One last game
Posted by: Chad Jennings - Posted in Notes on Apr 02, 2010 
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The Yankees big leaguers will play the Yankees minor leaguers tomorrow, but on the Grapefruit League schedule, today is the spring finale. And it’s pretty easy to tell. The clubhouse is lined with boxes and suitcases, and the players — and the writers — are absolutely in let’s-get-out-of-Florida mode.
Today’s game will be the last chance for big league regulars to play significant innings before Opening Day. Joe Girardi has already said that he doesn’t expect his guys to play seven innings tomorrow against the minor leaguers. That game could turn into minor leaguers vs. minor leaguers at some point, or at least bench players vs. minor leaguers.
The Yankees are taking batting practice right now, but it’s otherwise a very quiet morning in Tampa. Just going through the final steps before Boston on Sunday.
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• So far, no final roster moves have been made. Royce Ring is still in camp with a locker two feet from P.J. Pilittere. The Yankees need to see Alfredo Aceves pitch this afternoon, and make sure his back feels fine afterward, before finalizing their bullpen.
• The James P. Dawson Award for the best rookie in camp will be given before the game. The past nine winners: Brett Gardner, Shelley Duncan, Kei Igawa, Eric Duncan, Andy Phillips, Bubba Crosby, Hideki Matsui, Nick Johnson, Alfonso Soriano. Jorge Posada won it 1997, Don Mattingly won it 1983 and Roy White won it in 1966.
• Before tomorrow’s Future Stars game, the Yankees will officially give their minor league Pitcher of the Year and Player of the Year awards to Zach McAllister and Austin Romine. Members of last year’s Tampa Yankees will also get their Florida State League championship rings.
• The Trentonian has news of a couple of cuts in minor league camp: Outfielder James Cooper and relief pitcher Jonathan Hovis have each been cut. Cooper is a career .261 hitter without much power. He spent the past two years in Double-A. Hovis has great minor league numbers — 62 saves and a 2.15 ERA — but he never generated much prospect buzz and has pitched just two games above Single-A. Small update: Just doubled checked to confirm those two releases and ask if there have been more. Apparently only those two have been released since that first wave of minor league releases that included Chris Malec and Seth Fortenberry.
• Available to pitch this afternoon: Andy Pettitte, Damaso Marte, Mariano Rivera, Boone Logan, Grant Duff, Amaury Sanit and Josh Schmidt.
• Available off the bench: C Francisco Arcia, C P.J. Pilittere, C Austin Romine, 1B Juan Miranda, INF Justin Snyder, INF Ramiro Pena, INF Luis Nunez, OF Jon Weber, OF Randy Winn and OF Marcus Thames.
• The Orioles just traded for SS Julio Lugo, and he will be available off their bench today. Recently picked up OF Joey Gathright also made the trip for Baltimore. So did a young catcher named Matt Wieters. Here’s their lineup:
Brian Roberts 2B
Nolan Reimold RF
Adam ones CF
Miguel Tejada 3B
Garrett Atkins 1B
Matt Wieters C
Ty Wigginton DH
Felix Pie LF
Cesar Izturis SS
RHP Alfredo Simon
That article was written as if it was to be posted on ESPN Boston. I want to know why Yankee fans would want to visit ESPN NY – just to get pi ssed on? If they wanted to do that, they could just read Madden or Lupica. What exactly is supposed to appeal to the Yankee fan ?
Great write up on Andy Pettite and the probablity that this is his last season:
http://www.myyesnetwork.com/16.....roud_lefty
There is no appeal.
So is Aceves pitching in today’s game or just throwing in the bullpen?
No doubt, their starting rotation of Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Clay Buchholz and new addition John Lackey is more than a match for the Yankees staff of CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Andy Pettitte, the returning Javier Vazquez and the still-developing Phil Hughes.
___
This is the best line in the articles. Dice-K isnt even ready to pitch again yet and the other additions are Lackey and Vazquez which is basically a wash. Other than that, the other three are the same. This is a no-doubter? I am going to hold final judgment until i see Clay Buchholz beat a team not names Toronto or Baltimore.
I’ll be fair though, it is close.
Isn’t Buchholz still developing like Hughes?
Rishi April 2nd, 2010 at 10:44 am
Great write up on Andy Pettite and the probablity that this is his last season:
http://www.myyesnetwork.com/16…..roud_lefty
******************************
I don’t want to think about Andy retiring just yet, so I think I’ll skip that article for now
Thank God, they play the games on the field of play instead of on the computers belonging to certain mediots.
My nephew got his championship ring for his work with Lynchburg last season.
For a minor league ring, it was very nice.
Real diamonds. Would have never thought that would have been the case.
I’m sure the Tampa Yankees rings will be just as nice.
Who wrote that? More than a match. That means the Sox rotation is way better? Matsuzaka is totally overrated, lol.
ESPN New York is up – if anyone is interested.
http://espn.go.com/newyork/
No, Buchholz is in the HOF already…
Stop it!
Betsy
You’ve got the right idea. No need to even go there. I barely even went to ESPN this whole offseason (vacation). I plan on taking everyone on here’s advice, and watching MLBNetwork this season.
Jeff, thanks for adding the post links to the top of the page! Appreciate you listening.
That’s cool, SJ. There’s nothing like winning a championship – I hope he’ll have the chance to compete for a major league one one day.
LOL @ Bucky. Buchholz will be escorted out the door faster than Abe downs a hamburger, when they dump him for Adrian Gonzalez.
SJ
Congrats on the nephew!
“That article was written as if it was to be posted on ESPN Boston. I want to know why Yankee fans would want to visit ESPN NY – just to get pi ssed on?”
Seems like a LOT of Yankee fans here read it.
Strikes me as your question should be, “yeah, Okay, *i* visited, but why would any OTHER Yankees fan want to visit?”
ESPN has been the head Red Sox cheerleader for years. To hear that ESPN NY is in the same vein is not a surprise at all. Thanks for the heads up about not going there. You saved me some agita!
“I think some of us just want some balance.”
To what end?
“It strikes me as funny that the Defending World Champions can’t have a positive column written on the launch of ESPNNY.”
SJ44, I know you that actually know why that’s the case. You’re asking a question you already know the answer to.
“A little balance doesn’t hurt anybody.”
But it doesn’t goose the numbers.
congrats to your nephew SJ
I guess I will stick to this site, and the Yankees own site, as well as YES.
I will confess ESPN is on at our house every am, by my choice. The top 10 was the signal for my son to finish breakfast and get ready for school. I like the combo of Neil Everett/Stan Verett (who appears to be a Yankee fan) better than some of the other combos.
Though it can be difficult, Yankee fans really don’t need to be concerned with everything that’s going to be written from now until Sunday night.
And the reason why is that words are words. The games are going to be decided on the field.
This yankee team has the potential to be an absolute juggernaut and the rest of baseball and the media knows that.
Last year on several occasions I said that were the yankees to win the World Series in 2009 that the rest of baseball should be very concerned because in many ways the 2009 team might be the weakest the yanks would have over the next 2-3 years.
The 2009 team really did have a significant amount of uncertainty tied to the performances of critical players due to injury and age.
At the top of that was Alex. But there were concerns about Posada’s shoulder and Mo coming back from surgery. There were concerns about Wang’s leg, Hughes’ missing two years, Joba’s shoulder and Andy’s awful second half in 2008 due to his bum shoulder. There was a much bigger concern about what direction Cano and Swisher’s careers were going given their respective awful performances in 2008. There was real concern about Jeter’s loss of power and hitting in 2008 and whether that was the start for admonishment in his bat skills.
All of those were real concerns. Big concerns.
Most of those questions turned out positively and the team won in a year that was beaded in doubt. There is no way to underestimate who important and special it is to win when winning at all is in real doubt. In retrospect one can always dismiss this with payroll, free agency, buying a championship, etc. But in real time, in lived time there were no certainties.
Doing so has set them up for a potentially wonderful run because if they got through last year with rings many of those uncertainties would be substantially resolved. Everyone knows this, media included.
And here we are now. The defect on the team for years was age and a real lack of athleticism. And age and it’s associated risk will continue to be something the team has to live with as long as the core four are central to the team. That concern is heightened by the critical positions they play, especially Posada and Jeter.
But this year on opening day they will have 5 position player starters who are younger than 30. Think about that – if someone told you in 2008 that in less than two years the team will have 5 starters less than 30 would you believe them?
They have arguably the best hitter in all of the minor leagues. They have a bench with a few talented kids younger than 25.
And even more importantly, the yankees have the deepest pitching talent in the major leagues right now. Boston has a potentially terrific rotation – but they don’t have nearly the depth the yankees do. Same goes for the Rays, only more so.
Last year at this time all we were hearing about was Boston’s genius in “low risk high reward moves” and how great their bull pen was.
But in the end the yankees had better pitching depth than Boston last year. They do again this year.
And there’s no doubt they have the best and deepest line up in the game going into the season.
People in baseball and the media knows all of this. It’s obvious.
The games get played on the field. And all of these fact have a way of making prognostication and bluster ebb away, until they are largely forgotten noise.
Real nice article by Jack Curry on the YES website. Thanks for pointing it out, Rishi.
CR, the Yankees were prepared to trade Phil…….though, to be fair, I believe that was all Hank. Still, if Buchholz is traded, I think it would be on Henry; I don’t think Theo would do it if he had his druthers.
I watched Jack Curry on YES during a couple ST games, and he seems like a true professional.
Great addition by YES
Andy will finally get to see some big leaguers today.. some good ones too at least the 1-5 of the SchmO’s
I was wondering how ESPNNY missed out on the Jack Curry opportunity. He was available around the same time and is a much better voice for NY baseball
Great post CB.
Hey Guys, where was the uproar this year in the media when the sox spent the most money out of any team this off season??? did not catch it???
Rishi – thanks for the article. I love hearing how Andy is a mentor to the other guys.
CB ,fantastic post. You’re right, of course; it just sometimes is bothersome not to get respect. Then again, that lack of respect didn’t exactly hurt us last year. I will take my chances every time with an aging core (but, the Yankees do need to start developing replacements. Well, we’re stacked with promising catchers, but we have no top INF prospects that could “replace” Jeter anytime soon).
The SP is being underrated, I think. The Sox have a fantastic top 3 in Lester, Beckett and Lackey, but you’re right – after that it’s something of a question mark. I think Buchholz will probably be good this year, but is he any more solid than Phil? Maybe slightly at this point because he has more experience; however, if he has an edge, it’s a slight one – and the edge would only be for this year.
The Sox D will be very, very good, but I don’t think the Yankees will lose too many games because of their own. The lineups are not comparable.
That said, I respect every team – and the Yankees won’t have it easy. I think even the O’s and Jays will be tough outs.
Also read somewhere that blog favorite Doug Glanville will be joining ESPN as on air talent…Love the stuff he write for the NYTimes…
YankeesWFAN Latest forecast for Sun in Boston is high 71, low 49. Sounds like a pretty good night to open the season.
3 minutes ago
For me, the biggest problems I had with Matthews article is that there were multiple mistakes. Pettitte having a “subpar” 2nd half and Tex hitting behind A-Rod are the 2 that stand out.
If you are going to criticize the Yankees at least get your facts straight, especially since this is the launch of ESPN NY. Whoever edited this article or fact-checked it has some serious splanin to do.
Glanville’s a terrific writer, but I’m afraid he’s not enough to make me watch ESPN/Baseball Tonight again.
” The James P. Dawson Award for the best rookie in camp will be given before the game. The past nine winners: Brett Gardner, Shelley Duncan, Kei Igawa, Eric Duncan, Andy Phillips, Bubba Crosby, Hideki Matsui, Nick Johnson, Alfonso Soriano. Jorge Posada won it 1997, Don Mattingly won it 1983 and Roy White won it in 1966.”
My choice. Jon Weber.
Doug Glanville, former baseball player?
If so, he’s awesome. He hates Curt Schilling.
That’s the one, CR9
Trying to find confirmation to post
http://sports.espn.go.com/chic.....id=5048078
My bad – he’s going to be on Baseball Tonight, ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine.
I like the new layout there should be a GTLU tap
marte has a cranky left shoulder. and the marte early season saga continues.
Ledger_Yankees Marte scratched with “cranky” left shoulder. #nyy
3 minutes ago
Not sure how much I’m going to be around this season or if I’m going to at all, but I will keep posting the Prediction Chart until ST is over – in case anyone else wants to be added or anyone on it wants to change prediction. I will turn it over to someone else once the season starts in case I’m not around.
If you’re interested in being added please put my name in the post so I can find it.
http://members.cox.net/lsdorgan/2010%20SEASON.pdf
I stopped watching Baseball tonight as soon as MLB network launched. Other than Greg Amsinger (who is really super annoying), I like the whole crew.
Could be a blessing in disguise. Maybe we’ll find out is Logan is real or not early on…
And the injury bug strikes again…..I don’t think we can count on Marte this year as he just can’t seem to stay healthy. Getting Park was huge…..and now I wonder if a lefty will make the team.
I don’t think any injuries are blessings in disguise. Marte was counted on this year – maybe this explains why the Yankees only intended to use him as a LOOGY? If it’s not one thing, it’s another with this guy; he can’t stay healthy.
New Post: Marte feels “cranky” shoulder
ahhh but baseball tonight has Aaron Boone…I usually record it so I can skip thru
I much prefer the mlb network, but when I turn it on in the am before work it has been endless 30 clubs in 30 days
Trisha
I hope you will still be around
I think Marte’s injury last year was a blessing in disguise.
And although I feel TERRIBLE for him, if there was any possibility of the Sox spinning Tazawa in a package for Gonzalez, as was reported, then I think that was a blessing in disguise.
is that a sincere change of heart CR9?
MTU:
first name which entered the mind. John Weber is a no-brainer
who knows, maybe if given the chance at the ml level, he may be able to hit