after watching the recent string of Quad-A signings. Deal with it.)
After reports came out yesterday that the Yankees were in serious talks with Travis Hafner, they finalized those talks today by signing him to a 1-year, incentive-heavy deal to be their main designated hitter for 2013. The deal is reportedly a guaranteed Major League deal, meaning a 40-man roster spot will have to be cleared to make room for Hafner. But that's an acceptable sacrifice to make to add a potential impact bat like Hafner's, injury concerns and all.
I wrote about Hafner and my desire to see the Yankees sign him weeks ago, so obviously I'm happy to see them add him and his thump to the lineup. Hafner is a huge injury risk, and as close to a sure thing as there is to end up on the DL at some point, but his offensive production potential as a righty masher hitting in Yankee Stadium is well worth that risk. The Yankees are very familiar with Hafner and I have to think they did their homework on his medical reports before deciding to go through with this deal. With what's left out there on the FA market, this is as good a cheap 1-year deal as they could have found, and one that could have potentially big returns if Hafner bucks the trend and stays healthy.
(Just a couple of wild and crazy guys. Courtesy of Reuters)
I've made reference multiple times recently to the Yankees having another strong bullpen in 2013, and I strongly believe that's going to be the case. They've got the greatest closer of all time back for another shot at a last go-round, arguably the best setup man and one of the best pressure relief pitchers in baseball ahead of him, 2 strong lefty specialists to play the late-inning matchup game, what will be a more than serviceable long man in whoever loses the 5th starter competition between Ivan Nova and David Phelps, and 2 veteran power arms to work the middle relief innings in Joba Chamberlain in David Aardsma. But it is worth pointing out that the overall depth created by the loss of Rafael Soriano is slightly less than it was in 2012, when depth became a really important issue for obvious reasons.
Keeping that "anything can happen" experience from last season in mind, Joba and Aardsma could have more important roles to fill this season than people first realize.
I know I'm not the only one who's already tired of all this A-Rod future talk, and I really hope I'm not the only one who's starting to get confused by all of it. I know it's not surprising for a story like this involving Rodriguez to get as much of a media frenzy going as it has, but it's insane how quickly the focus of the story keeps changing. First it was shock and anger that A-Rod could be stupid enough to do this again and get caught, if he actually did do it that is. Then it was all talk about voiding the contract, which is probably never going to happen, working a buyout, and/or forcing him to retire. Now we've moved on to just stating that not only is A-Rod never going to play for the Yankees again, but that he's never going to play baseball again according to this article from today's Daily News.
"According to numerous baseball sources, the hip surgery Rodriguez is now recovering from will likely derail his playing career, leaving him in such a diminished role that he may consider a settlement or an outright retirement. He still has five years and $114 million left on his contract."
Numerous baseball sources, huh? Do any of these sources have medical degrees or did any of them participate in the surgery? Because every medical source that's been involved makes it sound like A-Rod is absolutely going to be able come back and play. And as Matt Imbrogno pointed out yesterday on one of our TYA email chains, a diminished A-Rod is still a pretty productive one compared to league averages for third baseman.
As for the "voiding the contract" talk, can that just be put to bed now? It's not going to happen. At all. The CBA governs all things PED related and has provisions written into it to protect players from having this exact proposed scenario (contract being voided based on PED use) play out. If the Yankees were smart enough to write language into Alex's contract that gave them a clear cut way out of the deal, we would have heard about it by now. They don't have a case to be made for voiding the deal, and A-Rod has no reason to voluntarily retire to help the Yankees and 114 million reasons to try to come back.
The best thing the Yankees can hope for, if they really want to rid themselves of Alex, is to negotiate a buyout, try to get it down as much as possible from 100% of the contract value to lessen the payroll hit, collect the 85% insurance, and move on. Anything other than that basically a pipe dream.
(Sweet shirt, bro. Courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing)
... Because he's fixin' to dish out a written spanking to Alex Rodriguez. We've been having some fun with the early MSM outcry in response to the latest A-Rod PED story on the AB4AR Facebook Page today, and for my money Ian O'Conner's piece from yesterday takes the cake. It's a horrifically brilliant combination of moral grandstanding, lazy logic, self-disagreement and contradiction, and regurgitated attempts to state what is already known. In short, it's a typical "write it as quickly as possible and get it posted so we can get pageviews" ESPN NY Yankee post.
Andy Pettitte's decision to come back for the 2013 season wasn't nearly as dramatic or surprising as his return last season. He already sounded like he was leaning towards coming back when he said he was going to take some time to think it over, and the Yankees re-signed him to another 1-year deal with little trouble in late November. Now that it's officially been determined that he won't be participating in the World Baseball Classic, we can start to look forward to what Andy's going to do on the mound for the Yanks in 2013 and for how long he's going to do it. Pettitte is an important part of the Yankee rotation as the middle link between the rock solid 1-2 starters and the iffy back end, but his age and related injury concerns make him a bit more of a question mark than your average #3 starter.
Along with it being prospect season and still the late part of hot stove season, it's also projection season. There isn't a whole lot out there on Andy yet, but it's still worth taking a peek to see what kind of production Andy is projected to put up this coming season.
We're just over a week removed from the AB4AR Top 30, and just over a month removed from John Sickels releasing his Top 20 Yankee prospects with the bulk of prospect ranking season still to come. Sickels followed up on his individual rankings yesterday with his organizational farm system rankings, and he had the Yankee system coming in 14th out of 30, up from 16th last season.
Not surprisingly, Sickels identified the core of A-ball hitters as the Yankees' biggest strength and their lack of upper-tier pitching prospects as their biggest weakness. He also continued to paint Rafael DePaula as the key part to determining where the Yankee system could be heading next year, sticking DePaula with the "wildcard" tag he first gave him last month.
A 14th place ranking is right in line with where most people expected the Yankees to fall (10-15), and as was the case with Baseball America's 11th place ranking I believe this is a positive sign for the Yankee system to move up in the overall organizational rankings a year after losing their previous top 2 prospects. A strong 2013 season for this group could result in a top 5-10 ranking in 2014.
When the 2012 season ended, I said I wasn't going to spend the entire offseason on this blog talking about Alex Rodriguez and what a bum he was, and promised only to write about him in situations where it was warranted. I think this is one of those situations. In a report released today by the Miami News Times, A-Rod's name was included in a group of professional athletes who have been receiving various performance enhancing drugs from Anthony Bosch, currently under investigation by both MLB and the DEA. Written records from the clinic Bosch runs indicate Rodriguez has been receiving PEDs, including HGH, from Bosch from 2009 through last season. What has already been a tumultuous last few seasons for A-Rod, starting with his original PED outing and admission in 2009, is only going to get worse with the release of this new report.
Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter have dominated the injury/recovery headlines for the better part of this offseason, but Michael Pineda's name popped back into the picture yesterday when Dan Barbarisi tweeted out this report that, according to Cash, Pineda is scheduled to throw off a half-mound today for the first time since having shoulder surgery last year.
This marks another step in the right direction for Pineda, who has been working out and throwing on flat ground since September. The last time we heard about Pineda's progress,Cash was praising how good his arm and his physical conditioning looked, and since we haven't heard anything since then it's a safe assumption to make that everything has been progressing on schedule.
There was no timetable given for how long Pineda will work off the half-mound before returning to throwing off a full mound, and he's still months away from returning to any kind of game action, but this is good news for the Yankee rotation's potential emergency depth. They will continue to downplay the prospect of Pineda returning this year, but if he stays on schedule and doesn't suffer any setbacks he should still be on track for an early-to-mid summer return.
As first reported by the ESPN NY comedy duo of Marchand and Matthews, the Yankees have signed Juan Rivera to a Minor League contract with an invitation to Spring Training. No details yet on what the dollars will be if he makes the team, but Rivera will join Matt Diaz, Russ Canzler, and the litany of other internal and external candidates competing for a spot on the 2013 Yankee bench.
Rivera, now 34, started his career with the Yankees and has spent almost all of his time on the West Coast since leaving in 2003. He's a right-handed hitting corner outfielder who can moonlight as a first baseman and has a strong platoon split against left-handed pitching. He has a .274/.323/.443 career slash line (.331 wOBA) and a .286/.333/.489 career slash against lefties, but he hit just .244/.286/.375 in 339 PA with the Dodgers in 2012, and his offensive production has waned in the last few years as he's moved into his 30s and struggled with injuries.
Defensively he's not much, and could only be used in the outfield corners, and there isn't much else he brings to the table. But for the purposes he would serve with the Yankees this is as good a cheap signing as any. Rivera has a long Major League track record, a recent Major League track record, and a positive split against southpaws, which is more than you can say about some of the other guys they've brought in. Even as a player clearly in decline, Rivera falls right smack dab in the middle of the early roster battle I laid out this afternoon.
(Would Eduardo Scissorhands make my roster cut? Courtesy of Getty Images)
I commented last week on Cash's statements regarding the current Yankee roster construction, and the declaration that the team would be willing to go to Tampa with "what they've got" right now. By my count, there are still 4 roster spots unaccounted for, almost all of them on the bench, and the group of candidates to fill those spots is uninspiring to say the least. But it's looking more and more likely that this group, and maybe an additional cheap MiL signee or 2, are going to be the players battling it out for the final 4 spots, and that being the case we might as well start separating the real contenders from the pretenders. Spring Training is still a few weeks away, so I'm going on nothing more than past performance and perceived team needs, but here are my early rankings for who I think should get the final 4 roster spots.
One of the posts I read over the weekend that really stuck with me was Greg Corcoran's open letter to Brian Cashman over at Bronx Baseball Daily letting Cash know what he thinks of the Yankees' offseason plan. The general theme of Greg's post was that while he can get on board with what the team has done this offseason to transition to the sub-$189 mil payroll in 2014, he didn't see their no-spending approach as a real plan for success after the payroll ceiling had been reached. Specifically, he cited the Yankees' failure to sign or trade for useful players on multi-year deals and their perceived assumption that multiple prospects are going to come up and contribute as flaws in their logic, and that got me thinking.
As it is, the Yankees have seen their monetary advantage shrink over the past few seasons as teams started signing their own players to new deals before they hit free agency. Now, with that spending already capped and more teams working to extend their big names, any plan to reload after reaching 189 could prove useless if there are no big free agent targets left.
(Definitely don't want a repeat of this. Courtesy of Getty Images)
First Andy Pettitte was going to participate in the World Baseball Classic this year. Then the rosters were announced and he wasn't because the Yankees had concerns about him injuring himself. Now it sounds like the window of opportunity might be open for him again perthe latest report from Wally Matthews, who can actually be of value as a writer when he sticks to his reporting guns. According to the report, Joe Torre confirmed that the Yankees would still prefer to have Pettitte skip the WBC but that both sides have until February 20th to make an official decision.
Personally, I think it would be cool to see Pettitte pitch in the WBC. It's obvious he wants to, he's probably already in good pitching shape from his offseason workouts knowing that he was planning to play this season from the beginning, and I think we can all be sure this season is going to be his real, actual final one, so why not get that experience in while he still has the chance?
At the same time, I can see where the Yankees are coming from and when I put my homer fan glasses back on to look at the situation, I start to side with them. Pettitte hasn't been a pillar of good health in his later years, and even though last year's injury was on a fluke play, those same fluke risks and regular injury risks are always there. Pettitte is an important part of the Yankee rotation, and if he's going to get hurt and miss games in 2013, I'd rather it be because of something that happened in a Yankee uniform after the season started. Even a minor injury in the WBC could be something that lingers and negatively affects his performance over the course of the entire Major League season, and that wouldn't be a good thing.
So we'll see where this goes. My money is on the Yankees holding firm and us seeing Andy pitching in ST games in March rather than WBC games.
On Wednesday afternoon, Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com released his "Prospect Watch" top 10 catching prospects rankings. Top Yankee prospect Gary Sanchez was 3rd in those rankings, behind Travis d'Arnaud of the Mets and Mike Zunino of the Mariners. Seeing as those 2 guys are easily the 2 best catching prospects in baseball, that's a pretty big accomplishment for the 20-year-old Sanchez.
Mayo's explanation of his putting Sanchez 3rd included high praise for Sanchez's defensive skills, saying he had the potential to be "an exciting two-way player for the Yankees." This is higher praise than usual for Sanchez's defense, and that's coming from someone who was pretty complimentary of the improvements Sanchez made in last week's AB4AR Top 30. Sanchez does have the plus arm, but right now doesn't project to be anything better than average at best behind the plate. Still, with Sanchez's advanced offensive skills and high ceiling, it makes sense that Mayo would rank him 3rd if he believes Sanchez could be that good defensively.
Sanchez is still years away from the show, but his positional rankings project him in a positive light for the future. Last year MLB.com had Sanchez 4th overall, just ahead of Wilin Rosario of Colorado, who posted a .356 wOBA and hit 28 HR in 117 games for the Rockies in 2012. Rosario also rated as a very poor defensive catcher according to FanGraphs. Sanchez has a similar offensive makeup to Rosario, and still has time to improve his defensive skills. If he can be even slightly better than Rosario defensively and improve his pitch recognition and plate discipline skills, Sanchez could be a very valuable Major League catcher.
I mean, I thought everybody knew the definition of the word, but I guess not after the immediate reaction and subsequent over-dramatization and over-coverage of this harmless quote that Cash dropped yesterday when asked about the possibility of A-Rod missing the entire 2013 season:
“I think because (of) the serious nature of the surgery and the condition that he’s trying to recover from, you know, there is that chance.”
Chance noun /'chan(t)s - the possibility of a particular outcome in an uncertain situation.
It was snowing this morning. Not a lot, just enough to coat the cars and get a little bit on the roads; an inch to an inch and a half at the most. That's pretty common in Wisconsin, nothing people around here haven't seen before, which is why it was so bizarre to see a car spun out on my way into work and then to hear stories from other people about accidents they saw on the highway. It's an inch and a half of snow, maybe 2 at the most. How the fuck do you crash your car in that?? We're not talking "The Day After Tomorrow" here, folks.
I've been driving in the snow since I first learned how to drive, and I've had to do it in good snow vehicles and bad snow vehicles. There's really not much to it. You go a little slower than you normally would, you watch the road to spot problem areas, you keep your windshield wipers going, and you don't slam on the brakes. Anybody who can't do that and ends up crashing his or her car in less than 3 inches of snow should have their licenses taken away. Now onto the links!
- Daniel Burch of The Greedy Pinstripes scored an interview with Dante Bichette, Jr., likely starting third baseman for Low-A Charleston this year.
- Chris Mitchell of Pinstripe Pundits hasn't given up on Ivan Nova, and provided some statistical support to explain whynobody should be giving up on Nova.
- Steve Skinner of Bleeding Yankee Blue ranked the AL East shortstops heading into 2013. I'd be hesitant to put Jeter at the top until I see how he looks coming off surgery, but at his best he's still probably the pick of the litter.
- On Thursday, Chad Jennings of LoHud examined the best and worst case scenarios for Robinson Cano and the Yankees in relation to his upcoming free agency.
- Brien Jackson of IIATMS continued to bang the logic drum in response to the reactions around the blogosphere to the latest luxury tax news.
- El duque of It Is High... reacted to the ridiculous "Youkilis not returning Joba's calls" non-story as only he can.
- Steven Goldman of Pinstriped Bible mused on the transition towards building a bigger, better bullpen at the expense of the bench and how the Yankees will be affected by that this season.
This week's Friday Jam is "Jambi" by Tool. Tool is probably the most popular band to not put out new music regularly. There are huge gaps between albums and it always seems like they grow in popularity from one to the next. There have been rumors of a new album out for a while now, but rumors of a new Tool album are like rumors connecting the Yankees to big names during the offseason. Until it actually happens, you can't put too much faith in them.
(He should probably get his own private bathroom too... )
After the quick burst of 1-year agreements with their arbitration-eligible players last week, the Yankees now have all but 1 of their key core roster members under contract for 2013. The lone remaining unsigned guy is David Robertson, and both he and the Yankees submitted their arbitration numbers for a possible hearing next month. D-Rob is in his second year of arbitration eligibility and one way or another he stands to get a big raise from the $1.6 mil he made in 2012. Robertson submitted $3.55 million as his desired figure while the Yankees submitted $2.85 mil, which is right in line with MLBTR's prediction of $2.8 mil. They can still work out a new deal before taking it to arbitration, but what about after his arbitration years are up? What then? The Yankees will have some serious decisions to make on the future of their bullpen after this season, and D-Rob figures to play prominently in those decisions.
** UPDATE 11:37 AM- Jon Heyman reporting that the Yanks and D-Rob have agreed to a 1-year/$3.1 million deal for 2013. That locks him in for this season, but everything after the jump is still relevant. **
You're the next contestant on "2013 New York Yankees Quad-A Bench Competition!!"
Sweeny Murti had the story via Twitter, and the Yankees now have another candidate for a spot on this year's bench. Johnson is a 33-year-old lefty swinger who can play first base but for the Yankees' purposes would be best-suited as a lefty platoon DH. He's bounced back and forth between the Majors and Triple-A since 2005, and has a career .237/.338/.412 Major League slash line (.329 wOBA) in over 1,500 PA, but has seen his overall production decline from '05 to present day.
Johnson brings good power to the table, and has very strong BB and K rates, but his defensive limitations and recent down trending production makes him a less-than-desirable option as a platoon/bench player. At best, he captures some magic and gets some big hits as part of the early-season bench corps. At worst, he's organizational depth who can continue to do what he's always done and mash at Triple-A. Nothing to get excited about, but then again it's not like the Yankees are trying to be exciting right now.
If this offseason were "Inception," we'd all be in limbo right now. Just an endless string of nothingness. The biggest news in Yankeeland yesterday was that Scott Hairston signed with the Chicago Cubs for 2 years. Second biggest story- the Yanks are apparently not interested in free agent catcher George Kottaras even though he makes a a lot of sense for them. That's how boring it is right now. The biggest Yankee-related story didn't even involve the Yankees, and both of the biggest stories revolved around them doing nothing. Hachi machi, that's bad.
The final stage of this offseason is progressing at a painfully slow rate, and real, valuable news and talking points are at a minimum, so why not go back to the off-topic fun well with another song list? It beats breaking down Thomas Neal's Double-A contact splits, right? As everybody is now aware from my previous "Top 5 Songs" post for at-bat music, part of my mind lives in a perpetual state of 15-year-old-ness, and I've put just as much thought into my personal top 5 closer entrance songs as I did for the at-bat songs.
In my hypothetical fantasy world, the world in which I'm not only a professional baseball player but a pitcher and a good pitcher, I'd be an awesome closer. I'd rock mid-90s heat with some movement and a killer slider, I'd be more than willing to throw inside and buzz hitters' towers, and I definitely wouldn't be anything close to the polished professional that Mo is. Think like a more subdued Brian Wilson, with a less bushy beard and not trying so hard to be "weird," combined with the brutal media honesty of Chris Perez, and that'd be me. With that in mind, here are my personal top 5 songs I'd consider for my entrance music.
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