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Vazquez won't start against Boston

Posted by Chris H. at 9:30 pm 4 Responses »
May 032010

Via Ben Shpigel of the NY Times:

After pitching poorly in four of his five starts for the Yankees this season, Javier Vazquez will have his next outing pushed back. Instead of pitching Friday night in Boston, Vazquez is scheduled to start Monday night in Detroit.

“We’ve got to find a way to get him back on line,” Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman said. “It won’t be easy and it probably won’t be quick, but he’s going to do everything he can to get this back in the right direction.”

Phil Hughes will start on Friday in Boston, and he will be followed by C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett.

Definitely not the wrong move, but, right now, Detroit is a tougher offensive team than Boston. Hopefully, after some mechanical tinkering, that won’t matter and Vazquez will pitch like he can against the Tigers.

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A-Jax Looking Good In Detroit

Posted by Chris H. at 7:08 pm 13 Responses »
May 032010

Via Terry Foster of the Detroit News:

Tigers rookie center fielder Austin Jackson only thinks about one thing every day he comes to the ballpark.Relax.

That’s why he makes playing center field look so easy. That’s why he leads the major leagues with 40 hits and is second in batting average (.367). And it’s why criticism about the Curtis Granderson trade to the Yankees has died down in this town.

Jackson did it again Sunday with three hits in the Tigers’ 5-1 victory Sunday over the Angels at Comerica Park. Jackson recorded two singles and a double and drove in a run.

“You just go out there and get the bat on the ball and get your hits and go out in the field and catch the ball,” he said. “You know it’s the same thing every day. You just go out and play.”

Even though I fully expect Austin Jackson, with his incredibly high BABIP – his .514 mark is the highest in the majors – and his extremely high strike out rate (31.7%), to regress significantly going forward, his emergence as a Detroit Tiger will likely bother a certain segment of fickle Yankee fans. Curtis Granderson, the player Jackson was shipped away for, was rightfully billed by Brian Cashman as a very good offensive center fielder, but has slumped over the past few weeks after a strong start. On top of that, he is now out for a month with a groin strain, preventing him from proving his bat until he returns. Thus, I expect some fans, those who are a bit more short-sighted, to perhaps gaze at A-Jax’s line in Detroit and quietly criticize Cashman for trading him, although, I think most would agree that such criticism is unfair. You still make that trade any day of the week, regardless of what the current numbers are or will be.

Still, as long as Jackson continues to hit well over .300, some fans will complain. That’s just the way it is.

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Nick Johnson's bad luck

Posted by Chris H. at 5:00 pm 1 Response »
May 032010

Yesterday, against the ChiSox, Nick Johnson finally drove in a few runs (although that’s not really his job, per se, as he is mainly in the two-hole to get on base). Though he was only 1-for-4 and ended the day with a triple slash line of .141/.368/.234, one thing that was noticeable was that he seemed to hit the ball fairly hard (to the opposite field). With that in mind, as I outlined recently with reliever Dave Robertson, sometimes there are some subtle signs of bad luck factoring into a player’s performance, which subsequently hurt their level of production and effectiveness.

Such seems to be the case for Johnson, who currently owns a .183 BABIP. His career BABIP is actually .309, so there should be some upward movement there as the season continues. One can look to Johnson’s line drive rate for evidence of this. His current rate, at 23.7%, is higher, albeit slightly higher, than his career mark of 22.4%. Generally, when you hit a healthy amount of line drives, hits seemingly fall. For Johnson, however, although he his generating contact – solid contact – inline with his career norms, hits just aren’t falling. This, when viewed in tandem with his low batting average on balls in play, is probably a sign of some bad luck for the always patient Johnson.

Basically, when things are really good, they tend to level out. They won’t be good forever. The same can be said for when things are going pretty poorly. Johnson is, as Joe Girardi noted yesterday, a “proven hitter,” and, at some point this year, probably sooner rather than later, he’s going to “balance himself out” and string together some hits.

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No Need To Overrate Jeter

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 3:00 pm 6 Responses »
May 032010


From Maury Allen:

All he does is play baseball and play it better than anybody has over the last decade or so with five World Series triumphs, seven pennants and eleven division titles.

He is, in journalistic terms, colorful on the field and colorless off the field. He has made some of the most amazing plays in baseball with his incredible throw to his catcher from somewhere between third and home to catch a shocked Jeremy Giambi in a playoff game against Oakland and the vaulting, diving, life-threatening catch in an extra inning thriller against the Red Sox.

His lifetime batting average coming into the 2010 season is .317 with the most hits ever of any Yankee, 2747. The next three names on the Yankee hit list are Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle. He has never batted lower than .291.

In his 16 seasons around the Yankees, there has never been a hint of scandal, off-color conduct or controversy about him……

Jeter has shown no signs of slowing down as a player in the first month of the Yankees 2010 season. His average has stayed around .300 and his fielding skills show no signs of deterioration.

It is a good guess that this well-conditioned, dedicated, serious athlete will be leading the Yankees for another half dozen years or so on the field. Then he will become the manager or general manager and stay with the Yankees another 30 or 40 years.

I think Derek Jeter is the best all around player in baseball today. I think he may be one of the five or six best all around players ever. All he seems able to do constantly is win.

I don’t know anything about Derek Jeter off the field. Maybe that is just the way it is supposed to be when you are the second coming of Jack Armstrong.

Derek Jeter is a great baseball player. He is one of the 3 or 4 best offensive shortstops of all time, and is likely amongst the top 10 at the position overall. You could make a case for him being one of the top 10 players in the sport over the last decade, and one of the top 25 or so best all around players today. Furthermore, as Allen notes, he has been nothing but respectful and well behaved off the field, with nary a hint of scandal surrounding him in his 16 years with the big club.

Yet, despite all of this, Allen feels the need to foist excessive praise on Jeter, lauding him as the best all around player in the game today and one of the 5 or 6 best players of all-time. I believe that most objective baseball fans would find this statement to be ridiculous. Articles like Allen’s tend to do more harm to Jeter’s image than good, as they usually make people think of him as overrated and overexposed. The ridiculous fawning creates this image of Jeter as a superhero, a standard that Jeter can never hope to meet with his on-field play. People read praise like this, watch Derek play, and then wonder what all the fuss is about. It obscures Jeter’s actual greatness by causing most fans to view him as overrated.

Derek Jeter is a great player, one of the greatest at his position of all time, and is still producing at a high level. There is no reason to overrate him. Let his play and his actions speak for themselves.

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Discussion: Judging a GM: Process vs. Results

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 1:00 pm 19 Responses »
May 032010


This is a continuation of a discussion that I was having offline with a group of Red Sox fans. Those fans, in the face of the team’s poor start, have taken to ripping Theo Epstein for the team’s performance, blaming his emphasis on pitching and defense for helping put a mediocre team on the field. Ignoring the fact that it is very early and the Red Sox have a roster full of players underperforming at a level that is unlikely to last, it lead to an interesting question that has often come up in the context of Brian Cashman and the Yankees: How do you judge a General Manager’s moves when the process is good but the results are poor?

To elaborate on this point, I thought Epstein did a great job constructing a contending roster this offseason, finding good value and refusing to overpay for limited players. Because I found his process to be logical and well considered, I do not think it would be fair to rip him or laugh at his “run prevention” strategy. Sometimes, real life does not work out as the probabilities dictate, and there is nothing the decision maker can do about that. Simply put, I value process over results when evaluating a trade or signing, because good process will eventually lead to consistently good results.

Others, however, believe that it is all about results. They contend that even if everybody agreed with a particular move, it is a blot on the GM’s record if reality steps in and renders the move a poor one. Essentially, this argument assumes that the GM has significantly more information than outsiders regarding a decision, and therefore should be judged by his output rather than a process that we are not entirely informed about.

An example of this might come to pass should Curtis Granderson and Javier Vazquez continue to underperform. Some will suggest that what matters is that these were the right moves at the time, and that poor luck and the vagaries of real life should not reflect badly on the GM. Others will contend that the results are what matter, and that Cashman should have known that Granderson was on the decline and that Javy is not cut out for this town. I am firmly in that first camp. Where do you come down on this issue?

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Yanks Take Another Series

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 11:00 am 2 Responses »
May 032010

The Yankees pounded the White Sox into oblivion yesterday behind a strong day on the mound from Phil Hughes and another hot game from Robinson Cano.

Hughes tossed seven stellar innings, striking out six, walking just one, and allowed zero runs on four hits. Cano had another banner day at the plate, going 2-4 with a walk, a homer, and three runs batted in. His line now sits at .387/.433/.763/1.196.

Let’s take a look at the series as a whole in terms of positives and negatives.

Offensive positives:

Robbie keeps raking: no complaints here. It’s your world, Robbie; we just live in it.

Tex waking up? He had two multiple hit games in the series so it seems as if the rebound is coming. Nick Johnson has also shown signs of rebounding, with a nice double today and some hard hit balls.

Nick Swisher homered in back to back games and had a nice series. I love Swisher, but when he gets to stick it to Ozzie Guillen, I love it even more. Hopefully, Nick continues hitting well at home to match his awesome road numbers.

Offensive negatives:

None, really. Curtis Granderson was still slumping, but with his injury, it won’t matter too much.

Pitching positives:

Phil Hughes. That’s all I need to say, right? He was just fantastic on Sunday. He sat at 92.66 MPH and reached a high of 95.2. He also mixed his pitches a little better, even throwing his changeup a few times (and he got a strikeout on it!). Phil’s cutter was definitely working, too, as he got five swings and misses on it. Though the lineup wasn’t great, this was a fantastic start from Hughes and he’s really looking great so far.

Sergio Mitre looked great on Saturday. I’m not a big fan of his, but he’s getting results this year. Let’s hope he keeps it up.

Pitching negatives:

Javy. See Stephen’s post for a more detailed analysis there.

The non-Mariano Rivera relievers to continue to struggle. But, it’s still early and I have confidence that Marte and Robertson in particular will improve.

My favorite moment of the weekend, aside from Phil Hughes’ dominance, was definitely Brett Gardner’s home run. First off, he crushed that ball. I think that’s gotta be the hardest Brett Gardner’s ever hit a ball. Secondly, he used his legs in a swing! JMK, he did it! Anyway, his offense has been very pleasantly surprsing and I hope he keeps it up.

Starting tonight, the Yankees have three games against the Orioles before shipping up to Boston for the weekend. The Yankees will send out CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, and Andy Pettitte while the Orioles will deploy Jeremy Guthrie (let’s see if he hits anybody), Brain Matusz, and David Hernandez. Realistically, the Yankees should sweep this series, and it’s possible (probable?) that they take two out of three from Boston again. For the next week, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Yankees went 5-1 or 4-2.

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2008 offseason redux-Hughes and Santana heading in opposite directions

Posted by Steve S. at 7:51 am 11 Responses »
May 032010

Back in the off season of 07-08, there was one story that dominated all others. One of the best pitchers in Baseball, Johan Santana, was on the trade block. Given Johan’s high salary demands and the prospect of an enormous extension being part of the deal, the universe of potential suitors was relatively small. The Yanks were at the front of the list, with Boston and the Mets as other possibilities. You may recall some of the internal Yankee front office wrangling at the time, where Yankee GM Brian Cashman was dead-set against including Phil Hughes in any package. But he was outvoted by other elements of the Yankee hierarchy, with Hank Steinbrenner at the head of the list. They reluctantly included Hughes, were told by Twins GM Bill Smith that it still wasn’t nearly enough to make a deal, at which point Brian Cashman walked away from the table and never returned. Yankee fans, local sportswriters  and pundits were apoplectic when Johan was later traded to the Mets, in what appeared to most observers to be a very weak package of prospects.

But Brian Cashman was a man with a plan. One of the reasons why Cash didn’t want to trade Hughes for Santana was that he was looking at the trade from a long term perspective, not just looking at the time it was to be made. Given Johan’s somewhat smallish build (6’0″ 195) for a power pitcher, he profiled as the type of player who would typically break down and/or decline in his early 30s. Locking him up until age 36 looked like the type of deal GMs regret halfway through. As a 21 year old with an ideal pitcher’s frame (6’5″ 240) who was the total package according to scouts, Phil Hughes projected to have his best years ahead of him. So looking down the road, just as Johan would be entering his decline phase as a player, Hughes would be entering his prime. Cash didn’t want to repeat the mistakes of the 04-08 teams loaded with aging, overpriced and under performing veterans. He insisted on total control of Baseball Ops in 2005 for the purpose of reversing this trend, and he was sticking to his guns.

Looking at things as they stand today, it appears Cashman’s long term projection appears to be coming to pass. Johan Santana and Phil Hughes careers are presently going in two opposite directions. I’m not talking about just last night’s horrendous start from Johan, but of the recent trend line of both pitchers. Johan’s fastball has been down all year, sitting in the 88-90 MPH range for his first 6 starts. This is nothing new, as the link shows his velocity has been declining annually for the past 4 seasons. While he’s been an effective pitcher for the Mets over his first two+ seasons with the team, Mets fans have never seen the guy who threw 96+ in his prime. His Walk and SO rates are also trending in the wrong direction, despite pitching in the National League in a terrific pitcher’s ballpark. He has also had two (relatively minor) surgeries in his two seasons with the team, one on his knee and another on his elbow.

The Mets gave up nothing for him, so the trade always made more sense for them considering the prospects involved and where they were as a franchise at the time. Twins GM Bill Smith was said to be asking the Yanks for Hughes+, the ‘+’ being some combination of an outfielder (Melky Cabrera, Brett Gardner, Austin Jackson) and another lesser minor league arm, with Jeffery Marquez mentioned in some packages. Given the Twins love for defensive-minded CFs and the fact they chose Carlos Gomez from the Mets over their other OF prospects, it stands to reason the OF included in the deal would have been either Gardner or A-Jax. There were reports at the time that Bill Smith didn’t love Melky, so including one of the younger, more talented players would have come as no surprise.

By no means am I arguing that this is this a slam dunk win at this point for Brian Cashman. There are still 4 1/2 more years to go on Johan’s contract, and much can change on both sides between now and then. You also have to factor in that the Yanks missed the playoffs in 08, and that Johan would have almost certainly helped them get there that year. The Mets have got 2 good seasons out of Santana starting for them every 5th day, while Hughes 08 season was a big disappointment and his successful 09 campaign was limited to bullpen duties. Johan has been far more valuable to the Mets in the 08/09 seasons than Hughes was to the Yanks. But long term, I think the decision Cashman made was right, and as Hughes rounds into the pitcher we all hoped he could be it’s time to give Brian some props for his patience and foresight. Johan will be a very expensive, declining pitcher just as Hughes is entering his prime years making no money. Long term, I think Cashman made the right call.

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