Fifth starter and bullpen

The most discussed position battle this spring has been for the last spot in the rotation. The Yankees insist that all five participants have an equal shot at winning, but that’s what they’re telling the public. Chances are either Joba Chamberlain or Phil Hughes will pitch behind Javy Vazquez, with the others moving to the bullpen. The Yankees know that they’ll need to replace one or both of Vazquez and Andy Pettitte next season, so having at least one of their highly touted youngsters ready to step in would be to their benefit.

Yet the battle doesn’t quite end there. This battle will see four losers, but there remain only three spots in the Yankees’ seven-man bullpen. Mariano Rivera, Damaso Marte, Chan Ho Park, and David Robertson already have spots, so there isn’t enough room for Al Aceves, Chad Gaudin, Sergio Mitre, and one of Joba and Hughes. This means that, one way or another, the Yankees will have to make a roster move. That might be trading Mitre, though there’s no guarantee they can find an acceptable suitor. Otherwise, it means optioning a player.

Of the eight bullpen suitors, only Joba/Hughes, Aceves, and Robertson have options. There’s almost no chance Robertson heads to AAA, so that leaves only two choices. The Yankees could send the either Joba or Hughes to the minors to remain stretched out, but they would also fit well in the bullpen. Sending Aceves down also appears to be a waste. They’ll have to pick one, though, since it remains unlikely that they’d actually DFA one of these players.

Photo credit: Gene J. Puskar/AP

25th man

The bench won’t be an issue for the Yankees heading into the season. Francisco Cervelli will back up Jorge Posada, Randy Winn will play the part of fourth outfielder, and Ramiro Pena figures to fill the utility role. That leaves just one spot open, and the Yankees have their battle between two players, Jamie Hoffmann and Marcus Thames. It won’t be an easy decision for the Yanks, either way.

This battle isn’t a matter of picking a winner and sending the loser to AAA. Either Thames or Hoffmann will end up elsewhere if he does not make the team. The Yankees must offer Hoffmann, a Rule 5 pick, back to the Dodgers if he does not make the 25-man roster. Perhaps at that point the two teams can work out a trade — maybe even a Mitre-for-Hoffmann swap — that would allow the Yankees to retain Hoffmann and place him in AAA. Chances are, the Dodgers would not refuse the Yankees’ offer of return.

When Thames signed with the Yankees he knew there was a chance he wouldn’t make the team out of spring training. In fact, with Hoffmann on board it would have made sense for the team to start the season with him in the majors and send Thames to AAA, where he could get at-bats while waiting for an opportunity. Seeing this in his future, Thames negotiated an opt-out clause in his contract that allows him to become a free agent if he does not make the 25-man roster. He could, of course, still end up playing for Scranton if no other teams shows interest. Those chances, however, don’t appear strong.

Photo credit: Kathy Willens/AP

Watch them tumble

The Yankees will likely keep a number of pitchers on staff through the end of spring training. The regulars won’t be completely stretched out, and there’s always a need to fill garbage innings when a pitcher gets hammered. But, while we might see guys like Jon Albaladejo and Romulo Sanchez still pitching in big league camp during the last week of March, there’s little to no chance they make the big league team. The Yanks have plenty of depth, to the point where they might have to option a good pitcher and release quality bench fodder. Thankfully, this is nothing but good news.

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Only small personnel shifts remain for the Yanks

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The Boston angle of the Ronan Tynan story

I despise off days during the baseball season, and the same goes for the exhibition season as well. The Yankees enjoyed their first scheduled off day of the spring today, which was a bit of a bummer for us fans. Even more of a bummer is that picture above, showing the demolition of the leftfield stands at the Old Stadium. And that picture is four days old. Imagine what the place looks like now.

Anyway, here’s your open thread for this Monday night. I want to remind you that we’re trying to clean up the comments, and keep them free of inside jokes and memes and harassing of non-regulars. Take the Curtis Granderson thread from earlier today, there’s over a hundred comments on it, but maybe 30 are about Granderson. Please clean it up (I’m looking at you, regular commentors) and stay on topic. Thanks.

Photo Credit: Bebeto Matthews, AP

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Open Thread: A day off

You can always tell how much a team likes a player by how much they’re willing to pay him, and clearly the Yanks’ had a ton of interest in the rail-thin Hechevarria. Can’t blame them for not trying, that’s a tremendous offer.

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Yankees offered Hechevarria $8.5M

Righties Nova and Noesi optioned down

The cuts continue to roll in, and this time it involves two players on the 40-man roster. Ivan Nova was sent down to Triple-A Scranton, and he’ll likely be among the first called up when a pitcher is needed. Hector Noesi was sent a little further down the ladder, back to High-A Tampa, and it would be a surprise if he contributed anything to the big league team before the summer of 2011. By my count, there’s 46 players left in camp, but don’t hold me too it.

Cliff’s Spring Training Status Report

Cliff Corcoran at the great Bronx Banter posted a report card for the one-third point of Spring Training. There’s not to much we can say with any certainty at this point, but he touches on the expected lineup, the bench spots, the fifth starter’s spot, basically the entire team top to bottom. As always, it’s well worth the read.

Maybe the Yanks shouldn’t be so worried about their starters’ workload

Sucka got no juice (he’ll never, ever live that down) says that all the innings the Yankees’ three top starters have thrown in recent years may not be such a problem, citing what may or may not be evidence to support his claim. Of course, it’s easy to not be concerned about it from the outside looking in, and it’s obvious the Yanks are doing their best to mitigate the risk of a breakdown. Javy Vazquez was brought in to soak up innings at the back of the bullpen, and everyone’s been on a light schedule so far in camp.

A closer look at Kevin Long

Chad Jennings takes a closer look at Yankees hitting instructor Kevin Long. He’s helped a number of players with their swings, and he doesn’t want to stop any time soon. The profile covers his playing days — he never saw a major league at bat, topping out at AAA — and a freak accident that sounds like it could have been a lot worse.

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Link Dump: Options, Spring Training, Starters

Throughout his career, Granderson has hit the ball well to left field. In fact, during his first full-season in 2006 he destroyed the ball to the opposite field, hitting .388 with a .320 ISO in 107 balls directed that way. His average to left dipped a bit during his breakout 2007 season, to .265, but he still hit for plenty of power, a .184 ISO. This is the season, though, during which he started to hit for more power to right. HIs ISO when pulling went from .229 in 2006 to .441 in 2007. In 2008 Granderson again hit well to the opposite field, posting a .327 BA and .292 ISO. This was, at least in part, because he hit 25.5 percent of his balls in play that way, similar to his 24.6 percent mark from 2006. He hit 20.5 percent the opposite way in 2007.

In 2009 Granderson got back to his 2007 level distribution, hitting 21.6 percent of his balls in play the opposite way. His numbers on those balls in play dropped greatly, too, a .179 batting average and a .047 ISO. Of course, as in his 2007 season, his numbers when pulling spiked, a .385 BA and .405 ISO. Even better for him, he hit 259 balls that way, far more than at any point of his career, representing 52.3 percent of his balls in play. Yet the net effect was negative, and Granderson posted the worst BA and OBP of his career.

Granderson’s poor contact to the opposite field in 2009 shows in his batted ball splits. He hit a career high 73.6 percent fly balls to left, though it wasn’t terribly higher than his 70.8 percent mark in 2008. The difference, however, showed up in two other places. First, he hit 24.4 percent of those opposite field fly balls to the shortstop or third baseman. That means of the 79 fly balls he hit to left, 19 of them didn’t leave the infield. Even worse, zero of those 60 outfield fly balls left the yard. Granderson never flashed tremendous home run power to left, but he’s always put at least a couple out of the yard. Not in 2009.

Furthermore, Granderson hit a scant few ground balls to the left side, which likely sapped his batting average (since ground balls go for hits more often than fly balls). He hit just 8.5 percent ground balls the opposite way, about half his percentage from 2008. Also, though not as significant, he also posted a three-year low in infield hit percentage to the left side. Since most infield hits go in that direction, he further hurt his average.

While Granderson’s issues against lefties are well-documented and easily accessible, his numbers when hitting the opposite way also present cause for concern. During his run from 2006 through 2008 Granderson generally hit well the opposite way; even in his pull-happy 2007 he still far outperformed his 2009 marks. We’ve often heard that the left field porch at Yankee Stadium could help Granderson, but perhaps it could work against him. If he starts trying to put balls there it could hurt his numbers going the opposite way. As we’ve seen, his inability to hit that way in 2009 played a prominent role in his poor performance.

Photo credit: Gene J. Puskar/AP

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Hitting the opposite way a key for Granderson in 2010

Swisher took over rightfield on an every day basis after Nady tore an elbow ligament barely more than a week into the season, and went on to enjoy his finest season in the big leagues. He hit .249-.371-.498 with a career high .375 wOBA while batting mostly out of the six-seven-eight spots in the lineup. His 29 homers were the third most on the team behind Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez, and his 97 walks were second in the league. A weak postseason performance (.128-.255-.234, .282 wOBA) left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth, but he basically carried the offense in April (.312-.430-.714, .473 wOBA) while Tex slumped and A-Rod was on the DL.

We know Swish is a valuable offensive player, but most fans are in disagreement about his defense. He makes the occasional goofy play in the outfield for sure, but his three-year UZR of +3.0 is rock solid. The components that make up UZR (range, errors, arm) tell us that Swisher has no problem getting to balls (+11.7 range runs), but that his arm (-6.6 arm runs) dragged him down. His 2009 UZR (+3.5 range, -1.1 arm) bears out that relationship as well. This is completely subjective on my part, but Swisher’s throwing appeared to improve considerably after working with pitching coach Dave Eiland and the since departed Phil Coke last summer, so I’m hopefully he continues that progress and the defensive metrics are a little kinder to the Yanks’ rightfielder in 2010. Either way, Jeff Zimmerman’s age-adjusted UZR projections have Swish as perfectly average defensively at right next season (meaning a UZR of zero), so let’s roll with that.

Baserunning is another aspect of the game that Swisher can make interesting. He’s not a basestealer, just seven successful steals in 15 attempts during his career, and EqBRR says he was worth -0.9 runs on the bases last year. Believe it or not, that’s the first time Swisher has been below average on the bases since 2006, though even in a best case scenario, we should be happy if he’s just league average. Brett Gardner, he is not.

So now let’s turn to offense, and the question is can he repeat what he did last season? The quick answer is yes because his 2009 performance was in line with his 2005-2007 performance, and also because he’s in the prime of his career at 29-years-old. However, there’s evidence out there that suggests Swisher might be in for a bit of a step back offensively.

Greg Rybarczyk’s great site Hit Tracker Online keeps track of every homerun hit in the big leagues going back to 2006, and sticks each one into one of three categories. “Just Enough” homers are those that cleared the fence by less than ten feet vertically or that landed past the wall by less than the fence height (so if it’s an eight foot wall, it landed no more than eight feet deep). “No Doubters” are those that cleared the fence by at least 20 feet vertically and landed at least 50 feet deep, the true monster shots. Everything else goes in the “Plenty” category.

As you can imagine, Just Enough homers are the most volatile year-to-year because they’re so close to the fence. As Rybarczyk chronicled at ESPN’s TMI blog, players who’ve hit 30 total homers in a season with at least 40% of them qualifying as Just Enoughs have seen their homer totals fall 23% on average the next season. That’s a problem for Swisher and the Yankees, because he led the American League with 14 Just Enough homers, 48.3% of his total big flies.

This isn’t the first time Swisher has been in the Just Enough danger zone either. His 14 Just Enoughs were second in the league back in 2006, exactly 40% of the career-high 35 homers he hit for the A’s. What happened in 2007? Swish regressed back to just six Just Enoughs and 22 total homers, a 37.1% drop. This isn’t to say Swisher is guaranteed to see a drop off in his homerun – and thus overall offensive – production in 2010, but it’s not looking good. Let’s see what the various projection systems say…

So yeah, the five freely available projection systems do see a slight regression for Swish, back basically to his career average with a .358 wOBA. The homer total is plenty respectable, and represents just a 13.8% decline from his 2009 total. If Swisher were to suffer the average 23% drop, he’d instead hit just 22 homers, which would further reduce his projected batting line to .236-.355-.430 with a .349 wOBA assuming those three missing homers became outs. A .349 wOBA hitter is still above average, but a far cry from what Swisher provided the Yanks with in 2009.

Okay, so combining that projected .358 wOBA with +0.0 runs defensively and say -1.0 runs on the bases, and Swisher would be a 2.6 WAR player next season, a decline of exactly one win. If we use the further reduced .349 wOBA projection, he would be a 2.1 WAR player. Those three extra homers are worth half-a-win to the Yanks.

In a way, Swisher’s 2009 season was the best case scenario for the Yankees. He provided a ton of pop and on-base skills near the bottom of the lineup, and he played basically every single day. He’s likely to improve after famously struggling at home last year (.226-.382-.394, .349 wOBA), though chances are his road performance (.268-.361-.585, .399 wOBA) will come back down to Earth as well. I like Swisher as much as the next guy, but I’m not going to be surprised if his performance declines a bit next season. You’ll see lots of people play it off as Swisher getting complacent or whatever, but now you know there’s a real baseball reason for it. Dude straight up got lucky with some homers last season.

Photo Credit: Kathy Willens, AP

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2010 Season Preview: Can Swish do it again?

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Password: riveraveblues

You can only submit one bracket, but an unlimited number of teams can join, so there’s no rush. Just make sure you sign up before the games start on Thursday. The points double each round, so you get one point for a correct pick in the first round, two in the second, three in the third, etc., for a total of 192 possible points. I don’t know as much about college basketball as I used to, but you can see my brackets here (link goes to PDF). Good luck.

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RAB Bracket Busters

Top stories from last week:

• The Yankees traded the recently DFA’d Edwar Ramirez to Texas in exchange for cash considerations, and they also renewed the contracts of all 18 of their pre-arbitration eligible players. A total of eleven players were reassigned to minor league camp, most notably Kei Igawa and Andrew Brackman.
• Frankie Cervelli was cleared to play after being hit in the head with a pitch last weekend, but he’s now wearing one of those huge Rawlings S100 helmets.
• Mariano Rivera and Damaso Marte will appear in a game for the first time on Tuesday, with Chan Ho Park and his sore glute not far behind.
• The team might have to worry about CC Sabathia’s recent workload, but at least Javy Vazquez is a different pitcher than he was during his first stint in pinstripes. Al Aceves and Sergio Mitre are making their case for a rotation spot while Joba Chamberlain might have to learn how to pitch with reduced velocity.
• The Yanks were favored to land Cuban shortstop Adeiny Hechevarria, but he’s instead headed to Toronto. They’re also interested in Dominican righty Carlos Matias.
• Assistant general manager Jean Afterman was honored as Woman of the Year, while Kevin Towers will be introduced as a special assistant to GM Brian Cashman this week. Farm director Mark Newman got busted for DUI.
• Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera might get dragging into the Roger Clemens-Brian McNamee mess, and Dr. Galea reportedly treated Alex Rodriguez.
• The upper deck of the Old Stadium is on it’s way down, while the New Stadium will host the New Era Pinstripe Bowl on Dec. 20th.

Please take a second to answer the poll below and give us an idea of how confident you are in the team. You can view the Fan Confidence Graph anytime via the nav bar above, or by clicking here. Thanks in advance for voting.

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Fan Confidence Poll: March 15th, 2010

Cano actually saw the second most time in the fifth spot last year, 223 plate appearances. In those he hit .299/.318/.477, a downgrade from his season line of .320/.352/.520. His time in the fifth spot, of course, represents just a small sample, about 34 percent of his season. It’s tough to draw conclusions about his ability to hit in that spot from just a third of his plate appearances. We also won’t learn much by going into Cano’s history hitting fifth. Not only did he hit in front of and behind different hitters, but he also hit there just 61 times in his career before 2009.

The major concern with Cano’s bat in the middle of the order is his ability to hit with runners in scoring position. He should have plenty of those opportunities, since the four hitters in front of him could all have OBPs around (or, in the case of Nick Johnson, well above) .400. In 2009 he came to bat 198 times with at least a runner on second, and hit .207/.242/.332, an OPS about 50 percent lower than his season-long number. He has hit a bit better over his career, .256/.291/.398, but that’s still not a spectacular mark. It pales in comparison to his numbers with the bases empty, .331/.363/.528.

Why, then, would Girardi choose Cano to hit in this spot? As he tells it, Cano’s contact rate, the seventh highest in the majors last season, played a prominent role in his decision. If you look at the contact rate leaderboard, however, there aren’t many middle of the order bats near the top. Another factor, Cano’s high batting average, seems to make more sense on an intuitive level. Again, with four .400 OBP guys in front of him he’ll have plenty of RBI opportunities. If he hits anywhere near his .320 average from last year he’ll almost certainly drive in more than 100 in 2010.

Girardi has also said, and repeated, this spring that he believes Cano’s numbers with RISP in 2009 don’t tell the whole story. “There was a streak when he had made about 10 or 11 outs in a row with runners in scoring position, and he hit nine bullets,” he said when initially addressing the situation. “Over the long term that usually irons itself out, but when you don’t have 600,000 at-bats, it doesn’t iron out. His at-bats, a lot of times were very good with runners in scoring position. I didn’t think he had a lot of luck last year.” If Girardi is correct, and if those nine bullets find a hole this season, Cano could find himself climbing the RBI leader boards.

In terms of talent, Cano seems to fit perfectly into this lineup spot. Over his career he has demonstrated an ability to hit for average, which should play well with so many men on base ahead of him. Yet he has shown a deficiency with runners in scoring position, which doesn’t help his case for the fifth spot. If he turns it around, the Yankees will only benefit. If he does not, there are other options for the fifth spot, including Jorge Posada, Curtis Granderson, and even possibly Nick Swisher. Starting with Cano, however, seems like a solid move to start the season.

Photo credit: Kathy Willens/AP

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Cano steps up into the fifth spot