Glen Perkins And Undeserved Demotions

Way back in May, when Jay decided to take a little getaway, he blindly handed me to the keys to the blog for the week. The Yankees were about to wrap a four game series against the Twins, having won the first three via walkoff. The series finale was a Monday night affair, one I was to attend. But before I could escape the office and get on the road, I had to author my first game preview.

In keeping with Fack Youk tradition, I had to choose a song to work into the preview. After looking at the pitching match up for the night, I decided to riff on the name of the Twins starting pitcher for the night and went with "Carl Perkins Cadillac" from the very awesome Drive-By Truckers.

Glen Perkins started for the Twins that night, and the Yankees touched him up pretty good. It marked the fifth straight start in which Perkins surrendered at least four earned runs. The next day, Perkins was placed on the DL with an elbow issue. He returned a month later, and continued to struggle through another nine starts and a relief appearance. He was disabled again, and instead of being activated at the end of the month when rosters expanded, the Twins optioned him to AAA, despite the fact the minor league season was essentially over.

Though Perkins struggled in 2009, it was still an unorthodox move, particularly for a club that was in a pennant race. Perkins thought so too, and filed a grievance against the Twins. Being optioned out, rather than kept on the DL, prevented Perkins from accruing Major League service time. Not only did he fail to earn a Big League salary in that time, but the lack of service time prevented him from attaining Super Two arbitration status. That in turn has a major impact upon Perkins' salary for this year and beyond.

Back when I wrote that preview, I noted how cool it must have been for Perkins, born and bred in St. Paul and a former member of the University of Minnesota baseball team, to be drafted by and playing for his hometown team. But as we saw in the 1990 Sports Illustrated article about Dave Righetti that we linked to Friday, sometimes living out a boyhood dream isn't all it's cracked up to be. There's now a rift between Perkins and his club, and there's a chance he won't be a Twin much longer. It appears Perkins won't have quite as happy a story as fellow hometown hero Joe Mauer.

In the bigger picture, Perkins' story is part of an interesting and possibly troubling trend around the game: teams questionably optioning out young, but established players in effort to keep them under club control longer. The Twins took a similar tact with Francisco Liriano in 2008, and the Royals treated Alex Gordon the same way last year. We've seen teams delay calling up prospects like Evan Longoria, David Price, and Matt Wieters in order to keep them from Super Two arbitration status. But in my eyes at least, there's a difference between a club doing that to a minor leaguer on the way up as opposed to doing it to established Major Leaguers like Perkins, Liriano, and Gordon.

The past decade has seen Major League clubs look to exploit market inefficiencies. Valuing young, cost controlled talent has been amongst the leading ways teams have looked to gain an edge. Holding back Longoria, Price, and Wieters and sending down Liriano, Perkins, and Gordon are all part of that process. If Dave Cameron is right and veteran players are the latest market inefficieny, it'll be interesting to see if this trend of demoting established young players continues.

Yanks Take Game One

CC Sabathia and Matt Garza locked horns for seven innings each as game one of today's double header was a pitcher's duel. CC continued his recent run of dominace, going seven innings allowing three hits, one run, four walks and ten strikeouts. His only run allowed came on an opposite field solo shot from Mrs. Tony Parker that just barely cleared the fence in the second inning. Brett Gardner returned from the DL, started in center field, and helped Sabathia out with a diving, run-saving catch in the fifth inning.

Garza was equally as good, going seven innings, five hits, one unearned run, one walk, and seven strikeouts. The only blemish on his record game in the first. With two outs and no one on base, Mark Teixeira grounded into the shift. Tampa shortstop Jason Bartlett, playing on the outfield grass on the second base side of the bag, bobbled the ball, allowing Teix to reach. Alex Rodriguez then worked a full count and Teixeira, taking off with the pitch, came around to score on A-Rod's double.

Phil Hughes worked a scoreless, hitless eighth for the Yanks. The only baserunner he allowed was a leadoff walk to Carl Crawford, who was promptly caught stealing on a first pitch pitchout.

The Yankee bats remained relatively quiet until the bottom of the inning. Nick Swisher drew a leadoff walk. Teixeira followed with a base hit to right field, and while Swish likely would have reached third base anyway, Gabe Kapler's bobble helped and his off line throw allowed Teix to take second. After A-Rod was intentionally walked, Robinson Cano hit a sacrifice fly to deep center, plating pinch runner Jerry Hairston Jr with the go-ahead run. Jorge Posada and Eric Hinske followed with an RBI single and a sacrifice fly respectively, pushing the lead to 4-1.

Mariano Rivera came on for the ninth. In his first appearance since last Tuesday, Mo walked the lead off man then sat down three in a row, two by strikeout, to give the Yankees the game.

(Photos)

A New Hope

Good morning Fackers. Please forgive the fact that the Star Wars dork in me is making an appearance this morning. Last night was a good one for the Yanks. Minutes after they topped the best pitcher in the league, the Yanks caught a break down in St. Petersburg, as an eighth inning leadoff home run from Evan Longoria knotted the Rays and Sawx at two. Despite chances for both teams in the intervening innings, the score remained the same until the Rays ended it in the 13th, using another longball from Mrs. Tony Parker.

The Yankee win coupled with the Sox loss puts the Yanks up 1.5 games in the AL East, ensuring that no matter what happens tonight the Yanks will be in first place on Thursday when the Evil Empire and whatever the Red Sox call themselves commence Episode IV of their 2009 series. But we've seen this before, so I'm going to temper my enthusiasm on this one.

Besides, it isn't those events in St. Petersburg last night that give me hope this morning. Rather, it's what happened hours earlier across Tampa Bay, as Ian Kennedy threw from a half mound at the Yankees minor league complex.

Kennedy was pitching well at AAA Scranton (1.59 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 25:7 K:BB) when numbness in his fingers forced him from his April 27th start. Initially diagnosed as a vasospasm, it was soon discovered to be something far more serious: an aneurysm. He underwent surgery on May 12th, performed by Dr. George Todd, the same surgeon who performed David Cone's 1996 procedure. Kennedy has been rehabbing since late June, but to the best of my knowledge yesterday marks the first time he's thrown. He's slated for another session Friday.

This is of course good news, as Sergio Mitre is currently the Yankees 5th starter and will take the mound in Toronto tonight. Don't get me wrong, it's an extreme longshot. But, Kennedy said he hopes to pitch in a minor league game this season before moving on to the Puerto Rican Winter League. The minor league seasons wrap at the end of this month, so there's a chance, however slim that IPK could get a September call up. Mike Axisa at RAB had a similar thought yesterday.

As a point of reference, Cone had his surgery on May 11th, thirteen years and one day before Kennedy's, and returned to a Major League mound on September 2nd, throwing seven no hit innings before pitch count restrictions forced him from the hill.

I don't know how the specifics of Kennedy's case compare to Cone's, but Cone's recovery seems to indicate that Kennedy could be back this year. The only questions are what damage does Sergio Mitre do in the meantime or what moves do the Yanks make to get him off the hill and make a Kennedy return unnecessary.