Javier Vazquez is the luckiest man in baseball right now, and he probably doesn't even know it.
Imagine a World Series where Bad A.J. shows up instead of Good A.J. in Game Two, or Johnny Damon is thrown out trying to take that extra base in Game Five, or Hideki Matsui rides the pine with a bum knee in Game Six.
Had the Baseball Gods seen things differently, the Yankees may have entered a new decade riding the same ghost train that departed the Bronx in October 2004.
While Vazquez wasn't the conductor ...
Brett Gardner started in center field for the New York Yankees yesterday.
But before all you Brett Gardner fans out there (all 12 of you) get too excited, Curtis Granderson started in center field for the New York Yankees yesterday as well.
The Yankees played split squad games in Florida.
Gardner was 0-for-3 at the plate, dropping his spring training average to .083. He has one bunt hit in 12 times at bat. Meanwhile, headlines out of Tiger land show rave reviews for former Yankee prospect Austin Jackson.
Jackson was traded in the offseason ...
As the New York Yankees opened spring training in 1967, they had many question marks, not the least of which was the status of 38-year-old Whitey Ford.
The greatest pitcher in Yankees' history was a free agent, but only because he didn't want to occupy a spot on the roster until he discovered if he could still pitch.
Physical Problems In Oct. 1964, Ford had surgery to alleviate a circulatory problem that resulted in a ...
Another Oscar night filled with people who are completely useless to society explaining their thoughts and ideals to it while holding a golden naked man has passed, but the quest for a different trophy has begun.
And I, another useless person to society, would like to explain my thoughts and ideas of what each team needs to do to hold the Commissioner's Trophy at the end of the 2010 MLB season.
With spring training beginning, now is the perfect time to get your arguing shoes laced up for another year of baseball.
And ...
So the Johnny Damon-Scott Boras good cop-bad cop feature film is over at last. "The Goodbye Boy Part 5" that played in newspapers, blogs and radio talk shows everywhere has finally come to the end of its run in Detroit.
Was it an epic saga? A melodrama? A romance? A buddy flick?
A little of each probably, but mostly it was a broad farce, and with a surprise ending coming that only long-suffering Tigers fans will be able to appreciate come Opening Day.
With Damon batting behind Yankee prospect-turned-Tiger Austin Jackson, the Tigers ...
Injury after injury after injury. That’s what instantly jumps into my mind when someone asks me what I think of Nick Johnson. How many players have hung around for so long, yet since making his Major League debut in 2001, has only reached 500 AB in a year once?
To be fair, that statement is a little misleading. Thanks to an elite eye at the plate (career 15.6 percent walk rate), he doesn’t have the AB, since a walk isn’t included. Still, he’s only reached 500 plate appearances three times. He’s ...
I'm no expert. But I know this time next year, Joe Mauer will be a Yankee.
For all the warm and fuzzy commentary about Joe Mauer needing to remain a Minnesota Twin for the sake of preserving the hopes of small-market teams everywhere, there is an underlying ominous implication that if he doesn't he will be branded baseball's all-time biggest sellout and eviscerated by pure-hearted baseball fans everywhere.
The arguments for why Mauer should remain with the Twins are many and don't require another recitation here. Alleged experts of every stripe have ...
Baseball Hall of Famer Goose Gossage claimed this past weekend that New York Yankees icon Mariano Rivera is not the best relief pitcher in the history of Major League Baseball (MLB).
“I think he (Rivera) is a tremendous relief pitcher,” said Gossage, a nine-time All-Star who played his last game for the Seattle Mariners in 1994. “He’s the best, current-day, modern reliever. When I was inducted into the Hall of Fame, I was told that I had 53 saves with seven-plus outs. I was told that Mariano had one and Trevor ...
Let’s take a look at the potential for run scoring in this year’s version of the Yankees lineup. We’ve done this in the past, even a couple of times this offseason, but now that spring has started and we have a better idea of what their lineup will look like let’s do it again.
For this lineup projection I’ve used CHONE projections as well as Baseball Musings’ lineup analysis tool .
Here is the line the lineup I see the Yankees going with on opening day:
Derek Jeter – SS Nick Johnson – ...
Nick Johnson returned to the Yankees lineup today as the DH and went 0-for-2 with a walk and told reporters after the game that “Things feel fine. No grabbing. No nothing. I loosened up before. Felt nothing.”
That’s good news for the Yankees, who no doubt cringed when they heard that he tweaked his back last week.
It might not have been a big deal, but it was a painful reminder that Johnson has a brutal injury history . People, myself included, even said that Yankees GM Brian Cashman probably questioned himself ...
