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Swisher wins final All Star vote

Posted by Steve S. at 7:31 pm 4 Responses »
Jul 082010

The results are in, and congratulations go out to Nick Swisher, Joey Votto and all the fans who supported their election to the 2010 All Star Game. Here’s the story from MLB.com:

Swisher, the Yankees’ right-fielder and social-media titan, held off Kevin Youkilis of the rival Red Sox in the closest race in the nine-year history of the Final Vote to claim the 34th and final spot on the All-Star roster with a final tally of 9.8 million votes. Swisher and Youkilis were followed by Paul Konerko of the White Sox, Michael Young of the Rangers and Delmon Young of the Twins.

Votto was a machine throughout the Final Vote. The Reds’ first baseman won wire-to-wire, powered by a fury of snub response and leading all vote-getters with 13.7 million en route to becoming the first Cincinnati player to win the All-Star Final Vote. He was followed by Ryan Zimmerman of the Nationals, Carlos Gonzalez of the Rockies and Billy Wagner of the Braves. Padres pitcher Heath Bell was running in fifth the first three days then was removed from the NL ballot after he got the good news that he was replacing Brewers pitcher Yovani Gallardo on the NL roster.

(snip)

Swisher had the all-time campaigning day in Final Vote history on Wednesday, bar none. Using baseball’s most-followed Twitter account (1,220,890 followers) to his advantage, he sought out and got endorsements from New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, actress Jessica Alba and “The Apprentice” co-star Ivanka Trump (among others). Then that night he was a triple shy of the cycle in leading the Yankees to a 6-2 victory over the Athletics.

On Thursday morning, it was announced that he held a narrow lead in a “virtual tie” with Youkilis. It didn’t take Swisher long to tweet another kick in the rear to voters. He typed: “We’re in the final stretch. Can’t thank yall enough for your support. Let’s finish strong!” And naturally he used the #SENDSWISH hashtag so that as many fans as possible could find his tweet, along with a link to the ballot.

You did it! Nick’s an All Star!

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Who Hits 'Em Farthest?

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 3:00 pm 3 Responses »
Jul 082010

I’ve written about trade stuff a lot lately, including the last two days, and as there are no concrete rumors (oxy moron?) in MLB right now and I’m writing these posts before the 10 PM games to get myself some extra sleep, so I thought I’d focus on something else on field: how far the Yankees hit their home runs.

I’ve touched on this before, but that was way back in the beginning of the year before any team had a lot of homers. Going into last night’s game against Oakland, the Yankees had 93 homers, good for third in the American League. So, let’s look at all 93 of those homers and see who really gets the best of the ball when he takes it over the fences for some FIP destruction!

Curtis Granderson still owns the longest home run, with 455 feet of true distance. That came in his first PA as a Yankee, off of Josh Beckett in the second inning of Opening Night. Alex Rodriguez checks in at the number two and three spots with two blasts of 452 feet; Robinson Cano is fourth with a 451 foot bomb off of Jamie Moyer, and Jorge Posada’s 443 foot shot off of Randy Choate rounds out the top five.

The shortest Yankee homer this year has come off the bat of Mark Teixeira, who hit a 321 footer off of Roy Halladay.

Let’s get to the averages:

Cano: 396.4′
Gardner: 381.2′
Granderson: 402.3′
Jeter: 393.0′
Johnson: 416′ (only two homers)
Miranda: 390′ (only two homers)
Posada: 398.7′
Rodriguez: 402.4′
Swisher: 401.9′
Teixeira: 392.6′
Thames: 388.5′ (only two homers)
Winn: 419′ (only one homer)

So, among guys with at least three homers, Alex Rodriguez just edges out Curtis Granderson and Nick Swisher in the longest average home run department. If this was shocking to you, well, no, I’m not going to insult any of you; you all knew how this would end! Not surprisingly, Brett Gardner’s five homers average the shortest. The way his swing works, it’s rare for him to get a homer in the first place, let alone hit it far. Gardner has, however, had two no doubt homers.

Despite that lead in longest average homer, Rodriguez doesn’t lead the team in no doubt home runs. That honor goes to Nick Swisher, who has five.

Going forward, I expect few changes to this leaderboard. If Tex hits a groove, though, he could take second place from Curtis Granderson.

While longer homers don’t put anymore runs on the board (unless you’re playing Wiffle Ball at my house–if you can manage to hit the road that’s about 15 feet back from the HR “wall” you automatically get a grand slam), they sure are fun to watch. Hopefully, the Yankees can keep cranking out majestic shots for us to marvel at.

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Examining Alex

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 11:00 am 13 Responses »
Jul 082010

According to Buster Olney (h/t RAB), the Yankees are looking for someone who can play third while adding punch. Olney adds that they’re looking for a veteran, like Ty Wigginton.

Ty currently sports a .344 wOBA for the Orioles and was just named to the All-Star team. It’s worth noting, though, that his wOBA has fallen quite a bit each month as the season has progressed. He’s definitely coming back to earth towards that .337 career wOBA. His fielding at third has also been downright awful at third, with a career -16.6 UZR/150.

What’s attractive about Wigginton, though, is his power. He has a career .452 SLG and .183 IsoP. He’s also not an automatic out (.329 OBP, 8.7 BB%). So, he can fake third–and the other positions–and hit for a little pop, which the Yankees could use. As a veteran on the last place Orioles, he could come with the best price tag of the bunch as well. In terms of probability, I think it’s highest for TW to join the Yankees. But, I’d like to take a look at another possible trade candidate: Kansas City’s Alex Gordon.

Gordon started this season poorly and was sent to the minors by the Royals to learn to play the outfield in an attempt to get some more value out of him. I think as a former #1 organizational prospect, Gordon’s still got some upside left and he’s a good guy for the Yankees to look at.

His wOBA is a “meh” .329, but he’s got a .163 career IsoP as well as a 9.6% walk rate so, like Wigginton, he has some pop and won’t just be an auto-out. His fielding isn’t spectacular, a -4.2 raw UZR in his time at third with KC, but it’s not unacceptable. It would appear that Gordon fits the Yankees’ bill as well.

The only roadblock I could see here would be the price. Since Gordon just turned 26 this past February, he’s still relatively young with some upside left. I’d imagine the Royals would ask for a little more than the Orioles would for Wigginton, but Cashman is a shrewd negotiator and could get Dayton Moore to go for something lesser since Gordon’s value is down. We’ve seen him do that before (see: Swisher, Nick; trade of) and I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw him do it again.

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Swish, Cano, Mo and the All Star Game

Posted by Steve S. at 6:50 am 4 Responses »
Jul 082010

Any Yankee fan with an internet connection has been inundated with pleas to Send Swish to the All Star game. The Yankees official website is decorated with like a Christmas tree with Swisher icons, and just about every fan site or blog has done a post recently imploring its readers to vote Nick a ticket to Anaheim, including ours.

Meanwhile, the Yankee coaching staff seems to be doing everything possible to make a mockery of the event that the PR department seems so committed to with Nick. Batting Coach Kevin Long voiced his displeasure with Robinson Cano’s decision to participate in the Home Run Derby, fearing it would get him “fatigued”. Lo and behold, Robbie comes up with a “lower back injury” yesterday and pulls out of the event. This comes on the heels of Mariano Rivera pulling out of the ASG altogether, citing a rib cage injury among other various aches and pains. Curiously enough, the Yanks aren’t overly concerned with injuries to the only consistent reliever they have on their staff, and arguably the most important Yankee over the past 15 years. Injuries that are apparently so severe they’re preventing him from getting on a plane from Seattle to Anaheim (shorter flight than to New York) and pitching a single inning over a 4 day span.

This is certainly not unique to the Yanks. Aging stars have been pulling out of the All Star Game for years. Sluggers have been pulling out of the Home Run Derby on an annual basis. Of course, Bud Selig doesn’t like this, the ASG is a worldwide showcase of the sport and MLB wants it to have as much credibility as possible. That’s why Bud added the World Series home field advantage carrot to the festivities, to encourage the participants to take it more seriously, or at the very least show up. Bud has also been known to give an earful to teams that have encouraged players to pull out of the event. So now we have teams inventing injuries, as a way to avoid getting in trouble with Bud and keep their players out of events they don’t want them to participate in.

Can you make a mockery out of an exhibition? Baseball certainly seems to try its best.

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