Comparing the Yankees & Rays Lineups

We’ve had so much success in comparing the lineup for the New York Yankees to both the Toronto Blue Jays and the Tampa Bay Rays that I decided to compare the Bronx Bombers to the rest of the American League East as well. That continues this afternoon with a comparison of the New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Rays. The Rays struggled to put runs on the board in 2015 and relied heavily on their pitching, led by Chris Archer and Nathan Karns. Karns is gone and Brad Miller is in, will that improve the Rays offense and put to bed their offensive woes that kept them in fourth place in the AL East in 2015? Not likely but let’s take a look anyway.

Catcher

Brian McCann/ Rene Rivera

First Base

Mark Teixeira/ James Loney

Second Base

Robert Refsnyder/ Logan Forsythe

Third Base

Chase Headley/ Evan Longoria

Shortstop

Didi Gregorius/ Brad Miller

Left Field

Brett Gardner/ Desmond Jennings

Center Field

Jacoby Ellsbury/ Kevin Kiermaier

Right Field

Carlos Beltran/ Steven Souza Jr. 

Designated Hitter

Alex Rodriguez/ Logan Morrison

Looking at the final tally I have the New York Yankees “winning” six spots out of the nine. Remember, bolded player wins. The Rays offense stunk up the joint for much of the 2015 season but the team stuck around in the second Wild Card chase despite it all. The Rays are now trading from a position of power, prospects and pitching, in hopes of improving the offense a bit. As it stands right now, and again we will do another one of these before the 2016 season begins after the free agency dust begins to settle, the Rays offense is only marginally better than it was in 2015. The pitching, in my opinion, took a step back both in the rotation and the bullpen. Alex Cobb will be back and Matt Moore should be better but that means very little when you’re losing games 1-0 and 2-1. As it stands today I see a lot of that happening and a lot of, well no probably not a lot of but a few, unhappy fans inside Tropicana Field this season. 

Brad Miller for Jose Pirela, Pull the Trigger

I was reading through the potential free agent trade targets in the shortstop position when I had an epiphany, why not trade for Seattle's shortstop and second baseman Brad Miller. It's obvious that the Yankees farm system will not produce a major league ready and caliber shortstop any time soon and the free agent market looks about as barren as a middle class worker's refrigerator. Miller is blocked in the infield by Kyle Seager, Robinson Cano and Chris Taylor while the Mariners now need to replace Michael Saunders in their outfield. Enter Jose Pirela. Even after acquiring Didi Gregorius this deal still makes sense.

As much as I would love to have Pirela on the team as a mini Martin Prado playing all over the field this trade makes a lot of sense for the Yankees. Pirela can easily play the outfield and multiple infield positions making him attractive to the Mariners while Miller fills at least one need for the Yankees. Miller, as mentioned before, can play both middle infield positions and has been called a "natural" defensively. It is not out of the realm of possibilities to see Miller get time at first base or at one of the corner outfield positions in a pinch or a blowout. Miller is not an offensive standout to this point in his career but neither has Pirela outside of his first major league at bat and can be adequate at the position offensively. Miller has the defense to hang around with Stephen Drew and the bat to hang around with Jed Lowrie and the best of the rest at the position.

The Mariners and the Yankees have pulled off multiple trades in recent memory and the two GM's seemingly have a good working relationship, which never hurts. I said all that to say this, make the phone call and pull the trigger.

Yankees Blown Out By Mariners in Make-Up Game, 10-2

Coming off yesterday's disastrous loss to the Twins, the Yankees looked deflated.

The Bombers, now 29-27 on the season, had led going into the ninth inning, yet lost due to a bullpen meltdown.

Going into tonight's make-up game against the Mariners, it's safe to say that they weren't expected to win, although you gotta think nobody predicted this, as the AL's richest team was blown out by Seattle's weak offense, 10-2.

Considering that Felix Hernandez (Win; 7 IP, 2 ER) was starting for the M's, I guess you could say a loss would be tolerable, but this just was too bad, as the Bombers' pitching staff surrendered four runs in both the seventh and the ninth to break a 2-2 tie.

Overall, New York's David Phelps was good in his outing tonight, giving up just 2 runs threw his first six frames, but in the top of the seventh the youngster snapped.

In that AB, Phelps loaded the bases with nobody out, before leaving a ball over the plate that Mariners' number nine hitter Brad Miller lined to center for a go-ahead 2-run single.

Immediately following that play, Phelps (1-3) was relieved by Matt Thornton, who allowed the other two runners to score to bring #41's final line to a tough, 6 earned runs in 6+ innings. 

Now while that was bad, it should be acknowledged that the Yankees probably didn't deserve to be tied in the first place, as the Pinstripes had originally trailed 2-0 due to a pair of triples-turned-runs from Seattle 3B Kyle Seager.

Despite that, the Bombers had rallied to even it up in the bottom of the fourth, when Ichiro Suzuki knocked in a pair with a pitcher-deflected 2-run single.

On that play, the earlier-mentioned Brad Miller should've been able to field the ball to keep the second runner from scoring, but since the official scorer didn't think so Ichiro was in fact credited with 2 RBIs.