Joba Follows Phil Tonight

Joba Chamberlain will try to follow Phil Hughes’ good performance with one of his own as he starts tonight for the Yankees. Joba should try and incorporate the same type of game plan that Hughes and Molina used to tame the Tigers last night. Hughes had good velocity on his four-seamer and used it well along with his cutter to get ahead of the Tigers hitters early. This allowed him to use his knuckle curveball to keep the Tigers off balance all night long.

While Chamberlain doesn’t feature a cutter, he can use his slider in a similar manner. He can throw it just off the plate outside to righties and in off the plate in on lefties. Along with his four-seamer (which hopefully by now will be back where it should be), the slider will allow him to use the curveball as an out pitch against righties, and perhaps the changeup as an out pitch to lefties.

Chamberlain will be opposed by the promising 21 year old rookie Rick Porcello. Porcello, who is a native of Morristown, NJ is a hard throwing righty who also has an excellent breaking ball. The Yankee hitters will have their hands full with Porcello tonight.

Great Day for the Yankee Faithful

Could yesterday have gone any better for Yankee fans all over the globe? The Yanks get their first win in dominating fashion over Baltimore. The offense looked very good and AJ Burnett looked like he was worth every penny of his newly signed contract. What made the day even better for fans though? It happened in the 2nd inning of the Texas/ Cleveland game when Carl Pavano was lifted from the mound after being pounded by the Rangers. Carl only recorded 3 outs while giving up 9 runs on 6 hits and 3 walks. I'm sure Yankee fans all over couldn’t be happier.

Also yesterday in Toronto, New Jersey native Rick Porcello made his Major League debut for the Detroit Tigers. The 20 year old right handed pitcher started on the mound and pitched a pretty solid game, putting up a line of 5 IP- 4 ER- 9 H- 1 BB- 4K, though he was tagged for the loss. What’s more impressive though is his professional pitching career consists of only 125 IP in single A ball. Porcello is certainly showing that he is the Tigers top prospect and hopefully he will live up to expectations.

MLB: The New Class

For the most part spring training stats don’t mean much. If Albert Pujols were to go hitless all spring or Roy Halladay didn’t record an out it’s still a pretty safe bet that they would still produce once the regular season rolls around. However spring stats are a helpful tool to gauge what the emerging crop of youngsters may or may not do in the near future. I’ve decided to look at the spring stats of 16 top prospects who have a chance at impacting the big club sometime this season.

Take these numbers for what you will. Obviously they mean nothing. Dexter Fowler could become the biggest star and Matt Wieters could be the biggest bust, we’ll never know until they actually hit the big leagues. It’s just interesting to see their stats thus far in spring and also possibly useful if you have a forth coming fantasy draft. My sleeper pick is Beckham, come on zero strikeouts this spring you gotta love that!

-Robb Lennahan