The injury-plagued Yankees could welcome Gary Sanchez back to the lineup as soon as Wednesday, manager Aaron Boone told reporters Sunday (link via Newsday’s Laura Albanese). He’ll suit up for a rehab game with Class-A Charleston today, and barring any kind of setback, that’ll line him up for a midweek return against the Halos. Boone spoke optimistically but also vaguely about injured regulars Aaron Hicks, Miguel Andujar, Giancarlo Stanton and Troy Tulowitzki, declining to put a specific timetable on any of the bunch.
Here’s a look around the division…
- The Orioles, who hold the No. 1 overall pick in this June’s draft, currently are considering high school shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. and Oregon State catcher Adley Rutschman but haven’t made any firm decisions as to who they’ll take, per MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubtako. It’s of course worth noting that with more than a month to go until the draft, a different player could soar up the pre-draft rankings and thrust himself into the mix for the top selection. Similarly, a currently projected top pick could still give teams cause for concern and/or incur an injury. Both Rutschman and Witt were pegged as top-three overall picks in the first of what will be several mock drafts over at Baseball America, where Rutschman was projected to go to Baltimore.
- The Red Sox expect to stick with internal options in the rotation following Nathan Eovaldi’s injury, writes Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com. Hector Velazquez will be the leading candidate to step into the rotation, though Marcus Walden could also be an option. Manager Alex Cora downplayed the possibility of opting for a bullpen day in place of Eovaldi, voicing a clear preference for someone who can go out and pitch at least five innings. If the Sox want to go with a nonroster option, Cotillo notes that righty Erasmo Ramirez could again be selected (he’s already cleared waivers following last week’s DFA and accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A Pawtucket).
- With Matt Shoemaker down for the season due to an ACL tear, the Blue Jays are weighing options to replace him in the rotation, writes Laura Armstrong of the Toronto Star. The top traditional starting pitching candidates look to be righty Sam Gaviglio (who made 24 starts for Toronto a year ago), lefty Thomas Pannone, right-hander Sean Reid-Foley and right-hander Jacob Waguespack. However, the Jays could also more creatively look to deploy an opener — a strategy with which skipper Charlie Montoyo is quite familiar from his time in Tampa Bay. In that instance, someone such as Gaviglio or Pannone could handle multiple innings in relief of an opener, thus shielding the team’s weakest starter from the opposing lineup’s most dangerous hitters the first time through the order. For now, the Jays have several off-days looming on the schedule, limiting their need for a fifth starter and lessening the urgency of the decision.
If we take another catcher all I can imagine is Matt Wieters 2.0. Which has nothing to do with Rutschman’s potential he may be a phenomenal player but as an O’s fan all I can imagine is that scenario all over again. For that reason alone I’m hoping it’s Witt.
How could you not draft the catcher though? He’s going to bat .400 with at least 20 bombs this year.
I think the O’s will go Rutscham, if things don’t change, only because (a) as a collegian, he’s closer than the prepster Witt and (b) from what I’ve read, Rutscham has the higher floor; just about everybody agrees he plays in the majors, it’s just a matter of the type of impact.
Witt probably has the higher ceiling, but questions about his bat/ball skills are troubling, especially given his pedigree; I’m sure Bobby ‘pere” has had hitting coaches sleeping in the back yard.
You have to develop quantity first, worrying about quality later. And Rutscham will be cheaper, given his lack of options (Witt can always go to college). That would allow further spending down below.
The O’s system isn’t that bad; decent high floor, low ceiling types. It starts there.
High floor low ceiling players is not the way to compete in the ALE, Bob. You know that. If this was the AL central perhaps but it’s not. The Yankees and Sox have 200 million dollars to spend every year. We’ll need lots of high ceiling guys to ever be able to compete with that.
In general I’d agree, but the O’s ain’t exactly the Rays; they may be mid-market, but they’re on the upper side of that quantification. Building a core, then supplementing it through FA’s, etc. isn’t impossible in Baltimore. You can dream on the Grayson Rodriguez-es of the world, but you need the Keegan Aiken-es too.
I haven’t read anything that puts Witt in the A-Rod/Griffey class of prepsters, more of a Tim Beckham. I’ll take Weiters over Beckham.
I was just thinking that he reminds me of Beckham.
Most teams would be pretty happy landing a young Matt Wieters. 4x All Star, a couple Gold Gloves. Now if you want to talk about Nationals signing him as a FA, that’s another story.
I’m not saying Wieters was a bad player by any means. He was a fine pick. But essentially all his production came from 3 seasons. Other than that he was an okay catcher. When you have the #1 pick in the draft I don’t want to put it on a catcher. That’s my personal opinion. I feel it places too much emphasis on the position and the not the player. Wieters wasn’t a Matt Hobgood esque bust by any means. It’s just that the bat never developed into star territory. He also wasn’t the #1 pick. We took him at 5. When you have the pick of everyone in the draft 99% of the time I don’t want a catcher.
Yeah you want Adley though, and the O’s will take him. Coming from someone who probably follows the draft and amateur scouting far closer than those involved here, he’s the clear number one pick in this draft, and virtually all scouts consider this draft to go Adley, gap, rest. Witt projects anywhere between #3 and #7 probably right now, but there’s a general consensus there is at least some questions about his hit tool. It’s probably too early to completely rule anyone out, and no disrespect to this guy, but I doubt the O’s are giving serious consideration to Witt at 1. Would be the first industry source I’ve seen linking Witt there, and if anything his stick may have dropped just a tad this spring.
I’m certainly not a draft expert. Don’t follow HS and college prospects close enough for any of that. It was more of a general stance for me. If Rutschman is that good of a prospect that he’d be a top 5 pick if he was a LF or a 3B or something then that is the guy you go with. I certainly don’t know enough about the draft prospects to determine that at this point. Just the premise of drafting a guy who is a catcher and placing a ton of weight on that is what I don’t like. Not with the #1 pick.
Sure… yeah I think you’ll like him. He’d be elite because of the bat even if he didn’t catch. One of the better 1/1’s of last handful of years
When a catcher is that highly ranked….
Yesterday, Gary Sanchez’s backup hit two hits, one that tied, and another go-ahead run bottom of 10th, that won game.
three hits*
Romine is the best backup catcher in baseball. Was a pretty nice win for Scranton Wilkes Barre.
Romine is good, but best backup is a bit of a stretch there.
Tom Murphy has definitely been better than Romine so far.
Let’s see how your bombers do on the west coast.
So far, so good.
If the Blue Jays can sweep Oakland in their house, Yankees will be fine in Anaheim.
I say the Jays should go with the opener strategy. They got nothing to lose and not enough near ready talent in starting pitching to do otherwise.
That’s not a bad idea. The Jays, like the Rays last year, have a slew of AAA/MLB type pitchers, that you can probably glue together to get some results. Call it a tandem-starter/training camp, if you will.
Then the challenge becomes knowing when to commit to the guys you see as starters.
Problem with the opener strategy for any length of time is the staff has to be ready for it and they probably prepare differently. You also still have to have quality depth. Otherwise a good MLB team will rock the staff the first time through the order
Jays do not “have a slew of AAA/MLB type pitchers”. In fact, that’s the issue. Most of their pipeline of pitching isn’t ready for New Hampshire yet. They’re years away.
Cold, I would wholeheartedly agree with you there, The Jays home grown pitching is years away. Which means they need to shop ala the Cubs attempts to build a rotation.
The Jays could be using a valid building method, that is, to fill out the MLB level lineup with “quallity” home grown/traded for position players and buy established pitching via FA. If they will actually buy established pitching. That also means they need quality position players, not the likes of Grichuk, Hanson, Travis, Maile etc etc.
I am hearing that the Board of Directors has mandated that the current budget stay low. My assumption is that the CEO is positioning the Jays to be sold and by keeping the budget low it makes the paperwork look good and helps Rogers bottom line the CEO bonus size. They continue to feed the phoney narrative of when they are ready to compete again the budget will be increased. Why not increase it now and decrease the competative timeline?
My assumption is that they want to keep the budget low because they are drawing their lowest attendance numbers in years and probably not selling a whole lot of merch. No wait, i’m sure its that thing you said. You do know the board of directors, after all.
> I am hearing
It’s just the heavy metal poisoning from your tinfoil hat.
The Jays could sign Gio and not mess with anything in their bullpen that has been working . His last two starts were 18 innings and allowing just two runs. They could flip him in July, allowing SRF and Borucki time to heal..
Good plan. Let’s see if the Jays powers that be are listening….
When does Brian Johnson come back from IL?
Seen nothing on Johnson either for couple of weeks. Rest for the elbow inflammation was it. Rather see him starting and Velazquez/Walden relief, but Velazquez to me is better than some retread signed to a MLB deal. He’s been effective in the past for the most part fairly often when needed in a pinch.
AAA starting pitching has been awful for Toronto. AA starters have been ok. Single-A they’ve been tremendous. Jays have to do what they must to fill out the pitching rotation. Hopefully that means deserving players receive a promotion at the lower levels.
I think Law will be the 1st pitcher called up tbh.
Yup, right one Trim.
See my above comment to coldbeer about buying ptiching help.
Yep. It’s a catch 22; they need pitching down the road to win, hard to justify investing in arms where there seems to be a massive and spectacular breakdown physically when entering free agent years.
Aside from Pearson the team does not have a true quality future starting pitcher they can hang their hat on. On a side note, I said the same thing a year ago about the closer position and some Jays fan said Andrew Case was the best closer in the organization. Case retired this past week. Thanks for that.
Yah, I like Pearson but the rest of the elite arms are in the low minors. Perhaps they can come up with some grinders that can fill in.
I honestly can’t see their plan to be a championship team.
I hope they trade Giles soon but Atkins problably figures they have a shot becuase they didn’t start the season 5-20 so he won’t trade the closer. lol.
After all, the Yankees are injury riddled and the RedSox rotation is sucking canal water.
FYI I am still hearing that an executive in the Jays front office is about to move on.
Hopefully Tinnish. Then again he’d torture the fanbase and come back.
If Atkins thinks the Jays have a shot then he’s out of his mind. It’s the same crap during the Ricciardi era. His reluctance to trade people hurt the franchise. The dummy Mets franchise were willing to trade David Wright for Jose Cruz in 2002? Ryan Howard for Ted Lilly in 2005? Those are the ones we know about!
The championship plan is troubling because of the lack of arms and the Dunedin arms pitching well are already 22-23 years old, meaning they are behind. WHICH, is kinda why I’m ok with no Gio; push an arm or two to MLB, the AA performers move up and then Nick Allgeyer can move to AA.
Giles has to be traded. Let’s hope he pitches well. Smoak too. I’d also shop Maile as the catching depth has been pretty good top to bottom of the organization.
Back to the Raptors game….
You know you are old when you remember that you were an adult (chronologically) when Bobby Witt Sr. made his debut.
I remember Sr threw so hard, but had no idea where the ball was going.
Yanks do better with Romine than with Sanchez behind the plate. Sanchez has some nice tools, but he does not use them successfully.. A few more smarts would help, but you can’t implant those.
Same with Andujar, Bird, and Betances. All just a little thick between the ears.
Sox should give Darwinzon Hernandez a look before washed up Erasmo Rameriz. I know he got control issues but he does get out of the jams he gets in.
I just wanna see our young boyz get a chance. These old guys time has came and went we need hungry young bloods.
If you can’t throw strikes at AA a call up to the majors isn’t going to fix your issues. The Red Sox don’t need to watch another Henry Owens. Definitely can’t risk throwing away a game because the guy can’t throw strikes. There’s no way he’d go any more than 3-4 innings in the major leagues with his control where it’s at right now. His future is going to be in the pen if it doesn’t change.
I’m guessing you will see DH sometime this year. He pitched well in Spring Training. He does walk a lot of guys which is a problem but he has completely different stuff then Owens. Henry Owens barely broke 90 had an excellent change but it’s hard to show that off when you have a BP fastball and terrible location.
Gio Gonzalez could be an intriguing option for the Sox if they end up loosing a starter from the rotation.
The coffers are bare.
Or the Blue Jays could simply sign Gio Gonzalez. They need innings. The opener would tax their bullpen further.
yankees shud get jacoby sometime at dh/of