Michael Pineda's First Interview As A "Yankee"

"I'm Not Scared"

Christian Red of the NY Daily news traveled to the Dominican Replublic recently and interviewed the soon to be Yankee Michael Pineda, his first time being interviewed since being traded to the Yankees. I say "Yankee" because the trade is not official yet, pending physicals. If you want to read the whole write up you can read it HERE, but I wanted to skim and just hit the high notes. 

Pineda , when talking about the team that he will soon be playing for:

“It’s a tremendous team, with good pitching. It’s very exciting for me — for the first time in my life, I’ll have the pleasure of playing with Alex Rodriguez, a huge star, and Derek Jeter, one of the most well-known players ever. And Mariano Rivera, (Robinson) Cano, (Mark) Teixeira, Rafael Soriano,” Pineda says in Spanish, his voice trailing off as he sifts through the Yankees’ roster. “I never thought in my life that I would be in this situation.”

Pineda, when asked if he was scared to pitch for the Yankees:

“I’m not scared. I’m always focused, working very hard every day,” says Pineda, whose gold earring spelling his name sparkles in the late-evening sunlight. “I don’t think about anything else on game days. I’ve never pitched in New York or at Yankee Stadium, but I’m dying to. We’ll see what happens. I’m going to work very hard to do my job.”

There is much more but if you want to read it then check it out on the Daily News link , again, HERE

Pineda sounds like he is excited to be a Yankee and almost grateful to be a Yankee. That is the kind of people that we need on the team, players that want to be here and not just simply collect a paycheck. Once his number situation is resolved, because he wore #36 in Seattle which is currently occupied by Sweaty Freddy Garcia, I fully intend on purchasing a Pineda jersey.

Welcome to New York Michael.

Posada To Officially Announce His Retirement On Tuesday

Wait, What? They Traded Montero & Need A DH?

Borrowed from one of our partners, River Avenue Blues, about Jorge Posada officially calling it a career on Tuesday . Here is the write up. 

Via Mark Hale, Jorge Posada will announce his retirement at a press conference on Tuesday. We heard this was coming a few weeks ago, but now it will be made official. I don’t know the exact time or place of the press conference, but I’ll liveblog it if possible.
The now vacant DH spot had some thinking that Jorge could change his mind and come back for another year, but that won’t happen. “I’m not getting ready for another season,” said Posada to Dan Martin recently. “I tried and it wasn’t in me. I’m still fighting it, but the more I did, the more I realized I’m not gonna play.” Sadface.

Very excited to see Posada go out when he obviously needed to and very excited to see him go out as a New York Yankee. I had a write up about his declining defense in 2009 and 2010 and his DH abilities, or lack there of, but I decided the man has done enough for all of us to forget that and celebrate a great career. The question I pose to you, our fans, is this:

Is Jorge Posada a Hall of Famer? Yes or no?

The Yankees "Buying" Championships

I have always just ignored the ignorance, in my opinion, and the blatant hate because it seems to be the "cool" thing to do when it comes to the Yankees and the number of championships that they have won in their storied history. Now I'm 26 years old so I'm not even going to try and defend the Yankees when they used the A's and the Royals as their personal farm systems and were winning 3 and 4 championships in a row and all that, all I am going to touch on is the most recent years.

The common misconception is that the Yankees set their sights on a guy and a few weeks later he is having a press conference in Yankee stadium. While George Steinbrenner was alive, especially in the early 2000's, this was most definitely the case. The Yankees had a lower payroll then the BALTIMORE ORIOLES when they had their historic season in 1998 winning 114 games and the World Series. In 2008 the Yankees payroll had more then tripled, going above 200 million dollars, and only had 3 World Series in that span to show of it.

The thing that always bothers me is the baseball fan that hates the Yankees just because, again, its the "cool" thing to do. While NO ONE can argue that under George Steinbrenner the Yankees did not set their sites on "their" guy and go out and get him... but those same fans have not been paying attention to the Yankees since George Steinbrenner's health got progressively worse and he left baseball operations to his 2 sons Hank and Hal Steinbrenner. He also have total control to GM Brian Cashman when it came to acquiring and drafting players, something that was long overdue. Why do these fans completely ignore the last 3 seasons under the "new" regime and continue to say the Yankees just "buy their championship."?

Lets look at the 2009 spending spree but first lets look at the Yankees 2008 salary numbers, seen here. The Yankees sat at $209,000,000 at opening day 2008. The Yankees had a less then stellar season in their last season in Yankee Stadium and under Joe Girardi missing the playoffs for the first time in 14 seasons. The Yankees proceeded that offseason to give huge contracts to CC Sabathia, AJ Burnett, Mark Texeira, and traded for Nick Swisher. These "fans" I speak of went to their local forums, bars, jobs, schools, etc screaming "those damn Yankees buying another championship" and all that. The Yankees did, in fact, "buy" that championship in 2009... but their salary on opening day of 2009 after this shopping spree was $201,000,000, seen here. The Yankees spent money, signed 3 big time free agents and traded for another and actually LOWERED their payroll.

Let's get back to the Yankees seeing "their" man and getting him by any means necessary. If that were the case would Cliff Lee not be wearing pinstripes right now? Matt Holliday in 2010? CJ Wilson this offseason? Hell WE even walked away from the Johan Santana negotiations because they were just too much. The Yankees did sign Rafael Soriano in 2010 with closer money to be a 7th inning man, granted, but protected themselves with many opt out clauses for Rafael Soriano.  The Yankees are going to spend their money, but other teams do too. While the Yankees have had the highest payroll in all of baseball for a good many of years now the spending has really plateaued while the gap between the highest spender (the Yankees) and the 2nd highest spender has been getting closer and closer. Looking here you can see how the spending has gone down between the Yankees and the next closest spender over the last 10 seasons.  Using the same time period of 2009-Present the Yankees spent 65 million more dollars then the 2nd highest spending team(The Mets) coming in at $201,000,000. In 2010 the Yankees  payroll rose to $206,000,000 and the 2nd highest spending team (The Red Sox) spent 44 million dollars less then the Yankees. In 2011 the Yankees were back down to $201,000,000 while the Phillies were a mere 25 million dollars behind the Yankees in spending.

Speaking of the Phillies, no one mentions the Phillies trying to "buy" championships. I wonder why that is... Oh yeah, because it didnt work for them. It makes it ok to "buy" players and "buy" paper championships for other teams but not the Yankees? The Phillies have tried their best to buy a championship and no one mentions it seemingly. The Phillies acquired Roy Halladay but we "bought" CC Sabathia. They signed Cliff Lee but we "bought" AJ Burnett. They acquired Roy Oswalt but we "bought" Michael Pineda. They acquired Hunter Pence in his prime but we "bought" Nick Swisher. Then again Ruben Amaro Jr is no Theo Epstein...

Theo Epstein, speaking of him, broke the Red Sox curse and won not 1 but 2 World Series as his tenure as a GM in bean town. How did he do that? He "bought" players just as much as we have... Remember in 2009 when Theo acquired Victor Martinez and remember when the Yankees "bought" Russell Martin? Remember when he traded for Adrian Gonzalez and remember when we "bought" Mark Teixeira? Remember when Theo signed John Lackey? Remember when Theo signed Carl Crawford? Daisuke Matsuzaka? All of these deals would be considered the Yankees "buying" players and championships while the Yankees won the majority of their World Series titles under the watch of their HOME GROWN players.  I wont even mention this year's Miami Marlins spending spree...

The Yankees payroll is "bloated" because the Yankees actually have loyalty to their players for the most part and keep them in town even at prices they arent "worth". The Red Sox didnt mind whatsoever sending the Manny Ramirez's, Nomar's, Johnny Damon's Roger Clemens, etc away when they werent working out any more. The Yankees kept their Derek Jeter's, their Andy Pettitte's, their Mariano Rivera's, their Jorge Posada's, etc. The Yankees spend money on free agents but they also spend money in their minor league systems, in their draft, and in the international market. Before anyone jumps to say they are still buying players going above cap and signing any and all international free agents (IFA's) go ahead and google the highest spending team in the draft and IFA market over the last three years... Dont worry, Ill wait... The Pirates? Didnt see that one coming did you? So before it is said "well this player was acquired by trade and that player was acquired by trade and the Yankees spent money in free agency" remember that the Yankees are stock piling their minor leaguers since 2009 spending their money more wisely.

We all must remember that we are fans and the people making the decisions for the baseball teams are employees of BUSINESSMEN. Baseball is a BUSINESS first and a hobby second to the people writing the checks. The Yankees have found out that winning, specifically in the playoffs, equals a ton of money for the business. When your team wins a World Series title in 1996, 1998, 1999, and 2000 you tend to sell a lot of tickets, hats , merchandise, etc. When the Yankees went crazy with their spending was when they could.. when they got their own TV Network, the YES Network. The Yankees, year after year, as an organization operate in the red (losing money). They more then make that up with the playoff revenue and their YES network. The Yankees "buying" championships is smart business, and baseball is a business at the end of the day. The Phillies, Red Sox, and Angels (and maybe the Marlins) have all caught on to this concept and are mocking the Yankees concept trying to also cash in without much scrutiny but that is ok... imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, or so they say.

Gardner and Yankees agree

Brett Gardner has agreed to a contract with the Yankees for 2012, thus avoiding arbitration. Brett will make $2.8 million, which is mid-way between what both sides filed for (Yanks - $3.2m, Gardner-$2.4m).

The Yankees are minus an option?

Carlos Pena agreed to return to the Rays for $7.25 million. Some say that it's a DH option for the Yankees that's come off the board. Well, I don't think Pena ever was an option. His price range was clearly too much for the Yankees. I'm not saying I totally buy into the idea that they'd only pay up to $2 million for a DH, but I don't think they'd pay that much more. As I said, Pena made $10 million last year for the Cubs while having a good season.

Tough Decisions Ahead

"I'm not going anywhere"

Over at River Avenue Blues, Stephen Rhoads looks ahead and the Yankees' payroll, including the impending free agencies of Curtis Granderson, Nick Swisher, and Robinson Cano. He comes to the conclusing that having all three of those guys re-sign, while also getting Cole Hamels, would make it pretty much impossible to get at or under the $189 million Luxury Tax threshold in 2014. You can read the post here, as Stephen does a really good job of going over things. Although I think the projected AAV of Cano's future contract (which Stephen had the other guys at RAB guess), $22 million, is a bit high. But I digress.

By the end of the post Rhoads says he'd rather see the Yankees sign Cole Hamels, at the expense of Curtis Granderson. Well after reading this and giving it some thought, I'm leaning towards letting Cole Hamels go elsewhere (hopefully that's not Boston). Don't get me wrong, a top 4 of Sabathia-Hamels-Pineda-Nova would be incredible, but it's starting to feel like "too much".

Look at the 2009 Yankees. You know, the team that won the World Series. For all intents and purposes, that team didn't even have a #5 starter. They had 4 guys start 31-34 games (Sabathia-34, Burnett-33, Pettitte-32, Chamberlain-31), and the rest of the starts were split between 5 different relief pitchers (Hughes-7, Mitre-9, Wang-9, Gaudin-6, Aceves-1). If you take Joba's ERA of 4.75 (note, his ERA+ of 97 shows that he was about average as a starter), and the combined ERA of those 6 relievers (4.57), then you'll clearly see that the bottom of the Yankees rotation in that championship year was hardly dominant. Not bad, but far from incredible. That team honestly was led by it's top 3 starters, and only Sabathia could be considered well above average (the ERA+ for Sabathia was 137, Burnett's was 114, and Pettitte's was 111). Well Sabathia should still be pretty damn good, Pineda could be a 2nd "ace" on the team, and Nova could be a very good #3. And that's without even guessing at what guys like Banuelos, Betances, Warren, Phelps, or Mitchell can do.

Moving on, and looking at the offense, the 2011 lineup scored 867 runs, good for 2nd in MLB. And remember that the 2012 lineup is pretty much exactly the same. That's even with a "lesser" hitter taking Montero's place as the DH, since Montero's contributions didn't effect that much due to not being called up until September (oh, and improving upon Posada's 2011 contributions should not be hard at all). The 2009 team scored 915 runs, so I can understand somebody saying that it's actually the offense that needs to improve... not the pitching. I'm not one of them though.

That '09 team may have scored 915 runs, but it gave up 753 runs, for a run differential of +162. The 2011 team may have scored only 867 runs, but they gave up only 657 runs, for a run differential of +210. So I don't believe the offense has to improve at all, while the pitching (a large part of run prevention) has already gotten better than the proposed rotation before last Friday. In all, the 2012 team looks to be a serious World Series title contender, and should be for years afterwards.

Frankly, if the Yankees can keep this team in place through 2014, which would mean not signing a Cole Hamels, then they have just as good a chance of winning it all than with Hamels, and minus guys like Granderson, Swisher, and Cano.

My Top 10 Prospect List

After all the dust has settles from the Winter and GM Meetings and all the big time free agents have signed, well except for Prince Fielder, the Yankees blog world usually goes prospect crazy. The Winter Leagues and Dominican leagues and Arizona Fall Leagues are all wrapping up and the Yankees blogs and experts put together their top prospect lists, and here is mine.

With the recent trade of super prospect Jesus Montero that opens the door for everyone to slide up a spot. Let the debate begin.

1. Manny Banuelos
2. Dellin Betances
3. Gary Sanchez
4. Austin Romine
5. Mason Williams
6. Jose Campos
7. Dante Bichette Jr
8. David Phelps
9. Adam Warren
10. JR Murphy

Manny Banuelos and Dellin Betances is more of a #1 and #1A type situation here. You could put either at #1 and the other at #2 and no one would complain too loudly. Banuelos gets the edge on my list because he is younger, more durable, and is left handed. The stats are a wash basically with both of them in AAA Scranton.

Gary Sanchez is the replacement for Jesus Montero, the problem is he is so far away. He does project, even with a down year last year, to be better offensively and defensively then both Jesus Montero and Austin Romine. Projections mean little when your in A Ball though...

Austin Romine is this high on my list for one reason, major league readiness. He is major league ready now and is already on the 40 man roster. His bat is a little deficient when you look at what Montero has done in the minors but he more then makes up for it with his defense. I am personally a bigger fan of a Jose Molina type catcher then a Javy Lopez or Mike Piazza type catcher. We had enough years of Posada, as much as I love him and am glad he was a Yankee, not being able to throw runners out and call a game that Russell Martin and Romine will be a sight for sore eyes this season.

What can I say about Mason Williams that hasnt already been said? He showed lots of pop, fundamentals, tools, etc etc etc... in a short season in the New York Penn League. He is the farthest thing from a sure thing and is extremely far from the majors but the Yankees have seemingly donned him "untouchable" which should speak volumes.

Jose Campos is the 19 yr. old RHP we got in the Montero and Noesi for Pineda trade. He easily touches 95 mph, sometimes as high as 98. Again only in A ball and again only in a short season but he already has 2 plus plus pitches and 2 more potential plus pitches. 4 plus pitches , especially with the strike out numbers he puts up, always projects to be a top of the rotation starter. He may be the best pitching prospect in the system not named a "Killer B".

Dante Bichette's biggest thing is if he can stay at the 3B position. He proved above and beyond that the bat was there but the defense was always the suspect. When you have that kind of a special bat like this young man can, see Jesus Montero, you find a way to hide the defense. He was horrendous defensively though which gives you some hope. Much like a lot of these Top 10 guys, he is in a short season (GCL) and is far away.

Adam Warren and David Phelps could be flip flopped here. Both are in AAA Scranton and both are starting pitchers. Both, in my opinion, are also major league ready although it wouldnt hurt Phelps to spend some more time in AAA to work on a few things. Phelps is the better pitcher , projection wise, in my opinion. I could see him as a 4th or 5th starter type where I could easily see Adam Warren having to move into the bullpen to lengthen his career.

I wanted to put Slade Heathcott here but I decided not to since he cant seem to stay healthy for a full season. JR Murphy is yet another catching prospect that the Yankees like and yet another prospect on my list in A Ball. He could make it as high as AA Trenton this season with no one but maybe Jose Gil standing in his way and Gary Sanchez needing full playing time in A Ball.

Thats my list.... whats yours?

How about Raul?

Is he looking at the ball? That could be the problem.

Earlier I mentioned that Ken Davidoff tweeted about representatives for Vladimir Guerrero and Raul Ibanez contacting the Yankees. I went on to discuss Vlad, coming to the conclusion that if the money is right then bringing Guerrero in would be a good thing. Now it's time to look at Mr. Ibanez.

Raul saw a significant drop in numbers last season, compared to 2010. In 2010 his triple-slash was .275/.349/.444, and the following season it dropped to .245/.289/.419. Even before 2009 he was able to maintain a good to great batting average, along with a nice OBP, so what we saw last year out of him was most definitely not the norm. And on the surface you'd expect to see his numbers rebound. But I can't leave it at that... right?

I like to look at a player's ratios first when looking for differences. To start, Raul's HR% actually went up a bit from 2.5% to 3.5%, so I'm not sure he's lost any power which would attribute to the drop in SLG. That doesn't really surprise me, but what did surprise me was that Ibanez's XBH% didn't really change either, as it went from 9.1% to 9.0%. So he hit more HR, and hit just as many extra base hits (per plate appearance, of course). So where did that 25 point drop come from? The only thing I could see a big enough difference in, to account for those lost 25 points, came from his drop in triples. He had 5 triples in 2010, and only 1 last season. But honestly I don't think that could make that big a difference. Although I could be wrong about that. I have to move on to get my head to stop spinning.

Raul's OBP dropped 60 points. Where did those points go? This wasn't so hard to figure out, as the first thing I checked... walk percentage... told quite a story. In 2010 Ibanez walked in 10.7% of his plate appearances, while in 2011 that went down to 5.7%. Now, that 10.7% was a career high, but in the previous 5 seasons (2005-2009) his average walk percentage was over 9%, so it's clear that last seasons' 5.7% was definitely not the norm. So I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt here, and say that he'd be able to raise that OBP to respectable levels again.

What about the batting average? We certainly don't want to pay a guy to come in and hit .245, so can we expect something better out of him there too? I think so. To start with he put a few more balls into play than he did the year before, as his IP% (Balls in-play percentage) went up from 70% to 72%. And FYI, that percentage has been pretty regular his entire career, so I see no reason to expect that to drop much... if any. I believe the true story here lies in Raul's Line Drive percentage, that dropped from 21% in 2010 (right around his career average of 20%) to 16% in 2011. To put it bluntly, he just wasn't hitting the ball as hard. Which led to career low BABIP (batting average on balls in play) of .268, which is far lower than his career BABIP of .303... which is right in line with the average player's BABIP. So I would expect his batting average to come back up to a fairly good level as well.

The only question I have with Ibanez, which is not a small one mind you, is that he'll turn 40 in June. He's been pretty healthy his entire career, and last season he missed only 4 games due to a sore groin. But it's hard enough to be accepting of a guy in his upper 30s, so seeing "40" next to a player's age is not comforting.

Ibanez is also coming off of a 3 year contract of $31.5 million ($10.5m AAV), and even though he was below average last season, I'm not sure he'd accept a contract for 1 year at around $2 million. So like with Vlad, this entire post could be pointless.

--------------

After looking at the latest two options for the DH position, Guerrero and Ibanez, I'm still thinking that the Yankees are better off with Andruw Jones against left-handed pitchers, while they give guys like Jorge Vazquez a shot against right-handers. Not that Jorge is ideal, but the options at $2 million a year aren't that much better... or they aren't better at all.

More Options for DH

He's seen many HR fly off his bat in his career.

Ken Davidoff tweeted that representatives of Vladimir Guerrero and Raul Ibanez contacted the Yankees. I've already looked at Johnny Damon, Hideki Matsui, and Carlos Pena. So are Vlad or Raul good options, or is this another rumor that should be tossed into the wastebasket? Well I'm going to take a look at them separately, starting with Mr. Guerrero.

Last season Vlad Guerrero hit a line of .290/.317/.416, with 13 HR, for the Orioles. A bit different from the .300/.345/.496, with 29 HR, he put up the year before in Texas. Rangers Ballpark at Arlington is a homer haven, as there were a MLB-high 1.5 HR/game hit there last season (Yankee Stadium was 4th in MLB, seeing 1.267 HR/Gm), so that could have had a lot to do with the power drop after leaving the Rangers. But it's not as though Orioles Park is that much worse, as last year it was 8th in MLB in HR/Gm with 1.144. Vlad did play in 7 less games, but that doesn't make up the difference either. Looking further you'll see that his HR% dropped dramatically, from a career average of 5% to 2.2%, and his FB% did go down a bit from a career 36.3% to 32.4%. But the biggest change I see his his HR/FB, which went from a career mark of 13.4% to a career low of 5.9%. He did suffer a hairline fracture in his right hand in July, but looking at his game logs he wasn't hitting home runs any more before the injury than after, so that was really a non-factor. Lastly, his Line Drive percentage was exactly the same as his career average... 20%. So I really don't think the days of Vlad hitting around 25 HR are behind him.

Vladimir's batting average still lookes pretty good, but what about Guerrero's OBP? The reason for this seems to be in his walk percentage. Now, Vlad has never drawn a ton of walks, as he's a hacker. But like Robinson Cano, the guy makes more than enough contact to make up for not seeing a ton of pitches. However, even though he doesn't walk much anyway (8.1% for his career, while Nick Swisher's walk-rate is 13.5%), Vlad's walk-rate went down to 2.9%.

Here's my guess as to what happened... Baltimore did not have a strong lineup at all. The O's scored only 708 runs, which was 1 less than the worst offense in the AL East... the Rays (although the Rays run prevention was easily the best in the AL). I'm certainly not the biggest proponent of the idea of lineup protection, but in this case it's hard to ignore. I'm guessing that Vlad saw very few strikes, as there was really no reason to give him pitches to hit. I wasn't able to find hard stats to back that up, but I did find that he saw a lot more curveballs last season (10.4% of pitches to him were curveballs, as opposed to 7.1% in 2010).

To go along with righty-lefty splits that aren't that far off (career vs. RHP .316/.372/.546, career vs. LHP .322/.400/.572), while believing he'd see a rebound in his power numbers in Yankee Stadium (and with that lineup), I think he'd be a pretty good pick-up. The only obstacle may be salary, as he made $8 million with Baltimore last season, and although he was far from great (for comparison, Carlos Pena does not really deserve a salary drop at all), I don't see him going anywhere for around $2 million. Making all that work above possibly worthless.

I wanted to note that all stats were gathered from Baseball Reference and Fangraphs. Not sure what I'd do without those great websites, which is why SOPA really scares me.

Half-way there

The payroll for 2012 has been updated after Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, and David Robertson all came to contract agreements with the Yankees. In doing so they avoided arbitration.

Phil Hughes will earn $3.2 million, and will be eligible to receive incentives up to $225,000 ($50,000 for making his 20th start, then $25,000 for making his 23rd, 26th, 29th, 30th, 31st, 32nd, and 33rd starts).

David Robertson will get $1.6 million, along with incentives (the details of those incentives has yet to be released).

Joba Chamberlain received a contract for $1.6 million.

That leaves Russell Martin (filed for $8.2 million, while the team countered with $7 million), Brett Gardner (filed for $3.2 million, while the team countered with $2.4 million), and Boone Logan (filed for $2.1 million, while the team counted with $1.7 million), as the remaining Yankees that are arbitration eligible.