| Christopher Reina. 23rd October, 2008 - 11:48 am
 2008 Record: 89-73
2008 Pythagorean Record: 87-75
FIC Rank: 5th
3rd in AL East
2008 Payroll: $209 million (1st in MLB, 1st in AL)
Cost per win: $2.35 million (30th in MLB, 14th in AL)
Yankees Season Review
The Yankees' streak of consecutive playoff appearances ended in 2008 at 13 consecutive seasons. It was an impressive run that included four World Series championships and two additional AL Championships.
Brian Cashman replaced Joe Torre with Joe Girardi and hoped that the influx of young starting pitching could reload the makeup of the club, but Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy, and Joba Chamerlain were decidedly outgunned by Tampa Bay's James Shields, Scott Kazmir, Matt Garza, and Edwin Jackson.
Injuries were certainly to blame, but with so many positional players simply having subpar years, the Yankees were outscored by nine other teams, including the Twins and Indians. Scoring was clearly down across all of baseball, but the Yankees scored 1.1 fewer runs per game than they did in 2007.
Much of the attention in free agency will be paid to signing at least two starters of a group that include CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, or Derek Lowe, but I still have faith in the theory of their mix of old and young starters and believe signing Mark Teixeira to stabilize the middle of their lineup is equally important despite his .878 career OPS at Yankee Stadium, .637 mark at Fenway and the hefty price tag he will command. At $20M per season over seven or eight years, he isn't worth that for a team like the Angels or even the Red Sox, but with all of the expected turnover in their lineup, he is a luxury they could legitimately call for.
* Individual FIC Rank, Season FIC and Reina Value appear in parenthesis next to each player's name.
The FIC is a statistical system that attempts to objectively rank all players, and the Reina Value determines how that performance relates to their contract.
A player with a positive Reina Value outperformed his contract while a negative one means he likely was overvalued.
Catcher
Jorge Posada (731st, 25, -97%) tried to play through his shoulder injury, but he wasn't doing himself or the Yankees much good in doing so, which was a disappointing way to begin playing under a new contract after a season in which he hit .338/.426/.543 in 2007 (all career highs). His 2008 OPS of .775 is unfair as he had an OPS of .934 on June 17th, but that number quickly dropped as he tried to play through the injury.
Jose Molina (1177th, -2, -79%) filled in for Posada as well as he could, but he is a lifetime .615 OPS hitter and had a .576 mark in 2008.
Ivan Rodriguez (616th, 42, -97%) became yet another Hall of Fame player that once donned pinstripes, but his tenure in the Bronx was an utter disappointment as he hit just .219/.257/.323, far down from the .295/.338/.417 he posted with the Tigers.
First Base
Jason Giambi (124th, 176, -68%) has had one roller-coaster time over his seven seasons in New York. Both the 2007 and 2008 seasons were relative disappointments although he did hit 32 homers and had an .875 OPS this year. He will be 38 next season, and the clock is very quickly ticking, but he will likely find himself in a situation in which he becomes a team's regular designated hitter, where he can be better preserved throughout the season. His patience at the plate and pop from the left side is still just about as good as any, and he had a better OPS in 2008 than Justin Morneau, Carlos Pena, Carlos Delgad,o and Jim Thome.
Wilson Betemit (1210th, -4, -67%) has very clearly not become the game's next great switch hitting slugger. He hit for an OPS of .718 and even though his playing time was erratic, he actually hit better coming off the bench. The majority of Betemit's success at the plate comes when pitchers mistakenly fall behind him.
Second Base
Robinson Cano (298th, 100, -17%) was 27th (out of 34) among second basemen in OPS+, but he's 7th in the category since 2005, behind Chase Utley, Jeff Kent, Ian Kinsler, Brian Roberts, Dan Uggla, and Dustin Pedroia. This was certainly a hit the bottom kind of year for Cano, who easily had career lows in batting, OBP, slugging, and homers.
Third Base
Alex Rodriguez (41st, 233, -54%) had at least 30 homers, 100 RBIs, and 25 doubles for the 11 consecutive season, easily a record in consistency. It wasn't an MVP season to be certain, but it was hit third best campaign since joining the Yankees. The criteria Yankee fans have set to judge Rodriguez's performance, however, is one that he can only satisfy by being an MVP season, which he's done twice in pinstripes. The main criticism remains his performance in crucial situations and with runners on base. With a similar sample size, Rodriguez hit .329/.401/.679 with nobody on base and .277/.385/.476 with runners on, an OPS differential of 219 points. He struck out in 18% of his plate appearances with the bases empty, 21% of those with men on and 28% of those PA's with two outs and runners in scoring position. He clearly presses in those situations, and pitchers advantageously go out of the zone and turn A-Rod into Ellis Burks (.873 career OPS).
Shortstop
Derek Jeter (201st, 135, -79%) began to look slightly mortal in 2008, shifting the question from when will A-Rod get his first ring to whether Jeter has possibly won his last. Jeter had four rings by the time he turned 27, but he's 34 now and he is still stuck on four. His .771 OPS was a career low for a full season and a 129 point drop from when he was the MVP runner-up to Justin Morneau back in 2005. His numbers were buoyed in part by a strong finish to the season as his OPS was .739 on July 31st. He's still an excellent hitter, though, and will continue to be for the next three or four seasons, but his defense remains a serious issue and a move to second base (or possibly the outfield like a Shawn Dunston) needs to be made within the next two seasons.
Left Field
Johnny Damon (64th, 208, -13%) has outperformed most of the offensive expectation people had for him when he defected to the Yankees from Boston following the 2005 season, but his inability to throw the ball and play an adequate center field has created a positional logjam and by default made center field an area of offensive weakness. He finished the season with an .836 OPS and was probably Joe Girardi's most consistent hitter, having an OP in the .800s in five of the season's months with a .799 in the sixth.
Xavier Nady (148th, 160, +90%) has evolved into a really professional hitter, who has belted 55 homers over the past two seasons. The .918 OPS he had in Pittsburgh became a .794 mark while in New York. He uncharacteristically struggled against lefties this season, which was really the only serious blight on his 2008.
Center Field
Melky Cabrera (597th, 45, -11%) has turned from center field transitional replacement to the fourth outfielder that he has been all along. He hit .249/.301/.341 and played a barely average center field. Cabrera is much better from the left side of the plate and hit just .115/.148/.115 during the month of August, but in very limited playing time in September he actually had an OPS of .923.
Brett Gardner (780th, 21, +0%) emerged as the Melky du jour, but it is hard imagine him as a real improvement. He hit .228/.283/.299 in 127 at bats, and there is nothing in his minor league history to suggest he is capable of much more.
Right Field
Bobby Abreu (67th, 206, -31%) is a career .303/.378/.455 hitter in the postseason, and he will watch two clubs he once was a part of compete in the 2008 World Series. He, of course, was in Philadelphia for 7.5 seasons, but he was drafted by the Rays in the expansion draft and immediately traded for Kevin Stocker. Abreu had a run of five consecutive seasons between 1998 and 2002 in which he had an OPS over .900, but he has had marks of .814 and .842 in his two full seasons with the Yankees. He is still a patient hitter, but there is perhaps a smaller need for patience when hitting in front of Rodriguez, and there is also a higher expectation of performance. Both of these seasons have been marred by rough starts (.723/.918 split in 2007 and .781/.930 in 2008), and if he returns to the Yankees it must be at a heavily reduced rate;plus, he should be shifted down in the lineup.
Designated Hitter
Hideki Matsui (343rd, 89, -85%) was limited to just 378 plate appearances due to a knee injury. He is 34 and showing some serious signs of wear and tear. Matsui slugged just .424, although he had an .862 OPS in the first half when he was healthier.
Starting Pitching
Mike Mussina (39th, 235, +19%) finally exited as the best pitcher to never win 20 games clubs with a 20-9 record in his 18th season. It was the 17th consecutive season in which he has had double-digit wins. Mussina is 21st in ERA+ among starters with at least 3,000 career innings. There were many who believed he was done after his 2007 in which he had a 5.15 ERA, but his strong finish that September gave the Yankees a glimpse into the kind of 2008 he would have where his K's were up and WHIP was down.
Andy Pettitte (83rd, 197, -38%) has had an ERA over 4.00 for the third consecutive season for the first time since a three-year stretch between 98 and 00. His strikeout rate has remained steady while he kept getting older, but an overall increase in WHIP has contributed to the elevation of his ERA to 4.54.
Chien-Ming Wang (293rd, 101, -34%) had his season derailed during a 13-0 win in Houston in which he was running the bases. Wang had just lowered his ERA to 4.07 and improved to 8-2 (12-3 in his starts) on the young season. The loss of his 200+ innings meant there would be a lot more Sidney Ponson.
Joba Chamberlain (237th, 121, +899%) gave the Yankees 100.3 innings before his shoulder became a problem, and they shut him down. He had a 2.31 ERA as a reliever and 2.76 mark in his 12 starts. His K rate as a starter dipped just slightly at the level most would expect. Chamerlain's talent makes him potentially one of the best Yankee pitchers in history, but questions about his physicality and mental makeup are legitimate.
Darrell Rasner (370th, 83, +285%) made 20 starts for the Yankees, about 18 or 19 more than they would have liked. After initially going 3-0 with an ERA under 2.00, he lost seven of his next eight starts and saw his ERA clumb to 4.94. Anytime the Yankees start a pitcher they claimed off waivers from the Nationals, it is very obviously a signal of injury-related desperation.
Phil Hughes (829th, 17, -4%) was hit again with the injury hammer; this year it was his ribs. He had a 6.62 ERA in eight starts, only two of them could be considered "quality." His final outing was in late September in Toronto in which he went eight innings and yielded just two runs on five hits. His stock has clearly taken a very warranted and sizable hit, and the Yankees' intention of signing two free agent pitchers this winter while also re-signing Mussina and Pettitte clearly means the expectations are at a 'we're not counting on anything' level.
Ian Kennedy (830th, 17, -1%) came back down to earth in 2008 after his three starts in 2007 in which he had a 1.89 ERA. He finished the season with an 8.35 ERA in nine starts. He did pitch well back down in Scranton (2.35 ERA with 72 K's in 69 innings), but so did Kei Igawa.
Carl Pavano (683rd, 33, -96%) unexpectedly gave the Yankees seven starts in 2008, which comprised 27% of his trips to the mounds in four seasons with the club. He had a 5.77 ERA although the Yankees were miraculously 5-2 in his appearances.
Sidney Ponson (263rd, 110, +233%) was brought back to the Bronx to improve upon that 10.47 ERA he had back in 2006. He almost cut it in half with a 5.85 mark in 80 innings of fill-in work.
Relief Pitching
Mariano Rivera (47th, 224, -16%) had his eighth career season of an ERA below 2.00, as he posted a mark of 1.40 (2 points shy of tying his career high) with 39 saves. His 0.665 WHIP was a new career low and only the fifth time in history a pitcher has had a WHIP under 0.700. For an excellent appreciation/analysis of his excellence, check out this piece by MODI:
http://sportsonmymind.com/2008/09/24/mariano-riveras-place-amongst-the-gods/
Jose Veras (443rd, 68, +144%) gave the Yankees a 3.59 ERA over 57.7 innings of work. He struggled in the second half, but it was the first time he had thrown more than 11 big league innings in his career.
Edwar Ramirez (426th, 71, +156%) lowered his ERA from 8.14 to 3.90 and his WHIP from 1.810 to 1.229, while continuing to strikeout batters at an enormously impressive rate (63 K's in 55.3 innings of work). Like Veras, however, Ramirez struggled down the stretch with a 5.64 ERA in the second half.
LaTroy Hawkins (433rd, 71, -73%) never became that closer he was expected to become after leaving Minnesota even though he has been serviceable in a few different situations, but he had a 5.71 ERA for the Yankees before finishing strong for the Astros.
Brian Bruney (535th, 53, -39%) had a 1.83 ERA, a 0.990 WHIP, and 33 K's in 34.3 innings for the Yankees. He missed May, June, and July with injuries but came back strong in August and didn't give up a single run in 10 innings of September work.
Damaso Marte (301st, 99, +16%) made the Nady trade all the better for the Yankees as he was a veteran arm with a 3.47 ERA and had an excellent strikeout rate, but even though the strikeout rate remained good, he struggled with a 1.309 WHIP and 5.40 ERA. The majority of his problems came in road outings, as he had a 2.89 ERA in 12 appearances at Yankee Stadium.
Dan Giese (655th, 36, +3%) was initially tapped to replace Wang in the rotation, but he was quickly reassigned to the bullpen, where he had a 3.38 ERA in 26.2 innings.
Kyle Farnsworth (500th, 60, -90%) was sacrificed in the Ivan Rodriguez trade, and he was disappointed to leave the Yankees. After throwing 44.3 innings of 3.65 ball, he had a 6.75 ERA in 16 innings with Detroit.
- Christopher Reina is the executive editor of RealGM |
