ESPN's Keith Law presents his Top 100 Prospects, followed by BPro's Kevin Goldstein's Top 100. Both lists have five Yankees.
- Cliff Corcoran says we should be glad we didn't get Santana. And I agree with him.
- Pinstripes Plus just finished ranking their top 50 Yankee prospects. The top five: Tabata, Montero, Jackson, Betances, Horne. (Joba and Kennedy must have been considered ineligible.)
I'll be somewhere in the Caribbean Sea. My wife and I were planning a Winter cruise months ago, and I told her the Superbowl is on the first Sunday in February. That wasn't enough, so I said what if the Giants were in it? She looked at me like I had two heads. She was right - the Giants were picked by some to be the worst team in football. So alas, there I'll be, wandering about a giant boat, trying to find a bar with the game on, hopefully without any New England fans present. Wish me luck.
PS: check out the new Stadium pics from last weekend.
from Jon Heyman:
If you can really fault the Twins, perhaps it was for failing to pounce on the Yankees' offer of top young pitcher Phil Hughes, center fielder Melky Cabrera, pitching prospect Jeffrey Marquez and a fourth undetermined prospect when it was briefly on the table for the first couple days of the winter meetings back in early December. Instead, the Twins pressed for the Yankees to also include another top young pitcher, Ian Kennedy, going for the grand slam. If you want to hit the Twins, hit them for that.
The Yankees' proposal, however fleeting, may have been the best one. Even the AL scout who defended the Twins thought so, saying, "I think the Yankees' deal would have been better because those two guys (Hughes and Cabrera) already showed what they can do in the big leagues.''
Even if that's true -- and Cabrera is no world-beater yet (even those who don't love Gomez say he's "a tick above'' Cabrera in terms of value) -- it's still hard to knock Smith for ignoring Hank Steinbrenner's quick deadline and pressing for more.
Who could have thought Hank the Yank would actually stick to the deadline this time? In Steinbrenner the Junior's tenure at the top, he has showed he is willing to change his mind (hence the re-signing of A-Rod), to seal certain deals by giving away the store (thus a fourth year for 36-year-old catcher Jorge Posada) and even to over-rule general manager Brian Cashman (both A-Rod and Posada). So it's understandable why Smith still hoped for more.
But as we know by now, Cashman made a strong stand, building a convincing case regarding Hughes' toughness and potential. Then Hank's younger brother Hal, who controls the purse strings, tightened hard before Hank could loosen them again.
When the Twins made a last pass at the Yankees on Tuesday, it was too late. So when Cashman told the Twins yet again that Hughes was off the table, the Twins went for the gusto, requesting that instead Cashman send them both Kennedy and Chien-Ming Wang to go with Cabrera and Marquez. Why not? By then, it was clear that there was only one place left to go, and that was the Mets.
So Carlos Gomez was pulled from Winter ball as part of a trade. Frankly, Minnesota got screwed here. Both the original Boston and Yankee offers were better. Instead, rookie GM Bill Smith overplayed his hand (a phrase that's quickly become cliched over the past week) and got a disappointing haul for Santana: Gomez, Humber, Mulvey and Guerra (the Mets 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 7th best prospects). In early December, Minny had their choice of Phil Hughes, Jon Lester and Jacoby Ellsbury - all better than any of the Mets trade chips. A Yankee offer of Ian Kennedy, Alan Horne, Melky and AJax destroys that Met offer, so perhaps it really was about the money (for the Yanks). I can't believe the Twinkies caved and accepted an FMart-less offer. The deal still isn't 100% done, as the Mets have 72 hours to reach an extension with Santana, but that should merely be a formality. It seems Smith was going to either (1) try to fleece an AL team, or (2) get him out of the league for the best offer he could muster.
Thank goodness the Sawx didn't acquire him, because they would've been nearly unbeatable for the next three years with Santana leading the rotation. They probably could have acquired him for only Lester and Ellsbury - yes, two good prospects, but certainly not studs, and Santana would have locked up the division for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, the money seems to have been too much for them too. This is a win for both Boston and the Yanks. A true rarity.
Credit should be given to Brian Cashman for not overreacting to Boston's (and Hank's) interest. I'm relieved he didn't go to Boston and that we didn't lose Hughes, but also pissed the Mets got him for a considerably inferior offer.
The only real loser is Minnesota. If you want to feel real pity (by reading the disgusted opinions of Twins fans), visit here.
- Now that that's finally over, I can close the 'Santana to the Yanks' poll on the right. An overwhelming majority were against trading Phil Hughes for Santana (73%), 19% were in favor of it and 7% wanted to know who the 'mid-level' prospects were. Thanks for voting!
For the Mets that is. Carlos Gomez was pulled off his Winter League team. Could be nothing or could be something.
- Brian Banister gave a great interview (also at MLBTR). I especially liked his description of the three types of quality ML pitchers.
- The Cano deal's been finalized. $30 million guaranteed, with the potential to make $57 mil.
- If the Jints want to win on Sunday, they should cheat, just like the Pats.
I'm certainly no expert on pitching mechanics, but a famous (or infamous) article about the differences in Phil Hughes' delivery between '06 and '07 says that Hughes' arm slot was lower in his stellar year of 2006. The video clips that Carlos Gomez used in his analysis were a one-inning stint from the 2006 Futures Game and his ML debut.
Instead, I used a regular season start from 2006 (Trenton vs. Binghamton) and compared it to his LDS Game 3 outing. I don't know the exact date of the Double-A game, but in two games (13.1 innings) against Binghamton in 2006 (before the Futures Game), he allowed 14 hits, 2 HR, 3 bb, and 18 Ks. Pretty damn good. And he appears to have the exact same arm slot as he did in the LDS. (The Futures Game had him throwing about 2 o'clock compared to 1 o'clock in Trenton and the LDS.)
Isn't it possible that in that one inning in the Futures Game, Hughes was a bit amped up, causing him to throw a bit differently? I mean, if we're going to get a truer look at his 2006 delivery, isn't a normal regular season Trenton start more telling than a one inning relief appearance in the Futures Game? Going by that and Dave Eiland's re-appearance (and the effect that had on Hughes), I believe his September and October mechanics were virtually identical to his '06 delivery when he had his best year. The same arm slot and the same fantastic results make this quite probable. So did Hughes ever change his arm slot? Perhaps not.
(Wish I could capture the screenshots I'm talking about, but no can do with YouTube and WMP.)
The '27 Yankees were good. So good, in fact, that their team OPS+ was 137 and their team ERA+ was 120! They led the league in both categories.
- are steroids responsible for the power surge that began in the early '90s? I still say yes (at least partially).
