THE YANKEES SHOULD GRAB JAMES SHIELDS

The Yankees better pay attention to this one.

James Shields may be on the market again. The powerful right-handed starter, who the San Diego Padres traded to the Chicago White Sox less than two months ago, is now at the top of the leader board in trade rumors. The White Sox have become sellers in this market, and the Yankees may have a chance to make a major steal.

Okay, Shields may not be the pitcher he once was. But he is still a respectable starter and given that the Padres are eating half the cost of the rest of his guaranteed contract, he is more than a good bargain. Right now his 4.68 ERA - of which his American League half is a meteoric 5.17 - is driving his price down. That's not to mention his 1.480 WHIP and his opponents' OPS of .811. So where is the value? The devil is in the details, my friends. All those numbers are over-inflated by his first three appearances in a White Sox uniform and his final appearance before the Padres traded him. It was a terrible 3-week slump that makes him look far worse than he is. Without that stretch, his ERA on the season falls to 2.66 and his opponents' batting average is a paltry .236.

The downside on Shields is that he is 34 years old and we have seen a drop in some of his pitching stats. According to PITCHf/x data, the average velocity on his fastball has dropped 2 mph over the last two years and his cutter seems to have lost some of its sharpness. That's not surprising for a pitcher at this age. My guess is that he is adjusting to his new limitations, which may explain some of his ineffectiveness from the end of May to early June. Still, he pitched six consecutive quality starts, and that says something about his current state.

The last thing to remember is his durability. During the time of his first full season in 2007 until now, he leads of all baseball in innings pitched (2111) and games started (318). Given the Yankees track record of injuries, he might be the perfect pitcher to help bring stability to the rotation. The Yankees have less than a week to figure this out. But if the White Sox are putting him on the block, Brian Cashman better be dealing.

--Ike Dimitriadis, BYB Senior Staff Writer
Follow me on Twitter: @KingAgamemnon




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GIRLS AREN'T THE ONLY ONES WITH BREAKUP BOXES

Girls out there will know what I am talking about because we've had them at some point in our lives. You breakup with your guy and then suddenly everything he ever gave you gets tossed inside a box. Or anything you have that reminds you of him gets thrown in there too especially if it is associated with a happy memory. If he loved your favorite shirt you suddenly can never wear it again! No matter what it is it gets locked away into some deep black hole or sucked into the abyss.

Well ladies and gentlemen....a guy has finally admitted to having a breakup box. Not just any guy, our returning beloved Adam Warren had a Yankee breakup box, read that HERE. Reading that made me giggle a little. I just couldn't imagine Warren the 6'1" gentle giant being so upset. It just makes me even more excited to have him back because I was sad to see him despite the fact that we just landed Starlin Castro. He loved being a Yankee. He hated the fact that he was dumped by the Yankees. I find that endearing.

I have to appreciate the fact that Warren put all of his old Yankee gear in a box and left it in some empty part of his house. He didn't just drop it off at Goodwill or throw it away like last night's leftovers. Or better yet, he didn't throw a Chris Sale temper tantrum and take a pair of scissors to everything and shred it to pixie dust. Warren has a sensitive side to go with his pitching repertoire.

I'm always happy to have someone on our team that wants to be here. It's great to get a guy who has tons of natural talent or potential....but having the passion to really be with your team just adds to the team chemistry and that is important in any relationship whether it is a romantic relationship or a business relationship. I think the breakup was hard for Warren. It sucks to lose something that you really want.

Warren acknowledges that he was not an effective pitcher when he was in Chicago. He says he has "a lot of opinions" about what went wrong and based on his comments, maybe that chemistry was missing. A player should be able to adapt to any situation but sometimes it just doesn't com together. Warren needs more structure. Joe Girardi can give him the structure and he just couldn't figure out Joe Maddon's methods. Now it's time to get back on track.

So Welcome home Warren. You have a lot of work ahead of you including unpacking a few boxes and settling back in. As you do that, find that breakup box and take all of those items out and use them again. You no longer have to hide all of those items because this is officially a reconciliation.

 --Jeana Bellezza, BYB Senior Writer & Editor
  Follow me on Twitter: @NYPrincessJ

DOES SABATHIA HAVE THE LONGEVITY OF BARTOLO COLON?

There they were.  Two certified Met fans at my dinner table talking about CC Sabathia and his pursuit to pass Mike Mussina on the Yankee all time strikeouts list.  "How old is CC Sabathia?' asked my daughter, one of the Met fans.  "I think he is around 34."  Actually, he just turned 36, so I was close.  "Do you think he will pitch for as long as Bartolo Colon?'  And there it was, the Met comparison.  In actuality, I thought it was sort of interesting to consider.  Does CC Sabathia have the longevity of Bartolo Colon?  Let's take a look.

According to CBS New York, Sabathia and Colon "are two old warhorses clearly struggling to pull that cannon up the hill. The difference between them lies in their respective situations." Let's take a closer look at these situations.  Colon exudes confidence and control.  He does not seem fazed about anything, despite being the oldest player in baseball right now and being on one of the youngest pitching staffs in game.  He just seems calm and comfortable.  Sabathia, not so much.  But Sabathia carries the weight of an aging and unsuccessful team on his shoulders and has done so for years. That can age you in a different way.

Then you have to look at alcoholism vs. steroids; both are taxing on the body.  Colon was suspended for 50 days for testing positive for testosterone in 2012 and Sabathia checked himself into rehab at the onset of the AL Wild Card game last season.  You are as old as you feel and your body feels.  Perhaps Colon feels younger than Sabathia, who is seven years younger.  

CC Sabathia has a number of good years left in him, especially if he continues on the path he has made for himself this year.  And he is fighting for his presence in the game and with the Yankees. On the flip side, Colon's days are numbered, and he doesn't care.  "When the time does come for each man to recede into the shadows beyond the outfield fence, Colon will go just as willingly as he did last postseason. At his advanced age, he realizes he’s playing with house money. And he knows he will not replace any of the other faces in the Mets’ young, stacked rotation," reports CBS New York. 

So, will CC Sabathia be a 44-year-old baseball pitcher for a team in the major leagues?  I don't think so.  Sabathia has had a hard time physically and mentally which can be overwhelming for anyone, let alone an athlete.  But Colon, he keeps moving along.  "Colon is succeeding at doing one thing exceptionally well, and it's one of the least exciting things a scout can look for. An average fastball with movement, put in just the right spot, almost every time," states SB Nation.  

There is something to be said for managing stress well and not so well.  If you can stay calm, manage your anxieties through positive means, you may outlast your fiercest competitor.  As the tweet I read stated, "Do u mentally give up after a tough stretch? Remember that champions have lost & made more mistakes than u can count. #TheChampionsComeback"  Colon has had a number of comebacks and he is enjoying longevity in a game he almost lost.  For Sabathia to stay in it for the long haul, he has to stay hungry, stay healthy, stay calm and just want it.

--Suzie Pinstripe, BYB Senior Staff Writer
BYB Hot Stove Columnist
Twitter: @suzieprof

YANKEE PROSPECTS WILL SOON OPEN OUR EYES!

I just read a terrific article in NJ.com that I wanted to share with my Bleeding Yankee Blue audience. Here are portions of it...

(In Photo: Gleyber Torres)

"By day, Jorge Mateo, the Yankees' best prospect, met Gleyber Torres, the organization's new phenom as of Monday's trade that sent star closer Aroldis Chapman to the Chicago Cubs. And by night, these two Latinos whom scouts love were on the field together as a double play combination for the first time. Torres, a 19-year-old from Venezuela, was at shortstop playing Mateo's natural position, and Mateo, a 21-year-old Dominican, was at second, a position he's been learning this season and one in which he'll be playing a lot more of now....

(In Photo: Gleyber Torres)

Tuesday's game had the perfect finish for this possible middle infield of tomorrow, a groundball to Torres, a feed to Mateo and a throw to first for a game-ending 6-4-3 double play...Following the game, Osborn (Tampa Yankees manager Patrick Osborn) shed light on how he's going to handle having two prized shortstop prospects on one team until Mateo gets his expected promotion to Class AA Trenton sometime soon. The manager says that Torres will remain strictly a shortstop and Mateo will play four games at second and two at short weekly...

For now, they're big juicy strawberries with some green in them, some ripening to do that will take a couple years minimum. After that, who knows? Maybe they turn into something close to what Jeter and Cano were."

So what does that all mean? It means the Yankee future is coming!  We have an infield that teams will soon drool over if they aren't already.  We have guys like Greg Bird who has had a taste of major league experience last season and when he returns next year, he won't miss a beat.

We have the Iron Giant, Aaron Judge ready to kick ass and take names.  He is hours away from getting a shot at the major league level, because I have no doubt the Yankees will bring him up for September Call-ups. Once there, he will turn the tide and fans and Yankee execs will know that 2017 will be the Year of the Giant.

I read about Vicente Campos, that pitcher we got in the Montero-Pineda trade all those years ago (Jose Campos) really doing great things in the minors.  He will be up one day, and he will be great! From Tampa to Charleston, to 5-1 with Trenton, and just promoted to Scranton.

We have guys like Ty Hensley, Tyler Austin... this is our future folks.  You gotta be excited about this.  My point is, when we're all crying and bitching about how old the Yankees are, understand that all teams go through this... but this is now our turn. And it sucks, and we're impatient, but the tide will turn again.

Be excited.  Things are happening.

TRADE HAPPY IN THE BRONX?

Honestly there is really not alot to report today in Yankeeland.  I mean, yes, the Yankees beat Dallas Keuchel which is huge, they won 2-1 and Andrew Miller got his 8th save, but the reality is, looking for nuggets ended up with me finding the same nuggets and not a lot of new, fresh news.

I did however find this nugget about who the Yankees may trade next and the explanation of what it all means and it comes from Chad Jennings at LoHud.  Check this out:

"Given the state of the offense right now, trading Carlos Beltran would be a true sell move, far more significant in the short-term than the trade of Chapman because the Yankees don't have another bat to make up the difference. Trading Mark Teixeira, another free-agent-to-be, would leave the Yankees without a clear replacement at first base (and it's unclear whether Teixeira actually has value at the moment). 

Trading Michael Pineda or Nathan Eovaldi -- and certainly trading Miller -- would come with a significant loss of future value because those pitchers are still under team control beyond this season.

For the current trade market, Nova is probably the Yankees' closest match to Chapman. Not in terms of value, but in terms of being both expendable and replaceable. The Yankees have less than a week to find another deal that's too good to pass up.

'It’s a very volatile time,' Cashman said. 'There’s a lot of moving parts, a lot of things that will transpire. I just can tell you, we are prepared. Our scouts have been all over the baseball world in this professional sport, on the minor league side and the Major League side, assessing everything possible. We’re prepared to make recommendations when things come into play, and then we’ll see where that takes us.'”

Now I know you know the players that have been mentioned, that is nothing new. You guys are smart. What is new is the interpretation of what is all means by trading some of these guys, and I like the way Jennings presented it there, which is why I pulled it to share with the BYB audience.

Again, not a lot to present about Yankeeland today, except this nugget.

And now we wait...

YANKEES NOW SHOPPING IVAN NOVA!

First Aroldis Chapman goes, and now there is chatter about Ivan Nova being next.  According to several sources, but we'll go with Buster Olney on this Nova is being shopped:

Rival execs say the Yankees have been pushing Ivan Nova in trade talks in recent weeks.

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) July 25, 2016

Now I normally don't go with Olney because I feel like he throws too much crap out there to see if it sticks... and usually doesn't. But the reality is, I think Olney's right about Nova.  Yanks have been trying to move him for a while now.  Here's the problem... Nova isn't exactly dynamic, and so what they get in return won't exactly be a game changer. Even MLB Daily Dish suggests that:

" Nova’s track record and pending free agent status will limit his value, though the weak class of available starters will cause the Yankees to get at least something back for the righty."

I'm with you Chris Cotillo. I'm with you.

Anyway folks... just alittle update.  Obviously things are happening... stay tuned.

DONE DEAL: CHAPMAN GONE. WARREN IS BACK!

It was fast and furious, and now it appears to be complete.  Aroldis Chapman is now a Chicago Cub.  The Yankees get a bunch of players, and one of them is former Yankee Adam Warren.

Sports Illustrated reports:

"The Yankees have traded closer Aroldis Chapman to the Cubs for minor leaguers Gleyber Torres, Billy McKinney and Rashad Crawford and relief pitcher Adam Warren."

(In Photo: Billy McKinney)

And here's an interesting nugget and it comes from Joel Sherman of the New York Post:

#Yankees talked to Chapman's reps about an extension, when said not interested now, it helped swayed ownership to trade him #Cubs

— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) July 25, 2016

As you know, BYB reported a while back that the Yankees wanted to try and re-sign Chapman.  Read YANKS MAY RESIGN CHAPMAN AFTER ALL for more on that.

But yeah, Chapman wanted to go right now and has stated numerous times that he'd be willing to come back to New York because he liked it in the Bronx. So Cubs get a rental, and maybe some day soon, Chapman comes back. Who knows.

In the meantime, we got a good group of players for Chap, including SS Prospect hot shot Gleyber Torres. That's exciting.

Things are happening folks.  Put away your No Runs DMC Shirt... for now.

I KNOW WHAT THE YANKEES WILL DO BEFORE THEY DO!

I have reached an all new level of epic. I have been given a gift that has no explanation other than it has been given to me in order to help "fix" this franchise. Apparently the baseball gods have chosen me for whatever reason to do the impossible.....see what the final Yankees decision is even before they make it. I can sift through all of the possibilities and just get down to the final answer. I'm Yankee baseball psychic! Okay, maybe not but something did happen that is quite extraordinary.

Okay so I am not psychic and I suppose I can live with that. I'm not trying to pull a Miss Cleo on anyone but I had two major similarities happen the other night....as I was dreaming. Yes, I know it was "only a dream" but in retrospect it was enlightening.

So this season has been a big disappointment for Alex Rodriguez. We officially have the most expensive, ineffective, part time, right handed match up only designated hitter. WHEW that was a lot, but it's true. He is part time at best and the Yankees only care to play him against right handed pitchers. He looks lost at the plate and the Yankees have just lost faith in him altogether. So fast forward to my point....I had the other night and he was in it!

So in this dream, Hal and Hank Steinbrenner make a trip to Yankee stadium and have this long meeting with ARod. They are all sitting at the world's longest rectangular table. In fact, it is so long that they have to yell just to hear each other and it just looks very cold and uncomfortable. In the end, Hal is of course doing all of the talking and there are some screaming matches but at the end of it Hank holds up a copy of ARod's contract and just rips it over his head very dramatically and ARod is escorted out of Yankee stadium, pushed into the parking garage and told to kick rocks.

So a version of this happened on Friday, you can read that HERE. It's a small version obviously because let's face it Hank doesn't really work, he's not that dramatic and ARod wasn't fired. In fact he called the meeting "positive" but how upbeat can that meeting be when he has a .206 BA, 9 home runs and 29 RBI's? So maybe he didn't get fired but the meeting still happened! So maybe the baseball gods are telling me something and to dig deeper. We will see.

But there is one more coincidence I can't forget....my dream told me that Mark Teixeira was going to be dropped in the lineup before it happened this weekend! Let's face it, Porcelain Princess has been ineffective. It would be smart to give other guys who are hitting a chance to move up in the order like Starlin Castro and Didi Gregorius. Tex has also been a part time player this season and he just isn't healthy. Give the healthy guys with better numbers the RBI opportunities.

So in my dream Joe Girardi had to break the news to Tex that he was dropping him all the way down to eight in the order. He was visibly stunned, it definitely hurt his ego but he understood. There was no temper tantrum but the disappointment was written all over his face. Fast forward to what happened this weekend....the Yankees dropped him down to seventh in the order which is the first time since 2012. Maybe the number seven agrees with him though because he found his power again and hit a home run on Sunday. That is he Tex we need to see more of.

So I guess this is where I put myself in check. I am not the first female baseball psychic even though that would be incredibly cool. I guess I should just continue to strike while the iron is hot. Maybe tonight I will dream about the winning Powerball numbers and finally strike it rich...

 --Jeana Bellezza, BYB Senior Writer & Editor
  Follow me on Twitter: @NYPrincessJ




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YANKEES-CUBS WORKING OUT CHAPMAN-TORRES RIGHT NOW

It looks like Aroldis Chapman could become a Cub at any moment.

Looks like every Yankee fan who bought that No Runs DMC novelty shirt, while nice at the time are now looking at it like it was a waste of money... kind of like my parent's old 1982 World's Fair Tennessee shirt. 

You wonder why you bought it in the first place.

Anyway... Word is the Yanks and Cubs are hammering out a deal. Chapman would go to the Cubs, SS prospect Gleyber Torres would go to the Yankees, and they may even throw in more. 

Yahoo Sports guy Jaff Passan just tweeted this:

Sources: Aroldis Chapman to Cubs looking likelier. Multiple pieces from Cubs, including Gleyber Torres, are agreed upon. Still not done.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) July 25, 2016

Now you gotta wonder if a guy like Adam Warren would be brought back to New York.  After all, Yanks could use alittle pitching too, especially if Chapman goes.

Look, I'm going to sleep. I'm tired.  If the Yankees make this deal, we will inform you for sure in the morning. But I at least wanted to share this latest bit of news.  Things are happening folks... things are happening.


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