Nightly Links: Kuroda, Betances, Banuelos

• The Yankees lost last night 4-3. Despite a no run performance through by Hiroki Kuroda in three innings, he didn’t feel good about his second start. He has somewhat of a history of slow starts, so now we can be optimistic about his ability to make adjustment. Joe Girardi was impressed with Dellin Betances‘ two innings of work, he gave up only one hit and earned two strikeouts. The only thing that stood out offensively was Nick Swisher‘s triple. (Box Score)

• Pinstripe Alley has a piece on whats called the Yankee hype machine. Looking through Baseball America’s top organizational prospect lists since 2005, Rob Steingall concludes that there is no evidence for Yankee bias. I tend to believe any big market team has hype issues, and while that might promote a singular prospect’s worth, it also causes us fans to miss prospects that go under the radar.

• From their Positional Power Rankings series, Fan Graphs released their relief pitchers version and the Yankees ranked on top. The Braves, Reds, Rangers, Rockies (?) followed right behind them.

• Brad V offers a counterpoint to my post on Manny Banuelos and the fifth rotation spot yesterday. He argues that no matter what happens this spring, Banuelos and Betances should wind up in AAA to continue to polish up.

• Finally, today’s workout.

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