By all accounts, The New York Yankees in the post-Steinbrenner era has been an undeniably strange one for Yankee fans. Once the champions of the back of the sports page vying for the top the free agents or hottest trade target on the market, the past few years have seen the Yankees embracing austerity, searching for bargain basement deals and resisting the temptation to deal their highly touted prospects in order to let them practice their wares in pinstripes on the cheap. To be sure, coming off a 97 win season on the strength of surprising performances by the likes of Bartolo Colon, Freddy Garcia, and Ivan Nova, this formula has worked well in the short term, and in turn enabled GM Brian Cashman to lower to the payroll to a somewhat reasonable $189 payroll (by Yankee standards), but will this strategy work in the years to come? The answer to this question it seems rests on the young shoulders of Jesus Montero, Manny Banuelos and several others coming along the Yankee farmhand pipeline and the ability of high priced veterans like A-Rod, Jeter and Teixeria to stay healthy and live up to their contracts.
Arguably the most important piece of the puzzle for the Yankees is the continued growth and success of the 22 year old uber-prospect Jesus Montero. Blocked most of the year at both catcher and designated hitter by Russell Martin and Jorge Posada, Jesus finally got a shot in September and did not disappoint. Although limited to a mere 69 plate appearances, Montero’s potential was on display to the Yankee faithful, hitting an impressive .328/.406/.590 with four home runs, three of which went to the opposite field. Now with Jorge gone and likely retired, it seems that Jesus will finally be able to find at bats consistently next year, however questions remain regarding his defensive ability and the Yankees’ desire to have a full time DH. In truth, especially with Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez getting older and more brittle Yankee Manager Joe Girardi will likely want to give a great deal of those DH ABs to them in order to keep their legs fresh over the whole season, thereby likely limiting his ability to get 500 at bats there. And the catcher position is equally problematic for Jesus, given the fact that Russell Martin has established himself as one of the better defensive catchers in the AL whereas Jesus’ reputation as a catcher has been characterized as dubious at best. Indeed, virtually every scout from Keith Law of ESPN to John Sickels of Baseball America has seriously questioned his ability to be an effective defensive catcher due to his size and general lack of mobility behind the plate. Nevertheless, Brian Cashman has been adamant that like Jorge Posada before him, Montero can become an effective catcher with more reps and patience and has been reluctant to consider him a full time DH. If Mr. Cashman is right, Montero offers the Yankees production at the catcher position that could easily meet or exceed Posada’s production in his prime, providing the Yankees with cheap, cost-controlled 30 home run power at one of the most difficult positions on the diamond.
As important as Montero will be to the Yankees in the years to come, the success of the Yankees in 2012 largely rests on the shoulders of Ivan Nova and Phil Hughes, the young promising pitchers on the staff. Although their histories are quite different, Hughes coming up at age 20 with huge expectations while Nova a Rule-5 pick who struggled just to get on the roster, both have proved to be important contributors to the Yankees in the past two years, with Phil winning 18 games in 2010 and Ivan winning 17 despite being sent down during part of the year. Nevertheless, there are reasons for concern for both heading forward. Phil Hughes in particular has had issues staying healthy, going down for a large part of this season and even when he was healthy he was less than stellar, posting a career worst 5.70ERA, a 5.67 K/9 and not so reassuring FIP of 4.58. These numbers may be an aberration, given his huge jump in innings pitched the year before, going from 86 in 2009 to 176 in 2010 (not including the post-season), but there remain larger concerns regarding his ability to get major league hitters out effectively. Indeed, despite attempts to add a third pitch, Hughes has been largely be unable to find a put away pitch to complement his stellar fastball and curve, and as a result he has become an extreme fly ball pitcher with an astounding 44.8% FB rate last year (worst in the MLB last year). This inability to get ground ball outs, particularly in light of his home stadium, Yankee Stadium, a notorious home run haven, makes the former phenom decidedly not a sure bet to return to form.
Conversely, for Ivan Nova, the young righty hopes to avoid a similar sophomore slump to that of Hughes despite some rather unimpressive peripheral stats. Indeed, although possessing an impressive fastball and an improving slider, Ivan has had trouble striking guys out at a level comparable to top flight starters in the league, posting a rather pedestrian 5.33K/9 and a downright problematic 3.10BB/9. Of course, it would be unfair to say that these numbers are representative of his actual success, as Nova’s ERA and FIP both steadily declined each month, posting a 3.82ERA and 3.20FIP in his final month of the season, making him easily the Yankees second most reliable starter down the stretch, but it is hard to ignore the healthy amount of luck Ivan got during those months, holding hitters to a BABIP of .283 and leaving base runners stranded on base at a truly unsustainable level of 73.2%. All of these statistics and more make Ivan a surer bet than Hughes, but still not quite a pitcher whom you can put down in ink as a true number two pitcher behind CC Sabbathia. Indeed, it is certainly possible that Nova keeps up his good fortune, but like Hughes the only way to ensure future success is development of a third and equally effective pitch.
In another era in Yankee history, these young and unproven players would likely not be relied on so heavily to produce in pinstripes, however it seems that the rather onerous contracts of some of New York’s veteran stars have forced Mr. Cashman to pinch some pennies. Indeed, thanks to contracts given out to more established stars like Alex Rodriguez (making $30million a year), Mark Texieria ($23million per year) Cashman has had to fight hard to keep the Yankees under the luxury tax threshold while still remaining competitive. The only problem it seems is that these highly salaried stars have not lived up to their rather weighty contracts in the past two years. Particularly for Texieria the decline has been quite rapid and damaging, going from hitting a stellar .292/.383/.565 in 2009 to last year only managing a rather pedestrian .248/.341/.494; these numbers may be fine for a first baseman on a mid-market team, however when you’re paying over $20million to the guy, you’re not exactly getting a lot of bang for your buck. Certainly, many will point to Texieria’s home run totals, of which he has kept constant, hitting 39 dingers this year, the same as his 2009 season, however it seems that the power has come at the expense of his formerly keen batting eye and ability to hit to all fields. In fact, Mark has admitted as much that he became too enamored by the short porch in right field at Yankee Stadium, but mere awareness of the problem won’t be enough for Mark to regain his form. Time and time again this postseason Texieria looked hapless at the plate, swinging wildly at bad pitches by the Tigers staff, and in order for New York to overcome the Rangers, Tigers, Red Sox and more of the league these tendencies must come to an end.
Finally, I would be remiss if I did not discuss Alex Rodriguez and his rather precipitous decline because of the apparent damage it has done to the overall strength of the Yankee lineup. Now entering his age 37 season, the days of Alex’s MVP runs with 54 home runs and stellar defense are clearly behind him, and along with it his famous durability. Indeed, after never having played less than 125 games his entire career, Alex couldn’t even break the 100 game mark in 2011 due to nagging hip issues, and as a result his overall numbers saw a sharp regression to the mean. Although Alex was able to still get on base at a healthy rate of .362, Rodriguez saw a sharp decline in batting average and power (.277 and .461 respectively, the first time he posting a slugging percentage lower than .500 since 1998!) resulting in only 16 home runs. Of course, at Alex’s age in the post-steroid era (Ryan Braun notwithstanding) a regression is expected, but with six years left on his monstrous $300million dollar deal a decline so sharp so early is really hurting the Yankees’ ability to compete. Even more than Texieria, the Yankees need Alex to come somewhere near his former levels of production at the plate in order to provide protection for the new big bats of the Yankee lineup in Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson.
To be sure, the notion of austerity for the Yankees is undoubtedly quite different than that of the Kansas Cities and Pittsburghs of the world, but it’s clearly a departure from business as usual in the Bronx. Whereas in past years I would have expected Cashman to make a big bid on Japanese pitching phenom Yu Darvish, instead the Yankees weren’t even in the same stratosphere as the bids by former Bronx punching bags Texas and Toronto. This is not to say that the Yankees will not be able to compete with the new big spenders for the pennant year in and year out in the future, but it is clear that now more than ever, the Yankees must find ways to spend money wisely. As any halfway knowledgeable Yankee fan will tell you, big spending will not necessarily ensure success and in fact (thanks for nothing Carl Pavano, Jared Wright etc etc), as in the cases of Alex Rodriguez and Texieria presently, big spending now can often hamstring a team from making the team better due to the financial burden of a big time deal. Luckily for New York, in Brian Cashman the Yankees are fortunate enough to have one of the most adept and competent General Managers in the game, one who does not necessarily get the same fan-fare of Theo Epstein or Andrew Friedman, but who has the record and the rings to show that he knows a thing or two about putting a baseball team together. More than any one asset, Cashman is the key to success for the Yankees in the future to find ways to win without the bottomless wallet of the late George M. Steinbrenner.
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