Kevin Youkilis was out of the lineup again yesterday, for the same reason he’s been out of the lineup for every game he’s missed this season: his back. Youkilis strained it diving for a ball at first base in Saturday’s game and was held out yesterday by Joe after reportedly feeling stiffness “stiffness” in the back. He’ll get an extra day of scheduled rest today with the off-day, and Joe certainly sounded like he was going to play him on Tuesday. But with the continued back problems limiting Youkilis’ playing time and severely hindering his production, it’s almost time to ask if he’s done.
Youkilis has now played in just 25 of the team’s 63 games this season (39.68%). Over the course of the full 162-game season, that plays out to just a tad over 64 games played, which would be the lowest games played total of Youkilis’ career since he became a full-time player. 16 of those games played came in the first 3 weeks of the season, when Youkilis benefited from a couple extra rainouts and scheduled days off. In those games he hit .279/.353/.443 before missing his first game on April 21st. Since then his game line has looked like this: 6 games missed, 1 game played, 30 games missed, 3 games played, 1 game missed, 5 games played, 1 game missed and counting.
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(Syndicated from An A-Blog for A-Rod)
We’re never going to find out, and I ask the question knowing full well that it really doesn’t matter in the long run. What matters is that Kevin Youkilis get 100% healthy and not come back to play until his back is 100% healthy. But just out of sheer, morbid curiosity I’d like to know what went on behind the scenes on Friday/Saturday that led to Youkilis’ name being put on the lineup card so he could go out there and hurt himself again. Cash’s statement on the matter yesterday Tuesday was pretty damning, about as clear-cut an instance of people getting thrown under the bus as I’ve seen in some time, and I work at a company that specializes in that. It’s pretty out of character for Cash to be that blunt and sell his own people down the river like that, so I’d be very interested in knowing what happened to inspire his comments.
As far as I can figure, the “everyone involved” would have had to include Youkilis, Joe, and the training staff, with maybe Cash getting a vote on the matter after he heard all the reports. His statement indicates that he wasn’t on board with Youkilis playing, so who effed up? We know Joe’s been talking to Youkilis every day since he first started missing games, so did he just misunderstand something that Youkilis told him about how he felt? Did the training staff miss something when they checked him out? Did they miscommunicate something to Joe? Or did Youkilis just snake everybody and say what he had to say to get himself back on the field?
Any and all of those explanations are possible and I’d believe all of them if that was the explanation the team gave. But I still really want to know and it’s driving me crazy knowing that I’m never going to know. It’s not every day that something like this happens in professional sports and it’s not every day we see Cash sell his people out that publicly. Somebody dropped the ball here, Youkilis is going to miss more time as a result, and his back injury could become an even greater lingering issue moving forward. I DEMAND ANSWERS!!!
(Syndicated from An A-Blog for A-Rod)
Andy Pettitte returned to the mound Friday night and pitched 7 strong innings, easing concerns about the back issues that caused his last start to be pushed back. As one back problem seemingly goes away (for now), another took its place in the form of Kevin Youkilis. Youkilis left Saturday’s game early after feeling some tightness in his back, and was a scratch from yesterday Sunday afternoon’s game for the first time this season. Joe said he expects Youkilis to be back in the lineup tonight against Tampa (nope), and as expected, Youkilis has talked down the seriousness of the issue since the moment Saturday’s game ended. In the same way that Pettitte’s back is still worth keeping on the radar, Youkilis and his back should also be closely monitored over the next few weeks.
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Despite being the most significant non-returning player signing of the offseason, the Yankees didn’t bring Kevin Youkilis in with high expectations. His eroding offensive skills and 1-year deal pointed to him being nothing more than a plug-in at third base, a regressing, broken down former All Star brought in to temporarily replace the regressing, broken down former All Star the Yankees already had at third in A-Rod. As the everyday third baseman for the first half of the season, the Yanks would probably hit Youkilis 6th or 7th against right-handed pitchers, 2nd against lefties, and through a combination of walks and the occasional HR here and there get enough production out of him to help keep the offense going until A-Rod returned in July.
That plan quickly fell apart with the injuries to Curtis Granderson and Mark Teixeira, and got thrown further out of whack with the recovery setback to Derek Jeter‘s ankle. Youkilis now finds himself as the #1 right-handed bat in the lineup and arguably the second-biggest power/run-producing threat in the middle of the Yankee batting order. For at least the first month of the regular season, the Yankees are no longer looking at Youkilis as a cog on the offensive wheel; they need him to be one of the pedalers that keeps the wheel moving. Youkilis had a very good and surprisingly powerful Spring Training. How well he manages to keep that performance up on an everyday basis could be a major determining factor in the Yankees’ ability to keep the ship afloat while their walking wounded recover.
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Tonight, the 2013 Major League Baseball season begins, with the Texas Rangers playing the Houston Astros. The most beautiful thing about the baseball season is that it changes how I spend my leisure time. Nothing on TV tonight? They always play baseball. Can’t think of something to do after work? Call a buddy and watch some baseball. Don’t know how to spend time on a sunny afternoon? Upper deck tickets are cheap on Stub Hub and the 4 train moves fast. 162 games plus the playoffs means something to do, something to watch and something to talk about for half the year, and in terms of weather it’s the better half of the year.
After the gift of always having something entertaining to do, my second favorite thing about the baseball season is following story lines. Most Yankee fans are upset because the team enters 2013 in the weakest state that it has been in since 2008. Not only is the team not favored to win the AL East, but many believe the team will miss the playoffs. Win or lose, challenging seasons at least give fans like me more story lines to follow. When the Yankees put a juggernaut on the field and it demolishes its opponents every success was essentially scripted and only the failures make headlines. When the team is predicted to struggle, as it is this year, then new story lines will emerge, not only about failure but also about unexpected success. If the Yankees are going to make the playoffs they’re going to need to get strong performances from a number of players who are not household names, especially while household names Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira and Curtis Granderson are on the DL. Here are some of the story lines I’ll be following during the first month of the season:
Now that Alex Rodriguez and Curtis Granderson will both be starting the season on the DL most eyes have turned to Mark Teixeira as the most logical source of where the Yankees will need to get their missing power. And make no mistake about it, Tex has to produce. The Yankees will need him to [...]
Over a month ago, Kevin Youkilis and Kevin Long met up at the third baseman’s home in California to discuss changes to his batting stance. In an interview with Jack Curry, Youkilis explained the changes to YES network’s Yankees Access. Now that we have a broadcasted Spring Training game under our belts, we get to [...]
In my last two pieces talked about building the lineup. To quickly test the potency of these lineups, I ran them through the lineup analysis tool from Baseball Musings. I used the PECOTA and ZiPS projections to get the players’ OBP/SLG. Remember, though, these projected OBP/SLG numbers are NOT split adjusted. Here are the results: [...]
You’ll remember that last week, I mused about the possible lineup construction for the 2013 squad. Let’s revisit the idea of the lineup one more time, with something else in mind. If you’ve read this site, then you’re probably familiar with the Replacement Level Yankee Blog and its CAIRO Projections. The last iteration of them [...]
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