100- That sounds excelent and I think and is likely to happen.
Then we can have a rotation of CC, Lee, Joba, Hughes and AJ in 2010

But, the key for success for the next offseason is not overpay for Jeter and Mo, but that seems very difficult.

[99] I agree, I was just making the point that after this year hughes and joba won’t have any more roadblocks in the rotation, be it other pitchers or inning counts; even IF cashman re-signed javy in place of andy. Which, I agree, is not a great idea.

[102] Honestly, the Jeter and Mo contracts should come from the marketing budget, not the payroll pool.

In other news, those famous page 3 rallies are going to be far too easy to accomplish now.  Guess it will have to be renamed to the page 10 rally!

[103] - The same thing could have been said about this season.  The roadblock to them being in the rotation this year is they are still unknown and the Yankees don’t want two unknowns in the rotation.  Of course, the only reason Hughes is such an unknown is because they went out of their way to keep him out of the rotation in 2009.  They had every chance to give him 2-3 months worth of starts.

Let say Hughes gets the #5 in 2010 and has an ok but not great season.  Like all young pitchers he has his struggles, especially towards the end of the season as he is reaching his innings limit.  Let’s say Joba is in AAA most of the year and gets 8 or 9 starts and shows a lot of promise in most but one or two of them was bad.

Then what?  Basically they are no different than where they are right now.

Also, if the idea of limiting the comments to 100 a page is to limit traffic then you need to automatically take people to the second page when they click on the link or else you are actually increasing traffic.

Thinking about this, not many threads get above 200 comments.  The way it is now you click once to get to page 1 and again to page 2.  You are actually increasing the amount of traffic because you have to load the original post and all the side and top data twice.

[107] it also makes it a lot easier to hit the too many clicks in a limited amount of time thing. I’m sure many of us have that problem without additional navigation. I do.

Don’t remember who talked about Joba to AAA to start the season, but I agree. Joba spent less than a year in the minors. A half year or less refining his pitches and figuring out how to pitch deeper in games wouldn’t hurt him.

But, I doubt the Yankees stash either Joba or Phil in AAA since they’ve both been great options out of the BP.

[109] Do you think the Yankees are this shortsighted (not sarcastic)?  I agree with your point regarding bullpen usage, but starting the year in the bullpen is a lot different than transitioning toward the end of the year on an innings cap.

I truly hope that the Yankees start one of JC/PH in AAA or at the very least allow them to pitch 3-6 innings every 4-5 days rather than the typical bullpen usage.

I am inclined to believe that there is a true plan in place with JC/PH otherwise there’s no doubt in my mind that Cashman would have traded one (if not both) already.  I thought for sure that the pitching trade was going to include one or the other.  Why would Cashman keep both if he believes one is destined for the bullpen?  Especially if other teams are trading for either with the belief that he will be a number 1, 2, or 3 starter? 

He has to, realistically, be grooming them to replace Andy Pettitte.  I see no other reason to keep them both on board.  Heir to Mo?  Maybe, but if they’re billed as “potential #1s,” that’s selling pretty low on potential IMHO.  Either Cashman isn’t done dealing or the Yankees believe both are top flight starters.  There’s no reason to hold on to them for THIS long otherwise.  Both trades this offseason did not include either.  I guarantee both names were tossed around. 

I will be severely disappointed if either one is relegated to “teh ayf.”  I’d rather have seen a trade for Doc at that point, to be honest.

Also, welcome back to CT.  I’m up in the Farmington area.

Do you think the Yankees are this shortsighted (not sarcastic)?  I agree with your point regarding bullpen usage, but starting the year in the bullpen is a lot different than transitioning toward the end of the year on an innings cap.

Then how do you explain Hughes staying in the pen last year?  He was moved to the pen permanently 2 months into the season and didn’t reach his innings cap.

From Joel Sherman:

An NL executive and an agent told me the Yankees were talking regularly to the representatives for Reed Johnson.

throw Joba in AAA for a few months, get the extra year

Hughes is going to be arb eligible at the end of 2010 no matter what

Since I’m the one who brought this up first, I think I should clarify things.  Joba and Hughes are both almost certainly going to be arb eligible after 2010 no matter what.  Hughes probably needs less than a month in MLB to be a super-two.  Chamberlain probably needs a little less than half a season.  The “extra year” that you can get is an extra arb year before they hit free agency.  If you want that extra year with Hughes, 2010 is your last chance to limit his MLB service time since it’s his last option year.  Joba still has all his options left, so you could theoretically clip him a month or so in each of the next three years if you wanted to be really dickish about it.  You would need to limit Chamberlain to 116 days of service time and Hughes to 47 this year to keep them under 3 full years, and therefore under six full years at the end of 2013.

Johnson against lefties last year (68 at-bats)

BA: .324
OBP: .403
SLG:    .500

[112] What was Hughes’ cap last year?  I must have missed that press conference.

He threw 110 innings coming off a disastrous, injury-plagued 70 inning season.  And he was quite valuable in the role he filled.  It’s pretty easy to imagine that a couple more months in the rotation would have either required shutting him down or resulted in a serious injury risk.  It’s pretty hard to argue with the way things turned out.

In 147 at-bats in 2008:

BA:.333
OBP: .399
SLG:  .449

Reed Johnson made $3m last season. He is 33. He put up a 89 OPS+ overall.    His splits were:

v. R: .628 (97)
v. L: .903 (68)

In this market, a paycut wouldn’t be unreasonable. So if they really wanted him, wouldn’t they have signed him? That leads me to believe that they are looking at someone else and that he is a fallback option.

He need to hit refresh before I hit submit.

I need…duh.

Reed Johnson looks like he might be an ok platooner for us, good split against lefties.  How’s his D?

According to UZR, great in LF until last season, but he only played 10 games, so it’s probably meaningless.

How’s his D?

By UZR for all OF positions:

2006: 15.3 (25.3 UZR/150)
2007: -0.3 (-0.5 UZR/150)
2008: -0.3 (-0.2 UZR/150)
2009: -1.2 (-5.2 UZR/150)

“good split against lefties”

Apparently the sabremetric position is that unusual splits are probably statistical fluctuations.

[112] [116]

Maybe they’re following the same progression for Hughes as they did for Joba?  I agree that he shouldn’t have been in the ‘pen all year, but as MC said, it’s hard to argue with the results.

Joba stayed in the bullpen for most of 2008 and then started 2009 in the rotation and more or less stayed there.  If I’m not mistaken, he pitched ~100 innings in 2008 and then was capped at around 150-160 for 2009.  Seems like Phil is doing something similar, no?  ~100IP in the ‘pen in 2009 and then what I would like to HOPE is 150-160 in the rotation. 

The big difference between the two is that in 2006 (I think) Hughes pitched ~150 innings, so he shouldn’t have a hard cap.  That being said, I wouldn’t mind seeing either of them start in AAA to guarantee they both hit ~175 innings this year. 

I don’t disagree with you sd, I’m just optimistic.  If I start thinking that one of Joba or Phil will be permanently in the ‘pen, I will get angry with the team.  Like I said before, if you’re going to keep one in the ‘pen to be Mo’s heir, then you might as well just trade one of them.  It’s a waste of potential, IMHO.

Hoffman may present a more interesting (although granted, a higher risk) option against LHP, especially since Baseball America named him as the Dodgers Best Defensive Outfielder going into 2009.

I don’t see the point of a non-star addition to LF.
Would the marginal gain over Greedy be worth spending any money on?
Unless they think that exposing Greedy will decrease, rather than increase his value…
I also do think that both Hughes and Gardner will end up in the rotation, barring some kind of catastrophe.  The FO tends to say the opposite of what it means to do when talking about acquisitions, but not at all with respect to player development.  It is interesting to consider whether they’d ship one of the back to AAA for a while, but I’d doubt they’d do it so as to put off their free agency - that would seem to risk engendering player resentment, and GM (lantern) seems to put a lot of stock in the positive clubhouse spirit created last year.

“Gardner will end up in the rotation”

Even I’m not that optimistic about him.

Nady?

[128]
Heh.  Ooops.

Also, welcome back to CT.  I’m up in the Farmington area.

I’m in Farmington.  Not much here.

I don’t see the point of a non-star addition to LF.

They need a righthanded bat to spell one of Granderson/
Gardner vs lefties. As I said in post 64, Johnson is a perfect fit. His three year splits vs lefties are .329/.395/.493, he runs well, has a good glove in left, and shouldn’t be very expensive. I think he should start in left vs lefties, with Granderson sliding back over to center. I’d actually much rather see them sign Johnson than make a big commitment to Holliday, who I don’t think is an elite player.

Johnson can also play a decent centerfield FWIW, giving him an edge over someone like Nady.

I’m relatively certain that the Farmington area is more interesting than my current location. There’s a reason its called the quiet corner.

They need a righthanded bat to spell one of Granderson/Gardner vs lefties.
Do they, thought?

I would prefer giving Gardner a chance to fail v. RH and LH pitching than signing Reed Johnson.

[135]
thought=though
What is with me tonight?
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!