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Price: Red Sox Team Of The Decade

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 8:27 pm No Responses »
Dec 292009

Earlier today, Ed Price wrote an article about the team of the decade that included the following chart:

Considering that chart, it must be obvious who Price picked as the team of the decade, right? Not so fast:

But while the Yankees had the best winning percentage for the 2000s as a whole — .597, with a 965-651 record — we have chosen the Red Sox as the team of the decade.

Boston earns the nod not just based on its success but also for the way the franchise turned itself around and became a standard-bearer in ways for the industry….

That October was the defining time of the decade. It saddled the Yankees’ with a vulnerability that lasted five years, it dialed up the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry and it turned New England fans’ expectations from inevitable doom to annual contention.

The Yankees had more wins, pennants, and playoff appearances, and an equal number of championships. The Red Sox won the narrative of the decade by breaking The Curse, and that makes it feel like they had the better decade. But if you objectively put the teams head to head, the Yankees owned 7 of those 10 years (with 2004, 2007, and 2008 being the exception). The New York Yankees are the team of the decade.

Do you agree?

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What Do Derosa And Bay Mean For Damon And Left Field

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 6:34 pm 2 Responses »
Dec 292009

In the last two days, we’ve seen both Mark DeRosa and Jason Bay agree to terms with the Giants and Mets respectively. While the Giants will play DeRosa at third, they could still use him in left field and other places. Bay will obviously play left field for the Mets, earning at least $66MM over at least four years. That leaves two fewer landing spots for Damon than there were this time last week.

What does this mean for the “former” Yankee outfielder? The meaning is a likely return to Pinstripes for Johnny. His options are dwindling rapidly, and the Yankees do not appear to be major players for the other remaining big-ticket position-playing free-agent, Matt Holliday. I’ve already discusssed the option of Jermaine Dye (ugh) and since then, that “rumor” has been thankfully debunked.

This basically leaves three choices: try and bring back Damon at the right price, go get a small-time outfielder to be part of a left-field platoon with Brett Gardner, or just stand pat with Gardner and Jamie Hoffmann as the outfielders.

The best choice performance wise is probably the first choice: bringing back Damon. While his defense was poor last year, his offense helped make up for it and Damon was still worth 3.0 WAR. But, can we realistically expect Damon to be worth that much when he’s a year older both on the field and at the plate? Can we also expect his price to come down? It seems as though Damon’s shown little willingness to let his price drop. If he doesn’t come at the right price, the Yankees will definitely pass.

Cost wise, the third choice is clearly the best. Gardner and Hoffmann are very inexpensive, but of course, they can definitely not be counted on to produce. If he doesn’t do well in Spring Training, Hoffmann may not even be on the team.

Perhaps, then, the Yankees will need to strike a balance between the two and sign someone at a lower cost to platoon with Gardner. There are a few candidates, including Reed Johnson. Versus left handed pitchers in his career, Johnson has a career line of .313/.378/.463/.841 with a ridiculous 23.3 UZR/150 in 434 games in left field, which is where he’s spent most of his time. A Gardner/Johnson platoon could prove effective. The other possible candidate is Xavier Nady, who also hits lefties well in his career: .308/.383/.471/.854 and he also sports a positive UZR in LF, at 1.8/150. However, it appears he has priced himself out of the Yankees market.

All three of these options are viable. The first and third would definitely help the Yankees, and the second wouldn’t sink them completely–though it wouldn’t be all that great, either.

So, readers of TYU, what do you think the Yankees should do?

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Fangraphs: Value Of A Win To The Yankees

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 12:56 pm No Responses »
Dec 292009

Dave Cameron makes an interesting point about the value of a win to the Yankees, in the context of the Yankees going cheap in LF:

A while ago, we talked about the marginal value of a win, and how it differs from team to team, changing the calculation on what a team should pay for a given player given what they already have on the roster. The wins that have the largest impact on playoff odds are in the upper-80s, so if you’re a slightly better than .500 club, adding another additional win or two can have a pretty dramatic impact on your chances of playing in October……

The Yankees have made a bunch of good moves this winter, adding Curtis Granderson, Nick Johnson, and Javier Vazquez to a roster that was the best in baseball a year ago. Their true talent level, as currently constructed, is probably that of a 100 win team. The Yankees are going to be very good in 2010…..

The marginal value of the 101st, 102nd, and 103rd win in terms of playoff odds is really quite small. And that’s approximately the upgrade that Holliday would represent over the current production that Gardner offers in left field……

It’s a rational decision made by smart people who understand just how good their roster currently is. In the past, New York has pursued every big ticket free agent on the market because they represented a real, tangible improvement in their quest to bring home another championship. Given how well Brian Cashman has put together this roster, though, a big ticket left fielder is superfluous. He’s right to keep his money locked up. They just don’t need another good player.

To distill Cameron’s point further, he is basically noting that the Yankees are already a strong, playoff caliber club, such that adding another high priced player at this point would not provide value commensurate to the contract that they would need to dole out. If Johnny Damon or Matt Holliday move the Yankees from 96 to 100 wins, have they really added much value?

While I do agree with Cameron on his larger idea, I do think there are two points that he is missing. Firstly, a team with the resources of the Yankees may be inclined to make a move that represents diminishing returns just to insure themselves against major injuries and regressions in performance. Adding a bigger bat in left is likely unnecessary, but on the off chance that a large number of players get hurt, it may make the difference between making the playoffs and staying at home.

More importantly, the goal for the Yankees is to win a championship, not just make the postseason. As such, a player who may represent diminishing marginal utility in the regular season can be the difference between winning and losing a postseason series. Matt Holliday may not drastically change the odds of the Yankees making the playoffs, but the addition of a 6 win player could increase their chances of winning an individual postseason series. As such, it may make sense for the Yankees to bite the bullet on a contract whose cost will not match regular season value, in order to improve their postseason chances.

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A 3rd Team In New York?

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 10:50 am No Responses »
Dec 292009

Since the Yankees won the World Series, there have been rumblings among baseball insiders about the need to correct the “Yankee problem,” namely the fact that the Yankees outspend some clubs by more than 100 million dollars. While a salary cap is the most popular suggestion, a cap on teams would by nature by a cap upon player salaries, and therefore would require approval of the players union. Tim Marchman suggests that one way baseball can deal with the competitive imbalance while bypassing the MLBPA is to add another club in NY:

According to the measure used by the Office of Management and Budget, the New York metropolitan region numbers about 19 million people. In other words, New York has one MLB team for every 9.5 million people. Chicago, by this measure, has one for every five million people, just as Miami and Atlanta do. Los Angeles has one for every 6.5 million people, as do Dallas and Philadelphia. (This doesn’t even take into account New York’s vast, inherent wealth.) As we learned a decade ago, baseball at large is quite willing to jury-rig a silly tax system that only works against the Yankees, because everyone else benefits, be it poor teams getting handouts or rich teams who see the Yankees ever so slightly chastened in their spending. With the collective bargaining agreement coming up for renegotiation, a bad economy and a Yankees team that looks like it will be ferociously good over the next few years even if the likes of Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera begin their inevitable decline, it’s quite likely that their continued high spending will provoke some new set of ineffectual regulations meant to reign them in a bit. The better solution would be to place a third team in New York. That would bring the town’s population:team ratio down to the level of Los Angeles or Philadelphia, and with the same number of people and dollars chasing more baseball, would quite likely bring Yankee spending down a hair without doing anything punitive or unfair. The main holdup is baseball’s archaic territorial rights system, which has also trapped the A’s in Oakland when they should really be in San Jose.

I agree with Tim in that this is certainly a better solution than raising the luxury tax, which is basically a redistribution system that penalizes the Yankees for effectively utilizing their market advantage. An additional team in New York would be an organic solution, creating more competition in the market and helping equalize the playing field. A team in New Jersey or even Brooklyn would have a built-in audience of locals, and a motivated owner could help bring in players to make the team a success within its first 5-6 seasons. While some might suggest that there is no way for anyone to put a dent in the Yankee revenues, it is important to note that the Mets of the late 60′s and mid to late 80′s did just that. The Mets were the talk of the town and consistently outdrew the Yankees over those time spans. It would likely be a difficult go for a 3rd New York club at first, but I think it could work.

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