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Marlins Lock Up Josh Johnson

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 9:37 pm 8 Responses »
Jan 142010


From Jerry Crasnick:

Pitcher Josh Johnson reached an agreement on a four-year, guaranteed $39 million contract that will keep him with the Florida Marlins through 2013. The pitcher confirmed the agreement to ESPN.com Thursday….

The deal will pay Johnson $3.75 million this season, $7.75 million in 2011 and $13.75 million in each of the 2012 and 2013 seasons.

The contract buys out the final two years of salary arbitration eligibility and the first two years of free agency for Johnson, who has a 34-16 record and a 3.40 ERA in parts of five seasons with the Marlins.

Yesterday, we discussed the agreement between the Marlins, MLB, and MLBPA in which the Marlins agreed to spend more money on players. At the time, I suggested that this may actually have a negative effect on the Yankees, as the Marlins would be more likely to lock up their great young talents. Signing Josh Johnson was exactly what MLB intended when they directed the Marlins to spend more, and can only be good for baseball.

The problem with teams like the Marlins is not that they do not go out every offseason and frivolously throw money at the Brandon Lyons and Jose Valverdes of the world. Rather, the issue is that they refuse to spend to keep their young cores together once they begin to get even a little bit pricey. AJ Burnett and Miguel Cabrera would make the 2010 Marlins a legitimate contender, but they had to let them go for financial reasons. If that changes, fans of those clubs may be able to from lasting attachments to players that come up in the system. While this development may not be great for the Yankees, it is certainly great for the sport and its fans around the country.

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Does Beltran Mean Anything for Damon?

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 7:00 pm 11 Responses »
Jan 142010

Johnny Damon

With last night/today’s news that Carlos Beltran will miss at least 12 weeks due to knee surgery, the Mets are seemingly left without an outfielder. The notion ran through my head at the time that maybe Johnny Damon could wind up on the Mets. The same thought, apparently ran through Buster Olney’s and J.P. Riccardi’s heads.

They mentioned Queens as a possible landing spot for Damon during today’s afternoon version of Baseball Tonight, but, as I did, they quickly dismissed it. Let’s run down the reasons why it’s not going to happen:

1. Omar Minaya may not be the best GM in the world, but he’s definitely not bad enough to sign Johnny Damon and totally shoot his team’s defense in the foot.
2. The fact that Damon can no longer play CF makes it totally illogical for the Mets to even be close to interested. Jeff Francoeur’s only played two games in CF in his career, so he can’t do it. Jason Bay…yeah no.
3. Because of the lack of position flexibility, there’s just a logjam. They could conceivably move Bay to right, play Damon in left, and find someone else to play CF, but I really don’t think that’s gonna work because they’d have to move Franco to the bench (granted, that’s not a bad thing because he’s not particularly good at playing baseball) and the Mets seem to like him a lot so it’s unlikely they do that.

In the end, it seems as if it’s going to be either the Yankees or the Braves for Damon. While Scott Boras and Johnny Damon may try to use the Mets’ injury situation as leverage against the Yankees and/or Braves, but I think both Brian Cashman and John Frank Wren are way too smart to fall for that trick. I’d put the chances of Johnny ending up in Queens at 5% or less.

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Braves Rebuilding 2009 Yankees Outfield?

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 5:00 pm 2 Responses »
Jan 142010

The Braves and two former Yankees were in the news today, and it seems that the Braves may have 2/3 of the 2009 Yankees outfield patrolling Turner Field in 2010. First comes news about Melky Cabrera, from ESPN:

Atlanta Braves outfielder Melky Cabrera avoided salary arbitration and accepted a one year offer worth $3.1 million from the club, sources familiar with the situation told ESPNdeportes.com.

This seems to be a fair deal for Cabrera, who was worth 7.3 Million last year according to Fangraphs. Melky is a slightly above average bat in CF and slightly below average in left. Defensively, he is likely about average or a bit below average in CF and above average in LF. Add it up, and you have a league average player who is certainly worth 3.1 million dollars. I was always a fan of Melky, even when I questioned his ability to succeed in New York, and wish him all the best in Atlanta.

The second bit of news was regarding Johnny Damon. Dave O’Brien of the AJC reported the following:

Braves are still pursuing Johnny Damon, and it could happen now that his price has presumably shrunk along with his market.

With the Yankees reportedly out of money to the extent that they cannot afford Xavier Nady, let alone Damon, it seems that Atlanta is the only suitor left in the Damon derby. If Atlanta offers Damon a 2 year deal for 7 million per year, or a 1 year deal at 8 or 9 million, they will likely land the lefty bat they are looking for.

The Braves have already brought Eric Hinske aboard, and he will likely serve in a similar role to the one he held with the Yankees. If they want to complete the 2009 Yankee outfield and give Brian Cashman uber-prospect Jason Heyward for Nick Swisher, I am sure Brian would oblige them.

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Who's better defensively? Boston or New York?

Posted by Chris H. at 3:00 pm 10 Responses »
Jan 142010

The BoSox “lineup” above isn’t a legitimate one, I just ordered it that way for an easy comparison.

All the UZR/150 figures are based on a three-year period (collected via FanGraphs), though there were some players that simply did not offer much in the way of fielding data at their respective positions. For instance, prior to 2009, the last time Nick Swisher was a regular right fielder was in 2005, during his tenure in Oakland, therefore, three-year UZR/150 measures were difficult to compile. In such cases (Swisher, Gardner, Scutaro, Ellsbury), which are demarcated via an asterisk (*), I opted to utilize Jeff Zimmerman’s UZR/150 projections for the upcoming season. Not sure if that was the best method to employ, but the numbers are fairly conservative, so it seems to work.

With that said, what is to make of the numbers? What we can glean from this comparison is that while the Yankees are not a poor defensive team by any means (and Mark Teixeira is likely underrated here), they do have troubling matching up against Boston’s group of gold gloves. Losing Jason Bay, adding Mike Cameron, shifting Jacoby Ellsbury to left, and installing Adrian Beltre at third so as to replace the aged and fragile Mike Lowell has significantly improved the club’s ability to prevent runs. The Yankees will most likely improve, defensively, with Curtis Granderson and Brett Gardner (his projection is, again, conservative), but, beyond that, there isn’t much to write home about, really.

Any thoughts on the defensive differences between the two teams (or on the numbers featured)?

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Finding a Middle Ground, Part One

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 1:00 pm 3 Responses »
Jan 142010


In this dull time of the offseason, when non-roster invitees and minor league deals, are the only things keeping the Hot Stove warm, there’s really not much to analyze. However, in the very bottom of the barrel–well, maybe not the very bottom, but rather the side–we have the projections.

I’ve referenced a lot of them before–CHONE and CAIRO mostly–and today, the Marcel’s projections came out on FanGraphs. They are available on the player pages, as the article says, and they join the FanGraphs fan projections, the Bill James projections, and the aforementioned CHONE projections. In this post, I’m going to average out the different projections for a few different players, and see what we could reasonably expect.

There are certain guys–Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira, for example–that will put up great numbers no matter what the projections say. There are others, though, that could be curious cases. The first is Brett Gardner. He’s been one of the most talked about Yankees of this offseason, and he’s become boderline controversial. Let’s see what the average projection give us for Brett.

The average triple slash for Gardner is .272/.351/.379 (346 PAs) with 30 steals compared to six times being caught. If someone could magically guarantee that line for Gardner, batting in the nine spot, I’d take it literally every single time it was offered, especially if Gardner kept playing strong defense.

What’s interesting about these numbers, particularly the steals, is that they’re projected in a relatively small amount of playing time. The most plate appearances projected for Gardner is 428 (by the fans). If Gardner’s going to be the full time left fielder, he’ll obviously get a lot more trips to the plate than that. Let’s go bullish here, and assume Gardner is in fact the full time LF, and doesn’t have a platoon partner. Last year, Yankee nine hole hitters got 643 plate appearances.

With a .351 OBP in 346s PAs, Gardner would be on base about 122 times. With his projected 30 steals, that’s a steal every 4.1 times on base. Assuming a .351 OBP in 643 PAs, that’s 226 times on base. If we also give Gardner a steal every 4.1 times on base, that’s 55 steals to 10 CS (about 83%).

It is more than a tad bit optimistic to assume Gardner will stick for over 600 PAs in the majors in 2010 (I highly doubt that happens). However, if he does, and lives up to these projections, he could be very valuable for the Yankees. After all, nine hitters who get on at a .351 clip and can steal 55 bases–while playing great defense–don’t grow on trees. Factor in his salary and Gardner could be a big steal (get it?) for the Bombers in 2010. Tune in tomorrow when I run this same examination for another Yankee with question marks.

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Has A-Rod Taken The Pressure Off His Teammates?

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 11:06 am 11 Responses »
Jan 142010


I had an entirely random thought about the Yankees this morning, brought on by looking at the early season splits for Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia, and AJ Burnett. Looking at the numbers for all three, there were points during the 2009 season when Yankees fans could look at the stats on any of these three new additions and question the huge contracts given to the player. Teixeira was awful in April, OPS’ing .738 with just 6 extra base hits. Sabathia had a similar April, and exited his first start in May with an ERA of 4.85. He vacillated around the mid-3′s for much of the year, and had an ERA of 3.95 as late as August 2nd. Regarding Burnett, he started the season with a few good outings, but had an ERA above 5 for most of May and did not get below 4 until the very last start in June. In the past, Yankee signings who had struggled in the way these three did would have been booed mercilessly. These three saw, at most, a brief smattering of boos and some complaints on internet message boards and blogs. What was different?

I would suggest that the focus upon A-Rod by both media and fans has become so intense that the success and failings of other players tend to be obscured. In most cities, a player like Teixeira or Sabathia struggling would be the most important and most publicized story about the club in that day’s paper. In New York, even when injured, more stories were written about A-Rod than any other player on the club. Quite simply, there was such a frenzy surrounding Alex for much of the first three months of the season, whether it was about steroids, his injury, his lack of rest, or his personal life, that the media was not pointing out and exacerbating the struggles of the new players. And so my question for you, the reader, is this. Has A-Rod taken some of the pressure of playing in New York off his teammates? Does the focus on A-Rod allow new players enough time to adjust and get acclimated to the city and the media? I believe that it does. Do you?

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