Images From The Farm

On Wednesday, my mom (like Brian Cashman) watched the New Britain Rock Cats host the Trenton Thunder. Andrew Brackman was starting and although she didn't write up an extra detailed report of the game and sit near Steve Balboni like Matt did back in May, she did bring a camera with her. Here are a few of the pictures that she took:

Two shots of Andrew Brackman.

The 7' 1" Netherlands native Loek Van Mil pitched the eighth inning for New Britain which, along with the 6' 10" Brackman appearing for Trenton, I'm guessing sets some sort of combined height record for two pitchers in one game. Oddly, the 5' 3" Chris Cates, one of the shortest players in organized baseball at the moment, started the game (fittingly) at shortstop for the Rock Cats.

Apparently there was some sort of a kid's day promotion going on at the park but Ma Dukes said they were mostly well-behaved. One of the little tykes was displaying a good sense for the history of the game by rocking the Babe Ruth jersey shirt. Attaboy.

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The Thunder ended up losing the game, but Brackman pitched fairly well until he hit the skids in the 5th, and as you can see in the pictures above, it was a gorgeous day for baseball.

Game 60: Get Up Jake

Now that we've reached the stage of the season where clubs can promote minor leaguers without having to worry about them being eligible for Super Two status, this year has really begun tp produce a bumper crop of top prospect debuts in the MLB.

Jason Heyward began his career as an Atlanta Brave with a bang at the beginning of the season and Ike Davis was called up when the Mets were struggling in mid-April. More recently, we've seen the debuts of Steven Strasburg, former Yankee farmhand Jose Tabata, fellow Pirate Brad Lincoln, and Mike Stanton (who is not related to the former Yankee reliever) to name a few. Still on the horizon are promising youngsters like the awesomely-named Carlos Santana - a catcher in the Indians' system, outfielders Domonic Brown of the Phillies and Desmond Jennings of the Rays, Scott Boras' Pittsburgh's Pedro Alvarez and Kyle Drabek - now property of the Blue Jays - who was the centerpiece of the Roy Halladay deal. Even these players experience a higher than expected rate of attrition, there's a good chance that we'll look back at this class of rookies as one of the best in the ten or fifteen years surrounding it.

Tonight, a highly-regarded Baltimore prospect will make his debut, but given the performance that happened just two days ago and forty miles down I-95, this one will seem considerably more subdued.

Jake Arietta was a fifth round pick in the 2007 draft but didn't begin his ascent through the minor leagues until the 2008 season. He debuted at High-A ball and struck out 120 batters in 113 1/3 innings while maintaining an ERA of 2.87. Last season, started with the AA Bowie Baysox, pitched 59 strong innings over 11 starts there and was promoted to AAA. While in Norfolk, Arrieta's strikeout rate dropped and his ERA rose, but was still respectable in his 92 innings there, tallying an ERA of 3.92 and a K/BB ratio comfortably over 2.

The twenty four year old right hander broke camp with the Triple-A squad this year and got off to a great start. Although his strikeout and walk rates aren't as strong as they were in the lower levels of the minors, they are better than they were at the same level last year and Arrieta has an ERA of just 1.85 through 11 starts. He has been more or less unhittable so far, surrendering fewer than six hits per nine innings and allowing only three homers in 73 IP.

In the past two years, the Orioles have seen more than their fair share of pitching prospects make their Major League debuts. Brad Bergesen first appeared in the Big Leagues April 21st of 2009, the less-celebrated-but-still-young David Hernandez joined the club May 28th, last night's pitcher Chris Tillman was called up at the end of last July, Brain Matusz made his debut six days later. Tonight, Arrieta will get his shot.

When we talked to Orioles fan and blogger Daniel Moroz before the season began, he surmised that barring a number of injuries, Arrieta wouldn't see more than a cup of coffee this season. Koji Uehara, who began the rotation, is on the DL and Hernandez, who has been ineffective in his eight starts, has been relegated to the bullpen. Those two moves, along with Arrieta's dominance and the O's futility, created Jake's chance to be called up.

It might not be occurring under the greatest of circumstances and it might not pay dividends immediately, but tonight should be a bit of a silver lining for Orioles fans, if such a thing can be found in one of their worst stretches in one of their worst seasons in franchise history.

Get up Jake, it's late in the mornin',
The rain is pourin' and we got work to do.
Get up Jake, there's no need a-lyin',
You tell me that you're dyin', but I know it's not true.

Now, me and Jake, we work down on the river,
on the ferry "Baltimore".
And when Jake don't rise up in the mornin',

People lined up along the shore.

[Song Notes: I've been a fan of this tune for a long time and it was the first thing I thought of when I heard Arrieta was going to be starting tonight. The lyrics don't line up perfectly, but the kid's name is Jake, "Baltimore" and "lined up" are in the song and that's good enough for our purposes. If only there was someone named Dan from Savannah on the Yankees, it would have really sealed the deal.

I had to upload the version from To Kingdom Come because the only "video" on YouTube kind of sucks.]

-Lineups-

Yankees:

Brett Gardner is once again out of the lineup; Marcus Thames gets the start in left field tonight. Pray for lots of groundballs and strike outs. Francisco Cervelli gets the finale off, with Chad Moeller getting the start against his former team.

Derek Jeter SS
Nick Swisher RF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Jorge Posada DH
Curtis Granderson CF
Marcus Thames LF
Chad Moeller C

RHP A.J. Burnett

Orioles:

Corey Patterson LF
Miguel Tejada 3B
Nick Markakis RF
Ty Wigginton 1B
Luke Scott LF
Adam Jones CF
Matt Wieters C
Scott Moore 2B
Cesar Izturis SS

RHP Jake Arrieta

Welcome To The Machine, Cito Culver

With the last pick in the first round this year, just like they said they would, the Yankees went with a high school position player. However, it wasn't any of the multitude of prospects that they had been connected to via mock drafts and countless other forms of internet speculation.

Cito Culver is a switch-hitting high school shortstop out of Irondequoit, New York, which is close to Rochester. On the broadcast last night, they said that he was ranked 168th in Baseball America's Top 200 (which I can't verify since I don't have a subscription) and most of the mock drafts had him being drafted somewhere between the fourth and six round. For a frame of reference, FanGraphs was dropping in descriptions of players to this post after the picks were made, and they had nothing prepared for Culver.

Little CC had committed to play for the University of Maryland but after getting drafted in the first round by the Yankees, you can pretty much throw that out the window. If the Yankees make that kind of reach in the first round, they are going to sign him.

Naturally, Mike from River Ave. Blues has a more complete profile of Culver, but the gist of it is that he's an excellent athlete with a great throwing arm but not a great baseball player just yet. Essentially, he's got the tools that you can't teach and the Yankees are hoping that they can mold him into a solid all-around player. There are also concerns about a troubled family life (his father is in prison), but we learned our lesson with Slade Heathcott last year, and are not going to touch that at all.

Clearly, the Yankees know way more than we do about this kid. All I've seen are second and third hand scouting reports and a very short video clip of him swinging away in batting practice and declining to offer at two pitches in a live game. But from a purely logical perspective, I really hope that the Yankees were sure that he'd get snatched up before they got a chance to pick again at #82, otherwise this doesn't make much sense.

There were two other shortstops taken just behind Culver in the supplemental round - Taylor Lindsey and Matthew Lipka - but the former might have been a bit of a reach as well.

As fans we didn't get the tantalizing talent that we were hoping for and on a certain level that's disappointing. No high end arm that scouts were projecting towards the front of the rotation and no high school slugger with preposterous power potential. Instead the Yanks did what many small market teams do, which was take a player from their own state who was clearly higher on their list than anyone else's.

Regardless, Culver is a shortstop and that means he's going to have some big shoes to fill if and when he makes it to the big leagues.

Fack Youk's First Annual Half-Assed Draft Preview!

For the defending World Champions lying in wait with the 32nd pick, the MLB Draft is not nearly as big of a deal as it is for the teams at the top of the heap, picking among the premier amateur talents available. In general, because most of the prospects taken are so far away from the Big Leagues and the attrition rate is so high, baseball's draft is inherently less compelling that its NFL (and especially) NBA counterparts.

However, that didn't stop Major League Baseball from moving the first round of it to 7:00pm tonight on MLBN, televising rounds 2-30 on Tuesday and rounds 31-50 on Wednesday. If the draft isn't that interesting to begin with, well, why not make it more interesting by slowing down the intervals between picks, inserting commercials and putting it in prime time!

Maybe I'm being a little to cynical there. To the average fan - meaning casual followers who don't read blogs - the draft is more or less inconsequential. However, to those of us who try to keep tabs on the farm system and get excited about prospects, it's at least worth paying attention to your own team's pick, in addition to the inevitable drama that will surround the efforts to sign Bryce Harper and other top talents.

As far as the Yankees are concerned, they are said to be targeting "one of two high school bats", but who they will select depends very heavily on who is taken in front of them. Typically, a couple of high-ceiling talents fall to the bottom of the first round every year because teams are concerned that they won't be able to sign them due to high signing bonus demands.

No team wants to face the dilemma of overpaying for their highest draft pick or simply letting them walk away and waiting until next year to pick in a similar spot. But the Yankees obviously have the financial power to ink a great prospect who is looking for a big payday and can afford for the pick not to reach the Majors in a worst case scenario, so they can take someone who might not pan out but will probably be pretty awesome if they do.

Again, who knows who will be available when the Yanks pick, but here are some names that they've been linked to in recent days:

• Tyrell Jenkins, who was Dave Chappelle's character in Half Baked.
  
  /touches earpiece
  
  I'm sorry, that was Thurgood Jenkins. This kid is a right handed pitcher out of Texas.
  
  
• Christian Yelich, an athletic, left handed hitting first baseman from Florida.
  
  
• Ryan LaMarre, an outfielder from the University of Michigan.
  
  
• Drew Vettelson, a high schooler from the state of Washington who is capable of pitching from both sides but will probably be drafted as a hitter.
  
  
• Robby Rowland, who was an excellent basketball player in high school but committed to play baseball at Oregon. He's a right handed power pitcher.
  
  
• Jesse Biddle, a 6'5" left handed pitcher who went to high school outside of Philadelphia.

There are going to be live blogs/chats at River Ave. Blues, FanGraphs and Big League Stew to name a few, and I'm sure all of those places will have plenty of valuable information should you want to follow along. We'll probably have something on the Yanks' pick first thing tomorrow morning. Enjoy the off night, Fackers, and we'll talk at you then.

Thursday Morning Linkarooski

Joe Girardi would have split the last 4 links up into their own posts.

R.J. Anderson at FanGraphs examines Robinson Cano's season to date and finds that the only part of it that's definitely not sustainable is his home run rate.

Moshe from TYU directs us towards a glowing profile of pitching prospect Jose Ramirez written by a fan who goes to a lot of Charleston River Dogs games. The post includes video and some detailed scouting and is certainly worth scoping out.

On Tuesday, Rob Neyer looked at the first month of results from trade that brought Curtis Granderson to the Yankees. With Granderson on the DL, it's obviously not looking very good on our end, but neither Austin Jackson nor Ian Kennedy would be on the Major League roster right now and Phil Coke would probably be the 10th man in the bullpen. The players that the Yankees gave up didn't have the potential to be as valuable to them so far this year as Granderson did. Maybe this goes down as a bad trade eventually (especially if Austin Jackson has magically learned how not to strikeout), but there's pretty much no chance it ends up looking as bad as it does right now.

Speaking of Martha Stewart's favorite Yankee, Curtis Granderson wrote a tribute to Ernie Harwell over at Big Leage Stew.

Also at BLS, author Jason Turnbow lists 10 unwritten rules of baseball that you may or may not have heard of. Most are pretty intuitive but I didn't know you weren't supposed to swing at the first pitch after back-to-back home runs.

"Maybe we already are seeing the beginning of The Core Four morphing into The Sore Quad." ~ Guess Who

In the NYT, Karen Crouse wrote about the connection between Mark Teixeira and PGA Tour pro Ben Crane.

Cliff from Bronx Banter nails what makes Francisco Cervelli so much fun to watch.

Over at The Hardball Times, Josh Levitt thinks that the likelihood of the Yankees signing Carl Crawford has gone down since the beginning of the season, mostly because of Brett Gardner.

Dallas Braden is still chirping about the incident with A-Rod, talking about how they do it "in the 209", waxing all philosophical about "respect for the game", intimating that he's going to throw at him and that they will probably fight before this is all over. Dude, your 15 minutes is up. You had it rough on the mean streets of Stockton, we get it, but you're the only one who is still upset about this. So if you need A-Rod to beat some sense into you before you let it go, that's your problem.

Also from the farm system, Greg Fertel offers up some sabermetric-style Yankees MiLB leaderboards.

Via Pinto, the story of a player who was selected twice in the 1970 draft (one of those times by the Yankees).

You know what the Yanks need? A washed up, left handed corpse who can't hit or play the field and every fan of the team despises. If they didn't want to sign Barry Bonds when he was looking for a job and probably still productive, something tells me that they aren't going to sign Big Sloppy after the Red Sox decide that he's not even worth a roster spot despite being owed the remainder of his $12.5M salary.

Even though it involves the Red Sox, I enjoyed this story from WoW.

Via Jason, Jesse-Douglas Mathewson takes a methodical look at the length of games and finds some interesting correlations including, curiously, attendance (although that might be swayed by Yankees-Sox games). That post is part three of a four installment series, so here are one, two and four.

Meech from the Fightins' discovers the real problem with the Phillies bullpen. Let's just say that a high walk rate isn't the only thing they have in common with Al Leiter.

Rinku and Dinesh got their new "cards of baseball" from Upper Deck (and are looking forward to seeing Ironman 2).

You know you're old when you are leaning on the halcyon days of 100 years ago to make a point about what's wrong with baseball today. Players used to make about 50 times less back then they do now, even after adjusting for inflation. The game done changed.

Here's a short interview with Larry from Wezen-Ball from USA Today's website that went along with his appearance in the actual paper.

I'm with Tango, I think WPA is just fine the way it is.

A Yankees-Mariners game will be broadcast in 3D this July. That would be great if anyone actually had a 3D TV.

The Angels have the fourth worst run differential in the league, notes Dave Cameron, and while they aren't truly that bad, it doesn't bode well for the rest of their season.

Hey look, Milton Bradley has already gone off the wagon. The "Kanye West of baseball" bought him a spaceship and flew away from the ballpark after striking out with the bases loaded on Tuesday night.

The assumption that Tiger Woods makes his competition play worse? It's actually true.

And that's that. The Yankees might be off today, but we are not.

Posnanski Ponders Prospect Promotion

As consumers of sports writing, we are extremely lucky to be living during the Joe Posnanski era. At no other point during the history of athletic journalism has there been A) a professional sports writer willing to write thousands of words on top of their weekly quotas simply for the enjoyment of it and B) a way for the public to access those words for free. It's not just the volume at which he produces content, but Poz's posts are overflowing with interesting nuggets. To wit, here's a tangent that he went off on while talking about the Nationals' plan to start Stephen Strasburg in the minor leagues this year.

On the other hand — well, I haven’t thought out the following too deeply. But I do sometimes wonder if “not rushing top prospects” is kind of safe, conventional thinking, the same sort of safe, conventional thinking that causes football coaches to punt on fourth down and short. In other words, I sometimes wonder if people don’t rush great prospects like Strasburg because it SOUNDS safer rather than because it IS safer.

[...]

I do sometimes wonder if one way to think out of the box is to really push prospects, especially advanced prospects, much faster than teams are doing it now. Sure, every GM and scout around can tell you horror story after horror story about players who came up too soon and were ruined because of it. But we don’t really know if those players would have succeeded had they been treated more carefully … maybe they were just lacking the talent or the work ethic or whatever. We can't really know.

In between those two paragraphs, Posnanski gives the example of Bob Feller who, although he was thrust into the Majors at 17 years old and walked more than 6 batters per 9 innings during his first three seasons, eventually figured it out and went on to have a great career.

The transition from the minor leagues into the Majors is one of the more delicate dances performed in sports, in both directions. So the sayings go, you don't want to bring a guy up "before he's ready" and you don't want to send a guy down when he has "nothing left to prove". Of course, the decisions are clouded with enormous amounts of luck. We've seen marginal players burst onto the scene and future Hall of Famers stumble out of the gate (there are some managers mixed in to that list, but you get the idea).

Look at Ramiro Pena and Francisco Cervelli, neither of whom had played above AA before getting called up to the Yankees. Neither of them hit the cover off the ball with the MLB team, but they made representative efforts at the plate (Pena actually improved on his minor league numbers) and shined defensively. These are just anecdotal examples with small sample sizes, but it goes to show that calling up a player "too early" isn't necessarily destined to fail.

In other sports and at other times in life, we are told that we benefit from increased competition. Perhaps we are put on a project at our job that pushes the boundaries of what we thought we were capable of and do some of our best work on it. Personally, I tend to play better golf when I'm paired with three other guys who shoot in the 70's than when I'm out with a few of my buddies who only break 100 on a good day. Does your performance on the basketball court improve when facing better competition? Again, not perfect examples, but just some things to consider.

The problem is that there are no alternative universes in which we can test these theories. You either go with Plan A or Plan B and get judged by the results. You don't have multiple Joba Chamberlains, one of which you could have kept in AAA to work on his starting repertoire in 2007 and 2008 and the other you could have brought up to the Major League bullpen to help the team in '07.

No team wants to squander a top prospect by doing something that is perceived as risky like rushing him to the Majors. Oh, they'll risk putting him on the wrong path by doing something seemingly conservative like stashing him in the minors for too long, but that's a whole different story.

I think this line of decision making has become de rigueur in sports. Whether it truly makes sense or not, PR plays a large role in many of the decisions that a franchise makes. It's one thing to be wrong when your decisions agree with conventional wisdom, it's an entirely different beast to roll snake eyes when you are bucking the established trends.

The example Posnanski uses about punting on 4th and short is a great one. Coaches are willing to be slightly wrong all of the time instead of being really wrong once in a while and getting lambasted like Bill Belichick did when he went for it on 4th and 2 and failed.

As decision making in sports becomes more and more grounded in logic and analysis, teams have to look to get an edge by finding the places that conventional wisdom might not be correct. Or places that it's generally correct but can be unnecessarily cautious at times in the name of saving face.

Maybe Sky Kalkman's unconventional line up really is better than the usual ones we are used to seeing, but if Joe Girardi trots it out for the first week of the season and the Yanks score three runs a game, he's going to be tarred and feathered by the media. If that happens with a typical batting order, (most sane) people would just chalk it up to bad luck. It would be kind of stupid for Girardi to stick his neck out that far simply on a self-preservation level.

Sure, there are plenty of factors that might keep a great prospect in the minors, like the cost of starting their arbitration clock and finding the right place for them on the team, but I agree with Poz's hunch that teams might be wasting some quality production in the minors by being too conservative with the timing of their call ups. Maybe that seemingly premature call up is a springboard to a better career. Perhaps it ends in failure, frustration and a demotion back to AAA. But there's only one way to find out.

Is There Anything To The Cruz Rumor?

Good morning Fackers. The Great Left Field Debate rages on. The weekend brought another round of Johnny Damon rumors, they made an offer, no they didn't, they set a deadline, no they didn't, Cashman's pissed, Damon will have a team within the week, the A's are interested, and on and on and on.

Yesterday brought the news, courtesy of AOL Fanhouse's Frankie Piliere, that the Yankees "inquired on" Nelson Cruz of the Texas Rangers. Normally I'd consider this to be nothing, and it probably is. Just about anything passes for news this time of year. Teams inquire about players all the time; as we learned with the Nick Swisher rumors early this off-season, there's a big difference between actively shopping someone and listening to offers without hanging up the phone. It doesn't mean there's anything to it.

Perhaps the Cruz inquiry is Brian Cashman's response to Scott Boras' incessant claims of a "mystery team" being interested in Damon. And even if the Yankees did check on him, the chances of him being moved are slim. The Rangers are in the process of being sold. Nelson Cruz is a relatively young, relatively productive, highly cost controlled asset. Businesses in the process of being sold do not divest themselves of such assets.

That said, I have every confidence that Piliere's tweet is true. Before joining Fanhouse last year, Piliere was a scout in the employ of the Rangers. He likely has contacts and friends that remain in the Rangers organization, and I'm sure that's where he received his information on this one.

In the end this is likely much ado about nothing. I highly doubt the Yankees will acquire Cruz and don't think they should. But given the source, I'm sure they did inquire about him. The question remains, are they just doing due diligence, are they legitimately interested in him, are they actively shopping for a left fielder, or is this a Damon-related smokescreen? Time will tell.

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Speaking of Piliere, his list of the Top 100 Prospects went up yesterday. Jesus Montero checked in at number five, Manny Banuelos at 41, Austin Romine at 45, and Zach McAllister at 76. Recent Yankee farm hands Austin Jackson and Jose Tabata checked in at numbers 25 and 69. Head over and give it a read.

Checking Back In With An Old Timer

What's up Fackers? It's been a while, so many have never seen one of my posts on this site and the rest have probably forgotten about me - if so, no hard feelings. I haven't written anything here in quite a long time but did lend some legal insights into this post back in May. Before that, I put together some reports on Austin Jackson early in the season and profiled several former Yankees for our countdown to Spring Training.

Well, let me introduce/re-introduce myself. My name is Joe and I am a soon-to-be attorney. I was absent the most part of this fackin' awesome season because I had to study for the New York State Bar Exam (congrats to all those who passed). Brilliant work by Jay and fellow BC Guy Matt in taking this blog from 5 readers to being attributed and acclaimed by respected baseball blogs like Shysterball, Big League Stew, River Ave. Blues and Walkoff Walk. As Jay takes a step back this offseason, I look forward to contributing more - mostly about the NFL and College Hoops. Of course, I will also provide my thoughts on the main focus of the blog, the World Champion New York Yankees.

One of my favorite posts that I did in previewing the season was detailing my talk with John, an Old Time Yanks fan, at the Albany Ancient Order of Hibernians pub. Well last Friday, I ran into John again, at the Albany AOH where he was donning his World Series Champions shirt and hat as well as a smile reminiscent of a father seeing his first born. Over a few pints of Guinness, he told me to cherish this Championship every second, because you never know when the next one is going to come. The 80 year old man also took some time to talk some trash to a few Sawx fans at the pub, which I'm sure most readers of Fack Youk can appreciate.

As one of my first posts back, I think it would be cool to rehash my first conversation with him and see how his observations look in hindsight:

Yankees Payroll: Despite being a humble, bingo-playing man, John had no qualms about the Yankees payroll. He cannot get over the fact that people start bitching about the recent signings of Teixeira, Sabathia and Burnett but fail to consider that their payroll will be less than last year. He is very pleased that the Hank/Hal tandem will continue to spend like their father. "Put the best team on the field," says the man. Many older generation fans have soured on baseball due to the ridiculous salaries of players, but John is such a dedicated fan that even at his advanced age he makes several bus trips from Albany to Yankee Stadium a year.

John was right on here. Once again, the day after the clinch, the sports radio circuit was bitching about the Yankees buying their 27th World Championship without acknowledging that the Yankees payroll decreased. Also, how about some acknowledgement for Cash signing the right guys in Teix, CC and AJ, guys who could handle the atmosphere of the Bronx and perform when it really matters, unlike those tall cranky lefties, guys who wear golden thongs, spar with concrete, smoke pot on airplanes and harass female flight attendants or wine aficionados with a nickname that begins with "Home Run"? Kudos to Hank and Hal for continuing the win at all costs strategy employed by their dad. Let's hope that the two brothers will be inspired by the events transpiring over the last glorious week and continue to do whatever it takes to please Yankees fans.

Yankees Prospects: Almost every other word out of the guy's mouth was "Jackson." Of course, he was talking about future perennial All-Star CF Austin "Action/AJax" Jackson. Knew everything about him. Cannot wait for the 5 tooler to start manning sports' most pristine real estate in 2010. If I remember correctly (don't hold me to this due to copious Guinness consumption), I think Mickey Mantle's name was even mentioned when discussing Jackson. I have no idea how he knows all of this considering I don't think he has a computer/internet access. He was also adverse to trading Ian Kennedy away.

As Matt previously stated, we didn't spend too much time on prospects this year. But, A-Jax was the International League's Rookie of the Year, finishing .300/.354/.405 with 24 SB, 4 HR, and 65 RBI. I was a bit disappointed in his power development and decrease in OBP, but think he did considering it was his first year in AAA. I would like to see him start out in Scranton and improve upon last year. Patience is the key for both Austin and Yankees fans. John appeared to be wrong, 2011 should be the year.

Dellin Betances had a much rougher year than Jackson. Before undergoing season ending Tommy John surgery in August, Betances had struggled with Double-A Trenton this season, going 2-5 with a 5.48 ERA in 11 starts. We have seen Tommy John surgery work wonders with some young pitchers, so let's see what it does with the 6'8" native New Yorker. Unfortunately, we will not find out until 2011. Get well soon, Dellin!

Another mammoth Yankees pitcher didn't have a good season either. Andrew Brackman, the 6'10" righthy from NC State who Scott Boras negotiated onto the 40-man roster after being signed out of college, had TJ surgery immediately after being picked 30th overall in the 2007 draft. The surgery caused Brackman to miss the 2007 and 2008 seasons. In 2009, the former basketball player ended his first season with 106 hits in 106.2 innings of work, 103K (8.69 K/9), walk rate of 6.41 BB/9, 5.91 ERA, and 1.71 WHIP for the A Charleston River Dogs. Brackman was much better after being placed in the bullpen in August and September but he needs obviously has a long way to go in terms of harnessing his stuff.

Jesus Montero, the 19-year old Venezuelan catcher/DH sensation had a great season down the farm, splitting 98 games between Charleston and AA Trenton. In 44 games with Trenton, Jesus hit .317/.370/.539 with 9 HR, 33 RBI. These states if extrapolated to 160 games are 30 home runs, 43 doubles, 200 hits, 121 RBIs, 80 strikeouts and 50 walks. While his offensive state improved vastly, his defensive stats declined all across the board. The good folks at Yankees Universe compared the youngster to Prince Fielder. A lot of teams should be inquiring about him this winter. If he tears up AAA next year and manages not to get traded, he should be a fixture in the Bronx beginning in 2011.

Current Outfield Situation: According to John, the CF job needs to be given to Brett Gardner. Melky needs to be released/traded due to his negative influence on Cano (who is expected to have a great comeback year). He would love to see Matsui moved but the full no-trade clause and high salary makes it virtually impossible. Nady or Swisher? Like me, he likes Nady more than Swisher but thinks Nady is a better trade option due to his salary. Likes Damon for LF.

Well, many of us at Fack Youk thought that Brett Gardner should have received the majority of the playing time and been the starting CF on the playoff roster. Looking at the season in review, the Gardy/Melky duo was very serviceable, each providing different qualities to the team. Interestingly, Melky matured greatly and came through with multiple walk off hits. Nady was obviously a non-factor, and luckily Matsui was still on the roster when the World Series rolled around.

Key to '09: The health of Posada.

I'm not sure that there was one "key" per se. Obviously the return and health of Posada was very important. Jorge's Wins Above Replacement this year was 4.0 compared to his 2009 value of 0.8. This increase wasn't even the highest on the team--that was shared by Cano (who went from .5 to 4.2) and Jeter, who many feared was entering his decline phase (3.7 to 7.4).

Although his WAR actually decreased for some reason, I thought that Andy Pettitte was one of the most important keys to the 2009 season. I actually didn't want Pettitte on the team due to the amount of money that he wanted and because of his putrid 2nd half of 2008. Well, this second half, he pitched to the tune of a 3.31 ERA, 6-3 record, and .226 BAA in 14 starts. His contributions were a major reason the Yanks fared so well from the All-Star break onward. Not to mention that he clinched the ALDS, ALCS and World Series. Will he retire on top or come back for #28?

Teixeira: The Yankees best signing in a long time. Thinks he will be at worst a Tino Martinez.

A very good comparison by John. Teixeira, in my opinion, was a better fielder than Tino this year. Not that it is an end-all, be-allm but Teix won a Gold Glove while Tino did not. How many images in your head do you have of Teix doing a split like a ballerina? Although he did not hit too particularly well in the postseason, his defense saved the team multiple times in October. Oh, I forgot, he also led the AL in RBI and HR, picking up the Silver Slugger award for AL 1B. Not too shabby. Jason who?

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I hope that you enjoyed reading this revisitation. Not a bad prophesy from an old timer. I look forward to speaking with John again as the Hot Stove warms up. Let me know if you would like me to ask him something special.

Game 101: Youthful Expression

Like almost every trade, the one that sent Matt Garza and Jason Bartlett for Delmon Young and Brendan Harris seemed like a fair deal at the time. The clubs exchanged average-hitting middle infielders in the late 20's and each gave up a decent minor league prospect, but the centerpieces to the deal were Garza and Young.

At the beginning of the 2007 season, Garza was the top prospect in the Twins organization. He started the year at AAA in Rochester and was vocal about his frustrations with the way he was being used. The organization called up guys like Scott Baker and Kevin Slowey before Garza, primarily due to a disagreement in pitch selection. The Rochester coaching staff was trying to get Garza to mix more offspeed pitches into his repertoire, but he insisted on throwing almost exclusively on fastballs.

"He's getting a little frustrated so we're going to bring him up here and give him a chance to pitch for us," Twins Manager Ron Gardenhire said. That's not exactly the tone you want the relationship between an organization and a top prospect to sound like.

Delmon Young probably wasn't the most popular character in the Rays franchise either, considering he was the player in the infamous minor league bat throwing incident in 2006, when he was with the AAA Durham Bulls. The idea of the trade was to get a fresh start for both guys and it seemed like a good one.

Since then, Garza has turned into a solid, top of the rotation presence for the Rays while Young has regressed to platooning with Carlos Gomez and batting .264/.291/.346 on the season. Garza pitched 184 2/3 innings for the Rays last year at a 3.70 ERA and is on pace for over 200 innings at the same ERA this year. He was the MVP of the ALCS last year, picking up two wins including game 7.

At the ripe old age of 25, Garza is the elder statesman of the pitching match-up this evening. He's had two pretty strong outings against the Yanks this year (12IP, 3ER) but has been stuck with a no-decision both times. He's coming of a studly outing in Toronto where he pitched a complete game and struck out 9.

Joba goes tonight for the Yanks. He's given up only 5 hits in his last two starts but has walked 6 in 13 2/3 IP. He's gave up a run each time and picked up two wins, bringing his season mark to 6-2. He was tantalizingly close to efficient in these two outings, throwing 107 pitches in the first and 100 in the second.

These two hard-tossin', young guns square off tonight in the rubber game of the series. The first one was lopsided and the second was sloppy. Perhaps tonight's performance will be a little more tightly executed?

Body's healthy, mind is wealthy,
Thoughts, they flow, that will prepare me,
To be a Native, get creative,
Original and designative.

Meet Slade Heathcott

Slade Heathcott. No, he's not a writer dispatched from the New Yorker to write a feature on the Peter Max gallery at the New Yankee Stadium. He's the 18 year old kid the Yanks just drafted out of Texas High School in Texarkana. That would be the state of Texas, in case you were wondering.

His first name is Zachary (as is shown on the first frame of the video here) but has apparently since changed to Slade for marketability purposes, or to set up a future career as a porn producer, should this baseball thing fall through. In related news, please refer to this blog as Fackington T. Youkaford from now forward.

The selection represents the first time since 2005 that the Yankees have selected a position player with their first selection and the first time they have selected an outfielder in the first round since 2001. With the Yankees picking at #29 this year, they had to take someone with "warts" and not the kind that Billy Beane famously talked about in Moneyball. Someone that other teams had passed on depsite obvioius talent and upside. Pinto compares him to Captain Kirk, but let's take a look around to see what else is being said.

The Good:

• Power to all fields - He's a lefty, so if he ever does make it to the big league club, that should help.
  
  
• A strong throwing arm - He even pitched an inning in the Area Code Games and was hitting 91MPH on the gun, and has been clocked at 95.
  
  
• Solid defender - Capable of playing all three OF positions. Assuming hitting talent is constant, if he progresses as CF, he will be significantly more valuable.
  
  
• Good baserunner - Has above average speed and instincts on the bases. Supposedly projects to be a good base stealer.
  
  
• Stuff scouts love - He played football in high school, can do backflips, and "Heathcott is muscular with broad shoulders and a v-cut torso". I hope he runs like a deer!

The Bad:

• ACL surgery - He had his ACL repaired in November after a football injury but all accounts indicate that he has recovered completely and is running well.
  
  
• Academic ineligibility - He was ruled ineligible for his high school team's playoff last month due to poor performance in school. Good thing he won't have to worry about pesky bullshit like "schoolwork" anymore! I know, it's probably not a great sign, but being a member of the National Honor Society isn't a prerequisite for MLB stardom. Just ask Manny Ramirez!
  
  
• Attitude - One of the guys from Baseball Analysts was the one watching him in the Area Code games and thought he came across as cocky. If any of us were still in high school were staring down a future of professional athletics and millions of dollars, we might come across as arrogant as well.
  
  
• Parent issues - Both of his parents are out of his life due to problems with drug abuse. This doesn't necessarily mean anything, but it's probably not a great sign. Hopefully he's got at least some sort of a support structure because those years coming up through the minors can be pretty bleak at times.

Well, Zachary Slade, welcome to the crew. But if we hear one more thing about you being a Red Sox fan, this might get ugly.

The Jackson Report: 4/13

The Weekly Austin "Action" Jackson Report

Not a bad first week in Scranton for the CF of the Future:

Games: 4
AB: 17
Hits: 8
Average: .471
OBP: .524
SLG: .588
OPS: 1.112
Runs: 3
HR: 0
RBI: 5
Triples: 1
SO: 5
BB: 3

Watch out Brett Gardner...

Talkin' Baseball With An Old Timer

I love talking about baseball with anyone. Especially with Sawx fans so I can tell them to go Fack themselves. Friday night, I had the opportunity to talk hardball with an older generation Yankees fan named John in an Ancient Order of Hibernians hall. The guy has been a Yankees fan for over 70 years and remembers seeing Gehrig and Ruth play at the original Yankee Stadium (before its charm was gutted by the 1970s renovations). Below are some of the topics we chatted about.

Yankees Payroll: Despite being a humble, bingo-playing man, John had no qualms about the Yankees payroll. He cannot get over the fact that people start bitching about the recent signings of Teixeira, Sabathia and Burnett but fail to consider that their payroll will be less than last year. He is very pleased that the Hank/Hal tandem will continue to spend like their father. "Put the best team on the field," says the man. Many older generation fans have soured on baseball due to the ridiculous salaries of players, but John is such a dedicated fan that even at his advanced age he makes several bus trips from Albany to Yankee Stadium a year.

Yankees Prospects: Almost every other word out of the guy's mouth was "Jackson." Of course, he was talking about future perennial All-Star CF Austin "Action/AJax" Jackson. Knew everything about him. Cannot wait for the 5 tooler to start manning sports' most pristine real estate in 2010. If I remember correctly (don't hold me to this due to copious Guinness consumption), I think Mickey Mantle's name was even mentioned when discussing Jackson. I have no idea how he knows all of this considering I don't think he has a computer/internet access. He was also adverse to trading Ian Kennedy away.

Current Outfield Situation: According to John, the CF job needs to be given to Brett Gardner. Melky needs to be released/traded due to his negative influence on Cano (who is expected to have a great comeback year). He would love to see Matsui moved but the full no-trade clause makes it virtually impossible. Nady or Swisher? Like me, he likes Nady more than Swisher but thinks Nady is a better trade option due to his salary. Likes Damon for LF.

Key to '09: The health of Posada.

Teixiera: The Yankees best signing in a long time. Thinks he will be at worst a Tino Martinez.

Overall, a great and interesting conversation given his obvious wealth of knowledge concerning the Yankees and baseball in general. I hope to catch a game with him at the New Stadium.