RAB Thoughts

February 28th, 2023: Shortstop, Domínguez, Schmidt, Thorpe, New Rules, García

The Yankees won’t have the opportunity to pass on Manny Machado again next offseason. Machado leveraged his opt out into what amounts to a new 11-year, $350M contract with the Padres over the weekend. It’s five years and $170M on top of the six years and $180M remaining on his original contract. Once again the Padre...

February 24th, 2023: Montas, Rortvedt, Judge, Grapefruit League Storylines, Mailbag

The folks at Codify Baseball tweet out random stats and one caught my eye the other day. The Yankees have a .582 winning percentage over the last 100 years. That’s a 94-win pace for a century. They went 9,094-6,528 during those 100 years and would have to lose every game for close to 16 years to fall to .500. 2023-02-24 11:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post

February 21st, 2023: LeMahieu, Cortes, Shortstops, Wells, Carrasco, Wacha

In case you missed it Monday, I ran a poll about Domingo Germán vs. Clarke Schmidt for the No. 5 starter’s spot. Schmidt currently has a commanding lead, though the poll doesn’t close until Wednesday morning, so vote if you haven’t already. Also, I’m going to link back to my Top 30 Prospects List one last ti...

Poll: The No. 5 Starter

Who are we kidding? They’re both gonna start a bunch of games. (Getty)

A few weeks ago we learned Frankie Montas would miss the first few weeks of the season, and the Yankees would need a fill-in No. 5 starter. Now we know Montas will miss all of 2023 and the Yankees need a new permanent No. 5 starter. 2023-02-20 11:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post

February 17th, 2023: Montas, King, Torres, Catchers, Prospects To Know, Mailbag

Sad news: Tim McCarver passed away earlier this week. He was 81. McCarver had an eventful playing career (debuted as a 17-year-old in 1959, won the 1964 and 1967 World Series with the Cardinals, part of the trade that led to Curt Flood challenging the reserve clause, Hall of Famer Steve Carlton’s personal catcher, one of the few players to play in four...

February 14th, 2023: Cortes, Roster Check-In, WBC, Hot Stove, Fallen Prospects

I need to apologize for something. The last few weeks I’ve said Yankees’ pitchers and catchers report Tuesday, as in today, but that’s wrong. They report Thursday. They were always scheduled to report Thursday. Why I started saying Tuesday, I have no idea, but I did. As far as mistakes go, this one is pretty dumb and low stakes, so I don’t feel too bad, but still, my bad. Pitchers and catchers report Thursday, then Grapefruit League games begin next Saturday. Now let’s get to today�...

2023 Preseason Top 30 Yankees Prospects

February 9th, 2023: Non-Roster Invitees, Not Top 30 Prospects, Mailbag

PSA: World Baseball Classic rosters will be announced during a live MLB Network broadcast at 6pm ET on Thursday. I can’t say I’ll sit and watch it, but at least we’ll get official word on who’s going. The Yankees blocked Luis Severino from the WBC. Nestor Cortes (USA), Kyle Higashioka (USA), Jonathan Loáisiga (Nicaragua), Wandy Peralta (Dominican Republic), and Gleyber Torres (Venezuela) are o...

February 7th, 2023: Most Important Yankees, Severino, Hamilton, Beltrán

It is the final week of the offseason. Pitchers and catchers report next Tuesday, then Grapefruit League games begin 11 days after that. As a reminder, my annual Top 30 Prospects List will go live this Friday, and Friday’s regularly scheduled post will run Thursday. Now let’s get to today’s post.

1. The 20 most important Yankees. Pitchers and catchers report one week from Tuesday and 2023 will be an important year for the franchise. I mean, they’re all important...

February 3rd, 2023: Loáisiga, Higashioka, Fenter, Mailbag

Top 30 Prospects List update: It’s on track to be published next Friday, Feb. 10th. The Friday before pitchers and catchers report, as always. Friday’s regularly scheduled post will run Thursday and include the Not Top 30 Prospects, then the following week I’ll have stuff on the prospects who fell out of the Top 30, plus some others to know. Now here’s today’s post.

1. The case for making Loáisiga the closer. All things considered, the Yankees have handled th...

January 31st, 2023: Torres, Rotation Depth, Peraza, Volpe, YES

Wednesday is the 24th anniversary of Brian Cashman’s worst trade: Mike Lowell for Mark Johnson, Todd Noel, and Ed Yarnall. The three pitchers combined for 44 MLB innings and -0.4 WAR. Lowell became a four-time All-Star who helped the Marlins beat the Yankees in the 2003 World Series. Yeesh, that was bad. At least the Yankees won the 1999 and 2000 World Series in the immedi...

January 27th, 2023: Hall of Fame, Bullpen, WBC, Mailbag

In case you missed it Thursday, I took a stab at predicting this year’s Spring Training non-roster invitees. The official list should be announced sometime next week. Otherwise there’s nothing going on in Yankeeland right now, so today’s post is a few miscellaneous tidbits and mailbag questions. Let’s get to it.

1. Latest news, rumors, and reports. Like I said, there’...

Previewing the Yankees’ potential non-roster invitees to Spring Training 2023

Soon.

Three weeks from Thursday, Yankees pitchers and catchers will report to Tampa for Spring Training, then position players will follow four days after that. This will be the first normal Spring Training since 2019. 2020 was halted by the pandemic, 2021 was a shorter schedule with little 5-6 team pods because of the pandemic, and 2022 was truncated by the lockout. A normal spring is upon u...

January 24th, 2023: Arraez, Harrison, Stolen Bases, Duncan, Prospects, King

Baseball things are happening. Erik Boland passes along word that Oswaldo Cabrera, Domingo Germán, Aaron Judge, Mike King, DJ LeMahieu, Ron Marinaccio, Luis Severino, and Gleyber Torres are among the Yankees already working out in Tampa. Bryan Hoch even has video. Three weeks until pitchers and catche...

January 20th, 2023: Outfielders, Prospects, Warren, Mailbag

We've reached the point of the offseason when things are so dead there aren’t even interesting “this date in Yankees history” facts to pass along. Sunday is the nine-year anniversary (!) of the Masahiro Tanaka signing though. Has it really been nine years already? Lord. Let’s get to today’s post bef...

January 17th, 2023: Montas, Arbitration, Jones, Mayea, Higashioka, Bowman

In case you missed it, I ran a poll Monday about the 2023 leadoff hitter. It closes at 8am ET on Wednesday, so go vote if you haven’t already. Now let’s get to today’s post. It’s a bit shorter than usual because I broke the leadoff hitter stuff out into the separate poll.

1. Montas dealing with shoulder issue. Spring Training is still a month away and the Yankees have...

Poll: The 2023 Leadoff Hitter

I started writing up a blurb on the 2023 leadoff hitter for Tuesday’s post and figured it would work better as a poll rather than as a straight post, so here it is.

Not easy to make the 6-foot-4 LeMahieu look small.

Do you remember who hit leadoff for the Yankees on Opening Day last season? It wasn’t DJ LeMahieu. He hit fifth. It wasn’t Aaron Judge or Anthony Rizzo, who�...

January 13th, 2023: ZiPS, Kiner-Falefa, International Free Agency, Mailbag

I wrote a thing looking at Chris Taylor as a potential trade target predicated on the Dodgers trying to stay under the $233M luxury tax threshold, then Los Angeles traded for Miguel Rojas and blew up their luxury tax plan. I assume the Dodgers have more moves coming and didn’t go a few million over the threshold to add a guy like R...

January 10th, 2023: King, Bullpen, Arbitration, Hot Stove, Brown

We have our first YES Network news of the year: Cameron Maybin is out, according to Andrew Marchand. That's a bummer. As a young and recently retired player, I felt Maybin was a breath of fresh air in the booth. He was funny, and he got better and more comfortable as the season went on. No word on the rest of the YES crew yet, but Killa Cam won't be back. Too bad. Now let’s get...

January 6th, 2023: Sabean, Minaya, Left Field, Ortega, Hot Stove, Mailbag

Earlier this week someone hacked Jack Curry’s Twitter account and I gotta say, what’s the point of hacking Curry if you’re not gonna lob a grenade at Yankees fans and tweet out “Yankees get Reynolds, Volpe+Domínguez going to Pitt” or “Stunner: Yankees have a one-year agreement with Carlos Correa after deal with Mets falls through, money around $60M” or something like that? Whoever it was posted a bunch of nonsensical stuff that was easy to tune out. Big missed opportunity there...

January 3rd, 2023: Grisham, Minor League Signings, Winter Ball

Welcome to 2023, the year the Yankees slay the Astros dragon and win the World Series. Will it happen? Eh, probably not, but if it does I’ll edit this part out and say I called it. For real though, Happy New Year, everyone. Thank you for reading and thank you for your support. I hope your 2023 is as good as Aaron Judge’s 2022. Now let’s get to today’s post.

1. Scouting the Trade Market: Trent Grisham. In six weeks and one day pitchers and catchers will report to...

December 30th, 2022: Diaz, Durbin, Profar, Judge, Mailbag

The final post of 2022. Feels like just yesterday that the calendar flipped to 2022 and we were all sitting here wondering when the lockout would end. I gotta tell you, content-wise, I have no idea how I would’ve gotten through the pandemic shutdown and the lockout with the posting schedule I kept at RAB. Maybe I would’ve resorted to running Retro Week posts week after week. I dunno. Anyway, let’s get to t...

December 27th, 2022: Left Field, Bader, Difo, Triple-A

If you’re looking for something to pass the time, my pal Matt Snyder recently wrote about MLB’s authentication process, which was put to the test this year by Aaron Judge’s American League record 62 home runs (plus many other historic events). Check that out. Now let’s get to today’s post. Sorry it’...

December 23rd, 2022: Judge, Luetge, Correa, Reynolds, Carpenter, Cardinals, Mailbag

On this date in 2008, the Yankees stole Mark Teixeira away from the Red Sox with an eight-year contract worth $180M. Teixeira was all set to sign with Boston, then bam, he was a Yankee. He hit .292/.383/.565 (142 wRC+) with 39 home runs in 2009, was AL MVP runner-up, and helped the Yankees win the World Series. The day the Yankees landed Teixeira was one of the most exciting ...