Wednesday Linktacular

During his recap of last night's game, Hank Waddles of Bronx Banter really did justice to Colin Curtis' first Major League hit, something that we only mentioned in passing because of its limited significance to the game. Money quote:

There are a lot of reasons why I love baseball, but moments like these are high on the list. Basketball players don’t care much about their first basket, and I’m guessing that even quarterbacks forget their first touchdowns, but there seems to be something magical about a player’s first hit. Every once in a while, like Tuesday night in Arizona, we get to share in that moment.

Chad Jennings has more, including some audio from Curtis.

We also neglected to mention Joba Chamberlain's stellar inning last night but Mike from River Ave. Blues picks up that slack. We've seen these standout, stand-alone innings from Joba a few times this year and the hopeful reactions to them but remember that he was pitching with a seven run lead, in unusually warm weather against a team that's prone to striking out. A good inning is a good inning, but Joba has to rip off a bunch of them in a row before we have a legitimate reason to get excited.

Katie Sharp at ESPN's "TMI" Blog (still hate that name) looks a little deeper into Robinson Cano's improvements this year (subs. req'd), confirming what you probably have noticed about his approach at the plate:

One key change for Cano is that he’s finally learned to be patient and swing at more hittable pitches. Last year, he swung at 54% of all pitches and chased 35% of pitches out the zone with runners in scoring position – both of which were well above the major league averages of 46% and 24%, respectively. This year, he’s lowered his overall swing rate to 47.1% and his chase percentage has fallen to 29.1%.

Pending Pinstripes asks whether or not the Yanks should DFA Chan Ho Park. Judging by Joe Girardi's comments, it looks like the Yanks are going to stick with him for the time being. I certainly don't feel comfortable when he enters the game in a high leverage situations but his ability to throw multiple innings means he can still be useful on the roster.

The Yankees are playing better against bad teams than good ones? You've gotta be shitting me!

I don't have anything to link to just yet, but how about that USA soccer victory?!!

A Mickey Mouse sculpture adorned with Red Sox logos prepared for the All-Star Game was vandalized out in LA. Some may assume it was a group of Yankee fans who did it, but my money is on the Crips. Those folks don't take to kindly to people who wear red and display body language which seems to pose the question "What, bitch?"

The Sports Hernia inarguably has the greatest headlines.

Dave Cameron of FanGraphs argues that the only way to shorten the length of the games is to enlarge the strikezone. That or trim down the commercial breaks, but we all know that's not going to happen.

Over at U.S.S. Mariner, Cameron checks on with Lou Pinella's record seven years after he was traded to Tampa Bay along with Antonio Perez for Randy Winn, and hits on what I think is a fundamental truth in baseball:

The fact of the matter is that Piniella, like pretty much every other manager on earth, wins with teams that have talent and loses with teams that don’t. He doesn’t get more out of his players than anyone else. He doesn’t inspire his men to greatness. He doesn’t make brilliant tactical decisions or teach bad players how to become good ones. Right now, in fact, he’s making a debacle of the Cubs catching situation by benching Geovany Soto (who is really good) in favor of Koyie Hill (who is really bad).

Here's a cool interview with the founder of Baseball-Reference, Sean Foreman. It's on the Bleacher Report, but don't worry, it's not stolen from somewhere else or ridden with grammatical errors.

A site called Snippets used Google Maps to look at every baseball field in the MLB. They came up with some interesting facts that you may or may not be aware of and created some sweet graphics. It's a bit like the one Craig Robinson did for his site (Flip Flop Fly Ball) but with way more words.

Speaking of Mr. Robinson, the fine gentlemen of Pitchers & Poets did an excellent podcast with him a while back that I've been meaning to link to. For those familiar with Craig's work, you'll be unsurprised to find that he's an illustrator by trade. The interview runs about a half hour and I assure that it will hold your attention for that whole time.

Mark Teixeira's mom told the world that he started referring to himself as "Kurt Teixeira" after the lead singer of Nirvana killed himself back in 1994. Yeah, that's kind of embarrassing, but on the bright side, maybe he can pick a song other than Twisted Sister now that the cat's out of the bag.

I don't mean to end on a sad note, but death seems to churn up some decidedly poignant writing. First, J.C. Bradbury wrote about what will likely be the last Father's Day he spent with his dad. And secondly, during Monday night's blowout, from over the loudspeakers in Chase Field, Marc Carig was reminded of his sister, six years after the unthinkable happened. Both of those will choke you up a bit, but are well worth reading.

Sunday Morning Link Buffet

Good morning, Fackers. Here are a few things to check out before the population of hockey fans in the country increases exponentially at around 3:00.

There are three features in the local broadsheets on Robinson Cano today. The first one comes from Mark Fiensand in the Daily News. The scribe talked to Brian Cashman about Cano's potential and Cash said:

He's already one of the premier guys in the game, but that's the only thing separating him from taking it to a whole other level. If he can be more selective at the plate, he could have a Hall of Fame-type career.

Like we've said before, Cano's ability to make contact with balls out of the zone makes it difficult for him to be patient. For him to get better, it would involve laying off of pitches he knows he can hit in order to wait for ones that he could hit harder. These decisions occur in a split second and are more a matter of intuition than choice. But maybe with some hard work he could make that jump.

The second and third Cano articles come from Bob Klapisch and Joel Sherman and are both about Cano "taking it to the next level" as well; each thinks Cano can step up to fill the void in the #5 slot in the line up left by Hideki Matsui. Sherman talks about improving Robby's production with runners in scoring position while Klapisch compares Cano to Dustin Pedrioa.

Marc Carig of the Star-Ledger talked with Jesus Montero about working on cars with his father and how that might translate to improving his skills as a catcher:

What about [working on race cars] makes it worthwhile for you?

I like to have fun. People teach me. I know already a couple of things. You have to do it perfect. If you do it wrong, the engine doesn’t work. Those engines have so much power. They have to be perfect for the race. So we try to pay attention every single time when we’re doing something. That’s why I like it.

How much of that translates to baseball, especially learning a position like catcher, where you’ve got to deal with a lot of details?

Catching is like a little bit more fun for me. It’s fun to control the game, to be behind the plate, calling pitches, to be like the third manager of the game. And it’s about having fun in the game, try to make my pitchers laugh all the time.

In the Post, Jorge Posada acknowledges the about the amount of catching talent in the Yankees' system (including Montero), but says he's is going to make it tough for them to take his place. Let's hope he's right.

Via Joe from River Ave. Blues, there is a quick story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about Ross Olhendorf, Steven Jackson, Anthony Claggett and Daniel McCutchen sharing a house together in Bradenton for Spring Training. Sounds like a the four former Yankees are having a blast.

Chan Ho Park has arrived. Well, at least his stuff has shown up. [Update: Edwar Ramirez has been DFA'd to make room for Park]

A-Rod bumped up his $400,000 Mercedes Maybach while texting on his phone. He also reportedly broke up with the blonde Miami heiress he was dating. What a difference a year makes.

David Pinto at Baseball Musings takes a look at the Yankees offense and suggests that Nick Johnson's value might be maximized batting "second leadoff" or ninth. It won't happen but it's an interesting thought.

Friday Morning Linkaround

Hang in there, Fackers. There sweet salvation of the weekend has almost arrived. Like yesterday, the the content is going to be fairly slow around here as the reports out of this stage of Spring Training aren't worth extrapolating upon and Matt and I are held up with the tedious obligations which actually provide us with monetary compensation. The best we can do is direct you towards some interesting reading material to hold you over:

Friend of the blog Marc Carig asked Joe Girardi a bunch of questions proposed by his Twitter followers. Carig polished up the best sub-140 character entries into actual queries and did his beat reportedly duty of following them up as well. (You can follow the Star-Ledger scribe on his personal Twitter account or with the paper. Or as I do, tag along with both.)

He doesn't go out of his way to publicize it or post on it very often, but Craig Calcaterra keeps a personal blog. Yesterday, inspired by the receipt of his Spring Training itinerary, he recalled his many unsuccessful attempts to have an enjoyable trip to Florida in the past.

Larry from Wezen-Ball used his uncanny powers of research to dig up some features from LIFE Magazine on Spring Training. The Wezenmaster also discovered, as we did last year, the bounty of Spring Training photos in the LIFE Photo Archive on Google, where we shamelessly sampled the banner of the site from. Poke around there and you'll find gems like the one at the top of the post.

Sorry Joe McCarthy, Joe Torre and Billy Martin. Rob Neyer could only find room for one former Yankee manager on Managerial Mount Rushmore. (I'm not counting John McGraw who managed the franchise for the first two seasons when they were still in Baltimore and called the Orioles before bolting to the New York Giants.)

The Bloomberg Sports Blog, headed by the esteemed Jonah Keri, is now up and running. It should be an excellent resource for fantasy geeks and statheads alike.

Jeremy Greenhouse of Baseball Analysts put the "Verducci Effect" under a scientific microscope and guess what... It doesn't pass the P-Value test.

In the Journal News, Chad Jennings notes that Yankee starters will begin their throwing schedule slightly later than normal due to the additional innings they tossed in the postseason.

Ben Shpigel profiled Andrew Brackman today in the New York Times.

The Sports Herina mined photo gold from Yankees camp.

Brew Crew Ball created a Mad Lib of sorts with which you can concoct your own passe Spring Training storylines. As Craig says, "It actually works pretty well. So well in fact that I wouldn't be surprised if the beat writer's guild has called an emergency meeting to see which of them was supposed to be on duty when the secret formula was stolen."

Alex Remington at Big League Stew compares Jonathan Papelbon's career thus far to Mariano Rivera's and concludes that they aren't as far apart as we so boldly stated on Wednesday.

Links With Moose

We aren't going to devote a full countdown piece to Moose Skowron, but luckily someone put together a video that more or less does it for us.



Speaking of #14, we did a post on Curtis Granderson's choice to wear the number for the upcoming season the day of his press conference in New York that would have fit nicely into our series as well.

And speaking of Granderson, Alex Remington at Big League Stew takes a look at whether or not he can improve his performance against left handed pitchers this year.

Can you name the 45 players who appeared in at least one game for the New York Yankees during the 2009 season? I could only come up with 41 during the six minute allotment but Matt got 44 of them.

Joe from River Ave. Blues debunks the opt-repeated concept of replacing a player's production from one year to the next.

Our pal Tommy Bennett has a piece up at ESPN explaining why Chase Utley, because he didn't get caught stealing once in 2009, should have attempted to swipe more bags.

Larry from Wezen-ball keeps on doing what he does best - churning out interesting, original, interesting and exhaustive posts about baseball. Today's topic? Ranking the best stadium statues in the MLB.

Jonah Keri shares some of the ups and downs of writing a book and a fantastic anecdote about Babe Ruth, Moe Berg and a geisha house.

Rich Aurilia has openly campaigned for a minor league deal with the Mets and Yankees. Mike from RAB took a look at the pros and cons from the Yankees' perspective. Spolier alert: there aren't too many pros.

One thing Mike didn't mention: Luis Sojo is fresh out of a job as the Yanks High-A ball manager, so Aurilia might have some competition for that non-existent "old and completely useless" utility spot.

The Baseball-Reference blog continues their interesting series on final score differentials throughout the history of baseball, this time focusing on one run games.

If you're in a masochistic sort of a mood, NYaT lists off the worst case scenarios for Yankee position players.

If you've got some time on your hands, Callum from the Blue Jays blog Mop Up Duty has a post about his Cuban baseball experience bursting at the seams with pictures and videos. Highly recommended.

I still haven't seen Sugar and reading Bryan Smith's review of it at FanGraphs makes me want to see it more.

Star-Ledger beat writer Marc Carig started up a personal blog. Among the topics so far: former Major League switch-pitcher Greg Harris, the video game Bases Loaded and a brief phone interview that led to - or at least didn't prevent him from getting - an internship at the Washington Post.

Lunchtime Links

As Chad Jennings pointed out this morning, it's going to take a lot to top last Monday, but there are a few odds and ends (some from over the weekend) worth checking out.

Over the weekend, E.J. from The Yankee Universe advocated making Brett Gardner the Yankees everyday center fielder.

On the other hand, Joe Pawlikowski from River Ave. Blues compared Gardner to Scott Podsednik, warning against using projections to predict his production in 2010. Unfortunately, the latter of these two posts provides the more realistic assessment.

Mark Carig from the Star-Ledger asked a person who used to do statistical analysis for a major league club for their reaction to the Granderson deal. The first sentence: "What a deal".

According to the Daily News, the Yankees and the Cubs could be trading partners. Gardner or Melky Cabrera are the likely targets since the Cubbies are in need of a center fielder, but it's not clear what the Yankees would want in return. Carlos Zambrano's name was mentioned but the asking price was reportedly "high". Even higher is his salary, so file this one under "Things We Aren't Buying".

Joe Posnanski saw Up In The Air over the weekend and wrote an epic post about movies and travel inspired by it.

This morning, Lar from Wezen-Ball dug up an interview with an ex-Yankee from the well-respected Weekly World News.

Bill Madden says that their agents have left Johnny Damon, Matt Holliday and Jason Bay out in the cold by mis-reading the free agent market. Easy there Bill, it's not even Christmas yet.

The Post says that Cashman is hoping to acquire a starter by New Years and names Jason Marquis, Joel Pineiro and Ben Sheets as targets. MLBTR adds a few more.

Sports Illustrated has an interview with Peter Gammons.

News And Notes From Day One

Good morning Fackers. My head is spinning already. If you didn't brave the murky rumor waters flowing from the Winter Meetings in Indianapolis yesterday, we've reduced the day's worth of rumors, lobbytalk, hearsay, near trades and actual transactions into bullet point form:

• Early yesterday afternoon, there was a rumor that the Yankees were close to acquiring both Edwin Jackson and Curtis Granderson from Detroit. Joe at RAB did a nice job of debunking that one based on the dubious source and ambiguous wording, but a similar one popped up late last night. Ken Rosenthal reported that the Yankees, Diamondbacks and Tigers were trying to orchestrate a three way deal that would have sent Granderson to the Yankees along with a couple of prospects from Arizona, Ian Kennedy and Jackson to the D-Backs and Max Scherzer, Phil Coke, Michael Dunn to Detroit. However, Joel Sherman later reported that the talks were all but dead as both the Yanks and Tigers thought their prospect cost was too high. Although apparently, as of this morning, it still might be a possibility.
  
  
• Mark Feinsand of The Daily News tweeted yesterday that the PTBNL in yesterday's Brian Bruney deal will be the Nats' top overall pick in Thursday's Rule 5 Draft. Unlike picks in the Amateur Draft, Rule 5 picks can be traded. That's how the Rangers landed Josh Hamilton two years ago. Still, as Greg Fertel at Pending Pinstripes noted yesterday, this is an uncommon move for the Yankees, as the nature of their roster doesn't easily allow them to carry a Rule 5 player all year. So perhaps they plan on flipping this pick elsewhere as part of another deal, or they may have someone specific in mind. Don't forget, the Yankees wanted to pick Joakim Soria three years ago but the Royals beat them to the punch. They'll have the pick of the litter this year.


• Also from Feinsand, apparently the Yankees did not extend the rumored $10M offer to Andy Pettitte, and "they don't intend to lowball him".
  
  
• The Yankees apparently got in contact with Kelvim Escobar's people who might pitch in Venezuela this Winter to show that he's healthy enough to pitch. Escobar has been very effective when healthy, notching a 3.60 ERA in his time in Anaheim over 658 innings but only threw 5 innings last year and didn't pitch at all in 2008 due to shoulder surgery. File him under the "high risk, high upside" group with Rich Harden, Eric Bedard, Ben Sheets and the like.


• Marc Carig of The Star Ledger tweeted that the Yankees spoke to Mark DeRosa's representatives. As Ben at RAB pointed out last week, DeRosa could be a useful supersub if the Yanks choose to use a DH by committee next year. But Mike at RAB pointed out several potential red flags with DeRosa yesterday.


• Cashman apparently also spoke to Jason Marquis' agents. Circling the Bases explains why this would be a bad idea.


• Jorge Arangure tweets that Aroldis Chapman now may sign for $20M or less. That's a price that I'm more comfortable with than what was initially rumored, but still more than I'd want to see the Yankees commit to him.

Those are some of the loose ends from yesterday. I'm sure today will bring a whole host of new "news".

The Loudest Yankee

Yesterday, Marc Carig of the Newark Star-Ledger referred to A-Rod as the "Quietest Yankee" so his relatively humble campaign and effort to evade the spotlight, something which he has failed miserably at doing ever since he became a Yankee. Carig relayed the fact that A-Rod has limited his interview sessions in the clubhouse to 3 minutes and been more willing to accept walks from pitchers.

This made me think of the guy who has been sort of the opposite of that for the Yanks this year. The one who draws more media attention, hype and debate than his performance would indicate. The guy who, if he was a 30 year old journeyman with the same stat line, wouldn't merit much attention. The dude whose innings management generates enough keystrokes to fill 1,000 bibles.

I'm of course talking about Joba Chamberlain. It's not that Joba is loud persay, but I think we can agree that he inspires a lot of other people make a whole lot of noise on his behalf.

Well, yesterday Joba made the Yankees task of choosing 25 players for the ALDS roster a little more difficult with only 7 pitches.

The rational fan in all of us attempts not to be swayed by one inning of work in a meaningless game. But the nostalgic, overly optimistic one can't help but to be taken back to Joba's dominant days of late 2007, lighting up the radar gun and setting the Bronx on fire coming out of the 'pen.

Which ever decision the Yanks make, I don't think we have much of a right to complain. If Joba makes the ALDS roster, he'll likely be called upon to get some important outs and there's a pretty good chance he'll get them. But he might bump out Chad Gaudin or an extra position player in the process. If not, he'll get some work in down in Tampa and likely be added for the ALCS if the Yanks take care of business against the winner of the AL Central.

Cashman and Girardi gave him the opportunity to pitch that one inning yesterday and Joba passed that test with flying colors, even if it was only three questions long. How much more could they have expected? Why give the guy one inning if you're not going to take it into consideration? As always, the upside with Joba is tantalizing.

What's the right move here, Fackers? A separate consideration: What do you think the Yanks are going to do? Your guess is as good as mine.

Game 162: Ten Years Gone

So here we are folks, at game 162. It's a little hard to believe isn't it? Thankfully, the Yankees don't have anything to worry about today, so their game is probably the least compelling of the 4 relevant early afternoon sporting events in my opinion. But the game has some interesting connections with the last game of the season 10 years ago.

As Marc Carig of the Newark Star-Leger noted this morning, back in 1999, Joe Girardi had his first taste of managing a big league ball club.

It was October 3rd and the Yankees were playing their last game of the season against the then Devil Rays at Tropicana Field with a playoff spot already secured. Per tradition, Joe Torre turned over the managerial reigns to Paul O'Neill, who appointed Girardi to be the bench coach and David Cone coaching the pitchers. Jorge Posada was behind the plate that game, in his second season as the Yankees' primary catcher.

During the fourth inning, the Rays loaded the bases against journeyman Jeff Juden in what would be his last appearance as a Major League pitcher. The bags were juiced thanks in part to current Yankees broadcaster and former backstop John Flaherty's double. Juden then hit a batter and another run scored on an E3, bringing Randy Winn to the plate with the sacks still packed. Winn pulled off the rare feat of an inside the park grand slam on a line drive over the head of Chad Curtis, blowing the game wide open.

With the game pretty much out of hand, during the sixth inning, O'Neill went down to the locker room to get treatment for his bad back, leaving Girardi in charge and in his words today "high and dry".

Ten years have gone by, Cone and Flaherty work for the Yankees and Girardi is the real manager whose team has the luxury of allowing a player to be skipper for the game. Since he's going to be on the bench anyway, Posada will be acting as manager for the game and can chose two other players to be his bench and pitching coaches.

Jorgie will have some responsibilities to tend to, as he needs to decide when to pull the plug on A.J. Burnett and how to get Joba Chamberlain, David Robertson, Mariano Rivera and possibly Phil Hughes some work. He'll also probably shuffle in some bench players as the game wears on as Girardi has done in previous days.

We all know how the 1999 season ended. Let's hope this isn't the last connection this team makes with that one.

Then as it was, then again it will be,
An' though the course may change sometimes,
Rivers always reach the sea.

Flyin' skys of fortune, each have separate ways,
On the wings of maybe, downing birds of prey,
Kind of makes me feel sometimes, didn't have to go,
But as the eagle leaves the nest, it's got so far to go.

A-Rod Cops A Feel

I can't take credit for the headline, because that goes to Marc Carig from the Newark Star-Ledger on Twitter. I did get this screen grab, however...

Easy there Alex... that's not why they call them "Mounties".

Game 133: Hot House

In the first inning of last night's game, A.J. Burnett left a pitch out over the plate that Felix Pie drove the opposite way for his third homer in as many games and 4th in his last 5. Burnett was none too pleased and made the hand gesture shown above in Pie's direction as he was rounding the bases. Burnett later claimed that he said "That's the way to hit a spot" to himself, but to my untrained eye it sure looked like he said something to the effect of "That motherfucker?", in disbelief that he would give up the homer to Pie, of all people. I think the facial expression above sort of speaks for itself.

Baltimore broadcaster Gary Thorne agreed, describing it as referring "to [Pie] in a way that would have upset Pie's entire family, especially on the maternal side". Regardless of what Burnett actually said, some members of the Orioles coaching staff didn't take too kindly to it and informed Pie when he got back in the dugout.

In the top of the 8th, Matt Albers and Nick Swisher exchanged some words, after Swisher struck out on a pitch that was well off the plate inside. According to PeteAbe, Albers suggested that he should have swung at it, and Swish is still pretty ticked off about the incident and not opposed to retaliating.

The Orioles have already been mathematically eliminated from winning the division and with a rookie pitcher like Jason Berken on the mound, it isn't too difficult to envision a scenario where a Yankee batter gets plunked in the early going and things get ugly. Berken hasn't been good this year, tallying a 6.33 ERA in 91 innings since being called up at the end of May, so it's not like he's going to tell the team "no" if he's told to take action.

CC Sabathia, on the other hand, has every reason to stay above the fray. He had notched 5 straight victories in a row before getting a no-decision after a solid 7 innings of two run ball against the White Sox last Friday. His ERA is as low as it has been since the beginning of June and he looks to carry his dominant August over into September with a long outing tonight.

The Yanks don't need any suspensions, or worse, injuries resulting from the fact that the O's have nothing to play for right now and nothing better to do than pick fights. Our boys most certainly do have stuff left to play for. Namely completing a sweep of The Birds on their home turf.

Here's to hoping that cooler heads prevail if things get a little heated this evening.

Cranky, Eh?

If this bit of news were recorded by PeteAbe himself and not his fill-in Josh Thomson, I wouldn't have needed to make this connection:

Mariano Rivera didn’t throw at all today and was unavailable to pitch. “He was feeling a little cranky today,” Joe Girardi said. Rivera told us his right shoulder was sore, but he did not classify the soreness as painful. He said he has felt this pain before and felt fine soon after. Girardi said he’d be “shocked” if Rivera weren’t available tomorrow in Seattle.

Of course, "cranky" was the term Girardi used at the end of last season, when Mariano was supposedly leaving to go back to New York from Toronto for "a physical" instead of going with the team to Boston:

Girardi was asked several times and in several ways whether Rivera had an injury to his elbow and shoulder. He denied it every time. The questions were very exact. “He said his whole body was cranky,” Girardi said.

The beat writers all found this to be perplexing, since Rivera could have got a physical just about anywhere and if they were intent on having it done by a certain team doctor, they could have flown him out to Mo, not the other way around. Some of the writers called Brian Cashman, who said that Rivera need an MRI which ultimately revealed that he needed surgery.

Again Mariano is making travel arrangements separate from the team for personal reasons, according to Thomson in the same article. Marc Carig of the Star Ledger talked to team spokesperson Jason Zillo who said it has nothing to do with health issues. "No tests were done and none are scheduled" and Mo will be in Seattle for the game.

Is there a reason that Girardi chooses "cranky"? Cranky is a strange and vague term to use for describing injuries. We all know was "sore" and "stiff" and "tight" mean. It seems like cranky is his go-to line when he doesn't want to give away information about an injury because it means nothing to anyone but him. Cranky is what a four year old is when you wake them up from a nap. Cranky is how your grandmother got when your little brother broke her lamp.

Rivera hits these rough patches seemingly every season and Girardi has dramatically improved the way he relates to the media so hopefully the the connection is nothing more than semantics. If nothing else, every time there is an sort of uncertainty about Rivera's health, it makes you take stock of how important and valuable he is to the team. In Mo we trust.