April 28th, 2020: All-Time Bench, Rule 5 Draft, Field of Dreams Game, 2020 Draft

Shameless self-promotion: I wrote CBS posts on righties with sweet swings and ways MLB can experiment in 2020. The latter expands on what I wrote in this space two weeks ago. As for the former, it's always amused me only lefties are described as having sweet swings (Ken Griffey Jr., Robbie Cano, Joe Mauer, etc.), so I went hunting for righties with sweet swings. I've had that post on my ideas list for two years now and the shutdown finally gave me a chance to dig in. Anyway, that's that. Thanks as always for reading. Now for today's thoughts.

1. All-Time Yankees. In an effort to generate content during the shutdown, many outlets are publishing "all-time teams" these days. We're running a series at CBS (here's the Yankees). MLB turned their all-time team series into a bracket challenge. Sniff around the internet and you can find more all-time team stuff. The Yankees' all-time team is pretty straightforward, I think:

• C: Yogi Berra
• 1B: Lou Gehrig
• 2B: Robinson Cano
• SS: Derek Jeter
• 3B: Alex Rodriguez
• LF: Joe DiMaggio
• CF: Mickey Mantle
• RF: Babe Ruth
• DH: Don Baylor
• SP: Ron Guidry, Whitey Ford, Lefty Gomez, Andy Pettitte, Red Ruffing
• RP: Goose Gossage, Sparky Lyle, Mariano Rivera, Dave Righetti

Second base is most up for debate. Willie Randolph is the franchise leader in WAR at the position, Joe Gordon and Tony Lazzeri are Hall of Famers, and Snuffy Stirnweiss had the two best second base seasons in franchise history by WAR. Cano is the best combination of peak and longevity, I think. He played the fourth most games at second base in franchise history and he owns four of the eight best second base seasons by WAR. Good enough reason to go with him? I think so, though I would not argue at all with Gordon, Lazzeri, or Randolph. Can't go wrong there. DiMaggio didn't play much left field but those three are easily the three best outfielders in franchise history, so we have to squeeze him in somehow. Left field it is. DH is an interesting case because the Yankees have had so few true DHs. As a Yankee, Baylor started 372 games at DH and eight at all other positions combined. He was a true DH so I'm giving him the nod. We could stick Reggie Jackson or Jason Giambi or Hideki Matsui or whoever else in there, but they weren't true DHs. Plus he hit, man. Baylor had a 126 OPS+ in three years as a Yankee. He earned it. Anyway, I'm rambling. I brought the all-time team stuff up because it always bugs me when they put star players on the bench in these things. MLB's all-time Yankees bench is Cano (they have Lazzeri at second), Bill Dickey, Roger Maris, Don Mattingly, Graig Nettles, and Paul O'Neill. That's not a bench. That's a Hall of Fame ballot. I want to give bench players their due, so here are the best bench players in Yankees history. Please let me know if I'm missing anyone obvious, which is entirely possible (if not likely).

Backup catcher: Jake Gibbs

Gibbs played parts of 10 seasons with the Yankees. He began his career backing up Elston Howard, started for a few years in the late 1960s, then backed up Thurman Munson at the end of his career. Gibbs had his finest season as a backup in 1970. Munson won Rookie of the Year that season and Gibbs hit .301/.331/.543 (143 OPS+) with eight homers in 49 games as his backup. It was by far the best season of his career. At +1.9 WAR it is the second best season by a catcher with fewer than 60 games played in franchise history, trailing only 2016 Gary Sanchez (+3.0 WAR), who went on a rampage as the starting catcher following his August call-up. Gibbs is 10th all-time in games caught in Yankees history despite only twice catching as many as 90 games in a season. Backup catchers rarely have this much longevity.

Utility infielder: Randy Velarde

I'm always surprised when I look at Velarde's career because it felt like he played more than he actually did. His starts per season from 1988-95: 33, 29, 65, 50, 109, 61, 69, 104. Only thrice in those eight seasons did he bat at least 300 times and one of those three was 310 plate appearances in 1994. He played every position other than pitcher, catcher, and first base with the Yankees. Velarde's best season as a true bench guy came in 1993, when he hit .301/.360/.469 (125 OPS+) with seven homers in 253 plate appearances. That worked out to +2.0 WAR in 85 games (61 starts). Only 2014 Chase Headley (+2.7 WAR) had a better season among infielders with no more than 85 games played in franchise history, and Headley was the starter at third base following a midseason trade, not a utility guy like Velarde.

Fourth outfielder: Oscar Gamble

Following his 1976 stint with the Yankees, Gamble returned to the team at the 1979 trade deadline and settled into a part-time role. He averaged 79 games (54 starts) and 239 plate appearances a year from 1980-84 and was incredibly productive, hitting .254/.366/.493 (139 OPS+) overall. Gamble played at a +4 WAR pace each year from 1980-82. Tim Raines circa 1996-98 was equally productive, though he played more than Gamble, and would've played more if not for injuries. Gamble is part-time player royalty. The Yankees are known for their legends and their all-time greats, but those guys all needed players to back them up. Gamble, Gibbs, and Velarde filled the backup roles better than anyone.

2. Rule 5 Draft eligibility. MLB and the MLBPA resolved several shutdown-related issues last month and, as far as I know, they did not make any adjustments to the Rule 5 Draft eligibility rules. Players due to become Rule 5 Draft eligible after the season will still become Rule 5 Draft eligible. That makes sense -- the MLBPA kept big league service time on track and it wouldn't be fair to push Rule 5 Draft eligibility back a year seeing how it's a mechanism to give players a big league opportunity -- but it's unlikely there will be a minor league season this year, so how do teams evaluate players? That question applies to both the teams looking to select players and the teams deciding whether to protect their own players. Five of my top 30 prospects will be Rule 5 Draft eligible after the season:

3. RHP Clarke Schmidt
4. RHP Roansy Contreras
15. RHP Alex Vizcaino
20. RHP Yoendrys Gomez
21. SS Oswald Peraza

Top prospects like Schmidt (and to a lesser extent Contreras) will be fine. They're no-brainer adds to the 40-man roster with or without a minor league season. Vizcaino, on the other hand, is the perfect example of a player who will be hurt by a lost minor league season. He had a breakout 2019, but because the sample was relatively small, teams passed over him in the Rule 5 Draft. This season would've been his opportunity to advance a level(s) and show last year was no fluke, and put himself in position either to be added to the 40-man roster or selected in the Rule 5 Draft this offseason. That opportunity doesn't exist with no minor league season. How can Vizcaino convince teams he's MLB ready (or convince the Yankees he's 40-man roster worthy) with no season? Gomez and Peraza are well-regarded prospects with minimal full season league experience. Gomez made six starts with Low-A Charleston last year and Peraza played 46 games at the level. That's all. With a normal 2020, they would have repeated Low-A and had a chance to move up to High-A Tampa at midseason. Do well with Tampa and you're on the 40-man roster radar. Now? Who knows. Gomez and Peraza are talented enough that some rebuilding team could take a shot in the Rule 5 Draft and see what's what. If you're the Yankees and 40-man space is at a premium because you need players to help you win now, something Gomez and Peraza are unlikely to do in 2021, you're in a bit of a pickle. You haven't been able to evaluate them for a year and they're lower level players. It's not like, say, Trey Amburgey, who will be Rule 5 Draft eligible (again) and has had Triple-A success. There's more mystery involved. In addition to the players listed above, righties Glenn Otto, Trevor Stephen, and Garrett Whitlock will be Rule 5 Draft eligible this offseason, ditto infielders Oswaldo Cabrera and Kyle Holder, and outfielder Isiah Gilliam. I don't believe the Yankees would protect any of those players this winter -- Cabrera, Holder, and Gilliam were left exposed in previous Rule 5 Draft(s) and Whitlock will spend most of this year rehabbing from Tommy John surgery -- and now they won't even have a chance to make their case in 2020. Stephan has nasty, nasty stuff, but he was so bad last season that he had to be demoted from Double-A Trenton to High-A Tampa at one point. Had he shown up this year and blown the doors off Double-A and earned a promotion to Triple-A Scranton, he would've been on the 40-man radar. Can't do it now. It's a bummer. The Rule 5 Draft gets more hype than is warranted -- I'm definitely guilty of hyping it up -- but the 40-man roster decisions are real and important. This is just something teams will have to deal with later this year. It's possible, if not likely, they'll have to make 40-man roster decisions after the season without having seen the player play in a competitive games since last year.

3. Field of Dreams Game. The Yankees and White Sox are scheduled to play the Field of Dreams Game -- one game in Dyersville, Iowa -- on Thursday, August 13th. Not only has the Field of Dreams Game not yet been canceled or postponed, they're currently building the damn stadium. Barry Bloom reports construction is underway. From Bloom:

Construction continues under strict adherence to CDC and state protocols, including social distancing, washing hands, and temperature checks on construction workers before arriving at the site. 

Safe guarding public health is MLB’s top priority as the project moves toward completion.

I totally understand holding out hope that games will be played in MLB cities and MLB parks this season. I know I would love nothing more than to see some short porch dingers in the Bronx this summer. The Yankees don't have to build Yankee Stadium to make that happen though. The Field of Dreams Game will be played in a temporary 8,000-seat ballpark in the middle of a cornfield. The original plan was to build the park, play the game, then tear it down. Now? I have no idea. I'm sure MLB hopes (expects, even) to start playing games long before August 13th, but geez, what if they don't? Or what if they're only able to play in Arizona or Florida or wherever, and Iowa is not a viable option? They just gonna leave this temporary ballpark up until they can play the Field of Dreams Game, even if it's not until next year? Not sure starting construction was a good idea, you guys. Seems to me the smarter move would've been canceling the Field of Dreams Game, and rescheduling it for next year. Maybe even play an entire series in Iowa to make up for it, you know? Instead, the park is being built -- a park for one (1) game at that -- even though we have no idea whether the game will be played or if fans will be able to attend. Crazy. MLB has already canceled all their overseas events this year (London Series, games in Puerto Rico, etc.) yet they're still hanging onto hope for this game in Iowa that requires an entire stadium to be build. I don't get it. I don't get it and I hope MLB is not going to force the Field of Dreams Game should the season begin at some point before August 13th. It's unnecessary travel and, frankly, it's a waste of money. Seems like keeping that construction money in the coffers would've been a good idea during the shutdown. Instead, we'll all hope the Field of Dreams Game can be played as scheduled, or that leaving the ballpark in place in the middle of this cornfield all winter until the game can be played next year is actually viable. I dunno. Just seems to me that starting construction on this park and committing to the game was unnecessary.

4. 2020 draft prospect: Luke Little. We don't know when the 2020 amateur draft will take place just yet -- MLB can hold it anytime between June 10th and July 20th -- but there will be a draft this year, and I'm gonna break down potential Yankees targets the next few weeks. We've already covered Nick Bitsko, Tanner Burns, Pete Crow-Armstrong, C.J. Van Eyk, Max Meyer, and Austin Wells. Little is an massive left-hander -- he's listed at 6-foot-8 and 225 lbs. -- at San Jacinto College in Houston. As a freshman last spring he pitched to a 2.04 ERA with 69 strikeouts and 36 walks in 35.1 innings. Yes, more walks than innings. This spring he allowed two runs with 17 strikeouts and three walks in nine innings around a back injury prior to the shutdown. Eighty-six strikeouts in 44.1 college innings. Lordy. Baseball America (subs. req'd) ranks Little as the 119th best prospect in the draft. MLB.com does not rank him among their top 150 draft prospects. The Yankees hold the No 28 (first round), No. 99 (third round), and No. 129 (fourth round) picks. Here's a snippet of Baseball America's scouting report (here's video):

Little pitches at 96-97 mph, but has touched 100 at his best ... He also showed a much better feel for locating his above-average 80-83 mph slider (this year). It has less power than may be expected, but it has solid bite, although its spin rates are not exceptional. Little is a South Carolina signee. He would have benefited from a full season which would have given him time to show his control improvements are sustainable, but a team looking for a power lefty could be enticed by his two-pitch package with the hope that there is more refinement to come. 

Over the weekend Little shared a workout video in which he hit 102 mph. The Yankees have always loved huge pitchers and big velocity, and Little offers both. He'll be a second or third (or fourth) round pick rather than a first rounder because he's far from a finished product and that represents risk, but there's also a lot of upside. Help Little put it all together and you might get an Andrew Miller clone with more velocity. The Yankees will have only three picks and $3.7M in bonus pool money this year. They won't have many opportunities to add to the farm system this draft. Little will be 19 on draft day and he has some leverage as a junior college kid committed to South Carolina, but it's not often you can find this sort of upside outside the top 100 picks of the draft. The Yankees could zero in on Little as a big upside player with their third or fourth rounder without really breaking the bank. (Jonathan Mayo released his latest mock draft yesterday. He has the Yankees taking Arizona high school shortstop Carson Tucker in the first round. He's the younger brother of Pirates prospect and former first round pick Cole Tucker. MLB.com ranks Tucker as the 52nd best prospect in the draft class and says he "displays excellent bat control and bat speed over power" and has "the feet and hands to play shortstop long-term.")

5. Remembering a random Yankee: Kerry Wood. Our series looking back at random Yankees continues by request with a pitcher who really isn't all that random given his career accomplishments. We've already covered Juan Acevedo, Erick Almonte, Oscar Azocar, Colter Bean, Brandon Claussen, Kevin Elster, Greg Golson, Nick Green, Aaron Guiel, Brandon Knight, Blake Parker, and Mark Reynolds. The Yankees acquired Wood, then 33 and in his 13th big league season, from the Indians at the 2010 trade deadline to solidify their bullpen. It was a move we pushed for at the time and it was a total salary dump. The Yankees took on half the $3.5M owed to Wood and the two minor leaguers they sent to Cleveland as players to be named later (Matt Cusick and Andrew Shive) never even played a game in the Indians organization before being released. The Yankees added a high strikeout veteran bullpener for the stretch run and didn't have to give up anything. Wood surrendered a solo homer to Aaron Hill in his first Yankee Stadium appearance following the trade -- "Not the welcome I wanted wearing the pinstripes for the first hitter I faced, but I was excited to get in there and glad the first one’s out of the way," he told Mark Hale -- then he rattled off 21 consecutive scoreless outings and settled in as Joe Girardi's Eighth Inning Guy. In those 21 appearances he struck out 24 and held hitters to a .154/.283/.154 batting line in 23.1 innings. Among the 554 pitches to pitch in at least 20 regular season games with the Yankees, Wood has the highest ERA+ by frickin' far:

1. Kerry Wood: 631 ERA+ (2 ER in 26.1 innings)
2. Andrew Miller: 237 ERA+ (21 ER in 107 innings)
3. Adam Ottavino: 235 ERA+ (14 ER in 66.1 innings)
4. Richard Bleier: 223 ERA+ (5 ER in 23 innings)
5. Luis Ayala: 207 ERA+ (23 ER in 56 innings)

Mariano Rivera is seventh on that list with a 205 ERA+, which is insane seeing how he threw 1,283.2 innings in pinstripes. Anyway, Wood was a force in the postseason. He appeared in seven of the team's nine postseason games that year and allowed two runs in eight innings. With the season on the line in ALCS Game 5, he struck out three in two scoreless innings to get the ball from CC Sabathia to Rivera. Here's the video. The Yankees tried to re-sign Wood after the season -- Brian Cashman said the team initially planned to offer him arbitration, which would've entitled them to draft pick compensation had he signed elsewhere under the old Type-A/Type-B system, but decided against it at the last moment -- but he eventually took a hometown discount to return to the Cubs. Two years later he called it a career. Despite all the injuries Wood retired with a career 3.67 ERA (117 ERA+) and 1,582 strikeouts in 1,380 innings. At the time of his retirement, his 27.0% career strikeout rate was third highest in history among pitchers with at least 1,000 innings, trailing only Randy Johnson (28.6%) and Pedro Martinez (27.7%). By Game Score, Wood's 20-strikeout game remains the best pitched nine-inning game in MLB history. Better than every perfect game and no-hitter. Here's the video. Video game stuff even by 2020 standards. Wood is currently with the Cubs as a special assistant to Theo Epstein.

6. Rapid fire thoughts. The 2020 Cape Cod League season has been canceled, the league announced. The season was supposed to begin June 13th and continue through mid-August. The Cape is the premier collegiate summer league -- it's elite college players with wood bats -- and a key part of the scouting calendar. MLB can push the draft back as far as July 20th this summer. Had the Cape been able to play their season, it would've been a five-week look at this year's top college prospects prior to the draft. Alas, the season has been canceled, and obviously it's the right call. Safety first. This just means a potential scouting opportunity no longer exists ... Scranton RailRiders co-owner David Abrams told Conor Foley the 2020 Triple-A All-Star Game has been canceled. The International League has not made it official yet but that'll happen soon enough. Scranton was scheduled to host the game. "Obviously, we’re not having our All-Star Game this summer. Minor League Baseball wants to officially come out in May and tell people, but I’ll tell you guys I view this as quote unquote ‘lemons to lemonade’ because we’re pushing it back to 2022," Abrams said, which seems to indicate Scranton will get the 2022 All-Star Game instead (the 2021 game is set for Round Rock). There's probably not going to be a minor league season this year, and it feels like only a matter of time until MLB cancels its All-Star Game. Best case scenario, they will use that week to play regular season games instead. Anyway, if you were planning to go to the Triple-A All-Star Game this year, you now have some free time in July. Better luck in 2022.

(Send your questions for Friday's mailbag to RABmailbag at gmail dot com.)