Saturday, August 11, 2012

Time Again For Some Righteous Tunes

Some people are ready to jump off the edge, regardless of what I said earlier about not doing so. Well I think those Yankee fans are selling the team a bit short. Hence tonight's musical selection from the band, Less Than Jake. In the immortal words of Lindsay Lohan, enjoy...

Is Losing CC For 15 Days THAT Bad?


CC Sabathia, as we all know by now, is going to the 15 day DL because of soreness in his left throwing elbow. I am assuming that David Phelps is going to start in place of the big man. He is eligible to come off the DL on August 23rd so let us look at who we face in between then and now.




First and foremost the Yankees will be facing Ryan Dempster and the Texas Rangers on Monday. I think Ryan Dempster is going to get bombed in the American League so I hope our offense makes me look right. This does not worry me as much to be completely honest if the offense makes me look like psycho psychic.





The next start will be against the Boston Red Sox at home on Saturday the 18th. Josh Beckett is scheduled to make that start but you never can tell if he will make the start the way his back and blisters like to get all worked up. The Sox are in 4th place and clinging to a 2nd wild card spot.






We luck out being off on Thursday August 23rd or I would think that CC would miss yet another start. If everything goes well I think CC could be back starting on Friday August 24th against the Cleveland Indians on the road.






Things could be a whole lot worse. I am not overly concerned since he has pitched, and pitched effectively, since the elbow stiffness started. If this keeps him fresh and keeps him healthy for when it matters I do not think losing CC for 2 starts, albeit "important" starts against good teams, is going to really sink us whatsoever. Get healthy CC!

Yankees Acquire Derek Lowe


According to Marc Carig's twitter, among other tweets, the Yankees have acquired Derek Lowe off the scrap heap. MLB Trade Rumors is now reporting this too. Now River Avenue Blues is reporting it so this bad dream is now a reality unfortunately.

Apparently the Yankees believe that Derek Lowe throws enough strikes and ground balls to replace CC Sabathia, not David Phelps, for the next two starts.

UPDATE: Joel Sherman, on twitter, is reporting that he was signed because he is willing to pitch out of the pen. David Phelps will in fact be starting Monday in place of CC Sabathia on Monday.

The Yankees will call up Ryoto Igarashi to be in the bullpen tomorrow until Lowe gets here on Monday.


CC Sabathia Going On The 15-Day DL


It doesn't sound like anything to be worried about, so you fans can step back from the edge of the cliff/bridge/"high place". CC went for an MRI on August 5th and it came back clean. Yeah that was "August 5th", and he started on August 8th. So you can tell it's nothing big, since the Yankees are famous for being overly careful with possible injuries.

That's why CC only went 103 pitches in his start on the 3rd, and then only 94 pitches on his start 5 days later. Girardi wanted to be careful and make sure he was okay instead of pushing Sabathia like he normally would.

Originally, as you probably heard, the idea was just to have CC skip his start on Monday, but they decided to "wipe it out" (Girardi's words) this way. I'm sure the current win streak, and the team seemingly turning things around, had a big affect on this decision.

Alex Rodriguez Injury Update


Alex Rodriguez took around 30 swings off of a tee and played some soft toss today in an effort to stay in shape for him to come back this September. He still has a brace on his hand that was broken from a Felix Hernandez fastball. Get better soon Alex!

Do The Yankees Already Have Their Nick Swisher Replacement?

I was reading through the chat transcript at River Avenue Blues yesterday and came across this question...

"You can barely write, and you want me to believe you read that much?"
"Lets say Swisher signs a 4 year 37 mil deal with the Phillies, wouldnt a 1 year deal with Ichiro for $9 million be worth it as a replacement?"
Mike Axisa responded that $9 million for Ichiro is about 9 times his actual worth. Fangraphs has Suzuki's dollar value so far this season at $7.5 million, so Mike was exaggerating a bit, but his point is still clear... Ichiro is not worth $9 million.

From the beginning of last season through last night the most popular Japanese baseball player of all time has a triple-slash of .267/.300/.346. The league batting average this season is .249, so Ichiro is above average there. But the league average OBP is .313 and the league average SLG is .402, and both numbers are above what Ichiro's done the past 1+ seasons. So Suzuki is basically a replacement level player, which is probably being a bit generous.

"Oh! And now you're 'generous'? *cough* Bullshit *cough*"

According to CBSSports.com, the average salary in MLB this season is $3.44 million. Even if I were again generous, and accounted for the fact the Yankees tend to overpay for players (they make more money off of a player than the average team, so I'm not saying Brian Cashman spends money irresponsibly or... look, that's another discussion for another day), let's say Ichiro is worth $3.5 million to the Yankees next season. That $9 million looks like a pretty bad deal. On that note, it's hard to take Fangraph's Dollar values that seriously. *shrugs*

I can imagine some people are saying, "even if we pay Ichiro $5 million, it's still much cheaper than Swisher will be, not to mention Swisher will require a multi-year deal". That would also allow the team to re-assess their outfield prospects, and possibly promote one of them into RF the following season, which will help them get to a payroll of $189 million in 2014. Well, that's true, but two problems...

1. If you look at the top 25 prospects in the system, only one outfielder... Zoilo Almonte... may be MLB-ready by 2014. Zoilo is hitting .272/.317/.482, with 17 HR and 14 SB, at AA Trenton this season. That OBP needs to come up, and could make him really dangerous on the basepaths. But Almonte's Fielding Percentage in RF this season (where he plays the vast majority of the time) is only .954, which is 33 points lower than the MLB league average in RF of .987. Zoilo's career average Fielding Percentage in RF is .972, which is still below average. So work needs to be done there too.

"So much for that 'generous' thing."

2. What will we get out of Brett Gardner when he returns to action next season? Brett had a handful of set-backs with his elbow before he basically called it a season. Oh, and I don't count possibly coming back to be a pinch-runner a true "return". Yankee fans have to face facts... Brett may not come back the same player, and the Yankees could be looking to find a replacement for him by 2014. That replacement could very well be Zoilo Almonte. Like I said, Almonte probably won't be as good defensively, but he could be that pest on the basepaths that Gardner has been for the Bombers the past few years.

So if #2 plays out, that means there's still a hole in the outfield. And that's without looking at the statistics.

"Umm, you can't just ignore stats."

Between 2009 and 2011, Nick Swisher has averaged 27 HR, 85 RBI, and an OBP of .368. In Ichiro's 6 previous seasons he's only hit double-digit home runs once, and that was 11 back in 2009. He's only hit double-digit homers two other times in his career, and that was 15 back in 2005 and 13 in 2003. Ichiro has never had more than 69 RBI in his career, and that was back in his "rookie" season of 2001. And the days in which Ichiro gets on base nearly 37% of the time are behind him. So Ichiro is clearly not even an "okay" replacement for Nick Swisher's production.

Mason Williams, the Yankees #1 prospect, who is also an outfielder, will probably not be ready for MLB action until 2015 (he's currently in A+ ball). And that season marks the first time Brett Gardner will be a free agent. So the timing could work out perfectly for Mason to step into LF or CF for Brett Gardner, to go along with Curtis Granderson (I'm for extending him) and either Nick Swisher or a good Nick Swisher replacement. Of couse, if Zoilo Almonte is a legit MLB player at that point, the Yankees could have a log-jam in the outfield. But seeing as how two of them will be under team control, I think that's a pretty good problem to have.

Oh, and to wrap-up, that "Nick Swisher replacement" is not Ichiro Suzuki.

But he is awfully cute in a Yankee uniform.

Yankees @ Blue Jays 8/11/12

Jayson Nix RBI single puts the Yanks up 1-0
Casey McGehee hits his first Yankees home run to go up 4-0
Derek Jeter's 150th hit of the season puts the Yankees up 5-1
Yankees win 5-2
Remember When All I Could Do Was Win?
The Yankees and the Blue Jays will go at it again this afternoon in Rogers Centre in Toronto Canada. On the mound, looking for ANY kind of consistency, will be the Yankees Ivan Nova. He has an ERA north of 8 since the All Star break and will look to rebound against a Jose Bautista-less Blue Jays lineup. Opposing Mr. Nova will be former Yankee Aaron Laffey for the Jays. The game will be televised at 1:05 pm ET on YES and MLB Network as the Saturday Matinee.

Lineups

Derek Jeter DH
Nick Swisher RF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Robinson Cano 2B
Andruw Jones LF
Curtis Granderson CF

Jayson Nix SS
Casey McGehee 3B
Chris Stewart C


Go Yankees!!

Eric Chavez Appreciation Post


Eric Chavez is in his second season with the Yankees and has been nothing but stellar for us. He has signed on to be a part time player to help give Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira days off and has excelled as a part time player. This season, especially lately, he has been counted on to bat in the middle of the lineup and man the hot corner and has not had a single hiccup. He has even *knock on wood* managed to stay healthy all season long with zero trips to the DL. Here is what Eric Chavez has done this season as a Yankee.



77 G
12 HR
29 RBI
.289 AVG
.347 OBP
.526 SLG
.366 wOBA
1.3 WAR
Only 4 Errors in the field
1 Head shot of Cody Eppley




This post is in appreciation for Eric Chavez and what he has done for the Yankees this season. Thank you Eric and hopefully we can reward you this season with a ring.