Baseball America’s Top 100 Prospects

Here’s the list. Joba is at number 3.

Giambi Looking Good

From Newsday:

Jason Giambi, who showed up with a shave and much shorter haircut Tuesday, has been catching the attention of manager Joe Girardi. One notable difference is that Giambi has been hitting the ball to all fields during batting practice. Teams often employ a pronounced shift against him, as he tends to pull the ball to rightfield.

If Giambi can simply put the ball into play, I’ll be happy. He says that he’s feeling good in camp after working hard during the off-season, and he expects to be healthy and productive for the club. Here’s a bit of text from the NY Times (Kepner):

Never nimble afoot, Giambi said he did long-distance running, sprints and shuttle runs — all on the ground, never on a treadmill or stationary bicycle. He said he was surprised at how well he had handled the pounding. “Because I fixed my feet, now my knees feel better and my legs feel better,” Giambi said. “I would always just chalk it up to my knees being beat up because I’m getting older. I didn’t realize my feet were so bad. I just couldn’t get on the ground. I feel a ton better, other than maybe my first year here.”

No matter how healthy and good he feels, Giambi is still 37 years old. It’s hard to be productive (physically), no matter how healthy you are, at such an old age (old for ballplayers).

Theo Epstein VS. Mike Mussina

From Ed Price:

Theo Epstein, general manager of the Boston Red Sox, called Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina a “bad apple” for complaining about the team’s trip to Japan in 2004.

The Red Sox open this season against the Oakland A’s in Japan. Appearing on Boston radio station WEEI last Friday, Epstein said, “Kevin Brown and Mike Mussina spent the whole time bitching about it … and by the time the Yankees team got back from the trip they were all using it as a crutch.”

Told of the comments, Mussina said sarcastically, “Yeah, we used it as an excuse for winning the division.”

Epstein had been praising his players for their attitude about the trip.

“The research that we’ve done on the Japan trip from the teams that have previously gone,” Epstein said, “is one or two bad apples can spoil the lot.”

Said Mussina: “You need a comment from me about him calling me a bad apple? I don’t have one.”

He’s right about Brown, but how dare he disrespect the Moose. Next time Mussina sees Epstein, I hope he flutters a knucklecurve right as his grill. I’ve never had a real reason to truly dislike Theo, because he seems okay. However, this helps me a bit.

(Thanks to RAB).

Cashman Watching Cleveland’s BP

Here’s a little unnoticed nugget about Brian Cashman and his ideas on the bullpen, this year. It was featured in the NY Times a couple of days ago:

Cashman said he looked at the Cleveland Indians, who eliminated the Yankees in the division series last fall, as a model. The Indians signed a reliable free agent, Joe Borowski, and filled in the other spots with power arms from their farm system.

I guess this was the point of the Hawkins signing, although to say he’s our Joe Borowski is a very scary thought. Power arms, hmm? That sounds like Joba, Sean Henn and Jose Veras. The Cleveland pen was phenomenal last year and it’s just too bad we all got to witness it, firsthand. The two Rafaels (Perez and Betancourt) were tremendous and other guys came up out of nowhere to give the Indians a boost (e.g. Jensen Lewis). If Cashman can put together anything like their bullpen last year, for this year, I’d expect Yankee fans to be pretty happy.