Friday Afternoon Linkapalooza: 10/25/13

Not including Bucker's ball through the legs, have there been 2 worse defensive plays in World Series history than Pete Kozma's dropped double play toss and Wainwright and Molina's dropped infield pop-up in Game 1?  Sweet fancy Moses, people, somebody wake up and make a fucking play!  Buck and McCarver did their best to make excuses for Kozma having to come from the other side of the bag, but the bottom line is the guy dropped an easy ball.  No reason to take your eye off it to check on the player sliding into you, dude.  Not when that player is 4-foot nothing Dustin Pedroia.  And shame on Wainwright for calling everybody off and then not making the catch and double shame on Molina for running all the way out to the mound like a jackass and distracting him.  Good thing they made up for it with a win last night.  I hate bad baseball.  Now onto the links!

- On Monday, el duque of It Is High... submitted his list of ways to improve the Yankees in 2014 and beyond.

- SG of RLYW did the same, stressing the importance of building a team that could contend beyond 2014 instead of just signing flashy names to big deals (Beltran, McCann) or repeating the 2013 approach of signing names whose flash had already worn off.

- SJK of NoMaas reiterated his belief that the Yankees missed an opportunity by not trading Robinson Cano at the deadline this year.

- On Tuesday, Joe Ferraiola of IIATMS/TYA broke down the Jurickson Profar-for-Cano trade that never was and gave hist thoughts on whether or not the Yankees missed an opportunity there.

- Chad Jennings of LoHud had the most details I've seen on the mysterious A-Rod legal team press conference that got Taffered before it could happen.

- On Wednesday, Greg Corcoran of Bronx Baseball Daily went back over the last 6 Yankee drafts and updated the progress of each player, signed and unsigned.  Hell of an effort by Greg, and the results are as depressing as you'd expect.

- On Thursday, Chris Mitchell of Pinstripe Pundits, in an act of extreme self-masochism, reviewed Eduardo Nunez's brutal defensive season.

- Mike Axisa of RAB posed an intriguing and not often talked about trade possibility to address the potential hole at third base next season.

- Michael Brown of Pinstriped Bible mused on some ways the Yankees could bring the "evil" back to the Evil Empire next year.  His post was meant to taken somewhat jokingly, but he may be onto something.  It would be nice to see a little attitude back in the team.  They've become very boring.

- On Friday, Daniel Burch of The Greedy Pinstripes looked ahead to 2014 and what kind of production we should expect from the returning Mark Teixeira.  30+ homers and 100+ RBI would be nice.

This Friday's jam is one from the treasure trove of awesome cover songs that is Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine.  If you aren't familiar with Mr. Cheese, he takes popular rock, rap, and top 40 songs and remakes them as Vegas lounge music.  A song of his came on my iPod a month or so ago when my girlfriend was in the car and I was shocked to find out she had never heard of him.  Damn near stopped the car in the middle of street.  She'll never know how close she came to getting kicked out of the car right there on the spot.



Enjoy your weekends, everybody.

2013 AB4AR Season Review: The Predictions

(Still my favorite image of the season)

Well we made it.  We've come to the end of the 3-week season review extravaganza, and I don't know about you readers but I've been exhausted by it and I'm glad it's over.  We finish it off, as always, with a review of my preseason predictions and some honest self-reflection about my skills as a baseball prognosticator.  Admittedly, my track record in making season predictions is not a sparkling one.  2011 was a tough year, 2012 even tougher.  I honestly didn't even go back and recap my 2013 predictions post before I started writing this and there's no way I could remember them all off the top of my head, so this should be interesting.  Here we go...

Early Offseason Happenings Not Kind To Hughes

(Originally published at IIATMS/TYA)

I'm short on ideas today so I'm going back to an old standby, Mr. Phillip Hughes.  It probably seems pointless to talk about Hughes in relation to the Yankees anymore.  He very likely pitched himself out of contention for even a qualifying offer from them let alone a new multi-year contract offer, and his reputation as the organization's biggest developmental pitching flop would make it very difficult to bring him back with any expectations of success.  The Yankee have already set their sights on a bunch of other free agent targets. Time spent considering Hughes as part of that mix would be time wasted.

2013 AB4AR Season Review: The Bench

(Courtesy of Robert Sabo/NY Daily News)

The Yankee bench wasn't going to be very good this year.  We knew that going in when they started scraping the bottom of the barrel to bring guys like Juan Rivera and Matt Diaz into spring camp to compete for a spot.  The whole lotta nothing that the team did to address its holes in the lineup trickled down big time to the bench, where guys who were better suited for part-time roles got forced into everyday duty and there was nobody left to replace them on the bench.  Well, nobody who could produce at a replacement level.

It was a non-stop revolving cast of characters on the Yankee bench this year, necessitated by injuries, poor performance, ownership's tight grip on the payroll, and sometimes just the need to have a warm body at a position.  If you read the "What We Thought We Knew/What We Learned" post from last week, you know this isn't going to be pretty.

Surprise, Surprise. Yankees Still The Most Valuable MLB Franchise By A Wide Margin

(Originally published at IIATMS/TYA)

Quick, how much money do you think this down year cost the Yankees in terms of franchise value?  If you answered any amount of money, you're wrong.  According to Bloomberg's latest calculations, the Yankees are valued at approximately $3.3 billion.  That's $1.2 billion more than the next most valuable MLB franchise (the Dodgers), and almost $1 billion more than what Forbes valued them at back in March.  Despite the scaled back payroll and subsequent failure to reach the postseason, stadium attendance that was down from 2012, and TV ratings that were the same, the Yankees are still the gold standard when it comes to professional baseball value and are still practically printing their own money.

While it is good news in the grand scheme of things - I'd much rather the Yankees be the most valuable franchise instead of one of the least - it does present an easy opportunity to revisit the topic of Hal's plans for the team.  If you'll allow me a few minutes to beat a dead horse again, this valuation from Bloomberg and continued growth of the franchise's worth makes this payroll slashing, luxury tax avoiding plan seem all the more ridiculous than it did the first time I heard about it.

Update On Tyler Austin's AZFL Exit

Yep.  It's a problem with his wrist.

The word on Tyler Austin is it's the wrist flaring up again. It's not serious, but they wanted to shut him down for precautionary reasons.
— Josh Norris (@jnorris427) October 23, 2013

Oh it's not serious?  That's good news.  Except that if it wasn't that serious you wouldn't be removing him from the fall league so he wasn't at risk of re-injuring it.  Ask Mark Teixeira about those non-serious wrist injuries.  See how well rest and recuperation worked for him.

2013 AB4AR Season Review: The Bullpen

(Courtesy of Getty Images)

It's no coincidence that the Yankees have had both Mariano Rivera and a consistently strong bullpen for the last 18 seasons.  When you've got the G.O.A.T. out there closing down the 9th inning, that makes the rest of the 'pen much easier to construct.  The Yankees have excelled at constructing strong support staffs in front of Mo in his time as closer, through free agency and their own farm system, and with Mo finally deciding to show mercy on the rest of baseball and retire after the 2013 season, that support staff was going to be put to the test as part of a transitional period to a new era of Yankee relief pitching.

As usual, the Yankee 'pen wasn't short on depth in 2013.  In fact, they had more viable options than available spots near the end of Spring Training.  What it didn't have was the strong depth of talent that it usually does and the end result for the group in Mo's final season was a step down from what we've come to expect.

MLBTR's Arbitration Projections And Not Paying Too Much For Mediocrity

(Originally published at IIATMS/TYA)

MLB Trade Rumors released their projected salaries for the Yankees' arbitration-eligible players yesterday.  While they are only projections, MLBTR has been pretty accurate with their numbers the past few years.  Typically these deals are an afterthought in Yankeeland, but with signs still pointing towards the $189 million luxury tax threshold being the main goal for them this offseason they become much more important.  Here's what MLBTR projected for the Yankees' 7 eligible players:

• David Robertson- $5.5 million
• Brett Gardner- $4 million
• Ivan Nova- $2.8 million
• Shawn Kelley- $1.5 million
• Jayson Nix- $1.4 million
• Francisco Cervelli- $1 million
• Chris Stewart- $1 million

That's $17.2 million of potential salary added to next year's total, and when you're trying to cut costs on a team that already has almost $85 mil tied up in 6 players, that can make or break you.  The decision to offer arbitration or new deals to these players isn't as simple as it usually is for New York, and they need to be smart about these decisions.

Report: Tyler Austin Removed From The AZFL

Even when the season is over the Yankee organization can't escape injury problems.  At least that's what appears to be happening with Tyler Austin.  Josh Norris reported yesterday that he has been pulled out of the Arizona Fall League after playing in just 4 games.  Austin hasn't played in over a week, and based on his injury problems earlier in the year and now the decision to remove him from the fall league, it's only logical that a setback would be the cause.

You'll recall that Austin missed a large chunk of time due to a wrist injury and he was dinged up late in the 2012 season.  If this does indeed turn out to be health-related, and especially if it turns out to be a setback with his wrist, that's another bad look for the Yankee training/medical staff.  They've gotten burned a lot by rushing guys back before they were ready to play in both the Major and Minor Leagues and another setback to a top prospect makes them look even worse than they already do.  Hopefully this doesn't turn out to be something serious that could impact Austin's ability to start the 2014 season on time.

2013 AB4AR Season Review: The Rotation

(Courtesy of Reuters)

The Yankees got a pretty good collective effort from their starting rotation in 2012, and they appeared to be primed to at least repeat and hopefully improve upon that in 2013.  The same 5 faces were back for another run, giving the rotation a familiar blend of right and left handers, old and young guys, and plus stuff and plus command from multiple sources.  We thought the biggest issue surrounding this group coming into the season was injury concerns and how each of them would hold up physically.  We learned that the issues ran much deeper than that, and the rotation as a whole was unable to build on 2012's performance.

Yanks Suddenly Have All The Leverage In The Cano Contract Talk

(Hopefully money ain't too much of a thang for Robbie.  Because he isn't getting anything close to $300 mil now.  Courtesy of Cano's Twitter)

(Originally published at IIATMS/TYA)

It's been a little under a month since Robinson Cano and his camp came out with their initial contract figures.  That A-Rod-ian 10 year/$305 million proposal was met with a hefty chunk of scorn from the Yankee fanbase and blogosphere and relative silence from the Yankees, who simply referred back to the offer they made Cano earlier in the year - 7 years/$161 million - as their starting point for negotiations.  The most we've heard since last month was Hal reiterating on his recent media tour that the Yankees would not be willing to go 10 years for Cano, which would be a wise move considering the mess they're in with the A-Rod contract.  Other than that it's been all quiet on the Cano front.  Somehow, in the midst of all the silence between the 2 sides, the Yankees have seemingly made a big gain in the leverage department and are now in the driver's seat heading into the official start of free agency.

A-Rod's Legal Team Is Straight Up Putting In Work

I know I said a long time ago that I wasn't going to use AB4AR to post every little A-Rod story, but it's hard not to when there's new stuff like this coming out every other day.

"Alex Rodriguez’s lawyers were blocked from holding a news conference Monday with a person they described as a 'Major League Naseball whistleblower' when the commissioner’s office obtained an order from the arbitrator hearing the case.

More than an hour after the scheduled start of the news conference, one of Rodriguez’s lawyers read the substance of the order from arbitrator Fredric Horowitz to the assembled media.

The lawyers would not say whether the 'whistleblower' worked for Major League Baseball, one of its teams or some other affiliate. They also said the 'whistleblower' had facts not directly related to the substance of the case."

Staying on the offensive against MLB at every turn.  Love it.  I can't wait until this thing runs its course and ends up as the base storyline for an episode of "Law & Order" in a few years.

New Yankee Ticket Prices For 2014 Are ... OK, I Guess?

The Yankees announced their new ticket prices for 2014 yesterday, and on the surface it looks like they're doing everybody a solid.  From the team:

"Prices for 96 percent of tickets will either remain the same or decrease.

Approximately 39,000 tickets (78 percent) will have the same price in 2014 as they had in 2013, while approximately 9,000 tickets (18 percent) will have a decrease in price. There are approximately 2,000 tickets (four percent) that will have an increase in price."

I don't want to come off like a complete malcontent here, because having 96% of tickets either stay the same or decrease in price is a good thing.  Everybody who's been to the new Stadium knows how much of a strain it can be on the wallet.  That's a lesson I learned the hard way during my Yankee weekend trip back in early September.  Keeping ticket prices as affordable as possible for the majority of the common fan is a good thing.

But when I read about how the 4% of ticket prices that are going up are doing so because the team is creating more suites and more specialty field-level seating, that makes the efforts on the other 96% of prices ring a little hollow.  The lengths the Yankees go to now to cater to the deep-pocketed, bougie baseball fans has gotten a bit tiresome and it'd be nice if they would take the hint from this past season that maybe they need to do a little more for the rest of us.  Yankee Stadium attendance was down over 9% this year, a little over 3,000 fans per game, and that decrease has just as much to do with the insane prices as it did the mediocre product on the field.  Adding more luxury seating to the stadium hardly feels like the right move given the current state of the organization, but what are you gonna do?  It's Hal's team now and he can do whatever he wants with it.

2013 AB4AR Season Review: The Lineup

(Too many ABs for these guys.  Courtesy of the AP)

I gotta be honest, people.  These first 2 weeks of season recap posts have been much tougher to write than I thought they'd be.  I figured after taking a week off from the long, slow, disappointing but ultimately predictable death that was the 2013 Yankee season, I'd be recharged and ready to look back on everything that happened with a sharp analytical mindset.  Instead, I've just ended up reverting back to the feelings of sadness and boredom I had while covering this team this year.

But whatever, we've reached the final week and it's time to look back on the 2013 edition of the New York Yankees.  We've reviewed the major storylines that defined the season, we recapped the lessons learned, now it's time to put it all together and put a bow on it.  The Yankees entered 2013 with a lineup that had been decimated by their intentional downgrading of it through a few key free agent decisions and the unintentional and unexpected rash of ST injuries that cost them more than a few of their big names.  It was an uphill battle for the lineup for most of the season and a battle the lineup was incapable of winning.  Years from now, people will look back on this season and recall how they got to watch some of the worst Yankee lineups ever to take the field.  That tells you everything you need to know.

This Week's Tampa Meetings Could Bring Major MiL Changes

(Originally published at IIATMS/TYA)

As the start of the offseason draws closer with the World Series set to begin this week, the Yankees draw closer to a potentially franchise-altering few months, one unlike anything we've seen in any of the past 5-10 years.  They've got a ton of money coming off the books, a significant chunk of additional money that could be coming off sometime in the next month or so, the current cornerstone of the franchise who may or may not leave via free agency, almost an entire starting rotation to rebuild, a floundering farm system that could finally be in for some major changes at the top, and as competitive an environment in the AL East as we've seen in years.

Scott Boras Comments On The Yankees' Standing In The Free Agent Market

What Boras said to The NY Post last week:

"It’s the first time in a lot of years the Yankees have to prove to major free agents they will be competitive next year.  That’s never really been a question in New York, but they have so many spots to fill. It’s a different place."

That may sound like the words of a man who's still butthurt about losing his 2 biggest Yankee clients to other agencies, but there's a lot of truth in Boras' words.  The Yankees weren't really that active in the free agent market last offseason beyond re-signing their own guys and they stood mostly pat at the trade deadline.  The perception they've created around the game in the last year is that they're more concerned with the bottom line than with winning ballgames, and players can and will pick up on that.  They know the Yankees haven't been spending much and they know they have a lot of holes to fill this offseason.  The chance for big money in pinstripes isn't as high as it was just a few years ago.

It would be one thing if free agents thought they could get the most money from New York while playing for a team that may not make the postseason next year.  It's another when even that is no longer a guarantee and the team looks closer to falling into the AL East basement than climbing back to the top of the division.  If they want to maintain the allure they've always had to big time free agents, the Yankees do have to do some work to prove their willingness to compete.

2013 Season Review: What We Thought We Knew & What We Learned (The Recap)

2 down, 1 to go.  The storylines have been revisited, the lessons have been learned, and next week we'll start the final week of the 2013 AB4AR Season Review series.  Most, if not all of the lessons learned in 2013 were learned in a negative light and many of them paint a potentially harrowing picture for what might be in store in 2014.  If you missed any of this week's positional lessons, here's the recap to prep you for tomorrow.

- The Infield

- The Outfield

- The Rotation

- The Bullpen

- The Bench

$300 Million Spending Spree? I'll Believe It When I See It

So everybody's all aflutter after this Andrew Marchand story came out yesterday about a supposed $300 million spending spree on the horizon.  According to Marchand's sources, the Yankee front office has laid out a plan to re-sign Robinson Cano, sign free agents Masahiro Tanaka, Brian McCann, and Carlos Beltran, AND stay under the $189 million luxury tax threshold.  Before I dive into the details and the numbers and how that could even conceivably work, all I'm going to do right now is sit and wait for the Yankees to prove that this is something more than just another phony report designed to draw pageviews.

Last offseason, when this scheme to get under the luxury tax limit really started to become a front office focal point, the only thing the Yankees showed a willingness to do was cut payroll and work to cut more payroll for 2014.  They they didn't show any commitment to spending money that had a positive impact on the on-field product.  Adding all 4 of those players mentioned would certainly do both of those things.  It would also go against everything the Yankees just finished doing this past offseason and against what they've shown their new top priority to be.

I'm on the record as wanting Cano back next year and for the remainder of his career.  I think the Yankees should absolutely go after Tanaka and fully recognize that both McCann and Beltran would be major upgrades to 2 positions that are in need of upgrades.  If this is the plan they're going with, and they think they can do it while staying under their 189 number, I'm on board with it.  I'm just not going to say much about it until I actually see actions from the front office that are in line with Marchand's words.

Friday Afternoon Linkapalooza: 10/18/13

There's a kickass Mexican place a few blocks from my girlfriend's place.  Their house margaritas are the tits and I plan on getting hammered drunk on them tonight.  The weather has started to turn in Wisconsin and I want one more chance to pretend it's still warm before it's time to take out the sweatpants and winter coat.  Hope everybody else has something fun planned for their evenings.  Now onto the links!

- On Monday, SJK of NoMaas offered up his take on who should and should not receive a qualifying offer from the Yankees.  One of his selections might surprise you.

- On Wednesday, Mike Axisa of RAB broke down the 40-man roster logjam the Yankees are going to have to deal with this offseason.  Is it me or does this problem get worse every year?

- Chad Jennings of LoHud perused the LCS rosters to identify potential offseason targets for the Yankees.

- Ricky Keeler of Yanks Go Yard looked back at Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS, or as I call it, the greatest game I've ever watched.

- Michael Eder of IIATMS/TYA pondered the option of signing guys like Beltran and McCann at the cost of giving up a 1st round draft pick this offseason.  That decision should tell us the true future direction of the franchise.

- On Thursday, Delia Enriquez of Bronx Baseball Daily mused on the possibility of the Yankees trading for Chase Headley.

- El duque of It Is High... commented on the differing of fan opinions on what to do with Curtis Granderson and how that's a perfect microcosm of the Yankees' organizational future.

- SG of RLYW played the projection game with Brian McCann to see what he could offer in terms of production at catcher and if that production was worth the contract it will take to sign him.

- On Friday, Derek Albin of Pinstriped Bible examined the lowered expectations for Derek Jeter in 2014, based both on historical numbers and Jeter's recent health problems.

- Clive Barker of The Greedy Pinstripes questioned MLB's case against Alex Rodriguez, how fair the punishment is and how real their evidence is, and commented on how those questions have changed how he feels about the case.

This week's jam is "Bleed American" by Jimmy Eat World.  Great album this was, even if it took up about 96% of Jimmy Eat World's songwriting skills.  This used to be in heavy rotation in high school Brad's music mix.  Good tune.



Enjoy your weekends, everybody.

2013 Season Review: What We Thought We Knew & What We Learned (The Bench)

(Jayson Nix, ladies and gentlemen.... )

The less I say about the 2013 the better.  It's just going to make me upset recapping how the Yankees took their recent "build the bench with cheap, aging veterans and a few young guys" approach to new lows this season.  It was a sorry, sadsack group of misfits, washed up has-beens, and "who the hell is that guy???"s that had to set the bar for the worst collective bench in Yankee history.  There wasn't much we didn't know about them when the season started, and there wasn't a lot of new ground broken in what we learned when it was over.

Why Not ManBan For Next Year's Rotation?

(Courtesy of Corey Sipkin/NY Daily News)

(Originally published at IIATMS/TYA)

Here's a whacky idea to fill a spot in next year's rotation.  Give a spot to Manny Banuelos.  You remember Manny Banuelos, right?  Former top prospect, lefty pitcher, was striking out Double-A hitters on the reg at age 19 a few years back.  He's been out of action since early 2012 and rehabbing Tommy John Surgery since last October.  He's also been throwing for months and is expected to be 100% healthy for the start of next year.  The Yankees took a very cautious approach with ManBan's rehab, waiting almost a year before letting him pitch in simulated games late this season and shutting him down completely for the winter to let him rest.  Given the uncertainty in the back end of their 2014 rotation and the unlikeliness of the front office to spend much to fill it, they might want to consider taking the kid gloves off their former organizational crown jewel and taking a chance with him.

Latest On The Coaching Staff Contracts

Joe's been long locked up with his new deal now, but the progress on re-signing the rest of his coaching staff remains slow.  On Wednesday, Mark Feinsand reported that the Yankees and pitching coach Larry Rothschild had agreed to a new deal, but we've yet to hear or read anything about the terms of the deal and there's been nothing formally announced by the team.

As for the rest of the staff, according to Cash there's "nothing to report" on their statuses.  We're now less than 2 weeks away from their current contracts expiring, so that adds a slight tick of intrigue to what their fates might be.  I'm sure the Yankees would like to bring back their bases coaches - they have no reason not to with Joe back - and Tony Pena as bench coach, although Pena could get some interest from teams with managerial openings, and I can't see Mike Harkey being let go.  The one to watch is Kevin Long.  His star isn't shining nearly as brightly as it was a few years ago, and the regression of guys like Granderson and Teix has been a problem.  If anybody doesn't make it back, it could be him.

2013 Season Review: What We Thought We Knew & What We Learned (The Bullpen)

(Courtesy of the AP)

If there was anything that could conceivably derail the Yankees' yearly tradition of having one of the best bullpens in baseball, it would be the loss of Mariano Rivera.  That's a reality they had to face for the first time in 2012 after he went down with a season-ending ACL tear, and it's a challenge they met head on thanks to an all-around "next man up" effort from the remaining healthy cast.  Rafael Soriano proved to be a valuable signing when he was there to take over the closer role last season, allowing everybody else to stay in their usual roles and not compromising the depth in the 'pen that has become a Yankee staple.

Soriano was out after last season, a compensatory draft pick taking his place, and Mo made his gallant return to his 9th inning throne.  Also returning from injury were Joba Chamberlain and David Aardsma, along with much of the same cast that did the job in 2012.  The Yankee bullpen was once again primed for a big year in 2013, with a few minor (and 1 major) details that needed to be ironed out.  The late-inning crew did their job, but it was those unresolved details in the middle relief department that really defined the 2013 bullpen's campaign.

Thinking About Possible Rule 5 Casualties

(Originally published at IIATMS/TYA)

In a little less than 2 months, the MLB Winter Meetings will wrap up and hot stove season will be brought to a full boil.  At the end of the meetings, the 2013 Rule 5 Draft will be held and the Yankees could find themselves in a tricky spot for that draft this year.  It's no secret that the Yankees have a crowded 40-man roster on their hands right now.  It's something that seems to have been a growing problem for the past few years, a byproduct of an aging roster full of big contracts and an organizational desire to both protect its top prospects and keep the below-replacement level players blocking them around (see: Nix, Jayson or Stewart, Chris).  With an unknown number of roster spots opening up and a large group of Rule 5 eligible players worth protecting, the Yankees might be at risk of losing a useful prospect or 2.

2013 Season Review: What We Thought We Knew & What We Learned (The Rotation)

(Courtesy of the AP)

There was a time in the mid-aughts when it felt like the major talking point every offseason was "the Yankees need more starting pitching" and there were always new faces being brought in to achieve that goal.  It even carried over into and after the 2009 season when they won the World Series.  In the past few seasons, however, that talk has quieted and the Yankees have established some consistency with their starting rotation.  They entered 2013 with the same projected starting 5 they had in 2012, and even added a little more younger depth behind it than they'd had in years past.

That all looked like a good sign for a club that was going to need to lean on its pitching to be successful this season, although there were still a few questions that needed to be answered.  Those answers turned out to be the ones the Yankees didn't want to hear and 2013 ended up being a tougher year for the rotation than they hoped for.