On Monday, Moshe mused on Nick Swisher, his excellent 2009 season, and whether or not Swish is a candidate for regression in 2010. While there was some number crunching in Moshe’s post, I’m gonna take it a step further like I have for a few different players and project, based on other projections, what we might reasonably expect Swisher to do in 2010.

Before starting, I’ll say what I always say about Nick Swisher and players like him: if you’re looking for a guy to hit for a high batting average and make a lot of contact, Nick isn’t you’re man. He strikes out quite a bit and is not a good contact hitter. However, he does other things that offset those negatives. He’s got a great eye and when he does make contact, he hits for very good power. The same thing true here is true of Adam Dunn, but that’s really neither her nor there. Anyway, onto the forecasts.

Combining the CHONE, Bill James, Marcels, and Fans projections for Swisher, I came up with a line of .247/.357/.464/.821 for Swisher in 2010. Those numbers represent a bit of a drop off from Nick’s 2009, but they’re still right up there with his career numbers (.245/.357/.460/.818). The projections see Nick hitting 26 homers, rather than the 29 he hit in 2009, but that drop off isn’t really anything significant.

Basically, I have a lot of faith in Swisher to put up at least this projection. He’s a good hitter and I think he’s proved that 2008 was the exception whereas 2009 (and ‘05-’07) was more of the rule.

And though I should’ve started with this, I’ll end with it: I’m an unabashed Swisher lover. Over at River Ave. Blues last year, I declared myself president of the Nick Swisher Fan Club. Nick’s a solid player who fits the Yankees in more than one way. Not only is he a great presence in the clubhouse and a good guy for the fans, he’s also a guy whose skill set is perfect for the Yankees. Nick is patient and powerful and can hold his own on defense. The trade for him was an absolute steal and his contract is not too pricey. I’m very glad that Nick Swisher is a New York Yankee.

Greetings to all those readers who still have power (I don’t; I’m writing this from the library). In keeping with some of my last posts, I’m going to throw a small bit of limelight onto some players outside the Yankee scope of things. I’ve covered the NL West and NL Central, so now I’ll turn my attention to a division a bit closer to home, the NL East.

There are two players we should watch out for, one on each side of the ball, in Philadelphia. The first is Jayson Werth, whom I’ve recently discussed. Werth is in the final year of his contract and will likely be looking for a big pay day post 2010. Werth’s posted three straight years of 120+ OPS+ marks, but is on the wrong side of thirty. We’ll have to watch this year to see if his late blooming continues or if he declines a bit.

On the mound, there’s one of my favorite players in baseball: Cole Hamels. 2009 was an odd year for Cole. He started just one fewer game, 32, than he did in 2008. His peripherals were almost all exactly the same as 2008. However, his ERA jumped from a stellar 3.09 to 4.32. The only thing I can see is that more hits started falling. His BABIP jumped from .270 to .325 (BAA went from .231 to .274) so either he was giving up harder contact or the hits just fell. According to StatCorner’s tRA+, Cole was still solid at 122 (same scale as ERA+) so it would appear Hamels was not giving up much hard contact. I think 2010 will be a bounce back year for him in a big way.

Florida’s Ricky Nolasco is another player similar to Hamels. Despite similar peripherals to his 2008 season, Nolasco struggled in 2009. The first two months of the season (.895 and 1.095 OPS against marks) basically sunk Ricky’s season. His 5.01 ERA is ugly to look at, but almost everything else was just as good as that number was bad. He struck out 9.5 (6th in the NL) batters per nine innings while only walking 2.1 (10th in the NL). His K/BB was a ridiculous 4.43 (third in the NL). Like Hamels, I expect Nolasco’s ERA to catch up to his outstanding peripherals.

For the Braves, I’m going the sentimental route: Melky Cabrera (the non-sentimental route is uber-prospect Jason Heyward). We all know Melky’s history, so I won’t rehash it. It will be interesting to see if a move to the “lesser” league will help Melky reach the potential that seems to have escaped him in his Yankee career. Maybe I’m not holding my breath for it to happen, but I wouldn’t be shocked if Melky turned into a better-than-decent regular with the Braves.

There really isn’t much to watch in Queens is there? Carlos Beltran will miss time, as will Jose Reyes. The only constant seems to be Johan Santana who’s a bit of a question mark after elbow surgery (but, really, we all know he’ll be just fine). The only player to watch here is David Wright. Wright didn’t have a bad season, but his 123 OPS+ was the lowest since his first time in the bigs (2004, 118). His power dropped off like crazy; he went from a .534 SLG to a .447; he hit only 10 homers (33 in ‘08); his IsoP dipped from a robust .232 to a measly .140. Was this all from the new Citi Field? Not exactly. His power numbers on the road, .458 SLG, .144 IsoP, were not strong either. We’ll have to watch closely if 2009 was an aberration (likely) or if it’s the beginning of a downward trend in power for the Mets’ man at the hot corner.

As there with the Mets, there is little to look at in Washington. Stephen Strasburg is on the way, so that will be a beacon of hope for the struggling Nats. Instead of him, though, I’m going to focus on third baseman Ryan Zimmerman. After three years of just-above-average production at the plate, Zimmerman broke out in 2009, posting a 133 OPS+ and belting 33 home runs. Those are star numbers. We’ll have to watch closely to see if Zimmerman continues down this path. I’ve got a good feeling that he will, and in time, the Nationals will have something to look forward to.

“It’s more than an honor to hit behind A-Rod and in front of Posada,” Cano said. “That means I’m going to have to step it up early in the season.”

Those were Robinson Cano’s words when talking about hitting fifth in the potent, loaded, and likely to be dangerous offense. This will be a relatively new experience for Robinson, who has amassed only 290 plate appearances in the five spot, hitting to an unimpressive .774 OPS.

Girardi’s move to put Robbie in this prominent spot in the batting order represents a sort of “sink-or-swim” position to Cano. I’ve always said that Cano should bat in the lower part of the order so the Yankees’ high-on base guys could be on in front of him. Then, Cano’s power could drive them in. Of course, this works in theory, but Cano’s troubles with runners on base are well noted. By being placed in the fifth spot, Cano is being asked to improve on his relatively poor numbers.

It is worth noting that Cano’s BABIPs with runners on base (.294), RISP (.267), and high leverage situations (.271) are lower than his career BABIP of .321. This means a combination of two things; it means that Robinson is experiencing a little bit of bad luck and is probably hitting the ball a little bit weaker in those situations.

Looking at Robinson’s batted ball splits in the different leverage situations, we can see some interesting things. First, he has his lowest (among the three leverage categories) line drive percentage, 17.7%. This tells us he’s not hitting the ball with as much authority as he does in other situations–his career LD% is 19.3.

The next two items blend together and reinforce the point about line drive percentage. In the high-leverage situations, Cano has his lowest ground ball percentage (46.8) and highest fly ball percentage (35.5), as well as his lowest HR/Fly Ball ball percentage (6.4). It would seem that when Robbie is hitting in high leverage situations, he’s not getting as on top of the ball as he should be, and this is leading to a higher amount of outs.

Robinson also makes slightly less contact when he hits in high leverage situations. His career strikeout percentage is 11.7% and goes up to 14.6% when in high leverage situations. While both of those numbers are good–they’re well below the league average strikeout percentage–the uptick in strikeouts with men on is concerning.

As I’m not a batting coach and I haven’t dissected hours and hours of video, I can’t reliably prescribe something to fix Mr. Cano’s ills. What I suggest is likely to be the “Spark Notes” version of what hitting coach Kevin Long will say: focus on making contact and make sure you’re swinging down on the ball.

Like Girardi, Long, and hopefully all of you reading this, I have every confidence that Cano will right himself in situations with runners on and will come through this year. Remember, he’s driven in at least 70 runs each season for the last four seasons with these poor numbers with runners on and high leverage situations. With just a bit of improvement at the plate–and a small up-turn in luck–Cano could potentially drive in 100 runs.

A little more than a week ago, I posted an article that was a relatively sobering look at everyone’s favorite prospect, Jesus Montero. In that article, I used information/got inspiration from a FanGraphs article, showing what Jesus Montero would be worth to the Yankees per year for his cost controlled years if he spent all his time at DH. The result was about a three win player, which is very nice for a cost controlled guy.

Of course, though, Jesus is determined to stick at catcher. So today, I’m going to be a bit more rosy and bullish in my projections of Jesus than I was in my previous article. I will adjust the calculations to assume a two different playing time scenarios:

1. Full time catcher (~120 games).
2. Split catcher/1B/DH (think Victor Martinez).

For defense, which Smith alludes to in the comments, I’ll assume two things as well:

1. He’s at best a zero run backstop.
2. He’s a Mike Piazza/Jorge Posada type back there, so we’ll call it, as Smith does -10 or so (it will be fewer negative runs for playing time scenario #2.

For offense, I’m going to the .379 wOBA across 650 PAs I laid out in my first post.

For the most positive of scenarios, we’ll run situation one: a full time, zero run catcher. After catching 120 games, His positional adjustment would be 8.2 per Smith. So, running our WAR calculation, we get 5.10 WAR. Now, that’s assuming that he’s a zero run defender behind the plate, which isn’t likely to happen. Adjusting for a -10 run defense, we get 4.14 WAR, still a good mark. In fact, that mark would’ve made him the third most valuable catcher in the AL, behind Joe Mauer (8.1) and Victor Martinez (who played 85 games at catcher; 4.9 WAR).

Speaking of Martinez, let’s say he does something like Victor did in 2009–85 games catching, 70 games at first base. Using Martinez’s position adjustment of 0.6, Montero would produce (assuming 0 runs at first and -7 behind the plate) 3.71 WAR. Of course, Jesus could always be better at first base. Like Smith does, we’ll call Jesus +2.5 at first. Adding that to our -7 catching, we get -4.5 runs defensively. Running that scenario, we get 4.30 WAR, which actually makes him more valuable than a full time, bad defensive catcher.

Again, I’ll reiterate, these are in no way “crystal ball” calculations. I’m just having a little fun here, seeing what Montero could be worth. Like all prospects, he could either wildly under-perform these calculations or he could out-perform them. Being fair, I think he’ll probably never be all that great in the field but he could definitely hit for something better than a .379 wOBA. Either way, I’m damn excited to follow Jesus for another season and I hope we can see him in the Bronx in September. Best of luck in 2010 to El Carpentiero.

On Monday, I widened my scope on baseball and listed some players to watch for the NL West. Today, I’m gonna run down the not-too-highly-regarded National League Central Division. Despite producing a World Series winner recently–the 2006 Cardinals–fans, especially those of the AL East tend to think of the NL Central as one of the weakest divisions in the game. Regardless, there’s still some good talent there.

Let’s start, as we did with the NL West, with the 2009 division winner, the Cardinals. The guy we need to watch here is rather obvious: Colby Rasmus. As a rookie in ‘09, he put up “meh” numbers at the plate overall–a .311 wOBA–but his IsoP was a respectable .156. His fielding in center field was also impressive, as he posted a 13.4 UZR/150 in 124 games. In 2010, we should watch for Colby to continue his impressive fielding and also to improve on his hitting. He’s projected to wOBA anywhere from .329 (Marcel) to .343 (CHONE). Those numbers may not be “blow-you-away”, but paired with his fielding, they would make him about a three win player.

For the second place Cubs, there are two guys upon whom to keep an eye. The first is an old friend: Xavier Nady. After what was essentially a career year in ‘08, Nady missed most of 2009 with an elbow injury and is now recovering from Tommy John Surgery. The list of position players coming back from a second TJS is rather small, so it will be very interesting to see how Xavier fares this year.

The second Cub to watch is Geovany Soto. After an impressive Rookie of the Year season in 2008, Soto disappointed in 2009. While the peripherals were pretty solid–.103 IsoD, .163 IsoP–his raw numbers were pretty bad: .218/.321/.381. Part of this could’ve been bad luck. His BABIP in 2008 was a robust .332, but was a meager .246 in 2009. Gevoany had a slight dip in Line Drive percentage and a slight uptick in Ground Ball percentage in 2009, and his Fly Ball percentage stayed essentially the same. While the rise in ground balls might suggest more hits (ground balls are more likely to sneak through the infield than fly balls are to drop in the outfield), it appears that they were gobbled up by infielders, which obviously led to more outs, as did the slight fall in line drives. If those numbers can rebound, it’s possible that the Cubs’ backstop will have another strong season.

Moving to Milwaukee, we move to the left side of the infield. With the trade of J.J. Hardy to the Twins, young Alcides Escobar will man shortstop for the Brew Crew. In 2009, he hit .304/.333/.381 in 38 games (134 PAs). Escobar is very fast and if he improves his patience at the plate a bit and plays well in the field, he’ll be a solid player for the Brewers in 2010.

Cincinnati’s Joey Votto turned some head last year after a second place ROY finish in ‘08. He pounded the ball in ‘09–.303/.414/.567–and after dealing with an anxiety issue, he seems poised to pick up in 2010 where he left off. He hit 25 home runs last year and playing in Cincy, he’s definitely got a chance to crack thirty in 2010. First base is already rich with talent–Pujols, Tex, Gonzalez, Cabrera, Youkilis–and Joey Votto is ready to climb into the ranks of a top first baseman in the Major Leagues.

The Astros don’t really have much going for them. There isn’t much exciting young talent patrolling Houston, so I’m going to go with the vet: Lance Berkman. I pick Fat Elvis for a simple reason: I don’t think we realize how good this dude has been in his career. His line sits at .299/.412/.555/.967/147+. In an 11 season career, he’s gone at least .300/.400/.500 seven times and has had an OBP of at least .420 four times. Last year was a “down” year for Berkman–.274/.399/.509 and his OPS+ was “only” 139. It will be interesting to see how Berkman recovers. This year, and the next ones, will be crucial in cementing his legacy. If there is a quick decline–unlikely–it may rob him of Hall of Fame inclusion. If he picks it back up–or just stays at his current pace–Berkman should be destined for Cooperstown.

Pittsburgh, baseball wise, doesn’t usually have much to look forward to. However, Andrew McCutchen could change that. He was very impressive in his rookie season–11.0% BB rate, .185 IsoP, .368 wOBA, 128 wRC+–and we should all be looking to see what he builds on in 2010. We’ve likely got a budding star on our hands and even if it’s out of a misplaced, and probably inappropriate, sense of pity, it’s nice to see the Pirates have a young star they’ve developed on the rise.

Yesterday, I looked at some of Brian Cashman’s recent trades, specifically what he and the Yankees gave up and whether or not those players would really make a difference. I ended the post with the Brian Bruney trade and now I’m going to start this on with the more major trades of the offseason. Instead of going deal by deal, like I did last night, I’m going to go player by player for today’s post.

Starting with the guy who had the biggest impact on the Major League team, we have outfielder Melky Cabrera, who was shipped to Atlanta in the Javier Vazquez deal. Melky was a nice player, especially on a team like the Yankees. He could play all outfield positions competently–at the very least–and could put up league average numbers at the plate. His switch hitting was also a nice touch. Losing Melky, though, is not the worst thing in the world for the Yankees. In fact, it’s really not a bad thing. Despite his useful skill-set, he is an easily replaceable player. One could, and will/should, argue that the Yankees have already replaced Melky with Randy Winn. Melky’s still young and could develop further, but after over 2000 plate appearances with the Yankees, the only consistent thing from Melky was inconsistency. I wish Melky luck in the National League, but I do not think I will miss him terribly.

Moving to the next Major League player traded, we come to Phil Coke, who went to Detroit in the Granderson deal. He seems like a decent enough guy, and maybe he could develop into something more than he is now, but that’s unlikely. He doesn’t have the pitches to start and his tendency to give up the gopher ball sets him back. In 2010, he would’ve been the second lefty out of the bullpen and his role would likely have been diminished. Guys like Coke are not very hard to find on the open market and we may not notice his departure all that much.

Mike Dunn, another LHP, is kind of in the same category as Coke. He’ll never be a starter, but he does have a tick more upside than Coke, simply because Dunn throws harder. He still has control issues that need to be worked out as well. Dunn’s role on the 2010 Yankees was also in question at the time of his trade. Despite Coke being traded, Dunn was still likely to be only the second lefty out of the bullpen. Again, this is a small role and it will not likely be missed.

Ian Kennedy is another player whose role on the 2010 Yankees would’ve been rather unclarified and muddy. He wouldn’t have had the innings built up to be a starter and likely would’ve been either SP depth in Scranton or a long man in the bullpen. However, the latter role is already crowded. I’m definitely going to miss Ian, though, and of all the players the Yankees traded away in 2010, he’s the one for whom I’m going to root hardest. I feel like he never got a fair shot from the fans and hopefully, he can re-turn some heads in the desert.

Now, we come to the prospects: Austin Jackson and Arodys Vizcaino. In terms of the short term, trading away these two does not do much to harm the Yankees. After all, Jackson needed at least another half a season in Scranton and Viz hasn’t yet pitched in a full season league. Long term, though, it hurts the system a bit. The Yankees are pretty short on position player talent and Jackson fits that bill. Vizcaino is a young, high upside arm and those are always nice to have. These are probably the two biggest losses of the offseason, but like every coin, these have a flip side.

Starting with Jackson, we have a player whose star has lost a bit of its shine as he moves through the minor league ranks. Ajax’s power still hasn’t quite come around and there are still questions about his plate discipline. Maybe I’m being too bearish on Jackson, but I have a feeling that he’ll become nothing more than a solid regular in his career. Now, that’s not a bad thing and it’s obviously something the Yankees would’ve wanted. However, over the next four years, I highly doubt that Austin Jackson the Tiger will be better than Curtis Granderson the Yankee.

Vizcaino is the biggest loss of the offseason. He has the most upside of the players traded and has had great results thus far. But, like I’ve repeated ad nauseum, he’s never pitched in a full season league. That definitely counts against him. There are also pitchers in front of him: Zach McAllister, Manny Banuelos, Ivan Nova, for example.

For what it’s worth, here’s my rankings of these players traded away in terms of impact:

1. A-Viz: High upside arm, but a long way off.
2. Ajax: Medium upside bat, needed more time.
3. Melky: Useful player, but easily replaceable.
4. IPK: Good SP depth, uncertain role.
5. Dunn: Some upside, but likely a LOOGY at the end of the day.
6. Coke: Dunn with a smaller upside.

All in all, Brian Cashman has not given up very much over the last year and a half or so in terms of trades. It’s also wroth discussing what he’s brought in. In guys like Hinske and Hairston, he brought in role players who helped complete a championship team. In Nick Swisher, he bought low on a very solid player, and the same could be said for Curtis Granderson. While losing Austin Jackson was not desirable, the package Detroit took for a solid player like Granderson was one the Yankees had to send off, and the same goes for the deal with Atlanta. We all hate to see young players go, but it’s a part of the game. Brain Cashman has done a good job of trading the right people for the right parts and is one of the finest trading general managers in baseball.

Yesterday in the comments of Chris’s article on Brian Cashman and Kei Igawa, a discussion about whom the Yankees have traded in the past two seasons started. I’m of the opinion that with a few exceptions, the players Brian Cashman has traded have been nothing incredibly special and losing them will not hurt the team in the long term. So, let’s take a look at the last year and a half or so of Brian Cashman’s trades to see what the Yankees gave up.

Let’s start with the “deadline” deal of Ross Ohlendorf, Jose Tabata, Jeff Karstens, and Daniel McCutchen for Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte. What did the Yankees give up here? With the exception of Tabata, nothing special. Though Ohlendorf pitched well for the Pirates in 2009, he would not have played a big role for the 2009 Yankees and likely would have had just as small a role for the 2010 Yankees. Karstens did poorly in 39 games–13 starts–with the Bucs. McCutchen held his own (98 ERA+) and showed decent control (2.97 BB/9) in ‘09, but like the other two pitchers in this deal, he’d have no real place on the Yankees moving forward. There are plenty of guys ahead of him.

Jose Tabata was really the only player of consequence the Yankees forfeited in this deal with the Pirates. At the time of the trade, his OPS in the Eastern League was a meager .630. He raked once joining Altoona (.964), but 2009 was less spectacular (.763 OPS between AA and AAA). In a system that’s hurting for position player prospects, losing Tabata hurt, but Jose’s production had dropped year to year and level to level with the Yankees and there were apparently character issues. Perhaps all he needed was a change of scenery. It’s worth noting that Tabata’s star has taken a bit of a hit in recent years; he was rated the 27th best prospect in baseball pre-2007, the #37 pre-2008, and the #75 pre-2009.

The next trade of any importance was the December 2008 trade fleecing of Kenny Williams in the Nick Swisher deal. Cashman traded away Jeff Marquez–who’d seemingly stalled in his development and subsequently bombed with the Sox AAA team in 2009–Wilson Betemit–who was eventually DFA’d–and Jhonny Nunez who did poorly in a 5.2 inning stint with the Sox, but performed very well in the minors. This deal was absolutely great for the Yankees. They bought low on a very good cost controlled player and payed an incredibly small price.

In February of last year, Cashman traded Chase Wright to the Brewers for Eric Fryer; Fryer was eventually included with Casey Erickson in a deal for Eric Hinske. While Hinske didn’t have a huge impact on the Yankees, he added much more than either player would have now, or in the future. It’s also worth noting that the Pirates paid for Hinske’s time with the Yankees.

In other relatively minor trades, Cashman traded Chase Weems to the Reds for Jerry Hairston, Jr., who proved useful off the bench down the stretch and in the playoffs. Again, what Hairston added last year was more than Weems would likely add in the future. Weems would have been stuck behind any number of Yankee catching prospects and it’s likely that he’d never even make the Major League team.

For literally nothing but money, Brian acquired Chad Gaudin, who could be useful as a swingman out of the bullpen in 2010.

A brief review: so far out of these trades, the only remotely useful piece given up was Jose Tabata, and he was likely still at least a year and a half away from being in the Majors at the time of his trade.

The trades of which we’re unsure are the ones made in this offseason. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t judge them now.

The first trade made in 2010 was trading Brian Bruney to the Nationals for a player to be named later, Jamie Hoffmann. It appears that the Yankees grew tired of giving the oft-injured and inconsistent Bruney second chances and tried to turn him into a useful bench piece. If Hoffmann doesn’t make the team and must be returned to the Dodgers, as he’s a Rule V pick, then this trade looks a little worse. If he does stick with the team, this trade looks about equal: marginal piece for marginal piece.

This post is running a bit long and the other, more “major” players traded early in 2010 require a separate post that I’ll put up tomorrow. That one will feature my thoughts on Phil Coke, Mike Dunn, Melky Cabrera, Arodys Vizcaino, Ian Kennedy, and Austin Jackson.

Good Monday afternoon, everyone! How are we all today? Today, I’d like to shift our focus away from the Yankees, and get a little more broad in our view of baseball. For this post–I’ll do one for each division–I’m going to focus on the NL West and list one player on each team upon whom we should keep our eyes.

Let’s start with the defending division champs, the Dodgers. Last year, Clayton Kershaw made a jump into the mainstream baseball conscious and this year, he should jump into stardom. Last season, he led the NL in H/9 (6.3), was second in HR/9 (0.368), and was fifth in ERA (2.79) and K/9 (9.7). Clayton can bring the heat, he averaged 94 MPH on his fastball in 2009, but he did up his innings quite a bit (107.2 to 171.0) so he may be at risk for injury. However, if he stays healthy, Clayton is going to be a household name by season’s end.

Moving to the Rockey Mountains, I think we should keep our eyes on Troy Tulowitzki. Tulo’s short three year career has been up and down; he was fantastic (for a rookie) in 2007, hurt and relatively unproductive in 2008, then was dynamite again in 2009. Let’s see if Tulo can string together another good year and really hit his stride going forward.

Before moving back to the two California teams, let’s swing down to Arizona and take a peak at the Diamondbacks. On the pitching side, let’s keep our eyes on our old friend Ian Kennedy. He’s definitely got a shot to crack their rotation and could be quite successful in the not-so-strong-hitting-N.L.-West. On the offensive side, we all need to watch the Justin Upton. Justin raised his OPS+ twenty points in 2009 and is poised to become a star. Overall, he hit .300/.366/.532 with 26 homers. In 2010, Justin could easily hit 30 homers and he’ll be well on his way to super-duper stardom.

Let’s go back (back) to Cali (Cali) and stay classy in San Diego. Jake Peavy is gone, and Adrian Gonzalez is the obvious choice (seriously, watch him; dude’s awesome), so I’ll pick someone else. Offensively, there’s really slim pickings in San Diego so we’ll have to look to the pitching. I like Mat Latos to take a step forward in 2010. He’s got fantastic minor league numbers (K/9 over 10, BB/9 under 3, K/BB over 4) so he’s definitely got the stuff to build on his “meh” numbers from 2009 (80 ERA+, 6.9 K/9, 1.70 K/BB). Look out for Matt in 2010.

Wrapping up the division, let’s go up to the Bay Area. We all know Tim Lincecum. We all know Matt Cain. We all know the Panda. The guy I think will take the biggest step in 2010 is no-hitter thrower Jonathan Sanchez. In his second season as a full time starter, Sanchez improved his ERA, ERA+, WHIP, H/9, and K/9 and with a second full season under his belt, I think we’re gonna see real big things out of Jonathan in 2010.

I didn’t see the game at all today, but I heard that Joba’s line was pretty crappy. He gave up three runs in just an inning and a third and, via Chad Jennings, he gave up two triples, a double, and three walks. That’s bad. But, why should we care? It’s Spring Training. Everyone has a bad game at some point in ST and we shouldn’t look into this too deeply.

Of course, if this becomes a trend, we should probably start to worry. But, for now, let’s realize that, like most (all) Spring Training stats are next to meaningless. If the pitchers look a little rusty at first and the hitters don’t perfectly hit their strides in February and March, don’t panic.

On Joba and Phil, though, I have another thought. It will be interesting to see how hard they–and the other fifth starter “candidates” push themselves. While it’s publicly a competition, I think it’s anything but (the job is Joba’s to lose). That won’t stop each guy from trying his hardest to win that spot. As a manager, I’d imagine Joe Girardi wants to see each guy give it his best to show he should get that spot, but there’s also the balance that must be struck. Joe, and we, has to hope that no one exerts himself too hard and injures himself during a fairly meaningless Spring Training game.

Also from Jennings, other notes from Thursday:

• Nice work by Boone Logan today. He retired all four batters he faced, and three of them were lefties.

Logan’s in a spot to really compete for a job. Depending on how Cashman and Girardi want to construct the bullpen, Logan’s got a shot to make the team as the second lefty.

• Speaking of relievers pitching well, Mark Melancon looked sharp today. He struck out two in his one inning of work, and made Jayson Werth look pretty bad on a curveball.

Keeping with the bullpen theme, I’m really pulling for Mark Melancon this season. We’ve long had high hopes for him as a key part of the Yankees’ bullpen. Hopefully, he can make big strides this year and fill a role similar to David Robertson’s in 2009.

Yesterday, Joe Girardi discussed a few things with Mike Francesa (H/T to Steve for this). I’ll briefly run through the points General Joe made and my reactions to them:

1. Nick Johnson will bat second.
This is something with which I whole-heartedly agree (and Moshe does, too). Johnson at the top of the order will give Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez yet another man to drive in. While Johnson may not be the fleetest of foot out there, the important thing is being on base. In fact, in 2009, Johnson scored 11 times from second base when a single was hit. In the same situation, Curtis Granderson scored five times. I wouldn’t worry too much about Johnson “clogging the bases”.

2. Curtis Granderson is going to play center field.
Though I ran the numbers, way back on my second day at TYU, and they came out saying Granderson in left and Gardner in center would be better numerically, I don’t have a problem with this. If Granderson really has issues defensively, he can be moved. No matter what position he’s at, Granderson’s bat will play, and he’s still likely to be a good defender in center. Regardless, Gardner-Granderson-Swisher will be fine offensively and will be one of the best defensively.

3. Cano will hit fifth to avoid “stacking lefties” (5-9: Cano, Posada, Granderson, Swisher, Gardner).
I’m rather surprised by this, actually. I thought for sure Jorge would’ve been the five place hitter. Frankly, though, it doesn’t matter. The reality is that the 5-8 guys listed above could all bat at any of those spots (and some of them could bat higher) and this “problem” just speaks to how strong and “circular” the Yankee lineup is. Cano’s power should play well in the five spot and having a lot of guys on in front of him–from Jeter through A-Rod–should help correct his problems with runners on.

4. Girardi believes Cano’s struggles w/RISP are sample size issues.
I agree. Cano’s eventually going to hit like he normally does when there are runners in scoring position. Perhaps “forcing” the issue by putting him higher in the order will correct this issue. As long as Robbie puts up numbers like he did in ‘05-’07 and ‘09, I’ll be happy.

5. Posada will catch 100-120 games.
He caught 111 games last season, and that was with a hamstring issue, so he could do that again this year. At his age, though, catching that many games may be wishful thinking. If it happens, though, the Yankees are in great, great shape. An additional note, Girardi added that Johnson will primarily DH (see below) and on days that Posada sits, Johnson will still DH. This is clearly aimed at keeping Jorge healthy.

6. Nick Johnson will play 1B 2-3 times a month, spelling Tex, who will DH on those days.
This, too, surprises me. While it’s nice to give Tex a little break, I’m not sure if it’s necessary. Johnson’s generally been a strong fielder, though, so it can’t hurt–unless, of course, Nick gets hurt.

7. Granderson plays every day.
Yes. 100% yes. The only way Curtis can work through his problems against left handers is to face them as much as possible and get as many reps as he can. Obviously, if there isn’t progress by May or June, it’s time to scrap that plan. I have faith, though, in Granderson and Kevin Long to fix the problem and make Curtis even better than he is.