Let’s face it…the Yankees are getting older and older. A lot of these players are no longer in their prime. Some like Melky and to a lesser extent Cano are coming back to earth. This must be the Yankees’ greatest adjustment in the off season with the loss of Giambi AND Abreu. Quite honestly, all this talk about CC, AJ and Lowe really worries me BECAUSE they were down in runs scored last year and need to shore up the offense. If the Yanks don’t get Teix, I can see this team fighting for a 4th place spot again. Swisher is not the answer and the Yanks are getting back Posada BUT a year older Posada in his late 30s and that’s not a good thing.

Don’t think anyone was counting on Melky to have a superstar year, but I think the Yanks were looking (hoping?) he’d be around league average. I don’t think anyone was expecting him to be as bad as he was

But I’m sure the Yanks were counting more on Matsui, Posada, Jeter & Cano than Melky.

Point stands that if you’re getting a negative RCAA from 4 starters in your lineup, you’re not going to score many runs.

Great post Evan3457

Let’s stop oveanalyzing this.

Melky’s bad year was not a key reason for the offensive decline. Nobody was counting on him for a big season. They hoped he would improve some, and he didn’t, but nobody was making big predictions for him after his up and down 2007.

The reasons for the team losing 180 runs of offense from 2007 to 2008, are, in order of importance:

1) Jorge Posada’a career year in 2007 being replaced not by an average Posada year in 2008, but by an average Jose Molina year. This alone has to be somewhere around 60-70 runs of the dropoff.

2) A-Rod’s dropoff from a monster season to a slightly below average season, for him, exacerbated by his subpar performance in key spots. This was probably about 40-50 runs.

3) Cano’s collapse from being a good plus hitter to being an awful hitter for the 1st month, and an average hitter the rest of the year. This was probably about 30 runs of the drop.

The three of them account for about 75-80% of the difference between the two teams. The 1st two were predictable, the 3rd wasn’t.

All 3 were essentially unavoidable, unless the Yanks had the foresight, and the material, to trade for Brian McCann to back up Jorge Posada at catcher in the off-season.

Jeter’s year, probably related to a hidden injury, would be the next most important factor. Matsui’s injury was also important, as he was actually off to an improved start before he got hurt, and was ineffective when he forced his comeback.

Raf – If one of the keys to the Yankees being a “900 run offense” was a decent season from Melky Cabrera, then the team had their head up their fanny when they came up with that plan…

and not preparing better for his return to human levels by having better pitching to offset what should have been an expected drop in offense.
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The problem wasn’t so much Rodriguez, as Matsui, Posada, Melky, Jeter, & Cano. Especially Melky & Cano. I think I pointed out sometime last season that the Yanks were getting a negative RCAA from 3-4 spots in their lineup (C, SS, 2b, CF)

Rodriguez had a season for the ages in 07, and was expected to decline (as was Posada), but bounceback years by Giambi & Damon were supposed to mitigate it.

preparing better for his return to human levels by having better pitching to offset what should have been an expected drop in offense.
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I saw plenty of games that if the yankees scored 5 or sometimes even 4 runs they would have had wins. The pitching wasn’t bad considering the hand we had and its only going to be better this year. They need another professional hitter. Trading for nick swisher is not the answer here, they need a big bat (not abreu)

FWIW, I don’t blame A-Rod for not having 80-something RCAA in 2008. The 40+ that he had were very, very, good. More so, I would blame the Yankees for not realizing that much of the 160 RCAA that they had in 2007 was due to A-Rod’s monster season…and not preparing better for his return to human levels by having better pitching to offset what should have been an expected drop in offense.

While this is sort of fair, it doesn’t really take into account their 2007 year. Sure, Arod might have dropped by 38 RCAA, but only because I’m sure that two years ago he had one of the highest RCAA ever. We can’t expect that monster season from ARod every time out. I think that, realistically, we should *expect* him to have a season somewhere in between his 2007 and 2008 seasons. A-Rod had the 2nd highest drop off but unlike Jeter, Cano and Melky, it’s NOT because he had a terrible year this year. It’s just because he wasn’t as historically good as he was two years ago, something that we cannot expect from him. For Cano, Jeter, (and maybe Melky) all we have to hope for is that they are above league average.

A-Rod still won the Silver Slugger and still had a great year stats wise. You can try to look for A-Rod to blame, but then you have to recognize that to match his RCAA, he would’ve had to have another near-record breaking year. Cano needs to climb back to league average and Jeter needs to prove that he is better than league average. We don’t have to worry about that with A Rod.