Around the Horn with the Yanks

Exhaustive and interesting weekend reader by Christian Red of the Daily News on the great Mariano Rivera, in my opinion the most important and underrated player in the modern Yankees dynasty. Red’s story has the good detail on the young Rivera–playing baseball on the beach in Panama with a makeshift ball of fishing net and tape, working as a fisherman–but my favorite quote captures the almost mystical and certainly inexplicable way Rivera has been able to dominate baseball for 15 years with a single pitch that everyone knows is coming:

In the closed-off world of professional sports, Rivera is an oddity in that he is willing to tell anyone who listens how to throw the cutter.

“Everybody asks about it – my friends, players from another team, players from the National League,” says Rivera. “But I always know something – that when God gives you something, it’s for you. I have taught a lot of people about the cutter, how I do it, how I throw it. But it’s mine. You know what I mean? God gave it to me. That’s it. I can teach it, and nobody throws it the same way. Nobody.”

It’s all Aceves so far in the 5th starter battle  although the battle begins in earnest this coming week. I still don’t think Aceves will be a guy who makes 30 starts for the Yankees in 2010 unless there’s an injury, but he could begin the season as the 5thstarter. If so then the questions will revolve around what the Yanks do with the two kids. Its probably time for the Yanks to accept that Joba’sgoing to be a reliever, put him in the pen, and leave him there. But Hughes looks to me like a kid who can start–with good command, a bunch of pitches, solid mechanics. If he’s not in the rotation to start the season he might be better off getting his innings in at triple-A.

Ben Shpigel at The New York Times  reports that the Yanks are still working on improving top prospect Jesus Montero’s catching skills, but whatever they do Montero’s probably going to wind up a Victor Martinez-type part time catcher I suspect.

Shocking headline of the spring: Kei Igawa sent down.
 

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