Heading into 2009, we were treated to multiple “battles” at Spring Training. The above pictured Ramiro Pena won a mini-battle, a skirmish if you will, to become the bench infielder/utility man when the Yankees broke camp. The two major battles were in the outfield. In center field, Brett Gardner won the starting center field job over Melky Cabrera, though he eventually lost that job after underperforming early in the season.
In right field, Nick Swisher lost out to Xavier Nady, but when Nady went down with an injury, Swisher filled in more than admirably and had a fantastic year, belting 29 home runs and posting a career high 129 OPS+.
This season, there are a few battles we should keep an eye on. Two of them, though one of them is pretty small, are on the pitching side and one of them is on the bench, and it involves Ramiro Pena once again.
Let’s start off by looking at the small-potatoes battle in the bullpen. Disclaimer: I’m assuming the loser of the fifth starter battle is placed in SWB as the sixth starter, therefore the set-up spot is open. While it is likely that they will be rather “interchangeable”–that is, either option would be fine–it’s still possible that one of Damaso Marte or David Robertson will be the primary set-up man, regardless of where the batter stands. If either pitcher can show the ability to balance his splits, he could be used more frequently. However, I’d still expect Marte to face lefties the vast majority of the time and that this “battle” will not yield much of consequence. Both are fine set-up options and I’d be more than comfortable with either one of them pitching in front of Mariano Rivera.
The Yankees’ rotation spots one through four are set: Sabathia, Burnett, Vazquez, Pettitte. The fifth spot is still, apparently, up for grabs. The two contenders are youngsters Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes. Both of them have had incredible success in the bullpen, but developing them as starters is the Yankees’ plan (as it should be) so one of them will definitely have to start full time this year.
As starters, both have been nothing if not inconsistent. Regardless, they’ve both shown incredible flashes of brilliance in the rotation. If I had to predict how this battle would go right now, I’d say that it’s almost a sure thing that Joba Chamberlain will get the nod as the fifth starter. While Hughes got over 100 innings last year, Chamberlain made 30 starts and pitched a full season innings wise. Frankly stated, he’s much more prepared to start in the Majors than Hughes is. I like them both, a lot, but the truth is that unless there’s an injury, only one of them can start full time for all of 2010. The two of them still need to put some work in before they reach their potential as top-of-the-rotation-starters, but, as I said only one of them can put that work in full time. The real question is whether or not the Yankees will use the loser of the battle as the sixth starter at AAA or as a set-up option in the bullpen. For my thoughts on that, see this post.
The last battle is essentially a skirmish as well. The winner of this “fight” is not likely to have a major impact on the Yankees and if he is counted on to do so, the 2010 season is probably in a great, great deal of trouble. The only other open spot I can see–as of right now–is the utility infielder position. Last year, Ramiro Pena won the job over Angel Berroa and he performed pretty well. He OPS’d .699 and played solid defense at short and third. All in all, he did a good job as the utility guy. Why, then, would his spot be in jeopardy? Mostly because his .699 OPS is the outlier in his career. His minor league OPS is .635 and while his .287 BA in ’09 at the ML level was nice, it was largely due to a .340 BABIP. Despite his great defense, Pena’s lack of a bat could be his downfall in 2010. His in-organization combination will likely be Kevin Russo, who offers similar position flexibility, but a slightly better bat. While Russo hasn’t flashed much power in the minors, .403 SLG, his .360 OBP is nice and shows good maturity at the plate. At the plate, it’s not likely that Russo represents much of an upgrade over Pena, and Pena is the better fielder; he also has experience on his side, and I’d expect Pena to win. Despite that, I’m sure we’ll see Kevin Russo at some point in 2010.
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6 Responses to Possible Spring Training Battles
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Gardenhire believes gap between Twins and Yankees is closing
http://www.winonadailynews.com/sports/article_929c0c30-0590-11df-907b-001cc4c03286.html
Some would suggest that the Yankees “own” the Twins, but the manager doesn’t buy into that.
“They don’t own me,” Gardenhire said. “Every game that we’ve played against them has just been nip-and-tuck.”
We’ve had our chances,” Gardenhire said. “We could have beat them as is, but next year we’re not taking any more off them. And if it takes fighting them, we’re fighting them.”
Once Damon comes back, and everyday that passes makes his return all the more likely, Gardner/Hoffman/Pena will be their bench players. I think the Pena utility spot is a given. A utility guy seems like the future for Pena, so what more does he have to prove in the minors? Obviously the most interesting issue is the Joba/Hughes battle. If Girardi isn’t careful, this could turn into a pretty big circus. I don’t know what he can do to neutralize the issues because you want the best player to pitch the most amount of innings (I believe that to be Joba), and competition is best for the two of them. Hughes pitching in the 8th for another season will make the transition to being a starting pitcher more difficult, so I agree that he should start in the minors. Brandon Morrow has basically been derailed of all his value as a result of back and forth, so if Hughes is the 8th inning guy, that will be his future, ala Aaron Heilman. I would like to see the Yankees try to sign Kiko Calaro to help out, since he will be real cheap, and add bench players as necessary during the season.
Why put the loser of the competition in the minors? That is wasting there talent and then you are leaving room for someone like Mitre or Edwar Ramirez to make the team. No matter who doesn’t win the 5th starter competition we would have the best set-up/closer combo in baseball with either hughes or joba setting up for Mo. Plus, Hughes has already said in the past that he would rather be a reliever in the bigs than a starter in scranton and Joba has always said he doesn’t care what role he is in as long as it help the team win. Sometimes I thing most of you care more about these guys development than the yankees winning a title. Would it really be the worst thing in the world if the loser of the competition stayed in the bullpen and than someday took over for Mariano Rivera? The answer to that should be simple, NO.
Both of them don’t need to start because of 3 reasons: 1. they have 4 starters capable of pitching 200 inning, 2. there are more young starters in the system that are on the way and 3. they can always sign another starter every offseason. All of you act like it is a given that they will both be top of the line, dominating starters. Maybe one of them will but not both of them. Besides the arguement for one of them to start in scranton is nonsense cause Cashman has already stated this offseason that the loser of the competiton will go back to the bullpen. As I said before, would you rather have hughes or joba start and the other goes to the bullpen or would you rather send the loser to the minors have the like and Mitre or Edwar Ramirez wast a spot in the pen?
A. Hughes is saying that because he wants to stay in the majors and be a team player. I want to play for the Yankees. We don’t always get what we want, and the team needs to do what is best for them in the short AND long term.
B. The Yankees will have one of the best closer/set up man combos with Robertson/Rivera regardless.
C. I’m not going to even bother discussing the whole “one belongs in the bullpen” outside of saying sure, there are worse things in the world. However, your best pitchers should pitch the most innings. Why not use Hughes and Joba in the rotation, and use Sabathia in the left handed reliever role?
D. How do you know that Hughes/Joba will NOT be top starters? CC wasn’t top notch for his first few seasons. Halladay struggled. Carpenter struggled. Johan was a starter in the minors, went to the bullpen in the majors, stretched out and then became a starter. The list goes on and on. You don’t know until you give the player their full shot.
E. Signing another starter each offseason is both expensive and stupid. Would you rather have Joba making 1 million or Jason Marqui for almost 6 million?
The idea is not to leave a guy in Scranton. Neither have anything left to prove there. However, the longer you leave a pitcher like Hughes, for example, in the bullpen, the more difficult it will be (and possibly damaging) transitioning back to the starting rotations.
You obivously know nothing about baseball or the yankees if you actually believe any this garbage that you just wrote. Its never about the future for the yankees, its about winning a championship this year. You think Jeter, Mo, Pettitte or Posada care about the the long term? There is not a chance in the world that any of them care about that. They want to win this year and if that means one of Joba or Hughes will be in the bullpen then so be it. Besides, if Cashman cared more about the long term then the short term then Hughes would have been sent back to scranton when wang returned to the rotation. Thankfully he didn’t listen to people who know nothing about baseball like you and left Hughes in the bullpen. Also for you to start with this crap of saying that “maybe cc should be a lefty specialist” shows how you have little clue what you are talking about. CC is a former Cy Young winner and so are Santana, Doc and Carpenter.
Yeah and all three pitchers that I used as examples were rough at the start. Halladay was in the majors THEN SENT BACK TO A BALL.
And you might not know this, but none of Jeter, Posada, Mariano, etc… run the team. By the way, you misspelled “obviously.”