Concerned Pt. 3: The OF

Melky Cabrera sucks. Well, his fielding is good, but everything else sucks. After showing promise in his first season he has not only failed to develop, he's gotten worse every year. His OPS+ has gone from 95 to 89 and is currently sitting at 76. And if his numbers look bad his at-bats look worse. It's as if he has Cano's approach with no skill to back it up. At 23 he's still very young, but we may have seen enough to guess where his future lies.

During this past off season I was hoping Cashman would look into trading Johnny Damon, but short of a recent shoulder injury, he's having one of the finest season of his career. As a LFer, he needs to be productive with the bat to maintain positive value at a key offensive position. I doubt he continues this pace and I'm not sure what to expect of him next year. As salaries continue to climb, would we be able to cash in on this potential career year in a trade?

Bobby Abreu should not be batting third anymore. His signature patience is all but gone as his OBP is 55 points below career avg. His decline offensively has been remarkably consistent since turning 30: OPS+ 145, 126, 126, 114, and 109 before today's game. Defensively, he's atrocious. So bad in fact, overall, he's a below average player. If the Yankees think about re-signing him they should be shot.

Ouch! Posada may be done for season

From Tyler Kepner of the Times:

Posada said this surgery would be more intensive that his last surgery, which occurred after the 2001 season. He was ready for spring training the next February, but he said the surgery this time could carry a six-month recovery period. Having surgery now could be Posada’s only option to start 2009 healthy.

This sucks. Not so much for the immediate future as much as it's implications on the next three years of his stupid contract. If the extra year/money was a tip of the cap to him from the Steinbrenners for all he's given this organization, then so be it. But the second this contract interferes with planning out the future (see Teixeira, Mark) I'll be royally pissed.

This is not what the team needs

YANKEES BUZZ
Teams that have spoken with the Yankees in recent weeks say Brian Cashman's top priority is a left-handed reliever. With the whole world interested in the Rockies' Brian Fuentes, the Yankees are looking at other options in case the price for him gets too high. They don't think they can get Baltimore's George Sherrill, whose price will be high and who pitches for a division rival. Other names that have come up include Pittsburgh's Damaso Marte and John Grabow and Kansas City's Ron Mahay, who has also drawn interest from the St. Louis Cardinals.

We can only hope this is Brian's "I'm comfortable with Bubba Crosby as our CFer" strategy and not what he actually believes.

Posada should not be catching

Watching the A's game right now and it's obvious that Posada is done behind the plate. If his inability to prevent wild pitches or passed balls wasn't enough, now he can't even reach second base on steal attempts. It's only a matter of time before the entire league knows that anyone can run at anytime.

I'm not sure how his shoulder will respond to off season surgery, but if it's not close to 100% it's time to look elsewhere. With Yadier Molina firmly planted at C in St. Louis perhaps the Yankees can inquire about Bryan Anderson. If we're selling maybe they'd want Mussina or Pettitte?

Tie game!

Update: Win Expectancy Finder added to the side bar. In extras the home team wins 65.7% of the time.

Update 2: Added some really fun PitchFX tools too. You have to check out Joba Chamberlain's start today. Fastball got faster as the game wore on. It looks like he got squeezed by the ump too. Jebus, have they sucked this year or what?

Update: Jose Molina is the balls.

Trades?

Yankees are looking at Bay or Nady from the Pirates.

The yanks are 5 1/2 back in the Wild card. With Matsui out, a move to get some offensive help could get them the wins they need to make the playoffs.

Manny being Manny

River Ave strikes again with a juicy rumor that Manny's three pitch looking K by Rivera was actually a f### you to management.

Concerned Pt. 2: 1B, 2B, 3B

Ranked second among AL 1b in OPS, Jason Giambi is indeed having a better season than anyone envisioned. Just imagine how inept this offense would be without him. With that said, Jason has not been very durable, averaging a mere 110 games played over the last four years. It looks as though we might continue to get production out of him for the remainder of the season, but the question his outstanding performance has raised is, "Should the Yankees bring him back?"

Robinson Cano may be the dumbest player in baseball. You curse him for swinging 3-0 at a ball by his feet and love the raw talent he displays when he turns it into a double. Entering this season with huge expectations, Cano has been comparatively terrible. Looking at his peripheral stats it seems he's been hitting into bad luck. His LD% is up over last year while somehow his BABIP dropped considerably. Simply put, his numbers will improve in the second half. The silver lining to his rough start is that his fielding has been spectacular. Going forward he should be a cog in this team but we're not sure he's the potential #3 hitter people expect him to develop into.

Alex Rodriguez' contract is awful; however, Alex Rodriguez the baseball player is not awful. Despite an extended absence due to a strained quad, he's putting up numbers similar to his best seasons, while also displaying solid defense at 3b. The guy is great at baseball, what else is there to say?