Assorted News and Notes

Wanted to briefly go over some relevant news that’s developed in the last day or so. It’s amazing that even on off days there are so many nuggets of information that pop up and warrant some discussion.

---Touching on what I wrote yesterday, Darrell Rasner has been officially named the starter for Tuesday night’s game in Toronto, replacing disabled Dan Giese. Chris Britton will be in the bullpen tonight to take Giese’s place on the roster. Britton has become quite the punchline in the “Yankees Universe”. I honestly don’t know what to make of keeping a player in such limbo as Britton. I guess he must be glad that the team keeps calling his number to come up to the big leagues, but he is never given a real chance to pitch with the Yankees so I doubt he’s ever really that thrilled to show up in the clubhouse anymore. Oh well, I’m sure he’s crying a lot when he looks at his six-figure paycheck.

---Tyler Kepner wrote on the NY Times blog that the Yankees’ 1st round pick in this June’s draft, right-handed high school starter Gerrit Cole, has decided to forgo signing with the Yankees, instead choosing to go to college. The way it seemed to shake down: Cole is represented by the nefarious Scott Boras, with Cole also receiving influential counsel from his father. Boras’ demands apparently were for a major-league contract with a $9 million signing bonus. So that would mean that Cole would be added to the Yankees’ 40-man roster, even though he is a ripe 18 years old and years (3 or 4 in best case scenario) from cracking the majors. Furthermore, to put the rumored money demands into perspective, the Rays signed the draft’s #1 pick, shortstop Tim Beckham, to a minor-league deal with a bonus of $6.15 million. So, Boras has decided that Cole deserves to get the richest bonus of any player in the draft. It seems possible that the Yankees might be okay with the obscene money demands (since they are, after all, the Yankees) but would not be willing to give up a precious 40-man roster spot. The team gave last year’s #1 pick Andrew Brackman a big-league deal with a 40-man roster spot, but he is years older than Cole. Plus, giving one #1 pick a spot should not dictate a norm for years to come, especially since the Yankees have had to juggle their 40-man all year to keep from losing players.

A truly sticky situation is what the Cole process seems to be. Kepner’s post makes it seem as though the deal is totally dead because Cole and his father will turn down any offer and are fully set on Gerrit attending U.C.L.A. in the fall. In that scenario, though, he wouldn’t be eligible for the draft again till his junior year, which is an eternity for a young pitcher—his stock could completely disintegrate in that time, and he may never approach the type of interest/deal he could get this year from the Yankees. However, this is Scott Boras that is involved with these negotiations, and the deadline for draft picks to sign is tonight at midnight, so I don’t think this issue is completely dead. If anything changes, I will be sure to post an update.

---Sports talk radio in New York has seen a radical change announced yesterday: Mike and the Mad Dog, mainstays on WFAN for 18 years, will no longer be on the air. Chris Russo is leaving WFAN, apparently signing a big-money deal with Sirius Satellite Radio, leaving Mike Francessa solo on the airwaves at The Fan. I never enjoyed listening to or watching their show, but they were the biggest names in the country’s biggest market. Oodles of New York sports fans tuned in to their show every afternoon and listened to these two buffoons preach on the good and bad of every team in the city (except for hockey because, to them, it wasn’t a real sport). The writing had been on the wall for their split for quite a while, so this news comes as no surprise.

---Rehab notes: Hideki Matsui’s scheduled debut in the Single-A Tampa Yankees’ lineup was sidetracked by rain last night. He is scheduled to play tonight, so it will be interesting to see how he comes through that. Phil Hughes is still scheduled to start Sunday in Scranton, and should get up above 90 pitches for the first time in his rehab appearances. There is mucho speculation that it will be his last appearance in the minors, and I think that will be case as well—but if he struggles with control or labors in any way, I think the team takes it slow with him. The struggles early in the year of both Hughes and Kennedy, and the short leash on Kennedy when he returned last week, makes me believe that they would rather let those guys work it out at AAA then put them in the majors before they’re completely ready.

---Speaking of Ian Kennedy, Chad Jennings’ S/WB Yankees blog has his catcher and pitching coach saying he threw approximately 30 curveballs in his start (5 IP 6 H 1 ER) for Scranton last night. They told him to work on his secondary pitches, and Ian took the note and ran with it, also throwing many two-seam fastballs, a pitch that seemed non-existent in his starts in the big leagues. He was in a lot of 3-ball counts as a result of the experimentation, causing his start to only last 5 innings. But it seems like the focus is not on his numbers, but instead on his ability to refine his pitches and be more than just a four-seam fastball/change-up guy. The next start for him will seem to be a big test, as he says in the Jennings post that he will look to incorporate the entire arsenal into one start. The key will be throwing his curveball for a strike—when he showed that pitch in the majors, it was never in the strike zone so hitters didn’t have to respect it. If he builds up consistency with that pitch and can throw it in any count, he becomes less predictable and ultimately less hittable, even in the majors. Should be interesting to see how he looks once he gets recalled in September, after doing all this work to reinvent his approach ¾ of the way through the season.

I’ll be back later with a preview of this weekend’s 3-gamer against the Kansas City Royals.