Should be a fun year. The AL East on paper is going to be very close where any team can end up on top. Hopefully Yankee pitching can keep the team in it until reinforcements return from the DL.
Also from the grave. Maybe Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig will return to their former glory. I’m rooting for a big season from Whitey Ford myself.
The pitching is strong and the hitting is starting off weak but Teix will probably be back and Granderson will be back after 6 weeks. Not the scariest lineup but well when was Tampa’s lineup ever scary and they have been their year after year of late competing for the post season.
Though I admit Whitey is more likely to help the Yanks then A-Rod this year. BTW: Whitey is still alive, not among the dead which your post seems to imply.
Yanks picked up Vernon Wells today, I think that is a positive overall as they got him very cheap.
It’s unclear to me how Vernon Wells is at this point a positive at any price. He is a dreadful player, and extremely ill suited to Yankee Stadium. Unless the Yankees used a time machine and got the 2006 version of Wells, this doesn’t improve them at all.
He just has to be better than Brennan Boesch. The deal isn’t done yet, apparently.
You have to consider the context of a Yankee fan grasping at straws. He’s got an aged team, injuries galore (the best case he can make is that Granderson and Texiera will ONLY miss a few months of the season, combined, and that a 39-year-old injured shortstop will play enough to hold the infield together), and an average pitching staff which if you hold your head like this and squint can be made out to be better than average, then Vernon Wells can help. I look forward to seeing the Yankees at the bottom of the AL east for once, and I look forward to a season of Yankee fans explaining to me how they’re just about to make their run at the pennant.
I’m not sure the Yankees are a worse team than Boston, and I think Baltimore is going to shock people by how great they won’t be. Really, the division has no clear-cut finishing order; you could construct a scenario for almost any possibility. But not one of the five teams in the division has any use for Vernon Wells. You;d be better off just plucking some minor league hero out of someone’s AAA team. My understanding is that the Yankees are really impressed that Wells is hitting well this spring training, which suggests to me that the Yankees are now run by people who have never, ever, ever watched a spring training. If I had a dollar for every March hero who had a great spring training and then come April reverted back to his usual level of mediocrity, I’d have more money than Vernon Wells.
Yeah, I guess he might be better than Brennan Boesch, but maybe not. Boesch was horrible last year but at least he’s only 28 and was pretty good the year before last. Now he’s hurt, though, so who knows.
From what I see, the Yankees are going to be chipping in $14 million for Wells’ contract this year. That’s not cheap. There are any number of shitty outfielders they could have gotten for less. The Yankees’ front office is just floundering at this point.
Case in point: 2013 Dodgers and Juan Uribe.
I just got back from a week in Arizona, saw 6 games in 5 days.
Highlights:
Jay Bruce and Yoenis Cespedes absolutely creaming homers (in different games).
Coco Crisp going over the wall to steal a home run
Billy Hamilton showing bunt on the first pitch, and then hitting one towards the gap the next pitch. I immediately thought “triple,” even while it was in the air, and it was.
Watching the Brewers do pop up practice - they start putting one ball into a pitching machine angled way up high, and each time they catch one, they up the ante by putting an extra ball in the machine - the best they got up to was 8 separate popups and 8 separate fielders going after them before they missed one
Someone on Reddit mentioned that they purchased a Brewers ticket package with a weird twist - each time the Brewers win one of those games, the seats for the next game get better. If they win the first 8, the last game’s seats are the best in the house.
Someone suggested that if they instead lose the first 8, the should get tickets to a Cubs game.
Are you sure?
(Indians fan here, I’m allowed to rib you!)
Last night the early report I saw was only $10 million. Today I am seeing $13m. It doesn’t really seem worth it.
Go Tribe!
The snowplow just came down my street. It’s baseball season!
The expense isn’t $10 million or $14 million or whatever. The cost is that you’re committing yourself to putting a really, really terrible outfielder in a spot in the lineup. Wells used to be a good player but if he plays regularly he’ll be one of the ten worst players in the major leagues, a prediction I make based on the observation that he has been one of the worst players in the major leagues for a few years now. The money’s not super relevant to the Yankees; what’s more relevant is that they are putting a huge hole in the lineup that, practically speaking, can’t be removed for at least half a season.
By comparison, had they given the job to, say, Melky Mesa or Ben Francisco,
A) You’d save money,
B) Realistically, Mesa/Francisco would probably have been just as good a player, and
C) If Mesa/Francisco tanks horribly, it’s not a big deal to admit it on April 26 and put someone else in there. But, realistically, they can’t give up on Wells that quickly.
Mesa at least has a possible upside.
I’m not saying the money’s nothing, by any means. Some reports say the Yankees are assuming $14 million a YEAR, which would mean the Yankees will be paying Vernon Wells as much as the Blue Jays are paying Jose Bautista, an absolutely staggering fact. But even at one tenth the cost this is a bizarre, inexplicable move. There is no earthly reason why you would want Vernon Wells. He is a nice man and was once an All-Star, but today he would improve no major league ballclub. I cannot for the life of me understand this.
The stink of desperation and cluenessless came through, to me, when I read they were trying to lure Chipper Jones out of retirement, and Derrek Lee. I mean, these guys had retired, were out of baseball, had gotten into who-knows-what kind of shape, and the Yankees were begging them to rethink their career plans? Not a good sign.
Well, it’s looking like the end of the line for the great Chris Carpenter. Last week he was saying now he’s just focused on being able to do normal activities with his arm for the rest of his life. Coming back to play is probably not going to happen.
Thanks for all those awesome games, Carp. We’ll miss you.
In other news, the Cards will be starting the season with Freese and Beltran on the DL. Well, damn.
And Motte. 
I still have high hopes for the season, though.
No I’m not sure! 
I’ve been a Cubs fan for 30 years, I’ve seen a lot of bad baseball. If anyone could be out of the running in April, it’s the Cubs.
Well, what I find baffling is that they’re willing to give Wells a pile of money, but didn’t want to retain Nick Swisher. That’s just… why? I know Swisher can be a bit of a pill, but he’s a good ballplayer, and the Indians got him for a decent price. Apparently the Yankees made Swisher a lowball offer, no it wasn’t like there was some irrevocable relationship damage there, but they didn’t want to pony up a few bucks and now look where they are.
That said, the Yankees pitching staff is pretty good. Nova was bad last year but his K/W ratio suggests a guy who stands to improve. This is not a team without hope. In a division where everyone is flawed, just having a rotation hold up and be effective for 162 games could win you a playoff spot. Boston has more holes than Swiss cheese, Baltimore isn’t really that good, Tampa Bay does not have a fantastic lineup, and Toronto is a huge experiment to see if a bunch of All-Star pitchers can overcome a lot of guys with .280 OBPs. I find it entirely plausible that the Yankees could finish anywhere from first to last.