Injury update

According to reports on 1010WINS this evening it seems that Brian Bruney’s injury may be much worse than originally thought, and it may even end his season. Awful news with the team’s Pen in a fragile state already.

Might this be the factor that makes the team get more aggressive in pushing to trade Betemit for some bullpen help, and keep Alberto Gonzalez up as a backup infielder? Something must be done for the medium-long term if Bruney is going to miss the rest of the year.

On another note – after listening to the White Sox coverage over the past few nights, I’ve re-found this great site with a more than justified motive…..

Heave the Hawk - It wouldn’t be a minute too late either….

Time for some moves to be made

 

After staying up through both rain delays just to watch the Yankees lose to the White Sox last night, the only relatively well rounded thought i could come up with at 5:45am was that the Yankees need to make some moves to bolster their roster. After a quick look at our AAA roster it became fairly apparent that we have multiple options in our farm system to do just that.

 

PITCHERS:      W     L     ERA       IP     K     WHIP

Igawa              2       2      2.93     27.2   29     0.98     

Rasner            3        0      0.72      25     21     0.72

Geise               1       0      0.86      21     22     0.90

Phillips            2       0      2.19      12.1   10     0.57   

Britton             2       1      2.45       11     10     1.36

Veras               0       0      1.80       10     16     0.90       

Ramirez           1       0       0.00       9       13     0.33

Horne              1       0       3.38       8        8      1.38

Albaladejo       0       0       1.29       7        5      1.29

Henn                0       0      1.59       5.2     6      1.06

 

Some of these are admittedly small samples and some of the players may not be deemed ready for the Major leagues. After the recent struggles of the bullpen it would be hard to argue that many players from the list above don’t deserve a decent shot in the bigs.        

 

POSITION PLAYERS         AVG     HR      RBI     OBP      SLG

Duncan                             .309        6         17       .426      .745

Gardner                             .319        2         11       .380      .565

Stewart                             .294        0         2         .415      .382

 

Surely it is time to bring Duncan back up!!! Or are we just going to leave him down there so he can attempt to break some minor league records - as Crash Davis said in Bull Durham(when talking about holding the minor league record for HR’s) - its a “dubious honour”. Gardner is having a strong season and although i’d like to see him up at some point it may be better that he logs AB’s at AAA rather than become a pinch runner/defensive replacement in the Bronx. I put Chris Stewart in as there has been speculation that if we send Moeller down we may lose him altogether. If that were to happen and Posada/Molina had injury recurrences there has been opinions that we would not have a 3rd catcher to bring up. While Stewart has not been spectacular, he is having a tidy season.

 

With all of that said, these are the moves i would make -

Shelley Duncan for Chad Moeller

Edwar Ramirez for Kyle Farnsworth(his elbow concern is a great excuse for putting him on DL)

Darrell Rasner for Ross Ohlendorf or Brian Bruney – Bruney may be headed to the DL with a foot injury or possibly to the badly titled “bereavement list” for a family member who is having serious medical difficulties. We, of course, wish his Uncle a speedy recovery. I feel bad for Ross Ohlendorf. He has repeatedly been asked to pitch in long relief when he has not been prepared to do so. I think that he will make a highly effective middle reliever this year and could possibly be a candidate for the 8th inning after Joba makes his transition to the rotation.