Written by Greg Fertel | 12 April 2010

I don't have much, but no news really comes out of Tampa so I figured this was worth passing along. I have heard that the injury to Manny Banuelos is not being reported as serious, and that he will be out for a limited timeframe.

I don't have any information on what the injury is, so I'm not going to speculate. Hopefully Banuelos doesn't have any setbacks and makes it back to the Tampa rotation soon.

Update (3:00): Commenter Yankee1010 tells us that, "Patrick at [Pinstripes Plus] said that he heard that it was an appendectomy. I don't think there has been any confirmation though."

If this is the case, I guess it is not an injury per se, but it definitely isn't serious. An appendectomy is definitely better than any type of arm injury. My guess is that we'll see Banuelos sometime in May, if this report turns out to be true.

Written by Sean P | 12 April 2010

Scranton lost 4-1 to Buffalo, and in a familiar scene, the Yankee offense didn't show up. Despite the poor start, Dave Miley isn't worried yet. Another discussion on the poor attendance takes place here.

Trenton won 4-1 and is off to a good start. Once again, Trenton pitching was on full display. David Phelps had a terrific AA debut. The only blemish on the hot start has been the Christian Garcia injury. It's all about the starters, and Lance Pendleton hopes to keep that up when he fills in for Christian Garcia Tuesday.

Tampa beat Lakeland 3-1 and also have gotten off to a great start. Dave Kapala pitched great in a spot start. Manny Banuelos was scratched from his start, but it's hard to get much information out of Tampa, so we'll wait to hear what's up.

The Charleston Riverdogs bullpen showed up, and the Dogs won 7-6 in 12 innings. Jose Ramirez got the no decision but pitched well.

Here's the organizational recap from minor league splits.

Video Credit: Mike Ashmore

Written by Greg Fertel | 11 April 2010

Josh Norris of The Trentonian is reporting that Yankees' pitching prospect Manny Banuelos has been scratched from his start down in Tampa. Norris speculates that this could be injury-related or could suggest that he is being promoted to Trenton to take Christian Garcia's rotation spot.

I hate to be pessimistic, but I would guess it's injury related. Banuelos has never started a game in High-A ball, and I doubt that the Yankees would rush the 19-year-old to Double-A so quickly. If someone from the Tampa rotation is going to Trenton, I would think that it would be Hector Noesi. Hopefully it's nothing too serious, but my very uneducated guess is that there's some sort of injury here.

Update (4:07 PM): Lance Pendleton will take Garcia's spot and is starting on tuesday. This rules out Banuelos being called up; I'll update you when I find out more.

Written by Sean P | 11 April 2010

Scranton lost to Buffalo 2-1 in 11 innings. Hits were hard to come by for Scranton. Colin Curtis is off to a hot start. Here's a story on Kei Igawa, the most patented AAAA pitcher I have ever seen. Here's another good profile on Jesus Montero. It's not always easy being a fan of AAA baseball.

Jeremy Bleich was impressive on Saturday. Credit- Mike Ashmore

Trenton beat the Seawolves 4-1. David Adams has been red hot to start the year, and so has the Trenton pitching staff this notebook says. A torn elbow ligament may or may not end Christian Garcia's season, and possibly his career. Wilkin De La Rosa, Lance Pendleton and Josh Schmidt are possible candidates to replace Garcia in the rotation. Garcia seems to be in that 15-20% group of Tommy John guys who struggle with recovery.

Tampa beat Lakeland 2-0 behind an almost perfect performance from Adam Warren.

Charleston lost 8-4 in a back and forth affair Saturday. Jose Ramirez will get the start for Charleston this afternoon.

Here's the organizational report from Minor League Splits.

Written by Greg Fertel | 10 April 2010

It's hard to make judgments just four games into the season, but it seems evident to me that the Yankees do plan on employing some sort of platoon with Brett Gardner and Marcus Thames. In two of the team's four games, Thames has gotten the start when the opposing team has a left hander on the mound. At a glance, this might seem to make sense.

Gardner is, after all, a light-hitting outfielder; there's no arguing that. Thames, on the other hand, has fared pretty well against lefties over the course of his career, hitting them to a tune of a .256/.329/.514 line(.360 wOBA) in 696 PA.

With Gardner, we have a much smaller sample to work with versus left handed pitchers. He has had just 93 PA versus lefties in his major league career. Because of this, I'm choosing to add in his MLEs from 2007-2008 to expand the sample a little bit. Like always, I'm not sure how scientific this idea is, but this brings our sample to 298 PA and a .235/.298/.332 line with a .284 wOBA. The Book tells us that left-handed hitters need 1000 PA vs left-handed pitchers to show a true talent level. Without that many plate appearances against same handed pitching, regression towards the league average platoon split is needed.

Using the same method and including MLEs from 2007-2008, I come up with a .268/.363/.359 line versus righties for Gardner, which comes to a wOBA of .330. Using this set of numbers, Gardner would have an overall wOBA of .319 and a -14.2 percent split versus lefties, while the league average is a -8.6 percent.

To factor in regression I did the following equation for Gardner's numbers:(.142*298+.086*1000) / (298+1000).

This gives us an estimated platoon skill of 9.89 percent. Now, we can use this number and CHONE's 2010 projection for Gardner to predict how he will fare against lefties this season. CHONE projects a .335 wOBA, which would mean we'd expect Gardner to produce a .302 wOBA against lefties.

Now, onto finding an estimated platoon skill for Thames. The Book says that right handed hitters need 2200 PA versus LHP for that number to be used without regression. For Thames, at least, we don't have to use any MLEs.

Thames's career wOBA is .336, .326 vs. RHP in 929 PA, and .360 vs. LHP in 696 PA — a 10.1 percent difference. But he’s a righty, so we regress toward 2200 PA of the average (6.1%): (.101*696+.0611*2200)/(696+2200) for an estimated platoon skill of 7.1 percent. Using the CHONE projection of .328 wOBA, we’d estimate Thames to put up a .351 wOBA versus LHP.

Over the course of 150 plate appearances, Thames projects to be worth 5.35 more runs than Gardner versus left handed pitching.

Of course, hitting isn't everything.

Yesterday, we witnessed first hand that Thames is not a very good defender, so the question is whether his offensive prowess outweigh Gardner's defensive advantage. Using Jeff Zimmerman's UZR projections, Thames is forecasted to be worth -11 runs over the course of 150 games. In left field, Gardner projects to be something like +15 runs over 150, given his strong center field track record.

Over 35 games(similar to the 150 PA I used earlier), Gardner stands to save 6.07 more runs in the field than than Thames.

That is a significant amount over such a short period of time, but it sounds about right to me. The difference in range between Gardner and Thames is remarkably wide. The play we saw last night was an example of one that Gardner would make, and Thames turns into a double.

Overall, this gives Gardner a 0.72 run advantage over Thames, if we are just talking about starts against left-handed pitchers.

This platoon that the Yankees are employing doesn't make much sense. Sure, Thames's power against lefties is alluring, but his offensive value is not strong enough to compensate for his defensive flaws. Add in the fact that playing sporadically could affect each player's rhythm and hitting, and it makes less sense. I can't see an argument where starting Thames against lefties is the right decision. Gardner should be playing left field every day, regardless of who is on the mound for the opposing team. Thames is the team's fifth outfielder; it's time that they start acting like it.

For projecting the platoon splits, all of the information I used was via Matt Klaassen's article at FanGraphs, Estimating Hitter Platoon Skill.

Screengrab Credit: Joseph Pawlikowski/River Ave Blues