Dare we ask, what purpose does Ben Francisco serve?

Now hitting .091/.200/.091 (OPS+: -15, wRC+: -13), he gets platoon ABs against left-handed pitching, for which he’s shown no proficiency for hitting during his career. His career line against left-handed pitching is a below-average .247/.325/.402 (wRC+: 97).

And the funniest thing is that in his limited usage this season, Girardi has given him the most ABs at the 2nd and 5th spot in the batting order.

It’s hard to believe the Yankees can’t do any better than this.

CC’s four-seamer velocity averaged 91.1 mph Monday night versus his 92.4 mph average last season (93.9 mph in 2012). His average in 2013 is now 90.0 mph.

Has Sabathia been getting fastball tips from Jamie Moyer?

Game 15: Led by Pronky, Bombers bash Blue Jays (Yankees 9, Blue Jays 4)
Game Notes:
- Travis Hafner went 2-5 with a double and a home run
- Former Blue Jay Vernon Wells collected 2 hits, including a home run, and raised his 2013 OPS to .962
- Former Blue Jay Lyle Overbay also added a home run
- Ichiro Suzuki picked up his first two doubles of the season
- Andy Pettitte continued his solid season, going 7.1 innings while surrendering just 3 runs

YES Player of the Game: Andy Pettitte (.140 WPA)
Our Player of the Game: Pronk (.220 WPA)

Game 16: Vernon Wells continues to gnaw off the hand that fed him, Yanks beat Jays again (Yankees 5, Blue Jays 3)
Game Notes:
- Former Blue Jay Vernon Wells collected 3 hits, including a home run, and raised his 2013 OPS to 1.032
- Wells also scored the eventual winning run in the 10th inning on Aaron Loup’s throwing error
- Hirkoi Kuroda turned in his second straight excellent start, throwing 7.1 innings and allowing only 1 run while recording 7 strike outs
- David Robertson allowed 2 runs in the 8th inning, sending the game into extra innings

YES Player of the Game: Vernon Wells (.250 WPA)
Our Players of the Game: Vernon Wells (.250 WPA)

Game 17: Jays knock around Phelps, avoid sweep (Blue Jays 8, Yankees 4)
Game Notes:
- Former Blue Jay Vernon Wells collected 2 hits, and hit an impressive .467/.467/.867 in his 15 PA over 3 games against his former mates. He’s now at .317/.394/.619 for the season, and he’s totally going to keep this up, right? RIGHT?!?!???
- Yankee pitchers walked Adam Lind in all 4 of his plate appearances. He had walked only 5 times all year before this game.
- Chris Stewart homered for the fifth time. That’s the fifth time in his CAREER
- Travis Hafner stole a base for the first time since 2010
- Brett Gardner picked up his first stolen base on the season
- David Phelps turned in his worst outing of the season. He entered with the game tied in the 6th inning and proceeded to allow 3 runs in 3 innings

YES Player of the Game: Brett Lawrie (.166 WPA)
Our Player of the Game: Colby Rasmus (.208 WPA) – but special shout out goes to David Phelps and his -.273 WPA

The Yankees leave Canada with a 10-7 record. On Monday night, they’ll open a three game series in Tampa where the small crowds should make them feel right at home.

This week’s MLPW is dominated by players from the upper levels of the Yankees farm system, with a few exceptions from Charleston (A ball).

– Covering April 15th – April 21st games —

Pitcher:
Vidal Nuno, 25, LHP, AAA
11.2 IP, 14 K, 2 BB, 7 H, 1 ER
Notable: 26 K / 2 BB in 23.1 IP this season

This is Nuno’s first back-to-back MLPW win in 2013. We’d love to see him punch a ticket to the Bronx, although given the front office’s preference for veteranitude and Chien Ming Wang’s arrival, he could be waiting for a while. At the very least, he’s becoming a valuable prospect.

Hitter:
Corban Joseph, 24, LHB 2B, AAA
.433/.451/.767 in 31 PAs
Notable: 3 HR, 3 2B on the week

Corban Joseph is a friend of NoMaas. We interviewed him last July during his breakout season at Triple-A, in which the Tennessee native hit .266/.375/.465. After a great week, Joseph is now hitting .317/.388/.533 on the young campaign.

You may recall during Spring Training that the Yankees tried Joseph out at third base, a position he’s rarely played during his MiLB career.

The problem for Corban is that he’s blocked by one of the best players in baseball, and due to his lack of defensive versatility, the only way we see him getting a real shot is if the Yankees don’t re-sign Cano — which seems unlikely at present.

In our July interview, CoJo seemed aware that his big league opportunity may lay elsewhere:

SJK: Realistically, and this is a tough question, do you think you’ll still be with the Yankees a couple years from now or do you think you’ll be somewhere else where there’s an open spot? What’s your outlook?

CoJo: A lot of the guys say that if they [Yankees] need someone, they’ll make a trade for him. Being drafted by the Yankees, I’m a Yankee and I’ll always be a Yankee. I take pride in wearing my pinstripes everyday. Ultimately, you want to stick with the best team and play for the best team, and the Yankees are the best team.

But, as far as knowing who I’m going to play for…to be honest, I don’t know. I hope that I’ll be with the Yankees, and hope that I’ll get an opportunity to play, and be able to play in the Bronx one day. Ultimately, it’s a business and there’s possibilities that I can’t control. My mindset is to just fulfill my dream.

No matter where he ends up, Joseph continues to impress with his bat at Triple-A.

One of Corban’s 3 HRs on the week:

Honorable Mentions:

Mark Montgomery, 22, RHP, AAA
3 IP, 6 K, 1 BB, 1 H, 0 ER
Has now K’d 15 batters in 8 IP at Triple-A!! Only one walk

Taylor Garrison, 22, RHP, A
3 IP, 5 K, 0 BB, 1 H, 0 ER
Drafted by Dodgers in 2011 & didn’t sign, 2012 7th round Yankees pick

Rafael De Paula, 22, RHP, A
11 IP, 17 K, 4 BB, 6 H, 3 ER, 0 HR
Our Week 1 winner, racking up serious K numbers, very exciting prospect

Kyle Roller, 25, LHB 1B, AA
.517/.517/.793 in 29 PA
Could have easily won this week’s award, has hit at every level

JR Murphy, 22, RHB C, AA
.315/.409/.842 in 22 PA
Also could have won this week’s award due to his 3-HR performance on April 18th

Rob Segedin, 24, RHB 3B, AA
.360/.448/.720 in 29 PA
Hitting .333/.384/.603 in 69 PA

David Adams, 25, RHB 3B/2B, AAA
.450/.522/.650 in 23 PA
Shockingly released by the Yanks in spring training, and then re-signed. Hit first HR of the season (video) during the week.

Peter O’Brien, 22, RHB C, A
.368/.428/.632 in 21 PA
Last week’s MLPW winner, hitting .298/.346/.596

And in the “Maybe They Should Try Him in the Bullpen, Because He Obviously Can’t Start” Category

Dellin Betances, 25, RHP, AAA
4 IP, 4 K, 3 BB, 4 H, 5 ER, 1 HR
ERA now 13.50, 9 K / 7 BB in 8.2 IP

Francisco Cervelli is doing some very non-Francisco-Cervelli things at the plate.

In the very limited action that is April 2013 to date, he has been extremely productive behind the plate, both offensive and defensively. If Cervelli were to stop playing baseball right now, his 2013 fWAR is within sniffing distance of his career all-time high for a single season (0.7 WAR in 2013 / 0.9 WAR in 2010), and he has basically accounted for 30% of his total career WAR in the first month of the 2013 season alone.

What’s different this year? Well, for one, Cervelli is walking a lot more. How much more? Try double his career rate. To date, Cervelli has walked nearly 18% of the time, a figure which is far higher than his career mark of 8.7%. Of course, these results have been achieved in limited action so, like all April results, they mean basically nothing. However, maybe, just maybe, Cervelli has changed his approach. The following chart is Cervelli’s swing chart for pitches in 2013:

Versus his career swing chart from 2009 to 2011 (when he accrued the vast majority of his big league plate appearances):

Again, this data is very inconclusive based on the sample size alone. However, one thing is obvious: the outlier swing events are much less severe so far. In 2013, Cervelli has avoided swinging at some of the more severe outside-the-zone pitches that he has chased in the past. Whether this is the result of a more disciplined approach or something else remains to be seen. At the very least, if he can avoid getting himself out…perhaps the offensive catching situation isn’t so bad after all?

(Swing Data from Texas Leaguers)

When the Yankees traded for Ichiro, we pointed out that the Japanese legend had been THE worst hitting outfielder in the bigs since the start of the 2011 season.

After a change-of-scenery post-trade surge, in which he chopstick’d (per David Cone) his way to a .322/.340/.454 line with the Yankees, Ichiro is now looking like the hitter he was when he left Seattle — in fact, he’s looking even worse.

Heading into Sunday’s game versus Toronto, the Yankees right-fielder is hitting .213/.269/.319 (52 wRC+). Ouch.

The biggest factor behind Ichiro’s slow start is his ultra-low BABIP. For his career, he has a very high .346 batting average on balls in play, and over the last two seasons he was at .297. This year, though, he’s all the way down to .222.

Ichiro’s line drive rate now stands at 16.7% (though it was below 10% only a few days ago – hooray for small sample sizes!) That’s not a great LD% (his career rate is 20.6%), but it should produce a BABIP much closer to .300. We should expect to see at least some correction going forward.

What is worrisome, though, are Ichiro’s plate disciple numbers.

According to PITCHf/x data, he is swinging at fewer pitches than ever before — 43.2% swing rate in 2013 vs 47.0% swing rate in his career. More importantly, most of the reduction in swings has occurred at pitches thrown inside the strike zone. Consistently swinging at over 60% of strikes for his career, he’s now down to 53.5%, which means he’s watching more hittable pitches go by.

And when Ichiro does swing, he’s making contact at a career-low rate – 83.5% contact rate in 2013 vs 90.0% contact rate in his career.

All of this non-swinging and non-contact could be a factor in his 7.7% walk rate (second-highest of his career), as well as his 11.5% strike out rate (also the second-highest of his career).

If Ichiro is being more selective, it hasn’t resulted in more power — he entered Friday’s game with only one extra base hit all season. It isn’t helping him drive the ball more either, as seen by his line drive rate.

It is possible that, at 39 years old, he is having trouble identifying pitches. That would lead to swings like this one. (WARNING: This swing is so bad that it may burn your eyes).

Hopefully, the plate disciple numbers are a function of small sample size, because if they are a pitch recognition issue, it could be a long two years for the future Hall of Famer.

Circa 2007:

Saturday:

The resurgent Vernon Wells is 5-for-10, including two home runs, against the club that made him filthy rich.


- Buy Yankees Tickets

2-5, 2B, HR — now hitting .349/.440/.767

A Twitter conversation between John Flaherty and a random gentleman:

“@bxfynestpr718: @flash17yes Would you trade Robinson Cano if it meant bringing back top prospects for 3b, SS, n also s starting pitcher?”no

— John Flaherty (@flash17yes) April 18, 2013