Today in The Journal News
-
- March
- 22
Chien-Ming Wang is again the Opening Day starter and this time he plans to make the start.
Welcome to the Yankees, Morgan Ensberg. This notebook also has news on Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte and the latest cuts.
Jays-Yanks today at Legends. YES and WCBS will have the game at 1:15 p.m. Back later with the lineups.
This entry was posted
on Saturday, March 22nd, 2008 at 8:19 am by Peter Abraham.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Print This Post
| 
Email This Post
Peter Abraham
A safe bet is to see Ensberg wearing No. 14 and Betemit switching to No. 11 once Woodward is gone.
Traber will wear No. 43 once Strickland is reassigned.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I was checking the regular papers and saw that Graig Nettles has prostate cancer.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/03222008/sports/yankees/nettles_battling_cancer_102971.htm
The good news is that he’s going to have surgery which means it’s relatively confined and treatable. The other good news is that he is going to be treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering, the Yankees’ partner of Yankees Universe. I can tell you from family history with my dad that if you have the misfortune of a cancer diagnosis in your family and you can avail yourself of MSK’s doctors, do it. He did and is still here to talk about it 15 years later.
Men, get the PSA blood test and the DRE exam. (If you read the article it sounds like Nettles did not get tested regularly). Women, remind your men to get checked regularly, after age 35 with a family history, and later if no family history.
Let’s go Yankees!
Let’s have another great game today.
Traditionally,the first game of the season,is when you see players with a new # on their back.
Ensberg will wear #14 if Betemit gives it up.
Defense is a concern of only the National League? Are you kidding me? The Yanks have 26 titles, not one was one without good defense. THat’s a really dumb thing to say, even in a blog.
No doubt in my mind that Pete was being sarcastic when he said “Bunting, base stealing and defense are National League issues.” He did not repeat that sentiment in his notebook this morning. You can’t watch the Yanks lose to the Angels in 2002 and 2005, and to Dave Roberts in 2004, and eight times to the Devil Rays in 2007, and believe that “Bunting, base stealing and defense are National League issues.”
I just heard that on the radio. Prayers to Nettles and his family.
“Melky is anything but “established.†He’s a fourth outfielder who happens to be starting for the Yanks.”
Let’s remember Melky is even younger than Gardner, and his pre-age 22 stats look a lot like those of Roberto Clemente and Harry Heilmann (and better than Bernie’s).
http://www.baseball-reference.com/friv/scomp.cgi?I=cabreme01:Melky+Cabrera&st=age&age=22&compage=22
Melky’s already an average AL hitter with a superior arm. I hope Gardner becomes Lou Brock, but let’s give him a chance to show he’s above average at AAA first.
Wfan just announced that Andy Pettitte will not pitch due to back spasms. I don’t know if they are confused cause they said Yankees face the Jays and Andy Pettitte will not pitch due to back spasms. Well he wasn’t facing the jays to begin with. He was facing a AAA team. Hopefully they got bogus info.
Igawa with shades today = BP for Jays?
Heard that too Jenn.. guess we’ll have to wait and see. I think the update guy just figured he’d be in the major league game, not realizing he was slated to start in the AAA game. Pettitte had the same problem around the same time last year, so it could just be a part of getting back into form.
Is this yankee bench perfect? No. Not at all.
But what team has an ideal bench?
Reserve players are reserves for a reason – they have flaws. All teams have to deal with that. You are always going to give up something when putting together a bench. The bench is about trade offs.
You carry an Alex Cora type like the red sox are you’re giving up all offense from that position. You carry a Wilson Betemit and you’re giving up defense.
So clearly the yannkee bench has flaws – there are two major ones: up the middle defense and speed.
It would have been nice if there was one player they could put on the bench who had those two qualities and could also hit. But they don’t have any player like that who is ready to be in the big leagues.
But in fact a player who can hit decently, play good up the middle defense and can run is not going to be a reserve – he’s going to be a starter somewhere.
This year’s bench is much, much better than last years. It has three players on it that would be starting for many teams in the league – how many other teams have that kind of talent/ depth on the bench?
Brett Gardner does not fit on this team for the regular season for many reasons. First, he is not ready to play in the big leagues yet. He was terrible in AAA last year – while his batting average was .260 his OBP was only .343 and his OPS an even worse .674.
Any player whose game is built entirely on speed cannot have a .343 OBP in AAA over 181 at bats and be expected to be a contributor in the major leagues. Doesn’t matter what he did in the Arizona league. He needs to get more experience getting on base against better pitching than he saw in AA.
And the yankees don’t need yet another outfielder. They already have 4 solid outfielders and Shelley. How many outfielders does the team need?
Gardner would be a much more useful player to this team if he were a middle infielder. But he’s not.
If there’s an injury to Cano or Jeter they have Alberto Gonzalez waiting at AAA. He’s the player who next year could be a terrific 25th man.
A bench of Molin, Duncan, Ensberg, and Betemit will be one of the best in baseball in terms of talent. If they wanted to they will be able to trade Ensberg and get value back for him given how reasonable his contract is.
That said – this is not going to be the post season roster. A speed player like Gardner becomes much more valuable in the post season where games become much closer. I expect that he’ll be on the post season roster.
For right now the bench though flawed is very talented (for a bench), a huge upgrade over last year’s and arguably one of the best benches in all of baseball.
Let’s remember Melky is even younger than Gardner, and his pre-age 22 stats look a lot like those of Roberto Clemente and Harry Heilmann (and better than Bernie’s).
I’m very aware of the age difference, but Melky is still not a good outfielder if you take away his arm. I’d rather have an outfielder with a good bot not spectacular arm who runs down more fly balls towards the gap in spacious Yankee Stadium. Melky has never been great in tracking the ball.
And please don’t compare Melky to Clemente and Bernie Williams. That’s an insult. I don’t care what his career numbers are at this stage in his career because he was promoted early to the big club out of desperation as a result of the injuries to Matsui and Sheffield.
Melky’s ceiling and raw talent isn’t even in the same stratosphere.
I think people would view Melky much differently if he didn’t have such a great arm. I’m not trying to take that part of his game away from him, but if you peel that part away, he’s not an especially good outfielder.
I’m not trying to make the case that Gardner is going to be the next great Yankee because I don’t think he’s much more than a fourth outfielder either.
Melky is just extremely overvalued by Yankee fans.
Brett Gardner is not considered to be an outstanding defensive centerfielder.
In fact scouts make the same criticism of him that they do of Melky – doesn’t take good routes to the ball.
If people think Melky is a good outfielder because of his arm others assume Brett Gardner is a good defensive outfielder because of this speed.
And Gardner does have a poor arm.
Brett Gardner should stay ready at AAA. Damon has been brittle over the past 2 years and could go down at any time.
It’s good that Rasner pitched so well yesterday. If Andy is injured, Rasner and Karstens will likely both make the team.