Photos from Yankees at St. Louis Cardinals (5-27-14)

by: Ben Embry

Ok...so the Yankees lost again at the one game I got to attend this year.  I've been to 10 games now going back to 2004 and the team is 4 - 6 in those games.  Just for perspective, the Yankees won 58.5% of their games in that time frame, so a 40% winning percentage in games I attend kinda sucks.  C'mon, pick it up boys!

In all seriousness, that's the risk you take when you only go to 1 game a year.  And in this case, the loss is only a minor part of the story because I got to see Jeter in person one last time, and my son really enjoyed himself.  He's 19 months old and stereotypically has a hard time sitting still for ANYTHING!  So to sit on mine or my wife's lap for a couple hours was kind of amazing.  He eventually got squirmy and we took him down to the concourse for food and to let him walk around.  And he legitimately enjoyed watching the game; he ooo-ed and ahhh-ed several times and watched intently.  I've taught him to respond "Out!" when someone asks him "What does the ump say?"  He does the hand motion and everything...very cute.  I think we have a baseball fan on our hands!

It was pretty surreal to see Jeter play for the last time in person.  He got standing ovations before his first and last at-bat and there was a noticeable "DE-REK JE-TER" chant during the last AB. Very cool experience. I had to give him my own little 1-man standing ovation as he trotted off the field for the last time to thank him for all the memories.

Here's some snapshots that I got during the day on my phone:

View from the arch:

About to leave for the game:

Busch Stadium exterior (home plate side):

View from our seats (nosebleeds but right above announce booth):

Wife and son before game started:

Waiting on game to start:

Same:

Family Selfie!:

Jeter:

Someday I'll put up picks from all the stadiums.  I've been to 10 and plan to see them all eventually.  Houston's not a bad drive from where I live in Arkansas and Cincinnati's not a terrible drive. Plus we can hit Tampa when we take the kids to Disney in a few years and we're talking about coming up for the Subway Series in the next year or two.  After that, it's going to get tough!

2014 MLB Draft Compilation Mock Draft #1

by: Ben Embry

It occurred to me last week that, with some thought, a compilation of all the various mock drafts I like to read could be done in the same fashion as the draft rankings.  You'll see below the first 34 picks of the draft.  Because some of the content is subscriber based, I won't share with you the details but there are links below if you want to possibly subscribe.  All these cites are churning out great draft content.

Here's the basic methodology: I take the most recent mock drafts from, what I believe, are all the big publications and I compile them.  Think of it as all of these guys getting in a room and coming to a consensus.  Here's how I think their mock would look:

Pick	Team	Name
1	Astros	Carlos Rodon
2	Marlins	Tyler Kolek
3	White Sox	Brady Aiken
4	Cubs	Alex Jackson
5	Twins	Nick Gordon
6	Mariners	Aaron Nola
7	Phillies	Bradley Zimmer
8	Rockies	Kyle Freeland
9	Blue Jays	Trea Turner
10	Mets	Sean Newcomb
11	Blue Jays	Touki Toussaint
12	Brewers	Michael Conforto
13	Padres	Max Pentecost
14	Giants	Grant Holmes
15	Angels	Kyle Schwarber
16	Diamondbacks	Brandon Finnegan
17	Royals	Derek Fisher
18	Nationals	Jeff Hoffman
19	Reds	Sean Reid-Foley
20	Rays	Tyler Beede
21	Indians	Casey Gillaspie
22	Dodgers	Derek Hill
23	Tigers	Erick Fedde
24	Pirates	Monte Harrison
25	Athletics	Ti'quan Forbes
26	Red Sox	Marcus Wilson
27	Cardinals	Foster Griffin
28	Royals	Kodi Medeiros
29	Reds	Forrest Wall
30	Rangers	Nick Howard
31	Indians	A.J. Reed
32	Braves	Spencer Adams
33	Red Sox	Alex Verdugo
34	Cardinals	Jacob Gatewood

The most common frequency of player-team matches was Nick Gordon to Minnesota at 5, (5/6 inputs called that), and Sean Reid-Foley to Cincinnati at 19, (4/6).  There were several that had 3 "agreements", if you will, which surprised me because I assumed much of the mocks were more guesses at this point.  Hoffman and Fedde, the two wild cards in the first round of this draft because of their elbow injuries, were predictably the ones with the most disagreement.  Hoffman ranged everywhere from 6 to 21 with only 2 inputs agreeing on where he could land at 18.  Fedde ranged from 15 to 34 with no two inputs agreeing.  Bradley Zimmer is probably the biggest wild card among healthy players; he ranged from 7 to 17.

Unfortunately, there are no Yankees picks to project because they do not have a first rounder.  And there will not be any because I don't believe any of these sites mock into the second round.  It's a bit of a downer for draft niks like me but that's the price you pay for being a Yankee fan I suppose.

I've tweeted previously that I like Nick Burdi, (closer for Louisville), and wouldn't mind seeing him fall to the Yankees. It does appear, if latest mocks are any indication, that there's a chance that could happen. Only 1 of the 6 mocks have him going in the top 27-34 picks, that being to Detroit at 23. In theory, if Detroit takes someone else, (I have them taking UNLV SP Erick Fedde), he could fall at least past 34. That's still not Yankee territory, but he can see it from there.  Other guys who could "fall" are HS 1B Braxton Davidson, Stanford 3B Alex Blandino, HS SS/3B Michael Chavis, HS SP Scott Blewett, HS SP Luis Ortiz, and HS OF Michael Gettys. Not sure how much sense Blandino would make given our minor league depth at 3B but any of the other guys I would be ecstatic about. Like I've tweeted before, someone WILL fall.

I want to make sure I give credit where credit's due, that being the six writers/publications I use to assemble my board.  Some are subscription based, some are free.  I encourage everyone to check them all out.  They are:

Baseball America (various writers)

ESPN (Keith Law)

MLB.com (Jim Callis, Jon Mayo)

Scouting Baseball (Kiley McDaniel)

MLB Draft Insider (Chris Crawford)

Big League Futures (Kevin Gallo, Matt Grabusky)

I'll have a compilation ranking available at the end of May and will do at least one more comp mock.

Email me or hit me up on twitter with any questions: info@thebronxempire.com or @thebronxempire.  Have a good day!

2014 MLB Draft Compilation Board #3

by: Ben Embry

It's been a while since Spring has sprung and we're starting to head into the home stretch of amateur baseball seasons.  Some HS teams' seasons are already over and the college offseason will be here soon.  The MLB Draft is a little over a month away and draft boards are taking shape...kinda. While it's becoming more clear who the best 50 to 100 to 200 players are, the order in which they'll be picked in the beginning is VERY unclear. The consensus #1 player heading into the year, NC State LHP Carlos Rodon, has been kinda disapointing.  He ceded the top spot to young high school LHP Brady Aiken from the San Diego area not long after my last comp board was published.  Since then, he's had 2 pretty good outings and suddenly it's a race between him, Aiken, and Texas RHP Tyler Kolek.  East Carolina RHP Jeff Hoffman had been in the mix but some arm troubles has taken him out of that mix (for now).

 

This compilaton board is something I like to do to stay up on who the big names are in the draft pool. What I do is take rankings from 6 different sources that I trust the most on the subject of draft prospects and I compile them into one board.  And honestly, it is very difficult to find a lot of information on the MLB Draft on the internet, at least compared to the more popular NFL and NBA Drafts.  The MLB Draft is more niche-y, so if anything I'd like to consider what I do a service to those other MLB draftniks out there who are looking for some good information.

My previous board can be found here.  Here's the third board for the 2014 draft:

 

Rnk	Name	Pos	School
1	Brady Aiken	SP	H.S.
2	Tyler Kolek	SP	H.S.
3	Carlos Rodon	SP	NC State
4	Jeff Hoffman	SP	E Carolina
5	Alex Jackson	C	H.S.
6	Tyler Beede	SP	Vandy
7	Nick Gordon	SS	H.S.
8	Aaron Nola	SP	LSU
9	Grant Holmes	SP	H.S.
10	Bradley Zimmer	OF	San Fran
11	Brandon Finnegan	SP	TCU
12	Trea Turner	SS	NC State
13	Sean Newcomb	SP	Hartford
14	Kyle Schwarber	C/1B	Indiana
15	Michael Conforto	OF	Oregon St
16	Michael Chavis	3B	H.S.
17	Touki Toussaint	SP	H.S.
18	Max Pentecost	C	Kensaw St
19	Jacob Gatewood	SS	H.S.
20	Luis Ortiz	SP	H.S.
21	Luke Weaver	SP	Florida St
22	Sean Reid-Foley	SP	H.S.
23	Michael Gettys	OF/SP	H.S.
24	Erick Fedde	SP	UNLV
25	Kyle Freeland	SP	Evansville
26	Braxton Davidson	1B	H.S.
27	Derek Fisher	OF	Virginia
28	Monte Harrison	OF	H.S.
29	Kodi Medeiros	SP	H.S.
30	Scott Blewett	SP	H.S.
31	Marcus Wilson	OF	H.S.
32	Foster Griffin	SP	H.S.
33	Mac Marshall	SP	H.S.
34	Casey Gillaspie	1B	Wichita St
35	Mike Papi	OF/1B	Virginia
36	Jacob Bukauskas	SP	H.S.
37	Cameron Varga	SP	H.S.
38	Derek Hill	OF	H.S.
39	Nick Burdi	RP	Louisville
40	Forrest Wall	2B	H.S.
41	Alex Verdugo	SP/OF	H.S.
42	Spencer Adams	SP	H.S.
43	Matt Imhof	SP	Cal Poly
44	Matt Chapman	3B	CS Fuller.
45	Alex Blandino	3B	Stanford
46	Michael Kopech	SP	H.S.
47	Ti'quan Forbes	SS	H.S.
48	Dylan Cease	SP	H.S.
49	Jackson Reetz	C	H.S.
50	A.J. Reed	1B/SP	Kentucky
51	Taylor Sparks	3B	UC Irvine
52	Milton Ramos	SS	H.S.
53	Chase Vallot	C	H.S.
54	Jack Flaherty	SS/P	H.S.
55	Chris Oliver	SP	Arkansas
56	Zech Lemond	SP	Rice
57	Justus Sheffield	SP	H.S.
58	J.J. Schwarz	C	H.S.
59	Joey Gatto	SP	H.S.
60	Andrew Suarez	SP	Miami (FL)
61	Matt Railey	OF	H.S.
62	Jacob Nix	SP	H.S.
63	Jake Godfrey	SP	H.S.
64	Jake Stinnett	SP	Maryland
65	Jacob Lindgren	SP	Miss. St.
66	Sean Bouchard	3B	H.S.
67	Garrett Fulencheck	SP	H.S.
68	Keaton McKinney	SP	H.S.
69	Jordan Brink	SP	Fresno St
70	Sam Travis	1B	Indiana
71	Michael Cederoth	RP	SD State
72	Brian Anderson	2B/OF	Arkansas
73	Greg Deichmann	3B	H.S.
74	Keith Weisenberg	SP	H.S.
75	Chris Ellis	SP	Ole Miss
76	Brett Graves	SP	Mizzou
77	Evan Skoug	C	H.S.
78	Bobby Bradley	1B	H.S.
79	Ryder Ryan	3B	H.S.
80	Cody Reed	SP	H.S.
81	Spencer Turnbull	SP	Alabama
82	Josh Morgan	3B	H.S.
83	Turner Larkins	SP	H.S.
84	Bryce Montes de Oca	SP	H.S.
85	Cobi Johnson	SP	H.S.
86	J.D. Davis	SP/1B	CS Fuller.
87	Dylan Davis	SP/OF	Oregon St
88	Austin Davis	SP	CS Baker.
89	Jeren Kendall	OF	H.S.
90	Tate Blackman	2B	H.S.
91	Stone Garrett	OF	H.S.
92	Kel Johnson	OF	H.S.
93	Luke Bonfield	SP/OF	H.S.
94	Lane Thomas	OF	H.S.
95	Chad Sobotka	SP	SC Upstate
96	Grayson Greiner	C	South Car
97	Travis Jones	OF	H.S.
98	Dillon Peters	SP	Texas
99	Jake Cosart	SP	JUCO
100	Scott Heineman	OF	Oregon

The Yankees currently have the 55th pick, with a slot of about $1.02 million.  In theory, they should wind up with 2 guys off this list.  In the 50-60 range, you see a few high school kids, which I don't think would be a bad way to go.  Based on what talent they have in the system, a HS OF would work.  HS pitchers are never a bad way to go.  I'd advocate for some college pitching because our pitching depth has been shrinking, but generally the pickings get slim in that area after the first round, (if not sooner).  They can afford to stay away from advanced catchers and outfielders, and young infielders based on what they did last year and what they're working on in the international free agent class, (although it never hurts to get a good young SS if they're available).

I want to make sure I give credit where credit's due, that being the six writers/publications I use to assemble my board.  Some are subscription based, some are free.  I encourage everyone to check them all out.  They are:

Big League Futures (Kevin Gallo, Matt Grabusky)

Baseball America (various writers)

ESPN (Keith Law)

MLB.com (Jim Callis, Jon Mayo)

Scouting Baseball (Kiley McDaniel)

MLB Draft Insider (Chris Crawford)

My next board will be available at the end of May.  At that point I'll have enough info to do a deep dive on some of the top prospects and some guys that are being predicted for New York.  You can expect a lot of changes and the board will get to 250 at that point; I actually have 123 names now but I don't like odd numbers like that so I cut it off at 100.

Email me or hit me up on twitter with any questions: info@thebronxempire.com or @thebronxempire.  Have a good day!