(Extreme hat-tip to Mike Ashmore, who live-tweeted and posted video from each Phil Hughes at-bat.)
So Phil Hughes took the hitters from the NH Fisher Cats to school....6.1 IP, 1 ER, 2 BB, 8K in 88 pitches. He sat low-90's for the whole start and was touching mid-90's. He attacked the plate and got a bunch of quick outs, keeping the Blue Jays' AA affiliate at bay for the majority of the game.
By my reckoning Hughes looked much better on the mound than he did to begin the year. He appeared much looser on the mound and a helluva lot more relaxed. At the start of this year it looked like Hughes didn't have the confidence in his fastball (borne out by his DL stint and rehab) and he could not pitch around that.
(No, I'm not saying Hughes should try to pitch through injury...simply pointing out that his secondary stuff wasn't terribly sharp either.)
Anyway, this start looked much better than any start he made in the majors this season. He's got that swagger back...like he knows he's getting you out.
He'll likely have one more rehab start to bulk up his workload - I imagine that'll be in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and will occur on July 4th. Assuming all goes well, the Yankees have a pretty easy decision to make either just before or just after the All-Star break. It looks like Hughes could start just before the All-Star break on July 9th against Tampa Bay to keep him on rotation, but that projects to be Burnett's regular turn (and he's not pitching terribly). More likely I see Hughes staying in Scranton until after the MLB break, with Brian Gordon getting one more start with the Yankees before the break before they are forced to make a roster move.
I'm hoping Gordon will accept an assignment to Scranton. He'd be wonderful to have as depth in the minors in case Garcia falters or Colon doesn't come back right away. Nova needs to stay in the rotation because it looks like he has nothing left to learn at the AAA level...his best education will be facing the lineups of the AL East and the rest of the league once every five days.
After the break the Yankees rotation should look like CC, AJ, Hughes, Nova, Garcia with Colon on the way. This is not a bad rotation - it has questions but there's no rotation in the majors that doesn't, even the Phillies. With the lineup starting to get warm and the bullpen turning into something that can be trusted, I've got a feeling this season will turn into something a bit more special that the standard Yankee playoff appearance.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Jim Riggleman, (Permanent) Former MLB Manager
So Jim Riggleman resigned as manager of the Nationals today after the team's 11th win in 12 days. In a nutshell, Riggleman demanded that GM Mike Rizzo pick up his option for next year and Rizzo called his bluff. Riggleman said he needed "a longer leash" and wasn't as free to make decisions because of his tenuous contract situation, fearing any "out of the box" thinking would be an easy way to get himself fired. (Hmm, seems like he found an easier way)
There's obviously more going on than a simple contract demand from a manager that's had three winning seasons among the nine full seasons he's managed. Riggleman has probably been bugging Rizzo about this option since spring training and Rizzo (rightly, in my eyes) decided he had no reason to rush into paying his manager for next season. It's not like Riggleman was some sort of managerial guru that reinvented the baseball wheel while simultaneously convincing his bosses that he is indeed a good manager. As Mike Vaccaro mentioned, he'd have to go ONE FULL SEASON OVER .500 in order to get back to .500 as a manager.
So Riggleman played his hand wrong and lost. He says he felt disrespected when what he did was disrespect his organization by making a contract demand in-season. This is a Nationals team with many young players that would have gotten the idea that "Hey, our manager threw a hissy fit and got paid, why can't we?" Rizzo was backed into a corner - placate his manager and weaken his authority regarding the team, or call Riggleman's bluff and deal with the consequences. Rizzo would have been seen as a weak-kneed GM if he allowed Riggleman to dictate when the team would pick up his option, so he chose to protect his authority.
I can't see any team hiring Jim Riggleman anymore...he just walked out on his team because he wanted his money guaranteed. Now a team couldn't hire him if they wanted to because a) they'd be condoning throwing a tantrum when you don't like your contract situation, and b) if Riggleman isn't happy with his "job security" he could walk out at anytime. Perception has a tendency to be reality, and Riggleman has given the baseball world the perception that he is a potential malcontent with no redeeming qualities as a manager besides. Maybe he can find a college somewhere, but an MLB team should be wary to hire Mr. Riggleman.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Pleas to the silent
This is gonna sound like begging...because it is. I'm sure there's at least five people out there reading my drivel - yet no comments, followers or anything.
I crave feedback! As long as it's not mean-spirited or useless please feel free to tell me what I might be doing wrong or right. I want nothing more than to have friendly dialogue with whatever readers I may have.
Also, if you haven't noticed I'm not a blind-to-the-world, Sterling-esque Yankee fan. If you want that, there's places for the on the interwebs. You won't find it here.
I crave feedback! As long as it's not mean-spirited or useless please feel free to tell me what I might be doing wrong or right. I want nothing more than to have friendly dialogue with whatever readers I may have.
Also, if you haven't noticed I'm not a blind-to-the-world, Sterling-esque Yankee fan. If you want that, there's places for the on the interwebs. You won't find it here.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Bryce Harper, future HBP victim
Bryce Harper, he of the eye black and massive bat, avoided a big bruise after an incident while playing for Washington's Single-A affiliate in Hagerstown, MD. Basically, Harper stood and watched his big fly for a few seconds - much more than baseball protocol allows - and then trotted his way around the basepaths. The pitcher for Greensboro said some things to Harper, and Harper blew him a kiss at the end of his home run trot. The next at bat, he got a pitch up and in from a different Greensboro pitcher in obvious retaliation.
Young Bryce is lucky - had this happened higher up in the minors, and definitely on the major league level, either he or one of his teammates would have taken a fastball to the rear or the back and no one would have batted an eyelash one way or the other. Baseball has a funny way of policing itself - rules about HBP's or not - especially when you see your division rivals 18 times a season. If he had done that with Roy Halladay on the mound, it's safe to say he'd be sporting a baseball-sized bruise as a reminder to not show up your competition in that way..
That all being said, Harper has been called out for his immaturity and it has been said this incident could hold him back in the minors. That's purely a bunch of junk - he's 18 years old for crying out loud! The purpose of the minors for Harper is to learn how to be a professional baseball player so when he comes up to Washington he doesn't pull this kind of crap again. The team used it as a learning experience - the manager of Hagerstown should be commended for using what could have been a total negative and teaching these kids baseball as it should be played on the field.
I imagine that Harper will learn his lesson the hard way - since he didn't feel the full consequences of his actions on the field, he'll probably do it again and get a slightly more painful result. But that's OK...I can't remember too many 18-year olds that were fully mature adults and starting their professional career. What he has to do is keep working hard and keep stuff like this to a minimum lest he get a reputation as disrespectful, which will grate on his teammates as well as his opponents.
Young Bryce is lucky - had this happened higher up in the minors, and definitely on the major league level, either he or one of his teammates would have taken a fastball to the rear or the back and no one would have batted an eyelash one way or the other. Baseball has a funny way of policing itself - rules about HBP's or not - especially when you see your division rivals 18 times a season. If he had done that with Roy Halladay on the mound, it's safe to say he'd be sporting a baseball-sized bruise as a reminder to not show up your competition in that way..
That all being said, Harper has been called out for his immaturity and it has been said this incident could hold him back in the minors. That's purely a bunch of junk - he's 18 years old for crying out loud! The purpose of the minors for Harper is to learn how to be a professional baseball player so when he comes up to Washington he doesn't pull this kind of crap again. The team used it as a learning experience - the manager of Hagerstown should be commended for using what could have been a total negative and teaching these kids baseball as it should be played on the field.
I imagine that Harper will learn his lesson the hard way - since he didn't feel the full consequences of his actions on the field, he'll probably do it again and get a slightly more painful result. But that's OK...I can't remember too many 18-year olds that were fully mature adults and starting their professional career. What he has to do is keep working hard and keep stuff like this to a minimum lest he get a reputation as disrespectful, which will grate on his teammates as well as his opponents.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Catchers are not to be bulldozed; or, The tools of ignorance are not a bullseye
**NOTE: I haven't posted in a while, and if anyone does read this I apologize. Been a rough week at work...I'll try to get back to it regularly in the coming days.**
Let's start with a confession: I've never been a catcher on a baseball field. I never liked the idea of people that didn't know what they were doing on the mound throwing as hard as they could at me...which is where I imagine the nickname "tools of ignorance" came into being. I need a reasonable assurance that the pitcher is going to hit my glove with some accuracy, otherwise no thanks. I was never worried about a runner bowling me over - I'm a pretty big dude and was reasonably sure that I was the immovable object compared to most of my friends. This was before I had a basic understanding of the physics involved with collisions.
Buster Posey had surgery on his leg this week after a collision with Scott Cousins last week to repair ankle ligaments torn in that collision along with a broken leg. The Giants put Posey on the DL and have stated he will be out for the year - no real shock there. Posey is a young player and a championship-caliber catcher and there's no sense rushing him back for the end of the season, playoffs or not. Let him heal right and rehab the injury - the investment in time will be well worth the wait, I'm sure.
As for the play itself, the commentosphere and blogosphere has been a mixed bag. Posey and the Giants management said there was nothing dirty about the play - that Cousins made a clean hit on Posey in the name of scoring the winning run. Bochy even said he understood the the play was "a part of baseball."
I'm going to have to disagree with both viewpoints in some fashion. First off, the Giants saying there was nothing dirty about the play does not make it a clean play - Cousins had the option to slide around Posey and still hit the plate.* I've always been taught that baseball is not a contact sport and only under the rarest of circumstances should there be contact between opposing players, and that includes both sides of the play at the plate. A catcher responsibility is to tag the guy out, not necessarily block the plate.
*It didn't help that Schierholtz misplayed the ball slightly, not getting a run up to the ball and shuffling his feet before the throw which made the throw a bit slower and made the play closer. Not to blame Schierholtz - his throw was pretty darned good - but that was the first part of the chain of events.
Second, delivering a shoulder block is not "a part of baseball." Posey probably didn't see Cousins coming - he might have heard him, but by then it was too late to get out of the way - and it's wrong to think that hitting a defenseless player is "a part of baseball." The idea is to score runs, not points with your teammates by trying to put an exclamation point on the game. If the catcher is giving you a part of the plate, there's no reason to clear the other side of the plate too. It's (usually) far easier to score by going around a catcher than going through him.
On the flipside, Posey doesn't get off scott free here. His technique was horrible...he was squatting on his knees to receive the ball instead of being on his feet as well as not securing the ball before trying to tag Cousins. By being on his knees, instead of being knocked on his butt by Cousins he had his leg folded under him when his cleat planted in the ground and wouldn't give way while his foot nearly ripped from his ankle. He needs to know when to block the plate and when to swipe the tag.
As for rules changes, it's a bad idea for a few reasons. First off, legislating the game too much simply takes whatever fun is in the game out of it. There's already a ton of rules on the MLB books, some specifically involving catchers blocking the plate...enforce those better before you think about adding more lines to an already bloated volume. Second, umpires already have enough to worry about...subjective enforcement of the rules is already a problem (hello, HBP's) and giving fans and teams another reason to hate umpires just isn't worth it. I also don't think it would stop home plate collisions - the temptation for a catcher to not give a runner a lane is too great and too instinctual. Suspending players for a collision would lead to too many subjective questions: who instigated? /did the catcher leave an opening to the plate? /did the throw cause the catcher to move into the baseline? That's just too much second guessing in my opinion.
I don't want to get into the physics of the runner/catcher collision...I'm sure Mythbusters has done something with a collision between two similarly massed objects, one at rest and one in motion. The Cliff's Notes: The object at rest receives all of the force of the collision while giving little back in return. People want to talk about Posey wearing "armor" - that armor protects the catcher from batted balls and wild pitches, not baserunners. Catcher's equipment is not football pads and is not designed to take that kind of force.
This has the chance to be a great teaching moment for Buster Posey if the Giants allow it. Find a catching instructor that can drill this into Posey while he's rehabbing his leg and maybe they'll be able to save themselves from dealing with this sort of injury again.
Let's start with a confession: I've never been a catcher on a baseball field. I never liked the idea of people that didn't know what they were doing on the mound throwing as hard as they could at me...which is where I imagine the nickname "tools of ignorance" came into being. I need a reasonable assurance that the pitcher is going to hit my glove with some accuracy, otherwise no thanks. I was never worried about a runner bowling me over - I'm a pretty big dude and was reasonably sure that I was the immovable object compared to most of my friends. This was before I had a basic understanding of the physics involved with collisions.
Buster Posey had surgery on his leg this week after a collision with Scott Cousins last week to repair ankle ligaments torn in that collision along with a broken leg. The Giants put Posey on the DL and have stated he will be out for the year - no real shock there. Posey is a young player and a championship-caliber catcher and there's no sense rushing him back for the end of the season, playoffs or not. Let him heal right and rehab the injury - the investment in time will be well worth the wait, I'm sure.
As for the play itself, the commentosphere and blogosphere has been a mixed bag. Posey and the Giants management said there was nothing dirty about the play - that Cousins made a clean hit on Posey in the name of scoring the winning run. Bochy even said he understood the the play was "a part of baseball."
I'm going to have to disagree with both viewpoints in some fashion. First off, the Giants saying there was nothing dirty about the play does not make it a clean play - Cousins had the option to slide around Posey and still hit the plate.* I've always been taught that baseball is not a contact sport and only under the rarest of circumstances should there be contact between opposing players, and that includes both sides of the play at the plate. A catcher responsibility is to tag the guy out, not necessarily block the plate.
*It didn't help that Schierholtz misplayed the ball slightly, not getting a run up to the ball and shuffling his feet before the throw which made the throw a bit slower and made the play closer. Not to blame Schierholtz - his throw was pretty darned good - but that was the first part of the chain of events.
Second, delivering a shoulder block is not "a part of baseball." Posey probably didn't see Cousins coming - he might have heard him, but by then it was too late to get out of the way - and it's wrong to think that hitting a defenseless player is "a part of baseball." The idea is to score runs, not points with your teammates by trying to put an exclamation point on the game. If the catcher is giving you a part of the plate, there's no reason to clear the other side of the plate too. It's (usually) far easier to score by going around a catcher than going through him.
On the flipside, Posey doesn't get off scott free here. His technique was horrible...he was squatting on his knees to receive the ball instead of being on his feet as well as not securing the ball before trying to tag Cousins. By being on his knees, instead of being knocked on his butt by Cousins he had his leg folded under him when his cleat planted in the ground and wouldn't give way while his foot nearly ripped from his ankle. He needs to know when to block the plate and when to swipe the tag.
As for rules changes, it's a bad idea for a few reasons. First off, legislating the game too much simply takes whatever fun is in the game out of it. There's already a ton of rules on the MLB books, some specifically involving catchers blocking the plate...enforce those better before you think about adding more lines to an already bloated volume. Second, umpires already have enough to worry about...subjective enforcement of the rules is already a problem (hello, HBP's) and giving fans and teams another reason to hate umpires just isn't worth it. I also don't think it would stop home plate collisions - the temptation for a catcher to not give a runner a lane is too great and too instinctual. Suspending players for a collision would lead to too many subjective questions: who instigated? /did the catcher leave an opening to the plate? /did the throw cause the catcher to move into the baseline? That's just too much second guessing in my opinion.
I don't want to get into the physics of the runner/catcher collision...I'm sure Mythbusters has done something with a collision between two similarly massed objects, one at rest and one in motion. The Cliff's Notes: The object at rest receives all of the force of the collision while giving little back in return. People want to talk about Posey wearing "armor" - that armor protects the catcher from batted balls and wild pitches, not baserunners. Catcher's equipment is not football pads and is not designed to take that kind of force.
This has the chance to be a great teaching moment for Buster Posey if the Giants allow it. Find a catching instructor that can drill this into Posey while he's rehabbing his leg and maybe they'll be able to save themselves from dealing with this sort of injury again.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Quickie: Recent Cashman Scorecard
This is quick, dirty, and incomplete. Add as you like:
-Trading for Granderson: Pretty darned good
-Trading away Coke and Kennedy: Not so good, but used properly to improve club
-Trading away Melky: Opened CF for Granderson, so very good
-Signing Feliciano: Very VERY bad...and don't whine that his previous team overused him. Don't sign a guy that was overworked.
-Publically disavowing the Soriano signing: Good, and it's always good to show up Levine.
-Signing Martin to catch: Very good, eh?
-Not ponying up more cash for Lee: Considering he signed for more per year but for less years, I don't blame Cash for this one. Can't really blame anyone.
-Treading carefully with young pitchers: So far that's a fail. Joba's never going to start for the Yankees again, Hughes is on the shelf, Kennedy was used for a trade (albeit a good one)...As much as I want to see Banuelos and Betances in the majors, I fear for their arms.
-Jeter's contract: Cashman could have handled that better...that needed to stay in house.
Anyone else have anything to add? Anything to disagree about?
-Trading for Granderson: Pretty darned good
-Trading away Coke and Kennedy: Not so good, but used properly to improve club
-Trading away Melky: Opened CF for Granderson, so very good
-Signing Feliciano: Very VERY bad...and don't whine that his previous team overused him. Don't sign a guy that was overworked.
-Publically disavowing the Soriano signing: Good, and it's always good to show up Levine.
-Signing Martin to catch: Very good, eh?
-Not ponying up more cash for Lee: Considering he signed for more per year but for less years, I don't blame Cash for this one. Can't really blame anyone.
-Treading carefully with young pitchers: So far that's a fail. Joba's never going to start for the Yankees again, Hughes is on the shelf, Kennedy was used for a trade (albeit a good one)...As much as I want to see Banuelos and Betances in the majors, I fear for their arms.
-Jeter's contract: Cashman could have handled that better...that needed to stay in house.
Anyone else have anything to add? Anything to disagree about?
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Template for comment board whiners
**This PSA is brought to you by the WHAAAAAAAAmbulance and blind fanboys everywhere. Please use this template to complain about the lack of coverage on your favorite team when commenting on message boards. Thank you.**
Obviously ESPN hates (insert team here) and is always biased toward (insert other team here). They never have stories about (insert first team here), the greatest team of all time! The only time they have stories about (insert first team here) is when they do something stupid or lose to (insert second team here). I'm never going to read (insert writer here)'s garbage ever again because he always hates my (insert first team here). Go (insert first team here)!!!!
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