Daily Archives: January 27, 2009

John Updike, one America’s most celebrated authors of the post War period, died today.  He was 76.  Here is his lasting contribution to baseball literature, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu:

Whenever Williams appeared at the plate—pounding the dirt from his cleats, gouging a pit in the batter’s box with his left foot, wringing resin out of the bat handle with his vehement grip, switching the stick at the pitcher with an electric ferocity—it was like having a familiar Leonardo appear in a shuffle of Saturday Evening Post covers. This man, you realized—and here, perhaps, was the difference, greater than the difference in gifts—really intended to hit the ball. In the third inning, he hoisted a high fly to deep center. In the fifth, we thought he had it; he smacked the ball hard and high into the heart of his power zone, but the deep right field in Fenway and the heavy air and a casual east wind defeated him. The ball died. Al Pilarcik leaned his back against the big “380” painted on the right-field wall and caught it. On another day, in another park, it would have been gone. (After the game, Williams said, “I didn’t think I could hit one any harder than that. The conditions weren’t good.”)

The afternoon grew so glowering that in the sixth inning the arc lights were turned on—always a wan sight in the daytime, like the burning headlights of a funeral procession. Aided by the gloom, Fisher was slicing through the Sox rookies, and Williams did not come to bat in the seventh. He was second up in the eighth. This was almost certainly his last time to come to the plate in Fenway Park, and instead of merely cheering, as we had at his three previous appearances, we stood, all of us—stood and applauded. Have you ever heard applause in a ballpark? Just applause—no calling, no whistling, just an ocean of handclaps, minute after minute, burst after burst, crowding and running together in continuous succession like the pushes of surf at the edge of the sand. It was a sombre and considered tumult. There was not a boo in it. It seemed to renew itself out of a shifting set of memories as the kid, the Marine, the veteran of feuds and failures and injuries, the friend of children, and the enduring old pro evolved down the bright tunnel of twenty-one summers toward this moment. At last, the umpire signalled for Fisher to pitch; with the other players, he had been frozen in position. Only Williams had moved during the ovation, switching his bat impatiently, ignoring everything except his cherished task.

It sure took them long enough, but the Yankees finally came to terms with Andy Pettitte yesterday, re-signing the veteran lefty to a one-year deal with a base salary of $5.5 million and incentives that could make the deal worth as much as $12 million. With that, the Yankees have the final piece of their 2009 rotation in place. Here’s a quick look at the Yankees’ projected starting five along with my thoroughly un-scientific innings and ERA projections for each pitcher:

Quibble with those projections however you want, but consider what they add up to: 975 innings of a 3.73 ERA. Last year the collected Yankee starters–that is every pitcher who started for the team all year, not just the top five–combined for just 898 1/3 innings and a 4.58 ERA. Meanwhile, team that got the best performance out of it’s starting pitchers in 2008 was the Toronto Blue Jays, whose starters combined for 1,012 2/3 innings of a 3.72 ERA. Given that, the Yankees could have the best rotation in baseball even with that underwhelming performance from A.J. Burnett, average performances from Pettitte and Wang, and the limit placed on Chamberlain’s innings total. The catch is that their two top rivals for baseball’s best rotation are the Rays (with David Price taking over for Edwin Jackson) and Red Sox.

Note that I expect Chamberlain, not Pettitte, to be the Yankees’ fifth starter because of the limit the Yankees will need to place on his innings. Chamberlain threw 100 1/3 innings last year. Tom Verducci’s Rule of 30 would suggest a cap of 130 innings this year, but I expect the Yankees’ cap to be around 150 frames, and for Chamberlain to surpass that slighly due to a solid performance. The one remaining flaw in Chamberlain’s game is an inefficiency stemming from his being both a strikeout pitcher and one who walked 3.5 men per nine innings last year. That inneficiency will likely limit him to an average of six innings per start (which is exactly what he averaged in the nine starts prior to his shoulder injury last year). At that rate, he could make 26 starts this year and still have thrown just 156 innings. If the Yankees keep him in the fifth spot and use the odd off-day to skip his turn, he should come in right on target.

Meanwhile, with Pettitte having now rounded out the rotation, Phil Hughes and Alfredo Aceves become replacement starters rather than potential fifth-starters. That’s good news for the Yankees as there’s a decent chance that at least one of the pitchers in the chart above will wind up throwing as many as 100 innings less than I’ve projected for him due to injury. Aceves is a classic sixth starter, a crafty, junkballing righty who relies heavily on his defense and staying one pitch ahead of the hitter. In scout speak, Aceves has great pitchability, but not much stuff. He’s not far removed from the pitcher he’s replacing in the organization, Darrell Rasner, and is thus better suited as a replacement than one of the organization’s top five starters.

Hughes, of course, is still a top prospect, but even before Pettitte signed, I felt that Hughes needed to start the year in Triple-A and spend a couple of months just getting his legs under him and his confidence up so that he could return to the majors with some momentum rather than start the year trying once again to prove he deserved to break camp with the big club. Remember, Hughes has made just two major league starts since last April, and while he was excellent in the second of those two, essentially beating A.J. Burnett head-to-head (though Jose Veras wound up with the win), it came in late September against a long-since eliminated Blue Jays team. Hughes developed a strong cut fastball while rehabbing his broken rib last year and pitched well, if inconsistently, in the Arizona Fall League. With Pettitte in place, Phil can now build on those two developments at Triple-A in the hope of becoming a mid-season injury replacement (I didn’t write “for Burnett,” but I thought it) and forcing Joe Girardi to make a tough decision in the second half. Remember, Hughes won’t be 23 until last June. He still has plenty of time to make the transition from Triple-A to the majors.

While I’m on the topic, I might as well address Ian Kennedy. I don’t think Kennedy, who is a year and a half Hughes’ senior, was ever going to be in the picture for the big league rotation this spring. He did enough to discourage Girardi and the team last year that he wasn’t even brought back as a September call-up. Kennedy needs to spend the year at Scranton letting his pitching do the talking and hoping for a chance to make his case for the 2010 rotation in September. The good news on Kennedy is that he supposedly found a new way to throw his curve after working with Scranton pitching coach Rafael Chaves last year and dominated the Puerto Rican winter league with the pitch. Kennedy’s big problem last year was his refusal/inability to use his curve in his major league stints, making him a very hittable two-pitch fastball/changeup pitcher without much heat on his heater and a resulting tendency to shy away from contact. If the improvement in his curve proves sustainable, he may well revive his prospect status, making the A.J. Burnett contract all the more regrettable for expensively clogging up the rotation.

Still, taking the short-term view, it’s hard to complain about the Yankees’ top five starters entering the season. The Yankees haven’t had an Opening Day rotation this strong since they were making annual trips to the World Series. They’ve paid a lot for the priviledge, but it just might pay off.

To paraphrase a good song, “Ghost writers . . . in . . . the . . . skyyyyy!”

To quote another good song …

May I have your attention please?
May I have your attention please?
Will the real Slim Shady please stand up?
I repeat, will the real Slim Shady please stand up?
We’re gonna have a problem here.

Here’s the news, linked/reported entirely by me, in the first person:

• It looks like the Yanks won’t have to resort to Jason Johnson or Freddy Garcia as a possible fifth starter … Pettitte is a Yankee again:

Andy Pettitte and the New York Yankees agreed Monday to a $5.5 million, one-year contract that brings the left-hander back to New York.

Pettitte can make an additional $6.5 million on performance bonuses and bonuses based on time on the active roster.

“There was never another team brought up,” Pettitte said during a conference call. “I wanted to come back to the Yankees.”

[My take: If Andy has recovered from his physical ailments of late ’08, the Yanks rotation could be the best in the AL East.  Welcome back Andy … you put us through a lot these past few weeks, but we’ll see you soon!]

• Here is MLB.com’s coverage of the Pettitte agreement.
• PeteAbe of LoHud steps us to the plate with his assessment of the Torre/Verducci (or is it Verducci/Torre?)  book:

Now we have Torre, the man who restored the luster to a faded powerhouse, prostituting himself for the sake of a book and another few million.

… Torre clearly traded some secrets for money. Nobody wanted to read another warm tale about his brother in surgery or Don Zimmer cracking jokes, so Joe and Tom Verducci threw a few players and team executives into the fire. Verducci is an elegant writer and a terrific reporter. The book will be compelling and 100 percent true.

But that’s not really the point. We wanted Bernie Williams Day at the old Stadium. You’d like to see that old warhorse Clemens in Tampa teaching Phil Hughes how to bust somebody inside. And many Yankee fans would weep at the sight of Torre getting his number retired, fat tears running down his face again as Mo, Jorgie, Tino, Paulie and the Captain gather around. …

It just never ends well. Maybe it’s the money that saps them of their dignity. For others it’s the attention or the lifestyle. But our heroes so rarely walk away at the right time. They kick and scream and claw.

[My take: Verducci states its a third person account not just of Joe Torre but of the entire organization during the Torre years.  If so, why have Torre on the cover and give him top billing (or any billing for that matter).  If much of the meat of the book comes from Torre’s recollections, then how it can it NOT be a Torre “expose”?  Why title a book something as non-descript and generic as “The Yankee Years” unless it dealt specifically with one particular person’s “Years”.   If Torre is indeed the “mass” around which the Yankee universe “spun” for a 12-year period, why not call it “The Torre Years in Yankeeland” or something more descriptive and … dare I say it … truthful.

Further clouding those questions is the fact that it is Torre, not Verducci, doing the book tour (at least per the publisher’s website).

Also, why would a seemingly classy guy like Torre consent to writing (or merely contributing to?) this book while he is still managing in the Majors?  I know the Yanks won’t be facing the Dodgers this year (unless its 1978 World Series deja vu), but why talk about active players, coaches, management, etc. of a former employer while you still interact with them to some extent?  This isn’t like an autobiographical  “come with me as I recount the great season we had last year” book.  Nor is it a sportswriter penning a “a season of  team X’s complete and utter failure” book.

Something just doesn’t seem right about the “need” for this book at this particular time.  Maybe it IS all about the Benjamins.]

• Richard Sandomir of the Times does an excellent job examining the morass of the “Verducci/Torre” book paradox, as follows:

Torre is cast as the leading character in Tom Verducci’s narrative — not as “I or me,” but in the third person as “Torre.” This isn’t Norman Mailer playing with alter egos like “Aquarius,” but a device that lets Torre recede now and then …

If the structure is not confusing (Torre’s quotations are all over the place), readers may occasionally wonder: what did Torre say that does not appear in quotation marks? When, if ever, did Torre (or Verducci) mute the manager’s strongest views to let other characters voice them? When Verducci asserts that some Yankees called Alex Rodriguez “A-Fraud” (which you don’t doubt because of Verducci’s great reputation), is Torre’s concurrence implicit in more tempered assessments?

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