Tag Archives: mlb

The Yankees – October and Post Season 2010 – Part 1 – The Batters

Posted on by
Reply

The post-season and the end of the season were a grim time for New York Yankees fans. First of all some dubious decisions from Joe Girardi saw us blow the American League East title and left us qualifying by Spring Training and then a great series against Minnesota in the ALDS (3-0) was eclipsed by a 4 games to 2 defeat against Texas in the American League Championship Series. Here’s how the batters performed over the last few games of the regular season and those two contrasting post-season series:

Continue reading →

Baseball – Rounding up last season

Posted on by
Reply

Somewhere along the line life became too busy and my opportunities for posting here became too infrequent. Consequently, I never got to post last season’s Yankees October and post-season reports here (and I’m secretly glad that some of you noticed) and didn’t get to award my TWiD player of the season prizes. Over the next few days I am definitely going to rectify that before posting about Spring Training and the 2011 season.

The Yankees in September – The Batters

Posted on by
Reply

September was the month that finally saw the Yankees falter. At the start of the month, they had the best record in baseball and leadership of the American League East. By the end they were hanging on at 3rd best in the majors and the wild card was their route into the post-season. Despite the general lack of cohesion and direction during these final weeks, some lesser players came up with the goods. Let’s begin with those guys swinging the bat:

Continue reading →

The Yankees in August – The Batters

Posted on by
Reply

The Yankees have maintained their record of being the best team in the majors. In August, one additional factor fell into place – the bullpen. The bullpen which had been previously erratic and with roles constantly changing fell into place with the arrival of Kerry Wood. But before we get to that let’s attempt an overview of the batters – those who were strong, those were weak and those who were just plain confusing……..

Continue reading →

The Bronx in July – Yankees pitchers

Posted on by
Reply

Releasing Chan Ho Park and signing Kerry Wood looks like a good piece of business for the Yankees right now but before that happened there was July. July when Andy Pettitte went down injured. July when Phil Hughes was relying on high-levels of run support to gain his wins. What was good, bad and indifferent before Park was released?

New York Yankees – Pitching – Month – July
Name GP GS GF IP H RA ER BB SO W L Sv ERA OBA
Marte, Damaso 3 0 0 2.1 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0.00 .000
Rivera, Mariano 10 0 8 9.1 7 1 1 0 7 1 0 5 0.96 .206
Logan, Boone 5 0 0 5.0 4 1 1 1 5 0 0 0 1.80 .211
Burnett, A.J. 5 5 0 27.0 24 6 6 9 20 3 1 0 2.00 .242
Sabathia, C.C. 6 6 0 43.0 46 16 11 17 35 4 1 0 2.30 .282
Robertson, David 11 0 2 11.2 8 4 4 5 15 2 1 0 3.09 .200
Moseley, Dustin 5 1 2 16.2 11 6 6 6 9 1 0 0 3.24 .200
Vazquez, Javier 5 5 0 32.1 28 12 12 8 18 3 0 0 3.34 .237
Albaladejo, Jonathan 2 0 1 2.2 2 1 1 1 3 0 0 0 3.38 .222
Park, Chan Ho 9 0 7 10.1 9 6 4 6 9 1 0 0 3.48 .225
Pettitte, Andy 3 3 0 16.1 16 7 7 8 16 2 0 0 3.86 .258
Gaudin, Chad 4 0 2 9.0 10 5 5 3 6 0 0 0 5.00 .286
Hughes, Phil 5 5 0 29.1 31 18 18 7 21 2 2 0 5.52 .270
Chamberlain, Joba 11 0 3 12.2 15 9 9 4 13 0 1 0 6.39 .288
Mitre, Sergio 2 1 1 6.1 8 7 5 2 4 0 1 0 7.11 .308
86 26 26 234.0 219 99 90 77 183 19 7 5 3.46 .251

Good

C.C. Sabathia. Sabathia is rolling towards twenty wins and very little is getting in his way and when something does 90% of the time he finds a way to get the win regardless. His 2.30 ERA on the month was good enough but his resilience shows up in the Wins column where he added four more.

A.J. Burnett. A.J. Burnett had his best month of the season, finishing ahead of Sabathia in ERA and OBA. He still is unlucky in not getting the run support he needs but this month managed to pull in 3 wins

Mariano Rivera. Mo gave up one run this month and that is high by his standards.When the meltdowns come, they are not pretty but they are so very few and far between as he continues to make his way through an amazing and seemingly never-ending career.

Boone Logan. With the injury to Damaso Marte, Logan has become the left-handed specialist out of the bullpen and he is carrying that weight very well. In a very good month for the pitching staff, he was third in ERA.

Bad

Sergio Mitre. Mitre looked like one of the obvious candidates when Pettitte went down with a groin strain but he failed to take his chance and Moseley is now the guy just about hanging on to that slot. His one start was a primary cause of his ERA ballooning to 7.11 this month.

Chad Gaudin. Gaudin continues to be persistently ordinary. He eats up two innings per appearance – mainly in games that the team has already lost but his OBA on the month was only saved from being the highest on the team by Mitre’s disastrous start and his ERA was once more in the five run region.

Phil Hughes. It is hard to call Hughes bad but it really is only the run support he gets from the team that is making the outcomes less ugly. Whilst he managed to have a 2-2 month, his ERA for the month was 5.52 and he rarely manages more than five innings per start.

Joba Chamberlain. It seems so long ago now that he was going to be the next young phenom on the team. It hasn’t worked out that way and July 2010 was a particular low point and if the rumours are to be believed the month when the Yankees almost gave up on him and traded him away.

Surprises

David Robertson. Robertson has regained whatever it was he lost in the early months of the season and has managed 18 strikeouts in his last 11 innings pitched. The increasing stability in the bullpen is largely down to him.

Dustin Moseley. Moseley produced a good first start for the team and some quality outings as a reliever. He lacks consistency but with Aceves, Marte and Pettitte out, we’ll take one good game in two at this stage of the season.

Damaso Marte. Marte only managed three games on the month before being added to the disabled list but let’s not overlook the fact that they were all good performances. He has not had a smooth time with the Yankees. He’s had times when he looked like he couldn’t pitch and too many injuries but I’m not going to be slow pointing up the good stuff.

Jonathan Albaladejo. Albaladejo has had an outstanding season at Scranton and looked like he was finally to be rewarded when he was called up. Whilst it wasn’t the smoothest outing, he recovered but was sent back to the minors the very next day. There are better candidates for reassignment who are still on the roster.

July in the Bronx – The Yankees’ batters

Posted on by
Reply

The New York Yankees went into July in a strong position but during the month they allowed both Tampa Bay Rays and, for a while, Boston Red Sox to close the gap. They addressed some of the problems we’re going to highlight in this review with a group of trades at the end of the month which brought in Lance Berkman, Austin Kearns and Kerry Wood whilst giving up not a lot in return. This has particularly patched the gap left by Nick Johnson’s long and predictable injury. But before all that happened, there was most of the month of July to unfold……

New York Yankees – Batting – Month – July
Name G AB R H RBI 2B 3B HR BB SO SH SF SB BA SLG OBP
Teixeira, Mark 26 96 25 33 26 10 0 8 20 12 0 1 0 .344 .698 .462
Thames, Marcus 9 18 2 6 4 0 0 1 2 6 0 1 0 .333 .500 .381
Swisher, Nick 25 102 20 33 16 10 0 7 10 23 1 0 0 .324 .627 .384
Cano, Robinson 25 98 17 27 18 8 2 6 12 10 0 1 0 .276 .582 .351
Pena, Ramiro 15 26 3 7 3 0 0 0 0 7 1 0 1 .269 .269 .269
Miranda, Juan 10 15 1 4 2 0 0 1 1 4 0 0 0 .267 .467 .313
Granderson, Curtis 26 94 17 25 10 3 2 3 7 21 2 1 2 .266 .436 .314
Rodriguez, Alex 26 105 9 26 31 8 0 5 9 18 0 3 0 .248 .467 .305
Posada, Jorge 21 73 7 18 10 5 0 3 12 18 0 0 0 .247 .438 .360
Jeter, Derek 26 106 22 26 9 4 0 1 10 15 1 0 3 .245 .311 .310
Curtis, Colin 15 34 7 8 4 1 0 1 2 8 0 0 0 .235 .353 .297
Gardner, Brett 25 77 16 17 13 3 0 2 18 19 1 0 6 .221 .338 .375
Cervelli, Francisco 14 42 3 9 2 1 0 0 2 8 2 0 1 .214 .238 .267
Huffman, Chad 1 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 .000 .000 .250
Russo, Kevin 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000
Berkman, Lance 1 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000
894 150 239 148 53 4 38 105 174 8 7 13 .267 .463 .347

Good

Mark Teixeira. Teixeira finally hit his stride in July and produced form which emulated his 2009 season offensively. This year whilst he has been consistently strong in defense, he has just not shown up at the plate. Now all that has begun to change. In July, he led the team in ERA, OBA and Slugging percentage. His 8 home runs were also ahead of the rest whilst his RBI total was second only to A-Rod.

Marcus Thames. Marcus has continued to impress against left-handed pitchers whilst his figures against righties were significantly better in July too. He will continue to be very much a back-up player and in that role 6 hits in 18 at bats will do very nicely indeed.

Nick Swisher. Nick Swisher is another player that has grown beyond recognition since he arrived in New York and this streakiest of players seems to be settling into a nice routine. Going into the season he looked like one of the potential weaknesses in an outfield that was going to over-rely on Granderson. As the season has developed, Swisher has become the guy who is first pencilled in of those in an outfield role. His .324 and increased patience at the plate (we could still use a few more walks from him) were highlights of a strong July.

Ramiro Pena. Pena had his best offensive month of the season and this coincided with Russo being the guy to be sent to the minors when changes were made early in the month. He still has a long, long way to go – no extra base hits and, more alarmingly, no walks on the month – but this was an advance.

Bad

Francisco Cervelli. I think Cervelli is over thinking at the plate and whatever hits he was producing last year and in the early months of the season are drying up fast. This is particularly bad timing for a slump with Posada’s on-going problems meaning that the team must depend on him and .214 on the month with one double simply does not cut it.

Colin Curtis. Curtis lost his back-up spot this month and forced the Yankees into making a move for Kearns and he has no-one to blame but himself. His 8 hits in 34 at-bats simply were too poor to be sustainable as things got tight at the top.

Derek Jeter. Jeter’s worst month at the plate in nearly two seasons in the midst of a season that is all the more noticeable poor because of his heroics in the championship winning season.

Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod’s preoccupation with himself and his tendency to concentrate on his own goals rather than the teams became so obvious with the horrible slump that occurred in the run-up to his 600th home run and ruined his July figures.

Surprises

Brett Gardner. Gardner became the player he was in 2009 in July and consequently, he produced by far his worst month’s figures of 2010. His .221 month means that when Kearns settles in, Gardner will begin to lose playing time.

Juan Miranda. Miranda finally settled into a rhythm in July — which resulted him being reassigned to Scranton. His .267 with one homer didn’t set the world alight but the choice of Berkman – who has never had to play DH – to replace him is an odd one.

Kevin Russo. Like so many other players on the Yankees roster this season a bright start when first called up soon became a gloomy outlook for Russo and whereas he was once getting more playing time than Pena, he now finds his future at Triple-A.

Jorge Posada. Things are not right with Posada. He needs more rest and the fact that he is being used mainly as a DH and that his batting figures are still so poor says everything.

The Yankees in June – the batters

Posted on by
Reply



The Yankees had a mixed month in June. Overall, they were very good but they had a couple of dry spells when the bats fell silent and they lost games that, on paper, they should have won. The month finished with 16 wins and 10 losses and with the usual mix of strong performances and under-achievers. Here’s our monthly survey, beginning with the batters:

New York Yankees – Batting – Month – June
Name G AB R H RBI 2B 3B HR BB SO SH SF SB BA SLG OBP
Gardner, Brett 21 60 13 23 7 2 2 1 9 12 0 1 6 .383 .533 .472
Curtis, Colin 7 9 0 3 4 2 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 .333 .556 .400
Cano, Robinson 26 102 19 34 13 6 0 4 9 11 0 0 0 .333 .510 .398
Teixeira, Mark 26 100 19 25 14 6 0 5 13 20 0 0 0 .250 .460 .353
Pettitte, Andy 5 4 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 3 1 0 0 .250 .250 .250
Rodriguez, Alex 22 82 12 20 13 6 0 4 8 13 0 1 0 .244 .463 .308
Jeter, Derek 25 103 18 25 8 5 0 3 15 18 0 0 3 .243 .379 .339
Swisher, Nick 26 104 13 25 19 5 1 4 13 22 0 2 0 .240 .423 .319
Granderson, Curtis 26 92 13 22 15 3 1 5 8 25 0 1 2 .239 .457 .297
Posada, Jorge 24 74 10 15 14 2 0 3 14 23 0 2 0 .203 .351 .337
Moeller, Chad 2 5 2 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 .200 .400 .333
Huffman, Chad 8 15 0 3 2 0 0 0 2 2 0 0 0 .200 .200 .294
Cervelli, Francisco 21 61 4 11 6 2 1 0 6 9 1 0 0 .180 .246 .275
Pena, Ramiro 14 22 0 3 2 0 0 0 2 4 1 0 0 .136 .136 .240
Russo, Kevin 13 23 1 3 0 0 0 0 2 3 1 0 1 .130 .130 .231
Thames, Marcus 7 14 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 4 0 0 0 .071 .071 .133
Miranda, Juan 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000
Rivera, Mariano 11 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000
Vazquez, Javier 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 – – 1.000
Burnett, A.J. 5 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 .000 .000 .000
Sabathia, C.C. 5 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000
877 124 215 117 40 5 29 106 174 6 7 12 .245 .401 .333

Good

Brett Gardner. Some where in the close season, someone kidnapped Brett Gardner and replaced him with the guy we’re seeing this season. Still a pest and a nuisance on the basepaths, this guy is now hitting in a much more accomplished way and has raised his average phenomenally. He should be the first guy written into the outfield line up on current form and achieved a .383 BA and a .533 slugging percentage during June.

Robinson Cano. Cano is the American League’s starting second baseman in the All-Star game and frankly it could be no other way. June was probably his weakest month of the season so far. He ONLY batted .333 with 4 home runs.

Mark Teixeira. Teixeira led the Yankees in extra base hits in June. He is still far short of his MVP-like performance in 2009 but his 6 doubles and 5 homers were a significant step in the right direction.

Colin Curtis. Brought in to cover the gap on the bench left by Marcus Thames’ injury, it didn’t take long for Curtis to jump ahead of Chad Huffman in the management’s thoughts on who is the longterm replacement there for the released Randy Winn. Curtis will see limited action but has been effective when called upon.

Bad

Marcus Thames. Thames started the season in very convincing fashion. Injuries meant that he couldn’t be limited to being used against left-handed pitchers and then he was injured himself. An .071 month in 14 at-bats followed by 2 weeks on the disabled list made for a shocking month for Thames.

Kevin Russo. Both Russo and Pena proved that there use as a defensive substitution and late innings replacement is messing with their batting mechanics. Solid defensively, it is hard to see who was the worst at the plate.

Ramiro Pena. See Kevin Russo.

Francisco Cervelli. Like the aforementioned Russo and Pena, Cervelli had a difficult month as a batter. The difference for Cervelli was that, during June, he was the team’s most called upon catcher. Those pundits who said he couldn’t bat are going to be mumbling again unless he break out of this nosedive.

Surprises

Alex Rodriguez. Rodriguez is seeing an end to his power outage (perhaps) but he is still not getting on base nearly often enough. 10 extra base hits but only .244 on the month.

Derek Jeter. Jeter proved himself all over again in 2009 but his 2010 figures are shown a marked slide offensively which detracts from his continued defensive rebirth. Maybe his appearance in the All-Star game will be his springboard to a big second half.

Jorge Posada. Posada recovered from injury more quickly than I expected but his batting performance did not come back with the physical presence. The continued absence of Johnson means that even when not called upon to catch, Posada is uppermost in Girardi’s mind for DH time. On current performances, he could do without that work.

Chad Huffman. Huffman was a disappointment from the get-go. He has no power, isn’t hitting for much of an average. This is what happens when we pick up the castoff scraps from under other franchises’ tables.