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Jennings: Angel Reyes Released

Posted by EJ Fagan at 9:30 pm 1 Response »
Feb 162009

Chad Jennings reported that the Yankees released lefty pitcher Angel Reyes today. There was a time when Reyes was considered the top lefty in our system, but times have changed with guys like Mike Dunn,Wilkins De La Rosa, Phil Coke, and Jeremy Bleich.

Reyes had excellent stuff, but has been plagued for two years by massive control problems. I met him in the Staten Island Yankees (Single-A) club house at the beginning of the 2007 season. He was in his 20s, but looked about fifteen (It didn’t help that he was playing a PSP at the time). I’ve never seen such a slight baseball player. Its a wonder he could throw so  hard.

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Yankees Position Battles

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 4:33 pm No Responses »
Feb 162009

Jerry Crasnick of ESPN chimes in with an article about the top position battles around baseball, and the Yankees have two spots on his list:

 Johnny Damon, whose 118 OPS+ a year ago tied the best single-season mark of his career, will get the bulk of the left field at-bats, which leaves Xavier Nady and Nick Swisher in the mix in right and Melky Cabrera and Brett Gardner competing for time in center.

With the arrival of Mark Teixeira and expectations for a stronger season fromRobinson Cano, the Yankees should have enough offense that they can emphasize defense and speed in center field. GM Brian Cashman explored the trade market for Swisher and Nady with no success, so manager Joe Girardi will have to find a way to keep them both sharp and productive.

Hideki Matsui is in line for most of the DH at-bats, but Nady will see some time there against tough left-handers. And Teixeira will get periodic breaks at DH while Swisher fills in at first base.

BP’s Jay Jaffe gives a statistical reason for choosing Swisher and Gardner to win those battles:

As they attempt to rebound from their first non-playoff season since 1993, the Yankees’ biggest question mark looms in center field. After solid performances in ’06 and ’07, Melky Cabrera’s horrid 2008 (.249/.301/.341) threw the job up for grabs, and while Triple-A farmhand Brett Gardner didn’t clinch it, his .294/.333/.412 showing in 73 plate appearances after a mid-August recall may have given him a leg up. PECOTA doesn’t see either as a slam dunk, but favors Gardner’s blend of speed and OBP, forecasting a .253/.339/.351 showing with 32 steals (2.4 WARP), compared to Cabrera’s forecast of .267/.326/.376/ and 10 steals (1.8 WARP). Meanwhile, in right field, the system is more sanguine about offseason acquisition Nick Swisher’s ability to shake off a down year than it is about Xavier Nady living up to the career bests he set in all three triple-slash categories. It forecasts a .244/.353/.460 performance for Swisher, compared to .270/.323/.444 for Nady. A platoon arrangement limiting the latter to lefty-mashing would maximize the duo’s production.

Personally, I would prefer that the Yankees rotate their four corner outfielders and the winner of the center field job through the four available positions (CF, RF, LF, DH). That would give everybody about 130 games, assuming that nobody gets injured. This would allow the Yankees to keep all of these players healthy and productive. If Swisher does not bounce back, Nady or Damon regress, or Matsui gets hurt, they can always ditch the rotation scheme and go to a typical outfield alignment. Regardless, this seems like a good problem to have, as the Yankees are likely to always have one starting-caliber bat available on the bench.

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A cleaned up conference?

Posted by Chris H. at 2:54 pm 2 Responses »
Feb 162009

From Jack Curry (NY Times):

When Pettitte, Rodriguez’s teammate, spoke about using human growth hormone, he was remorseful and answered questions for about an hour. Rodriguez will sit under the same canopy that Pettitte sat under outside Steinbrenner Field, but a person who works in major league baseball who is familiar with Rodriguez’s plans said that his session would be much more controlled and condensed.

Unlike Pettitte, who received instructions from the Yankees and his agents, Rodriguez is being advised by several people, including a public relations firm. Pettitte, who said he was a “nervous wreck and scared to death” before he faced the news media a year ago, repeatedly apologized for his mistakes and made some spiritual references. Rodriguez will probably have a more restrained approach in discussing his steroid use.

“The truth will set you free,” Pettitte said last year.

Although Rodriguez’s strategy was still being completed Monday, he was expected to start the news conference by reading a lengthy statement. Rodriguez plans to address some of the potential questions that reporters may ask in his statement. After that, he may answer some reporter’s questions, but he will not answer wave after wave of inquiries, as Pettitte did.

It’s a sticky situation — you’d like Alex to bite the bullet and hold a conference that is engaging and conversational. There are those who will frown upon this forum as the controlled nature of the setting wreaks of inauthenticity. But, at the same time, we saw how Alex’s ESPN interview transcript was dissected and analyzed by sports writers and fans across the globe. Maybe, for this particular player, a statement is necessary in order to avoid further scrutiny (of course, the Q & A portion — no matter how brief — will serve as the main course, though).

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2010 Free Agency and the Yankees

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 1:01 pm No Responses »
Feb 162009

The last few days have brought some articles on the total spending done during this offseason that highlight the amount of that spending done by the Yankees. According to Maury Brown, the Yankees were responsible for 40.8 percent of the spending done this year, a staggering figure that is likely to engender criticism. It seems like the Yankees are back to being the same old Evil Empire, with no budget and no regard for the struggling economy. However, looking at all of the circumstances makes the Yankees shopping spree quite understandable. The Yankees shed 88 million in payroll this offseason, and are moving into a new stadium. Those are two sources of revenue that they could have chosen to spend or to save. Looking forward to the 2010 free agent class, it seems obvious that the Yankees made their decisions with an eye towards the future. Here are some of the interesting big names, via Cot’s contracts:

First Basemen

Carlos Delgado NYM
Aubrey Huff BAL
Nick Johnson WAS
Adam LaRoche PIT

Second Basemen

Mark DeRosa CHC
Placido Polanco DET
Brian Roberts BAL

Outfielders
Rick Ankiel STL
Jason Bay BOS
Vladimir Guerrero LAA
Matt Holliday OAK

Starters

Erik Bedard SEA
Justin Duchscherer OAK
Kelvim Escobar LAA
Rich Harden CHC
John Lackey LAA
Brett Myers PHI
Brad Penny BOS
Jason Schmidt LAD
Jarrod Washburn SEA

It’s a pretty weak class when compared to the cream of the crop from this season. The Yankees signed Teixeira rather than go with Swisher in 2009 and bet on someone like Aubrey Huff in 2010. Outside of John Lackey, all of the pitchers on that list have either health or performance issues, so the Yankees took themselves out of the starting pitching market for a few seasons. In regard to outfielders, that is the one position where the Yankees may shop in 2010. However, there will be plenty of quality outfielders on the market to keep the price suppressed, and the Yankees will likely only need one corner outfielder, assuming they allow Damon, Nady, and Matsui to leave. I listed second basemen as well, because another subpar year from Cano would likely involve the Yankees in that market as well.

The point of this is simple. The Yankees had plenty of available money to spend and needed to evaluate where best to invest. They looked to the short term future and rightly determined that the 2009 free agent class was best suited to serve their long term needs. The final bill may seem exorbitant, but I think it will seem less so when the Yankees are not major players in 2010 free agency.

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A-Rod: Destroying Kids Since 2001

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 11:16 am No Responses »
Feb 162009

I love it when the non-sports media finds it necessary to weigh in on the hot button issue of the week. Apparently Alex Rodriguez is the reason for any young adult’s steroid use. Being that he raised all of them, sees them on a daily basis, and has an opportunity to guide them to the right role models, I can certainly see that it may be his fault. Ohhh, wait. That would be the parents, wouldn’t it?

Steroids in baseball is another convenient excuse, like violence in video games, for parents who do not want to take responsibility for the actions of their children. They cannot understand why their child is acting this way, so they find an explanation that puts the onus on somebody else. To quote Charles Barkley, “I don’t believe professional athletes should be role models. I believe parents should be role models…. It’s not like it was when I was growing up. My mom and my grandmother told me how it was going to be. If I didn’t like it, they said, “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.” Parents have to take better control.”

Or they can keep blaming it on others. Whatever gets them through the night.

(h/t Baseball Musings)

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A-Rod apologizes (again)

Posted by Chris H. at 12:08 am 1 Response »
Feb 162009

But, this time, instead of apologizing to the fans or to the baseball community in general, he actually finds himself apologizing to Selena Roberts, the reporter who he alleged was stalking him. Looks like that accusation was nothing more than a “shoot the messenger” exaggeration.

It seems like Alex will be doing a lot of apologizing this season. Hmmm, I wonder who’s next… Miss Jackson, maybe?

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