RJ Anderson at Fangraphs looked at the trio of outfielders that the Yankees have stashed in the minors:

That offensive state of mind exists beyond the pantheon of new Yankee Stadium. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, home to the Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate, features a triplet of red-hot bats. Shelley Duncan, Austin Jackson, and John Rodriguez patrol the outfield while on defense, and hit balls into the outfield during their time on offense. The three are inseparable on top of most International League leaderboards. Here’s how they stack up:

Rodriguez: .292/.377/.521
Jackson: .342/.410/.451

Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film video

White Men Can’t Jump movie

Duncan: .294/.369/.628

Jackson is the only one with a foreseeable future in pinstripes, since most prospect analysts rank him as the top prospect in the system. It’s easy to see how, as Jackson plays a smooth centerfield and flashes impressive offensive production for a 22-year-old. Look for him to claim a starting gig in the Bronx sometime over the next 12 months.

Rodriguez and Duncan are journeymen, albeit with some notable history in the majors.

The left-handed Rodriguez collected his major league experience in 2005 and 2006 with the Cardinals. He didn’t hit for a lot of power, and was little more than an average defender in the corner outfield. He did hit righties decently, and was used primarily in a platoon role. Rodriguez was nothing to spill your checkbook over, but teams have become infatuated with players of inferior quality of the years.

Whale Rider ipod

• Fire! rip

Duncan incites brawls, and during his brief major league career hit both lefties and homers. A lumbering man, Duncan’s defensive repertoire is limited to first base, DH, or a corner outfield position. He’s not a full-time player, but again, a team could do a lot worse than Duncan as the right-handed half of a platoon.

With A-Rod having to DH once a week for the foreseeable future, I can see why the Yankees are carrying an extra infielder rather than call one of those three up. Once Xavier Nady returns, these players would be superfluous anyhow, so I am not sure of their value to the Yankees right now. Jackson still needs to work on his abundance of strikeouts and dearth of power, while Rodriguez and Duncan are unlikely to fetch much in a trade. If Nady re-injures himself or gets traded, these players may come into play for the major league club. Otherwise, they are all unlikely to see more than a September call-up.

Regarding the extra infielder that the Yankees are carrying, Cody Ransom will return tomorrow and push either Angel Berroa or Ramiro Pena off the roster. I would be shocked if Pena was the one who goes. On the face of it, the only conceivable reason to keep Berroa is to make sure they do not lose him to another club, a concern that seems silly considering the fact that he stinks. Ransom is probably a better player than Berroa at this point, and is more versatile defensively. At worst, this should give Joe Girardi more options off the bench.

As Ben at RAB summarized so well, the Yankees are not using their full roster right now. Angel Berroa was virtually unused in the month of May. Jose Veras has allowed runs in the few appearances that Joe Girardi has bothered to give him. Brett Tomko hasn’t been much bet nor frequently used.

The result? The Yankees are essentially playing short handed. We’ve talked at length here about calling up Shelley Duncan or Todd Linden, Mark Melancon, or others. I think that the more interesting question is why the Yankees seem to be going with inferior options.

Angel Berroa?

The Yankees haven’t even made an attempt to keep Berroa fresh. He has just 12 at bats on the year. For some reason, the Yankees don’t want to DFA him and send him to the minor leagues. Why? I can think of three reasons:

1. They are holding Cody Ransom’s spot on the 40-man roster.
2. They are afraid of Alex Rodriguez’s hip breaking on them.
3. They are waiting for a trade.

None are particularly good reasons to hold on to Berroa instead of replacing him with someone useful. The Yankees saw during Ransom’s failures that Ramiro Pena could do anything better than Berroa, and that Brett Gardner was a better pinch hitter. Alex Rodriguez seems to be healthy, so being overly cautious by keeping a back-up for the backp-up is foolish. Cody Ransom’s 60-day DL stint will last at least another two weeks. I have trouble believing that the Yankees held on to Berroa for almost two extra months because they were waiting for Cody Ransom.

But what about a trade? Could the Yankees plan on adding a bench player to the 40-man roster without subtracting one? Mark DeRosa was one rumor, but there are a dozen or more players that the Yankees could attain that could add something to the team.

With Nady returning, the hitting roster could look like this:

9 starters.
Cervelli/Molina
Nady/Swisher
Ramiro Pena
Melky/Gardner

Looking at this roster, it doesn’t make much sense to add Shelley Duncan or Todd Linden. Once Nady returns, the OF/1st base crowd will be crowded without any additions. The veteran who sits will serve as the primary pinch hitter, and Shelley and Linden would see very little time. On the other hand, the 4-man bench looks fairly well balanced with Xavier Nady returning. Mark DeRosa seems superflous except as a poor defensive option at center.

I’m guessing that, barring a trade of an OFer, Berroa comes off the 40-man roster for a relief pitcher. My bet is on George Kontos.

When Alex Rodriguez went down with his hip injury, there were some who decided that the club would be better off without him. Due to Ramiro Pena’s recent run of good play, some of those voices have regained their vigor after faltering a bit due to Cody Ransom’s poor start. In response, I wanted to post an interesting comment that I saw on Lohud a few days ago, courtesy of commenter Wave Your Hat. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the numbers, but they look right to me:

In 21 games, Ransom was about 4.4 runs worse than the average hitter, Berroa was .8 runs worse and Pena 1.9 runs worse.
Between them, they were 7.1 runs worse than the average hitter. Maybe Pena and Berroa had a few at bats playing other positions, but not enough to worry about.
Last year, which was far from ARod’s best year, he was 38.1 runs better than the average hitter in 138 games. If ARod had not been hurt and had performed at last year’s rate, he could be expected to have been about 5.72 runs better than the average hitter over that same 21 game period.
That means, looking just at hitting, ARod would have been about 12.82 runs better than the Ransom/Berroa/Pena combination over our first 21 games. That doesn’t include all the runs his defense might have saved over the Ransom/Berroa combo.
At the accepted 10 runs equaling a win, that means last year’s ARod would have been about 1.25 wins better over the first 21 games than Ransom/Berroa/Pena, which translates to about 9.6 wins better over a full season.
9.6 wins is a staggeringly huge number. And that’s using ARod’s sub-par 2008 year. On career numbers, it’s more than that. And that’s not including ARod’s glove versus Ransom’s or Berroa’s.

The difference between the motley crew occupying 3rd base and A-Rod is enormous, and the boost Alex should give the already percolating offense cannot be overstated. He may add some controversy to the mix, but that is certainly a burden the Yankees will accept to gain almost 10 wins.

A few days ago, I discussed the battle for the utility infielder spot that is being waged between Ramiro Pena and Angel Berroa. At the time, this is what I said:

It seems pretty close. While Berroa has obviously had a great spring with the bat, he has only taken one walk compared to 4 by Pena. Berroa has shown significantly more power, while Pena has been better on the basepaths. Defensively, although Pena has more errors than Berroa, he is widely considered a great defensive shortstop, while Berroa is deemed one of the worst. Joe Girardi is not going to have an easy answer here, as both players have earned a look. Personally, I would start the season with Berroa, being that this is doubtful to be a full season role. Once A-Rod comes back, Cody Ransom is likely to move to the bench, sending the winner of this job to the minors. The Yankees might be better off trying to catch lightning in a bottle with Berroa for a few weeks while allowing Pena to develop normally in Scranton.

Most of the comments on the post disagreed with me, and felt that Pena should win the job due to his youth, better defense, and Berroa’s poor track record. However, one issue that we touched on only briefly but may actually be the key point in the Yankees’ decision has to do with the 40 man roster.

Assuming that Cody Ransom will be handed the utility job upon Alex Rodriguez’s return, we are discussing a spot that will only be open for 6 weeks. Neither Berroa nor Pena is on the 40-man roster, so that someone will need to be removed from the 40 man roster and be made available to claims of other clubs in order to add one of these two to the list. However, what happens once A-Rod returns is where these two scenarios diverge. If Berroa is the choice, he can be removed from the 40 man at that point, with the worst thing that can happen being that Berroa is claimed by another club while passing through waivers. Considering that Angel is clearly not part of the Yankees’ long term plans, this is not a huge deal. However, if the Yankees select Pena, they will be forced to keep him on the 40 man roster for the long haul, as he would almost certainly be claimed when passing through waivers. This would severely limit the Yankees flexibility, as it will cause a roster spot to be occupied by a player who is unlikely to be a major cog on this club in the immediate future. I think this makes the decision easy: Berroa should make the team.

What do you think?

Throughout the day, I will be looking at the battles for the final spots on the Yankees roster: the last reliever, the battle for CF, and the utility infielder fight. I started with the 7th reliever, and will now continue by looking at the utility infielder role.

When the preseason started, most Yankees fans assumed that the UI role would come down to a battle between Cody Ransom and Angel Berroa. Although many hoped that they would go out and sign a veteran with a solid bat to fill that role, Brian Cashman’s reputation of skimping on the end of the bench made that unlikely. Alex Rodriguez’s injury and Derek Jeter’s involvement in the WBC changed the landscape a bit, as Ransom was given the starting #B job and Ramiro Pena looked good at short in Jeter’s stead. Before we dig into the spring stats, let us take a look at some praise for Pena:

“When I first saw him three years ago, you could knock the bat out of his hands,” said one veteran scout whose primary assignment is in the minor leagues. “But he was a magician with the glove and that made him someone to keep an eye on. Now that he’s gained a little weight, put on a little muscle, he’s no longer an ‘out.’ He can handle the bat. I always felt his glove would get him to the big leagues, but now I can see him as an everyday shortstop.”
Pena hit .266 at Double-A Trenton last year, but scouts who saw him say he appeared to be hampered from offseason shoulder surgery. That has not been the case this spring.
“Best looking young shortstop I’ve seen in a couple of years,” said one National League scout.

That sounds like a lot of hyperbole, and I spoke yesterday about the wisdom of trusting unnamed scouts. Pena has come out of nowhere, as he was not even on EJ’s top 30 prospect lists and has never been considered a legitimate starting prospect. That being said, he is not exactly competing with Honus Wagner for a job, as Berroa has had some epically awful seasons. While Pena may be more likely to be a part of the Yankees future, that should not guarantee him a spot on this year’s team.I think this is the type of battle that the Yankees could be justified in deciding solely based on spring training performance. Let’s look at the numbers:

1. Angel Berroa: 52 AB’s, .365/.377/.596, 5K/1BB, 9R, 19H, 6 2B, 2HR, 10RBI, 0SB/1CS
2. Ramiro Pena: 50 AB’s, .320/.370/.400, 5K/4BB, 10R, 16H, 2 2B, 1 3B, 7RBI, 4SB/2CS

It seems pretty close. While Berroa has obviously had a great spring with the bat, he has only taken one walk compared to 4 by Pena. Berroa has shown significantly more power, while Pena has been better on the basepaths. Defensively, although Pena has more errors than Berroa, he is widely considered a great defensive shortstop, while Berroa is deemed one of the worst. Joe Girardi is not going to have an easy answer here, as both players have earned a look. Personally, I would start the season with Berroa, being that this is doubtful to be a full season role. Once A-Rod comes back, Cody Ransom is likely to move to the bench, sending the winner of this job to the minors. The Yankees might be better off trying to catch lightning in a bottle with Berroa for a few weeks while allowing Pena to develop normally in Scranton.

What do you think?