A Couple Of Funny Things About the Yankee Narrative
This year, the farm is ready to help the team, and has with some pitching, but also has good position players who can hit. And still they went outside the organization at the deadline for help.
Funny.
Also, all year people have said the Yanks need pitching because of all of the injuries. Yet, the pitching has been fair to awesome. It's the O that needed more help than Prado and Drew can provide.
Funny.
posted by Kalel9 @ 11:35 AM
13 Comments:
I think there is a reasonable chance that Drew is the SS next year.
Whatever Cashman may or may not think, it seems apparent that Levine/Hal like brand names.
Why Prado is better brand than Pirela is beyond me.
Sure, Prado is "proven" (to be mediocre at this point), but the real question is why wasn't Pirela tried earlier instead of giving Roberts enough rope to hang a bunch of *insert names of bad actors here"
It's just weird. I hope they sign Castillo today.
While I'm all for giving young guys a shot, it's rare that a hitter comes up and is better than league average. Look at Gregory Polanco, top 10 prospect, batted .350 in AAA and is only hitting .260 in MLB.
Surprisingly, I agree with LINJ, I have no idea why Roberts was trotted out there day in and day out for half a season. I like Pirela but to say he will be better or just as good as Prado may be a stretch. Prado has been slightly above avg the past 2 seasons and I don't think you can expect that from Pirela right now.
As I mentioned in earlier threads, the 40 man roster crunch is driving some of these decisions.
Kale -- Any idea what the status is with Flores? I would have liked to see him get a call up this season and take Ichiro's AB's to get his feet wet but all I remember is him hurting an ankle months ago and nothing since. He was finally showing some power to go along with his great eye, I had always thought pundits were low on him because he didn't have those tools, similar to how everyone hated Cano.
Flores still seems to be hurt.
Btw, Billy, I am a big believer in energy, and I actually think calling kids up also makes the older players wake up. Cano and Wang did that for the team in 2005. Melky did it in 2006... Tanaka, Betances and Greene have done it by turns this year.
There is also something that Checketts once talked about when he was with the Knicks (referencing that Yankees back when Stick was developing players).
Because homegrown players are schooled in the culture of the organization from the moment they are drafted/signed, by the time they reach the big club they understand the pressure and everything that accompanies it, so their path to success (relative or otherwise) is likely to be more predictable.
Contrast that to veterans that are brought in, who may have a tough time adjusting to the culture shock. For example, some think that McCann has been as tight as a drum.
And yes, along with the energy is the youthful excitement which makes the game fun again for often jaded veterans.
I agree 100% about the energy levels, although I think it takes a certain type of player to make it infectious throughotu the club. If you look at Melky & Cano, they had this charisma that impacted everyone.
Unfortunately, we don't know what Pirela brings to the table cause he hasn't gotten that chance.
Zealous Wheeler == yuck
I would say that kids from the system have been flat out tougher than the FA's we bring in in most instances.
Wheeler is 27 and has only been in the Yankee organization for a year.
He's just fodder (NTTAWWT).
Yeah, Wheeler et al, were minor league FA's they invited to camp not knowing so many prospects would take off. They aren't of the system.
My comment about Wheeler was meant to portray the fact that we called him up over Pirela was disgusting.
I try to stay optimistic about certain moves but the three biggest head scratchers to me are:
1. Calling up Wheeler > Pirela
2. Playing Roberts for so long
3. Keeping Matt Daley around (finally DFAd today)
This is the 3rd or 4th time they've DFA'd Daley this year. No one every claims him and he ends up back on the 40.
...and keeps getting called up, which is maddening, as is carrying a 13-man pitching staff in general.
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