Friday Grab Bag

Good morning, Fackers. I hope Brain Hoch is right and the Yankees are in fact picking up their bats when they come back to New York.

Ben Kabak from River Ave. Blues made an appearance on the Bloomberg Sports podcast to talk about the site, along with the minor league system, Austin Jackson, Joba's ceiling and more. It's about 15 minutes long and quite enjoyable. LISTEN TO IT.

Mike from The Yankeeist ties a bow around his trip to Detroit.

Is an article with effusive praise for Phil Hughes enough to get you to read Mike Lupica? Nah, probably not...

But over at the WSJ, Scott Cacciola wrote a nice feature on Hughes and some of the things that have helped him be successful this year. Greg Fertel from Pending Pinstripes gets more specific, looking at Hughes' fantastic fastball.

On the same day that Matt from TYU suggested another way to look at how effective pitchers are (runs per 100 pitches), Beyond the Box Score ranked the best pitchers of all time according to Wins Above Replacement per 200 innings pitched. Can you guess the best starter and reliever? Massive hint: both were in the World Series last year.

When you combine all five teams' records, the AL East is 16 games over .500 this year, best in the league by 7 games. Sean Forman at the Bats Blog looks at how the balance of power has shifted to different divisions in recent years.

Mike Ashmore, who does an excellent job of covering the Trenton Thunder, wrote an excellent piece about Alan Horne beginning to recover from the surgery that sought to repair an 80% tear in his rotator cuff. He's receiving Platelet-Rich Plasma treatments and hopes that they will help him heal more fully. Horne is 27 and no longer a prospect, but there are plenty of guys who don't make their Major League debut until they are in their late 20's or 30's and can still have good careers.

When they weren't totally nicking our hooks, Bronx Banter had two excellent interviews this week - one with Dayn Perry and one with Josh Wilker - about their upcoming books.

What do Jonah Keri and Marlo Stanfield have in common? Their names both ring out in the streets. Except I don't think Jonah had to hand out money for it to happen.

The 193 acre farm that contains the Field of Dreams is up for sale. Here are the particulars of the property.

The Sports Hernia comes up with a worthy sequel to my favorite SH post ever.

Craig Calcaterra doesn't use too many tags, but when he does, they are downright awesome.

I'm with Bengie Molina here and I think it's excellent that athletes can use blogging to defend themselves against other, larger forms of media. This is the first post of Molina's I've read and while he's not quite Morgan Ensberg on the keyboard, he did a great job of making his point and staying on the high road, something that's not easy to do if you feel you've been offended personally.

They ah makin' it hah-dah to pahk you-ah cah around Fenway Pahk. WHAT THE FACK!?1/!

I don't listen to WFAN so I had no idea about former New York Football Giant Brad Bensen's ridiculous radio ads until this post on Deadspin highlighted them.

Can someone tell Will Leitch to cinch up his tie?

Now that his daughters are watching the show religiously, Joe Posnanski breaks out a bunch of obscure facts about Gilligan's Island. The show was obviously way before my time but I used to get up early when I was in grade school and watch the reruns before the bus picked me up. The episodes are all pretty much self-contained and the only thing you have to know going is conveyed to you by the theme song. It's right up there with Scooby Doo and House as the most formulaic television show of all time, but when you're 9 years old that only serves to make it easier to understand and enjoy.

And finally, here is a video of an octopus killing a shark. To be fair, Spiny Dogfish Sharks aren't exactly the kings of the ocean and the Giant Pacific Octopus is rather massive, but it's still pretty crazy to watch. The narrator almost ruins it so I suggest that you mute it and skip to the 1:30 mark.

Super Nova

According to Donnie Collins of the Times-Tribune in Scranton, Ivan Nova has been recalled by the Yankees. No official word yet on the corresponding move, but it's about 99.99% certain that Romulo Sanchez is heading back down.

Sanchez pitched well in his 3.2 shutout innings of relief last night. Perhaps of greater value is that he was the lone pitcher to come out of the Yankee bullpen following A.J. Burnett's four and a third inning start. Sanchez' effort saved the bullpen a day after a rain delay, Alfredo Aceves' back, and Joe Girardi's match ups forced the Yankees to burn through five relievers.

Still, the staff is a bit short with Andy Pettitte still out of play, Aceves likely needing another day off, and Sanchez needing two or three days of rest after his 52 pitch outing last night. And with Sergio Mitre limited to about 75 pitches in spot start duty tonight, and Javy Vazquez, who hasn't completed the sixth inning yet this year, starting tomorrow, the Yankees were in need of another long man.

Joe Pawlikowski at RAB astutely pointed out earlier today that this move was likely. Nova was scheduled to start for Scranton yesterday, but was flipped with Zach McAllister, indicating such a move was possible. Nova's recall leaves Scranton without a starter for tonight, the second time in four days the Yankees have left their AAA affiliate in that situation. Dustin Moseley may start on three days rest, or they may just piece this one together as a bullpen game.

An international free agent signing in 2004, Nova was selected by the Padres in the Rule 5 draft following the 2008 season, but was unable to stick on the Big League roster. Returned to the Yankees, he had a breakout 2009, making 24 starts equally split between AA and AAA and posting a 3.68 ERA. It's worth noting that he fared remarkably better in AA, where the competition is poorer and where Trenton's Waterfront Park offers a pitcher's paradise.

He was added to the Yankees' 40 man roster following last season, and is 2-0 with a 2.43 ERA through his first six starts in 2010. Nova is considered a groundball inducing pitcher, and his GB% for this year sits above 50%, just as it has throughout his career. But it's worth noting that his K rate this year is at a career high and his BB rate has dropped back to its career average after taking a jump up last season.

Here are prospect profiles on Nova from RAB and Pending Pinstripes.

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.

Tuesday Afternoon Linkstavaganza

Happy 139th Birthday, Major League Baseball. You don't look at day over 125.

Via the WSJ, it seems that Derek Jeter has a pretty small strike zone in relation to his height when compared to a few other Yankees and Mets. The zones are based on just one year of data and without looking at a wide cross section of the league we can't tell where they fit in, exactly, but it's interesting anecdotally.

Today, Mark Teixeira donated $100,000 to Harlem RBI. Much of the money will be used to provide tuition assistance, SAT prep and counseling for kids who want to go to college. He said:

I started talking to them during spring training and I was blown away. One thing I'm passionate about is education and this is allowing kids to get an opportunity to go to college and use every tool at their disposal.

Carlos Beltran has also donated $255,000 to the program since 2005.

Joe from River Ave. Blues examines Nick Johnson's quest to start hitting.

Guess what, Jason Gay... I'm not going to start rooting for Boston because "a Yankee championship means more when Boston is competitive". The Rays aren't going anywhere so the sooner the Sox are dead and buried, the better. And while you claim to have come up with "Schillingfreude", but we've been celebrating Papenfreude and Soxenfreude for a long time around these parts. You've been placed on notice, sir.

However, I will acknowledge that Dave Roberts is suffering from lymphoma and wish him a full and speedy recovery. In his honor, Joe Posnanski put together the 10 most famous steals of all time.

In addition to catching up with their top 30 preseason prospects, Pending Pinstripes highlights some of the better offensive performances throughout the system in April.

John Sterling's home run call for Randy Winn is a loser.

If you scroll down to #5 here, you'll see that the Yankees were not the first team to use Kate Smith for inspiration. But at least she was still alive when the Fliers did it.

Speaking of Philly, while the baseball blogosphere was briefly titillated and entertained by the dude who got tased at Citizen's Bank Park last night, Tim Marchman puts the use of that kind of force into proper perspective. Craig Calcaterra agrees.

Larry from Wezen-ball's Tater Trot Tracker was featured in USA Today, just a mere step along his path to world domination.

In case you've had your head in the sand for the past 24 hours, the Yankees are skipping Javier Vazquez's turn in the rotation in Boston. It seems like a good move to give the guy some time to collect himself and save him from the hostile environment of fackin' Fenway Paaahhk. If that doesn't cure what ails him, I don't know what will.

Tom Verducci pines for "the crack of the bat". That was almost an awesome pun but I don't know of any bats made of evergreen wood.

Think the NBA Playoffs are less random than the MLB's? Tango says think again.

Also over at The Book Blog, Tango tries to clear up some misconceptions about Win Probability Added and Win Expectancy. David Pinto points out a flaw in the kind of WPA charts we use in that they all start at with 50/50 odds despite the fact that one team usually has a better chance of winning. Sure, but that opens up a Pandora's Box of other variables that could be taken into account on a batter-by-batter basis.

Rob Neyer answers some questions from his mailbag and while debunking the idea that a certain rule that was was said created for Jackie Robinson, talks about how much intuitive sense the regulations of the game make. If only the original statistics were as logical.

Here's a nice piece about the 12 year old girl who threw back-to-back no-hitters in Little League and was taught how to throw a knuckleball by Joe Neikro. We linked to the story about the no-no's when they happened but this is a more complete profile of Chelsea Baker.

Blue Jays fan Navin Vaswami - he of the "baseball road trip of a lifetime" - stops in Philly and admits that Roy Halladay is probably in a better place now.

Theo Epstein had some strong words for the play of the Red Sox thus far, calling it"unintelligent, undisciplined, uninspired" and threatening changes if it doesn't turn around. That's pretty much like the principal coming into the class room and telling the kids that the all have detention if they don't shape up. It probably won't happen, but it might get them to sit up straight.

Dustin Pedroia: Motivational speaker (via BBTF).

Oh you thought you know how much of a slimeball Redskins owner Daniel Snyder was based on how he runs the Redskins? Look at what he did to Six Flags.

"First Basemens"? Yeah that's Nada Word.

Back with the preview at the usual time (5:00).

Tuesday Links

Like Kevin Youkilis last night, these links probably contain at least one error, even if it wasn't scored that way.

Apparently Marcus Thames wasn't starting last night just because the Yankees were in Fenway. Brian Hoch reports that the righty is a "near-lock" to see time against lefties. So Thames track record matters when it comes to facing lefties, but Curtis Granderson's doesn't? And Gardner doesn't even get a fair shake? Got that? No? Me neither.

Over at Pending Pinstripes, Matt was one of eight writers who answered a bunch of questions on Yankees prospects. Here are parts One, Two, Three and Four of the octagonal table.

Greg from PP also gathered up the links to his top 30 Yankee prospect profiles.

More from the farm: here is Mike from RAB's Minor League Primer, wherein he posts and discusses the rosters for each level of the minors.

Ross from NYY Stadium Insider did an excellent two part series analyzing the resale market for Yankees tickets this year. Well worth checking out if you are planning on picking up tickets online.

Want to hear some Sawx fans whining about the umpiring last night? Probably not, but here's the link anyway.

The Yankees are checking in at 3-1 to win the World Series right now with the Sox and Phillies next best at 6-1. Any takers?

It turns out that Joba really admires John Smoltz. The former dominant starter and reliever told the youngin' to treat everything like a one inning game, regardless of his role.

Via Craig at NBC, here is evidence that people have been complaining about the pace of play at baseball games since at least 1905. The only thing is, back then, 2:20 was apparently too slow.

Write something misguided about the Tampa Bay Rays and Jonah Keri just might write 4,000 words telling you how wrong you are. You've been warned.

Do you think if we told Joe Morgan that Hal McCoy was listening to the Sunday Night Baseball broadcast, he would stop talking?

Sky Andrecheck over at Baseball Analysts looked a how experts make predictions about baseball and developed a model that explains how it might be rational for people to pick teams that aren't actually the favorites. It was similar to what I started talking about here, except it goes about 10 times deeper.

Over at the Hardball Times, Geoff Young did something right up our alley by combining music and baseball. He watched the Yanks/Sox game last night on mute with Radiohead's OK Computer playing instead of the announcers. The results can be found here.

Walkoff Walk compiled a guide to the stadium grub that is new for the '10 season. Nothing new at Yankee Stadium but plenty to check out around the league.

Balls too slippery? Rub some mud on 'em.

Here is a professional poker player talking about how Major League Baseball is "complete garbage" and "totally, and insanely boring to me". He adds:

Teams like Tampa Bay occasionally have a miracle year with a cast of young players, but guess what happens when their contracts are up? They end up in Boston or New York.

Exactly. Like, you know... that awesome player who went from Tampa to the Yankees that one time. Cleveland would have probably been a better example.

Daniel Negraneau is fantastic card player and he makes some fair points, but I don't really care about what someone who is admittedly not a fan of the game thinks about what is wrong with it.

That's it for now. We'll be back with the preview for tonight's game in a little bit.