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Notes: Lee, Jeter, Liriano, Martin, Melky

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 3:00 pm 10 Responses »
Dec 092010

A number of Yankees Hot Stove stories out there this morning:

1) The Yankees have apparently upped their offer to 7 years, although Joel Sherman reports that the deal is actually more complicated than that:

The Yankees’ offers work on a scale in which the shorter the term, the higher the annual average value. It is believed the bids work something like this: five years for $125 million; six years for $144 million; seven years for $161 million; or $25 million a year, $24 million a year and $23 million a year, respectively.

This is an interesting plan, although I cannot see a pitcher of Lee’s age doing anything but taking the largest offer. I have said all along that I thought a 7 year deal was way too long, and I stand by that position. That said, it may be time to reluctantly conclude that this is an inflated market, and that these sort of deals may be where baseball is headed. As EJ noted yesterday, MLB may be due for some contract inflation due to soaring revenues.

2) Sherman with some encouraging news on Derek Jeter:

Jeter is renowned around the Yankees for having a set routine and hating to deviate from it. Yet in response to his poorest campaign, Jeter is going to break with his habitual offseason plan and do one-on-one sessions with Yankees hitting coach Kevin Long, The Post has learned. Jeter may travel to Arizona, but Long more probably will go to Tampa, likely in January.

The two had begun to implement some changes late in the year that showed some positive results. Essentially, as a way to shorten a too-long swing, Long wants to continue to get Jeter to better control the direction and the length of his stride.

Derek worked on his conditioning and flexibility prior to the 2009 season, and he later credited that work for helping him to one of the best seasons of his career. It is good to see that Derek is willing to change his routine to hone his craft, particularly now that he is signed to another expensive contract. A bounce-back season from Jeter would go a long way towards helping the club remain the best offense in the AL East.

3) The Yankees apparently called the Twins about Francisco Liriano, but were told that he is not available. I would imagine that the call was part of Brian Cashman’s Plan B, and I am curious to find out what his other targets might be should the Yankees whiff on Cliff Lee.

4) According to multiple reports, the Yankees and Red Sox are both working hard to sign Russell Martin. With the Yankees declaring Jorge Posada to be the DH and considering the uncertainty that surrounds Jesus Montero, a Martin signing would help remove a lot of the risk from the Yankees catching situation. The Red Sox may need Martin even more, so it should be interesting to follow this as it develops.

5) Old friend Melky Cabrera signed with the Royals, who also signed Jeff Francoeur. Neither player is good at all, and I often wonder whether it might be better for teams like KC to play minor league free agents and perceived AAAA-types in the hopes of discovering a decent asset.

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Don't Worry Too Much About Boston

Posted by EJ Fagan at 1:00 pm 27 Responses »
Dec 092010

I sense a panic in the air. Its ok! Boston is was not the best team in the American League a week ago, and they are not the best team in the America League today, after acquiring Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez.

The Red Sox won 89 games last season, 6 fewer than the Yankees. They lost their best player Adrian Beltre, who was worth 7.1 wins above replacement according to Fangraphs. They also lost their second best player Victor Martinez, who was worth 4 wins.

What does this mean? The Red Sox have a ton of ground to make up with any additions that they make before they even start to reach the level of the 2010 Yankees, Rays, and Rangers. Carl Crawford was with 7 wins last season, but that was the best season of his career. He’s hovered anywhere from 2.5 to 5.7 over the last few years. Adrian Gonzalez has been a 5-6 win player (WAR includes a ballpark adjustment) over the last two years,. but a 3-4 win player before that.

This means that Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez will have to play on the top of their games just to replace Beltre and Martinez. If the Red Sox are going to win more than 89 games, they will have to count on improvement from the rest of their team. Now, this is likely to happen. The Sox had a lot of injuries last year. The Red Sox will look for a better year out of John Lackey, Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis, Jacoby Ellsbury and J.D. Drew, among others. But they’ll have to risk preciptious drops in production from David Ortiz and Clay Buchholtz at the same time. Can they make up 6 wins from this group? Yes, but I don’t think they are likely to.

The Red Sox are going to be a better team in 2011 than they were in 2010, but Carl Crawford doesn’t make them an unstoppable Juggernaut.

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Season in Review: Curtis Granderson

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 11:00 am No Responses »
Dec 092010

We’re going to play the over/under game with Curtis Granderson, whom the Yankees acquired a year ago yesterday. I’ll look at what Curtis did in 2010 and see if it went over or under his career mark. Using the FanGraphs Dashboard we’ll go left to right.

BB%
2010: 10.0%
Career: 9.6%
Result: Over

K%
2010: 24.9%
Career: 24.1%
Result: Over

IsoP
2010: .221
Career: .213
Result: Over

BABIP
2010: .277
Career: .314
Result: Under

AVG/OBP/SLG
2010: .247/.324/.468
Career: .268/.341/.481
Result: Under/Under/Under

IsoD (not on FG)
2010: .077
Career: .073
Result: Over

wOBA
2010: .346
Career: .357
Result: Under

wRC+
2010: 115
Career: 118
Result: Under

So there’s an interesting dichotomy here. Looking at his peripherals–IsoP, IsoD, BB%–we would assume that Curtis had a fantastic season. They were all above his career norms. To a certain extent, Curtis Granderson did have a successful 2010 (he racked up 3.6 fWAR). But, the triple slash looks a bit disappointing and considering the IsoP/D, we probably could’ve expected a higher wOBA and wRC+. The good peripherals represented by the walks and the power didn’t translate into the triple slash. The one culprit we can see here is BABIP. But, man cannot analyze on one BABIP alone, so let’s contextualize a bit.

Granderson’s career BABIP is .314, but in 2010 it was .277. How much differently did he hit the ball in 2010 than in the rest of his career?

The first batted ball number we look at for BABIP is always LD%. Granderson’s got a 20.6% career line drive rate, which is solid. In 2010, it wasn’t far off from that at 19.9%. That change is more or less minimal. Next, let’s go to GB and FB rates. Here is where we see some spikes for Curtis.

Despite an IFFB% of 7.2–under his carer mark of 7.8%–Granderson’s overall fly ball rate was up to 47.2%, almost 4% up from his career rate of 43.6. Here it’s worth noting that Granderson’s HR/FB%, 14.5%, was actually the second highest of his career. So it seems like fly balls weren’t much of an issue for Curtis. He was hitting them out of the infield and hitting them hard. What about grounders?

When I first saw his 33% GB mark for 2010 up against his 29.5% mark in 2009, I thought “Okay, that could be to blame.” However, that’s still below his career mark of 35.8%. Is it possible that we can just blame this one on poor BABIP luck overall?

I don’t love doing that, but there are really no wild swings apparent in the 2010 version of Granderson. He had really low lows and really high highs, but the overall picture suggests nothing crazy in his batted ball profile.

The increased strikeout rate likely comes from a 25% OOZ, which is the highest of Granderson’s career. This comes with the lowest percentage (44) of pitches seen in the zone for Curtis. It appears that pitchers are willing to make Granderson get himself out. If he can bring his OOZ back to his career norms while maintaining a similar contact profile–as well as the ability to draw walks at a 9%+ rate–he’ll have an even more successful 2011.

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Girardi-No Plan B after Lee

Posted by Steve S. at 7:01 am 40 Responses »
Dec 092010

Move over Felix, there's a new king in baseball

On the heels of the Red Sox (or as Jon Heyman now calls them, the ‘Best team in Baseball’) signing Carl Crawford, there is a palpable sense of panic among the sports media on behalf of the Yankees. You couldn’t by tell listening to their GM making the media rounds this past week, Brian Cashman is his usual, monotone self. But the Red Sox acquisition of Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford have catapulted them to being at least on par with the Yanks heading into next season, maybe slightly ahead in the eyes of some observers. Some of us in the blogosphere have our doubts, the differential between Victor Martinez and Adrian Gonzalez is significant, but not enormous. Crawford is a clear upgrade to their putrid outfield of last year, but his best asset of speed will largely be wasted playing LF in Fenway. But you’ll get no argument from me they’ve made themselves better, and the Yanks need to keep up with the Joneses.

The running joke around the Winter Meetings is “It’s good to be Cliff Lee”, where every move that happens seems to make his bargaining position stronger and stronger. Brain Cashman has stated that none of these moves will affect his offer to Lee, and they have steadfastly (and I would add wisely) refused to add a 7th year to their offer. However, with the way salaries have inflated this year you have to leave open the possibility that bidding for Lee will get past the point of rationality. Do the Yanks walk away at that point? Can they afford to pass on Lee? What if Lee just decides money isn’t the biggest factor, and he opts to pitch in Texas, close to his native Arkansas home? Joel Sherman provides some clues in his latest column:

So we can now remove any doubt and describe the Yankees’ condition when it comes to obtaining Cliff Lee as “desperate.” And here is why: Because it was Girardi who yesterday offered the strongest public act of craving.
“I see [Lee] as important to us, I do,” Girardi said. “It’s a rotation that right now you look at it, not knowing what Andy [Pettitte] is going to do, possibly adding Ivan Nova to the rotation and having Phil Hughes, it’s a pretty young rotation with CC at the top of it. So I think he’s pretty important [to add].”
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Not exactly begging, but as Joel stated in his column that’s about as close as you’ll ever get with Girardi.  But the Yankees their backs to the wall with Lee begs the question, what if they DON’T sign Lee? Could they actually go into next year with Ivan Nova as Lee’s replacement? The answer, as difficult as it is for Yankee fans to stomach, is yes. The free agent market thins out drastically after Lee, with old friend Carl Pavano as the top target once Lee comes off the board. The trade market isn’t much better, as Sherman details later in the same piece:

The price on Kansas City’s Zack Grienke is exorbitant, and the Yankees don’t believe the righty could handle New York. The Yankees have not even checked in on Tampa Bay’s Matt Garza. And frontline or near frontline types such as Felix Hernandez, Josh Johnson, John Danks and Francisco Liriano are not viewed as available.

It’s Cliff Lee, or a Yankee rotation of Sabathia, Burnett, Hughes, Ivan Nova and hopefully Andy Pettitte. If Andy retires, then the Yanks will be looking for a back of the rotation starter (Justin Duchscherer, anyone?) and maybe the Red Sox are the best team in Baseball after all.

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Sox Surprisingly Sign Speedster

Posted by Eric Schultz at 12:27 am 10 Responses »
Dec 092010

In a display of ninja-like stealth that would make even Brian Cashman proud, the Boston Red Sox made a big acquisition today.  Our old friend Peter Abraham broke the news, reporting that the Sawx have signed Rays OF Carl Crawford to a 7-year 142 million dollar contract.  This is a big signing for Boston, and somewhat of a surprise, as I’m sure many people were expecting Boston to be done with handing out big paychecks after acquiring Adrian Gonzalez (and his reported Teixeira-esque extension demands).

Crawford will be a nice addition to the Boston lineup, likely hitting in the 2-hole behind Jacoby Ellsbury, and ahead of Pedroia, Gonzalez, and Youkilis.  His speed and on-base ability will allow him to score a lot of runs in front of Boston’s big boppers, and give Yankee catchers fits on the basepaths.  He’s also a great defensive outfielder, though his defensive value will be limited at home (in Fenway’s small left field).  Before the Jason Werth signing, if somebody told me that Carl Crawford, whom I consider a very good player but not a star, would be getting 20 million/year for 7 years, I would have been shocked.  After the Werth deal, this one doesn’t look quite as bad for the Sox.  I am curious what this deal means for  Ryan Kalish, who was probably penciled in as the starting leftfielder after making a good impression in his debut last year.

The signing does put a number of other pieces in motion.  We can assume that the Angels (who were very interested in Crawford) will likely focus their attention on Adrian Beltre.  I imagine the Angels will wind up with Beltre, barring a Werth-esque surprise bid from another squad.  I could also see Boston pursuing a Type-A reliever (like Scott Downs) because they would only have to surrender a 2nd-round pick for the signing.

The addition of another lefty hitter (who does not hit as well against lefties) in the Boston lineup will likely increase the sense of urgency that the Yankees face to sign Cliff Lee, though I’m not sure his demands/price will be substantially changed.  The Crawford signing also takes Crawford off the market for the Yankees, who might have considered him as a fall-back should Lee wind up returning to the Rangers or going elsewhere.  I still think Lee is likely to end up in Pinstripes, as I doubt the Rangers or another team will match the Yankees’ alleged 6-year 140 million offer.

What does this signing mean for the division next year?  Certainly, Boston’s lineup will be improved, and top-to-bottom its depth is comparable to the Yankees’.  I might put Boston’s lineup slightly ahead of the Yankees’ at this point (mostly because of the age of Jeter, A-Rod and Posada), though with a Cliff Lee signing and an Andy Pettitte return (admittedly, neither are guaranteed at this point), I would take the Yankee rotation and bullpen over Boston’s.  Are the Yankees doomed?  Far from it.  It will definitely be an exciting race for the division, and with the Rays likely taking a step back ( losing Crawford, Pena, and Soriano), the team that doesn’t win the division will still be in good shape for a Wild Card berth.  Remember, they still have to play the games, and ultimately, the season will probably come down to which team suffers the fewest significant injuries.

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