May 17, 2012 -- 11:06AM, 61in61 wrote:

May 17, 2012 -- 10:20AM, BigGuy wrote:

On offensive slumps and frustration

By Mike Axisa

(REUTERS/Mark Blinch)

I don’t know if there’s anything in baseball more frustrating than an underachieving team. If there is, I’m not sure I want to know. The Yankees have underachieved through their first 37 games of the season, but don’t confuse underachieving with being bad. They’ve played okay at best overall, but that’s not what they’re capable of. They haven’t played up to their full potential, specifically the starting pitching last month and the offense this month.

Last night’s 8-1 loss to the Blue Jays marked the eighth time in their last 16 games that the Yankees were held to two runs or less. That’s very hard to swallow. They’ve hit just .258/.323/.425 during those 16 games compared to a .279/.354/.479 performance in their first 21 games of the season. Their strikeout rate has gone up (15.7 K% vs. 18.4 K%) and their walk rate has gone down (10.2 BB% vs. 8.1 BB%) during those two admittedly arbitrary samples. Maybe the only difference between the first 21 games and the last 16 games is Derek Jeter‘s ridiculous hot streak. Who knows?

Is the offense going to come around at some point and start clicking on all (or at least most) cylinders? Yeah probably. It’ll be glorious when it happens but I don’t expect it to happen anytime soon. The Yankees appear content to just keep running the same ol’ lineup out there every night and hope that these problems will just correct themselves, which is fine I suppose. I wish they were a little more proactive with making slight changes — dropping Mark Teixeira in the lineup, moving Raul Ibanez and Nick Swisher up, etc. — but there’s value in patience. It’s just tough to expect improvement when no changes are made.

One thing that I do believe is very important right now is getting Curtis Granderson a day off. I don’t mean sometime this weekend or early next week, I’m talking tonight on the turf in Toronto. Granderson’s started every game of the season in center field and he’s stuck in a 5-for-36 rut at the moment (four of those five hits are homers, ironically enough), so let’s get the man off his feet for once. It may help re-ignite his bat or it may not, but I do know that fatigued players are less effective players. A day of rest for Curtis could end up helping the offense in a big way.

There are still 125 games to go this year and that’s great news because the Yankees are going need all the time they can get to figure this thing out. They’re lucky the AL East is so competitive right now because no team has really run away with the division yet. Sitting 3.5 games back in mid-May is nothing, not when there are so many intra-divison games left to play. The Yankees don’t need a shake-up or anything drastic, but they do need to start showing signs of improvement. Talk is cheap; it’s not all that early in the season anymore and the excuses are starting to run out. This is a results town and the results haven’t been there this month.

I wouldn't say that the starting pitching has not played to their potential. I think what you have seen IS their potential. More often than not in the games the Yanks have lost the starting pitchers have put the Yanks in a hole in the first 3 innings. They have allowed 81 runs in the first 3 innings compared to 56 in innings 4-6, and 30 in innings 7-9. They allow almost as many runs in the first 3 innings as in the entire rest of the game 81-86. That translates into a 5.84 ERA in innings 1-3. They have allowed 35 runs in the 1st inning alone which is a 6.57 ERA.

The Yanks score a lot of runs but with their propensity to not hit with RISP and manufacture runs its difficult to win when the other team is consistently getting an early lead.

The bottom line is the starting pitchers need to start shutting the other team down. That, and make sure Mike DiMuro is the homeplate umpire. Their ERA is 0.00 when he is the homeplate ump. LOL.

Nice Italian boy.  lol

Figuring Out The Yankees Early Season Struggles

by Brandon C. on May 17, 2012 12:36 PM EDT

Tom Szczerbowski-US PRESSWIRE - PresswireMore photos »

about 18 hours ago: May 16, 2012; Toronto, ON, Canada; New York Yankees starting pitcher Hiroki Kuroda (18) reacts after surrendering a hit against the Toronto Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre. The Blue Jays beat the Yankees 8-1. Mandatory Credit: Tom Szczerbowski-US PRESSWIRE

As many of you have discussed here, this season the Yankees look a bit off. At 20-17, the Yankees are in third place in the AL East, only three games ahead of the Red Sox, who are in last place in the AL East.

Despite all of the panic going around, whether it be about the rotation, Mark Teixeira's lack of hitting, Alex Rodriguez' lack of power, or the injuries, I'm still confident about the future of this team offensively.

Let's first talk about the hitting. The Yankees are among the top ten teams in the MLB this season in batting average, runs, hits, home runs (obviously) RBI, OBP (!) and SLG.

The lineup may not look intimidating every night, but the Yankees work the count, get on base, and while they may mainly rely on home runs, they still get the job done. The offense will get a spark when (if) Mark Teixeira gets into his groove and gets healthy, and when (if) Russell Martin returns to his average self and Brett Gardner returns.

Meanwhile, the Yankees rotation is a problem right now. The Yankees are only in the top ten in walks allowed and strikeouts thrown, but the rotation simply is not doing their job right now. Hiroki Kuroda is wildly inconsistent, Ivan Nova regressed after a solid start to the season, and Andy Pettitte is a mystery right now.

The positives of the rotation are that CC Sabathia is, well, CC Sabathia, and Phil Hughes looks like he is improving. If Hughes can be an acceptable #4 or #5 starter, Andy Pettitte can pitch at least close to the Andy Pettitte of old, and Hiroki Kuroda can pitch like he did for the Dodgers, the Yankees rotation will be fine.

Still, that's a lot of ifs.

May 17, 2012 -- 12:53PM, BigGuy wrote:

Not easy to figure out why Yankees' Kuroda is inconsistent

11:09 AM, May 17, 2012 ι By KEN DAVIDOFF

The Blue Jays knocked around Hiroki Kuroda for the Yankees’ second straight loss, and the specific takeaway from this night has to be Kuroda himself. He has a 4.50 ERA in eight starts, and he has been a picture of inconsistency.

Look at it this way – the 4.50 ERA meets the minimum standard for a “quality start” (at least six innings pitched and no more than three runs allowed), and Kuroda has four quality starts and four that aren’t, which means this isn’t an ERA inflated by one or two dreadful outings. It’s about right.

Is it the league change? It has to be the league change, right? We want to ask that question so often with Kuroda that it reminds me of this line from this episode of “The Simpsons”, as Marge gets anxious on a plane.

Homer: Marge, what's wrong? Are you hungry? Sleepy? Gassy? Is it gas? It's gas, isn't it?

Well, let’s look at the teams Kuroda has faced, and let’s see where those teams rank offensively in the American League. Then we’ll give a “ranking count,” awarding 14 points for the top team, 13 for the second-best team and so on. The higher the ranking count, the stronger the offenses he has faced Quality starts (4): Angels (11th in AL in runs scored, 4 ranking points), Baltimore (tied for 3rd, 12), Texas (1st, 14) and Seattle (12th, 3). Total ranking count: 33 points.

Non-quality starts (4): Tampa Bay (6th, 9), Minnesota (14th, 1), Kansas City (10th, 5) and Toronto (5th, 10). Total ranking count: 25.

To translate, Kuroda’s quality starts have come against better offensive teams, collectively, than his non-quality starts.

Could you argue that an overall higher level of competition is leading to Kuroda’s inconsistency? That he has to amp it up so much against the Texases and Baltimores that he doesn’t have enough left in the tank for the Minnesotas and Kansas Citys? You sure could argue that. I’m not convinced it’s true, but you could argue it.

Let’s tackle it from this angle: While acknowledging that ERA is an imperfect gauge – it relies a good amount of the defense behind Kuroda – how unusual is it for him to have a 4.50 ERA in his first eight starts?

Well, I looked at Kuroda’s game logs from his four prior seasons (thanks, Baseball-Reference.com), all with the Dodgers. From 2008 through 2011, Kuroda tallied a total of 11 eight-game stretches in which his ERA was 4.50 or worse. That broke down to five in 2008, three in 2009, three in 2010 and zero last year. That’s out of a possible 82 such spans, a 13.4 percent rate.

Conclusions? Kuroda’s start to the season definitely has to discourage the Yankees. There’s no disputing just how difficult the league transition is, and all the more so when you go from the National League West -- home of the banjo-hitting Padres and Giants and their respective pitcher-friendly ballparks, not to mention Kuroda’s own former pitchers’ haven Dodger Stadium.

As we keep saying, though – and as we’ll eventually stop saying – it’s early. The aforementioned inconsistency shows that he has occasionally pitched quite well, rather than just stringing together a bunch of decent starts.

In this young Yankees season, Kuroda is just one more player whom the Yankees need to trend upward and live up to his track record. Just like Mark Teixeira, Robinson Cano and Russell Martin. But the league change adds doubt to a Kuroda correction.

--Have a great day.

Read more: www.nypost.com/p/blogs/baseballinsider/n...

Wow...4.50 is a quality start? How far have we fallen in pitcher expectations. It used to be anything under 4.00 was quality; 4.50 would get you latrine duty in Toledo...or Durham.

(Photo via The Post and Courier)

The minor league season is roughly six weeks old, about a quarter of the way through the 140-game schedule for the four full season leagues. Almost every high-upside position player prospect in the Yankees’ system is playing for Low-A Charleston at the moment, and they’re all raking. Tyler Austin has more homers (12) than any non-Curtis Granderson player in the organization, Gary Sanchez owns a .333/.380/.483 batting line as a 19-year-old, and Dante Bichette Jr. is in the middle of a hot streak (hitting .367 in his last eight games) after a slow start.

Then there’s Mason Williams, the team’s top position player prospect coming into the season in my opinion. As you can see in the sidebar, he’s produced a .366 wOBA in 141 plate appearances this year, flashing both power (14 extra-base hits) and speed (12 steals). As impressive as those numbers are, his strikeout and walk rates are eye-popping. Williams has only struck out six times in those 141 plate appearances, a hilariously low 4.3 K%*. His eight walks result in a 5.7 BB%, meaning he’s put the ball in play in nine out of ten plate appearances this year. That’s just out of this world.

* Furthermore, two of those strikeouts came in consecutive plate appearances against Dylan Bundy a few weeks ago, arguably the best pitching prospect in the world right now. Against mere mortals, his strikeout rate is 2.9%. Ridiculous.

I bring this up because sometime in the near future, we’re going to see some prospects get midseason promotions to the next level. Some promotions are more exciting than others but they all indicate some kind of progress. Sanchez will surely get bumped to High-A Tampa because he’s repeating Low-A, just as an example.

Most players drafted out of high school will spend a full year at each level, at least in the lower minors when they’re first cutting their teeth. Obviously there is the occasional Justin Upton-esque exception, but a full year at each level is a decent rule of thumb. Williams came into this season with 317 short season plate appearances and added those 141 plate appearances this year, which amount to 458 career plate appearances. About a hundred short of a full season’s worth. That said, I think Mason’s absurd strikeout and walk rates are an indication that he’s ready for the next level.

Simply put, Williams is not having trouble getting the bat on the ball. Keith Law confirmed Mason’s more aggressive approach (compared to last season) when he saw him last month, and those low strikeout and walk rates indicate that he’s putting the ball in play early in the count. The lack of walks isn’t the result of an inability to recognize balls and strikes, Williams is just putting the ball in play before he sees four balls. Based on the results, it’s hard to complain. That’s why I think a promotion to High-A is worthwhile this summer; he’ll have a chance to face better pitching and continue developing his approach at the plate. It’s tough to get comfortable in deep counts or work on a two-strike approach if you can put the ball in play at will.

Development is not usually something we can accurately measure with statistics, but we rely on them because as outsiders, that’s all we have. We don’t get to see how these kids react to breaking balls or use their changeup in a fastball counts on an everyday basis, so there’s always going to be an element of the unknown for us. Frankly, it’s a pretty significantly sized element of unknown. From here though, it looks like Williams could benefit from a promotion to High-A despite his relatively short stint with the River Dogs.

May 17, 2012 -- 5:10PM, BigGuy wrote:

Yankees claim INF Antonelli

Ivan Nova is on his way to throw a bullpen and expects to start Saturday, meanwhile, the Yankees just sent this announcement…

The Yankees have acquired INF Matt Antonelli off waivers from the Baltimore Orioles.

Antonelli, 27, has appeared in 29 games with Triple-A Norfolk this season, batting .204 (19-for-93) with four doubles, one home run, seven RBI and 19 walks. He has appeared in games at first base, second base, third base, shortstop and left field. Selected by San Diego in the first round (17th overall) in the 2006 First-Year Player Draft, he saw his lone Major League action with the Padres in 2008, batting .193 (11-for-57) with six runs, two doubles, one home run and three RBI in 21 games as a September call-up.

Antonelli is anticipated to join Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre this weekend. To make room on the 40-man roster, the Yankees transferred LHP Cesar Cabral (left elbow fracture) to the 60-day disabled list.

Ok this makes up for not getting Darvish. Start printing those WS tickets.