Is that with Bedard on the Mariners as well?

Not yet.  Sounds like that trade is far from definite.

Yeah I was just reading that.. someone jumped the gun and said it was a done deal, but it looks like Bedard might even extend in Baltimore.

I think the Yankees’ biggest weakness is in the pen, not in the rotation. It will be interesting to see how that impacts Joba’s role, and for how long. btw, Despite that weakness, I would prefer that Joba be in the rotation.

re #4:

I don’t think we’ll know what the Yankees’ biggest weakness will be until maybe the end of April.  It’s entirely possible that Wang won’t progress - not get worse just not better - Pettitte will regress quite a bit, Moose will be wholly ineffective, and none of the young starters (IPK, Hughes, Joba) will be ready to be serious contributers.  The pen though certainly could get some very good contributions form Britton, Edwar, and Ohlendorf, Rivera could be Rivera, and Farnsworth could have one of his good seasons.

Or the exact opposite could happen.  Wang could add that “out” pitch and get is K/9 up around 6 and be dominant.  Pettitte could continue to be an above average innings eater.  Moose certainly *could* pitch more like 2006 than last year, and Hughes/Kennedy/Joba could all pitch so well that the Yankees have the best rotation in the league.  At the same time, Rivera’s early-season struggles could last yet longer, Farnsworth could completely implode, and the young pitchers could amount to nothing.

God I love this game!

I’m worried about the pen too, but I think there are a lot of live arms in the organization and I think Joe Girardi is a good manager for trying to sort out a workable pen from that.

Farnsworth and Hawkins aren’t particularly good, but they should be serviceable.   

If Joba is in the pen, I hope it’s not as an 8th inning setup man, and more in the Johan Santana 2002-2003 role.  He needs to be a starter.

if we learn anything from last year it is the importance coming out of spring training with starters that are going more than 5 innings. Hopefully they can do that and save the pen some innings and hopefully let our bullpen role players gain some confidence.

The offense will be there as usual…pitching wins and hopefully the trinity can take us to the promised land.

SG…agreed on Joba usage give him a few innings 5(if necessary)-6-7 and let either hawkins of the karate kid get their shit together and step up in the 8th

I’m just glad there’s closure on Santana one way or another. 

...Our long national nightmare is over.

this post is a huge relief.  I’ve been reading so many negative comments on other sites regarding the yankees’s chances that 1) it had me worried about the yankees’ chances and 2) made me worry about my own ability to objectively look at the talent on this team.

I look at the 2008 team and think it might be slightly worse than the SECOND version of the 2007 team (the one that essentially ran the table after the first two months of the regular season).  If you look at opening day lineups between 2008 and 2007 there is a lot of addition by subtraction.  Then, there’s also the slim (but non zero) chance that the kids could really step up.

This is the first time IN YEARS that i’m actually excited by the opening day roster.

Keith Law just put out his top 100 prospects: ESPN: Keith Law’s top 100 prospects.

At this point at least it is free.  Yankees have 3 of the top 24, and 5 overall.  I think there are also a few Yankees that *could* make Law look silly for not including them.  Such as Brett Gardner, Alan Horne, and Humberto Sanchez, among others.  Not saying he was wrong to not include them as all of question marks (will Gardner display any power, is Horne a product of being old for his level, will Sanchez recover from injury, etc.), but at first glance those are the guys I think that could flourish.

Is it ok if I fix your link Mike K so the page width gets back to normal?

do we agree with Law’s assessment of Kennedy’s velocity? 

i thought he “touched 92-93 on occasion”, but i have been wrong before.

He works with a fringe-average fastball that touches 90 mph on occasion but mostly falls in the 87-88 mph range, and he commands it to all four edges of the zone.

Ian Kennedy’s Pitch F/X data:

According to that, Kennedy’s average fastball is 90.97 mph.  I guess it depends on the gun, but I think Law’s a little low in his assessment.

Is it ok if I fix your link Mike K so the page width gets back to normal?

Always is…busy day at work (so I shouldn’t even be here), so I’m not taking the time I normally do to review things.

we got morgan ensberg? Anyone got a link?

Yep, just posted a new thread about it.

cant wait for the next top 20 list, ive been actively trying to incorporate “gehrig that” into my vocabulary meaning to dominate as in - yo im totally gonna gehrig that TPS report.
keep up the good work love the site

Two questions about this:  Why are the Indians no longer the favorites to win the AL Central, also what makes the Yankees better than the Indians?

The Tigers and Indians came out within about a half a win of each other in SG’s December sims, and they’re within a game and a half in this run.  The SD on wins for each team overlap quite a bit.  So I’d say that the difference between December 19 and January 31 is just noise, and I’d say that the Tigers and idians are co-favorites in the Central.

As for what makes the Yankees better than the Indians, my guess would be offense, plus a bit of regression for Sabbathia and Carmona.  But again, these are just simulations, and with one team projected for 90-103 wins and the other projected for 84-95, they’re actually quite close.

As for what makes the Yankees better than the Indians, my guess would be offense, plus a bit of regression for Sabbathia and Carmona.

Yeah, there’s some projected regression for Sabathia and Carmona, as well as for Betancourt and Perez.  I would say there’s not a nickel’s worth of difference between Cleveland and Detroit right now on virtual paper.

I think the Yankees are simming high because their young pitching projects to be pretty good.  As such, I’d say the error bars are pretty high on their projection.  Dan Szymborski from Baseball Think Factory just released his own project disk so I’ll be running those soon to see what they say.

IIRC, ZiPs was pretty kind to Chamberlain, Hughes and Kennedy.  Something like 425 total innings at a combined ERA+ around 110.  Is Cairo more optimistic than that?

Is Cairo more optimistic than that?

Latest version of CAIRO had Kennedy at a 4.49 ERA (ERA+ of 100), Joba at a 4.13 ERA (ERA+ of 108) and Hughes at a 3.88 ERA (115 ERA+).  I guess not.  Problem with young pitchers is they could very easily meet those projections, or they could all have ERAs twice as high.

FWIW, my early ZiPS runs through Diamond Mind LOVE the Yanks, although I’m still tweaking the depth charts.