Yankees Showing Interest In S. Korea's Hyo-Joon Park

The New York Yankees have been reportedly showing interest in South Korea's Hyo-Joon Park, a Korean High School shortstop. The Yankees have already basically announced their plan to blow the international spending pool out of the water this coming season, starting July 2, and Park may be in the plans already.

Park is 17 years old and a left handed hitting shortstop who was scouted during a 40 day tour of California with his High School teammates. Obviously the power is not there, he has a lot of maturing, growing, and filling out to do, but he projects to be somewhere in the neighborhood of a .290/.360/.380 type hitter in the Major Leagues.

Park comes from the same part of Korea that produced Suk Min Yoon who recently just signed a three year deal with the Baltimore Orioles worth $5.75 million.

New York Yankees Spring Training News & Notes 3/14

Jame Pazos was assigned to the Yankees as an extra relief pitcher just in case today. Pazos is likely headed back across the street to the minor league complex down in Tampa tomorrow.

Manny Banuelos made his second spring appearance of the year in today's loss to the Twins. Banuelos was rusty and rocky again walking two batters, giving up two singles, and only getting one out ( a strikeout) but coming through it healthy is all that matters at this point for him and for the team.

Hiroki Kuroda and Shawn Kelley threw bullpen sessions today to Peter O'Brien and Francisco Arcia respectively.

Russ Canzler was scratched today due to hip stiffness. He was a long shot to make the team anyway but this was the first time he was going to get an opportunity to play something other than first base and maybe make an impression. Bad timing Russ.

Speaking of injuries Brendan Ryan was able to hit and field ground balls for the first time since his oblique/lower back injury derailed his spring about a week or two ago. Ryan is expected to do more infield drills tomorrow and could be in games as early as next week, although that's what they said last week too.

Chad Jennings as always with the assignments from today's spring camp:

Today’s second string: C Austin Romine, 1B Francisco Arcia, 2B Rob Refsnyder, SS Carmen Angelini, 3B Rob Segedin, LF Ben Gamel, CF Jake Cave, RF Taylor Dugas

· Today’s scheduled relievers: Manny Banuelos, David Herndon, Fred Lewis, Dellin Betances (with Dan Burawa, Mark Montgomery, James Pazo, Aaron Dott and Branden Pinder available if necessary)

· Batting practice groups:
Group 1: Jacoby Ellsbury, Eduardo Nunez, Brian Roberts, Brian McCann, Austin Romine
Group 2: Russ Canzler, Ramon Flores, Scott Sizemore, Mark Teixeira, Mason Williams
Group 3: Carmen Angelini, Jake Cave, Rob Refsnyder, Francisco Arcia, Pete O’Brien
Group 4: Ali Castillo, Taylor Dugas, Ben Gamel, Rob Segedin, Wes Wilson

· Tomorrow’s travel squad to Sarasota:
Pitchers: Danny Burawa, Brian Gordon, Shane Greene, Mark Montgomery, Vidal Nuno
Catchers: Francisco Arcia, Pete O’Brien, Austin Romine
Infielders: Russ Canzler, Kelly Johnson, Brian Roberts
Outfielders: Ramon Flores, Ichiro Suzuki, Mason Williams
Minor league pitchers: Diego Moreno, Joel De La Cruz, Graham Stoneburner, Manny Barreda, James Pazos, Branden Pinder
Minor league hitters: Wes Wilson, Rob Refsnyder, Cito Culver, Carmen Angelini, Rob Segedin, Ali Castillo, Dan Fiorito, Ben Gamel, Jake Cave, Taylor Dugas

I've Got Til 5! - Favorite Baseball Websites

In order to be best prepared for the upcoming season, I thought I'd share some of my favorite resources on the web. I'm not saying these are the only five I use, but these are definitely my favorite. Except for this site... of course.

Feel free to go to the comments and share some of your favorites as well.

If you have a question regarding somebody's contract, other than somebody on the Yankees of course, then Cot's Baseball Contracts is the place to go. You'll not only find out how much a player makes, but they will break it down by year, and will also list things like no-trade clauses, incentive clauses, perks, etc. Cot's even has contract information for some players overseas.

While you can find a number of different statistics for players, including lesser-known stats such as WARP, Baseball Prospectus also has Pitch F/X date, articles, fantasy information, and my favorite thing... a list of transactions including injury history. I use this site a lot when giving biography information regarding a player. You can imagine how much I used it when I wrote about Brian Roberts.

There's a good chance that if you watch a lot of baseball analysis, you've heard of the site Fangraphs. They have a ton of statistical information. What you may not know is that they have a lot more to offer. News, blogs, and projections from various sources. One of my favorite parts of Fangraphs is their leaderboard, where you can look at a myriad of stats in order to compare players and/or teams.

Like Fangraphs, Baseball Reference has a ton of statistics to wade through. However, on top of that, you can find biographical information such as a player's birthday, high school, where and by who a player was drafted or signed, uniform numbers, and on and on. Also, like Fangraphs, Baseball Reference has their own formula for figuring out Wins Above Replacement. There is also Hall of Fame statistics, as well as similarity scores so you can see who a player compares to (for example, Derek Jeter compares to six Hall of Famers).

Oh, and you can even see statistics for players in Japan. I could keep going, but just take a look around if you haven't already. And then bookmark the site, because you're sure to use it later.

While MLB Trade Rumors aren't known for having a lot of in-depth articles (they do have some, just not a ton of them), you won't find a better place on the internet to find up to the minute news regarding the league or any particular team. They also have excellent free agency coverage, including a tracker that lets you see all the free agents for a given year. That tracker will not only tell you where they signed, and for how much, but will even tell you about qualifying offers (you'll see Type A and Type B free agents in year's past).

That's not the only tracker at MLBTR, as they also have one for transactions, and another for players that were Designated For Assignment.

Basically, if you don't want to watch Twitter 24/7, this you'll want to check out this site.

Phelps okay again as Yankees fall to Twins, 7-3

Despite getting a solid 4 innings of 2-run, 4-hit ball from fifth starter candidate David Phelps, the Yankees fell at Steinbrenner Field today to the Twins, 7-3. This defeat, as you may have noticed, is the Yanks third in their last six games, to go along with two more not-so-pleasant ties.

So yea, the Bombers are struggling right now. They did score three runs today thanks to an RBI Double from Brian Roberts, an RBI Single from Mark Teixeira, and an RBI Groundout from Eduardo Nunez, but still, they're consistently losing here. Definitely not a great way to build confidence. 

New York Yankees vs. Minnesota Twins 3/14

The New York Yankees played a pair of split squad games yesterday with Michael Pineda impressing the world in a victory and Ivan Nova being solid in a loss. The Yankees will host the Minnesota Twins today as their are playing split squad today and short handed. The game will be televised at 1:05 pm ET on the YES Network with David Phelps on the mound for the Yankees. Enjoy the day and enjoy the weekend and as always, go Yankees!

Hiroki Kuroda Should Start On Opening Day

The Yankees are more than likely going to start CC Sabathia on Opening Day this season like they have every season since they acquired him in 2009, but they shouldn't. Hiroki Kuroda should start Opening Day for the Yankees for a plethora of reasons, reasons I will touch in here in this article.

The Yankees really balance out their starting rotation by starting CC Sabathia, especially if Vidal Nuno wins the fifth starting rotation spot this spring. With CC in the top spot and Nuno in the last spot we would run into running consecutive lefties out there in some series. With Kuroda starting game one we could split up the lefties in Nuno and Sabathia and keep teams off balance.

There has also been talk of splitting up Kuroda and Masahiro Tanaka due to their similar pitching mechanics and stuff, it makes sense. Batters get more and more comfortable the more they see a pitcher, even if it's a similar and comparable pitcher. Splitting up Kuroda and Tanaka with CC in the middle really keeps the batters guessing and makes it harder to prepare for these three in a series.

Oh and your best pitcher should start on Opening Day, it's a prestigious thing, and that is Kuroda. It has been Kuroda for two seasons now and it will be for a third season in 2014. CC struggled in 2013, got out pitched in 2012, and looks like he may struggle again in 2014. His velocity is down and he is experimenting with a new pitch, Kuroda is the rock and the solid piece you want at the top of the rotation. It won't happen but it should, make it happen Cash.

Yankee Stadium Legacy: #17 Joe Gordon

The Yankees success in the 1930's carried over into the 1940's as the Yanks were stocked with All Star caliber players at almost every position on the field. Joe Gordon earned six trips to the Major League Baseball All Star Game while with the Yankees and even started the game at second base in 1939, 1940, and 1942. Gordon also had a two run double in the 1946 All Star game as the American League won the game 12-0.

17 days until Yankees Opening Day

Happy Birthday To My Biggest Fan

On this day four years ago at 1:41 AM my best friend, my first son, and my biggest fan was born at Piedmont Hospital in Jasper, Georgia. He was 8 lbs and 6 oz and 21 inches long, all that and he was three weeks early almost to the day. Evan Daniel Burch was born and the rest is history. This blog or anything I do in my life is for him and now my youngest son Hayden Alexander. I just wanted to take a second to say Happy Birthday to my son and that I love him very much. Enjoy your day little guy (he will, we got him an iPhone, among other things of course, for his birthday and he has a pizza and arcade party tomorrow).

This Day In New York Yankees History 3/14

On this day in 1961 the New York Mets landed former Yankee general manager George Weiss out of retirement to become the teams first president. Weiss had been the Yankees' general manager from 1947-1960 before retiring.

On this day in 2003 Cablevision agreed to a one year interim deal to offer the Yankees YES Network to New York Yankees fans for a fee, ending a bitter and costly year long feud. This essentially made the YES Network a premium channel instead of a basic cable channel preventing the company from forcing every subscriber to pay for the channel whether they wanted it or not. The rest, my friends, is history.