Staten Island Yankees Improves to 2-0 in 2013

Posted on June 19, 2013 by Robert Pimpsner
New York Yankees pitching prospect Jairo Heredia fires a pitch to the plate in his rehab start for the Staten Island Yankees on June 19, 2013 against the Brooklyn Cyclones

 In front of a crowd of 5,729 the Staten Island Yankees defeated the rival Brooklyn Cyclones 5-2 to win their second consecutive victory to open the 2013 season. …Read More

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Yankees trade for failed Mets prospect Fernando Martinez

Posted on June 19, 2013 by Rob Abruzzese
Fernando+Martinez

With all of their injuries, the Yankees needed another outfielder so they traded for former Mets prospect Fernando Martinez and sent the Astros minor league righty Charles Basford in exchange, according to Brian T. Smith of the Houston Chronicle.

Martinez, 24, was ranked as high as the No. 22 best prospect in baseball by Baseball America at one point and was on their top 100 list four years in a row. However, his minor league success never translated to the majors and he has a career line of just .206/.269/.362 in 310 at bats.

Basford, 22, was drafted in the 37th round of the 2012 draft out of Samford University. In parts of two season at Single-A Staten Island, Basford had a 5.13 ERA, a 7.9 K/9 and a 2.7 BB/9 in 26.1 innings. He was basically organizational filler so it’s not much of a loss.

Martinez probably won’t be seen much, if at all, in the Bronx. He’ll likely report to Triple-A Scranton with Zoilo Almonte recently called up and Brennan Boesch, Ronnier Mustelier, and Melky Mesa all on the minor league DL.

NEWS & NOTES

• Alex Rodriguez apparently flew Anthony Bosch, the man at the center of the entire PED scandal, to Detroit last October during the playoffs amidst his struggles for some, ahem, help.

• Don’t believe Kevin Long that Mark Teixeira was never healthy? Apparently the wrist was still bothering him to the point that he changed his swing mechanics to compensate. Doesn’t sound like a healthy ..read more

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Youkilis out 10-12 weeks with back surgery, Teixeira to the DL

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Rob Abruzzese
kevin-youkilis

The Yankees announced that Kevin Youkilis will have back surgery on Thursday and is expected to miss 10-12 weeks while Mark Teixeira has been placed on the 15-day disabled list after he got a cortisone shot to deal with inflammation in his wrist.

In corresponding moves, the Yankees called up Zoilo Almonte and Adam Warren from the minors. Warren will replace Teixeira on the roster while Almonte will take the place of Chris Bootcheck, who was designated for assignment (Youkilis was already on the DL).

Missing 10-12 weeks puts Youkilis at a early-to-mid September return, but I get the feeling that this could be the end of him as a Yankee for good. It’s just that even with surgery to repair a herniated disk that injury is going to linger. We’re talking about something that caused him to miss nearly four months over the last three seasons. He hit .219/.305/.343 in 28 games with the Yankees this year. They paid him $12 million.

As for Teixeira, the Yankees are sticking with their story that they are just shutting him down for a week because of the cortisone shot. If Kevin Long was right and Teixeira was never healthy it seems like 15 days on the DL is not going to be nearly enough. Surgery is still a possibility, but since he didn’t re-tear the tendon sheath it could be that he just needs more time to rest. Teixeira hit just .151/.270/.340 in 15 games this season. He’s owed $67.5 million over three years after this season.

David Adams and Jayson Nix will ..read more

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Robinson Cano and dad are not the only father-son duo across MLB

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Eric Favaloro
2011 State Farm Home Run Derby

In honor of Father’s Day having just passed on Sunday, this article will take a look at notable active players around Major League Baseball whose fathers have also played in the majors at some point.

Unlike his son, Jose Cano did not have much time in the spotlight and certainly did not put up superstar numbers in the majors.  In 1980, 21 years before they would draft his son, the Yankees drafted the elder Cano but released him soon thereafter.  A right-handed pitcher, Jose did not make his Major League debut until 1989 – his only year in the big leagues.  Starting three games and appearing in a total of six for the Astros, he went 1-1 with eight strikeouts and a 5.09 ERA.

Jose Cano is probably best known by Yankees fans for his role in the 2011 Home Run Derby.  Because Jose regularly pitches to him in the offseason and is still very much involved in his son’s baseball life, Robinson Cano had his father fly in from Dominican Republic so that he could throw to him in the Derby, which he ended up winning in dramatic fashion, hitting a record 12 home runs in the final round to defeat Adrian Gonzalez.

Cano has since continued his home run-smashing ways and is currently serving as interim leader of a 2013 Yankees team that has thus far been marred by injury and shortcomings.  Leading the Yanks in both home runs (16) and RBI (42), Cano has certainly stepped up to the added responsibility of leading the team’s offense – something which, coming into the season, many were unsure he would be able to do.

One ..read more

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Financial impact: Activating Teixeira cost the Yankees more than a setback

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Rob Abruzzese
teixeira-youkilis-cashman

With all of the injuries piling up they have tended to overreact rather than be cautious and it has caused a number of setbacks. We’ve already seen it with Mark Teixeira, Kevin Youkilis, and Derek Jeter.

But I wrote about that yesterday. Today I want to talk about the financial impact of rushing Teixeira back from the DL too soon.

Teixeira got hurt during Spring Training this season while swinging a bat. But because he was actually with Team USA during the World Baseball Classic, the Yankees didn’t have to pay Teixeira’s salary while he was out. That hefty check was paid out by the WBC.

However, the checks stopped coming the moment the Yankees activated him from the DL and they won’t start again even if he goes on the DL with the very same injury. That WBC insurance paid $7.38 million of the $23 million big Teix is owed this season, but that’s it.

Now publicly, Brian Cashman is denying that the Yankees rushed him back. “I think we actually went longer to the point that the player was complaining publicly with it,” said Cashman. “We actually took a very slow and methodical process here.” Except he was still injured according to Long.

Unfortunately it appears that the Yankees allowed themselves to get suckered here because hitting coach Kevin Long has said that Teixeira’s injured wrist never looked fully healed and even went so far as to call him a a shell of himself. Cashman’s response, “if K-Long felt that way, he should have been saying that from day one, but we never heard that from K-Long.”

..read more

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Staten Island Yankees Opening Night

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Robert Pimpsner
staten-island-yankees

Welcome to the Richmond County Bank Ballpark for the Home Opener against the rival Brooklyn Cyclones.  …Read More

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The way the Yankees have handled injuries could cost them a playoff spot

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Rob Abruzzese
Mark+Teixeira

Injuries have been a common theme for the Yankees this season and in a year where there has been quite a bit of unrest among the fans they have gotten a pass on this. However, maybe the Yankees shouldn’t be. While a lot of the injuries are a result of bad luck there has also been a fair amount of mismanagement that has made the situation much worse.

It started back in Spring Training with Derek Jeter. Jeter was coming off offseason ankle surgery which had an initial diagnosis of a May return. Jeter is extremely competitive though and was determined to get back by Opening Day and the Yankees seemed fine with that. So he pushed himself too hard and he ended up having a critical setback to the point where even an All-Star break return is not guaranteed.

More recently there has been Mark Teixeira. Teixeira suffered a torn ligament sheath in his wrist during Spring Training. It’s a serious injury that occasionally requires surgery to repair. It’s tricky though and other players around baseball, Jose Bautista and Mark DeRosa, both gave quotes to the press essentially warning Teixeira to be careful and not rush back too soon.

Like Jeter, Teixiera is extremely competitive and rushed his injury. After missing about two full months, Teixeira returned to the Bronx with just three days of rehab. It turns out that he was never completely healthy and Kevin Long admitted that he wasn’t even hitting off a tee from the left side recently. But the Yankees were so desperate to have him back that it didn’t matter.

Now we still don’t know how ..read more

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Yankees end 5 game losing streak, avoid sweep

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Rob Abruzzese
mariano-rivera

The Yankees barely managed to avoid back-to-back sweeps over the weekend as they held on to beat the Angels 6-5 on Sunday, but ran their losing streak up to five games before that as they lost on Friday and Saturday nights.

To make things worse, much worse, the Yankees had to remove Mark Teixeira from the game on Saturday as he suffered a setback to his wrist injury. MRI’s only showed inflammation, he didn’t re-tear it, but this is a serious setback that could keep him out for some time. They won’t officially put him on the DL until they can re-evaluate it this week.

Some other roster moves: After Thursday’s 18-inning game, the Yankees put Kevin Youkilis on the DL and demoted Adam Warren. In their place they called up RHP Chris Bootcheck and OF Thomas Neal. Neal played in two games and went 1-for-5 with three strikeouts. Bootcheck played in one game and gave up two hits and two walks with just one strikeout in one inning.

FRIDAY (5-2 loss)

The Yankees sent Andy Pettitte up to face C.J. Wilson on Friday and things didn’t work out so well as the Angels kept chipping away at Andy while the offense was absent as usual.

Pettitte wasn’t horrible, but he certainly wasn’t on top of his game as he gave up four runs on 11 hits. He allowed one run in each of the first, fourth, sixth, and seventh innings. It was just constant base runners all game.

It did seem like, at least early on, that they had a chance ..read more

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