This Day In New York Yankees History 1/2: Lou Gehrig Parole Commissioner

On this day in 1940, with Mayor Fiorello La Guardia in attendance, Lou Gehrig was sworn in as a member of the New York City Parole Commission. The term is for 10 years but Gehrig became too ill with ALS to even sign his name on the contract and has to ask for a leave of absence the very next year.

Get to Know New Yankees' Reliever David Carpenter

While minor-leaguer Chasen Shreve was also dealt to the Yankees in Thursday's trade between they and the Braves, there's no question the biggest piece heading to New York is right-handed reliever David Carpenter. 

Carpenter, a 29-year-old who's been in the league since 2011, will fill the set-up role recently vacated by Shawn Kelley, according to NJ.com's Brendan Kuty. For the most part in his career, he's been alright, holding hitters to a .260 batting average while solidly recording a 3.62 ERA.

But what can we expect from him in 2015 and beyond? Well, when you take a look at his past numbers it's kind of tough to say.

On the bright side, Carpenter was great in 2013, his first full season in the majors. He pitched to a 1.78 ERA and 0.99 WHIP while walking 20 and striking out 74 in 65 2/3 innings that year, impressively keeping opponents below the Mendoza Line.

But then last season his stats suddenly worsened, making it difficult to really judge him. His ERA inflated to 3.54, and his WHIP followed it by going up to 1.26. 

Basically, how Carpenter will do next year is a mystery, but that doesn't mean it's not still a safe bet he'll contribute. The aforementioned Kelley's best ERA and WHIP with the Yankees were both higher than Carpenter's highests with the Braves, so it's likely the latter will at least be an upgrade. 

Maybe not much of one, but one nonetheless.

Yankees Trade Manny Banuelos to Atlanta Braves

Yankees have traded Manny Banuelos to the Braves for RH reliever David Carpenter and LHR Chasen Shreve.
— Jack Curry (@JackCurryYES) January 1, 2015

The New York Yankees have traded minor league LHP Manny Banuelos for RHP David Carpenter and LHP minor league pitcher Chasen Shreve. More to come I'm sure as the story unfold, stay tuned.

Now I'm officially confused. The New York Yankees are trying to get younger so they trade a starting pitcher with zero service time that they spent the last two seasons rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. The team also states they want to have depth and they trade Banuelos for minor leaguer and a relief pitcher? I'm confused, I don't see a direction for this team right now.

Erisbel Arruebarrena Makes a lot of Sense

The Los Angeles Dodgers have designated Erisbel Arruebarrena for assignment to make room for their fifth starter Brett Anderson on the 40 man roster. Speculation around the league suggests that the Cuban born shortstop will clear waivers and either be traded or can be had for "free" after signing a deal that still has four years and $16 million remaining. Arruebarrena signed a deal just this year with Los Angeles and slashed .259/.304/.417 across four minor league stops in 2014. Even after slashing just
195/.244/.220 in 45 plate appearances with the Dodgers he may still be a better option than Brendan Ryan.

Arruebarrena plays a strong defense up the middle and keeps with the Yankees theme of getting younger and more versatile. While Arruebarrena is just 24 years old he would have a higher AAV, $4 million, than Ryan's $2 million the cost is marginal, the team gets four years of team control, the Yankees get younger and honestly the Yankees get a lot better too.

Arruebarrena is still considered a rookie heading into the 2015 season and would personally make me feel a lot better if he were filling in for a Didi Gregorius if an injury occurred rather than Ryan. I'll take Arruebarrena's upside over the "sure thing" of Ryan any day and I hope the Yankees would too.

The First Annual #TGP Awards Show

Welcome ladies and gentleman to the first annual TGP Awards brought to you by the New York Yankees. Tonight we’ll take a look at who will win each of the major awards, Most Likely to Bounce Back in 2015, The Andruw Jones Award (the player I want off the team in the worst way by June) and of course the big one, the Get Greedy Award given to the greediest Yankee of the year. We’ve got a busy night so let’s get to it.

Here to present the award for most likely to bounce back in 2015 is Yankees first baseman and host of Foul Territory, Mr. Mark Teixeira. “And the award goes to….. Carlos Beltran!” How could Beltran not win this award? He could almost literally miss half the season and still play more games in the outfield in 2015 than he did in 2014 and bat for a higher batting average with more home runs and RBI. Congrats Carlos.

For the second award we bring in former Yankees player Andruw Jones to present to inaugural Andruw Jones Award. “And the award goes to….. Chris Capuano!” Capuano is here to provide insurance to the Yankees staff and eventually, hopefully, the bullpen when Ivan Nova comes back. There is a reason a team like the Boston Red Sox and Colorado Rockies give up on a pitcher so soon. Capuano falls into the Brandon McCarthy role for me as the player we got the most out of in 2014 and should move on or be disappointed with in 2015. I was ready for Capuano to leave the rotation before he got in pinstripes so I have a feeling it won’t take until June this year for me to want him gone.

And for the final award of the night, the big award of the night, we bring in Hal Steinbrenner to present the Get Greedy Award which is given to the greediest member of the Yankees in 2015. “And the nominees are…. Alex Rodriguez….. CC Sabathia….. Mark Teixeira….. Carlos Beltran…… and Jacoby Ellsbury. And the #GetGreedy award goes to….. Alex Rodriguez.” While you could make the case that any or all of these players are “greedy” they all look to be every day and integral parts of the team except for Rodriguez. Rodriguez has now two bad hips and two steroid allegations to go with his $61 million in remaining salary as he rides the bench and “fights” for playing time in 2015.

We want to thank everyone for coming out and tuning in at home for the first ever TGP Awards Show. We hope you enjoyed and will stop by next year. Goodbye, and Happy New Year!

Sergio Romo May Have Turned Down Yankees Offer

First and foremost I want to start out by saying that this is pure speculation on my part. I have no sort of inside information, this hasn’t been reported on anywhere etc. but I was reading some quotes from an article on USA Today about the San Francisco Giants offseason to date and a few key notes caught my eye. The first quote from the article SEEN HERE quoted Romo as saying “Man, do you realize how lucky and blessed you really are?” Okay, I took that as a guy saying all the right things after signing a two year deal worth $15 million but the next quote really stuck in my mind.

The exact quote was “you have to go to a place where you’re happy and you’re excited to go to work every day.” Now taken out of context this quote seems rather politically correct and a non-issue but if you read the article this was his response to a question about why he returned to San Francisco and reportedly turned down opportunities to be a closer elsewhere. Rather than be a closer in a place like New York, who was reportedly interested in Romo and who presumably need a closer, Romo chose to fall into line with Santiago Casilla, Jeremy Affeldt and Javier Lopez.

I’m not sure the Yankees made the offer to be the everyday defined closer or not but it sure would make sense if they did. These are the stories that the Brian Cashman haters, and granted I am borderline and on the fence about himself and far from a Cashman apologist, will never hear about. All they will hear is what they want to hear, that Cashman did nothing to improve the team and we’re doomed. The sky is falling, or maybe it’s not. 

TGP Daily Poll: Scherzer Signs in January 2015

Scott Boras is going to drag this out as long as he can so Max Scherzer will sign before the calendar changes to February.

Vote in our poll!

Happy New Year’s from The Greedy Pinstripes

Happy New Year’s everybody! I know this is probably up for many of you to be reading it at this hour but being a father to two young children has me in bed pretty early and up pretty early in the AM. I hope everyone had a great time last night partying, watching the ball drop, working or whatever you had plans. I also hope everyone was safe and everyone came back to us in one piece this morning.

We appreciate everything you have done for the blog and on the blog and we hope for nothing but the best from you and for you in this New Year, 2015. Happy New Year’s everyone!

This is Page 1 of 365 of the next book of your life, make it the best you can. 

Would a Max Scherzer-led rotation get the Yankees into the playoffs?

Max Scherzer might not be the cheapest option left on the market, but in nobody's mind is he not the most desirable. Because let's be honest with ourselves: signing Scherzer would make the Yankees' rotation elite.

Scherzer would bring a second ace to New York along with Masahiro Tanaka, and turn the high-quality Michael Pineda into a no.3. He'd take some weight off the recovering Ivan Nova, and help cancel out some of CC Sabathia's possible struggles.

So really, why are the Yankees not doing everything they can to acquire him? Sure, he'd cost a lot, but isn't that tolerable when a playoff spot's part of the package?

I'll prove it to you. Signing or not signing Scherzer will decide whether the Yankees are playing in October next season, no matter how much the club's front office says otherwise. Here's why:

1. The WARs of Each Potential Starter: I've always seen WAR as the best way to judge a pitcher, so that's what I'm going to be doing in this post. Scherzer had one of 6.0 last year, Tanaka 3.3, Pineda 2.7, and Nathan Eovaldi 0.2. As for Nova, Sabathia and Chris Capuano, theirs respectively read 3.6, 0.3, and -0.6 in 2013, since none of them started much last season. That being said, let's assume Capuano gets sent to the bullpen if Scherzer's signed, and Eovaldi does when Nova comes back from Tommy John surgery.

That leaves the rotation with Scherzer, Tanaka, Pineda, Sabathia and Nova. Now let's again assume something, that each of those five have the same WARs next year. Nova's is 3.4 wins better than Eovaldi's, and Scherzer's is 6.6 wins better than Capuano's. That's 10 wins more, nicely giving the Yankees approximately 94 (they went 84-78 in 2014) in 2015. And keep in mind, that number being a little lower still wouldn't hurt anything.

2. The Offense Will Likely Be Worse Next Season: I know Jacoby Ellsbury, Carlos Beltran, Brian McCann and others might do better next year, but they also might do worse. Basically, the Yankees can't expect them to improve, convenient as them doing so would be.

So where am I getting the title to this point? Well, Didi Gregorius hit just .226 to Derek Jeter's .256 last season, Rob Refsnyder/Jose Pirela probably won't match Martin Prado's .282, and Alex Rodriguez is no Ichiro. I guess there could be some surprises here, but you obviously can't count on that to carry the team.

What are your thoughts? Is Scherzer the answer, or just a big check?

This Day In New York Yankees History 1/1: Babe Ruth the Patriot

On this day in 1941 Babe Ruth spends $50,000 for defense bonds in support of the U.S. mobilization effort. The $50,000 is the maximum amount allowed by law for one person to purchase and was considered to be a big chunk of money back then.

Also on this day in 1923 Wee Willie Keeler died as a result of heart failure. Keeler pomised his fans and former teammates that he would live to see 1923 and lasted until New Years Day, as promised. Keeler played for the Superbas (now the Dodgers), Orioles, Giants (New York), and the Highlanders (now the Yankees) in his Hall of Fame career. Keeler is known for his quote "keep your eye clear, and hit 'em where they ain't."