Hackers Cano, Cabrera & Molina Killed Yanks M.O. This Season?
Through last night’s game, via the stats at Baseball-Reference.com, since 1996, here are the number of games, each season, where the Yankees batters have seen 140+ pitches per contest:
Year G w/140+ P 1996 82 1997 102 1998 86 1999 97 2000 99 2001 91 2002 102 2003 107 2004 98 2005 93 2006 116 2007 122 2008 87
This is pretty interesting. I would have thought the 1998-2001 numbers to be higher – with Knoblauch, Bernie, and Posada working all those deep counts…maybe the other hackers on those teams offset the pitch-takers?
But, clearly, when you compare the 2008 Yankees to the Yankees of 2006 and 2007, it’s striking that this Yankees team does not make pitchers work like the two Yankees teams before it.
Missing Posada for most of this season is part of the reason for this drop. But, he’s just one batter. Via the stats at HardballTimes.com, we can see that this season, to date, this is how the Yankees batters breakdown in terms of pitches seen per plate appearance (P/PA):
Player P/PA Richie Sexson 4.7 Bobby Abreu 4.3 Shelley Duncan 4.3 Jason Giambi 4.2 Johnny Damon 4.1 Morgan Ensberg 4.1 Brett Gardner 4.1 Cody Ransom 3.9 Jorge Posada 3.9 Alex Rodriguez 3.9 Hideki Matsui 3.8 Derek Jeter 3.8 Ivan Rodriguez 3.7 Wilson Betemit 3.7 Melky Cabrera 3.7 Chad Moeller 3.6 Xavier Nady 3.6 Jose Molina 3.6 Alberto Gonzalez 3.5 Justin Christian 3.4 Robinson Cano 3.4 Chris Stewart 3.3
Robinson Cano, Melky Cabrera and Jose Molina, to date, have batted 1,281 times for the Yankees this season. That total, from these three, represents 23% of the Yankees PA to date this year. If these three were more productive batters, you could live with their low P/PA numbers. But, because they have been out-makers this season, and doing it in a manner that’s easy for the pitcher opposing the Yankees, in terms of labor, they have truly killed the Yankees offensive game plan this year.
It’s sad but one of my criteria for judging a Cano AB is if he does something other than hack at the first or second pitch.
“I would have thought the 1998-2001 numbers to be higher”
Perhaps this is affected by the fact that the 1998 team won so many games, and therefore rarely batted in the bottom of the 9th at home. That would cut about 15 pitches per game off the total.
Good point.