Yankees' Spring Training: Looking at Today's Battles

Game 31: Yankees win over the Braves 6-4

Today was an important day for some Yankee players. Some made a good impression and some didn’t. Some will remain on the team and some might get released. Let's look at the players battling for spots.

Melky Cabrera

He’s battling Brett Gardner for the center field position. He didn’t hurt himself by going 3-for-4 with one run scored. His average for the spring is now .346. I still don’t think he has potential to be great. To me, he’ll always be a good defensive center fielder who’s an average hitter.

Brett Gardner

Just last week we were talking about how Gardner had the starting center field position locked up. After going 0-for-2 with a strikeout, his position isn’t so secured.

Brett Tomko

He pitched three innings of shut-out ball lowering his spring ERA to 1.17. I don’t know how he’s winning this spring training battle between Alfredo Aceves and Dan Giese for the long reliever position. Tomko has been a pretty terrible pitcher his whole career. His numbers speak for themselves this spring, and he’s winning going away.

Dan Giese

He let in three runs, only one of which was earned, however. Still, he was very effective last year, but his EA this spring is 6.89. That’s not good for someone who’s fastball tops out at 87 mph and throws a bunch of off-speed pitches. I like Giese because he was good last year. It would be a shame to see him not make the 40-man roster.

Alfredo Aceves

He gave up an earned run in three innings but has a 4.60 spring ERA. He’ll most likely be sent down to the minors.

We have a good idea that Brett Tomko will win the long reliever role because he’s earned it, but it’s hard to say which way Joe Girardi will go with Gardner and Cabrera.

I’d like to mention that the YesNetwork is a bad TV station. Today I was watching Matsui’s grand slam game, and they messed it up. The game froze while Matsui was rounding the bases. Then when the game went back on, they didn’t reshow Matsui’s home run. Talk about anti-climatic.

Yes, we need the YesNetwork for the Yankees but that’s all they are good for.

This article was also featured at http://www.yankeesdaily.com