Tyler Kepner has a piece in today’s New York Times detailing the cost effective job Brian Cashman has done in building this years relief corps. He begins:
On a team that spends more than $200 million on its roster, the Yankees’ bullpen is a bargain. Only one of Rivera’s setup men will earn more than $1.25 million this season. That is Dámaso Marte, a left-hander whose first team, the Seattle Mariners, let him go as a minor leaguer in 2000.
And an effective Lefty specialist is cheap at any price, especially when you consider that since 2002 the Yanks have trotted out. . . . brace yourself. . . . Mike Stanton, Randy Choate, Sterling Hitchcock, Chris Hammond, Felix Heredia, Gabe White, Jesse Orosco, Alex Graman, CJ Nitkowski, Donovan Osborne, Al Leiter, Buddy Groom, Alan Embree, Mike Stanton-part deux, Wayne Franklin, Sean Henn, Ron Villone, Mike Myers, Matt Smith, Kei Igawa, and the immortal Billy Traber.
Ahhh . . . . memories. More from Kepner:
The other relievers have much less experience, but the Yankees’ bullpen had a 3.79 earned run average last season, seventh best in baseball. Of the six relievers likely to set up for Rivera, only Phil Coke was drafted by the Yankees. The others came from discount bins.
Not only is the Yankee bullpen effective, it is flexible as well. Some of them are arb guys and others are rookies who still have options. Worst case scenario, if someone is injured or ineffective you’d simply cut them loose. You couldn’t do that when you were paying big bucks to guys like Kyle Farnsworth or Steve Karsay.
Joe Girardi deserves some of the credit as well. After years of bullpen mismanagement by Joe Torre and his overuse of a few guys who he fell in love with, Girardi is spreading the workload around. Girardi’s approach keeps everyone sharp, and by paying attention to matchup details (which is a manager’s job) Girardi’s relief corps last year was both deep and effective. Torre ended more careers than Donald Trump.
“It’s been a long process since Veras has been a Yankee, but the fact that he had one power tool made him intriguing to keep an eye on,” Cashman said, referring to Veras’s fastball. “Brian Bruney also had a big power tool, so we gave him a shot.
“Our scouts gravitate toward tools, so even if they don’t see success, they’ll think, ‘We should give this guy a chance to keep trying.’ ”
For all the criticism Brian Cashman has received over the years for his pitching decisions, this years bullpen is a feather in his cap. Fans are seeing the dividends of his renewed focus on scouting and player development since he took full control of Baseball ops in 2005. Maybe the best news of all is that with Melancon, Robertson, Sanchez and Aceves in AAA, there’s even more help on the way. You can hire anyone to give CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett truckloads of money, but efficiency and flexibility is much harder to acheive. Cashman has done just that.
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Great post. This is Cashman’s greatest recent achievement- if you have the money to sign the stars, it becomes huge for you to be able to fill in at the margins with the farm system. Also, just as an aside, Chris pointed out that Hammond was actually pretty solid for the Yankees.
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Steve S. Reply:
March 31st, 2009 at 7:05 pm
This comes up every time. Hammond was good overall, he just didn’t get lefties out, which was his job. That’s why I always include him in the lefty Flotsam and Jetsam list.
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Moshe Mandel Reply:
March 31st, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Yeah, totally forgot about this. I promise that next time, I will not bring it up. Although now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure he was brought in to pitch the 8th, like Marte. If Marte put up a similar line, would you be upset?
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Steve S. Reply:
March 31st, 2009 at 9:10 pm
That’s a good question. I guess it would depend on what his role is, and if we have anyone else to get a lefty when we need it. So if Coke is destroying lefties and Marte is faring better vs Righties, I guess I can’t complain much.
The 03 team Hammond was on had Felix Horrendous, Bret Prinz, Randy Choate, Gabe White and Jesse Orosco. All of whom were left handed and were either bad with the Yanks and/or didn’t get lefties out. The fact that they had so many Lefties in 03 tells you how much trouble they had finding a good one.
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I hope this pen opens some eyes. People keep bashing their farm system while totally ignoring these guys. Like somehow they don’t count because they are bullpen pieces.
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I think Cashman made some pretty good BP moves in the past, only to see Torre undo it with either overwork or underwork.
I know there aren’t a lot of Benitez fans, but the way Torre used him was criminal: 2 innings three days in a row, then when he was ineffective the third day, his career with the Yankees was over.
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Looking forward to when Veras is replaced by Robertson and when Bruney is replaced with Melancon and finally we bring Dunn in for Marte. The we will have an inexpensive pen that is great!
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