The Yankees released Ronnie Belliard, according to Wallace Matthews of ESPNNewYork.com (on Twitter). The Yankees signed the veteran infielder to a minor league deal last month, but he did not make the team. Instead, Eduardo Nunez and Eric Chavez will be the Yankees' backup infielders.
Belliard, 35, hit .216/.295/.327 in 185 plate appearances for the Dodgers last year, playing first, second and third. He has a .273/.338/.415 line in 13 MLB seasons.
Comeback for Chavez FTW.
Hopefully no injuries from the bench he’ll be getting used to.
You will have better luck with Colon, if i shake this magic 8 ball it says…….outlook not so good.
One more step in the right direction for Jorge “el chato” Vázquez to be called to the big leagues after being the best player in the spring trainings for the Yankees.
Although in 2010 Girardi also sent to the minor leagues the best player they had at spring training, and decided to fo with a brittle Nick Johnson (this years Nick Johnson is Eric Chávez) and Randy Winn+Thames… that player in 2010 was never called to the big leagues and was busted with marihuana after he retired (Jon Weber).
No, in no way outside of injury problems is Eric Chavez, Nick Johnson. Johnson was tabbed to be the full-time DH and screwed the Yankees with 12 hits last season. If Eric Chavez gets hurt, Ramiro Pena, Brandon Laird, or someone else takes that spot and it will leave very little impact. Chavez is a bench luxury.
Eric Chávez is the “new” Nick Johnson in the sense that both are fragile, not in who is better than whom or what role he is set to play in the roster.
Both are good, but too brittle to give rely on them.
PS
Remember that Thames was brought to the Yanks as a replacement for Nick Johnson as DH in case something bad happened… that Yanks 2010 bench was like concocted out of a nightmare to begin with LOL. This year its way more robust.
who?
Seriously? 2004 all star, Played for 13 seasons.
I don’t remember this man being at the ST camp
I believe he won the World Series in 2006 as well.
He’s a bum anyways.
Dude come on if they’re healthy they can still be decent players. We still have a pretty good team.
He’s never had a chance at the mlb level so how can you make that declaration? I don’t see him as a top prospect but to say he’s organizational filler seems sort of short sighted.
If he’s playing for the Yanks its not necesarily that things have gone very wrong, he’s a player who has hit above 0.330 since basically all his career in the Mexican summer and winter leagues. He won this years MVP at the caribbean series when México won it, has had not only a high AVG, but also OBP, OPS, Hr and RBI totals, yeah, he strikes out too much and walks too little, but there are also sub 0.220 hitters in the majors (last year the yanks had a bunch of time fillers coming from the minors who were way way way worse than Vázquez but he was not given a single chance), and batters who don’t get lots of walks and still log seasons with 0.300+ AVG and OBP of 0.380 or better.
Let me clarify that. I can see him as a platoon type player with goodpower of the bench. The fact that he can play 1B and some 3b helps.
Jorge Vazquez might have a little of the long-time minor-leaguer magic in him. Every once in a while there’s a Jack Cust type who makes a splash at age 28 or 29.
But to be fair, what “BigDavey88” said is more likely.
Like I said, I don’t consider him a top prospect(i.e major leage starter) but it would not shock me if he became a solid power hitting platoon player.Those guys have value as well, just not as much for the Yankees since we have capable starters and back ups.
Yeah I know you were just busting their asses I’m just standing up for my team. Its all good.