Wednesday, January 6, 2016

The Boring Winter Ahead: Watch the 1996 World Series Game Six HERE


Game Six of the 1996 World Series between the New York Yankees and the Atlanta Braves.

Mike Piazza, Ken Griffey Jr. Elected to Hall of Fame

More to come when I'm not mobile but the Hall of Fame got two new members this evening when Mike Piazza and Ken Griffey Jr. were elected to the MLB Hall of Fame.

IBWAA VETS COMMITTEE SELECTS MARVIN MILLER IN 2016 HALL OF FAME VOTE

Los Angeles – In its inaugural Hall of Fame election, the IBWAA Vets Committee selected labor leader Marvin Miller with 16 out of a possible 20 votes cast (80%). A 75% threshold is required for election.
 
The IBWAA, which has been voting in its own non-official Hall of Fame election since 2010, established the Vets Committee on November 5, 2015 to consider individuals, who with one exception (see note below) have not be honored with a Cooperstown enshrinement by the BBWAA, or by any of the various Eras Committees tasked with the assignment (the Golden Era Committee, the Pre-Integration Committee, etc.).
 
All candidates, which were nominated by the IBWAA Vets Committee members themselves, were placed on a digital ballot, with voting taking place electronically during December, 2015.
 
 
Note: Barry Larkin has not reached the 75% threshold in an IBWAA election thus far, and as a nominated player, was eligible for Vets Committee consideration in this election.
 
Election results are as follows:
 
Name
   Votes
     Percentage
Marvin Miller
16
80%
Barry Larkin
14
70%
Minnie Minoso 
12
60%
John Scheurholz
10
50%
George Steinbrenner
10
50%
Dick Allen
9
45%
Gil Hodges
9
45%
Lou Whitaker
9
45%
Steve Garvey
7
35%
Tommy John
7
35%
Dwight Evans
6
30%
Tony Oliva
6
30%
Maury Wills
6
30%
Buzzie Bavasi
5
25%
Jim Kaat
5
25%
Dale Murphy
5
25%
Bobby Grich
4
20%
Ted Simmons
4
20%
Don Mattingly
2
10%
Vada Pinson
2
10%
 
Results of the traditional 2016 IBWAA Hall of Fame election will be announced via Twitter on Wednesday, January 6, 2016 at 1:00 p.m. PST. A press release will follow.
 
The IBWAA was established July 4, 2009 to organize and promote the growing online baseball media, and to serve as a digital alternative to the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA). Voting for full season awards takes place in September of each year, with selections being announced in November. The IBWAA also holds a Hall of Fame election in December of each year, with results being announced the following January.
 
In 2010, the IBWAA began voting in its own relief pitcher category, establishing the Rollie Fingers American League Relief Pitcher of the Year and the Hoyt Wilhelm National League Relief Pitcher of the Year Awards.

Among approximately 400 others, IBWAA members include Mark A. Simon of ESPN.com; Tim Brown, Yahoo! Sports; Bill Chuck, GammonsDaily.com; Derrick Goold, St. Louis Post-Dispatch; Danny Knobler, Bleacher Report; Kevin Kennedy; Kostya Kennedy, Sports Illustrated; Bruce Markusen, Hardball Times; Matt Snyder, CBSSports.com; Mark Purdy, San Jose Mercury News; J.P. Hoornstra Los Angeles Daily News; Pedro Moura, Orange County Register and Ken Rosenthal, FoxSports.com.
 
Association membership is open to any and all Internet baseball writers, with a yearly fee of $20, or $35 lifetime. Discounts for groups and scholarships are available. Members must be 18 years of age to apply.

For more information please visit 
www.ibwaa.com.

Contact:
 

Howard Cole
Founding Director, IBWAA
baseballsavvy@aol.com

CC Sabathia's Knee Degeneration And The Road To 300

Just a few years ago many believed CC Sabathia had the best chance of any active pitcher to reach 300 wins. With 2,775 and 1/3 innings entering the 2015 season CC had pitched more innings by age 32 than any hurler of the last 40 years except Greg Maddux. Over the past two seasons CC's R knee has shown signs of all this mileage.

therehabreport.blogspot.com

New York Mets and New York Yankees Make a Trade?


Could the New York Yankees and the New York Mets hook up and make a trade this winter? John Harper of the New York Daily News seems to think so in his article, seen HERE. To paraphrase, and head over there to get the entire article and to give him some credit for his hard work, Harper wonders if the Yankees and Mets could match-up in a trade this winter. The Yankees would send both left fielder Brett Gardner and relief pitcher Andrew Miller to the Mets for a pair of young starting pitching prospects in Zack Wheeler and Rafael Montero and outfielder Alejandro De Aza. The Yankees would get two young starting pitching prospects and a ton of salary relief while also getting an outfielder to replace Gardner while the Mets get their center field replacement for Yoenis Cespedes and a true closer. Does it make sense?

On paper this makes a ton of sense, but only if you believe the Yankees won't compete in 2016. The Aroldis Chapman trade, to me anyway, shows that the team is at least going to try to compete next season. Trading Gardner for De Aza doesn't help the team immensely in my opinion while losing Miller makes the bullpen incredibly thin, again.

This makes a ton of sense for the Mets. They have four outfielders as it is, including Juan Lagares, and could limit Gardner's playing time to keep him healthy and fresh throughout the entire season. The team would also pair Miller with Juerys Familia to start the beginnings of their own little super bullpen. Where this deal doesn't make a ton of sense for the Yankees though is Montero and Wheeler.

Wheeler turns just 26-years old in May and is a potential ace, and at worst a #2 starter in my opinion, but the problem is the Yankees wouldn't know much about him until at least June of 2016. Wheeler is still out after having Tommy John surgery and while the surgery's success rate rises every year it's still far from 100%, ask Ryan Madson. This is a HUGE risk with an even HUGER reward for the Yankees. This pill could be swallowed if Montero wasn't coming off a season where he frustrated the Mets ownership and organization with what they described as a "mysterious shoulder injury."

Montero is a high-end arm that could either start or replace Miller in the bullpen but you have yet another question mark here due to injury. Also it's worth mentioning that De Aza would probably be the team's fourth outfielder while Aaron Hicks slides into left field. The team gets better defensively but De Aza making nearly $6 million on the bench irks me for some reason. Also I worry about the drop off in production from Gardner to Hicks.

At the end of the day should the Yankees pull the trigger on this 100% hypothetical trade offer? Absolutely. Talent like Montero and Wheeler don't become available often at all via trades and they usually come attached to emptying out your farm system, not a closer making $9 million annually and a 32-year old outfielder who may be on the way out of his prime. I worry about the 2016 version of the Yankees if the deal is made but if Hicks could step up and Montero could pitch the 7th inning in the Bronx I think the team is not that far off from another playoff appearance.

Imagine this starting rotation: Masahiro Tanaka, Zack Wheeler, Luis Severino, Michael Pineda and Nathan Eovaldi. All under 28-years old and all loaded with potential. If offered, make the deal.


Jason Stark's Strange But True Feats from 2015


Every season Jason Stark of ESPN releases a set of "Strange But True" feats from the previous season and also releases the same post just for the postseason. Unfortunately the Yankees, despite making the postseason, were not involved in the postseason strange but true posts but they were mentioned more than once in the regular season feats. Head on over to ESPN and check out Jason's article SEEN HERE and I am going to sample some of the Yankees related material here to garner interest. Be sure to check out his post for the entire post and all the Yankees related material, plus he deserves a click or two for his awesome work. Enjoy.

-- The Yankees faced four position players as pitchers this season. Chris Young, the former Yankees fourth outfielder, hit a home run off of Atlanta Braves (at the time) outfielder Jonny Gomes but struck out in the same season against Adam Rosales, a Texas Rangers infielder. The Yankees didn't just face positional players as pitchers though they also threw out some of their own including Brendan Ryan who pitched two scoreless innings for the team. The last position player to get six outs as a pitcher for the Yankees was Gene Michael in 1968.

-- Mark Buehrle beat the Yankees this season, this was the first time he did so in 11 seasons. Who could blame him if he retired this offseason? Buehrle went 148 games against the club without winning a game, that has to be some sort of record.

-- Didi Gregorius did something that his predecessor never did, he drove in six runs in a single game. I find that pretty hard to believe but Derek Jeter never drove in six runs in a single game, wow. Gregorius did it in his 120th MLB game while Jeter, including the postseason, played in 2,505 games and never did it. No Suzyn, you can't predict baseball.

-- The final bit of Yankees related news relates to the powerful offense led by Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira. The Yankees eclipsed the 20 run plateau not once but twice in a single game in 2015 , both times on the road to boot.


Ken Griffey, the Hall of Fame & the New York Yankees


Ken Griffey Jr. is in the Hall of Fame, waiting on the announcement is merely a formality at this point. Just elect the guy, he played in the steroid era but never had any allegations against him and he was the best player in the league for quite a few number of years. As a Yankees fan I was quite happy to see Griffey head to the National League and the Cincinnati Reds later on in his career and I was more happy to see him retire. Griffey killed the Yankees as most of the Seattle Mariners did at that time so I thought I would bring up that painful reminder of what he did against the Yankees in his career and what he did inside Yankee Stadium as a way to honor the Hall of Fame center fielder.

Cringe, then enjoy. 

Griffey Jr. vs. the Yankees:
ISplitGPARH2BHRRBISBBBSOBAOBPSLGOPS
New York Yankees1335721011562636102146286.311.392.595.987

Griffey Jr. inside Yankee Stadium:
ISplitGPARH2BHRRBISBBBSOBAOBPSLGOPS
NYY-Yankee Stad6527845768195382142.300.360.565.925
NYY-Yankee Stad32912011011.250.333.625.958

Today The Greedy Pinstripes Turns 4 Years Old!


We are about 12 hours away technically but it was on this day four long years ago that two friends of mine, Bryan Van Dusen and Jorge Maestre, approached me about starting our own shop. For years we had jumped around various sports forums and such, and I even tried to open my own sports forum with little luck, but one thing was for certain in all of us. We wanted our own shop and we wanted to do things our own way, different. For days we threw around ideas such as the Wives & Girlfriends section, the up-to-the-minute payroll and roster pages, the Mega Prediction Game and most importantly the name of the blog.

When we were deciding what to name the blog we had this thought process; If there was a list of 100 Yankees-related blogs, which could be easily done with all the competition around at the time, what name would allow us to stand out? We didn't want another generic Yankees blog and then we remembered my "Get Greedy" campaign from 2008. The Greedy Pinstripes were born and we bought the domain that night. Tonight, just four years ago.

Jorge has since gone his separate way and I personally miss him. I've reached out a few times, sent invites to be a part of the blog etc. and got little to no response. If you're reading this, once again Jorge, the olive branch is there... grab it. And to Bryan, thank you for pushing me to do this. You were right and I was wrong and there is a first time for everything.

To the fans, readers and followers thank you as well. This is a hobby, no one gets paid for this. Not even me. It's not worth it without your comments, your clicks and your tweets and such. Without your support, and I can only speak for myself here, this isn't worth it. The same goes to the writers here from past to present, you're awesome. You donate your time and efforts here for us and we appreciate you. I can't do it all alone and you guys make sure that I don't have to.

Thank you to everyone. The core group of people in the comments section, the people who support the Mega Prediction Game, the people who bookmark us and email us everyday, our Twitter followers, etc. This birthday is just as much for you as it is for us. I can go on all day so I'm just going to end it here before I do, thank you!

This Day in New York Yankees History 1/6: The Greedy Pinstripes is Born


On this day in 2009 the Cleveland Indians signed oft-injured starting pitcher Carl Pavano, formerly of the New York Yankees. Pavano signed a one year deal worth $1.5 million for his age 32 season after only making 26 starts for the Yankees in four seasons and making $40 million.


Also on this day in 2006 the New York Yankees finished the year with a then record payroll of $207.2 million. That staggering number was $90 million more than the second highest spending Boston Red Sox. The World Series champion Chicago White Sox only spent $73.2 million while the Tampa Bay Devil Rays had the lowest payroll at $26.6 million.