Remaking the Yankees, Part IV: Third Base

Scott Brosius surprised the baseball world by announcing his retirement last week. Thirty-five years old and facing free agency, but with four straight trips to the World Series to show for his time in the Bronx, Brosius concluded he’d done it all and decided to hang ‘em up. All of this despite the fact that he’d posted his best season in three years and had a reasonable shot at either a one-year deal with the Yankees or a longer-term contract elsewhere, possibly with the Seattle Mariners. You could do worse. But more power to Brosius for choosing to spend time with his family. He’ll certainly be missed in the place where he showed the best defense since Graig Nettles and had his share of big hits.

Feel-good stories aside, the Yankees now find themselves between hops at the hot corner. Former University of Michigan quarterback and potential Heisman Trophy winner Drew Henson is clearly The Future. The trouble is, the Yanks have no Present in place.

The Yankees drafted Henson in 1998, signing him for a $2 million bonus. In need of immediate pitching help, they traded him to the Cincinnati Reds in the Denny Neagle deal last July. But after Henson flexed the muscle of his NFL leverage (as in, pay me or I’ll continue to play football), the impoverished Reds sent him back to the Yanks (along with outfield bust Michael Coleman) in March for 19-year old prospect Wily Mo Pena.

Henson certainly has physical tools–he’s 6’5″, 222 lbs with an outstanding arm. And he’s certainly got a commitment from the Yankees to make him their third baseman sooner or later–he signed a six-year, $17 million deal upon being reacquired. But he doesn’t have much experience in professional baseball; last year was his first full season devoted to the sport. Hit by a pitch, he broke a bone in his hand in April, and struggled once he returned in June. In 303 at bats, mostly with AAA Columbus, he hit .228 with 12 HR and 43 RBI. His peripheral numbers are not pretty–.265 OPB, .370 SLG, and only 13 walks to go with 99 strikeouts. He also found time to make 20 errors in the field.

Henson did play well in the Arizona Fall League, hitting .314 AVG/.407 OBP/.570 SLG, with 6 HR and 33 RBI–good enough for Peter Gammons to slobber over, at least. But at last report, the likes of Pedro Martinez, Mark Mulder, and Freddy Garcia were nowhere to be found in Arizona. There’s a good reason they don’t print AFL stats on the back of a baseball card.

The Yanks’ organizational consensus seems to be that Henson will start the season at AAA, but may be in the Bronx by midsummer, though Joe Torre has left the door open for Henson to win the job in spring training. I think this is wildly optimistic (look at that K/W ratio, if nothing else). Given that the Yanks haven’t rushed any of their prospects along in quite awhile, it would be surprising if they start with Henson.

So that leaves a sizable gap at third base. The free agent market for third basemen is a thin one. The only name that has been linked with the Yankees is that of Randy Velarde, acquired by the Yanks from Texas just before the postseason roster deadline. The 39-year-old Velarde suffered through hamstring problems last season, and didn’t hit much after being acquired. His 200-hit season of just two years ago is a distant memory. He’s not a great third baseman (career .934 fielding percentage); he’s only played 14 games there in the past four seasons. Here he is, along with the rest of the class:

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

David Bell      29   .303/.415/.126           .309/.396/.122  

Vinny Castilla  34   .308/.467/.144           .331/.504/.167 

Craig Paquette  33   .326/.465/.153           .281/.426/.120 

Ed Sprague      34   .374/.436/.163 (94 AB)   .318/.419/.133 

Randy Velarde   39   .356/.424/.151           .353/.410/.145 

Castilla’s numbers have been vastly inflated by seven years in Colorado. But interestingly enough, he struggled last season in the second-best hitter’s park in the free world, Enron Field, performing much better away from Enron (.337/.498/.168) than at home (.279/.435/.121).

By the end of last season, the Yanks were deep with stop-gap solutions at third. Hell, Joe Torre’s postseason bench was geared toward the possiblity of a third baseman or two getting mauled by man-eating tigers or washed away in a flood every three innings. No less than four bench players on the postseason roster–Velarde, Luis Sojo, Enrique Wilson, and Clay Bellinger–saw time there in 2001. Sojo has retired to await his bobble-headed coronation and the first annual Futility Infielder of the Year Award. This leaves:

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

Enrique Wilson   26   .238/.281/.067         .305/.364/.111 

Clay Bellinger   33   .207/.383/.079         .258/.365/.094

I have never understood the infatuation with Wilson, on the part of either the Yankees or any other organization. He’s only 25, and he’s reportedly got “soft hands.” But he can’t hit a lick, and he looks like a young acolyte of the Luis Sojo bodybuilding program. After a miserable half-season in Pittsburgh, he did “improve” with semi-regular playing time in pinstripes (.283/.343/.097). He’s reportedly the leading contender to open the season at third. Greaaaaat.

Bellinger is as useful a 25th man as there is in baseball. Pinch-running, playing every position except catcher (but hustling out of the dugout to warm up pitchers after the catcher makes the last out), telling the boys they’re not out of it yet, and generally keeping the bench planks from warping, he’s a valuable guy to have around. Defensively, he played a great third base for a couple weeks when Scott Brosius broke his hand in August, and even hit a few homers in that span. But no one is going to pencil his name in the Opening Day lineup; it’s just that way when you buy property below the Mendoza Line.

Should the Yanks be forced to go with a Giambi-free Plan B, they may decide to trade for a bigger bat at third. The Mets’ Robin Ventura, 34 and coming off of his second straight sub-par season (.359/.419/.150), is up for grabs, but the Yanks, who explored the possibility of acquiring him before they got Velarde last summer, want the Mets to take on most of his $8 million salary. As Ventura’s salary continues to hamper Mets GM Steve Phillips’ free-agent options, he may become available. The New York Post reported Wednesday that a Ventura-for-David Justice deal has been discussed, but 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.

If the Yanks really decided to make a splash, they could trade for the Phillies’ Scott Rolen. Rolen, who will be free of blowhards Larry Bowa and Dallas Green by the end of 2002 if not sooner, is a fine young player entering his prime, with three Gold Gloves already to his name. In a slightly down season, he still hit .289 with 25 HR and 107 RBI (.378/498/.188). He would require significant talent in exchange (Johnson plus pitching, at least), and then a hefty long-term contract to make it worthwhile. But with Henson already slated to get paid and with significantly less value to any team besides the Yankees (because they fear he could resume his football career), it ain’t gonna happen.

The bottom line is that the Yanks expectations (and budget) for third base are pretty low right now. An Enrique Wilson/Clay Bellinger tandem may be a bit too ramshackle to get by with–they pretty much define the concept of “replacement level” ballplayers. Though I realize that more pressing matters have required the attention of Brian Cashman and company, I’m surprised the Yanks haven’t pursued Velarde more vigorously. He may be old and less than ideal, but unlike the two above, he is a proven major-league hitter, and would make an ideal #2 hitter behind Derek Jeter, certainly better than Alfonso Soriano at this stage.

Given that Velarde missed the Yanks’ championship run (leaving after ’95 and returning last season), it’s a safe bet he’d re-up for another shot at a ring if given the option, even if it’s just to keep Henson’s seat warm.

Torre’s projections aside, I don’t think we’ve heard the last word on the subject. Expect the Yankees to do SOMETHING to bolster the situation, but don’t expect too many barehanded plays on grounders this summer. Scott Brosius is taking those all back to Oregon. Sigh…

Recapping it all… if you haven’t read the first three parts of this series, they are conveniently located below. Here is a summary of my cumulative proposals for the Yankees’ offensive remake, in the form of a batting order. This does not assume rampant, unchecked spending (“…and we’ll sign Boone, and we’ll trade for Rolen and sign him…”) or the kind of pipe dreams proffered by the likes of the New York Post. I think it’s very realistic, given the statements that are coming out of the Yankees’ brass and my own analysis:

1 Jeter SS

2 Velarde 3B

3 Giambi 1B

4 Williams CF

5 Alou RF or Floyd LF

6 Posada C

7 Justice DH

8 Spencer/Johnson RF or LF (platoon)

9 Soriano 2B

I think the Yanks, if they are going to keep Johnson, are best served by trying to find out if he can play the outfield. If Shane Spencer can make himself into a passable outfielder, then Johnson ought to be able to. Spencer kills lefties, and could pick up the defensive scraps when necessary; otherwise the Yanks ought to see if Johnson can hit big league pitching, particularly righties.

The one negative about this lineup is defense. Though Brosius had a lousy year with the glove, Velarde would be hard-pressed to upgrade the position significantly. Alou or Floyd won’t challenge for a Gold Glove, and neither will Giambi, especially when compared to Tino Martinez’s stellar defense. Spencer/Johnson could be an adventure, but so was Chuck Knoblauch, and we all lived through that. But this lineup is a significant step up offensively, with major improvements at 1B, one corner outfield slot, and DH likely. It ought to be enough to put the Yanks back among the top offenses in the league. At the price, it had better.

I’ll be checking out the Yankees’ pitching options this weekend…

Remaking the Yankees, Part III: Corner Outfielders

Corner outfielders, along with first basemen and designated hitters, are supposed to be the staples of a team’s offense–the big hitters, the guys who put runs on the board. One of the Yanks’ biggest problems last year was the poor production from their left- and rightfielders and designated hitters. Looking at their production using Baseball Prospectus’s Equivalent Runs (as I did in Part I of this article), specifically Runs Above Position, the Yanks didn’t have a single corner outfielder who was above average (I should take the time to point out here that the average is for the 30 teams, not a “league average” as I said in Part I). Rightfielder Paul O’Neill, since retired, was 2.4 runs below, Chuck Knoblauch was 15.7 runs below, David Justice (who spent more time at DH) was 9.6 below, and Shane Spencer was 7.7 below.

It’s interesting that in both left- and rightfield, the bulk of the offensive talent is in the National League, and by a wide margin. The top six NL LFs (Barry Bonds, Luis Gonzalez, Lance Berkman, Gary Sheffield, Brian Giles, and Cliff Floyd ) all outpaced their AL counterparts, and by a wide margin–Bonds was 126.5 runs above average (having the best offensive season ever by most measures), Gonzalez 101.3, with the other four closely bunched between 67.5 (Giles) and 76.6 (Berkman). Mark McLemore was the top AL LF at 39.6, with the likes of Frank Catalanotto, Shannon Stewart, Bobby Higginson, Stan Javier, and Marty Cordova–not exactly staples of anybody’s MVP ballot–behind him. Over in RF, Sammy Sosa (77.1), Larry Walker (41.0), Shawn Green (35.9), and J.D. Drew (30.1) were the top four, with Juan Gonzalez leading the AL at 28.3.

I’m not sure why this productivity imbalance exists–my initial hunch was the presence of the designated hitter, but looking at that list, only Manny Ramirez would rank in that class if considered as an OF. The AL does have its share of leadoff hitters who saw time in 2001 at corner spots. Ichiro, Shannon Stewart, Catalanotto, and Knoblauch all played the bulk of their games in left or right, and centerfielders Roger Cedeno and Johnny Damon saw significant time there as well.

Having looked at the leadoff options available on the market in Part II of this series, my conclusion was that it doesn’t make sense for the Yanks to sign a leadoff type like Kenny Lofton or Roger Cedeno. Neither is an especially productive hitter for a leadoff, and both have significant drawbacks. Better the Yanks should go after a more traditionally productive hitter to fill either left- or rightfield, and then fill the other spot internally.

There are several players of that variety, both on the free agent market (listed below in the first cluster) and as trade possibilities (the second cluster):

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

Moises Alou      35    .396/.554/.219         .372/.524/.194       38.2

Barry Bonds      37    .515/.863/.444         .419/.585/.245      145.0

Marty Cordova    32    .348/.506/.176         .346/.451/.156       19.6

Johnny Damon     28    .324/.363/.118         .346/.425/.147        8.9

Juan Gonzalez    32    .370/.590/.218         .345/.568/.196       49.3

Reggie Sanders   34    .337/.549/.185         .350/.484/.169       19.6



Cliff Floyd      29    .390/.578/.225         .355/.486/.173       55.7

Raul Mondesi     31    .342/.453/.155         .335/.499/.167       18.8

Gary Sheffield   33    .417/.583/.243         .399/.521/.208       63.2

Dmitri Young     28    .350/.481/.168         .351/.468/.164       18.6

Some of these players don’t have an ice cube’s chance in hell of signing with the Yanks, especially if they sign Jason Giambi. Barry Bonds and Juan Gonzalez both fit into that category. I included Johnny Damon for several reasons. Though I didn’t deal with him much in the leadoff article since the Yanks haven’t shown much interest in him, he is young enough and has shown enough talent over the course of that young career to be a significant step up from the other three. But I also wanted to show where this “best of available class” player fits in, productivity-wise, compared to some of the heavier hitters.

I included (Equivalent) Runs Above Replacement Position in this chart, rather than Runs Above Position because I felt it works better for cross-postion comparisons. Notice that if we rank them by RARP, it correlates almost exactly with this year’s SL*OB figures for these players.

None of these players is without his question marks:

• Bonds, though he won’t sign with the Yanks, is the oldest of the bunch, making a long-term contract something of a risk. He is, as we’ve seen, not exactly free from controversy with regards to his teammates. But there’s no getting around what a great hitter he is.

• Sheffield is a devastating hitter, but historically a disruptive presence just about anywhere he goes. He would likely cost the most when salary and the amount of talent needed in exchange are considered.

• Gonzalez is a fine hitter who has had back problems which have scared teams away. He rejected a trade to the Yanks in 2000, and though he now says he’d be willing to play in New York, that may be just a bargaining ploy. He answered some of the questions about his health with a strong season in Cleveland last year.

• Alou is getting on in years, and has had his share of health problems. He has downplayed the possibility of coming to New York in the past, but may be warming to the idea. He’s being sought by several teams, including the Red Sox and the Mets.

• Floyd spends a lot of time on the DL; he’s averaged only 111 games a year over the past five seasons, and only 135 over the past two, thanks to knee and back problems. He’s a few years younger than the other heavy hitters here, which does make him more desirable. But the Florida Marlins’ situation, with no General Manager in place and contraction still a remote possibility, may delay his being moved.

• Cordova, a former Rookie of the Year, had his best season since 1996 and re-emerged as a solid player. Whether he can maintain that performance is open to debate; he tailed off dramatically after the All-Star break (.379 OBP/.535 SLG/.203 SL*OB before, .316/.474/.150 after).

• Sanders may as well be nicknamed “Sick-Note”; he’s averaged 124 games a year over the past four seasons, and never topped 138 games.

• Mondesi is coming off a disappointing season, and it’s beginning to look as if he may never fulfill his potential; he’s still never driven in 100 runs in a season, and his power has fallen off despite moving to a more favorable park. His defense, including one of the game’s best arms, does add something to his value, though whether he’s worth his $10 million is open to debate.

• Young, a switch-hitter who hits both righties and lefties well, doesn’t have as much power as one would like, but may add some as he matures. He’s had trouble staying in shape in the past. Young is eligible for arbitration, but would probably be cheaper than most of the others listed here (with the possible exception of Cordova).

• Damon was almost a total flop in Oakland after a .382/.495/.189 season in Kansas City the year before. He had a terrible first half (.301/.357/.107) and a so-so second (.351/.372/.131), and it’s been posited that he couldn’t handle the pressure of playing in New York. He does still have a very good upside, however.

Taking all of this in and considering the salary ramificiations of a potential Jason Giambi signing, Alou, Mondesi, Floyd, Cordova, and Young appear to be the best candidates here. All have their positives: Alou is the best hitter of the bunch; Mondesi would give them a world-class arm in right field, and may find rejuvenation in a change of scenery; Cordova may come relatively cheap; Floyd (a lefty) and Young (a switch-hitter) would be the best fits for Yankee Stadium, and both are fairly young and cheap (Floyd is in the final year of a 4-year, $19 million contract; Young is arbitration eligible after making $3.5 million in 2001).

Floyd, Young, and Mondesi would all require a significant surrender of talent–Mondesi possibly a premium because the Blue Jays are in the Yanks’ division. Young has long been the subject of trade rumors, but Reds GM Jim Bowden may be asking too much for him. Bowden has had his eye on the prospective starters in the Mariners’ organization in exchange for Young for quite awhile, and the Yanks simply can’t compete with that without affecting their own long-term plans.

Supposing the Yanks manage to trade for Floyd or sign Alou, it’s likely they’ll stick with Shane Spencer and David Justice in the other outfield slot and at DH. Justice had a miserable 2001 season (.333/.430/.143, compared to career marks of .378/.507/.192). He had off-season hernia surgery and battled both groin and domestic problems all year. While the Yanks might like to trade him, he didn’t exactly showcase himself in the postseason. Given an offseason to recuperate, he may still have productive days ahead of him–the Yanks would certainly accept a year in line with his normal level of performance. Spencer was slightly below his own meager standards (.315/.428/.135, compared to a career .324/.468/.152), but he heated up as the year wore on (.339/.439/.149 after the break). He’s valuable as a platoon player (he kills lefties), and his defense has come a long way, but if he’s ever going to have a Bubba Trammell-like breakout season, this may be his one shot.

Other internal options exist for the Yanks. Nick Johnson, who until the Yanks started their pursuit of Jason Giambi was slated as the first baseman of the future, may see a good chunk of at bats at DH, and may even get a shot at playing the outfield in spring training (if he’s not traded, that is). Another rookie who may figure into the Yanks’ plans is Juan Rivera. The skinny 23-year old Rivera hit .322 with 28 HRs in a season split between AA Norwich and AAA Columbus (.360/.557/.201), and early reports are that he may be in the Bronx by midseason.

On a different tack, Alfonso Soriano may be shifted to left field (where he was slated to begin the 2001 season before the Knoblauch experiment) if the Yanks switch gears and land another second baseman. They’ve expressed interest in Brett Boone and Robbie Alomar, both of whom would cost as much as the high-end corner outfielders discussed above. This is probably a longshot right now.

It’s likely the Yanks will dredge up a free-agent or two signed to a minor-league contract to compete for some at bats at DH (Glenallen Hill, please have your agent call Brian Cashman if you are healthy). Last year the Yanks were positively wretched there, batting only .218 (.320/.397/.127). Freely-available talent that can fill this slot abounds; the Yanks just need to bring in some warm bodies to find one or two able ones who fit the bill.

Boiling it all down… my guess is that the Yanks will go after Floyd unless the Marlins’ situation causes too much delay or they can get Alou at terms favorable to them. They will then mix and match with Spencer, Justice, Johnson and eventually Rivera to fill the other two slots. But no matter what they do, there’s no question help is on the way, and while it will probably cost some money and some minor-league talent, they won’t have to break the bank to get some.

In Part IV of this series, I’ll examine the Yanks third-base situation.

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.

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.

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.

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. Voilà, 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…

Giving Thanks

Apologies to my loyal readers for the sporadic nature of my postings since the baseball season ended. Chalk it up to a combination of factors, including the need to take a breather after the hectic postseason, the lack of baseball news except for the really big stuff about contraction, and my desire to present some longer pieces both here and elsewhere on the site. Rest assured that you will have plenty of the Futility Infielder to get you through the winter months.

I am currently working on a lengthy review of The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. While it would have been easy to dash off a quick piece about how great this 1000-page opus is, I decided it deserves both closer scrutiny and more background than my normal mode allows. I also thouht it would be interesting to integrate some of the criticisms voiced by others into my review. Anyway, I’d hoped to have it done over this past weekend, but it just keeps on growing and growing. It should be up sometime over the holiday weekend.

I am also working on an examination of the Yankees’ options this offseason. The free-agent signing period begins on Tuesday, November 20. But with the ugly specter of contraction and the legal morass which (fortunately) will engulf it, it’s likely that the free-agent signings will be sporadic until a clear direction on the Big C emerges. Then again, a 6-year, $100 million contract is a 6-year, $100 million contract, and by the time I get around to this, the Yanks may already have landed Jason Giambi, around whom their entire offseason plans are apparently built.

Also on tap are several new entries to my Wall of Fame, and reports of Cal Ripken’s final game and Game 3 of the World Series–both of which were bowled over by my own desire to stay reasonably current with the playoffs, and the physical limitations of the 24-hour day.

The end of a baseball season brings the opportunity for reflection, and so does the impending Thanksgiving holiday. Given all that I have seen in these past two months in New York City, I would be remiss if I didn’t stop at this time to count my own blessings. In that spirit, I present to you a partial list of the things that I am thankful for:

• I am thankful that I and all of my loved ones were only peripherally affected by the attacks on September 11, that we lost no one near and dear to us. I am thankful for the great group of friends with whom I shared that day and its aftermath; we bonded together and supported each other through some frightening times, and we’ve grown closer because of it. I am thankful for the love and concern that far-off friends and relatives have shown in checking up on me.

• I am thankful for the firefighters, policemen, and emergency services workers who gave their lives trying to assist others on that dreadful day. They have reminded us the true meaning of the word “hero” and in doing so have tempered our normally bombastic modes of discourse, particularly with regards to sports and entertainment.

• I am thankful for the people of New York who pulled together in this crisis, who put on their bravest faces to show the rest of the world that we have been wounded but not defeated. It is a unique privelege to live in this city. Reversing a long-running trend, I’m even thankful for Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

• I am thankful not only to have a job in these uncertain times, but to have a job that I enjoy immensely on its good days. In particular, I am thankful for the opportunity to art-direct the World Almanac for Kids 2002, the most fulfilling project I’ve ever been a part of.

• I am thankful that my close friends and family encouraged me, at the outset of this season, to channel my energy into creating a website devoted to my passion for baseball. It has been a most rewarding experience and it’s become a staple of my life. I am thankful for the like-minded individuals I’ve met online through this, and the connection I’ve felt to those who have read my pages and offered encouragement or criticism.

• I am thankful for my girlfriend, Andra, who has given me the space within our relationship to spend countless hours in the service of building this site, and who trekked to no fewer than five different ballparks spread over three states this past season in my company. Needless to say, I’m thankful for a lot of other things about our relationship that I won’t go into here. But suffice it to say that she’s one of a kind.

• I am thankful for the nearly 31 years of life I shared with my grandfather, Bernard Jaffe. Pop passed away the day after last Thanksgiving. He, along with my father, nurtured my enthusiasm for baseball from a very young age by spending countless hours with me and my brother at the diamond, and regaling us with his stories of baseball in his day. A good enough player that he was once offered a professional contract, he was also an ardent fan who got to witness titans such as Ruth and Gehrig. At times I’ve found myself wishing he’d kept a memoir of the players and the games he saw. They would have provided me more insight into the man, as well as those times, and his keen eye and dry wit would have been preserved for posterity. As I record my own thoughts and descriptions, it is with the hope that my future grandchildren might someday take an interest in the Mendoza Line, Tim Raines, or the 1998 Yankees.

• I am thankful for a father who always found time to play catch with his sons, a mother who never remotely considered throwing away my baseball cards, and a brother who suffered my anal-retentive need to keep box scores and statistics for the board games we played while growing up. They have provided me with more love than I could have ever wished for.

• I am thankful for Bill James, whose books shed amazing new light on the game of baseball and provided me not only with countless hours of entertaining reading, but with tools that helped me to develop my own critical faculties. Math is never boring when you’ve got baseball statistics.

• I am thankful for Jim Bouton’s Ball Four and Roger Angell’s The Summer Game, two dog-eared paperbacks my grandfather salvaged from flea markets which I’ve probably read a dozen times combined. Bouton’s autobiography, which I read in all of its four-letter-worded glory at the tender age of nine, introduced a self-awareness which shaped my powers of observation and eventually my writing. Re-reading his book over the years has yielded countless laughs and life lessons. Angell’s book, and its succeeding volumes, set an example for observational skill that I still strive to emulate when I write about the game.

• I am thankful for the 1996-2001 New York Yankees, who have provided me the opportunity to witness first-hand the best baseball team I’ve ever seen. Not so much because they dominated the timespan, or because they thrillingly snatched victory from the jaws of defeat so many times, but because the cast of characters has rewarded the close attention I’ve paid with countless unforgettable moments both great and small.

• I am thankful for the opportunity to have seen Cal Ripken, Mark McGwire, Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, Tim Raines, Paul O’Neill, Eric Davis, Jay Buhner, Tony Fernandez, Brett Saberhagen, and even Luis Sojo play so many times. With the exception of Henderson and Raines, all of these players have recently retired–and those two may well do so; each of them leaves behind their own special mark on my baseball consciousness.

• I am thankful for the strange and wonderful things I see every season I watch baseball, from Derek Jeter rubbing Don Zimmer’s misshapen bald head for good luck to Pittsburgh manager Lloyd McClendenon stealing first base in an argument, from Luis Sojo winning another game with an unlikely hit to Mike Mussina pitching to within one strike of a perfect game, from Mark McGwire’s biceps to Rich Garces’s gut, from Tim Raines taking the field with his son to Rickey Henderson tallying another record.

• I am thankful for pitching changes, batters stepping out of the box to re-velcro their gloves, ten-pitch at-bats, ten-run rallies, the multi-tiered playoff system, the Grapefruit League and the Hot Stove League, for prolonging the baseball season in the face of those dark days when we have no games to occupy us.

• I am thankful for the knowledge that no matter how hard Bud Selig and the powers that be try to screw things up with their contraction plans, sooner or later the time will come for pitchers and catchers to report to spring training.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Requiem for a Warrior

On the subject of retirements, the Yankees had one of their own who departed with typical understatement. With the end of the World Series, Paul O’Neill removed the pinstripes for the final time.

O’Neill, unlike the more famous departures of recent weeks, won’t gain admission to Cooperstown without a ticket. But he belongs in the pantheon of great Yankees. The right fielder, as Bill James noted, was a worthy inheritor to the position held by Babe Ruth, Tommy Henrich, Hank Bauer, Roger Maris, Reggie Jackson, and Dave Winfield. Some pretty fair company, that list.

Unless you’re a Yankee fan, it’s simply impossible to understand how much O’Neill has meant to this team. The 1992 trade which brought O’Neill over from the Cinncinati Reds for Roberto Kelly turned out to be one of the best trades of the decade, and it was every bit as important to the reestablishment of the Yankee dynasty as the flourishing homegrown talent of Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter, and Mariano Rivera. O’Neill’s perfectionism, intensity, and refusal to surrender even a single at-bat set the tone for the Yankee championship run. Fighting for every pitch, taking the extra base, playing through pain, and seemingly appearing out of nowhere to haul in yet another dangerous fly ball, he was a warrior who played the game the way it was meant to be played.

I’ve never been much for warriors, myself–not since New York sportswriters hung that tag around Patrick Ewing’s neck to conflate his ugly, doomed style of play as valiant and warrior-like. Generally I prefer the cut-ups, the guys who bring a little levity to what is, after all, a game. But it takes all types to win a championship, and as warriors go, O’Neill was a good one to have on your side.

Famous for his helmet-throwing, water-cooler-maiming temper tantrums, O’Neill was routinely cited as the most hated Yankee by opposing fans. This was nothing but pure jealousy–the difference between O’Neill’s tantrums and those of a low-class boob like Carl Everett was that O’Neill’s were always directed at his own perceived failures, not at his teammates or his manager.

Though I admired O’Neill from the time I began rooting for New York, I never considered him to be anywhere near my favorite Yankee. But looking back at this great championship run–five trips to the World Series, and four championships in six years–it strikes me that the signature moments of the run, the vivid snapshots which fill my memory, invariably feature O’Neill in a starring role. So I present to you something of a slide show, complete with a bit of multimedia aid:

• October 24, 1996: O’Neill’s thrilling catch of Luis Polonia’s fly ball ends Game 5 of the 1996 World Series, preserving a 1-0 victory and allowing the Yanks to take a 3-2 lead in the series.

• October 26, 1996: O’Neill tumbles atop the celebration pile after the Yanks won Game 6 to take the series.

• October 6, 1997: O’Neill leads off the top of the ninth inning in Game 5 of the AL Divisional Series against the Cleveland Indians. Down by a run, O’Neill doubles, hustling into second with a head-first slide. His pinch-runner doesn’t score, and the Yanks lose the game and the series.

The image of O’Neill defiantly clutching second, unwilling to surrender, was fresh in my mind when I passed a chalkboard in the window of an East Village bar a couple nights later. The board read: “Only 107 Days Until Pitchers and Catchers. Go Yankees!” Those two images, co-mingled–the refusal to surrender and the desire to get on with Not Surrendering as soon as possible–were enough to carry me through the winter in anticipation of a return to glory. It would appear as if several other Yankees felt that way as well…

• October 10, 1998: The Yanks are down 2-1 in the ALCS against the Cleveland Indians. In the most important game of the season, O’Neill clubs a first-inning homer off of Dwight Gooden and scores another run in the fourth, and the Yanks draw even in the series behind seven shutout innings by Orlando Hernandez, winning 4-0.

• October 18, 1998: O’Neill makes a 2-out, 2-on grab as he crashes into the wall in the first inning of Game 2 of the 1998 World Series against the San Diego Padres–the first World Series game I ever attended. The Yanks score three in the bottom of the first, three more in the second, and cruise to a 9-3 victory, a 2-0 series lead, and an eventual sweep.

• June 1, 1999: Two pitches after Derek Jeter is plunked in retaliation for Jason Grimsley hitting the Indians’ Wil (Have You Stopped Beating Your Wife) Cordero, O’Neill blasts an emphatic 2-run homer and the Yanks roll to victory.

• October 27, 1999: A tearful O’Neill is consoled by Joe Torre and his teammates following the final out in Game 4 of the 1999 World Series. O’Neill’s father had passed away that morning, and the Yanks, out of respect, celebrate their World Championship in subdued fashion.

• October 26, 2000: O’Neill fights Mets closer Armando Benitez through an epic 10-pitch at bat with one out in the bottom of the ninth and the Yanks trailing by a run. The gimpy O’Neill, who hasn’t swung the bat well in weeks, draws a walk and scores the game-tying run. The Yanks win in 13 innings. The at-bat rejuvenates O’Neill, who goes on to hit .474 for the series as the Yanks win.

• April 22, 2001: In the tenth inning of a game against the Boston Red Sox, trailing by a run O’Neill slams his bat to the ground in disgust as he hits what he believes is a routine fly ball to right field. The fly ball clears the wall, tying the game, which the Yanks win in the next inning on a David Justice homer.

• October 14, 2001: O’Neill grounds out in the fifth inning of Game 4 of the AL Divisional Series against the A’s. The cameras spend the rest of the inning cutting to shots of him in the dugout, cursing a blue streak at himself. The Yanks are up 7-2 at the time, and go on to win the game and the series.

• November 1, 2001: Fifty-six thousand fans chant “Paul O’Neill” in unison for the entire top half of the ninth inning in Game 5 of this year’s World Series–O’Neill’s last game at Yankee Stadium. O’Neill is visibly moved to tears, and after the game announces what every Yankees fan has known all along: he will retire at the end of the series.

• November 4, 2001: Two outs away from their fourth straight World Championship, the Yanks allow two runs in the bottom of the ninth inning and lose the series to the Arizona Diamondbacks. Sad but without remorse, O’Neill’s words in the moments after the loss exhibit the true class of the man, and the pride he–and Yankees fans everywhere–feel for the team: “We were world champions with three outs to go. And we had the best reliever in the history of the postseason on the mound. When you get beat under those circumstances, sure, you’re disappointed but I’m also just happy to walk into this clubhouse with this group of guys. It’s awesome.”

All in all, a set of highlights even the most decorated Hall of Famer would be hard-pressed to match.

As I look back, I’m saddened that I’ll never hear in the same context the signature song snippets which announced O’Neill’s at-bats in Yankee Stadium–classic rock staples which announced his arrival at the plate, as predictable as a thrown helmet: “We’re An American Band,” “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” even (God forbid) “Crumblin’ Down.” When Yankee fans heard the percolating synthesizer riffs to “Baba O’Reilly,” which preceded his third at-bat of the game, or the monster fuzzed-out organ riff from “Spirit in the Sky,” which just as surely announced his fourth, we salivated like Pavlov’s dogs because we knew one thing: Paul O’Neill is at the plate and this rally is officially ON.

With a heavy heart, I realize that particular sensation is now a thing of the past. To those opposing fans who never understood, who hated O’Neill for his temper and his no-quarter-given approach to the game, I wish you as many amazing memories from your rightfielder, or any other star, for that matter–good luck, my friends.

Paul O’Neill may never make the Hall of Fame, not with “only” 2105 hits and 281 homers. But it’s a pretty good bet his number will one day adorn the Yankee Stadium left-field wall among the likes of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Berra, Ford, Munson, and Jackson. Future generations of fans will point to the number 21 and ask who it stood for. “That was Paul O’Neill,” we’ll someday tell our children, “a warrior who wore the pinstripes as well as any Yankee who ever lived.”

Big Mac Ain’t Comin’ Back

‘Tis the season for departures. With Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken having already given up the baseball ghost in weeks past, Mark McGwire did the same, announcing his retirement on Sunday night. McGwire had struggled with injuries in each of the past two years, combining to play in only 186 games. By the end he was a grim shadow of his former self, lunging at fastballs and missing them by what seemed like minutes.

He hit only .187 this year, but as .187 hitters go, this was a helluva season–29 HRs and an OPS of 808–22 points lower than Tino Martinez, to be exact. During those final 186 games he still managed to hit 61 HRs. With a little bit of healing, the man could have stuck around another few years and perhaps padded his total of 583 HRs (already 5th all-time) past Willie Mays and trailing only two guys named George and Hank.

But McGwire’s play didn’t live up to his own high standards, and, citing physical and mental exhaustion, he walked away from a $30 million extension rather than play out the string. It was a class act, a way of giving back to the St. Louis Cardinals organization what they’d given him.

Barry Bonds has already surpassed McGwire’s 1998 home run total of 70, but that shouldn’t dim the magnitude of Big Mac’s accomplishment. Like a climber of Mount Everest, he spent years training for the summit, waiting for the optimum conditions–health, contract security (52 homers in only 130 games in 1996, 58 in a season split between Oakland and St. Louis in 1997)–before making the final ascent. And once he began that ascent, he paused in the footsteps of those who’d climbed before to remember some truly Herculean feats. Hack Wilson’s 56. Jimmie Foxx’s 58. Hank Greenberg’s 58. The Babe’s 59, the Babe’s 60. And finally, Roger Maris’s 61. McGwire’s public embrace of the Maris family did wonders to rekindle the star of a forgotten, misunderstood slugger who only wanted to be left alone to play the game he loved–a sentiment to which Big Mac, in the middle of a media circus, could truly relate.

The Home Run Chase of 1998 was a truly magical thing. Once McGwire passed 50, he began (with the aid of Sammy Sosa) to relax and enjoy his accomplishments and the joy they brought to the fans. Even thousands of miles removed from where McGwire was playing, fans cheered news of McGwire’s homers. I have scorecards lying around from my summer at Yankee Stadium noting his shots as the scoreboard announced them to thunderous applause.

Yes, McGwire grew cranky in his old age, and the revelations about his use of androstenedione brought a slight taint to his accomplishments. Still, the man bore the harsh spotlight pretty well under the circumstances, and he brought a lot of fun back to the game for millions of fans. He deserved a sendoff as heroically overblown as Cal Ripken’s, and it’s to his credit that he bowed out before Bud Selig made another godawfully awkward speech.

For his career, Mark McGwire hit 50 HRs per 162 games played. Nobody, not even Babe Ruth, has matched that, and it might be a cold day in hell before anybody will. So long, Big Mac. Going, going, gone…

Bad Rug Bud and the Contraction Faction

Amid the most exciting (and most watched) World Series in a decade, Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig spent most of his time undermining his product’s signature event. Selig announced that baseball’s owners had come up with a plan to eliminate two of its least financially viable teams, effective for the 2002 season. On Tuesday, the owners ratified Bud’s contraction plan, though they wouldn’t reveal for which two teams the bell has tolled. The Montreal Expos and the Minnesota Twins are the two leading candidates, with the two Flordia expansion teams, the Florida Marlins and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, also in danger. Under the plan, the rest of the teams would buy out the two teams–at a very generous price–and the players would be dispersed, probably via a reverse-order draft.

There’s an easy way to tell when Bud Selig is lying: his lips move. Bad Rug Bud has the negative charisma of either a flatulent leper or a used car salesman, which is what he was in his prior occupation before he became owner of the Milwaukee Brewers. He’s the man who killed the World Series seven years ago, and he’s poised to perpetrate the most harmful scam in Major League history. If he and his fellow owners succeed, they will have brought a bigger disgrace to baseball than the Black Sox scandal.

Contraction is a ham-fisted ploy by Bad Rug Bud & Co. to fire the opening shots in the latest showdown between the owners and the Major League Baseball Players Association. The Collective Bargaining Agreement expired at midnight on Wednesday, and the owners seem to feel that coming to the table having already voted to contract, they will be able to–at the very least–extract major concessions out of the players in exchange for “preserving” major league jobs via roster expansion.

When Bad Rug Bud says that the markets they’re contracting are those that aren’t economically viable, what he means is that the teams in those markets have been unable to extort money from taxpayers to build publicly financed stadiums. This is why Minnesota, a team with the richest owner in baseball, a team with a metro population of 3 million, is not “economically viable,” while Bud’s own Brewers, with a metro population of 1.7 million but a shiny new ballpark, are. Don’t think Bud himself doesn’t have something to gain by the disappearance of another team in his geographic region, either.

Let’s back up a bit. Selig and the other owners have long claimed that three-fourths (or more) of all major league teams are losing money. A so-called Blue Ribbon Panel–commissioned by MLB and including such luminaries as former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, former Senator George Mitchell, and political columnist George Will–reported last year that only three teams–the Yankees, Indians, and Rockies, showed an operating profit for the period of 1995-1999.

Can you say “bullshit,” boys and girls? This is an outright lie fueled by public inaccountability and accounting trickery. The finances of major league teams are not fully disclosed to the public; figures are leaked only for PR purposes, and often strongly at odds with outside economic experts’ estimates. In the case of the Blue-Ribbon Panel, the numbers came from the owners themselves, not from any independent audits.

Corporate ownership of teams allows profits in one area to be repositioned as debt through creative accounting. As MLB’s current president, Paul Beeston put it a couple years ago, “Under generally acccepted acocunting principles, I can turn a $4 million profit into a $2 million loss, and I can get every national accounting firm to agree with me.” Other completely legal accounting shenanigans take place as well. For example, media-owned teams play less-than-market value for the services of their partners. The Tribune Company owns both the Chicago Cubs and cable TV station WGN, which broadcasts the Cubs. WGN underpays the Cubs for broadcast rights “by $20 million or more” according to economist Andrew Zimbalist, the most prominent critic of MLB’s financial chicanery. This allows the Cubs to report lower revenues. Another example is the St. Louis Cardinals. When they were owned by the brewing company Anheuser-Busch, all of the concessions for beer sales at the ballpark (Busch Stadium) went to the parent company, not the ballclub.

Don’t get me wrong, baseball does have its share of financial ills. The revenue disparity between the richest and pooerest teams needs to be addressed. But contraction has very little chance of solving the financial woes. Between the high cost of buying out teams and the legal fees which will arise from the broken contracts, cheaper and more efficient solutions have to be found.

But contraction is far from a done deal just because the owners have voted. Suffice it to say that in the coming months, this is going to get capital-U Ugly, uglier than Bad Rug Bud himself. The owners are going to get hit on this from all sides:

1) For starters, there’s the small matter of the players’ union, the MLBPA, which trounces the owners every time the two sides go to battle. The owners seem to think, as one post on Baseball Primer put it, that “fans will blame the players for any lock-out/strike, no matter how transparent the owners’ positions are, and that will be enough to prevail.” The MLBPA, the strongest and most successful union in the history of organized labor, always hires the better lawyers and economists, cuts through the transparent bullshit perpetrated by the owners, and has the law firmly on their side. The owners always end up caving in because they’re making too much money to put up with a work stoppage for very long.

2) Members of Congress will undoubtedly threaten to repeal baseball’s anti-trust exemption. Baseball, unique to all sports, holds an anti-trust exemption which dates back to 1922; it basically allows baseball to be run as a monopoly. Because of it, franchise owners cannot sue for restraint of trade when the league won’t allow them to move into a more profitable market. Moving a struggling team like the Expos to the D.C. area would make much more sense than folding them, but MLB actually putting them there means that no future team would be able to blackmail their taxpayers into the Field of Sceams scenario (“Unless you build it, they will go”). Threats to end the anti-trust exemption rear their head whenever the owners get too far out of line, and they’re clearly out of line here. As soon as someone threatens a congressional hearing– which would include opening teams’ financial records to the public–to end the exemption, Bud’s boys are probably going to start losing interest. Note that no franchise shift has occurred since the last version of the Washington Senators left D.C. for Texas.

3) The municipalities of the doomed teams will be able to sue for breach of contract on stadium leases.

4) The public is fed up with the the transparent bullshit of baseball owners and wants to hear none of this battle between billionaires during a time of economic hardship and national crisis.

For what it’s worth, I do believe Bud and the other owners will lose this battle, and lose it badly. They’re about to be stomped like a narc at a biker rally. The MLBPA outsmarts the owners every single time. Congress doesn’t exactly have smarts on its side, but it does have serious power to make the owners lives miserable. When politiicans and lawyers are the good guys, you know this isn’t going to be pretty. But when even the half-witted brother of the current President can see what’s wrong with Bud’s plan, you know the owners are grasping at straws.

I could go on, but instead I’ve compiled a reading list of some eloquent and informative voices regarding contraction and the finances of major league baseball. This is a complicated issue, and it certainly helps to read several differrent sources to gain a handle on things. My recommendations:

• The Washington Post’s Thomas Boswell has written the best piece, for my money, on the topic. A longtime proponent of a D.C. franchise, Boswell points out the owners’ flawed logic when it comes to contraction vs. relocation.

• Baseball Prospectus’s Keith Law, writing for ESPN. See also BP’s Gary Huckaby and Joe Sheehan.

• ESPN’s Rob Neyer explores the possible consequences of expanding major league rosters, while Jim Caple calls this “ownership’s most despicable act in sports history.”

• An early criticism of the Blue Ribbon Panel, when its findings were made public last summer.

• Economist Andrew Zimbalist’s essay on competitive imbalance and revenue disparity is required reading to understand where Bud is coming from on the general financial state of the game. This PDF file requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to view.

• Forbes Magazine’s Annual Baseball Franchise Valuations. Note that the Mets are the second most valuable franchise by virtue of being located in the largest media market. If another team desired to relocate to that market and increase its revenues (while presumably decreasing those of the two existing New York teams), they would be prevented from doing so by the anti-trust exemption.

• A piece in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune explores what Bud Selig himself has to gain by the Twins’ contraction. Selig is a partial owner of the Milwaukee Brewers; his share of the team is in a blind trust while he’s commissioner. His daughter, Wendy Selig-Prieb operates the team. Milwaukee is a smaller market than Minnesota, in the same general geographic region, but the Brewers recently received a new park, so by Bud’s logic, the Brewers are more financially viable than the Twins. And they could certainly benefit with a larger market… say, one that included Minnesota, perhaps. You can see where this is going. Can you say “conflict of interest”?

*Sigh* It’s going to be a long winter…