New York Yankees Fanatics

Tomorrow night (April 2nd, 2012) the Kentucky Wildcats meet the Kansas Jayhawks meet to determine who wins the men's NCAA college basketball championship. You are probably wondering why I am mentioning college basketball on a professsional baseball fan page?
The reason is very simple. Every year in which the Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball team has won the championship game the New York Yankees have won the World Series in the same year. So now you see why I am rooting for Kentucky tomorrow night.
Go Jayhawk!


Category: MLB

For those who read the New York Daily News there was an interesting piece in today's (Sunday February 26th, 2012) edition. On page 58 under the title of "Spring Training Report" Mark Teixeira is quoted as saying that he has no problems in laying down bunts for basehits especially with the way opposing teams impose the shift against him. Further on in this piece Joe Giradi in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way stated that he also plans to have Tex steal about 25 bases.

To readers of this Fanatics page I suggest that you don't blow these comments off as gibberish because I believe that after having a very hard look at last season there was some very serious evaluations taking place. Teixeira for one probably spent the entire offseason looking at everyone of his at-bats and saw that the shifts employed against him made it very conducive for him to drop down bunts. Now Teixeira probably will not lead the league in bunt singles, however it will force teams to re-think their shifts thus letting him get back to being a masher who gets many more hits primarily to the right side of the field where the shift used to be employed.

Also don't gloss over Giradi's comments because 25 stolen bases is not alot for Teixeira, especially when he is the trail runner in a double steal sceanrio with the lead runner either being Brett Gardner, Derek Jeter, or even Curtis Granderson. That American League Divisional Series loss to the Detroit Tigers where every loss was by 3 runs or less and a ton of runners were left on base (15 in the series clinching loss) probably opened up Giradi's eyes as well and made him re-evaluate the Yankees approach to scoring runs.

I know that the Yankees are known as The Bronx Bombers but keep in mind that in that dynasty run of 4 championships in 5 years there was more brain than brawn involved and that was why they were successful. As far as I am concerened it is time to replicate and even improve upon that successful run and 2012 is as good a time as any to start.

Go Yankees!!!


Category: MLB

If you may have missed the news, the report has come out yesterday that New York Yankees catcher Jorge Posada is expected to announce his retirement from baseball in the coming weeks. Here is the link to the report here on CBS Sports.com: http://www.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/
entry/22297882/34234132/6.

It is a shame that the final year of Jorge's career will be remembered for declining productivity and the clash with management. However, that is a very small miniscule blemish on what was a very good career that produced numbers worthy of enshrinement in the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame.

Using Baseball-Reference.com's similarity scores, four of the top ten most similar players to Posada in baseball history are currently in the Hall of Fame.

The above is a quote from the linked article provided earlier in this post. What this tells me is that Jorge as it stands right now has a 40% chance of getting in to the Hall of Fame. However there are other factors that I think that will give him more of a solid push.
One major factor is the fact that he was a major contributor to the Yankees dynasty teams of the middle and late 1990's and the perrenial playoff contenders of the 2000's and was not just some guy along for the ride.
 
Another factor is that his career OPS+ is better than that of the last two catchers inducted into the Hall of Fame (Carlton Fisk and Gary Carter). That is something that can not be ignored when determining Hall of Fame worthiness.

One final factor that I am looking at is that he already has the vote of a major writer. In today's edition of the New York Daily News columnist Mike Lupica has already stated that he will vote for Posada when the time for such a vote into the Hall of Fame comes up. Regardless of what you may think of Mike Lupica, he is a very powerful brand name among sportswriters and will definitely influence and swing alot of votes Posada's way. Will that be enough to get Posada in remains to be seen, but it definitely will not hurt his case.

Whether he gets in or not all I can say to Jorge is thank you for the all of the great memories that you have provided over the years. Enjoy retirement and I look forward to seeing back at The Stadium for Old Timers Day in the very near future.

Category: MLB

For those who may not follow New York Yankees news in the offseason I thought I would share this piece of information with you. The New York Yankees have extended the deal with WCBS 880-AM to broadcast Yankees games on the radio for another year. The previous deal was set to expire on December 31st, 2011. The main competitor to WCBS was ESPN 1050-AM however there was concern over ESPN 1050-AM's limited radio signal, so WCBS gets at least one more year. For all of the particulars feel free to check out this link: http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/news
/article.jsp?ymd=20111028&content_id=25825132&vkey=news_nyy&c_id=nyy.

As a Yankee fan I am glad that John Sterling in particular will be back. The thing that I like most are some of the calls that he makes on homeruns hit by Yankees players. My Top 5 just from the season that just passed are as follows:
1) Alex Rodriguez - An A-Bomb from A-Rod.
2) Robinson Cano - What do you know, Robbie Cano.
3) Nick Swisher - He is Swish-a-licious.
4) Curtis Granderson - The Grandy Man can, The Grandy can (this is actually sung).
5) Mark Teixeira - You're on the "mark" Teixeira (I know Sterling also says 'he sent a Tex message into the stands', but I like you're on the mark better).

Having Sterling back in 2012 is a good thing, especially when I tune into those matinee Yankees games during the work week.

Category: MLB

Read an interesting article today concerning the potential spot for Jeter in the 2012 Yankee lineup.  The arguement was made that Jeter should be batting 9th rather than Brett Gardner because Gardner's speed make is your protype leadoff hitter.  The other issue then becomes where does Jeter fit when you have Grandy, Swisher, Tex, A-Rod and Cano to place in the line-up as well.  One arguement was to place Swisher in the 2nd slot, pushing Grandy to 3rd, Cano 4th, followed by some order of A-Rod/Tex.  This pushes Jeter to 9th since you will likely see Montero in the line-up who will bat 7th or 8th with Martin (assuming he is re-signed) in the other slot.  Finally, the article further stated even if swisher is kept down in the line-up (argument for batting 2nd is due to his high OBP), then Grandy is 2nd, followed by your best hitter Cano then some combination of A-Rod/Tex/Swisher. 

So what is the answer?  Can you really place a future HOF in Jeter at the 9th slot when he has been your #1/#2 for most of career?  Granted he started slow this year but after he passed hit 3000, Jeter was better than .300 and even showed a little power.  But, across the board some of his numbers were not on par with his career averages and he is getting older.  But, 9th?  I can see why that would be a valuable place for Jeter and the Yankees.

Now hear me out.  First, your lead-off hitter should be a OBP guy with speak and Gardner fits the bill perfectly.  In fact, after Jeter was hurt, Gardner demonstrated he can lead-off and be successful.  Yes he is a streaky hitter, but has a tremendous eye, runs up pitch counts and posts a good OBP.  I like seeing Granderson in the 2nd slot, he did great there this year and why mess with a good thing.  Plus his speed combined with Gardner leading off, this can really throw other teams off.

Next, the Yankees best hitter in the line-up is Cano and no question he should bat 3rd.  Nuff said.  Moving on, I think A-Rod is still a 30hr/100rbi guy who had some rough injuries this year.  He hits for higher BA so placing him 4th in the line-up behind the big 3, gives him good opportunites to really showcase what he can do for us.  Now the tricky part, I would argue if Swisher is on, you bat him 5th, his OBP is hard to ignore, has power and can hit when he is on.  Tex since joining the Yankees has become a strict power hitter whose BA and OBP has dropped below his career averages.  No longer do I buy the slow starter theory anymore as this year proves he is no longer capable of hitting for average which lowers his OBP and a guy like this is more of your prototypical 6th hole kind of player.

With spots 1-6 taken care of, I suggest placing Montero in the 7th slot.  He gets good protection with the power guys in front and solid hitters behind, less pressure to perform, yet a good place to showcase his talent.  In his first year with the Yankees, assuming he gets 500+ AB's he could post 15-25 HR's, 70-90 RBI's with a BA around .270-.280.  Anything more than that and we have a fantastic rookie season.  His OBP might be a tad lower, but even if we give him a lower rookie line of .265 with 15 HR's 70 RBI's, you have one of the better hitting 7th hole guys in the game.  See my point here.

Finally, I would bat Martin 8th, decent OBP, HR power, decent speed, but never expect his BA to pass .240-.250.  This leaves the 9 hole spot for our Captain Derek Jeter.  Why is this the best spot?  First, I hate to admit it, but his skills are declining, the power is sapped and his OBP is slowly going south.  He still has the speed and the ability to drive up pitch counts, cause havoc and hit for average.  Secondly, having a guy like Jeter batting 9th is sort of getting a 2nd leadoff man for the top of the line-up. Opposing pitchers will never be able to rest, speed at the top and bottom of the line-ups with power in the middle.  Where is the weak link here?  Yankees struggle against young pitchers they haven't seen and often times it takes several bat arounds for them to wake up.  Imagine a young pitchers out there, cruising through 1-8 and finally Jeter with his exerience and opportunity to see the first 8 comes to bat.  This becomes a huge advantage for Jeter and the Yankees.  Instead of a young pitcher going through the line-up 2-3 times before dishing off to the bullpen, you now have the opportunity to wake up the bats with your captain teeing off before the 2nd time through the line-up. 

Its hard to admit, but batting Jeter 9th makes a ton of sense. 

To re-illustrate:

Projected 2012 Line-up

1.  Gardner
2.  Granderson
3.  Cano
4.  A-Rod
5.  Swisher
6.  Tex
7.  Montero
8.  Martin
9.  Jeter


Category: MLB