Didi Gregorius Is Perfect Short-Term Option for New York Yankees at SS

 

In case you hadn't heard, the New York Yankees needed a new shortstop for 2015. Derek Jeter's retirement has left a void that will be impossible for anyone to replace, given his standing with fans and Hall of Fame credentials, but the front office addressed the situation in the best possible way. 

Instead of trying to overpay for an older free agent or try to put a marquee name at shortstop simply to placate a fan base that's used to seeing big-money players at every position, the Yankees struck a deal to acquire Didi Gregorius in a three-team deal with Arizona and Detroit. 

Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports reported the deal:

Let's get the elephant in the room out of the way. Brian Cashman said after the deal for Gregorius went down that it wasn't a matter of trying to replace Jeter, via Marc Carig of Newsday:

Additionally, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today, Cashman also expects the Yankees to go with two shortstops when the season starts:

The point of that is to say the Yankees understand that they are getting a player in Gregorius who comes with flaws, though, he is already an upgrade over what the team got out of its shortstop in 2014. 

New York walked around with blinders on last year because Jeter is untouchable, but he wasn't a good player on either side of the ball. Per Baseball-Reference.com, Yankee shortstops hit a collective .233/.287/.292 in 2014. 

While no one would confuse him with Giancarlo Stanton, Gregorius hit better than New York shortstops with a .226/.290/.363 slash line in 80 games last year. His real value lies with the glove. 

Despite what the Gold Glove awards suggest, Jeter has never been a good shortstop and was the third-lowest rated defensive player at the position by FanGraphs' metrics. He was charged with costing the Yankees 12 runs in the field. 

Using those same FanGraphs' metrics, Gregorius is vastly superior to Jeter. The sample size wasn't as big, but the 24-year-old was average with no runs saved in 580.2 innings at shortstop. That value in the field alone makes him superior to anything the Yankees got out of anyone at the position last year.

 When you factor in money, the gap is even wider. Jeter made $12 million to post a FanGraphs' wins above replacement total of minus-0.3, while Gregorius' WAR was 0.3 with a salary of $506,500 and isn't eligible for arbitration until 2016.  

As Richard Justice of MLB.com wrote, all the Yankees need Gregorius to be is what he has been on defense with a little more offense sprinkled in:

"Didi Gregorius has nice range, good instincts and a big-time arm. At times, he will dazzle. Beyond that, he'll make the plays a starting Major League shortstop is supposed to make, and if you ask a dozen Major League managers what they want from that position, this is it. ...
Gregorius will help himself by playing well defensively and also by hitting some. That's the unknown part of this deal. He's had only 724 plate appearances in the big leagues, which is about a season and a half."

It's not like Gregorius has no offensive skills. His plate discipline and power are below-average, but he's not a high-strikeout hitter with 122 in 647 career at-bats. 

The Yankees have been burned in the past by their big-money contracts, so it was refreshing to see Cashman dial things back to find a practical option at shortstop. Gregorius may not stick there long-term, especially if his bat doesn't develop the way they want. 

However, in terms of finding a player capable of handling the position who didn't cost much in a trade and will be making a salary at or close to the league minimum in 2015, Gregorius is the perfect answer for this franchise.   

 

Tiger Woods visibly ill on course

Tiger Woods began play Saturday morning at the Hero World Challenge despite being visibly ill on the driving range prior to the third round at Isleworth.

Woods was coughing on the first tee and vomited walking to the second tee box after playing the first hole. After teeing off there, he stood to the side, drenched in sweat.

A clearly uncomfortable Woods still managed his best 18-hole score of the week after finishing with a 3-under-par 69. He closed with three straight birdies and had six in all for the day. 

He was running a high fever during Friday's second round and said afterward, "I wasn't feeling my best, that's for sure, but it is what it is. Just got to stay hydrated and try and keep things down."
Woods still managed to birdie the first hole.

He began the day in last place at his annual 18-player tournament that benefits the Tiger Woods Foundation after opening the tournament with rounds of 77 and 70.

He is playing for the first time since missing the cut at the PGA Championship in August after shutting it down to deal with back issues.

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End Gameplay Debuts at PlayStation Experience

The first ever PlayStation Experience kicked off in Las Vegas today, with a 90-minute keynote getting the fan event off to a rousing start. With lots of announcements and trailers teased for the keynote presentation, it's no surprise that Sony chose to begin by showing off one of its flagship series, Uncharted.

In a live gameplay demo, Naughty Dog's Bruce Straley played through 15 minutes of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, due out for the PlayStation 4 next year. Next-gen Nathan Drake is looking better than ever, and the footage was impressive: gorgeous water effects, plenty of texture detail in that half-tucked shirt, and a few new mechanics to take Uncharted's mix of puzzle-solving, exploration, and combat even further.

In the demo, Drake employs some Assassin's Creed-esque sneaking around before engaging in open gunplay with his foes, as usual killing enemies with no regard. He's got some new tricks on his sleeve, like swinging from a rope mid-combat to reach a shooter on another cliff and using a tool for mountain climbing. And, just in case there were any doubts that this was a live demo, Uncharted 4 glitched out mid-fall, sending Drake descending into a gray void. Straley recovered, and at the end of the demo Drake came face-to-face with an older man who referred to him as "little brother," implying that more of the treasure hunter's family history will be revealed in Uncharted 4.

Despite the glitchy moment, the demo was a great start to Sony's PlayStation Experience. Sadly, we still have no release date for Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, so we'll probably hear more around E3 next year.

'Threatening Emails' Sent to Sony Employees After Hack

The FBI is investigating what it describes as "threatening emails" sent to some employees at Sony Pictures Entertainment, which has been the target of a hack so massive that its extent is not yet known. The agency's statement came after Variety reported that an email was sent Friday to Sony employees, written in broken English, in which the alleged hackers, known as GOP, said they planned to bring down the whole company. "Nothing can prevent us, but the only way is to follow our demand," the email reads, according to Variety — but the "demand" isn't very clear: "Please sign your name to object the false of the company at the email address below if you don't want to suffer damage. If you don't, not only you but your family will be in danger." 

The FBI issued a statement saying it is aware of the emails. "We continue to investigate this matter in order to identify the person or group responsible for the recent attack on the Sony Pictures network. Recent events underscore the persistence and maliciousness of harmful cyber criminals, and the FBI will continue to identify and apprehend those who pose a threat in cyberspace," the statement said. Sony did not respond to an NBC News request for comment, but a spokesperson told Variety "We are aware of the situation and are working with law enforcement."

U.S., South African hostages killed in rescue attempt in Yemen

A U.S. journalist and a South African teacher held by al Qaeda militants in Yemen were killed along with some of their captors during a night rescue attempt by U.S. and Yemeni forces in a remote desert village, officials said on Saturday.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and a Yemeni intelligence official said Luke Somers, 33, and South African Pierre Korkie were shot by their kidnappers shortly after the raid began in the arid Wadi Abadan district of Shabwa, a province in southern Yemen long seen as one of al Qaeda's most formidable strongholds. 

Kerry said the operation, the second attempt to free Somers in 10 days, had only been approved because of information that the American's life was in imminent danger.

However, the Gift of the Givers relief group, which was trying to secure Korkie's release, said it had negotiated for the teacher to be freed and had expected that to happen on Sunday and for him to be returned to his family. 

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is seen by Washington as one of the movement's most dangerous branches. The United States has worked with the Yemeni government and via drone strikes to attack its leadership in southern and eastern parts of Yemen.

"The callous disregard for Luke's life is more proof of the depths of AQAP's depravity, and further reason why the world must never cease in seeking to defeat their evil ideology," President Barack Obama said in a statement. 

He said he had authorised the attempted rescue and said the United States would "spare no effort to use all of its military, intelligence and diplomatic capabilities to bring Americans home safely, wherever they are located".

Somers was moved from the scene of the rescue attempt but died later from his wounds, a senior official in the Yemeni president's office said.

Gift of the Givers said on its website: "We received with sadness the news that Pierre was killed in an attempt by American Special Forces, in the early hours of this morning, to free hostages in Yemen." 

It added: "The psychological and emotional devastation to (Korkie's wife) Yolande and her family will be compounded by the knowledge that Pierre was to be released by al Qaeda tomorrow ... Three days ago we told her 'Pierre will be home for Christmas'."

A South African government spokesman declined to comment.

There was no new information about three other hostages, a Briton, a Turk and a Yemeni, who had previously been held alongside Somers and Korkie, a Yemeni security official told Reuters.

Lucy Somers, the photojournalist’s sister, told the Associated Press that she and her father learned of her brother's death from FBI agents at 0500 GMT (12 a.m. EST) Saturday. 

"We ask that all of Luke's family members be allowed to mourn in peace," she said from London.

IMMEDIATE DANGER

Kerry said the decision to mount the raid was based on fears that AQAP planned to kill Somers.

"Earlier this week, AQAP released a video announcing that Luke would be murdered within 72 hours. Along with other information, there was a compelling indication that Luke's life was in immediate danger," Kerry said.

U.S. officials on Thursday said American forces had already attempted to rescue Somers, without giving details. Yemeni officials had previously disclosed the release of six Yemenis, a Saudi and an Ethiopian hostage in a raid on Nov. 25.

There were contradictory accounts of how Saturday's raid unfolded and how many of the kidnappers were killed. A Yemeni official said on Saturday morning that 10 al Qaeda suspects had died in the raid.

A U.S. official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said American special forces had conducted the operation alone at 1 a.m. in Yemen, but that the kidnappers had been alerted to their approach shortly before they arrived. 

The official said the kidnappers then "executed" the hostages, who each sustained multiple gunshot wounds. One died during the flight out and another aboard a U.S. ship.

At no point was there an exchange of fire in the part of the compound where the hostages were being held, the source said, and at no point did U.S. forces shoot into that part of the building. 

A senior U.S. official said Yemen's President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi had given his support for the operation.

Although the United States knew there were two hostages at the location, and that one of them was Somers, it did not know that the other was Korkie, the senior Washington official said.

The rescue team was made up of about 40 members of Special Operations forces, and the raid lasted about 30 minutes from start to finish, said the U.S. officials. 

Yemen's government said in a statement carried on state media that its security forces had led the raid. It said the security forces had surrounded the house and called on the kidnappers to surrender, but they instead shot the hostages.

That led to an assault on the building in which four Yemeni security officers were also wounded, it said. The statement said the house belonged to suspected militant Saeed al-Daghaari, which another Yemeni security source told Reuters it was in the village of Dafaar in the Wadi Abadan district of Shabwa.

"It's a very small village with only 20-40 houses. There were very quick clashes with the gunmen and then it was all finished," a tribal source from the area said.

AQAP on Thursday released a video showing a man it said was Somers saying: "I'm looking for any help that can get me out of this situation. I'm certain that my life is in danger". Reuters was not able to independently verify the authenticity of that video, which was reported on by SITE Monitoring. 

Man charged in Amtrak stabbings held on $1 million bond

A man accused of stabbing a conductor and three passengers on an Amtrak train in southwestern Michigan was charged with four counts of assault with intent to murder and is being held on a $1 million bond, officials said on Saturday.

Michael Williams, 44, is being held on a cash-only bond at the Berrien County Sheriff's Department Jail in St. Joseph, Michigan, said Deputy Craig Staneart.

Niles, Michigan police received a call from Amtrak on Friday evening about a man "acting odd and becoming agitated" on a train from Chicago to Port Huron, said Police Chief James Millin in an e-mail.

Officers came to the depot, where they saw a commotion on one of the train cars with passengers quickly exiting the train, Millin said. Police pushed past the passengers and were confronted by Williams, who was armed with a knife, Millin said.

Police subdued Williams with a taser.

The victims included one female and three males, one of whom was the conductor. The victims were taken to hospitals for treatment for non-life threatening injuries, said Amtrak spokeswoman Kimberly Woods.

Williams will be arraigned on Monday, Millin said.

Niles, a town of about 12,000 people, is about 10 miles (16 km) north of South Bend, Indiana, near the southeastern shore of Lake Michigan.

Amtrak said the incident took place on Train 364, the Blue Water line. Alternate transportation was provided for 172 passengers from the train.

Symbol of Phoenixville Firebird Festival set ablaze in arson

 

Officials say someone torched the large wooden structure of a Phoenix ahead of the Phoenixville Firebird Festival.

U.S. holiday shopping discounts deepen, last longer

Amarilis Sinchi visited Macy's at a New Jersey mall on Black Friday, but she waited until this week to purchase the red fleece pajamas she had her eye on.

The 21-year-old student ended up paying $13 at the department store, down from $30 on Friday, which has traditionally been the best day for deals during the U.S. holiday season. "The prices keep getting better," she said, planning a return to another store - Kohl's - which had dropped the price on LEGO toys.  

Retailers started discounting early this holiday season, but that hasn’t stopped them from stepping up the offers now, particularly on apparel. The increasingly fierce struggle for consumer dollars online is adding to pressure for lower prices at stores, where mobile device-toting customers compare prices as they shop.

Many deals are being extended and deepened, visits to malls and data from price tracking firms show, and analysts see many retailers' margins being compressed, especially in apparel.  

"We’re experiencing post-holiday promotions even before the holiday is in full swing," said Steven Barr, U.S. Retail and Consumer Leader at consultants PwC, who has not seen such a high level of deals at this stage of the season before. On one trip to a mall, an apparel store dropped a discount from 40 percent to 50 percent while he ate lunch.

“We expect this is going to be the most promotional holiday on record,” challenging profits in the sector, he said.

Consumers remain cautious about spending despite lower gasoline prices and an improved jobs and housing market, surveys by Reuters/Ipsos show. Wages growth has been very limited while food and healthcare costs have risen.

People do generally appear to be getting more price conscious. In a survey this summer conducted by PwC, 84 percent of respondents said they chose a store because of the prices it offers, up from 74 percent in 2013.

The 10 retailers with the most traffic and sales more than doubled the number of discounted items online during the week after Black Friday, according to data from TrackIf, a service that tracks prices across nearly 2,000 retail websites.

To be sure, retailers with unique or popular products have avoided big price cuts, and there is substantial variation between companies and types of merchandise. Many retailers have gone into the season with less inventory than previous years, and mainstream forecasters expect holiday sales will rise around 4 percent for the year, despite the discounting.

But already some retail earnings and stock prices are being hurt by weak sales and the increased level of discounting, in particular at teen clothing store chains. Teen buyers preferring to spend on phones and gadgets rather than clothes has been hurting that sector for some time.

SOME RETAILERS HURT BADLY

Shares of teen retailer Aeropostale dropped Wednesday to a 52-week low after it reported a larger-than-expected fourth-quarter loss. Like apparel retailers Express and Abercrombie & Fitch, Aeropostale was hurt by discounting and slowing demand. On Friday, teen retailer Delia*s said it would file for bankruptcy.

"The gross margins are being pressured," said Nomura retail analyst Simeon Siegel. Apparel retailers, he said, can't cut prices much more than 50 percent without losing money, so many are trying to win sales by extending the time they offer discounts.

Companies that track discounts can discern a significant change. Last year, online prices from traditional retailers were lowest on Black Friday for a variety of products in many categories, according to Market Track. But this year, for instance, it found prices of kitchenware fell in the days after Black Friday, by 13 percent at Sears and 47 percent at Macy's.

ShopSavvy, which tracks merchandise and prices for the top 100 online and in-store retailers based on their traffic and sales, compared discounts in five categories of items at 32 of these merchants on Black Friday and early this week. Computers, clothing and home and garden products showed widening discounts. Electronics and entertainment products were cheaper on Black Friday itself.

ShopSavvy CEO John Boyd said that the rise of mobile and online commerce was driving retailers to spread discounts beyond Friday. This year's move toward post-Black Friday bargains was "materially stronger" than previous years, he said.  

Most stores also didn't wait until the holiday weekend to start discounts, said ShopSavvy, which also found that many of the big retailers were offering the same deals as online retailer Amazon.com.

Ecommerce researcher Profitero found online discounts of some 41,000 toys, electronics and sporting goods at Amazon, Best Buy, Toys R Us and Walmart held steady on this week's Cyber Monday compared with last week's Black Friday.

A Macy's spokesman said the retailer plans its promotions in advance. Other retailers declined to comment on holiday pricing strategies.

Standing in the Newport Centre mall in Jersey City, New Jersey, that he has visited regularly over the last eight years, Moody's analyst Charles O'Shea said that while he's seen strong sales of electronics at stores like Best Buy and Target, many apparel retailers already were marking down merchandise.

Walking into a Sears store, he flipped over tag after tag, showing deep discounts on almost all apparel. Some stores, such as American Eagle, were offering shoppers the chance to buy one item and get 50 percent off a second.

Standing outside an Aeropostale, O'Shea pointed at a sign advertising up to 70 percent off. Inside, stacks of neatly folded sweaters were marked down to $14 from $44.50.

That's a good indication that Thanksgiving holiday weekend sales "weren't what they wanted," he said. "They have to get stuff out of there."

Protests against police violence block traffic in New York

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Protests over U.S. police violence against minorities, sparked by grand-jury decisions not to charge officers in two high-profile cases, were peaceful on their third night in New York although 20 arrests took place, authorities said on Saturday.

Protesters were arrested for disorderly conduct and blocking traffic on the city's FDR Drive, a major artery that runs along the eastern side of Manhattan, police said.

"The protests remained very peaceful throughout the night," said Detective Michael DeBonis, a spokesman for the New York Police Department.

The wave of angry protests began on Wednesday when a New York grand jury declined to bring charges against white officer Daniel Pantaleo in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, a black 43-year-old father of six.

The decision came nine days after a Ferguson, Missouri grand jury chose not to indict a white policeman for the shooting death in August of an unarmed black teenager, spurring two nights of arson and unrest there.

 

More protests were planned in New York for Saturday, as was the funeral of an unarmed black man shot dead by police in a Brooklyn housing project.

The death of Akai Gurley, 28, has added fuel to the public outrage over what many perceive as race-based violence by law enforcement.

The Brooklyn district attorney said on Friday a grand jury would be convened to consider charges against the officer who shot Gurley. Police have said the officer, Peter Liang, may have accidentally discharged his gun.

While the first two nights of protests saw thousands of demonstrators pouring into the streets of New York, the turnout on Friday dropped to the hundreds as a cold, steady rain fell.

Still, more than 100 people stormed into an Apple Store on Fifth Avenue to stage a brief "die-in," sprawling on the floor as shoppers and employees watched.

Similar demonstrations were staged at Macy's flagship department store in Herald Square and at Grand Central Terminal.

Protests unfolded in Chicago, Boston, Washington, D.C., New Orleans and Oakland, California where marchers chanted phrases such as "Black lives matter."

In Cleveland on Friday, the family of a black 12-year-old boy fatally shot by police filed a lawsuit against the city, a day after the federal government found the police department systematically uses excessive force.