The radar for the New York City area.  Not looking good.

Baseball is a funny game. Earlier this season, most of the Yankee Universe was so happy to see Eduardo Nunez go to the minors, it was beside itself. Jayson Nix seemed like a much better alternative. Nunez’s shoddy fielding did not seem to be worth his ho-hum .728 OPS and he was not hitting with any kind of pop in his bat. During his absence, Nix did well enough. He had a good August. He was solid in the field. But the Yankees’ offense got stodgy. It became a station to station offense and even the addition of Ichiro Suzuki could not enliven the party that much. Batting against lefty starters was a strength for the first two-thirds of the season, but the lineup against those southpaws dried up late and Nix did not help much. And September has been pretty much a non-entity month for Nix. Nix has a .553 OPS in September. As the rosters expanded, Eduardo Nunez was among those minor league players that were called up. He hardly played in the beginning. Then Derek Jeter hurt his ankle and Nunez had his chance. Suddenly, he seems a much better option than Nix or even McGehee in the lineup against southpaws right now.

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The New York Yankees get Andy Pettitte back today. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing depends on how he responds in his first outing back from breaking a bone from a comebacker. The expectations have always been high with Pettitte and he has high expectations for himself. The bad thing is that the Yankees do not have a lot of margin for error here and need for Pettitte to throw a competitive four innings or so and then have someone step in and throw another three or four competitive innings to get to Robertson and Soriano. There is a little precedent for Pettitte’s return. That happened two years ago tomorrow. On September 19, 2010, Andy Pettitte returned from a long spell on the disabled list and faced the Baltimore Orioles in Baltimore. Can what happened two years ago give us any indication of what we can expect today? Let’s take a look.

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The welcome surprise of a great outing from Ivan Nova yesterday sets up the New York Yankees very nicely for their Sunday match up against the Tampa Bay Rays. They have their most reliable starter on the mound for a day game at Yankee Stadium III. The Rays start their latest phenom pitcher which can be troublesome. A win today could push the Rays all the way back to five games off the pace. Add to the nice story lines the fact that the Orioles have lost two in a row to the A’s out in Oakland and are forced to start Randy Wolf today against that same club. Yes, the Yankees have set themselves up nicely. All they have to do is win.

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The Yankees have finally come home to Yankee Stadium after a long absence and begin a series against the Tampa Bay Rays tonight. The Rays are coming off a sweep at the hands of the Baltimore Orioles and find themselves four games behind the lead and the wild card slot. The game will feature a match up of David Price versus C.C. Sabathia. Both pitchers have given some cause from concern. Price skipped a start due to some shoulder discomfort. And Sabathia has lost some velocity and has not been the shut down ace of days gone by. The game is important for both teams, in the understatement of the year.

The Lineups:

Tampa Bay Rays:

1. Desmond Jennings – LF
2. Ben Zobrist – SS
3. Evan Longoria – DH
4. B.J. Upton – CF
5. Jeff Keppinger – 3B
6. Ben Francisco – RF
7. Chris Gimenez – C
8. Carlos Pena – 1B
9. Elliot Johnson – SS

David Price – SP

New York Yankees:

1. Derek Jeter – SS
2. Nick Swisher – RF
3. Alex Rodriguez – 3B
4. Robinson Cano – 2B
5. Russell Martin – C
6. Andruw Jones – LF
7. Curtis Granderson – CF
8. Steve Pearce – 1B
9. Eduardo Nunez – SS

C.C. Sabathia – SP

Game time is at 7:05 and can be seen locally on the YES Network or nationally on the MLB Network.

Jon Heyman of CBS Sports wrote today that according to “rival GMs,” Russell Martin made a mistake by not signing the three year deal the Yankees offered the catcher before the season. Here is one of the money shots:

“However, three rival GMs surveyed this week suggested they believe Martin may now have to settle for a one-year deal folowing a season in which he has struggled offensively. Martin has stepped it up lately and is up to .209, with 16 home runs, but the batting average would be a career low.”

Heyman’s piece had a couple of interesting nuggets. First, it suggested that the Yankees went against club policy against negotiating extensions before free agency and offered Martin $20 million for three years before the season started. Heyman also suggests that the talks broke down after Yadier Molina signed his big five year extension.

There is no confirmation from the Yankees’ camp on whether these negotiations took place. If they did, then perhaps the team’s extreme stance on such negotiations is weakening. This, of course, has wide implications on the future of Robinson Cano, for example.

But the real question here is if Martin has actually hurt himself if such negotiations took place and he did in fact turn down a deal offered by the Yankees. If Heyman actually did talk to rival general managers, they might not be aware of Martin’s current valuation according to Fangraphs.com for example. They list Martin at 1.9 fWAR for the season or worth about $8.6 million. Baseball-reference.com has Martin listed lower. Both sites may or may not (most likely not) have all the latest data that is being fed into catcher valuations such as pitch framing and blocking pitches in the dirt. Both of those statistics, when added to the mix raise Martin by at least another ten runs or nearly another win of WAR. Since each “win” above replacement is worth around four and a half million dollars, Martin’s actual valuation will come in around $12 million before all is said and done.

It seems hard to believe that these GMs would be ignorant of such facts in this day and age of information.

Russell Martin has not improved his bottom line since the season started. His offensive output has to be disappointing no matter how you look at it. But his offensive numbers are not Jeff Mathis-like. And while Martin has not improved his value proposition, it is this observer’s humble opinion that he has not hurt that value proposition either because of the other things he does well. Russell Martin will be offered at least a two year deal, if not a three year deal by someone at the end of the season. Count on it.

If a dollar sprung out of the television set any time a baseball broadcaster and analyst mentioned the reliance on the long ball by the New York Yankees, the Tasker family could eat out every night next week. Face it, whether you watch the team regularly on the YES Network or MY9 or during a national broadcast, those folks have some sort of note in front of them about the percentage of runs the Yankees score via the homer. And it is not just during game telecasts either. Tune into any highlight or analysis show on the MLB Network, ESPN, TBS and whatever and if the Yankees come up, that tired old 48 or 49 percent will pop out of somebody’s mouth. It is enough to drive one bonkers. Well, Tyler Kepner of the New York Times is not buying it.

Kepner, in his On Baseball column today, made a strong case that relying on power is not a sign of weakness. Thank goodness someone besides us said it. Let’s see, which is easier to do, compile three hits to score a run or have just one hit score a run? hmm…

Sure, there are a lot of weak areas on this Yankees’ squad right now just as there are on all major league squads these days. The Yankees have a tough road to get to the playoffs. A lot will have to be overcome. But hitting home runs is not one of those weak areas. It is a strength dadgummit. And if you do not believe us, just read that Kepner piece, will you?