It’s believed Cabrera could have suffered a full hamstring tear during Game 4

This shortens the line-up that much more in an NL ballpark.

- Posted By Corey

Personally, I’m very shocked by this news. You’d think with the ball game that Lee tossed in game 1, it would be a no brainer to trot him out again on Sunday against Sabathia. Apparently Manuel is afraid that Lee would not be that strong on 3 days rest, as he hasn’t done it before in his career. I’m glad.

- Posted By Corey

Position Players:
Best Pure Hitter:  J.R. Murphy, C (Pendleton HS, Bradenton, Fla.)
Best Power Hitter:  Slade Heathcott, OF (Texas HS, Texarkana, Texas)
Fastest Runner:  Slade Heathcott
Best Defensive Player:  Slade Heathcott

Pitchers:
Best Fastball:  Adam Warren, RHP (University of North Carolina)
Best Secondary Pitch:  Bryan Mitchell, RHP (Rockingham County HS, Reidsville, N.C)

Odds & Ends:
Best Pro Debut:  Adam Warren
Best Athlete:  Slade Heathcott
Closest To The Majors:  Caleb Cotham, RHP (Vanderbilt University)
Best Late Round Pick:  Bryan Mitchell
One That Got Away:  Tyler Lyons, LHP (Oklahoma State University).  My feelings on this topic are well known.

All in all, it looks like the Yanks did a pretty decent job of grabbing some premium positional player talent while also continuing to stockpile arms with some projectability and upside.  As I mentioned in my first MiLB roundup, I have a friend that has scouted Adam Warren a number of times and has me pretty excited about his future.  In case anyone is interested, video of Adam Warren can be found here and here, courtesy of PnR Scouting.

-Posted by MJ

International League:
Austin Jackson, OF (7)

This should come as no surprise.  “AJax” was the Yanks’ only high-ceiling prospect at Scranton/AAA and had a somewhat nice debut as a full-season member of the Yankees highest minor league affiliate.

From BA’s write-up (which is for subscribers only):

Jackson was the most exciting player to spend the full season in the IL, flashing all five tools while leading the circuit in triples and ranking second in hits. He drew comparisons to Torii Hunter, albeit with less power.

Jackson has bat speed and strength, but he hit just four homers and slugged only .405. While he batted .300, his 123-40 K-BB ratio was the worst of his five-year pro career. As he continues to refine his pitch recognition and plate discipline, he should continue to hit for average with at least solid power. He has slightly above-average speed and is an intelligent baserunner who will steal some bases.

Though he’s not a blazer, Jackson played all three outfield positions for Scranton and could handle center field in the major leagues. He covers a lot of ground and makes accurate throws with an above-average arm.

At 22, Jackson is age-appropriate for the league and could probably use another full year of seasoning at this level. 

Of notable non-Yankees on this list are three guys that made an impact in the big leagues this year — Matt Wieters; C-BAL (1), Tommy Hanson; RHP-ATL (2) and Andrew McCutchen; OF-PIT (3) — as well as my favorite young pitcher in the big leagues (Chris Tillman; RHP-BAL (4)) and Jackson’s former teammate, Jose Tabata; OF-PIT (13).

As far as teams we hate, the Mets had Fernando Martinez; OF (12) and the Red Sox had no one on the list.  Sucks to be them (wink).

-Posted by MJ

(1) putting his faith in Sabathia on short rest, given that Sabathia has pitched on short rest in the past.  He’s the ace and he’s going to be counted on like one; and
(2) having no confidence in either Gaudin or Chamberlain to provide a quality start in a high-pressure situation.

For all the talk going into the final six weeks of the season about how the Yanks’ biggest post-season vulnerability was the unsettled state of their 4th and 5th starters, I like this move and I’m definitely backing Girardi on this one.  If you want to win, go for the jugular and put the ball in the hands of your big dogs.  That being said, it’ll be open season on General Joe and CC if this move backfires.

-Posted by MJ

Over the past few weeks, they’ve already released their Top 20 Prospects for the New York-Penn (Short Season A), South Atlantic (Low-A), Florida State (High-A) and Eastern (Double A) Leagues.  Although BA has released their rankings for several other leagues, for our purposes we’ll only (briefly) focus on those leagues where the Yanks have affiliations.

NY-Penn League:
Arodys Vizcaino, RHP (3)
Adam Warren, RHP (12)
Jimmy Paredes, 2B (14)
Neil Medchill, OF (18)

Not a bad state of the union for the Staten Island Yankees, having four of the top 20 Short Season prospects in the league.  Of the four, only Vizcaino is considered an elite talent but it never hurts to see two of the members of the Yanks ’09 draft class already distinguishing themselves among their peers.  As an aside, I have a friend who raves about Adam Warren, having scouted him seven times over the past few years.  Although he “only” projects as a back-end starter, because he was a polished college pitcher he’ll probably be on the radar by early 2011, if not sooner.

South Atlantic League:
Manny Banuelos, LHP (9)
Melky Mesa, OF (20)

A little less to rave about here for the Charleston Riverdogs.  I’ve read nice things about Mexican League signee Banuelos, who, at 18 years old, looks like he might be ready for a promotion to Tampa in the very near future.  The other Melky is a raw prospect who is probably too old (22) to be down in Low-A but who does have some interesting tools.

Florida State League:
Jesus Montero, C (2)
Austin Romine, C (10)

Far be it for me to quarrel with the folks that do this for a living but I can’t really understand the value of ranking Montero as the second-best prospect in a league that he graduated from several months ago.  Suffice it to say that Montero’s bat was far too much for FSL pitchers to deal with and everyone was glad that he moved out of Tampa for good.  Oh, and that Romine kid took down FSL MVP honors this year.  Not too shabby.

Eastern League:
Jesus Montero, C (5)
Zach McAllister, RHP (19)

Hey, there HE is again!  Yankee fans shouldn’t be discouraged that Montero only finished 5th in the Eastern League ranking seeing as though he was not only the youngest player in the ranking but also that three of the four players ahead of him were first-round draft picks.  I know some Yankee fans are very high on McAllister but I just don’t like his game too much.  He had a great year and I’d be fine with them looking to trade him while he’s got value.

Anyway, since we’ve got four long days to kill before Game 1 of the ALCS, I figured I’d break the monotony with a little bit of MiLB news.

-Posted by MJ

Both Teixeira and Girardi were a bit short in answering the question, but they said the pitch from David Price was NOT intentional.

If I were Evan Longoria, I’d wear an extra few pads on April 9th, 10th and 11th. Sounds, to me, like they are downplaying it for next year.

- Posted By Corey

As for the rest of the game, unfortunately for Scranton, Kei Igawa came in relief of Kennedy and took the loss as he gave up 3 runs in 4 innings, leading to their second loss of the International League Championship Series. It’s a best-of-five series, so we may be looking at some more call-ups in the very near future.

- Posted By Corey

I guess I’m a little surprised that there would be a clamor to play a bowl game in the inclement New York weather in mid- to late-December.  Given that bowl games are now big business for corporate sponsors and the universities that play in them, making fans sit in crappy weather seems a bit odd when you can send your fans and corporate sponsors to Honolulu, New Orleans, Orlando, San Diego or Tempe.  Then again, there are few places more enjoyable than New York around the holidays…

As an aside, there is now talk to bring boxing back to the Bronx.  What’s next, the circus?

-Posted by MJ

He could start throwing around Sept. 14 and that would give him ample time to get ready for the playoffs.

Glad to see Robertson’s not going under the knife. He could potentially be a big piece to our playoff puzzle, so hopefully all he needs is to shut it down for a little bit.

- Posted By Corey