Some Yankee Thoughts, The Day After

"What's That You Say? Leave NY?"


Ever since the season ended in tears (and crapped pants), the rumour has been "when will they trade A-Rod?" on a three-day basis. And every time A-Rod or Cashman or Torre has to pop up and say he's staying.
Folks, for the n-th time, he's staying.

“My choice is to play for the New York Yankees,” said Rodriguez, who got in a bit of trouble with poker last year. “My family now is beginning to really get comfortable here — my wife, my daughter. And I love New York. I love the challenges New York brings.”

Rodriguez has a no-trade clause in his contract, and general manager Brian Cashman has said the two-time MVP isn’t going anywhere.

After next year, however, A-Rod can opt out of the record $252 million, 10-year deal he signed with Texas before the 2001 season. He wouldn’t rule out that possibility, but said his desire is to win with the Yankees.

“There’s no question that last year was a very challenging year for me personally,” Rodriguez said, “but I think New York wants to see people go through a tough time and kind of come out of it and fight through it. And one thing is, I never gave in to how difficult the moment got at times.”

And we ought to be happy with that answer.

Mike Mussina Is Back For Two More Years
Moose is actually one of my fave pitchers to watch. I like his style of mixing power and guile. The power has waned greatly in recent years and the guile sometimes fails, but there's a bit of El Duque in him when he flumoxes a side. He can still make good hitting sides look pretty poor. Power pitchers are nice, but I think there's a lot of value in a pitcher with his stats and style. 2 years for $22.5m is a bargain.

In the final season of an $88.5 million, six-year deal, Mussina went 15-7 with a 3.51 ERA in 32 starts this year.

A 16-year veteran, Mussina has a career 239-134 record with a 3.63 ERA and 2,572 strikeouts for the Yankees and Baltimore Orioles. He is a five-time All Star.

Evidently Moose gave the Yanks a 'hometown discount'.

Imagining The 2007 Rotation
Having lost the Matsuzaka bid, it's time to see what is still needed in the rotation. The rotation is now:

Wang
Moose
Randy
'Uncle Meat'/'Dog Breath Variations' a.k.a Carl Pavano
Rasner/Karstens?

That's still the same rotation that they had in 2006 which got spanked in the play-offs. Of these pitchers, I have zero faith in Randy and Pavano to give anything above league average next year. So it seems that the GM talks in Naples Florida this week will yield a Lefty starter.
The first name that pops up is Barry Zito but Barry is going to be very expensive. If we were in the classic Steinbrenner paradigm, he's the guy the Yankee brass would shell out on this winter, but something tells me the Yankees won't go there. The Mets will.

So what's stopping the Yankees from an all-out courtship of Zito? Two reasons: He has a 3-9 record and 5.20 ERA against the Bombers; his ERA against the Red Sox is almost as astronomical at 4.78. Zito has been hit hard enough in the Bronx and at Fenway to make Yankee officials wonder if he still has elite-caliber stuff.

Put it this way: What's the point of investing this heavily if Zito can't be counted on to subdue the Sox? Better, the Yankees whisper, to let Chien-Ming Wang blossom into an 18- to 20-game winner, push Philip Hughes' evolution toward a midsummer debut and hope Mike Mussina (who'll soon sign a two-year, $23 million deal) doesn't decay too rapidly at age 38.

That still leaves the Yankees two starters short. They're waiting on Randy Johnson to hurry up and heal from back surgery, although it's clear he's now a permanent, five-run-per-game starter, healthy or not.

Chances are, the lefty won't be Zito, it's going to be Ted Lilly.

Last 4 years of Zito's ERA+ : 125 105 116 116
Last 4 years of Lilly's ERA+: 98 120 80 109
We're not talking about a significantly worse pitcher than Zito.

Lilly was the pitcher the Yankees gave up in favor of Jeff Weaver. If there's one bad trade the Cashman made, it was for Weaver. Lilly went on to be better than league average 2 out of 4 years and just about league average in 1, and bombed out in 2005 with an ERA+ of 80. Weaver, we know about, and not even his performance in the World Series persuades me otherwise. The Yankees clearly would have been better holding on to Lilly. The only knock on Ted Lilly is that he's slightly injury prone, but in good years, he's good for 31-32 starts. he's not Barry Zito but he's okay-durable.

That leaves figuring out which between Rasner and Karstens. Rasner is 25 and played well at AAA. Karstens is 23 but played less convincingly at AAA. The smart money is on Rasner. I think it's going to look like:

Wang
Moose
Lilly
Rasner
Randy

...on Opening Day. If old man Randy doesn't make it back by opening day, it's going to be Karstens in the 5th spot. Either that, or 'Uncle Meat'.