How Good Are the Yankees?
by jscape2000 on Dec 30, 2009 1:00 PM EST
in New York Yankees Analysis
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PrintEd mentioned Dave Cameron's little piece this morning, as did Chad Jennings.
[The Yankees] are so good that adding another high quality player doesn’t help them that much in 2010, and because of the long term contract that is required, they’d be risking future flexibility to add [future] wins that may actually matter for an upgrade that just isn’t necessary.
It’s a rational decision made by smart people who understand just how good their roster currently is.
I really like his analysis, and I agree with it. The AL Wildcard has averaged 96.1 wins over the last 10 years, 95.2 over the last 5. The AL East Champion has averaged 97.3 and 97.2 wins over similar spans. The AL Pennant winner has averaged 98.0 and 97.0 wins.
The Red Sox have upgraded their rotation (which figured to be better if Dice-K stayed healthy) and their already sterling outfield defense.
The Rays have added an elite arm to their bullpen and will return a potent offense.
But the Yankees have had the best offseason in the AL East (Mariners had the best overall). By adding Vazquez, the rotation is as deep as the Red Sox, and those two will fight for best in the league; adding Vazquez also puts an elite arm in the bullpen, whether its Joba or Hughes. The outfield defense is improved by the Granderson addition, and he replaces Damon's blend of power and speed. I believe that Johnson's patience will be as valuable as Matsui's power.
If you think the current Yankee team is a 95 win team, a 97 win team, or (like I do) a 100 win team, then you should agree that the Yanks don't need to add a major player, and that they're really better off by holding on to as much roster flexibility as possible to best address whatever the teams needs will be after 2010.
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If they’d put Cervelli in left field, we’re talking an easy 140 game winner.
"Have faith in the Yankees, my son. Think of the great DiMaggio."
Are you Implying that Cervelli would lose 22 games?
That sounds like heresy to me. And you know what they do to heretics. Then your banished to hell.
by Monotonousblob on Dec 30, 2009 1:17 PM EST up reply actions
26 weeks in the season. Every 7th day he needs to rest.
"Have faith in the Yankees, my son. Think of the great DiMaggio."
My idea is catching on
Accept I said screw it sit them all and let Cervelli play the whole outfield.
Anyone who mentions salary caps as an answer is unemployed. Say Hello to my little friend,Al Pacino-Scarface
by cashman bashman on Dec 30, 2009 5:08 PM EST up reply actions
just catch him
he doesn’t need to be in the outfield. Nobody needs to be in the OF. He could will the ball into his glove without even having to move.
Only minor tweaks needed
2010 team is better but I think not at DH
“I believe that Johnson’s patience will be as valuable as Matsui’s power.”
Not sure I agree on that but pitching and the outfield is better to be sure.
keep the money for next offseason
next offseason is going to be a very important. jeter, mariano, pettitte and vasquez are all free agents, jeter and mariano will be back but if pettitte retires and vasquez moves on we’re going to have sabathia and burnett as our rotation and pretty much nothing else. but all of that comes back to you know who, i think we are going to learn a lot about whoever wins the race for the 5th spot in the rotation(phil hughes and joba chamberlain) in this upcoming season. whoever gets that opportunity(i think it will be joba) they’re going to be in an ideal situation to perform(and with joba having no innings limit there are no excuses). finally, crawford, mauer, beckett, and webb are free agents, all of which i think the yankees would prefer over bay or holliday. mauer is the one theyre targeting, which is why they didnt sign a big DH, that way they could quickly slide posada into the DH hole next season and start mauer. no brainer, keep the money.
If AJ can pitch better (have an overall better W-L record) and CC becomes a 20 game winner.
We got 105+ games right there. This excludes all the other factors of course.
Yankees all day.
"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring." ~Rogers Hornsby
"If you're not doing it right, you're doing it wrong. And there's no in between." ~Mark "Lunch" McKenzie
Barring horrible injuries, I think we have 110+ wins
AROD will be there from the beginnging and I think the attitude will be different. The nine year drought is over and now most of our players are experienced and know the feeling of winning.
"We're only going to score 17 points?"
110 wins is a RIDICULOUS amount.
Aside from Wang’s sucktitude we had a few guys put up close to career years. I think if we can stay healthy all year another 101 or 102 win season is attainable.
Strikeouts are boring- Besides that, they're fascist. Throw some ground balls - it's more democratic.
Every season is different.
Its nice to see into the future and see the Yankees to 105, 108 or 110 wins but theres just too many things that can bite them in the butt. I love the Vasquez trade because lets face it, Melky was a fan favorite but his offense was offensive. Yes he could play all three outfield positions but sometimes he would have a brain fart and misplay a routine fly ball. Vasquez gives us 15 more wins maybe and Granderson gives us a little more power and he plays his position very well.
It could all go down the toilet with an injury. The 6 weeks Alex was on the DL was horrible for the Yanks. Texiera couldn’t do squat because they weren’t afraid of who was up after him so he was pitched to. His numbers changed after Alex rejoined the team. If one of our starters gets injured we have an issue.
Health will bring us another WS championship.
I think you mean they pitched around Tex not to him.
Tex is a notoriously slow starter but the absence of Arod probably affected the pitches he saw as well.
Strikeouts are boring- Besides that, they're fascist. Throw some ground balls - it's more democratic.
by CasanovaWong on Dec 30, 2009 8:02 PM EST up reply actions
HELP
where being invaded,its either the French or Yahoo bloggers?Seems they got Yankee stuff for X Mas or something.
Anyone who mentions salary caps as an answer is unemployed. Say Hello to my little friend,Al Pacino-Scarface
by cashman bashman on Dec 30, 2009 5:40 PM EST reply actions
110+ wins
is just outrageous…i hope thats including the playoffs…you cant predict this team as one of the best ever preseason..we have a very similar team as last year so i would think we’ll be in the same range as last year.
Hi all,
have not visited the PSA since the Yanks officially won the WS. Now that I have lived that down, I should probably say congratulations on the awesome 2009. I wanted to play devil’s advocate (as a Sox fan) and bring up some points that I would like to get your views on:
a)Last year the Yankees won 103 games (a hell of a lot). However, as Casanova points out, there was an extremely high level of performance that perhaps was unexpected. This mainly occured offensively (and perhaps defensively). Younger players like Cano, Teixeira and Swisher had excellent years. For Cano and Swisher, they were near career bests. That is not unexpected, as these guys are in their prime. However Posada, Damon, Jeter, and Matsui had surprisingly good offensive years given their age, their performance the previous year (if applicable) and their recent injury history. Even ARod at his age and recent injury history was very effective (perhaps however not surprisingly so). In the case of Posada and Jeter at some point there has to be diminishing returns (espcially for Posada as a 38/39 year old catcher).
b)Even with this high level of performance, the team “projected” to be a 96 win team by Pythagorean and 97 by WAR. Thus, it would look like even by the extreme level of performance there was some good fortune here (as is to be expected-a high level of 1 run wins is usually not reproducible).
c)The team has actually lost a lot of offense. Using Fangraphs wRC metric (a very accurate means of accessing how many runs a single player has contributed to his team’s total runs) if you take last year’s Granderson-(Damon+Matsui+Melky) you come up with the amazing fact that from this balance alone the team has lost 170 total runs. Now this is not fair since Granderson will probably thrive in YS, while Melky’s offense will be replaced by random LF, but still this likely amounts to about -75-100 runs. This is a lot of offense. It should also be noted that losing Damon’s lousy defense in LF probably saves 30 runs, but the defense Granderson provides in CF is perhaps no better or worse than that provided by the CF platoon of Melky/Gardener.
None of this is to take away what the Yankees did last year. Regardless of the 2 levels of “overperformance” noted in (a) and (b), they were clearly the best team in baseball (for example while they overperformed their Pythag by 7 wins, they still did have the highest Pythag in baseball). Further, a good case can be made that the pitching will be better by a clear amount next year. However given what appears to be a fair bit of likely regression plus the loss of offense, how confident are you that the team can even replicate what they did last year in terms of wins?
addendum
I forgot about Nick Johnson. Taking last year’s wRC numbers (Granderson+Johnson)-(Damon+Matsui) is a near wash. However points (a)+(b) still stand as interesting to consider w/r to projection for the 2010 year.
I love Pythag
The Yanks are counting on a rebound for Granderson to boost the offense.
With a better outfield defense (replace Damon with Gardner) and a stronger rotation (replace Mitre/Gaudin/Wang with Vazquez and a year of improvement from Joba/Hughes, I think the Yankees stand to improve their run prevention.
The articles I’ve read are still inconclusive because of sample size issues and the study required of pitcher use patterns, but it seems to me that outperforming Pythag is repeatable.
All runs are not equal when considering wins. A run in the late innings of a close game is worth more than in a blowout. So a strong bullpen and a powerful offense, coupled with a share of luck (playing more close games at home where your team has the advantage) should allow a team to outperform Pythag.
Joba or Hughes in the bullpen in front of Mariano Rivera, plus a new cast of youngsters in the mix (who can be easily sent down if they prove ineffective, unlike, say Kyle Farnsworth) gives the Yanks as strong a chance as any team in the league.
Can the Yanks beat their Pythag by 7 runs? I don’t know. But if the team is a little better (health and production), slightly worse luck won’t even show up in the box score.
"Have faith in the Yankees, my son. Think of the great DiMaggio."
I agree
jn part. The Yankees have during the last 13 years very often bested their Pythag. Thus it seems to be a “skill” although no one knows what that skill might arise from. In the case of last year, however, I would maintain that there really was a high degree of good fortune:
a)Not only Pythag but WAR showed this. If you take a team’s WAR and add 42 it is a good measure of wins. For the Yankees it came to 97, almost exactly their Pythag.
b)The Yankees won an inordinate number of one run walk off games. While that may be viewed as a skill too (eg Mariano/bullpen influence) I doubt this is repeatable, and I doubt that has happened too often in the Mariano era.
c)Regardless of what a “true” measure of wins should have been, the Yankees offense was largely boosted by 4 outlier performances from 35+ year old players and one 34 year old. Johnson+Granderson-last year’s Damon and last year’s Matsui plus likely regression from Jeter, Posada and possible regression from Swisher, Cano seems like an offense that could score a fair bit fewer runs. Recall that the 08 offense scored 150 fewer runs than the 09 offense. That was in part due to the loss of Posada, and the replacement of Giambi and Abreu with Teixiera and Swisher. But a very large part of that was the jump in performance from the “old guys.” That should regress to a degree.
Bullpens are hard to predict. The Yankees already had an excellent one the last two years. Hughes has never yet shown he can pitch consistently in the rotation (he will but there will still be growing pains) and he already was a force in last year’s pen-one that is much better than Joba will be in the pen this year (Hughes by advanced metrics in double the innings was as good as the 07 Joba out of the Pen). The Yankees still very well may be the top team in the league, but I think expecting even 103 wins is asking for something unrealistic.
With you
It’s very exciting to think how good they can be. And nobody, I think, mentions how Joe Girardi is very good too. I’m trying not to get too excited….but it’s pretty damn difficult not to. I feel good about it now. We need our health though.. a few guys go down and we could be in trouble….maybe that’s something to discuss in the future. Ranking our health. Which three or four guys do we need the most?…..hmm.
I wish we could continue to just show up and play for no reason. No umpires, no scorers. Just show up and have fun.
-- Alex Rodriguez
insurance?
truth is Yankees need to sign Matt Holliday he is perfect for Yankee stadium. This what is called insurance if any major hitter goes down to injury, He is a line drive hitter who hits over 300 and plays an above average outfield. I like the slow and steady approach to Brett Gardner for in a few years he might be our lead off hitter. That is why he should be our 4th outfielder not a rotation.
many vaild points brought up
Interesting reading.. my take is that the Yanks will probably be right around 100 Wins – some of my rantings:
1- Injuries are key for Yanks & Red Sox – true every year, but the SOX pitching looks very tough to handle.
2- Javier will be ok/ not great in the AL, ok as 4th starter
3- I did not like the Nick Johnson signing, high OBP but slow as molasses & is always hurt.
4- Losing Damon as #2 batter is big. No defense in OF but he had a great offensive year. Agree on Yanks playing tough with him as he wanted way too much $.
5- They had a very high # of come from behind/ late innings wins. Unsure if the percentages will bring them back to their Pyth. # of 97. Teams usually do come back whenever they go too much over their Pyth.
6- Bullpens are very high to predict as a whole (look at the Rays the last 2 years). Mariano has been ( & is) and exception and is a major differentiator for Yanks.
7- Agree on saving some $ for next year. Webb is a great sinkerballer if healthy (good at the new Stadium). Crawford in LF & Mauer too …. good year for free agents & lots of $$$ to be spent.
8 – Cano drives me crazy, he has improved his defense but he reminds me of Soriano at the plate. Just raw skill IMHO, probably has nothing between the ears. Sometimes I think he belongs on the Mets with his attittude.
Cheers & a Happy New Year!
Johnson can’t be slower than Matsui, and Granderson is as fast or faster than Damon.
"Have faith in the Yankees, my son. Think of the great DiMaggio."
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