- Somehow the Michael Pineda to AAA speculation keeps on coming. Fangraph’s Dave Cameron talked about the similarities between Madison Bumgarner‘s 2010 season and the big righty this spring. To me, the similarities begin and end with velocity change, and Joe Pawlikowski feels the same. Pineda was consistently topping out at 94 mph in his last start, and when you compare the media coverage Ubaldo Jimenez has received barely hitting 92 in his last start, you see how ridiculous this story has grown. Welcome to New York.
- Baseball America released their Organizational Talent Rankings for 2012. The Yankees landed at #13, despite not projecting to have much significant rookie contribution in 2012. The Rangers, Royals, and Padres ranked in the top three respectively, with the White Sox, Indians, and Marlins ranking last.
- Yankees Fans Unite has a prospect watch on one of the brightest young players drafted in the 50th round of the 2008 draft, Nik Turley.
- Curtis Clark at Bronx Baseball Daily predicts that Mark Teixeira is due for a major comeback season. He expects a BABIP rebound and athletic improvements to launch him back into MVP discussions in 2012.
- And today’s workouts.
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4 Responses to Nightly Links: Pineda, Turley, Teixeira
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TIQ IQ
Man watching Betances pitch can be almost painful at times, it just really shocks me everytime I watch him how little he understands what his mechanics should feel like. He’s all over the place, looks like it effected his velocity today too because it was way down.
Betances can definitely be frustrating to watch. He sometimes seems to have no idea where the ball is going. I’m no mechanical expert, but his delivery just looks awkward with a lot of moving parts (probably a function of his size).
I won’t claim to be a pitching coach by any means, but it’s pretty clear he isn’t even close to repeating his mechanics. One pitch he’ll be coming down hill, getting good sink on the fastball, and good breaj on the slider. The next pitch he’ll almost be releasing before he gets his foot down, getting no downward plane on his pitches, and fastball sail up and out of the zone (a lot of times terribly) and hanging his curve at the top of the zone. It’s brutal to watch someone fight there mechanics so much. He knows what he’s suppose to do, but he has no feel for repeating them.
Watching Betances is certainly an adventure. Warren was great. I agree with the Tex statements…I posted 2 weeks ago he will win the MVP under the stipulation that he was serious about hitting outer 3rd strike zone pitches to center and left (while batting lefty). To me, he never really had to bunt, just stop pulling every pitch. But, having said that…there was an interesting article on him bunting and statistically, he only needed to be successful a absurdly low amount of times bunting for him to produce better numbers than last year. I have no problem having him laying down a bunt once in a while. but it does make for interesting discussion as you picture a tied game in the 7th or 8th inning and Tex leads off the inning. Do you have him try for a home run which he has a 5% chance or bunt into a horrendous shift which gives him about a 60% success rate. Then you need more math (which I don’t have) to figure out how many times a leadoff walk/single scores. Without knowing the research, I’m guessing a leadoff single scores more often than a home run will occur. But you might have a different opinion.