I think you have it backwards. The Yanks need to grow pitching and sign hitting. Check this out: http://yankeegm.blogspot.com/2007/11/just-say-no-to-hughes-for-johan-yankee.html

Cashman has been truly under control only since the off-season 2005 … the starting pitching free agent market has been very poor … you can’t expect allt this problems to be fixed overnight … so he really HAD to draft starting pitching mainly … all the mess before that is going to take year to fix … I’m guessing the Yankees will be a true powerhouse again in 2011 or 2012.

Steve,

I understand the “logic” of that model, but then again, how do you necessarily explain the success of teams like Minnesota, Oakland, Cleveland, Detroit, and Los Angeles from among AL teams? With the Twins they were using Santana, Silva, Radke, Bonser and the like when they were making the playoffs. I know Bonser originally was with the Giants, but not before he got to the majors. With Oakland a lot of their success came with the homegrown trio of Hudson, Zito and Mulder and they would have had a lot more by now if Rich Harden would have been healthy combined with Joe Blanton and Dan Haren, a couple of guys from the minors although Haren was acquired from St. Louis in the Mulder deal, but Haren was essentially a minor league product for Oakland. With Detroit they’ve been relying on Bonderman, Verlander and Robertson with an assist from Kenny Rogers in 2006, but their bullpen was so good because of two homegrown players in Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney and I think it’s a little unfair to say the Detroit model wasn’t any good in 2007 because Zumaya and Rodney were out for pretty much the entire year, Bonderman completely lost it in the 2nd half and Kenny Rogers never played.

The Indians are getting it done with guys like Sabathia, Carmona, Westbrook, Lee, Betancourt and Cabrera, all minor league arms not to mention other minor league guys liek Garko, Martinez, Sizemore, Peralta and a guy they fleeced from the Rangers by the name of Hafner. They also have Adam Miller coming up who they are really high on. The Angels are getting it done with Lackey, Weaver and Saunders along with Rodriguez and Shields in the pen and those are minor leauge players.

If anything, a lot of teams are relying on home grown pitching. It’s not as apparent in the NL I don’t think but you could easily point to the Cubs and say Zambrano, Hill, and Marshall are homegrown talents. The Diamondbacks with guys like Owings and Webb. Milwaukee is putting together a lot of home grown talent with Parra, Sheets, Gallardo, and Capuano and possibly even Dave Bush since they got him from the Blue Jays before he really was in the majors.

So a lot of the “model” today is going with your young homegrown pitching. With the Red Sox, they didn’t really go out and get lockdown aces. Beckett was still considered quite an injury risk with this blisters when the Red Sox aquired him and Matsuzaka was an unknown quantity. That left them with Schilling and Wakefield as their hired guns? Back in 2004, they had Pedro Martinez for quite awhile.

I think if anything is wrong with New York it’s player evaluation. Right now what with Hughes, Kennedy and Chamberlein, there is no reason to get all agitated about Johan Santana. I’m starting to come around to your way of thinking he might be hands off.

Plus, saying the Yankees followed the “model” by using Jeter and Posada is a bit shortsighted. They brought in Tino Martinez to play 1B when Mattingly left. Knoblauch was hoped to play 2B before he had his meltdown. Brosious played 3B and wasn’t homegrown and the outfield was always rotation. O’Neill was brought in from Cincinnati to play RF and LF always seemed to be revolving door as was DH.

Of those teams only Jeter, Posada and Williams were mainstays and that’s hardly following the model by bringing up young talent to replace veteran players. Even in 1996, Girardi was catching and not Posada knocking the homegrown position players down to 2 instead of 3 and even Williams was 27-years old at that time and was in his 6th year in the league.

I think what is missing in a lot of this talk is how lucky Boston has gotten with Youkilis and Pedroia. Let’s be honest, those two guys were college players who fit the “Moneyball” mode and made good on their talent and skill level. However, the landscape is littered with players just like them that screwed it up. Think about Russ Adams and Aaron Hill up in Toronto. Those guys were supposed to be the middle of the Blue Jays infield for the next 15 years and Adams is awful and Hill is barely adequate. Look at Jamie D’Antona. He really worked out didn’t he?

Boston is an interesting squad becuase it’s all going to come back to them and I think what Epstein and the boys are hoping is that the pitching works out and that the ol’ adage of good pitching beats good hitting works out. I can’t believe Ramirez will stay in Boston after 2008. Big Papi’s knees can’t hold up forever. Mike Lowell won’t produce like he did in 2007 and Varitek is already sliding. Ellsbury isn’t going to provide any pop and relying on JD Drew to be your run producer is a bad idea. That leaves them set up for 2008, but what happens in 2009 and beyond? That is where I think Boston has to hope and pray Buchholz and Lester pain out and that Matsuzaka gets better. If it doesn’t pan out, where is the hitting going to come from? They’ll be forced to go buy a lot of it and then they’ll be doing the exact opposite of the “model”.

The Yankees have signed a ton of young, high ceiling position players via Latin American free agency. One reason that they put a heavy reliance on drafting pitchers is that so many fell in the draft as a result of signability concerns. This year, they drafted position players that fell, e.g., Romine, Suttle, Weems, Angelini, etc. They are a team in transition. In a few years, the pipeline will be producing both. Their abundant resources will enable them to acquire whatever they need to fill in the gaps.

Come to think of it, the Yankees did used to follow the “model” – when they brought up Posada, Jeter, Williams, etc. – and then went out and bought established pitchers like Cone, Clemens, Wells, El Duque, etc.

But, somewhere, they got away from that plan…
===========
No, they’ve continued to bring in established pitchers; Pavano, Wright, Johnson, Vazquez, etc.

They’ve been international players as well; Wang, Contreras.

I think the change is in the thought process of acquiring mid and end of the rotation starters, and paying premium money to do so.

What the hell? How can you say “sans a Cano or Cabrera” but include Youkilis and Pedroia?

Yeah, aside from the Yankees’ starting centerfielder and second baseman they have no young position players. This is a fun game, lets play. The Red Sox have failed in developing position players if you don’t count Youkilis and Pedrioa. All they have is light hitting, speedy center fielder Ellsbury. Developing their own players?? Who did they sign last offseason JD Drew and LUGO. Oh, sorry they also went after Mr. Established 4.5era Daisuke.

The Yankees have players like Ajax and Tabata ~1 yr away both who have higher ceilings than any of the current home grown Sox. Jesus Montero was/is destroying people in fall/winter ball.

Back to the players currently in the majors, Cano is undoubtedly the best of the 4 (5 if you count the indian) with real superstar potential.

You’ve jumped the shark.

The issue is, this modle probably assumed that those established pitchers could be signed for 3 years deals or less, which simply isn’t the case anymore, and any pitcher signing long deals is almost guarnteed to have a few dissapointing years where they will REALLY hurt the team. on the other hand positional players tend to be somewhat more reliable in this regard.

Further, another facet of the premise was proven wrong this year when both Ian Kennedy and Joba Chamberlain cracked the major league roster roughly 14 months from their draft time. This may get at another issue- high school pitchers versus college pitchers, but that’s a debate for another time. What’s false is that pitchers always take forever to develop, some come quite quickly.

Also I think it was clear for the Yankees, as a franchise, that the whole system was very barren. They did what Bob R suggested and drafted the best player available, and many of them happened to be pitchers. To fill the position player ranks, the Yankees turned international, signing players who are 18 or even younger. Therefore it is going to take a while for the prospects to make it- I think next year we’ll see the breakout of quite a few of them, and get as excited about them as we were about Hughes, Joba, and IPK this year.

Finally, about the Red Sox teams- I’m guessing you’re only comparing the Yankees to the Red Sox post-2004, when they only had two (Tek and Nixon) completely homegrown players on the final roster. The removal of Nixon and the addition of Pedroia and Youkilis means the Red Sox added just one new home grown position player in three years. By comparison, the Yankees in 2004 had 3 homegrown position players: Posada, Jeter, and Williams. In 2007, they too subtracted an outfielder and added another (Melky) along with a second baseman- Robinson Cano. That seems like a very similar level of position player development, doesn’t it?

I think that by using the phrase ROI you’re immediately conjuring market-based thinking, Steve, and that should indicate your next logical step: Invest in undervalued stock, i.e. pitching prospects. Buy low, sell high. I think this is the Moneyball approach, and Cash has bought in.

I do not know of any organization that drafts for need or position rather than taking the best player available. It is possible that the Yankees draft strategy has nothing to do with trying to find excellent hitters or pitchers, but simply taking the best talent available. For example, this year, at pick 30, who was left? The best hitters were taken and the consensus highest ceiling player left was Brackman. NY exercised its financial muscle and took him despite the risk because that is the way to use the advantage NY has.

As a matter of fact, the Yankees under Cashman have sought established pitchers both for the rotation and bullpen. With the farm eviscerated by earlier deals, the rebuilding was focused around pitchers, it is true, but I think because they were the best players available. But in the past few years, the Yankees signed Clemens, Pettitte & Johnson, all established pitchers and all still effective in the year they were signed, as well as numerous relievers already mentioned.

And simultaneously, they have promoted Cabrera and Cano and have given Phillips a chance as well. Much to my surprise, there are other hitters developing in the minors, and it appears one of the holdups in the Santana dealings has been the Yankees’ unwillngness to part with their better minor league hitters. In fact, they seemed more willing to give up Hughes to get the established pitcher than to give up Austin Jackson in that deal. So I don’t think your characterization of Cashman’s approach is necessarily accurate.

As a matter of fact, in the 2007 draft 26 of NY’s 50 and 7 of the first 10 picks were non-pitchers and included some of the better prospects in the draft. In 2006, only 24 were non-pitchers, but when Kennedy, Joba, Kontos, Betances and Melancon are available, it seems right to grab them rather than lesser hitting prospects.