Today in The Journal News
Posted by: Chad Jennings - Posted in Today in the Journal News on Apr 02, 2010 
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As expected, Joe Girardi named Curtis Granderson his starting center fielder on Thursday. Brett Gardner got a look at the position, but the Yankees decided to move Gardner to left field so that Granderson could play one position consistently as an everyday player.
The Yankees still expect to have catchers Jorge Posada and Francisco Cervelli available on opening day, but both were forced out of the lineup because of injuries on Thursday. The notebook also has items on Mark Teixeira returning to the lineup, Alfredo Aceves returning to the mound and A.J. Burnett pitching well against the Blue Jays.
Hope that Posada and Cervelli are ready for opening day. Cervelli’s injury concerns me more because hamstring injuries can get worse if he runs on it before it’s fully healed.
I got a completely “new” look to the blog this morning
I’d hate to be the tech guy today
It is readable but not pleasing like I’m sure these changes are meant to make it be
At least you can read it. We just loaded http://www.sanjuandelsur.org.ni
and it looks like when you open a JPEG. in a word processor program
This is my go to source for Yankee baseball
Singleton is my favorite broadcaster; I don’t think he’s boring, I think he’s steady as a rock. I missed that line about the fantasy, but remember that Kay has absolutely no sense of humor, so it’s no surprise that the line garnered no reaction from him.
Jorge had stiff necks last year – he’ll be fine – but I hate hamstring injuries; let Cervelli get as much time as he needs plus even an extra day or two, just to be sure.
Nice outing from AJ; I know he’s going to use that change this year.
The new format is almost unreadable. The print is way too big and crammed together; the black on white is much harsher on the eyes than the tinted background was. Please go back to the drawing board!
I am not surprised that Granderson will be the opening day center fielder. I know he was “fighting” for a job, but I just couldn’t see him playing anywhere else. He will need to get acquainted with left field though and quick. Gardner will be a much better center fielder.
Brian–I hate to disagree with you on Gardner, but I must. Basically, Gardner has been handed a starting job because all of his “real” competition has been removed from the team. Melky, Damon, Austin Jackson, Matsui (who has been in the field for the Angels), Nady, Hinske, and even Shelley Duncan (International League Player of the Year in 2009) are all eminently better options.
Gardner should never been considered as an option to move anyone else, anywhere else. He simply is not that good. Look at his numbers last year, directly compared to Melky who was traded away to pave the way for Brett The Hitless Man. In double the number at bats, Melky had three times as many rbi’s, four times as many homers, four times as many doubles, a higher batting average and an effective post season, during which Melky had 13 hits, and two important sacrifice bunts. Gardner was anemic in the post season and if you are others want to use the excuse that he broke his thumb in July, that’s as weak as it gets. Gardner “hit” the most unimpressive .270 on record. It led to virtually nothing. In all likelihood, he will “play” his way out of a starting position by June. Why? He can’t hit, and he’s not that good. Replace Granderson in center? A pipedream, at best.
I don’t think that Gardner is any better in Center field than Granderson is. Granderson is much taller and can probably get to more balls simply because of his stride and height. He’s a fast guy and gets good jumps on balls. Gardner is also fast, but not so much faster that he’s significantly better out there. I’ve seen him take bad routes to balls and look plain awful out there. Can’t say I’ve seen Curtis play enough when he was with Detroit to make a completely fair comparison.
One thing that I do want to note is something about Burnett. Is it just me or does Phil Hughes look better than AJ Burnett this spring? Is it just me or does everyone except Sabathia look better?
I have a feeling that, by the end of the season, we’ll be counting more on Hughes, Vazquez, and Pettitte than we will our number 2 starter. Just a hunch, based on the consistency of everyone’s stuff and Burnett’s tendency to lose it on the mound half the time.
choochoo,
“and if you are others want to use the excuse that he broke his thumb in July, that’s as weak as it gets.”
Remember when the Red Sox failed to trade Mike Lowell because a thumb injury was much too serious a problem for his swing?
A thumb injury can really mess up someone’s swing. Gardner is not an offensive powerhouse, but with full playing time, we can expect something like this:
AVG: .270
OBP: .335
RBI: 45
HR: 5
SB: 35
Do you really need much more than that from your number 9? Especially when he’s really just splitting time in the end? Those numbers are a reasonable expectation of what Gardner could easily be, though some people see his ceiling as higher and a few see it as lower.
http://www.espnnewyork.com
has gone live.
I?m not too high on the people blogging/posting over there. Lots of names I remember not reading on purpose on other sites?
I’ll post the columnists in another post – the original is awaiting moderation
http://espn.go.com/new-york/columns/index
Considering that many of you have said the people selected to cover the Yankees are not necessarily their biggest fans (or even unbiased, which would be fine), I would imagine that the target audience for ESPN-NY is not NY Yankees fans. How weird is that?
Worrying about CC over meaningless ST games is folly.
He will be fine and anchor the rotation.
We go thru this every year here. Some folks place way too much importance on ST performances.
I agree, Doreen – i was really surprised when I read the names.
Also read a couple of the posts/articles and there are some painful grammar issues, too
NEW THREAD
People complaining about Gardner need to understand that his OPS is better than it looks because of extra SB’s and his defense saves a lot of runs. People dismiss defense far too quickly or say yeah he is good defensively, but…and they don’t realize that saving just one double a week (which is low for Gardner) “adds” over 100 points to your OPS. if he saves more it would be higher. Now think about the next time you see a guy just miss a ball in the gap. So Gardner’s OPS was really an adjusted OPS of about .860 when you take SB’s and defense into account. SB’s are based on 26 SB’s minus 10 for the 5 CS stealing to add 16 total bases to his total. I added AB’s because if you just took how many plate appearances he had it is a little unfair because he pinch ran at times and got on base for free.