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Historical Flotsam And Jetsam: Mantle, Moose, CC

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 5:00 pm 13 Responses »
Nov 222010

A few interesting historical and statistical bits of data came to my attention lately, and I thought I would share them:

1) In Steve’s posts on Derek Jeter a few days ago, he compared Jeter to Mickey Mantle, and noted that Mantle’s decline greatly hurt the club in 1965-1968. In an ensuing discussion that took place on GReader, Matt Bouffard of Fack Youk pointed out that Mantle’s decline has become overstated among pundits and Yankees fans. To quote:

Mickey Mantle’s final four seasons:

1965: 2.9 fWAR, 2.0 bWAR, 137 OPS+, .371 wOBA
1966: 3.8 fWAR, 3.7 bWAR, 170 OPS+, .402 wOBA
1967: 4.4 fWAR, 4.1 bWAR, 149 OPS+, .373 wOBA
1968: 3.9 fWAR, 3.6 bWAR, 142 OPS+, .362 wOBA

When I expressed surprise over the high quality of those numbers due to my impression that Mantle had totally fallen off a cliff at the end of his career, Matt had this to say:

I guess the issue of Mantle’s performance depends on your perspective. There’s no doubt it declined, but there’s no way he could continue to put up 6 or 7+ WAR a year, let alone his 10+ WAR seasons, particularly considering the toll that injuries and hard living took on his body. So in that regard he was a shell of his former self.

However, he was still a very much above average to elite ball player. His traditional numbers did take a dive after ’64, but that had far more to do with the second dead ball era than it did with his age, injuries, and decline. Mantle hit a combined .241 over his last two seasons, but the league averages for those two years were just .236 and .230. And he still had so much power and plate discipline that he finished second in the league in walks both years and 5th and 3rd in OBP.

Personally I’m of the opinion that Mantle probably wasn’t quite as great as his OPS+ says he was over those last two years. Plate discipline remains, whether offense is suppressed or not, so I think some metrics overvalue all the walks he took.

It is a testament to Mantle that despite being hobbled by various ailments by the end of his career, he was still able to perform at a high level. If Derek Jeter’s decline looks anything like Mantle’s, his next contract would not be nearly the disaster many are expecting it to be.

2) In a story about Cy Young voting injustices, Cliff Corcoran said the following:

Just ask Mike Mussina, the pitcher most likely to be harmed by that wins-based voting. Mussina should have won the AL award over his teammate Clemens in 2001, but instead ended his career without a Cy Young. For a lesser pitcher that would have been a simple disappointment, but for Mussina, a borderline Hall of Fame candidate, that could prove to be a crucial omission from his resume when he comes up for election in 2014.

My first reaction was to have the 17-year old version of me well up and dispute the claim, remembering the insane 20-1 start to Roger’s season. However, a closer look at the numbers quelled that urge, as Mussina was clearly the better pitcher by almost any available metric, and got a 5th place finish for his efforts.

Clemens: 5.4 WAR, 20-3, 3.51 ERA, 220.1 IP, 213 K, 1.26 WHIP, 0CG, 0SHO
Mussina: 6.5 WAR, 17-11, 3.15 ERA, 228.2 IP, 214 K, 1.07 WHIP, 4CG, 3SHO

That is not even that close. As Corcoran notes, the Yankees scored 5.74 runs per game for Clemens, but just 4.21 runs per game for Mussina. That was the difference between winning the award and first place, and that result will likely hurt Mussina’s Hall of Fame chances. Also, not to horn in on Matt’s grand cause, but go compare the numbers of Mussina and Tom Glavine. Mussina was the better pitcher by most measures, yet Glavine’s willingness to hang around until he reached 300 wins makes him a significantly more likely candidate to be voted in quickly. I think Mussina will get in eventually, but will have to linger on the ballot for a while and get Blyleven-type support before he makes it.

3) CC Sabathia has been really good for quite a long time. You can make the argument that he has been one of the two or three best pitchers in baseball over the last 5 seasons, with quality and durability being the criteria for eligibility for that title. This article by Cliff Corcoran inspired me to go look at the WAR leaderboards for the last 5 seasons. Cliff looked at the AL top 10 in SNLVAR over the last few seasons, while I expanded the look to 5 seasons and top 15 in the two leagues combined.

It turns out that only two pitchers have been in the top 15 in Fangraphs WAR in every season over the last 5 years: Roy Halladay and CC Sabathia. Using BB-Ref WAR, no one makes that list in all 5 seasons, but CC did qualify in 4 seasons (missed in 2009, was 21st). The only other pitcher to qualify in that many seasons? Again, Roy Halladay. While these criteria obviously exclude some of the best pitchers due to either injury, youth, one poor season, or other factors, they do illustrate the consistent excellence that CC has provided.

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The All-Ceiling Top 20

Posted by EJ Fagan at 3:00 pm 16 Responses »
Nov 222010

While attempting to sleep last night, an idea popped into my head. Why not have some fun and rank the top-20 Yankee prospects by ceiling alone? Here’s the list I scratched down late at night, with some comments on what their ceiling looks like. I excluded mostly busted prospects so not to make the list too silly. Sorry, Garrison Lassiter. I also excluded some IFAs that I don’t really know a lot about. Here is the list.

  1. Jesus Montero – Poor defensive catcher who slugs .600
  2. Gary Sanchez – Good defensive catcher who slugs .500
  3. Dellin Betances – Josh Beckett on a good day
  4. Manuel Banuelos – Cliff Lee
  5. Andrew Brackman – A right-handed Randy Johnson, but not as good
  6. Melky Mesa – Somewhere between Granderson-2006 and Granderson-2010
  7. Slade Heathcott – Hard to compare, but I’ll say Mike Cameron
  8. Angelo gumbs – A shortstop who can hit home runs
  9. Mason Williams – A little slower than Brett Gardner, but with 10-12 HRs
  10. Evan Rutckyj – Pick your power lefty starter
  11. Brett Marshall – Pick your power righty starter
  12. Austin Romine – Good defensive catcher who slugs .450, but lowish OBP
  13. Jose Ramirez – A strong across the board power starter
  14. Matt Gamel – A high-average, modest power left fielder
  15. Graham Stoneburner – Derek Lowe
  16. Robert Segedin – An all-around above average third baseman
  17. Hector Noesi – James Shields
  18. David Adams – Orlando Hudson with merely above average defense
  19. Cito Culver – The good years of Marco Scutaro
  20. Corban Joseph – Mark Ellis

Don’t take the list too seriously. Its all pie in the sky stuff anyway. But hey, its fun to think about. What do you guys think?

Another Thames?

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 1:00 pm 7 Responses »
Nov 222010

Via Steve Adams at MLBTR, we’ve heard that five teams are interested in Wily Mo Pena. The Yankees originally signed him as an amateur free agent, then traded him away.

As Steve said, he had a strong finish in 2010 in AAA Portland and offers minimal risk. Chances are, he could be had on a minor league deal, just like Marcus Thames in 2011. So, is he worth an offer? Let’s take a look.

Pena hasn’t played in the Majors since an awful 64 game stint with the Nationals in 2008. He had a .509 OPS in 206 PAs. The year before, he split time between Boston (.675 OPS) and Washington (.855 OPS). For his career, Pena’s got a .447 SLG (.194 IsoP) but a .307 OBP (.054 IsoD, 5.87 unintentional walk rate). His career actually looks a lot like Marcus Thames’s before Marcus came back to the Yankees in 2010. Before coming to New York this past season, Thames had a career line of .243/.306/.491 (.248 IsoP, .063 IsoD, 7.74 uBB%).

If we’re imagining Pena on the Yankees, though, we’d know that it would probably be in Thames’s intended role of lefty-masher. Let’s see what Wily’s done against lefties in his career.

Like Thames, Pena looks a little better against lefties. He’s got a .340 OBP against them to go along with a .457 SLG (.344 wOBA). If he could replicate that career line in 2011, I’d be happy.

There’s also the issue of fielding. As we all know, Marcus Thames is essentially a statue in left field. Luckily, he was mostly DHing by the end of the year. Pena’s not fantastic out there (-21.8 UZR in the OF since 2002, so that’s about -3.1 per season). However, he wouldn’t be playing all that much and a -3.1 UZR is acceptable for a part time player.

Based on all of that, I think Pena would be worth looking at again. He’s not a butcher in the field and can hit lefties well. He’s also not a complete loss against righties; his rate stats are “meh” but he does have a .202 IsoP against them, so if he runs into the right pitch from a non-southpaw, he can do some damage. While Brett Gardner held his own against lefties and Curtis Granderson improved slightly against them at the end of 2010, the Yankees should still try to have a strong right handed hitter on the bench.

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Non-Jeter Options

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 11:00 am 3 Responses »
Nov 222010

The Yankees and Derek Jeter are (apparently) so far apart that the latter’s agent is “baffled” by the hard-line stance the former has taken in contract negotiations. Since that’s happening, let’s take a quick look at the non-Jeter options the Yankees have at shortstop.

Internally, they have (relatively speaking) the youngsters Ramiro Pena and Eduardo Nunez. Both offer something, but it’s not all that much. Pena hit an empty .287 in 69 games in 2009 (.317 OPB, .373 SLG), but flashed decent leather at third and short. In 2010, he hit .227/.258/.247 in 85 games. He would a more typical field first, hit later shortstop, but his offense is just too bad to plug into the lineup every day.

Eduardo Nunez carries a .274/.318/.369 career minor league line, though he’s hit better there of late. In 2009, he hit .322/.349/.433 and in 2010, he hit .289/.340/.381. When he was called up to the Majors, Nunez hit .280/.321/.360 with five steals thrown in for good measure. There has been talk of his improved defense, but it looked “meh” to my eyes. For what it’s worth, UZR didn’t like him very much either (-1.0 in just 39.1 innings). If he could improve on his fielding and replicate that batting line, he’d basically be a replacement level player. I guess that would be okay since he’s being paid like one and he could be hidden in the lineup, but I don’t expect either his fielding or hitting to improve.

Externally, the field is pretty crappy. The possibly non-tendered J.J. Hardy is a definite option, though he’s not extremely attractive. His bat is on a down swing (.684 OPS from ’09-’10), though UZR has rated him very highly (nothing lower than 6.0 since 2006).

World Series “hero” Juan Uribe is still free agents as well. The former can hit (20+ HRs in the three of the last five seasons) and UZR has him ranked as being able to hold his own at SS (+18.5 since 2002). However, his low walk rate (5.5% career) makes him unattractive. His perceived value also may be a little higher now that he just won the World Series and hit two relatively big homers in the playoffs.

Those are really the only other options outside of a trade. Edgar Renteria could be considered, but he’s even older than Jeter. The other possibilities represent players that are simply NOT starters.

If I had to pick out of those guys, I’d pick J.J. Hardy. He’s not fantastic, but he’s a definite improvement over Pena and Nunez and will likely be much cheaper than Uribe or Renteria. Of course, the elephant in the room here is that Jeter is still the best option. He’s the most likely to be productive with the bat, enough so that it makes up for his poor defense. If they’re reading this, the Yankees are probably pissed because I just kinda-sorta gave the Jeter camp some leverage. However, I still think the Yankees are the ones with the most leverage. Right now, they’re the only bidders for Jeter and no other team will even dare to go as high as the Yankees will (even if that is low for Jeter’s taste).

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What if the Yanks do nothing?

Posted by Steve S. at 7:25 am 29 Responses »
Nov 222010

We were discussing this yesterday in EJs post on Cliff Lee and I thought it was an interesting starting point for a debate, so I wanted to pick it up again in a formal post. What if the Cliff Lee bidding gets out of hand and the Yanks decide to pass? What if the Yanks decide to do nothing but fill out the bench and bring back the same group for 2011? Would the 2011 Yanks be better than the 2010 Yanks if they keep the roster largely the same?

I say yes, they would be better for the following reasons.

-Aceves coming back healthy would stabilize the bullpen tremendously. I think he was a key (yet still underrated) factor on the 2009 team and a big part of what was missing on the 2010 team. He kept the team in many games, giving the lineup an opportunity for late-inning heroics and vultured a bunch of wins along the way.

-As down as we all are on Joba Chamberlain, his peripherals suggest a much better pitcher than the one we saw in 2010. A little bit of good luck will improve his numbers drastically, and another year of MLB experience should benefit him in learning what it takes to consistently produce at the MLB level.

-The 2010 bullpen was bad in the first half and good in the second half, but a main reason the bullpen settled down was the acquisition of Kerry Wood. Wood gave them a (luck aside) reliable 8th inning option and kept some of their lesser options from being in spots that could have cost them games. Wood most likely won’t be back, so I’d have to think the bullpen would be worse in his absence. But again, with a healthy Aceves I feel confident the bullpen roles will settle in nicely for the full season, unlike what happened in 2010.

-Montero should represent an offensive upgrade at Catcher. Even a rookie Jesus Montero who is struggling to find his way in the bigs should give you more with the bat than Francisco Cervelli did in 2010. If his projections hold, than he could equal offensively what you got out of 2010 Jorge Posada. The Yanks will need to be judicious with how he’s used defensively, but year over year it should be the equivalent of getting more ABs out of Posada, who hasn’t been able to stay on the field much in recent years and only started 83 games at Catcher in 2010.

-One or more of the Killer Bs could contribute either as starters or in the bullpen late in the year. All three spent time in AA last year, so a promotion to AAA at some point in the season is likely. At that point, they’re just a phone call away. If we were putting all our eggs in one pitching prospect’s basket, I would find this too speculative. But since there’s three of them, plus other solid AAA options like Hector Noesi and David Phelps, it’s reasonable to assume we get some MLB production out of this group. The Yanks have too much quality pitching depth in the minors not to take this into account for 2011.

-AJ Burnett was horrendous last year, and it’s hard to imagine him being any worse. A bounce back to careers norms would be in order. If he regresses any further, its hard to imagine him keeping his spot in the rotation. If that happens, one of the kids will have to produce (unlike 2010 AJ) and give the team a chance to win every fifth day in order to keep their MLB gig. So net+ for 2011 squad either way.

-It won’t be too hard to upgrade your #5 starter considering what Vazquez gave you in 2010. Ivan Nova could probably do a better job once he learns how to make better in-game adjustments, and again options like Noesi or the Killer Bs couldn’t be much worse than Vazquez was in 2010. If nothing else, the young guys could benefit from the first time through the league effect until the scouting reports catch up to them. If any of these guys give the team a chance to win more often than not, net+ for the 2011 Yanks.

That’s my case, and it’s based mostly on a healthy Alfredo Aceves and some horrendous 2010 pitching performances that won’t be allowed to be repeated. But my scenario is admittedly optimistic and focused on upside. It doesn’t assume any injuries, but those are hard to predict as to where or when they’ll happen. It’s also an open question whether Derek Jeter or Alex Rodriguez decline further with age, whether Phil Hughes can build on his strong 2010 campaign, and if Ivan Nova or the other kids can cut it as a MLB starters or relievers.

What do you think? Do you think the 2011 Yanks will be better or worse than the 2010 group if they don’t make an major changes?

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