The Yankees don’t appear to have any inclination to go hunting for a big league replacement for injured first baseman Greg Bird, as Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News tweets. “[Dustin] Ackley is the backup first baseman on the big-league level and we’ll explore replacing Bird for Scranton,” said Cashman. Needless to say, that quote doesn’t appear to put New York in the running for any of the better remaining free agent options.
Here are a few more stray notes from around the game:
- While the Cardinals have pursued outfield moves this winter, that doesn’t mean the team isn’t excited about its current group, MLB.com’s Jenifer Langosch writes. The lack of a major addition certainly opens the door to a full opportunity to younger options — Randal Grichuk and Stephen Piscotty, in particular. “You look at his progression through the Minor Leagues, and it was a perfect trend,” said GM John Mozeliak of Piscotty. “It was always getting better. There is a level of confidence that he’s the right guy to make the bet on.”
- The Fangraphs team has a few interesting looks at the recent five-player trade between the Brewers and Diamondbacks. Jeff Sullivan suggests that righty Chase Anderson delivers some sneaky value upside to Milwaukee. And Dave Cameron argues that Arizona might not have chosen the wisest route to upgrading its middle infield.
- The MLB.com prospect team rates the best tools among prospects. It’s no surprise that many of the leaderboards are dominated by the game’s very best overall young talents, but there are a few (somewhat) less-prominent players that took home top honors, too. Among them: Yankees shortstop Jorge Mateo (best speed) and righty Dillon Tate of the Rangers (top slider).
Anderson wouldn’t have made the rotation this year and Hill’s contract is something they’ve been trying to unload for a while.
Segura will be hit or miss, but I’m most interested in seeing what they do with that extra $ they will receive from getting rid of Hill. Bullpen upgrade would be nice.
The Diamondbacks make the most puzzling moves. This is a team that traded away their first round pick (Touki) to save some money less than a year ago. I wouldn’t count on that money being spent. Maybe they could save it and actually spend their full draft pool in June.
They are still paying for about half of Hill’s contract as well, it’s not like they shaved the whole thing. They gave up too much for Shelby Miller and gave Greinke way too much money but I like this trade. They may not have had that team to go all in on but they certainly are going for it.
What’s puzzling is that 18 months ago, the Cards had four years of Shelby Miller left….today, the DBacks have Shelby Miller for three more affordable years, the Braves have a top ten prospect and Ender Inciarte in exchange for Miller, and the Cubs have the elite player that the Cards got for those four years of Miller….the Cards made an eighties move and are now paying the price.
I agree. Cardinals get some draft picks but hardly the haul they gave up for Heyward. I’m sure they did it with the intention of resigning Heyward. I’m a Cardinals fan and while I hated the deal with the Braves I’m glad Heyward moved on. I understand the value of sabermetrics but the Cardinals struggle with overall power and the ability to score runs. What good is his glove when you lose 1-0 or a guy that gets on base but nobody to drive him in. He’s a better fit for the Cubs who have those guys around him.
Do you think the dbacks could of got a better pitcher in return for the price they got for miller? Somebody like Carrasco or Salazar?
The only thing that makes the move look bad is a complete overpay by the D-Backs. The Cardinals had the pitching to spare and picked up an impact player with it. It’s unfortunate he walked as a free-agent, but that doesn’t have any impact on evaluating the trade.
i did not care much for heyward. some of his best games as a cardinal came in losses.
I agree. Just imagine how much the Cardinals’ outfield would’ve struggled last year with all the injuries had they not had Heyward. Meanwhile, their starting pitching was their biggest strength even without Miller. The Braves technically got the better value (although, don’t forget the Cards still have one more year of Walden, who should be healthy now), but the Cardinals got just what they needed to win the division again. It’s one of those classic present vs. future win-win deals like Anderson for Smoltz (except Miller probably isn’t a future Hall of Famer).
It was said in another post but Ike Davis might be a nice minor league flier right now for the Yankees.
Forgot about Davis…..good pick. Most talk is about Alvarez, but I think Justin Morneau is a more likely candidate. Still a lefty, has some pop, and can play defense.
As long as Dave Stewart is GM, I doubt Arizona takes the wisest route for anything at all…
I think it’s safe to say the Dbacks haven’t taken the wisest route to get back into ‘contention’ in the last year. We’ll see if it pays off, but if it doesn’t, they traded away a lot of young depth and handed out a large contract that may come back to bite them sooner than they think.
The Cardinals pursuing an OF was as much about 2017 and beyond than 2016. After this season, Moss and possibly Holliday are gone
Well, I read an article elsewhere bringing up that maybe theyre saving themselves for the 2018 free agent class, with a whole bunch of superstar ballplayers set to hit free agency (possibly if not extended beforehand), where they make a big splash then.
If Grichuck, Piscotty, and Pham perform well in 2016 & 17, they may not make that “Big Splash” in the winter of 2018-19. Cards aren’t spendy……they tend to spend their money on “before guys get to the majors” instead of afterwards. Holliday has been a great player in his career, but contributed nothing in 2015. They should let him walk after 2016.
Don’t blame a guy for just one injury plagued year. He’s healthy now and ready to contribute once again. Let the year play out before playing armchair GM. If he has a pretty good year, the Cardinals may even pick up his option year or at least attempt to resign him at a lesser rate in order to finish his career in St. Louis. As Holliday’s career is winding down, Grichuk and Piscotty will be hitting their peaks.
Yanks want Swisher back? Heck Braves with throw in Bourne too
Please, after watching the Iowa caucuses, I have enough chilling thoughts for one night…
Yankees need to look into Pedro Alverez. As much as they want to say bird was set for the minors this year I think in spring training you could have saw the upside of keeping him with the club. He would have provided arod and Tex the necessary rest they both need he could have saw play time at least 2-3 times a week either at first or DH. Alverez would help with three positions on the club even providing headly with some rest at third. I know Alverez defense is just terrible but the thought of his bat at Yankee stadium with the short porch. He would get his at bats between 1B 3B and DH if the Yankees can get him for cheap with an incentive based contract on a one year deal it may not be a bad investment. I would personally make that move and just leave headly as more of their utility guy where they can play at second base on days where didi or Castro needs a day off and outfield.
One problem with your wish……Scott Boras is Alvarez’ agent. He’s already commented that “he’s not signing his client to a part-time role”. Boras is pretty arrogant, when he says something like that, he usually means it. Besides…….wouldn’t Justin Morneau be a MUCH better option? He can actually PLAY 1B very well, he hits LH, and has some pop left in his bat. He could even be the emergency catcher…..lol.
Playing Alvarez at third is a disaster waiting to happen. Yankees would be better off playing ARod or even Jacoby Ellsbury at third before Alvarez. He is just awful.
Pedro Alvarez is terrible! He strikes out a ton and isn’t evn a great fielder. Last thing the yanks need is another guy who can only hit homers off of bad pitchers and then strikes out every time in the playoffs against the good pitchers .(This is assuming they even make it this year.)
They only needed Bird this year if they coninced Tex to waive his no trade or if Tex gets hurt. They are obiously not trading Tex so they are solid at first with both Ackley and ARod as backups if need be.
I do not think they need to look at alverez. (I’m a big Pedro fan-power bats are hard to come by). The Yankees need roster flexibility. Pedro really can only help at 2 positions – 3b and 1b – anyone on the team can dh when they need a day. Look for Austin romine to see more playing time. He fills a necessary role as a back up catcher and has taken a lot of reps at 1b in Scranton. Granted, he doesn’t have nearly as much power as Pedro, but for the Yankees, roster flexibility will be more important. Ackley can play 1b, 2b, of, and prob 3b in a pinch. Castro can play 2b, ss, and will see some work at 3b. Hicks will be the 4th outfielder and beltrans defensive replacement.
Teams that have a player slotted as the standing dh – arod – need flexibility. Every team needs to carry certain players: a back up catcher – romine: an if utility – ackley; and a 4th outfielder – hicks (who could possibly see action in 100 games in this role). That comprises 12 spots on the 25 man roster.
That leaves 13 spots for pitching. 5 man starting rotation, and the 3 headed monster in the bull pen (chapman, betances, Miller) take up an additional 8 roster spots. Pencil in 3 more bullpen pieces to fill in the spot starts (nova) and various innings. That’s 23 total spots.
Here is where the need for flexibility comes into play: through out the course of the season there are more than a few stretches where teams play 7 games in 8 days. Players will need rest and let’s be honest there will be times where Pineda, evoldi, and severino don’t make it out of the 4th inning. More often than not, cc can’t be relied upon to make it thru 5. That will put a lot of strain on our pen. An extra arm in the pen is going to be a necessity.
Those two extra spots on the 25 man roster are more aptly allocated to carrying an extra arm out of the pen (Mitchell, barbuto, or pazos) and an additional outfielder (heathcott). There just isn’t room for Pedro at this point.
If you look at spotrac,almost all MLB teams will be flushed with cash for the 2018 free agency.Alot of these teams now are signing free agents with thta year in mind.It wont just be a 1 or 2 team show.
What is Mozeliak talking about? Piscotty’s wRC+ dropped from 158 in rookie ball to 134 in A+, 129 in AA and finally 100 in AAA, before bouncing back last year as he repeated AAA. His ISO also went down from .185 in A+, to .147 in AA and .118 in AAA. When did one season become a trend?
Who else sees 2015 Padres all over the Dbacks season
Everyone assumes the Brewers will be battling with the Reds to stay out of the NL Central While that’s a scenario that could well occur, there’s also a path for the Brewers to be considerably better than a 95-100 loss team and it involves their rotation. Jimmy Nelson, the de-facto ace of the staff, logged 57 innings combined against the Cubs and Pirates last year, and recorded 60 strikeouts, a .189 BAA, and a 2.53 ERA. If he can find a way to be more consistent against the rest of the league, they indeed will have a true ace. Wily Peralta won 17 games in 2014, then faltered through an injury riddled 2015. If he reverts to his 2014 form the Brewers could have a nice 1-2 at the top. The rest of the rotation will include Anderson, Taylor Jungmann, who put up solid rookie numbers and either Matt Garza, or most likely, Zach Davies, acquired from O’s last year. Davies finished the year with 13 straight scoreless innings including a 6 inning, 2 hit outing vs. the hot hitting Cubs at Wrigley. Behind them is one of Brewer’s top pitching prospects, Jorge Lopez, the top pitcher in the Southern League last year. It figures to be a long year for Brewer fans. The lineup has some power but isn’t well constructed and if they deal off Lucroy and or another established bat, could really struggle, but the rotation could be surprisingly solid 1-6 and that could mean a better record than most experts are predicting.
Could Uribe be a fit with the Yankees given his ability to play both corners and the Yankees have Ackley and as backup for 1b and or second baseman Castro
banckup for 3b Uribe makes sense