Wednesday, December 12, 2001

Remaking the Yankees, Part V-Point-Two: Patching the Rotation

In my last piece, I examined the Yankee pitching rotation's performance in 2001, and pointed out the gulf that existed between their top-line starters and the back of the rotation. Today I'll examine their options for constructing the rotation for 2002.

Their Big Three--Mike Mussina, Roger Clemens, and Andy Pettite--will return as the front end, and while one could quibble about various aspects of their performance, they provide a strong foundation that nearly any team would kill for. Clemens will turn 40 in August, but has pitched significantly better in the latter half of his thirties (three Cy Youngs in the Dan Duquette-termed "twilight of his career") than the former half, so this shouldn't be too much cause for alarm. Mussina, coming off of arguably his finest season, just turned 33 and should be more comfortable in New York than he was last year. Pettitte improved his control considerably and showed signs of evolving into a power pitcher. He turns 30 in mid-June and already has 115 major-league wins under his belt. You could do worse.

Which brings us to the back end of the rotation, where two spots are up for grabs right now. Speculation about this has been rampant since the World Series, with everybody from David Wells to John Smoltz to Hideo Nomo to Jason Schmidt mentioned as a possible free-agent signing. Additionally, three pitchers who saw limited time in the Yanks' rotation in 2001 are still in the mix as of this writing, though that situation could change very soon.

So without further ado, let's take a look at some of the candidates (ages are as of July 1, 2002, innings are rounded to the nearest whole, ERA+ is a measure which compares the pitcher's ERA to the park-adjusted league average--100 means that the pitcher was league-average, a 110 ERA+ means the pitcher was 10 percent better than the league average):

                Age   --------2001--------   ------Career------

                      IP  W-L   ERA  ERA+    W-L     ERA  ERA+

Hernandez (R)   36    95  4-7  5.63   92    45-33   4.13  113

Hitchcock (L)   30    70  6-5  5.63   77    67-67   4.75   91

Lilly     (L)   26   121  5-6  5.37   83     5-7    5.73   79

Wells     (L)   39   101  5-7  4.47  103   166-114  4.08  110

Nomo      (R)   33   198 13-10 4.50  101    82-71   4.05  104

Schmidt   (R)   29   150 13-7  4.07  103    56-54   4.50   97

Not exactly the most promising lot, at first glance--no one who was significantly better than league average in ERA, at least. Several of the pitchers are coming off of injuries: El Duque missed two months with toe surgery and had question-marks about his elbow hanging over his head all season; Hitchcock came back from Tommy John surgery; Wells was shelved after June 28 with a back problem that required the knife.

A closer look at each once:

• Acquired near the trading deadline from San Diego last summer, Hitchcock may be close to re-signing or already re-signed as I write this, but the Yanks have been delaying their official free-agent announcements until they seal the Giambi deal. Reportedly it's a 2-year, $12 million contract. I'm not big on the idea. Coming off of surgery, Hitchcock was tagged routinely until October, when he gained enough strength to give his fastball some life (it was in the high 80s, not exactly Ryan country). In October, he went 2-0 with a 3.06 ERA in 17.2 innings, pitching a complete game in the season's final week, then picking up a win in Game 5 of the World Series. He's a good strikeout pitcher (7.0 per 9 IP, with a career high of 194) when healthy. But Hitchcock has never put together a season with a winning record and a better-than-average ERA. And he's never won more than 13 games. They say lefty pitchers don't really find themselves until they're 30; while it's possible Hitchcock could develop into a solid 12-10 man, I don't see much more upside than that.

• Hernandez was once considered to be one of the many aces of the Yankee staff. But he's only 16-20 the past two years, with a 4.61 ERA (105 ERA+), and he may have worn out his welcome with his enigmatic tendencies (including lying about his age) and his macho refusal to report injuries. From where I sit, the Yanks have cultivated the existing communications gap just as much as El Duque. Their failure to retain first base coach Jose Cardenal, El Duque's translator, after the '98 season, and subsequently not hire a Spanish-speaking coach has contributed greatly to El Duque's wariness of communicating with the Yankees' staff.

Hernandez is a free agent, but one with fewer than six years of major league service, and thus still bound to the Yanks (so long as they offer him a contract by December 20). He's been the subject of several trade rumors, most recently in a package to Anaheim for Daren Erstad. Nobody really knows how many miles are on El Duque's arm at this point and Yanks aren't sure they want to find out.

But given his past two seasons, I don't think he's liable to command a big contract, and at the price (say, $4-6 million), the Yanks aren't going to find a pitcher with more big-game experience and a higher upside, even given his age. He pitched well in September (4-1, 2.88 ERA) and had two solid, gutty starts in the postseason (the third start, in the 14-3 drubbing they took in Game 3 of the ALCS, was right after the death of his father, as we later learned). If the Yanks are going on late-season auditions, his was much more substantial than Hitchcock's, and he probably won't cost more.

• Lilly had his ups and downs in his rookie season, making 21 starts for the Yanks. There's definitely some promise there--in 120.2 innings, he struck out 112 and only allowed 126 hits. But as his ERA attests, he took his lumps. His troubles were due to giving up too many walks (3.8 per 9 IP) and too many homers (1.5 per 9 IP). Better control and more experience are all he needs--he doesn't lack for stuff or the ability to challenge hitters. I'd hate to see him wearing another uniform when become the #3-#4 starter he looks to be.

• Nomo hasn't drawn serious interest from the Yankees. He broke off talks with the Red Sox, who were reportedly offering 3 years at $20 million, and thus will be searching for his seventh team in the past five years. He showed flashes of brilliance in 2001, including a no-hiter in his first start for Boston. But he was awful in the second half, collapsing with the rest of the team: after a 5-0 July, he went 2-6 with a 6.98 ERA. And if you want a communications gap, well... remember that Hideki Irabu wasn't that long ago. End of story.

• Schmidt is a pitcher the Yanks have long coveted, dating back to his days as a Pittsburgh Pirate (ironically enough, the outfielder he was traded for last summer, John Vander Wal, was just landed in a trade for Jay Witasick). He missed the first five weeks of 2001 after undergoing surgery to repair a frayed rotator cuff in August 2000. Still, he posted the strongest season of his career, and is seeking a long-term deal. Reportedly, he's close to one with the Giants (at 4 years + option for $34 million) or the Mariners, while the Yankees have yet to make an offer. He would be a decent addition, but I wouldn't bother leaving the light on for him at this point.

• Wells has been itching to get back into pinstripes since the moment he left in the Roger Clemens trade. If it's ever going to happen, now is the time. Cast adrift after an injury-shortened season which followed yet another controversial trade, he is reportedly prepared to accept a low up-front, incentive-laden contract to prove he's healthy. He has his suitors; the Rangers are interested, and Wells's agent has called attention to the Diamondbacks' interest--probably to spur George Steinbrenner's competitive check-writing juices. I wouldn't normally go around recommending 39-year-old overweight pitchers with outsized personalities who are coming off of back surgery, but hey, this is Boomer--a man who lives to pitch in Yankee Stadium and who does it as well as any active player (28-9, 3.27 ERA lifetime). When he's healthy, he eats innings with the same voracious appetite he has for salted meat products (200+ innings for six straight years, several bouts of gout as well). Torre may be wary of some of his personality traits, but with something to prove and a small safety net to work with, Wells is liable to be on his best behavior. At the price, he may be worth a gamble even if he knocks Lilly back into the bullpen for awhile.

With Hitchcock all but signed, the Yanks have the jump on me here. I've more or less given the thumbs-up to three pitchers, all of them relatively known commodities in Yankeeland, and none of them Hitchcock. If he's added, that leaves my trio competing for one spot. It's possible Lilly would start the season in the bullpen, though a trade isn't out of the question (I'd hate to see it happen, though). And the Yanks have several young hurlers on the horizon (Brandon Claussen, Alex Graman, Adrian "El Duquecito" Hernandez, and Brandon Knight--see this handy article at mlbprospect.com for more on them) who may push Lilly out the door.

Meaning, even if you stash Lilly in the bullpen, it probably comes down to a choice between El Duque or Boomer. Two old guys, questionable health-wise but with no shortage of personality or history with the Yanks. I'd hate to have to choose between the two. My emotional attachment to both may be clouding my judgement, but I think they're each capable of solid seasons at a reasonable price. With Pettitte, Hitchcock, and Lilly in the fold, the Yanks would be stocked for lefty starters and I can't see that adding another (Wells) would make as much sense. So I'd pick El Duque. But my gut feeling is that the Yanks are leaning the other direction, partially because Hernandez has some trade value, because they feel compelled to punish El Duque for his enigmatic ways, and because it's no secret George Steinbrenner has a soft spot for the big man. While I'd welcome seeing Boomer in pinstripes under nearly every other circumstance, I'd hate to see the crafty Cuban go on his way.

I'll evaluate the Yanks' bullpen this weekend. Meanwhile, the announcements have come down: the Giambi deal is done, Rondell White has been signed to a 2-year, $10 million contract and will play leftfield, and John Vander Wal was acquired in a trade for Jay Witasick and will likely platoon with Shane Spencer in right. First, White: a 30-year-old product of the Expos system who the Yanks tried to get last year before acquiring David Justice, White brings a similar reputation to Justice for being injury-prone. He's been on the DL seven times in the past six years, he's averaged only 110 games a year over that span. But when he plays, he does hit--.351 career OBP, .484 SLG, .371 and .529 in 95 games last year. White is a relative bargain when compared to Moises Alou, who seemed to intentionally price himself out of the market. His speed has decreased considerably with his knee problems (only 6 SB the past two seasons after a high of 25 and five straight years of double-digits), and he's certainly a risk. But he may well flourish if healthy. Vander Wal: a 36-year-old lefty with a .364 OBP and .442 SLG (.357 and .442 for his career) who's become a semi-regular after being one of the game's best pinch-hiters. He doesn't have great range or a great arm, but he's relatively sure-handed. Adding him to a platoon with Spencer automatically strengthens the bench. And by trading away Witasick, a middle-relief bust acquired for infielder D'Angelo Jiminez, Yanks GM Brian Cashman may finally get the rabid sabermetric critics of that deal to put a sock in it. Which is worth something in the circles I travel in.

One final note of gratitude for Pete Sommers at Baseball News Blog and Sean Forman at Baseball Primer for highlighting this series in their web logs. This page is on its third straight week of record-high readership thanks in part to their kind words. I hope those of you coming here for the first time have been sufficiently impressed to keep coming back for more (take a look around the rest of the site while you're here). I promise it's not all Yankees, all the time--I've got several other pieces in the works when I'm done with the Big Makeover.

--posted by Jay at 1:04 AM LINK

Tuesday, December 11, 2001

Remaking the Yankees, Part V: Assessing the Rotation

I've spent the past week and a half evaluating the Yankees' options for revamping their offense this offseason. Given the attrition of several of their less effective hitters and the ability to spend BIG dollars to replace those hitters with significantly better ones, there's no doubt that the Yankee offense should see a big boost in 2002. At least once Jason Giambi signs on the dotted line and the Yanks land themselves a reasonably competent corner outfielder or two, that is.

But when it comes to the Yankees' perennial plans for October, the name of the game is pitching. No better illustration of this came than when they made their big free-agent splash last winter by signing Mike Mussina rather than a big hitter to bolster their sagging offense. The signing gave the Yanks four top-line starters, in Mussina, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, and Orlando Hernandez--on paper the best quartet in baseball going into the season. Today I'll examine how that vaunted rotation performed, and move into the Yanks' options in my next piece.

Three of the four top-line starters--Clemens, Mussina, and Pettitte--lived up to their billing and managed to stay reasonably healthy in 2001. Pettitte missed a few starts, but as a group they made 61% of the Yanks' starts, exactly what we would have expected in a five-man rotation. Orlando Hernandez, on the other hand, didn't hold up his end of the bargain. To the puzzlement of Joe Torre, Mel Stottlemyre, and crew, El Duque struggled during the first two months of the season (0-5, 5.14 ERA) before revealing that he had been concealing a toe injury which hampered his mechanics. Sidelined for two months by surgery, he came back strong, going 4-1 with a 2.88 ERA in September.

Hernandez's early-season troubles created a domino-effect mess at the back end of the Yankees rotation. While El Duque was dragging his damaged body out to the mound every fifth day, the Yanks were struggling to identify a #5 starter. Rookie Christian Parker won the job out of spring training, got shelled in his first outing, developed tendonitis and was done for the year. Rookie Randy Keisler made two starts, stunk up the joint and created an even big stink when he was demoted. Yet another rookie, Ted Lilly, took over the #5 spot and acquitted himself reasonably well before becoming the de facto #4 when El Duque went down. At that point, Kiesler rejoined the rotation, and when Adrian Hernandez (still another rookie, and a Cuban-defector protege of El Duque) subbed for Pettitte through a couple of turns, the Yanks suddenly had three rookies in their rotation.

The results, as one would expect, were not pretty, and Yankee GM Brian Cashman finally acquired an experienced (if significantly less than 100%) arm in the form of Sterling Hitchcock. Hitchcock, still recovering from Tommy John surgery, was tattooed on a slightly less frequent basis than the rookies. Not until El Duque returned strong in September did the Yanks have their playoff-projected quartet of top-liners in place.

Looking at the statistics of these pitchers as a group, there's a wide chasm between the Big Three and the rest of the group. The Big Three combined to go 52-24 with a 3.53 ERA, while Your Name Here went 12-24 with a 5.96 ERA. Here are their performances as starters only (Innings Pitched have been rounded, the AVG, OBP, SLG and SL*OB are the opposing hitters stats against each pitcher):

            IP   W-L   ERA   RS   K/9  K/W  WHIP  HR/9  AVG   OPB   SLG  SL*OB

Mussina   229  17-11 3.15  4.53  8.4  5.1  1.07  0.8  .237  .271  .358  .097

Clemens   220  20-3  3.51  6.58  8.7  3.0  1.26  0.8  .246  .305  .375  .114

Pettitte  201  15-10 3.99  6.46  7.4  4.0  1.32  0.6  .281  .313  .397  .124  



Lilly     104   4-6  5.63  4.62  8.4  2.0  1.53  1.5  .267  .337  .464  .156

Hernandez  91   3-7  5.06  3.61  7.3  1.8  1.42  1.9  .248  .324  .452  .147

Keisler    51   1-2  6.22  6.75  6.4  1.1  1.70  2.1  .259  .366  .358  .180

Hitchcock  50   4-4  6.16  7.42  4.9  1.6  1.65  0.9  .315  .366  .469  .172

Cy Young Award to the contrary, Mike Mussina was the best Yankee starter, hands down. His ERA was 0.36 better than Clemens, and he had significantly better rate stats with regards to K/W ratio and WHIP (Walks + Hits per Inning Pitched) than Clemens did. Andy Pettitte was off to his best season ever until a late dip; still, he significantly improved with regards to his stamina, WHIP, walks and strikeouts per nine innings and his K/W ratio (I published a piece on his improvement in the wee hours of September 11, just before the world as we know it changed). He wasn't as good as either Clemens or Mussina overall, but he was better than the one in the catalog.

I took a novel look at the Yankee starters by examining the offensive performance of the hitters that faced them. Using Extrapolated Runs, I calculated Offensive Winning Percentages for the batters facing each one, then multiplied by the number of decisions and compared that to the pitchers' actual Won-Lost records. The results confirm what we already know--Clemens was very lucky with regards to wins and losses (six wins above the projection), Mussina fairly unlucky (almost three wins below). Run support obviously played a big factor in that disparity--the Yanks scored over two runs per game more for Clemens (and Pettitte) than for Mussina. Pettite was almost dead on in this projection (the four categories stand for Offensive Winning Percentage Against, Projected Wins, Projected Losses, and Wins Above the projection):

           OWPA    PW    PL    WA

Mussina   .290  19.9   8.1  -2.9   

Clemens   .392  14.0   9.0   6.0

Pettitte  .416  15.2  10.8  -0.2

Lilly     .569   4.3   5.7  -0.3

Hernandez .572   4.3   5.7  -1.3

Kiesler   .663   1.0   2.0   0.0

Hitchcock .624   3.0   5.0  -1.0

Does anybody still think Clemens deserved that Cy Young?

Anyway, I could play with the numbers all day (I did, in fact). In my next piece, I'll explore how this all shakes down as the Yanks plan for 2002.

--posted by Jay at 9:43 PM LINK

Monday, December 10, 2001

Remaking the Yanks, Part IV-Point-Something: The Ventura Deal

It's not as if the Futility Infielder eight-ball didn't see the possiblity of a David Justice-for-Robin Ventura trade coming. But when it was being discussed in the New York Post a few of days ago, I took it for the Post's usual modus operandi when it comes to the Yanks. I've often felt that their writers covering any NY team write about what they want to see happen, either as a best- or worst-case scenario (Jordan/Ewing/Tino/Boomer/Tuna is coming back with the Knicks/Yanks/Mets/Jets/Rockettes) rather than what will happen. So I waved it off, writing, "It's hard to see how that trade helps either team from a financial standpoint. It might solve the Yanks short-term third base needs, but at the expense of outfield production."

I wasn't wrong about the financial angle. The difference in salaries (Justice will make $7 million, Ventura $8.25 mil) won't prevent the Yanks from signing Jason Giambi, and it won't help the Mets sign Barry Bonds, unless Steve Phillips can ship Justice off for some cheaper talent. But while it's obviously a trade that's short-term in nature (both players are in the final year of their contracts), I do think it's a good one, particularly for the Yankees.

On the surface, what we have here is a challenge trade involving two proven veterans coming off of disappointing, injury-plagued seasons. Justice hit .241 with 18 HR and 51 RBI while hampered by groin problems, Ventura hit .237 with 20 HR and 61 RBI while struggling with shoulder problems that have contributed to two consecutive sub-par seasons.

But if you look at it more closely, it's easy to be convinced that the Yanks are getting the better end of the deal. For one thing, Ventura's season wasn't all that bad. He still managed 88 walks and a .359 On Base Percentage, only five points off of his carer mark. And that .359 OBP is 16 points higher than Scott Brosius, who had a good year with the bat by his own standards. Here are the lines of the two traded players, along with Brosius:

           2001 OBP/SLG/SL*OB        Career OBP/SLG/SL*OB               

Justice    .333/.430/.142 (439 PA)   .378/.507/.192

Ventura    .359/.419/.150 (549 PA)   .364/.447/.163

Brosius    .343/.446/.153 (478 PA)   .323/.422/.136

Ventura was about 5% more productive than Justice on a per at-bat basis, and not far off of his own career level (down 8%). In a down year, he was almost on-par with Brosius. Justice was waaaaay off, down about 25% from his career level of productivity.

And then there's the defense. For starter's there's a larger market for corner outfielders than third basemen, not just this year, but in any year--that's just the normal distribution of talent. Justice is so highly thought of for his defense that he's been a DH for about half of the American League portion of his career (334 times in 675 games). On the other hand, Ventura plays a difficult position and has six Gold Gloves to his name, most recently in 1999. He has fallen off a bit in the past two seasons, but he still had a better season with the leather than Scott Brosius (who fielded a lousy .935 this year). In fact, he's got slight edges on Brosius, career-wise, in fielding percentage, range factor, double plays and zone rating (though not enough to draw conclusions without analyzing the groundball tendencies of their respective pitching staffs).

Ventura had shoulder surgery after the '99 season, but the shoulder has continued to bother him. He struggled mightily last summer, hitting only .183 from June through August, though he had a strong September (.286 AVG/.412 OBP/.536 SLG) as the Mets pushed the Atlanta Braves for the NL (L)East title. Reportedly he's taken a new approach to his training this offseason, involving kick-boxing. It should help him if he's looking for a rematch with Nolan Ryan, and it probably couldn't hurt if the Sox ever recall Izzy Alcantara. But the bottom line is that hif he's reasonably healthy, he should be as good or better than Brosius, and he buys (albeit at a steep price) some time for Drew Henson to develop.

On the other side of the coin... I spent a lot of time during the postseason ragging on Justice, who looked awful for most of the year, and especially bad in the World Series. In 2001, he lived up to his injury-prone nature, and had a career-worst season. But that doesn't detract from what he did in 2000, coming over to the Yanks in a trade from the Indians and igniting the Yankee offense with 20 HR and 60 RBI in a half-season. Those 87-win Yanks may well have missed the playoffs without him, and his home run in Game 6 of the AL Championship Series, off of the Mariners' Arthur Rhodes, goes down as one of the biggest of the Torre Era (it was still giving me shivers when they played it during pre-games and rain delays at Yankee Stadium in the fall).

Justice may well help some team in 2002, but there's a good chance it won't be the Mets. One of the reasons Phillips traded for Justice is that unlike Ventura, he doesn't have any no-trade restrictions in his contract. As he's probably not capable of a 140-game season in the outfield, he'll likely wind up back in the American League. But even if the Mets did keep him, he would help a sad outfield whose top hitter was Tsuyoshi Shinjo (.268, 10 HR, 56 RBI, .320 OBP, .405 SLG). Not exactly amazin'.

As for the rest of the Yanks latest offensive facelift (since I've blown my piece on the rotation off for at least another day), wild reports are emanating from ESPN. Bob Klapisch reports that the Yanks are growing disturbed about Jason Giambi's hesitancy to close the deal. Giambi was reportedly huddling with his family in Las Vegas this weekend to mull his options--or to wait for another suitor (or a credible counteroffer from the A's) to emerge. Meanwhile, over on Planet Gammons, Ol' Pete seems to have gone off of his medication, and not just the kind that prevents him from those run-on sentences (see the opening paragraph of this column). Gammons concocts a scenario whereby both Gary Sheffield and Barry Bonds end up in pinstripes. Somebody get this guy a doctor. On a much more rational note, the New York Times suggests that the Yanks are pursuing Giants outfielder John Vander Wal, a 36-year old lefty who hit .270 with 14 HR and 70 RBI (.364 OBP/.442 SLG). I'll let you guess which Giant my money is on for donning the stripes.

--posted by Jay at 12:13 AM LINK