Yankees Should Trade One of Big Three, Yes or No?

The New York Yankees are a team full of expectations and talent but at least at the start of the 2016 campaign the team is not full of players meeting expectations or exceeding expectations. This is especially true in the Yankees starting rotation where outside of a great start from Masahiro Tanaka on Sunday the crew has struggled collectively. Now the Yankees are left with a few options, the first option being to wait it out and hope that the world of sample sizes and history even themselves out leading the Yankees to go on a roll. The second option is to call up a James Kaprielian or equivalent to try and spark the rotation and get some innings out of and the third option is to make a trade to bring in some talent. Not many teams are presumably open for business unless the deal is too sweet to pass up, could one such deal too sweet to pass up include one of the Yankees three-headed monster in the bullpen? 

Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances have both lived up to the hype thus far this season recording outs and strikeouts like the zombie apocalypse is coming and their lives depend on it while Aroldis Chapman is staying fresh and stretched out down in minor league camps. Chapman is serving a 30 game suspension currently leaving his trade value low until he comes back but you would have to think the Yankees could move one of these three, not skip a beat, and still improve on the team. Look at the offer the team received for Andrew Miller from the Houston Astros before the season began. In case you missed it the deal was headlined by former first overall draft pick Mark Appel and dominant young stud Vincent Velasquez, could the Yankees pull a similar deal out of their hat or maybe even a better deal as the season goes along? 

The Yankees bullpen could handle the loss of one of these men, especially if Chasen Shreve who also sports a 0.00 ERA at the time of this writing and especially if Johnny Barbato continues to be dominant, and the rotation as it stands today could use a punch in the arm. I’m truly on the fence about it though, sure the Yankees could survive a loss but I’m not sure that they should or not. The perfect recipe for a mediocre starting rotation is a strong bullpen that can take the ball after five or six innings and close things down with a lead. The 1996 Yankees did that and many teams before and since have as well and the 2016 version of the Yankees have done that. Sure they are going to burn out their arms at this torrid pace but one must remember that the warmer it gets and the longer we stretch into the season the longer these starters will go. One must also remember that Chapman will be back early next month taking some of the innings and some of the stress off of everyone else. 

With all that said I pose the question to you. Should the Yankees trade one of their big three out of the bullpen to improve the starting pitching and go for it in 2016? Or should they trade one or more of them and build towards the 2017, 2018 and 2019 seasons? Or should they simply stand pat and see the plan and the course to fruition? Leave it below in the comments section or drop us a line on twitter by following @GreedyStripes.

Game Preview: New York Yankees vs. Oakland Athletics 4/20

The New York Yankees and the Oakland Athletics are preparing for Round Two tonight in their three game set this week in the Bronx. Tonight is going to be a tough matchup for the Yankees much like last night was but for an entirely different set of reasons. Last night the A’s sent a lefty to the mound which always seems to give New York trouble and tonight they send a tough pitcher in Kendall Graveman to the mound. Opposing him tonight will be Nathan Eovaldi for the Yankees.

Eovaldi had a great start going last time out against the powerful Toronto Blue Jays before falling victim to the home run ball late in the start. Eovaldi held onto a shutout before a pair of home runs by Josh Donaldson and Troy Tulowitzki buried the Yankees right-hander. Eovaldi is striking out more batters than ever, 43% of his outs are now coming via the strikeout this season, but he is still allowing too many hits consistently.

 Graveman heads into this start fresh off a strong start against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Graveman took a no-decision in the start despite allowing just one run on four hits in six innings of work. Graveman has allowed just seven hits all season so the Yankees will have to be selective and swing at good pitches tonight if they want a victory.

The game will be played at 7:05 pm ET inside Yankee Stadium and can be seen on the YES Network and MLB TV. These are games that the Yankees must win if they want to be in contention in September and October but it always seems like these games and series where New York is considered by many to be the heavy favorites that things just fall apart. Reverse the trend, win the game and take the series too.

Go Yankees!

Yankees Rotation, You’re Killing Me Smalls

To borrow a now famous line from a now famous movie, The Sandlot, “you’re killing me Smalls!” In case you’ve lived under a rock for the past 20-or-so years Smalls was one of the main characters in the movie and a new member to the group of kids who played baseball in their sandlot. Smalls didn’t know much about the game but he knew he wanted to be accepted, remember he thought Babe Ruth was a female and not that big of a deal, and this frustrated the other boys. This quickly caught on and whenever someone was making something you deemed simple more trouble than it was worth you always threw out a “you’re killing me Smalls” as a joke and for emphasis. Well you know what? The Yankees starting rotation, you’re killing me Smalls!

Sure there have been encouraging moments this season to speak of and I am the last one to conveniently mis-remember them. Luis Severino has looked much better than his 0-2 start would suggest and it’s okay if he hasn’t because he’s only set to make his 14^th career MLB start tomorrow in the series finale with Oakland. Masahiro Tanaka had the best start of the season for the Yankees staff on Sunday out-dueling former teammate Hisashi Iwakuma and Michael Pineda has seen starts where his control has been impeccable walking none. The good is far being out shadowed by the bad though right now and that needs to change.

Heading into yesterday’s series opener the Yankees ranked dead last, or more commonly known as 15^th place, in the American League in innings pitched out of their starting rotation after the starters had thrown just 61.2 innings pitched. That looks more impressive after Tanaka’s seven inning performance on Sunday and it made the average start last 5.2 innings for the team and the team starting ERA drop to 5.25, also the worst in the American League.

There is some encouraging news though for the Bombers. Severino is not going to give up twice as many hits as he has innings pitched for the entire season like he has thus far and I can’t see Nathan Eovaldi allowing a home run every three innings pitched like he has thus far this year. Bryan Mitchell should be back eventually and Ivan Nova can always slide into the rotation if need be at some point this season. Tanaka should be better and Michael Pineda should be a hell of a lot better. The Yankees staff will be better, until then though they are killing me. Smalls. 

Weekly Check In: Gary Sanchez

Gary Sanchez, the Yankees catcher that took the minor leagues and the Arizona Fall League by storm only to fall short in a spring training competition. Gary Sanchez, the man that made Yankees GM Brian Cashman confident about trading backup catcher John Ryan Murphy to the Minnesota Twins for backup outfielder Aaron Hicks. Gary Sanchez, the subject of our latest weekly check in post here on the blog.

Gary Sanchez had a solid season in Double-A last season which led New York to call him up to Triple-A towards the end of the 2015 campaign. Sanchez was called up after an injury to Austin Romine occurred and he was thought to simply be a warm body in Scranton until his bat took off and took off in a big way. Sanchez earned a September call up last season and picked up his first MLB hit before heading to Arizona with the Surprise Saguaros to continue his torrid hitting.

Sanchez started spring slow and headed back down to Triple-A to begin the season but he will be back, he has a reserved front seat in the Scranton Shuttle, but until then we will check in with him every Wednesday morning. Starting now, enjoy. 

Year	Age	Lev	G	PA	R	H	2B	HR	RBI	SB	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
2016	23	AAA	8	35	3	5	3	1	4	0	2	8	.156	.229	.344	.572

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

This Day in New York Yankees History 4/20: Ivan Nova Makes Yankees History

On this day in 2012 Yankees RHP Ivan Nova passed a few notable starting pitchers in Yankees history when he won his 15th straight decision of the season. The Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park on this day in 2012 and moved Nova ahead of Whitey Ford (1961) and Steve Sundra (1938-1939). This win set Nova one behind Roger Clemens for the franchise record in consecutive decisions won.

On this day in 1988 Claudell Washington hit the Yankees 10,000th home run in franchise history as a pinch hitter. This total was the most in the major leagues and came off Minnesota's pitcher Jeff Reardon in the top of the ninth inning in a Yankees victory.

On this day in 1912, after two days of rain, the first ever game is finally played at Fenway Park in Boston. Of course the first game in the historic stadium was with the New York Highlanders, soon to be the Yankees, and a Red Sox victory 7-6 in 11 innings.

Live Game Updates: A's at Yankees - 4/19

7:29 p.m., End First: #RISPSuccess. A-Rod drives in Carlos Beltran with a two-out RBI single to left, and the Yankees have a 1-0 lead after the opening frame.

7:42 p.m., Mid 2nd: Pineda gives it right back in the second. Marcus Semien's RBI single evens the score at one.

7:50 p.m., End 2nd: Nothing doing for the Yankees in a 1-2-3 bottom of the second.

8:07 p.m., End 3rd: Lead-off double for Brett Gardner gets wasted in the third. The Yankees' situational hitting struggles continue.

8:13 p.m., Mid 4th: Pineda looks sharp in a clean top of the fourth. He's at 58 pitches so far.

8:22 p.m., End 4th: A-Rod bloops his second single of the night to center, but Eric Surkamp retires the next three. Still tied after four.

8:30 p.m., Mid 5th: Big strikeout of Chris Coghlan helps Pineda work around a one-out triple from Billy Burns in the fifth.

8:48 p.m., End 5th: Finally, the Yankees get another run. A walk to Gardner, a double by Castro, and a sac fly by Beltran give the Yankees a 2-1 edge after five. 

8:55 p.m., Mid 6th: Tough luck for Pineda and the Yankees. A Danny Valencia line drive goes off the tip of Gardner's glove for a triple, and Jed Lowrie ties it with a weak groundball single two batters later.

9:10 p.m., End 6th: Luck really isn't on the Yankees' side right now. Aaron Hicks and Brett Gardner both hit balls on the nose in the sixth, and both get robbed. Yanks end up stranding runners on second and third.

9:28 p.m., End 7th: Betances is coming on for the eighth. Still even at two.

9:39 p.m., Mid 8th: Betances yields a pair of singles in the eighth, but escapes with a strikeout of Khris Davis.

9:45 p.m., End 8th: Yankees offense looking lifeless out there. Ninth inning and Miller coming up, with the score still tied.

10:06 p.m., End 9th: Yankees' bats don't do anything again. Extra innings coming up.

10:20 p.m., End 10th: Another 1-2-3 inning for the Yanks. They've had just one baserunner since their last threat in the bottom of the sixth.

Final (11 Innings): A's 3, Yankees 2

Another helpless performance by the Yankees' bats cancelled out a strong start from Pineda and a dominant night for the bullpen. I guess Pineda's a bright spot here, but if this offense doesn't turn it around soon, no improvement he or any other pitcher on the roster makes will matter.

Game Thread: New York Yankees vs. Oakland Athletics 4/19

Another day, another series and another game. Such is life during the Major League Baseball regular season. The New York Yankees had a tough time over the weekend against the Seattle Mariners winning just one of the three games that they played and the team will look to take out their frustrations on the Oakland Athletics tonight in the Bronx. New York will send Michael Pineda to the mound looking to be more like Big Mike than the Average Mike he has been thus far this season while the Athletics will counter with Eric Surkamp, a left-hander. The game will be played at 7:05 pm ET inside Yankee Stadium and can be seen on the YES Network and MLB TV.

To see the Yankees live this week against the A’s in the Bronx or at home during any game this season click the Yankees Tickets link at the top of the blog and snag a pair of tickets or two for Yankee Stadium. If you can’t make it live then you can always head over to Twitter and follow along with us on Twitter by giving @GreedyStripes a follow. We live tweet each and every game during the regular season and beyond so we’re good to have around if you can’t make the game or watch it live in the comfort of your own home.

That’s enough out of me because now it’s time for Michael Pineda to put up or shut up for the Yankees. Here’s to hoping for the former and not the latter. Go Yankees!

Is Alex Rodriguez Finished?

If someone were to just look at Alex's triple-slash numbers, it would be clear that he's simply not good this season. And at 40 years old, it would be easy to say time has simply caught up with him. Through the Yankees' first nine games of the 2015 season, Alex was hitting .286/.394/.571. That slash line is a little better than the .118/.231/.294 start he's had to the 2016 season.

"Am I Alex Rodriguez?"

So how about Rodriguez's ability to drive in runs? Well, of the seven runs Rodriguez batted in in the first nine games of 2015, five of them were driven in without the aid of the home run. This time around, just one of the four RBI he's driven in this year came from something other than a homer.

Need more reason to worry? Okay, how about his contact percentage? In 2015 Alex made contact with 70.3% of the pitches he swung at. Unfortunately, this season that number is down to 66.2%. Sure, it's only 4.1 percentage points, so why worry? Well, maybe because his contact rate has actually fallen in each of his last five seasons (not counting 2014, for obvious reasons).

Sadly, the bad news doesn't end there. Taking the entire 2015 season into account again, Rodriguez struck out in 23.4% of his plate appearances, and walked in 13.5% of them. So far this year Alex has k'd in 33.3% of his PA, while walking just 10.3% of the time.

But not everything going on with Rodriguez this season points to a total loss. I mean, let's not push for the team to eat the remaining money owed to Alex for the rest of this season and next just yet.

I should preface this by pointing out that not everybody believes a player's batting average on balls in play (or "BABIP") is a good stat. Personally, I don't believe it's a great stat for trying to figure out if a player has been lucky or not, but it's something that you should at least consider.

With that said, ARod's BABIP through the first nine games of last season was .429, which is much higher than his career mark of .315. Seeing that his BABIP so far this season sits 324 points lower than that (.105 for you people that hate math), I think it's safe to say he has been at least a tad unlucky in 2016.

Another reason to stick by Alex is his line drive percentage, which is higher so far this year than he's ever hit in any season throughout his career (23.8%, compared to just 18.2% for all of 2015). Couple that line drive rate with a ground ball percentage lower than he's ever had as well (38.1%), and that means more hard-hit balls in the air, which is a good recipe for more hits.

I must admit that this entire post may be pointless, as in some cases I'm talking about very small sample sizes. But like I alluded to earlier, there are some fans that would like to see the Yankees cut Alex now, and eat the nearly $39 million the team still owes him through next season.

And that, my friends, is crazy. If anything, and this is something I believe will happen, Joe Girardi may want to cut back on Alex's playing time. But that's not so much because he's that bad, but because Carlos Beltran should see some time as the starting DH while Aaron Hicks gets more starts in the outfield.

"That's what the lineup card that Mr. Cashman sent to me says."

As the Top Goes, the Offense Goes

It sounds simple enough and it could be said for any of the 30 MLB teams around the league but it seems to be especially true for the New York Yankees. As the top of the order goes so does the rest of the New York Yankees offense. This was on full display this weekend in the Bronx against the Seattle Mariners and it has been especially true over the past two or three seasons, well since the Yankees signed Jacoby Ellsbury to be their leadoff hitter for $150+ million. If the top of the order is doing well and getting on base it seems to take the pressure off of the middle of the Yankees lineup and the runs seem to come in bunches but when the top of the order isn’t doing so well, well we don’t like to talk about that too much out loud.

Ellsbury lived up to expectations in the first year of his new Yankees contract and has fallen short ever since dropping his Yankees average to just .265 before the start of the 2016 season. Ellsbury is hovering around the Stephen Drew line already this season, yes I changed the name… no disrespect to Mr. Mendoza, and has been just as mediocre in the field as he’s been at the plate. Ellsbury is not only not hitting but he’s also failing to reach base at a respectable clip leaving many to wonder why he is still leading off rather than the next man that needs to step things up in order to get the Yankees offense going, Mr. Brett Gardner.

Gardner has always hovered around the .260 - .280 mark with good defense but a weird fascination with striking out. That’s the Gardner we drafted and that’s the Gardner we developed and handed a contract extension to. That hasn’t changed thus far in 2016 and neither has his seemingly inability to get a good jump, judge a pitcher or steal a base consistently throughout a season. If Gardner can improve his on-base percentage and average a bit, marginally or at all he could unseat Ellsbury in the leadoff spot. If he doesn’t though Mr. Alex Rodriguez will be coming up a lot this season in the first inning with nobody on and two outs.

Alex struggled out of the gate this season before responding in the final game of the Seattle Mariners series. Alex only responded after being moved down in the order as apparently he takes offense to hitting sixth in the Yankees lineup. A Rod went 0-21 after hitting his home run in Detroit and is creeping up on 41-years old. Does he have anything left or are the Yankees doomed to see another hitter rely on home runs only with a .220 average? If he hits the latter it’s going to potentially be a long summer in the Bronx. 

USA Today’s Weekly MLB Power Rankings

Here we are in the third week of the MLB season bringing you the second set of MLB power rankings brought to you by the crew over at the USA Today. Technically this is the third set of rankings if you include the preseason rankings but who is really counting anyway? Not I, especially since I believe the Yankees are destined to fall and fall hard this week after losing four straight games at one point this week. I also expect the St. Louis Cardinals to rise and rise quickly in the rankings but you’re not here to read my presumptions and predictions, you’re here to read the rankings, so let’s get on with shall we?

The New York Yankees finished the rankings down two spots as they fell to the 17th position from #15 last week. The rest of the American League East took a bit of a dive as well overall with the Baltimore Orioles finishing 7^th, the Boston Red Sox finishing 11th, the Toronto Blue Jays finishing 12th and the Tampa Bay Rays finishing 19th.

The biggest rise of the week went to the Washington Nationals who rose six spots from the 8^th position all the way to the #2 position. With every rise you must have a fall though and the biggest fall this week went to the New York Mets who fell seven spots from the 6^th position all the way to the #13 position.

The Top 5 spots on the list belong to the Chicago Cubs, Washington Nationals, Kansas City Royals, San Francisco Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals. Meanwhile the bottom feeders of the list in descending order are the #26 ranked San Diego Padres, the #27 ranked Philadelphia Phillies, the #28 ranked Minnesota Twins, the #29 ranked Milwaukee Brewers and the #30 ranked Atlanta Braves.

The sample sizes are larger but they are still relatively small when you look at a 162-game season in the big picture. Many will fall, many will rise and it won’t be until about the beginning of June before we see a clear picture of the league and the potential contenders and pretenders. That will come just in time for the August 1^st trading deadline when everything gets thrown for a loop once again when teams sell and buy off expensive and key players at the deadline. It’s going to be fun and I can’t wait so be sure to check in every Tuesday afternoon for a new set of rankings.