So, after the Yankees win an improbably game like that, I was suddenly reminded of the old school tradition of teams earning their nicknames from the press.  (The one I am most readily familiar with:  In 1888, six members of the [Brooklyn Dodgers] were married during the season, and the press tagged the club as the Bridegrooms or just the Grooms.)  If this tradition were in practice today, I guess we’d call this team the New York… Veteran Presence?  Yeah, let’s go with that.

*Andy Pettitte, the team’s most recent ‘licking,’ may only miss one start while he’s on the DL with his back issue thanks to rotation juggling, a rain out and the schedule as it stands.  Considering what the Yankees have gone through this year with respect to injuries, this is great news.

In case you’re not familiar with Baseball Prospects is an annual publication of stats predicting the coming year’s outcomes for each individual player.  (As far as I know, Baseball Prospects doesn’t use UZR, so I’m safe!)  They tally all of their projections together in a stat they WARP, or wins above replacement player.  Essentially, this number tells you how many wins a player is expected to be worth in the coming season.  Since I’m just getting to this now and it’s already May, we have a somewhat tenuous handle on what the year is going to look like, but it’s still fun to look at the book.

BP was predicting a 281/338/374 triple slash for Derek Jeter in 2013, which is a sink from 2012′s lofty heights, but that was what we were all expecting.  However, at this point, I’m just hoping he shows up at all.

BP thinks A-Rod will show up and hit 21 HR after the All Star break.  I’ll take it!

NP has Ichiro hitting a robust 291 this year – his motor has been running of late, and it doesn’t seem impossible right now, but a mere few weeks ago, it looked like the Yankees had made a big mistake on a 2 year deal with the sultan of contact.

Before Mark Teixeira got hurt, BP thought he would hit 25 home runs – sheesh!  His power really took a back seat in 2012 and he’s hurt again this year, but maybe we’ll get three or so healthy months from him and he’ll slug like the Teixeira of old.

Baseball Prospectus predicts less IP and fewer appearances for David Phelps, but as the team’s six starter and now part of the 5 man rotation, I think he’s going to stick around and pitch over 100 innings this year.  They have him slated for 77, but sitting here in May, I have the advantage!

If I go through every Yankee on the 40 man roster, I’ll be here forever, so let me just say that if this kind of thing interests you, Baseball Prospectus is worth your time.

At least, so far. It’s been a short sample size and the Yankees haven’t seen much left handed pitching thus far, so we’re still in wait and see mode. Plus, the Yankees are still waiting for Curtis Granderson, Mark Teixeira, Derek Jeter and even Alex Rodriguez to heal up and join the team. It seems as though Granderson has the most straight forward injury/recovery, while Teixeira’s issue seems to be all about not rushing it. As for Jeter, it sounds like they’re having him take a break of sorts, so not sure if that’s a bad sign or what… and who knows what the deal is with A-Rod. Oh, and I forgot about Michael Pineda, the pitcher the Yankees traded for in the 2011-2012 off season who has yet to throw a pitch for the team. If all of these guys come back and can be above replacement level, that should be worth something – especially Teixeira, Jeter and A-Rod as they can help against left handed starters immensely. And Granderson’s numbers against lefties aren’t bad, either.

Beyond the walking wounded, the two biggest things that I’m watching on this team are Ivan Nova and Phil Hughes. At this point, I’m just tired of Hughes. I think he could be a wonderful bullpen piece, but as a starter, I just don’t trust him. He’s had some good performances here and there, but his injury history makes me nervous if the Yankees want to resign him after this year. His career ERA of 4.46 doesn’t exactly blow me away, and given that he’s only pitched 150 innings twice in his career, I just don’t have a lot of confidence in the guy to stay healthy and be better than a 6.0 IP/3 ER guy at best, and I would expect Hughes to get worse as time goes on as he couldn’t stay healthy in the beginning of his career, never mind in the later stages. On the other hand, there’s Ivan Nova, who has really only had one bright spot of success in his short career, but when I watch this guy pitch, I think he has the stuff. He’s got velocity, his breaking ball breaks and has good velocity separation from his fastball… he just needs to bring it all together. That’s a tall order, but I think he could be great if he does, as opposed t Hughes, who is a fly ball pitcher in a park that’s not especially fly ball friends and who’s best days are probably behind him. Even if Nova doesn’t work out as a starter, I think his 95 MPH has a starter could play up to 99ish in the bullpen, and between that and his curve ball, Nova could be a dominant reliever.

Well, there’s still over 90% of the Yankees season left, so let’s not make predictions just yet and hope the injured guys make it back before June and go from there.

I know, I still owe ya’ll a Baseball Prospectus post. It’s coming! Editing videos for CreativeJamie.com is taking up a lot of my time…

First, the Yankees lost Alex Rodriguez to hip surgery, probably for half the season, if not longer. As if the Yankees didn’t have enough problems in the power department (not that ARod provides much power these days), Curtis Granderson (the team’s best power hitter) sounds like he’s going to miss all of April after getting hit by a pitch and receiving a fractured forearm. And now Mark Teixeira is going to also miss April with a wrist aliment.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!

The Yankees don’t seem to have any internal options for first base, but they should be able to at least run out a replacement level outfielder and of course, Kevin Youkalis will man 3rd base. Still, no Grandreson and no Teixeira is bad news for a team that was going to have enough trouble scoring runs as it is – losing two middle of the order bats is a straight up disaster.

And I haven’t even mentioned… whatever the hell is wrong with Phil Hughes’ back. (Although, is Hughes isn’t ready to start the season, I’m fine with Ivan Nova getting his spot. For some reason, I believe that guy is going to blossom into a serviceable middle of the rotation starter.) And, not to be left out, Brian Cashman messed up his ankle sky diving to bring awareness to the Wounded Warriors program, which is a worthy cause, but was skydiving really the only way to get attention for this? Hopefully the pain won’t cloud his judgement…

Spring Training is supposed to be boring and when it’s not, it’s a damn panic. April is going to be a rough month for the Yankees. The starting pitchers are going to have to pick up a lot of slack, that’s for sure. Blah.

COMING UP
The next post will be about the 2013 volume of Baseball Prospectus – unless another disaster strikes.

I’m pretty sure Bob Raissman got one of those famous Derek Jeter gift baskets for writing this article…

"Yankees brass should figure out a way — quickly — to keep Jeter long-term, past whenever he decides to call it a day."

[snip]

"The next time around, it’s worth considering his value as the face of the franchise. It must be factored in. His contract would be a bargain.

"The Yankees need Derek Jeter.

"For moments like these."

I’m sure Hal & Cash will jump right on that. They’ll just back up a dump truck of money onto Jeter’s front lawn and throw in partial ownership of the Yankees for fun. No problem.

I like Derek Jeter too, but sheesh.

Tomato, to-mat-oh.

The Worldwide Leader’s Wallace Matthews caught Jeter red-handed in a post he titles Captain Planet: Jeter on climate change.  The following Jeter quote is from his appearance at the World Economic Forum… in Switerland… where he spoke to a reporter from another publication.  (Obviously, Wally can’t do any of his own reporting or write more than 250 words.)

“I was in New York for Hurricane Sandy,” Jeter told The Dispatch. “It’s just something that’s gotten so much attention. Regardless of how you feel about it, it’s something that needs to be addressed because we’re seeing more and more natural disasters each year, it seems like. Something has to be causing it.”

Whoa Derek, settle down there!

Jeter sounds like some sort of crazy liberal pinko commie.  He might as well be Al Gore at this point.  Next thing you know, Jeter will be organizing screenings of An Inconvenient Truth on the jumbo-tron at Yankee Stadium.

First, we must understand just what it means to have a Hall of Fame vote and what it means to be inducted to a club that is so exclusive its chosen not to enshrine Roger Maris, who has held the American League single season home run record for forty years.

A Hall of Fame vote is a large responsibility, and induction an honor that should be reserved for only the best and brightest the game has to offer.

Wallace makes it sound like he’s negotiating peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, doesn’t he?  And to actually be inducted – it’s as if you’re a living God.  Got it.

So now we can begin to fathom why the aforementioned group is unworthy.  But he doesn’t stop the name dropping there.

…I will not be voting for Manny Ramirez or Alex Rodriguez or Andy Pettitte.

Awesome.  A-Rod and Pettitte are both still active, and comparing Pettitte’s transgressions to A-Rod’s is kinda… you know… dumb.  Surely Wallace doesn’t equate acquiring bulk to recovering from injury, right?  But I think he does.  Exactly why what Pettitte did is not OK but the fat and bone marrow stem cell treatment used on Bartolo Colon is OK… is baffling.  Anyway, I’m sure Wallace will take us through his reasons, and I’m sure they’ll all be good ones.

My reasons for this are several, and not at all personal.

That sounds like the right thing to say, but don’t worry, he’ll contradict this later.

And no matter how I try to justify it, none of those gentlemen can get past rule No. 5, which reads as follows: “Voting shall be based on the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.

I guess Wallace is referring to the “integrity, sportsmanship and character” part of the rule, and this particular point makes me wish Wallace was here now so I could ask him if he’d vote for Mickey Mantle, a notorious adulterer, fall down drunk and enemy of water coolers all across baseball.  I just imagine he’d stammer, “That’s… uh… different,” but we’ll never know.

Steroid or HGH use is cheating, plain and simple. And by definition, cheaters lack integrity, sportsmanship and character. Strike one, strike two, strike three.   There is compelling evidence that all five of those players were cheaters for a good portion of their careers and that their numbers were artificially inflated by it.

By compelling evidence, I presume he’s referring to failed drug tests and the two times Roger Clemens was convicted in court by a jury of his peers…  oh wait, that’s not how it happened…  Look, I think anyone with eyes could see that Barry Bonds blew up like a balloon, but I’m not sure if Hair Club for Men styled before and after pictures count as compelling evidence in the world of multimillion dollar athletes that can easily employ an entire staff of trainers, not to mention a personal chief, a nutritionist, and who the hell knows what else.  (Probably someone who buys steroids for them… again, not saying these guys didn’t do steroids and HGH, because we all believe they did, but I’m not sure there is a ton of compelling evidence lying around.)

And the fact that McGwire and Sosa needed chemical help to topple, after 37 years, the 61-home run barrier only reminds you how great Maris was that season.

But, again, Maris is not in the hall of fame and those guys are.  What’s Matthews’ point, exactly?

I’ve heard all the justifications and all the apologies: Everyone was doing it. It wasn’t against the rules. They were all Hall of Fame players anyway. Steroids don’t help you hit a baseball or throw strikes. And if you’re going to punish juicers, what about guys who used greenies or scuffed the ball or threw a spitter?

Greenies, huh?  What’s that, something you spray on your lawn to improve the quality of the grass?  Calling them ‘greenies’ kinda takes the emphasis off the fact that everyone was taking speed up until a few years ago.  I certainly remember Johnny Damon saying that we were all in for some boring games come August when everyone was exhausted from the rigorous schedule and didn’t have any amphetamines to take. Anyway, I guess “greenies” don’t count as performance enhancing, but I certainly don’t want to play a friendly pickup game against someone who is currently feeling the need – the need for speed, that is.

Then he brought up the scuffed ball and the spitter, which shifts the argument beyond logic, because now he’s talking about the countless way the game has changed over time.  Let’s list a few, shall we?

1.     Babe Ruth didn’t have to play in night games
2.     Or against anyone who wasn’t white
3.     Or face specialized relievers or closers (Mike Myers vs Babe Ruth would have been hilarious)
4.     Or fly from Tampa to Seattle – after you get off the plane, you feel great, ready to play baseball!  Or, what I actually mean is you feel like you’re about to DIE.
5.     The stadiums are only getting smaller – bad for pitchers, good for hitters
6.     The mound is six inches lower than it used to be
7.     The DH could have added several years to Ruth’s career

I think the point is that the game is different, and it seems like it’s always changing in some way – exactly why Wallace thought to make this point, I can’t say, but there it is.  But, the most damning thing in that statement is that he said they were all Hall of Famers anyway – so if that’s true, then why not vote for them?!?

This, to me, makes their decision to juice up sadder and all the more incriminating. Yeah, they probably would have been. But now, they never will be.

Unless one of them gets in next year.  It’s not like all of these guys got no votes.  The rule is that you’re removed from the ballot if you get less than 5% of the vote.  Since Wallace specifically mentioned Clemens, Bonds, McGwire, Sosa and Palmerio in his piece, let’s see how they did in the voting.

Roger Clemens – 214 votes (37.6%)
Barry Bonds – 206 votes (36.2%)
Mark McGwire – 96 votes (16.9%)
Sammy Sosa –  71 votes (12.5%)
Rafael Palmeiro – 50 votes (8.8%)

Yep, that’s what I thought – all eligible for the ballot next year.

Oh, look!  He (sort of) answers my Mantle question!

What about other cheaters?: This one is problematic. I have an easy out on Whitey Ford and Gaylord Perry and whoever was greenied to the gills in a previous generation. I wasn’t around to vote for them and can’t right previous wrongs. And there is something different about cheating with steroids, because it is the only form of cheating I know of that requires other players to jeopardize their own health to keep up.

Wait, “greenied to the gills in a previous generation” – didn’t that ban just happen a few years ago?  But I see what Wallace is saying about not being able to right others wrongs, yet this brings to mind a very important word:  precedence.  There is already a precedent for voting in cheaters because there are clearly cheaters already in the Hall of Fame.  And what the hell does jeopardizing their health have to do with anything?  I can’t imagine that it was a good idea for Randy Johnson to pitch with no cartilage in his knees, which was the case when he pitched his perfect game.  Should Johnson not be elected because he jeopardized his health?  I just don’t see where he’s going with that point.

In an extra effort to make sure I think he’s a total buffoon, Wallace voted for Mike Piazza.

And I have, of course, heard all the rumors, and even have some suspicions myself.

So he’d voted for Piazza anyway because he’s never failed a drug test and wasn’t on the Mitchell Report list.  Wow.  Just… wow.  Does anyone remember Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens failing a drug test?  I certainly don’t.  (Again, I believe they both did it, but I’m just trying – and failing – to follow the logic.)  Anyway, he says if someone comes forward and says they saw Piazza smoking a cigarette in the boys bathroom his freshmen year of high school, he’ll change his vote.

You can argue that I should have voted for Jack Morris (I have in the past but wasn’t feeling it this year) or Tim Raines or Edgar Martinez, and if your argument is persuasive enough, I might listen.

So he’s voted for Morris before but didn’t this year because he “wasn’t feeling it this year?”  What happened to Walter’s reasons not being personal?  That’s worse than his reasons for not voting in Clemens and Bonds.  And he might listen to a persuasive argument?  OK, fine.  How about this:  You are a complete and total hack of a writer.  Everything you post on ESPN’s website is only to justify your position and generate traffic to the website so you can keep your job.

Convinced?

I mean, I guess they’re new uniforms. They’re really just going back to the logo they used as recently as 1994 and their old school orange and blue color scheming. They’re also bringing back Orbit, their deranged mascot that has not been seen since 1999. Just what we need – another bizarre looking Muppet. Maybe we can arrange for Orbit and the Boston’s Green Monster to fight to the death.

Of course, the ‘Stros coming to the AL impacts the Yankees – sure, they’ll get to pound them 8 or 9 times a year, but unfortunately, so will the Angels (not to mention the Rangers and As) – and since they’re all in the American League West, it’ll probably be more like 18 games a year for the Angels, which sucks hard for Yankee fans while we have to face off with the always well pitched Rays, revitalized Blue Jays, scrappy Os and who the hell knows what Red Sox.

The inclusion of the Astros in the AL is going ot turn the race for the wild card spots into a major dog fight as AL West teams fatten up on inferior competition, and the Yankees are probably going to be stuck right in the middle of that battle, which sucks – and given that the 2013 squad won’t have the same offensive capability as the 2012 roster, things could get dicey. Cross your fingers!

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 13,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 3 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

Ichiro
Jeter
Teixeira
Cano
Granderson
Youkilis
[dh - Ibanez?]
[catcher - Stewart?]
Gardner

The latest Red Sox player to make the trek from Boston to New York is Kevin Youkilis, following in the footsteps of Babe Ruth, Wade Boggs, Roger Clemens, Johnny Damon. All iconic players in their own way… fascinating!

I was concerned about the Yankees lack of thump without Nick Swisher, but now that I look at this on paper, it’s not so bad. If the heart of the order is going to be Teix, Cano and Granderson – well, the Yankees could do worse. Youkilis is good for 15 homers and one would expect more out of Teixeira, even if that’s unlikely… Maybe you flip flop Granderson and Teix, but then, I think Teix needs all the protection he can get.

I thought about placing Gardner at the top of the order, but he’s had so few ABs in the last year, I think the Yankees are better off starting with Ichiro (and his amazing bat control) at the top of the order and waiting to see where Gardner is at. His ABs look good at the end of last year… but I’m still on a wait and see approach with him. You could say the same for Jeter, but then, he’s Derek Jeter and I’m willing to roll the dice and assume he’ll be some version of himself, even if he’s not the 2012 Jeter who was setting the world on fire.

I thought the Yankees were going to sign Raul Ibanez, but it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe they have their eyes on an upgrade? Or maybe they prefer someone who backs up the infield rather than the outfield in light of A-Rod injury? Who knows. As for a starting catcher… who the hell knows who the Yankees will end up with. I assume that the Yankees got Chris Stewart because they don’t think much of Francisco Cervelli, so maybe that is your catching tandem, in that order if they don’t go get somebody.

Well, it’s still early, so we’ll have to wait and see how the quesiton marks shake out and even longer to see what A-Rod has left when he comes back, but either way, this sure will be an interesting team to watch.