The Genius Maker™ Yankee Blog: 3-31-12

Saturday, March 31, 2012

3-31-12

I don’t get too caught up in spring training, but I do look for injuries and someone young or old doing something unexpected. Pettitte coming back was unexpected and the Yanks did the only thing they could…sign him and let him get ready. I am not sure we need him, but he definitely learned how to pitch differently after he was in Houston and if his arm is healthy and his body can stay healthy, he will be helpful.

I didn’t like any of the signings for the DH spot and as I said before I would rather have one of the younger and good defensive OF’rs play once in awhile and DH Swisher and then use the DH for the other players than use the Randy Winn’s, err, I mean Ibanez, Bill Hall types. I did think that as a cheap signing Branyan would be a better option than Ibanez, but Branyan has had a hurt back and I am not sure is he has even played yet. Still, let one of the younger guys like (not necessarily him) Chris Dickerson play IMO as we get better defense and probably better production…not sure why they are in love with Ibanez, but I hope he proves me wrong.

Back to the pitching, I am very disappointed in the spring training showing of Pineda. Now he is on the 15 day DL with a sore shoulder; couldn’t have been much worse, especially with the guy I wanted them to go after, Yu Darvish, throwing in the mid 90’s and looking very good. Not sure how a guy who was one of the top 5-10 hardest throwers in the game last year looks more like Phil Hughes? Very odd. Also, Bartolo, pitched 8 innings in Japan for a game that counted already…good for Colon!

I will write after opening day (Friday) and then take a few days off before resuming. I hope everyone is doing great and looking forward to a fun season for the Yanks. If I have time I will get my thoughts on the players out before the season starts (I usually do), but if I am a week late, so be it. Once the season has hot stride, I should post 4-5 days a week.

Take care

Steve

2 comments:

Erik GMarch 31, 2012 at 10:50 PM
I like the Pettite signing, we need a lefty starter. I dont trust hughes or Garcia. Ibanez has a long history of bad springs, but we will see when the season starts. He also has a long history of quick starts to begin the season. HOW ABOUT BICHETTE!!! Nice future for him and us!
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The Genius Maker Yankee BlogApril 1, 2012 at 12:44 PM
Not sure we need a lefty starter as a good starter is more important. However, when you have so many righties in the pen, it is a little better. Ibanez can't play defense and I don;t expect much offense and in this case, give me a younger guy. Bichette would be great for us as we need some more offensive guys coming up. For those who don;t know, Bichette hit HR's on the first 2 pitches he saw. Not sure he will be able to keep up that pace :)
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A little bit about this blog!

While much thought goes into what I put down on paper, I write this blog in a free form “stream of consciousness” way to get my thoughts down very quickly. This is not meant to be a literary masterpiece but is meant to be hardcore Yankee information that is in-depth with predictions, thoughts and insight (you can judge whether I accomplish any of this). Because of my busy schedule, it is more important I get the information down rather than spend the time re-reading, re-writing and modifying. I will apologize in advance for any typo, homophone and spelling type of errors.

That being said, as always, I will give you my breakdown for each Yankee player and what I expect from them. I will also make predictions and then critique my thoughts/opinions/predictions after the season (or during). I will also offer very detailed analysis of in-game situations. This blog will not be a fluff piece. As I have done over the years, I will lay my thoughts out for all to see and I will let my track record speak for itself.

Finally, I will use OPS extremely often because I believe it is a great indication of the value of an offensive player. OPS is the slugging percentage (covers the power) and the on base percentage (covers the batting average and walks) added together. There are a lot of advanced stats out there, but for consistency, I will use OPS because outside of not taking ball park/league differences into account, the stat works great. Further, OPS against works well to gauge the success of pitchers (and is not used very often in that context)

I am an ex-catcher who played Division I baseball at Valparaiso University.

My baseball career ended with a broken disc in my back that I injured between my Jr. and Sr. years. I did play my entire Sr. year with the injury, however, I barely hit above .300 and the injury eventually required the fusion of L5 and S1.

At Valpo, we played teams such as Notre Dame, IU, Purdue and Northwestern. I was a Wade Boggs type of hitter (not as good obviously) with a .355 batting average, not much power and a .500+ OBP in college. I had the school record for walks (which has since been broken). Defensively, I was very solid throwing runners out (with a slightly below average major league arm, but a better than average release with excellent accuracy). I was good at blocking balls in the dirt, but below major league in receiving skills (the ability to actually catch the received pitch with very soft hands). I could call a game with anyone and I do hold a Division I record that will never be broken; I went my entire Junior year without committing an error (1.000 fielding %).

At the end of the day, I was not physically good enough to get to the majors, but I do have a gift with a great understanding of the game from a General Manager standpoint. My strength is on the value of players from a trade, dollar and team perspective, with a thorough understanding of the "X's and O's" of game management (honed from a SABR understanding and ex-player combination combined with my business acumen). I watch the game from a catchers perspective while calling every pitch.

I hope you enjoy my Yankee ramblings and feel free to follow me on Twitter @swigdor22

The Genius Maker™ Yankee Blog

Saturday, March 31, 2012

3-31-12

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