"After my fourth season I asked for $43,000 and General Manager Ed Barrow told me, 'Young man, do you realize Lou Gehrig, a 16-year-man, is playing for only $44,000?' I said, Mr. Barrow, there is only one answer to that - Mr. Gehrig is terribly underpaid."- Yankees outfielder Joe DiMaggio
Actually, they do have a bad defender in there every day. Say what you want about Jeter's defense, but it's better than Nunez's. And before you start, the range argument doesn't work here. He's making errors on balls hit right to him, and he's had a number of throwing errors. He's like a swinging gate out there. I hold my breath every time the ball is hit his way.
Um...The Reds are 40-39 and the Rockies are 38-39. I'm not sure what counts for good teams in your estimation, but in mine it isn't a couple of .500 NL teams.
Nunez is making rookie mistakes. Maybe he learns by playing. Jeter is not going to learn range or bat speed.
Nunez might be ok. Not now but he might develop. Jeter won't.
Yes, the pitchers and hitters just decided to perform because Jeter is out of the lineup. Nothing to do with playing bad teams or the normal streaky play of baseball.
I'm not saying Jeter is even above average at this point in his career, but he is far from the reason the Yanks have tanked against the Red Sox (their only fatal flaw this season) or lost a majority of their games. Implying that this team is vastly better without him in the lineup (especially when you look at who replaces him) only proves my point that the Jeter-bashing is disproportionate to his effect on the team.
Hiroki Kuroda anyone? Of course Cashman shouldnt give up a fortune to get him, but giving up one decent prospect for him isnt too bad?
I think the vastly improved lead off slot is having more than a trivial effect.
Let Ego play. Just bat him 9th at least against RHP. Work in Nunez more often.
I'm tired of the idol worship. It's like worshipping a statue. Especially given his playing style.
Yes, as long as they continue to give him the most at bats on the team, they are better without him.
And we will never know if we have anything in Nunez if we don't give him a chance. Personally I don't think he is going to be a star but given a chance he could be adequate.
I agree he shouldn't be in the leadoff spot anymore, but saying the team is better without him when his replacement is inferior both offensively and defensively defies logic.
To be honest, I never heard of Nunez until he was called up. If he's not a highly touted prospect or has some large upside, it doesn't make sense to me to keep playing him in meaningful games. Put him in AAA where he can fine tune his skills without hurting the team.
I read that Kuroda would accept a trade to most any playoff team, for what it's worth - the Yankees certainly fit into that mold. It's also worth noting that he expressed interest in the Yankees and Mets way back when he came stateside.
I'd also suggest that you should differentiate between Kuroda and other Japanese pitchers. This is his fourth season in the States and his peripherals have been very steady from year-to-year. He's always limited walks and picked up a solid amount of strikeouts, he's a groundball pitcher, and he has the sort of mix of pitches that should make him successful in either league - he's not the type that sinks or swims based on one pitch.
He's also not a soft-tosser - his fastball has consistently sat around 92 MPH throughout his career, and his splitter sits around 87 MPH (which is on-par with most cutters and two-seamers).
Nunez is batting .289/.347/.400 since slotting into the everyday line-up - that's much, much better than Jeter. He's also a superior base-runner, as evidenced by his edge in both speed score (a 1.3 edge - the difference between Jeter being average and Nunez being above-average).
He's certainly been struggling in the field, but he drew rave reviews in Triple-A and the tools are certainly there for success.
Nunez has been a top Yankees prospect for the last few years, and Baseball America rated him the best defensive shortstop in his league last season. He's been viewed as the 'shortstop of the future' since signing, as well.To be honest, I never heard of Nunez until he was called up. If he's not a highly touted prospect or has some large upside, it doesn't make sense to me to keep playing him in meaningful games. Put him in AAA where he can fine tune his skills without hurting the team.
As it stands, I tend to agree that prospects shouldn't be rushed to the Majors ... but Nunez has established himself fairly well at Triple-A. It makes sense to see what he can offer to the big club at this juncture.
Last edited by Domenic; 06-28-2011 at 07:06 AM.
Great win tonight. I hope Jeter will be out for the rest or the season so we can keep winning at this rate. He's a cancer to our lineup at the leadoff spot. If he bats 8th I guess I can live with him coming back.
Keep Spraying Maine
Averaging one home run every 10.61 at-bats throughout an entire career - an amazing stat that gets little respect, yet will NEVER be broken!
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good week for the yanks. the sox got beat up by the NL the last week and the yanks are now 1.5 games ahead.
I think walks are overrated unless you can run. If you get a walk and put the pitcher in a stretch, that helps, but the guy who walks and can’t run, most of the time he’s clogging up the bases for somebody who can run. – Dusty Baker.
Welcome back Sergio Mitre! Should bolster our BP.
Ouch. Everybody sees this. I hope Jeter talks to Joe and they agrees for the 5-7 spot. NO WAY DO I WANT HIM 9th!! TAKE SOME MEDS. I really don't feel Jeter has the ego trip. He is our captain, Hall Famer, and we have to do the right thing. We all knew the batting order and shortstop had to change when we signed him.
He is the worst hitter of the starters. Especially against RHP.
He felt "insulted" at the Yanks offer? He stayed at SS when they got ARod years ago.
He is all ego. He is all about himself.
Sorry, he was a great SS once but no longer and it is insulting to captains of the past to call him captain.
Defensive metrics may be taken with a grain of salt, but UZR viewed Rodriguez as well above-average in his last two seasons with the Rangers, and both Total Zone and DRS had him a tick above-average. At this point, Rodriguez couldn't be an everyday shortstop ... or shouldn't, I suppose. Seven years ago, however, I find it difficult to believe that he couldn't have been at least average out there.
That is really hard to tell. he was a good SS in texas but he was a below average 3B all the time. of course 3B has another skillset(less reaction time) but the practice shows that usually a SS can handle the hot corner easily. If a SS can't handle the hot corner very well that's usually a sign for declining defense.
So it could be that 3B is not "his position" but I think it's more likely that his defense was already in decline at that time (maybe due to bulking up). and that wouldn't be unusual. Arod is a huge guy and was very fast for his size. players that are fast "despite their size" usually can't keep that up forever. big men just aren't born to jump around quickly. So it could be very well that he was declining defensively in his late 20s. but of course we don't know that for sure.
I think walks are overrated unless you can run. If you get a walk and put the pitcher in a stretch, that helps, but the guy who walks and can’t run, most of the time he’s clogging up the bases for somebody who can run. – Dusty Baker.
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