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Yanks still in on Chapman?

Posted by Chris H. at 7:00 pm 6 Responses »
Jan 072010

Yesterday, ESPN’s Buster Olney tweeted that, along with the Mets, the Yankees were out of the Aroldis Chapman sweepstakes, with Olney citing a general front office concern as to whether or not Chapman was better suited to serve as a reliever or a starter (spending $20 million or more on an eventual bullpen cog seemed problematic).

The decision to bow out of the market for the prized Cuban southpaw made a certain degree of sense beyond role concerns, as well, as Chapman is far from a polished prospect. He needs to improve upon his overall command, which was fairly poor in Cuba, while bettering the quality of his breaking pitches. For these reasons, according to the Boston Globe’s Pete Abraham, the Yankees believe Chapman must begin his American career in the lower minor leagues, in Single-A ball, but he and his representation seem to disagree. Therefore, despite the talent inherent to his spidery left arm, the Yankees’ decision, while disappointing to some, was certainly understandable. Furthermore, last night, it appeared as though the Angels were nearing a deal for Chapman, so perhaps the hunt was over.

Today, however — there’s always a “however” — we hear from a report that conflicts with Olney’s, for it states that the Yankees could still be in on the Hendricks brothers’ sought after young client. According to Gordon Edes of ESPN Boston, “[c]ontrary to reports that have pegged the Angels and Blue Jays as favorites to sign the 22-year old pitcher, the Red Sox remain very much in the picture, [with] one major league executive predicting that either the Sox or Yankees will sign him.” The executive added, “This one is for the big-money teams,” although I think it’s fair to call the Angels, who are in the top ten for team payroll, a “big-money team,” too. If Boston, a club which offered Chapman a $15 million contract a few weeks ago, prior to his representation switch, is still in the thick of it, I would think that the Yankees, so as to drive up the price for the Red Sox, would at least stay in the race on a superficial level.

So, could we see some sort of surprise Aroldis Chapman signing by the Yankees this week? I definitely wouldn’t count on it, as most recent reports seem to favor the Angels or the Blue Jays and Olney ruled the Bombers out yesterday (he’s generally believable). However, if Gedes’ executive is, indeed, accurate, for those in favor of adding Chapman — and I know there are a number of you — I guess you can view his latest report as a glimmer of hope.

Either way, he’s poised to sign soon, so the speculation will finally conclude.

Photo by the AP

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Rocco a Possibility?

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 5:00 pm 12 Responses »
Jan 072010

Via MLBTR and Chad Jennings, we’ve learned the obvious: the Yankees are seeking a right handed hitting outfield bat for the bench. Reed Johnson was once again mentioned, as was Johnny Gomes. The other name that came up between the two posts was Rocco Baldelli.

Before going too much farther into this, I feel I should throw in a disclaimer of sorts. I’ve always had a soft-spot for Baldelli. He’s Italian and he played high school ball against my cousin. I was definitely a fan of his when he came up with the Rays, and my father and I used to joke that when he eventually realized his potential and became a free agent, he’d obviously become a Yankee. As we all know, though, Baldelli’s career hasn’t quite worked out as well as we though it would, mostly due to injuries. Anyway, onward and upward…

The case for Baldelli is, like Reed Johnson’s case, based largely on the fact that he’s pretty good at hitting left-handed pitching, which is what you want out of a right-handed hitting bench outfielder. For his career, Baldelli has posted a line of .295/.346/.485/.831 in 610 plate appearances against lefties. As a vs. LHP caddy for Brett Gardner, he could be pretty valuable. There are, however, some problems.

First, there’s simply the issue that he’s only played three games in left field, one in 2008 and one in 2009. He’s played the majority of his time in CF (4.2 UZR/150 in 397 games) and RF (-14.3 UZR/150 in 41 games). The sample sizes for all three positions are relatively small. I think, however, it’s safe to assume that if he were to play left field, Baldelli would probably be in the middle of his CF numbers and his RF numbers. In limited playing time, he’d only need to not be a butcher in LF.

The other glaring negative against Rocco is his mitochondrial disorder that prevents him from recovering from activity quickly. We can spin this as a positive in that he won’t get much time in the field if he’s a strict platoon partner with Gardner. He may also get a sporadic pinch-hit appearance against a real tough lefty if Curtis Granderson can’t right himself vs. LHP. However, what makes this such a big negative is the fact that if an injury occurs, Baldelli would most likely not be able to step in and play every day, like other bench outfielders could.

As it always does, the decision to sign Baldelli–or Johnson, or Gomes, or Nady–will come down to cost. Last season, Baldelli made just $500,000 in his time with the Red Sox. The Yankees could probably offer a similar deal to Rocco, maybe including some incentives. There hasn’t been any sort of market for him thus far in the offseason, so the Yankees would hold a great deal of leverage in negotiations. For a low base salary ($500K-$1MM?), with some PA incentives thrown in, Baldelli could be a cheap, effective prescription to the Yankees’ bench OF issues.

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Boras used Yanks to obtain Holliday's deal?

Posted by Chris H. at 3:26 pm 6 Responses »
Jan 072010

Though the Yankees were never really in on Matt Holliday, their financial edge might have helped to scare the Cardinals into providing him with a seven-year deal worth $120 million, which they’ll be paying for through 2029.

According to FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal, Scott Boras, in the Holliday negotiations with St. Louis, put forth the idea that his client could accept “a one-year deal in search of a better free-agent market” next winter. Rosenthal then adds that if this did occur, if the Oklahoma native was open to a one-year deal, “[s]ome team — most likely the Yankees or Red Sox — might have signed Holliday for say, one year and $20 million” (KR’s salary figure is obviously an estimate).

While this seems like an altogether unlikely idea as Holliday, in the past, has stated how much he values organizational security and, in addition to that, such a one-year contract could put the outfielder’s financial future at great risk if he were to injure himself, according to Rosenthal, the Cardinals actually believed Boras and “their fear of losing Holliday prompted them to award him a seven-year contract.” This occurred even though the Yankees have outwardly stated that they are looking to lower payroll in 2010 and have acted accordingly with regards to that statement. Even if the Cardinals feared losing Holliday to Boston more than New York, the one-year idea still appears to be extremely far fetched as the Red Sox aren’t likely to extend their payroll by $20 million or so.

But, this is why Boras is a great agent to his faithful clientele. Often, he seems to be the one holding all of the cards and, in general, he usually holds the best hand. As I noted yesterday, perhaps this is why the Yankees — if they are still interested in bringing Johnny Damon back — opted to handle the Damon situation with a firm, hardline approach. Maybe Brian Cashman knows that with Boras, it’s best to wait for the player to come crawling back to you.

Photo by Getty Images

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Trading Gaudin or Mitre

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 1:00 pm 12 Responses »
Jan 072010

A few days after the Yankees acquired Javier Vazquez, Joel Sherman suggested that the Yankees may try and move some of their surplus starting pitching depth to a club seeking back end rotation help, with Chad Gaudin or Sergio Mitre most likely to go. At the time, Ben Kabak of RAB said the following:

On the basis of quality, Gaudin would command more interest and a higher return, but he will be owed nearly $4 million in 2010. Mitre should re-sign for around $1.5 million (Edit: Mitre only ended up with 850,000 in guaranteed money, with the chance to gain more in incentives) and would be a more attractive target for some cost-conscious teams. Less than a year removed from Tommy John surgery, Mitre struggled to find any consistency with the Yanks in 2009 while Gaudin was adequate as a long reliever and spot starter.

I was reminded of this discussion when I read Buster Olney’s column this morning, in which he suggests 10 holes around MLB that need to be filled, and noted two clubs that were searching for a 4th or 5th starter:

Dodgers, No. 4 and No. 5 starters. If the season started today, L.A.’s rotation would be Clayton Kershaw, Chad Billingsley, Hiroki Kuroda and … well, they are looking for help. They’ve got some young internal candidates, but continue to hang in the conversations for veterans. The perception of some agents is that the Dodgers — who are in nickel-counting mode because of the impending divorce of the McCourts — want to wait until they wade through their mass of arbitration cases and get a clearer picture of exactly how many pennies they can spend on starting pitching.

Cardinals, starting pitcher and third base. St. Louis got its man in re-signing Matt Holliday, but they’ll have to save some nickels as they identify a third baseman and another starting pitcher. To be clear, the Cardinals appear to have a tremendous team in the making, but they don’t have a lot of organizational rotation depth behind the front foursome of Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright, Kyle Lohse and Brad Penny. It is unclear whether the Cardinals will give a full shot to David Freese to be their third baseman after his repeated off-field troubles.

I would prefer to trade Mitre, but Gaudin likely has more value to the Dodgers, as he could likely be a #4 in the NL. Mitre may fit better in St. Louis, as they seem to be financially tapped out and would be attracted to Mitre’s small deal. Furthermore, I would like to trade one of these players for someone who can help the Yankees this season, either as a bench bat or as a bullpen option that fits the Yankees needs better than the pitcher that they are relinquishing.

Looking at the Dodgers roster, they have incredible depth in the bullpen, with Broxton, Kuo, Sherrill, Troncoso, and Belisario. The Yankees could not get any of the first three without adding prospects of considerable value, but Troncoso and Belisario are solid young relievers who have been relegated to 6th inning roles. A reliever of that caliber can make the Yankees more comfortable in deciding to send the loser of the Joba-Hughes competition to the minor leagues. There may be a match here than can serve the needs of both clubs.

A match with St. Louis seems a bit more difficult to find, but one intriguing name is Skip Schumaker. Schumaker possesses a solid bat for a utility man, with a career wRC+ of 107. He can play 2nd base and all of the outfield positions, although his UZR in very small samples has him as a poor fielder everywhere but left. He is not a spectacular player, but if you can get him in a deal built around Gaudin or Mitre, you should consider it.

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Discussion: Who Projects Better, Yankees Or Red Sox?

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 10:56 am 21 Responses »
Jan 072010

Now that the CHONE projections have been released and the Yankees and Red Sox have, for the most part, finalized their rosters, people have begun to analyze which club projects to be better in 2010. Most fo the studies I have seen come to the same conclusion.

Yankeeist broke it down by position, and concluded with this:

That said, in aggregate, each method draws the same conclusion: The Yankees core looks stronger than the Red Sox core. Baseball Prospectus puts the final tally at 59.5 to 49.8, while Fangraphs comes to 61.4 to 55.1. The actual 8 win difference between the two 2009 teams is right between these two estimates, adding credibility to the final tallies.

RLYW, using their own CAIRO system, came to a similar conclusion with a narrower margin:

I haven’t really finalized their pitching depth chart so I’m not going to post it yet, but with the one I have worked up they look like a .598 Pythagenpat team right now, which is .025 points worse than the Yankees were when I ran their numbers. That’s the difference between a 97 win team and 101 win team in a neutral league, though we probably want to knock off a couple of wins frome each team to account for being in the AL East.

Rob Neyer sums up the debate rather well:

I think the Yankees are better, but the difference is within the margin of error (or very close), so luck will play a big part in who wins the East.

Who do you believe is the better club? I’ll get things started by doing an brief ranking of the key players on each club, considering both offense and defense (I will have a significantly more in depth comparison once the rosters are actually finalized, at some point in March):

C: Posada v. Martinez: Red Sox- Very similar players, but Martinez was a little better in ’09 and is younger.
1B: Teixeira v. Youkilis: Yankees- Again, very similar, but Tex was slightly better in ’09 and has a better track record.
2B: Cano v. Pedroia: Push- if you trust UZR, you take Pedey. If not, you probably take Cano.
SS: Jeter v. Scutaro: Yankees- Scutaro is a nice player, but he is not Jeter and could see regression.
3B: Rodriguez v. Beltre: Yankees- Again, nice player, but not in A-Rod’s league.
CF: Granderson v. Cameron: Push- If you see Grandy bouncing back, you take him. If not, Cameron’s the better bet.
RF: Swisher v. Drew: Red Sox- Drew is likely to be better defensively and about as good with the bat.
LF: Gardner v. Ellsbury: Red Sox- Gardner actually out-WAR’ed him last year, but I am not a big believer in Brett.
DH: Johnson v. Ortiz: Push- Ortiz projects poorly, while Johnson projects to do well in 110 games. Hard to read.

SP1: Sabathia v. Lester: Yankees
SP2: Burnett v. Beckett: Red Sox
SP3: Vazquez v. Lackey: Red Sox
SP4: Pettitte v. Matsuzaka: Yankees
SP5: Joba/Hughes v. Buchholz: Push
CL: Rivera v. Papelbon: Yankees

You can order the starters however you like, but I think that any permutation would result in the same thing: The Yankees winning the matchups at 1 and 4, and losing the middle 2. There are those (hi, MJ) who will disagree with a push at #5, but I am still pretty high on Chamberlain and expect him to have a better year than Clay (please remind me of this at the end of the season, so I can right a column either gloating or conceding). With Papelbon’s peripherals trending in the wrong direction and Mariano showing no signs of aging, I would take Mo for 2010.

Putting it all together, I think the pitching staffs are fairly equal, while the Yankees offense is a bit better largely due to their “margin of victory” on the left side of the infield. I would say that there is about a 2-3 win gap between the clubs at the moment, with the final composition of the bullpens and benches likely to have an impact upon that number.

Thoughts?

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Bud Selig wants Global Series

Posted by Steve S. at 7:55 am 10 Responses »
Jan 072010

..and is so serious about it, he’d like to see it before his term expires in 2012. SI.com has the report:

TOKYO (AP) — The champions of U.S. Major League Baseball could face the champions of Japanese professional baseball in a regular Global World Series under a plan being discussed by the two countries.

In meetings with Japanese commissioner Ryozo Kato in Milwaukee, MLB commissioner Bud Selig proposed that the Japanese and U.S. champions play each other, the Nikkansports newspaper reported Thursday.

“I was surprised, Mr. Selig said he wants to realize the plan before his tenure ends,” Kato told the Nikkansports.

Selig is set to retire in 2012.

When he took office in 2008, Kato, a former Japanese ambassador to the United States, said one of his goals was an international series between the world’s two biggest baseball nations.

Japan is the two-time defending champion of the World Baseball Classic, a national-teams tournament which involves professional players from leagues around the world.

I suppose we shouldn’t be overly surprised by this report, the World Baseball Classic has been Bud’s baby for years, the NFL and NBA have made attempts to go international in recent years and it seems to be where US professional sports are heading. But to actually play a series against Japan after the World Series is over would be one of the silliest things imaginable. First, it takes something away from the finality of the World Series. The season isn’t quite over yet, there’s still another exhibition to play halfway across the globe. Although most fans would probably consider this like the Pro Bowl played after the Super Bowl, an event that nobody takes all that seriously.

Next, Japanese Baseball isn’t on the same level of competition  that MLB Baseball is. Washed up, aging  MLB players have been going to Japan for decades and feasting on the talent over there. It’s something akin to AAAA, and we see what happens to those kinds of players when they have to face big league players, much less premier MLB competition. That’s not to say that there aren’t Japanese players here and there who succeed on the MLB level, but on a 25 man roster that may be a tiny handful of players. The starters on the Japanese team would be comprised of players who in all likelihood wouldn’t make the US team, even as bench players. This would be like the Olympic basketball ‘Dream Team’s of recent years. They would destroy the competition, which wouldn’t be much fun for either country. If the US team was to ever lose, it would be an embarrassment and a disgrace. It’s a lose-lose situation for the World Series champs.  Bad idea, Bud.

(image courtesy of Business Week )

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