Monday, September 14, 2015

Recap: Yankees 4, Rays 1

Slade Heathcott hit a dramatic three-run home run in the ninth and the Yankees rallied to beat the Rays, 4-1, on Monday night at Tropicana Field.

The Ultimate Bailout: Making his first at-bat of the evening with two on and two out, Heathcott drilled a Brad Boxberger fastball into the first row in left -- breaking a 1-1 tie in the most unexpected of fashions. Heathcott was playing in his first big-league game since May 27, and had only come in as a defensive replacement in the eighth.

What Else Did You Expect?: Alex Rodriguez preceded Heathcott's blast with a clutch RBI double of his own, a line-drive to the right-center field gap to plate Brett Gardner. The Yankees appeared done following a Jacoby Ellsbury double play, but after Gardner walked and stole second, a spark of hope was ignited within them.

Like Old Times: The often-erratic CC Sabathia kept the Rays off the board for 6 2/3 innings, yielding just three measly singles while walking two and strking out six. Sabathia -- aided in no way by Brendan Ryan's fielding error -- found himself in a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the second, but escaped without damage when Kevin Kiermaier grounded into a force-out and J.P. Arencibia flied to left.

Not What You Want: Justin Wilson, working the eighth even though Dellin Betances was seen warming up, surrendered a go-ahead double to Logan Forsythe, putting the Yankees in a 1-0 hole one couldn't help but find unsurprising. Wilson didn't seem to have his best stuff from the beginning, and at 28 pitches, it wasn't that strange that number 29 went off the wall.

Near No-No: The Yankees didn't record their first hit off Erasmo Ramirez until the eighth, when a hot-shot from Carlos Beltran deflected into right. The single would remain the lone knock on Ramirez's final line, which included 7 2/3 innings of six-strikeout ball.

Next Up: The Yankees will look to continue their success in St. Petersburg with another matchup on Tuesday, sending Adam Warren (6-6, 3.29 ERA) to the hill versus Tampa Bay's Jake Odorizzi (7-8, 3.21 ERA). First pitch is set for 7:10 p.m. ET, airing live on YES and WFAN.

Game Thread: New York Yankees @ Tampa Bay Rays 9/14


This is why baseball is the best sport in all of the major professional sports in my very humble opinion, your team can struggle against the Toronto Blue Jays and you don't have to wait an extended period of time to face another team and turn things around. New York will look to turn things around tonight inside Tropicana Field against the Tampa Bay Rays. The Yankees will send CC Sabathia to the mound to face off against Erasmo Ramirez and the Tampa Bay Rays. The game will be played at 7:05 pm ET and can be seen on the YES Network and MLB TV.

New York is on the road for a while before coming back to Yankee Stadium so make sure you have your tickets in hand for that return to the Bronx. Click the Yankees Tickets link at the top of the blog to get those tickets and root for the home team on their way to the postseason. Until then jump on Twitter and give @GreedyStripes a follow and root for the home team while interacting with us during the rest of the 2015 regular season and hopefully the playoffs.

CC is ready to mow down some Rays and is ready to lead his team to the playoffs, let's get to it. Go Yankees!

Most Popular Article of the Week: Yankees Post MiLB Season Top 10 Prospects List



Many of the minor league affiliates for the New York Yankees are done playing this season with just the Scranton/Wilkes Barre RailRiders, the Staten Island Yankees and the Pulaski Yankees making the postseason. Pulaski has since been eliminated but the story of the season has not been the Yankees prospects that are down on the farm as much as the story evolving around the top prospects that have seemingly taken the league by storm. With players like Luis Severino and Greg Bird lighting up and exciting the Yankee Stadium faithful the look of the Yankees Top Prospects list is expected to get a major face lift after all MiLB games are wrapped up. I wanted to get an early jump on this with my own Top 10 Post MiLB Season Prospects List for the New York Yankees.


1. Aaron Judge
2. Jorge Mateo
3. Gary Sanchez
4. Robert Refsnyder
5. James Kaprielian
6. Jacob Lindgren
7. Luis Torrens
8. Eric Jagielo
9. Ian Clarkin
10. Rookie Davis


The threshold for being a prospect or taking the next step is 50 innings for a pitcher or 130 at-bats for a positional player. A player can also take the next step out of the prospect arena by spending more than 45 days on the active roster with the exception of the month of September when rosters ar expanded. With that in mind you can realize why you aren't seeing Luis Severino who is just 14.2 innings away from the 50 IP mark and Greg Bird who is less than 50 at bats away from 130 for the season. If these two were to be shut down for the remainder of the season, which will not happen with Nathan Eovaldi and Mark Teixeira injured and likely to miss the remainder of the regular season, Severino would easily be #1 and Bird would probably be my #4 but that's the way the cook crumbles unfortunately.

What's your Top 10 without Bird and Severino?

ICYMI: Chris Davis is the Ultimate #GetGreedy Move for 2016


I am in no way looking ahead towards the 2016 season because in my personal opinion the 2015 season is far from over. Even if the New York Yankees cannot chase down the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League East Division and have to settle for a Wild Card spot, even a second Wild Card spot and a road one-game playoff series, I believe this team is going to the playoffs and have the potential to go far. With that said would getting Chris Davis from the Baltimore Orioles in free agency this winter not be the biggest #GetGreedy type move the Yankees could pull off?


Not only would adding a guy with 40+ home run power help the Yankees offense immensely it would also land the hit on the jaw of the Baltimore Orioles that could end this recent streak of success. The question on everyone’s mind here is whether the Yankees have the money, a $3.5 billion company can cry poor all they want to but they have it if they want to have it, and whether they have a spot for him to play. Davis is probably best suited for a DH role at this point in his career but he’s not yet a defensive liability either at first base or right field as recent as this week when he played both positions against the Yankees. Davis could basically fill and expand the role that the team had for Garrett Jones when they picked him up this offseason.


Joe Girardi can shuffle players around and keep them fresh, he’s proven it time and time again, so having Davis play at first base, right field and DH giving nights off to Mark Teixeira, Carlos Beltran and Alex Rodriguez would be a good option to have off the “bench.” In a couple of years when Davis starts to slow down in the field you have the contract of ARod coming off the books and the DH slot opening up giving the Yankees a place to stash him for the latter part of the deal. Davis is likely to command a long-term contract for big money after hitting 40 home runs this season and if any team can afford it while keeping him away from the Toronto Blue Jays, the Baltimore Orioles or the Boston Red Sox it’s definitely the New York Yankees.


Davis strikes out a lot and he’ll never hit .275 in his career let alone .300 but with basically a month to go in the season what team would not take a .200 average with 41 home runs and over 100 RBI? You don’t harp on his inability to consistently hit the ball for average but you instead build around that with high average players that can pick up the slack or be on base when he connects. Davis is the type of player that you accommodate for in this day and age, not the other way around, and Davis is the ultimate #GetGreedy player, the entire premise of what this blog was built off of.



So I leave you with this seal of approval. Get Greedy, Get Chris Davis for 2016.

Game Preview: New York Yankees @ Tampa Bay Rays 9/14


The New York Yankees had a rough week this week in the Bronx that saw them lose series to both the Baltimore Orioles and the Toronto Blue Jays, ouch. The Yankees are not done playing outside the American League East Division as tonight they start a three game series inside Tropicana Field against the Tampa Bay Rays. The Yankees will send CC Sabathia to the mound after their tough weekend to face off against the Rays Erasmo Ramirez. The game will be played at 7:05 pm ET and can be seen on the YES Network and MLB TV.


  • Sabathia made his first start off the disabled list last week against the Baltimore Orioles and lasted just 4.2 innings while allowing three runs, one earned, with five strikeouts lowering his season ERA to 5.16. Sabathia will look to build on this strong start tonight against Tampa Bay while giving the Yankees a much needed victory. 



  • Ramirez has made a pair of starts this month throwing for a combined nine innings pitched while allowing eight earned runs against the Baltimore Orioles and the Detroit Tigers. Ramirez has allowed a home run in five straight games and has allowed at least one in 10 of his last 13 starts, a great sign for a home run dependent offense in New York. 


You know what they say, you're only as good as your next day's starting pitcher in Major League Baseball. After this weekend I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing for New York, especially with CC Sabathia on the mound tonight. He did look good in his first start off the DL last time out though so I feel confident that the big man can grind out a good start and give the team another chance to win. Go Yankees!

The New York Yankees ARE NOT Done Yet


The New York Yankees are not done in 2015 no matter what it looked like over the weekend. To borrow a quote from the Hall of Fame pitcher Pedro Martinez the "Toronto Blue Jays spanked us and made us call them our daddy." The Yankees threw some of their best pitchers at Toronto with Luis Severino, Michael Pineda and Masahiro Tanaka and it was not enough, not even with the home field advantage. There is no other way to cut it and there's no way to equivocate, Toronto owned the Yankees this weekend but that doesn't necessarily mean that New York is done this season.

The Yankees are done in the American League East Division race in my opinion but the team should not bow their head in shame for settling for one of the two American League Wild Card playoff spots. Heading into play Sunday, since this post was written before all the games were complete Sunday afternoon and evening, the Yankees still held a three game lead over the Texas Rangers for the first AL Wild Card and a four game lead over the Minnesota Twins for the second AL Wild Card. It's far from comfortable with 20 games left but it would also take a massive choke job by a veteran team to completely miss out on the postseason altogether.

New York has 11 games that can be described as "winnable" with three games against the Tampa Bay Rays and four games each against the Chicago White Sox and the Boston Red Sox. The Yankees have another three games with the Baltimore Orioles, three games against the New York Mets and three more games with this Toronto Blue Jays team as well leaving New York as a possible spoiler for those teams.

Things may look grim right now for the team but the New York Yankees are not done, not by a long shot. The team lost the division, not mathematically but it's just a matter of time in my opinion, but the team can still win one of the Wild Card slots for the American League. This team has gotten hot before and slayed Goliath more than once this season and if you watched either the San Francisco Giants or Kansas City Royals reach the World Series in 2014, both as Wild Card teams mind you, you know that there's still a chance...

Alex Rodriguez 3,000 Hits Ceremony

Watch now as Alex Rodriguez receives his gifts after being honored for hitting his 3,000th hit.

Weekly Check In: Slade Heathcott


This is the final week we will do these weekly check in posts unfortunately. The minor league seasons are over and all the prospects that we are going to see are already in the Major Leagues. One of those players who were in Scranton until their season ended and are now up in the Bronx with the Yankees is Slade Heathcott so let's see what he did this season with the RailRiders.

Unfortunately Heathcott had another season that will be defined more so by his injuries and less by his on the field play. That's unfortunate, especially since Heathcott has no guarantee of a 40 man roster spot this winter, so let's see if he did enough in Triple-A this season to stick around with the New York Yankees for 2016.

YearLevGPARH2BHRRBISBBBSOBAOBPSLGOPS
2015AAA-A672802569722761861.265.312.338.650
2015A3902000000.222.222.222.444
2015AAA642712567722761861.267.315.343.657
2015MLB61836113003.353.353.588.941

This Day In New York Yankees History 9/14: Red Sox Suck!


As everyone knows by now the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox have one of the strongest and most hated rivalries in all of Major League Baseball history. The rivalry was especially hot and in full form in the 2000's as the two teams traded division titles and both teams won multiple World Series championships. On this day in 2007 that rivalry went to a whole new level when Yankees infielder Shelley Duncan signed an autograph for a ten year old Red Sox fan Griffin Whitman. Shelley signed the autograph "RED SOX SUCK" before signing his name.