- If you missed Michael Pineda‘s start tonight, he slightly improved his fastball. Jack Curry has him topping out at 94 on the YES gun, but he had many more 93′s mixed in there. Prepare for all velocity talk tomorrow.
- Two big bullpen workouts today, one from Freddy Garcia, who threw for the first time since being hit in the hand by a line drive. The other was from Andy Pettitte, to which Russell Martin said, “That’s as good of a bullpen as I’ve caught all spring — from anyone.”
- A few more cuts today, David Phelps, D.J. Mitchell, George Kontos, and Brandon Laird were all optioned to Triple-A. Like I said after the last set of cuts, it doesn’t mean we won’t see them again in Spring Training, but it does means the regular season is quickly approaching.
- The YES Network has announced their replacement for former Yankee clubhouse reporter Kim Jones. Meredith Marakovits, former contributor at SNY and Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia will join the YES team for the Batting Practice Today show, the pre-game, the post-game, and regular game telecasts.
- It’s About The Money has their Minor League Preview for the Trenton Thunder. They consider Zoilo Almonte, Graham Stoneburner, and David Adams as main prospects to watch. Catch the first set of this series here, where they look at the Empire State Yankees.
- After the Andy Pettitte reunion, Wendy Thum at FanGraphs analyzes the type of numbers a few big-name recent retirees might fair this year. Spoiler: Mike Mussina has the best projection.
- And today’s workouts.
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6 Responses to Nightly Links: Pineda, Garcia, Cuts
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TIQ IQ
I’ll kick it off tonight; His velocity didn’t improve, he averaged 90-91 and hit 94 once.
I think his average would probably be 92, he threw more and more 93 the longer he was on the mound. The first inning was 89-91 for the most part though, outside of that one 94 and one or two 93′s.
And he didn’t look good on the mound. Too many full counts and the sliders doesn’t look good.
Can Cash call Seattle and get Jesus back?
I didn’t see that at all. I’ve thought his slider has looked fine all spring. He’s shown some real nasty ones, though at times they have flattened out, but that happens to everyone. Plus the same arm strength he’s building for the fastball plays into the slider as well. He struggled at times with command yesterday but he really shows flashes of plus control. Some of the fastballs he throws at the bottom of the zone hit there spots so perfectly you’d think he walked it to the glove. I’ve also been really impressed with his change so far, it’s come a good ways even from last year, and he seems to believe in throwing his offspeed pitches at any time in the count. Which for me that’s a big deal, anyone can throw a breaking pitch ahead in the county, to do so when behind shows the confidence he has in himself and the pitches he throws.
Though I suppose nothing he ever does will be good for some people, though when he starts raking up the Ks and looking like a beast those same people will act like they never doubted.
I don’t doubt him. I think the arm strength will come back.
I think, his problem is, that he came to camp out of shape and now it takes longer for him to get his strength back.
CC has to tell him how to get ready in the offseason.
IDK about all that, CC isn’t the picture of perfect health and fitness at over 300 and a legit gut hanging over his belt. Though coming in out of shape may be part of it, something like the Verducci effect could be going on as well. Though his velocity is clearly coming along, but I never saw a problem with the slider. It does look like he’s thrown a few cutters as well, which you may be seeing and thinking are flat sliders.