According to Baseball America, the Yankees signed their second round pick, Angelo Gumbs, for $750,000. Major League Baseball's slot recommendation for his pick was $436,500, so the Yankees compensated him very well.

Here is what I wrote about Gumbs shortly after he was drafted:

With their top two picks, the Yankees took players who appear to be somewhat similar. Gumbs has played centerfield as well as shortstop, and has excelled there. The Yankees haven't decided where they will play him yet, but he is currently more advanced in the outfield than he is at shortstop.

Personally, I'd love for the Yankees to start him off playing the infield. It seems like it is easier for an athletic player to move from the IF to the OF over the other way around. Playing on the same team as Culver could limit the amount of shortstop playing time available for Gumbs, though.

Gumbs is still just 17 years old, so he has a ton of development time ahead of him. While that means he won't make a big league appearance for a long time, it also means that the Yankees' coaches have plenty of time to work with him and mold him into the player that they want him to be.

The scouting report on Gumbs is impressive. Before the draft, the folks over at Baseball Beginnings wondered whether he was the best athlete in the entire draft, saying:

An athlete. Chance to be true 5-tool player, with grades 50 or better in each tool. Whippy and strong athletic body; could play SS or CF. Should become multi-platform offensive and defensive threat.

This adds Gumbs to list of players who have recently signed, the other two being Daniel Burawa and Rob Segedin.

Over the past few weeks, I've reviewed Baseball America's 2007 Top 30 Yankee Prospects in three parts:

Here are some observations:

• The Yankee farm system was actually ranked pretty highly at this point, but it wasn't because of the system's depth. It was very top-heavy, the top 6 of Phil Hughes, Jose Tabata, Humberto Sanchez, Dellin Betances, Joba Chamberlain, and Ian Kennedy included some very high ceiling talents. The rest of the top ten included two relief pitchers, showing that the talent tapered off after these six. Six of these top ten prospects now have solid roles in the major leagues.

• Overall, 12 of the Yankees top 30 prospects from 2007 are currently in the majors. However, there are seven others who have appeared in major league games and others, like Jesus Montero, who are knocking on the door. Baseball America apparently did a very good job with this list. Over 20 out of the Yankees top 30 2007 prospects will have played in the majors at some point in another.

• Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, and Brett Gardner are the only players on this list who are actively contributing to the Yankees this season.

• With a rough count, I nine players on the list who were traded. Some of them were in blockbuster deals, like Austin Jackson, but others were just dealt after they were designated for assignment, like Chase Wright.

• I count four players(all pitchers) whose careers were totally derailed by injuries. This is why some people say TINSTAAPP(There is no such thing as a pitching prospect). Hitters are generally safer bets, which is why having a top prospect like Jesus Montero is so valuable.

• Overall, through production and trades, the Yankees have gotten a lot of value out of this group of players.

Decrease In Strikeouts

From April through May, Phil struck out batters in about 25% of plate appearances. Since that early season stretch of dominance, his K/PA % has dwindled to 18%. This could be due to a multitude of factors, like raw stuff, command, approach, etc.

April-May

June-August

Using these two charts (found using Trip Somers' pitch f/x tool), we can see if there have been any meaningful differences to Phil's raw stuff. FF = fourseam, CU = curveball, FC = cutter, FT = two seam, CH = changeup. Obviously the most important pitches here are Phil's FF, CU, and FC, the three pitches he throws 92% of the time.

His four-seam fastball is nearly idential in both time periods. It was slightly better in April-May, but by a very small margin. The cutter is also very similar in both stretches, being slightly faster since June, and also with a little more vertical movement (relative to a ball thrown without spin). The key here though with the fastball and cutter is that the two are more similar in June-August than April-May. The velocity separation is .6 mph less, and the vertical movement separation .58 inches less. This is important because the qualities of both of these pitches are inextricabley linked; they each make eachother more effective. It is possible that the two pitches have fared worse recently because they are more similar (albeit slightly).

*it is also important to note that it's possible this just a pitch f/x artifact, that the system is having more trouble classifying his pitches recently than before. I'm not sure how likely this is, given that pitch f/x classifications are supposed to get more accurate over time as the system gets more information about a player.

Phil's curve, despite being thrown half a MPH slower in June-August than April-May, lost some of its movement; it lost .41 inches of vertical movement and .34 inches of horizontal movement. This may be also due to the fact that Phil may have tweaked how he throws his curve; that is, how often he throws it as a get-me-over pitch instead of a pitch meant to induce a whiff. It's also possible the pitch was just sharper earlier in the season.

Overall, there are very few differences in Phil's raw stuff in the two stretches. This means that we can likley conclude that the variation in his strikeout rate is due to factors besides raw stuff. One of the largest factors here seems to be approach; both Phil's approach to the league and vice versa.

Brett Gardner has been slumping; there is no argument against this fact. It's easy for recent play to cloud our judgement and change our views of a player, because that is what is fresh in our minds. Yesterday, Ben Kabak discussed Gardner's slump over at River Avenue Blues. He starts with a very important disclaimer, that "It’s a dangerous exercise to split a player’s season into smaller bits and pieces and then draw conclusions from them. Small sample size issues abound, and a player is generally the overall sum of his parts by the team the season ends."

Honestly, I think that's the main take away from the entire post, but I thought it'd be worthwhile to look into the numbers a little bit more. Here are the splits Ben chose to use:

His line to start the season was inflated heavily by his BABIP, and it was very predictable that his numbers would drop. Over the next 40 or so days, Gardner continued to put up terrific numbers. Since then, he's been terrible for the Yankees. However, I don't think the downward trend is as bad as it looks.

I used The Hardball Times xBABIP calculator to calculate an expected BABIP for Gardner during each of these portions of the 2010 season. The three numbers I got were .323, .323, and .331 respectively. I then went on to "neutralize" Gardner's numbers with these expected BABIPs. Here are the new lines:

The major difference clearly is the increased strikeout rate, which should not come as that much of a surprise. Gardner wasn't known for having a great contact rate in the minors, and that was one of the biggest concerns in his skills translating to the major league level. However, there could be more to Gardner's slump, so I checked into the Pitch F/X data to see if there was anything of note there:

While the increase in whiff rate looks slight, he is actually swinging and missing at 50 percent more pitches in the third sample than the first one. He hasn't been swinging and missing more on fastballs; his whiff rate is up on cutters, changeups, and sliders. The data tells me he has been having trouble making contact on good offspeed pitches, which probably explains the increased strikeout rate. This could just be a sample size thing, though, as we're only talking about a handful of offspeed offerings here really.

Gardner has been bad since June 22, I'm not arguing that. I just don't see any reason to believe that his numbers since June 22 are more indicative of what we can expect going forward than his numbers from the entire season. In baseball, a larger sample is almost always better than a smaller one. Using Gardner's recent performance to evaluate him doesn't make much sense when there is more data at hand.

Kabak suggests that if Gardner continues to struggle, his playing time should dwindle and Austin Kearns should get more starts. I'm as big an Austin Kearns fan as anyone, but if you are going to look at recent performance, he is certainly not someone who should be in any starting lineup. His mediocre offensive line is entirely inflated by a very strong first month that was aided by a ridiculous BABIP.

Now is not the time to give up on Brett Gardner. He has already been worth 2.9 WAR, his defense is superb, and I still believe his offense should be close to league-average. The Yankees still control him for four seasons after 2010, and will be getting a bargain the entire time. If he is someone included in a trade, the Yankees better be getting another good player that is under team control. Trading Gardner and signing Carl Crawford probably won't be as beneficial as keeping Gardner and using the money saved on Crawford elsewhere.

If Gardner actually does struggle for the rest of the season, then we can begin to discuss Carl Crawford. Right now, though, let Gardner start, watch him rebound, and enjoy that the Yankees have a good and fun player to watch under team control for seasons to come.

I know what you’re feeling. You’ve just seen Francisco Cervelli flail at another pitch and weakly bloop it towards the second baseman for an easy out. You’ve seen Cervelli nod his head and point at the pitcher, not wear batting gloves, rub dirt on his hands in between pitches and wear high socks. You’ve seen him play- a lot. In fact because of Posada’s injuries Cervelli has started 10 more games on the season than Posada. Despite his ridiculously fluky beginning, Frankie has been terrible- he has a .222 wOBA since the start of June (For you “He’s just so clutch!” people out there- he’s posting a clutchy .122 wOBA in high leverage situations this year).

Cervelli’s general lack of baseball skills and Girardi’s myopic and insistent desire to have a “catching rotation” is driving people nuts. So naturally the calls have started for Jesus Montero to answer our prayers and deliver us from evil (or Cervelli-is the pun on the Lord’s Prayer too much?).

I don’t think it’s the right move though and here’s why. Even though Cervelli has caught a ton, if Montero replaced him he still wouldn’t be playing every day, which is clearly a priority for the Yankees. The Yankees have shown they are extremely reluctant to call real prospects up and sit them, be it in the bullpen or on the bench. The goal is to get real prospects who they feel have not met their ceilings regular playing time. And this is why I think we’ve seen so much Ramiro Pena and Francisco Cervelli this year- the Yankees most likely recognize neither will develop into something more than what they already are- bench players. I’m sure the Yankees aren’t thrilled with how Cervelli or Pena have worked out so far but they aren’t ready to risk stunting the growth of a Nunez or especially a Montero.

Additionally we all know about Montero’s struggles on defense. Is the AL East in August and September really the place to hone that craft? I’d have to think not. Regardless of how you see his future, the Yankees think Montero can improve behind the plate and having him catch as often as possible is the only way that’s even a possibility.

Also consider what calling him up would do to his trade stock. Look, Montero is one of the best prospects in the game and no one is denying that. However the Yankees have shown they’re not against moving him if the deal is good (and rightly so). However if you call him up now and stop his development defensively it shows other teams you’re not taking his future as a catcher seriously. Now very few people DO take that future seriously. Regardless, it’s in the Yankees best interest to continue developing him as a catcher because a monster offensive player without a position just isn’t worth nearly as much as a monster offensive player who can catch, even slightly. It’s a minor point but worth mentioning I think.

I would feel better about having Montero up if he were able to DH when he wasn’t catching, but with Lance Berkman on the roster this isn’t possible. Still even then I wouldn’t be crazy about it. Jesus has started adjusting to AAA well enough where his numbers have leaped the past few weeks. The smart move would be to build on that and not push him too fast- a few weeks of going well in AAA does not mean he’s ready for the majors.

I think the better talking point here is about the need for a quality bench. With Arod’s hip and Posada’s 39 year old glass body, Pena and Cervelli are playing more than we probably expected them too. If Joe was going to play personal catchers all season (and let’s face it, he’s done it throughout 08 and 09 as well) then Cervelli was not a good fit for this team. Catching 2 out of every 5 games is not something he is able to do. I’ve written about how extensively bad Ramiro Pena is even for a defensive backup however he’s gone above and beyond the call of duty to show historic, trend setting shittiness. These needs should have been addressed at the trading deadline or before the season began- with the waiver wire, they still may be yet.

Let’s not compromise the development of our most coveted young asset in order to obtain a backup catcher. We should hope that something works out through waivers to improve our depth. As eager as I am to see what Montero can do in the majors, I’m in favor of taking it slow and playing things conservatively. So let’s try and keep it all in perspective when clamoring for Montero- it’s just too soon.