Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Andrew Miller is the AL Reliever of the Year

Andrew Miller has been named the American League's Best Reliever for the 2015 season, congratulations to him. Miller finished the season with 36 saves in his first season as a closer in the league. Miller wins the Mariano Rivera Award while pitching for the New York Yankees, seems like fate to me.

World Series Game Two Open Thread


The World Series continues tonight with the second game inside Kansas City's Kauffman Stadium. While having to watch these games on Fox with Joe Buck in the middle of the night is not ideal it's the World Series and it only comes once a year. While we complain now we will all be missing baseball in a couple of weeks, I know I personally already miss it and I'm not without it yet. So here is your thread for the second game of the 2015 World Series and your thread for the night. Go crazy!

Who Gets a World Series Ring?


With the World Series in full swing and both the New York Mets and the Kansas City Royals vying for their first World Series ring in nearly 30 years. Speaking of World Series rings I always find it interesting to see actually who gets a World Series ring when the team wins the championship. To simplify things, everyone gets a ring. Literally, everyone.

Dan Uggla won a World Series ring with the San Francisco Giants in 2014 despite playing in just four games with the club and despite going 0-for-11 with six strikeouts and two errors. The only saving grace for Uggla struggling so much is that Joe Panik was inserted into the lineup at second base and the team may not win that World Series ring for Uggla without Panik in the lineup.

In 2013 Boston Red Sox pitcher Brayan Villareal received a World Series ring after facing one batter, Marco Scutaro, and walking him on four pitches. The walk was with the bases loaded so it walked in a run and he was immediately relieved after the walk. No worries for him though, technically he is still a World Series champion.

It’s not just those types of scenarios and players that get the rings, it’s almost literally everyone. We’ve heard so many stories of a training assistant, a scout, and the water boy etc. getting a ring only to sell them on EBay a few years later. The bat boy probably gets a ring and so does the girl sweeping up all the sunflower seeds.


Imagine if the Yankees had won the World Series this season with all the players that were sent down, called up, designated for assignment, traded away, or casted off in some way, shape or form. Hell I bet even Hank and Hal Steinbrenner would get one, Randy Levine too. Might not be a bad thing that the team didn’t win a World Series in 2015, there would be no money left for 2016. I joke, kind of. 

Brian Cashman's Net Worth


Why? Because as a society we are inherently nosy, especially Yankees fans who like to boast about this being a $3.5 billion franchise. Here is Brian Cashman's net worth courtesy of Get Net Worth. Just how much is being the GM of the New York Yankees worth in the grand scheme of things?

Brian Cashman is an American Major League Baseball executive; he has a net worth of $9 million. 
Brian Cashman has earned his net worth as General Manager/Senior Vice President with the New York Yankees; he started as an intern with the New York Yankees organization in 1986. Cashman, was born in Rockville Centre, New York, he helped create the video game MLB Front Office Manager. And he made the Crain's New York Business 40 under 40 list for 1999. Brian Cashman Salary What is Brian Cashman's salary? $3 million

Brian McGuire Cashman (born July 3, 1967) is an American Major League Baseball executive for the New York Yankees. He has been their General Manager and Senior Vice President since 1998.
Cashman was born in Rockville Centre, New York and raised in Washingtonville, New York. He was raised in an Irish Catholic family. He moved with his family to Lexington, Kentucky, where his father John managed a farm that raised standardbreds for harness racing. He attended Lexington Catholic High School before moving to the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. He graduated from Georgetown Preparatory School in 1985.

He attended The Catholic University of America, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1989. He was a four-year starter at second base and the leadoff hitter for the Cardinals' baseball team. He set a school record for most hits in a season, which has since been broken.

Cashman started with the New York Yankees organization as an intern in 1986. In February 1998, he was named Senior Vice-President and General Manager, succeeding Bob Watson.

During Cashman's tenure, the Yankees have won six American League pennants and four World Series championships. Despite the team's success, in 2005 Cashman considered leaving the Yankees due to conflicts with owner George Steinbrenner and organizational disputes between team officials in New York City and Tampa. The Washington Nationals were rumored to be interested in hiring Cashman, which would have brought him back to the city where he attended school. Instead, Cashman agreed to a new contract with the Yankees following the conclusion of the 2005 season which gave him more authority in personnel decisions and paid him an average of $1.3 million more over the following three years.

The Yankees Connection to the World Series


The 2015 World Series is underway now with the New York Mets and the Kansas City Royals fighting for the ultimate crown. Neither team has won a World Series in nearly 30 years, the last victory for the Royals coming in 1985 and the last victory for the Mets coming in 1986, but would either team be in the position to finally reward their players, fans and organization if it weren’t for the Yankees? Maybe not.

I may be putting on just a bit but it’s true, there are plenty of connections to the New York Yankees in this World Series. From players to coaches former members of the Bronx Bombers are everywhere and it may seem like the Mets and Royals are getting the last laughs on New York.

Currently on the Mets roster the team boasts hitting coach Kevin Long (Yankees hitting coach from 2004-2014 including the minor leagues and Major Leagues), right fielder Curtis Granderson (Yankees center fielder from 2010-2013) and relief pitcher Tyler Clippard (Yankees farm hand and pitcher from 2003-2007). Currently on the Royals roster the team boasts pitching Dave Eiland (Yankees pitching coach from 2000-2010 including the minor leagues where he coached Ian Kennedy, Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain among others).

Now the fun part, to play Devil’s Advocate. Would the Yankees be in the World Series if they had this cast of characters on their roster in 2015? Well we know what the offense did with Kevin Long when they have a suitable cast of characters but you have to think the team couldn’t have been much better with Long, the team had the second most potent offense in the league behind the Toronto Blue Jays. The Yankees offense would have been better with a healthy Mark Teixeira, not a new hitting coach. Down the stretch the pitching became the problem but I’m not sure the pitching coach, Larry Rothschild or Dave Eiland, could have fixed it. The team was wore down and the sample size was humongous, that’s what happens when you’re starting rotation only goes five innings a night.

Would Curtis Granderson help the Yankees offensive woes? Probably would, sure, but it would make the Yankees even more dependent on the home run or nothing. Carlos Beltran, presumably who Granderson would replace, would simply make the Yankees even more dependent on the long ball and even more left-handed. He may have added a few RBI and home runs along the way but New York is still likely shut out in the Wild Card Game. You can’t win a game when you don’t score any runs so having Clippard on the team would likely be a moot point as well, the problem was the offense.


It’s a great story to follow, former Yankees winning it all elsewhere, but it’s nothing to lose sleep over and it’s nothing to make you wonder if they are getting the last laugh on the team. Some decisions work out, some don’t and some only work out elsewhere. That’s life and that’s baseball. 

Mark Teixeira Isn’t “OK” With Anything


When I saw the now “infamous” article and tweet stating that the New York Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira would be “OK” with waiving his no-trade clause to facilitate a deal this winter I can’t lie, I got a little bit excited. I didn’t bother to check the source, I thought maybe a responsible site like Yanks Go Yard would have done that for me (and that was not tongue in cheek, the site is responsible and a friend of The Greedy Pinstripes) but after doing some research and digging around one thing is clear, at least to me, and that is that Mark Teixeira isn’t “OK” with anything.

This is slowly becoming old news now, the story broke late in the week last week, but I wanted to wait this one out before I began to write about it. Why? Sometimes the little guys, no matter how much Joel Sherman doesn’t want to admit it, get the news first. I bring up Sherman specifically because we here at TGP had the Curtis Granderson to the Mets deal not only first, but 100% correct, days before Sherman stole the show. Sherman was credited for it and when I linked him to my blog post and tweets day before asking for accountability I was blocked and I am still blocked on his Twitter to this day. So with this instance I wanted to wait around to see if anyone would pick up on it, maybe even speculate on it, but I have seen nothing. Absolutely nothing. When you see smoke there is usually fire but in this case there isn’t a stick of wood to be found.

When no one is talking about something or none of the beat writers or experts are even talking about, trying to confirm, trying to fact check etc. that usually means it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and sounds like a duck. This is a duck! Mark Teixeira did not give the Yankees the green light to trade him and he definitely isn’t going to follow Billy Eppler to Los Angeles to play for the Angels alongside the monster contracts of CJ Wilson, Albert Pujols (who is also a first baseman) and Josh Hamilton (who is playing for the Texas Rangers).


This is a duck and it’s not happening. 

Weekly AFL Check In: Ian Clarkin


The weekly check in posts are back here on the blog and I, for one, can’t put into words how excited I am about it. We’ve already checked back in with Tyler Austin, the man who needs the Arizona Fall League the most, and Gary Sanchez, the man who is destroying the fall league and their pitching, but today we look at possibly the most interesting story of the AFL. Ian Clarkin, Top 10 prospect inside the New York Yankees organization.

Clarkin missed the entire 2015 season with some mystery elbow injury, which if I were a betting man I would say is a Masahiro Tanaka type partially torn UCL but that’s pure speculation, and didn’t make his debut this year until his first start last week in the AFL. Clarkin is back and he seems healthy, which is great news for the Yankees and the state of their farm system, and will look to build up some innings and some of his value with the Surprise Saguaros this fall.

Ian Clarkin

G: 2
GS: 2
IP: 8.0
W/L: 1-0
ERA: 4.50
K: 4
BB: 6
WHIP: 2.13

This Day in New York Yankees History 10/28: A Rod Opts Out


On this day in 2007 in the middle of Game 4 of the World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Colorado Rockies we heard the news that Alex Rodriguez had opted out of his contract with the New York Yankees. The timing of the announcement as well as being a no show to receive the Hank Aaron Award, which honors the best offensive player in the league, did not sit well with MLB, Bud Selig, the fans, or the Yankees.


Also on this day in 1979 Dick Howser replaces Billy Martin as the Yankees manager. Howser would lead the Yankees to a 103-59 record with an American League East championship although he was fired by George Steinbrenner when he was swept in the playoffs by the Kansas City Royals.


On this day in 1953 Red Barber quit his job as the broadcaster of the Brookyln Dodgers and would find a new job with the New York Yankees. The man nicknamed "The Old Red Head" was upset with Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley over money and lack of support.