Finestrg wrote:Aaron Judge's emergence. Judge had a real good 1st yr in A ball. 6'7" 230 lb. RFer with excellent power and good overall tools... Great first yr -- let's see what he does for an encore now. Judge looks legit, I just wish he was ready to help right now. Looks like he might be a year or two away..

Finally watched some clips of Aaron Judge. Unreal monster with a gun of an arm from RF. Hope we really develop this kid and he's able to come up soon. Sterling's got to be drooling into his Milk of Magnesia thinking up the home run calls for this guy...

I banked on Arod late in drafts & I'm so hoping he kills it this year & gets the last laugh, I just can't stand the media.

I just hate people with holier than thou attitudes.

Sports editorials are made for people like....that.

Swishfm3 wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

Hector wrote:I banked on Betances in my league, it just makes sense if he doesn't back slide.
Who's the other guy, Warren? Good to have that fallback but I'd really like to see this kid succeed.
Can you imagine if he has immediate success all the Mariano comparisons. It's the position itself that will lend to that the most. Mariano made 'Yankee Closer' a glamour position in all of sports.

I banked on Arod late in drafts & I'm so hoping he kills it this year & gets the last laugh, I just can't stand the media.

Yeah, that too. I want A-Rod to have the last laugh since was absurdly singled-out.

A.Rod makes it easy. From what I've been told, dude is a real life jerk.

With that said, I also find myself rooting for him this year and hope he has a monster season. The public is so misinformed about PHG and instead of publishing the truth and trying to educate the public, the media go in these with hunts just to sell papers.

jrodmc wrote:Wow. Our ace can't hit 90 on the gun. What's next, Tanaka the Knuckleballer?

I'm most probably wrong, but I bet somewhere, CC was hiding an inner chuckle.

While I find it a tad peculiar that he's even talking about changing his pitching style now after all the success he's had in Japan and with the Yanks last year (I highly doubt it's because his 4-seamer "has been getting hit" like he's been saying--I bet it's got more to do with proceeding with caution with that elbow, whether the Yanks have told him to approach it like that or he came up with that on his own), I think this lack of velocity thing is getting stale now and a little overblown. He was never a guy that was gonna thrown 95+ consistently anyway. I mean we saw that last year. When he's right, he's 91-92 and a few times a game he'll muscle up and hit 95. I agree with the Yankees' telecast during the opener (Kay, Coney, Flash, etc.) -- they were all saying a lack of velocity wasn't the issue; he just missed his spots a few times. I really think he just became unhinged quickly in that 3rd inning -- leadoff hit (smoked past a diving Headley down the 3rd base line -- nice play by Gardy coming up throwing and holding that to a single), walking the 9 hitter (that was the turning point), the bunt hit that Headley threw away, Martin's opposite field hit (on a 93 MPH fastball btw) and then the cookie he threw to Encarnacion. Just a bad inning. Otherwise, he looked real sharp to me (his slider and split looked very good)...As long as he remains healthy (big if -- fingers crossed), he'll be OK... I saw Larry Rothchild saying he's still building up arm strength, which could indicate that as long as he remains healthy, any fastball we're seeing at 89-90 MPH now could be back up in the 91-92 range not before long. I was watching Zack Greinke dominate a much improved Padres lineup last night for 6 innings and his fastball never got above 90 (Greinke used to throw harder, I guess not anymore). King Felix fanned 10 Angels in Seattle's opener and it looked like he was throwing 90-92 the whole game. Madison Bumgarner, same deal -- he only throws 90-92..El Duque was very successful here and he didn't throw 95. Just sayin'... Stuff-wise, Tanaka looks fine. Definitely more than enough to win with. He's gotta try to block out this crazy NY media that makes a mountain out of every molehill (someone from the media during the post game actually asked Tanaka if he had anything to do with the Stadium gun not working in the 1st inning. Can you imagine that? What a stupid question. Tanaka's reaction was priceless ). Throwing a good game against Boston on Sunday will definitely go a long way toward changing around some headlines & quieting the friggin' media down..

The offense concerns me much more going back to last year. Gotta get Ellsbury back on track (he looks really behind up at the plate) and we're gonna need to see some punch outta the middle of that order (Beltran, Tex, McCann, etc.. If Beltran doesn't hit, I might look to give Chris Young a look in RF after awhile. Dude really finished the spring strong). Also don't know how long I'm prepared to wait on Drew at 2B. If he continues to not hit and we're approaching mid-May/end of May, I'd look to incorporate Pirela and/or Refsnyder. If Joe keeps the lineup like he had it for the opener, A-Rod won't get anything to hit if Drew's an automatic out hitting behind him. Pirela or Ref could protect A-Rod a lot better than Drew. Glad to see A-Rod's still got something left in the tank. We're gonna need the help offensively. Glad to see the Yankee crowd get behind him like they did -- like the man or not, he's a Yankee who's under contract. I'd like to see the man comfortable and productive, at least at home.

jrodmc wrote:

Finestrg wrote:

jrodmc wrote:Wow. Our ace can't hit 90 on the gun. What's next, Tanaka the Knuckleballer?

I'm most probably wrong, but I bet somewhere, CC was hiding an inner chuckle.

The offense concerns me much more going back to last year. Gotta get Ellsbury back on track (he looks really behind up at the plate) and we're gonna need to see some punch outta the middle of that order (Beltran, Tex, McCann, etc.. If Beltran doesn't hit, I might look to give Chris Young a look in RF after awhile. Dude really finished the spring strong). Also don't know how long I'm prepared to wait on Drew at 2B. If he continues to not hit and we're approaching mid-May/end of May, I'd look to incorporate Pirela and/or Refsnyder. If Joe keeps the lineup like he had it for the opener, A-Rod won't get anything to hit if Drew's an automatic out hitting behind him. Pirela or Ref could protect A-Rod a lot better than Drew. Glad to see A-Rod's still got something left in the tank. We're gonna need the help offensively. Glad to see the Yankee crowd get behind him like they did -- like the man or not, he's a Yankee who's under contract. I'd like to see the man comfortable and productive, at least at home.

Hopefully, we can dominate the major leagues in offense by getting hit by pitches...

That was one ugly win.
Early, I know, but Betances does not appear, at this point anyway, to be anywhere near Mo II.

Yup, ugly as hell but I'll take W's however we can get 'em. So important to establish a winning culture now. It's a marathon but every win counts toward a return trip to the playoffs...Glad to see Ellsbury snap out of it and have a real good game. Dude was on base all night long. He had a rough spring and missed some time so you knew going in he was gonna be a little behind the other regulars. I wanna see Ellsbury and Gardy get the green light to steal whenever they get on. Ellsbuy's aggressive steal of 2nd set up our first run last night. I wanna see that all year long out of our two table-setters. I don't wanna see any Joe Torre 'sit-back-and-wait-for-the-homerun' ball -- we may not get too many of those out of this lineup. I wanna see us be aggressive and go out and manufacture runs, esp. when these 1st two guys get on base...I thought Betances' stuff looked better than it had all spring. Hopefully he's close to being back on track now. Up to me, he'd be the closer. The kid earned it after last year. I don't like not going in and having a defined closer. Joe's just setting himself up to get second guessed throughout the season. Put this thing to bed already and go with Miller setting up Betances. I like having Miller available for a big lefty in the 8th inning anyway...Chris Martin looks like one hell of a find. Hard, heavy sinkers with a good slider and good control. Great move by Cashman. We got this guy for next to nothing (cash considerations). You can kinda tell already that he's close to earning Joe's trust for the 6th-7th innings, if he doesn't have it already. Martin, Miller and Betances should be straight up MURDER on the opposition -- all 3 guys are absolute monsters, 6'7" or better. That's gotta be very intimidating. I'll take any edge we can get. I feel real good about the entire pitching staff, starters and relievers. The offense really concerns me. I wish we could've picked up at least 1 big thumper, someone like Yasmany Tomas maybe. That's what this lineup desperately needed...Some guys like Teixeira we'll have to sink or swim with I guess, but other guys like Carlo Beltran and Stephen Drew I wouldn't hesitate for a nano-second to replace if they don't hit. We might be better off with Chris Young over Beltran in RF full-time and I'd love to see more offense out of 2B. I really hope Rob Refsnyder can find it defensively at 2B in the minors because the kid can flat out rake -- the potential's there for something close to Greg Jeffries/Ian Kinsler with the bat (worst case) with a ceiling of Dustin Pedroia maybe if it all comes together. Gotta get to a point where he's functional at 2B and can at least make the routine plays. As soon as he gets to that point, I'd look to bring him up and go with him as my full-time second baseman. This lineup could definitely use an extra bat like that. Hopefully he's working on his throws to first base--that's where it looked like he was having the most trouble. Just can't see having an automatic out hitting behind A-Rod in the lineup. If anything (say they don't think Ref or Pirela's ready to take over 2B full-time), I think I'd rather see more of this kid Petit over Drew.