Evan with regards to defense no matter how we cut it Teixeira has an edge. He’s a Gold Glover and I’ll take 30 projected runs over 5.

In reference to price performace ratio, the Yanks need to shore up a mediocre and aging offense. Someone like Teix would be part of the long term solution. Swish’s impact is that of a role player and minimite and is paid accordingly. Teix is a very good player who can become great given the right lineup. Teix will be overpaid and for good reason. He is coveted by many teams for being a three dimensional player which Swish is not. In essence, you get what you pay for. Teix is only a small piece of resolving the Yankee offensive and defensive woes whereas Teix’s impact would be much greater and more expensive.

As for having the flexibilty to move Posada ,Jeter,or Arod let’s not get caught up in aging sacred cows. Posada can DH and Jeter can move to center. By the time Posada leaves , Arod can become DH or field shortstop again(that was opening a Pandora’s box).Case closed on that one…. we can debate that another time because it would take an entire other thread!

Lastly, even though I rail against the Yankees spending , there seems no way in stopping them from going overboard. You hear a lot of people saying that 88 mill came off the payroll, next year you will hear that 40 mill will come off(Pettitte, Damon, and Matsui) and they will add accordingly. But as with the adjustments this year so far, the new players might come in spots that are not a 1a priority. Even though there is a miini-depression going round, guess what? The Yanks are swimming in money and without any real cap in sight they will spend like drunken sailors.

matcohen -
Swisher’s career UZR/150 games as a CF is -10.3

He’s terrible in CF.

Nice to see that someone is not listening to the nonsense coming out of the front office that he is a solid defensive 1B.

For what it’s worth, his zone rating in center is actually pretty good.

I wonder if there’s an available 1B that would let us shift him to center…

Butchie:

Plainly, Swisher is no Teixiera. He will be 5-10 runs better than Giambi, in my opinion (Texiera would likely be somewhere around 20-25 runs better, I think).

However, he will cost about 25-50% of what Teixiera costs in the years left on his contract, and the Yanks may be able to afford a Sheets or a Ramirez because of that difference, and still stay under a payroll cap that most fans feel should not exist, but which Hal and Cashman are obviously operating under.

Swisher will also not block Posada or A-Rod being moved to first, or a potential move of Montero there if and when he proves incapable of being a major league catcher.

Swish can save runs at 1b, but with all of the data Steve supplied it may be more of a testament to how poor Giambi is rather than how skilled Swish is at 1b.
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Also may explain why the Yanks prefer to have Nady in RF instead of Abreu.

Well, looks like i’ll put my foot in my mouth after this one. I’ll openly admit that i’ve posted about how happy I was with the idea of Swisher at 1b because of what I thought was superb defense. Evan makes a point about how Swish can save runs at 1b, but with all of the data Steve supplied it may be more of a testament to how poor Giambi is rather than how skilled Swish is at 1b.

Evan, 5-10 a season donot make. 24th among regular first baseman? Wasn’t he moved there by Ozzie and Williams because he had become such a butcher in the outfield? Swisher is a nice player BUT no Teixeira. As I’ve said in my previous post about Swish, he should be a super sub on this team not part of the starting lineup. His defensive capabilities are suspect and his production was no where near Giambi’s last year. For the vast majority of Giambi’s tenure, he was not a first baseman but rather DH. Tino, Doug, Nick, and Co did a much better job at first and that should be a standard as opposed to Giambi.

Evan3457 – thanks for this additional data!

Nick Swisher was -5 in 2008 in the BIS +/- numbers, which ranked him 24th among regular 1st basemen (he was scored a regular even though he played about 1/3 of a season at 1st, 462 innings.

In 2007, he was -1 in 347 IP, not enough innings to be ranked.

In 2006, he was -1 in 700 IP, and ranked 19th.

The 3 season together make about 1500 innings, or a little more than a full season, and he was an aggregate -7.

This is not a good rating. It is a mediocre to poor rating.

On the other hand, Jason Giambi was -16 in 480 IP in 2006, good (bad?) enough for 34th in the rankins. He was +1 in 2007, but in only 120 innings, not enough to be ranked as a regular. Last season, he was -18 in nearly 900 innings, and again was 34th in the rankings. (Remember, there are only 30 major league teams, so he ranked behind some backups.).

Giambi was an aggregate -33 in roughly 1500 innings, some 26 fewer plays than Swisher in just about the same number of innings.

Swisher is mediocre, but Giambi was horrendous, and with a throwing arm so poor that he was afraid to make throws. For what it’s worth, Giambi’s average BIS rating on bunt plays looks to be about a C, and Swisher’s is about a B+.

In short, the BIS ratins say Swisher should be about 20-30 plays better than Giambi, not because Swisher is great, or even good, but because Giambi was terrible.

I estimate a defensive gain of between 5-10 runs at first with Swisher in there.