Daily Archives: November 1, 2005

Trick

When the season ended part of me secretly wished that Joe Torre would tell George Steinbrenner to go to hell, and walk away from the Yankee job on his own terms. It didn’t happen and I’m happy that Torre is still around. He knows what he’s in for and he’s a big boy. But apparently the prospect of working for Larry Lucchino for another three years was more than Theo Epstein was ready to endure. In a suprising turn of events Epstein turned down the Red Sox three-year offer to remain as the general manager of the ballclub. In effect, Epstein is saying that he isn’t willing to put-up with his mentor Lucchino anymore (This article by Dan Shaughnessy has been cited as the straw that broke the camel’s back for Epstein.) Good for him. He walks away from Boston with the world as his oyster. He’ll forever be a hero in New England and now has his pick of job opportunities. I’m sure the Sox will find a decent GM, but for the moment there is no buffer between Sox fans and Boston’s version of the Boss, Larry Lucchino.

Treat

In a move that is bound to infuriate as many as it pleases, the New York Post reports that Derek Jeter will be awarded the Gold Glove for the second consecutive year later today. While I don’t think that Alex Rodriguez is the best fielding third baseman in the league yet, Jeter can give Rodriguez an assist for his new piece of hardware. It’s not a coincidence that Jeter’s fielding improved once Rodriguez arrived at the hot corner, allowing Jeter to cheat more up-the-middle. I don’t put too much stock in the Gold Gloves–heck, Bernie won four of them, and Yankee fans are well aware of Raffey’s 28-game winner in 1999–but I’m amused at how upset some fans will get over Jeter’s selection. Good for you, Jetes: keep giving ’em something to riff about. But as Cliff mentioned in the previous post, Jeter’s fielding has indeed improved. He might have won the award based on reputation but he wasn’t an awful choice either.

The Yankees’ organizational meetings commence today here in New York where it is unseasonably warm and gorgeous (whatta day to take a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge or hang out in Central Park). The first order of business for the Bombers will be to re-sign Godzilla Matsui. They’ve got two weeks to get it done. Something tells me that they will.

This should all be self explanitory. My goal is to post the outfielders and designated hitters tomorrow, the starting pitchers on Thursday and the relief pitchers on Friday. We’ll see how that goes. While reviewing the below, it might be helpful to keep in mind that the average American Leaguer hit .268/.328/.424 (AVG/OBP/SLG).

Catchers

AL Average: .257/.313/.393

Jorge Posada .262/.352/.430 (.272 EQA)

Jorge Posada turned 33 last August, a dangerous age for a catcher, but because he entered the 2005 season coming off two of his three best offensive seasons (2000 being the third), the prevailing thought was that, as an infielder converted to catching at the age of 20 and brought along slowly in the majors (he caught less than 40 games in the majors prior to his 26th birthday), Posada had more miles left on him than the typical 33-year-old catcher. Emboldened by this logic, the Yankees shipped Dioner Navarro, one of the top catching prospects in the game to Arizona in the Randy Johnson deal despite the fact that Navarro’s progress through the Yankees’ farm system synched up perfectly with what would otherwise have been Posada’s expected decline and the expiration of Jorge’s current contract.

Absent a future at the position (bounced to Los Angeles by the Diamondbacks, Navarro posted a .263 EQA as the Dodgers’ everyday catcher over final two months of the season), the Yankees watched as their 33-year-old backstop struggled at the plate for the bulk of the 2005 season. Despite hot streaks in May and September (.326 and .298 GPA’s respectively), Posada finished the year with his lowest marks across the board (AVG, OBP, SLG, EQA) since he assumed the full-time catching job in 2000.

That said, he was still comfortably above average for his position. In fact, he had the fourth best offensive season by a catcher in baseball, behind only his AL counterparts in Boston, Cleveland and Minnesota, and easily out-produced the best NL backstop (the Cubs’ Michael Barrett). Meanwhile, he had one of his best defensive seasons. In addition to allowing just eight passed balls (just one more than his career low, including his part-time 1997-99 seasons), and throwing out a hair more than 30 percent of attempting base stealers (a pinch better than his career rate), Jorge Posada finally learned to block the plate, a development I covered in detail in the bullet points at the end of this post.

Grade: B+

John Flaherty .165/.206/.252 (.149)

After catching Randy Johnson’s best start to that point in the season on June 11 in St. Louis, Flaherty was installed as the Big Diva’s personal receiver, proceeding to cost the Yankees a half a win over the course of the season due to lack of production at the plate. Flaherty’s collapse (believe it or not, his uncharacteristic slugging over the past two seasons–.461 between 2003 and 2004–was good for an extra win each year for the Yanks) would have made for the perfect opportunity for Navarro to step into the back-up job much like Posada did in 1997 after Jim Leyritz’s departure. Instead the Yankees’ third string catcher was Wil Nieves, who doesn’t do anything well at the plate and didn’t show up in the Bronx until September, when he took four hitless at-bats, all as an in-game replacement.

Grade: F

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