Man I love the World Baseball Classic. It’s so much fun. I would be willing to sacrifice a prominent Met and Jose Altuve every spring to get the WBC every year. Anyway, only one more week of Spring Training. Opening Day is nine days away. Let’s get to today’s post.
1. Grapefruit League observations. Eight more games in Florida, one game in Washington DC, then it’s...
2023-03-21 10:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Stephanie Apstein has a fun story about the Yankees not providing WiFi on team flights. The players have to pay for it. The Yankees and Reds are the only teams that don’t provide WiFi and yeah, they should stop being cheap and pay for it, but I’m not going to feel bad for guys at that inc...
2023-03-17 10:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostJasson Domínguez update: 9-for-24 (.429) with four homers, three walks, and three strikeouts this spring. He took actual big leaguer Connor Brogdon deep Saturday (video). Entering play Monday, Domínguez was tied for the Spring Training home run lead with nine others...
2023-03-14 10:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostAaron Boone celebrated his 50th birthday Thursday by taking batting practice in Aaron Judge’s and Giancarlo Stanton’s group, and he went deep! Bat flipped and everything. Here’s the video (here’...
2023-03-10 11:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Every spring I get excited to watch prospects and some years they don’t deliver. The hitters don’t hit and the pitchers get hit hard. It happens. This is not one of those springs. The prospects have been awesome. Anthony Volpe does something highlight-worthy every game he plays and Jasson Domínguez is mashing. He golfed a go-ahead three-run homer in the top of the ninth Sunday (2023-03-07 11:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Me last Friday: Woo hoo Spring Training games are a day away! Me this Friday: Can we get to the regular season already? Happens every year. Grapefruit League games are fun in their own way, but I’m already itching for games with stakes. Only three weeks and six days until Opening Day. Let’s get to today’s post as 2023-03-03 11:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
The Yankees won’t have the opportunity to pass on Manny Machado again next offseason. Machado leveraged his opt out into what amounts to a new 11-year, $350M contract with the Padres over the weekend. It’s five years ...
2023-02-28 11:00:59 +0000 UTC View PostThe folks at Codify Baseball tweet out random stats and one caught my eye the other day. The Yankees have a .582 winning percentage over the last 100 years. That’s a 94-win pace for a century. They went 9,094-6,528 d...
2023-02-24 11:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostIn case you missed it Monday, I ran a poll about Domingo Germán vs. Clarke Schmidt for the No. 5 starter’s spot. Schmidt currently has a commanding lead, though the poll doesn’t close until Wednesday morning, so vote if you haven’t already. Also, 2023-02-21 11:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
Who are we kidding? They’re both gonna start a bunch of games. (Getty)
A few weeks ago we learned Frankie Montas would miss the first few weeks of the season, and the Yankees would need a fill-in No. 5 starter. Now we know Montas will miss all of 2023 and the Yankees need a new permanent No....
2023-02-20 11:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostSad news: Tim McCarver passed away earlier this week. He was 81. McCarver had an eventful playing career (debuted as a 17-year-old in 1959, won the 1964 and 1967 World Series with the Cardinals, part of the trade that led to Curt Flood challenging the rese...
2023-02-17 11:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostI need to apologize for something. The last few weeks I’ve said Yankees’ pitchers and catchers report Tuesday, as in today, but that’s wrong. They report Thursday. They were always scheduled to report Thursday. Why I started saying Tuesday, I have no idea, but I did. As far as mistakes go, this one is pretty dumb and low stakes, so I don’t feel too bad, but still, my bad. Pitchers and c...
2023-02-14 11:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostPSA: World Baseball Classic rosters will be announced during a live MLB Network broadcast at 6pm ET on Thursday. I can’t say I’ll sit and watch it, but at least we’ll get official word on who’s going. The Yankees blocked Luis Severino from the WBC. Nestor Cortes (USA), Kyle Higashioka (USA), Jona...
2023-02-09 11:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostIt is the final week of the offseason. Pitchers and catchers report next Tuesday, then Grapefruit League games begin 11 days after that. As a reminder, my annual Top 30 Prospects List will go live this Friday, and Friday’s regularly scheduled post will run Thursday. Now let’s get to today’s post.
1. The 20 most important Yankees. Pitchers and catchers report one wee...
2023-02-07 13:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostTop 30 Prospects List update: It’s on track to be published next Friday, Feb. 10th. The Friday before pitchers and catchers report, as always. Friday’s regularly scheduled post will run Thursday and include the Not Top 30 Prospects, then the following week I’ll have stuff on the prospects who fell out of the Top 30, plus some others to know. Now here’s today’s post.
1. T...
2023-02-03 13:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostWednesday is the 24th anniversary of Brian Cashman’s worst trade: Mike Lowell for Mark Johnson, Todd Noel, and Ed Yarnall. The three pitchers combined for 44 MLB innings and -0.4 WAR. Lowell became a four-time All-Star who helped the Marlins beat the Yankees in the 2003 Worl...
2023-01-31 13:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostIn case you missed it Thursday, I took a stab at predicting this year’s Spring Training non-roster invitees. The official list should be announced sometime next week. Otherwise there’s nothing going on in Yankeeland right now, so today’s post is a few miscellaneous tidbits and mailbag questions. ...
2023-01-27 13:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Soon.
Three weeks from Thursday, Yankees pitchers and catchers will report to Tampa for Spring Training, then position players will follow four days after that. This will be the first normal Spring Training since 2019. 2020 was halted by the pandemic, 2021 was a shorter schedule with little 5-6...
2023-01-26 13:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostBaseball things are happening. Erik Boland passes along word that Oswaldo Cabrera, Domingo Germán, Aaron Judge, Mike King, DJ LeMahieu, Ron Marinaccio, Luis Severino, and Gleyber Torres are among the Yankees already working out in Tampa. 2023-01-24 13:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
We've reached the point of the offseason when things are so dead there aren’t even interesting “this date in Yankees history” facts to pass along. Sunday is the nine-year anniversary (!) of the Masahiro T...
2023-01-20 13:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostIn case you missed it, I ran a poll Monday about the 2023 leadoff hitter. It closes at 8am ET on Wednesday, so go vote if you haven’t already. Now let’s get to today’s post. It’s a bit shorter than usual because I broke the leadoff hitter stuff out into the separate poll.
1. Mon...
2023-01-17 13:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostI started writing up a blurb on the 2023 leadoff hitter for Tuesday’s post and figured it would work better as a poll rather than as a straight post, so here it is.
Not easy to make the 6-foot-4 LeMahieu look small.
Do you remember who hit leadoff for the Yankees on Opening Day...
2023-01-16 13:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostI wrote a thing looking at Chris Taylor as a potential trade target predicated on the Dodgers trying to stay under the $233M luxury tax threshold, then Los Angeles traded for Miguel Rojas and blew up their luxury tax plan. I assume the...
2023-01-13 13:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostWe have our first YES Network news of the year: Cameron Maybin is out, according to Andrew Marchand. That's a bummer. As a young and recently retired player, I felt Maybin was a breath of fresh air in the booth. He was funny, and he got better and more comfortable as the season wen...
2023-01-10 13:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostEarlier this week someone hacked Jack Curry’s Twitter account and I gotta say, what’s the point of hacking Curry if you’re not gonna lob a grenade at Yankees fans and tweet out “Yankees get Reynolds, Volpe+Domínguez going to Pitt” or “Stunner: Yankees have a one-year agreement with Carlos Correa after deal with Mets falls through, money around $60M” or something like that? Whoeve...
2023-01-06 13:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostWelcome to 2023, the year the Yankees slay the Astros dragon and win the World Series. Will it happen? Eh, probably not, but if it does I’ll edit this part out and say I called it. For real though, Happy New Year, everyone. Thank you for reading and thank you for your support. I hope your 2023 is as good as Aaron Judge’s 2022. Now let’s get to today’s post.
1. Scouting the...
2023-01-03 13:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostThe final post of 2022. Feels like just yesterday that the calendar flipped to 2022 and we were all sitting here wondering when the lockout would end. I gotta tell you, content-wise, I have no idea how I would’ve gotten through the pandemic shutdown and the lockout with the posting schedule I kept at RAB. Maybe I would’ve resorted to running 2022-12-30 13:00:59 +0000 UTC View Post
If you’re looking for something to pass the time, my pal Matt Snyder recently wrote about MLB’s authentication process, which was put to the test this year by Aaron Judge’s American League record 62 home ru...
2022-12-27 13:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostOn this date in 2008, the Yankees stole Mark Teixeira away from the Red Sox with an eight-year contract worth $180M. Teixeira was all set to sign with Boston, then bam, he was a Yankee. He hit .292/.383/.565 (142 wRC+) with 39 home runs in 2009, was AL MVP runner-up, and helped...
2022-12-23 13:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post