It seems that every year, a great debate rages on the blogosphere and the radio about who among the retirees of baseball should be voted into the Hall of Fame.

While I can appreciate the healthy discussion and analysis that comes from such debates, I ultimately find myself losing respect for the Hall of Fame, and moreso the writers/voters of the Baseball Writers Association of America. There have been reports (and admissions) of voters who don't vote, voters who hold grudges against players, voters who never saw the players play (and only look to statistics to inform their vote), and voters who use the ballot as a political tool (protesting the steroid era or the admitted/suspected PED users).

The Hall of Fame website (http://baseballhall.org/) welcomes viewers with the tag line "Preserving History | Honoring Excellence | Connecting Generations."

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Fear not, this is not an "AJ SUCKS, DFA HIM!" post. It's a brief analysis of the two pitching enigmas known as AJ Burnett and Phil Hughes.

AJ Burnett

via www.inflexwetrust.com

AJ Burnett has started 24 games so far in the 2011 season, including tonight's game, with a total of 148.2 IP. 

In those 24 starts:

He’s given up 4+ runs 9 times (7 of which were exactly 4 runs and only 3 of which did he give up 6 or 7 runs).

He’s given up 0 to 3 runs 15 times (5 of which were exactly 3 runs). While he's had 3 games where he's allowed only 1 ER, he's yet to pitch a shutout appearance. He also has 7 games where he only allowed 2 ER. 

He's not yet given up exactly 5 ER, which I found interesting. Maybe that's why he's mad? He needs to make a straight but keeps missing the 5? Ok. Bad joke. Moving on...

His peripherals are ok, not great, but not horrible. Due to his outlier games (3 games of 6+ ER), he started the 8/9/2011 game with a 4.54 ERA, 4.67 FIP, 3.94 xFIP, and an fWAR of 1.0. *I'll update these stats when Fangraphs is updated tomorrow*

His 2011 performance compares favorably with his 2010 statistics: 5.26 ERA, 4.83 FIP, 4.49 xFIP, 1.3 fWAR in 2010 . His biggest peripheral improvements thus far are his K/9 (6.99 in 2010 up to 7.76 in 2011), his LOB% (68.8% in 2010 to 71.3% in 2011), and his GB% (44.9% in 2010 up to 48.8% in 2011). 

Last season at this time, he'd be entering his 23rd start with a 4.93 ERA on August 10, 2010.

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While WraithPK did an excellent job of handing out rewards for outstanding play thus far in the 2011 season, I decided to delve into the areas for improvement on the team. This is not an exercise in bashing players, just an honest assessment of performance. These assessments will be accompanied by my personal opinion about what I would do if I were Cashman or Girardi (and such opinions are limited to what is publicly known about available options, i.e. replacement or upgrade players). The fun begins after the jump!

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I've been curious about this for a while and have been wondering how many readers, commentors, and/or writers on Pinstripe Alley have ever played baseball and at what level. I'm not particularly interested specifics such as who, just rather gain a perspective on the background experience my fellow readers, commentors and the staff writers have in baseball.

The poll is broken down by levels from T-Ball to MLB, for the purposes of providing the widest range of options. If you respond, please select the highest level you've played at. Also, after the jump, my personal experiences.

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The door closes on the Yankee's 2010 season, and several more open (and not all by fate or God or the universe). Perhaps Karma. Definitely some doors are being opened by fans, and a lot more by Yankee haters. The only door the Yankees care about is the one to the offseason, to a forced period of rest and contemplation. Perhaps much needed self reflection and time with family and friends. A time to recharge from the battles of the 2010 Major League Baseball season.

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Continuing the on-going look at the Yankee's farm system, you can find more of our top prospects in the area of pitching after the jump.

Many thanks to my fellow community members for bringing more of the Yankee's prospects to my attention.

I accidentally published this before it was finished, so I will add to it until it's done (unless a Mod can unpublish it for me without deleting the whole thing).
 

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via www.calliebowdish.com

I'm sure everyone is familiar with our remaining top prospects, those that have received the most press, usually as part of an article about replacing someone who is going on the disabled list or perhaps is struggling in some manner and may need to work on a particular aspect of his game. There are also many Pinstripe Alley community members that are quite knowledgeable about the Yankee farm system and may mention someone as a possible call-up or replacement for a player on the 25-man roster. 

I am not so knowledgeable about the Yankee farm system, and in an effort to educate myself (and possibly PA readers), I sought to learn more about the players who are developing their talent in the Yankee minor league teams. After the jump, I present part one of my exploration of all the levels of the Yankees farm system, beginning with the pitching.

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In light of the All Star Game being somewhat meaningless and meaningful at the same time, I'm curious how the PA readers and posters would go about selecting a true all star team for both leagues with no regards to general popularity. I would venture to say that even if preference of statistics used varied from person to person, we would get a team for both leagues that would truly be the best in baseball in July of 2010.

I'll be honest, I have trouble making sense of all the information on Baseball-Reference.com, but I would love to see what everyone comes up with for teams that would truly be the all star teams of 2010. 

But, here's my selections, as who I think the best players in the AL and NL are that should be All-Stars (by no means is this comprehensive, just some of my selections if I were choosing based on stats alone):

American League

C - Joe Mauer (who else?)
1B - Miguel Cabrera / Justin Morneau
2B - Robinson Cano
3B - Evan Longoria
SS - Elvis Andrus / Derek Jeter
DH - Vlad Guerrero
OF - Austin Jackson / Nick Markakis / Magglio Ordonez / Ichiro / Nick Swisher / Vernon Wells

Pitching:

Ricky Romero (AL Strikeout Leader)
Phil Hughes / Clay Buchholz / Andy Pettitte (ERA leader) / David Price
Jon Lester

Mariano Rivera

National League

C - Ivan Rodriguez / Carlos Ruiz
1B - Albert Pujols / Joey Votto
2B - Martin Prado
3B - David Freese
SS - Troy Tulowitzki
OF - Jonny Gomes / Matt Holliday / Carlos Gonzalez
DH - Josh Willingham

Pitching:

Ubaldo Jimenez / Tim Lincecum / Roy Halladay / Dan Haren

Feel free to add or replace anyone. I'll admit these are all based on standard offensive stats for the position players and standard pitching stats. I don't imagine any position players I've named would be said to have terrible defensive skills (some possible unknowns in the NL).

I was reading the post game thread, sifting through the myriad of insightful and humorous posts, when I saw a catching "Recent News" item in a sidebar: 

Reds Top Cardinals 7-2, Take NL Central Lead For First Time In Over Three Years

Granted, it's an older headline, but it was one that gave me pause. I thought to myself: that would be fun, to see the Reds in the playoffs instead of the Cards (or with the Cards as the WC instead of a west coast team like the Rockies).

Personally, I'll watch almost any MLB game, even the Pirates versus the Royals. The only exception would be the Red Sox games unless they're playing our division, in which case, I'll watch and hope they get soundly whooped by the Orioles or Rays or Jays. (By the way, what's with all the wild life in our division? Us Yankees are the only team that isn't an animal or a smelly sock! LOL)

Which leads me to here and my question for my fellow Alley cats:

Ok, so Andre Dawson was the only player elected to the HoF in this year's class. That's all fine and dandy with me. My big question for all of you is:

What do you think the fallout will be for players from the "steroid" era and will any get in within 5 years of first being eligible?

I hate the BBWAA for the fact that they not only knew about what was going on and didn't say anything (just like the management and ownership) but they now say they will punish players who have any suspicion about use of PEDs. Players like Clemens, Bonds, McGuire, etc. Players who never tested positive, ever, and if they did anything, they did it while there was no rule against it in baseball (even though it was still illegal to use a controlled substance without a prescription from a doctor).

So, I ask the writers and audience of Pinstripe Alley, what should be done with the future classes of HoF candidates that played during the "steroid" era, which is probably the 90s to early 2000s (say about 2005) and do any of them deserve a place in the hallowed Hall?

My opinion is they should all get in if their stats (in comparison to their contemporaries) and whatever other criteria are used warrants it. In fact, pretend that they didn't use steroids and just compare them to their contemporaries like we've been discussing about Andre Dawson and Bert Blyleven and has been discussed about Mantle and Cy Young and Babe Ruth.

If they haven't tested positive when it has been against the rules of baseball, it shouldn't matter. A-Rod and Ortiz both allegedly tested positive when it still wasn't against the rules of baseball. Manny did, so he's never gonna be a HoF. By the by, I give A-Rod a lot of credit for not only admitting he did test use PEDs and why he did so, but he also came back like he really did have a weight off his shoulders and showed us the player from Seattle that we all were hoping he would be.

What are your thoughts?

For being a great place to visit and discuss not just the 27 time and reigning World Champion NY Yankees, but also baseball in general.

For keeping things mostly civil, if not toward our team and other teams, toward fellow fans.

For keeping the true spirit of baseball alive: to enjoy the game and have fun, no matter what level of fan you are!

FYI, this is the post that inspired my FanPost. Just makes me sad, and feel a bit of pity, for those Philly fans that have to post something like that to talk about. What's worse is that it was posted by one of their (I think) staff writers, not some random fan.

Anyway, thank you all for preferring to talk about the best and worst Yankees only as well as only focusing on performance rather than personal dislike of a player (for the most part). And thank you for, as far as I've seen, only posting "best of" of players of other teams, not degrading posts such as the one I linked above.

According to NBC Sports:

http://bases.nbcsports.com/2009/12/attention-yankees-fans-brett-gardner-is-your-starting-left-fielder.html.php

Cashman is saying Gardner can be a starting OF for the Yankees next year and he's not looking to sign any more big contracts/pieces for the remainder of the offseason.

"Brett Gardner is now in a position to be an every day player for us."

Could this mean no Damon, Holliday, or Bay? What are your thoughts?

As if we needed more reason to have confidence in our ace and work horse, CC Sabathia, Peter Gammons, of all people, posted this article on ESPN.com:

Sabathia's getting a bad rap for October performances

Basically he says that CC's post-season record is skewed so bad because of how his teams jumped on his back just to ride him to the playoffs (Indians and Brewers). So, by the time he got to the playoffs,he was completely off his game.

We don't have to worry about that, because, rest assured (pun intended) the Yankees have it covered.

Gammons says:

Because of the way Girardi and pitching coach Dave Eiland have prepared their best pitcher for the long haul, what happened in the 2007 ALCS and 2008 NLDS is essentially irrelevant to the 2009 playoffs. Just because Sabathia is polite, congenial and one of the most popular players in the game doesn't mean he isn't tough. In the words of Pete Townshend, he was born with a plastic spoon in his mouth.

It's just nice to see a positive Yankees article on ESPN, and even nicer to see something from Gammons.

Any thoughts?