IMPORTANT BLOG ANNOUNCEMENT

PLEASE CHANGE YOUR BOOKMARKS AND FEEDS TO THE NEW URL, YANKEEANALYSTS.COM. TYU IS IN NO WAY AFFILIATED WITH THE NEW YORK YANKEES OR YANKEES UNIVERSE.

Boy, do I ever love this picture.

Mark Fiensand of the NY Daily News caught up with AJ Burnett before last night’s game and asked him if he plans on curbing his pie-throwing antics in light of a recent mishap with the Florida Marlins. Here’s the story:

CLEVELAND – Celebrating has become dangerous in baseball, but don’t expect A.J. Burnett to curb his pie throwing.

Florida‘s Chris Coghlan tore the meniscus in his left knee on Sunday as he jumped to deliver a celebratory pie in the face of Wes Helms following his walk-off single. Coghlan, the 2009 NL Rookie of the Year, might require surgery that would sideline him for the next 6-8 weeks.

“I feel sorry for him,” Burnett said. “You cant take the fun out of the game, but you have to do it right, I guess. It’s an unfortunate incident, but I’m still going to throw pies.”

Burnett has delivered about 20 pies since joining the Yankees.

“I don’t exactly go full-sprint at somebody with a pie,” Burnett said. “Stuff happens, I guess. I always try to somewhat think safety first – unless I’m snapping – even when I’m pie-ing.”

Coghlan is the second player to suffer a serious injury this season following a walk-off win. Kendry Morales of the Angels suffered a broken leg after jumping on home plate in May.

“It’s a shame that it happened that way,” Joe Girardi said of Coghlan’s injury. “A.J. has had a lot of practice at it and seems pretty efficient at it. It’s a fine line that you walk, but I have not said anything to our players about taking it away.”

We’ve taken an already silly situation and managed to make it even sillier. I haven’t heard any calls to end walk-off celebrations after Kendry Morales’ broke his ankle earlier this year. Maybe AJ should wear an army helmet and tape himself in bubble wrap as he runs on the field. These things fall into the category of “Freak Injury” the kind of thing that can happen in a million different ways, and trying to prevent them would be a fool’s errand. The logic behind banning these things reminds me of an old joke by comedian George Carlin-

"A man shot six people on the downtown bus today, then asked for a
transfer and shot six people on the crosstown bus.  In order to
prevent this from happening in the future, authorities are
discontinuing the transfer system."

Every so often, a characterization of a player made by a handful of fans or media members takes on a life of its own, spreading with reckless abandon until most fans believe that unsupported conclusions are incontrovertibly true. That is how you end up with people claiming that Jesus Montero has a bad attitude, or believing that nobody but the ballboy wants to throw to Jorge Posada. Two of my least favorite chestnuts involve Joba Chamberlain’s work ethic and A-Rod’s general impact in the clubhouse. Joba has constantly been assailed from all corners for being lazy and entitled, as people often throw the “too much success too soon” line in his direction. Regarding Alex, the old line about him was that having him in the clubhouse created a 24+1 attitude, and that he only looked out for himself.

Today, a handful of stories dispelled these myths. On Joba, we have Joel Sherman:

What is not possible, at least for now, is sending Chamberlain to the minors for two major reasons: 1) The Yanks feel it would be a terrible message to bust somebody from main set-up man all the way to Scranton in one move, so they will try to fix him outside the eighth inning and 2) They do not believe Chamberlain is failing because of an attitude problem. Yankee officials actually consider Chamberlain a hard worker. In other words they are not looking at this how they viewed a situation with Melky Cabrera in 2008. That season the Yanks thought Cabrera had become lazy and that was a factor in his struggles, so they did demote him in mid-August to Triple-A.

Will all the claims that Joba is just a fat entitled kid coasting on his success in 2007 disappear? Of course not. But they should, because the Yankees know a lot more about Joba’s work ethic than you and I do. My advice: the next time you find yourself reaching for the “entitled” and “lazy” and “ten cent head” bullcrap, just stop.

In regards to A-Rod, Ben Reiter at SI had some fantastic quotes:

“I can only speak for the last two years, but he’s been a great teammate,” says CC Sabathia, who spent one of his first days as a Yankee two years ago standing off to the side in one of his trademark many-XL t-shirts, watching his new teammate conduct his PED-use-admitting press conference, and probably wondering what he’d gotten himself into. “I know he cares a lot about the younger guys, teaching them and talking to them. Him and [Robinson] Cano are really close — he’s always talking to him. He tells guys what they need to be told, but he doesn’t put himself out there and draw attention to it.”

Last October, when I asked catcher Francisco Cervelli which of his teammates had most helped him transition from a .233-hitting minor leaguer to a rookie big leaguer who batted .298 and seamlessly filled in for an injured Jorge Posada, his answer was as quick as it was surprising. “A-Rod,” he said. “He helps me with everything — everything. I learn so many things from him, calling the game, offensively, defensively, game situations, everything. He’s the man. Maybe he saw at the beginning that I want to work, I want to play, and he wanted to help me. I feel lucky to have him.”

Chad Jennings added the following:

Several weeks ago, Andy Pettitte was talking about Alex Rodriguez and said this: “He can tell me almost every pitch I’ve thrown throughout the course of a game… He’s always in the game. His head’s up. He’s always prepared. That’s why he’s such a great player.”

Last night, Rodriguez said this: “I chased in the first inning, a slider down, but Westbrook had good stuff. He had us off balance all day. With the exception of a 3-2 fastball away to Jorge, and I think it was a 1-0 changeup to Granderson, he didn’t make many mistakes.”

Alex is far from perfect, and I am sure that there are times that he is a distraction. But on balance, he seems to be a very good teammate and, from the quotes in the Reiter piece, it is clear that he has become a leader and example for younger players. So what do we have in A-Rod? A leader who is always prepared and has his head in the game. Next time someone rips on Alex for being a constant distraction and a clubhouse issue, point out these quotes. The public perception of Alex as entirely selfish and self-centered is just plain wrong.

Though it wasn’t high scoring, last night’s game was quite exciting. Here’s what I was thinking during and after the game.

–I really liked the way Javy Vazquez pitched last night. I thought he mixed his pitches well and his breaking stuff had good movement. The 7th inning at bat versus Travis Hafner. Despite missing badly on the first pitch and then throwing ball two going down 2-0, Vazquez battled back and struck Hafner out swinging on a well placed fastball. He may not have gotten fantastic run support last night, but Javy pitched well nonetheless.

–I know it’s just four at bats, but Derek Jeter did not look good last night. Three groundouts and a strikeout…but, to be fair no one was really putting good swings on Westbrook last night.

–Curtis Granderson’s homer was nice to watch. He absolutely crushed that ball for his third homer in two games and hopefully, he’s turned a corner and will stay hot. Since getting home from the Oakland and Seattle trip, Granderson’s got a .314/.366/.583/.949. On a non-baseball note, I thoroughly enjoy listening to Curtis speak to a reporter after games. He’s incredibly well spoken and it’s beyond refreshing to hear an athlete have a conversation not riddled with cliches and “Uh…um…uh…um…”

–During the course of the game, MLBTR informed us that the Yankees are trying to move Chan Ho Park. If they do trade Park, don’t expect anything more than a fringy prospect in exchange.

–Pregame, we also learned that Dustin Moseley will start in place of Sergio Mitre. It may not be a huge improvement, but I’m glad Mitre won’t be starting. Still, I’m a bit surprised that they won’t give Mitre a second shot. If Moseley’s start doesn’t go well, I think we’ll see the return of Ivan Nova to the Majors. Some may ask why doesn’t that happen now, but I can see the logic in giving someone already on the 25 man the shot first. Moseley’s just young enough and has pitched just not poorly enough to get the benefit of the doubt for at least one start. If he can’t handle it, then maybe you think about losing him and bringing up Nova.

Yesterday morning, there was a slew of Yankee trade news involving Joakim Soria, Adam Dunn, and Ted Lilly. Allow me to comment…

1. If it is true that the Yankees dangled Jesus Montero for Soria, then I’m none too happy. Using Montero as trade bait for a guy like Cliff Lee is understandable. Doing so for a reliever, even if they want to make Soria a starter as he was in Mexico, is not something the Yankees should be doing. While Soria is a difference maker out of the bullpen, that’s not worth trading a stud hitting prospect like Montero. That said, I’d still like to see if the Yankees could get a hold of Soria without having to give up Montero or fellow catching prospect Austin Romine. Granted, the chances of that are ridiculously small. If the Yankees and Royals can’t match up in the next day or two, they should just cut the cord.

2. Not surprisingly, the Yankees have found the cost for Adam Dunn “prohibitive.” My dream is slowly, slowly dying. But, at the end of the day, that’s probably a good thing. I’d love Dunn as the Yankees’ DH and he would be a difference maker with the bat, but the Nationals are apparently playing very hard ball with Dunn. I want Dunn, but I don’t want to pay through the nose for a rental.

3. As I thought, the Yankees aren’t in on Oswalt. However, this Ted Lilly rumor just doesn’t want to die. Heyman says the Yankees like Lilly. Well, sure they do. He’s a solid pitcher who’s apparently available, but I don’t think he’s a difference maker like Cliff Lee nor does he have the youth/upside/friendly contract of Dan Haren.

As for the Haren package consisting of Zach McAllister and Ivan Nova with two prospects, I’m totally cool with that. Like Steve wrote yesterday, I don’t think the Diamondbacks did as well as they could have in their trade of Dan Haren and may’ve done better if they did indeed trade with the Yankees. Of course, that depends on who the other two prospects were. I would’ve had little trouble adding Joba Chamberlain to the package, though in that case I would’ve wanted to take out one of Z-Mac or Nova. This may come as a surprise considering I’ve been very supportive of Joba over the last three seasons, but if he’s not going to start for the Yankees, the most value he could bring to the team is via trade.

Jul 272010

In case you missed last night’s post game (and pregame) Joe Girardi made clear that he’s going to going with match ups for the 8th inning for the foreseeable future. That’s a nice way of saying Joba has been demoted. Here’s the video where he discusses last night’s 8th and his thought process behind it. I transcribed the interview:

Kim Jones-”We talked about the 8th before the game, this was obviously a tight game, Robertson/Logan there, what goes into that?”

Joe Girardi-”Well I knew I was going to go to Logan for Choo, and Cabrera’s had some success off of Javy, even though he did a good job on him tonight. So I thought I would go to Robbie for just one hitter, and then go to Boone, and it worked out.”

(later)

Sweeney Murti-”Joe, Joba’s throwing the ball the way you expect him to throw the ball, do you go with match ups there?”

Joe Girardi-”I might. Choo is so dangerous against Right handers. So I might, but it’s just what I decided to do today.”

Mark Fiensand-“Joe, before the game you said that in the 8th inning you would lean towards Joba. Is this a match ups thing going forward?”

Joe Girardi-”I’m going to do both, I’m going to do both. I just wanted to get Robbie for one hitter, I just wanted him to get Cabrera. Then I knew I was going to the Lefty even though their young catcher has had a lot of  success in his career off of Lefties, he’s struggled a little bit up here and we haven’t seen a ton of him I was possibly going to let Booney face him as well”

Mark Fiensand-”So Logan was in there for the rest of the inning?”

Joe Girardi-”Yeah, or I had Mo if I needed him”

(unknown)-”Joe, If you were leaning toward Joba for the 8th inning, why did you go to Robbie for the 8th?”

Joe Girardi-”Because I liked the match up. I look at the charts, I look at everything and I liked the match up.”

Having an 8th inning guy means that you go to him in the 8th (or earlier) regardless of match ups. What Joe is telling us is he doesn’t have one, so he’s going to mix and match going forward. The fact that he brought this up in the pregame, before the game even took place or any situations arose, shows just how set in stone this is. Joba’s officially buried in the bullpen. Expect to see him used in lower leverage spots backed up by relievers other than Mo going forward.

This shouldn’t come as much surprise, given the way he’s pitched. A recent piece in the NY Post details just how ugly his numbers have been of late, at a time when he needed to improve in order to keep his job-

In his last five games, totaling six innings, Chamberlain has surrendered 12 hits, eight earned runs and four walks.

In his last 15 appearances dating to June 13, he has had only one clean outing in which he didn’t allow a hit or walk.

From that same article, Joe gave a hint of how little faith he has in Joba after his last performance against the Royals:

Yankee manager Joe Girardi, after watching Chamberlain surrender a walk and then a Scott Podsednik home run to turn a comfortable 7-3 Yankees lead into a 7-5 fret, admitted he was ready to go to David Robertson.

“I was prepared to bring him in if Joba gave up another base-runner,” Girardi said.

It’s over. Saying that you are backing up your 8th inning guy with your 7th inning guy tells me that their roles have been reversed. Joba would need to start absolutely dominating to regain Joe’s trust. With just 2 months left in the season, time is running out and his opportunities to regain that trust will be fewer and further between.

At this stage, I would either trade him or send him down to AAA and let him work as a starter again, either this year or next. I know that’s jerking him around some more, so maybe you tell him to close games for Scranton this year and prepare as a Starter for next year. The whole point of Joba the reliever was to groom him as an heir to Mariano Rivera, to be the guy you go to when all Hell breaks loose. He couldn’t even hold down the role where he has Mo backing him up, so it would be a long road back for him to even be considered as a future Closer ever again. The Yanks have some big decisions to make with him, but as of now he’s just another bad middle reliever. Joba’s had quite the ride in this town, from the hottest pitcher on the planet, to an endless topic of conversation. But now he’s on the edge of being irrelevant, which I must admit was the last thing I thought would ever happen with him.

A few days ago, Jon Heyman dropped this little nugget into a larger trade deadline article:

They say they want a bat for the bench and bullpen help, and that is true. But they can’t resist big-game hunting. They tried hard for Lee and Haren, and made a big proposal for Royals closer Joakim Soria, as well.

At the time, I largely dismissed the rumor, simply because the words “big proposal” have been thrown around a lot lately regarding packages headlined by players such as Ivan Nova. However, Jayson Stark seemed to add some context to that tidbit with the following whopper:

Lots of Zack Greinke and Joakim Soria rumors flying in Kansas City. But teams we’ve surveyed say they see no sign that either is going anywhere. The Yankees just made another run at Soria, as first reported by SI.com — even dangling Jesus Montero. But the Royals weren’t interested.

When this story was brought to me attention on Twitter, I told anybody who would listen that the offer never took place. Brian Cashman would be extremely unlikely to give up Montero for a reliever, and even Dayton Moore is not quite dumb enough to turn that deal down. After the journalistic debacle that was the Dan Haren saga, my distrust meter was on high and I wondered how such a story could get started. Luckily, an intrepid commenter at RAB deciphered what occured. Evan 3457 noted that in the chat below Stark’s article, he added the following:

“I think you’re misreading the Yankees on Montero, Anton. They’re not hell-bent to move him. They’re just deeper in catchers than at any other position. They can’t move him to first base because Mark Teixeira has that covered. They don’t want to clog up their DH position long-term because they need to use it for their aging players. But they’re only going to trade him for a star type player. They offered him for Cliff Lee but nor for Haren. And it sounds as if they told the Royals they’d talk about him for Soria. But that’s it — so far.”

“It sounds as if” seems to suggest that Stark is not really sure, and that he does not have concrete information to that effect. So how did he reach that conclusion? Let’s let Evan 3457 finish the point:

OK, so now that TSJ traced the Montero/Soria report back to Heyman, now I know why Stark said “it sounds as if”, because Heyman’s report said “big proposal”.

Stark is assuming the “big proposal” includes Montero, who’s never explicitly mentioned by Heyman in that offer.

The fact that Stark actually references the SI/Heyman story in his report seems to fit with this conclusion. I have no way of knowing whether this is true, but it certainly seems more logical to me than the idea that the Yankees offered Montero to KC and were rebuffed. If it turns out that Stark actually has a source and “it sounds as if” was just a turn of phrase of some sort, I apologize in advance. But if he was simply taking the word “big” from Heyman’s report and assuming Montero, or had another uncertain source and reported it as definitive fact, that seems a bit irresponsible to me. It is also indicative of the unstable nature of the rumors that we hear. As this little example and the entire NBA free agency saga illustrates, just because  something is reported by a mainstream writer does not make it accurate.

…then let’s stick with Brett Gardner.

By performing incredibly well in the largest sample of Major League plate appearances, Brett Gardner may be saving the Yankees a ton of money on a free agent outfielder. If Gardner were not doing so well–.394 OBP, .368 wOBA going into Sunday–I’d say the Yankees would be likely to pursue one of the two big free agent outfielders that will be available during the offseason: Carl Crawford or Jayson Werth.

Gardner has shown marked improvement in his third try at Major League Baseball.

Each year, he’s improved his average (.228; .270; .298), on-base percentage (.283; .345; .394), slugging percentage (.299; .379; .400), and wOBA (.282; .337; .368).

When we look at the average, we also see that it’s very high this year because of a nice high BABIP of .349. That’s up from .311 in ’09 which was up from .296 in ’08.

Lest we think Gardner’s getting by on just a little bit of batted ball luck, I checked into his actual batted ball numbers. Gardner’s line-drive percentage has improved each season–17; 18.1; 19–and he’s dropped his fly ball rate, too–35.1; 32.8; 30.4. So, Gardner has started hitting the ball harder and has hit fewer fly balls, which don’t fit his skill set (lots of speed, little power).

Gardner has seen a drop in power–.109 IosP last year, .102 this year–but it’s essentially the same and I’ll take that trade off for the improved on base percentage. Brett has also seen more pitches per plate appearance each year–3.88; 4.05; 4.60 (!!).

If one thing is clear from 2008 to 2009 to 2010, it’s that Gardner has shown the ability to improve. This could, as it’s been suggested, bring the Yankees big time savings in the offseason.

This season has also confirmed my cautious optimism surrounding Brett Gardner. While I always thought he could be a solid regular, I wasn’t sure if he would be a solid regular. As of right now, he’s proved that. Going forward, though, I’m still cautious. I’m glad the Yankees will probably not need to go after Werth, whom I think is too old, and/or Crawford, whom I think may not age gracefully. I’m definitely not going to expect 2010 to repeat itself for Brett Gardner, I think we could see the beginning of a good career.

As you may have already heard, Fangraphs is hosting a live event in New York City on August 7th about “the changing face of baseball media”.  Jonah Keri is scheduled to moderate the panel.  It will include former Deadspin editor Will Leitch, Michael Silverman, Alex Speier and David Biderman, all of whom have different, unique roles in the world of baseball media.  On the stat/nerd/awesome side, plenty of Fangraphs guys are going to attend, including David Cameron (the #6 org guy, not the British PM), David Appelman, Carson Cistulli and Bryan Smith.  The RiverAveBlues guys are going to be there too, so the Yankees’ blogosphere will be well-represented.

The event is scheduled to last from 9 am to 12 pm and the cost of entry is $15.  It’s being held in the Florence Gould Hall, which you can check out here.  Frankly, I’m surprised they’re letting a bunch of basement-dwellers like us in.  All joking aside, this promises to be a very interesting and informative conversation about the way that baseball is understood, discussed and reported.  Personally, I think it would be fun to meet and talk to some of the guys I feel like I already know from the internet. I’m not certain that I’m going to be able to make it, but I’m going to make every effort to attend and I’d encourage you to as well.  You can buy tickets here, and please let me know if you are planning on attending.

When I found out late afternoon/early evening on Sunday that the Yankees had lost out on Dan Haren, I was annoyed. Not crazily annoyed, but enough to give an “Aw [expletive]” and a snap, but that’s it. Anyway, the second thing I thought, after the expletive and snap, was that I hoped the Yankees wouldn’t pursue Houston Astros pitcher Roy Oswalt.

By all means, Roy is a fantastic pitcher and is having a great year. He’s got a career high 8.37 K/9. His 3.45 xFIP is his lowest since 2005 (3.42). His BB/9 of 2.37 is on pace to be his highest since 2002 and would be the highest of his career, but that’s still under three. Oswalt’s definitely an underrated pitcher for his career and has bounced back from a relatively poor–by Oswalt standards at least–2009. He’d be a great asset for any team making a stretch run, much like the Yankees. However, I do not want the Yankees to trade for Oswalt.

My hesitance doesn’t necessarily come from the package that it would take because of the fact that Oswalt wants his $16MM option picked up if hie is traded (that’s what’s giving me pause). Since Oswalt wants that option guaranteed, the ‘Stros aren’t in a position to ask for too much in prospects. Something comparable to the Haren package could probably get it done. That $16MM option, though, is a real sticking point. If Oswalt doesn’t budge from that stance–which he said he might do for the Cardinals–there’s probably no chance he’s a Yankee.

And, frankly, if Oswalt does not want to reconsider his option stance, the Yankees should not be interested. That option could interfere with many things in the Yankees’ off-season plans. While I don’t think it would preclude them from getting Cliff Lee, it could preclude them from offering Javier Vazquez arbitration and reaping draft picks if he leaves. An Oswalt + Lee inclusive rotation would also force Phil Hughes out of the rotation unnecessarily if Andy Pettitte does not retire. If Pettitte does retire, then it works out fine. But, I don’t know if that’s a gamble the Yankees can afford to take, especially if they’re going after Lee. If they trade for Oswalt and decide to not go after Lee, I would not be very happy. At the end of the day, though, I don’t think the Yankees will acquire Roy Oswalt or do anything more than test the proverbial waters.

When  most fans look at trades, they generally only consider the talent levels of the players involved. The most important factor in trades that gets overlooked is contract. More specifically, the difference between what you have to pay a player and what he earns. That’s his residual value, that’s what you typically have to make up for in a potential deal. That’s why players earning good money tend to go for far less in terms of talent than one would expect, and why Alex Rodriguez was recently ranked the most untradeable player in Baseball, despite the fact that he’s still a top performer. Of course, sellers will always try to get as much as they can and be happy if someone is willing to overpay, but that doesn’t happen all that much. GMs that overpay in trades usually don’t get to make that mistake twice.

With that in mind, here’s Harens net trade value:

5 year Dollar value

2006-$14.9

2007-$20.2

2008-$20.2

2009-$29.3

2010-$15.1 (est)

Total-$107 mil (21.4 annual average)

His contract going forward pays him 12.75 mil over the next two seasons  and 15 mil for 2013 (3.5 buyout). That means the net residual value is 23.7 million, assuming he continues to perform and the 2013 option is picked up. According to Victor Wang’s trade calculator players at various levels of the BA Top 100 list have certain values based on their position on the list. Unfortunately, none of the players AZ acquired show up on that list, so you put them down currently as a zero.

Joe Saunders has produced an average dollar value over the past 5 years of $4.82 mil. He’s still arbitration eligible, and has roughly 2 more years before he hits free agency. He earned 3.7 mil this year, so he figures to add about 2 mil in net value to the equation if his salary stayed the same. But Dave Cameron Tweeted that if Saunders nets around 6 mil in arb next year (which is likely) then he’s not even worth his salary.

Finally, the PTBNL was Tyler Skaggs and it appears he’s the best prospect in the package. He was the 40th overall pick from the 2009 draft. He’s currently posting a 3.61 ERA through 19 appearances in the Midwest League. It looks like the D-Backs were targeting lefthanders since 3 of the pitchers they acquired are lefties.

This deal looks like a pure salary dump. Perhaps the team accommodated Haren by moving him to the west coast, where he wanted to go. Arizona has long had a rep for being very player friendly. But any way you calculate this, it looks like a big loss for the Diamondbacks.

© 2011 TYU Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha