Lots Of Sound Logic In Joe's Opening Day Roster Decisions

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(Originally published at IIATMS/TYA)

As the Yankees were coming down the home stretch of Spring Training last week, I thought I had Joe's final roster selections all figured out.  I thought he was going to go with the experience/performance combo and take Matt Daley for the final bullpen spot, which also would have allowed Vidal Nuno to stay stretched out as a starter in Triple-A and be ready to come up and spot start in case of an emergency.  When it came to the final bench spot, I thought Eduardo Nunez's tenure as a Yankee and familiarity with their system would give him the advantage over Yangervis Solarte and Joe would give him the nod based on loyalty.

In another shining example of why Joe and Cash have the jobs they have and I'm a cube monkey who blogs in his spare time, I was wrong on both accounts.  Joe didn't go on experience and he didn't go on loyalty.  He thought about what his team was going to need the most in the first few weeks of the season and made the 2 most logical choices to meet those needs.

AB4AR 2014 Season Preview: The Predictions

When I said the 3 weeks of season preview posts were over yesterday, I wasn't being 100% honest.  There's still the matter of making my 2014 predictions, an annual rite of passage I've passed with flying colors each of the last 2 seasons.  If you've already read the staff predictions post over at IIATMS/TYA, then you already know what my picks are.  Only thing that's changing here are the additions of the full AL East predictions and expanded postseason predictions.

Without further ado, here they are...

Spring Training News And Notes: 3/30/14

Spring Training is technically over, but there were a few noteworthy things happening yesterday as the majority of the team made its way to Houston for Tuesday night.

- Michael Pineda stayed behind to get 1 more start in at the Tampa complex.  He pitched in a MiL game and went 6 innings, giving up 1 run on 3 hits and 3 walks with 8 strikeouts.

- If you missed it before, here's what Tuesday's starting lineup will look like: 1) Ellsbury- CF, 2) Jeter- SS, 3) Beltran- RF, 4) McCann- C, 5) Teix- 1B, 6) Soriano- DH, 7) Gardner- LF, 8) Roberts- 2B, 9) Johnson- 3B

- A roster spot still needs to be opened in order to add Yangervis Solarte to the 40-man.  No word yet on the move, but I'd guess Nik Turley goes to the 60-day DL.

- Donnie Collins took an educated stab at predicting the Opening Day roster for the SWB RailRiders.  Definitely not the starting rotation they envisioned having.