Winter Meetings Notes

Lots have happened since last we spoke. Indeed, it seems that if you don't show up at your Blogger office for more than a month, they set your page to show a random someone's Twitter feed. I got a guy from Connecticut. The page's Twitter feed will return if/when it's fixed--until then, if you want to follow me in 140-character doses, you can just go directly to www.twitter.com/derekbaseball .

Ain't It Grand?

The big baseball news, for the Yankees at least, was yesterday's three-way trade with the Tigers and Diamondbacks, which is reportedly done, pending physicals. The Yanks gave up Austin Jackson and Phil Coke to the Detroit, and Ian Kennedy to Arizona. In return, they got center fielder Curtis Granderson, and his sweetheart contract (3 more years, at under $28MM).

It's a hard deal to not like. Granderson's spent the last two years coming down from his career season in 2007, but he still shows decent patience (72 BB in 710 PA) and good pop in his bat (.204 isolated power). Depending on whose metrics you believe, he's either a good or very good center fielder. Either way, by pushing the Melky/Brett Gardner duo to left, he'll improve an outfield that featured Johnny Damon's diminished range and noodle arm. He puts the Yankees in a position where they could sign either Damon or Hideki Matsui--but not both--for the DH slot, or they could go another way entirely. With Granderson, they also have the option of sitting out the Jason Bay and Matt Holliday free agent auctions, if they prefer. It's a real Brian Cashman move.

Meanwhile, the package they gave up for Granderson is extremely fair for a former elite player who's had some of the shine taken off him by declining production (he's a bit like Nick Swisher that way). As Boston.com's Pete Abraham (dang, does it feel weird to say that) pointed out, Austin Jackson may be a nice prospect, but his best case scenario is to someday give a team pretty much what Granderson will give you in the here and now. Phil Coke was a fringe prospect two years ago, prior to his meteoric rise (why do we say that? meteors don't rise, they fall) to the majors. Despite his ascension to top lefty on the best team in baseball, Coke was limited by his gopherball issues (12 homers in 62 2/3 IP, counting the postseason). He had value, but let's not get carried away. And Ian Kennedy? I'm still convinced he's a major league pitcher, and the NL West will be a good place for him. But he was never going to establish himself with the Yankees. He just didn't have the kind of upside that would justify the frustrations the Yankees had with him, even before he lost much of last season to injury. Good luck to him.

Moves and Maneuvers

The lower-case news of the Yankees' Winter Meeting are a maintenance of the status quo--Andy Pettitte getting a one-year deal, worth just under $12 million--and Brian Bruney being cast down among the sodomites on the Washington Nationals roster. Pettitte showed last season there's stuff left in the tank--heck, he was stronger in the second half than the first. It's a good idea to have him back, and if the price is not making him sweat a bunch of incentives, that's just "Thank you for another World Championship." The general rule is that there's no such thing as a bad one-year deal, particularly when you have the Yankees' resources.

As for Bruney, in Game One of the World Series he reminded everyone of the old adage, "don't put anyone on the World Series roster you wouldn't want to use in a World Series game" (the Jeff Weaver Rule, as I like to call it). When Bruney came to the Yanks, he was a rare example of the team trying to acquire and develop low-cost talent, and to some extent, it worked. The Yankees turned a player with no value into a guy who's worth the first pick in the Rule 5 draft, and at times during his Yankee tenure he was worth more than that. Sadly, it turned out the conditioning issues that soured the D'Backs on Bruney in the first place weren't his only problems--you never knew what was jogging in from the bullpen when Bruney pitched. Sometimes, he'd be a beast in a high-leverage situation, blowing fastballs past the heart of the Red Sox order. Other times, he'd nibble, lose the strike zone, and generally pour gasoline on the fire. Like Kennedy--who basically stole a save opportunity from Bruney in the season's final days--you just got the feeling that Bruney was more trouble to the Yanks than he was worth. He joins the Nationals, where his personality quirks will seem mild by comparison to his fellow inmates.

Gammo's Gone (from Bristol)

The other Winter Meetings news from yesterday was first surprising, then not. In short order, it was announced that Jack Curry had accepted a buyout from the New York Times, and then that Peter Gammons was leaving ESPN, as of the end of the meetings. The Gammons story was open-ended and sudden, so it wasn't certain if he was leaving the Worldwide Leader for another opportunity, or just leaving. A short time later, surprise turned into, "Oh, that makes sense," when the MLB Network announced that Gammons would be joining their team.

The ESPN story on this was titled "Gammons Ends Hall of Fame Run with ESPN." The title is technically correct, as Gammons got the coveted Spink Award in 2005, while a member of the ESPN family. But to me, it felt a little like saying, in 1996, that Wade Boggs had "finished his Hall of Fame run with the Yankees." Gammons was a Hall of Famer before he first joined the Bristol crew in 1989.

He changed the game with his Sunday columns for the Boston Globe, which was basically a weekly report on the state of the game, with a mild-to-heavy Red Sox tilt. I remember going to the newsstand with Joe Sheehan in high school, to pick up Baseball America, which ran the column in an abbreviated form, a couple of weeks after it ran in the Globe. We'd get together with friends to play Strat-o-Matic baseball and the issue of BA would slowly make its way around the room, everyone opening the paper to Gammons's column--sometimes it was the only thing in BA worth reading, almost always it was the only thing in BA we would talk about. When I went to college in Boston, it was a shock to open up the Sunday Globe and find a baseball column that was almost twice as long as what would later appear in BA. I actually tore that page out of the paper (the column took up an entire page!) and mailed it to Brother Joe in California.

This was a big deal in the pre-Internet days. You didn't have every sports section in America at your fingertips 24/7 back then, so a guy who once a week could tell you about what was happening everywhere in baseball was an invaluable resource--and Gammons was the first and best at it. If Gammons had quit baseball in 1988, he still would have been one of the best baseball writers of his generation. Still, he continued to blaze trails with ESPN, particularly when his writing went exclusive to ESPN.com. He was--I think--the first major sportswriter to abandon print to work exclusively online. Between him and Rob Neyer there was a stretch when ESPN's baseball page was the online destination that you had to check every day, multiple times a day.

For me my appetite for Gammons's writing slacked off a bit when he went behind ESPN's pay wall. The tremendous quantity and quality of sports writing available online in the middle of this decade made one writer--even a great one--falling by the wayside less stunning than it would have been in the late 80s or early 90s. Competitors, like Ken Rosenthal, started outhustling him on the phones, breaking more news, real or rumored. In general, people became less tolerant of the Gammons-style reporting of rumors, now that the Internet's full of them.

Even if he's lost a bit off his fastball, Gammons is like Andy Pettitte--he can still bring it well enough that he's welcome on my team. Here's wishing him the best of luck on the MLB Network (and, to a much lesser extent, on Red Sox-owned NESN).

Sabado Gigante!

A quick breakdown of the Yankees' Arbitration asked/offered, and some notes. In reverse order of how interesting they are:

Brian Bruney: Asks: $845,000, Offered: $640,000

In the bigger scheme of things, $205,000 doesn't seem like a lot of money in Yankeeland, so this should settle. But, looked at another way, the Yankees are offering about 24% less than Bruney's asking--so in his world, this is pretty big. A bigger question is whether there's any room for Bruney in the Yankee bullpen, regardless of what pricepoint he receives.

Chien Ming Wang -- Asks: $4.6MM, Offered: $4MM

This settles. Has to. I'd think that the Yanks would be well-served to try to make a long-term deal here, but if not, they're still only $600,000 away on a bargain of a contract.

Robinson Cano -- Asks: $4.55MM, Offered: $3.2MM

Now, at $1.35 million, these folks are far enough apart that you don't just say "split the difference." The Yanks' figure seems criminally low for a player who might be the best-hitting second baseman in the AL, over the last two years; but it's important to remember that Cano, like Wang, is a "Super Two" arbitration-eligible player, who has less than 3 full years' playing time. As such, he's at a lower level of arbitration than a player with more playing time--still, it's hard to see the Yanks winning this arbitration, or the settlement turning out closer to their figure. Still, it's worth a second look.

NOTES:

Nice profile of Humberto Sanchez over at the MiLB.com site. Prospects tend to drop off the radar after they've had surgery, and the Yanks seem to have more pitching prospects recently under the knife than anyone else. Good to keep up.

Wilson Betemit is back with the club, with a $1.15MM contract. It's been a while since the team had a useful, legitimate four-position utility infielder, and Betemit gives them that. Like a number of other Yankees, he's vulnerable against lefthanded pitching--that's why the team is dishing out minor league contracts to guys like Jason Lane, and should consider approaching Chris Shelton, if he makes it through waivers.

This year, Time Warner Cable has finally given me my ESPN Deportes, which means that I'm mainlining winter league ball. Right now, my ancestral team, Licey, is getting rolled by their arch-rivals, las Agulas del Cibao, in the Dominican League finals. The Aguilas are up 3-0 in a best of nine, on the strength of an offensive explosion. Yankee Edwar Ramirez is with Licey and he took a whupping in the first game of the series; former Yankees playing in the series include Luis Polonia patrolling the outfield and Randy Choate coming out of the bullpen for the Aguilas, Wil Nieves playing behind the plate and D'Angelo Jimenez backing up in the infield for Licey. Check it out, if you have the chance.

Option B

"Beeeeeware the Pavano!"

A ghostly voice woke me in the night. The radiator in the bedroom was going full-blast, and I woke up in a sweat, as if I had a fever. Carl Pavano? Where?

After looking around and making sure that Can't Pitch Carl wasn't in the bedroom, threatening myself and La Chiquita with grievous bodily harm. I settled back down for some rest. What the heck was that about?

"Beware the Paavaaaaanoooooo!"

I woke back up, peeved. What Pavano? And why did the ghostly voice think that moaning out a different word in the sentence would make me more likely to heed its call? I mean, for the first time in three years, I was finally over my Pavano issues--Carl had his Tommy John surgery in June, and it seemed like the timing of that was so that the Yankees could ensure he'd never again pitch in a Yankee uniform (since even people with normal healing times usually take more than 15 months to come back from ligament replacement). The Yanks would keep him on the roster, get back whatever they could in insurance money, and then we could put one of the worst free agent signings ever behind us, forever.

"Beware the..."

I swear, if I found that ghostly voice I was gonna bust him upside the head. What damn...

Oh! And then I got it: this was about the Johan Santana non-deal.

The Yankees now swear up and down that they won't pursue Santana. After Hank Steinbrenner's ultimatum--the kind of peevish complaint guaranteed to inspire rebellion, if not veiled accusations of tampering--the Yankees and Twins were unable to settle on a third prospect in the great Santana hunt of 2007. The Bronx Bombers' main rivals (in this and seemingly everything else), the Red Sox, seem to have also struck out in the short term. The Yanks are saying all the right thing about sticking with their youth movement on the mound. But even if the Melky and Hughes for Santana deal is off the table, there's still danger lurking in the weeds.

It's Option B, better known as Oakland A's pitcher Danny Haren. Or as my mind has been thinking about him since the ghostly visitation...the Pavano.

I know that's not quite a fair comparison. Haren's a really good pitcher, who's been extraordinarily resilient over the last three years:

YEAR NAME AGE W L IP SO9 RA+ SNLVAR
2005 Dan Haren 24 14 12 217 6.76 1.13 5.2
2006 Dan Haren 25 14 13 223 7.1 1.11 5.3
2007 Dan Haren 26 15 9 222.7 7.76 1.30 6.3

(Yes, I've written this blog for four years, and I still can't figure out how to make a table look good. Sorry.)

But then again, Pavano was also a pretty good pitcher in the couple of years before he choked us under a veil of tears joined the Yankees:

YEAR NAME AGE W L IP SO9 RA+ SNLVAR
2003 Carl Pavano 27 12 13 201 5.96 1.02 5.2
2004 Carl Pavano 28 18 8 222.3 5.63 1.42 7

He was really good. He just wasn't the best available. That year, the offseason after the 2004 ALCS disaster, the best starter available was Pedro Martinez, late of the Red Sox. The Mets picked him up, and the Yankees settled for the next best thing, Pavano. There were things to commend Pavano over Martinez. Martinez had known health issues, and was older. If you'd asked who was the safer bet to receive a four-year deal, Pavano from ages 29-32 or Pedro from ages 33-36, you'd probably answer, the young guy without arm trouble. Still, even if Pedro doesn't pitch another inning at Shea, you'd have to say that the Mets got more mileage out of the $53 million they gave Martinez than the Yanks got out of the $40 million they gave Pavano.

Back to Haren. Billy Beane is a smart guy. He has a very good young pitcher, Haren, signed to a nice, below-market contract ($9.5 MM over the next two years, $6.75 MM club option for 2010). Why would he want to trade away a guy like this?

It's because of the market that Johan Santana has created. Santana isn't just a good pitcher, he's the best pitcher. A lot of people have supposedly been scared off by Santana's reported contract demands, but there's a hunger for what he brings to the table. He's not just a #1 pitcher, he's the #1 pitcher. The ace of aces. Only a handful of hurlers can claim to be in his company--Josh Beckett, Jake Peavy, Brandon Webb, Roy Oswalt, C.C. Sabathia, maybe Justin Verlander--and none of those guys have his performance record. Haren isn't part of that group, he's in the next group, which includes young guys like Felix Hernandez, Erik Bedard, Chien Ming Wang, Cole Hamels, Scott Kazmir, and a few others,* who are close to that elite level but just fall short, or haven't yet proven they can do it consistently enough to be one of those "once in a generation" type pitchers. Like Martinez, Clemens, and Randy Johnson were in their respective primes. Like Santana is now.

When a pitcher like Santana is available, guys you've long considered untouchable become...touchable. If you have to surrender a Phil Hughes, or Jon Lester, or Clay Buchholz, or Clayton Kershaw, you grit your teeth and do it. Those guys may have the potential to become the next Santana or Peavy or Beckett, but there's value in knowing that you have someone who's already made it to that level, who's survived grind of operating at as an ace year in and year out.

So if Beane is making Haren available, it's because he hopes to let the Twins do the hard work, loosening GM's fingers off their best prospects as everyone vies to get the best pitcher in baseball. And then, once everyone's gotten used to the idea that Hughes isn't untouchable, that Lester or Jacoby Ellsbury can be had, then Beane can sweep in and market Haren, as the best pitcher available not named Santana. And it's not that hard to talk yourself into this idea: Haren's pretty good, and his contract is small-market friendly, and for all I know he's super-kind to children and animals. But he's not Johan Santana--he's just the next best thing.

Forget Pavano, which is pretty much a fighting word in any Yankee fan's vocabulary. Last year, the best pitcher available was Daisuke Matsuzaka. The Yanks were outbid, handily, on the posting fee for the best talent out there, but they settled for Option B--Kei Igawa. Last year, the Yanks paid about $30 million (the posting fee plus Igawa-san's salary) for Dr. Kei to pitch more innings in the minors (77 1/3) than in the majors (67 2/3). Sometimes the best move is not to make a move at all.


[* NOTE: Before anyone complains about that list of second-tier #1 pitchers, I'm not counting guys who are on the wrong side of 30. Many of them--John Smoltz, Tim Hudson, A.J. Burnett, Roy Halladay--can be just as good as any of the guys I've listed, but likely wouldn't have the same trade value.]

Week in Review: Healthy Homestand

Week 18: July 30-August 5, 2007

Record for the Week: 5-1, 64 RS, 31 RA
Overall: 61-50, 1/2 game behind Detroit for the Wild Card

The Rundown:

7/31 -- White Sox 3, Yankees 16
When the White Sox had their amazing year in 2005, the most shocking thing about it was Jose Contreras suddenly turning into a stud pitcher, perhaps even the ace of their staff. It's like he decided, "Wow, I made it out of Yankee Stadium with the Yankees' money. Time not to suck anymore!" So seeing him get shelled by the Bombers in the Bronx was not just a welcome sight, it was like a restoration of the natural order of things.

8/1 -- White Sox 1, Yankees 8
Quietly, Andy Pettitte's thrown four straight quality starts, after a suspect stretch in late June/early July. Over the first two games of the White Sox series, the Yanks had 13 home runs.

8/2 -- White Sox 13, Yankees 9
The requisite letdown game. The Yankee bats remained potent, Wilson Betemit went yard in his first Yankee at-bat, but sadly, Roger Clemens was throwing batting practice. He allowed an eight spot in the second inning and had to be relieved with two outs. Bad, bad, ugly loss.

8/3 -- Kansas City 1, Yankees 7
How popular is Chien Ming Wang in Taiwan? Recently a Taiwanese presidential candidate visited the Stadium, and wanted to meet Wang, have a photo op, that kind of thing. Apparently, Wang wouldn't meet the guy--nothing personal, he just didn't want to influence the results of the election!

8/4 -- Kansas City 8, Yankees 16
There'd been a moment in late in Thursday night's game when one of the Royals' relievers started off Alex Rodriguez with a fastball down and in--the perfect pitch for Alex to drive--which he took for a strike. With two on in the first inning of Saturday's game, I saw KC's catcher setting up on the inside corner, and announced "here it comes" to my wife, just before Rodriguez crushed his 500th homer. There was a brief, shining moment of well-being in the Yankee fan community--the 500 homer monkey was off Alex's back, Phil Hughes was back on the mound and looking good, everything was right with the world. Reality ultimately intruded--Hughes got roughed up and didn't make it through five, the Yanks had to scramble to put up another football score for the win--but it was a nice moment.


8/5 -- Kansas City 5, Yankees 8
Hideki Matsui hits a milestone--he's only 400 homers behind Rodriguez in his MLB career--and Bobby Abreu has his fourth three-hit game of the week.

Player of the Week: Bobby Abreu went nuts on the White Sox and Royals, to the tune of .600/.667/1.050 with 3 HR and 9 RBI. Robinson Cano hit .478/.556/1.087, also with three homers and nine RBI. Jorge Posada hit .444/.575/1.111 with three homers, and also homering three times was Hideki Matsui (.348/.407/.783). In addition to that, Chien Ming Wang, Andy Pettitte and Mike Mussina all had good starts.

Dregs of the Week: Clemens, easy. You want more? Mike Myers managed to convince Joe Torre that the team doesn't need a LOOGY anymore, and Kyle Farnsworth has gotten to the point where I'm starting to wonder if he's intentionally doing poorly, just out of spite. Farnsworth's driving me crazy...I don't even enjoy hating him anymore.

Here's an idea. Let's all pretend we don't hate him anymore. Stop booing the second he warms up. Be supportive of the big lug. We seem to be stuck with him, and wishing a horrific demise upon him hasn't been working for us Yankee fans. So how about a 180 degrees different approach, a group hug-type thing? I'll try it:

Hang in there Kyle! We got ya back!

God, that felt unnatural. But sometimes you gotta take one for the team.

Story of the Week: Slowly this team is turning into what was expected--and just in time, because after this week's series in Toronto, things get tough--three games against AL Central leading Cleveland, then home for three against Baltimore, then a nightmare stretch with four at home against Wild Card leader Detroit, then out to Los Angeles of Anaheim for three against the hated Angels, then to Detroit for four more games, then back to the Bronx to play three against the Red Sox. That stretch right there is the crucible of this season, where the whole thing will fly or founder, to mix metaphors. The season won't be finished , by any means, but it's likely that the Yankees will only have six games against contenders in September.

So August would, notionally, be harder.

The team is drawing pretty close to full strength. Phil Hughes is back--had a tough start, but I'm not down on him. Joba's due this week, and Giambi might be back by the end of the week. One Yankee who won't be with this team is Mike Myers, who was waived to make room for Jim Brower, of all people. I got an email from Joe Sheehan on this when it was announced that gave me pause:

I hate the seven-man bullpen, but what the hell? Myers not only does the LOOGY thing as well as anyone alive, but he'd taken on the role of mop-up man without bitching.

If they actually made this move because of a short-term blip in his LHB BA against, they're all idiots.

Mike Myers has faced appx. 82 LHBs and struck out 18 of them, walking nine and allowing one HR.

Ron Villone has faced appx. 48 LHBs and struck out THREE of them, walking three and allowing two HR.

Sean Henn (demoted Saturday) has faced appx. 44 LHBs and struck out FIVE of them, walking four and allowing one HR.

Now, Joe's absolutely right--if you're going to keep one of the team's lefthanders, between Myers, Henn and Villone, I don't see where Villone is the pick. Unlike Myers, Villone isn't really a lefty-killing type lefty--his delivery doesn't contain a lot of deception--he has a worse track record than Myers, he was a guy who couldn't find a job with another club in Spring Training...it just doesn't make sense. Meanwhile, Myers' problems with lefthanders come down to a .390 BABIP, which is frequently stathead shorthand for "bad luck." Myers has been DFA'd, which means there's a chance that the Yankees will be able to deal him rather than just releasing him; you'd have to think that a number of contenders looking for a LOOGY would be interested.

Maybe they get some value for him. But honestly, this looks like a huge waste. The only counterpoint in the Yanks favor has been that Myers' 2.50 ERA aside, he hasn't looked good against lefties--they look like they've been hitting him pretty squarely. The fact that Myers has been more effective against righthanders than lefthanders as a Yankee is actually a strike against him, as a guy who was brought on to be the Yankees' LOOGY. He never really had a chance for a larger role like Mike Stanton played back in the day.

Hopefully, the electronic "ink" I've spilled just now about this guy will far outweigh the contribution Myers would have made down the stretch and in the playoffs, even under the best of circumstances.

Seeeing the Hughes Half-Full

All the plans were to be protective of Philip Hughes. The number two prospect in the minors last year--pretty close to a consensus, although Delmon Young and Homer Bailey may still want to be heard on that issue--Hughes is a guy that a lot of teams would have had up in the Show last year, when he was beating the everlovin' crap out of the Florida State and Eastern Leagues. But the Yankees had different plans, particularly after the wunderkind's control abandoned him during Spring Training. Hughes would get the Yankees' full course of patience--spending most, if not all the season in lovely Scranton, PA. It was possible he'd get a September call-up, but the Yanks figured they'd picked up so much pitching depth that if he was called up, it wouldn't be out of necessity.

Fast forward to mid-April (trust me, it doesn't take long) and the depth is toast. I've already talked about 60% of the rotation going down to injury--if there's one thing that Hughes's call-up tells us, is that the Yanks maybe aren't too optimistic that Carl Pavano will return quickly from his latest owie. Then there's been the none-too-inspiring early returns on Kei Igawa. There's the injury to Karstens and the general ineffectiveness of Karstens and his baseball twin Darrell Rasner. There was the rushing of Chase Wright to the majors after two career starts above A ball.

Down on the farm, bad things have been happening. Last Wednesday Humberto Sanchez, the top pitcher (and boogie-down Bronx native) the Yanks picked up for Gary Sheffield, had ligament replacement surgery for his pitching elbow. He joins Christian Garcia and Mark Melancon among the top Yankees prospects to have "Tommy John" surgery in the last few months, and J.B. Cox makes for an even four Yanks prospects to have elbow surgery.

Of the remaining healthy advanced pitching prospects in the Yanks system, the early returns haven't been awe-inspiring. Tyler Clippard has a 5.12 ERA at AAA, and Ross Ohlendorf has walked more guys (14 in 20 IP) than he's struck out (12). Steven Jackson couldn't get out of the fourth inning of his last start. Other than Hughes, Matt DeSalvo is the only starter pitching well at Scranton--but giving how low he is on the prospect totem pole, DeS is going to have to
show his stuff for a while longer before the Yanks believe he's major league ready.

So the Phil Hughes era starts on Thursday.

In addition to forcing the Yanks' hand into bringing up Hughes now, Sanchez and the others' elbow injuries reinforce an idea--that pitchers are largely on borrowed time, and sometimes the best you can do is get major league innings out of them while they're still effective. That's a rather dark take on carpe diem, I know, but the point is, if Phil Hughes could be getting major league hitters out now--and there's plenty to indicate that he's ready to do so--then what's he doing in the International League, other than running up the odometer?

****

It's rainy and cool today in New York, and I'm hoping they can get the game in. After the Yanks' disastrous two-game set in Tampa Bay, Andy Pettitte could do Hughes a real favor by winning tonight. It's enough pressure to be the Golden Child, the savior of baseball's most storied franchise. It's quite another to make your first major league start with the pressure of having to end a five- or six-game losing streak on your shoulders.

Notes from a Backlog of Newspapers

* I missed his appearance tonight, but Kei Igawa's walkitudinous ways are a bit scary. More interesting was watching Tyler Clippard throw a few innings after ol' Dr. Kei exhausted his pitch count with four walks and five strikeouts in three scoreless innings. Clippard allowed one run in two and a third pitched, the run coming on a solo shot Chipper Jones absolutely nuked over the rightfield fence. The homer aside, Clippard looked impressive, throwing his 91 MPH heat up and over the plate as if he were Roger Clemens, and featuring a nice changeup (well, nice changeups aside from the one Chipper hit halfway to Miami).

* Clippard was demoted after the game, which is less a reflection of his performance than a reflection that there are only two weeks of Grapefruit action left, and the Yanks have a ton of righthanded pitchers vying for only a couple of slots. With Jeff Karstens tossing zeroes, there was simply no room for Clippard in the inn.

* A-Rod talks to the New York media so much, I actually worry about his health and safety. Alex should heed the Errol Morris axiom, "Let someone talk for long enough, and eventually they'll hang themselves." He's said he sucked. He's talked about his relationship with Jeter, or lack thereof. Now he's saying that it's "Do or die." Whatever. It's all so much noise.

I mean, we all get the points that Rodriguez is trying to make: 1) he's not forswearing his right to opt out of his contract after this season (he'd be an absolute and total sucker to do so) and 2) just because he's keeping his option(s) open, doesn't mean he doesn't want to stay in New York, with the Yankees. Everything else he says is a reiteration, repetition, or rephrasing of those two points, with a few variations. Enough, already!

* Sadly, Richard Jeni made his own health and safety a moot issue, committing suicide last week. Jeni was one of my favorite standups of the late 80s and 90s, I'll miss him for that. Another one of my favorites from that era, Elayne Boosler, remembers him as a friend in the Huffington Post; Scott Long, whose act I've never seen, but whose blog I read regularly, has a much less sentimental take (at some point in the comments section, it kinda becomes Please Explain: Suicide).

* So far, the biggest non-A-Rod stirs at Yankee Camp happened because Roger Clemens decided to attend a game--as a spectator, mind you--and because Carl Pavano's girlfriend had an unspecified health situation. I think that can speak for itself.

* Best at bat of the spring: Jose Tabata's opposite field dinger on Sunday. Just a really nice flash of strength, to give us something to think about while we wait for him to be ready for the Show.

* Pete Rose used to say he never bet on baseball. Then he admitted he bet on baseball. Now he claims he bet on the Reds, every day. I suppose it's a form of justice that by now Rose has told so many lies (and the truth is so underwhelming) that no one really gives a damn anymore. Used to be that every year, around HoF election time, a dedicated and noisy group would gnash their teeth about the big injustice being done to the Hit King. Haven't really heard a peep from that crowd since Rose's book came out a couple of years ago (and as an added bonus, they seem to have taken the "Free Shoeless Joe!" lobby down with them).

Over the next few years, I think what we'll get from Rose is a series of increasingly desperate confessions in the hope that one of them will finally trigger the American public's forgiveness, until eventually he's confessing to stuff like the Kennedy assassination, the murders of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown, and fixing Ali-Liston II. Not that anyone will care about that, either.

* The wonderful, synergistic relationship between MLB and Viagra appears to be over, which I think is just the kind of victory over artificial performance enhancers that the league needs. This relationship was doomed from the beginning, given that MLB's first Viagra pitchman was Raffy Palmeiro.

A Week of Grapefruit League

Sorry for the delays. I've been flagged for neglect of blog, but there's been a lot of peripheral stuff going on that merits its own post.

In the meanwhile, we've had baseball. What passes for it, anyway, in Spring Training. I'm happy that baseball's back, but Spring Training has a limited appeal. Wins and losses don't matter; the pace is, to put it bluntly, lazy; the play is often sloppy. I have never been to Spring Training in person, and I've often wondered if being in the ballpark would make a difference here. Still, what Spring Training action really allows you to do is get an introduction to all the new guys on your ballclub--be they prospects, people acquired in trade, whatever. I've gotten to watch parts of a number of the Yanks' Grapefruit games, and here are a few first impressions of pitchers:

Phil Hughes -- Not to rip off Larry Mahnken, but from time to time I've caught myself calling Hughes "the Precious." Hughes' debut last Thursday was hardly the stuff that dreams are made of--his control was off, and the curve wasn't as sharp as we've been told--but it was enough to make you daydream him into pinstripes, rather than the blue pullovers they use in Spring Training. On Tuesday--a game I didn't get to see--he pitched two clean innings. Hughes was just named Baseball America's #4 prospect in baseball (behind Daisuke Matsuzaka, Alex Gordon, and Delmon Young); John Sickels did one his "crystal ball" projections on Hughes, which put Hughes at roughly the same career numbers as David Cone.

I think we'd take that :)

Kei Igawa -- Erratic first start, striking out three and walking three in an inning-plus on Monday. Stuff was pretty much the same as in his exhibition start against the major league All-Stars; lots of working up in the zone with the fastball, nice breaking pitch. In the broadcast, they repeated the meme that he's a thinner David Wells, and I don't see it. Wells works very differently--off-hand, I'd say he establishes the big overhand curve more than Igawa does his own three-quarters breaking pitch--and Boomer has a lot more precision with his pitches than we've seen from Igawa, yet.

Jeff Kennard -- Not too excited about him, on Monday he came in in relief of Igawa and showed a fairly straight fastball and poor command. It'd be nice to see him under better circumstances, rather than coming in with a man on--but those are the kind of circumstances he'd likely face if he makes it to the Show this season.

Steven Jackson -- Also not impressive. Kept the ball on the ground, but looked fairly generic overall. He'll have to do a lot to stand out in the large corps of young righthanded pitchers the Yanks have on the verge of the majors.

Chris Britton -- Looks like a young Bob Wickman--y'know, before the Wick started hitting those all-you-can eat buffets. Nice movement on his fastball, good slider, thought I saw a changeup in there.

Luis Vizcaino -- I know I've seen this guy pitch elsewhere, but honest, I can't remember him. Interesting arm angle, definitely knows how to pitch, but the stuff didn't look too amazing. People keep talking about the backup catcher battle (a yawner in which I favor Todd Pratt over Wil Nieves and Raul Chaves) and the backup/platoon 1st base...I don't know if you can even call this a fight, given that Andy Phillips now lags Josh Phelps by a week. The real interesting fight of this camp is that the Yanks have about ten relievers in camp who could break camp, and can take eight, max (man, are 13-man bullpens depressing...) A biggish trade is going to have to happen (or a convenient DL stay) because not all these guys can go north with the big team. Again, this topic probably deserves a post of its own down the line.

Prospectus: Hughes 2nd Best Prospect in Baseball

Yeah, I've blown the top story with my headline, but Baseball Prospectus has released its yearly top prospects list, this time a top 100, and things look pretty good for the Yankees. Phil Hughes comes in second behind Royals hitting machine Alex Gordon and ahead of last year's #1 the Devil Rays' Delmon Young. This is the highest ranking by a Yankee since Nick Johnson was Prospectus's top prospect in 2000, and probably the highest ranking since the Little Unit, Ryan Anderson, taught Mariners fans the meaning of TINSTAAPP after topping the 2001 rankings.

Further on down the line, Jose Tabata checks in at #22 on the rankings, followed by Joba Chamberlain at #56, Humberto Sanchez at #65, Dellin Betances at #92, and Tyler Clippard as an honorable mention. Before you get too excited by the number of players from the Yanks that made the list, remember that BP doubled its top prospects rankings this year, from 50 to 100, only a couple of years after moving up from their traditional top 40. Chamberlain would have been an honorable mention, at best, under last year's system, and Sanchez, Betances, and Clippard wouldn't have been mentioned at all; so this still definitely ranks behind the 2000 prospects list, when Johnson was #1, D'Angelo Jimenez #16, and Alfonso Soriano #33.

[ASIDE: Yep, there was a time--particularly, but not exclusively, before he broke his neck, that we liked Jimenez more than Soriano. And I wonder, had Prospectus and all the other prospect hounds known that Sori was two years older than he claimed, if he would've ranked anywhere at all. Fast forward to February, 2007, and Johnson's an above-average, but not elite, first baseman, Jimenez is a non-roster invitee, and Soriano's sitting on a $136 million contract. None of them are Yankees. The world's a funny place.]

One of the reasons that the BP list has expanded is because it's now in the capable hands of Kevin Goldstein, who has really improved BP's prospects coverage. Still, as cool as Kevin is and as much fun as it's been working with him is, I kind of miss the old days of the Prospectus Prospects roundtables, where the whole gang would put their two bits in concerning the prospects lists, often leading to some interesting tangents and vicious battle royales.

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Elsewhere in Yankeedom, not much is happening. Well, Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter are talking about their relationship, which gives you an idea of the level of news we're talking about. I'd like to thank the Metropolitan area news corps for treating us to a homoerotic undertone in their coverage. Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you. Just it doesn't have much to do with baseball.

Perhaps of marginally higher significance, Carl Pavano recently had to sit out with "heavy legs." It's gonna be a an up-and-down ride with Can't Play Carl this season, if we're lucky. Otherwise, like last season, it will simply be a down-and-down ride. Pavano's already had his own relationship subplot this pre-season with Mike Mussina. Any second now, I expect to see the headline "Pavano: Pinstripes Make My Butt Look Big."

Pinstriped Prospect Top 10s

Baseball Prospectus's Kevin Goldstein has released his top 10 Yankee prospects list for 2007, joining Baseball America and John Sickels, the other major players in the prospects game. Here are the lists, in reverse chronological order of release (in BP and BA, the lists are available to the public, but the articles detailing the choices are pay articles):

Baseball Prospectus (Kevin Goldstein, January 28, 2007):

Excellent Prospects
1. Philip Hughes, rhp
2. Jose Tabata, rf
Very Good Prospects
3. Joba Chamberlain, rhp
4. Humberto Sanchez, rhp
5. Dellin Betances, rhp
Good Prospects
6. Kevin Whelan, rhp
Average Prospects
7. Tyler Clippard, rhp
8. J. Brent Cox, rhp
9. Ian Kennedy, rhp
10. Alberto Gonzalez, ss


Minor League Ball (John Sickels, January 7, 2007)

1. Phil Hughes, RHP, Grade A
   
2. Jose Tabata, OF, Grade B+
   
3. Humberto Sanchez, RHP, Grade B+
   
4. Joba Chamberlain, RHP, B
   
5. Tyler Clippard, RHP, B
   
6. Dellin Betances, RHP, B
   
7. J. Brent Cox, RHP, B
   
8. George Kontos, RHP, B-
   
9. Christian Garcia, RHP, B-
   
10. Ian Kennedy, RHP, B-

Baseball America (John Manuel, November 8, 2007)

1.	Philip Hughes, rhp
2.	Jose Tabata, of
3.	Dellin Betances, rhp
4.	Joba Chamberlain, rhp
5.	Ian Kennedy, rhp
6.	Chris Garcia, rhp
7.	Tyler Clippard, rhp
8.	J. Brent Cox, rhp
9.	Mark Melancon, rhp
10.	Brett Gardner, of

All three lists agree on the Yankees' top two prospects, Phil Hughes and Jose Tabata, with just about everyone in agreement that Hughes is one of the very top prospects in baseball. The lists would likely agree on Humberto Sanchez as one of the Yanks' top four prospects if Baseball America had gone to press after the Sheffield trade, rather than before. Another side effect of BA's early press date (and the fact that they're a print publication) is that starter Christian Garcia and reliever Mark Malencon are on their list, but missing from the two others--BA's list was posted about a week after Malencon had Tommy John surgery and a month before Garcia had a TJ of his own, which will set both prospects back a year or more in their development.

What everyone agrees on, other than the top two, is that the Yanks' system is stronger than in previous years--last year, Sickels only gave out three grades over B-, this year six prospects made it--and that the organization's strength is righthanded pitching. The only consensus top ten position prospect is Tabata. Outfielder Brett Gardner is highly featured on all three lists (he's #16 on Sickels and an honorable mention for Goldstein), and Alberto Gonzalez, the shortstop from the Randy Johnson trade, also gets some play (#15 on Sickels). Beyond that, the pickings are slim--guys like Eric Duncan, Austin Jackson, Marcos Vechionacci, and Bronson Sardinha aren't getting the prospect hounds terribly excited anymore.

Randy and Minky: Ships Passing in the Night?

I started hearing the rumors just before 4:00 on Prospectus's internal mailing list, that the Yanks and D'Backs had agreed to a package of players in return for one Randall David Johnson. By the time I got home to check things out, the story was being reported by MLB.com, just with less certainty about the names involved. A short while later, it was on ESPN--confirmations on the names, and that Arizona and Johnson had entered one of those 72 hour negotiating periods--y'know, the ones made infamous a few off-seasons ago when Boston was trying to deal for A-Rod--that meant a deal was in place, just awaiting financial negotiations between the team and player to convince Johnson to waive his no-trade clause.

No one expects Johnson's 72 hours to stretch over more than a week, like the A-Rod negotiations did back in 2003-2004. Newsday's convinced that Johnson's already reached a "back-channel" agreement with his old team on the terms under which they'll reunite. No one is taking these negotiations as a real barrier.

So for all intents and purposes, it's possible that this is a done deal. So let's look at what the Yankees get:

Luis Vizcaino -- A righthanded reliever (yeah, another one), Vizcaino's the veteran portion of the Yanks' haul. Veteran, as in, he's 32 years old, with about seven major league seasons under his belt. He's pitched 410 career innings, all of them in relief. Started out a hard-thrower in the Oakland system, and that's been pretty much his calling card throughout his career. Had some gopherball problems early in his career that he seems to have put in check as he's gotten older. If this deal goes through, Vizcaino's the fifth righty in the pen, sixth if you rank Britton ahead of him, which wouldn't be unreasonable. Hard throwing Dominican reliever coming into his age-32 season? Haven't we seen this before? Steve Phillips, who's been on this story for ESPN, could tell you from experience--trying to corner the market on middle relievers never works. Heck, at least when Phillips tried it with the Mets, he was hoarding lefties, which are relatively rare...

The three prospects alleged to come along with Vizcaino all played most of their ball last season at AA:

Ross Ohlendorf -- Because Mientkiewicz wasn't hard enough to spell, I suppose. Big righthander, with a big fastball but no reliable secondary pitch, which projects him--wait for it--as a reliever. That means the 24 year old joins the teeming righthanded masses including Kevin Wheelan, Jose Veras, TJ Beam, Anthony Claggett, Mark Malencon, JB Cox, Darrell Rasner, and Jeff Karstens, all hoping that one or more of the six righthanded relievers ahead of them on the Yanks' depth chart--Mariano, Scott Proctor, Kyle Farnsworth, Brian Bruney, Vizcaino, and Britton--gets traded, injured, demoted, or simply decides to quit playing baseball.

Alberto Gonzalez -- A smooth-fielding shortstop, Gonzalez has a decent righhanded bat, but not much pop--about a .100 isolated power over the last two years. Could be a utility infielder of the future. At least the Yankees finally dealt for a position player.

Steve Jackson -- ...but that doesn't mean they're not out to get even more righthanded pitchers! At least this one's a starter. Jackson's fastball sits around 91 MPH, topping out around 94, and complemented by a splitter, sinker, and change. Despite a nice 2.65 ERA at Tennessee this season, he isn't considered a top prospect--Kevin Goldstein didn't rank him or the other two prospects in this deal among Arizona's top ten, and John Sickels has the three of them at the bottom of his top 20. Jackson will be 25 before Opening Day, he got raked in the AFL, and he hasn't reached AAA yet. But at least he isn't another relief prospect.

All told, this is far less swag than the visions of Miguel Montero and Alberto Callaspo we had stuck in our heads, or even the more modest talk of higher-tier pitching prospects like Micah Owings and Dustin Nippert. To some, having Randy Johnson gone is motive enough--it would appear that Brian Cashman is among these people. Still, I was hoping the Yanks would make the D'backs squirm a little to get the Unit back, part as payback for the 2001 World Series, the other part as payback for the way they made the Yanks crawl in order to get Johnson in the first place. If this is what they get, it's an opportunity missed. Stay tuned.

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As alluded above, and mentioned in the linked article, the Yanks have signed Doug Mientkiewicz as their new firstbaseman. It's not a bad deal, part a defense move, part a hedge in case Josh Phelps turns out to be a scrub. The most likely scenario has him platooning with Phelps or Andy Phillips, either on a righty/lefty or offense/defense basis. At a reported $1.5MM, Minky's expendable should a better option come along. Heck, maybe Dougie Spellingerror can teach Matsui to play first base...

Back when Mientkiewicz was the proud possessor of the 2004 World Series game ball, I kept hoping the Yanks would sign Minky, and buy the ball off him as part of the deal. I imagined the Yankees having an elaborate ceremony before their first home game against Boston, where the accursed ball would be presented and destroyed by explosion--like the Bartman ball was, in Chicago. Then the remains of the World Series souvenir would be thrown into the stands, for the right field bleacher fans to floss with.

A man can dream, can't he?