Here are a few leftover things I have from Miami yesterday. I'm not at the Stadium for the workout, so any updates from there will have to come from somebody else:
*Melky Cabrera, who homered yesterday, is very excited to make his first Opening Day start, and relieved that the appeal on his suspension will not keep him out of that.
"I'm going to feel really content," Cabrera said. "It's going to be the last Opening Day in the Stadium, and that's something really special."
*Nice scene Friday night when Scott Patterson came out of Joe Girardi's office after being reassigned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. He was visibly upset, kicking something in front of his locker and then slumping down there. LaTroy Hawkins (and Joba Chamberlain, but it was clearly Hawkins's lead) went over and sat down next to him to give him some encouragement.
Hawkins said: "I just told him to keep his head up. A lot of guys have been through it before. I know I have."
Hawkins, 35, made his major league debut with the Twins in 1995 and also saw limited action in 1996. But in 1997, he thought he had done well enough in spring training to make the Opening Day roster, but was told otherwise by the Twins: "I thought I should have made the team, but I didn't."
Patterson was appreciative of Hawkins' chat, and said Hawkins told him he knew he'd see him soon. If Patterson keeps getting anywhere near the results he did in spring training, he will be back soon. He allowed only one hit and no walks in 7 2/3 innings.
*Morgan Ensberg, who was uncomfortable taking Paul O'Neill's old number, said he plans to wear No. 11. He wanted No. 14, but his $5,000 offer to Wilson Betemit was declined. He said he's still hopeful Betemit will change his mind, but that hadn't happened as of yesterday.
*Also, reports out of Tampa say that Pettitte's minor league game went well today. He pitched six innings in an intra-squad game against Yankees' Triple-A players. He allowed just one hit and one walk, with six strikeouts, and threw 77 pitches.
Starting opposite Pettitte was Ian Kennedy, who pitched five innings, allowing one walk and striking out five.
Comments (10)
*****The Nudgereport*****
I think the 2008 baseball season looks a bit more positive coming out of sprint training than the 2007 season did. Not because the Yanks have made any strides in improving the squad, but based more on the fact that the competition in their division has more questions than they do.
If the Yanks can maintain their health to a decent degree they should compete to the end with Boston for the division. If Boston can get healthy and stay healthy or the Yanks have health problem of their own then I think Boston wins easy.
Fundamentally the offense is the same as last year. They have the ability to score runs in bunches but at times becomes too dependant on the long ball. They have done nothing to change this going into 2008. They will probably score slightly less runs than last year because A-Rod and Posada had their best evr years in 2007.
The starting pitching is a hope and prayer to compete with the rest of the league. 2 rookies, two injury prone veterans and one guy who defies the odd on success. Thats not a solid foundation. Mussina when healthy is a roller coaster ride. Pettitte although tough can only battle for so long. Hughes I think will be only OK. 13-11 maybe. Kennedy I think will be up and down. He may throws a dazzler one game and then not find the strike zone for 2 games. Wang, if he doesn't repeat what he has done the last 2 seasons, could cause the team to struggle tremendously. So there are far to few paths for success for these 5.
The pen is actually a bit better than last year as long as Mariano holds up. This is obviously because of Joba. But the braintrust seems content to take the only upgrade the team has made since last year and mess with it. If they follow that plan it will be regrettable.
The teams bench is about the same as last year. Not impressive. At least though they start with a cathcer behind Jorge who can actually play.
The defense again is bad trending toward pitiful. This is the trademark of the Cashman years. He pays no mind to defense and the team will suffer for it.
Girardi will have a streaky year. There will be times you love him, then things will happen and the luster will come off. How he responds to these incidents will tell much about him going forward.
All in all I see a more positive year as of April than last but things have to break right for them.
Nice analysis, Nudge. I see things a little more optimistically than you do, but perhaps that is my Yankee enthusiasm showing through.
I am more hopeful about the pitching equation than you but by no means do I deny that there are plenty of possible pitfalls. I see Joba moving in successfully to take the place of whoever falters in the rotation, and the likes of Ohlendorf and Patterson shoring up the pen.
I would rate the defense as mediocre rather than pitiful -- except at 1B where unfortunately pitiful is likely to be the operative word at the start of the season, just as it was at backup catcher starting last season. I can only hope that FO will be as successful at mending this year's hole as they were last year in bringing in Molina.
And I think the lineup may be as successful this year as last because while we had a couple of outliers on the up side last year we also had some uncharacteristic outliers on the down side, and I think those guys are set to do better just as AR and JP are likely to regress towards their mean.
Diane,
Not yet pitiful, just trending that way. Pitching MAY work out. But I am more playing gut feeling and the odds together.
Nudge
The only arguments I would find with your take on the Yankees are in these spots:
The defense this year is better in the OF and worse at 1st than last year. Melky and Damon are an upgrade over Damon and Matsui in Center and Left respectively and while Giambi/Duncan/Ensberg are a step down from Doug M./Andy Phillips at first their offense should be significantly better.
As I said in a post yesterday, pitching around the AL is questionable at best:
The Red Sox don't know what to expect from Lester and Bucholtz over a full season any more than the Yankees do from Hughes and Kennedy - they have Wakefield who has been battling injuries the last few years and while Beckett was amazing last year he was only average the year before (though I think he is the best big game pitcher around right now)
The Tigers have a questionable staff behind Verlander and a shaky pen until they get back Rodney and Zumaya
The Indians rotation is pretty shaky after Sabathia and Carmona and that they didn't upgrade from Borowski this winter was a joke.
The Angels have already lost Escobar and will be without Lackey for the first month of the season.
The Mariners, on paper, have the best rotation - but I want to see how Bedard does in a pressure situation rather than as the best pitcher on a team that's not supposed to do anything - and Felix Hernandez has to stay healthy, which to date he has not done.
Will it be an easy task for the Yankees to get to the post season, nope, but I do think the AL is wide open.
An average year for ARod this year and how much of a downturn that would mean for the Yanks:
If we just look at his 4 years with the Yankees, then it would seem like a dramatic downturn this being because 2 of these years were among Alex's worst years hitting only 35 and 36 homeruns while only driving in 106 and 121. Where as prior to that, his lowest HR total since '98 was 42 and he only played 129 games that year and his lowest RBI total since '98 was 111, but also in only 129 games. Since we're in NY and definitely believe in "what have you done for me lately" I initially only looked at the 4 years with the Yanks. An average year for ARod would result in:
Avg: .303
HRs: 43
RBIs: 128
Runs: 123
Total Bases: 338
SLG: .573
Change:
Avg: -.011
HRs: -11
RBIs: -28
Runs: -20
Total Bases: -38
SLG: -.072
All of those negatives would seem concerning and they definitely do concern me, but when you look at ARod's production last year, you have to think that he could easily outperform his 4 year average and perform more along the lines of his career average, so let's take a look at some more numbers:
If we look at 3 more years (then we'd get to look at ARod's stats for the entirety of his initial historic contract), we get a different average:
Avg: .304
HRs: 47
RBIs: 130
Runs: 125
Total Bases: 356
SLG: .589
These numbers seem extremely realistic for ARod and would result in the following change compared to last year:
Avg: -.010
HRs: -7
RBIs: -26
Runs: -18
Total Bases: -20
SLG: -.056
While all of these numbers would still be a loss, I could see these numbers being made up for by other players in the line-up, primarily coming from Robbie. Generally you guys have only gotten to listen to me fawn over Hughes, but Robbie was the first prospect I really followed from signing to the pros that ended up on the team.
Nudge is right.
It is the same team as last year ... no small ball skills. We don't have the right players as Herb Brooks would have said. "I'm not looking for the best players, I'm looking for the right players ..."
No leadoff hitter (Knoblauch/Eckstein vs. Damon ... please!)
Not enough LHP's (Igawa gave up grand slam to college team!)
Too many L hitters and not enough righty power bats. Sheff!
We were fine with Menky and A. Phillips at 1B.
Cano and Melky have no plate discipline but that could improve. You can't become Wade Boggs overnight.
Abreu for 16 million ... well he is afraid of the wall and that's a problem right there. He didn't even play hard till the middle of June last year. 16 million? For Abreu? If Mickey or Willie played today you'd have to give them the whole team ...
But the good news is ... we won't have the injuries like last year with the pitching. However, Farns, Igawa and Mussina can't be counted on. Maybe they will do better this year. Who can say? I was so impressed with the Denny's Grand Slam Igawa gave up to the Tampa college kid, that 18 year old ...
I wanted Ludwick, Percival, Lilly, Eckstein and Josh Hamilton. I wanted Cliff Lee or Jeremy Sowers and I wanted Kevin Gregg.
Instead we have Godzilla on a cane, Farns, Igawa and Melky/Abreu. There is way too much old, brittle dead wood in Mussina, Giambi, Damon and Matsui.
Cashman, for all the salaries and equity, high prices, Yes Network, overseas money from Taiwan, Japan, the UK and Caribbean ... he's a disaster as a CEO or GM. But what can you do, we all make mistakes.
The team hasn't won in seven years. This will be eight.
That doesn't mean it can't be a good and fun season.
Hopefully Va. Tech was the start of a new leaf and the off season of evil (Hall, Leyritz, McNamee, Clemens) will fade away.
Let's see what Traber, Cano, Joba and Kennedy can bring, along with the other new players.
With the US fast decaying into a giant Eron/Bear Stearns, it will be interesting to see the Yanks operate financially as they have, wasting hundreds of millions on Clemens, Farns, Meyers, Giambi and others ... that will have to change. Paying so many millions for Mo, Jorse and A Rod when they are 40 plus will also become a drain.
Cashman is the Paris Hilton of GMs! He has brought in some good kids, nice arms and that will be a nice send off for him ...
Anyway, it's just baseball. And as we're not paying the bills, who cares how much money they waste, how inferior the on and off field product has decayed over the past 5 - 7 years ... ?
Just enjoy!
If Cano and Abreu get off to much better starts than they did last year and if Giambi,Damon and Matsui stay healthy the Yanks will score at least the same number of runs as they did last yr.Certainly a lot of ifs.
To me the Red Sox and Yanks are even at least on paper.The only thing that kept NY from winning the division last yr. was the horrific start they got off to.If my memory serves me they had the best record from June 1st on.
The Yanks have made significant strides in improving the bullpen and bench 2 weak spots going into last season ,no more Will Nieves or Miguel Cairo or Andy Phillips who BTW got cut from the Reds.Hawkins and Joba will be a definite upgrade from Proctor and Visciano.
If any needs any more reason NOT to pay attention to any of the baseball "experts", all you need to do is look at the predictions from ESPN's 19 "experts". # of them actually have the Cubs going to the WS for the NL another 3 have the D-Backs and another 3 have the Braves. Now I know most of you aren't familiar with the NL but those are 3 OK teams that chances are one MIGHT make the playoffs. Yet they represent 50% of ESPN's calls!
At least for the AL they are represented by good teams at least going in. This is why I always say don't get worked up over what these guys have to say about your team because they don't know any more than any of us!
Nudge,
I don't pay attention to their predictions in the first place - but it seals it for me when I hear the rational behind picking the Braves to win the East as "no one is talking aobut the Braves."
As for picking the Cubs to win the WS - it's the same rational behind why they kept picking Boston. The law of averages says it has to happen some time and they want to be on the record when it does.
Take it from someone who has made his fair share of predictions - they are for entertainment purposes only.
ESPN should hire an "expert" to for every team in the MLB. Then each of them could pick a WS winner and ESPN could advertise it's prowess by saying "As predicted on ESPN, The (place team name here) have won the World Series!"
I don't know why I bash ESPN though....I'd die without it.
For those of you too young to remember, there was a time when we had to wait until 11 PM for some sports guy like Warner Wolf to say "The Yanks won tonight 3-2" sometimes you'd get lucky and he'd throw in "and other winners include Detroit, Chicago, Oakland, KC" etc.