Written by Greg Fertel | 09 May 2010

Majors

• Romulo Sanchez made his Yankee debut after the Yankees were getting blown out. He pitched 3.2 shutout innings, allowing a hit and walk apiece while striking out three. More on him tomorrow.

• Former Yankee Ian Kennedy put together a nice start for Arizona. He pitched seven strong innings, allowing two runs and striking out five batters.

• Kevin Russo made his big league debut, coming in at third base to replace Alex Rodriguez. He struck out in his only plate appearance.

Scranton/Wilkes-Barre

• Starter Zach McAllister killed it. His line: 7 IP, 2 ER, 7 H, 6 K, 1 BB. He did give up more fly balls than grounders, a disturbing trend from him so far this season.

• Relief pitcher Mark Melancon was back to his typical self. He pitched 1.1 innings, allowed a hit and struck out three batters.

• Jesus Montero didn't play today. He has now missed two straight games with no word on why.

• Playing second base, Reegie Corona had a good day offensively. He went 2 for 4 with a double and a walk. Any offense from Corona in AAA is good to see, as he has seriously struggled at the level.

Trenton

• DJ Mitchell got the start and pitched well. He struck out six batters in six innings while walking only one and allowing two runs. After a rough start to the season, he has a 11:2 K:BB ratio in his last two starts. Before that, he had walked 14 and struck out just eight.

• Wilkin De La Rosa had a nice relief outing today. He pitched two innings, allowed a hit and a walk, but struck out four.

• The top hitters on the team both had good days. David Adams went 2 for 5 with a double and a triple. He also had four RBI and struck out once. Brandon Laird went 2 for 4 with a double.

Tampa

• Tampa was off today.

Charleston

• Another strong start from the unheralded Shaeffer Hall: 6.2 IP, 1 ER, 6 H, 7 K, 1 BB. He continues to rack up some impressive numbers.

• Jimmy Paredes had a big day offensively, with four singles in five at bats. He was the designated hitter in the game.
• Also showing some signs of life was Kyle Higashioka. He went 2 for 4 with two doubles. He hasn't shown much offensively, but I still think he is much better than what we've seen out of him so far.

Written by Greg Fertel | 08 May 2010

While I am forever optimistic regarding the health of Yankee players, I still probably knew that the Yankees were going to lose Nick Johnson at some point this season. How long he'll be out is currently unknown, but at the very least, he'll be missing fifteen days.

Even though the Yankees lost their DH, they called up a light-hitting infielder in Kevin Russo because they needed a backup infielder with Ramiro Pena in the lineup and Robinson Cano currently day-to-day. This call-up doesn't do much to help the Yankees' DH problem, and Marcus Thames will probably be there every day while the roster is situated this way.

Hopefully, Cano's injury is nothing serious and he can get back into the lineup within a few days(he currently hopes to be back tomorrow). When this happens, I expect the Yankees to send Russo down and call up Juan Miranda to platoon at DH with Thames. Miranda has always excelled against right-handed pitching, but there are reasons that his major league time has been limited.

Miranda struggles against left-handed pitching and is a poor defensive first baseman. He cannot play any other positions, meaning that a team typically would lose flexibility by having a guy like Miranda on their roster. From a flexibility standpoint, Miranda would be no different than Johnson in this case. Johnson rarely plays first base and certainly can't play any other positions.

Given that Thames and Miranda both are strong platoon players, I wonder how they project to fare in comparison to Johnson. I'm going to use a methodology similar to what I did when I took a look at the Brett Gardner/Thames platoon situation. In this piece, I estimated that Thames could be expected to produce a solid .351 wOBA against lefties.

Projecting Miranda is a bit trickier and has a much lower confidence level. With Gardner, I decided to use his Major League Equivalencies(MLE) because I was using both major and minor league numbers.

With Miranda, I am just going to use the CHONE projection system and his minor league splits to find out how he'd fare in a platoon situation.

This is a 17.4 percent platoon split for Miranda. The league average rate is only 8.6 percent. The equation to regress Miranda's number toward league average is as follows:

(.174*410+.086*1000)/(410+1000) = 11.2 percent

Overall, for 2010, CHONE projects that Miranda would produce an above-average .341 wOBA. Applying this new split and weighting the wOBA number somewhat appropriately(this means I just made up the number of PA that CHONE would expect Miranda to have against lefties and righties), I'd expect Miranda to produce a .361 wOBA against right handed pitching in 2010.

So both Miranda and Thames project to be above average in their prospective roles, but still don't compare to Johnson. ZiPS projects that Johnson will have a .378 wOBA going forward, which tops both.

Per 100 PA, it looks like the Miranda/Thames platoon will cost the Yankees around 1.8 runs. This isn't too many, but would add up if Johnson missed significant time. This is also before figuring into the fact that these players might not play as well with such sporadic playing time. Hopefully Johnson returns soon and gets himself on track. But if he doesn't, the DH platoon could still be pretty effective.

Photo Credit: chris.ptacek

Written by Sean P | 08 May 2010

The injuries have started to pile up for the Yankees, the latest casualties being Nick Johnson and Robinson Cano. It sounds like Nick Johnson has a serious DL stint in his future (and we’re all so surprised about that) but that Robinson Cano will be day to day. So now the wounded are as follows:

Curtis Granderson- Groin

Chan Ho Park- Hamstring

Andy Pettitte- forearm stiffness

Robinson Cano- Knee

Nick Johnson- Wrist

Jorge Posada could be back as early as today and Mariano Rivera should be available as well. The injury at DH presents an interesting problem for the Yankees. Because Cano is day to day, it’s likely the Yankees will need a middle infielder, and it sounds like Kevin Russo will get the call. I think that’s the right choice. The updated CHONE projections recently released by Sean Smith are below.

Depending on how bad the Nick Johnson injury is the Yankees might need another bat. This is where things could get interesting. Because Christian Garcia is on the 40 man roster the Yankees could call him up, move him to the 60 day DL and then have an open spot to make a move.

Since they have this option, lots of fans will clamor for Jesus Montero. I understand the sentiment. In a year in which so many bright young rookies are emerging across baseball, it’s only natural that Yankee fans would want in on the fun. It’s not as it appears though and many of the call ups are desperation moves that risk significantly damaging the prospects' future (METS). Jesus Montero might be able to hit right now in the majors but it would be foolish to rush him up as a DH when he’s only 20. Especially when we have other options worth exploring.

If Nick Johnson misses a significant amount of time it might make the most sense to bring up Juan Miranda.Offensively, he would be their best option. Here's a look at how everyone has done so far. What do you think would be the best move?

Edit by Greg(11:38 AM): The Yankees have indeed called up Kevin Russo to take Nick Johnson's spot on the roster, as he heads to the 15-day DL.

Photo Credit- Getty Images

Written by Sean Potter | 07 May 2010

With the Yankee/Red Sox game probably taking up your attention this evening, hopefully these notes will satisfy some post game browsing.

- Romulo Sanchez got the call to play long man for the Yankees with Andy Pettitte missing a start. Greg had the good profile on him earlier this year, and he's our 22nd ranked prospect. Here's how he's done this year:

It's been ugly so far for Romulo, no question. a 6.48 ERA with 22 Ks, and 14 BBs in 25 IPs. His last outing however was a good sign, 7 innings, 8 strikeouts 1 walk and only 1 earned run. In his time with the Yankees he's been a starting pitcher but in the Pittsburgh organization he was always a reliever. It'll be interesting to see him pitch again in the big leagues that's for sure.

-Graham Stoneburner has been getting a lot of attention lately, and rightly so. First came the 7 inning, 11 strikeout gem on Wednesday, followed shortly by this mention from Kevin Goldstein from Baseball Prospectus and then again in the Baseball America hot sheet today. Goldstein added that Stoneburner has improved his slider a good deal and it won't be long before he's in Tampa.

- Austin Romine, in the midst of a 15 game hitting streak has been on fire.

Notice the gigantic .404 BABIP but it's definitely something to be happy about. He struggled initially this season but he's been about the hottest hitter in the system, along with David Adams and Eduardo Nunez.

I wanted to add a new feature here on the blog, and I'm requesting some feedback. I'm hoping we can add something like a "hot list" where we might chronicle the strongest weekly leaders in the system or rank the biggest risers each week. Obviously it wouldn't be a floating prospect list because nothing can change THAT much week to week. Maybe we could make it a monthly list with risers and fallers? I'm not sure and that's where I was hoping you would throw some ideas our way. Any feedback at all would be great.

Written by Sean P | 06 May 2010

Scranton had an off day last night and they're about to play a 4 game set with Durham. The Bulls have an excellent rotation- a Jeremy Hellickson/Ivan Nova match up on Sunday should be interesting.

Trenton dropped another game to Akron 5-2. They blew a 2 run lead late again. Austin Romine extended his hitting streak, but not much else is going right for the Thunder at the moment. Mike Ashmore has a Q & A with Romine that you should check out.

Tampa completed the sweep of the Blue Jays 10-2 on Wednesday. Adam Warren was impressive again.

Charleston had an eventful day, beating Lakewood 2-0. Graham Stoneburner got his first win an struck out 11 and Charleston turned a triple play. Josh Norris was at the game in New Jersey and has some video of Stoneburner's pitching. Everyone was impressed with Stoneburner who was still hitting 95 in the 7th inning. I hate Bleacher Report as much as you, but there's actually a nice write up on Stoneburner and the Riverdogs in general, so check it out.

Here's the organizational recap from Minor League Splits.