NYCurve Yankees Blog

Yankees Draft Picks 2009

The 2009 MLB draft is now over. Below is a list of the selections made by the New York Yankees along with the positions and schools of the players:
1. Slade Heathcott, OF, Texas High (Tx.)
2. John Murphy, C, Pendleton School (Fla.)
4. Adam Warren, RHP, North Carolina
5. Caleb Cotham, RHP, Vanderbilt
6. Robert Lyerly, 3B, Charlotte
7. Sean Black, RHP, Seton Hall
8. Samuel Elam, LHP, Notre Dame
9. Gavin Brooks, LHP, UCLA
10. Tyler Lyons, LHP, Oklahoma State
11. Neil Medchill, OF, Oklahoma State
12. Brett Gerritse, RHP, Pacifica High School (Cal.)
13. Deangelo Mack, OF, South Carolina
14. Graham Stoneburner, RHP, Clemson
15. Shane Greene, RHP, Daytona Beach CC (Fla.)
16. Bryan Mitchell, RHP, Rockingham County High School (N.C.)
17. Chad Thompson, RHP, El Toro High School (Cal.)
18. Hector Rabago, C, Southern California
19. Luke Murton, 1B, Georgia Tech
20. Thomas Keeling, LHP, Oklahoma State
21. Joe Talerico, OF, Brookdale (N.J.) CC
22. Richard Soignier, SS, Louisiana-Monroe
23. Kevin Mahoney, 3B, Canisius
24. Isaac Harrow, 2B, Appalachain State
25. Shaeffer Hall, LHP, Kansas
26. Stephen Bruno, SS, Gloucester Catholic High School (N.J.)
27. Jeffrey Farnham, New Mexico State
28. Aaron Meade, LHP, Missouri State
29. Scott Matyas, RHP, Minnesota
30. Kyle McKenzie, RHP, Thayer Academy (Mass.)
31. Judd Golson, OF, Mountain Brook High School (Ala.)
32. John Ebert, 1B, South Carolina
33. Andrew Aplin, OF, Vanden High School (Calif.)
34. Jacob Petricka, RHP, Indiana State
35. Brett Bruening, RHP, Grayson County JC (Tex.)
36. Ken Ottoson, LHP, South Mountain CC (Col.)
37. Justin Milo, OF, Vermont
38. Adam Bailey, OF, Nebraska
39. Cody Stiles, RHP, J.P. Taravella High School (Fla.)
40. Ben Watkins, RHP, Pittsburgh-Johnstown High School (Pa.)
41. Mariel Checo, RHP, Norman Thomas High School (N.Y.)
42. Danny Black, SS, Feather River College (Calif.)
43. Isaiah Brown, OF, Paradise Valley CC (Ariz.)
44. Evan DeLuca, LHP, Immaculata High School (N.J.)
45. Jeremy Baltz, OF, Vestal High School (N.Y.)
46. Tony Plagman, 1B, Georgia Tech
47. Shane Brown, C, Central Florida
48. Patrick White, OF, West Virginia
49. Xavier Esquivel, RHP, Loyola Marymount
50. Stephen Kaupang, 1B, Cypress College (Calif.)

And All is Right With the World

The Yankees are finally in first place in the AL East after a 3-1 win over the Indians and a 6-3 loss by the Red Sox at the hands of Toronto. Our current record is 28-20, only half a game better than Boston’s 28-21, so we aren’t in the clear just yet, but looking at the way we have been playing over the past couple of weeks, we are definitely the hottest team in our division, if not the entire American League. We play the Indians again at 7 PM EST tomorrow, with C.C. Sabathia taking on his old team which is starting Fausto Carmona. Should be a good one.

Happening in the Yankee Universe…

It has been a while since this blog has been updated, but with some more free time over the next couple of months, hopefully I will be able to write more posts here. If any of you are interested in coblogging at this site please contact me via this form. Anyway, here are some updates about the team:

• With yesterday’s win, the Yankees are back at .500 with a 17-17 record. We are third place in the AL East, 4.5 behind the first place Jays.
• Alex Rodriguez will make his New Yankee Stadium debut today after coming back from his injury last week. It will be interesting to see how he does and how the crowd reacts after all of the recent steroid news concerning him.
• Believe it or not, Johnny Damon is actually leading the team in batting average, home runs, and runs batted in as of right now with .318, 9, and 26 respectively.
• Phil Hughes will make today’s start against the Twins, hoping to rebound from his dreadful outing against the Orioles on the 9th, in which he let up 8 runs in 1.2 innings.

And some news from around the league:

• Manny Ramirez apoligized to his teammates after being suspended for 50 games due to a drug violation. Dodgers’ owner Frank McCourt requested that he apoligize and he complied. It will be amusing to see how things unfold in LA and how Torre deals with it.
• The Twins announced that their new stadium will have roof-top seating. The park is scheduled to open next year and the current price tag is at $545 million.
• The Rockies added Randy Flores to their roster and designated Glendon Rusch.

Stay tuned for more updates soon and thanks for reading…

MLB News

Late February 2009 MLB update:

• The Dodgers made yet another offer to Manny Ramirez and he yet again, declined. The Dodgers have bid against themselves a couple of times already and I don’t see them doing it again. Manny will have to learn the hard way…
• A. Rod. homered in our first spring training game of the year in which he was greeted with a mix of cheers and boos.
• A. Rod. has been told to keep his cousin, who is the one that gave him the PEDs, away from the clubhouse and the team to avoid unnecessary distractions.
• Ken Griffey Jr. is a Mariner again! It is great to see him back where he started and I want to wish him the best of luck because he is one of the best genuine and pure players of the modern era.
• Johan Santana was scratched today due to a sore elbow.
• Tim Lincecum agreed to a one year, $650k deal with the Giants- what a steal for San Francisco!

Stay tuned for more updates later, especially after the season gets under way. I am truely sorry for the lack of updates, but I am currently searching for other writers to help keep this blog alive- if you are interested use the contact form or leave a comment here and I will reply back.

Major League Baseball Update

Here is the latest news from around Major League Baseball:

• First, I will start with the most relevant story for the Yankees and perhaps the biggest in the world of baseball at the moment: Alex Rodriguez admitted to taking performance enhancing drugs while he was with the Rangers. The star third-baseman made the announcement after four sources leaked the information to Sports Illustrated. Now the debate about steroids and the MLB is in full swing once more and the purity of the game is really at stake this time because of all of those people (including me) who were looking forward to A. Rod. breaking the home run record and returning the league back to pureness. Now that isn’t going to happen. I really hope players stop this trend because it really is unfair, but I also think the media and government need to take a step back out of this one. Players in other pro sports, namely the NFL, test positive for PEDs too, yet they are overlooked because “that is what the people want to see.” It does not make sense to have this double standard. The media needs to stop this attack on baseball. The government, on the other hand, needs to stop getting involved as well with this witchhunt for steroid users. We have bigger problems at hand and it really shouldn’t be meddling like this in the MLB, a part of the private sector. Also, shame that those independent sources leaked the information to SI because by doing so they violated the confidentiality rights of Rodriguez, which is a serious crime. I will almost certainly be posting more about this topic later.
• The Angels sign Ervin Santana to a 4 year, $30 million deal.
• The Braves are interested in Ken Griffey Jr.- one of the last great modern players who are still steroid-free. Too bad his injuries held him back otherwise he would be the “savior”…
• C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett had their initial workouts with the Yanks and things are looking good so far.
• The Mets agree with Livan Hernandez on a minor league deal.
• Hank Aaron believes Bonds should keep the record because he feels it isn’t right to just wipe out history. It is a nice though and Aaron is one heck of a guy, but in my mind Bonds will never be home run king.

Sorry for the Downtime

You may have noticed that this site was down for quite a bit of time yesterday. This was due to a problem with the host, which prompted me to move to a new host, which is not only more reliable, but also faster. Load times and stability should improve, so hopefully we won’t have another big outage like yesterday. Thanks for sticking with this blog and stay tuned for more Yankee and MLB news and analysis soon.