The recent retirement of Jorge Posada after a phenomenal 17-year career has led to many heartfelt tributes and retrospectives, analyzing what he has meant to the Yankees throughout his tenure. Yesterday, John Sickels over at Minor League Ball took a look at Posada’s progression through the minors, and how scouts and prospect evaluators looked at [...]
“Red Sox, Yankees … Red Sox, Yankees … I don’t care about the Red Sox and Yankees. We have to take care of ourselves. This is the most important year in the four years I’ve been here. This is your chance, from right now, to decide what kind of team you want to be.” General [...]
On Wednesday, Jonathon Mayo of MLB.com released his 2012 Top 100 Prospects. The Yankees had four players land on the list, Manny Banuelos at 13, Dellin Betances at 41, Gary Sanchez at 53, and Mason Williams at 73. It was no guarantee that we’d see Sanchez or Williams on such a list, but what surprised [...]
This is from Kevin Kernan, so make of that what you will, but the Post is reporting that the Yankees “have interest” in outfielder Raul Ibanez, presumably to fill the other half of their DH platoon with Andruw Jones. Ibanez has spent the last three years in Philadelphia after Ruben Amaro did what Ruben Amaro does and gave the then 36 year old Ibanez a three year contract after the 2008 season. Ibanez rewarded him with a solid 2009 season, but it’s been all downhill from there, bottoming out with a .245/.289/.415 slashline (90 wRC+) and a -1.3 fWAR thanks in no small part to his atrocious left field defense.
Platoon splits make Ibanez look a little bit better, as he had a wRC+ of 101 against right-handed pitchers, but I’m still underwhelmed by the prospect of the Yankees adding him. Ideally you’d like to see a platoon hitter be better than average from his strong side, and given that Ibanez will turn 40 this June, there’s certainly a very real chance the bottom will fall out any day now. I suppose I wouldn’t say no to a minor-league deal in this case, but a major league deal doesn’t really make a lot of sense, in my opinion.
We did this yesterday with Michael Pineda, so let’s do it with Hiroki Kuroda today. For info on how this works, click back to yesterday’s post. You can find Kuroda’s splits here. The same caveats as yesterday apply. The numbers listed after the jump are the park adjusted numbers.
Tuesday night, on MLB Network Radio, Pirates GM Neil Huntington said about trading Andrew McCutchen, “Never say never. If someone wants to back up the truck and give us one of those organization-altering deals, it’s something that we’d have to listen to, but there are some players on our club that are extremely difficult to [...]
The backlash against the selection of Cito Culver in the 1st round in the 2010 MLB draft was pretty severe, as he wasn’t on any mainstream prospect evaluator’s radar as a 1st round candidate. The early scouting reports didn’t sound much like a 1st-round prospect, describing him as a future defense-first shortstop with his arm [...]
Good news everyone; Boone Logan is comin’ back! Okay, so he never really left, because he’s only arbitration eligible, but the Yankees announced today that they’ve settled on a salary figure for their primary LOOGY. Logan will make $1.875 million in 2012, just a touch under the mid-point of the figures he and the team submitted in the arbitration process.
Via Jon Heyman, the Yankees have DFA’d relief pitcher Kevin Whelan in order to make room for Hiroki Kuroda on the 40-man roster. The team made the re-signing of Andruw Jones final yesterday, claiming the final available roster spot and making the additional move necessary. The Yankees may need to clear additional roster space in the coming weeks if they make additional moves for a new designated hitter or utility infielder as well.
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