George King on the improved fielding of Jesus Montero:

[David] Robertson’s eyes widened when asked about Montero, who went 0-for-3 and is 1-for-6 in two games.

“I first saw him when I signed here and it’s amazing how much better he has gotten,” Robertson said. “He sets up good, blocks balls in the dirt and stays down. He looks good.”

…“I like Montero, I think he is going to be a big-time player,” a scout said. “I know he is big (6-foot-4, 225 pounds), but he will be fine. All he has to do is just keep on catching.”

The Yanks played an exhibition game agaisnt the Pirates this afternoon. Chad Jennings has the tips; Michael Baron’s got the flix.

Here’s more from Jennings, on Phil Hughes.

Francisco Liriano Hot Plate Special.

Jay Jaffe thinks that Joba for Liriano could be win-win.

The good folks at Gangrey have reprinted Michael Paterniti’s loving 1999 Esquire piece on Thurman Munson:

[Ron Guidry] remembers his first start as a Yankee. He came in from the bullpen, nervous and wired, and Thurman Munson walked up to him and said: Trust me. That’s it. Trust me. Then walked away. As Guidry remembers it, everything after that was easy. Like playing catch with Thurman Munson. Thurman calls a fastball on the outside corner. Okay, fastball outside corner. He calls a slider. Okay, slider. Eighteen strikeouts a game. A 25-3 record. The World Series. Just trusting Thurman Munson. Can’t even remember the opposing teams, Guidry says, just remember looking for Thurman’s mitt. Remembers that very first start: Thurman Munson came galumphing out to the mound, told him to throw a fastball right down the middle of the plate. Okay, no problem.

But I’m gonna tell the guy you’re throwing a fastball right down the middle, says Thurman Munson.

Guidry says, Now, Thurman, why’n the hell would you do that?

Trust me, says Thurman Munson. Harumphs back to the plate. Guidry can see him chatting to the batter, telling him the pitch, then he calls for a fastball right down the middle of the plate. Damn crazy fool. Guidry throws the fastball anyway, batter misses. Next pitch, Thurman Munson is talking to the batter again, calls a fastball on the outside corner, Guidry throws, batter swings and misses. Talking to batter again, calls a slider, misses again. Strikeout. Thurman Munson telling most every batter just what Gator is going to throw and Gator throwing it right by them. After a while Thurman Munson doesn’t say anything to the batters, and Gator, he’s free and clear. Believes in himself. Which was the point, wasn’t it?

[Picture by Larry Roibal]

I cannot believe that, until he appeared in a spring training game for the A’s on Sunday, I was unaware of the existence of minor league pitcher:

Josh Outman.

That’s right.

I learned via the inimitable Lisa Winston that there is also a minor league pitcher for the Padres named Will Inman. I’m not sure whether Inman and Outman have ever played against each other. If that ever happens in the future I hereby vow to liveblog the crap out of it.

In any case, the good news for Outman, at least in my fevered brain, is that he ought to have a leg up on previous pitcher Name of the Weeks like Kevin Slowey and Grant Balfour…

There’s a story in the Times today about Derek Jeter’s infamous new mansion – St. Jetersburg, as the locals have dubbed it. 30,875 square feet, two three-car garages, and no yard.  Right on the road with a six-foot fence for privacy. “Seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, a pool, two boat lifts, a drive-through portico,” whatever that is.

I dunno, you guys.

With the caveat that Jeter has the right to do whatever he wants… this just seems strange,  doesn’t it?  Jeter’s spent his New York tenure living well – apartment in Trump Towers, famous girlfriends, tropical vacations, clubs – but he hasn’t typically been so over-the-top about it. If it’s possible to party with models in a classy sort of way, he generally has. And I admit I don’t know much about the etiquette of mansion-building… but isn’t this a little… tacky?

How big is The House That Jeter Built? Well, it is slightly smaller than an average Best Buy electronics store, and twice as big as the late owner George Steinbrenner’s 13,480-square-foot house in South Tampa.

Rodney Kite-Powell, curator for the Tampa Bay History Center, said Jeter’s house was bigger than all but two of the original 1920s-era apartment/hotel buildings originally built on Davis Islands.

Whenever star players are in contract negotiations, there’s always a moment where I think, “How the hell can $15 million a year (or whatever it is) not be enough for you?!” But it’s become clear over time that when you have that kind of money it just doesn’t seem like as much as one might think it would.  So I might say to myself, “Who would ever need that much space?! One boat lift really wouldn’t suffice?” But I guess it’s all relative, and when you get to that level, your perspective is different. Also, to be honest, I am not entirely sure what a boat lift is, but if it involves moving boats around in any way then I think my point stands.

Jeter won’t talk about this – the mansion, not the definition of a boat lift –  which is understandable, but I’m genuinely curious as to what his thinking was here.

And regardless: Can you imagine how much crap A-Rod would take, if he built this?

…Who beat the Heat last night as the Oscars ceremonies dragged on.

Meanwhile, good stuff from Florida. Here’s Ben Shpigel,  John Harper and George King (times two).

Yanks and Phils are on YES again this afternoon.

The sounds aren’t the same during the spring. The parks are small so the crack of the bat gets swallowed up in space. The light is different. The games are not played to be won. But it is still baseball and for some, that’s enough.

Enjoy it.

[Photo Credit: CBS News]

Down in Florida, exhibition games are starting up, and our man Cliff will be on pernt as usual.

The Yanks will be televised on YES this afternoon. Enjoy.

Last summer I had the pleasure of interviewing former Yankee Fritz Peterson, who informed me of his involvement with a Ben Affleck/Matt Damon film project chronicling his famed wife swap with Mike Kekich. Now comes the news that Kekich will not give his approval to the project; in fact, one news report in the NY Post claims that the reclusive left-hander is “panic stricken” about the movie and “freaked out” that filmmakers actually found out where he lives.

I can’t say that I’m surprised to hear of Kekich’s reaction to the film. Ever since he retired in 1977, he has remained out of the baseball spotlight. I have never seen or heard him interviewed about his career, whether it’s talking about the Yankees or other stopping points in Los Angeles, Cleveland, Texas or Seattle. He has always been reluctant to talk about the wife swap, remaining so even with the passage of time. Unlike Peterson, I don’t think Kekich is planning any trips to Cooperstown in the near future.

So who exactly is Mike Kekich? Kekich the person remains a mystery, but Kekich the pitcher is very much the story of the highly touted left-hander who didn’t live up to his promise. Although he and Peterson are often mentioned interchangeably because of the wife swap, the reality is that Peterson was the far more accomplished pitcher.

Kekich came up in the Dodgers’ system in the mid-1960s, heralded as a talented left-hander with a blazing fastball. Some dared to call him the “next Sandy Koufax.” Unfortunately, the Dodgers at the time were just about the worst destination for a young pitcher because they were already bulging at the seams with talented hurlers; they had the actual Koufax, along with Don Drysdale, Don Sutton, Claude Osteen, and the up-and-coming Bill Singer.

Kekich could never gain traction with the Dodgers. After a terrible five-game stint in 1965, he went back to the minor leagues for two full seasons and didn’t return to Chavez Ravine in 1968. Kekich didn’t pitch particularly well, but he suffered from an unusual share of bad luck and poor run support, losing ten of 12 decisions while making 20 starts.

(more…)

Over at PB, Jay Jaffe takes a look at concussions in sports, specifically in baseball. The piece picks up on a column that Bob Klapisch wrote last week on Jorge Posada. Sobering material, indeed.

[Photo Credit: PS70]

Found on the subway platform this morning…

Meanwhile, down in Tampa, the young guns are getting some burn: here’s John Harper on Manny Banuelos, and Jack Curry on Jesus Montero.  And for you old fogies, check out Harvey Araton’s column on Yogi and Gator.

Baseball America unveiled their Top 100 Prospect list today.

Six Yankees made the list:

3. Jesus Montero, c
30. Gary Sanchez, c
41. Manny Banuelos, lhp
43. Dellin Betances, rhp
78. Andrew Brackman, rhp
98. Austin Romine, c

In terms of sheer number of prospects, this is the best showing for the organization since 1999, when the Bombers also placed six in the top 100 (including SS Alfonso Soriano and 3B Drew Henson).

Montero’s #3 ranking is the highest for any Yankee prospect since Joba Chamberlain was the #3 prospect in 2008.  Montero was 38th on the 2009 list, and fourth last year.

In 2010, the Yanks placed only two names on this list (Montero and Romine).

Read more about the BA 100 here.

(photo: NY Daily News)

It seems like a lifetime ago that YankeeWorld was obsessed with three minor-league pitching prospects: The Big Three of Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, and Ian Kennedy. And even though our wildest dreams for that trio might not have come true, given the unpredictability of pitching prospects in general (TINSTAAPP!), it’s actually pretty impressive that they’ve had as much success as they have. Ian Kennedy is 26, started 32 games for the Diamondbacks last year and came out of it with an ERA+ of 111; Phil Hughes is still finding his way a bit, but at 24 gives every sign of becoming a solid stater; and Joba, well, if we’re all a little disappointed, he still may well end up being a valuable major leaguer. Hopes for those three were so high – it’s easy to forget that while they didn’t turn into the trio of aces that we might have imagined in our less guarded moments, all of them have been helpful to major league teams, and that’s nothing to sneeze at.

Anyway, spring training is the time to dream on these things. Now we’ve got a brand-new trio of new prospects to hang our hopes on, the junior Killer B’s: Andrew Brackman, New York’s own Dellin Betances, and Manny Banuelos. There have been encouraging stories and profiles on each of them recently – ’tis the season – and even for a cynical veteran of spring training coverage it’s easy to get caught up in the high hopes. Even as I was writing this post, we got this from the YES Network’s Jack Curry:

There’s a lot to like about each of those guys. Brackman  may be the one I’d most like to see succeed this year, just because he’s been in the organization the longest and, a year ago, looked like he might be a bust. Bettances is a NYC kid and, as detailed in the link above, was in the bleachers for David Wells’ perfect game – you’ve gotta love that. And Banuelos, from Mexico, very nearly a foot shorter than either of those guys and a crafty lefty in the making, will be a fine underdog in this six-footed race (although it seems horribly unfair that he’s already being compared to Andy Pettitte. No pressure or anything).

It’s human nature to dream on these kids but I hope we don’t have such crushing expectations for them that, as with The Big Three, it’ll seem disappointing if in three years they aren’t all dominant aces. Growing your own innings-eaters and relievers is nice too, and if all of these guys end up healthy and in the majors that’ll be quite a success in its own right.

Drawings by Robert Weaver, spring training, 1962.

This morning, Jack Curry tweeted that he arrived at his 20th spring training and the first thing he heard was the thud of a ball hitting a mitt. Color me green with envy.

Here is a thoughtful piece on Milton Bradley by Eric Nusbaum over at the new-look Pitchers and Poets:

Vintage Bradley is patient, collected, and dangerous. His swing is compact in the legs and the hips, and from both sides of the plate an aesthetic pleasure. His arms lash across the zone with smooth and level grace. He gets on base like a professional, never seeming dissatisfied with a walk. Once upon a time, he was a decent enough outfielder too. But not even the glimpses of effectiveness reveal Bradley to be a superstar. Instead they reveal him to be simply above average – a good ballplayer, a pleasure to watch, but hardly a superstar, hardly exciting, hardly excitable.

But of course he is excitable. He is practically a caricature at times. He loses his temper during games. He tore his ACL while arguing with an umpire. He broke a bat over his knee (why is this a magnificent achievement of brutal strength for Bo Jackson but a pathetic sign of anger and weakness for Milton Bradley?). I once saw him empty the entire contents of a bag of baseballs onto the field at Dodger Stadium, then fling ball after ball into center field in what appeared to be complete obliviousness to his surroundings. From where I was sitting, I could see whites in his eyes. They boiled.

What’s the right way to understand a player who swirls in so many self-imposed narratives, a player who requires so much? The trait that defines Milton Bradley, the one trait that sets him apart, even from the other smart and vulnerable and self-aware players, is that he demands to be taken seriously as a human being first and a ballplayer second. The earnest statements, the tearful pledges, the tremor in his voice during post-game interviews, the on-field incidents, the off-field arrests: they all reinforce the same subconscious drive to be appreciated or understood or at the very least accepted.

Also, check out this follow-up–Is Derek Jeter more like Mantle or DiMaggio?

One of the pitchers who will be competing for a roster spot with the Washington Nationals this year is:

Garrett Mock.

No word yet on whether he will be joined by other Nationals hopefuls like Robert Jest, Julio Chortle, or Bert Scoff.

Hank Steinbrenner popped-off today and the press is grateful.
Alex Rodriguez also spoke to reporters. “Did anyone watch the Super Bowl?” he said. Rodriguez talked about losing weight. From Chad Jennings:

“Kevin Long described it as, he likes to have power, but with the freedom of a swing,” Rodriguez said this afternoon. “I think over the last several years — you’ll have to talk to K-Long a little bit more about it — but he felt there were some restrictions in my swing and some limitations. I think it affected my power.”

…“Kevin Long believes that in order for the power swing to be perfectly right, he really wants you to stroke the ball to left-center,” Rodriguez said. “We always hear right-center, and he has his reasoning behind it, and a lot of it has to do with flexibility, which I think I’ve gotten back.”

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Finally, Andrew Brackman impressed Joe Girardi today.

Derek Jeter spoke to the press yesterday. Here’s Tyler Kepner in the Times:

Reporter: “Most shortstops in your age range are just no longer that productive. What gives you the confidence you’re going to be one of the exceptions?”

Jeter: “Well, you said ‘most.’ You didn’t say ‘every.’ So there you go.”

Then Jeter gave a quick laugh, that signature expression of self-assurance he has always shown, the one that lets you know he can win any joust with a writer, but not make him feel too bad about it.

And here’s Joe G: