Reviewing Our Rivals: Third Base

Alex Rodriguez vs. Kevin Youkilis

Third base. The hot corner. The place where shortstops go to die. At this pivotal intersection sits Alex Rodriguez in New York and Kevin Youkilis in Boston. Both of these players had off years last year. A-Rod hit .276 with 16 homeruns and 62 RBI's, while Youkilis hit .258 with 17 homeruns and 80 RBI's. Youkilis played in 21 more games than A-Rod as A-Rod suffered from injuries found most prevalent in German Shepherds.

Despite Youkilis' slightly better performance last year, A-Rod holds the advantage in a few key areas. For one, A-Rod's a better hitter than Youkilis. Yes Youkilis can out walk A-Rod, but A-Rod can actually hit the ball better. A-Rod can also out date Youkilis. A-Rod is commonly found with actresses and singers, while Youkilis is commonly found in police lineups fitting the common profile of "creeps". Further more, Youkilis has bad karma from his time in the minor leagues, where he worked a second job hiring himself to families as the boogie man to scare children into obeying their parents. Many children were emotionally scared in those days. The kids were so horrified of Youkilis they would run to the actual boogie man for comfort. That stuff has a way of coming back to you.

So who wins in this comparison of third baseman? A-Rod. Only because he's making $29 million this season, and only 70 homerun hitters with high .400 batting averages make that kind of money. Youkilis will make $12 million which is in the ballpark of what Carl Pavano was making when he was with us. Do you pick the 70 homerun hitter or Carl Pavano? I rest my case.

Rival Review: Short Stop

Derek Jeter vs. ?

I'm not going to lie, I don't even know who the Boston Red Sox's short stop is, so I'm going to google that right now . . .

I'm back. That took for #$@&*$ ever! There's only one short stop listed on the Red Sox active roster at their official site, but he, it turns out, is not their starting short stop. It turns out Mike Aviles, listed as a third baseman, and Nick Punto, listed as a second baseman, are competing for the job. So right now, as far as I know, the Red Sox don't have a starting short stop. What they do have is a series of back-up type players competing for the starting job.

The Yankees have Derek Jeter.

Gosh, let me think, who takes this one? Hmm. It's close, but I'm going to have to go with Jeter over "#@$& it, this season's lost anyways."

Rival Review: Second Base

Robinson Cano vs. Dustin Pedroia

If you have a lot freckles and watch most baseball games in an alcohol induced blackout, rambling aimlessly about what a good pick-up Mike Cameron was, you probably think Dustin Pedroia is the greatest thing to ever happen to the Boston Red Sox. He is the face of baseball, or at least the only face you can still remember with any clarity. He's won an MVP. He's won two World Series. And he's only 5'8", so you're not quite as emasculated by him as you are by every other ball player.

Last year, Robinson Cano had a breakout season. Not so much because he performed in a manner superior to previous seasons (if anything, he was less disciplined at the plate than the year before), but because his performance in the Home Run Derby established him as one of the game's brightest stars. He also, it turns out, is king of Taiwan. A fact few people knew.

But how do these two second basemen stack up against each other? Cano has unusual range for a second baseman. Pedroia also has unusual range, but with a less impressive qualifier: for a guy who's 5'8". It has always been said that Pedroia plays hard, while Cano was thought to cruise through his first few Major League seasons purely on talent and minimal effort.

That, however, couldn't be further from the truth. Cano is one of the hardest workers in the game, while Pedroia gave Jon Lester cancer. The edge, therefore, goes to Cano in the battle of the second basemen.

Rival Review, Continued

Mark Teixeira vs. Adrian Gonzalez

In the battle of first basemen, stats rule. In 2011, Mark Teixeira hit a blazing .248, while Gonzalez only mustered a paltry .338. Teixeira's gargantuan efforts led to 39 home runs. How many did Gonzalez have? 27, a number most back-up infielders would be ashamed of. Both had identical .997 fielding percentages, but Gonzalez did it mostly by cheating and through avid use of stunt doubles.

Teixeira is a great teammate, often helping his colleagues with mundane as well as extraordinary problems. Gonzalez, on the other hand, routinely steals things from other lockers in the Fenway home clubhouse. When confronted, he generally blames whatever Make A Wish participant happens to be standing nearby.

Where does that leave us in our analysis? Teixeira wins, but only by a hair. He would have won more handily, but, and in the interest of full disclosure, Gonzalez bribed us.

Yankees Rotation Prediction

The conventional wisdom is that the Yankees starting rotation will consist of Fatsah Sabathia, Shouldah Kuroda, Super Nova, Raidah Pineda, and Refuse to Hughes. I concede that this may be the case on opening day, but come mid-May or, at the latest, June, Garcia will be our number 5 starter.

Excuse my skepticism, but I just don't see Hughes being a long-term solution for the Yankees' rotation. There are two interrelated reasons for this. The first is that Hughes doesn't throw very fast. He just doesn't, and there is nothing you can do about that. The second reason is that Hughes doesn't have the sort of control and/or pitch repertoire necessary to make his low 90s fastball work. Maybe he could get away with his stuff on the Diamondbacks, but not in the AL East or the AL in general.

I strongly suspect that Hughes will not last much longer in the starting rotation than he did last year. I know he pitched well in 2010, at least for the first half of the season, but remember when Lee Mazzilli was managing the Os and they were kicking everybody's @$$ through May, and then did nothing from there on out? Yeah. Welcome to Phil Hughes. He's our Baltimore Oriole.

Reviewing Our Rivals

You probably already heard that Valentine took some light jabs at the Yankees yesterday, saying that Jeter was out of position during the flip play, and that he fondly remembers Varitek beating up A-Rod. We at the RJG were grateful that Valentine made these comments, because it reminded us that we haven't done our rivalry review that we typically do this time of year. As a matter of fact, we kind of forgot the Red Sox were there. They finished in third place last year with a restocked lineup that promised to be the best offensive team in baseball last March. They then slipped under the radar this winter, and are going into spring training with far less expectations then they had one year ago. This may not be completely fair, because the Red Sox still have a good team. On the plus side, they still have Adrian Gonzalez, Kevin Youkillis, Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury and David Ortiz, all of whom know how to handle a bat. Plus, a healthy Clay Buchholz, Jon Lester, and Josh Beckett lead their rotation, and newly acquired Andrew Bailey should be a decent replacement for Papelbon. But with that said how do the Red Sox compare (on paper) to the Yankees this year? Well here goes our position by position review beginning with the central piece to any team, the catcher.

Russell Martin vs. Jarod Saltalamacchia

Its no secret that the Red Sox weren't exactly happy with Saltalamacchia last year. He logged 358 at bats as the primary catcher, and ended with a .235 average with 16 homeruns and 56 RBI's. He had 26 passed balls and 83 stolen bases against him, both career highs, though in fairness the Red Sox did have a knuckleballer on their team. He also had a career high in strikeouts with 119 last year. All things considered, it was not the season the Red Sox hoped for as Victor Martinez' replacement.

Russell Martin had his first full season behind the plate since being hobbled by injuries since 2009. Some of his numbers were oddly similar to Saltalamacchia. A .237 average with 18 homeruns and 65 RBI's is what he finished with. Although Martin only had 4 passed balls, he also allowed 95 stolen bases (a career high). However, Martin drew twice the amount of walks as Saltalamacchia (50 vs. 24), and struck out far less (81 in 417 at bats for Martin, while Saltalamacchia struck out 119 times in 358 at bats). I would say that Saltalamacchia, who was coming from Texas and was now on a new team needed some time for adjustment, but Martin was also new, and he came from the National League where a greater need for adjustment would be needed.

So who gets the edge? I give it to Martin. Martin switched leagues and was coming off an injury and was able to be more productive than Saltalamacchia. I don't suspect his second season in pinstripes, in a contract year, will see him slow down. Barring injury, Martin will be a better offensive force than Saltalamacchia while providing similar defense.

The Ryan Braun Mess

I feel the need to address this situation. I think it should be obvious to anyone that, although an arbitrator ruled in Braun's favor, nothing about the overturned suspension suggests Braun has been vindicated.

Braun's suspension was overturned on a technicality. MLB's collective bargaining agreement requires that test samples be delivered to the lab within a specific window of time, a window that was not met here because the sample was taken on a weekend when the lab was closed. The longer window would not have had any contaminative effect on the sample, but it technically was a violation of the CBA and thus Braun's test result was invalidated by the arbitrator (though not scientifically).

Braun had synthetic testosterone in his system. That didn't get into his urine because the sample arrived a day late. All we know, at this point, is that Braun's lawyers are 1) clever and 2) well read on their CBA. That's it. I wasn't there when Braun took the synthetic testosterone, but I'm pretty sure he cheated. He would've been caught and without recourse to a technicality had MLB had the good sense to take his sample on a Friday. That is not vindication by any means. That is not 'the truth coming out' as Braun would like to have us believe. If he really didn't take a PED, then he has to do better than 'the sample arrived a day late, invalidating the test results according to the CBA, though not any actual science on drug testing'.

At day's end, all that has been overturned is the suspension. No doubt has been cast on the test results itself, which cannot be a grounding of Braun's innocence. I'm not against due process. If MLB messed up here, they shouldn't be able to suspend Braun. I am, however, against sanctimony. Don't act all high and mighty, or even worse, innocent, just because your drug test was taken on the wrong day and stored in a refrigerator for longer than the CBA, though not the science of testing, allows (those of us who have paid attention to the numerous doping scandals in cycling are aware of the fact that when a rider fails a test, a back up sample is then also tested to confirm the first result, which means the extra day or so Braun's sample was in a fridge did not have the effect of corrupting the sample itself).

This might be different if there was any evidence the sample had been tampered with, but there isn't. Also, we'll remember that Braun's initial statements were that the positive result must have stemmed from a drug he was taking for a personal medical issue. Now the positive result was from tampering (which is what the 'they didn't deliver it on time' argument is supposed to imply to a presumably gullible public). I know bull$#!% when I see it, and this is bull$#!%.

The Pete Rose Legacy

Every now and then we get requests from sports betting sites to advertise their pages. The most recent of which is TopBet Sportsbook. If you're into sports betting, and aren't a professional sports player or manager, feel free to check that site out. I personally don't bet on sports, but then again, I haven't been putting away for retirement either, so perhaps some time in the future I will be putting up my house to bet for a big game in an attempt to secure my golden years.

Jones Looking for Someone's Playing Time

In this blog post by Joel Sherman, it is reported that Andruw Jones spent 5 weeks at A-Rod's place as the two of them endured a boot camp aimed at getting them ready for the year. The sentiment is that they both want to prove that they can still perform at a high level, with Jones going as far to say that he wants to take someone's job in the field. Without a doubt, a high performing Andruw Jones and Alex Rodriguez would be a welcome sight. But it doesn't matter what they do in the weeks leading up to spring training, it matters what they do throughout the 162 regular season games and beyond. What has hindered both these guys over the last few years have been injuries. Well, injuries and quiting on your team (Jones with the Dodgers). And I suspect that will be the biggest factor for this season. A healthy A-Rod with regular rest could hit 30 homeruns, and a healthy Jones could probably hit a couple doubles, but I'm just not willing to put the hope of the offense on those two players just yet. I am however looking right at Granderson and Cano.

Spring Training Conversations

As Spring Training camp gets underway, there aren't many questions surrounding these 2012 Yankees, but there are a few. As such, we called up good friend of the blog, the Obi-Wan to our Anakin, Yankees GM Brian Cashman. The following is a transcript of our conversation:

BC: Hello?

RJG: Bronnyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaash!

BC: Oh, hey.

RJG: [Singing to the tune of Folsom Prison Blues] But I signed a man in Reno, who could track down flies. When I hear that whistle blowin', I hang my head and cry.

BC: That doesn't make any sense.

RJG: Well I couldn't think of anything for the second line.

BC: Are you calling to make fun of me for my personal troubles?

RJG: No, I would never try to make your personal troubles into a joke. They're already hilarious as it is.

BC: I'm hanging up now.

RJG: No, wait! I'm just calling to talk baseball!

BC: Fine. What do you want to ask?

RJG: Well, it seems to me you have six pitchers for five spots.

BC: It seems to you? We quite clearly have six pitchers for five spots. Everyone's been talking about that for weeks now.

RJG: Yeah yeah. But who do you think takes it between Garcia and Hughes? Is there one you'd prefer over the other?

BC: Not really. It's sort of like when Lexi has to choose between Marc and Avery. You really can't go wrong either way.

RJG: Marc and Avery? Wait. Did you just use a Grey's Anatomy reference?

BC: I guess I did.

RJG: Are you serious right now, because I love that show?!

BC: Me too! I wonder what's going to happen between Yang and Owen!

RJG: Me too! But I sort of wish the writer's could've come up with a less stereotypical sounding name for Yang. I mean, why can't you just give her a regular Asian name like Jeremy?

BC: That's a strange observation.

RJG: D'you know I auditioned for a part on that show?

BC: Really! What part?

RJG: Zola.

BC: You auditioned to play the role of Meredith and Derek's baby?

RJG: Yeah, but they were all, 'you're way too old for this part.' and I'm all, 'it's a metaphor, guys. Get with the program!'

BC: That's utterly insane. What is it a metaphor of?

RJG: You know, your crumbling personal life.

[Click]


There you have it folks. It is a two-man competition for the fifth spot in the rotation and the Yankees are comfortable with whoever takes it.