Yankees release Ellsbury, DFA Bird & Cortes.

The Yankees had to set their 40-man roster before the Rule 5 draft and wanted to protect a couple of youngsters from that draft.

In order to do so, they made some moves.

The first was that they released Jacoby Ellsbury. In doing so, they are eating the $21MM he is owed for 2020 and also paying him $5MM for a 2021 buyout. They are eating $26MM and yes, that money for 2020 still will count against the cap. Ellsbury didn’t play at all for the Yankees in 2018 and 2019.

Ellsbury did play for them 2014-2017, with his best year being his first, in 2014 (.271-16-70 with 39 SB, OPS+ 111). So the Yanks got NOTHING from him for the last three years of his contract and had to buy out 2021.

The Yanks also DFA’d Greg Bird and Nestor Cortes, Jr.

Bird hit .261 with 11 HR in 46 games at the end of 2015, filling in for the injured Mark Teixeira but has had trouble with injuries since. He missed all of 2016 due to injury, hit .190 in 48 games in 2017, .199 in 82 games in 2018 and was just 6 for 35 in 10 games in 2019. His big highlight was his HR in Game 3 of the 2017 ALDS off of Andrew Miller that won the game for the Yanks 1-0 and kept them alive in the playoffs that year.

Cortes, Jr. was 5-1, 5.67 for the Yankees in 2019, ERA+ 79, in one start and 32 relief appearances.

The Yanks added Estevan Florial, Deivi Garcia, Luis Gil, Brooks Kriske, Luis Medina, Nick Nelson and Miguel Yajure to the 40-man roster to protect them from the Rule 5 draft.

Florial: 22 on Nov. 25. OF lefty bat. .237-8-38 at High A Tampa in 2019.
Garcia: 20. 5-9, 4.28 combined A+/AA/AAA in 2019. 165 K in 111.1 IP.  21 starts, 5 relief.
Gil: 21. 5-5, 2.72 at A/A+ combined in 2019. 20 starts. 123 K in 96 IP.
Kriske: 25. 3-3, 2.08 at A+/AA combined in 2019. 12 saves. 80 K in 60.2 IP.
Medina: 20. 1-8, 5.47 at A/A+ combined in 2019. 22 starts. 127 K in 103.2 IP.
Nelson: 24 on Dec. 5. 8-3, 2.81 at A+/AA/AAA in 2019. 17 starts, 1 relief. 114 K in 89.2 IP.
Yajure: 21. 9-6, 2.14 at A+/AA in 2019. 20 starts, 4 relief. 133 K in 138.2 IP.

2020 HOF ballot out, headlined by Jeter.

Derek Jeter headllines the 2020 HOF ballot, and the question is, will he go in unanimously as did his long-time teammate, Mariano Rivera?

Fromthe NY Post:

Ballots must be mailed by Dec. 31, and results will be announced Jan. 21.

Anyone elected will be inducted July 26 along with any selections by the Hall’s modern era committee (Tommy John, Don Mattingly and Thurman Munson are among those under consideration there), which meets and votes at San Diego on Dec. 8.

The ballot: (ex-Yankees, even briefly, in bold) Bobby Abreu, Josh Beckett, Heath Bell, Barry Bonds, Eric Chávez, Roger Clemens, Adam Dunn, Chone Figgins, Rafael Furcal, Jason Giambi, Todd Helton, Raúl Ibañez, Derek Jeter, Andruw Jones, Jeff Kent, Paul Konerko, Cliff Lee, Carlos Peña, Brad Penny, Andy Pettitte, J.J. Putz, Manny Ramírez, Brian Roberts, Scott Rolen, Curt Schilling, Gary Sheffield, Alfonso Soriano, Sammy Sosa, José Valverde, Omar Vizquel, Billy Wagner, Larry Walker.

It’s too early to really track now, but if you want to start tracking, say a month from now, here is a site you can check up on:

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=F2E5D8FC5199DFAF!17003&ithint=file,xlsx&authkey=!ALD8BEbKmTajwcI

---

MLB is said to be eliminating and realigning some minor league teams, and Staten Island could be eliminated as part of the process. Some 40+ teams are involved in this 2021 realignment.

 

 

AAA SWB to get new manager in 2020. Also, one-time (briefly) Yankee Bobby Mitchell dies.

AAA SWB will be getting a new manager in 2020 as Jay Bell is leaving the Yankees organization to pursue major league coaching jobs.

Bell managed A+ Tampa in 2017, moved up to AA Trenton in 2018 and AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre (SWB) last year.

Each of his teams finished in first place in their division (per the NY Post article).

Bell is known for scoring the winning run when Luis Gonzalez’ broken-bat bloop single beat the Yanks in the 2001 WS.

---

OF Bobby Mitchell has died at the age of 75. Mitchell was with the Yanks (10 games, 1970) and Brewers (1971, 1973-1975). In 273 MLB games, he hit .235 with 21 HR and an OPS+ of 100. He was 5 for 22 as a Yankee, 2 doubles, 4 RBI.

 

WS Game 4. Houston evens up Series, 8-1. Chapman AL reliever of the Year.

Houston has flipped the script. They came into Washington down 0-2 in the World Series, but have evened the Series up at two games apiece, and have Gerrit Cole  and Justin Verlander set up for Games 5 and 6.

Washington comes back with Scherzer and Strasburg.

Five Astros had two or more hits, including Alex Bregman, who had three, including a grand slam, for 5 RBI. Robinson Chirinos homered for the second straight game. Michael Brantley had 3 hits, and of course, Jose Altuve had two.

Anthony Rendon had two of Washington’s four hits.

---

Aroldis Chapman was named the AL’s Reliever of the Year—the Mariano RIvera Award—for 2019.

Milwaukee’s Josh Hader won the NL version of the award—the Trevor Hoffman Award.

---

The Surprise Saguaros lost the Arizona Fall League title to Salt River, 5-1, Saturday night. Surpirse was the team Yankees’ prospects played for in the one-month long Arizona Fall League.

---

Mickey Callaway, just fired as Mets’ manager, goes to the Angels to serve as Joe Maddon’s pitching coach.

---

Former MLB umpire Chuck Meriwether died of cancer, age 63.

Game 152. Successful Seve return as Yanks shutout Angels, 8-0. Betances tears Achilles, done for season. Torres hits #38; Magic # 1.

Good and bad news healthwise. Stanton to be activated today or Thursday. Encarnacion feels like he’ll be back. Now, no news yet on Sanchez, but

tonight, Luis Severino finally came back off of injury and in his season debut pitched four scoreless innings as the Yanks (99-53) beat the Angels, 8-0.

We’ll see how he feels tomorrow and how he comes through this. But very encouraging.

The magic # is 1 to make the playoffs, and also is 1 to win the AL East. Houston won so the Yanks remain tied with Houston for best record in the AL (Houston has the tiebreaker). The Dodgers are one game behind both the Yanks and Houston (Yanks hold tiebreaker over LA). The Yanks have a 10 game lead over Tampa Bay in the AL East with 10 games to go.

The bad news is that Dellin Betances is done for the year with a partially torn Achilles tendon.  He is a free agent after the season, and a bad year to miss the whole year. We’ll see what happens in the wintertime.

The Yanks got two runs in the second inning when Gleyber Torres singled and Luke Voit walked. One out later, Gio Urshela singled in one run and then Cameron Maybin doubled in another to put the Yanks up 2-0.

They broke the game open with six runs in the fourth. With one out, Urshela singled. Cameron Maybin singled, then after another out, all six runs scored with one out. D.J. LeMahieu singled in a run to make it 3-0. Aaron Judge walked to load the bases. Didi Gregorius doubled in two runs to make it 5-0. Torres then hit a 3-run HR (38) to cap things off at 8-0.

LeMahieu 2 hits, RBI  .329
Gregorius 2 RBI
Torres 2 hits, 3 RBI; 3-run HR (38)
Urshela 2 hits, RBI.  .328
Maybin 2 hits, RBI

Severino 4 IP, 0 R, 2 H, 2 W, 4 K.  0.00
Loaisiga (W, 2-1, 4.23) 2 IP, 0 R, 0 H, 1 W, 3 K
Tarpley 1 1/3 IP, 0 R, 3 H, 0 W, 4 K.  7.71
Gearrin 2/3 IP, 0 R, 0 H, 0 W, 0 K.  4.18
Adams 1 IP, 0 R, 1 H, 1 W, 2 K.  7.20

In the race for the new team MLB record, the Twins have 289, the Yankees 287. The Twins have played one less game.

UPDATE: Breyvic Valera was DFA’d.

UPDATE 2: From the NY Post.

The Yankees have let go of five minor league staff members.

According to minor league head Kevin Reese, the team didn’t renew the contracts of hitting coordinator Edwar Gonzalez, field coordinator Jody Reed, pitching coordinator Scott Aldred, Trenton hitting coach Ty Hawkins and Charleston hitting coach Greg Colbrunn.

Aldred’s departure follows the departure of fellow pitching coordinator Danny Burrell, who left to take the pitching coach job at Georgia Tech.

Hate seeing Aldred go.

Minor League Report: Trenton wins Eastern League Championship, 3 games to 1, with a 5-2 win.

The Yankees’ AA affiliate, the Trenton Thunder, won the Eastern League Championship over Bowie with a 5-2 win. The win clinches the finals, three games to one for Trenton. Rony Garcia pitched five no-hit innings. Dellin Betances got in rehab work.

1B Chris Gittens 3 hits, RBI. Solo HR.
C Kellin Deglan Solo HR. (Series MVP)
SS Kyle Holder 2 hits.

Rony Garcia (Winner) 5 IP, 0 R, 0 H, 1 W, 6 K.
Dellin Betances 1 IP, 1 R, 2 H, 0 W, 1 K. Gave up 1 HR.
Greg Weissert 1 IP, 0 R, 0 H, 0 W, 0 K.
Trevor Lane 1 IP, 0 R, 0 H, 0 W, 1 K.
Daniel Alvarez 1 IP, 1 R, 2 H, 0 W, 0 K. Gave up 1 HR.

 

 

Minor League Report. Dominating pitching puts Trenton up 2 games to 1 with 2-1 win.

AA Trenton won 2-1 to go up two games to one in the best-of-five Eastern League Championship Series.

Chris Gittens 2 hits, 1 RBI (solo HR).

Clarke Schmidt 4 2/3 IP, 1 R, 2 H, 2 W, 9 K.
James Reeves 1/3 IP, 0 R, 0 H, 0 W, 1 K.
Michael King (Win) 4 IP, 0 R, 1 H, 2 W, 5 K.