Some news on the pitching situation out of camp this morning, some important, some not so important.

First, the un-important stuff. A.J. Burnett has officially been named the team’s number two starter. There’s basically no difference at the margins between being a second starter and being a third starter, so this is one of those situations where if there’s any possibility there may be a psychological benefit to a decision, you might as well do it because there’s no real downside to it.

On the other hand, Freddy Garcia expressing a willingness to pitch out of the bullpen this season actually is a relatively big deal. Not because Garcia is likely to be any good (I’m more pessimistic about him every time he pitches), but because this gives the Yankees more flexibility in their rotation decisions. With both Garcia and Colon expressing a willingness to pitch in relief, the Yankees can bring both of them north, along with Ivan Nova, keeping them both on the roster (though perhaps cutting Sergio Mitre).

There should be another round of cuts this week. With Banuelos and Betances scheduled to pitch on Monday, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some cuts Tuesday, with the Killer B’s being re-assigned to minor league camp. We’ve got less than two weeks of spring training left, and there just aren’t enough innings to go around anymore.

Also, IIATMS is holding down the fort at Sweetspot today. Be sure to stop by and say hello.

While knocking around on B-R.com this morning, I ran a sort of cumulative WAR over a player’s first 10 years in the Bigs (1901-2010). Needless to say, we have to behold the greatness of Albert Pujols.

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The good folks at Little, Brown & Co., the publishers of Robert Weintraub’s book, THE HOUSE THAT RUTH BUILT, were good enough to say yes to my request that we give a few books away to some of you crazies. We’ve done this before and it’s always been a fun challenge. The Batting Stance Guy challenge was fantastic.  This one, however, will require you to be a bit creative.

Here’s the contest: The Best Babe Ruth-inspired Haiku will win one of the three books we have to give away. That’s it. Use the comments section below to submit your Haiku as well as voting for the best. We’ll consider the voting one of the criteria of our decision who wins. The other criteria: what WE liked best.  Winners will be selected by Tuesday evening.

Larry will kick off the contest with his submission:

Did Ruth curse the Sox?

The long losing streak and now

There’s Dan Shaughnessy.

Now get your Haiku on.

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I haven’t really given much thought to the news that Joe Torre will be at Old Timers’ Day this year, mostly because I pretty much assumed that would be the case since the very public hatchet burying that took place at the Steinbrenner monument ceremony last year. If Torre could show up to that and hug Yankee officials and shed some tears at the cheering crowd while he was employed by another franchise, coming to Old Timers’ Day after his retirement sort of seems like a given. Especially since his new job is going to involve spending a lot of time in New York anyway.

But I guess the old controversies are going to crop up every time Torre is mentioned, at least for a while anyway, so this is as good a time as any for another accounting of Torre’s tenure in the Bronx, with the added benefit of being six months removed from the beginning of reconciliation.

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It’s becoming rote to say that Joe Posnanski has “nailed it” with regard to whatever topic he’s riffing on. However, for all of us bloggers, dare I say wannabe professional writers, Joe speaks especially well for all of us in his take down of SF columnist Bruce Jenkins. First, what Jenkins said:

“It won’t be long before we get the first wave of nonsense from stat-crazed dunces claiming there’s nothing to be learned from a batting average, won-loss record or RBI total. Listen, just go back to bed, OK? Strip down to those fourth-day undies, head downstairs (to “your mother’s basement and your mother’s computer,” as Chipper Jones so aptly describes it) and churn out some more crap. For more than a century, .220 meant something. So did .278, .301, .350, an 18-4 record, or 118 RBIs. Now it all means nothing because a bunch of nonathletes are trying to reinvent the game?”

And Joe’s closing argument:

No, Bruce, that bit is ancient, and it’s dumb, and consigning the person you disagree with into their mother’s basement is just admitting you’ve run out of arguments. Anyway, it’s wrong. My mother’s basement was a wonderful place. It is, in so many ways, where I became a man. I visit there often in my mind. I’m usually wearing pants.

I don’t do this for a living (unfortunately) and I don’t live with my parents. I’ve got my own place (with my wife and kids) that we paid for, complete with wifi, so who needs to sit in a basement, anyway? But if there’s someone who wants to pay me to stay home and blog in my sweats, I’m game.

Like Joe, my parent’s basement was a great place. It was carpeted in green astroturf and stocked with Legos when I was young, replaced by a sprawling drumset with a wicked 1980′s style boombox as I got older. My folks have moved West and are basement-free. Don’t think for a second that I haven’t considered the astroturf for my own basement…

Submitted with very little comment other than “you must read this“.

Then come back.

The worm is turning on Jesus Montero. After some favorable stories about his defense in the first couple weeks of camp, the omnipresent scouts and team officials are coming out of the woodwork now to talk down his abilities behind the plate. Which isn’t really wrong, it’s just sort of odd given that we knew this was going to be a problem, and that basically no one is confident he’ll ever be more than a below average defensive catcher. The thing is, that’s ok! After all, the whole nature of having an average of something is that there will have to be some things that are above average as well as some things that are below average. Assuming Montero can hit, how good he is behind the plate relative to the rest of the catchers in the league is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether he can hit a nominal baseline of adequacy. If he does that, and he hits a ton on top of it, he can be the absolute worst backstop in the league and he’ll still be tremendously valuable.

The real thing I worry about is that people will expect too much of the kid too soon. If he makes the majors this season, he’ll be a 21 year old facing major league pitching in real action for the first time. That’s not to say he’ll be embarrassed, or even that he won’t hit the ground mashing, but in all likelihood he isn’t going to be supplanting A-Rod or Tex in the middle of the lineup this year. And that’s ok too. The only thing he really needs to do is hold is own at the big league level, and he’ll be right on schedule. But I’m afraid people will expect a .285 batting average and .900 OPS right away, or they’ll start talking about how the Yankees screwed up with another prospect. Something like this:

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If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times; there won’t be any serious attempt at contracting any Major League Baseball teams anytime soon. There’s a multitude of reasons, ranging from the fact that baseball is raking in revenue to the fact that it would take a wrecking ball to the good relationship the MLB and MLBPA have built for no good reason. But none of that is stopping various mainstream type reporters from speculating about various contraction scenarios. Ken Rosenthal has been the leading drum banger, but yesterday Joel Sherman joined the club, with a flair for the dramatic.

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Bygones being bygones, water having passed under the bridge, images in the rear view are not as close as they appear…. in other words, the lingering animosity between Joe Torre and the Yankees organization seems to have dissipated:

“I don’t know if I’m letting the cat out of the bag but I was invited back for Old-Timer’s Day,” Torre said Thursday evening at George Steinbrenner Field. “So maybe now they’ll withdraw the invitation.”

A Torre love-fest was completely inevitable, just like Derek Jeter reaching 3,000 hits. It’ll be a wonderful moment where we get to relive some of the great moments from the Torre Era.  For a period of time, Torre could do no wrong in New York and his ascent coincided with The Boss’ descent. The “Clueless Joe” headline (to the right) was something I’ll never forget. I remember chatting with a buddy at work at the time, remarking that Torre had better get the team out of the gates fast or he won’t last, much like so many other managers during The Boss’ reign.

David Cone won the opening game of that 1996 season (Jeter batted 9th for those concerned) and the Yanks began April at 13-10 and accelerated in May with a 16-11 record. The Yanks finished the 1996 season with a 92-70 record, eventually blitzing through the Rangers (3-1), Orioles (4-1) and famously against the heavily favored Braves (4-2), thanks in part to Andy Pettitte‘s ridiculous Game 5 showing. Among my most favorite seasons ever. So thank you, Mr. Torre, 1996 Manager of the Year.

And yes, they need to have Zim and Stottlemyre with him.

.

[Maybe Scotty  Proctor can walk the first pitch up to the plate.]

A huge thanks to Rays’ manager Joe Maddon, who tweeted this a few minutes ago:

@RaysJoeMaddon: Catching Yogi today when he fell today might have been my greatest play as a pro.

Hell yeah. Nice work, Joe.

Of course, this is the second time in a week or so that 85 year old Yogi Berra has tripped, with his first such incident resulting in an unplanned hospital visit. This time, however, Maddon was able to keep Yogi upright:

The Tampa Bay manager grabbed Yogi Berra after the Yankees’ great stumbled on the protective carpet by the batting cage before Thursday night’s game between New York and the Rays.

“We were talking, walking and he tripped,” Maddon said.

Once again Joe, thank you!

(picture above taken before the incident today, courtesy of FloridaToday)

The big story of the spring has been the fight for the last two spots in the starting rotation between Ivan Nova, Freddy Garcia, and Bartolo Colon. With just two weeks (that’s right, two weeks!) remaining until Opening Day, the battle is winding down, and decisions are going to have to be made soon. So where do we stand now?

It seems highly likely that Nova will be the team’s 4th starter. A lot of people indicated before camp opened that he had the inside line on one of the jobs, as the Yankees wanted him to make the rotation, and he certainly hasn’t played his way out of it. The only reason for Nova to not make the rotation at this point would be if the team wanted to hold onto Colon and Garcia to start the season for depth, which would require stashing Nova away in the minors for later. But Nova has probably outperformed the other two candidates enough to make that a less worthwhile choice.

So that leaves the two re-treads fighting for the last rotation spot, and Garcia will most likely win that battle, based largely on the fact that he actually pitched last season. Not that he pitched particularly well by any means (a 4.77 FIP), and honestly I’m not even sure that he’s actually pitched better than Colon this spring, but Garcia is the better bet to give you a good chunk of innings over the season. That’s not the worst thing in the world by any means, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s DFA’d by the All-Star break either. The trick is going to be to squeeze enough adequate performance out of that slot as they can before Brian Cashman has a chance to add another arm around the trade deadline.

I cannot remember a Spring Training season that’s been as much fun as this year’s version. It seems like every game, nearly every inning, the Yankees have put a young player on the field that’s enjoyable to watch. When was the last time the Yanks had so many interesting prospects? Jesus Montero, Dellin Betances, Andrew Brackman and Austin Romine, to name four. I’ve also enjoyed the glimpses I’ve seen of Melky Mesa and Adam Warren.

But without a doubt, the biggest buzz at Steinbrenner Field surrounds a 20 year old pitcher from Monterrey, Mexico named Manny Banuelos. Banuelos has not given up a run in 7.2 innings pitched this Spring, allowing 5 hits, walking 4 and striking out 10. Banuelos combines great stuff (four pitches, including a fast ball in the mid-90s and a changeup that made Kevin Youkilis look awfully foolish the other night) with unusual poise for someone his age. No less a figure than the great Mariano Rivera calls Banuelos the best pitching prospect he has ever seen.

(Is it too early to give Banuelos a nickname? Can he be ManBan? Don’t give me your answer right away; think about it.)

Banuelos has pitched so well this spring, there are some who think he should pitch for the Yankees this year. ESPN’s Keith Law seems to think that Banuelos is ready for the major leagues, right now. IIATMS’ own Brien agrees, assuming the Yankees’ coaching staff thinks he’s ready.

But it’s not going to happen. Banuelos may see limited time in the big leagues this year, perhaps a “cup of coffee” visit in September where he’ll get to pitch a few innings. But he’ll do nearly all of his 2011 pitching in the minor leagues. Brian Cashman tells us so, and writers from Rob Neyer to Ken Davidoff to ESPN Insider Kevin Goldstein agree that this is the right thing to do. Banuelos is too inexperienced to pitch in the majors, regardless of his talent.

I’ll add one other thing: Banuelos is too young to risk pitching in the majors. His body is not ready for major league pitching.

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For my first contribution to IIATMS I have my Yankees hat on today. The odd thing about this dark blue Yankees hat is I’m in the middle of St. Louis Cardinal country. I’ve been writing for The Hardball Times and contributing to ESPN.com but lurking here silently for some time. So, I am ecstatic about this opportunity. My dream is to one day see the Yankees and Cardinals in a World Series. As to who I’d want to win, I’ll keep that a secret.

Due to the publication of the outstanding articles by Tom Verducci and Will Carroll over at SI.com last week I thought for my first article I’d throw out something that I’ve been thinking about for awhile. I don’t intend to write on Tommy John surgery often, and we will hope injuries are not a prevailing topic in the Yankees locker room this year, but the timing of a recent interview was good.

After talking with Dr. Robert Hagan of the Neuropax Clinic in St. Louis, MO., I recently discovered there are two aspects of Tommy John surgery which are not widely discussed.

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