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Maybe less green tea and more protein-based food.
But I make the same dumb mistakes as the previous dude.

I’d rather keep Mo on the bench than get a win for my club.
Lookin’ at the box score and seeing that “S” is what I love.

Get it get it, get it get it (WHOOOA)
Get it get it, get it get it (WHOOOOOA)
Get it get it, get it get it (HEH HEH HEH HEH)

I went to Northwestern, I’m an educated fella
But I will use Chad Gaudin before I use the greatest eva

What’s practical is logical. What the hell, who cares?
Unless we have a lead away, I’ll never use Mo there.

I’m a slave to the save. I cannot hold it; I cannot control it.
I’m a slave to the save. I won’t deny it; I’m not trying to hide it.

As long as there has been baseball, there have been broadcasters who say Robinson Cano will win a batting title someday, referring to him like he is a 22-year old prospect making his debut.

Well, after going 1-3 on Thursday and extending his hitting streak to 17 games, Robinson Cano is hitting .373/.414/.632. His batting average is tops in the AL and is .001 ahead of Justin Morneau as of this post.

Considering he still swings at everything, has a career BB% of 4.4%, and currently has a BABIP of .379 — we ask, is this the year the perpetual prediction becomes reality? Vote and then tell us why or why not.

Could he be right?

Can you say Cy Young? On Wednesday night versus the Orioles, the phenom Phil Hughes delivered another stellar outing, going 7 innings with 7 Ks, 1 BB, 6 H, and only 1 run allowed.

When asked after the game why he’s been so dominant this season, the 23-year old responded, “When I turn the hat around, it’s like a switch.”

Joba Chamberlain pitched a perfect 8th in the Yankees 3-1 victory over the Orioles on Tuesday night.

While it wasn’t the most important sequence of the game, Joba has been in crosshairs of Yankee fans recently, especially since his ERA was 5.82 heading into Tuesday’s tussle. Considering our supernatural healing powers lately, we’d like to tell you that you have nothing to fear with Harlan’s son. Joba has been much, much better than his headline numbers suggest.

Check it, check it, check it out.

In 2008, Joba made 30 appearances out of the bullpen. He posted a nice and flashy 2.31 ERA as a reliever (also made 12 starts). Excellent, right? Sure it was. But, when you look at his peripherals out of the pen that season, they’re not much different from this season.

K/9
2008: 11.3
2010: 11.2

K/BB
2008: 3.14
2010: 3.38

BB/9
2008: 3.6
2010: 3.3

HR/9
2008: 0.26
2010: 0.40

So is Joba really worthy of an ERA three points higher than what he registered as a reliever in 2008? We think not.

FIP and xFIP back our assertion up also, 2.33 and 2.93 respectively.

So why the big difference in ERAs?

You could look at batting average on balls hit into play off Joba (BABIP). In 2008, his BABIP was .313. In 2010, it’s a whoppa-whoppa-ding-dong .392! Additionally, his rate of stranding runners is a crazy low 54.1%. Contributing to both of these unusual numbers could be the very strange fact that Joba has seen no batter pop a ball up in the infield. His infield fly ball rate heading into Tuesday’s game was literally zero!

So there you have it. We still have considerable faith in Joba as a key and reliable piece of the Yankees pen. You should too.


Relax fans, there’s no situation here.

*Props to Louis Winthorpe III for also contributing to this post

In a similar fashion to Gary Wallace’s Minor League Players of the Week, NoMaas’ Marshall Seymour is unveiling our new Big League Players of the Month feature. At the conclusion of each month, we’ll select two Yankees (position player & pitcher) who carried the Bombers over the last 30 or 31 days.

Big League Players of the Month (May):

Pitcher:
Phil Hughes, 3.03 ERA/2.73 FIP/3.17 xFIP, 38.2 IP

Hughes picked up right where he started in April and continued his dominance through another month with 39 strikeouts and just 8 walks and 3 homeruns through 6 starts. He was not aided by luck either as his .314 BABIP and 77.3% strand rate were not far from where you’d expect them to be.

The guy who entered the season battling for the 5th rotation spot (kind of) has pitched like the ace so far. Hughes will probably come back to earth somewhat, but he is already showing that he has the ability to be a top starter.

Position Player:
Nick Swisher, .374/.441/.670, 102 PA

Even with bicep troubles which limited his playing time somewhat, Swisher still managed to absolutely crush the ball in May. His .478 wOBA was the best on the team in May by nearly 100 points.

On the season overall, Nick is off to a torrid start (.317/.397/.563), but has been aided by a highly inflated .376 BABIP (.281 career). Given that more balls have been falling in for hits, he has been more apt to swing (44.7% of the time) and his walk rate on the season is down to 9.5% from his career 13.8%. As long as Swisher accumulates the missing free passes when his bat inevitably cools down, he will continue to be a very productive player.

With May complete, we present the second installment of our Minor League Players of the Month, in addition to our regular Minor League Players of the Week.

Minor League Players of the Week:

Pitcher:
Andrew Brackman, 24, RHP, A+
6 IP, 7 K, 2 BB, 6 H, 0 ER

The much maligned Andrew Brackman makes his MLPW debut courtesy of his May 27th start versus Bradenton, in which he generated 7 groundball outs to 2 through the air. That’s actually been the story of Brackman so far this year (1.80 GO/AO, 55.5 GB%) which isn’t really the approach we heard he had around draft day. He’s pitching more like a finesse guy (6.87 K/9, 1.18 BB/9) this year, and while the improvement in his control is a great step forward, you’d like to see a pitcher with his stuff striking out more batters, especially considering he’s old for his level. There are reports that his velocity is down from last year, which could be the result of Brackman focusing on location instead of blowing people away. It would also make sense given the groundball numbers, as he’s probably trying to work on staying low in the zone.

As fans, we need to exercise patience with Andrew Brackman. He’s a behemoth at 6’10” and it’s going to take a lot of work for him to harness his mechanics. Brackman is only a year out from Tommy John, isn’t pitching terribly, and is making improvements in certain facets of his game. That’s forward progress. We’d all like him to be dominating the Florida State League at his advanced age, but for now we should be happy with baby steps in the right direction.

Position Player:
Brandon Laird, 22, RHB 3B, AA
.448/.448/.862 in 29 PAs

This is Brandon Laird’s second time appearing as Position Player of the Week this month.

Laird managed to post some crazy power numbers this week, trumping the performance from his first award winning week (.414 isoP this week, .280 May 10th – 16th). More than half of hits last week were for extra bases (7 of 13) and he managed to leg out his 7th career triple while sending two out of the park. Laird’s already close to matching his HR from total last year (14 in 2009, 10 so far this season), and he will probably make a run at his career high of 22 from when he was at Charleston two years ago. It’s great to have players, who traditionally struggle with slow starts, find a way to shirk that habit and start really establishing themselves as difference makers. We can only hope Laird keeps it up.

Minor League Players of the Month (May):

Pitcher:
Hector Noesi, 22, RHP, AA
22 IP, 11.81 K/9, 2.25 BB/9, 1.18 WHIP, 2.86 ERA

Hector Noesi has received Pitcher of the Week twice before.

Noesi made 4 official starts in May between A+ and AA (his fifth got canceled due to rain after 4 innings), posting a 2.86 ERA over that span, backed up by strong peripherals (10.23 K/9, 2.05 BB/9). Noesi’s May line is dragged down by his first AA start on the 22nd (5IP, 5ER) and his next game which was aborted due to rain. In that shortened appearance Noesi had gone four scoreless innings with 5 strikeouts and only one hit. If that game were to have become official, his stats for May would likely look even better. Even if it wasn’t an official game, it was nice to see Noesi rebound from that rocky Trenton debut. The guy hasn’t had two bad starts in a row the entire season and is entirely deserving of the award.

Position Player:
Brandon Laird, 22, RHB 3B, AA
.339/.374/.591 in 123 PAs

Unsurprisingly, the guy that wins Player of the Week twice in the month takes home the monthly honors. Laird has the most RBIs in AA ball and the third most in all of the minor leagues, primarily due to his strong May in which he notched 33. He’s also 4th in hits in AA (61). Given the Yankees’ farm system’s lack of position prospects, especially in the upper levels, it’s comforting to have Laird improving his stock.

May 20th: Post about Jeter’s struggles

Since: 19-46, .413/.499/.565

May 24th: Post about how the Yankees were slumping

Since: Yankees have gone 5-2

May 28th: Post about how the Yankees were having problems scoring runs

Since: The Yankees have averaged 9.25 runs per game

May 29th: Post about Teixeira’s season-long slump

Hits a 3-run bomb the next day.

Get your requests in now!

Since dropping 10 of 15, the Yankees have gone 5-2 including taking 3 out of 4 from the Indians. Monday’s slumpbuster was led by Andy Pettitte’s 7 innings of 1-run ball and a dead center grand slam by Alex Rodriguez.

2-4, with a 3-run blast

Heading in Saturday’s game, Mark Teixeira is 5 for his last 12 with 2 BB. Even with this nice output, his offensive line still stands at a shockingly low .218/.332/.378, and we’re on the doorstep of June. His .321 wOBA ranks 23rd out of 26 MLB first basemen with at least 150 PAs. That’s truly amazing.

Tex always starts slow, but he’s never been this bad this late. He had a poor April in 2009, but by this point in the season, he had turned it around to the tune of a .987 OPS.

So should we be worried about the Yankees’ $180 million investment?

The answer is no.

After pouring through his numbers, we can’t find anything that’s changed in Teixeira’s hitting approach. All of his rate stats check out 100% fine.

Teixeira’s walk rate (13.6%) and strikeout rate (19.7%) are right where they’ve always been. In fact, his .81 BB/K ratio is slightly better than it was in his 2009 campaign, and he’s not swinging at any more pitches outside the zone than normal (21.8%). He’s seeing the ball just fine.

His swing seems to be intact judging by his batted ball profile. His line drive rate (19.2%) is just a tick below where it was last year (19.8%), and even this small difference might just be some scorer bias. He isn’t getting popped up a lot – his infield flyball rate is the hovering around 9% just like last season. His flyball rate of 43% is nearly identical to his 2009 rate of 43.8%, which was a career high for Mark as it appeared he might have tweaked his swing, giving it a more of a Stadium-friendly uppercut motion. Additionally, his contact rate is actually the highest it’s ever been in his career at 85.7%. His lack of production just doesn’t make sense.

The main thing holding back Teixeira’s production right now is a horrific .236 BABIP (compared to his career .305). That’s almost always a sign that a player has been grotesquely unlucky. Short of injury, we expect Teixeira’s production going forward to be right in line with the past few seasons if he just keeps doing what he’s doing.