Sure, but are Hughes and Pinero for however long less valuable than Hughes and Montero for however long?
(I may just call him Pinero so I feel we have the best of both worlds.)

I’ve seen Phil Hughes naked in traffic.

Is “player X is in the best shape of his life” the most frequent spring training story that we hear?

I guess this is because fitness technology is improving so quickly that players can continue to improve year after year.

Even had Hughes been in shape last year I don’t believe he would have been a better pitcher than Pineda was.  I’m positive he wouldn’t have been a younger pitcher than Pineda was.  Pineda’s a good pickup regardless, if at a large cost. 

(Again, I don’t believe Montero was ever going to be a catcher under Girardi/Cashman, and staying at DH suppresses his value.)

I hate those darned old value suppressors.

Poor general physical conditioning alone does not explain what happened to Phil Hughes last year. Obviously strength is important, but fat never stopped a pitcher. I think it’s more likely that he had a pitching-specific issue in his arm or shoulder. Nevertheless, I’m glad Mr. Hughes looks great, and I do anticipate rebound.

Regardless of reality, I prefer to pin the Montero trade on Joba (but only if it goes poorly for NYY).

[5] You prefer cough suppressors, yes?

[8] for off-label usages, yes.

When I saw this post, I yearned to be among them:

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/01/retirement-candidates.html

Obviously strength is important, but fat never stopped a pitcher. I think it’s more likely that he had a pitching-specific issue in his arm or shoulder.

I guess one could make the argument that perhaps these arm issues were a result of poor conditioning.  It’s not necessarily that he was heavier, but that his workout regimen was poor.  Maybe those arm issues don’t occur if he’s following a more “thorough” program.

All speculation, but my point is that his arm problems may have stemmed from larger issues with his training program.  It’s impossible to know this, of course.

Hughes’s arm problems stemmed from Joba amirite?

Isn’t it possible that he is what he is? Did his bad conditioning start in mid-May 2010, when he really started to suck?

[13] That may be true but Joba is to blame, regardless.

Great shape is all well and good, but if he’s not in the best shape of his life this spring I’m very disappointed.

[15] if he can’t put away a hitter with two strikes I’m going to be very disappointed. IPK can’t be the one who got away.

Im rooting for Phil, though.

I can’t imagine what the thread will look like when Joba returns from his Tommy John rehab sometime in July or August. 

Lets hope that the state of the Yankees staff will allow him to return as the sixth inning specialist.

Eek, my son Bill is trying to get over on the Yankees:

According to FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal, the Yankees are in “serious talks” with Bill Hall.
Hall posted a hideous .211/.261/.314 batting line in 199 plate appearances between the Astros and Giants last year. He’s claiming to be in improved shape, however, and he hit 18 home runs in 120 games just one season ago. Rosenthal says the Yankees are viewing him as a potential big league utilityman.

Braves ink former Yankee farmhand Kitty Carlyle!

What about taking a chance on J.D. Drew as a DH?

Isn’t it possible that he is what he is?

The question is - is it possible that he isn’t?

While we’re playing “what-if”: Imagine what if Cash had known at the start of the season that he’d be making the Pineda-Jesus trade and signing Kuroda for $10 million.  Probably he’d have let Garcia walk (freeing up, what, $4 million?).  Also very likely that he would have let Maxwell take Jones’ spot on the depth chart, preferring a lefthanded close-to-fulltime DH over Jones.

[20]  Dude has a .898 career OPS against righties.  However, he was injured and stunk to high heaven last year and now he’s talking about retiring.  I would infer from this that even HE doesn’t think he has anything to offer at this point, or at least he doesn’t think there’s enough of a chance he can recapture his past glory to justify the enormous pay cut he’d have to take to find out.

Would you sign Mike Gonzalez to a minor-league deal?

Do we have enough for a RLYW “Best shape of his life” Yankees calendar yet?

[25] When do we get to hear about Prince Fielder being in the best shape of his life? He’s aiming for “pear” which is an improvement over “Christmas Ham.”

[26] Imagine if he were in as good shape as Prince is.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/cf33f1b763/dave-chapelle-prince-plays-basketball-from-nas

Is “player X is in the best shape of his life” the most frequent spring training story that we hear?

I think Dave Cameron every year in the spring does a, “best shape of his life” project.  Basically, FanGraphs readers send in, “best shape of his life stories”.  After the season, Cameron takes the list and looks at how those players actually did, and rates them.  Basically better, worse, same.  I think the results have been mixed.  So basically, there isn’t enough evidence to say that those players have improved, nor that it is meaningless.  Hughes being in better shape could in fact lead to him pitching better.  Or not.

Obviously strength is important, but fat never stopped a pitcher. I think it’s more likely that he had a pitching-specific issue in his arm or shoulder.

I’m sure we can all pick out fat pitchers who were very successful.  That does not however, mean that being fat does not affect a pitcher.  For one, weight (and shape) doesn’t affect everyone equally.  Perhaps David Wells had a motion which allowed him to pitch while heavy, perhaps Hughes does not.  Also, if you are used to pitching at a certain weight, perhaps being well above (or below) the normal weight leads to poor pitching.  Finally, maybe David Wells overweight is a Hall of Very Good pitcher.  Maybe if Wells were not overweight, he would be in the HOF.  So maybe Hughes is a #4/#5 overweight, and a #2/#3 in shape.

Basically, there is little downside to this.  Let’s see how it plays out.

[29] I’ve opined on this in the past, but here we go again. I don’t see any reason why a player would not always perform better when in better shape (better shape is a bit of a difficult concept when it comes to skill based sports like Baseball though). Essentially though, the more efficiently your body works the better you will perform. The issue with losing weight is that is is pretty difficult to do quickly. In fact, you can only lose about 1% of your body weight in fat a week without losing muscle mass.

Like Mike points out, weight in the wrong direction can impact play, there’s good reason to believe we saw this with ARod, when he bulked up to play 3B. He didn’t see an appreciable change in his offense (likely because he is too highly skilled to see much change from a realtively minor change in body weight distribution) but he did see a degredation of his defense. In the last several years he’s been (reportedly) closer to his weight and body compesition he was as a SS and we’ve seen his 3B defense improve.

It depends on what your definition of “is” is.

The Yanks are in “serious” talks with Bill Hall.  He was a star player in 2006 and a pretty good player in 2010, but last year and most of the years in between, not so much.

https://twitter.com/#!/Ken_Rosenthal/status/164035352372318208

[32] He’d probably be a solid back up. For under 2 million he’s probably a good sign.

[23] - Is anyone else looking to pay him a few million for doing anything?  If not then the pay cut is still the best offer.  The Yankees would be offering solid playing time and in a role that would limit the wear and tear on his body.  He’d also be the perfect complement to Jones.

I guess one could make the argument that perhaps these arm issues were a result of poor conditioning.  It’s not necessarily that he was heavier, but that his workout regimen was poor.  Maybe those arm issues don’t occur if he’s following a more “thorough” program.

Yeah.  If he didn’t have his legs under him it could have contributed to his ineffectiveness.  Fat isn’t the issue, strength and stamina are.

[34]
Actually, Pujols would be the perfect complement to Jones.

[35] Exactly, that’s why I pointed out how hard it is to properly lose weight. As an athlete, you’re better off doing more intense/better workouts for your sport than actively trying to lose weight.

From experience, I stopped lifting in an attempt to lose some of my extra muscle-mass weight for my last cross-country season. I ended up having my worst cross country season and being consistently injured. Instead of adjusting my lifting to be more endurance and less power based (which I should have done) I stopped all together, which also led to me being in less good shape overall. Although, suffering a foot sprain so bad that it pulled a bone apart didn’t help either.

[37] Jesus, that sounds terrifying.

Agreed. Running more than 1 mile consecutively terrifies me as well.

[39] I use a treadmill.  Less scary if you never have to leave your living room.

[37] Hopefully you’ve learned a good lesson; and if you have share, because I’m sure we haven’t.