Blog Archives

After scoring 15 runs on opening night, the Yankees have scored a total of eight in losing their last three games. But as tempting as it might be to point to a team-wide offensive slump, the fact of the matter is that they’ve simply run into some outstanding pitching. Rich Harden, Dan Haren, Justin Duchscherer, Huston Street, Kelvim Escobar, Scot Sheilds and Francisco Rodriguez are some of the best pitchers in the American League. Randy Johnson and Mariano Rivera are the only Yankee hurlers who could crack that line-up and Rivera, shamefully, has yet to throw a pitch this season. It’s no wonder the Yanks are 1-3. The good news is that Randy Johnson will take the ball tonight looking to stop the Yankees’ losing streak. The bad news is that the pitcher he’s facing is the promising Ervin Santana, who was the winning pitcher in relief in Game 5 of last year’s ALDS. Truth be told, I’d take the 23-year-old Santana over any member of the Yankee rotation other than Johnson himself.

In other news, Wil Nieves was designated for assignment yesterday to make room for new third-string catcher Koyie Hill, who joined the Yankees in Anahiem last night. Nieves will now have to pass through waivers in order to remain in the organization and report to Columbus. All of this proves that Nieves only made the opening day roster because he was out of options and the Yankees didn’t think they could afford to lose him to waivers, which should tell you something about how dire the organizational catching situation is. With Hill in the fold, however, the Yankees can afford to expose Nieves, and if Nieves clears, they can then risk exposing Hill, thus opening up that final roster spot for a more deserving player such as Ramiro Mendoza or one of the Kevins. Indeed, DFAing Nieves removes him from the 40-man roster, which means there’s now an open spot on the 40-man for Mendoza, who could replace Jaret Wright in the bullpen once Wright is needed in the rotation.

Odds are Nieves won’t be claimed, but it will be interesting to see what the Yankees do if he is. One fears the loss of Nieves could freeze Hill on the 25-man for the forseable future, which would be a dreadful waste of a roster spot unles Joe Torre uses the situation to DH Posada on days he doesn’t catch. Still, the fact that Hill fell all the way to the Yankees (the Angels and White Sox are the only teams that don’t have waiver priority over the Yankees when it comes to wavied National Leaguers, though that will change on the 30th day of the season, at which point this year’s standings will be used to determine the waiver order) strongly suggests that there are no other teams out there desperate for a triple-A catcher with out a past or a future. The Yankees should should just suck it up and DFA Hill either way, besides which, they can always withdraw him from waivers and return him to the 25-man roster if he is claimed.

Finally, Joe Torre made the first of what I expect will be several small tweaks to his batting order last night. I’ve not said much about Torre’s bizzare choice to pair up the four lefties in his line-up, placing Giambi and Matsui and Cano and Damon back-to-back, in part because I didn’t expect it to last. Indeed, starting last night, Torre has swapped Cano and Bernie Williams in the order, thus using the switch-hitting Williams to break-up the left-handed Cano and Damon. Torre said he made the move because Cano was swinging the bat better than Bernie. That’s encouraging because it indicates that Torre is capable of recognizing that Williams, who is now batting ninth, is the worst hitter in his lineup.

In my preview of last year’s ALDS I wrote about how, for all the praise he receives as a manager, Mike Scioscia does a terrible job of filling out his lineup card. That didn’t change during the offseason. Adam Kennedy has a .349 on-base percentage over the past four seasons but remains buried in the ninth spot while Orlando Cabrera, who has never had an on-base percentage that high in any of his major league seasons and carries a .315 career mark, bats second yet again. Darin Erstad, who hasn’t had an OPS over .746 since 2000 continues to not only play every day, but bat in the middle of the line-up.

At least Scioscia has shifted Erstad back to centerfield, opening first base for Casey Kotchman, a huge upgrade that should have been made last year. Scioscia could similarly improve his lineup by starting Robb Quinlan at third and using the multi-talented Chone Figgins to force Erstad or Cabrera out of the lineup. Unfortunately misplaced loyalty in the case of Erstad and misplaced cash in the case of Cabrera have kept Figgins boxed in at third and Quinlan riding pine. Most startlingly, Scioscia has abandoned the complex platoon he employed last year that pulled the lefty Finley in favor of Quinlan against southpaws. The Angels have faced lefty starters in two of their three games thus far this season and Quinlan has yet to start, while the left-handed Erstad has started all three games.

The good news for Angels fans is that there offense is on the verge of a major rebirth. To the 30-year-old Vladimir Guerrero, the 28-year-old Figgins and the 23-year-old Kotchman, the Angels will soon add a full infield of prospects in 22-year-old first baseman/DH Kendry Moralis, 22-year-old second baseman Howie Kendrick, 21-year-old shortstop Brandon Wood, 25-year-old third baseman Dallas McPherson, and 23-year-old catcher Jeff Mathis, the last of whom is already on the 25-man roster and should be starting ahead of Jose Molina (yet another misallocation of resources by Scioscia).

The question is, should those eight men indeed coalesce into a dominating offense, will the Angels be able to maintain the pitching required to complete another Championship ballclub. If not, it will be a bitter irony as, for now, it’s the Angels’ pitching that makes them contenders. John Lackey experienced a breakout last year and could be even better this year. Twenty-three-year-old Ervin Santana will spend his first full season as a member of the rotation and could establish himself as a front-of-the-rotation future star. Kelvim Escobar salvaged an injury-shortened 2005 by returning from the DL as a dominating middle reliever. This year he returns to the rotation, where he was the Angels ace in 2004. Then there’s that guy who erroneously won the AL Cy Young last year.

Meanwhile, the Big Three in the Angels’ bullpen may just be the best in baseball, but Brendan Donnelly’s pixie dust appears to be wearing off and there’s considerable concern that Francisco Rodriguez could be headed for a big fall unless he agrees to correct his ugly mechanics. His increased wildness last year (4.28 BB/9 up from 3.54 the year before) is a warning sign that the 24-year-old closer would be wise to heed his coaches. As his comment in this year’s Baseball Prospectus annual says, “Rodriguez’s mechanics have eroded to the point that it’s now a matter of when he will suffer a catastrophic arm injury, not if.” Yikes.

Roster below the fold along with a note on Koyie Hill.

(more…)

One of the keys to the Yankees’ success this year will be the performance of Shawn Chacon, who makes his first start of the year tonight against the Angels. Much has been made out of the fact that Chacon’s fantastic performance after being acquired by the Yankees last July was largely the result of an abnormally low opponents’ batting average on balls in play (BABIP). BABIP is generally considered something beyond a pitchers control. League average generally falls around .300 and pitchers whose BABIPs vary greatly from that norm in a given year can generally be expected to regress toward the mean in the following year. As a Yankee last year, Chacon posted a .240 BABIP, thus the pessimism many have about his chances for success in 2006.

However, Marc Normandin of Beyond the Boxscore writes in Baseball Prospectus’s latest Yankee Notebook that Chacon actually has a history of significantly low BABIPs relative to his home park. Thus, the improvement Chacon showed as a Yankee last year just might be a sustainable result of escaping Coors Field, a park that generally inflates BABIP, because Chacon just might be the rare non-knuckleballer who can consistantly supress his opponents success on balls in play.

The Normandin’s credit, this is something he noticed before Chacon threw his first pitch for the Yankees. That is significant not only as a testament to Normandin’s skills as an analyst, but because it proves his BABIP analysis isn’t simply a case of retrofiting the stats to explain past performance, but the detection of a trend significant enough that he was able to anticipate and extremely surprising improvement in performance.

Here’s what Normandin wrote around the time of the trade:

Shawn Chacon of all people looks like he might have the ability to control hits on balls in play a little bit. Ignoring the .314 BABIP, where he was closing, Chacon’s BABIP’s for his major league career read .275, .261, .276, and .272. Consider again that Coors raises BABIP by simply existing [the average BABIP at Coors during Chacon’s stay there was north of .330 –CJC], and we have ourselves someone lowering the batting average of balls in play against him at an extreme rate consistently.

In his new piece at Baseball Prospectus, Normandin provides this chart:

Year	Chacon BABIP	Park BABIP	Diff.
2001 (COL)	.294	.338	-.044
2002 (COL)	.261	.325	-.064
2003 (COL)	.276	.318	-.042
2004 (COL)	.314	.340	-.026
2005 (COL)	.272	.336	-.064
2005 (NYY)	.240	.311	-.071

What’s apparent here is that Chacon’s BABIP relative to his home park with the Yankees last year was low even for him, but not so low that one can’t expect him to be a valuable starter for the Yanks this year. With that in mind Normandin takes on Chacon’s PECOTA projection:

PECOTA assumes that BABIP regresses . . . His weighted mean projection BABIP is .287, and he is expected to finish with an ERA of 5.04; PECOTA is normally conservative, but that seems well out of line with what Chacon could be capable of, free from Coors for an entire season. This is not to say that Chacon is going to replicate his 2.85 ERA, as even the best in the business have a difficult time with that sort of thing in consecutive seasons. Rather, it seems entirely possible that Chacon can best his 90th percentile projection for ERA without actually having the peripheral statistics that PECOTA expects him to. PECOTA projects a 3.94 ERA at his highest point, and that seems to stem from a much improved K/BB of 1.69 (saying “much improved” before such a low K/BB makes one stop and think for a moment [Chacon’s K/BB tends to hang out around 1.40 as it did this spring, though curiously it was actually lower during his time as a Yankee last year –CJC]). Chacon may be able to surpass his projection simply by invoking the powers of BABIP in 2006.

So what exactly happens to the balls put in play against Chacon? Normandin presents the following breakdown of Chacon’s 2005 season:

Team	BFP	K	BB	GB	OF	IF	LD	IF/F
COL	322	12%	14%	25%	26%	2%	17%	9%
NYY	330	12%	11%	34%	21%	8%	13%	28%

LD is Line Drive Percentage, and IF/F is Infield Fly to Flyball ratio. Looking at these figures by themselves, it is apparent that balls hit into play ended their journey in the infield more often than not. 34% of the batted-balls were groundballs. The 19% jump in IF/F is incredible; some of that has to do with a small sample size, but increasing it to a midpoint between the two figures is still excellent progress. The Hardball Times glossary (which is also the source of these statistics) suggests that inducing infield flies may be a repeatable skill; if Chacon is adept at inducing infield flies, and can keep his G/F ratio from his days as a Yankee intact (1.14 as opposed to 0.89 in Colorado), New York might have themselves something here, and we might have the beginnings of an explanation as to why Chacon was successful BABIP-wise in comparison to other pitchers at Coors. Chacon’s previous work (excluding his year as a closer that just insists on messing with all of the data) matches up well with the figures above, so it does not seem like he was in any more of a groove in 2005 than in previous years, besides the normal success that comes with growth as a pitcher.

Normandin finishes his piece by cautioning that the jury is still out as to just how sustainable Chacon’s success might be, but it seems that the unshakeable optimism I have for his 2006 season just might be justified.

Five unearned runs, that was margin of victory for the A’s last night as they took the opening series from the Yankees with a 9-4 victory. The Yanks did well to get out to a 4-0 lead after three against Dan Haren, but from there the A’s hurlers tightened up and the Yankees’ pitching and defense fell apart.

Chien-Ming Wang got his ground balls (9 of 12 outs in the field came on the ground) and came through with strikeouts, K-ing three in his 4 2/3 innings for a 5.79 K/9, but he also walked three and allowed seven hits in that short span. From what I could tell watching the game on MLB Gameday (due to a misbehaving cable box), he left too many pitches up in the zone.

It all came apart in the fourth after a ground out and a single when Derek Jeter bobbled a would-be inning-ending double play ball for the Yankees’ first error of the night. Dan Johnson followed by working a full-count walk and Milton Bradley singled home the two runners that should have been retired by the double play. Wang then got the final two outs, but not before a third run scored on the second out of the inning.

In the fifth, Wang had a stirring confrontation with Frank Thomas with one out and men on the corners, eventually getting Thomas swinging for the second out, but then a pair of walks loaded the bases and forced in the A’s fourth run and Tanyon Sturtze was brought in to get the final out.

With his starter out of the game after five and the score tied, Joe Torre turned to Jaret Wright in the sixth. One could have argued for two innings each from Farnsworth and Rivera had Farnsworth not pitched the night before. Another option would have been to stay with Sturtze, who only needed three pitches to finish the fifth, but all of that would be second guessing. As it stood, Wright looked sharp in his final two spring starts and seemed like as good a choice as any. Indeed, Wright made Torre look good by pitching around a walk for a scoreless sixth then recording a 1-2-3 seventh against the heart of the A’s order.

With the game still tied and the bottom of the order coming up, it seemed safe to let Wright have one more frame, but Milton Bradley started the eighth with a triple just beyond the reach of Johnny Damon in center and scored when Robinson Cano booted a would-be Jay Payton groundout. A pair of singles plated another run and drove Wright from the game with men on first and second and none out. Mike Myers then did his job by striking out Kotsay and Torre turned to Farnsworth to keep the A’s lead at 6-4. Farnsworth’s first pitch was wild, sending Jason Kendall to third, and his next three were out of the zone, loading the bases, which Frank Thomas then cleared with a two-out double to run the score to 9-4, chasing Farnsworth from the game.

And that was that. Unlike Tuesday night, the Yankees left just four men on base and Joe Torre’s pitching changes were logical and timely. Last night’s loss was no fun, but the loss in and of itself doesn’t bother me all that much. It does, however, make Tuesday’s ninth-inning defeat all the more bitter. Last night was a winable game, but the pitching and defense kicked it away. If the players lose, so be it. Tuesday night, however, was a game the manager lost, and that’s inexcusable, especially when his team has an opportunity to take a series from a team as good as the A’s. As it stands, the A’s took two of three from the Yankees without Mariano Rivera throwing a single pitch.

(more…)

Their manager having thrown away a chance to take the season’s opening series last night, the Yankees are forced to play a rubber game against the A’s tonight in Oakland. Taking the hill for the A’s will be Dan Haren, whose similarities to last night’s Oakland starter, ace Rich Harden, extend further than the five common letters in their last names. Here’s an updated version of the tale-of-the-tape that I ran last year:

While Harden is universally recognized as a potential Cy Young candidate, Haren is poised for a breakout season of his own. Haren’s 2005 was already better than either of Mark Mulder’s last two seasons. Mulder, you’ll recall, was the Big Three ace whom the A’s sent to St. Louis for Haren, reliever Kiko Calero, and now-20-year-old catching-cum-first base prospect Daric Barton. It’s Harden and Haren whom I expect to lead the A’s to an easy AL West crown this year. Certainly you have to like the chances of any team that lists Barry Zito as its third-best starter.

Opposing Haren tonight will be the Yankees’ 2005 rookie sensation Chien-Ming Wang. Wang, now 26, remains an extreme, and extremely effective, ground ball pitcher. Last year Wang ranked third in the majors in groundball-to-flyball ratio among pitchers with more than 100 innings, trailing only Brandon Webb and ex-Yankee Jake Westbrook, but ranking ahead of the aptly named Derek Lowe. The problem with all of that is that Wang has to work in front of the Yankees’ extremely porous infield defense. Thus far, in just two games, we’ve seen Alex Rodriguez make some outstanding plays at third base and the three men to his left compensate by booting, whiffing and otherwise failing to catch up with balls hit or thrown in their direction. My confidence in Joe Torre has already been spoiled, but if the Yankee skipper knows what’s good for his team, he’ll compensate by DHing Giambi in Wang’s starts and giving the more agile Andy Phillips those starts at first base. Though I’m a proponent of playing Giambi in the field because of the boost it gives his bat, the offensive upgrade achieved by benching Bernie in favor of Phillips should compensate for any lost production from Giambi, who should be able to produce from the DH spot if he’s only required to do so once every five days.

Failing that, there’s always the hope that Wang will improve his strikeout rate this year. In his rookie season, Wang struck out just 3.64 men per nine innings, a severe drop from his career minor league rate of 7.06 K/9. In 74 1/3 career triple-A innings between 2004 and 2005, Wang struck out 6.78 men per nine and in 15 1/3 innings this spring he struck out 5.87 men per nine innings. Given that history, it seems fair to expect Wang to increase his strikeout rate to something in the mid-fives this year. As dominating as Chien-Ming can be in terms of keeping his opponents from getting the ball in the air, he’ll need to help himself more often this year if he expects to improve on his freshman campaign.

Finally, while we’re on the topic of pitchers who made their pinstriped debuts in 2005, Will Carroll’s latest Under The Knife column contains some unsurprising speculation about Carl Pavano’s that is nonetheless startling to see in print. Quothe Carroll:

Carl Pavano is headed to [back expert] Dr. [Robert] Watkins for a check of his problematic back. There have been whispers from some in Yankee camp that Pavano will likely need surgery, almost certainly season-ending and perhaps career-ending. . . . Pavano’s contract is insured for backs.

Pavano is owed $30.9 million for the remaining three years of his contract (2006-2008) and the buyout on his 2009 option, though I’m not sure exactly how much of that is recoupable via the insurance should Pavano never throw another major league pitch.

The Yankees left ten men on base last night, six of them in scoring position, but what cost them an otherwise thrilling game was the same old bullpen mismanagement that has long plagued Joe Torre’s stay in the Bronx.

Give the A’s credit. They can pitch. Rich Harden wasn’t dominating, but as he showed in the first by striking out Sheffield, Rodriguez and Giambi to strand Damon and Jeter at second and third, even on an off night he has the stuff to get the job done when he needs to. Of course, he got a big assist in the third when Rodriguez cracked a two-out hit to right with Sheffield on second, then proceeded to run into an out between first and second to end the inning. That stopped the Yankees at one run in that inning. Harden continued to struggle in the fourth, but got three straight outs with men on second and third, though another run came home in the process. When the Yankees finally got another RBI hit in the sixth (Posada’s first safety of the season, but second RBI of the game) followed by yet another single, A’s manager Ken Macha took it as a sign that Harden was cooked. Justin Duchscherer came on and struck out Cano to end the inning.

Duchscherer can pitch too, as he proved again the next inning by retiring Sheffield and Rodriguez to again strand Damon at second. In the eighth, the Yankees had Hideki Matsui at second with two outs and lesser pitcher Joe Kennedy on the mound, but their worst batter was up and Bernie flied out to end the inning. In the ninth it was ace closer Huston Street who would strand Damon at second, this time walking Sheffield, but retiring Jeter and Rodriguez around him.

As for the Yankees, Mike Mussina exceeded expectations by holding the A’s to three runs through seven full while striking out six, a very solid outing for Moose despite homers by Swisher and Chavez. The key is that, since he only allowed two walks and three other hits, the two dingers were solo shots. With Mussina out of the game after 102 pitches (63 percent strikes), Torre expertly managed his pen in the eighth, bringing in Myers to face the lefties Kotsay (strikeout) and Chavez (walk) and then calling on ace set-up man Farnsworth to get the right-handed Frank Thomas despite the temptation of lefty Dan Johnson hitting behind him.

Unfortunately, that’s where Torre’s wisdom ran out. It took Farnsworth all of ten pitches to retire Thomas and Johnson, yet for some reason Torre decided not to use him in the ninth inning of a game that remained tied. That was mistake number one. Mistake number two was who Torre brought in instead.

We’ve seen this before, most famously in Game 4 of the 2003 World Series. On the road in a tie game, when the time comes to use Rivera, Torre thinks to himself, “I have no idea how long this is going to go. I’m not going to burn Mo here. I’m going to save him to get those last three outs once we get a lead. In the meantime, I’ll use my long man because he can pitch all night while we wait for the offense to score.” Usually that long man only gets an inning or two of work in because, with no room for error in a game that will end the second the home team scores, that’s exactly what happens. The home team scores off the sixth best man in the pen and the game ends without Rivera throwing a pitch. We saw it with Jeff Weaver in the 2003 Series and we saw it again last night.

Torre should have left Farnsworth in for the ninth and used Rivera for the tenth and eleventh before resorting to his lesser relievers. Rivera last pitched on Saturday and threw just 12 pitches in that game against the Diamondbacks. Farnsworth last threw on Friday, using just 20 pitches against the D-Backs. What’s more, the Yankees have an off day on Thursday. To make matters worse, the A’s had already blown their best set-up man (Duchscherer) and were an inning deep on their closer. The Yanks end-gamers had every opportunity to outlast their Oakland counterparts. There’s simply no excuse, especially in a game that could have clinched a series win from the league’s top team.

Instead, Torre turned to Scott Proctor, literally the last man in the pen both by virtue of his making the 25-man roster at the tail end of spring training and his recent absence from the team to attend to his newborn daughter in the wake of her cardiac surgery for a congenital heart defect. Proctor’s daughter, Emmy, is expected to make a full recovery, but it doesn’t take the most sympathetic soul around to imagine that Proctor’s focus may not yet be as sharp as it might be after he’s had a few more days to lose himself in his daily routine with the team (he rejoined the Yankees after the pre-game introductions on Monday night).

Not that Proctor’s mental state should have come into play. Nor should have Proctor himself. But he did. Twelve pitches later, only eight of them thrown with purpose, the Yankees, or more accurately, Joe Torre had blown a winnable game.

My headlines have been boring as beans recently. Sorry about that. Then again, there’s something to be said for truth in advertising.

After last night’s 15-2 massacre (I particularly liked the Daily News’s WBC-inspired headline “No Mercy”), the A’s look for a little get back with their ace Rich Harden on the mound against the mysterious Mike Mussina. Mussina has suffered a glaring decline the last two years, in part due to elbow problems that one can’t expect will go away as he begins his age-37 season, no matter how good he may have felt at the end of spring training.

Harden, meanwhile, is a 24-year-old stud with a devastating repertoire, a textbook delivery, and a very bright future. Funny, then that the last time either pitcher faced tonight’s opponent they did it against one another in Oakland in a game that saw Harden leave due to injury and Mussina pitch a gem.

Harden left that game, a 9-4 Yankee victory marred only by an ugly outing from Mike Stanton in relief, after an inning and a third with a strained oblique muscle, an injury which appears to be all the rage these days. He didn’t pitch again for more than a month.

Mike Mussina made two starts against the A’s last year. Those two starts came on consecutive turns in early May and turned out to not only be Mussina’s best back-to-back starts of the year, but part of the salvation of the Yankees’ season.

With his team 11-19 entering a Saturday afternoon game against the A’s at the Stadium, Mussina took the mound and hurled a beautiful four-hit shutout that kicked off a ten-game winning streak. Game five of that streak was Mussina’s second start against the A’s described above in which Moose went seven allowing two runs on six hits and a walk and striking out nine. His season line against the A’s was thus: 16 IP, 10 H, 2 R, 1 HR, 3 BB, 12 K.

That catch is that the A’s lineups that Mussina faced in those two games contained just four of the hitters he will face tonight (Kotsay, Kendall, Chavez and, in the first of the two only, Ellis) while the rest of the order was filled out by men such as Scott Hatteberg, Keith Ginter, Marco Scutaro, Eric Byrnes, Bobby Kielty and an ineffective Erubiel Durazo (0 for 7 in those games and .237/.305/.368 on the year on his way to Tommy John surgery). Tonight those players will be replaced by Dan Johnson, Bobby Crosby, Milton Bradley, Nick Swisher and Frank Thomas. Add in a healthy Harden and Moose and the Yanks have their work cut out for them tonight.

The below are my largely unedited notes taken during last night’s season opener . . .

I’m oddly grumpy about tonight’s game. I guess the late start and fear of rain has soured my mood some. Perhaps watching last night’s disappointment has also contributed to my grouchiness. Still, it looks sunny in Oakland and we’ve got Randy Johnson facing Barry Zito. I can’t not get geared up for this, no matter how much I’ve come to despise the sound of Michael Kay’s voice.

Joe Torre announced what he expects to be his everyday lineup on Sunday and he’s written it onto today’s line-up card:

L – Johnny Damon (CF)
R – Derek Jeter (SS)
R – Gary Sheffield (RF)
R – Alex Rodriguez (3B)
L – Jason Giambi (1B)
L – Hideki Matsui (LF)
S – Jorge Posada (C)
S – Bernie Williams (DH)
L – Robinson Cano (2B)

The A’s, meanwhile, line it up a bit differently than I had expected. Here’s their opening day nine:

R – Mark Ellis (R)
L – Mark Kotsay (CF)
R – Bobby Crosby (SS)
L – Eric Chavez (3B)
R – Frank Thomas (DH)
S – Milton Bradley (RF)
R – Jay Payton (LF)
R – Jason Kendall (R)
S – Nick Swisher (1B)

With the lefty Randy Johnson on the mound, lefty Dan Johnson hits the bench, righty Jay Payton takes over in left, and Nick Swisher moves to first.

This is the Yankees’ only trip to Oakland this season. Weird. They’ve only opened a season in Oakland once before and have opened on the west coast just five times prior to this, the other four being split evenly between Anaheim and Seattle, four of the previous five west coast openers coming in consecutive seasons from 1997 to 2000.

Top 1

Damon steps up to hearty boos from the fans of his former team.

(more…)

It appears to be raining throughout the country. In addition to the rain outside my window, last night the 2006 season kicked off with a game between the second and third best teams in baseball that was ruined by a nearly three-hour rain delay. Tonight, with bad weather already looming over the Bay Area, we may see a repeat of last night’s mess except with the first and fourth best teams in the game as the participants.

For those who might misinterpret that last statement as the homerism of an admitted die-hard Yankee fan, it is the host Oakland A’s whom I believe are the best team in baseball, with the hometown Yankees coming up fourth (for what it’s worth, I expect the Red Sox to do battle for fifth place with whomever emerges from the National League scrum).

The A’s won just 88 games last year, but, as I predicted at the outset, 2005 was merely a trial run for the team that will take the field tonight. Among the Athletics who enjoyed their first full major league season last year were closer and AL Rookie of the Year Huston Street, starting pitchers Dan Haren and Joe Blanton, outfielder Nick Swisher, and first baseman Dan Johnson. Meanwhile, young stars Bobby Crosby and Rich Harden battled injuries in what would have otherwise been just their second full seasons in the bigs. All of these players can be expected to improve this year, be it due to increased health, experience, or a combination of the two.

To this emerging core, the A’s have added the explosive bat of Frank Thomas and the explosive personality of Milton Bradley. There’s no guarantee that either will stay healthy long enough to make 300 plate appearances, let alone twice that many, but for as long as they are in the line-up, they will represent a tremendous improvement over the departed Scott Hatteberg and Erubiel Durazo and demoted Bobby Keilty (temporarily in triple-A to give the A’s an extra pitcher to cope with the impending rain) and Jay Payton.

Payton’s removal from the lineup gives the A’s a righty power bat on the bench that similarly upgrades the team’s support staff, which last year involved way too much Eric Byrnes (which is to say, any). The Bradley trade, meanwhile, also netted Antonio Perez, a high-on-base utility man who pushes futility man Marco Scutaro—who spent a large chunk of the past two seasons starting in place of injured middle infielders Crosby (in 2005) and Ellis (in 2004)—yet another notch down the depth chart.

Elsewhere the A’s have added a pair of former Yankee hurlers. Erstwhile swing man Esteban Loaiza, who put up handsome numbers in the pitchers paradise of RFK last year with the Nationals, joins Oakland as a fifth starter, taking over for Kirk Saarloos and his 2.99 K/9. Meanwhile, my one-time pet cause, Admiral Brad Halsey, will slide into the bullpen as a long-relief lefty behind the similarly repurposed and regally named Joe Kennedy. The Paperboy, who just turned 25 years old in February, can also deliver more effective spot starts than Saarloos and could very well work his way into the A’s rotation to stay should Loaiza regain his Yankee form. Either way, these two ex-Yanks again push a player who got way too much exposure last year, in this case Saarloos, further down the depth chart.

Some of these improvements will likely be offset by the regression that can be expected from set-up man Justin Duchscherer, who appeared to make the leap in his second full season at age 27, and second baseman Mark Ellis, who returned from a year lost to labrum surgery to be more productive than in either of his previous two major league seasons. But then those two are young enough (the older Ellis will be 29 on 6/6/6) that their improvements could very well be real. Meanwhile, Barry Zito and Eric Chavez are not only still in green and gold, but both are younger than both Duchscherer and Ellis.

On top of all of that, this is a ballclub that fell five games shy of their Pythagorean record in 2005, the fulfillment of which would have tied them with the Indians just two games behind the Angels, Yanks and Red Sox in the overall American League standings.

As for the Yankees, they actually exceeded their Pythagorean record by five games last year, but that’s become an annual event for the Bombers. In fact, nine of Joe Torre’s ten Yankee clubs have exceeded their Pythagorean record, the one exception coming in 1997. Call it the Mariano Rivera effect. With Rivera slamming the door, the Yankees are able to win more close games that would be expected given their overall run differential, which in recent years has been further skewed by some extremely problematic starting pitching. It’s the latter that explains why the A’s didn’t experience a similar effect given their excellent end game in 2005. Unlike the Yankees, the A’s also managed to lose small due to strong starting pitching that was often victimized by an offense that scored fewer than four runs per game for the first two months of the season. (see pages 132 to 137 of Mind Game for my analysis of these effects on the Yankees’ Pythagorean records).

Unlike the A’s, the Yankees can expect regression (Sheffield and Mussina due to age and nagging injuries, Rodriguez and Chacon because of abnormal 2005 production, Sturtze and Small because the clock has struck midnight, and possibly even Jeter, who’s thirtieth birthday is receding in the rearview) that will, at minimum, offset whatever improvements they might enjoy elsewhere (a full season of the rejuvenated Giambi, full-seasons of more experienced Cano and Wang, possible rebounds to previous levels of production by Johnson and Matsui, and perhaps even a bit of bounce from Wright, courtesy of that Mussina curve, Proctor, given a new more suitable role, and Bernie, who couldn’t be much worse than last year).

Will all else evening out, the Yankees’ offseason moves aren’t sexy enough to inspire much enthusiasm, but despite their drab appearance, they all represent improvements, even if those improvements are largely because of the atrociousness of the players being replaced. I’ve prattled on enough about my expectations for the Yankees this year elsewhere, but allow me to jump the gun on my usual roster breakdown just a tad and give you some specifics:

Who’s Replacing Whom?

Johnny Damon replaces Tony Womack and Tino Martinez
Kelly Stinnett replaces John Flaherty
Miguel Cairo replaces Matt Lawton and Rey Sanchez
Andy Phillips inherits Ruben Sierra’s at-bats
Shawn Chacon takes over Kevin Brown’s starts
Chein-Ming Wang takes over Al Leiter’s starts
Kyle Farnsworth replaces Tom Gordon
Mike Myers replaces Mike Stanton, Buddy Groom, Wayne Franklin and Alan Embree
Ron Villone replaces Paul Quantrill and Felix Rodriguez

Using VORP (Value (Runs) Over RePlacement), the eight departed players in the first six lines above combined to cost the Yankees 25.6 runs last year, this despite a positive 10.4 VORP from Martinez. The six players taking over their playing time combined to be 92.3 runs above replacement, and there’s a decent chance that Wang and, given enough playing time, Phillips could improve enough to compensate for Chacon’s regression. That’s nearly a twelve-run improvement right there.

While Damon et al. are all essentially guaranteed to be more productive for the Yankees in 2006 than the players they are replacing, Kyle Farnsworth is more likely to break even with the departed Flash Gordon. The advantage there being that Farnsworth is eight and a half years younger than Gordon, has nearly 1400 fewer major league innings on his right arm, and a cleaner (though not perfect) injury history to boot. For identical money, the Yankees made a significant upgrade, though that improvement may not necessarily show up on the balance sheet given that Gordon’s 2005 is already on the books.

The laundry list of miscast and past-due LOOGies that follows Mike Myers’ name should be reason enough to appreciate his signing. And while Ron Villone isn’t exactly good, he should at least be able to pass through airport metal detectors on road trips, something Quantrill and Felix Rodriguez were unable to do last year given the giant forks sticking out of their backs.

This of course doesn’t even begin to take into account the fact that the Yankees finally have a crop of replacement players worth using in Columbus this year, but I’ve beaten that horse to death already, so I’ll take this opportunity to shut the hell up and present the rosters for tonight’s game.

(more…)

I have to hand it to the MLB schedule makers, tonight’s season opener between the World Champion Chicago White Sox and the up-and-coming Cleveland Indians (on ESPN2 at 8:00 EST) is the perfect way to kick off the 2006 season. I was one of five Toasters to pick the A’s to go all the way this year, but after Oakland, I believe the Indians and White Sox are the next two best teams in baseball. As a result, I expect the AL Central to be this year’s most exciting race. So what better way to start the season than with the World Champs and the team that’s poised to make them sweat all season long.

Last year, the Indians rebounded from a 9-14 (.391) start to play .604 baseball over the season’s final 139 games. They also went 22-36 (.379) in one-run games, including five one-run loses in their final seven games which handed the White Sox the division and the Red Sox the wild card in the season’s final week. In games decided my more than one run, the 2005 Indians played .683 ball. These signs all point toward a better record in 2006 for a team that missed the playoffs by two games last year.

The story of the White Sox 2005 season, meanwhile, is the exact opposite. After a scorching 24-7 (.774) start, the White Sox played .572 ball the rest of the way and posted a .648 winning percentage in one-run games, including two of their three wins against the Indians in the season’s final series. Due largely to their disparate one-run records, the Indians’ Pythagorean record was five games better than the White Sox’s last year, despite that fact that the Sox won the division by six games.

Despite winning their first Championship in 88 years, the White Sox hardly rested on their laurels this offseason, trading for Jim Thome and Javier Vazquez, both of whom stand to be major improvements over the departed Carl Everett and Orlando Hernandez, and giving rookie Brian Anderson the center field job. Elsewhere, however, there is considerable fear of regression. Will Jermaine Dye slug .512 this year? Will Scott Podsednik revert to his .244/.313/.364 line from 2004? Can Jose Contreras sustain the improvements he made last year? Will the rest of the rotation survive the loss of Aaron Rowand’s defense in center? Most of all, what will come of the White Sox’s bullpen, which in 2005 got career years out of Cliff Politte and Dustin Hermanson (the latter of whom will start the season on the DL with a bad back) and saw youngsters Neal Cotts and Bobby Jenks appear to make the leap? The fifth and sixth men in the pen for the Sox entering the season are Matt Thornton, a would-be LOOGY who gave Mike Hargrove fits in Seattle last year by walking 6.63 men per nine innings (does that make him a LOWGY?), and 21-year-old Boone Logan, who has spent all but four games of his three-year professional career in rookie ball with the White Sox’s Pioneer League team in Great Falls.

The Indians, meanwhile, are a team on the rise. Though their off-season changes are largely uninspiring (getting Ben Broussard a legitimate lefty-killer for a platoon partner in Eduardo Perez and replacing no-hit back-up catcher Josh Bard with the power and patience of Kelly Shoppach stand as their biggest upgrades), their triple-A team at Buffalo is stocked with prospects who could greatly improve an already excellent ball club by taking over at the major league level mid-season, among them Andy Marte (3B), Ryan Garko (1B), Brad Snyder (RF), Franklyn Gutierrez (CF/LF), starting pitchers Fausto Carmona and Jeremy Sowers, and reliever Andrew Brown. Given that tremendous potential for in-season improvement via on-hand talent and the correction that’s bound to occur in the one-run records of both teams, I believe the Indians are the team to beat in the central this year.

For more on these teams be sure to check out the outstanding Let’s Go Tribe and the two excellent Sox blogs South Side Sox and Exile in Wrigleyville (and of course my Indians chapter in Baseball Prospectus 2006).

As I type this, we’re about a half hour from the first pitch of the 2006 season. Lefties Mark Buehrle and C.C. Sabathia are likely taking their warm-up pitches in the U.S. Cellular Field bullpens. You can find the opening day rosters of both teams below the fold.

(more…)

According to the New York Times and MLB.com, the twenty-fifth man on the Yankees opening day roster will be . . . Wil Nieves!

You know, Joe Torre has been hinting for a while that Nieves might make the roster, in part because he’s out of options, but the idea was so absurd I didn’t give it much credence. Then again, ever since the Kevins were optioned down to Columbus, the Yankees have been without a preferable option. A twelfth pitcher is unnecessary, particularly in April, when the schedule is littered with off-days. The thing the Yankees need most on their bench is a big bat, but there are none of those left on the bubble in camp. Second to that, they could use a reserve outfielder who can hit, but those options departed with Reese and Thompson. Popular waiver wire targets Carlos Pena and Erubiel Durazo are both first basemen (though even that’s a stretch for Durazo), and both were so bad this spring that the Yankees would be better off having either find his stroke in Columbus than having him warm the bench in the Bronx.

So, Wil Nieves. Whatever. I’d say they’re going to have to get rid of him when the inevitable roster crunch arrives, but no such crunch is on the horizon. Scott Proctor will likely get bounced to the minors when Aaron Small comes off the DL and I’m not about to hold my breath for Carl Pavano’s return. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Octavio Dotel activated before Pavano, whose endless injuries are creeping closer and closer to his mangina. Dotel could force Nieves off the roster, though by then Jaret Wright could be ready to hit the DL himself. I suppose the upside of having Nieves on the roster is that he could wrestle the back-up catcher job from Kelly Stinnett, making the Yankees’ catching corps seven and a half years younger, but not necessarily any better.

At any rate, here are your 2006 New York Yankees:

1B – Jason Giambi (L)
2B – Robinson Cano (L)
SS – Derek Jeter (R)
3B – Alex Rodriguez (R)
C – Jorge Posada (S)
RF – Gary Sheffield (R)
CF – Johnny Damon (L)
LF – Hideki Matsui (L)
DH – Bernie Williams (S)

Bench:

R – Andy Phillips (IF)
R – Miguel Cairo (IF)
L – Bubba Crosby (OF)
R – Kelly Stinnett (C)
R – Wil Nieves (C)

Rotation:

L – Randy Johnson
R – Mike Mussina
R – Chien-Ming Wang
R – Shawn Chacon
R – Jaret Wright

Bullpen:

R – Mariano Rivera
R – Kyle Farnsworth
R – Tanyon Sturtze
L – Mike Myers
L – Ron Villone
R – Scott Proctor

DL: R – Carl Pavano, R – Octavio Dotel, R – Aaron Small

Now that the roster is set, my spring training game wraps are kind of meaningless, but since the Yankees wrapped up their Grapefruit League schedule yesterday afternoon, I might as well wrap it up.

(more…)

Behind their last B-squad line-up of the spring, the Yankees beat the Tigers on the road 4-2

Lineup:

Johnny Damon CF
Robinson Cano 2B
Bernie Williams RF
Jorge Posada DH
Andy Phillips 1B
Russ Johnson 3B
Bubba Crosby LF
Felix Escalona SS
Keith McDonald C

Subs: Damian Rolls 3B, Wil Nieves C, Rudy Guillen RF, Mitch Jones LF

Pitchers: Jeffrey Karstens, Scott Erickson, Ron Villone, Kyle Farnsworth, Matt Childers

Big Hits: Doubles by Russ Johnson (1 for 2 with two walks) and Felix Escalona (1 for 4). Andy Phillips was 2 for 3 with a walk, scoring twice.

Who Pitched Well?: Jeffrey Karstens retired the last ten batters he faced, allowing just two runs on a walk and two hits in five innings, striking out two. Ron Villone retired the only two batters he faced to finish the seventh inning for Scott Erickson. Kyle Farnsworth pitched around a Delmon Young double for a scoreless eighth. Matt Childers kept his scorless spring intact despite a hit and a walk in the ninth.

Oopsies: A fielding error by Felix Escalona

Ouchies: Johnny Damon said, “I’m as close to 100 percent healthy as I can be.” (AP). Jorge Posada (1 for 2, 2 walks) will catch tomorrow’s game and will indeed be behind the plate for Randy Johnson in the season opener despite catching just seven of the Big Unit’s innings to Stinnett’s 22 1/3, largely due to illness and injury.

How’d Randy Do Anyway?: Pitching against single-A Phillies with Torre and Guidry in attendance: 5 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 1 HR, 2 BB, 4 K. If nothing else, I’m sure it was good for Johnson to pitch in relative obscurity while all the flack over his situation with his baby’s momma dies down.

Roster News: Scott Proctor has officially made the opening day roster, filling Aaron Small’s swing man spot at the back of the bullpen. His spring line: 6 G, 2 GS, 17 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 HR, 7 BB, 14 K, 1.06 ERA, 1-1. With Proctor on the 25-man roster, there is just one spot left which could go to either a seventh reliever or a fifth bench player. That is unless Jaret Wright is put on the 15-day DL since he won’t need to start until April 15, in which case the Yanks will have room for both a bench player and another reliever.

Catcher Keith McDonald, meanwhile, was reassigned to minor league camp after going 0 for 3 in yesterday’s game.

The Yankees were limited to four singles and a walk, losing to the Phillies 3-0 at home.

Lineup:

Johnny Damon CF
Derek Jeter SS
Gary Sheffield RF
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Hideki Matsui LF
Jason Giambi 1B
Jorge Posada DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Kelly Stinnett C

Subs: Andy Phillips 1B, Miguel Cairo 2B, Felix Escalona SS, Russ Johnson 3B, Omir Santos C, Bernie Williams RF, Bubba Crosby CF, Luis A. Garcia LF

Pitchers: Scott Proctor, Carl Pavano, Mariano Rivera, Tanyon Sturtze, Mike Myers

Big Hits: none

Who Pitched Well?: Scott Proctor made his second strong start of the spring, allowing just one run on a Sal “Thurman” Fassano homer in five innings while allowing just two other hits, both singles, and a walk against five strikeouts. Mike Myers and Mariano Rivera both pitched perfect innings.

Ouchies: The biggest news is Carl Pavano’s return to game action. Pavano, who last pitched with the major league club on June 27 of last year and hasn’t pitched in a game of any kind since an A-ball rehab start on August 3, allowed one run on a Shane Victorino solo homer in one inning of work, throwing 11 of 14 pitches for strikes and surviving a dive into first to retire Bobby Abreu on a slow grounder up the line. Jorge Posada also returned to action, going 0 for 3 as the Yankees’ DH. He’s expected to catch Thursday’s Grapefruit League finale. Chien-Ming Wang threw 61 pitches in the bullpen and will take his scheduled turn in Phoenix on Friday. Octavio Dotel threw his first batting practice of the spring. Scott Erickson (remember him?) is expected to pitch in today’s game.

Roster Crunch Time: Randy Johnson will start for the minor league campers today, giving Jeff Karstens the major league start. Jaret Wright will start the minor league game tomorrow with Wang and Chacon pitching the two games against the Diamondbacks in Arizona. Though only Johnson and Mussina have been officially announced, barring a disaster start from Wang or Chacon and a dominating performance by Wright (and likely not even then), Wang will start the finale of the A’s series with Chacon going in the first game of the Angels series a week from Friday. Wright would then be in line to take the fifth starter’s turn on April 15 in Minnesota.

The battle for the last spot in the bullpen, however, has heated up with Ramiro Mendoza (1.93 spring ERA) feeling heat from Proctor (1.06 ERA with the third most innings in camp), Matt Smith (1.69), Matt Childers (0 runs in one start and three relief appearances) and, sadly, Scott Erickson, who will return to action today with a 2.61 spring ERA. I’m still rooting for Mendoza or Smith, preferring to see Proctor find a spot in the Clippers rotation and Erickson find himself in another uniform. Childers is just 27 and is better utilized as roster insurance in Columbus than as a pitcher expected to produce as a member of the opening day roster.

While we’re at it, the final spot on the bench seems to be down to Wil Neives (.269/.321/.423 this spring) and Felix Escalona (.263/.333/.421), unless Joe Torre has been seduced by Luis A. Garcia’s eleven at-bats, which started with a pair of homers and have since featured three singles in nine trips with just one strikeout and no walks. Nieves is out of options, but just might slip through waivers. Escalona would be my choice, though with the Kevins gone and Russ Johnson not hitting, there’s really very little added value to be had with any of these guys. All the more reason to offer Carlos Pena, who could be useful as a lefty bat off the bench later in the season, a minor league deal.

On the road and without the DH, the Yankees brought along some familiar faces from weeks past, but couldn’t outlast the Braves, losing 5-4

Lineup:

Johnny Damon CF
Derek Jeter SS
Hideki Matsui LF
Gary Sheffield RF
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Jason Giambi 1B
Robinson Cano 2B
Wil Nieves C
Shawn Chacon P

Subs: Miguel Cairo SS-1B, Felix Escalona 2B, Ramiro Pena SS, Russ Johnson 3B, Keith McDonald C (see below), Luis A. Garcia RF, Bubba Crosby CF, Melky Cabrera LF, Damian Rolls PH

Pitchers: Shawn Chacon, Kris Wilson, Kyle Farnsworth, Ron Villone

Big Hits: A two-run bomb by Alex Rodriguez (2 for 3) and doubles by Rodriguez and Giambi (3 for 4). Gary Sheffield was also 3 for 4.

Who Pitched Well?: No one was particularly impressive though Kyle Farnsworth struck out two in a scoreless inning despite giving up a walk and a hit.

Who Didn’t?: Chacon ran out of gas in the sixth, leaving the game after 5 1/3 after allowing five runs on three walks and six hits, two of them home runs (a solo shot by Brian Jordan in the fifth and three-run, broken-bat tater by Adam LaRoche in the sixth). That said, Chacon struck out seven and has now struck out 21 in 22 spring innings, though he has also walked 13.

Ouchies: Jaret Wright threw 50 pitches in the bullpen and will pitch in a minor league game Thursday. Aaron Small threw from the rubber for the first time since straining his hamstring. Jorge Posada worked out with the team again and could start at DH today or tomorrow and return to catching before the week is out. Chien-Ming Wang’s knee is slightly swollen, but doesn’t appear to be an issue.

Bullpen Cuts: Colter Bean was optioned to Columbus and Mark Corey and Dusty Bergman were reassigned to minor league camp. Bean didn’t get a good look this spring due to his rehab from an offseason ACL injury. The left-handed Bergman got lit up in five spring innings. Corey pitched well, but is a 31-year-old journeyman with a terrible track record.

So Who’s Keith McDonald?: Although I missed it at the time, the Yankees obtained veteran minor league catcher Keith McDonald from the Rangers over the weekend for a player to be named later. This is an encouraging sign as it suggests that they will not add third-string catcher Wil Nieves to the opening day roster simply because he is out of options. The 28-year-old Nieves is preferable to McDonald, who is 33, has played in just eight major league games and, despite playing exclusively in the Pacific Coast League, hasn’t hit a lick this decade. But should Nieves land elsewhere, McDonald at least gives the Yankees a capable receiver at triple-A. It’s not like Nieves was going to hit anyway.

Back at home, the Yankees won an ugly 9-8 game against the Tigers.

Lineup:

Johnny Damon CF
Derek Jeter SS
Gary Sheffield RF
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Hideki Matsui DH
Jason Giambi 1B
Bernie Williams LF
Robinson Cano 2B
Kelly Stinnett C

Subs: Luis A. Garcia 1B, Miguel Cairo SS, Russ Johnson 3B, Omir Santos C, Bubba Crosby RF, Kevin Thompson CF, Kevin Reese LF, Wil Nieves DH

Pitchers: Chien-Ming Wang, Mark Corey, Tanyon Sturtze, Jose Veras, Dusty Bergman, Ramiro Mendoza, Mike Myers

Big Hits: A two-run dinger by Bubba Crosby (1 for 2) in the eighth was the game winner, Sheffield (2 for 3), Bernie (1 for 4) and Cano (2 for 4) doubled, while Jeter (2 for 3) and Damon (2 for 4) also had multi-hit days.

Who Pitched Well?: Mendoza and Myers finished things off with perfect eighth and ninth innings respectively. Before leaving the game after being hit by a comebacker, Wang allowed two runs on three hits in 2 1/3 innings, but also struck out three against no walks and three of his other four outs came on the ground.

Oopsies: A Jason Giambi throw.

Ouchies: Wang left the game in the third when he was hit in the right knee by a hard one-hopper off the bat of Curtis Granderson. X-rays were negative and Wang returned from the hospital without a limp. Carl Pavano threw 30 pitches in the bullpen and is expected to pitch an inning in relief on Tuesday. Johnny Damon, who has played center in the last two games, reports that he no longer has any pain in his throwing shoulder. Jorge Posada worked out with the team yesterday and will have the spints removed from his nose and his vision checked by an ophthalmologist today. Posada experienced some swelling in his left eye after being hit by Kelly Stinnett’s throw on Wednesday, but says his vision has been fine since Thursday.

The Cruelest Cuts of All: Abandon hope all ye who enter here, Kevin Thompson (.383/.420/.532 this spring) and Kevin Reese (.280/.308/.360) were optioned to Columbus, handing the back-up outfielder spot to Bubba Crosby (.161/.188/.387). To put it another way, 28-year-old Kevin Reese, who hit .276/.359/.450 in a full season at Columbus last year and 26-year-old Kevin Thompson, who hit .329/.432/.565 in a half-season at Trenton last year, were demoted in favor of 29-year-old Bubba Crosby who has hit .221/.253/.301 in 163 career major league at-bats. Here’s hoping this situation rectifies itself should one of the Kevins have a strong start with the Clippers. Less troublingly, Ben Davis was reassigned to minor league camp. More cuts, which could very well clarify the bullpen situation, are expected today.

Despite Mike Mussina’s decision to take his turn with the minor league campers, the Yankees had no problem handling the Devil Rays, dancing all over them to the tune of 10-1.

Lineup:

Johnny Damon CF
Derek Jeter SS
Jason Giambi 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Gary Sheffield DH
Hideki Matsui LF
Bernie Williams RF
Robinson Cano 2B
Wil Nieves C

Subs: Miguel Cairo 1B, Andy Cannizaro 2B, Felix Escalona SS, Russ Johnson 3B, Omir Santos C, Kevin Reese RF, Bubba Crosby CF, Kevin Thompson LF, Luis A. Garcia DH

Pitchers: Matt Childers, Colter Bean, Matt Smith, Ramiro Mendoza, Matt Corey, Frank Brooks

Big Hits: A no-doubt-about-it homer by Alex Rodriguez (1 for 4), a triple by Derek Jeter (1 for 3), and doubles by Giambi (1 for 3), Sheffiled (1 for 3), Reese (1 for 2) and Thompson (1 for 1) (Sheffield’s hitting off the top of the left centerfield wall). Amazingly, the Yankees collected 13 hits by thirteen different hitters.

Who Pitched Well?: Matt Smith threw two perfect innings, Matt Childers, a swing man in the minors, pitched three scorless innings striking out two, though he did walk one and allow four hits. Childers’ brother Jason pitched in the game for the Devil Rays.

How’d Moose Do?: 6 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 BB, 3 K, 92 pitches, 61 percent strikes

Ouchies: Johnny Damon played the field for the first time since the beginning of the WBC, Jaret Wright threw 21 pitches from halfway up a bullpen mound and 13 more from the rubber. Aaron Small also threw from halfway up a bullpen mound, while Scott Erickson had a regular bullpen session. Carl Pavano was supposed to throw a bullpen but the weather, which was in the high 50s and low 60s, was deemed to cold for him. Jorge Posada has rejoined the team today and will participate in workouts before today’s game.

Randy Johnson turned in his second consecutive strong showing yesterday, but the Yankees’ road lineup of bench players couldn’t muster enough offense to make it count resulting in a 3-1 Twins win.

Lineup:

Bubba Crosby CF
Miguel Cairo SS
Bernie Williams DH
Andy Phillips 1B
Robinson Cano 2B
Kelly Stinnett C
Luis A. Garcia RF
Russ Johnson 3B
Kevin Reese LF

Subs: Ramiro Pena SS, Omir Santos C, Kevin Thompson RF, Tim Battle PR

Pitchers: Randy Johnson, Jose Veras, Dusty Bergman

Big Hits: Just a double by Andy Phillips (1 for 3)

Who Pitched Well: As I said, Johnson: 6 1/3 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 HR (Terry Tiffee), 0 BB, 6 K

Notes: Because both of his final two spring starts were to come against the Devil Rays, Mike Mussina will instead take his turn with the minor league campers today against the minor league D-Rays. In his place, Matt Childers will make the major league start.

***

After the game, the Red Sox claimed ex-Dodger Hee Seop Choi–whose availability has been an inevitability ever since the Dodgers signed Nomar Garciaparra to play first base, if not since the firing of Paul DePodesta–off waivers. Choi is a twenty-seven-year-old lefty-hitting first baseman with a severe platoon split who has yet to live up to his potential. Three years ago, the Twins released another twenty-seven-year-old lefty-hitting first baseman with a severe platoon split who had never lived up to his potential. That player signed with the Red Sox and proceeded to be one of the ten most productive players in the game over the following three years. His name is David Ortiz. Here’s a comparison of the two players’ careers prior to signing with Boston:

David Ortiz: .266/.348/.461, .524 OWP, 1693 PA
Hee Seop Choi: .240/.349/.437, .531 OWP, 1086 PA

Indeed, the age-27 player Choi is most similar to according to PECOTA is none other than Big Papi himself.

Ortiz’s numbers since signing with the Red Sox: .297/.383/.600, .709 OWP, 1891 PA

When Ortiz was available in the winter of 2003, George Steinbrenner instructed Brian Cashman to sign him, but Cashman refused because of the presence of both Jason Giambi, who had just hit .314/.435/.598 in the first year of a seven-year, $120 million contract, and Nick Johnson, a home-grown prospect who was nearly three years Ortiz’s junior (incidentally, Johnson, who was the key player sent to the Expos in the Javy Vazquez deal, is also 27 this offseason and has a better career line than Choi or Ortiz at the same age: .265/.383/.437, .587 OWP, 1767 PA).

This year, the Yankees still have Giambi (coming off a .271/.440/.535 comeback season), but their back-up is Andy Phillips, who not only lacks any sort of meaningful major league track record (just 49 career PA), but is nearly two years older than Choi. I’ve long been rooting for the Yankees to give Phillips a shot because of his minor league numbers, but even I couldn’t argue against limiting him to a utility/righty pinch-hitter role, or even dumping him altogether in favor of the younger, more established Choi, whose lefty swing could have been a perfect fit for Yankee Stadium. A Choi/Phillips DH platoon, meanwhile, could have pushed the Yankee offense into 1000-run territory this year. Instead, Choi’s presence in Boston will allow the Red Sox to kick the 38-year-old J.T. Snow to the curb and, if necessary, move Kevin Youkilis to third base should Mike Lowell fail to rebound from his dreadful 2005.

But don’t blame Brian Cashman, or anyone else in the Yankee front office for that matter. Because of the waiver order–which begins with the worst team in the same league as the waiving team (determined by the previous year’s standings through the thirtieth day of a new season), proceeds to the best team in that league, then begins the other league again going worst-to-first–the Red Sox were able to claim Choi before the Yankees got their shot. In a vicious twist, it was the tie-breaker that awarded the Yankees the 2004 AL East title–which proved to be worth little more than bragging rights as the second-place Red Sox claimed the Wild Card, neither team had home field advantage in the playoffs, and both were eliminated in the ALDS–that cost them Choi. This is very different than what happened with Ortiz. Ortiz was released before the Twins had to offer him a contract for 2003, making him a free agent during the winter of 2002-2003. Choi, on the other hand, had already re-upped with the Dodgers by signing a one-year $725,000 deal, thus he had to be waived lest the Dodgers be forced to eat that entire contract. Instead, the Red Sox will assume his full salary and likely paid a waiver price for the privilege. They’ll almost certainly get their money’s worth, though it’s staggering to think that 26 other clubs passed on Choi before the Red Sox put in their claim.

Sorry about the delay on today’s post, I was out of commission yesterday as I was in Philadelphia promoting Baseball Prospectus 2006. Before we get to the Yankees 8-1 drubbing of the visiting Astros, I should mention that I’ll again be on the road promoting BP06 this Sunday at 1:00 when I, along with Allen Barra and the largest collection of BP authors ever assembled in one place, will take part in a baseball roundtable at the Yogi Berra Museum in Montclair.

Right then. On with it . . .

Lineup:

Johnny Damon DH
Derek Jeter SS
Gary Sheffield RF
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Jason Giambi 1B
Hideki Matsui LF
Bernie Williams CF
Robinson Cano 2B
Wil Nieves C

Subs: Andy Phillips 1B, Miguel Cario 2B, Felix Escalona SS, Russ Johnson 3B, Luis A. Garcia RF, Bubba Crosby CF, Kevin Reese LF, Kevin Thompson DH

Pitchers: Scott Proctor, Colter Bean, Mariano Rivera, Mike Myers, Tanyon Sturtze, Kyle Farnsworth

Big Hits: Homers by the previously hitless Alex Rodriguez (two-run job, 2 for 3), Matsui (solo shot, 2 for 3), and Garcia (3-run jack, 1 for 1). Garcia is 2 for 2 with two homers, five RBIs, and three runs scored this spring. Gary Sheffield (2 for 3) not only doubled (his first extra-base hit of the spring), but doubled his spring hit total.

Who Pitched Well: Proctor, making a strong argument for his conversion back to starting, struck out four in four scoreless innings allowing just two hits and a walk, all of which came in the fourth inning. Colter Bean, in his first game action of the spring, Mariano Rivera, pitching in back-to-back games for the first time this spring, and Kyle Farnsworth (now that’s a Big Three I could learn to love) each pitched a perfect inning striking out one, none and two respectively. Mike Myers pitched around a walk in one hitless inning.

Ouchies: As I said, Colter Bean saw his first game action of the spring after rehabbing from off-season ACL surgery. Jaret Wright played catch for ten minutes before yesterday’s game. Peter Abraham reports that his back looked loose. He could return to game action as early as Tuesday. Jorge Posada was released from the hospital yesterday morning and did not attend yesterday’s game, but should return to action next week as well.

With the Yankees and Red Sox playing a night game live on YES, I thought I’d do a running commentary on the game, at least until Becky switches over to the new episode of Lost.

The Yanks are hosting the Red Sox at home at Legends Field. As expected, the YES broadcast is non-stop Johnny Damon for the first 15 minutes. Nauseating. The one bit of “relief” is footage of Jorge Posada being hit in the face with a throw from Kelly Stinnett while playing catch during BP before the game (to bad they haven’t started BPTV yet, or whatever it’s called). Posada was distracted by another ball and Stinnett’s throw hit him in the nose, catching a bit of his left eye socket as well, knocking him down and bloodying his face. He was helped off the field in a daze and pulled from the line-up.

During a terrible version of the national anthem, the camera catches non-roster invitee Enrique Wilson in his Red Sox uniform. Hilarious.

Top 1

Here’s the Red Sox’s line-up:

Adam Stern CF
Alex Cora SS
J.T. Snow 1B
Manny Ramirez DH
Mike Lowell 3B
Wily Mo Pena RF
Dustin Mohr LF
Ken Huckaby C
Alejandro Machado 2B

Jonathan Papelbon P

Shawn Chacon is on the hill for the Yanks.

Stern steps in wearing a red jersey, looking like he’s still on team Canada. He singles through the right side on Chacon’s second pitch.

The defensive alignment shows Bernie in center with Damon, who was seen throwing during fielding drills before the game, as DH. Sigh. I imagine it would make Torre’s brain ache to write one of the Kevins in the line-up with the rest of his starters.

Stern takes second on Chacon’s second pitch to Cora, Stinnett’s throw is up and away to Jeter, thankfully missing his nose. Chacon makes Cora look bad on a slow 12-6 curve for the first out.

J.T. Snow is the first of three former Yankee minor leaguers in this line-up. Chacon gets ahead 0-2, wastes one high and away, then gets Snow swinging on a harder curve over the outside corner.

Manny forgot his uniform and is wearing number 95 with no name on the back (the rest of the Sox have their names on their jerseys). Manny’s look this spring is a homeless-man beard and light orange dreads. He works the count full and draws a walk on a fastball just barely low and away.

Mike Lowell, ex-Yankee farmhand #2, is next. Stinnett makes a nice stop on a pitch in the dirt away, 1-1, then again 2-1. Chacon’s fourth pitch to Lowell is popped straight up, Stinnett, who wears a regular cap rather than a helmet or nothing at all under his hockey-style mask, makes the catch with his left foot in the right-handed batter’s box.

Bottom 1

The Yankee line-up, sans Posada:

Damon DH
Jeter SS
Matsui LF
Sheffield RF
Rodriguez 3B
Giambi 1B
Williams CF
Cano 2B
Stinnett C

At least Torre bothered to move Stinnett down to ninth rather than just subbing him in Posada’s spot (the original lineup ended Posada-Cano-Williams).

The Sox are wearing caps with red bills and buttons with their red BP jerseys. Whatever. The Yanks are in their blue BP jerseys and pinstriped pants.

Damon shows bunt on Papelbon’s second pitch, fouls off a 2-2 pitch, then takes ball three to go full. He chops the seventh pitch to third, Lowell stops it but doesn’t field it cleanly, but still recovers to get Damon by a half-step.

Jeter falls into a quick 0-2 hole then works it back full. He then hits a half swing chopper to second and is thrown out easily.

Papelbon looks a bit like a younger Mike Timlin from the back. A big country boy (Timlin’s from Texas, Papelbon from Baton Rouge) with a large, square back and skinny legs that taper to the ankle.

Matsui draws a five-pitch walk. Sheffield hits a pitch high and over the plate to center for the final out.

Top 2

Wily Mo (ex-Yankee farmhand #3) sends his bat flying into the stands striking out on another tremendous Chacon curve.

Mohr swings about a half-hour early on a couple of change-ups for Chacon’s fourth strikeout of the game. Makes you think that if Chacon had a strong fastball to go with his curve and change he’d be unhittable. Unfortunately, that’s the one pitch you can’t teach.

Save for Stern’s lead-off single, the Sox have yet to hit the ball fair. As I type that, Huckaby laces a double down the third base line past Rodriguez for a double and makes a Willie Mays Hayes head-first slide into second, nearly stopping short of the bag as Jeter turns to apply the tag. A moment later, the YES camera’s catch Jeter rotating his left shoulder with Huckaby lurking to his left.

A grounder to second and a flip to Chacon ends the inning.

Bottom 2

Rodriguez makes a nice swing on the first pitch he sees, flying out to the warning track in right center. Jim Kaat argues for Ortiz’s 2005 MVP candidacy. Sigh.

Giambi puts a nice swing on a fastball up in his eyes and pops it to center.

Bernie then crushes a ball over the foul pole in left. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen Bernie hit a ball that hard or show that much bat speed. It would be a lot of fun if Bernie proves me wrong this season. 1-0 Yanks.

Cano grounds to second to end the inning.

Top 3

Cano bobbles a nice play to his left but stays with it to retire Stern. Cora pops to Jeter. After 2 2/3 innings, Chacon has thrown 68 percent of 41 pitches for strikes. Solid.

Bernie standing in center is clean shaven, hiding the grey in his beard. Having homered in the previous inning, he looks ten years younger.

Snow works a full-count walk.

Kay and Kaat are talking about how Enrique Wilson and Manny are best friends (though they fail to connect the dot back to their days as youngsters with the Indians—remember when Enrique was considered to have potential? Zoinks!) At any rate, the Sox are apparently dreading telling Manny that Enrique isn’t going to make the team. Pathetic.

Full-count fastball inside corner Ks Manny, who spins out of the way.

Bottom 3

Stinnett doubles. Damon goes 3-0 then singles through the hole into right to put runners on the corners with no outs. A grounder right to the third-base bag by Jeter catches Stinnett taking a step toward home. Lowell chases him down the line and makes the tag himself, holding Damon and Jeter to first and second. Mastui walks on four pitches to load the bases with one out for Sheffield. After 2 1/3, Papelbon has thrown 47 pitches and barely more strikes then balls.

How old is Roger Clemens? One of his closest friends is Al Nipper. Zoinks!

Sheff creams a line-drive foul. Then lifts a rainmaker sac fly to left and all three runners tag and advance, 2-0 Yanks.

Kaat misquotes Yogi: “You can see a lot by observing.” I’ve always enjoyed Kaat, but he’s either too rusty or too old right now.

Papelbon walks Rodriguez to reload the bases. Not a good night for the Sox’s best young pitcher. Giambi tops one to second. If anyone else was running it would have been close, but Giambi looks like he’s running in oatmeal on his way down to first. I may have stolen that simile from Steve Goldman. He can deal, I’m driving him (and Jay Jaffe) to Philly tomorrow (today for those reading this) for our Baseball Prospectus event at the Walnut Street Barnes & Nobel (plug!).

Top 4

Lowell hits one into the right-center gap, Bernie cuts it off, but with his momentum going away from second, his lollipop throw is too late to catch Lowell, who slides in for a double. Question is, we know Damon’s arm is no better, but would his wheels have made the difference there? The play was closer than I would have expected (though not so close that Jeter bothered making a tag).

Wily Mo cracks a two-run homer just as our new puppy pees in the living room. Pardon me for a moment . . .

Okay, 2-2 game, Machado is on with two outs. Stern doubles him home to make it 3-2. Cora grounds out to Giambi to end the inning.

On the penultimate pitch of the inning, Cora lines a hard foul down the right field line that bounces into the Yankee bullpen where Mike Mussina snags it showing off his gold-glove hands. Kaat must not have been looking and as the shot lingers on Mussina joking with catcher Ben Davis, who’s wearing Flaherty’s number 17, he remarks “as we see Mike Mussina holding a ball in the bullpen.” This is just not Kitty’s night.

Bottom 4

Bernie doubles into the RF gap, another nice swing. He shows his age running the bases, however, and makes an ugly slide trying to avoid the throw. He’s lucky he didn’t hurt himself. After all that effort he’s stranded.

Top 5

Brian Cashman joins Kaat and Kay in the booth after they inform us that the result of Posada’s pre-game accident was a fractured nasal passage that was reset at the hospital. Cashman says Posada will avoid the DL and at worst will miss a week. When last Posada’s nose was broken (by an Alfredo Amezaga throw in 2004) Posada missed just four games. Ah, but will it rob him of his power again? Cashman also tells us that Pavano threw 35 pitches in batting practice today and is projected to be activated in late April.

Bottom 5

Jeter leads off bottom of the fifth with a single. Lost comes on. Hey, it’s spring training.

[an hour later]

Top 9

With a 5-3 lead thanks to a two-run Luis Garcia homer (yes, this one), Kyle Farnsworth comes on to shut the door for the Yanks.

A group of kids can clearly be heard chanting “Let’s-Go-Red-Sox.”

Machado hits a grounder to Phillips, who flipips to Farnsworth for the first out (yes, I’ll be using that joke all year).

Adam Stern creams a hanger over the right field wall to make it 5-4. If Alex is watching this he’s cursing a blue streak over Farnsworth throwing junk with a two-run lead and no-one on. For what it’s worth, his fastball is coming in at 93 miles per hour. Now 95.

A comebacker hops right into Farnsworth’s glove for the second out.

Ian Bladergroen walks. The last out is a fly out to center. Yankees win, 5-4.

Subs: Andy Phillips 1B, Miguel Cairo 2B, Russ Johnson 3B, Omir Santos C, Luis Garcia RF, Bubba Crosby CF, Kevin Thompson LF, Kevin Reese DH, Felix Escalona PR

Pitchers: Shawn Chacon, Mariano Rivera, Mike Myers, Tanyon Sturtze, Kyle Farnsworth

As good as Mike Mussina was in his last start, he was that bad yesterday, resulting in a 15-2 Yankee loss to the Tigers on the road.

Lineup:

Johnny Damon DH
Derek Jeter SS
Bernie Williams RF
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Jorge Posada C
Andy Phillips 1B
Kevin Reese CF
Kevin Thompson LF
Miguel Cairo 2B

Subs: Felix Escalona SS, Russ Johnson 3B, Wil Nieves C, L. A. Garcia (?) RF, Andy Cannizaro DH

Pitchers: Mike Mussina, Dusty Bergman, Mark Corey, Scott Proctor, Ron Villone

Big Hits: A solo homer by Cairo (1 for 3), Damon and Jeter were both 2 for 3, Phillips was 2 for 4. On the flip side, Bernie went 0 for 4, grounded into two double plays and left seven men on base.

Who Pitched Well: Scott Proctor walked one and struck out two in two hitless innings, Mark Corey retired the only batter he faced.

Who Didn’t: Villone gave up two runs on four hits in one inning. Bergman gave up three runs on three hits in two-thirds of an inning. Mussina, however, takes the cake, giving up ten runs on a walk and twelve hits, including a pair of doubles and four home runs (by Dmitri Young, Brandon Inge, Magglio Ordonez and Alexis Gomez) in just four innings.

Ouchies: Jaret Wright’s back spasms will cause him to miss his scheduled start on Thursday (curiously it appears the Yanks has planned to skip Wang’s turn which falls on today’s off day, though I’ve not read any explaination as to why, I assume he’ll now take Wright’s turn on Thursday), but the Yankees are cautiously optimistic beyond that and have yet to determine if he’ll even miss a full turn or just have his start pushed back. Scott Erickson also suffered back spasms over the weekend, yet another in a series of fortuitous Yankee injuries dating back to last April. Carl Pavano, meanwhile, is now not expected to be ready by April 15, the day that the Yankees will need a fifth starter. Pavano is scheduled to throw batting practice Wednesday, then again on Saturday and should make his first game start a week from Wednesday or Thursday. That would give him time to make three starts before the 15th, but the Yankees think he’ll need 30 to 35 innings to be ready. Same old story. Don’t hold your breath for Meat’s return. Anyone still curious as to why the Yankees were unable to trade this guy this past winter?

So who will be making that April 15 start? Well, if his back holds up it will be Jaret Wright, who is still supposedly fighting for a rotation spot (a battle Pavano may make moot). If not, there’s a chance that Aaron Small could be back from his hamstring injury by then. Failing that, Matt DeSalvo just might get his shot earlier than expected. Indeed, to the delight of many, Joe Torre has said he has no intention of using Scott Erickson as a starter, back spasms or not. From MLB.com:

Torre nixed the idea of using Erickson as a starter, however, even if the rotation has a hole to fill because of injury.

“We’re looking for Erickson in the middle of a game, because he could probably give you two, three or four innings,” Torre said. “If he’s in the mix, that’s probably what his role would be.”

“If he’s in the mix,” music to my ears.