Remaking the Yankees, Part II: The Leadoff Spot

In my last post, Part I of this series, I examined the Yankees' first base situation. Since then, they have continued to play footsie with Jason Giambi, but nothing more. The Yanks reportedly are waiting to see if the A's will revise their 6-year, $91 million offer or if any other serious suitors have emerged before placing their own bid. Meanwhile, Yogi Berra and Rudy Giuliani have both placed calls to Giambi, trying to sell him on the virtues of life in pinstripes.

Giambi is but one of the pieces in the larger puzzle of the soon-to-be remade Yankees. The current assumption is that they will sign at least one more big bat to go along with him in the lineup, probably at a corner outfield spot. But with Chuck Knoblauch departing, they also have a void at the top of the lineup which needs filling. Today, I'll look at how that fits into the Yanks' offseason plans.

The leadoff spot was one of the Yanks' relative weaknesses this past season. Knoblauch got the bulk of the at-bats, but hit only .246 AVG/.336 OPB/.347 SLG there, and was hardly the table-setter he had proven himself to be over the years. Shifted from second base to left field late in spring training because of his throwing difficulties, Knoblauch had enough distraction already without the redefined strike zone. The new high strike ate him alive, and for the first time since 1995, he had fewer walks than strikeouts. He was especially horrendous when leading off an inning: .203/.291/.267. Eeeugh.

But it was a tough year for leadoff hitters all over the AL. Several top-spot stalwarts had sub-par years; like Knoblauch, the strike zone may have had something to do with it. Only eight of the 14 teams posted an OBP higher than the league average at the top spot. Think about that--in the most important spot in the lineup for getting on base, nearly half of the teams couldn't find somebody who was at least AVERAGE! Here are the rankings, with the players garnering significant time (expressed as a percentage of the team's plate appearances in the #1 spot) for each team:

Team  OBP  Playing Time
SEA  .385  Ichiro 93%
TEX  .367  Catalanatto 47%, Greer 36%
MIN  .348  Guzman 28%, Rivas 23%, Jones 18%, Lawton 16%
ANA  .343  Eckstein 67%, Erstad 26%
TOR  .340  Stewart 60%, Cruz 32%
NYA  .334  Knoblauch 75%, Jeter 14%
DET  .334  Cedeno 75%, Macias 20%
CHW  .330  Durham 76%, Valentin 14%
CLE  .322  Lofton 72%, Cabrera 13%
OAK  .320  Damon 92%
TAM  .320  Tyner 51%, Williams 21%, Winn 14%
BOS  .312  Offerman 49%, Nixon 23%, Stynes 17%
BAL  .287  Anderson 56%, Hairston 14%
KAN  .282  [identities protected by the Federal Witness Relocation Program]

It was an especially tough year for leadoff hitters in the final year of their contracts. Here are the OBPs of four who fit the bill and are now on the market, including Knoblauch:

                 Age   2000   2001  Decline   Career
Chuck Knoblauch   33   .366   .339   .027     .382
Johnny Damon      28   .382   .324   .058     .346
Kenny Lofton      34   .369   .322   .047     .377
Roger Cedeno      27   .383   .337   .046     .355

Not exactly pretty, especially if you're looking to buy--and I didn't even list Brady Anderson and his .311 OBP. It's worth noting that the league OBP fell from .346 in 2000 to .329 last year, so these declines aren't quite as bad as they seem. Looking at this motley crew, Knoblauch had the least falloff, and he still had the highest OBP among thm. I'm not suggesting that the Yanks should re-sign him, just that he may still have enough to lead off for some team, somwhere, at least part-time.

The Yanks have reportedly had some contact with agents for both Lofton and Cedeno. Lofton is even older than Knoblauch, and considerably more frail--he's played over 150 games only twice in his career, and has averaged only 135 games a year over the course of the past 10 years. He hasn't been the same since injuring his shoulder on a head-first slide into first base during the 1999 playoffs, a textbook example of the hazards of such an ill-advised play. Lofton was a Gold Glove centerfielder from 1993-96, but at this stage of his career, he's a leftfielder if he comes to the Yanks. He's not a great option, though.

Cedeno, unlike Lofton, at least has the advantage of being in his prime. Some portion of his decline can be attributed to moving from Houston's Enron ("Home Run") Field to the Tigers' spacious Comerica Park. He stole 55 bases last year before the Detroit management benched him for the final 19 games to keep him from qualifying for incentive bonuses (the Major League Baseball Players Association is pursuing a grievance on his behalf, and with good cause). But he'll be playing on his fifth team in five years; his defense is atrocious, and his baseball fundamentals so suspect that he tends to wear out his welcome fairly quickly. One story from ESPN's Peter Gammons has a "respected talent evaluator" comparing him to an old Padres outfielder named Gene Locklear, of whom Don Zimmer once said, "He runs until they tag him out, and he chases flyballs until they stop rolling." Not exactly the kind of player the Yanks trip over themselves trying to sign (and I'm guessing that the "respected talent evaluator" was Yanks' Director of Scouting Gene Michael).

As I see it, the Yanks have two other options in the leadoff spot, barring a trade (Shannon Stewart, drool... ). One is a player whose OBP was .366 last season, which was actually better than his .368 the year before, relative to the leagues (he split his time between the AL and NL in 2000). His career OBP is .402. His biggest problem is his age--he'll be 43 on Christmas Day. By now you should have guessed that I'm talking about the greatest leadoff hitter in baseball history, Rickey Henderson. Henderson would come pretty cheap (not exactly a concern for the Yanks these days), but his set of skills is pretty limited overall. Still, the man can get on base, despite all of the baggage that he carries.

The other option is one already familiar to Yankee fans. Derek Jeter got 14% of the Yanks' plate appearances in the #1 spot, and he hit very well there: .324/.360/.543, a stronger performance than the .302/.371/.455 line he posted batting second. He's done EXTREMELY well there in the past: .406/.516/.510 from 1998-2000. While he has a tendency to jump on the first pitch rather than work the count, he hits extremely well when he does: .437/.462/.793 in 87 ABs. The Yankee brass seems to have taken note of all of this, and reportedly they are leaning in the direction of opening the season with him at the top and Alfonso Soriano batting second. Though Soriano has the speed to be a leadoff hitter, he needs to raise his OBP considerably from the .304 he posted in 2001 before that's an option.

I think making Jeter the leadoff hitter would be a great move--his power hasn't developed as dramatically as expected (particularly when you consider it in comparison of the other members of the Holy Shortstop Trinity). Until it does, he's better suited as a leadoff hitter than a #3, if you're going to move him out of the #2 spot. Also, none of the leadoff hitters who are on the market are worth filling a corner-outfield vacancy with at the expense of adding another more productive hitter elsewhere in the lineup. I mean, Cliff Floyd/Moises Alou or Kenny Lofton/Roger Cedeno--who would you choose? The answer seems pretty obvious.

So, having solved the leadoff problem for Joe Torre and Brian Cashman, I'll take a look at their corner outfield options next time around.

--posted by Jay Jaffe at 10:25 PM Link

Remaking the Yankees, Part I: Introduction and First Base

Smokescreens and noxious fumes continue to emanate from the Hot Stove, thanks to Bud Selig's contraction gambit. But the team least concerned with revenue problems (theirs or anybody else's) is itching to begin the rebuilding process, still smarting from a ninth-inning rebuke of their quest for four straight World Championships. The Yankees have been applying the full-court press to A's slugger Jason Giambi, with owner George Steinbrenner recently proclaiming Giambi "our kind of player," and manager-without-contract Joe Torre phoning in to reassure the big lug that he won't be simply a DH if he signs on the dotted line.

Giambi is clearly at the top of the Yanks' shopping list, but he's far from the only gifted player Yankee fans can expect from the Boss this holiday season. George Steinbrenner may be a lot of things, many of them unprintable even in a self-edited web site, but Scrooge he ain't. This year's team, as close as they came to winning a World Championship, was a rebuilding effort waiting to happen, with Tino Martinez, Paul O'Neill, Scott Brosius, and Chuck Knoblauch all in the final year of their contracts. Those four players, despite their accomplishments, their populatity, and their big-game experience, were drags on the Yankee offense last season. Now that they've scattered to the four winds (O'Neill retired immediately after the World Series, Brosius on Monday), the Yanks are left with holes to fill and money to spend.

Before anyone gets too uppity and starts complaining that buying expensive free-agents is what the Yanks always do, consider that the only REGULARS on the Yanks' string of four straight Series teams who signed as free agents were designated hitters Darryl Strawberry and Chili Davis. The pitching has had a sprinkling of free agents; Mike Mussina was last winter's big signing, El Duque signed after defecting from Cuba in 1998, David Wells signed back in 1997, as did Mike Stanton, and David Cone re-upped a couple of times after being traded from Toronto in 1995. But the nucleus of this championship run was either homegrown (Jorge Posada, Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, Ramiro Mendoza, and to lesser degrees Alfonso Soriano and Shane Spencer) or acquired via trade (the departed foursome, plus David Justice, Roger Clemens, and Jeff Nelson, to name a few). Some of those trades were contract-motivated, but that's not the same thing as buying off the rack. Unlike the bygone Steinbrenner years, the Yanks have been very cautious with their cash of late.

Before we get to the Yankees' options with regards to new faces and big dollars, it's important to examine the team as it stood. The Yankees, despite their four consecutive trips to the World Series, have been in decline since their lofty 1998 season. Their offense has declined from being the best in the league to being slightly above average, their pitching has declined from being the best in the league to being merely among the best (life is tough being a Yanks fan, I know). If you chart it out, the trend is apparent. The Yanks went from outscoring their opponents by an average of 1.91 runs per game in '98 to doing so by 0.56 runs per game in 2001--and that represented an improvement over their 2000 performance (the columns below represent the Yanks' runs scored and runs allowed per game and league rank, followed by the league average, the differential, their actual number of wins, their Pythagorean projection, and their performance against that projection).

       RS (rank)   RA        LG     Dif    W    PyW   Dif
1998   5.96 (1)   4.05 (1)  5.00   1.91   114   108   +6
1999   5.56 (3)   4.51 (2)  5.18   1.05    98    96   +2
2000   5.41 (6)   5.06 (6)  5.30   0.35    87    85   +2
2001   4.99 (5)   4.43 (3)  4.86   0.56    95    89   +6
total  5.48       4.51      5.09   0.97

Despite the general decline, the Yanks have consistently outpaced their Pythagorean projection for wins. This uncommon trend is a testament to their ability to win close games and to general good luck, and it's the reason (along with the rings) the Knoblauchs and the Martinezes have been allowed to stick around. The figures for 2000 are blurred a bit by their season-ending 3-15 swoon, which saw them get outscored 148-59; take that away and the Yanks averaged 5.64 runs per game and allowed 4.62, for a differential of 1.02 runs per game--right in line with 1999.

The Yanks' offensive makeup this past season was a unique one. Traditionally, teams get most of their run production from the corner positions--first and third base, left and right field. The Yanks's run production (I'm using Baseball Prospectus's Equivalent Runs here) at those postions was below average on the whole; only Scott Brosius (6.5 runs) was above. Tino Martinez, for all of his homers and ribbies, was 3.9 below average, Paul O'Neill -2.4, Chuck Knoblauch -15.7, Shane Spencer -7.7, and David Justice -9.6. On the other end of the defensive spectrum, catcher Jorge Posada (26.5), shortstop Derek Jeter (41.6), and centerfielder Bernie Williams (41.4) were all well above average. Thanks to those three (not coincidentally homegrown and locked up--or soon to be, in Posada's case--with long-term contracts), the offense was still relatively solid. The only Yankee regular not accounted for on this laundry list, Alfonso Soriano, was 2.2 runs above average.

The offense that the Yanks are "losing" to free agency and retirement should not be too difficult to replace, and they have a plethora of options, most of which hinge on a certain aforementioned Bay Area slugger. So let's start with the first base situation.

Tino Martinez was a popular ballplayer during his time in New York, a favorite among fans who was faced with the unenviable task of replacing Don Mattingly and who capably did so for a time. Unfortunately, that time long since passed. Despite Tino's solid Triple Crown stats (.280, 34 HR, 113 RBI) this season, he was merely a middle-of-the-pack hitter among first basemen, thanks mostly to his .329 On Base Percentage. Where the elite slugging first basemen are disciplined hitters who know how to take a walk, Tino falls dreadfully short in this category.

Here he is, along with the other regular AL first basemen, using numbers from Baseball Prospectus's Equivalent Runs chart and some other relevant stats. BP ranks players according to runs above a replacement-level at their position (RARP), not a league-average one. I prefer the latter measure, because it penalizes mediocrity (below average production spread out over longer periods of playing time), and so I've reordered them based on the Runs Above Position (RAP) column. Outs, OBP and SLG you are familiar with. SL*OB, Slugging Percentage times On Base Percentage, is a better measure of productivity than OPS (SLG + OBP), and approximates the number of runs produced per at bat. I've written about it before.

          EqR   RAP   Outs   OBP   SLG  SL*OB
Giambi   160.4  82.7   342  .477  .660  .315
Thome    130.1  45.1   374  .416  .624  .260 
Delgado  123.9  29.8   414  .408  .540  .220
Palmeiro 124.0  24.6   437  .381  .563  .214
Olerud   115.4  24.5   400  .401  .472  .189
Sweeney  104.2  15.1   392  .374  .542  .203
Segui     57.9  11.3   205  .406  .473  .192
Conine    91.5  10.5   369  .386  .443  .171
Clark     76.5   6.9   306  .374  .481  .180
Daubach   70.7   2.9   300  .350  .509  .178
Mientkw   89.8   2.7   383  .387  .464  .180
Konerko   97.5   2.5   418  .349  .507  .177
Martinez  92.9  -3.9   426  .329  .501  .165
Cox       45.5 -12.4   256  .323  .427  .138
Spiezio   61.9 -12.9   335  .326  .438  .143

Martinez ranks 12th among the 14 regulars in RAP and SL*OB, roughly half as productive per at bat as Giambi, and a significant step below the rest of the league's good-hitting first basemen. Yes, Tino did have a strong second half of last season (a .190 SL*OB after the All-Star break, compared to .146 before), had numerous clutch hits, and played his usual excellent defense. But given his age, his cost, and the general decline in his play over the past four years, it simply makes no sense for the Yankees to hang onto him. Giambi, on the other hand, was hands-down, the best hitter in the league, leading in Equivalent Runs, OPS, and RARP (of better use than RAP when comparing across positions, say to Alex Rodriguez).

There is no doubt that Giambi would provide an immediate boost to the Yankee offense. But a long-term contract, on the level being discussed by G and the Yanks (six to eight years at $16-$17 million per year) makes me nervous. Giambi is a hulking player, not particularly mobile, and closer to the David Wells School of Fitness than he is to being a lean, mean hitting machine. It's been pointed out that players with his body type don't necessarily age well--look at beefy guys like Mo Vaughan and Frank Thomas, both of whom should be on the above list. They're roughly three years older than G, and have been battling injury and general decine since they were Giambi's age--averaging only 102 games a year in the three years since passing 30. To be truthful, they're both considerably bigger men--while G is listed as 200 lbs on Baseball-Reference.com, Vaughn weighs in at 230 (yeah, riiiight, is that without the piano?) and Thomas at a whopping but significantly better-chiselled 257. Still, it's not difficult to forsee Giambi struggling with injuries (he's proven vulnerable in the hamstrings and back) and dropping to a merely solid level of production in the near future. [A late note: ESPN.com lists Giambi at 235 now, whihc brings him into the heavyweight division. Vaughn and Thomas have been upgraded to zepplin-weights at 275 pounds. Somebody, please tell me that Cecil Fielder has NOT returned to Japan to take up sumo-wrestling.]

There's another monkey-wrench in the works. The Yanks have a highly-touted prospect, Nick Johnson, who they feel is ready to play regularly. Johnson, who just turned 23, is a 6'3", 224 lb lefty first baseman. At AA Norwich in 1999, he hit.345 with 14 HR and a .525 OBP--tops in the minors. After missing the entire 2000 season due to a mysterious wrist injury, Johnson hit only .256 at AAA Columbus in 2001. But he posted a .407 OBP and a .467 slugging percentage, with 18 HR in 359 ABs. He walks a ton (211 times over his last two seasons at all levels), strikes out a lot, and has a penchant for getting hit by pitches--14 this season. In a late-season cup of coffee with the big club, he hit .194/.308/.313, with 2 HR in 67 ABs. Clearly he has potential, though whether his power will develop is open to some debate. I see him as more of a Mark Grace/Sean Casey/John Olerud type--good average, good OBP, below-average power--than a true slugger. He's been tagged as Tino's heir-apparent for quite some time, and if the Yankees are committing to playing Giambi regularly at first base, they will be hindering the development of their top prospect. On the other hand, Johnson is now their most marketable commodity, who could be packaged with a pitching prospect or two to net a legitimate corner-outfield producer.

So is signing Giambi a good move? I'd be much more comfortable with a shorter deal at a higher annual salary than what's being discussed. I don't like the idea of a 35 year old league-average first-baseman making $17 million while battling injuries. But the Yankee brass seems less concerned, and if/when they sign Giambi, the rest of their offseason plans, including perhaps moving Johnson, will come into focus.

I'll have more on the Yanks' options at other positions in the coming days.

--posted by Jay Jaffe at 1:04 AM Link

Farewell, Cal

My Bill James review threatens to grow as long as the book itself and remains incomplete, but I've written up my report of attending Cal Ripken Jr.'s final game on October 6.

--posted by Jay Jaffe at 1:21 AM Link

The Persistence of Memory and the Wonders of Data

One of my favorite things about the Internet when it comes to baseball is the ability to track down box scores and writeups of ballgames I remember seeing or hearing several years ago. Several months ago, I tracked down a page of past baseball action which enabled me to link to handful of Yankees-Mariners games I'd attended with my brother over the past five years. Sorting through the barrage of homers and shellings (these were all slugfests), I managed to document and preserve a unique little slice of our shared history.

Today I was alerted to another means of tracking down old ballgames. Retrosheet, an organization that has computerized play-by-play accounts of pre-1984 games, has a variety of means for tracking down old games, providing not only box scores, but play-by-plays and individual player game logs.

Thus I was able to connect with one of my oldest and fondest baseball memories. In the summer of 1979, my family was driving from Utah to somewhere in California. Night fell as we were driving, and as I lay in the way-back of our wood-panelled station wagon, my father tuned into a ballgame between the Dodgers and the Giants. It was the first time I'd ever heard the inimitable voice of Vin Scully, the Dodger broadcaster, and I listened with rapt attention as Scully called the game with a vividness that made me feel as if I were at the ballpark. In retrospect, I think it may have even been the first game I listened to on the radio.

The two details about the game that I remember to this day were that Don Sutton pitched his 50th career shutout, and that Mickey Hatcher hit his first major-league home run. Finding this game via Retrosheet was an amazingly simple task. By clicking on the link for Boxscores, Narratives, and Other Goodies I was given a page with links to dates organized by year, and players organized by the first two letters of last name. Clicking on "HA" took me to Mickey Hatcher, and the Game Log link next to his 1979 line took me to his game-by-game performance. From there it was only a matter of clicking on the date in which he hit his first homer. Voilą, Instant box score, complete with play-by-play!

The game took place on August 10, 1979. The Dodgers, playing in San Francisco, won 9-0 in front of 31,350 fans. Hatcher, batting 7th and playing right field, went 3-for-3 with a solo homer off of Tom Griffin in the fifth inning. Ron Cey, Derrell Thomas, and Davey Lopes roughed up Bob Knepper with three homers in the second inning, scoring 6 runs; Thomas's shot was a grand slam. Sutton scattered five hits and three walks, striking out seven, including Willie McCovey and Johnnie LeMaster in the ninth inning, in winning his 10th game of the season.

(Aside: what self-respecting manager lets Johnnie LeMaster, a career .222-hitting shortstop, make the last out of a ballgame, even in a blowout? Joe Altobelli was the manager. I'm not sure about his level of self-respect.)

If nothing else, this new toy has provided confirmation of a few other ballgames I remember from that long-gone summer of '79, including an incredible string of near no-hitters I watched at my late grandfather's knee in Walla Walla, Washington. June 18: the Angels' Nolan Ryan holds the Rangers hitless through 7.1 innings before Oscar Gamble singles. June 23: the Expos' Steve Rogers tosses a one-hitter at the Phillies, allowing only Dave Rader's single with two outs in the eighth. June 27: the Cardinals' Silvio Martinez one-hits the Expos, allowing only Duffy Dyer's single with two outs in the eighth. You could, as they say, look it up.

Man, am I going to have fun with this new toy...

--posted by Jay Jaffe at 10:56 PM Link