The Yankees have averaged more than 97 regular season wins per year since 1996. Here's the latest on the 2012 club via Joel Sherman of the New York Post…
- Yankees officials say Michael Pineda is a hard worker and his teammates say he’s mixing in well, Sherman reports. There’s been some concern about Pineda’s velocity and conditioning this spring, but Sherman points out that it’s wise to avoid definitive statements based on Spring Training information.
- The Yankees say they aren’t worried about Raul Ibanez’s spring struggles, Sherman tweets. Ibanez has been facing more left-handed pitching than he will during the regular season.
- The Yankees offered Dontrelle Willis a minor league deal this offseason, Sherman tweets. The Yankees might look into signing Willis, who was released by the Phillies this morning.
Man, Dontrelle was so cool in his prime, that old school leg kick with the wacky delivery. Usually I hate when guys hang around for way too long, but I really hope he figures it out again someday
I’d love to see Dtrain & his flat brimmed hat in Pinstripes. Get it done Yanks.
Always good to have lefties.
Willis for DH?
Oh no! our number eight hitter in the lineup might stink! We lost all hope of winning this season!
But who do you replace him with? Damon? Vlad? Internal?
I would lean towards a guy like Eduardo Nunez. I truly believe that Nunez could be a quality starter in this league and is not one-dimensional player like Ibanez or Jones.
Núñez is a good option, but if later in the season there is a chance to acquire either Daniel Murphy and/or Kyle Blanks, I’d take it.
Never heard of a Dumb hitter.
The downward spiral for Dontrelle started when he started to gain weight. His delivery has too many moving parts and with an altered body, things change. Control went away as his mechanics changed.
That said, minor deal for him as a bullpen guy (long relief?) wouldn’t be so bad.
It was during the heart of the Steroid era when he was so dominate…
the “heart” of the steroid era was in the nineties dude, also, have you ever seen Dontrelle Willis? He’s not a tank.
Steroids were still very present in baseball all the way up through the 2000s, many players were reported as juicing even as late as 2005.
Also Steroids don’t magically give you the popeye look, you don’t become a “tank” just because you juice. What they do is allow you to recover faster and take longer to fatigue (physically not cardio wise). Willis had some choppy mechanics so if he was juicing it would have helped him to not feel the effects or get injured from them.
Also, Willis’ best year was in 2005, which as I stated was still a pretty big year for steroids. He had a decent year in 2006 and from then on he suffered injuries and poor performances.
You were right though when I said “heart” of the steroid era, I was wrong, he did have dominate years during a time that they were still widely used in the league, before the testing got really strict.