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The Yankees played their first game of 2006 yesterday afternoon in Tampa. Well, sorta. They played an intrasquad game with Yogi Berra and Reggie Jackson managing the two squads, but it’s something.

As is the tradition, the elder Berra’s squad featured the regulars while Jackson’s team was loaded with minor leaguers and hopefuls. The reverse was true for the pitchers, as Jackson got to start Mike Mussina, who pitched two scoreless innings against his own kind, while Yogi started things off with Philip Hughes, who hurled a pair of hitless frames against his own kind.

According to a report from Sunday, the remaining pitchers were to be Steven White, Scott Erickson, Darrell Rasner, Matt DeSalvo, Dusty Bergman and Jose Veras for Jackson and T.J. Beam, Jeffrey Karstens, Mark Corey, Frank Brooks and Matt Childers for Berra.

One line-up note for Berra’s team: Bernie Williams got his first taste of right field since 1992 (when he was 23), reportedly making a nice snag in the gap on a ball hit by Kevin Thompson.

The reason Bernie was in right was that Gary Sheffield was held out due to back spasms he experienced on Sunday. Sheffield’s a back and Hideki Matsui’s left knee (Matsui also sat out the intrasquad game due to minor swelling in that knee) are the current crop of spring aches and pains. You all recall how Jorge Posada’s stiff neck and Randy Johnson’s tight calf derailed their seasons last year, right? No? Oh, that’s because they didn’t. The reason spring training exists is so that players can get back in game shape and have ample time to nurse such minor boo-boos along the way. There’s no point in fretting over each one.

That said, Carl Pavano’s back and Tanyon Sturtze’s shoulder remain worth watching. There was no new news on either yesterday. Mussina, meanwhile, threw in the intrasquad game to get lined up for his first spring start this Sunday. You’ll note that the “Important Dates” section on the side bar has reverted to “Upcoming Schedule.” The Yankees kick off their exhibition season on Thursday against the Phillies with Shawn Chacon on the mound. Chacon will be followed by Jaret Wright (who you may recall had a great spring last year), Randy Johnson, Mussina and Chien-Ming Wang in the Pavano-free five-man spring rotation.

Meanwhile, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Johnny Damon are the only Yankees participating in the World Baseball Classic. The US training camp opens Friday at Chase Field in Phoenix. The US squad will play an exhibition against a Giants slit-squad on Sunday in Scottsdale, Arizona, then play their first tournament game on Tuesday, also in Chase Field. Tournament schedule here, TV schedule here.

Meanwhile, back in Tampa, the absence of those three could mean extra long looks for Felix Escalona and Russ Johnson in the infield and Kevin Thompson and Kevin Reese in the outfield. Joe Torre has already said that he will not use Eric Duncan at third base this spring, to allow him to focus fully on continuing to learn first base.

It’s a bit fractured, but that’s our first taste of real baseball news this spring, so savor it. I’ll finally get that line-up post up tomorrow. Then Thursday: baseball!

When I first plunked down the cash for a Baseball Prospectus Premium Account a few years ago, my primary motivation was being able to read Will Carroll’s Team Health Reports. For those unfamiliar with Will’s THR’s, every spring he goes team by team through the major leagues, assigning green, yellow, or red lights to each team’s starting line-up, starting rotation, and closer indicating their likelihood of injury in the coming season (see his introduction to this year’s THR’s here). His 2006 THR for the Yankees (co-authored by Michael Groopman) went up on Tuesday and contains more than a few surprises, as well as more than a comfortable number of red lights.

Among the surprises are a yellow light for Robinson Cano (“a young player at a risky position”) and a green light for Johnny Damon (who, despite his habit of crashing into everything and everyone in center field, has never spent a day on the DL in the majors–knock knock). Even more surprising were the colors assigned to Shawn Chacon and Chien-Ming Wang. If I were to tell you that one of those pitchers earned a red light and the other a green, you’d naturally assume it was Wang who got the red due to his history of shoulder woes. Not so. Chacon is the man most likely to sell his body to the night. The reason is his history of low workloads. Dating back to 2000, his age-22 season and his last full year in the minors, here are Chacon’s annual innings pitched:

2000: 173 2/3
2001: 160
2002: 140
2003: 140
2004: 63 1/3
2005: 164 1/3

Those 173 2/3 innings in double-A at age 22 remain his career high (those 63 1/3 innings in 2004 were the result of the Rockies ill-fated decision to make him their closer that season).

With all five members of the 2005 opening day rotation as well as Wang having missed at least one start due to injury last year, the Yankees are likely hoping Chacon will be able to take the ball every fifth day this season. That means racking up around 200 innings, assuming he’s reasonably effective (33 starts * 6 IP/start = 198 IP). That’s a minimum 20 percent increase over what was already his second highest career IP total.

All of which should inspire increased pesismism over Chacon’s prospects for the coming year. Still, despite his miserable 1.33 K/BB ratio in pinstripes last year (an alarming lack of improvement over his career 1.32 mark despite his having finally escaped Denver’s thin air), his fluky good .240 opponent’s average on balls in play (league average hovers around .300 and Chacon is all but guaranteed to regress toward the mean), his history of wearing down late in the season (last year being a startling exception), and the fact that I was convinced he was the suck even after the Yankees picked him up last year, I can’t seem to get that down on Chacon. I really was impressed by what I saw from him at the end of last year, from the drop on his curve to his strong showing in his first career postseason start. What’s more, there are established sabermatricians who think Chacon just might be above average. Certainly, Chacon remains one of the biggest X-Factors on a rotation full of question marks.

As for Chien-Ming Wang’s green light, I’ve dropped Will an email asking him to shed some light. I hope to add his response to this post later today.

UPDATE: Will reports that his system does not include data on minor league injuries, creating what he himself describes as “a huge hole in the system,” through which Wang slipped twice by avoiding surgery, making his late-season DL stay look like nothing more than a tired arm. Will is hesitant to override his system, but, and this is me speaking now, for all intents and purposes, Wang should be at least a yellow.

Last Friday, Alex posted a link to a Bill Madden puff piece speculating as to what Yankee life would be like after Mariano Rivera. Certainly Rivera deserves his due, but at a time when we’re all desperate for some meaningful baseball news, this seemingly annual bit of warmed over column leftovers turned my stomach.

Part of my problem with the piece, I now realize, is that, while Rivera has undoubtedly been one of the greatest closers in baseball history and is a level above even the best closers in the game, the gap between what he does and what a journeyman such as Todd Jones is able to do in a given season is much smaller than the gap between the what one can expect from an ace starter or one of the league’s top hitters and a comparable journeyman. I mean no affront to Rivera, but it’s true that, in this post-Eckersley era, closing ballgames is no more difficult than kicking field goals. The league average success rate of both is in the area of 75-80 percent. In 2005, Rivera converted an excellent 91 percent of his save opportunities. Todd Jones converted 89 percent of his. Those of you who play fantasy baseball already know this. Nearly every team has a guy who can rack up 30-plus saves with a decent ERA and a handful of strikeouts. Unless you get completely caught napping, you’ll wind up with at least one of them on your fantasy team. Getting something useful out of your catching position, on the other hand, is something only a lucky few are able to do.

Indeed, the man the Yankees will miss most when the time comes just might be Jorge Posada. For all the lumps he’s taken over the years for his defense and baserunning, Posada has been the second most productive catcher in all of baseball since 1998. Only Mike Piazza, the most productive catcher ever, has contributed more to his team(s) over that eight year span. Now that is going to be hard to replace.

What’s more, though Posada, who will turn 35 on August 17, is nearly two years younger than Rivera, who turned 36 this past November, history suggests that the Yankees will have to replace their catcher before their closer. Let’s use some very simple standards to determine a productive season for a closer and a catcher. For closers we’ll use 30-saves (a standard Rivera has reached in eight of his nine seasons as Yankee closer, saving 28 in his injury-shortened 2002 season). For catchers we’ll use 15 Runs Created Above Position (or 15 more runs created than the league average catcher, a standard Posada has reached in seven of his eight seasons since taking over the majority of the catching duties in 1998, with 17 RCAP in his disappointing 2005 season).

While 16 pitchers have had 30-save seasons after the age of 35 (three of them, including Todd Jones, doing so in 2005, and seven of them doing so more than once), there have been just 12 catchers who have been 15 or more runs above average in a single season after the age of 35. While this suggests that a third more closers than catchers have had productive seasons after age 35, the gap is actually far wider. Remember, the first 30-save season in baseball history was Ted Abernathy’s 31 saves in 1965. Meanwhile, Hoyt Wilhelm, who is second only to Eckersley in saves recorded after the age of 35, never once saved 30 games in a single season. If I lower the standard to 20 saves twelve more pitchers join the list, and Ellis Kinder, who save 27 in 1953 at age 38, is the earliest among them chronologically.

The list of catchers with 15 RCAP seasons after the age of 35, meanwhile, stretches back to Jim O’Rourke’s 1887 season with the New York Giants. O’Rourke created 28 more runs than the average National League catcher in 1887 at age 36. The following year he move to left field.

Thus, there have been barely more than a third (37.5 percent as many to be precise) as many 15 RCAP catchers over the age of 35 in the last 119 seasons than there have been 20-save pitchers over the age of 35 in the last 53 seasons.

For yucks, here are the dozen backstops that made the cut, four of whom, lead by extreme outlier Carlton Fisk, did so more than once. Note the absence of many of the greats of the position, including Bench, Berra, Cochrane, Dickey, Carter, and, yes, Piazza, who is entering his age-37 season:

So what does the future hold for Posada and the Yankees’ catching situation. Well, to begin with, Posada has a $12 million option for 2007 that will vest when he catches his 81st game of the season. He’ll also become a 5-and-10 player on June 27 (ten years in the majors, five with the same club), giving him the ability to reject a trade. So barring a complete collapse, Jorge will at the very least be the teacher part of a student-teacher platoon in 2007 (scary thought, I realize).

That said, with no in-house prospects other than 19-year-old Jose Gil, who has yet to catch an inning above rookie ball, the next Yankee catcher will have to come from another organization. With that in mind, we’d all be well advised to keep an eye on the Dodgers, who have a pair of catching prospects in camp this spring competing to become the next L.A. backstop. According to this article from yesterday’s Los Angeles Times, the Dodgers will likely have to commit to either 23-year-old home grown prospect Russell Martin or erstwhile Yankee prospect Dioner Navarro sometime in the next year. Navarro is a full year younger than Martin and will likely be the Dodgers starting catcher this season. Martin has yet to crack triple-A, but could prove to be the superior hitter in time. Either one could greatly improve the Yankees future behind the plate if he finds he no longer has a future in Tinseltown.

As for Posada, the Yankees have long hoped that because he wasn’t converted to catching until his age-20 season, and was brought along slowly in the majors, splitting parts of three seasons with Joe Girardi, he would age slower than the typical catcher. However Jorge’s declining production over the past two seasons at age 32 and 33 (from an admittedly staggering high of 49 RCAP in his near-MVP season of 2003) seems to have dashed that hope. Entering his age 34-season, I’m hoping for one last gasp from Posada before his decline takes full hold. If we do get such a season from Posada, be sure to enjoy it. As the Yankees will find out all too soon, catchers who can produce like Jorge, at any age, don’t come around nearly as often as reliable closers.

Pitchers and catchers report to spring training today. The words dance about before my eyes. Oh frabjous day! Callooh Callay! (chortle, chortle, chortle).

It’s tempting to say it’s been a long, cold winter, but that’s hardly true. Long, perhaps, but it’s been unseasonably mild. Sure there were cold spells, but early January felt like spring, causing me to prematurely anticipate the arrival of today’s date. The two feet of snow that was dumped on New York City this past weekend has already melted down to a few inches. The rocks in my new front lawn are already poking their heads out from under the blanket of white. Yesterday I went to work with a fleece scarf wrapped around my chin and neck, only to be greeted by a sunny and mild day come lunch time.

Unlike these many false starts, however, it appears spring is finally here, and though we were spared winter’s harsh sting, it still feels like a mighty long time since that infamous double play put the stake in the heart of Yankee fans last October.

This marks the beginning of my second season here at Bronx Banter and while I arrived last March filled with schoolboy enthusiasm, this year my mindset is more one of calloused determination. The change is less the result of my experiences in this space over the past year, which have ranged from good to great to dream-fulfilling, but of a very busy and distracting offseason and the realization that the Yankee roster I’ve come here to discuss is not as different from the one I spent eight months of last year picking apart as I had hoped it would be.

Much like last year, the Yankees enter camp with their roster essentially set. Barring injuries (which given the Yankee pitching staff are all but guaranteed), the Yankees will open the season with a 25-man roster that looks like this:

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)

Rotation:

L – Randy Johnson
R – Mike Mussina
R – Shawn Chacon
R – Chien-Ming Wang
R – Carl Pavano

Bullpen:

R – Mariano Rivera
R – Kyle Farnsworth
L – Mike Myers
L – Ron Villone
R – Tanyon Sturtze
R – Aaron Small
R – Jaret Wright

DL: R – Octavio Dotel

Indeed, Joe Torre has already told The Star-Ledger that he expects to open the season with twelve pitchers, due largely to the size of his hurlers’ contracts. As outrageous as this is, it works out pretty neatly. Of the above 25 men, Kelly Stinnett is the only player to have reached his arbitration years who will make less than $1 million in 2006. Chien-Ming Wang, Robinson Cano, Andy Phillips and Bubba Crosby, each of whom will make the league minimum (recently raised to $327), are the only other six digit players listed above.

This style of roster building has its most damaging effect on the Yankee bullpen, but before we get that far, let’s take a look at the Yankees’ short-handed bench.

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This past Friday, the Yankees avoided an arbitration hearing with Shawn Chacon by signing the right-hander to a $3.6 million contract that split the difference between the offers made by the player and the club. With that, they cleaned their offseason slate. With pitchers and catchers due to report on Thursday and my slate similarly clean (a couple of book projects, a foray into homeownership, the resulting move, and some key wedding planning having conspired with a slow offseason to keep me away from this space far more that I would have liked since the end of the ALDS), I thought this would be a good opportunity to review the Yankees’ offseason moves. I’ll follow this up on Thursday by projecting the team’s opening day roster and taking a look at the various and sundry players the Yankees will have in camp this spring.

The Yankees were at a crossroads last October. Thanks to the remnants of a dynasty that came to an end a half-decade ago and the financial wherewithal to supplement those pieces (Jeter, Rivera, Posada) with an all-star squad of veterans (Mussina, Giambi, Sheffield, Rodriguez, Johnson), the Yankees had reached the postseason for a staggering eleventh consecutive season. But due in part to the lack of harmony and foresight in the front office, the team had gone home without a Championship in each of the last five of those seasons. On the heels of the absolutely abysmal offseason that followed the 2004 campaign—highlighted by the commitment of a combined $57.95 million to Carl Pavano, Jared Wright and Tony Womack—Yankee General Manager Brian Cashman, with less than a week left on his contract, gave the team an ultimatum. If the Yankees refused to run all baseball operations decisions through him, he’d sign with another team that would.

To their credit, the Yankees relented, re-signing Cashman to a three-year, $5.5 million deal and giving him authority over all player transactions. As Cashman’s in-season infusion of talented youngsters via the promotions of second baseman Robinson Cano and pitcher Chien-Ming Wang suggested, it was exactly what the team needed.

At long last freed from the foolish and impulsive moves made by the team’s vilified Tampa contingent, Cashman took a good look at his team and properly recognized that, while the infield was solid-to-excellent and the starting rotation was, if loaded with question marks, at least well-populated, the outfield, bullpen and bench needed to be completely restocked.

The first order of business was the outfield. With Bernie Williams’ 2006 option declined, Hideki Matsui’s contract set to expire, and Jason Giambi installed at first base—as well he should be by anyone who’s ever seen his splits—the Yankees had nothing more than Gary Sheffield and Bubba Crosby to populate the three outfield spots and designated hitter.

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Super Bowl Sunday. I plan on spending as much of the pre-game portion of the day as possible watching the half-hour Super Bowl highlight shows on ESPN2. I actually have the first XXXVII or so of them on tape in my basement, but I just moved into a new house and they remain packed. Football is my second favorite sport after baseball, but it’s a pretty distant second, really. Nonetheless, those excellent NFL Films highlight shows, with their dramatic slow motion shots, trumpeting fanfares, and poetic John Facenda voice-overs, do it for me every year. I especially enjoy the first XXII, which include all of the shows Facenda narrated before his death in 1984 (plus a few more), and take us from Lombardi’s Packers through the Giants’ glorious Super Bowl XXI victory over that punk kid Elway and Elway’s historic humiliation at the hands of the equally historic Doug Williams the following year.

As for this year’s game, I’ll be rooting for Big Ben and the Steelers, in part due to my everlasting distaste for expansion teams and gaudy uniforms and my corresponding fondness for past dynasties and sartorial consistency. That said, the Futility Infielder’s Jay Jaffe has an enjoyable write-up of his thirty-years of rooting (albeit frequently half-heartedly) for those expansion Seahawks. Most of all, I’ll be rooting for an exciting game. Nothing’s worse than devoting a day to a dud match-up that ends in a blowout.

With that in mind, allow me to reprint a list I posted on the BRB in the wake of Super Bowl XXXVIII of what I believe to be the ten greatest Super Bowl finishes in the game’s history:

10) VII: Dolphins 14, Redskins 7 – The Redskins trail the undefeated Dolphins 14-0 with just over two minutes left and are looking a 17-0 deficit in the face when the Dolphins’ field goal attempt goes haywire. A botched snap is picked up by Dolphins’ kicker Garo Yepremian, who attempts to pass only to have the ball fall behind him, where it is scooped up by Washington’s Mike Bass, who takes it 49 yards to bring the Redskins within a touchdown with 2:07 left.

9) XIII: Steelers 35, Cowboys 31 – Trailing 35-17 with 6:51 remaining, the Cowboys, led by Roger Staubach, score a touchdown to bring it to 35-24 with 2:23 remaining. They then recover an on-sides kick and drive for another touchdown to come within four points of the lead with 22 seconds on the clock. A second on-sides kick is snagged by the Steelers with 17 seconds left to kill the Cowboy comeback.

8) X: Steelers 21, Cowboys 17 – Leading by the final score, the Steelers turn the ball over on downs at the Cowboy’s 39 with 1:22 left to play. Roger Staubach moves the chains twice in the final minute of play but his final pass is intercepted in the end zone by Pittsburgh’s Glen Edwards as time expires.

7) XXXII: Broncos 31, Packers 24 – With the game knotted at a 24-24 tie, the Comeback Kid, John Elway, then 0-3 career in the Super Bowl, gets the ball on the Packers’ 49 with 3:27 left. Helped by a 15-yard facemask penalty, Elway brings the ball to the Packer’s one-yard-line with 1:47 left. Packers’ coach Mike Holmgren tells his defense to allow the Broncos to score rather than allow them to take more time off the clock and win the game on a chip-shot field goal. Thus, Brett Farve, no slouch in the comeback department himself, gets the ball on his own 30 with less than 1:45 remaining. After two quick passes for 35 total yards the Packers are on the Broncos 35 with 1:05 left, but manage only four more yards before turning the ball over on downs with 32 seconds remaining.

6) V: Colts 16, Cowboys 13 – A messy, lackluster game–the first played on turf–is tied at 13 (appropriately) when Colts kicker Jim O’Brien connects on a 32-yard field goal to give the Colts the win in the final seconds.

5) XXXVIII: Patriots 32, Panthers 29 – Trailing 29-22 in another see-saw affair, the Panthers’ Jake Delhomme hits Ricky Proehl for a game-tying touchdown with 1:08 remaining in the game. On the ensuing kickoff, Carolina kicker John Kasay kicks the ball out of bounds, giving the Patriots the ball at their own 40. Tom Brady moves his team 37 yards to the Panthers’ 23 in six plays setting up a game-winning kick by Adam Vinatieri (who missed both of his previous field goal attempts in this game). Vinatieri’s 41-yarder splits the uprights and gives the Patriots a victory eerily similar to their first in Super Bowl XXXVI.

4) XXIII: 49ers 20, Bengals 16 – Trailing 16-14, Joe Montana and the 49ers get the ball on their own 8 with 3:20 left on the clock. Montana then seals his reputation with a 11-play, 92-yard drive that devours all but 34 seconds from the game clock, concluding with a 10-yard pass to John Taylor.

3) XXXVI: Patriots 20, Rams 17 – Trailing 17-10 with 1:51 remaining, Kurt Warner takes the Rams 55 yards on just three passing plays for a game-tying touchdown to Ricky Proehl (yes, Ricky Proehl). With the game tied, 1:30 remaining, and no time-outs, rookie Tom Brady uses almost a full minute to get his team to it’s own 41 before an incompletion stops the clock at 33 seconds. He then completes two passes for a total of 39 yards to reach the Rams’ 30 yard line and spikes the ball to stop the clock with seven seconds left. Adam Vinatieri then connects on a 48-yard field goal to win the game on it’s final play.

2) XXV: Giants 20, Buffalo 19 – The closest final score in Super Bowl history. A see-saw game reaches its conclusion as Bills kicker Scott Norwood’s 47-yard field goal attempt with seconds remaining sails wide right.

1) XXXIV: Rams 23, Titans 16 – Down by seven, Titan’s QB Steve McNair executes a rousing drive in the closing seconds. On the game’s final play, he wriggles away from a would-be sacker and hits Kevin Dyson at the three yard line. Dyson turns toward the end zone and sees no one between him and the goal line, but as he lunges forward, the Rams’ Mike Jones wraps him up and drops him on the one as Dyson’s outstretched arm hovers just inches short of the goal line and time expires.

The Yankees signed Aaron Small to a one-year, $1.2 million contract yesterday. In doing so they avoid an arbitration hearing and fell just shy of meeting Small half way. That’s what amounts to big news out of the Bronx these days. Things have been dead quiet since the team signed Miguel Cairo back on January 5.

That’s in stark contrast to what’s happening 200 miles Northeast in Beantown. The eight-player, three-team deal that was to bring Coco Crisp to Boston has hit the skids after Guillermo Mota failed Cleveland’s physical (this despite passing Boston’s physical when the Sox acquired him from Florida in the Josh Beckett trade back around Thanksgiving).

Meanwhile, the man who will be responsible for sorting all of this out will be none other than Theo Epstein. Less than three months after leaving his post as General Manager, Epstein has not only returned to the team, but reclaimed his position as GM, putting the lie to fact that Jed Hoyer and Ben Cherington would share the job (Hoyer has been bumped down to assistant GM and Cherington has been made VP of player personnel).

It all makes one wonder exactly how involved Epstein really was during his 84-day exile. Here’s what the Sox have done in Theo’s “absence”:

That doesn’t include the still undetermined Coco Crisp deal.

While it’s very tempting to dust that list for Theo’s fingerprints, one tends to wonder if the “boy genius” would have left his club with Alex Cora at shortstop and a battle between Adam Stern and Willie Harris in center just 23 days before Pitchers and Catchers.

By the way, the last six items on the above list occured between the Cairo and Small contracts. Myself, I don’t mind the silence.

The Yankees have exchanged arbitration offers with their two eligible players, pitchers Shawn Chacon and Aaron Small. When last I poked my head out of my hole to see if winter had passed, I estimated their 2006 salaries at $4 million and $1 million respectively. Turns out I was closer than even I would have thought:

Chacon’s request: $4.15 mil
Yankees’ response: $3.1 mil

Small’s request: $1.45 mil
Yankees’ response: $1.025 mil

It seems to me that Small is the more likely to lose his case due to his irregular career path and the fact that the Yankees regularly bounced him into the bullpen, including for the ALDS in which his coin finally came up tails. Much to my surprise, the owners have won the majority of the cases that have made it to arbitration (as the arbiter can only chose one figure or the other, most cases are settled before reaching arbitration with the two parties agreeing on difference-splitting contracts). From 1974-2004, the owners had a .573 winning percentage in arbitration cases. At any rate, the total difference between the offers made by the Yankees and the requests made by Small and Chacon is $1.475 million, or less any member of the Yankees’ 40-man roster who has reached his arbitration years will make in 2006 save for Mike Myers ($1.2 mil), Miguel Cairo ($1 mil) and Kelly Stinnett ($650K). Small will join that group regardless of how his case is decided in February.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

After reading through the comments to the last two posts on the Damon signing, I felt the need to generate a new post in response to the many misconceptions that are being tossed around:

To begin with, George Steinbrenner isn’t spending his money. He’s spending the Yankees’ money. There are many major league owners who are richer than Steinbrenner, but no major league teams that generate more revenue. That said, when the Yankees expenses increase, it does come out of the fans’ pockets. In addition to the cost of concessions at the Stadium, consider the fact that ticket prices have gone up each of the last two years as the Yankees have slipped into the red.

All of which is proof that the luxury tax is working. Since the new basic agreement went into effect in 2003, the Yankees have exceeded the luxury tax threshold each year and in 2005 paid more than $30 million in luxury tax alone. In 2006, they’ll owe forty cents on every dollar they spend above $136.5 million. As of this morning, Hardball Dollars estimates the Yankees’ 2006 payroll at $186.2 million. That figure does not include the league-minimum salaries of Chien-Ming Wang, Andy Phillips or Bubba Crosby, nor does it include the still-undetermined arbitration awards due to Shawn Chacon and Aaron Small. Chacon earned $2.35 million in ’05 and finished strong. Let’s round him up to $4 million. Small earned the league minimum, but went 10-0, so let’s give him $1 million (both are likely lowball estimates). Wang, Phillips and Crosby make up another million. So that’s a $192.2 million payroll, $55.7 million more than the tax threshold, meaning the Yankees already owe $22.28 million in luxury tax. Any further additions, such as a designated hitter, will actually cost the Yankees 40 percent more than the actual 2006 salaries of those players.

Also, for those counting the big salaries that have come off the books, don’t forget that Jason Giambi and Randy Johnson will earn a combined $8 million more in 2006 than they did in 2005.

At any rate, for readers such as Debris to pin the Damon signing, or any other, on the Yankees’ “economic advantage” over the Red Sox is simply absurd. Now that the Red Sox are bouncing around in John Henry’s deep pockets and the Yankees are cutting payroll, that advantage no longer exists.

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While we were busy yesterday fretting over possible non-tenders such as Corey Patterson, Russell Branyan (both of whom were tendered after all), and Hee Seop Choi (who was re-signed by the Dodgers), Brian Cashman was cooking up a much tastier treat. Never mind Jason Michaels, Johnny Damon is coming to the Bronx. Get that barber’s chair ready.

Pending a physical and the hammering out of a few details, the Yankees will pay Damon $52 million over the next four years. My initial two bits:

• That’s the exact same deal the Yankees gave to Hideki Matsui, who is just seven months Damon’s junior.
• Damon will be 35 when his contract expires, which is how old Bernie Williams was in 2004.
• Damon’s home/road splits have been striking during his four years with the Red Sox. Fenway has added some thirty points to his batting average, but negatively effected his power:

  2005 Home: .334/.391/.440 – .106 ISP
  2005 Road: .298/.342/.438 – .140 ISP

  2002-2004 Home: .318/.388/.448 – .130 ISP
  2002-2004 Road: .278/.340/.433 – .155 ISP

  As nearly all of Damon’s home runs are shots pulled down the right field line, expect Damon’s power numbers to improve as a result of the move from Fenway to Yankee Stadium.

• Not only have the Yankees just added one of the five best center fielders in the game, but they’ve subtracted that same player from their closest rivals, sending that gaping hole in center to Boston in exchange for Damon. Jesus Caveman was worth 5.5 wins to the Red Sox last year according to WARP. That’s an eleven-win swing in the division as the result of a single move.
• Say what you want about the likelihood of Damon remaining above average in his age 35 season, this 2006 Yankee line-up is mighty impressive:

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

  Now if the Yankees were to sign Mike Piazza and bump Phillips to the bench . . .

As I write this, Becky is furiously wrapping gifts after a long day of holiday shopping. I myself finished (and started) my shopping yesterday, though I still have to do my wrapping and send out my half of the cards. At work, our accounts department is besieged by requests from authors desperate to get their checks before the new year for tax purposes, and the rest of us are working to tie up loose ends before before the office shuts down (or the transit system does, whichever comes first).

Things are no different in Yankeeland as the past two days have brought a pair of deadlines forcing certain personnel moves. Yesterday was the deadline for free agents offered arbitration to decline or accept their team’s offer. As expected, all three players the Yankees offered arbitration–Bernie Williams, Al Leiter and Ramiro Mendoza–declined. Mendoza, who would have had very little to gain by accepting arbitration coming off a year of injury rehab played under a minor-league contract, signed another minor league deal with the Yankees and will again be a non-roster invitee to spring training in 2006. Unlike last year when he was unable to play until August, however, Mendoza will be expected to compete for the final spot in the bullpen this upcoming spring.

That Leiter and Williams declined arbitration is much more significant news for the Yankees. Even though both were likely offered arbitration with the understanding that they would decline it, had either had a last-second change of heart, the Yankees would have been on the hook for a multi-million dollar one-year deal with a player with very little chance of earning such a salary (given the 20 percent maximum pay cut, Leiter would have been guaranteed a minimum of $5.6 million for 2006, Williams $9.6 million). With Williams and Leiter having declined arbitration, the Yankees now have until January 8 to re-sign either if they so desire, otherwise they will lose the right to sign them until May 1.

Word has it that the Yankees are still trying to bang out a one-year deal with Williams, with $2 million being the currently rumored price tag. That would be a $10 million pay cut for Bernie, but would also be a half-million more than Ruben Sierra earned last year to fill the same role. Sierra was not only useless as a part-time DH/pinch-hitter in 2005 (posting a WARP2 of zero), but was overpaid even by the standards of his 2004 season (Tony Clark, who had an almost perfectly identical 2004 to Sierra’s, but with the added advantage of being able to contribute on defense, signed for half as much with Arizona prior to 2005). Bernie posted a .255 EQA last year (compared to the .262 mark posted by Sierra in 2004) and has suffered a steep decline in two of his last three seasons. There is no reason to believe that he will be able to contribute anything more than the occasional pinch-hit walk to the Yankees in 2006. Much as it pains me to say so, and not just because it might get me stabbed by the woman wielding scissors to my left, I do not think the Yankees should resign Bernie Williams at any price.

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The Yankees have officially announced the trade that will at long last send Tony Womack hurtling into the sun, or at least Cincinnati. It’s a minor deal, with the Yankees unloading an unwanted, unproductive player for a pair of minor leaguers, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s a minor miracle.

Not only have the Reds agreed to take Womack and his $2 million salary off the Yankees hands for 2006, but they’ve sent, not one, but two able-bodied young men back to the Bronx for the privilege. Were these kids ticket takers or pretzel vendors (seriously, the Stadium is in dire need of more pretzel vendors, I can never get a pretzel without having to retreat into the concourses) it would have been a steal, but they can actually play baseball.

The lesser player, outfielder Ben Himes, is too old for his league, having failed to advance beyond A-ball at the age of 24. But he did hit .320/.372/.533 for Sarasota in the Florida State League last year. Himes is a fourth outfielder at best, but given that strong showing and the fact that he got a late start (he was drafted out of college in 2003), there’s no reason to write him off just yet.

Kevin Howard, meanwhile, was ranked by both Baseball Prospectus and Baseball America as the top player available in today’s Rule 5 draft. A 24-year-old, lefty-hitting second baseman who spent all of 2005 in double-A, Howard doesn’t have a whole lot of power, but gets his hits and knows how to draw a walk (his .296/.346/.428 line in Chattanooga last year is fairly representative of his abilities at the plate). Howard played 3B in college and returned there in October in the Arizona Fall League where he crushed to the tune of .409/.475/.557, winning the AFL batting crown. A left-handed hitter, Howard’s never had a great defensive reputation, but his offensive skills and ability to play multiple positions (it’s thought he could also be used in the outfield) could make him a useful utility player as soon as the latter half of this year, which means he’s probably already more valuable than Womack. Best of all, the Yankees got him without having to keep him on the 25-man roster all year.

That’s a hell of a take for a player who is almost guaranteed to cost the Reds both wins and a couple mil. Indeed, between this trade and the list of players not offered arbitration last night, the Yankees have drastically improved their ballclub in the last 15 hours simply by deleting deleterious players. Check out the dearly departed and their 2005 VORPs:

John Flaherty -9.6
Kevin Brown -9.5
Tony Womack -8.9
Darrell May -8.5
Tim Redding -5.4
Alan Embree -4.8
Matt Lawton -3.5
Ruben Sierra -2.3
Mark Bellhorn -1.0
Rey Sanchez -0.5
Mike Vento -0.5
Russ Johnson -0.3

No, those aren’t dashes, those are negative numbers. If the Yankees can replace those twelve men with replacement level players–the sort that can be acquired via the waiver wire or promoted from the minors–they stand to improve by nearly 55 runs in 2006, that’s five and a half wins. For example, John Flaherty’s replacement, Kelly Stinnett, had a VORP of 5.3 in 2005, that’s a net improvement of 14.9 runs, or a win and a half in the back-up catcher slot alone. Oh, Glorious Day!

One of the many reasons I love baseball more than any other sport is the strategy. Not that there isn’t strategy in other sports, but constant-action games such as basketball, hockey, soccer and tennis don’t provide moments of stasis in which the viewer can think along with the coach or the players. Football comes close, with the breaks between downs giving fans a chance to contemplate a run versus a pass, how to manage the clock, or what to do on forth down (which is why it’s my second favorite sport), but the playbooks are top secret and I can’t remember ever hearing a football fan scream in anguish “agh! They should have run a reverse there!” To oversimplify somewhat, it seems the only time football fans truly get to make the call is when the coach is deciding to kick or not to kick.

Baseball is different. The tuned in fan can call pitches, advise the batter on what to look for and whether or not to swing, position the fielders, send or hold the baserunners, get a reliever warmed up, make a pitching change or send in a pinch hitter or runner, issue an intentional walk, even choose where a fielder should throw a batted ball. It’s a game of constant contemplation, strategy, logic, discussion, and argument, which is exactly why it appeals so strongly to scholars and writers.

The offseason is no different. Take for example the events of last night and today. On their face, the arbitration deadline and the Rule 5 draft couldn’t be more boring, but when one considers the strategy involved in each, they suddenly become extremely compelling for the hardcore baseball fan.

Let’s look at the arbitration deadline first. Teams had until midnight last night to offer arbitration to their eligible free agents or lose the ability to re-sign them until May 1, a full month into the 2006 season. Given that statement alone, one would be tempted to say that teams should always offer their free agents arbitration so as to keep their options open. But it’s not that simple.

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As I type this, my commuter train is rolling slowly past Riverfront Stadium, the home of the Newark Bears. The field and stands are covered in a thin layer of snow. There are trucks on the field, likely carrying workers there to prevent the snow from killing the sod, and thus there are some lights on in the park that give the field a cozy yellow glow. During the summer I often roll past the stadium as the players are taking batting practice or even as a game is starting. From my seat in the train, I can see the scoreboard, though I usually don’t have my glasses on and thus can’t read the name of the Bears player at bat. A couple of years ago, I used to look through the crack in the wall between the left field corner and the stands along the third base line and catch a glimpse of Rickey himself in his purple pinstripes accessorized with dark shades, his elongated outfielder’s glove twitching at his thigh waiting to snatch a fly ball out of the air. Tonight, while the outfield wall remains covered in advertisements, the scoreboard is dark and there’s not single a blade of grass visible through the snow.

Tonight I’m taking the train a few stops past my usual departure point because my mom has invited Becky and me over for dinner. In about an hour or so I’ll be stuffing my face with roast beef and brown gravy, home made mashed potatoes, biscuits and something green (to create the illusion of a healthy meal). Nothing like home cookin’ on a snowy winter’s day to compensate for the sight of a ballpark in hibernation.

Fortunately, while the fields on which they play may be in mid-winter slumber, the teams themselves are keeping busy by cooking up a feast of their own. Be they collecting hard-throwing nuts or coveting a choice cut of meat, the hot stove has come to a boil. I think it’s about time I sink my teeth into this offseason’s first few courses.

Soup’s On!

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I can’t begin to tell you how pleased I am to have the AL MVP race decided and behind us. In fact, I think I’m more pleased that I won’t have to hear about it any more than I am that the voters got the top two spots right. With that all said and done, the BBWAA will make its final award announcement this afternoon when they name an MVP for the National League.

Despite the cockamamie logic of some who think the trophy should be heading to Atlanta, this is a two-man race, and neither of those men is Andruw Jones. Observe:

It pains me to even include Jones in the above chart, but, having done so, I think it’s painfully obvious that he doesn’t belong.

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As went the American League Cy Young Award, so shall go the National League Cy Young. Last year’s winner was clearly the best pitcher in the league, but won’t win the award due to an unsatisfactory win total:

There are two reasons that Roger Clemens not winning this award will be less troubling than Johan Santana not winning in the AL. The first is that, while both pitchers took home the award in 2004, only Santana deserved it. Randy Johnson was easily the best pitcher in the National League in 2004, but, as we learned when discussing Santana’s case this year, his 16 wins simply weren’t enough. Instead the award went to the 18-4 Clemens, marking the second time this decade that Clemens had won a Cy Young award that should have gone to someone else (the other being the 2001 AL award, which Clemens won with a 20-3 record despite being clearly inferior to the 17-11 Mike Mussina). As a result, I won’t cry any tears over the fact that the Rocket won’t win his eighth Cy Young when he should only be winning his sixth.

What also makes Clemens not winning this award easier to take than Santana not winning in the AL is that the NL race is much tighter. Eliminating Clemens from the discussion, a solid case could be made for any of the remaining four pitchers on the chart above. Pettitte is second in ERA, ERA+ and VORP and leads in BB/9. Pedro Martinez leads in WHIP and K/9. Carpenter leads in strikeouts and is second to Pedro and Pettitte respectively in K/9 and BB/9. Willis leads in wins and HR/9 and is a surprisingly close second in RSAA, he also lead the majors with five shutouts and seven complete games.

Of course, wins are a team-dependent stat, and Willis’s HR/9 is a result of pitching in an extreme pitchers park. His RSAA is attractive, but he’s worst on this list in loses, Ks, WHIP, H/9 and K/9. Martinez, meanwhile, is worst in ERA+ (again due to pitching in a pitchers park), HR/9, VORP and RSAA.

Eliminating those two boils it down to Carpenter and Pettitte. Of the two, Pettitte has the better VORP, Carpenter the better RSAA. Their WHIPs, H/9, HR/9, and K/BB (4.17 and 4.18) are all nearly identical. Pettitte has a clear lead in ERA and ERA+, but Carpenter has the more attractive record and the even more eye-pleasing triple crown stats that all start with 2s (20 wins, 200 Ks, sub-3.00 ERA). Carpenter also tied Willis with 7 shutouts and finished one behind Dontrelle with four shutouts. The temptation is to favor Pettitte because he pitches his home games in an extreme hitters park, but shockingly the Juice Box played as a slight pitchers park this year (park factor of 98 to a 101 for Busch in its final season). With that in mind, it’s really a coin flip as to who the second best pitcher in the National League was this year. I’m fairly certain the writers will choose Carpenter. If so, I won’t complain.

The Baseball Writers Association of America is off to a solid start this awards season, having chosen Hudson Street and Ryan Howard, two deserving candidates, as the Rookie of the Year in the AL and NL respectively. Of course, one need look no further than the second place finishers to see that those selections are not necessarily evidence of sound objective analysis throughout the BBWAA. Today, the American League Cy Young Award will be announced. So, before our ink and paper friends give us something to complain about, let’s take a good look at the candidates.

Looking at the traditional “triple crown” statistics (wins, strikeouts, ERA), as many writers are sure to do, there is no clear favorite in the American League. The league’s only 20-game winner, Bartolo Colon (21-8) struck out just 157 and posted a less-than-exciting 3.48 ERA. ERA leader Kevin Millwood (2.86) actually posted a losing record (9-11) for the 93-69 Cleveland Indians. Meanwhile, strikeout leader Johan Santana won a “mere” 16 games.

Santana’s win total is significant because no starting pitcher has ever won a Cy Young Award in a non-strike year with fewer than 17 wins, and only Randy Johnson in 1999 and Pedro Martinez in 1997, both in the NL, ever won the award with as few as 17 wins. In those two cases, Martinez struck out more than 300 with an ERA below 2.00, while Johnson struck out 364 men, 126 more than Santana did this year (238), with an ERA almost a half-run better than Santana’s 2.87.

History aside, Santana, who won the award last year with a 20-6 record, was once again easily the best pitcher in the American League in 2005. Here’s a look at Santana and his five closest competitors:

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The Rookie of the Year Awards for both leagues will be announced today, so I thought I’d take a quick look at the candidates. Although there has been a lot of noise in comments about Robinson Cano winning the AL ROY, at best, Cano played well enough to insert himself in the discussion. Ultimately, there’s no argument for him to actually take the award home. You don’t even have to go beyond the three major rate stats to see why. Here’s Cano along with the other top offensive candidates in the American League:

Gomes is the clear standout here, leading the pack in slugging and trailing Mauer by just one point of OBP. Of course, Gomes also had the fewest plate appearances of the seven players listed above, just 407, trailing the criminally ignored Chris Shelton’s 431 and Dan Johnson’s 434. But despite his limited opportunity to display it, Gomes’ bat was so much more potent than the other players on this list that he finished second to only Mauer (554 plate appearances) in VORP (36.9 to Mauer’s 40.9–Cano, for those wondering, finished at 27.5). Mauer also played excellent defense at a more challenging defensive position (Gomes actually spent half of his time at DH and was well below average in the field) and stole 13 bases in 14 attempts against Gomes’ 9 of 14. Still, 123 points of slugging are a lot to overcome, and I’m hesitant to penalize Gomes for the Devil Rays’ refusal to give him a job until mid-June. Thus, from this list, my vote would go to Jonny.

Of course we haven’t taken the pitchers into account yet. Here are the top five rookie hurlers in the AL with their ERAs and Runs Saved Against Average. I’ve also included Chien-Ming Wang, just for fun:

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You can read my contribution to the Baseball Analysts’ “What Went Wrong” series here. Meanwhile, on with the outfielders.

Overall AL Average: .268/.328/.424

Right Field

AL Average: .270/.332/.451

Gary Sheffield .291/.379/.512 (.302)

Sheffield has been an absolute masher for the Yankees in his first two seasons in pinstripes, but both years he’s suffered a fall-off in September. At first blanch those September swoons might appear to be evidence fatigue exacerbated by Sheffield’s age. Indeed, his production in 2005, though still placing him among the top hitters in the game, marks a continued decline from his fantastic 2003 season. On second glance, injuries appear to have played a role. After playing all of last season with a torn shoulder muscle, Sheffield simply wore down at the end of 2004. A pair of cortisone shots in that shoulder on September 19 helped him put up strong postseason numbers, but robbed him of his power for the remainder of the regular season. Looking at this year, one is tempted to point to the mysterious upper leg muscle pull Sheffield suffered while playing the field against the Devil Rays on September 7 as the cause for his September swoon, noting his lack of an extra base hit in 21 post-season at-bats as further evidence of the effects of the injury. In reality, after missing five games due to that injury, Sheffield hit a robust .299/.383/.545 over the remainder of the regular season. Rather, it was the six games prior to the thigh injury, a plain old slump in which he went 2 for 19, both hits being singles, that sunk his September numbers.

Despite the slight fall off in production from 2004, Sheffield finished second among American League right fielders in VORP in 2005 and a very close fourth among major league right fielders (behind Vlad, free agent Brian Giles and the still underrated Bobby Abreu). As an added bonus, after a dismal 5 for 11 performance on the bases in 2004, Sheffield rebounded by stealing 10 bases in 12 attempts in ’05.

Grade: A-

Center Field

AL Average: .268/.322/.407

Bernie Williams .249/.321/.367 (.242)

After what was actually one of his finest offensive seasons in 2002 (.333/.415/.493 – .312), Bernie appeared to take a step down to an inferior, but consistent level of production in 2003 and 2004 (something along the lines of .260/.360/.420 – .270). Alas, Bernie’s production fell off yet again in 2005 to the point where, after clearly not being able to field his position for the past several seasons, he could no longer hit well enough to carry it either. One would think that this fall off in production is what motivated the Yankees, ever the offensive-minded organization, to take desperate measures to get Bernie out of center field. Curiously, that was not the case. Instead it was Bernie’s defense that prompted the move,

In the seventh inning of a home game against the Blue Jays on May 1, Eric Hinske stood on third with one out when Gregg Zaun lifted a fly ball to shallow center. Charging, Bernie made the catch for the second out, but, suffering from an elbow injury, couldn’t even get his throw to the pitcher’s mound on the fly, allowing Hinske to tag up and score. It was then that Brian Cashman realized that, after ill-advisedly sending Bernie out to the middle pasture for the past several season, the time had come to send Bernie out to pasture somewhere else.

Unfortunately, Cashman chose to replace Williams in the outfield with Tony Womack, which assured Bernie’s return to the starting line-up. A later attempt with 20-year-old Melky Cabrera in June lasted a mere six games, as did a mid-July stretch of starts by Bubba Crosby. Ultimately, the Yankees simply didn’t have anyone on hand who could clearly out-produce what remained of Bernie’s bat. It wasn’t until Crosby kicked off a hot streak at the plate with his first extra base hit of the season, a triple on September 11, that Joe Torre was able to find a reliable replacement for Williams in center. Meanwhile, in a curious turn of events, Bernie’s defense improved upon his return to center, continuing a trend back to league average that had stretched back to 2001, which was statistically his worst defensive season. Unfortunately, Bernie’s bat never did recover.

Grade: D+

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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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