The Futility Infielder

The Yankee brass has added a new wrinkle to this coming Saturday's crosstown doubleheader with the Mets. Their top pitching prospect, Brandon Claussen, will be summoned from AAA Columbus to start in the second (Shea) game, making his major-league debut in the process.

Claussen is a 24-year-old lefthander who is only a year removed from Tommy John surgery. Prior to his injury, he'd been pitching well in his first taste of AAA, posting a 3.28 ERA in 93 innings and striking out 7.0 per 9 IP. In 2001, he'd led the minors in strikeouts, striking out 220 in 187 innings between Tampa (A) and Norwich (AA). Top Prospect Alert rated him as their #47 prospect for 2002 and had this to say going into the season:

Relatively unheralded, primarily due to his being a 34th round “draft and follow” in 1998, Claussen arrived in 2001, leading the minor leagues in strikeouts. The lefthander uses a low-90’s fastball with a plus curve and adequate change. He spots his pitches well despite not having pinpoint control. While his success at AA was unquestionable, he was a little older than you’d like for “true” stud pitching prospects at that level. That makes 2002 huge for Claussen. If he is able to dominate at AAA in the same fashion, he will be up with the Yankees by mid-seasons as one of the games best pitching prospects. If, as I suspect, he will find the going a little rougher he still may see New York before season’s end, but his ceiling would really only be that of a decent mid-rotation starter.

Since returning, Claussen's been downright dominant:

          W-L  ERA  GS  IP   H  ER  BB  SO  HR  BABIP   

Tampa     2-0 1.64  4  22.0 16   4   3  26  0   .281

Columbus  1-0 1.34  6  40.1 23   6   5  27  3   .180

Overall, that's a 1.44 ERA, with 7.7 strikeouts per 9 IP, a 6.6 K/W ratio, and only 0.4 HR allowed per 9 innings. Opposing hitters are batting only .171 against him, but there has to be a lot of luck in play there. His batting average allowed on balls in play an extremely low .214. Beyond the small sample size, it's tough to make heads or tails of that. I's hard to believe that pitching in front of the error-prone Drew Henson (15 errors) and David Post (10) is giving him special help defensively, but on the other hand, he's only allowed one unearned run.

The irony of Claussen's injury is that it may well have prevented him from being traded last summer. Now, he's reached the point of "untouchable," according to reports, and so this start is less a showcase for interested teams than it is an audition for the Yanks, the 2004 model if not the 2003. With Roger Clemens due to retire, Andy Pettitte headed towards free-agency, and the club holding an option on David Wells, the Yanks have only Mike Mussina, Jose Contreras, Jeff Weaver and Jon Leiber (currently rehabbing from Tommy John surgery) under contract for their '04 rotation. That's four righties, though at this stage it's obviously not the final word, especially as Weaver may be headed elsewhere as part of a big trade this season. Claussen may well be the heir apparent to Pettitte, whose struggles this season and hefty price tag ($11.5 million this year) may make him expendable. It's only one start for the rookie, but this one bears watching.

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On the other side of the coin, the Yanks made a minor trade on Wednesday, acquiring outfielder Karim Garcia and reliever Dan Miceli from the Yanks for a player to be named later or cash considerations. If it's anything more than Don Zimmer's laundry or Juan Acevedo's lost luggage, the Yanks probably gave up too much, and this deal reeks of paper-pushing, the appearance that "we're doing something about our problems."

Garcia is a 27-year-old lefty bat who's been breaking hearts ever since he put up 20 HRs and hit .319/.36/.542 at Albuquerque (AAA) as a 19-year-old in 1995. Since then he's passed through the hands of the Dodgers, Diamondbacks, Tigers, Orioles, Indians, Yankees (two games last year) and back to the Indians, racking up some eye-popping AAA stats, but failing to stick in the bigs. Joining the Indians on August 6 last year, he finally put it together for the first time, hitting 16 HRs, driving in 52 runs and hitting .299/.317/.584 for the season. What's less than impressive is his control of the strike zone --- 6 BB to 41 K in that same span. For his career, he's a .234/.273/.428 hitter in about 1100 major-league plate appearances. He's struggled this year due to a wrist injury, hitting .194/.238/.366 with 5 HR and 14 RBI, and getting lost in a sea of young outfielders. And though he's replacing failed pinch-runner Charles Gipson on the roster, speed isn't exactly Garcia's game; he's 7-for-18 in steals in his MLB career.

At least nobody's every accused Garcia of a bad attitude. The same can't be said for Miceli, a well-traveled 32-year-old righty with a career 4.72 ERA whose career highlight was as Trevor Hoffman's setup man for the 1998 San Diego Padres, who faced the Yanks in the World Series. Miceli's got a reputation as a clubhouse lawyer, most notably for his role in getting Florida Marlins manager John Boles fired in 2001 due to his lack of experience as a professional ballplayer. Not that Miceli's 6.93 ERA for the Marlins had anything to do with the issue. In the words of one Florida reporter, "Almost two years ago to the day, the words of a pitcher who had as much trouble telling the truth as he did getting outs toppled John Boles as manager of the Florida Marlins. Dan Miceli's public criticism of Boles -- his chief complaint was his manager's lack of big-league playing experience -- supposedly showed Boles had lost the team, which led to his firing. "

Here's what Baseball Prospectus 2002 had to say about Miceli:

One of the season's more bizarre story lines was Miceli's rant against John Boles, in which he claimed the Marlins' manager couldn't garner respect because he hadn't played in the major leagues. The evidence that managers don't need MLB experience to succeed is overwhelming, so Miceli looked pretty silly. The fallout wasn't as amusing: Boles was fired, Miceli was exiled to Colorado, and both teams fell apart. Miceli is a free agent as we go to press; he can help a team, but so can a lot of guys who come without his baggage.

Greeeeaaaat. This will be Miceli's third team of 2003, having gotten bombed out of Colorado (5.66 ERA in 20.2 innings) and torn it up in Cleveland (1.20 ERA and 19 Ks in 15 innings). His success with the Indians was reportedly due to his dropping down to a three-quarter arm angle and adding movement to his 90 MPH fastball. He'll have a chance to aid the Yanks as their top righty setup man until Antonio Osuna returns from his groin injury; Joe Torre clearly doesn't trust Al Reyes or rookie Jason Anderson, even though the two arguably have more upside, if not more experience, than the well-travelled mouth. At least that mouth won't be tolerated here; Miceli's fastball better move, or his butt surely will.