The Yankees are faced with a number of issues in the short-term and long-term, writes Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com. Among their long-term issues is the fact that their position player average age is 32.7 years. One scout is also concerned that Robinson Cano hasn't looked like himself lately which is an unfortunate development for the Yanks as they appear to be intent on locking him up for the long-term. Here's more from around baseball.
- Royals General Manager Dayton Moore says that the club will "probably" wait until after the season to explore contract talks with pending free agent Jeremy Guthrie, tweets Bob Dutton of The Kansas City Star. Moore recently said that he will be focusing on the rotation this offseason, which includes trying to re-sign Guthrie. The 33-year-old is earning $8.5MM this season.
- One has to imagine that Diamondbacks pitchers Ian Kennedy and Daniel Hudson regret not signing lucrative extensions when they had the chance prior to this season, writes Nick Piecoro of The Arizona Republic. It's not known how much Arizona was offering to each pitcher, but Piecoro estimates that for Kennedy it was something close to $30MM and around $15MM for Hudson.
- A source tells Ben Badler of Baseball America that the Brewers are not planning to renew the contract of Fernando Arango, who has been one of the team's top scouts in Latin America since 2003. The club is looking for more production out of their Latin American department as they continue to work with a low-to-mid-range budget.
Kennedy is a Boras client who’s proven to be durable so far. I think he won’t be regretting much of anything by the time his career is over. He’ll be fine. His K and BB rates are pretty much in line with last year.
March/April- .267/.323/.389 = .712 OPS
May- .312/.364/.606 = .970 OPS
June- .340/.416/.730= 1.146 OPS
July- .314/.357/.486= .843 OPS
August- .283/.377/.485= .862 OPS
Sept/Oct- .250/.250/.688 = .938 (only 16 AB)
Today 0-2 w/ 2 BB
What a bum.
He hasn’t had over 1.000 OPS in 2 months. What a mope.
Is Heyman’s scout watching baseball games? Cano since June 1st: .309/.377/.572. Since July 31st: .280/.366/.534. Yep, definitely has something wrong with him.
but…he’s lazy. you know how those “naturally gifted athletes are”? “Struggling” = Not trying. Silly.
Might be in reference to the fact that Cano is in a 5-for-29 skid. Small sample size obviously.
Yeah, posting a .303/.365/.547 line a year after posting .302/.349/.533 is terrible and doesn’t show improvement at all. Especially at a premium offensive position like 2B where his solid defense doesn’t amount to much value. Total slacker who is completely undeserving of a big contract. Unfortunate indeed.
i’m sure he is. but he’s a scout, so he’s probably paying more attention to cano himself (swing mechanics, bat speed, etc.) than to where his balls in play end up
i have no idea whether anything has changed with cano, but you don’t need a scout to tell you about a guy’s stats. that’s not what he’s talking about
Considering how many games Cano’s protection in the lineup has missed due to injury, I think he’s having a pretty good year.
“The Yankees are faced with a number of issues in the short-term and long-term”
What team is’nt?
The Nationals?
… other than that guy who led their rotation all season who isn’t going to be pitching for them in the playoffs
And being locked into that Werth contract for 5 years. But that’s practically their only problems right now. So they’re in very good condition compared to most teams right now.
Yanks will be fine. Lock up Bourn this winter & move Grandy to the corner. Gardner back and nothing would drop in that OF.
Except that Granderson is a horrible defensive outfielder.
Bourn and Gardner both? Maybe have 10 HRs between them. I’ll pass.
That’s the problem with the yanks, they depend way to much on the long ball and have no on base ability at all. With bourn and Gardner you get that. Sure hitting a home run sells tickets but it doesn’t necessarily win a game. With an aging core coupled with the brass calling for a lowered payroll your yanks will look like the phillies faster then you’d think.
“No on base ability at all.” The Yankees are 5th in MLB for OBP…only .007 points behind first place. Yeah, they have no on base ability at all.
Depending on money, Guthrie wouldn’t be a bad fit in Boston. Not as a savior, but as maybe a #4 guy. Right now, they go into 2013 with Lester, Buchholz, Doubront and ??? Guthrie might be cheap enough.
I think Guthrie likes the idea of pitching in the vast expanse that is Kauffman Stadium. Not sure he’s a good fit in Boston because he can give up a lot of long fly balls that are caught in KC but out in Beantown.
Right now the Sox have Lester, Buchholz, Doubront, and Lackey as locks for spots with De La Rosa and Morales possibly trying out for the 5th man spot. So yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Sox add another major league ready starter though I think Guthrie would be a bad move. The rate that he was giving up home runs in Colorado makes me worried. I’d rather see them make a move on Marcum or Jackson.
I would look at how he did over 5 seasons at Baltimore (offensive friendly also) rather than 2 months at Mile high stadium.
We could also look at his career numbers in Fenway as well as his track record against the AL East and still get worried.
Career Fenway Numbers:
10 games, 51.2 IP, 11 HR, 20 2B, 3 3B, 6.62 ERA
As I said, those numbers worry me.
all of his fenway numbers happen to also be against best-in-league red sox lineups, so you have to scale those numbers down a bit
nonetheless, guthrie is a back-of-the-rotation arm. not a meaningful upgrade
Top teams tend to have top offenses which brings up the issue how would Guthrie fare against teams like the yanks or Rangers?
it does, but that has nothing to do with fenway
the more data the better, so looking at his performance against those teams is better than looking at his performannce in fenway. still better would be to look at his past ~4 seasons altogether, as johnsilver suggested. best would be to look at his past ~4 seasons including this one. no cherry picking
any way you slice it, though, your conclusion is correct: do not want
What’s the fuss? Yanks can stick to their policy of not extending players under contract and see how it plays out over the next 190+ games. That’s an eternity in baseball.