Over at Baseball Prospectus, Will Carroll offers up an opinion on Jorge Posada’s injury, and how it may be treated going forward:

Ben Wolf . . . points out something about Posada getting hit by a pitch Wednesday that hadn’t occurred to me: “Was reading your latest column and saw that Posada was hit in the fibular head (I had just read knee in the general news).  Even if there isn’t a fracture, there’s a risk of the injury being more of a long-term problem if he ends up with any restriction in the superior tibiofibular joint, especially considering the demands of a catcher squatting on the knee (including that joint specifically I think), not to mention any mechanistic problems he could have running.  I suppose we will see.” . . . .  Posada says he could catch if it was an emergency, but it’s clear that it’s the squatting that’s the problem. We’ll see how the Yankees deal with this over the weekend, but expect Posada to miss time. At best, he could DH, but I think they’ll hold on to the retro DL move until they’re more sure.

To honor Hideki Matsui, this recap will be presented in 5/7/5 form:

Pre-game
Yankees and Angels
First of three at The Big A
A.J., Ervin, Ks!

Bottom 1st
A.J. Burnett wild
Walks Erick Aybar on pitch
That reached the backstop

AJ then wheels and
Catches Aybar trying steal
Who needs Posada?

Bobby Abreu
Jealous of Matsui-love
Shown by former team?

Abreu doubles
He states “No walls were hurt in
making of this hit”

Next, Torii Hunter . . .
Swisher slides for liner, but
Can’t hold it, two on

Matsui lines out
But then Kendry Morales
Chops a pitch, hang time!

Mark Teixiera waits
And waits . . . and waits for it to
Come down . . . But too late

Abreu scores run
AJ gets Juan Rivera
To fly out to right

Top 2nd
Santana is sharp
Through two frames only one hit
(A-Rod line single)

Bottom 2nd
Maicer Izturis
Brings Yankees only tsuris
Singles past A-Rod

Kendrick named “Howard”?
He flies out to warning track
Burnett not fooling

Who’s Bobby Wilson?
All Angel catchers must have
Six letters in names?

Napoli is one
Mathis is another one
Who cares? Wilson Ks

Tsuris stole second
While Wilson was striking out
But Aybar ends threat

Top 3rd
Swisher pops to short
Gardner lines hit down left field
First double of year!

Jeter mirrors Brett
Dumps double down right field line
Tying game at 1

Johnson K’s, close pitch
Teix hit on elbow (again?)
Takes first base, two on

Alex rips a hit
Past Izturis, a single
Jeter scores, 2-1.

Teix now at second
Cano drives score truck, singles
Teix charges round third

Plate was his to have
Wilson was out front, up line
Teix plowed over him

Wilson groggy, hurt
Was assisted off the field
No weight on left leg

That made it 3-1
Posada popped out to short
Could A.J. hold lead?

Bottom 3rd
Up stepped Abreu
He doubles again, off wall
Hunter lines to third

Alex snares it, throws
Off mark, Hunter runs into
Teix no harm no foul

Now its first and third
Matsui up, AJ gets
A pitcher’s best friend

4-6-3 DP
Run scores, can Burnett escape?
No, Kendry gets plunked

Rivera doubles
High off right-centerfield wall
Tie game now . . . field goals?

Tsuris adds to woes
He doubles, Angels 4-3
Pins in A.J. dolls

Burnett finally
Gets third out of the inning
On Kendrick groundout

(more…)

Prior to last night’s game, Nick Johnson had walked in slightly better than one of every four plate appearances this season.  With 14 walks in his first 12 games, he was on a pace which would eclipse the all-time franchise record of 170 by Babe Ruth in 1923.

Now of course, Nick is a DL stint just waiting to happen, so that all-time mark is highly unlikely.  But he could more reasonably eclipse the more recent high-water mark of Jason Giambi, who got a free pass 129 times in 2003.

In the DH era, there have been only ten occurrences of a Yankee drawing 100 or more walks in a season, and Giambi has four of them.

Johnson’s .158 batting average (prior to last night’s game) will of course come back to more-normal levels, as he is a career .271 hitter.  Since 1990, there have been 78 occurrences of an American League batting title qualifier amassing 100 or more walks, and the median batting average of that group is .285, with a range of .223 (Mickey Tettleton in 1990) to .363 (John Olerud in 1993).

Banterites continue to marvel/giggle from afar at the plight of Big Papi, who has continued his slide from feared slugger to possibly benched DH by K’ing 12 times in his first 25 plate appearances (23 ABs) this season.

It brings to mind the Yanks’ history of famed, and in some case surprising, whiffers.

Mike Pagliraulo, who struck out once every 5.5 plate appearances in his career, holds the franchise record for most consecutive game starts from the beginning of the season with at least one K, with 9 in 1988.  Ortiz’s worst such streak was the first four games of 1999, when he was still with the Twins.

None other than Alex Rodriguez has the team record for most consecutive starts with at least one strikeout, with 15 in July/August of 2005.  Despite this, A-Rod DID hit .276/.377/.603 during the streak, with 6 homers and 12 ribbies.  Ortiz compiled a ten-game streak during 2006.  If you are wondering, Mickey Mantle’s longest such streak was 11 in 1952.  Reggie Jackson had a 17-game streak in ’82, but he was already with the Angels by then.

Big Papi has K’ed at least twice in his last five starts.  Six different Yankees have compiled streaks of five straight two-K starts, most recently Tony Clark in 2004.

Ortiz’s high-water mark in terms of season’s strikeouts was last year’s 134, when he put up a line of .238/.332/.462.  He also struck out 133 times in 2004, but that year he hit .301/.380/.603.  Alfonso Soriano holds the Yankee season strikeout record with 157 in 2002.

So game number one is in the books.  The anticipation for the start of the season has dissipated.  With but one game’s worth of data to go by, some folks will have nothing better to do but to dissect every piece of the action from Sunday’s game, send up flares and call for the head of  (insert name of your most deserving “goat” here).

So, how much of a difference can the outcome of the first game make?  Prior to this season, the Yankees had gone 62-44-1 in openers.  The average winning percentage in seasons featuring an opening game win was .569, with a range from .331 (1908) to .714 (the magic 1927 season).  In seasons with an opening game loss, the average winning percentage was .563, and ranged from .329 (1912) to .708 (another magic season, 1998).  Six percentage points over 162 games is slightly less than one whole game’s difference in the won-loss record.

Some more numbers to chew on.  There is a mere 4% correlation between a Yankee opening day win and their final record.  In fact, the pythagorean winning percentage for Spring Training games is a much better predictor of regular season success.  As an example, based on the Yanks runs scored and allowed during Spring Training from 2003 through 2009, there was a 67.6% correlation with their regular season record.  This may not bode well for 2010, as the 130 runs scored and 162 allowed during this Spring’s games would project to a .394 winning percentage.  Somehow, despite the opening game loss,  I have a feeling this will be a year with a poor correlation.

As we hit another Opening Day, and CC Sabathia’s second Opening Day start for the Bombers, I decided to take a look at some of the history behind the pitchers who got the nod.

In the franchise’s 107-year history, 57 men have taken the hill on Opening Day.  Whitey Ford, Mel Stottlemyre and Ron Guidry are tied for most Opening Day starts, with seven.

Ford’s seven starts actually took place over a 13-season span, from 1954 to 1966.  He never started more than two openers consecutively.  Don Larsen (2 starts), Bob Turley, Jim Coates (!), Jim Bouton and Ralph Terry got the assignments in the non-Ford years.

Stottlemyre was the ace of the staff during the lean post-dynasty years.  He threw the first pitch every year from ’67 to ’74, except for ’71, when Stan Bahnsen opened things up.

“Gator” started what would be his memorable 25-3 1978 campaign as the Opening Day starter in ’78 (he got a “no decision” that day, as the Yanks lost 2-1 at Texas).  Guidry started six more Openers in the next eight years, missing only 1981 (Tommy John got the assignment) and 1985 (Phil Niekro).

The period from 1987-1992 was muddled to downright depressing, depending on your point of view.  Six different managers, three in-season managerial changes, and four consecutive seasons with winning percentages lower than .470 (which hadn’t happened since 1912-15 . . . and the Yankees were the Highlanders in ’12).  Four of those six years saw the team use at least 20 different pitchers.  So, it should be no surprise than six different men got the Opening Day start during that period (Dennis Rasmussen, Rick Rhoden, Tommy John, Dave LaPoint, Tim Leary and Scott Sanderson).  If you add in Guidry’s final Opener (1986), and Jimmy Key’s first Opener (1993), then there were eight different starters over eight years, the longest streak in franchise history.

(more…)

This update is powered by Dick Enberg, who is leaving the NCAA Final Four coverage for good, but joining the Padres broadcast team:

• Our own Cliff Corcoran is part of trio of bloggers asked by the Times to assess the 2010 Yankees

(more…)

This update is powered by the outtakes from a DirecTV commercial shoot featuring Girardi and Posada:

• Buster Olney picks the Yanks to win the AL East:

For most of the spring, I thought I’d pick the Rays to win the East. The Red Sox also have made tremendous additions. Eventually there will be a year in which the Yankees’ age will manifest itself; maybe that will be this year. But the Yankees have so much talent, and Curtis Granderson, Nick Johnson and Javier Vazquez are all excellent additions. If holes emerge, we know that the Yankees and Red Sox will have the resources to fill them. For the Rays, that is not the case.

(more…)

This update is powered . . . by a song about Canada, sung in German, by animated cartoon characters:

• Curtis Granderson adjusts to life with contact lenses.
• Joel Sherman on the strategy behind the release of Chad Gaudin:

Instead the key date is March 31 at 2 p.m. That is the deadline to release players with non-guaranteed contracts and owe just 45-day’s pay. So if the Yanks are unable to trade Gaudin between now and then, they almost certainly will release him and pay him that severance, which will be around $720,000.

Since the Yanks are obligated to that amount, I would assume they would be willing to pay at least that much of his salary as part of a trade and, perhaps, a bit more. The one advantage of having Gaudin pass through waivers is that the Yanks can send him to the minors. But there is no chance they would pay him $2.9 million to begin in the minors. After paying the $720,000, they could re-sign him at a lower rate and send him to the minors, but Gaudin probably would not accept that since he likely can find major league work elsewhere if the Yanks outright release him.

(more…)

This update is powered by . . .vintage Genesis:

• A rainout calls for some imaginative thinking:

. . . A rainout at George M. Steinbrenner Field on Sunday allowed the Yankees’ players to knock off early, but for the manager, it created — in his words — a mess.

While heavy rains pelted the tarpaulin outside, Girardi and pitching coach Dave Eiland huddled with a head-scratcher of figuring out how to make sure eight pitchers could get into action on Monday thanks to the canceled game.

. . . The solution, it was decided, was to create another game. After checking with other clubs to see if anyone could spare hitters to play an unscheduled split-squad game, the Yankees opted to create their own.

In front of thousands of empty blue seats and few other witnesses, the Yankees will field two teams at their home stadium on Monday morning. Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera and Damaso Marte will hurl for one squad, with Joba Chamberlain, Chan Ho Park and Dave Robertson firing for another.

Then in the game that is printed on the schedule, A.J. Burnett will start against the Phillies on MLB.TV at 1:05 p.m. ET in Clearwater, Fla., with Phil Hughes serving in relief.

Problem solved, providing Girardi and company one long morning and afternoon to evaluate Chamberlain and Hughes in the ongoing battle to complete New York’s rotation, a decision Girardi hopes to make by March 25 or 26.

• David Robertson may see more (and more important) action this season:

That baby-faced 24-year-old, Yankees manager Joe Girardi says, might pitch the eighth inning this year. Of course, this is the spring. Of course, this could be just the manager talking. And of course, the team still needs to hammer out it’s starting rotation and see where pitchers like Alfredo Aceves and Joba Chamberlain land.

But Girardi says he has enough confidence in Robertson – four runs in 3 2/3 innings this spring – to use him as a “guy who can pitch for us anywhere now.”

• Catching up with Chien-Ming Wang.
• Meet Kevin Towers.
• A-Rod can’t wait for his World Series ring.

(more…)

This update is powered by the late, great Gilda Radner:

• Individual game tickets go on sale at Noon on Friday.
• MLB.com set out to determine the Yanks’ team of the past decade.
• Kevin Towers is the Yanks’ new “Special Assignment Scout”
• Ex-Yankee Chuck Knoblauch is in trouble with the law.

Back on Monday.

This update is powered by . . . my favorite Natalie Merchant song:

• What do some of the Yankee coaches think about Jesus Montero:

(Batting Coach Kevin) Long said Montero reminded him of Robinson Cano — “another kid who can wake up out of bed and hit.” He has already shown a consistent ability to put the barrel of his bat on pitches and hit to the opposite field, and the Yankees are most impressed with his gift for making adjustments from at-bat to at-bat and from pitch to pitch.

Cashman recalled an instance from last Sunday’s game against the Minnesota Twins, when Montero, after falling behind to Jesse Crain, 0-2, sensed that an outside breaking ball was coming. It did, and Montero poked it down the right-field line for a double.

“It’s amazing that at 20 years old he’s a .320 lifetime hitter,” Long said. (Montero’s career average is actually .325.) “But he’s got to get his body in shape and turn from being a soft kid to a hard-nosed man. He’s got to do it in a hurry because he owes it to the organization. He owes it to everybody around him.”

. . . According to the Yankees, Montero usually needs 1.9 to 2.0 seconds to catch and throw the ball to second base, whereas an elite catcher, like Yadier Molina of the St. Louis Cardinals, can do it in about 1.7. Long after his teammates had finished their morning workout Saturday, Montero remained in the Yankees’ bullpen to work on his throwing technique with Girardi.

(Catching instructor Tony) Pena said: “He has a strong arm — a very strong arm — but he can’t rely on that. If he has the proper mechanics, everything else will take over, and then we’ll have what we like.”

• Girardi on Alfredo Aceves:

“He’s just doing what he does,” Girardi said, adding: “What I’m most happy about is he’s ahead in the count all the time. He’s strike one, 1-2, lot of 1-2 counts, 0-1 counts. That’s what you love to see. Guys love to play behind those types of guys, too.”

(more…)

This update is powered by a classic Buddy Hackett joke (sorry for the video quality):

• Nick Johnson, pull power hitter?:

As a lefthanded hitter he’s always had a lot more Tony Gwynn in him than Ken Griffey Jr. He’s not exactly a slap hitter, but Johnson has made a career of hitting the ball to all fields, always more comfortable going the other way than pulling the ball.

“My whole life’s been left field,” was the way he put it yesterday.

. . . (Batting coach Kevin) Long took one look at him on tape after the Yankees signed him as a free agent and saw an obvious flaw that was draining his power from his swing. Basically, he wasn’t using his legs to drive the ball.

“When I watched him it was striking that his back foot was sliding out and collapsing,” Long explained. “So that was the first thing we attacked, getting to use his lower half more efficiently and consistently.”

. . . The payoff came quickly, in Johnson’s fifth and sixth at-bats of the spring, and the home runs were enough to make the Yankees salivate over what his new approach might produce this season.

(more…)

This update is powered by . . . a trailer for every Academy Award-winning movie ever:

• The ever-quotable Goose Gossage:

Q. You were a starter and reliever before you settled on closing games. What roles do you think Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes should have on the Yankees staff?

A. I think Phil Hughes is a starter for sure. He can go deep into games. He’s a power pitcher and he also knows how to pitch, with a nice curveball. He’s got a good head on his shoulders. Personally, I think Joba is a relief pitcher. He’s got that makeup, that aggressiveness. I think that he is more valuable in the bullpen. I think that he would be a great relief pitcher.

Q. Do you think Mariano Rivera is the best closer in baseball history?

A. I think that he is a tremendous relief pitcher. He’s the best current-day, modern reliever. But it’s just like you can’t compare the 500-home-run club today to the old 500-home-run club. When I was inducted into the Hall of Fame, I was told that I had 53 saves with seven-plus outs. I was told that Mariano had one and Trevor Hoffman had two. So I think that says it in a nutshell.

• The story of a one-time Yankee and Rule 5 veteran, Zack Kroenke.
• Lance McCullers (reliever on ’89 and ’90 squads) turns 46 today.
• Mark Salas (p/t catcher on ’87 team) turns 49 today.
• The immortal Jim Bouton turns 71 today.
• Joe DiMaggio died 11 years ago today.

Back on Thursday.

This update is powered by this cool Rube Goldberg-inspired music video:

• Nine facts you may not know about Mo, including:

1. Of the 39 relievers with 200 or more saves, only Mariano Rivera has pitched for one team.

4. For the third straight season, Rivera threw only one wild pitch (this follows four straight seasons of no wild pitches). He has thrown only 12 in his career. Last season, his Yankees teammate A.J. Burnett and the Mariners’ Felix Hernandez each threw 17 to the backstop.

6. For the third straight season, Rivera threw three four-pitch walks (one intentional) to bring his lifetime total of four-pitch walks up to 50, which includes 31 intentional walks.

• Derek Jeter, future part-owner of Yanks?:

The Yankees need to find a way to make Derek Jeter a Yankee for Life. There’s really only one way. At some point the Steinbrenner family would have to take him into the ownership group.

. . . Jeter, of course, is in the final year of his 10-year, $189 million contract. The Yankees and Jeter will come together on a new deal at some point, but Jeter needs to be a Yankee for Life and there is a way to make him one. The Yankees need to work out a deal with Jeter where they allow him to become part of Yankees ownership after his playing days are complete. Players cannot be part of ownership, so this would have to be a separate deal.

. . . Jeter is set on being an owner when his playing days are done. Without specifically talking about the Yankees, Jeter told The Post yesterday that being an owner is “definitely a goal of mine.”

(more…)

This update is powered by . . . an all-star performance of  “In the Midnight Hour”

• Joel Sherman warns of the major contracts of the aging Yankee core.
• Ramiro Pena realizes he won’t be playing short on a regular basis anytime soon.
• Brian Cashman, on Robby Cano:

“He’s already one of the premier guys in the game, but that’s the only thing separating him from taking it to a whole other level,” Brian Cashman said. “If he can be more selective at the plate, he could have a Hall of Fame-type career.”

Since Cano debuted in 2005, his .306 average ranks 13th among all active players and fourth among all American Leaguers who have played at least 700 games, trailing only Ichiro Suzuki (.328), Derek Jeter (.322) and Michael Young (.313).

“He’s still young,” Cashman said. “He really has a chance to make a name for himself that would last forever. That’s the type of hitting talent he has.”

Mark Teixeira, who watched Cano from across the field for four years, didn’t gain an appreciation for just how good the 27-year-old is until last season.

“He has so much talent, it would be easy for him to say, ‘I’m going to let my talent play and I’ll have a decent year,'” Teixeira said. “But he wants to be one of the best – and he can be.”

(more…)

This update is powered by an amazing mathematician:

• How many records with Jeter and A-Rod set in Yankees unis?:

. . . If he stays healthy, Rodriguez, who turns 35 in July, is an overwhelming favorite to shatter Barry Bonds’s career record of 762 home runs. Sometime near the 2011 All-Star Game break, Jeter, who currently has 2,747 hits, is projected to get his 3,000th.

. . . Only eight players have amassed more than 3,400, and only five have reached the 3,500 mark, beginning with Tris Speaker at 3,514.

Whether ranking in the top five will mean something to Jeter and motivate him to keep playing remains to be seen.  . . .

Rodriguez, meanwhile, begins this season with 583 home runs and should surpass 600 sometime in late June or early July, reach 700 in 2013 and overtake Bonds in late 2015 or early 2016, when he will be 40 years old.

. . . The most crucial variable is health. Rodriguez missed 38 games last season following hip surgery. Jeter is a remarkably durable player — he has played at least 148 games in all but one of his 14 full seasons — but shortstop is a demanding position. If he continues to play there and perform at a high level, he would buck the trend.

• Curtis Granderson, on Jeter possibly NOT retiring as a Yankee:

“It’d be tough,” said Curtis Granderson, the Yankees’ new center fielder. “But it’d kind of be like Ken Griffey Jr. Everybody in here who’s a baseball fan knows Ken Griffey Jr. as a Seattle Mariner. Then he goes to Cincinnati and Chicago and back to Seattle. Jeter’s definitely in that category. If Ken Griffey can move teams, you never know.”

(more…)

This update is brought to you by Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards:

• Jorge, (re)meet Javier … Javier, (re)meet Jorge:

Posada caught Vazquez for the first time in more than five years during a bullpen session Sunday.

“I asked him if he remembered the way I pitched,” Vazquez said.

Vazquez, originally scheduled to throw Wednesday, wanted to get in a 30-pitch session because it had been too long (about 10 days) since he last threw, in Puerto Rico.

Like other starters pitching their first session, Vazquez threw only fastballs and changeups. Soon, he will add in a slider that he did not throw during his first tour with the Yankees. Posada said what impressed him most is how Vazquez has adjusted over the years. He specifically mentioned his two best off-speed pitches, his changeup and curve, and how he has a much better feel for increasing and decreasing the velocity of those pitches.

• Jeter (re)worked his body over the past two years.

(more…)

This update is powered by the Peanuts gang, cause its still a kid’s game (smile):

• MLBTradeRumors provides a capsule summary of the Yanks off-season.
• Christina Kahrl examines some Spring Training questions:

. . . Will Joba Chamberlain start or relieve? Or will Phil Hughes get the job? Or will both tyros be in the pen, opening up the rotation slot to a more classically defined fifth-starter type like Chad Gaudin or the reliably bad Sergio Mitre? Or will Alfredo Aceves swap places with Hughes and Chamberlain and get the skippable fifth man’s job? . . .  With the decisions to acquire Javier Vazquez and retain Andy Pettitte, the fifth starter’s slot ought to be skippable given an expensive quality front four; a quick run through the Yankees schedule suggests that the they could avoid starting anybody on short rest and reduce the fifth slot to 25 turns on the year. . . .  it also has the nice advantage of having the fifth starter face the Red Sox or Rays just once in 13 September games against their two most likely rivals, and they could easily turn that number into zero if they felt the need.

Of course, any such proposition relies on the front four being healthy and delivering, and I’ve already expressed my doubts about Javier Vazquez. . . .

. . . If the Bombers were to leave Hughes and Chamberlain in the bullpen for a combined 150-160 innings, it isn’t hard to envision a dramatic improvement, and if Aceves ends up manning the middle innings, that might add up to a historically outstanding unit by any flavor of relief metric.

As for the outfield, I don’t really see the contest as that dramatic, since I expect an initial job-sharing arrangement not unlike what happened last year between Gardner and Melky Cabrera. However, Winn’s the sort of hurdle Gardner should be able to beat out over time, and regardless of the outcome both players should get plenty of at-bats, especially once the Yankees decide there’s not much to be done about Curtis Granderson’s issues against lefties.

(more…)

I am pleased to announce the second annual “Banter Battle” fantasy baseball league over at Yahoo! Sports.  Can someone dethrone last year’s champs, the “Quadruple A’s“?

It’ll be a 6×6 (the usual 10 categories, plus holds and OPS) non-keeper roto league, with a live straight draft to be held on Tuesday, March 30th at 9:30 pm Eastern time.  (You can pre-rank your selections if you can’t be there live).

In order to join the league,  go to the Yahoo Fantasy Baseball 2010 page and enter the League ID# and password below.

League ID#: 143546
Password: karim

If you were part of last year’s league, you should have received an e-mail to join this year’s contest from me (unless your e-mail was hidden or blocked).

Its free to play, and we won’t be playing for any $.  However, the winner will get his/her (user)name mentioned prominently in a future post of mine. 🙂

The only requirement we insist on is that you not abandon your team in the middle of the season.  So, serious replies only please.

Play ball!