Given the age of their roster, the urge to get their payroll down, and the fact that they have so many first round picks this year, is this the most important Yankees draft in a very long time? And, if yes, how confident are you that they will handle it well, given the results of Yankees first and second round picks lately?

Via Andy McCullough-

[Hal] Steinbrenner is also optimistic the attendance at Yankee Stadium would increase in the coming months. They have averaged 37,461 fans per game heading into Saturday, according to ESPN.com. The team averaged 43,733 fans in 2012.

“I still think the economy is not good, despite what some people might say,” he said. “A lot of people are struggling out there, and we understand it.

“Summer is rolling around. April is always a bad month, even in the old Stadium. Better weather means more fans. Kids are out of school. And I think the good stories that we have all known about on this club are becoming more and more well-known among the fan base.”

They may come…

…but, will they be lining up to buy Reid Brignac jereys?

Cashman on Ben Francisco’s roster spot: “Just in terms of your fan comments section, just say I’m holding onto him to piss everybody off.”

— Andy McCullough (@McCulloughSL) May 18, 2013

They Yankees, at this point, are 10 games over .500 this season. When Hiroki Kuroda starts, they are 7-2. That’s half of that 10-game cushion.

Here’s how the Yankees starters have done this year in games that the team has won:

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Since July 1,2011, through last night, Ichrio has a BA/OBP/SLG line of .273/.301/.365 (in 1,106 AB).

If you expect anything more than that from him now, you are fooling yourself. And, yes, Mr. Cashman, this includes you.

Lotta guys on pace to join this club this season. Which ones do you think will make it?

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In 1993, Tom Peyer and Hart Seely edited Phil Rizzuto’s actual broadcast commentary into verse for a book called “O Holy Cow! The Selected Verse of Phil Rizzuto.”

Here is an excerpt:

What kind is it?
Ohhhhh!
Pepperoni!
Holy cow!
What happened?
Base hit!
A little disconcerting,
Smelling that pizza,
And trying
To do a ballgame.

I have to borrow from that and say:

A little disconcerting,
Seeing Heidi Watney,
And trying
to pay attention,
during MLB Network Quick Pitch.

Wow.

Via Lohud –

A Yankees comeback fell short tonight, but a 3-2 loss to the Mariners was not the biggest concern at Yankee Stadium. Andy Pettitte left the game with a tight left trapezius muscle in his upper back, and Chris Stewart left with an apparent lower body injury. Pettitte missed a start last month because of back spasms, and he left tonight’s game in the fifth inning after apparently feeling something on a strikeout pitch to Kyle Seager. Stewart seemed to hurt himself running the bases in the seventh. With the Yankees down 3-1, Robinson Cano singled in a run, and Stewart went from second to third on the play, but he was clearly in some discomfort when he got to the bag. Austin Romine replaced him the next inning.

As much as I love Andy Pettitte – and he is one of my all-time favorite Yankees – I have said for several months now that this was coming…

You cannot count on someone that age to be a mainstay in your starting rotation for 30+ starts a season. Yes, maybe, it could happen. But, the odds are against it.

The Steward thing hurts too. I think someone needs to be moved to the 60-day DL now to get a catcher on the 40-man roster. But, who?

Via Newsday –

Manhattan-born and Brooklyn-bred Dellin Betances has been called up to the Bronx.

The once highly-touted righthanded starter who recently switched to relief was added to the Yankees’ bullpen before their game Thursday night against the Mariners, the team announced. Brett Marshall, who gave up five runs and threw 108 pitches in 5.2 innings during his MLB debut Wednesday night was sent down…

Yup, that’s the best the 40-man has to offer. Wow.

Mark Montgomery is not on the forty…

Via Newsday-

Hal Steinbrenner insisted Thursday that his goal remains to get the payroll below the luxury-tax threshold of $189 million for 2014 and the surprising success of these depleted Yankees — he referred to them as “scrappy” — is fortifying that commitment.

“I always believed it could work if – if – the young players, which I’ve been saying along, pan out and do their job,” Steinbrenner said on his way out of the MLB owners meetings in Manhattan. “We still have [Michael] Pineda coming back, so we’ll see how he does. I think he’s going to do great.

“But the key is going to be the young players stepping up and really making contributions like they’re doing right now, several of them.”

Not to mention the relatively low-cost fill-ins such as Vernon Wells and Lyle Overbay, two players scooped up during the final week of spring training. The Yankees (25-15) are in first place, two games up on the Orioles, while using a team with a current on-field payroll of roughly $140 million — and that includes the return of Curtis Granderson ($15 million) this week. That leaves more than $70 million still on the DL.

“I’m proud of them, my family’s proud of them,” Steinbrenner said. “They’ve been fighting hard all year long, and despite significant adversity, they’ve persevered. We need to get behind them as much as we can to support them. They’ve earned it.”

Steinbrenner added, “It’s fun to watch. They’re scrappy. Coming back from behind, it seems like certain times in the past, it’s just not something you had confidence in. But against Felix [Hernandez] two nights ago, and then against their bullpen. They’re scrappy.”

When asked if the roster maneuvering of Brian Cashman, and the lineup juggling of Joe Girardi, gives him further evidence the Yankees can win with a much lower payroll next season, Steinbrenner agreed.

“And some talent down in the minor leagues that quite frankly may have never gotten the chance to do something like this — certainly not this year,” he said. “There’s been a lot of moving parts, and both those guys, Cash and Girardi, and the coaching staff, have done a wonderful job moving this piece here and that piece there and figuring everything out. It’s worked out as good as anybody ever would have thought.”

I want to see Hal start giving state of the unions when things are not going so great…

Great read: Top 100 Draft Flashback: Impact Players, Notable Flops.

I’d love to see someone do this in the future and cover the years 1998 to 2013.

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No, that’s not my Uncle Ernie…

More on him via Men’s Health Journal -

On a 20-acre ranch deep in the sticks of Montgomery, Texas, pitching coach Ron Wolforth gathers his pupils under the arched ceiling of a 3,600-square-foot corrugated-steel hut. They arrive from all over the country during the off-season, mostly teenagers and minor leaguers, lured by Wolforth’s guarantee that he can get virtually anyone throwing 90-plus miles per hour, injury-free. How? Unlike most coaches – die-hard traditionalists who regurgitate decades-old maxims – Wolforth has devised a science-based approach that fuses pitching mechanics with the expertise of orthopedists, surgeons, and strength and conditioning coaches. By retooling a pitcher’s delivery to eliminate inefficiencies and imbalances, Wolforth can reduce wear on his arm and engineer peak velocity.

Wolforth’s unorthodox methods, combined with the fact that he never played ball beyond a mediocre college career, make him an outlier in baseball’s good ol’ boy culture.

“According to their logic,” Wolforth says, “there should never be a male gynecologist, because they’ve never had a vulva. Thing is, I’ve never had anybody spend time at the ranch, see what we do, and leave saying, ‘Aw, that’s a bunch of crap.’ ”

Wolforth has good reason to feel confident. The coach has spawned one of Major League Baseball’s best prospects in 22-year-old Trevor Bauer – the third pick in the 2011 draft, acquired by the Cleveland Indians last December, who’s been training with Wolforth since he was 14. Last winter, several Indians coaches and front-office guys traveled to Texas to meet with Wolforth, including manager Terry Francona; then the organization flew him to spring training to give a presentation, a show of respect Wolforth called “major.”

Brent Strom, a big-league pitcher in the Seventies who coaches with the St. Louis Cardinals, is a rare MLB voice who endorses Wolforth’s system. “Ron develops velocity, but it’s much more than that,” Strom says. “He promotes arm health, control, command. He combines all of these different aspects of pitching, trying to overcome a lot of misteachings by uninformed coaches. He’s also an excellent communicator, with a unique way of encapsulating information and making it usable.”

I wonder what Tom House and Mike Marshall think of him and his theories?

Nice.

Yup, it happened tonight.  Here are the only ones worse:

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Think the Angels are kicking themselves now?

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Man, what’s going on with Matt Kemp? Is it his shoulder?

In his first 37 games of 2010, Vernon Wells had a BA/OBP/SLG line of .306/.369/.611 (in 160 PA).

And, over his next 120 games in 2010, he had a BA/OBP/SLG line of .262/.319/.484 (in 486 PA).

In his first 37 games of 2013, Wells’ BA/OBP/SLG line is .300/.353/.521 (in 140 PA). That looks just like 2010, no?

If Wells follows his form from 2010, he could be a low on-base hacking guy at the plate…just like he was in 2010.

Joel Sherman says: “Like it or not, Cashman and Co. pushing the right buttons for Yankees.”

Yes, the fixes are doing well and credit is deserved for finding and applying them…if you want to do that in May.

Yet, why ignore why the fixes were required in the first place? Is there not some blame to assign there too?

When you count on old and often-injured players, you’re going to create situations of need, right? That’s not a great plan.

But, hey, let’s not arrest the guy for setting the house on fire. Let’s just give him a parade for saving the family cat from the blaze because he got lucky when the kitty latched on to him when he was running away from the flames…

More on Saul Rogovin via the BR Bullpen -

Saul Rogovin , a Brooklyn born right-hander whose 2.78 ERA in 1951 was the best in the American League, started out in pro ball as a third baseman twice hitting in the .280s with the Chattanooga Lookouts of the Southern Association in the mid 1940s before making the switch to the mound. Saul first arrived with the Detroit Tigers in 1949 and in his first plate appearance back in New York at Yankee Stadium on July 23, 1950, he hit a grand slam home run off Eddie Lopat.

He was traded to the Chicago White Sox early in the 1951 season and finished the year 12-8 in 26 starts and the ERA title. He won a career high 14 games in 1952 including a 16 inning 14 strikeout complete game performance against the Boston Red Sox. Rogovin was also with the Baltimore Orioles and the Philadelphia Phillies before finishing his eight year major league run in 1957 with a 48-48 record with a 4.06 ERA while pitching 802 innings in 152 games.

Rogovin retired the last 17 St. Louis Cardinals batters he faced on August 25, 1955. In his next appearance, he retired the first 15 Chicago Cubs batters on August 30 to run his streak to 32 straight batters retired.

Rogovin spent ten seasons in the minors, some on the mound, others in the field while building a respectable 53-36 record with a 3.95 ERA, pitching 802 innings while appearing in 152 games. Saul carried a decent bat as he wound up with a .270 hitting average with 28 home runs to go with his solid pitching performance.

Rogovin later returned to school and earned a degree in English Literature from City College of New York and became a high school teacher in Manhattan when he was 57 years of age, teaching the poems of Langston Hughes and the novels of John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway.

Rogovin died January 23, 1995, at age 71 in New York City.

Batter turned pitcher turned English Lit teacher. How many players in baseball history had that combination of skills on their resume?

It’s really sad that the misfortunes of the Knicks and the Mets will probably take away some of the media and fan attention away, in the Tri-State area, from what was an incredible (albeit May) win for the Yankees last night.

Great story.

The story.

The bigger question is:  Between Vernon Wells, Travis Hafner, Brett Gardner and Ichrio, who sits to give Granderson At Bats?  Gotta be between #11 and #31, right?

Good one!

H/T:  BBTF.

Warning: NSFW

Man, are they good, or, what?

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Nolan Ryan, Mike Maddux, and his brother, Greg, are doing a great job with this, no?

Listen to it here.

I laughed out loud when he said that Valdespin was “half-a-jerk.”

A stretch of 9-19 will make a team open to this kind of stuff…