Tag: AL East

Rusney Castillo Has His Best Chance to Blossom into Red Sox Star in 2016

About a year-and-a-half has passed since the Boston Red Sox gave Rusney Castillo a seven-year, $72.5 million contract, and he’s still a riddle with mystery and enigma coverings.

But maybe not for much longer. Castillo has star potential in him somewhere, and he’s finally in a position to let it out in 2016.

The Red Sox are looking pretty good heading into the new season. After adding David Price, Craig Kimbrel and others to a core group that played pretty well down the stretch in 2015, we’re thinking the Red Sox will party like it’s 2013 and go from worst to first once again. That may even undersell their potential, as FanGraphs projects the Red Sox as the American League‘s best team.

But perfect, the Red Sox are not. Their rotation beyond Price doesn‘t impress much. Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez are coming off terrible 2015 seasons. Dustin Pedroia is 32 and coming off two straight injury-marred seasons. David Ortiz is on the wrong side of 40 heading into his farewell tour.

It’s Castillo, though, who’s arguably the biggest question mark of them all.

The 28-year-old Cuban outfielder looked like a star in the making when he broke through with a .928 OPS in an impressive 10-game cameo in 2014, but 2015 saw him battle injuries and ineffectiveness. He played in only 80 major league games and hit just .253 with a .647 OPS.

The projections don’t have high hopes for Castillo in 2016. According to FanGraphsZiPS and Steamer have him pegged for less than a full season of work and for less-than-awesome production:

There’s nothing unfair about this. Castillo has had a rough go of it so far and, at 28, he’s not an up-and-coming prospect. One is obliged to entertain the possibility that maybe his shortcomings are permanent.

But enough pessimism. We’re here for optimism! And for pretty good reasons!

If nothing else, one thing Castillo has now that he didn’t a year ago is a clear opportunity with the Red Sox. Whereas he was merely in a position to earn a starting gig going into spring training last season, this year, the starting left field job is his to lose.

Are the Red Sox taking a chance by betting on Castillo? Sure. But are they also betting on a guy with some pretty good natural talent? Yeah. And they already know some of his talent can translate to the majors.

As Ben Badler of Baseball America wrote before Boston signed Castillo in August 2014, scouts who saw him play in the Cuban National Series knew he could at least be a good defender thanks to his plus-plus speed and strong instincts.

Albeit in just a 90-game sample, Castillo has been more like a great defender. The defensive metrics tell us he played above-average defense in his first taste of the majors in 2014 and way-above-average defense in 2015. Despite playing a little more than 700 innings in the field, he racked up more defensive runs saved than all but six other outfielders. 

What surprised scouts back in August 2014—and which was presumably instrumental in getting Boston’s checkbook out of its pocket—was just how much power Castillo had. He was known more as a line-drive hitter in Cuba, but suddenly there he was with 20 extra pounds of muscle packed onto his 5’9″ frame. That led to plus raw power in batting practice.

And on occasion, it’s led to impressive power displays in games. Like so:

Close your eyes, light a candle and put on some soothing music, and you’ll be able to imagine Castillo as a slick-fielding outfielder who also hits a bunch of dingers. These types are otherwise known as really good players, a notion that surely has the Red Sox crossing their fingers.

But there’s a gap Castillo has to bridge in order to get there. As you’ve probably already guessed, it has to do with his offense.

Castillo’s plus raw power is nice, but there are good reasons why he’s only hit seven home runs and racked up a .379 slugging percentage in his 90 major league games. His better-than-average career strikeout rate can vouch that he’s not totally overmatched against big league pitching, but he’s had issues making good contact.

That’s most noticeable in his career ground-ball percentage, which is north of 60. Dan Farnsworth of FanGraphs has some insight into that, as he noted in September 2014 that the swing Castillo brought to the States had “little natural lift.” He has a flat swing that certainly would produce so many grounders.

As Badler noted in 2014, scouts also saw the length of Castillo’s swing as a problem. That helps explain the other thing that’s holding him back: struggles against good velocity.

According to Baseball Savant, Castillo hit just .203 on anything over 93 mph in 2015, with all of his hits being singles. That’s compared to a league-average .258 batting average and .403 slugging percentage.

And so, we have the following Sherlockian deduction: To reach his offensive potential, Castillo needs to adjust his swing so it’s quicker and with more lift.

And that, in turn, leads us to the good news: He knows this.

Brian MacPherson of the Providence Journal reported last August that Castillo was already working on making adjustments to his swing that would allow it to be shorter and more direct to the ball. Recently, August Fagerstrom of FanGraphs looked to see what kind of changes were made and found that Castillo’s swing seemingly did gain a bit more loft.

If Castillo can hold on to that, all he needs to do next is make his swing shorter. As MacPherson reported recently, that’s how Castillo has spent his offseason:

This shouldn’t be mistaken for proof that Castillo has his swing figured out. But because he’s already pinpointed the weaknesses he needs to correct, his swing is a work-in-progress deserving of high hopes. With the concepts nailed down, getting his swing where it needs to be could be as simple as getting enough reps to get into a rhythm.

Of course, this means Castillo needs to do another thing he had trouble doing in 2015, and that’s stay on the field. Starting with an oblique setback in spring training and continuing with shoulder, foot and quad ailments, the injury bug gave Castillo a hard time last year.

In an interview with Scott Lauber of the Boston Herald, Cuban baseball expert Peter Bjarkman expressed doubt over whether Castillo will be able to put his injuries behind him. He’s coming from a Cuban system where off-the-field workouts aren’t as closely monitored as they are in the major leagues and where the culture pushes players to play through injuries.

“It doesn’t surprise me that he’s had injuries,” said Bjarkman. “Now, the question is, is he going to be able to play regularly now in his career, because maybe playing down there has taken a toll on his body and he’s not the same player that he was two, three, four years ago?”

But while this is a fair question, Castillo’s 28 years hardly make him ancient by baseball standards. Between that and the fact that the Cuban National Series plays a shorter season than Major League Baseball, it may be a stretch to think Castillo’s body is wrecked beyond repair.

And according to the man himself, he now has a much better idea of how to get his body ready to last for a 162-game season. As he told Lauber, he used 2015 as a learning experience and altered his offseason training program accordingly.

“I tried to focus a little bit more on a different style to cope with [being worn out and hurt] in the future,” Castillo said through a translator. “I know what it takes to take a toll of the games. I’m preparing hard and [for] what it will take physically, so I’m prepared from now on and I’m ready to face that challenge.”

All this puts Castillo in a much different place than he was a year ago. He was coming off a promising breakthrough, sure, but all he really had to follow it up was his raw talent. Now he has his raw talent, better physical preparation and a better idea of what kind of adjustments he needs to make.

This should help clear up the shroud of mystery that still surrounds Castillo. And once it’s gone, the star player the Red Sox thought they were buying in 2014 may finally emerge.

 

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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Josh Donaldson, Blue Jays Agree on New Contract: Latest Details, Reaction

Toronto Blue Jays third baseman Josh Donaldson is coming off the best season of his career, and the team’s front office has decided to reward the 30-year-old with a new contract. 

According to Shi Davidi of Sportsnet, Donaldson and the Blue Jays agreed to terms on a two-year deal worth just under $29 million to avoid arbitration on Monday. The Blue Jays announced the deal on Wednesday, via Davidi.

Donaldson tweeted his reaction:

On Thursday, Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith reported Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins said the two sides were “going to work toward a multiyear deal” even though Donaldson was already under team control through 2018.     

To say Donaldson’s 2015 season was a revelation would be selling it short. Although his stock was trending up following a 2014 All-Star selection with the Oakland A’s, Donaldson broke out and captured American League MVP honors as he helped the Blue Jays nab the franchise’s first AL East title since 1993. 

“We tore down a lot of thresholds this organization has had,” Donaldson said after winning the MVP Award, according to ESPN.com. “For us to come out on top…I definitely think that helped.”

Donaldson played 158 games and led the league in runs (122), RBI (123) and total bases (352) while drilling a career-best 41 home runs and batting a stellar .297. Donaldson’s mark of 7.7 offensive wins above replacement also ranked third overall behind Mike Trout and Bryce Harper, each of whom tallied an offensive WAR of 8.9. 

Donaldson ranked third in the majors in total WAR (8.8) among position players—behind National League MVP Harper (9.9) and Trout (9.4).

It would have been understandable if the Blue Jays had opted to retain Donaldson’s services via the arbitration process until their period of team control expired, but his accelerated growth proved worthy of a long-term commitment.

The fresh deal also mitigates the risk that would have accompanied paying Donaldson through arbitration, as CBS Sports’ David Brown wrote in January:

Look ahead to free agency in 2019: After listening to the Jays rip him in arbitration, is it going to make Donaldson more willing to take a “hometown discount” to stay in Toronto? Yeah, it’s not likely that Donaldson will be signing a contract extension with the Jays at that point, and it’s probable that other teams would outbid the Jays in free agency.

Now that Donaldson is locked up, Toronto can focus on trying to reach the World Series for the first time since 1993. The 2015 season proved to be a monumental step forward for a franchise that hadn’t reached the postseason in over two decades, but Donaldson and Co. figure to be eyeing a much bigger leap in the months ahead. 

 

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless noted otherwise. Contract information courtesy of Spotrac.com. 

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Eric Wedge Hired as Blue Jays Player Development Adviser

The Toronto Blue Jays announced on Saturday they have hired Eric Wedge as the team’s new player development adviser. 

Wedge spent 10 seasons as a big league manager with the Cleveland Indians from 2003-2009 and the Seattle Mariners from 2011-2013.   

He posted a career record of 774-846 in that span, where he won the 2007 American League Manager of the Year Award after leading the Indians to a 96-66 season. 

However, it was only one of two winning seasons that he ever posted. 

Wedge hasn’t been in the league since his falling out with the Mariners after three years with the team. Posting a 213-273 record with them, Wedge went after the front office in an article by Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times

Instead of finding a new job in the dugout, Wedge headed to the studio where he worked with ESPN’s Baseball TonightOver that span, he’s impressed TSN’s Gareth Wheeler: 

While he’ll be working closely with the Blue Jays roster, there are some, like TSN’s Steve Simmons, who believe that there will be an expanded role for him at some point:

Current Toronto manager John Gibbons should not be going anywhere soon, though. The Blue Jays are coming off of their best season since 1993, in which they won 93 games and pushed the eventual World Series champion Kansas City Royals to six games in the ALCS. 

But if the Blue Jays aren’t putting up good results in 2016 and are looking to make a change, there is always a managerial option in Wedge. Though a power-laden roster with improved pitching doesn’t suggest that will happen any time soon. 

 

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com

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Gavin Floyd to Blue Jays: Latest Contract Details, Comments and Reaction

Veteran right-hander Gavin Floyd has found a home for 2016, as the Toronto Blue Jays announced they signed him to a one-year, $1 million contract. 

Chris Cotillo of MLB Daily Dish initially announced the news.

It’s likely a minor league deal, according to Max Wildstein of Scout.com.

The 12-year veteran Floyd hasn’t been a full-time starter since undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2012 but has been throwing off a mound the last two weeks and appears fully healthy, per Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com. 

Should he reach the majors, Floyd will likely be eased into a reliever role and join a bullpen that last year held hitters to a .231 batting average, third-best in the majors. 

Floyd was expected to land nothing more than a minor league deal, but the interest figured to come from the Baltimore Orioles, per Kubatko.

The fourth overall pick in the 2001 draft, Floyd debuted in 2004 with the Philadelphia Phillies then was traded to the Chicago White Sox in 2006, where he burgeoned into an everyday starter from 2008-2012 before undergoing elbow surgery.    

After recovering, Floyd signed with the Atlanta Braves in 2014 then with the Cleveland Indians last March. But he suffered another elbow injury that kept him out until rosters expanded in September.

In a generous seven appearances, he allowed 11 hits and four earned runs in 13.1 innings. 

While he is an injury risk, bringing in Floyd at a reduced rate doesn’t present much of an opportunity cost—particularly given the Blue Jays have a slew of impending free agents to address next offseason, headlined by sluggers Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion. And if the 33-year-old can rekindle some of his old form, even in the bullpen, he’ll be a cost-effective contributor. 

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Josh Donaldson Reportedly Agrees to New Contract with Blue Jays

The Toronto Blue Jays and superstar Josh Donaldson have reportedly agreed to a new contract.

The two sides reached a consensus on a two-year, $29 million deal, per Shi Davidi of Sportsnet. 

Donaldson tweeted about the news:

On Feb. 4, Greg Warren of the Score noted Donaldson was under Toronto’s control through the 2018 season, but the team and the defending American League MVP “are feuding over $450,000,” which would have led to an arbitration hearing if the two sides hadn’t reached an agreement.

Donaldson is a fan favorite in Toronto, and he suggested he would love to stay there the rest of his career during a radio appearance in November (via Warren): “I really love the city, and I could see myself spending my entire career here. I would love to end my career in Toronto. I love playing there; I would love to be able to do something, but I’m not the one calling the shots.”

Warren called Donaldson’s $4.3 million earnings in 2015 “modest” because of his 41 home runs and league-leading 123 RBI.

Outside of the power numbers, Donaldson hit .297 and tallied a career-high OPS of .939 and a career-best 8.8 WAR, per Baseball Reference. The head-turning WAR stat, which was second only to Mike Trout in the American League, was a result of impressive fielding at the hot corner as well as prowess at the plate.

According to FanGraphs, Donaldson posted 11 total defensive runs saved above average at third base last season. He won the MVP Award and helped the Blue Jays reach the American League Championship Series, in which they lost to the eventual World Series champion Kansas City Royals.

There is plenty of pressure on general manager Ross Atkins’ shoulders heading into next season. Though Donaldson has been taken care of, superstars Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion are set to be free agents following the 2016 campaign.

That threesome represents the offensive core of the team and was a major reason why the Blue Jays led the majors in runs scored, home runs, RBI, total bases, on-base percentage and slugging percentage in 2015. Bautista drilled 40 home runs, and Encarnacion added 39 as part of arguably the most feared trio of sluggers in the majors.

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Blue Jays Will Install Dirt Infield for 2016 Season

The Toronto Blue Jays will be installing a dirt infield at the Rogers Centre for 2016, per a Wednesday report by Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi

The Toronto stadium has had an artificial or a synthetic surface as its field since opening in 1989. 

Toronto is just one of two major league ballparks that have synthetic turf. The other is the Tampa Bay Rays‘ Tropicana Field.

Blue Jays senior vice president of business operations Stephen Brooks told Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet that “this will both improve the surface for the players and also enhance the atmosphere of the stadium for our fans.

Per Nicholson-Smith, the team will “excavate parts of the cement floor at Rogers Centre by 12 inches.” The infield dirt will be placed in those excavated areas.

There has been some dirt on the infield in prior seasons but only surrounding each base. This gave baserunners an area to slide. But synthetic material covered a majority of the basepaths.

The Blue Jays put in new turf prior to the 2015 season, per Ted Berg of USA Today, but it caused some problems, as Jeff Blair of Sportsnet detailed:

Word is already out: the new Rogers Centre turf is some sort of living, breathing, bringer of erratic stuff. It’s where ground balls go to die, at least until it gets worn in… Blue Jays manager John Gibbons suggested before the game that the new surface could be an equalizer, given the way the home runs usually fly out of the Rogers Centre. One Blue Jays player noted that ‘it’s almost like they’ve given us a new stadium, or at least a place that plays like a different stadium.’

Fox Sports’ Jon Morosi reported in April that MLB was monitoring things at the Rogers Centre. 

“MLB is actively monitoring the turf situation at Rogers Centre due to irregular bounces on the surface, source says,” Morosi tweeted. “MLB has not arrived at any conclusions or resolutions about Rogers Centre turf, but [the] league [is] concerned about anything affecting fair play.”

At the Rogers Centre, ground balls hit with speed maintained the same kind of pace, and anything hit with a spin would take odd hops on the turf, which put fielders at a disadvantage. It even played a part in some big games last season, as seen in the video below:

While the dirt infield doesn’t completely solve the problem, it will give fielders a better chance to react to balls hit toward them. On dirt, the number of odd hops will likely decrease and resemble more of a normal infield encountered in most other major league ballparks. 

However, the synthetic turf will still be lying where grass normally should on baseball fields. For the Blue Jays and the Rogers Centre, replacing the synthetic turf should be the next step toward creating an authentic field for fair competition. 

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When Will Yoan Moncada Start Paying off Red Sox’s $31.5M Gamble?

Yoan Moncada is 20 years old, and his entire professional career consists of 81 games at one of the lowest levels of the minor leagues.

So why are we already asking when (not if) he’ll become a major league star?

“If Yoan Moncada doesn’t become an All-Star player, I’ll be shocked,” the respected Boston Globe columnist Nick Cafardo wrote on Jan. 23.

We love our prospects, don’t we? We really love our Cuban prospects who set off bidding wars and land $31.5 million contracts before they leave their teens. We love the talent, we love the promise, and we even love the mystery.

And we at Bleacher Report are here to provide a little perspective. We’re not here to shoot down the Yoan Moncada hype, because we’re not at all sure it should be shot down.

We’re just here with a little reminder. The kid is 20 years old. He’s not ready for the major leagues now, and according to scouts who have followed his career, there’s a good chance he won’t be ready for the big leagues next year, either.

There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing particularly wrong with Moncada, or with the Boston Red Sox organization’s decision to risk that much money on a player still in need of so much development time, because by all accounts this is a kid worth waiting for.

“If the [listed] age is right and the makeup is OK, he’s going to be a heck of a player,” said one scout who watched Moncada last summer at Class A Greenville.

He has crazy speed, which helped him steal 49 bases in 52 attempts, despite not really knowing how to steal bases yet. He has real power, more than the eight home runs in 306 at-bats would suggest.

He has physical skills that make him hard to compare to other 20-year-olds—or other baseball players.

“He looks like he should be playing in the Super Bowl,” the scout said. “It’s a 26-27 year-old body. He was a man among boys in the South Atlantic League.”

The last time I heard that kind of comparison for a baseball prospect was when one of Yasiel Puig‘s minor league managers said he looked like Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson.

“[Moncada] is a little bit like that,” the scout said. “But I don’t think his makeup is as bad as Puig‘s.”

The Red Sox list Moncada at 6’2″, 205 pounds, the same height as Puig but 50 pounds lighter (although Puig has informed the Dodgers, via Andy McCullough of the Los Angeles Times, that he now weighs about 240).

Moncada is also a second baseman, at least for now, although the Red Sox have suggested he could end up moving to the outfield.

“No question he could play second base,” our scout said. “But he can get a little flashy.”

The Red Sox have second baseman Dustin Pedroia signed through 2021. They have an exciting young outfield with Rusney Castillo, Jackie Bradley Jr. and Mookie Betts. But if Moncada becomes as good as he could be, they’ll find room.

Remember, they don’t need to do it yet. Even Moncada seems to understand that, as he told reporters, including WEEI.com‘s Rob Bradford:

I have one goal, and that’s getting to the big leagues. Now I understand the process a little better than I did coming into it. Whether it’s this year, next year, whenever it is, I know bit by bit I’ve got to just keep working hard, and it will be great when it happens. It’s not so much of a straight deadline as I had before.

Remember, he won’t turn 21 until May 27. He’s a rich, physically developed kid so talented that BaseballProspectus.com ranked him as the seventh-best prospect in all of baseball, but he’s still a kid.

He spent some of his $31.5 million signing bonus on a BMW i8, then showed up on TMZ.com because he paid $45,000 for a paint job that made it glow in the dark.

“He wanted a car, so he bought a car,” agent Dave Hastings told Bradford. “But he didn’t have his driver’s license.”

Remember, this is a kid who grew up in Cuba and is just now adjusting to life in the United States. His talent got him the big contract (which actually cost the Red Sox $63 million because of an international signing penalty), but there’s still a lot of work ahead.

He could become a star. Maybe it’s even fair to say he should become a star.

He just needs to be patient.

And so do we.

 

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

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Greg Bird Loss Puts Huge Pressure on Aging Yankees to Stay Healthy

The 2016 season hasn’t even started yet, and the injury bug has already taken a bite out of the New York Yankees

And now, they really have to hope it doesn’t come back for them again. 

The day’s bad news involves Greg Bird. Joel Sherman of the New York Post was the first to tease Monday afternoon that the 23-year-old first baseman had been lost for 2016 due to shoulder surgery. Not long after, the Yankees made it official.

Gut, meet punch.

Bird went into the 2015 season as one of the more well-regarded first base prospects in the minor leagues, and he further boosted his stock as he ascended up the ranks. After OPS’ing .825 with 12 home runs in 83 games at Double-A and Triple-A, he broke through with an .871 OPS and 11 home runs in 43 major league games.

In any other organization, a breakout performance like that likely would have netted Bird a starting role going into the 2016 season. But with Mark Teixeira at first base and Alex Rodriguez at designated hitter, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said earlier this winter that the plan for 2016 called for Bird to spend the year at Triple-A.

“That’s the optimal,” Cashman said, per the Ken Davidoff of the New York Daily News. “Not for Bird, but optimally period, that would be the best.”

But though this may have been the plan, it certainly wasn’t hard to imagine Bird being needed at the major league level in 2016. And now that he’s out of the picture, you can’t help but imagine how much the Yankees might end up missing him.

Take a look at what the Yankees have on paper, and you’ll see a team that could be pretty good in 2016. In fact, FanGraphs projects them to be right in the thick of the American League playoff race with an 86-76 record. 

For that projection to come true, however, the Yankees will need to stay reasonably durable. Trouble is, they’re not exactly built to be reasonably durable.

In their lineup alone, the Yankees have seven regulars who are going into at least their age-32 seasons. The elder statesmen of the bunch are Teixeira, A-Rod and Carlos Beltran, who also might be the three biggest injury risks in the Yankees lineup.

Beltran is going into his age-39 season and has played in just 242 games over the last two seasons due to injuries. Rodriguez is going into his age-40 season, and his track record since 2008 says it’ll be a minor miracle if he repeats his 2015 feat of playing in over 150 games. Teixeira is going into his age-36 season and hasn’t played in a full season since 2011.

Unless Bird got some playing time in right field in the minors this year, he presumably wouldn’t have been called on to fill in for an injured Beltran. But he almost certainly would have been called on to fill in for an injured A-Rod or Teixeira and might have proved to be an upgrade over either of them.

As Rotoworld’s Matthew Pouliot tweeted, he actually had Bird projected for a higher OPS than Teixeira going into 2016:

He’s not the only one. FanGraphs’ projections actually hard Bird pegged for a higher OPS than both Teixeira and Rodriguez. 

When looking at Bird did in 2015, this isn’t all that hard to believe. The numbers that he put up obviously look pretty good, but what makes them look even better is how he produced them. 

Though Bird did swing and miss a bit in posting a 29.8 K%, he also showed a strong eye in posting a 10.7 BB%. He also very much earned his .527 slugging percentage, as Baseball Savant can show us that Bird’s average exit velocity put him in very elite company:

Given this, it’s no wonder that the lefty-swinging Bird didn’t need Yankee Stadium’s short porch to pad his power numbers in 2015. He slugged .459 at home and .611 on the road.

This certainly poses a question for the long run. With Teixeira’s contract set to expire at the end of 2016, Bird figures to be the Yankees’ starting first baseman when he returns in 2017. But because power has been known to need more than a year of recovery time following shoulder surgery, the Yankees have reason to worry whether Bird will be up to the task of filling Teixeira’s shoes.

In the short term, meanwhile, a more pressing question is whether any of their depth pieces could have the kind of impact in 2016 that Bird might have had. And it’s a good question.

Matt Snyder of CBS Sports highlighted Dustin Ackley and Brian McCann as the top backup options for Teixeira. The first is a subpar hitter, and the latter is a natural catcher who’s been roughly an average hitter over the last four seasons. That is, neither figures to be the Johnny-on-the-spot game-changer that Bird could have been.

In the minor leagues, the Yankees’ two most MLB-ready prospects are right fielder Aaron Judge and catcher Gary Sanchez. Judge could be a fill-in option for A-Rod or Beltran, and Sanchez could move behind the plate if McCann is needed at first or at DH. However, Judge was last seen getting a reality check at the Triple-A level, and it was only a year ago that Sanchez’s stock was on ice.

All this is to say that Bird’s season-ending surgery only gives the Yankees another reason to hope and pray for good health in 2016. They already had their chips on an alarmingly old lineup even before Bird went down, and now they might as well be going all-in on an old lineup. They’re going to need their older hitters to fight the good fight against the injury bug.

If they can, the club might actually be able to live up to its fairly optimistic projections. If not, well, that’s probably not going to be so easy.

 

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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Greg Bird Injury: Updates on Yankees 1B’s Recovery from Shoulder Surgery

New York Yankees first baseman Greg Bird will miss the entire 2016 season due to shoulder surgery, the team announced Monday.

Continue for updates.


 

Yanks Announce Bird Injury

Monday, Feb. 1

Bird, 23, was expected to compete for playing time at first base with the Yankees’ core veterans in 2016. The former fifth-round pick hit .261/.343/.529 with 11 home runs and 31 RBI last season after taking over for an injured Mark Teixeira in August. Playing solid enough defense, Bird produced 0.9 wins above replacement in 46 games, via FanGraphs—equivalent to what Teixeira put up in 2013 and 2014 combined.

Unfortunately, Bird remains stuck behind high-cost veterans organizationally. General manager Brian Cashman said in November that Bird was likely to begin the 2016 season in Triple-A Scranton if Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez and Carlos Beltran were healthy.

“He’s blocked by some pretty significant players right now,” Cashman said, per Wallace Matthews of ESPN.com. “He’s not the only one in the game in this situation, you know.”

While Cashman is correct in that three famous players are ahead of Bird, it’s unclear if any of them are actually better at this point. Teixeira was solid in 2015 but largely miserable over his two previous seasons. Beltran was also fine last season, but few projection systems have him as much more than replacement level. Rodriguez is, well, Rodriguez—an enigmatic figure if there ever has been one.

Bird may have been able to outplay them in spring training to the point it was impossible to keep him off the major league roster. Instead, a major injury will force continued inertia on New York’s side. 

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Orioles’ Ramon Ramirez Dies at 23 in Motorcycle Accident

The Baltimore Orioles announced Sunday that minor league infielder Ramon Ramirez died in a motorcycle accident Saturday night in the Dominican Republic.

“As a member of the Orioles organization, Ramon worked tirelessly to make the most of his opportunity to play professional baseball,” said Dan Duquette, the team’s executive vice president of baseball operations. “Our thoughts are with his family, friends, teammates and coaches as we mourn this unimaginable loss.”  

Ramirez joined the organization as an undrafted free agent in 2014. He played 32 games that year in the Dominican Summer League, and in 2015, he spent time with Baltimore’s Rookie League, short-season A and High-A affiliates.

In 55 career minor league games, Ramirez batted .238 with 18 runs batted in and 11 stolen bases.

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