And The Dynasty Finally Ended

Goodbye A-Rod, 

It's been a while since I wrote an entry about the New York Yankees, but hey, when some big time players announce their up upcoming retirements, it's time to have a look. The last time I wrote anything about the Yankees was when Derek Jeter retired at the end of 2014. While 2015 had its own little pleasant surprises, the nub of the problem was that the remaining players beyond what was once the 'Core Four' were getting older, and the other players were merely role players. The Dynasty has been receding from its historic peak for years.

I'll always be an A-Rod fan. At the end of the day I always appreciated his hitting. The whole PED issue has stepped back in importance for me when I look at his career. Sure, he took PEDs and possibly hit more than his fair share. Maybe he did it his entire career? May be he did it as a teen and that's how he became the A-Rod we know in the first place? One can think of the worst of him and come up with ever more theories about the relative merits of his career. I opt to put those things to the side for the simple reason that those homers and hits are real enough.

It is wilfully putting my head in the sand, I guess, for the world of sport screams out loud against "drug cheats".  The thing is, it's nothing like match-fixing. The athlete taking drugs to win, is going exactly in the direction everybody wants to them to go: to excel in performance like no other mortal human being. So, I've decided no, I'm not going to hold the steroids against the steroids era players. It's silly. MLB tacitly allowed this to happen under their watch and then belatedly hunted out players and made examples of them. It's not right, it's not a two-way street, it was a witch hunt concocted by Bud Selig so that he wouldn't have to look bad for having presided over the steroids era.

The truth is, it shouldn't be about the PEDs, the steroids, the allegations, the suspensions. It should be about the guy who was possibly the most talented player of all time. Win or lose, hit or miss, A-Rod provided a mountain load of entertainment for 23years. Twenty-three years! He was the heel, he was feared, he was outrageous, he was hilarious, he was the guy that always compared worse to Derek Jeter in the eyes of the New York Media, but had better numbers. He was all those things, rolled into one, and a once-in-a lifetime player like you will never see again. When I put it under the rationality light, I for one don't really fault the amazing trade that Brian Cashman swung to land A-Rod in 2003. The Yankees got well over a decade of something special from the guy.

We'd be chumps to pretend that didn't happen, or that it didn't mean anything. It meant the world.

Goodbye Tex

As for Mark Teixeira, he too reached the end of the road this year. The injuries caught up to him. He was making noises during Spring training that he'd like to go another 5 years after this season but obviously he said those things before the injuries got out of hand.

Out of eight seasons, Tex had 3 excellent seasons, 2 good seasons, 2 injury-curtailed seasons, and this one where he simply failed to provide any value at all for three months. All the same, it's a pretty good outcome for an 8year contract. As with A-Rod, there's no point complaining about the end being what it is. The Yankees signed him to a long contract just to land him in 2009, and they won the World Series on the back of that signing.

Tex isn't going to make the Hall of Fame, but he is in the imaginary Hall of the Very Good. The amazing thing about Teixeira for me is that I can remember the year he was drafted by the Rangers. The Cubs drafted Mark Prior, and they both made their debut in 2003. It doesn't seem all that long ago. Especially because A-Rod was already in his prime and in his last year as a Texas Ranger that year Teixeira came up into the big leagues. Arguably, the Rangers had the infield of the future in Teixeira, A-Rod, Hank Blalock, Michael Young, and Ivan Rodriguez behind the plate. It's a weird kind of twist of fate that brought half that infield to the Yankees by 2009, only 6 years later.

Amazingly, Tex's tenure at 1B for the Yankees follows in the footsteps of long tenures before him. There have only been five 1B since Mattingly won his spot as a regular in 1984. He went 12 seasons to '95; Tino Martinez went 6 seasons from '96 to '01; Jason Giambi wen from '02 to '08, and that brings us to Teixeira. For the first time since 1983, the Yankees will go into a season without knowing  who will be playing 1B.

The New Kids On The On-Deck Circle

It wasn't just A-Rod and Tex announcing retirements. Brain Cashman also traded away Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller, and Carlos Beltran to load up the farm system. The real story in a sense has been how decisively the Yankees have gone about re-casting their future and the talent they acquired to shape that future.

The Yankees have, for once, collected a lot of talent in their farm system. They have depth at just about every position. In fact they have the most depth at SS which is the hardest to fill. They go 6 deep at SS, starting with Gregorius at the Big League level, Tyler Wade in AA, Gleyber Torres and Jorge Mateo at High A, Hoy Jun Park and Kyle Holder in Low-A. That's a lot of depth. Even first base will have a competition next year with Greg Bird coming back from injury and Tyler Austin graduating the farm this year. They also have a packed outfield with recent additions Clint Frazier and Bill McKinney as well as Aaron Judge.

Not all of these guys will make it, but the Yankees potentially have one of the younger rosters in the AL  next season. It really is a re-boot of the team, right from the ground up. I don't think I've seen anything like this in the Yankees since 1995. Chances are, the young core to emerge out of all these young players won't win a World Series until 2020, but depending on the way things break, this group might peak earlier than expected, just as the aged veterans were forced out sooner than they had hoped.

I can recall back in 2009 when the Yankees wont World Series that the window had closed on that team. The 2009 win was the last win possible with the Core Four. A quick survey of the farm system at the time revealed that the Yankees would project to being a pitching and defence sort of team by 2016-2017. Judging from the makeup of the current team, it's something that has come to fruition, if a little less effectively than hoped. Yet the new kids projecting forward seem to provide an ample horizon where the Yankees will once again be The Bronx Bombers.
That's one sure thing about Baseball - hope always does spring eternal.

Yankees Update 02/05/09

Doing It Tough But Phil Was Huge


The Yankees ended up being swept in Boston at the start of the week. Considering they had the Sox on the ropes in 2 of the games, it was hard to take those losses and to get swept.

They then rolled into Detroit where CC Sabathia pitched 8 innings and still lost 4-2. Then, something good started to show. Phil Hughes pitched 6 strong innings for a win, followed by Job Chamberlain who also pitched into the 6th and got his first win. The Yankees then returned home to face the Angels and won 2 interesting, edgy games with walk off hits by Melky Cabrera and Jorge Posada. That left the Yankees 2 games behind division leaders Toronto, unti of course they lost today's game 8-4.

The Bullpen Is Flammable

The 2 games coughed up in Boston were in no small part due to the bullpen. In fact, the leads coughed up in the Angels game also were due to some bad outings from the pen.The ERA of these guys are looking really ugly as we speak:

• Edwar Ramirez 5.40


• Jose Veras 7.94


• Damaso Marte 15.19


• Jonathan Albaladejo 7.50


• Mark Melancon 2.70


• Phil Coke 3.72


• Mariano Rivera 2.79

So right now, 3 of the 7 guys in the pen are good, the rest are dreck. Things can't keep going this way, what with Joba pitching to about 5.2 innings and Phil Hughes filling in for Chine-Ming Wang. Surely there will be some changes shortly.

Ramiro Pena

The guys that the Yankees get to fill infor their injured superstars can be surprising. Erick Almonte in his stint filling in for Derek Jeter back in 2003 did all right. Cody Ransom filling in for A-Rod was less impressive, and then got injured. Right now, the man filling in at 3B for A-Rod and Ransom is Ramiro Pena who has hit 8-for 17 in the last 5 games. His line now sits at .333/.393/.367. Anybody can hit anything in 5 games, but it's nice to get that out of your second string utility player. 


Tex, It's May Now

So you can commence hitting.

A .189 Ave is pretty yuck, but he's walked 5 times in the last week. As a result his OBP is sitting at .358. He's still helping when he's not hitting, but in an injured-Jason-Giambi kind of way. That being said, actually hitting some would be nicer.

A-Rod Miasma

There have been more leaks from Selena Roberts' upcoming book about A-Rod, imaginatively titled 'A-Rod'.

The new assertions are that he took steroids since high school and that he tipped pitches to opposing players back in Texas - Doug Mientkiewicz who played with him in High School said it was unlikely, because he was with him 20hours a day and didn't see it. Other allegations include how A-Rod is totally obsessed with Derek Jeter and how he was playing up with strippers and hookers while his wife Cynthia was pregnant.

Even if you think 90% of these allegations are wrong in some way, it leaves the picture of a guy who isn't exactly the kind of guy you'd want to have as role model for your children. All the same, you probably shouldn't have superstar athletes as role models for your children - parents should be the role models for their own kids.

Yankee Hotstove

Oh Look, They Might Have Signed Tex!

In a wild spending spree, the Yankees are reported to have landed Mark Teixeira.

The Yankees have reached an agreement with Mark Teixeira, a free-agent first baseman, on a long-term contract, according to a person in baseball familiar with the matter. The move would represent the third major off-season move by the team and deal a blow to the Boston Red Sox, who had made signing Teixeira the main objective of their off-season.

Late last week Red Sox executives traveled to Texas to meet with Teixeira, 28, and his agent, Scott Boras, and were clearly hoping to emerge from that meeting with a deal. Instead it ended with Boston’s owner, John Henry, stating that the Red Sox were no longer in the bidding, although that was widely interpreted as a negotiating ploy.

As has happened with other standoffs between the Red Sox and the agent, most notably with Johnny Damon, Boras then turned to the Yankees, who until the last 24 hours had not aggressively pursued Teixeira.

In Teixeira, the Yankees get a powerful switch-hitter who is also a standout fielder. He will join Alex Rodriguez to give the team a strong 3-4 presence in the lineup for years to come.

That's just wild. Adding Teixeira into the Yankee lineup looks like this according to the RLYW.

The first and obvious move that a lot of us have been harping on is signing Mark Teixeira.  If the Yankees did that (which they won’t) and moved Swisher to CF, here’s how that would look.

http://www.replacementlevel.com/images/blog_images/2009Lineups/2.jpg

A 36 run offensive upgrade, although replacing Melky in CF nullifies the defensive upgrade Teixeira adds.  Still, it’s around a 3-4 win upgrade overall and probably makes them the AL East favorite.

So the Yankees on paper at least are back to being a 98win team.

UPDATE:

Now this, I like.

Before we go any further, let us state the obvious truth that the Red Sox are not going to collapse. They have a good team with good management and good farm system, and they have the money to compete for any free agent in the business. The Yankees entered this season far more desperate than the Red Sox did, which is why New York now has spent in excess of $420 million on Teixeira, CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett.

Still, exactly what happened here? Did the Sox get used or did they just completely whiff? In the coming hours and days, Sox officials (who thus far have generally declined to discuss any all things Teixeira) will put out their spin on how they got their pockets picked by the Yankees. None of it will be worth a darn. Baseball is a results-oriented business, and the Red Sox seemingly had all of the necessary elements to make this work.

Instead, they got burned.

Hard to say. Tex is a very, very good player on both sides of the ball without being truly exceptional with the bat. I can see why some teams might balk at handing out a dirty big contract to him. Just off the top of my head, his numbers remind me of Todd Helton numbers, but not quite. A quick Fangraphs comparison of the wOBA gives us this graph. He was sort of Helton-like in the first 3 years and last year, but in his 26-27y.o. seasons, he dipped where Helton peaked.

Helton's been in decline since his 31y.o season because of back problems, which doesn't bode well for a 8year contract. Baseball Reference threw up 2 interesting names worth comparing, and they were Carlos Delgado and Willie McCovey.

Delgado has higher peaks and lower troughs through his 28y.o. season. McCovey is closer in alignment, down to the dip at Age 26. McCovery of course stayed reasonably productive until his Age 37 season. Delgado had a slight recovery in his general delcine in his Age 36 season, but in most part he's been a very productive hitter between 28 and 36.

This contract might not be such a bad deal for the Yankees, with the usual caveats for long term deals applying.

One wonders what they're going to do with Swisher, Nady, Damon, Matsui, Gardner, Melky Cabrera going in to 3 outfield spots and DH too. It also rules out A-Rod or Jeter changing positions to 1B down the track. It's going to be very interesting what happens with Jeter when his contract expires in 2010.