The classic musical Damn Yankees opened on Broadway on this day in 1955. Such noted Broadway stars as Gwen Verdon, Ray Walston and Stephen Douglass formed the original cast, with Douglass in the lead role as fan-turned-Washington Senators slugger Joe Hardy.
Unfortunately for supporters of both Washington's current team and the "Senators" (now the Twins), there is no word of either team signing an out-of-nowhere star prospect from Hannibal, MO. There is, however, some news about that darn team from the Bronx.
- The Yankees explored trading Kevin Russo during Spring Training, reports Joel Sherman of the New York Post (Twitter link). Sherman notes that New York could take Russo off their 40-man roster to make room for Jorge Vazquez as a replacement for the injured Eric Chavez, though Chad Jennings of the LoHud Yankees blog believes Ramiro Pena will be called up instead.
- Slade Heathcott (29th overall) and J.R. Murphy (76th overall) were New York's top two picks in the 2009 amateur draft and are off to strong starts in low Class A ball, writes George King for Baseball America. Brian Cashman calls center fielder Heathcott "a five-tool guy," while Murphy "is going to hit for average with average power" while remaining at catcher.
- Curtis Granderson's early-season success and Austin Jackson's struggles have made the three-team deal involving the two center fielders look a lot better for the Yankees, writes Daniel Barbarisi of the Wall Street Journal. You still have to consider that deal an overall win for the Tigers — Max Scherzer, Phil Coke and Daniel Schlereth have all contributed this season, and all three pitchers plus Jackson are under control for several more years.
I think everyone did well in that trade, and the dbacks ended up flipping jackson for hudson. Anybody with a knowledge of BABIP and high k% knew the “ajax is better than granderson” line was a load of crap.
You may have only seen Granderson for last year and the start of this year so I’ll try to explain this to you. Granderson strikes out A TON. The numbers may not indicate it, but when he needs to be clutch, he usually isn’t. I think that Granderson and Jackson are very similar players, but Jackson may have a slight upside because of his defense. Granderson is not a .300 hitter no matter what he is doing this year. He has power but don’t expect the 50 that he is on pace for, that’s not going to happen. I saw Grandy play for four seasonds and have a pretty good handle on what he can do with the bat. Don’t get me wrong though, Jackson needs to fix this strike out problem or he is going to struggle in this league. But this is Jackson’s second season which makes it a little difficult to throw too many weird stats at him. Give it about two more seasons to figure out who won this trade. A one month slump is not enough to wright a guy off as bad, even if he did lead the league in strikeouts last year.
Yea, Granderson strikes out significantly too, especially against lefties. I don’t expect him to ever hit for average, but he has very real power and has shown improved batting ability after working with Kevin Long in 2010 midseason.
And I’m not writing off AJax at all, I was excited to see him play back when he was a Yankees prospect. I’m just saying that his 2010 campaign was not indicative of his true talent level. He’s still very young and can obviously improve, but right now his K% is a very big issue. What’s concerning is that this was always an issue in the minors. Also, it would be easier to stomach if the guy hit for power but he doesn’t. Things change obviously, Bautista went from being a utility player to whats looking like one of the best batters in the game.
Like I said, I don’t think anybody did poorly in this trade. The Tigers got a young CF with tons of potential, Coke, and Scherzer. The Yankees got a great CF that hits for power, and the Dbacks eventually ended up with Daniel Hudson and Ian Kennedy.
Good points. I’d hit the like button but the like button never seems to work.
The actual year was 1955, in fact, 05/05/1955. 1955 the year the Brookly Dodgers won the World Series!
Call up Jorge Vasquez. Ramiro Pena can’t hit a basketball.
Well hello new feature! Hi guys @chiico:disqus @bonestock94:disqus
As for the topic, that Vasquez kid’s got power. I’ve been waiting to see him come up, but didn’t think it would be this early. Too bad for Chavez, he was having a good year so far too.
A-Jax’s ceiling is Granderson.
He’ll hit for power, but not too sure about Avg or OBP.
Exactly.
“A-Jax’s ceiling is Granderson. ”
Very much true, but he’s developing faster than Granderson did and he’s under control for longer than Granderson is. He also came with a couple of pitchers that would probably serve the Yankees pretty well this year.
What measure are you using to say that AJ is developing faster? In Grandy’s 1st full year in the majors he hit .260/.335/.438 w/ 19hrs and a 12.4 UZR. AJ had a much better bat avg but the OPB are almost identical while Grandy trumps him in every other measure.
As for Coke and IPK they were expendable at the time. IPK was not the same pitcher in the AL East and Coke has done nothing to prove he would be better than a lefty out the pen.
Basing it simply on his age. Faster’s admittedly a terrible choice of words, should’ve said developing younger which, while not a significant advantage, is an advantage nonetheless.
And as for Grandy, the Yanks are getting near all-star production and they can have him from 2010-2013 so 4 years of “Granderson like” production vs 6 years of a yougster still trying to find his level is sort of a wash. If AJ continues to struggle and never reaches “Granderson like” levels then does it matter if the Tiger’s had him for 2 more years over the Yanks control of Grandy?
I think there’s a slight error on this page. I don’t think Damn Yankees opened in 1995.
Is anyone else having a massive Disqus issue today? Whenever I type something, it takes ages to actual come out.
@0bsessions:disqus added a new feature… maybe that has something to do with it. It should clear itself up within a week or so, usually does.
@EastCoastBias:disqus has it working good hehe
I was having that problem yesterday. I was going to say something but then thought that it was my computer. I’m glad to see I’m not a loner.
test
It works.
2010 was the year of the pitcher for the Yanks. Thus far, minor issues have slowed Banuelos and Betances from building up their innings and others have had mixed early results. I think the pitchers will come around, especially those pitching up North in Trenton and Scranton but I really think this year the Yanks position prospects will show themselves as Heathcott, Murphy, Flores, Segedin and Lyerly have all shown improvements this hear. Hopefully, Sanchez will start to hit and Dave Adams can stay healthy too.
I am a Tigers fan, and I love Curtis. I think everyone is overlooking Max Scherzer. I think he could be a better pitcher than Verlander. He has very good velocity and his pitches all have a good amount of movement or sink, a perfecr recipe for a lot of good nights at Comerica. He also shows great poise to pitch out of traffic, where as verlander tends to try and throw his way out of jams. I like Max. Back to Curtis, I think everyone is forgetting the yankees have only played 11 games away from yankee stadium. I think Granderson’s start has been aided by playing to the short porch in right at home. Lets revisit these numbers when we have a better ratio of home and road games to draw on. I tend to think he will have great numbers at Home and so-so numbers on the road, ultimately having career highs based on the numbers he will put up at Home. The 3 pitchers make this a win for Detroit regaurdless of what A-Jax does..
Multiple points here:
Your leadoff guy’s working out great with that .308 OBP. Glass houses and all that.
Curtis Granderson is thirty and hits free agency after 2013. Jackson is 24 and won’t be eligible for free agency until at least 2015, I believe, and will cost a lot less over that span. A more accurate comparrison would be to take Granderson’s equivelant age numbers. Unfortunately, Granderson didn’t have a full MLB season until 25, so Jackson’s already got that over him.
Anyone on a community like this one citing fielding percentage at all is essentially begging to be laughed at, but citing FP on an outfielder? Surely you jest?
Now, I’m not going to pretend that Jackson is currently the better player. His .396 BABIP last year was ridiculous and can’t possibly be sustained. That said, you’re comparing apples to oranges here and considering the Tigers got three cost controlled guys with tons of service time left and reasonable upside who were already major league ready, Granderson would have to perform to Albert Pujols levels to consider that a “steal” on the Yankees’ part. As it is, despite Granderson playing to pretty good levels, the Yankees still overpaid for him.
Wow….that was a little aggresive there buddy.
What the heck is your problem? I make a point and you respond by attacking me. Get over yourself and calm down.
Overpaid because the Yankees gave up Austin Jackson a B level prospect at best, coke who’s average at best and Kennedy haha I still don’t see an overpay. maybe your about right FP but you want to use a stat that shows how good Austin is when he does hit the ball neglecting the fact he strikeout 190 times a year? Ok so Granderson has a career line of .314 babip not including this year. So your main point is the years they have Austin locked down as Granderson is older? Granderson>Jackson any day and maybe Jackson could be Curtis Granderson in 4-5 year but I doubt it.
To be fair, this was a three team trade and if you are comparing what the Tigers got from the Yanks and what the Yanks got from the Tigers then it would break down to Granderson for AJ, COke and IPK even if IPK was sent to the Dbacks. From the NY perspective they are in a win now situation and needed a CF that could come in and perform at a high level as opposed to working thru the growing pains of a young guy like AJ. Despite last years struggles, Grandy still had 24 HR and basically were the same in the OF overall in terms of war as Grandy had a 5.3 and AJ a 5.4.
You are right that AJ has time on his side but thus far Grandy has the edge in K rate, BB rate, Slg%, ISO, OPS and there OBP in 2010 were w/n range of each other at .324 vs .345.
Other than POTENTIAL AJ doesn’t have much over Grandy.
Grandy earns more but he contributes more as well and his $10 mil per year is nothing for the Yanks, especially when they are getting plus power and good defense from the CF position.
IPK has performed as well as I thought he would but he wasn’t showing the same confidence in NY and Coke has yet to prove he can be more than just a good lefty out the pen.
There you go again talking about BABIP for hitters who have plus speed and strike out often. Wasn’t BABIP intended to be a stat for pitchers. Could it be that BABIP doesn’t translate ideal for hitters that strike out often and have speed? I’m still waiting for my answer when we were talking about Gardner.
So Austin Jackson is a B level prospect (Who ten bucks says you probably considered a blue chipper back in 2009), but Justin Masterson is a stud pitcher Cy Young candidate? Oi.
I think he is trying to get respect by going insane for no apparent reason.