At the beginning of every season, we bloggers tend to have some fun with bold predictions. Not to toot my own horn, but I did pretty well in 2012. I had Zack Greinke being traded and headlining the free agent market for starters in the fall over Cole Hamels, then I had Jesus Montero, Michael Pineda, and Hector Noesi struggling with Jose Campos being the most impressive piece of last year’s trade, and then I had the Nationals’ starting rotation beating out the Phillies’. This season I predicted that the Yankees would have a Rookie of the Year contender.
When I made this prediction, I was purposely vague, as I honestly had no idea who it would be. The Yankees have an above average farm system, but most of the top prospects are at least a year away from the major leagues. I made this prediction based on injury concerns, and knowing that players in Triple-A would get a chance at some point. It could have been Vidal Nuno, Adam Warren, Ronnier Mustelier, Thomas Neal, Zoilo Almonte or a number of other potential replacements that we watched in Spring Training. There has been some truth to it, as it’s only May and we’ve already seen a ton of rookies get a chance to play with the Yankees, yet none of them have succeeded enough to start considering them for RoY contention.
SMALL SAMPLE SIZE WARNING: David Adams has only had a handful of at bats, but he’s certainly received the most hype. Through 27 plate appearances , the infielder has already hit 2 doubles and 2 home runs while playing a very impressive third base. 7 games isn’t enough to judge any player, but his early showing has been extremely positive, and fans have already started talking about what the team should do when Kevin Youkilis returns.
Personally, I don’t buy the glove. I’ve seen him make some terrific plays, but with just 60 minor league games played at the hot corner, and a less than positive reputation by scouts, it’s hard to believe that Adams could continue to play a flawless third base. Regardless, Adams knows that he’ll live and die by his bat, and the only way he’ll stay with the major league team is to keep hitting the ball. The question remains, is his bat for real?
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In case you missed it, there’s a picture of Derek Jeter making the rounds which shows him leaving a local Starbucks with a cup that has the name Philip written on it.
(Image courtesy of the New York Post)
This is how boring off-days are here in New York. Derek Jeter walking out of a Starbucks with the wrong name on a cup of something – because who knows if it’s coffee or some sort of tea – is big news.
And I know coffee snobs will be horrified that Jeter goes to Starbucks but I can tell you from second hand stories that he has frequented the coffee chain for a long time. My friend lived in the upper East Side years ago and literally bumped into him as he leaving one somewhere in the 70′s, maybe 72nd street? I can’t remember the exact location of the place and there seem to Starbucks on every corner of Manhattan these days so your guess is as good as mine.
Anyway, the story in the Post goes on to mention that Jeter has used other aliases in the past. Apparently, he checked into a hotel in Seattle in 2007 as Johnny Drama, the name of a character from the HBO show Entourage. Jorge Posada used Ricky Ricardo at that same hotel.
Personally, I think the idea of using an alias is fun and I have a word document saved with about three pages of them on my laptop. In the film Notting Hill, Julia Roberts played a movie star – I know, what a stretch! – and the character mentioned a whole bunch of cartoon names she used as aliases when checking into hotels.
Now, if you’re a regular Starbucks customer, you know that they sometimes spell names wrong. But to be fair, Philip sounds nothing like Derek so either he took someone else’s drink or the cashier has extremely bad hearing and doesn’t watch baseball.
As a joke, a former coworker of mine convinced me tell the cashiers at the Starbucks in the Rockefeller Center concourse that my name was B.T. which stood for Big, um, well, I’m a female so you can figure that second initial out all on your own. I did it a couple of times before I decided to go back to my real name. They were giving me weird looks every time I ordered because I was always laughing.
So, if you were famous or just in a goofy mood like I was when I was working at NBC, what would you Starbucks name be? Feel free to leave them in the comments.
Oh and to go one step further, what do you think Jeter was drinking? Since it’s a cup with a name on it, Starbucks drinkers will know that he didn’t order a regular coffee and that he waited at the bar for his order.
I’m imagining some sort of skinny latte but who knows.
According to Joel Sherman, Michael Pineda‘s fastball was averaging at 93 m.p.h. today in an extended spring training start.
He will have one more start then go on a 30-day rehab assignment after which the Yankees will decide whether or not to bring Pineda up to the big club or to keep him in Triple A.
This comes on the heels of the news that Jesus Montero, the other big name involved in the infamous Friday the 13th trade of January 2012 has been sent down to Triple A by the Mariners.
Just in case you hadn’t heard the news, the Seattle Mariners will be sending Jesus Montero down to their triple-A affiliate in Tacoma.
The Mariners have just finished up a 2-7 road trip – their two wins came here against the Yankees, of course – and along with sending Montero down, they’re recalling catcher Jesus Sucre to replace him. Yes, there are two Jesuses and they’re both catchers.
Or are they?
It seems the Mariners may be finally realizing that they would be better served with Montero at either DH or even first base because he’s just not cutting it at catcher. Hey, the Yankees could have told them that!
So this is an interesting development. With Michael Pineda on his way back from shoulder surgery and eyeing a June return – barring any setbacks, naturally – and Montero back in the Minors for the Mariners, I wonder who will make it back to the big leagues first.
I also wonder if we will finally know after all this time, who actually won that damn trade?
This is the fourth and final installment of our sit-down with MLBPA Executive Director, Michael Weiner where we talk about how the Yankees business model has effected baseball at large and some other good stuff that you the fans want to hear about.
As is well known, the Yankees, by virtue of their market and stature as baseball’s premiere franchise, are able to do business unlike most teams in baseball as they can afford to pay top dollar for the best possible talent. However, as history has shown many times that has hurt them because having all the money in the world doesn’t mean much if you don’t know how to spend it wisely (Insert awful contract reference here). For a while, a significant number of teams around Major League Baseball attempted to try and beat the Yankees at their own game but since no one else can do what the Yankees can, it set a number of these teams back several years as a result of them signing players to bloated contracts that never really panned out. Some would argue that the Steinbrenner model of constructing a winning baseball team has been bad for the game and other would argue to the contrary.
Weiner’s take on it was as follows:
“I think it’s been great for the Yankees and when George Steinbrenner decided to sign Reggie Jackson, Derek Jeter, or even Alex Rodriguez he wasn’t trying to do what was best for the game, he was trying to do what was best for the Yankees. The way the Yankee brand has been built up since when Steinbrenner took over the team has been phenomenal and that’s been in large part because of his willingness to spend on players. In retrospect have some of those players outperformed their contracts? Yes. Have some of those players under-performed those contracts? Yes. But overall the Yankee brand has been phenomenally successful and that has been very helpful to the growth of the game of baseball but that’s not why George Steinbrenner did it and that’s not the way the economics of baseball work. The economics of the game work by teams trying to maximize their local revenue, their local attendance, and their local media and what the Yankees have done in terms of maximizing all three of those areas has been phenomenal so my view is that the Yankees have done as good of a job as anybody over the last 25 years of embellishing their brand and maximizing their revenue while coming up with new and major revenue streams and they deserve a lot of credit for that.”
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(Syndicated from An A-Blog for A-Rod. Stats have not been updated to reflect last night’s game)
Anybody who’s read AB4AR for at least a year knows I’m an unabashed sucker for relievers coming out of nowhere and performing well in the Yankee bullpen. It’s been a staple of their overall bullpen success for at least the last 5 seasons running and last year it reached new levels of surprising success when Clay Rapada and Cody Eppley teamed up to provide a major boost to a bullpen in need. That familiar story is being written again this season by a new group of unheralded, unexpected pitchers, many of them part of that large group of rookies who’ve made their debuts in 2013. Unsung bullpen heroes AND they’re homegrown? You betcha.
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Scranton/Wilkes-Barre had a day off.
Trenton lost to Richmond 5-4:
The Thunder drew first blood, when Kyle Roller started the second with a single to center and Neil Medchill doubled him in. The lead was short-lived, however, as Richmond took advantage of some sloppy pitching in the bottom of the inning. Ryan Lollis led off with a walk and Andrew Susac drew a free pass as well. A wild pitch moved the runners over and another loaded the bases with two outs. Brett Krill laced a double to right, scoring Lollis and Susac for the 2-1 advantage. A two-run triple by Adam Duvall in the fourth doubled the Flying Spiders’ score. Back-to-back doubles by Susac and Krill gave Richmond one more run, putting the Thunder down 5-1. With time running out, Trenton rallied in the top of the eighth. A single by Walter Ibarra gave the Thunder their first runner of the inning. A single by JR Murphy put two runners on and Roller drove a homer over the wall in left, bringing the Thunder within one run of the Flying Spiders. Trenton had a chance to tie the game in the top of the ninth, as Ali Castillo reached on an error and Jose Pirela drew a one out walk, but the Thunder couldn’t bring home a runner, taking the 5-4 loss.
Ibarra went 3-5 with a run scored. Roller went 3-4 with two runs scored, a homer and three RBIs. Medchill went 2-4 with two doubles and a RBI. Tyler Austin went 0-5 with two Ks. Jose Ramirez threw 1.2 innings and gave up two runs on two hits, five walks and a strikeout. Jeremy Bleich went 3.1 innings and gave up three runs on six hits, a walk and a strikeout. Fred Lewis pitched 2.1 innings, scattering four hits and a walk. He struck out two. Aaron Dott finished out the game and did not give up a hit or walk.
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More to come on this…
Excuse me while I cry in a corner.
UPDATE 9:07 P.M. It’s a bruised calf. Phew.
YANKEES
Granderson CF
Cano 2B
Wells LF
Hafner DH
Overbay 1B
Adams 3B
Ichiro RF
Brignac SS
Romine C
Kuroda P
ORIOLES
McLouth LF
Machado 3B
Markakis RF
Jones DH
Davis 1B
Wieters C
Hardy SS
Dickerson CF
Casilla 2B
Hammel P
It’s just a night off for Brett Gardner. He’s not injured. According to Joe Girardi, Ichiro Suzuki has good numbers against Jason Hammel.
IIATMS MASTHEAD
Co-Founders and Editors Emeritus
Jason Rosenberg, Larry Koestler,
Moshe Mandel, Brien Jackson
Editors-in-Chief
Michael Eder, Stacey Gotsulias, Matt Imbrogno
Writers
Tamar Chalker, William Tasker, EJ Fagan, Mike Jaggers-Radolf, Brad Vietrogoski, Domenic Lanza
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