Chris Capuano makes today's start as Shane Greene is pushed back a day and Chase Whitley moves into the bullpen.
Today's lineup: Gardner 7 Jeter 6 Ellsbury 8 Beltran DH McCann 2 Headley 5 Ichiro 9 Roberts 4 Cervelli 2 Capuano 1
— Erik Boland (@eboland11) July 26, 2014Brett Gardner, Derek Jeter, and Jacoby Ellsbury remain up top, while Carlos Beltran is the DH and Brian McCann gets back behind the plate. Chase Headley starts at third base, while Ichiro Suzuki, fresh off his first home run of the season, plays in right. Brian Roberts remains glued to second base forever and Francisco Cervelli gets his turn at first base.
The Baseball Hall of Fame made a very bizarre change to their balloting policy by reducing the maximum amount of years a player can stay on the ballot from 15 years to only 10. Players currently on the ballot who have gone past the 10-year mark but have not yet fallen off completey, like Don Mattingly, have been grandfathered in and allowed to stay, but the new rule doesn't make a lot of sense. It gives players less of a chance to get into Cooperstown while still restricting how many players a voter can vote for. In the coming years there will be a huge influx of potential Hall of Famers and this rule doesn't help solve the logjam at all, it just gets rid of people faster. The only way to get people in faster is to do something about how the voters vote, not change how long they have to decide. That will just end in unhappiness. If I was a conspiracy theorist, I would say that this change was made to get people like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens off the ballot faster. Steroids are the wooooorst!
A few days ago the Yankees signed undrafted free agent Billy Fleming out of the Cape Cod League. The second baseman will forgo his senior year at West Virginia University in order to start his professional career in the Yankees organization. In 2014, Fleming was named Big 12 player of the week (March 17-23) and made the All-Big 12 First Team. He made his debut last night going 3-5 in the GCL.