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Rachel Balkovec

New York Yankees: Loose odds and ends of interest to Yankee fans (video)

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New York Yankees, DJ LeMahieu

There are days that there are no big New York Yankee stories to report on, but there is always news that might be of interest to those same fans. Some involve the Yankees directly, and some others are just interesting stories that show up on the web. Here are a few of those stories.

Mets general manager fired over lued behavior

The New York Mets have recently learned sexual behavior issues with their just hired general manager Jared Porter. He allegedly harassed a young female journalist while Vice President of the Chicago Cubs. Apparently, something was missing in the Met’s vetting of their new GM. According to an ESPN report, the women received over 60 unsolicited text messages from Porter, even a photo of a penis. Porter has admitted to his behavior, and Steve Cohen, the Met’s owner, immediately fired him this morning.

ESPN re-hires ex-Yankee star Alex Rodriquez

ESPN has announced that Yankee star Alex Rodriquez will again announce and provide commentary for the Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN presented by Taco Bell. The press release also had Buster Olney and Matt Vesgersian at his side.  This will be Rodriguez’s 4th year with Sunday night baseball. He is a 14-time MLB All-Star and three-time American League MVP, made his regular-season ESPN broadcast debut on Opening Night in 2018. Half of Yankee fans have no use for Rodriguez and the other half like listening to his vast knowledge of the game.

Yankees could target Kirby Yates, but what about the Jays?

Kirby Yates would be the perfect reliever for the New York Yankees to fill the hole caused by the departing Tommy kahnle, who recently signed a two-year contract with the Dodgers. But the Yankees are not the only team looking at Yates. The Yankees have missed several top relievers while they waited for DJ LeMahieu to sign with the team. They may lose another option. Yates, according to John Heyman, is in Dunedin, Florida today, the Jays training site. Again, looks good for them to get the star reliever. Yates underwent surgery in August to remove bone chips from his right elbow.

Will DJ LeMahieu contribute for six years?

The Yankees originally wanted to sign DJ LeMahieu to a three years contract. Still, after two months of negotiations that seemed to be going nowhere, they ended up signing him to a money-saving six-year contract. But the deal worked for both parties, a low annual cost for the Yankees and DJ, security for six years until he will probably retire. The question is can DJ continue to perform as he has for the last two years with the Yankees deep into his contract? The answer to that is probably not. But with LeMahieu’s good injury record his easy play, he sure can repeat several years in and even in his fifth and sixth year compete at a satisfactory level. Even at 32, he not only shows no decline but seems to get only better with age.

These Yankee players are avoiding arbitration.

Several New York Yankee players avoided arbitration last week by accepting small raises and a non-guaranteed one year deal. Included in those that accepted were the Yankee slugger Aaron Judge who will earn $10.175 million this year, Gary Sanchez, $6.35 million, Gleyber Torres, $4 million, Gio Urshela settled for $4.65  million, Luke Voit will get $4.7 million, Jordan Mongomery agreed to $2.5 million, Clint Frazier at $2.1 million, and Chad Green signed a one year $2.15 million contract. Ben Heller and Luis Cessa signed earlier before the deadline.

The Yankees trade for Luis Castillo is pretty well dead

The Cincinnati Reds overstepped in their negotiations to trade Luis Castillo to the Yankees by demanding that Gleyber Torres and a few other prospects would put the star reliever in pinstripes, but the Yankees said flatly NO. No way they will trade away their shortstop. With the Red’s demand for Torres, that pretty much makes any deal for the reliever dead in the water.

Gleyber Torres will be ready for the 2021 season

The New York Yankees have reported that Gleyber Torres was not ready to start the season as the 2020 season started, and it took him half the season to be where he should have been at the beginning of the season. Manager Boone stated that he screwed up his preparation between the spring training cut short and the beginning of summer camp. He also said that Torres is preparing and will be ready for this upcoming season. Torres was recently seen working out with fellow 2019 American League All-Star first baseman and catcher with the Indians Carlos Santana.

 

 

 

 

 

The New York Yankees Make History With Rachel Balkovec

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New York Yankees

The New York Yankees made headlines this weekend. Well, lesser headlines than cutting Jacoby Ellsbury. And slightly less controversial than the Yankees plans to file a grievance so they don’t have to pay Ellsbury the complete $26 million severance package to make Ellsbury go away.

And it wasn’t about signing a boffo free agent.

So What Did The Yankees Do?

The New York Yankees are the first team in baseball to hire a full time female hitting coach. Her name is Rachel Balkovec, and she’ll be a roving hitting instructor for our minor league clubs. She got her start as a strength and conditioning coach for the St. Louis Cardinals minor league system. From St. Louis, she moved onto the Houston Astros organization, where she met one of the Yankees’ current minor league hitting coordinators, Dillon Lawson.

Shes Qualified!

Some guys may see her past titles as “strength and conditioning coach” for St. Louis and Houston and wonder “Why is she being hired to teach our players to hit?”

In a report from Yahoo! sports, she has two masters degrees in the science of human movement. We’ve all seen what these major leaguers are doing in their batting stances. All the crazy body positions, the leg kicks, where they position their bats when waiting for a pitch, it’s all movement-related. So now, all these young players in the minors are tweaking their swings to line up with all the latest hot lingo regarding hitting (launch angle, bat speed, exit velocity, basically what Ted Williams spoke about in his book, The Science of Hitting, but on steroids).

And all you have to do is just watch a full season of baseball to hear the announcers talk about what changes hitters are making at the plate to improve their swing. Eliminating a leg kick, shortening their swing, keeping their hips squared deeper in the swing, all of this is based on human movement. And it all will directly affect things like bat speed velocity, launch angle, and overall contact.

Plus, in the same Yahoo! sports article, as well as an article from USA Today, Lawson had this to say about Ms. Balkovec: “It’s easy to see why they chose Rachel for this role. She’s a good hitting coach, and a good coach, period.”

It’s reported that she will report to spring training in Tampa on February 1st.