River Avenue Blues

River Ave. Blues » Brett Tomko » Page 2

Open Thread: Brett Tomko, artist

by 219 Comments

Brett Tomko paintingYankee fans aren’t too fond of Brett Tomko – the 12th pitcher on the staff – these days. After all, he allowed those two homers in the middle innings that one time. Well, believe it or not Brett’s earned a pretty decent living for himself throwing a baseball (B-Ref says he’s raked in over $20M in his career), and it looks like he’s got a nice career lined up for when his playing days are over.

Tomko, you see, is a rather talented artist. He started copying the comics section of the newspaper when he was five, then stuck with it all through high school and majored in art at Florida Southern. Once he was drafted in the second round by the Reds, everything kind of got put on hold until he got together with Opie Otterstad, a prominent sports artist.

Since then, Tomko’s painted everyone from Nomar Garciaparra to Trevor Hoffman to Joakim Soria, and his current project is for fellow reliever Phil Hughes. “You could just see these perfect creases in the jersey,” Hughes said. “It’s insane. He’s really, really good. Some people think he paints, so what? But if you actually see him, it’s like, ‘Wow, he could do this for a living.'”

Marc Carig of The Star-Ledger wrote all about Tomko and his art today, so make sure you check it. There’s even a short video clip showing Tomko working on the painting for Hughes and explaining what goes in to it. Cool stuff, give it a read.

* * *

Feel free to use this as your open thread for the evening. The Braves and Cubs are on ESPN, but the Mets are off. Anything goes, just be nice.

Photo Credit: John O’Boyle, The Star-Ledger

The Yanks’ 22-man roster

by 88 Comments

With the Yanks up 10-3 in the ninth inning last night, Joe Girardi turned the ball over to Jose Veras for the final three outs of the game. Veras, as Mike said, pitched to the score, and it was ugly.

The first batter, Shin-Soo Choo, homered. Then, Jose Veras hit Mark DeRosa with a pitch. After a ground-out, Ben Francisco plated DeRosa with a double. All of a sudden, the Yankees were a Cleveland home run away from a save situation.

For Veras, his appearance capped off a May to forget. After beginning the season with a 5.73 ERA and a 1.09 WHIP in April, Veras has been utterly terrible. This month, he has thrown 8.2 innings and has allowed 11 hits and 8 walks. He has a 7.27 ERA to go with that 2.31 WHIP. Jose Veras is now so bad that the Yanks can’t even trust him in a seven-run game.

Meanwhile, also making an appearance last night was Angel Berroa. The Yanks’ 25th man pinch ran for Matsui and never made it past second base. In his last pinch-running cameo, Berroa was thrown out at the plate by about 15 feet on a foul ball down the line. He earned himself a whopping four at-bats this month and hasn’t done anything.

Finally we arrive at Brett Tomko. Since being called up by the Yanks during the first week of May, Tomko has made five appearances for the team. His last outing was a one-inning effort against the Phillies last Sunday when he gave up a hit and two walks in the 11th. He got the loss and threw just 14 of 30 pitches for strikes.

With these three players rarely used or underperforming to an extreme degree, the Yankees are playing at a peak level with a 22-man roster. At AAA, they have Shelley Duncan, the International League’s leading home run hitter who would give the bench far more pop than Berroa provides. They have Mark Melancon and George Kontos throwing well and throwing strikes for Scranton.

At this point, we don’t even need to offer up more analysis. The Yankees have three dead spots on their roster. They owe nothing to these players, and we’ve seen enough — sometimes by simply seeing nothing at all — to know that they don’t belong anymore. It’s time for the Yankees and Brian Cashman to pull the trigger on these three players. With a full 25-man roster, the first-place Yankees, 16-5 over their last 21 games, could be that much better.

Tomko up; Robertson down

by 57 Comments

According to PeteAbe, the Yanks have made another roster move today. The purchased the contract of Brett Tomko from AAA and optioned down David Robertson. Because Tomko isn’t on the 40-man roster, the team will have to make another move today. It hasn’t been announced yet, and I’ll update this post when it is.

I guess the team made this move for depth, but I don’t see why. Tomko had been pitching well at AAA, but he’s 36 with a career ERA+ of 92 and a WHIP of 1.374. The Yanks could use him as a long man, but Al Aceves did an admirable job earlier this week. Robertson had made five appearances for the Yanks. In 4.2 innings, he had allowed two earned runs on four hits and four walks while striking out seven.

Update 6:35 p.m.: Eric Hacker has been DFA’d. Ian Kennedy can’t be put on the 60-day DL because he was not on the Major League roster when he was disabled.

Brett Tomko, closer

by 53 Comments

Via Chad Jennings, Triple-A Scranton pitching coach Scott Aldred said the team will use veteran Brett Tomko as the closer this year. As Chad noted, they’re using Tomko in that role so they can have some flexibility and control the innings of the younger, higher ceilinged arms like Mark Melancon and David Robertson. This is nothing new; last year the closer at Triple-A was 32-yr old Scott Strickland, the year before it was 34-yr old Jim Brower, and the year before that it was 32-yr old Mark Corey.

Yanks sign Tomko to minor league deal

by 16 Comments

As the name implies, the Yanks have signed veteran righty Brett Tomko to a minor league deal, and PeteAbe says he gets an invite to Spring Training. Tomko had a decent year in 2005, going 11-7 with a 4.04 ERA for the Giants, but since then he’s bounced around with a Dodgers, Padres and Royals. His strength has always been limiting walks (2.89 BBper9), and I’m guessing he was brought in to provide a little competition for the long man spot. It’s basically a no risk move, because if he stinks they’ll cut him with zero consequences. Realistic best case scenario: Tomko pitches well during the spring and the Yanks are able to trade him for a Grade-C prospect before Opening Day. (h/t MLBTR)