Sunday, August 2, 2015

Weekend Finale Open Thread


The New York Yankees game with the Chicago White Sox is in the books and so is the weekend. What a sports weekend this was too with the Yankees playing a trio of games inside US Cellular Field while UFC 190 went down late into the night Saturday night. I'm beat and the grind of work begins tomorrow whether I'm ready or not so I'm going to bed shortly.

So tonight I leave you with a musical recommendation out of my own personal collection, "Face the Pain" by Stemm. This is the into music to UFC everytime a PPV comes on and I had the fights from the weekend on the mind when I posted this. Enjoy!

Understanding August Waiver Trades

The July 31st trading deadline has come and gone but that does not mean team's are done making trades. Trades can be done for the rest of the season but they are just a little trickier and harder to understand. That's why we're here, you're welcome.

Any player that is traded needs to clear revocable waivers first which results in either the player being claimed by a team or he clears waivers. Teams want their players to clear waivers because once they clear once they can be traded to any team for the rest of the season. If the player is claimed the team has three options, they can pull their player back, work out a trade with the team who claimed him, or simply give the player and his contract away to the team that claimed him.

The waiver claim period lasts 47 hours and goes by worst record to best record in the players league (American or National) and then record worst to first in the other league. Teams can block other teams from claiming without any repercussions. When a player is claimed the team has two full days to trade the player or pull him back off waivers regardless of what day of the week it is.

A team can place their player on waivers a second time if they pull him back the first time but this time the waivers are not revocable. In terms even a Boston Red Sox fan could understand the second time around whoever claims him gets him. Players on the disabled list cannot be placed on waivers so therefor cannot be traded.

Finally, for all the playoff teams, any player acquired after the 31st of August is not eligible for the postseason. Now you know, carry on.

Game Thread: New York Yankees @ Chicago White Sox 8/2


The New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox are on the field at US Cellular Field ready to play the finale of their three game weekend set. The Yankees will send Ivan Nova to the mound looking to see if he is past his fit with a dead arm while the White Sox will counter with their ace Jeff Samardzija. The game will be played at 2:10 pm ET and can be seen on the YES Network, TBS and MLB TV.

The Yankees face off with the White Sox head-to-head today this afternoon before traveling back to New York to play host to the Boston Red Sox. New York is off tomorrow to prepare for that series but the team has to take care of business today first and you have to click that Yankees Tickets link at the top of the blog while they play. You are going to want to see Luis Severino's major league debut and you can do that by buying a set of Yankees tickets off the blog and supporting the site. We're around every game so head over to Twitter and follow @GreedyStripes to root for the home team whether they are home or away.

Nova is ready and I'm ready to scrutinize every single pitch he throws after complaining of the tired arm so let's get to it. Go Yankees!


Is Nathan Eovaldi Throwing Enough Innings?


Many have been extremely critical of Nathan Eovaldi in his short tenure as a member of the New York Yankees, and not without good reason. At the beginning of the season my stance was always that Eovaldi was donned as a work in progress and of course I preached sample size. Eovaldi was brought to the Yankees not to be an ace but to be a fifth starter in the rotation basically, for the sake of this post anyway we'll go with fifth starter as it could be argued that he was a fourth starter but that is simply sematics.

Since Eovaldi has seemingly "figured it out" by adding a splitter to his repetoire the knock on him has been his inability to pitch late into ball game. Is this a legitimate beef with a guy who is donned as the team's fifth starter(on the depth chart, not according to performance)? I didn't think so but rather than simply throw my opinion out there I decided to take a look at the history of the Yankees in my lifetime with their fifth starters and how it translated to how deep they went into games.



Keep in mind that the game has changed drastically over the past four or five seasons, especially in New York. Back in the late 90's and throughout the 2000's the emphasis was more or less on strong starting pitching and bashing the hell out of the opponent. Lately the emphasis has changed to strong and deeper bullpens, shortening the games, etc. Naturally with that you would theoretically see your fifth start especially being affected by this mindset which I think it shown on the graph above.

The problem is not that Eovaldi is throwing less than six innings in a start, the problem is that Brian Cashman made moved that forced our fifth starter into a potential five game series playoff start. It's Cashman and company that still believe in CC Sabathia a lot more than we all do, it is Cashman and company that moved Adam Warren back to the bullpen and it is Cashman who did not upgrade the team before the July 31st trade deadline. Luis Severino is on the way, let's hope he's the savior and this all becomes a moot point.

*all stats courtesy of Baseball Reference 

Game Preview: New York Yankees @ Chicago White Sox 8/2


The New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox are ready to finish off their three game weekend set this afternoon inside US Cellular Field. The Yankees offense exploded in the first game of the series setting up a tough series for Chicago all weekend long. The White Sox had to use a ton of bullpen innings on Friday night while New York didn't have to use Chasen Shreve, Dellin Betances or Andrew Miller leaving all three available for multiple innings if need be with the off day tomorrow. The Yankees will send Ivan Nova to the mound looking for another win for the Yankees and another series win while the White Sox send Jeff Samardzija looking to grab a game for Chicago. The game will be played at 2:10 pm ET and can be seen on the YES Network, TBS and MLB TV.


  • Nova actually asked out of his last start after complaining about arm fatigue after just five innings pitched and 75 pitches. Nova and the Yankees have stated that this is normal for somepitchers returning from Tommy John surgery and that Nova should be fine going forward, we see how much truth there is to that this afternoon. 




  • Samardzija almost didnt make this start this afternoon as there was much speculation to whether he would be traded or not before the trade deadline. Samardzija will instead start the finale today looking to improve on his 4-1 record and 2.78 ERA in his last nine starts. 


The Yankees have an off day tomorrow so it is all hands on deck this afternoon. Every game is important for New York as the team looks to not only hold off the Toronto Blue Jays and the Baltimore Orioles but as they also look to secure a playoff spot because they played well. The Yankees had the best record of any team in July and hopefully they can bring that momentum and strong play with them into the month of August as well. Go Yankees!

2015 MLB Trade Deadline Winners & Losers: AL East Edition


The 2015 MLB trade deadline has come and passed and there was a ton of action in the week leading up to the deadline. Some we saw coming, Cole Hamels was traded to the Texas Rangers, other trades were somewhat predictable, the Cincinnati Reds sent Johnny Cueto to Kansas City for three prospects, and a couple trades simply came out of left field, that Dodgers/Braves/Marlins trade that saw 13 players swapped including the Braves top prospect Jose Peraza, Hector Oliveria and others. While I could spend all day looking at the winners and losers from around the league I thought it would be more pertinent to discuss the winners and losers in the American League East Division.

The Toronto Blue Jays far and away hands down won the trading deadline this season. The future is not so bright in Toronto after trading away a plethora of prospects from Triple-A down but the team was successful in adding David Price, Troy Tulowitzki, LaTroy Hawkins, Ben Revere and others to a club making the pitching much improved and the offense borderline unfair. Whether it’s enough to make up six games or so in the division between now and the end of September remains to be seen but as it stands today Toronto is a winner, easily. WINNERS.

 The Baltimore Orioles added Gerardo Parra to their outfield, last I checked though Parra could not pitch. Also the last time I checked, now granted I’ve been a bit busy with the blog and the trade deadline, the Orioles biggest issue this season was their pitching holding them back. Mix that with the fact that Tommy Hunter was traded and Bud Norris was designated for assignment and Baltimore may be the same, if not worse than they were before the deadline. LOSERS.

 Tampa pretty much stood pat and did nothing, standing pat means getting worse in this division. LOSERS.

The Red Sox shipped off Shane Victorino in a relatively minor deal, standing pat means getting worse in this division. LOSERS.

 The New York Yankees added Dustin Ackley while also calling up Nick Goody and Bryan Mitchell to try and replace the injured Michael Pineda. The team is better without Garrett Jones, who was designated for assignment, Chris Capuano, who was also DFA’d, and Esmil Rogers who was released to pursue a pitching opportunity in Japan but the team was relatively quiet before the deadline. Marginal improvements are improvements nonetheless but they did more standing pat than they did improving, so they marginally got worse in my book. LOSERS.

Weekly Check In: Luis Severino


The day is coming that Luis Severino, his freinds, family and fans have all been waiting for, the Yankees top pitching prospect is coming up to the Major Leagues to face off against the Boston Red Sox. Severino has absolutely dominated the minoir leagues at every single stop including the Scranton Wilkes-Barre RailRiders. Severino has seemingly gotten better with every start down in the minor leagues and will now look to bring that recent streak of hot starts and dominance to the major leagues and Yankee Stadium to face off against the Boston Red Sox this week.

The best news Yankees fans heard regarding the call up is that Severino will not be on the 50 innings or so innings limit that many thought he would be on if he came up to the majors.The future is now for Severino and now he's coming to New York. I can't put into words how excited I am to be announcing this news, welcome to the family Sev!

YearLevWLERAGGSIPHRERHRBBSOWHIPH9HR9BB9SO9
2015AAA-AA922.45191999.1723527227980.9976.50.22.48.9
2015AA223.328838.0321714210481.1057.60.52.411.4
2015AAA701.91111161.1401813017500.9295.90.02.57.3

This Day In New York Yankees History 8/2: That's a lot of Teix Messages


Many switch hitters have played this game of baseball but none have had more games in which they hit a home run from both sides of the plate than Mark Teixeira. Teixeira sent a Teix message on this day in 2011 from both sides of the plate for the 12th time in his career. The amazing part was that the two home runs game in a rain shortened victory in Chicago. Teixeira passed Eddie Murray and Chili Davis for the record.

Also on this day in 2007 the Yankees started an inning by giving up eight runs to the Chicago White Sox in a single frame. The Yankees would answer in the bottom of the inning by scoring eight runs of their own to tie the game in an eventual 13-9 loss. This marks only the second time in major league history that eight or more runs were scored in the same inning by each team.

Finally on this day in 1979 the Yankees captain Thurman Munson is killed when the Cessna Citation I/SP jet he is learning to fly crashes near a Canton-Akron airport. The Yankees catcher had been learning to fly for over two years so he could get home to his family in Ohio during off days. Munson was 32.