New York Yankees Notes from Their Day Off

The Yankees have an off-day today which means no games, batting practice, or bullpen sessions. It also means that today is a pretty slow day as far as hard news goes.

There are a few things to discuss however starting with Edwar Ramirez who threw a bullpen session this week. Everything went well and according to Peter Abraham he is scheduled to pitch in a game on Saturday.

Mark Melancon has pitched pretty well in spring so far. Over five innings he’s allowed three hits, two walks and zero earned runs to go with four K’s. Abraham seems to think that he is the fifth of four relievers battling for three spots in the Yankees bullpen meaning he is likely to start the season in the minors, but could be the first one called up.

The other pitchers batting for bullpen spots, according to Abraham, are Jose Veras, Phil Coke, Ramirez and David Robertson. I agree with him, but I would throw Jonathan Albaladejo into that mix as well.

Jorge Posada is slowly coming along with his rehab from shoulder surgery and this weekend will be the first time he gets behind the plate since early 2008. According to Kat O’Brien of Newsday he will be behind the plate this Sunday.

The Yankees have also wrapped up all of the pre-arbitration eligible players with the signing of Joba Chamberlain. Here is a list of the salaries of all the players that fall into the 0-3 years of service time and are not eligible for arbitration.

Cody Ransom $455,100
Joba Chamberlain: $433,000
Jose Veras: $432,975
Edwar Ramirez: $422,450
Brett Gardner $414,000
Ian Kennedy: $408,925
Phil Hughes: $407,650
David Robertson: $406,825
Jonathan Albaladejo: $403,075
Phil Coke: $403,300
Francisco Cervelli: $400,700
Wilkin De La Rosa: $400,000
Michael Dunn: $400,000
Christian Garcia: $400,000
Eric Hacker: $400,000
Steven Jackson: $400,000

Those numbers are the amounts they would earn in the majors. While the players are in the minor leagues they will earn significantly less.

Finally since it is such a slow day here are a bunch of links to read up on.

Tom Gaffney of The Yankee Universe has a great article up today that questions the Sabermetric measure of clutch. He would rather know how well certain hitters do against pitchers with a sub-3.50 ERA.

River Ave Blues has been discussing Dominance Factors for minor league hitters. It seems cool, but to me it really only shows if players are ahead or behind the minor league level they should be at according to their age. DF has little ability to predict future performances.

John Harper of the Daily News is concerned with CC Sabathia’s workload over the past two years.

Jonathan Papelbon also called Manny Ramirez a cancer on his teams even though the Red Sox probably would have won the 2008 World Series if they hadn’t traded him. Philadelphia’s thank you card is already in the mail.

Joba said that the advice he got after his first two starts lead to his great performance in his third.

Center field update: Even though I have been complaining about spring stats all week long let’s take a look at how Brett Gardner and Melky Cabrera are doing. Gardner is tearing it up this spring and Melky is just trying his best to keep up. Gardner’s line looks like this: .417/.462/.875.

That .875 number is his slugging percentage and not OPS. Melky’s line is .238/.360/.333. Based on spring stats alone Melky should be spending his $1.4 million on a boat back to the Dominican Republic.