A-Rod Could Play This Weekend

Even though A-Rod will join the team tomorrow, in Chicago, he likely will not play until this weekend when the Yankees face the Cleveland Indians. Remember, although A-Rod has been taking care of family matters, he’s still nursing that strained quad.

How Long Will We Have to Wait for Our Young Pitchers?

Here’s a good read by Tristan Cockcroft of ESPN. He tackles this very question (it’s actually for fantasy baseball purposes) and comes up with a pretty interesting conclusion, not just about Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy, but about young pitchers in general:

But what the chart above also proves is that it takes about 40 big league starts before a pitcher, on average, tends to hit his groove. Note the significant improvements in ERA, WHIP and innings per start of pitchers making their 41st through 50th starts compared to those in the 31-40 range. In other words, if you’re banking on Hughes, who has 17 starts under his belt, you might be waiting until late August or September for him to hit his peak, assuming he sticks to those historical trends. Kennedy owners, sorry to break this to you, but you might be waiting a lot longer; he has six career starts.

It could be a bumpy road ahead (and a long one at that).

Like This Would Happen?

From The Chicago Tribune:

White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen claims that he could never work for New York co-owner Hank Steinbrenner, according to the Chicago Tribune.

He commented on Hank’s outspoken role as the team’s owner, citing that as the reason why he doesn’t think he could work for the younger Steinbrenner.

“It’s one of the reasons I don’t know if I’ll ever manage that club because there are going to be two tigers in the same cage,” Guillen said.

“But thank God Jerry Reinsdorf is my owner,” Guillen added. “And besides my owner, he’s my father. He’s one of the best friends of my life. Steinbrenner is just being Steinbrenner, and that’s what he is.”

Can you imagine that duo? Talk about giving the NY media a field day. Some fans have always clamored for a guy like Ozzie Guillen, a guy who’ll spark the team (I guess) through a variety of verbal barrages, curses, and whatever else works (the kitchen sink?). However, after the Joe Torre approach, rest assured you will never see a guy like this in the Yankee clubhouse for a long, long time.

We Believe in Jason Giambi

Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t really believe in Giambi. He’s hit one single all season and has 3 homers (2 off of Mike Timlin). He’s 2-for-43 against the rest of the league and he seems to love hitting balls into the shift when all he did during Spring Training was practice going the other way. Frankly, I think he looks overmatched at the plate, especially when there’s an above average pitcher out there. However, Brian Cashman, Hank Steinbrenner and Joe Girardi all believe in Giambi and think that he’s not “too far off” and that he’ll ultimately “correct himself” in the long run. Of course they’re not going to say “yeah, he’s done” so I guess this was the diplomatic route. Giambi might not even play tonight after suffering a swollen thumb last night when he fielded a grounder in the later innings. If he can’t play, we may see Shelley Duncan, Jorge Posada, or even Johnny Damon at 1B instead.

Also, yesterday I wrote that Frank Thomas would likely end up on the A’s and that the Yanks have had no interest in him. Well, according to Hank Steinbrenner, that’s exactly right.

“We’ve never even talked about it,” Hank Steinbrenner said. “Do I think he can still do something? Yeah. But we’ve got so many guys at DH/first base.”