Good to know that they’ve been having some good swings together as a group.  Good to know

Their last three wins have been against Shields, Price and Hernandez.  That’s good.

Iguana’s swing reminds me of Tino Martinez.

[1] I thought swinging only makes sense in a group.

And the sending down of Nunez made me sad.

[3] Yes but ‘group’ in this context refers specifically to Yankee ballplayers and thus indicates the presence of intangibles and positive chemistry amongst the team, which is how baseball games are won in the real world.

[4] From a human-interest angle, sure, I agree. Poor guy has to ride the bus now and won’t have a home park to play in.

But from a baseball perspective, I won’t miss the guy. He’s shown signs of being a decent hitter at times, and he’s fast, but you can’t play him anywhere. Better than he get regular reps somewhere to see if he improves somehow.

[5] Now I’m confused. Are you actually talking about baseball ?
[6] I don’t think sending him down will help him, maybe he needs to see a sports psychologist or something like yibsbegone.com.

I just feel bad for him, because it’s clearly not a lack of effort, but his nerves getting in his way.

We may not have Hamilton, and we may be stuck with Teix, but we do have this guy in the perfect place.

[7] If the nerves are a problem, wouldn’t regaining his confidence in a low-pressure environment be the way to go?

I was not in favor of the Ibanez signing, but he’s making me eat my words.  Cone was raving about him on the broadcast last night (his work ethic) and I generally think Cone is good and not a shill.

[10] Iganez outplaying Montero, if even just for night, helped soften the blow of the already disastrous trade.

Imagine how good this offense could be if they didn’t have a replacement level (and declining) 1B smack dab in the middle of it.

[9] I don’t know. Maybe he will gain confidence and reduce his errors.
Or he might be scared at every play, that committing errors will mean, he won’t get called up. Or, he gets called up and continues to botch every play, because he’s afraid of being sent down again.

Or he might be the second coming of the 1950/1960 error utility Yankee aptly nicknamed Hector “Whatapairofhands” Lopez.

if they didn’t have a replacement level (and declining) 1B

Replacement level? That’s great, who the Yankee got?

[12]  Sure, when dealing with player pyschology there is no sure-fire answer.  but thus far at least just to keep throwing him out there isn’t working.

Also, if they want to get him back to playing entirely SS/2B, he isn’t going to get much time doing that in NYY.  Jeter is playing too well, Cano is heating up (and playing good defense) - and right or wrong - they’re committed to giving ARod lots of time at DH which means they can’t do that too often with Jeter.  So if Nunez needs reps in the field and AB’s at the plate, he needs to get them in AAA or a different team.

IDK, I just don’t see too much downside in sending him down for a few weeks and seeing if something clicks.

[7] No

[15] Sure, getting regular playing time is never a bad thing, I just feel bad for him.

[17] When the alternative is keep running him out there for the big club and hoping against hope he figures things out, I feel no pain for him, as the other option is pain for all of us.

Here is a better explanation of the luxury tax issue that I was trying to explain. Although the issue, like the whole “do ARod’s HR bonuses count towards luxury tax?” is still not clear because the new collective bargaining deal hasn’t been made fully public.

Really, we won’t know if the Yankees will or won’t exceed $189M in 2014 until we get there.