Thursday, October 8, 2015

2015 Yankees: Brett Gardner 2015 Highlights


Brett Gardner just #GARDNERING all season long. Enjoy Yankees family, have a good night. 

MLBTR: Yankees Arbitration Salaries for 2016


MLB Trade Rumors has taken their yearly predictions at the salary arbitration numbers for all 30 Major League Baseball teams including the New York Yankees. CLICK HERE to see all 30 predictions and see below for the Yankees predictions. Enjoy.



Yankees (9)

Sergio Santos (5.110) – $900K
Andrew Bailey (5.034) – $900K
arbitration projection; has $2MM club option.
Ivan Nova (5.024) – $4.4MM
Michael Pineda (4.099) – $4.6MM
Dustin Ackley (4.087) – $3.1MM
Nate Eovaldi (4.013) – $5.7MM
Adam Warren (3.036) – $1.5MM
Justin Wilson (3.035) – $1.3MM
Didi Gregorius (2.159) – $2.1MM

Baseball America: Two Yankees in Top 20 Eastern League Prospects List


Baseball American has released their Top 20 Prospects lists for the Rookie Gulf Coast League (Yankees GCL 1 and GCL 2), the Rookie Appalachian League (Pulaski Yankees), the Short Season New York-Penn League (Staten Island Yankees), the Low-A South Atlantic League (Charleston Riverdogs) and the High-A Florida State League (Tampa Yankees) and their latest list covered the Eastern League, home of the Double-A Trenton Thunder. Two members of the New York Yankees made the list, SEE THE ENTIRE LIST HERE, and those men were first baseman Greg Bird and outfielder Aaron Judge.

Judge ranked 15th of 20 on the list and Bird ranked just behind him at #16. The top of the list is topped by the Washington Nationals RHP Lucas Giolito while the Philadelphia Phillies shortstop J.P Crawford was 2nd and the New York Mets outfielder Michael Conforto was 3rd.

Luis Severino did not have enough innings to qualify for the list.

CC Sabathia & My Own Experience w/ Addiction


When news broke about CC Sabathia’s self-admission into an alcohol rehabilitation center I did not want to turn his disease into a post about me like many others likely did. What I did personally was I sent out a couple tweets to Amber and CC voicing my full 100% support, thoughts and prayers and I left it at that. I feel like enough time has gone by now that I can share with you my personal experience with addiction and why I fully and 100% not only support but agree with CC’s decision to enter the rehab now rather than after the playoffs, even if it was just one game.

My entire life I grew up with and around drugs. I’ve heard stories, although it’s adamantly denied by my mother, that my mother did heroine while she was pregnant with me. I’ve heard stories that I was left on street corners in the Bronx or with vendors or shop owners so my parents could go down the road and score some drugs.  I’ve heard stories that would make you cry and that’s just what I’ve heard, that doesn’t count everything I’ve lived through and actually remember. The nights being woken up to my father vomiting and choking on his vomit and me having to turn him over to save his life because he was too high to wake up. The night where my mother left my father because she gave him the ultimatum to pick her or heroin and he looked her in the eyes and told her he loved her, he was sorry and that they were through. The weekends lost, because I got taken away from both parents, because my father was too high to take care of me and my mother had moved down to Georgia to escape it all.

Why I understand CC’s urgency and commitment to search out rehab and search out rehab now is my own struggle with my father. My father was the type of drug addict to blow his entire paycheck either Friday night or Saturday morning and would spend the weekend high before coming down around midnight Sunday. Almost every Sunday night or Monday morning I would get the “I’m sorry” speech or the “I’m going to do better” phone call and every time I would recommend a drug rehab. Every time it was some excuse, I can’t get off work. I don’t have a reliable vehicle right now. I’m too busy. His intentions were good on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and even Wednesday but by Thursday the addiction and the thirst took control back.


If my father had went to any of the rehab’s he swore that he would go to he may be sitting here reading this today and using it as a testament to getting healthy, clean and sober. He’s gone, I was 10-years old. My father, like CC to his children, is far more important than one more week of work, a reliable vehicle or something else that was “more important.” When you admit you have a problem and put a plan in motion to fix this issue then you do it, regardless of what you feel is important. Alcoholism and drug use is a deadly and nasty disease and it will kill you on a long enough timeline so I commend and admire CC for making the right decision as a person, as a father and as a husband. Get well soon CC!

Rico Noel the Latest Yankee Blogger


Derek Jeter started the Players Tribune shortly after retiring after the 2014 season with the goal of giving athletes a chance to put their thoughts, beliefs and feelings onto paper without the middle man. The Players Tribune has done just that in its year of existence and the latest New York Yankees player to grace the pages of the Tribune is Rico Noel. The name of the post was "The Wait" and it can be seen HERE.



Being a base-stealer is about being a realist.


When you’re trying to steal, there has to be a balance. You have to find that middle ground. There’s a sixth sense to it, an instinctive math.

If you try to steal while counting on the best-case scenario — the perfect jump, a bad throw — then you leave yourself exposed: the right throw, in the right location, and you’re toast.

If you try to steal while fearing for the worst-case scenario — a bad jump, the perfect throw — then you leave yourself exposed as well: each at-bat contains a limited number of pitches; missing just one good chance to take the base can be as bad as making an out.

And math, in the end, is really what it comes down to. Strip away the scouting, the timing and everything in between: It’s your speed minus their throw.


When the numbers say stay, you stay. And when numbers say go, you go.


My brother Orlandus is an optimist.

He’s a goofball, but in the best sense. He’s the life of the party. He’s always looking out for everyone, checking in to see if a room is too tense. And if it is, then you can count on Orlandus: He will find a way to break the tension.

Is your cookout feeling a little uptight? Not for long, if Orlandus is there. He’ll just start … dancing. Yes, alone. No, it doesn’t matter what music is on. Orlandus’ll go — and go, and go. And then, before you know it, everyone’s having fun. It’s like magic.

Orlandus is just That Guy: The one who seemingly can create positive energy from thin air. The one who manages to see the optimist’s angle, everywhere he looks. And the one who plays his hand with a smile — no matter what cards he’s been dealt.

This past year, Orlandus was dealt some really tough cards.

In November, he started coughing a lot. He had smoked cigarettes previously, so that was our explanation for it: smoker’s cough. Nobody thought much of it.

But then he started to get some chest pains. We thought, “Okay, let’s check this out.” The doctors ran some tests.

The pains wouldn’t subside.

For the next several months, Orlandus was in and out of the hospital — test, after test, after test. The symptoms got stranger: shortness of breath … feeling like he was about to pass out … and more and more pain.

Until, finally, there was a diagnosis: Congestive heart failure.

It was worse than we could have possibly imagined.

My brother needed a new heart.


I was in Buffalo when the Yankees told me I was being called up to the big leagues.

Immediately, I called my mom. She was so happy for me. She knew what a dream it had been for me to reach the majors — and how hard I worked for it. In many ways, I think she understood it more clearly than I did. Moms always know, you know? They always remember.


It was worse than we could have possibly imagined. My brother needed a new heart.

And hearing her process those memories was when it really sunk in for me. Because she was right: I had worked hard — so, so hard. For it to all pay off, in one moment of news, was an incredible feeling.




To read the rest of the post and to support Jeter and the Players Tribune click the link, again SEEN HERE, and check it out. Thank you. 

The George Steinbrenner Quote That May Define 2016


Baseball is not just a sport anymore; we are a business. We are show business. To compete for the entertainment dollar, particularly in New York, you have to have more than nine guys playing baseball; you have to have an attraction. And I have tried to do the best job I possibly can to give my fans an attraction.”
George Steinbrenner, New York Yankees

This Day In New York Yankees History 10/8: Don Larsen is Perfect


There has only been one perfect game in the history of Major League Baseball and that came on this day in 1956 and it came from a man in a New York Yankees uniform. That man’s name was Don Larsen and the feat came in Game 5 of the World Series as the Yankees beat the Los Angeles Dodgers by the score of 2-0.


Also on this day in 1939 the Yankees completed their sweep over the Cincinnati Reds to win their fourth consecutive World Series championship thanks to “Lombardi’s Swoon.” Joe DiMaggio scored all the way from first in the top of the 10th inning when Charlie Keller almost knocked Reds catcher Ernie Lombardi unconscious in a home plate collision that allowed three runs to score in the Yankees 7-4 victory. Keller earned his nickname “King Kong” with that shot.



Finally on this day in 1927 the best team to ever play Major League Baseball completed their quest and won their World Series by sweeping the Pittsburgh Pirates in four games. This was New York’s second World Series of the franchise’s history.


Also on this day in Yankees history the team had a couple exits from the postseason that were notable including the 1995 walk off victory by the Seattle Mariners in the ALDS and Joe Torre's final game in the 2007 ALDS against the Cleveland Indians, but that's none of my business.