Yanks Taking Big Gamble With Pitching This Year?
I’ve just prepared a quick-and-dirty Red/Yellow/Green Report for the 2008 Yankees – click on the thumbnail below to enlarge it – and I’m seeing a lot of yellow out there:
Basically, this report tells us that the Yankees are fine offensively this season. The big areas of concern for New York are Mussina and the kids in the rotation – and the bullpen in front of Mariano Rivera.
Last time I checked, 60% of your starting rotation and 85% of your bullpen are not areas where you want to have a lot of uncertainty if you want to be a contending team.
Of course, Mussina could rebound this season, and Hughes/Kennedy/Chamberlain can all have huge years, and the Yankees can find a bunch of sleepers out of the no-names in their bullpen mix – and then everything will be fine in the Bronx this season.
But, what are the odds of these things happening, truthfully? At best, it’s probably 50-50.
Man, it really seems like Hank, Cashman, and the gang are rolling the dice with the Yankees pitching this season – unless they know something that I’m not seeing.
Man, it really seems like Hank, Cashman, and the gang are rolling the dice with the Yankees pitching this season – unless they know something that I’m not seeing.
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I said so much a few days ago. I wish the staff had a bit more depth, given that the pitching staff has imploded 4 years in a row.
I think Cash and Hank have been quite candid about the fact that the Yankees are a team in transition, but that they have a conviction about the talent of their your pitching. I’m fine with that.
I’ve been reading this blog for a while, but I’ve never felt compelled to post anything until now. I just want to point out that this particular roll of the dice is what we’ve all been calling for for several years: No more bad contracts for mediocre, veteran pitching – let the kids play.
Would we feel more comfortable with the bullpen with a few more recognizible names? Maybe so, but at what cost? How about the rotation? Short of a blockbuster deal to bring in a front line guy, who was available this offseason that you would have said to yourself, “Now, there’s a guy I don’t mind investing $10 mil/year over 4 or 5 years instead of letting one of the kids play”? Does Carlos Silva at $48 mil over 4 years sound like any less of a risk than the combination of guys we are already able to throw out there?
In one breath we praise the organization for the rebuilding job its been doing with the farm and then in the next we’re going to demand an elite rotation immediately? There are going to be some growing pains that come along with all of this – you can’t call for prudence and then question why there hasn’t been more activity.
Two things — I’d rather have a bunch of those yellow players than some of the greens. Sure, you know what you’re getting from Jose Molina, but that’s not a good thing. If we’re judging the range of performance in 2008, I don’t think ARod, Posada, Abreu or Betemit are locks to do anything. And I’m not sure why we’re still hung up on young players being so unpredictable. They truly are almost as predictable as major league players, given that you look at the right things and apply the right adjustments.
Second, I disagree that having question marks is not the sign of a championship team. All successful teams benefit from having question marks provide excellent performance. Just because the Yankee rotation doesn’t have a lot of experience doesn’t mean it won’t be great. Take a look at recent World Series teams and their question marks in the rotation:
2007 Red Sox: Matsuzaka, Beckett, Schilling, Okajima, Delcarmen, maybe Papelbon due to injury concerns
2006 Hancock, Wainright — only two starters with sub-5.00 ERAs
2005 Hermanson, Cotts, Politte, Jenks — entire rotation experienced, but mediocre (greatly outperformed career lines — Garland, Buehrle, Contreras, Garcia)
You’re pretty blase about the potential decline on the offensive side.
Which Abreu will show up this season? He’s not likely to be entering his decline-phase like Damon?
And then there is Matsui, who hasn’t exactly torn the cover off the ball since his wrist injury, and he’s no spring chicken either.
You do know that its virtually impossible, given his career numbers, for Posada to come close to last season, right? If you’re lucky, he posts another season above his lifetime average, like maybe .295. That’s good, but it ain’t .335+
With so many starters on the wrong side of 30, there is a distinct possibility of a significant drop from each of them, and potentially a huge drop in the offense if that drop happens to more than one aged player.
I don’t think Dan understands the term ‘risk’. Out of all the offenses in baseball, one could make a very good argument that the Yankees have the least RISK out of any other team. As much risk as the Yankees have, the Red Sox and Detroit have more.
Which Manny will show up this season? He’s not likely to be in a decline phase over the past three years?
And then there’s Drew, who hasn’t exactly torn the cover off the ball since 2004, and he’s no spring chicken either.
You do know that it’s virtually impossible, given his career numbers, for Lowell to come close to last season, right? If you’re lucky, he posts another season above his lifetime average, maybe like .290. That’s good, but it ain’t .324.
With so many starters on the wrong side of 30, there is a distinct possibility of a significant drop from each of them, and potentially a huge drop in the offense if that drop happens to more than one aged player.
Now that THAT is out of the way, the Sox’s offense also has catastrophes like Lugo and Crisp. Youkilis is a league-average first baseman, and is not likely to improve much at all. By most scouts’ opinions, Pedroia has very little projection, and is not likely to match his numbers from last year, especially once the league catches up to his horrendous swing. Ellsbury is a prospect, who, while impressed in a limited number of major league at bats, is pretty much untested and rather likely, like most prospects, to implode at the major league level. I really doubt you want me to talk about the crumbling bat that is Varitek.
Hmm, the only guy without really severe questions in that lineup is Ortiz, and he just had knee surgery.
The Yankee offense is fine, exactly because it has so many proven, high-floor (but also high-ceiling) players. I wouldn’t count on them imploding. They haven’t since 2001.
Nice try there, Andrew.
Youkilis a “league average” first baseman?
Third in BA among AL first baseman
Second in OBP
Second in OPS
Second in doubles
Not to mention a Gold Glove
Yeah, league average. Definitely.
Lowell is far more likely to maintain his average going forward because he’s figured out how his swing works in Fenway, and has only been there two seasons. You don’t think he’d have more impressive career stats if he’d started out in Boston? Posada has played his entire career at the Stadium, and had a completely flukish season.
You want to pretend that Pedroia can only go down? That’s fine – people have doubted him his entire career yet everywhere he goes he succeeds.
Yeah, the Yankee offense will always be fine. Until its not. And if you think that day will never come, you really ought to climb out of your Mom’s basement and get a nice whiff of reality.
It seems more likely than not that the kind of people that post out of their mom’s basement are Sox fans who feel compelled to displace their frustration with life on Yankee blogs.
Wow, have Sox fans really become this delusional? Scary how even less intelligent they’ve become with their teams’ success.
oh Dan, using raw stats to prove a hitter’s worth in Fenway is like using a pitcher’s raw stats in San Diego. Over the last 5 years, Youkilis ranks 19th out of 29 first basemen in terms of OPS+ (400+ games). that makes him, drumroll please… BELOW AVERAGE. if you’re going to play 1b, you’ve got to hit A LOT to be above average.
so you put faith in gold gloves, huh? then you must feel Jeter deserved all 3 of his, right?
please, enough with your garbage.
Travis, that seems like a pretty unfair analysis of Youk. One, Youkilis has only had two full seasons in the majors, and four where he’s appeared in any games at all. Two, being in the middle of the pack of all players who have played 400 games in five years is still above average. Why would you ignore all the appearances of players who weren’t good enough to stick around? Three, Youkilis’ OPS is heavily weighted towards OBP, which makes it more valuable. Four, while Youkilis probably isn’t the AL’s best fielding first basemen (Kotchman is fantastic), he’s still 5-10 runs better than average. In 2007, I’ve got him as the tenth most valuable 1B in the majors.
People are missing the difference between “risk” and “talent”. We know ARod will be good, but there’s a HUGE difference between his 2006 and 2007 seasons. He’s risky, but good. Jose Molina will play good defense and hit like crap. He’s not risky, but not very good. Would you rather have ARod or Molina? I’ll take players with high talent and high variability every time over players who aren’t as good but are locks to perform to expectations.
Here’s a challenge to anyone who thinks the Yankee rotation is a big risk — I will predict the ERA and IP of all six potential Yankee starters You can predict the ERA and IP of any veteran rotation you want. We’ll come up with some sort of scoring system and fun, meaningless bet. I don’t feel I’m at much of disadvantage.
Sky – you’re missing an important point. A-Rod is one of the least risky players in the major leagues. He never gets injured, and he is more of a lock than anyone to put up something like .290/.380/.540 with 35 HR at the least. There are a lot of these types (high-floor, high-ceiling) of players on the Yankees. That’s why they cost the most, because they are the most reliable.
But, even if Youk is an above-average first baseman (that looks to be his ceiling), the point still stands. Plus, Youk IS risky. He was one of the worst players in the major leagues in the second half. “Which Youkilis will show up”, hm? If not for playing COMPLETELY over his head in the first half, he fell – and fell hard. Was it because of fatigue? Or the league figuring him out? Either way, it’s not good, and even the great Youkilis remains more of a risk than most players in the Yankee offense.
Of course, I meant to say “If not for playing COMPLETELY over his head in the first half, he would have looked a hell of a lot worse in 2007.”
You people are contemptible morons, but then again, its par for the course when you wear the pinstripes.
Youk deserves his Gold Glove BECAUSE HE MADE ZERO ERRORS. Anyway you slice it, a full-time player at a position that gets more attempts than any other who NEVER gets charged with an error, deserves some recognition. Hell, he’s like five games away from setting the all-time major league record for error-less streak by a first baseman.
The idea that Youkilis “plays over his head” in the first half of a season is quite possibly the stupidest thing I’ve heard in a long time, or at least since “he gave me lidocaine and B-12″.
Ask anyone who follows the game and has some understanding of it and doesn’t wear pinstripe glasses and you’ll get the answer that Youkilis wears downs because of his all-out approach to the game. Or maybe you haven’t noticed that since he became a full-time player, he plays outstandingly well in the first half of a season and then falls off. Is he just plain lucky that he manages to “play over his head” every first half of a season?
You can’t really be that moronic, can you?
Maybe you should ask the new manager of the LA Dodgers what he thinks of Kevin Youkilis. Its a helluva lot higher than you do, and he’s got just a bit more knowledge of the game than you do.
Sky, what does it matter that he’s only played 2 full seasons? OPS+ is a rate stat, not a counting stat. wanna go by the last 3 years, he’s still in the bottom half.
if he was a third baseman, he’d probably be above average but 1b is LOADED. to make a statement that Youkilis is above average isn’t supported by the stats. sorry, but when Pujols, Helton, Howard, Tex are at the same position, it’s tough to be above average, which Youkilis is not.
Dan, you realize errors are subjective, yes? youkilis didn’t make an error in 07, but did you know every single fulltime first-basemen had at least a .988 fielding percentage? youkilis was fifth from LAST in Range Factor and 6th in Zone Rating. that doesn’t scream great fielder by any means.
why do i waste my time on you?
All – it’s OK to debate and disagree, but, let’s not stoop to name calling. If not, I’ll have to revoke some posting rights. Thanks.
Short of a blockbuster deal to bring in a front line guy, who was available this offseason that you would have said to yourself, “Now, there’s a guy I don’t mind investing $10 mil/year over 4 or 5 years instead of letting one of the kids play”?
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You don’t need to sign someone to a long term deal, but there’s nothing wrong with giving an NRI to or signing Matt Clement, Jon Lieber, Kris Benson, etc, etc, etc.
I’m glad the Yanks have such conviction in their young starters, but after watching the pitching blow up every year since ’94, I’d like the Yanks to do more stockpiling arms.
The only problem is both Clement and Lieber got major league deals worth several M . and Kris Benson might too.
not to meantion the FAs aren’t retarded. they’ll obviously preferr a team where their chances of sticking are higher even if the pay is relatively close.
The only problem is both Clement and Lieber got major league deals worth several M . and Kris Benson might too.
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They both got inexpensive one year deals, which is perfectly fine.
Ok, some posters are defining “risk” as “probability that a certain player will be worse than a certain desired level of performance”. I guess that’s ok, but not the definition I was using. You don’t pay players big money for being consistent, you pay them for being GOOD. If you’re paying ARod to repeat his 2007 numbers (50 HRs) and he hits 35, you’ve been had. It’s like paying Abreu to hit 30 and getting 15.
I think it would help to have others state what they mean when a player is “risky”. Is it a health thing? Large error bars around their 2008 performance? Lack of a significant chance of being really good?
In 2007, here are the 1Bs that I have rated higher than Youk:
Pujols
Pena
Teixeira
Helton
Howard
Gonzalez
Kotchman
Fielder
Berkman
Lee
Youk
In fact, Youk barely trailed the last three, but is pretty far ahead of the next guy, Justin Morneau. Youk’s a top 10 1B.
There are two reasons the five-year period is not fair to Youk. One, you’ve included his first two partial seasons in the big-leagues, which aren’t up to par for most players. Second, the most games you require to qualify, the more you’re including the cream of the crop — the players who were so good that they’ve had full time positions for a number of years. If you took players with a minimum of 1000 games played, for example, your group of players would be even better. But that’s not a representative sample of first basemen. You want to compare Youk’s performance to the average of ALL plate appearances and fielding chances taken by every first baseman.
League OPS by 1B’s and overall in 2007:
AL: .791, .761 (104 OPS+, sort of)
NL: .846, .757 (112 OPS+, sort of)
ML: estimated 1B OPS+ of 108, by splitting difference
KY ’07: .843 raw, (117 OPS+)
KY ’06: .810 raw, (106 OPS+)
Just based on OPS+, Youkilis has one season right at league-average for 1Bs and one one 10 points above it. Plus, like I mentioned, Youk’s line is OBP-heavy, increasing his value. And, he’s a very good defender, adding 5-10 runs per year with the glove.
By the way, since people here seem to like classifying any poster that’s not in love with the Yankees as a Red Sox fan, I should mention I don’t root for the Sox any more than the Yankees, and both are two of my ten favorite teams to follow.
Yes Youk is pretty good, and unlike Pedroia, he’s stats isn’t particularly Fenway inflated. he actually does a little worse at home than on the road (which is odd considering that he’s more of a pull righty)