I KNOW HOW PINEDA & MONTERO ARE DOING

That's right, I said Montero. Jesus Montero.  Sometimes when guys leave the Yankees, we forget.  No one is forgetting about Jesus Montero because we are still waiting for our return on Michael Pineda.  Let's start with Pineda first.

According to Bryan Hoch, read HERE, Joe Girardi said that he was happy with what he saw with Pineda and his one scoreless inning of simuation ball. That sounds good to me, so I read further on LoHud and Chad Jennings wrote: "... only five or six hitters, but Girardi seemed impressed. 'He (Pineda) threw all his pitches, his fastball, his slider, his changeup,' Girardi said. 'He threw strikes he threw some really good strikes... it’s a long ways away, but for the first time in a simulated game, it was pretty good.'  There was no radar gun on Pineda, but Girardi said he could tell a difference from what he was seeing last spring. 'His command was much better...'” The full piece is HERE.

Sounds good to me.  Now, many emailed me wondering if I heard anything on Jesus Montero.  I have, and it's not much.  I often refer to U.S.S Mariner when it comes to the Mariners chatter, because they do a good job.  There was a nice piece about Montero there. Here is a portion of that:

"Is Montero going to stay as a catcher?  Almost certainly not, because he isn’t very good. It’s always been a question whether Montero could stick behind the plate, and while the Mariners seemed to make a commitment to him in 2013, they did so with an understanding that Mike Zunino shouldn’t be far off. If Zunino develops, he’s the guy.

 Is Montero athletic?  lol no. Even after an offseason of learning how to run, Montero still can’t run, and he might be the least athletic player on the team. A good defensive position player doesn’t exist within his body.

Is Montero ever going to hit for tremendous contact?  Montero’s career contact rate is 79%. That’s a little below average. There’s obvious room for improvement, and Montero should improve, probably, but the league’s best contact hitters tend to have been contact hitters all along. If things really break Montero’s way, he’ll eventually settle somewhere in the mid-80s or so. So far this year, he’s been worse than he was last year." The full blog is HERE and clearly this is 1 guy's opinion, but it's thorough and it's done quite well.

This year Montero is 11-49 with 1 home run.  In other words, he's batting .224.

The jury is still out on this trade that devastated the Bronx (Read BRONX SHOCKER: MONTERO TRADED FOR PINEDA for the immediate reaction when that trade went down.) But one thing is for sure, neither team is getting much out of these guys yet.  We'll have to see what the future brings...stay tuned...

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