Today in The Journal News
Posted by: Peter Abraham - Posted in Misc on Jun 07, 2009 
Print This Post
| 
Email This Post
Mariano Rivera faltered as the Yankees fell to the Rays.
CC Sabathia and David Price did not produce the expected drama. This notebook also has updates on Brian Bruney, some community events the Yankees participated in and some other tidbits.
The Yankees have played well of late. But their roster should improve as injured players return.
Bruney will certainly help take a lot of the pressure off of Mo and Nady won’t be much help for anyone except Matsui. I wonder what the over under is on how many games he plays in the field this year. I say set it at 50 and I’m going under.
what bruney will do is align the bullpen up properly & take a lot of pressure off of the rest of the pen.
an 8th inning pitcher imo has to be like a closer & lets face it we don’t have one pitcher outside of mo that has shown us that capability excluding guys on the dl.
bruney alone can turn the pen around because we can push robertson,hughes,aceves,veras & whoever else into the 6th,7th,8th or earlier if needed.
we saw this last year.
if we do have an opportunity to better the pen even with bruney coming back we should do so as long as it is not at the expense of ajax,montero,mcallister & our other top prospects.
i don’t like the idea of becket,lester getting hot along with bostons good pen.
if they get a bat if they even need one they are going to be tough.
The bullpen and bench are the two weak links, and Bruney will provide a big boost to the pen and Nady and Molina will greatly enhance the bench.
I find it hard to get too excited over Cody Ransom, though. He figures to just take over for Berroa as the team bench-warmer.
nady can complicate things if he can’t play the field.
gardner,swish,matsui get benched more & posada can’t dh as much.
we are right there.it is the adjustments going forward that will determine our season.
cash needs to get on the phone & get a pen arm.
forget how well we have been doing lately.
i don’t trust veras.if we can get a great 8th inning or 7th inning arm we can use him or bruney in the 7th or 8th.
i know we might not even technically need another arm if bruney comes back ok but it is the debth of the pen that we need against boston.
they have several reliable arms that they can count on with more in the minors.
Let’s hope this place doesn’t turn into crybaby central like yesterday.
It’s almost as if the crybabies were bused in here yesterday.
This is a very good team that will be in the race all year.
with gardner,pena,molina,nady i think we are ok.
it is the pen i am worried about.
this team has shown fight in it all year.the pitching is going to need to step it up.
for people who say coaches don’t make a difference look at the texas pitching staff.
they have a bunch of nobodys doing great things under maddux & ryan.
the redsox traded hanley ramirez, arguably a top 3 player in the game today, to get beckett AND had to take a washed up lowell and his money (which of course turned out to be a good thing but at the time it wasn’t)..
whats the point? the point is you have to trade good players to get good players….whats the point?…the point is melancon, brackman, betances, delarosa, banuelos, jackson, montero and whatever other MINOR leaguer you want to name here are just that MINOR LEAGUERS which may or may not be any good in the majors….trade a few of them now before its too late and we find out that they aren’t major league quality..
if we have to trade 3 really good pitching prospects to get us a quality reliever and OF’er then so be it….
the yankees will have 5 starting pitchers next year that will be on the team for at least 4 or 5 more years (cc, aj, joba, wang, hughes) the betances, brackmans and banuelos won’t be abe to sniff that starting rotation EVER…so why not trade them now so we can try to win a few World series now…
i’d trade jackson and 3 of these so called excellent starters in the minors for mclouth and either soriano and gonzalez from the Braves IN A SECOND – i don’t want to take my chances that jackson fizzles in the bronx and mclouth turns out to be the next torii hunter – (by the way someone named torii hunter as available last year and he wanted to be a yankee – maybe that was the time to get a “torii hunter”)
i have never seen such craziness as yesterday.
we had all kinds of problems last year with a terrible pitching staff & only finished 5 games back.
we will be in it til the end.
dad trades can come back & haunt you.
you can’t compare any trade to bostons with becket,lowell & ramirez because you do not know the end result.
what happens if you trade ajax,mcallister,brackman for a reliever & thar reliever fails miserably & the guys we gave up even one of them like mcallister becomes an ace?
we get burned.you have to be carefull.
bad trades
Many teams will be throwing up white flags on their seasons sooner than normal with the slumping economy and sagging attendance and concession sales being big factors.
Unless Bruney’s injury situation changes, the Yankees should be active with pursuing Huston Street to shore up the bullpen.
Matt Holliday is not the answer if Cashman wants another position player.
it is easy to look back after you have stats in your favor in front of you.
You don’t trade for a relief pitcher. A starter, sure. Last I looked, Beckett was and is a starter.
What I mean is you don’t trade a player like Hanley Ramirez, of that quality, for a relief pitcher.
Prospects, but not A prospects, if you can help it. Not prospects that are sure-fire, or close to it.
Doreen
good point.
i don’t see cashman including ajax,montero,brackman,mcallister,etc for a pen arm.
i think we get bruney back then evaluate the pen for a few weeks before the trading deadline.
if we are struggling we get an arm.
Brackman struggles, but Charleston walks off with a win
By Mike Axisa in Down on the Farm. · Comments (30) ·
Three years ago today, the Yankees drafted Ian Kennedy, Joba Chamberlain, Zach McAllister, Dellin Betances and Mark Melancon on Day One of the 2006 Draft.
As always it comes down to who can you get and what’s the price. If the top prospects are off llimits can you get Huston Steet for a package that might include David Robertson and/or Austin Romine? Is that a price worth paying?
I’ve said Montero, AJax, Melancon and McAllister would be my off-limits list, but others think Betances should be there too. Brackman is untradeable with his contract so he isn’t in the conversation.