Not sure if this was mentioned at some point earlier this week, but, according to Tyler Kepner of the New York Times, Yankees skipper, Joe Girardi, “has said he would like to decide on a fifth starter by next Thursday or Friday,” meaning that it is imperative for each of the five competing starters vying for the team’s final rotation spot to make the best of their remaining opportunities (possibly one more game a piece). Basically, this is it. It’s crunch time down in Florida.

Now for a quick tangent…

When you think about it strictly from a statistical perspective, spring training “battles” – assuming there are absolutely no preconceived notions going into them – are extremely asinine. In essence, Girardi, an example here, is making a pivotal pitching decision, one with real consequences, based on a few abbreviated and meaningless outings. Now, I do not view the Yankees’ fifth starter battle as a true spring competition, as Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain have always seemed to have inside tracks, but it is still worth noting the inanity of the longstanding spring competition. The only utility I see provided by this practice is that it forces a complacent player to think he is fighting for his spot.

In this case, Joba Chamberlain is that particular player.

Photo by the AP

“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.

From Sam Borden:

Girardi has said he hopes to make a decision during the final week of March, and — as pitch counts rise and workloads increase — he expects both Hughes and Chamberlain (as well as Mitre and Aceves) to start mixing consistent pitching in their areas of focus with positive results.

“After this one,” Girardi said, “we’re really going to start making our evaluations.”

Spring training results generally do not mean much, as pitchers are working on specific pitches and skills rather than taking the most effective approach towards attacking hitters. That said, if the Yankees feel the need to base their decisions on a three week competition, eventually results will have to enter the equation. I still believe Joba Chamberlain will win the spot, but further outings similar to his first two might preclude that. Beginning with his next start, results will matter. Hopefully, Joba will seize the opportunity.

According to George King of the NY Post, while it’s clear that right-handers, Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain, “are the favorites,” or at least the two early finalists, vying for the fifth rotation spot this spring, “there are voices within the organization who want Chamberlain and Hughes in the pen.” GM Brian Cashman discussed this very issue last week with the lovable Mike Francesa, pointing out that such a pitching configuration, one which would feature Alfredo Aceves, Chad Gaudin, or Sergio Mitre as the fifth starter – an option that many more are pondering today after a small sample of recent innings from both Mitre and Aceves – would certainly be to the Yankees’ short-term benefit.

However, Cashman noted that, long-term, such a situation is neither efficient or pragmatic. As stated by Joe Pawlikowski of River Ave Blues, the Yankees need to cultivate at least one of their two young arms and inserting both into the team’s bullpen just does not work towards that goal. “The Yankees need to replace two starting pitchers next year,” Joe writes. “They’d be better serves in 2011, then, by having at least one of Hughes and Chamberlain starting in 2010” (to build innings, etc.). Yankees skipper, Joe Girardi, also made a similar point several weeks ago.

Putting both Hughes and Chamberlain would help the bullpen this season, but it would come at the expense of future starting rotations. In the end, potential long-term benefits, especially with regards to young pitchers, should trump the short-term stuff, right (I say that, but it does not always occur—see Joba Chamberlain’s emergence in 2007)?

Photo by Reuters

From Bruce Jenkins, via BBTF:

To me, Sheets’ most telling comment Friday concerned his willingness to pitch through the 2008 stretch drive despite knowing that his arm, as they say, was falling off.

Asked if he thought the Brewers would have handled him differently in retrospect, he said, “They couldn’t have handled me differently. I was on the bump (mound) – I wasn’t taking myself out of there. If I could go back, I wouldn’t change a thing. I’d go out there and be willing to blow my arm out again.”

This is something too few people understand. Every time a pitcher gets hurt – at least in modern times, in the paranoia over pitch counts – it’s the manager’s fault. The pitching coach’s fault. Has to be somebody’s fault. Dusty Baker, as sensitive to a player’s plight as any manager in the game, still hears from horribly unenlightened critics who believe he carelessly blew out arms on the Giants, Cubs and now the Reds.

It’s competition, folks. It’s a strong-willed athlete who would do anything to take the mound. It’s a manager with faith, and the good sense to ride the hot hand. It’s Robb Nen, Kerry Wood, Ben Sheets. The injuries come, or maybe they don’t, but the operative phrase is “Let’s go,” not “Jeez, I’m pretty worried.”

No, No, No, No, a thousand times no. Jenkins suggests that Baker was correct in having Mark Prior and Kerry Wood throw all those pitches in 2003 simply because they were competitors who wanted to so. All pitchers want to pitch and believe that they can get the next guy out. If managers simply said “Let’s go” in every situation, you would have hurlers getting injured with regularity. The organization hires the manager to manage the club’s assets, and part of that job is to know when it would be best for the long term success of the club to pull your best option at the moment from the game. Yet managers frequently ignore that responsibility in order to save their own skins, understanding that they may not be around much longer if they lose games with their best arms on the bench.

A balance needs to be found, where the manager is maximizing the value that he can extract from the pitcher without putting the pitcher at risk for negative long term repercussions. Managers such as Baker have shown an inability to consider the long-term health of the organization by throwing caution to the wind and only considering the immediate consequences of a decision. That is a failure by the manager, as well as a poor job by the organization in allowing the field general to continually put his players at risk. Joe Torre had a problem of that sort in regard to relievers, where he would recklessly “ride the hot hand” until the player got injured or became tired and ineffective. Thankfully, it seems that Joe Girardi has no such problem, and is on the same page with Brian Cashman and the rest of the organization in terms of effectively managing pitchers.

What do you think? Is Jenkins right? Should pitchers just be allowed to pitch?

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.

Over the weekend, George King of the NY Post wrote about the fifth starter competition between Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes, and, included in King’s article was an interesting tidbit regarding Hughes’ changeup, which he has been developing this spring. Apparently, Hughes has altered his grip of the pitch, going from a split-grip change – which, I believe, was somewhat similar to Ian Kennedy’s vulcan changeup – to a circle change. “I tweaked it a little bit,” said Hughes. “I am back to the circle change and getting a feel for it.” Hughes had gone from the circle changeup grip to the split-finger changeup grip last year, during Spring Training, so the “tweak” is not necessarily earth-shattering.

Manager Joe Girardi stated that Hughes’ changeup has looked effective during bullpen sessions, however, according to King, Girardi will wait to “reserve judgment until he sees how hitters react to it when they take their bats off the shoulders.” “You want to see the deception it has when hitters are swinging in a game,” noted Girardi in reference to the pitch. “But, I like the progress he has made and we need to keep on him and tell him to continue to use it.” Hughes hopes to reincorporate the change within his repertoire this season after rarely using it as a reliever a year ago.

From Burnett to Hughes, there’s a big changeup theme to this spring. Everyone wants to be like CC, I guess…

Photo by the AP

Yesterday, after throwing his first bullpen session of the spring, Mariano Rivera, a timeless fixture in the Yankees bullpen, discussed a topic which he rarely needs to address—his own fragility. The 40-year old Rivera underwent surgery prior to the 2009 season in order to remove a bothersome calcification from his right shoulder. When asked about the shoulder last spring, Rivera would flash a smile to reporters and and say that he was alright. However, after firing 21 fastballs yesterday, Rivera and his manager, Joe Girardi, finally admitted that, as a result of the calcification procedure, the greatest closer of all time did struggle to develop his arm strength well into the regular season.

“It was hard, but it wasn’t impossible,” Rivera noted when asked about the surgery’s strength-sucking affect on him last year. “I took the challenge and it worked,” he said, adding that his rehab was done during the regular season as opposed to Spring Training. Girardi furthered Rivera’s story, saying that it took “a good six weeks to two months” before Rivera’s arm strength had fully returned. “I know he’s a lot further along than he was at this time last year,” Girardi stated. “At times he couldn’t extend [his arm] early on in camp. He had none of those issues [Monday].”

This news, of course, should please Yankee fans, mainly because it helps to lessen the concern some might have regarding the velocity issues Rivera experienced a year ago. In 2009, after Rivera’s four-seam fastball and cutter had averaged 93.1 mph and 92.8 mph in 2008, the average velocity of his four-seamer dipped to 91.8 mph and the average velocity of his cutter fell to 91.3 mph (the lowest velocities on record for Rivera). When one considers Rivera’s age, the loss in velocity is significant, and could indicate a continued loss of velocity going forward. A lack of arm strength certainly gives a reason for the velocity decrease though (in part, age could still be a relevant factor), and when you look at a month-to-month view of his average velocity, Rivera’s fastball saw an uptick in speed in September and October (the cutter did not). Even if the lack of velocity is real, Rivera locates well and generates great movement to get outs. Still, we can be optimistic about his pitch velocity going forward as he is a full year removed from shoulder surgery and he will likely have better arm strength for the entire season, whereas that was not the case for 2009.

Photo by the AP

Jim Bowden and Jody MacDonald interviewed Brian Cashman on Sirius XM yesterday, and he had the following to say about the Granderson v. Gardner for center field debate (h/t Ben at RAB):

I think that what’s taken place is when you’re asked questions like ‘Is there a possibility of Gardner playing center?’ I’m like, well, if we feel Gardner makes us our best team with Gardner at center because we’re blessed to have two above average center fielders patrolling Yankee Stadium’s outfield out of the three man alignment. So we have [Nick] Swisher in right, Granderson in center and Gardner, assuming he holds it down and wins it, will be in left.

But Granderson’s our center fielder. He’s an above average center fielder and that’s why we acquired him. But to be quite honest if somebody asked, ‘Hey, but is it possible Brett Gardner might be a better center fielder?’ Our defensive metrics on Brett Gardner made him one of the elite center fielders in the game. I’m not saying he’s the top but he’s close to it.

So in fairness we acknowledge that but does that mean it’s the right thing to do to move Curtis Granderson over to left? I’m not saying that but I’m also open minded to say, alright, we’ve got a new player. We’re gonna see how our team fits and we’ll make decisions accordingly as we see things playing out. But Granderson’s our center fielder.”

Cashman is alluding to what we have discussed in this space a number of times: while there might be a small statistical advantage to having Gardner in center field, practical concerns make Granderson a better fit in center field. Firstly, Gardner will likely be sharing time with Randy Winn and one of Marcus Thames or Jamie Hoffmann. Granderson would play center over all of those players, so it would not be prudent to have him moving back and forth every couple of days. Furthermore, the Yankees do not know at this point whether Gardner is a long-term solution for them. If they need to replace him next offseason, it is significantly easier to fill a hole in left field than it is to find a solid center fielder. Moving Granderson to save a few runs in 2010 only to move him back in 2011 does not seem like an efficient use of resources.

The second thing Cashman discussed was to state that Nick Johnson, he of the amazing on-base abilities, would be batting second. I do not know if Cashman is simply making an assumption that Girardi will bat Nick second or if Joe has told him as much, but let’s take that statement at face value and assume that Johnson will bat second. What might the batting order look like? This would be my expectation:

Jeter-R
Johnson-L
Teixeira-S
Rodriguez-R
Posada-S
Cano-L
Granderson-L
Swisher-S
Gardner-L

Cano, Granderson, and Swisher are interchangeable here, but I like having Granderson sandwiched between a switch hitter and Cano, who hits lefties well.

What would your lineup look like?

Not sure if this was reported as a standalone item anywhere, but Erik Boland of Newsday informs us that manager, Joe Girardi, has announced that Jorge Posada will catch A.J. Burnett this season. A serious amount of ink was devoted to the Burnett-Posada duo a season ago, after the two seemed to have “problems” working with one another, which led Girardi to install Jose Molina as Burnett’s everyday catcher (and which Posada did not like very much).

Result-wise, while there may be some substance to the notion that the two did not gel well as a unit – over 16 games with Posada behind the plate, Burnett held hitters to a .270/.353/.421 line and posted a rather poor K/BB of 1.72 (79/46), and with Molina, Burnett held hitters to .221/.307/.352 line over 11 games while posting a much improved 2.66 K/BB (77/29) – in reality, as stated by a number of articles, much of Burnett’s struggles last season were not actually Posada-related, rather, they were brought on by mechanical problems with the now 33-year old’s delivery. Unfortunately for Posada, he became a newspaper causality of these struggles, as it is much more interesting to discuss a pitcher and a catcher’s seemingly ineffectual relationship instead of mechanical flaws in one’s motion.

Anyway, to Burnett’s credit, he is excited to begin working with Posada this season and wants to disprove last season’s media-driven controversy regarding the two as batterymates. “I was looking forward to it from the first day of camp to be able to put that behind us and start working together,” Burnett said today when asked about throwing to Posada this season. “A lot of stuff was blown out of proportion last year and we’ve talked a handful of times already and we’re just real excited to put that behind us and move on, get better and learn from each other.” He also took fault for last year’s woes, saying that he was not right in the head, at times, and was often questioning himself, not Posada.

Photo by Reuters