The Genius Maker #79

So, let me get this straight, we want to have a 6 man rotation so that we can keep Burnett in the rotation AND to allow Hughes to stay there as well? OK, at least I understand the logic…

Of course, we could have tried to trade Burnett for any prospect and paid most of his salary like I would have wanted (I think some team would have taken him for “free”). I also didn’t want to send Nova down as I think he is a better pitcher than Hughes. Hughes is without question behind Nova. His command of his pitches was simply awful. He would consistently miss his target. You simply can’t pitch in the majors without better control than that. This is the exact reason why Burnett can’t pitch. Too many fat pitches will get you beat in this league. Burnett’s stuff is still solid, but he doesn’t throw 96+ anymore like he did when he was with Toronto. His breaking ball is good, but unless he works in his change and develop that into a pitch that is thrown 15% of the time effectively, he will not be successful. At this stage, I stick with what I said last year and that was that I had no confidence in him and I surely would not pitch him in the postseason (same for this year). Hughes’ stuff isn’t that good and he needs to be more of a pitcher (using at least 4 pitches) and hone his control. While walks are bad, it is also about throwing quality strikes and not just strikes.

BTW, Noesi would be a better option in our rotation, but I would not have him and Nova back to back because they are similar.

Logan has been pitching very solid for us

The offense: If I am correct, the Yankees had 17 plate appearances with the bases loaded on Friday. That is absurd…and we set a record with 3 grand slams for our trouble.

Congrats to Martin who had a phenomenal game!

Other comments:

We still have not attempted a squeeze of any time this year; that is bad for a lot of reasons as the defense doesn’t even think about defending it. Do you think that maybe with Gardner struggling and facing a lefty, we might try it? BTW, many of you are surprised that I don’t care that much about whether a batter strikes out or not. I care more about their production and if they get out by strike outs I don’t care. While a strike out is non productive, it guarantees at least 3 pitches form the pitcher, and it also guarantees we don’t hit into a DP. Also, as we have seen with Gardner, a pop up is the same as a strikeout.

Cano’s defense has been back to his top notch area after being sub par for the first half of the year (sub par for him and average for others).

ARod looks old in the field; hopefully it is just rust.

Jeter had 2 errors yesterday on the types of hits at him balls he must make with all his other short comings in the field.

Nunez took a throw on a SB attempt and showed just how great Cano is on tags. It is not a coincidence that Martin throws more guys out when Cano takes the throw compared to Jeter and Nunez…Cano’s hands are so quick.

While Jeter has been getting more cheap hits than any hitter I can remember, what is more important is that he is driving the ball better than he has in 2 years. The triple was a fantastic sign and his singles up the middle/right have been solid hits as well. This is huge for us because we need him to stay solid and get ARod on track. With Ellsbury putting up such a good year, Ortiz hitting well again and Gonzalez added to the others, the Red Sox have the offense and 2 very good starters (3 if Bucholz gets back) to make life tough for us.

The Yankees claimed Carlos Pena and my belief is that I would not pick him up unless we get him cheap. I would not give up a lot as he hasn’t been all that much better than Posada against righties. .865 - .830 (that is better though) and it only makes sense if you will release Posada (which I don’t think they will do). I know the rosters will expand but I only care about the postseason. Posada has been swinging better of late so dropping him now seems odd. Maybe if they can get him cheap we let him play and see how Pena does and then make the correct decision for the postseason…I guess I am a little indifferent because Posada has been swinging better and the way ARod has looked in the field, we may want him to do some DH’ing.

ARod hitting a homer to RC was a great sign. When he is going well that is where he picks up a lot of homers. His stroke has been more of a line drive one of late, but we need him to be the .900+ OPS guy for us to advance.

Earlier in the year I talked about how the starters were playing over their heads and the offense was doing worse. Now the starters have been struggling and the hitting has been better.