We gathered the “staff” together in a virtual sitdown to cover some of the biggest questions and issues that consumed our off-season and shared our thoughts how things would play out in 2010. There’s a lot here so I’ll just jump into it. Here are the questions thrown to Will, Larry, TheCommonMan, Mark, Tamar and myself:

1. A general stat line for the Yankees in 2010: number of wins, finish in A.L. East, how they’ll do in the playoffs (including the identity of the team they play when they win the WS or are eliminated).
2. An explanation for your prediction in (1) above, focusing on what you think will change the most on-the-field from 2009 to 2010.
3. Predictions for the performance for four of the players we’ve discussed most during the off-season: Granderson, Gardner, Hughes and Joba.
4. Your prediction for the most important off-the-field Yankees story/distraction in 2010.
5. Biggest Yankee midseason pickup?

So let’s get started:

1. A general stat line for the Yankees in 2010: number of wins, finish in A.L. East, how they’ll do in the playoffs (including the identity of the team they play when they win the WS or are eliminated):

Will: I look at this current incarnation of the Yankees as the best we’ve seen in my lifetime. I think they’ll test the 100 win mark in the regular season. 99-63, 1st in division; defeat the Phillies in the WS a second year in a row.

TheCommonMan: 94-68, 2nd, Lose in the ALCS

Mark: Most of the projections seem to have the Yankees in the high 90s, and I don’t have a problem with that. But I’ll be conservative and say 94 wins (hey, the Rays and Red Sox are pretty good, too). With the best offense in the majors and a pitching staff that should be around the top 10, injuries are the only thing that could get in the way of another AL East Division Title. Once in the playoffs, they’re still the best team. Unfortunately for this Braves fan, there’s just no reason to bet against the Yankees when they oust the Cardinals for the World Series.

Larry: Yankees stat line: 92 wins, American League wild card winner, loser to Seattle Mariners in 4 games in first round of playoffs.

Tamar: I really think that the Yankees are a better team than they were in 2009. If they stay healthy I wouldn’t be surprised to see them win over 100, but I’ll play it safe and say 97-65. I do think they will win the AL East and win the World Series, beating the Braves.

Jason: 94-68, winning the AL East, but barely. One game or even a tiebreaker with the Sox. TB an unfortunate 3^rd, but clearly better than at least the AL West or Central-winning teams, if not both.

(click “view full post” to read more)

Fellow ESPN SweetSpot-ter Evan Brunell of the Fire Brand of the American League posted Top 10 Reasons to Hate the 2010 New York Yankees over at his other place of blogginess, NESN. Before you cast your hate back at Evan, he was nice enough to mention and link to us here:

2. Entitlement is a prerequisite to root for the Yankees.
Ever meet a Yankee fan who thought it was a God-given right that players get to experience the joy of playing for New York? Thought so.

After all, it’s not like any other team can win the World Series or give a player the attention he deserves.

Mike Silva of New York Baseball Digest fell in this category, back when the jury was still out on whether Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer would stay in town or not. While discussing the prospect of Mauer being traded to the Yankees, Silva said that “Mauer deserves the big stage of New York.”

Wow, that’s a pretty strong word — deserve.

At least there are some Yankees fans out there who understand. After Silva received flak for his words, he posted a rebuttal and made it even worse by saying, “Why should great players be denied this environment? Why shouldn’t they be rewarded for their talents with sports immortality?”

So here’s my challenge to you guys:

(click “view full post” to read more)

For your amusement this Wednesday morning, a collection of Yankees-related quotes from Baseball Almanac:

• “A baseball club is part of the chemistry of the city. A game isn’t just an athletic contest. It’s a picnic, a kind of town meeting.” – New York Yankees President Michael Burke
• “All ballplayers want to wind up their careers with the Cubs, Giants, or Yankees. They just can’t help it.” – Pitcher Dizzy Dean
• “Baseball is like the United States of America. It’s too big to be loused up by one man and one monumental mistake. It’s even too great to be loused up by three recent monumental mistakes and a passel of small ones. The worst boner was the sale of the New York Yankees to the Columbia Broadcasting System and the clumsy manner in which it was consumated.” – White Sox Owner Arthur C. Allyn
• “During the 1920s New York Yankee owner Jacob Ruppert once described his perfect afternoon at Yankee Stadium. ‘It’s when the Yankees score eight runs in the first inning,’ Ruppert said, ‘and then slowly pull away.’” – Peter Golenbock in Dynasty: The New York Yankees (1975)
• “Hating the Yankees is as American as pizza pie, unwed mothers, and cheating on your income tax.” – Columnist Mike Royko
• “Hating the Yankees isn’t part of my act. It is one of those exquisite times when life and art are in perfect conjunction.” – White Sox Owner Bill Veeck

(click “view full post” to read the entire list)

While his results weren’t great, clearly the big guys on the Yankees were excited and surprised to see what switch-pitcher Pat Venditte could do:

Swisher said he and the other outfielders were talking to one another when Venditte was on the mound in the sixth.

“We were like, he’s about to switch, he’s about to switch right now!” Swisher said.

Sabathia had no idea Venditte could pitch with both hands. When he came out of he game, Sabathia saw a left-handed pitcher coming in from the bullpen. Then he saw a right-handed pitcher on the mound.

“I was like, maybe that guy got hurt,” Sabathia said.

Fun to imagine these guys getting excited about something like this. Better yet was Venditte’s reaction/response:

Afterward, Venditte seemed humbled by the experience and said it’s up to him to make himself more than a sideshow.

No, I was not included in this roundtable, but they got three good representatives from the Yankosphere to chat about all things Yankee. Here’s part 1:

Q: [...] Which of the two [Joba or Hughes] is better suited to be the Yankees’ fifth starting pitcher this season?

Kabak: Both pitchers are perfectly suited for the starting rotation, and both pitchers should be given a fair shot at starting. That said, I’m very mystified by the Yanks’ thinking. At River Ave. Blues, we’ve long been supporters of giving the young pitchers a chance to start. After all, top-notch starting pitching doesn’t grow on trees, and the Yanks have a rare (for them) opportunity to develop two front-line pitchers out of kids who are both under 25. These two have spent their careers starting and should be doing so in the majors.

That said, the Yanks’ decision — seemingly made before spring training — to go with Hughes boggles my mind. I love Hughes; I’m ecstatic to see him in the rotation; but after the Yanks yanked Chamberlain around for the better part of three seasons, they’re willing to move him into the pen for all of 2010. Brian Cashman says he’ll still be a starter when the Yanks need pitchers in 2011, but I’m beginning to doubt the team’s willingness to develop a plan and stick to it for their young pitchers.

Nice job by Ben, Steve and Cliff.

I’ve said similar things about the handling of Joba as Ben did above. Given the chatter from Eiland and from Billy Eppler, you might want to infer that the Yanks have ditched the “Joba-as-a-starter” plan. Of course, Cashman debunked this.

Got this in an email from Tyler Hissey (from BlogTalkRadio):

Your post on Mike Silva saying the Yanks deserve Mauer was my inspiration

Evidently, I was the inspiriation for the following video. I’m flat out giddy.

Now, I will say that I debated running this because it features Hitler (from this movie), but you have to give Tyler credit, he made it hilarious, brilliant, incredible.

(I’m having trouble embedding the video, so just click thru and enjoy!)

I’m going to steal an idea from Keith Law for a moment. I don’t know when he first came up with the idea or when he first publicly stated the idea, but the first time I saw it was last summer during the Stephen Strasburg debates (I found it funny that there were vehement arguments stating he should have gotten more money and others barking that he made too much considering he had never thrown a major-league pitch; both seem fairly legitimate to me, but I side with the former).

Initially, I thought it was a terrible idea, but it has grown on me the more I’ve thought about it. We’ve been taught that the draft was the solution to the Yankee domination from the 1920s to the 1960s (they won 20 World Series during that time; only one other team has even won 10 in all of baseball history!). The Yankees had essentially been buying up some talented prospects and using the Kansas City A’s as a farm team, and with everyone tired of it, they instituted the draft (okay, that’s not exactly why it happened, but it’s what we’ve been led to believe; perception is reality). Instituting the draft in 1965 was supposed to redistribute talent throughout baseball, making the game fairer. And you know what, it did (or at least appeared to). It was the right solution. The Yankees have only won 7 World Series since, and the Cardinals have only won 3 (the Cardinals are the team with 10 World Series Championships).

But just because it worked then, does it mean it continues to work now? It’s odd how we perceive things. In this instance, the draft initially worked to create (better) competitive balance, and now as we search for more competitive balance, we can’t let go of the draft. Free-agency for amateurs is what caused the problem necessitating the draft, so how can it be the answer now? How can the draft have been a solution and now be part of the problem? The answer is that times change.

click “view full post” to read more

Like many of you, I’ve been aware of switch-pitcher Pat Venditte for a few years. I mean, how often do you hear of a guy able to throw nearly equally well with both hands anyway? Looks like the big boys wanna take a gander:

Yankees minor league ambidextrous pitcher Pat Venditte is expected to pitch in his first major league spring training game during Tuesday’s split-squad contest against Atlanta.

Yankees manager Joe Girardi says he has wanted to see Venditte pitch all spring.

I’ll do my best to watch this guy. If you can’t, and if you want to click through, here’s the ESPN piece on him as well as the YouTube classic video below:

(click “view full post” to read more)

The list of injuries and setbacks Alan Horne has endured as a long one before the latest:

Horne had mild shoulder surgery after the 2008 season. He tried to pitch last year, but the shoulder and a strained hamstring limited him to 14 outings between rookie ball and Double-A. He’s now scheduled for surgery with Dr. Andrews on April 9, and it will definitely knock him out for the season. When he can get back on a depends on the severity of the injury.

Back in 2007, Horne was outstanding in the Double-A Eastern League. He went 12-4 with a 3.11 ERA and 165 strikeouts in 153.1 innings and was named the league’s Pitcher of the Year. In 2008 he ranked ahead of Jesus Montero, Brett Gardner, Ross Ohlendorf and Andrew Brackman on Baseball America’s Yankees prospect list, and he might have been one of the slew of big league call-ups that year had he not strained his biceps in his second Triple-A start.

When he’s been healthy, Horne has been a young pitcher on a no-doubt course to the big leagues, but his body has had way of letting him down. He’s already come back from Tommy John surgery, now he’ll have to come back from this.

Here’s to hoping he’s back throwing the ball in 2011.

All is not well in Red Sox Nation, as ESPNBoston reports that Theo Epstein is unwilling to give Beckett the same contract that was given to John Lackey this past offseason.

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Talks are ongoing for a contract extension for Red Sox pitcher Josh Beckett, who is scheduled to pitch the season opener next Sunday night at Fenway Park against the New York Yankees.

But it turns out the benchmark for a new deal will not be the five-year, $82.5 million contract the Sox gave free agent John Lackey this winter, according to a source with knowledge of the negotiations. The Red Sox will not go beyond four years in a deal for Beckett, the source said.

…snip…

Early in his minor league career, Beckett had evidence of some fraying in his rotator cuff, which led his former team, the Florida Marlins, to limit how much he threw, according to a major league source. And when the Red Sox acquired Beckett from the Marlins in 2005, Sox officials who inspected his medical records were concerned about his shoulder, but not enough to walk away from the deal, according to a baseball source with direct knowledge of those trade negotiations.

Yes, Beckett has had some injury questions in his career, but it’s most commonly been blister issues rather than shoulder tendinitis. Here’s why this doesn’t smell right to me.

FIP Lackey Beckett
2007 3.54 3.08
2008 4.53 3.24
2009 3.73 3.63
3-Year 3.93 3.32
Career 3.83 3.61

Combine that with Beckett’s age advantage (he’s 1.5 years younger than Lackey), Lackey’s recent injury history (Lackey spent significant portions of 2009 and 2008 on the disabled list, notably with elbow inflamation), and Beckett’s playoff heroics on this team, and I have to wonder if the Red Sox are running into budgetary constraints.

(click “view full post” to read more)

You’ll need a handy currency conversion tool, but you’ll get the point just with this:

The New York Yankees are the best-paid team in global sport measured by average first-team wages, ahead of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea and basketball’s Dallas Mavericks, according to the inaugural Annual Review of Global Sports Salaries (ARGSS), to be published this week by sportingintelligence.

The average first-team pay at the Yankees was £89,897 per player per week in 2009, or £4.7m per player last year, when the Yankees won the World Series – the biggest prize in baseball. Real Madrid’s stars earned £4.2m per year each in the period reviewed for Spanish football. The corresponding figures were £4.1m at Barca, £3.59m at Chelsea and £3.56m at the Mavericks.

Like the anti-Yankees fans needed any more ammo…. Not even the crazy Premier League soccer/football teams can catch the Yanks!

I hold the professional writers in high esteem, even those who irk me a-plenty. Coming up with storylines under deadline, every day, has got to be an immensely challenging task. Layer onto this the “ARod quotient” and you’ve got year-round potential to mock, tweak, annoy, vex…

Now, I will readily admit that I’m not ARod’s #1 fan. I love what he did for the 2009 Yankees, but there’s a part of me that still needs to be won over. That said, if I start to sound like Joel Sherman, please let me know, because this sort of thing is just terrible, especially on the eve of the new season:

Off-field drama won’t distract 2010′s A-Rod

After these few sentences, we are going to attempt the daredevil journalistic stunt of writing an entire column in 2010 about Alex Rodriguez without mentioning steroids, HGH or Anthony Galea.

You wildman, Joel.

(click “view full post” to read more)

Over this weekend, I’ve had the immense pleasure to introduce Larry and TheCommonMan to the IIATMS starting roster. Today is the final cut as we get ready for 2010. Today I get to introduce one of my oldest blogging buddies, Mark Smith. Mark and I were among the early readers of Craig Calcaterra, back when Craig was, like me, a working stiff who liked to write about baseball, not the high profile full-time blogger you can read over at HBT/NBC. Mark had stepped away from writing for a bit of time but recently re-emerged with a new site and new mission. And he was good enough to accept my invite to spend a little time here.

Now, as you saw with TCM, Mark isn’t a Yankee fan. In fact, as you’ll see, he’s clearly not a fan. But like TCM, Mark loves the game and brings an excellent analytical eye and he’s going to lend his skills to us. Mark’s inclusion is another example of our attempt to bring you more than just another homer-rific Yankees blog.

His intro:

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I don’t know how this is going to work out. When I think of my feelings toward professional baseball teams, there’s love (Braves), respect (Red Sox), excitement (Orioles), ambivalence (Padres), and schadenfreude (Cubs, Mets). The only team that I can say I hate is the Yankees.

Then again, it’s not really hatred in the traditional sense of hate. I don’t mind that the Yankees have more money than everyone else, and honestly, I kind of wish the Braves were in a similar situation (Oh, where have you gone Ted Turner?). It began back in 1996 during the World Series that the Yankees stole, and it cemented in 1999. But over the past decade, I’ve largely let go of those feelings. The hate I feel is the hate you feel toward the guy who asks a stupid question about something explained five seconds ago, the guy whose dog craps in your yard and doesn’t pick it up, and whoever thought Spiderman 3 was a good idea. I guess general disgust is a better description.

Regardless, I won’t hold your Yankee loyalty against you. I’ve long since learned that holding a grudge doesn’t lead to anything good for the grudger (?), and I realize that there are plenty of good reasons (27, I believe now, right?) to be a Yankee fan. Sometimes, I even admire you for being Yankees fans given how much grief you all usually get.

Back to whatever point this is supposed to have. What am I doing here? I’m not really sure, but Jason thought it was a good idea. I’ve read Jason for a long time, and if he thinks it’s a good idea, then I’m on board and honored for the opportunity. Currently, I have my own site called The Sabermetric Emotionalist, and I’ll chime in over here once or twice a week to talk about sabermetrics, advanced statistics, and maybe a little history. Will@IIATMS will (sorry about that; people always think it’s funny to have a bit of fun with my name as well, but I couldn’t think of a better sentence structure) still ably handle the actual numbers and graphs, and I’ll take a more social science approach to the sabermetric-traditionalist debate. Following the purpose of my blog, I’m hoping that I’ll make you think, make you see issues from a different and/or multiple perspectives, and even get your goat every once in a while (I’m mischievous like that). I guess I’ll end there, but I look forward to getting to know you and seeing if my hatred is justified or not.

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With that, our 2010 rotation is now set. Roles and responsibilities generally break down this way:

• Will: Our stats guru; all things stats, data, analytics
• Tamar: Daily recaps, minor league coverage
• Larry: Financial, legal coverage, particularly around the CBA and all revenue/lux tax discussion
• TCM: Long-form MLB-wide issues and discussion
• Mark: Flaming the “sabermetric-traditionalist debate”
• Jason: Anything and everything

The only one on that roster above who will be trying to post on a daily basis is myself. The rest of these talented people will be posting as their schedules and opportunities allow. I believe this gives us ample coverage to weigh in on all issues. I hope you agree. (If not, please call us out on it.) We’ll find out soon enough as we’re T-6 days and counting until Opening Day.

Play ball!