After finishing the semester from hell, I will now be returning to 1-2 posts per day. And I’d like to start with something that I’ve been thinking about for some time.

The Yankees have had a bad week on the injury front. To recap, they are:

• Curtis Granderson is to miss about a month with a groin pull.
• Nick Johnson to miss an undetermined amount of time with a wrist injury.
• Andy Pettitte to miss at least one start with elbow inflammation.
• Jorge Posada has missed several games with a knee issue, and may miss more going forward.
• Alex Rodriguez is dealing with a knee issue, has missed some time, and may be slumping as a result.
• Robinson Cano may miss a few days after being hit in the knee with a Josh Beckett pitch.
• Chan Ho Park is still on the 15-day DL with a hamstring pull.
• Mariano Rivera has been unavailable for several days (though could have pitched yesterday) with tightness in his right side.

Its a debilitating bevy of injuries, but the Yankees have mostly held it together thanks to some of the best starting pitching and defense we’ve seen in a long time. However, the injuries are going to cost the Yankees in the future, and the Yankee starting pitching luck will eventually run out.

It seems like a lot of injuries, and some (Cano, Granderson) are legitimate bad luck. However, the injuries to the other players should be expected. A good portion of the Yankee core is really old – Posada is 38, Rivera is 40, Pettitte is 38, Arod is 34, and Chan Ho Park is 37. On top of all that, Nick Johnson is the most injury prone of the crew, despite being a bit younger.  With a lineup as risky as this one is, the team should expect their players to miss a lot of time.

The Yankees have gotten by with an incredibly lucky streak in recent years. Our old players just haven’t played like old players. But you can’t defy the odds forever. With so many aging stars on the roster, the Yankees should be prepared with effective Plan Bs to take their place. But instead of Jerry Hairston Jr. we have Ramiro Pena. Instead of Austin Jackson, we have Greg Golson. Instead of Mike Dunn, we have Boone Logan. Instead of Ian Kennedy, we have Romulo Sanchez.

Unfortunately, the team cleared a lot of their depth away in order to trade for Curtis Granderson and Javy Vazquez this offseason. I don’t think those were bad trades, because they filled necessary holes, but the team is left looking fairly light on depth right now. On top of it all, the Yankees are struggling to settle in David Robertson and Damaso Marte, two incredibly important pieces of their bullpen, and don’t have a whole lot after Mark Melancon to call up.

Marc Carig chimes in with news on the injury front:

Catcher Jorge Posada has a mild strain of his right calf and is day-to-day. The Yankees haven’t made a roster move but Yankees manager Joe Girardi said Posada’s status would help shape their decision. With 13 pitchers on the pitching staff, the Yankees could send an arm down to call up an outfielder, or another catcher….

Closer Mariano Rivera has stiffness in his left side and has been unavailable since Saturday, which is why Joba Chamberlain worked the ninth and picked up the save on Monday against the Orioles. Rivera, who played down his injury, said he plans to throw off a mound today…..

Third baseman Alex Rodriguez experienced cramping in his right leg. And though it caused a bit of a stir on Sunday, when he was held from the lineup, it didn’t seem to be an issue on Monday when Rodriguez started.

A-Rod has already returned, and it sounds like Posada and Mariano could be back in action as soon as Friday. That said, these minor injuries tend to highlight the precarious nature of a baseball season, particularly when discussing a team depending on a number of older players. While the Yankees have enough talent to weather the loss of one or even two of these players, a rash of injuries to a handful of key veterans could torpedo their chances at taking the division. The Yankees were fairly fortunate in 2009 in terms of health, and that luck was certainly a factor in helping them run away with the division. Hopefully, this good fortune continues, and guys like Mariano, Posada, and Andy Pettitte can help the Yankees contend for a division title again in 2010.

As we have stated many times since he signed with the team, Nick Johnson is not the greatest bet to make it through a season unbothered by injuries. Nick has never played more than 147 games, and missed all of 2007 and most of the 2008 season. He has had myriad injuries of all sorts, with various different body parts being afflicted. Already, he has sat a few games with a sore back, and missed a bit of time in Spring Training as well. The question I pose to you is, what would you do if he got injured and was slated to miss a long stretch of games? How would you alter the roster?

As I see it, outside of a trade, there are three options. One option that is quite unlikely to happen is to call up Jesus Montero. While his potential is enticing, he has struggled a bit at AAA and likely needs to log some more at-bats there to adjust to superior pitching. Furthermore, the most important element of development for Montero remains his defense, as his bat is close to ready while his glove lags far behind. Bringing him to the Major Leagues to DH would stop the development of his glove entirely, and would hinder his chances of ever turning into an adequate backstop.

The second option is to call up Juan Miranda. Much like Johnson, he would be the backup first baseman as well, and should be able to provide decent on-base ability and a bit of power. However, he is atrocious against left-handers, with a career .725 OPS against them (vs. .890 against righties) and therefore would need to be platooned with Marcus Thames. That would be a solid platoon, and should keep the Yankees in decent position while Johnson recovers.

The last option is to keep the roster as is in terms of hitters, and simply play Frankie Cervelli at catcher against all right-handers. Basically, Jorge Posada would DH against righties and catch when the opposing pitcher was a lefty (with Thames as the DH). This would help keep Jorge fresh while allowing the team to play their best defensive catcher more frequently. The team could use the extra roster spot to call up Mark Melancon, giving Joe Girardi another arm to throw in the mix.

Thankfully, this is simply a hypothetical at this point, as Johnson has remained relatively healthy. Hopefully, the fact that he is rarely going to play the field will help keep him healthy for the entire year, and these contingency plans are rendered moot. However, if they do need to fill in for him, I would go with the third option and just play Cervelli more. He is not atrocious offensively, and his value defensively makes this the best of the three choices to me.

What do you think?

From Marc Carig:

In the sixth inning of a 6-2 Yankees victory against the Angels, Park had already completed his final warm-up pitches in the bullpen and was making a few extra throws when he felt what he described as tightness in his right hamstring.
Though Park called the sensation “minor,” bullpen coach Mike Harkey told Park it was too early in the season to risk pitching through the issue.
Park missed most of last September with a pulled his right hamstring but returned in time to help the Phillies in the postseason.
Said Park: “This is a different spot and much more minor than that.”

This does not sound like a big deal, but the Yankees might choose to be cautious and put Park on the DL. If they do, there are 3 options to take his place: Mark Melancon, Boone Logan, and Royce Ring. Here are their minor league numbers with Scranton thus far:

Melancon: 7 IP, 4H, 1ER, 1BB, 8K, 1HR
Logan: 6.2 IP, 3H, 1ER, 1BB, 9K, 0HR
Ring: 4.2 IP, 2H, 0ER, 3BB, 3K, 0HR

Logan and Ring are both lefties who are likely to be used as specialists in the majors, while Melancon is a righty without drastic splits who can be used for multiple innings. While Melancon seems to be the best choice due to his similarity to Park, I think Logan would get the call. I am not certain that the Yankees want to have Melancon on the “Scranton shuttle,” coming up and down every time a reliever is needed for a few days. Rather, they likely will bring him up when he will have a chance to hold onto a spot for a while. Furthermore, Girardi has said that he likes to have two lefties in the pen for strategic reasons, and the Yankees have plenty of arms out there that can give them enough length to justify carrying a specialist. While I would like to see Melancon get a shot, it seems likely that Logan is the next in line for a roster spot.

Pictured above is one of several pie charts Jeff Zimmerman posted today over at Beyond the Box Score.

Now, the chart certainly isn’t perfect, as there are a number of relevant contextual factors that simply go unstated (e.g., the number of pitchers versus the number of hitters, etc.), but central to the illustration is the dilemma posed when teams pay big dollars for pitching, whether it be for starters or relievers. Pitchers, in general, are seemingly more susceptible to injury, a point that is captured above. Consequently, homegrown, cost-controlled arms are that much more valuable. Hopefully the Yankees will remember this next season, when they will likely be left with two gaping holes in their rotation. Inserting Joba Chamberlain would be an economically efficient way to address this issue, especially if the Yankees also decide to chase after Cliff Lee (spending on one is better than spending on two).

From Frankie Piliere:

He’s plenty scary right now though, and he has a lot more going for him than just his fastball. Garcia is a complete, three-pitch pitcher, and that is with three plus pitches. I don’t like to throw around plus grades often, so to see a pitcher with three plus pitches is a real rarity. It’s never been about stuff with this big right-hander; it’s always been about his health…..

Consider the arsenal Garcia showed off on Wednesday. His plus fastball with good movement produces a huge amount of groundballs and broken bats. His curveball is an elite, swing-and-miss type pitch. And, he has a changeup he can locate with excellent consistency with a 10-14 mph differential from his fastball. The main complaint about the Yankees farm system from a pitching perspective is that they lack a hurler with frontline upside in the upper levels of their system. If Garcia is on the field and throwing like he did on Wednesday, that won’t be the case for long.

That is some very high praise, but this is par for the course with Garcia. Every so often he pops up and dazzles scouts by stringing a few amazing outings together, and then he gets hurt and disappears for a few months. He is the sort of pitcher that you can never depend on, and will feel lucky about if he ever contributes to the big league club. That said, it is encouraging to hear that he has yet to lose any of his innate talent due to the injuries, and that his stuff is a s sharp as ever. Hopefully he can find some of that magic elixir that helped injury prone guys such as AJ Burnett and Curt Schilling figure out how to stay healthy, and the Yankees can capitalize on his high ceilinged arm. Until then, he is simply a tease, giving fans a glimmer of hope that is almost certain to be extinguished.

From Tom Verducci:

I know this to be true because Curt Schilling told me years ago. His theory was that the Red Sox and Yankees are so evenly matched that the team that gets the most starts out of its top five starters will be the better team. It’s amazing how right he has been….

Let’s look at the past seven years, the era in which Boston and New York essentially have been near-equal rivals, and examine the correlation between which team got the most starts from its top five and which team had the most wins….

Schilling has been right four straight years. Only once in the past seven years did the team with more starts have fewer wins, but even that occasion needs an explanation. It happened in 2004, when the Red Sox — who got an incredible 157 starts from five starters — may have had three fewer regular season wins than New York but beat the Yankees in the ALCS and won the World Series.
So determining who is better this year, the Red Sox or Yankees, becomes a very simple exercise: just forecast which team will get more starts out of its top five starters. And when you do that, the answer becomes obvious: the Yankees will be the better team.

I think Verducci is correct here. While you can argue about which rotation is more talented, it is clear that the Yankee rotation is more reliable. In the Red Sox rotation, Verducci dubs only Beckett and Lester as reliable, and even Beckett has some question marks regarding his health crop up occasionally. Conversely, CC Sabathia and Javier Vazquez are two of the more durable pitchers in the game, Andy Pettitte has remained healthy with consistency despite his advancing age, and AJ Burnett seems to have found a way to stay off the DL after years of struggling with injuries. Furthermore, the Yankees have greater depth, with 8 solid starting options, while the Red Sox have a larger drop-off after their top 6.

This study is obviously not dispositive, and the club that gets fewer starts from their top 5 starters can compensate in other areas. However, considering two similar bullpens and the Yankees superior lineup, the fact that the Yankees project to be more reliable in the rotation bodes well for their chances in the AL East.

(Just a thought: this sort of concept might be self-fulfilling. With teams like the Yankees and Red Sox, poor starters will not be given much of a chance, and the 5 guys with the most starts will usually be 5 fairly good options. In this way, counting the number of starts from the top 5 is just as much about effectiveness as health (whereas with lesser teams, the top 5 might simply be the 5 healthiest guys, because they do not have many effective options). As such, the team with the most starts from the top 5 is likely to be most effective and will rack up a larger number of wins.)

About a week ago, using Josh Hermsmeyer’s injury database that lists player injuries from 2002 to 2008, Dan Turkenkopf of Beyond the Box Score examined the way in which wrist injuries might impact power (it seems common sensical to assume that they do, but I appreciate having some form of data to support this theory, even if it is limited). Basically, Turkenkopf looked at players with wrist injuries during the aforementioned timeframe and compared their projected ISOs – the projected ISOs were calculated by Turkenkopf using the Marcel projection system – upon returning from their wrist injuries, to their actual ISOs upon returning. In the end, though the analysis was only the “quick and dirty” starting point to what might one day be a larger, more comprehensive study, Turkenkopf concludes that “there may be something to the idea that wrist injuries take away a player’s power during his recovery,” as the “overall mean difference between the projected ISO and the actual was -0.030, which is pretty substantial.”

Nick Johnson, the Yankees designated hitter (and possible number two hitter), is actually one of the 77 players featured in Turkenkopf’s study, for he spent 27 days on the disabled list with a bruised wrist in 2002 – a relatively minor wrist injury – while also spending 137 days on the disabled list in 2008, missing the rest of the regular season after suffering a torn wrist tendon, which, unlike the bruised wrist, was obviously a much more significant injury. In accordance with injury severity, Johnson surpassed his ISO projection upon returning from the disabled list in 2002, however, last season, after returning from his ’08 tendon tear, Johnson saw a rather large divide between his projected ISO of .208 and his actual ISO of .114 (a difference of .094). As Turkenkopf noted, and via common sense logic, the wrist injury did seem to drain Johnson’s raw power in 2009 – explaining his David Wright-like home run total of eight – after he had posted a .190 ISO in 2005, .230 in 2006, and a .211 mark, prior to his injury, in 2008.

I think it is safe to say that, another year removed from his wrist injury – he will have received two years of recovery time, essentially – should allow Johnson to inch closer towards his career ISO of .174. This is another instance where a player did so poorly in one category that he is bound to improve given his overall track record in that area. Marcel, the system Turkenkopf used for his ISO study, forecasts Johnson’s ISO to be .137 in 2010. As a left-handed hitter in Yankee Stadium that hits both lefties and righties well, I think that he could certainly surpass that number, although even such a conservative projection shows a reason for optimism and an increase in power after last season’s outage.

With that said, if Johnson’s OBP is .426, like it was in ‘09, I doubt anyone will mind if his ISO is around .115 or so.

Note – Turkenkopf later updated his findings with an added methodological change that alters the difference between projected ISO and actual ISO, but there is still a drop.

Photo by the AP

Tampa falls to Charlotte, 9-2 (series tied 1-1, best of 5)

• David Phelps got the start, giving up 6 runs (3 earned) on 7 hits and a walk in 2 1/3 innings.
• Jairo Heredia gave up 3 runs (2 earned) on 5 hits in 3 2/3 innings, with 3 strikeouts.
• Adam Olbrychowski struck out 2 and gave up 2 hits in a shutout inning of relief.
• Phil Bartelski walked 1 in a scoreless inning of work.
• Dan Brewer was 2 for 3.
• David Adams, Austin Romine, and Damon Sublett were each 1 for 4.
• Jack Rye was 1 for 3 with a walk.
• Walter Ibarra was 1 for 4.

Robert Pimpsner, who has covered the Staten Island Yankees over the last few seasons, has updates on a few injured prospects.  Arodys Vizcaino, sidelined with a back injury for the last month, is long-tossing, and will be ready to pitch in instructional league.  Caleb Cotham, the Yankees’ 5th-rounder out of Vanderbilt, was shut down after aggravating his previous knee injury.  Neil Medchill, the powerhitting outfielder from Oklahoma State, will have wrist surgery.  All of these guys would be big assets to SI in their upcoming series against Mahoning Valley for the league championship. Scheduled to start in the 3-game series are Adam Warren, Sean Black, and Jose Ramirez (who was promoted from the GCL).

Last night, Andy Pettitte pitched a gem, giving up 2 ER over 7 IP. He struck out 7 and lowered his ERA to 4.18. Amazingly, Andy Pettitte has been the best pitcher in the AL since the All-Star break. His FIP of 2.32 is the lowest of any AL pitcher over the last 30 days and his ERA of 2.61 is actually the second lowest during that period of time (King Felix sits above him with a 2.45 ERA). Andy has been an important piece of the Yankees’ playoff puzzle. Without his dominance, the rotation would look rather inconsistent (e.g., Joba, Mitre). He gave the Yankees exactly what they needed last night—a clean, crisp outing—as the bats took care of the rest, allowing for a 9-2 win. Lately, Pettitte has indicated that he would like to continue pitching after 2009 and, given Chien-Ming Wang’s absence and the way Pettitte has performed this season, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him end up with the Yankees again next year.

It wasn’t all good last night, however, as Jorge Posada and A-Rod suffered some minor injuries. Jorge left the game after aggravating an already injured left ring finger via a Nelson Cruz foul tip. He’s considered day-to-day and was removed as a precaution. Alex Rodriguez also fouled a pitch off of his left foot and exited the game, but he’s said to be alright. Neither player will miss much time, if any. A.J. Burnett is scheduled to pitch today and was probably going to work with Jose Molina anyway since he and Jorge hate each other it’s a day game after a night game.