Link Stampede: Nady, Marlins, Gardner, Damon…

It’s been quite a while since I last posted, and it would be tough to write a full post on each story that emerged since the last time I posted, so I’ll just throw a bunch of links at you guys to sum everything up.

Xavier Nady the Yankees top target?

According to Joel Sherman, Nady is the Yankees top target for left field. “The player that most entices the Yankees is Xavier Nady, who, like Damon, is represented by Scott Boras. As long as they are comfortable Nady is playable in left field after a second Tommy John surgery then the Yanks would love how his right-center power projects to their park.” Sherman does mention that other teams are likely interested in Nady as well, and that he may end up being too expensive for the Yankees, but I his price would be too big of an issue. I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing the Yankees signing Nady, but I’m still dreaming that Johnny Damon and the Yankees will come to an agreement.

Only 2 million left to spend?

Joel Sherman also said the Yankees are telling agents that they only have 2 million dollars left to spend this off season. While it is unlikely the ceiling is at 2 million for the Yankees, they could very well only have around 4 million (just a number I picked) left to spend. Let this be a reminder that the Yankees, like all other teams, do have a budget and can’t just go out there and sign anyone us as fans want them to sign.

Dreaming of Damon…

I know many Yankee fans, myself included, would love to see Damon resign with the Yankees. While this seems unlikely with the way things are going, I still can’t see how it doesn’t make sense for Damon and the Yankees to re-up with each other. To me it makes sense for both sides. It looks like the only other team that Damon has a shot at signing with is the Braves, and they might want to save the money for the future, leaving the Yankees as Damon’s only option. According to Mike Silva, Damon could return to the Yankees at 5-7 million, I don’t know where he got those numbers from, but they seem plausible. The only question is do the Yankees have 5-7 million left to spend?

Nick Carfado of the Boston Globe has two worthwhile quotes from Damon. Talking about the free agent market Damon said, “Well, I knew I’d have to wait until some of the bigger hitters like Jason Bay and Matt Holliday went places , and now I’m just waiting to see what’s in store for me. I knew I’d probably have to take a pay cut, just based on the way the economy is in this country and baseball, but I thought I had a productive season and I think I showed people I can play and still do something at a high level.’’ When asked about returning to the Yankees Damon said, “I don’t know. I haven’t had any conversations with them recently. Nothing would surprise me, but there’s nothing there right now.”

Is Gardner really that disciplined?

Throughout Gardner’s short career, he has been criticized for his offense, and rightfully so. However, one thing he has been praised for is his discipline. People tend to think that Brett has a very good eye, and without really analyzing him, it appears that he does. However, Joseph Pawlikowski asked an excellent question today, “Is Brett Gardner disciplined, or does he just not swing at pitches?” This is something I’ve always though about myself, to me it seems like Gardner takes way too many pitches, and many of them for strikes. If a batter takes a very large amount of pitches, he’s bound to take a lot of balls early in his career until he is figured out by the league. Is this the case with Brett Gardner? I believe it is, how about you? Make sure you head on over to River Ave Blues to read the full story.

Marlins told to spend more money

It’s about time! However, there could be some negatives to this involving the Yankees and every other team. If the Marlins have to spend X amount of money, and they just decide to overpay one player to meet X, then they are raising the price tag for all players, making all free agents, etcetera more costly which would hurt all 30 teams.

Stop knocking the strikeout!

Many people critize players who strike out a lot, but I’ve never really understood this. Joseph Pawlikowski wrote a great post about this basically saying that strike outs are just like any other out. Sure you can argue that strikeouts never can advance a runner, but then you can counter-argue that strikeouts do not cause double plays. Make sure you check out the full post.

McGwire admits to using steroids

What? This can’t be true! Next you’re going to tell me Barry Bonds or Sammy Sosa took steroids! On a serious note, sure it’s sad to see another player fall but in my mind he didn’t fall he was already down, there was no way you could believe this guy was innocent. Whatever, I don’t like to dwell on this topic.

Only 36 more days until pitchers and catchers report!

Game 74: Yankees at Mets

Last night the Yankees defeated the Mets by the score of 9-1, with the help of the Mets terrible defense. Their entire infield each made an error, well except for Luis Castillo (ironic right?) who I feel has already done his share. CC pitched well and showed no signs of the muscle soreness that bothered him in his last start. Brett Gardner had the night of his life, he was a double short of the cycle and if you think about it he should have gotten it because on one of his singles CC was on first base and any other runner would have advanced to third and Brett would have easily made it to second. Oh well. Anyway, tonight the Yankees look to secure a series win as they face Tim Redding and the Mets. You may remember Redding in his short 1 inning stint with the Yankees in which he gave up 6 runs, that was the end of him. Anyhow, here’s the starting lineup via PeteAbe :

CF Brett Gardner

RF Nick Swisher

1B Mark Teixeira

3B Alex Rodriguez

2B Robinson Cano

C Jorge Posada

LF Melky Cabrera

SS Ramiro Pena

RHP A.J. Burnett

Paging Doctor Robert (Beatles reference)

Johnny Damon joins the list of Yankees who are/were under the weather. Other members of that list inlcude Matsui, Melky Cabrera, and Derek Jeter. What’s going on here, you would think the Yankees could control this better.

Pat Venditte finally climbs the ladder

Pat Venditte (the Yankees ambidextrous pitcher who nobody really feels is a prospect, but continues to get hitters out) was promoted to Tampa (Class A Advanced). This is good for him because he is not that young (24) for his level and he can’t continue to just dominate 20 year olds, he needs to either prove he can get more experienced hitters out or prove that he can’t.

Nady needs Tommy John Surgery

Just in case you missed it, Nady needs TJ surgery. He really wanted to come back, that’s why he tried alternative methods but they failed. He is a free agent after the season and it is unlikely the Yankees will re-sign him, especially because his agent is named Scott Boras. I still feel the way I felt last night when I heard the news, very disappointed. Will Brian Cashman make a trade now that Nady isn’t coming back, who knows.

Musings on Huston Street

Marc Craig wonders whether Huston will be fitting on Yankee pinstripes in the near future. I like the idea very much, but I don’t think the Rockies want to trade anyone right now, they have been on a hot streak and probably don’t want to mess it up. Maybe once they cool down, they will be more open to trading Street. However, I still don’t think he’ll come cheap. According to Marc Craig the Yankees have been interested in Street since May. While I like the idea, to me it has to be for the right price.

Game 73: Yankees at Mets

The Yankees look to take over the Mets' new cavernous home, Citi Field

Round 2 of the 2009 Subway Series begins tonight as the Yankees and CC Sabathia take on the Mets and Mike Pelfrey. The Yankees took round 1 of the Subway Series taking 2 out of 3 from the Mets, but the Yankees really only earned one win in that series with the other win coming as a result of a dropped pop up by Luis Castillo, and I thank him for that. This time around the Yankees hope to earn their wins against the cross town rivals. The pitching matchups look pretty good for the Yankees during this series with CC vs Pelfrey tonight, A.J. vs Redding tomorrow, and Wang vs. Livan on Sunday. Okay maybe the Sunday doesn’t favor the Yankees tremendously but I feel confident with Wang. Anyway, let’s just worry about tonight as the Yankees send out the following lineup via PeteAbe to face Mike Pelfrey and the Mets:

SS Derek Sanderson Jeter CF Brett M. Gardner

LF Johnny David Damon

1B Mark Charles Teixeira

3B Alex Emmanuel Rodriguez

2B Robinson Jose Cano

RF Melky Astacio Cabrera

CF Brett M. Gardner C Francisco Cervelli

C Francisco Cervelli SS Derek Jeter

LHP Carsten Charles Sabathia

The bottom of that lineup looks a little weak with both Swisher and Posada not playing, no big deal though.

Nady suffers a setback

Xavier Nady was playing for Scranton last night and he left the game in the 5th inning after making a throw from right field. At the moment the Yankees haven’t said much about it but it doesn’t look good to me. “We don’t know what he did yet but it could be the worst-case scenario,” general manager Brian Cashman said. “He felt something and that is what we were concerned about.” “I want to talk to X and see how he feels,” Cashman said. “But it didn’t sound good.” According to PeteAbe Nady is heading to California to see Dr. Yocum. It doesn’t sound good but let’s just hope for the best because not getting Nady back for the rest of the year would really hurt.

Happy Birthday Derek!

Derek Jeter turns 35 today, man he is getting old, but he is still productive and is having a surprisingly decent maybe even good year defensively.

Andy Phillips signs with Japan

Do you remember Andy Phillips? He played for t.ps said on the team’s official Web site. “I’ll do every thing I can to help the team win a championship.” Good for him and I wish him the best of luck, Japan has to be better than AAA and now he has a chance to really prove himself and have fun on a competitive team.

Update 6:30

Jeter scratched because he is feeling under the weather. Same illness that Melky and Hideki have/had. I made the corresponding changes to the lineup above. By the way it’s raining in New York again. It looks like we could be in for a long delay. I feel like we live in Seatle.

Update 6:55
Xavier Nady is done for the season. He needs Tommy John surgery. This is really dissapointing but I can’t say I didn’t see this coming. I have yet to really digest the news, right nowim just really dissapointed and even sad. I really like Nady but it looks like his Yankee days are over, he is a free agent after the season and I doubt the Yankees would want to resign him considering his 2010 is partly is doubt since TJ surgery recovering takes about a year. I’m really disappointed.

Update 7:30

First pitch scheduled for 8:00.

Game 71: Yankees 8, Braves 4

Tonight the Yankees defeated the Braves by the score of 8 to 4. While it may look like an ordinary win, it was not quite. Through 5 innings the Yankees did not have a single base runner, and it looked like another night of losing to Cy Young. However, the story changed in the 6th inning. Brett Gardner led off the inning with a walk (the Yankees first base runner), then he got called out on a pick off on first. Joe Girardi immediately came out to argue. Gardner was clearly safe as seen on the replays, but from Girardi’s view he probably couldn’t really tell. Still, Girardi gave the first base umpire his money’s worth and was ejected. Seeing the manager ejected always seems to get a team fired up. Anyway, the next batter was Francisco Cervelli who hit a solo home run to tie the game at one (his first career home run). From there on almost everything went the Yankee’s way. They went on to score two more runs in the 6th, one in the 7th, two in the 8th, and then 2 in the 9th.

On the pitching side things also went well for the Yanks. Joba Chamberlain went 6.1 innings allowing 3 runs, 2 earned. Phil Coke came in to finish the 7th after Joba got in a bit of trouble. Then Bruney came into the 8th inning and right from the get go he didn’t look right, to me his fastball wasn’t there. Bruney allowed a run and could not finish the 8th after getting 2 outs. Enter sandman who stroke out the first batter he faced to end the 8th. Mo actually batted in the top of the ninth, he came up with the bases loaded and two outs and he actually hit a hard liner to center. In the bottom of the 9th Mo was smoking. He faced three batters, and struck out all three. So for the night Mo faced a total of 4 batters and stuck them all out. Vintage Mariano. So the Yankees won the game 8 to 4.

Side Notes

• The Yankees held a closed door meeting after last night’s game. Supposedly it was basically a pep talk. Jeter and Teixeira were the two guys to step up and talk during the meeting.
• Brian Cashman unexpectedly was in Atlanta tonight. He also had a little closed door meeting in Girardi’s office with Nick Swisher and Girardi himself. The original lineup posted tonight had Swisher on the bench and Melky in right field. After that little meeting with Cashman, Swisher was in the lineup and Melky was on the bench. The Yankees did not really comment on the situation, so we’re just left to speculate. All I could think off would be that Cashman and Girardi wanted to let Swisher know what the situation would be once Xavier Nady returns (which should be soon, he actually played right field tonight for Scranton). Maybe they told Swisher that he would become a bench player once Nady comes back. I really don’t know, but I would think there was more to Brian Cashman being with the Yankees on the road than just to tell Swisher something. But you know the Yankees, they are quite secretive.
• Cody Ransom is back with the team, Angel Berroa was DFA’d.
• Jose Veras was traded to the Indians for “cash considerations.”

Game 56: Rays at Yankees

Yesterday, the Yankees suffered a tough loss. Going into the 9th inning the game was tied 5-5. In the top of the 9th, Girardi brought Mo in to hold the score down. However, he could not. He gave up a triple to Ben Zobrist to start the inning, and everything went downhill from there. Eventually Mo had to leave in the middle of the inning, giving way to Phil Coke. In the end 4 runs ended up scoring, making the score 9-5 Rays. In the bottom of the 9th the Yankees did not go down without a fight, scoring 2 runs, but they could not manage to tie the game. 9-7 Rays, the final. The great thing about baseball though is that today, less than 24 hours after that tough loss, the Yankees get to go out a play a completely new ballgame. And here’s the lineup via PeteAbe they send out against Matt Garza in hope to take the 2nd game of the series:

SS Derek Sanderson Jeter

LF Johnny David Damon

1B Mark Charles Teixeira

3B Alex Emmanuel Rodriguez

2B Robinson Jose Cano

C Jorge Rafael Posada

DH Hideki Matsui

RF Nick Thompson Swisher

CF Melky Astacio Cabrera

Andon the mound, Joba Chamberlain (born Justin Louis Heath according to Wikipedia)

That's really him (not that impersonator), he did a promotion last year for Dunkin Doughnuts

Closer than they appear

According to Marc Craig, Brian Bruney, Damaso Marte and Xavier Nady are closer to returning. On Friday, Bruney threw 20 pitches (all fastballs) in a bullpen session. He said he felt no pain, hopefully he is not covering anything up. When asked about a possible return date, Bruney said, “If I was to guess, I’d say a week and a half, maybe less.” Marte threw 25 pitches off a bullpen mound and “spun some sliders from a shorter distance.” He and Bruney would really give the Yankees bullpen a boost. Xavier Nady played in an extended spring training game a couple days ago, and played catch from 90 feet yesterday. This is great news that he is back to throwing, if the Yankees can get Nady back it would be like they just made a huge trade.

BleacherCreatures.tv

I found this great website all about the bleacher creatures, andthey have one section with a bunch of videos and pictures of the bleacher creatures and Yankee Stadium. They have everything from the roll calls, to the YMCA bleacher creauture style, to having fun with a player (you guesses it, Nick Swisher). You should definitely check it out.

Yankees games streamed online

If you live in the New York area and have or considered purchasing MLB.TV, you probably know that Yankees games are blacked out because you live in New York and YES has the deal for Yankees games in New York. Well, that is going to change soon. The Yankees are going to become to first MLB team to have its games streamed live online within its home market. They have not announced many details, but here’s the article from the Sports Buisness Journal, in case you are interested.

Live Game Blog

I may do a live game blog if enough people are willing to participate in it. I would probably make it start at 1:05 and end around 1:30 or maybe longer. If you are interested and think you could participate just leave a comment or vote yes in the poll below. If you think I should make the live game blog at another time, just leave a comment stating what time I should make it.

Here is the Live Blog just in case I do actually run one today

Click Here

Update
Maybe I’ll start the live blog after the game.

Game 51: Yankees at Indians

The Yankees are sending out a bit of a different lineup tonight up against Cleveland’s southpaw Jeremy Sowers, so let’s start with that via PeteAbe:

SS Derek Jeter

RF Nick Swisher

1B Mark Teixeira

DH Alex Rodriguez

C Jorge Posada

2B Robinson Cano

LF Melky Cabrera

3B Angel Berroa

CF Brett Gardner

And on the mound, Joba Chamberlain

I told you it was “different”

I don’t particulary like tonight’s lineup. For more than one reason too. I don’t that Nick Swisher, who these days can not buy a hit, is batting 2nd. I don’t like that Johnny Damon isn’t in there, but maybe he needs a day off. Most of all, I do not like that Angel Berroa is playing third with Alex DH’ing. I have no problem with Alex DH’ing every once in a while, but I do have a problem with Angel Berroa as the starting third baseman. Why can’t Ramiro Pena play, by sitting him you are just retarding his development, and it’s not like he has shown no signs of life at the plate. I just don’t get it. Hey, lets look on the brightside…

Melky Cabrera is back

Yep, that is the bright side. He is back in the lineup tonight, after injuring his shoulder in Texas.

Let’s hope for a good one

I hope Joba goes out there tonight and puts some of the bullpen advocates to rest, however Joba has not fared well against the Indians in his career (10.2 innings, 8 earned runs) and it is silly to think that anything can put the so called B-Jobbers (by River Ave Blues) to rest. Well, hopefully the strange lineup can help the Yankees pitchers out tonight.

Bad news on the injury front

Jose Molina and Xavier Nady both had setbacks today. Jose re-injured his strained left quad, and will probably not return anytime soon. It was just yesterday when the Yankees thought he would return within a week. Nady began a throwing program today but he had to stop because he felt discomfort in his right elbow. He’ll try again tomorrow, but this isn’t a good sign.

Update 8:02
3 innings in the book. Joba has been perfect so far. 1-0 Yanks.

No surgery for Nady

According to SI’s Jon Heyman, Xavier Nady will not be having surgery.

Yankees outfielder Xavier Nady has been diagnosed with a partially torn ligament in his right elbow, but he will avoid surgery. He will likely need to rehab the injury for a period of weeks, perhaps a month.

Well, this seems like great news. Nady being injured severely hurt the Yankees depth especially with Matsui’s future in doubt. Hopefully he will be back soon and the Yankees can get him back into the lineup as a DH or whatever role suits him best.