The Futility Infielder

• This week's Prospectus Hit List has the Dodgers holding onto the top spot, with the Marlins a close second and the White Sox, who ran the table at 7-0 last week, in a surprising third place. I have to admit that I'm really enjoying the process of compiling these, though they are a lot of work and at this point in the season, very volatile. Since the rankings are driven by run differentials (runs scored and runs against), even a day's play can mean the difference between several spots. Case in point: on Sunday morning, the Mets were as high as fourth, and the Nationals 21st. By the end of the day, when the Nats beat the Mets 11-4, the Mets fell to eighth and the Nats rose to 13th. The biggest jump for the week belonged to the Cardinals, who rose from 24th to fifth, more or less swapping spots with the Blue Jays, who fell from fourth to 23rd. I'm going to have to come up with some special notation for teams like that -- maybe an anvil and a rocket.

• I'm headed up to Yankee Stadium tonight to see the Yanks take on the Honky Tonk Angels of Bakersfield, or something like that. While the Yanks haven't exactly been a pleasure to watch thus far, their current situation with injuries to Jaret Wright (torn scar tissue) and Ruben Sierra (torn biceps) has finally opened up opportunities for the few meager prospects they hold. Andy Phillips drew the start at first base on Sunday and responded with an RBI double and a three-run homer which drew him a curtain call and delivered the coup de grâce to the Rangers. Sidearming reliever Colter Bean was recalled to take Wright's place on the roster until Chien-Ming Wang arrives to start on Saturday.

As risky as this might be for the listless Yankees, who at 8-11 hold an identical record at this point to last year's 101-win team, frankly, it shouldn't hurt them all that much. Wright's been a disaster thus far, with an ERA of 9.15, while Sierra, though slugging a robust .692, was only getting on base to the tune of .296 -- all seven of his hits were for extra bases, an unsustainable ratio. They could do worse than cultivate their organizational depth this early in the year.

Phillips is a 28-year-old with some pop; PECOTA projects him at a weighted mean performance of .263/.326/.456, and he can play either second base or first. He homered on the first major-league pitch he saw in a game against the Red Sox last year, and is now batting .333/.333/1.000 over the course of his 14 at-bats in the show.

The 28-year-old Bean, though not a heat-thrower, struck out an eye-popping 109 hitter in 82.2 innings last year at Triple-A Columbus, while walking only 23 and posting a 2.29 ERA. For the Yanks to ignore a performance like that by not giving him at least a shot in the big-league pen is inexcusable. PECOTA agrees, projecting him at a 3.50 ERA with better than a strikeout per inning; in other words, this guy has big-leaguer written all over him.

Free Wang! The 25-year-old product of Taiwan put up a 3.50 ERA in 149.1 innings split between Double-A Trenton and Triple-A Columbus, striking out 7.5 per nine innings with a 3.7 K/BB ratio and only nine homers allowed. He also pitched for the Taiwanese Olympic team, beating the eventual silver medalists, the Australians. The word is that he's got a 92 MPH fastball that can hit 96 at times, as well as a slider, changeup, and "devastating" splitter. PECOTA has him slated for a 4.68 ERA which given the rotation's current struggles (a cumulative 5.32 ERA), doesn't look too bad right now.

The best thing about this move, in my view, is that it makes the team a lot more watchable. Though there's plenty of unpredictability and even occasioanl grief to be had along the way since, as Joe Sheehan put it, there's no such thing as a pitching prospect, it's exponentially more fun to watch young players develop then to watch overpaid aged mediocrities fill space in the lineup. At the very worst, the nearly bone-dry Yankee system can spotlight a few potential bargaining chips for the trading deadline, and at best, this grizzled $200 million behemoth has some cheap and talented solutions at its disposal.

Cliff Corcoran has a lot more to say about the injured bodies and their able replacements over at Bronx Banter.

• One of the first posts I did for this blog concerned good-hitting pitchers, and at the top of the list was Earl Wilson, who hit seven homers in 1966 and 1968 (the Year of the Pitcher) and topped five homers four times en route to 35 round trippers in 740 at-bats for his career, second only to Wes Ferrell's 38 jacks. Sadly, Wilson passed away recently at the age of 70. In tribute to Wilson, you could do worse than peruse his career line and remember a time when men were men and pitchers didn't hit like little girls.