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Monday, April 9, 2007

Welcome Back

To those of you that were with me before, welcome back, and to those of you who are new, welcome. This section of the RLYW will be your one stop spot for Yankee related minor league analysis. There might be some other things going on here as well, but the focus will be the minor leagues. I’m going to try and do a daily recap of the night’s minor league action as well as larger analysis of a particular player whenever I feel the urge. My goal is that whenever trade rumor season or emergency call-up season begins, you know everything there is to know about the players being discussed. Last summer I was able to go see some games in Trenton as well as Staten Island and this summer, depending on where I end up working, I’m hoping to add Scranton to the list of weekend destinations. Hopefully, I will be able to contribute pictures, videos, and more personalized/in-depth scouting reports from these features. It’s one thing to read about how awesome Phil Hughes is or look at Eric Duncan’s stat line and think about how poor his hitting is. It’s another to go to the game and see that Hughes is in fact more awesome than the rest of the players on the field, or that Duncan actually has promise beyond his batting line, but his defense may need work. These are things I was able to pick up on last summer and emphasize in my writing.

I also hope that we’re able to develop a nice little community here. When you go to games, and going to minor league games is always a cheap and entertaining way to get a little baseball in, I invite you to post recaps in the comments section. Mike K. recently attended a Scranton game and this is what he had to say:

Was at Ohlendorf’s game today.  Only stayed for 5 innings (missed Duncan’s HR by an inning), because it was COLD.  I showed up with four-layers of clothing on, and bought layer #5 (SWB Yankees sweatshirt), and was STILL cold.

Ohlendorf looked okay, but not great.  He let up 3 runs in 5 innings (haven’t checked yet if he pitched the sixth), and had some walks.  Early on, he was really popping the mitt.  I was sitting in one of about 20 seats where you couldn’t see the MPH reading on the scoreboard, so that’s the most I can say about his fastball.

Sardinha bailed him out a couple of times.  Second batter of the game hit a single to right and tried to stretch it, but a nice throw to second got him.  Top of the fourth, bases loaded 1 out and a fly was hit to medium right field.  Run scored, but Sardinha threw a laser to third, to get that runner.

Duncan had one nice play at first on a popup bunt he had to make a running catch on (kinda over the shoulder), and another play that he *might* have been able to make on a grounder that got by him.  I was too far away to tell if he should have it it, but I believe it was ruled a single.

So to summarize thus far, I’m going to try and provide tons of unique/rewarding commentary and I hope you do the same. Moving on, let’s address the things on the right side of your screen. Starting from the top, RLYW network will get you to other portions of the RLYW site. Local Flavor is where to go if you want to check out what the local papers of the various minor league affiliates are saying about our guys. There are also a few local blogs that should be fun to check out as well. This is a nice way to get more in-depth game recaps because for the most part, my in-depth recaps will be limited to games I attend/watch/listen to. If anyone knows of any more papers or blogs, please feel free to let me know in the comments section and I will add them. Affiliate Sites is an easy way to get to the minorleaguebaseball.com official team websites for the farm clubs. I won’t say I love minorleaguebaseball.com, but I think it’s a very good site and it has steadily improved since MLB took it over. Finally, MiLB analysis links you to some of my favorite sites for prospect news, notes, and analysis. Some of the sites are Yankee-centric, some aren’t, but they’re all a good read...I think.

How about the watches? The Carl Pavano DL Watch™ can also be referred to as The Yankee Rotation is Sucking Too Much Watch™, Mike Mussina’s 86MPH Fastball Scares Me Watch™, Andy Pettitte’s 89MPH Cutter is Bothering Me Watch™, Chien-Ming Wang’s Alarming Lack of Strikeouts Watch™, Why is Kei Igawa Pitching With Sunglasses Watch™, Darrel Rasner’s Curveball is Cool But The Rest of His Stuff I’m Not As Sure About Watch™, or even the Jeff Karstens’ Gameday Picture Frightened Me Last Year and Is Only Slightly Improved This Year Watch™. Whatever the name, the focus will be on the guys pitching at AAA and looking like they might be in line for a call-up. While the primary peripherals are listed, The Watch will sort by ERA because that’s usually how these things are done. Next up is The Brett Gardner Drive The Ball Watch™. There are people who think Gardner has a spot in some form of a future Yankee OF. I’m not in that camp...until he starts driving the ball. I don’t care if he doesn’t hit home runs, but he has to hit some doubles and triples or pitchers at the ML level will simply knock the bat out of his hands. This year, I’ll be tracking his isolated power as well as his number of extra base hits. Finally, there is the Eric Duncan Needs To Hit For Average Watch™. Duncan had a great AA stretch last year, injury and all. Unfortunately, a low AVG makes his performance look mediocre. In addition, despite the fact that AVG is generally overrated, consistently posting a low one limits your offensive utility. I believe in Duncan’s power and patience, but he needs to hit for average for those two aspects of his game to mean something, so we’re going to track that as well.

In closing, the Minor Yankee Blog is back. I’m excited about the new site, I’m excited about the upcoming minor league season, and hopefully we can have some fun with this.

P.S.: In pulling over some of my old work, there were some formatting issues...I’ll try to attend to that ASAP.