Greetings from Gate D-20
-
- August
- 19
Hello from the Tom Landry/Roger Staubach International Airport here in Dallas. In an effort to take the last possible flight to Orange County, I connected through here.
Raise if your hands if you thought in April that the Yankees would win a series against the Tigers in August with Joba Chamberlain and Edwar Ramirez pitching the final three innings and striking out five batters.
Goes to show you that worrying about the 25-man roster coming out of Tampa is a waste of time.
Meanwhile Wilson Betemit has 12 RBI in 31 at-bats as a Yankee. If the Yankees can trim a few pounds off him, he has a chance to be a very valuable player in 2008. He already is.
It’s also a very good sign for the Yankees that a tough road trip starts with Mariano Rivera having worked once in the last four days.
Having just spent a few days in New England with my family, I can tell you that the sense of panic among Red Sox fans is palpable. As my brother-in-law Dave wanted to know, “Are the Yankees paying Eric Gagne?”
WEEI, the sports-talk radio station in Boston, held a telethon for the Jimmy Fund on Friday and I happened to be listening when Roger Clemens called in. I also heard that George Steinbrenner made a big contribution. It’s nice to know that petty rivalries can be put aside to help kids with cancer.
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on Sunday, August 19th, 2007 at 8:52 pm by Peter Abraham.
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Peter Abraham
Boy does this Yankee roster look golden right now…
I’ll raise my hand on Edwar.
The crazy thing?
If the Yankees wanted to (but I don’t think they do), they could theoretically play tomorrow with only TWO players that are not home-grown (3b and LF).
Pretty sweet.
and rebecca, the weird thing about that is that to do that, they’d only need to sit the rf from the typical starting lineup.
brian bruney’s battered chair: Makes you think they’ll do it sometime before the year’s end, doesn’t it?
I was reading SOSH and they think Joba’s stuff is disgusting. And is it just me, or does it seem that EVERYDAY there is a new article about him? Insane.
BTW, does anyone here have a myspace? I have over 250 friends but only 2 or 3 of them know who Robinson Cano is
No Myspace. On Facebook and LiveJournal though.
Pete,
Some comments and questions.
1. Others may disagree, but I like the fact that you share some of your family life with us.
I don’t know if you’re actively looking to have your own family, but it certainly seems like you put a premium on family time.
2. your comment about how you’d gone to Ct. recently for dinner with a friend sort of highlights how the baseball season can be an inconvenience for a sports writers social life.
Besides the travel, the usual times for going out (night) are when you are working.
Ok, on to the questions.
A. “MJ”, over at Waswatching, mentioned that he/she had seen the following at the end of today’s win against the Tigers:
“After the game, when the bench players and coaches come out to give handshakes to the regulars, I saw something weird. The bullpen guys all walk out together but Farnsworth was all alone. And while the bullpen guys walked into the dugout via second base, Farnsworth walked alone to the RF line.
I don’t know if anyone else can visualize or understand what I’m saying but essentially Farnsworth separated himself from his teammates when everyone was coming off the field after the game. I wonder if he has any friends on this team…”
Have you noticed this yourself?
B. Your friend Ty Kepner wrote in his Bats blog that the horrible implosion suffered by Edwar RamÃrez on July 20th against the Twins (after not pitchin for two weeks) may have convinced Torre to give regular work to rookie pitchers on the team.
Do you agree with this?
Thank you for your attention.
Pete – George has donated to the Jimmy Fund for a few years now. He gave $10,000 in 2003 in honor of his former Ohio neighbor and former Sox announcer Ken Coleman
The Fund is a great charity associated with the Dana Farber cancer center – ex Sox owner Tom Yawkey and Ted Williams were among its great benefactors:
http://www.jimmyfund.org/
Speaking of charities, Phil Rizzuto was a huge booster of St Joseph’s School for the Blind, in my home town:
http://www.sjsnj.org/
Both are worth giving to, IMO.
As far as our little troll friend(s), the best strategy is to ignore. Without the attention the troll craves, he’ll shivel up and disappear.
A big series vs the Angels. Hopefully, Hughes will stay within himself while pitching in front of the home folks
implosion suffered vs the Twins ? what implosion vs the Twins the 3 strikeouts ?
Rebecca,
What’s your lj? Mine is lisa7773.
got to see joba today live..he’s something…any chance he be what Mo was to Wetland?
This year:
I’m calling BS. There was no talk about Ramirez in spring training from anybody. He was with Tampa for 2 months last season.
Brandon—He/She means the Devil Rays.
LC—Fireroseboudicc =)
I know that Rebecca he/she said Twins
anyway Pete your right about Ramirez I didn’t see it till early June but I’ve followed him ever since they signed him from the Indy League. I saw him as a definite help in the BP, and Kevin Whelan isn’t too far either.
Man I can’t wait till next season the thought of Christian Garcia in ST healthy, Mark Melancon also not too far away will be groomed as the next big pitching prospect when he gets healthy his going to zip through this minor league syatem.
What we are watching with this team is an in-season rebuilding year. Think about the bullpen that started April and look at it now. Even Joe T. can work with this group.
This will be chalked up by many as the Yankees just buying more success but that of course is ridiculous. All they have done is accelerate the development of several players because of necessity.
Look, KC has been rebuilding for how many years? Tampa has been in the league for 10 years and has never won 70 games.
Pittsburgh hasn’t won since Bonds left. None of these organizations has a clue for what it takes to develop players.
What I am saying is that by having a plan and developing talent the Yankees are not only in a position to win this year, with the addition of Kennedy and Joba to the rotation next year, they may be set for success for quite a while. It’s really quite an exciting time to be a Yankee fan and if you told me I would be writing this in May I would have told you you were crazy.
Nobody thought this was possible in April.
In fact, most people on this blog had never heard of either Joba or Ramirez until June.
Outside of being a top pick in the 2006 draft, there was very little info on Joba at all back in April.
Joba wasn’t even in the top 40 prospects discussion, his ETA was 2010 & some even had him at 2011, it was his pitching in the Hawaiin League that drew some curiosity other than that Nardi Contreras
Sorry, Brandon: that should have read Tampa (got confused mentally on the “Ts”).
it’s cool JRVJ
Steinbrenner has always contributed.
Yankee system is now loaded with quality arms Just wait till we hear from Betances.
yeh Dellin and Zach are going to be something to watch, Jairo Heredia is a must watch too.
If someone wants to try and match the 1996 Mariano, they’d have to do the following in their first full year of major league play: 122 innings giving up only 1 HR (which was in the regular season during which he pitched 107.2 innings). Then you’d have to pitch the 14.1 innings in the post season. During the World Series, going into which your team was the underdog, you’d have to pitch 3 days in a row. Then, you’d have to be ready for the media to minimize you for the rest of your career as a strictly post-season pitcher (this is in fact the price he’s quietly paid). Granted Mariano had a big 2 days off before he pitched Saturday, but Joel Sherman’s point was he’d been used in 10 multi-inning situations between May 30 and the Sunday Cleveland game—and that doesn’t include his pitching 2 “saves” in 1 day on May 3 v Texas.
There is certainly no way anyone is going to match Mo’s numbers from 1996, if only because the likely candidates have only just joined the bullpen.
They could, however, match his 1995 numbers when he FIRST made the switch to the bullpen. His regular season numbers were pretty pedestrian, but in the division series with Seattle, there were glimpes of his future greatness. In 5 1/3 innings, he gave up no runs, just 3 hits and a walk, and struck out 8. That’s very Joba-esque.
In fact, in my opinion, Showalter probably waited at least one batter, if not two batters too many before bringing in Rivera in game 5 of that series. Cone walked in the tying run on like his 150th pitch or something. Things could have been much different if Rivera came into that game a couple batter earlier.
Doug Strange still has not taken the bat off his shoulder.
I find it interesting the original “Jimmy” was a young boy who was a Boston Braves fan. The Braves donated money so he could follow his team on television. Fortunately Einar Gustafon recovered from pediatric cancer (a rare thing in 1948) and lived to be 65 before dying in 2001,
Gotta send them a check. Usually I give money to St Juse because Danny Thomas/”Make Room for Daddy” was a favorite growing up. But if George likes Jimmy Fund, it’s fine with me.
Sherard—My post was in response to those who suggest Joba might possibly become something like the 1996 Mariano to the 1996 Wetteland. That’s the point of the comparison. It’s been repeated thousands of times that Rivera is a “failed” starter, entered the league as such at some point 1995, was subsequently sent back to the minors (in 1995), and from what I read on Baseball Reference, his relief appearances in regular season were just a few after Sept. 10, 1995. His explosive emergence in the post season in 1995, in one case in relief of Wetteland, was, as you cite, in spite of almost total disregard by Buck Showalter. As you may know, this has been documented in detail in Joel Sherman’s book “Birth of a Dynasty.” My point is the question raised was in fact about the 1996 Rivera.