Breaking Down the Yankees for the Second Half - The Bullpen

[So the All Star Game is officially over--and we can thus consider ourselves in the second half.

This is where it gets fun.

All of those days players got rested in the first half? Well, now they have to play. Now the pennant races start to heat up, and every move a team makes, be it a trade, a free agent signing or simply bringing someone up from AAA has even more added meaning.

What do we expect from the Yankees?

I'm going to do a series of posts addressing this, because there's so much to say that having it all in one post would a) kill your eyes and mine, and b) give me carpal tunnel at the age of 23.]

Since this is the last post in the series, I'll provide you with an index:

The Rotation
The Lineup, Part 1
The Lineup, Part 2
The Bench

Now it's on to the mother of all things Yankees:

The Bullpen

To do this post justice, one has to figure out who should be included, and who might be a little more expendable--since bullpens are fluid and change so much over the course of a season.

In this instance I'm going to settle around the "core" of Mariano Rivera, Alfredo Aceves, Phil Coke, Phil Hughes, Brian Bruney, David Robertson and Brett Tomko--the guys that have been around (or should have been around) all season. Mark Melancon and Jonathan Albaladejo will get passing nods, but we'll go ahead and pretend that Jose Veras and Edwar Ramirez were not utterly awful.

As a whole, the bullpen struggled early--when most of the rotation did, as well--but the call-up of Alfredo Aceves seemed to work miracles. That one move allowed for the short relievers to remain short relievers, for Coke and Hughes to basically claim the eighth between them and for Robertson and Tomko not to be faced with undue pressure.

When Aceves was moved from the bullpen for a spot start, we saw the 'pen fall apart again--though, this time, fortunately, the All Star break came at exactly the right time.

As long as Joba Chamberlain and Andy Pettitte are utterly ineffective, look for Aceves to remain in the bullpen.

(The so-called bullpen core in alphabetical order)

Alfredo Aceves

The statistics will tell you that Alex Rodriguez, and not Alfredo Aceves is the more valuable of the two Yankees to make their first appearance this season in early May, but Aceves' value lies in far more than just the numbers he's posted.

The easiest way to explain what Aceves has meant to the Yankees in 2009 out of the bullpen would be to say that Aceves is pitching in a role similar to that of Ramiro Mendoza, but his numbers out of the bullpen are actually closer to what Mariano Rivera posted in 1996.

Since Aceves can pitch multiple innings at a time without getting worn down, the short relievers--especially guys like Phil Coke and David Robertson--do not have to pitch nearly as much as they otherwise would. This not only saves their arms from, uh, being Proctor'd, but helps keep them more effective over the long haul.

Look for Aceves to remain in the bullpen for now--after the disaster in Anaheim, the Yankees probably don't want to mess with the bullpen too much--but if Mitre, the presumed new fifth starter, bombs and the Yankees decide not to go after Halladay (or another, you know, more attainable starter), Aceves could end up the fifth starter.

In which case we will all have to hold our breath in the second halves of games started by Chamberlain and Pettitte.


Brian Bruney

The season that, for Bruney, started with so much promise has quietly turned into a disaster. He'd earned himself the eighth inning role before going down on the DL with an elbow problem, worked his way back only to go back on it after just one appearance, and now seems to have lost the command that had been so important in the first place.

In short, it's the return of the 2007 version of Brian Bruney.

The Yankees really want to get him right--if he can somehow recover his arm strength and command, the Yankees could consider, more seriously, the idea of sending Hughes down to AAA to stretch him out as a starter (although I explain here why I don't think it would work), but even if Bruney did recover, the risk inherent in relying on a power pitcher who's twice been on the DL in the same season with elbow problems is an enormous one.

It's a shame, really, because Bruney showed so much promise in 2008 before hurting his foot, and then again in early 2009.

I don't know what happened for Bruney to have such awful karma, but something apparently did.

Going forward, Bruney will likely be used in low-leverage situations until his command improves, or he will be used in mop-up like roles after the starters (yet again) are inefficient. He'll have to work his way back to the 8th and even then there is no guarantee.


Phil Coke

The battle between Good Coke and Bad Coke may be as addicting to watch as the battle between Good Melky and Bad Melky. Actually, the entire reason to want to see him pitch is to watch the postgame interviews afterward.

Coke struggled in the beginning, found a groove, and then struggled again in his most recent appearance in Anaheim.

On the whole, he's been fairly dependable, but tends to give up too many hits--6 HR in 38 IP is not a portent for good things to come--so the Yankees are best served if he is used very sparingly, which, thanks to Aceves and Hughes, he now is.

Should Dámaso Marte stop playing catch and start playing baseball, he could help ease some of Coke's LOOGY duties, and provide some relief for the Yankees, who are playing with fire.


Phil Hughes

Probably the most controversial reliever, not because he's pitched poorly, but because he probably should have never been in the bullpen in the first place.

As a starter, Hughes wasn't exactly dominating anywhere outside of Texas, but he was getting better, and showing improved consistency and efficiency. Considering that this is his first healthy season since all the way back in 2006, that's not something to be taken lightly.

As a reliever, Hughes has just dominated. You can see the splits here, but to sum:

Hughes' ERA is 0.98, his BAA is .115, OBPA is .182 and WHIP is 0.655.

Hughes has only pitched 18.1 innings in relief, and his BABIP is an insane .147, so there's certainly a case to be made that the law of averages will catch up to him, but with relievers much of the time, you only have a small sample size to use, so you ride the hot arm as long as it stays hot.

If the Yankees have learned only one thing here, it's that if Hughes, for whatever reason, loses his value as a starter next season, he still has plenty of value as a reliever.

Look for him to keep the 8th inning role in the second half unless the Yankees have utterly no choice but to stretch him out again. If that happens, than the Yankees will probably have bigger issues than what they do about the eighth inning...


Mariano Rivera

He's Mo. Really.

He was getting hit more often in the beginning of the season, which had some worried, but this seems to have been a result of recovering from off-season shoulder surgery and perception, since what he did last season was simply historic.

He's back to his old Mo self now, notching his 500th save and 1st career ERA in the same game.

In the second half, the Yankees probably won't want anything more than for him to keep doing his thing. Wearing number 42, he is, after all, the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.


David Robertson

The easiest way to explain Robertson in this: when he throws strikes, he's unhittable. When he doesn't, he's unwatchable.

When Robertson comes into a game in low-leverage situations, he throws strikes.

When Robertson comes into a game in high-leverage situations, he throws balls.

You can see why this is a problem.

In a mop-up type role, Robertson is fine for the bullpen, but the problem is that the Yankees play a lot more close games than they do blowouts, and they need relievers that can either protect a lead or keep another team's lead within reach.

Look for him to stick to low-leverage situations, and don't be shocked if some combination of Chien Ming Wang getting healthy again and Sergio Mitre pitching well sends him back on the AAA bus--though likely not before Melancon or Albaladejo.


Brett Tomko

The problem with Tomko is that when he gets hit, he gets hit hard.

Though a former starter, right now he can't really pitch more than two innings at a time, and he's seldom seen in anything other than a mop-up role or in an extra inning game when all other pitchers have been used.

That said, I think he does get a bit of a bum rap--for what it's worth, Coke has given up more home runs. Then again, Coke's pitched 38 innings and Tomko's only pitched 20...

Although Tomko is a DFA candidate, it would seem more likely that Mark Melancon or Jonathan Albaladejo would be sent back down to Scranton before the Yankees parted ways with Tomko. We shall see.

Mark Melancon and Jonathan Albaladejo

Melancon, once hailed as the future Mo, was probably called up from AAA Scranton too soon. He's struggled in AAA since being sent back down, and again since being called up. There's too much talent to write him off, but he does need some more time.

Albaladejo didn't pitch well early and got sent down, has pitched lights out when recalled after Wang got hurt the second time, but then got sent back down...to make room for Melancon.

If Girardi is riding the hot reliever, right now he should stick with Albaladejo.



dude, if you made it this far, I kind of want to hug you...

Breaking Down the Yankees for the Second Half--The Bench

[So the All Star Game is officially over--and we can thus consider ourselves in the second half.

This is where it gets fun.

All of those days players got rested in the first half? Well, now they have to play. Now the pennant races start to heat up, and every move a team makes, be it a trade, a free agent signing or simply bringing someone up from AAA has even more added meaning.

What do we expect from the Yankees?

I'm going to do a series of posts addressing this, because there's so much to say that having it all in one post would a) kill your eyes and mine, and b) give me carpal tunnel at the age of 23.]

Next on our list, we have the ever-changing and always underrated bench

The Bench

The Yankee bench went from being centered around Jose Molina and Cody Ransom to Francisco Cervelli and Ramiro Peña and then back to Molina and Ransom again.

It's not a knock on Cervelli and Peña, but rather a compliment: the Yankees have seen that much more potential in Cervelli and Peña than they expected so they're giving the two a chance to blossom even more in AAA. Both of them will likely be up again in September--if not before. Cody Ransom, at least, isn't giving the Yankees a whole lot of good reasons to keep him at this level...

(In alphabetical order)

Francisco Cervelli

Cervelli was never supposed to make it to the majors this year. It took injuries to both Jorge Posada and Jose Molina within days of each other, and the Yankees unwilling to panic and sign for another catcher, to get the .190 hitter in AA a call up to the big leagues.

At the time, the only thing the Yankees were hoping for was someone that could catch the pitches when thrown to him and possibly throw a runner out at second. They didn't really expect anything from him offensively, so when he hit .269/.284/.346, it was quite a pleasant surprise.

Granted, the low on base percentage and almost zero slugging power would have eventually caught up to him, but Cervelli had a knack for timely hits (even infield ones), running well for a catcher, and all of the pitchers seemed to enjoy throwing to him. And, of course, the dreamy eyes of doom.

Anyway.

Cervelli earned himself a getting-sent-down-promotion, in that instead of being sent back down to AA, he was sent to AAA, where he should have been this season had he not lost so much of 2008 to a wrist injury.

Cervelli always has been a legitimate prospect--but without the bat of Montero, Romine or some of the other Yankee catching prospects--and thus perhaps not seen as such. Until he develops more power, he'll only project as a back up, but the Yankees would probably be quite fine with that, using Cervelli and Posada in tandem until teh Jesus makes his first appearance.

Or until one, or both, of them is traded.

Assuming the Yankees don't trade Cervelli, look for him to re-appear sometime around September.

Brett Gardner

Gardner won the starting CF job, then lost it to Melky, and now, seems to have wrestled back a platoon position--which is probably what the Yankees wanted all along. The trade off with Melky is speed vs. power; and don't underrate Gardner's speed--he does have an inside-the-park-home run.

While Melky may be Clutchy McClutchbrera, Gardner hasn't done too badly for himself, coming off the bench, either.

In 21 plate appearances when coming into a game as a sub, Gardner is batting an insane .556/.600/.889/1.489. Small sample size all you want, but this is more than three at bats we're talking about.

No, I can't explain it, either.

In the second half, don't be surprised if Girardi eventually decides to ride the hot bat--the Yankees are getting more out of their 4th OF centerfield than I think anyone thought they would, and they seem to do quite nicely when platooned. Gardner's other benefit is that unlike McClutchbrera, he can hit lead off, which allows Girardi to rest Damon and/or Jeter on occasion, and the two will certainly need a day or two off down the stretch.


Eric Hinske

A late addition to the Yankees, Hinske has already hit three home runs as a Yankee, winning himself the urging of fans everywhere to play him more.

Therein lies the problem.

Hinske's most valuable coming off the bench--he did it for Tampa and Boston and killed the Yankees every time. Playing him every day, the team will take a hit defensively--he's really not as good as Swisher; certainly not as good as anyone the Yankees have on the infield--but off the bench, he has enough pop to be a legitimate pinch-hitting threat. Certainly a better one than Cody Ransom.

Look for him to start periodically to spell Swisher and Damon, but don't be surprised if he ends up with more ABs as a pinch-hitter. For what it cost the Yankees--two low-level prospects that don't profile very high--the Hinske pick up was, thus far, a good move indeed.


Jose Molina

The back up catcher who played too much last season has now played too little this season to really know much.

The wear and tear of last season did seem to still be effecting him as his defensive numbers were down in April and May, until he got hurt, but now that he's healthy, it's as though he starts with a clean slate.

The MO on him has always been that he's one of the best back ups in the game but should not start; the Yankees haven't seen anything to prove differently. In the second half, pray Posada stays healthy and that Molina doesn't have to do more than back up--although, at least this time around, the Yankees have a more than able third-stringer in Cervelli which would undoubtedly soften the blow.


Ramiro Peña

Strangely, the highest compliment that can be paid to him may be the fact that he's in AAA learning how to play center field.

It's not that Peña couldn't play third or short or second--but rather that he could play all three that has the Yankees trying to see if they can expand his versatility as a defensive player and thus make him that much more valuable.

The knock on him was always that he could field, but no one knew anything about his bat--and then he surprised everyone by being not-so-much an automatic out. He did not hit for much power and his batting line differs from Cervelli only in a slightly higher OBP, but he's still young enough that some more time at AAA may help him come even farther.

At any rate, his defense is, right now, anyway, so much better than Cody Ransom's, one has to consider if the Yankees would consider calling him up before September to take Ransom's spot. It's one of those situations in which the Yankees have to balance the immediate needs of this season with the long-term goals of the future, and it will be interesting to see how it pans out.

If Cody Ransom's defense ends up costing the Yankees a game (or three), it will be that much harder to justify keeping him over Peña.


Cody Ransom

Kind of said it all above, but when the best thing you've got going for you is your crazy 5' vertical jump, that's not going to do you much good.

He's not very good on offense, not very good on defense and, already past 30, is a finished product. At this stage, the only reason to justify keeping Ransom on the bench is to give Peña some more ABs in the minors, but this may wear thin pretty soon if other options make themselves available.

As stated above, if his defense ends up costing the Yanks a game or two, it will be that much harder to justify keeping him.

Then again, you never know, he could catch fire...and the Nationals mathematically can still win the World Series...

Breaking Down the Yankees for the Second Half--The Lineup, Part 2

[So the All Star Game is officially over--and we can thus consider ourselves in the second half.

This is where it gets fun.

All of those days players got rested in the first half? Well, now they have to play. Now the pennant races start to heat up, and every move a team makes, be it a trade, a free agent signing or simply bringing someone up from AAA has even more added meaning.

What do we expect from the Yankees?

I'm going to do a series of posts addressing this, because there's so much to say that having it all in one post would a) kill your eyes and mine, and b) give me carpal tunnel at the age of 23.]

Next up we have the second part of the lineup.

To see general thoughts on the lineup, see the previous post.

The Lineup, Part 2

Hideki Matsui

Matsui's season started horribly. He looked, quite simply, done--was as close to an automatic out as the Yankees had in their line up.

Then, he got his knees drained and got hot, and reports of his demise were greatly exaggerated.

He cooled off again after that, but now, in July, perhaps his favorite month of the year, Matsui again has gotten hot and seems to have benefited immensely from the nine straight games in NL parks (noticeably the only Yankee to do so).

Where Matsui hurts the Yankees is in his inability to play the field. The Yankees were able to plod through the interleague part of their schedule without totally imploding (though 2-4 against the Marlins and Nationals is frankly embarrassing), but the real danger is if Damon or Swisher gets hurt. Gardner and Cabrera can cover two positions at a time and Eric Hinske, while still a smart pick up, is not an every day player.

What the Yankees need from Matsui is for him to keep hitting well, continuing to provide protection for Posada (who protects A-Rod who protects Teixeira), and they thus also need to keep him healthy by resting him every once in a while. Fortunately, Girardi does not seem to have problems resting Matsui, so I can't see it becoming an issue the way Chamberlain and Canó in the five hole are issues.

In the words of Dora the fish, "just keep swinging, just keep swinging".


The Curious Case of Robinson Canó

Normally guys that hit .308/.341/.490 are in the running for team MVP consideration. Normally everyone oohs and ahs about their spectacular season and they at least make appearances in columns about All Star snubs.

Normally, guys that hit with that line have more than 46 RBI at the break. Especially when they've spent half the season batting fifth.

I'm not sure anyone has a decent explanation for Canó, but to some him up, it's this: when there's no one on base, Canó is a killer at the plate. Dangerous. One of the best hitters in the game. If there's someone on base, Canó's effectiveness goes down--and it's almost directly proportional: more runners on base, more outs, the less likely Canó is to come through.

At this point, it'd be comical if we didn't care so much.

Moving Canó down in the lineup has seem to have helped--and here Joe Girardi is taking a leaf out of Joe Torre's book. Torre is batting LAD center fielder Matt Kemp 8th--even though Kemp is a better hitter than that--because Kemp is batting .528/.576/.774 in that spot (for what it's worth, his numbers hitting ninth are even sicker). If Canó is a better hitter 7th than 5th, then regardless of what Canó could potentially do, that is where he should stay.

In the second half, all eyes will be on what Canó does with men on base. Eventually, he has to be able to hit in that circumstance--or he'll end up the trade bait that he was last winter, when everyone was worried the Yankees would sell low. The potential for Canó to be great is still there--bad hitters don't have .300 seasons--and it's certainly an improvement on last year, but Yankees and their fans still expect so much more.


Nick Swisher

At one point in time, Swisher did not just lead the Yankees in nearly every offensive category; he also led the Yankees in ERA.

Although Swisher's probably not his best as an everyday player, his value to the Yankees comes in having been able to keep steady in right field after Xavier Nady's season-ending injury, and, of course, the untold value of his clubhouse antics.

Swisher has done for the Yankees what many have expected--low average, lots of walks, some power--and has done it all with smile on his face. The fans love it, although they don't, so much, love the bloopers defensively and on the basepath or the low numbers with runners in scoring position.

Brian Cashman, Girardi and Swisher had a closed door meeting a few weeks ago, but the subject of that meeting was never revealed.

Now, with the addition of Eric Hinske, Swisher likely won't be starting every day--and this will ultimately benefit both Swisher and the Yankees. They would like him to get hot again, though it'd take a small miracle for him to be able to repeat April. They'd probably settle for what he did in June, however.


Melky Cabrera

Or, as I like to call him, Clutchy McClutchbrera.

Melky's hitting a solid (and for him, career best) .285/.347/.439, but where he has excelled all season is in the clutch. Nineteen of his 34 RBI --more than half his total RBI--have come in high leverage situations.

The Yankees already have eight walk off wins on the year; Clutchy McClutchbrera is directly responsible for three of them (vs. A's, Twins and Phillies).

He is adequate defensively--Gardner may be the better overall center fielder, but you'd take Cabrera over Damon and Swisher in a heartbeat--and, this season, at least, he hasn't cost the team an error by responding to "roll call" and thus not keeping his eye on the play at hand.

If Cabrera's plate discipline can improve--and it's much better than it's ever been--he becomes that much more of a weapon. Still, there's no getting past the fact that at least when Melky gets his hits, he makes them count. It's kind of like the polar opposite of Robinson Canó.


Next up will be the Yankee bench, which will include Cervelli and Peña.

Breaking Down the Yankees for the Second Half--The Starting Lineup, Part One

[So the All Star Game is officially over--and we can thus consider ourselves in the second half.

This is where it gets fun.

All of those days players got rested in the first half? Well, now they have to play. Now the pennant races start to heat up, and every move a team makes, be it a trade, a free agent signing or simply bringing someone up from AAA has even more added meaning.

What do we expect from the Yankees?

I'm going to do a series of posts addressing this, because there's so much to say that having it all in one post would a) kill your eyes and mine, and b) give me carpal tunnel at the age of 23.]

For your lunchbreak, I'm going to tackle the one area that's remained relatively problem-free: The starting line up.

Here I've included hitters 1-5, because I think any more and the post will get too long. I'll be back with the rest of the line up a little later on today.


The Starting Line Up

The goal of an offense is to score as many runs as possible. The Yankees? Their 495 runs scored is tops in the Major Leagues and frankly is not too far off the pace if this team wanted to score 1000.

The most impressive thing here isn't just that the Yankees are scoring runs; it's the way they are doing it. Aside from the Chien Ming Wang disaster starts, games in which the Yankees have been blown out are few and far between. The twenty-five come from behind wins and eight walk off wins are illustrative of an offense that keeps fighting.

The offense alone can't win a World Series, but with these guys, it's not for a lack of trying.

In the second half there will probably be more attention paid to Mark Teixeira--who has been slumping--now that the excuse of cold weather is no longer acceptable. Joe Girardi will still have to do a balancing act in center, with Brett Gardener and Melky Cabrera--and both of them seem to perform better when they are not playing every day. Johnny Damon and Nick Swisher will need days off--for different reasons, mind--but as the pennant race heats up these will become harder to come by.

Still, out of all the problems the 2009 Yankees have, the offense is pretty low down on the list.

Derek Jeter

The renaissance that Jeter had in the first half was good enough to make him this year's leading AL vote getter in All Star voting. Getting him out of the second spot has drastically cut down on his grounding-into-double-plays, even if we're still not quite used to seeing him hit first.

The biggest boon to the Yankees, however, may very well be his improved defense, which has been attributed to playing further back in the field. It's as though Yankees fans have been whisked back to 2000...

In the second half, the Yankees just want more of the same from Jeter: great hitting and good defense. They could, perhaps, do without him trying to steal third with none out, but such are minor complaints.


Johnny Damon

Damon's first half witnessed a power resurgence that was unabashedly aided by the short right field at the new Yankee Stadium. He's been a good choice to bat second because of his relative lack of hitting into double plays, and he's also been a very poor ambassador for whatever bat company he uses--breaking at least one bat a game.

Going into the All Star break, Damon was hitting a not-so-robust .147 for the month of July--perhaps indicative, again, of his body beginning to betray him. Certainly, a nagging calf injury has kept him out of the line up on occasion and even kept him from fielding decently while in it.

For the second half, what the Yankees need is simple: they need Damon not to break down. An outfield of Swisher-Gardner-Cabrera for any length of time won't give the Yankees a whole lot of power, and it will over expose all three (who may be over exposed already). Hideki Matsui probably can't play the outfield all year unless there are literally no other options aside from forfeiting the game and Eric Hinske is, many believe, not an every day player. The Yankees will easily take Damon's kind-of-cringeworthy arm and misplays if it means his bat is in the line up.



Mark Teixeira


Perhaps the most important thing Mark Teixeira did in the entire first half is show the Yankees just how wonderful it is when everyone on the infield can play a little bit of defense.

Sure, the 20+ home runs and loads of walks help, as does his hustle in running out routine pop ups, but the defense is the first thing you notice when comparing him and Jason Giambi.

In the second half, Teixeira's fate will probably be even that much more bound up with Alex Rodriguez.

When A-Rod is on a roll and crushing pitches, Teixeira will likely get more pitches to hit as teams figure out that it's a bad idea to pitch to A-Rod with men already on base. If, however, A-Rod slumps--and he does--teams will again pitch around Teixeira. It would not hurt Teixeira's cause if he were to hit for a higher average. Right now his .275 average is his worst since his rookie season. Of course, when your OPS is .913, you tend to let these things slide.


Alex Rodriguez

His tumultuous first half saw him miss a month with a hip injury, come back and hit nothing but home runs, which slowly morphed into nothing at all, and then, only after a two-day rest period, has he begun to look something of the A-Rod of old. He may very well be the only player you've ever seen with a batting average of .256 and an OBP of .411.

A lot of this has to do with the inordinate about of games in which Robinson Canó hit fifth. Since Canó has some sort of can'thitwithmenonbaseitis, pitchers simply worked around A-Rod and pitched to Canó, who more often than not grounded into a double play--but more on him later.

Now that Canó has been moved out of the fifth spot--hopefully for good--Rodriguez is getting more pitches to hit. Rodriguez hit all of .207 in June, but is hitting .350 in July. A lot of that probably has to do with him being rested, but don't discount actually having protection in the line up.

In the second half, the Yankees need Alex Rodriguez to hit like Alex Rodriguez. They need to be careful that they actually do rest Rodriguez--once a week if possible--because the hip is only going to get worse until the entire thing can get repaired in the off-season.


Jorge Posada

The most notable thing about Posada thus far is that despite the hamstring injury that had him on the disabled list, his shoulder doesn't just seem to have held up okay, it actually seems to be stronger than it was before last year's disaster.

Teams were--rightfully--willing to run all over Posada to test the arm; while he may be no Molina Brother behind the plate, he has certainly held his own.

The controversy of him having tiffs with the pitchers is overblown--he's found a way to work well enough with AJ Burnett and Joba Chamberlain's had problems with every catcher--so please, please don't get too caught up in that.

With a bat, Posada is having a usual Posada-like season; his batting average fits in nicely with career norms; the on-base percentage is on the low end, true, but Posada makes up for this with a higher slugging than normal. It's not Posada's 2007 campaign--a career year hidden by A-Rod's antics--but the Yankees will take that production from a catcher without blinking.

The biggest concern going forward is, like Johnny Damon, what the wear and tear of late summer and a pennant race will do to a 38 year-old catcher's body. The Yankees know full well now how valuable Posada's bat is, so don't be surprised if he gets a number of half-days at DH or Girardi seems to pick odd days to just rest him entirely. The last thing the Yankees want is to go into that final Boston series with Posada being unable to play because he's too beat up.



[That's long enough for now, I'll be back with the Lineup, Part 2, later on in the day, followed by the bench and the bullpen].

Breaking Down the Yankees for the Second Half--The Rotation

So the All Star Game is officially over--and we can thus consider ourselves in the second half.

This is where it gets fun.

All of those days players got rested in the first half? Well, now they have to play. Now the pennant races start to heat up, and every move a team makes, be it a trade, a free agent signing or simply bringing someone up from AAA has even more added meaning.

What do we expect from the Yankees?

I'm going to do a series of posts addressing this, because there's so much to say that having it all in one post would a) kill your eyes and mine, and b) give me carpal tunnel at the age of 23.

So for now, I'm going to start with the starting rotation, because everything depends on the success and/or failure of these guys.

The Rotation

This is the biggest problem area for the Yankees, which is strange to say given how much was spent in the off-season to improve it.

The truth is, however, that outside of AJ Burnett's most recent string of domination, no one has emerged as an ace in the way that Mike Mussina did last year.

CC Sabathia and Burnett have been fairly reliable--although Sabathia's peripherals, the worst they've been since 2005 are a source of concern--but Andy Pettitte and Joba Chamberlain have been inefficient at best and the fifth starter is, right now, non-existent.


CC Sabathia

Last time out, in Anaheim, Sabathia's ridiculously low road BABIP (batting average on balls in play) caught up to him. If you look here, you'll see that his strikeouts are down, walks are up and K/BB ratio is the worst it's been since 2005.

In the second half the Yankees, theoretically, should have enough starting pitching depth that Sabathia doesn't have to pull a stunt like he did with Milwaukee at the end of 2008, but he will have to be better. The peripheral stats are something that more and more seem to be noticing, and the Yankees will need to decide how much of it has to do with moving to the AL East and how much has some other, undiagnosed cause, and thus, how concerned they need to be.

Sabathia is the biggest pitching investment the Yankees have made since, well, Pavano and Igawa, so expect that the Yankees will do everything possible to make sure he is right.


AJ Burnett

Burnett got off to a very rocky start, and found no love from the fans after, well, you-know-what-ing the bed in two starts in Boston. He was in desperate need of a decent start against Johan Santana of the Mets, and it is entirely possible that his ultimate turning point in the season came when he had the bases loaded, none out, and got out of the inning without giving up a run.

Since then, AJ has really been the Yankee ace. He has faced the Mets, Marlins, Mets, Jays and Twins in that time span and has not given up more than 2 ER in any of those starts.

His last pre-break start, however, was not so much dominant as it was getting lucky and delivering the right pitch to escape jam after jam. In the words of, I think, the Associated Press, he had nothing, but still found a way to win.

If there's one thing the Yankees would probably ask a genie to do, if such genies existed, it would be to reduce Burnett's walk total--which leads the league.

Against teams with weak offenses, like the Mets, the walks don't hurt as much because no one ever makes you pay, but against stronger offenses, like Boston, the walks are killer. Burnett's always had control issues--he walked nine when he pitched a no-hitter for the Florida Marlins--but the Yankees aren't paying him $88 million over five years so that he can dazzle you with spectacularly wild pitches.


Andy Pettitte

Here's where things begin to get dicey. While Sabathia and Burnett have some issues, they are, for the most part, giving the Yankees enough length to keep the team in the game and not overexpose the bullpen.

Pettitte and Chamberlain? It's a little different.


Pettitte actually started the season strong, pitching into the sixth inning (and often beyond) in each of his first nine starts. That efficiency hasn't lasted, and his ERA has jumped from under 3.00 at the end of April to nearly 5.00 now.

The easiest way to explain it is that it looks as though Pettitte's body is having trouble keeping up with the grind of pitching every five days--as is what happens when most pitchers not named Moyer or Paige reach their later 30s.

Pettitte's first start after the break will be very telling--if the extra rest seems to have helped him, the Yankees could possibly consider skipping a start or two of his down the stretch to give him some extra breathing room (but somehow I doubt they will). If, however, he still continues to struggle in his next two or three starts, the Yankees will need to address whether or not it really is beneficial to the team to have him pitching in the rotation. If the Yankees, by some miracle, acquire someone like Halladay (see my previous post), or if Chien Ming Wang miraculously regains his form (also unlikely), then Pettitte's trending ineffectiveness is easier to bear.


Joba Chamberlain

Ah. Well. Here we go. The Wunderkind of 2007 and pre-injury 2008 has struggled in 2009.

Everyone's trying to figure out the root cause of the struggle, if it's psychological or physical or mechanical, and watching everyone go at it like a rat race would be incredibly amusing if the consequences weren't so large.

Each cause of his struggle has different results: if it's mechanical, this would be the easiest to fix--the Yankees could try to fix him up here or send him to AAA to sort it out, and if Joba's as good a pitcher as he's supposed to be, he'll be a quick study. If, however, it was as simple as this one would have seen improvement already.

The real answer is that the root cause is probably more complex, a combination of perhaps a nagging shoulder, an inexplicable fear of strike three, and maybe, since we're making this like a soup here, you can throw in some could-be-conditioned-better for extra spice. Like paprika.

Anyway, what the Yankees need, and need almost immediately, is to see if there's any indication that they can get Joba right, or at least that they can get Joba to pitch past the fifth inning. If they can, great. If they can't, the argument to turn him into a Canadian becomes all that stronger.

I think--and this is just opinion here--that the Yankees still see quite a bit of potential in Chamberlain. He is, after all, only 23, and he has shown that, when right, he can touch triple digits in the seventh inning.

The talent's there. The Yankees have to figure out how to access it.


The Fifth Starter

At this point, you just feel bad for Chien Ming Wang. He wasn't quite right in Spring Training, but it went ignored (because hey, it's Spring Training), and he imploded in the beginning of the year. He had a long and largely inefficient road back, but finally, finally looked something like the Chien Ming Wang of old while dueling Roy Halladay on July 4th--before he promptly strained his shoulder.

I don't believe in coincidences, so the fact that Wang got hurt while Halladay was starting for the Jays has to be considered some sort of divine sign, no?

Anyway.

There are those that would prefer to see Hughes or Aceves take the fifth spot, instead of Sergio Mitre and whomever the Yankees end up trading for (and they probably will), but there are problems with each.

Hughes, first of all, is not stretched out, and as I detailed in a recent post, the process of stretching him out, at this point in the season, might simply just take too long and create more problems for the Yankees and their bullpen than the ones it solves.

Aceves could be a perfectly competent starter, but when he's removed from the bullpen, the bullpen seems to fall apart. I'm not sure it's him, personally--although you have to consider the eerie similarity between his numbers and Mariano's of 1996 (his ERA has risen from 2.49 from 2.02 after his spot start, but if he stays in the bullpen it will likely come down again)--but I think there's a case to be made that his value lies in since he can pitch so many innings, the short relievers pitch less. The less the non-Mo short relievers pitch, the more they remain hidden, and the more they become a strength.

All we really know about this spot is that the next time it comes round it's probably Sergio Mitre's shot--but after that, who knows?

Obviously, the sooner the Yankees figure something out for the long term, the better, but don't be surprised if one good Mitre start spells another, and the Yankees try to recapture the ghost of Aaron Small circa late summer 2005.

Some Thoughts on Halladay

Right now, nothing has permeated baseball discussion to the point that Roy Halladay has, when JP Ricciardi, GM of the Blue Jays, announced that he would trade Halladay if the right offer came his way.

So I figured I'd offer a few thoughts--feel free to agree or disagree.

• Dealing in-division would likely cost more for the team that trades for Halladay (ie, the Sox or Yankees), but it's by no means prohibitive. David Cone and Roger Clemens both came from within the division; they are probably not the only examples, either.

• The price the Yankees would have to give up would be enormous. You're talking one of Joba/Hughes, Austin Jackson, Jesus Montero and maybe Mark Melancon for good measure. If Ricciardi is really set on dealing Halladay, teams will wait for the price to come down. If there is a move to be made in-season, it probably won't happen until the 11th hour, a la Manny Ramirez.

• The fact that the Jays won't let teams talk to Halladay is a killer. Halladay's contract runs through 2010, so whoever gets him would probably want to extend him. Without the guarantee of an extension, teams cannot be 100% sure if Halladay would stay with them after that season, and giving how much teams would have to give up in the first place, that will no doubt be off-putting to some.
  

• Halladay's comment that he would rather hit than face guys like Matsui, Jeter and Teixeira is kind of odd given his historical success against the Yankees. You can interpret it any number of ways you want, I think, but only Halladay knows what he was really trying to say.

• At this point, going on absolutley nothing but hearsay and gut, I'd have to go with with Philadelphia and Texas as being favorites. Both teams have the prospects to get it done, and both teams desperatley need the pitching. Philadelphia has a percieved added bonus of being an NL team, but I think that's really only a factor if you're a fan. The Rangers don't have nearly the impact on the Jays' season that the Yankees or the Sox would.

• Halladay has struggled (for him, anyway) since coming of the disabled list, but this is probably only temporarily. At any rate, him struggling is the same thing as 90% of other pitchers in the league pitching well.
  

The Home Run

I'm sitting here, watching the home run derby, and it's boring me.

Over at River Ave Blues, one commenter reflected on the first home run he'd ever hit, and everyone filled in with their first home runs and when they started playing baseball and the like.

Me?

I played organized softball when I was seven--at that age when the coach pitches and you can't strike out. I was more interested in playing with the dirt in the field than catching the ball.

What can I say, I have an overactive imagination...


I never played organized softball after that, but I did go to camp every summer, from when I was nine to when I was fifteen, and softball was a regularly scheduled activity.

The games tended to just be four innings long. I'd bat towards the bottom of the line up, and would be stuck somewhere out in left field--you know, where you stick the worst fielder in the team.

Most of the time I came up to bat and I would be an easy out. I didn't always strike out--much of the time I'd sort of have a swinging but down the third base line. Sometimes I broke fast enough to be safe at first; most of the time I did not.

One time, however--and there's always one time--it was different.

I don't remember much. I don't remember who was pitching or who was on base or how old I was or what the score was or how many pitches I took or swung at or anything like that.

All I remember:

I hit the ball, and it sounded different.

Real, solid contact.

I thought maybe it was a single, so I ran to first. No one had come up with the baseball--they were still running after it. So I ran to second. Still, no one had it. They were running a long way. So I ran to third. From there, I saw someone waving me home, so, without looking to see where the fielders were or the ball was, I ran home.


To this day, I can't remember where the ball landed.

I can't remember anything about what happened afterwards--only that people looked at me a little differently. How on earth could someone batting maybe .050 hit a HR?

The baseball gods, my friends, work in mysterious ways.



So what about you? Did you ever hit a hR? Do you remember it?