Meet Brett Gardner, the 12th Best Position Player In MLB

Brett Gardner flashing some leather.  (Credit: Zimbio)

According to this Fangraphs article, Brett Gardner is the 12th best position player in MLB.  And by "best," I mean that Gardner's WAR -- Wins Above Replacement -- is currently ranked 12th in baseball, behind such names as Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, Adrian Gonzalez, Joey Votto, Jose Bautista, Matt Holliday, Troy Tulowitzki, and Evan Longoria.  And believe it or not, Gardner's 9.2 is only 0.6 short of being ranked third on that list of perennial MVP candidates.  Impressive.

Now, I realize that's a big statement to make about a sprightly left fielder who was hitting .244/.372/.696 three weeks ago.  Yet I just can't disagree with Fangraphs' assessment.  WAR isn't just about big sluggers putting up gaudy power numbers.  It also values defense, which may be Gardner's best asset -- his 14.1 UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating) is currently tops in MLB.  (Oh, and by the way, Gerardo Parra's second-ranked UZR is an incredible 12% lower than Gardner's.)  In essence, Gardner uses his speed to track balls down and his strong arm to nail foolish baserunners.  Exhibit A = this beautiful catch-and-throw double play that recently preserved the Yankees' 3-2 lead over the Cubs with the bases loaded in the bottom of the sixth inning:

Read more>>

Hot Stove Coal: Reviewing Yankees Worst Case Scenarios from 2010

I figured today was a good day to revisit a depressing topic. Last winter we launched into a series looking at the Yankees worst-case scenarios for the 2010 season. I didn't expect it to be as popular as it was but it was copied on Yankees blogs, national baseball blogs and even Red Sox blogs. Our three-part series went into what it would look like if everything went wrong. Well, despite winning the Wild Card and making the American League Championship Series, some of these worst-case scenarios actually came to fruition. Let's look at each of them again and see how close we go to predicting the worst-case scenario, starting with Part 1, "The Starting Lineup":

Jeter smiles but the Cold War was predicted back in February (CBC)

Jorge Posada 
What I said worst-case would look like: "Basically 2008 redux. He played in only 51 games, garnering a measly 195 PAs. The Yankees don't need him to get 545 (a number he reached from 2000-2007) but they need him to hit the mid 400s...Jorgie can't get hurt"

What actually happened: Posada played in 120 games and got 451 PAs which was more than he had logged since 2007. The problem was that he hit like 2008 when he played, putting up a .248/.357/.454 line. He also had injury issues like 2008 with a fractured foot in mid-May and a Baker Cyst behind his knee which kept him from crouching. Worse than his offense was his defense which was so bad the Yankees have informed him he is a designated hitter in 2011. 

Mark Teixeira 
What I said worst-case would look like: "The beginning of [2009]. He can't hit and he's killing the team out there..on May 2nd of [2009], Tex was hitting .182/.354/.338 through 99 PAs"

What actually happened: Well, through 99 PAs in 2010 Tex hit .136/.300/.259 and it took him longer to get out of his slump. He still finished with very good numbers but he didn't come close to hitting his 2009 totals. And an injury during the ALCS ended his playoffs and seemed to deflate the entire Yankees' offense. Teixeira still played great defense and got on base during his slump but it took a while for him to come around while he killed the Yankees from the #3 slot.

Robinson Cano

Read more>>

Hot Stove Coal: Should the Yankees Trade An Outfielder? (Brett Gardner Edition)

The World Series is over so it's time to fire up the Hot Stove Coal series once again. Last off-season the Yankees passed up on bidding for Jason Bay or Matt Holliday. Some of the thought behind that was that they would wait one season and bid heavily on Carl Crawford or Jayson Werth, both seen as better options for the Yankees than last year's duo. But with free agency about to descend upon us, the question has to be asked: do the Yankees have any interest in acquiring an outfielder? And if that answer is yes, who do the Yankees trade in the outfield? We'll take a look at each of the Yankees outfielders over the next week but let's start in leftfield with Brett Gardner.

Brett Gardner's defense was huge for the Yankees in 2010 (Star-Ledger)

It's funny to look back at the uproar that was caused by the Yankees not signing Holliday or Bay, trading away Melky Cabrera, and handing the leftfield job to Brett Gardner. Even the prognosticators saw Gardy as only slightly improved on his 2009 self. Gardner responded by hitting .277/.383/.379 with a .358 wOBA and 47 SB. Almost as impressively, Gardner's defense was among the best in the game. He won the Fielding Bible Award in a 10-point upset over 3-time winner Carl Crawford. Mike Axisa of River Ave Blues followed that up by writing: "it didn’t factor into voting, but Gardner did finish with the highest UZR (+22.3) and UZR/150 (+39.7) in baseball this season, regardless of position." He also set the record for most pitches per plate appearance (since the stat has been tracked). All this added up to 52.1 runs above replacement which was roughly 5.4 wins, good for 9th among American League position players according to FanGraphs, ahead of such guys as Joe Mauer, Ichiro, Victor Martinez, and any Yankee besides Robinson Cano (which means he also produced the greatest value relative to his salary). Baseball-Reference was slightly less kind, putting Gardner at 4.0 WAR, though his defensive WAR was 7th in the American League among position players putting him into the upper echelon.

The problem with Gardner is that he needs to duplicate that success of getting on base to be successful. Gardner was on a tear early in the season, hitting .321/.403/.418 through the end of June. That also coincided with the time that Clayton Kershaw nailed Garnder with a 91 MPH fastball on the right wrist. Although X-rays came back negative and Gardner said he felt better, his results after that told a different story. Gardy hit .232/.363/.340 the rest of the season and really seemed to struggle to drive the ball. In mid-September an MRI showed considerable inflammation in that wrist and he received a cortisone shot. Although he hit a little better the rest of the regular season, his bat was dead in the playoffs as he hit .185/.285/.185 in the postseason with no extra-base hits, 2 SB, 8 K and 3 BB. Although he still saw a lot of pitches, he looked like he was unwilling to swing the bat until absolutely necessary, making some wonder if his wrist was not bothering him some more. And it sure didn't help that C.J. Wilson supposedly stepped on Gardner's left hand when he slid into first on that fateful play in Game 1 of the ALCS.

Read more>>

Yankees Chasing Numbers: The Hitters

A few of the Yankees chasing special milestone numbers in the last weeks of the season (thanks to Baseball-Reference's Play Index for a lot of the help on this):

Robinson Cano can join some impressive company in 2010 (ESPN)

Robinson Cano (.323, 99 runs, 187 hits, 28 HR, 102 RBI, 13 IBB).

If Cano reaches 100 runs, 200 hits, 30 HR and 110 RBIs (and he's on pace for each mark), he would become the third Yankee to do so after Lou Gehrig (7 times), Babe Ruth (3 times), Don Mattingly (twice) and Joe DiMaggio (once). Cano would also become only the third Yankee middle infielder to hit 30 HR after Alfonso Soriano (twice) and Joe Gordon (once). The only Yankees with an average of at least .323 and 30 HR: Babe Ruth (11 times), Lou Gehrig (9 times), Joe DiMaggio (5 times), Don Mattingly (3 times), and Mickey Mantle (twice). Cano's 13 intentional walks are tied for 9th best for a Yankee, one more ties him for 6th, two more ties him for 5th and 4 more would tie him for 4th. A 200-hit season would make him the first Yankee second baseman with more than one 200-hit season and would join Derek Jeter as the only other Yankee middle infielder with multiple 200-hit seasons..

Mark Teixeira, Robinson Cano, Nick Swisher, Alex Rodriguez, Curtis Granderson (30 HR, 28 HR, 26 HR, 25 HR, and 21 HR respectively)

If somehow 4 players finishes with 30 home runs, it would be the first time that 4 Yankees have hit 30 HR in the same year. The Yankees have had 3 players hit 30+ HR in one season 4 different times: 1941 and 2003, 2004 and 2005. Right now the Yankees have 4 players with 25 HR, tying them for second on the all-time list with the 1938 Yankees. If Granderson can hit 4 more home runs, they would tie the 2009 team which also had 5 players hit 25+ HR.

Read more>>

Last Night Felt Like 2010's "He Dropped The Ball" Game

Every World Series champion goes through a slump at some point in the season and the 2009 New York Yankees were no exception. In the middle of June, the Yankees looked like they were going to have it rough after they lost three three straight at Boston and fell 2 games behind the Red Sox. The Mets came into town and on Friday, June 12. The Yankees, desperately needing a win, were up 7-6 in the 7th when Phil Coke blew the lead and then fell behind in the 8th when Mariano Rivera gave up an RBI double to David Wright. With two outs and Derek Jeter at 2nd, the Mets elected to intentionally walk Mark Teixeira (remember Red Sox Owner John Henry's BS about the Mark Teixeira curse--dubbed the "MT Curse"?) and have Francisco Rodriguez go after Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod had a 3-1 count but on the 5th pitched he popped the ball up to second and the game looked over...

Crawford made the third out at third base--a cardinal sin (St. Pete Times)

...until Luis Castillo, trying to casually catch the ball with one hand, dropped the ball. A heads-up Mark Teixeira raced around the bases from first and scored on the play.  "HE DROPPED THE BALL!" was a play that Yankees fans would remember the rest of the season and the Yankee win seemed to be a big turning point.

The Yankees would lose 9 of 13 during this stretch but a win on a miscue helped to make sure the bleeding wasn't worse.

Last night felt a lot like the "he dropped the ball" game. A back-and-forth affair in a high-scoring, "must-win game" that ended on a cardinal sin. Castillo's was that he didn't use two hands to catch the ball and it fell. Last night, Carl Crawford made the final out at 3rd base on a laser beam of a throw from Greg Golson. One of the most exciting plays in baseball (a fast runner vs. an outfielder's arm) ended the game and propelled the Yankees back into 1st place.

Read more>>

G-I-D-P Spells Frustration Over Last Night's Ending

At times, I feel like I'm spoiled as a Yankee fan. I don't expect the team to go 162-0, but in the past two years I've seen them launch some improbably comebacks and made opposing bullpens look like mush so often that I feel like they are never out of a game. So when last night the Yankees were down 2-0 or 3-0 in a game, I felt like a comeback was not only imminent, but necessary. The team's bats had failed recently and this was about the time they turned it on and stole a game. And while things were derailed in the 8th inning when Marcus Thames grounded out, I felt that the 9th inning was going to provide promise as well.

GIDP is becoming all too Jeterian at times (MSNBC)

But then came "fun with numbers" as Derek Jeter--El Capitan, Captain Clutch, etc--rapped into a 6-4-3 double play. Game over.

I'm not naive to suggest that the Yankees should come back there. Or that Derek Jeter is the clutchiest clutch hitter that ever lived, but the Yankees could have not swung the bat and won that game. Nor was this all Jeter's fault as Jorge Posada (and to a lesser extent Marcus Thames and Curtis Granderson) were guilty of the same Jeterian mistakes as the Captain himself. And I'm not unappreciative of who Derek Jeter is or what he's done for this team, this franchise and this sport*, but there were some serious problems that I had with yesterday's game**.

*Side Note: Joe Posanski had a great debate today about Derek Jeter vs. Mariano Rivera on who was more important to the Yankees. I need to get into greater detail in a later post about this, but the answer for me is Mariano Rivera and the reason is because of an Intro to Econ concept called opportunity cost. With the Yankees financial might, they could always sign another shortstop such as Alex Rodriguez  to take over for Derek Jeter and the result would have been pretty damn good if not better. But the opportunity cost of Mariano Rivera is unthinkable (and Rivera is a "rate environment extremophile" according to Tommy Bennett of Baseball Prospectus so you gotta love that). JoePo touched on this but even the best closers in the game never reached the level of consistency or dominance that Mo did. Money can't buy that. That isn't to say that Derek Jeter wasn't more valuable to the Yankees dynasty (he definitely was and any WAR or Win Shares) calculation will back that up, but despite the fact today's closers are vastly overrated, the answer has to go to Jeter in the value column. Though I may have mixed up the two. Undetermined.

Read more>>

The Yankee Clipper: Gardner, Montero, Rivera, Cliff Lee and the Bullpen

Let's take a break from debating about what is a sport (or not, the dialog has been quite fascinating) to talk about the Yankees for a while, shall we? Let's head into our Yankee Clipper on this "Dog Day of August" Wednesday in New York (and, by the way, not much is actually wrong with the Yankees; they're still the best team in baseball. Deep breath and move on):

The Yanks need to find Jesus...and bring him up (Times-Union)

1. Brett the Jet has been grounded. Brett Gardner on July 4th: .319/.401/.434. Brett Gardner since July 4th: .169/.302/.213. I know I sometimes am not so objective on Brett Gardner--man crushes can do that for you (if I could clone Brett Gardner and have the second one run errands for me, I would...and the errands would get done really quickly). But he's lost his way. You can't steal bases if you can't get on base. The team has gone 19-11 in those 30 games, but Gardner hasn't been a main part of the cause with only 4 XBH in 89 ABs. He's still playing great defense and has an excellent WAR of 2.8 for the season, but you need to worry if he's hit a wall or teams are now adjusting to him better. Gardner is a slap hitter who can ill afford a large amount of Ks yet he's struck out over 30% of his official ABs since July 4th. His weighted on base average (wOBA) for August is .093 and he still hasn't walked in the month. Gardner needs to get himself straightened out--and fast (though the latter part of the wish is not a hard thing for the Speediest White Man).
2. Jesus rising? Matt at TYU says that we're stuck with Francisco Cervelli but down on the farm the Yankees are seeing their top prospect, Jesus Montero CRUSH the ball at Triple-A. Hopefully in 6 years the Wall Street Journal will be writing about how the Mariners passed on Montero like Brian Costa of WSJ wrote today about how the Texas Rangers passed on Robinson Cano. Sean at Pending Pinstripes says it's still too soon. Brien @ IIATMS defers to the Yankees management. Rebecca at This Purist Bleeds Pinstripes says it's time. Here is video proof (H/T River Ave Blues) of Montero crushing a game-winning home run two nights ago. I can agree right now not to call him up (there's no spot for him), but if Jorge Posada lands on the disabled list with his cranky shoulder (or really anyone goes on the DL), I think Montero should be in the Bronx. At the very least, he should be up in about 2 weeks when rosters expand. This is a team that has a .297 wOBA in August as Larry from Yankeeist points out (though, to be fair, he also points out how good the pitching they've faced has been). No excuse for Montero not to be a September call-up.  For now, we need to just pray for Francisco like many pray for Jesus--Montero, that is.

Read more>>

The Yankee Clipper: Burnett, Gardner, Jeter, Granderson and Cashman

That's the list of subjects for today. After a 4-game split with the Red Sox, the Yankees head to Texas to face the 1st place Texas Rangers. Let's set up the situation:

Curtis Granderson has had a rough go of it against LHP (NYDN)

1. Curtis Granderson needs to platoon. It's pretty simple. Granderson has been awful against lefties and since this is a trend that has followed him from Detroit, it's time to stop the experiment. I agree with Joe from River Ave Blues: platoon Granderson. Although the Yankees were oh-for-9 with runners in scoring position yesterday, the most frustrating of them was when Granderson faced Lester with the bases loaded and struck out. It wasn't necessarily him striking out (Derek Jeter and Nick Swisher would do the same thing in the following ABs against Daniel Bard), but the fact he was batting at all. Granderson sucks big time against lefties and while there was no perfect replacement on the bench  with both Austin Kearns and Marcus Thames starting, Brett Gardner (as Jay Jaffe of Baseball Prospectus pointed out, Gardner, while a lefty himself, has a .375 OBP of better vs.. LHP the past two seasons) or Lance Berkman would have been better options. But Girardi has stuck with Granderson through thick and thin against lefties and while I understand it at times (the Yankees have a long-term investment in Granderson and need to see if he can be more than a platoon player), going forward the Yankees need to worry about winnings games and not The Grandy Man's feelings. The New York Post's Joel Sherman says that Granderson should be glad that The Big Stein is not around because the pressure could be a lot higher.
2. Brett Gardner needs to run more. Gardner has been in a horrendous slump recently, but even worse than his slump has been his hesitancy on the basepaths. Yesterday was a prime example. As Jaffe writes: "Girardi pulled [A-Rod] for the pinch-running Gardner, who drew four pickoff attempts from Bard but didn't attempt to steal against Martinez despite the Boston backstop's 19 percent success rate in throwing out would-be thieves. Gardner finally lit for second on a hit-and-run as Cano grounded to second, something of a wasted opportunity for the speedster." As Ben from River Ave Blues writes "In an ideal world, Gardner would be the Jacoby Ellsbury of the Yankees. The speed is there, but Gardner doesn’t have the instincts or daring of Ellsbury." I usually don't try to get into the psyche of a player, but that seems to be an extremely true statement. Gardner is one of the fastest white men around yet he seems too scared about getting caught. While stealing efficiency is important, he needs to go in those type of situations. Yesterday, Brett the Jet was grounded.

Read more>>

Working the Count: Yankees Pitches Per Plate Appearance Over the Years

We talked a bit in the last post about the gritty, gutsy Yankee teams of the past. One of the observations brought forth was that this was not only a team that seemed to be good at taking pitches and working counts, but one that also produced the results in good hitter who got on base at a good clip. Let's change the subject now and look at pitches per plate appearance. The general logic in P/PA is that the more pitches a player sees, the better chance he has to either get a good pitch to hit or draw a walk, and the more pitches that team sees, the faster they tire the starting pitcher or face inferior pitchers in the bullpen (although the results don't always correspond). Let's work back from 2010 to see how those teams fared in P/PA (for qualified hitters only in the years we talked about in the last post):

Gardner's patience has made him an even more valuable asset (Yahoo)

2010 (3.90 P/PA)
The Yankees sport 6 regulars above league average with Brett Gardner on a historic P/PA pace. Cano and Granderon's spots on this list show, however, that 2010 results haven't exactly been tied to P/PA (though 3.42 ties Cano's career high). Swisher continues to be a high P/PA guy for the Yankee and A-Rod, Posada, and Teixeira provide a patient middle of the order to wear down opposing pitchers. 3.9 P/PA is a lot: if you think about it, this means that an average run through the Yankees batting order produces over 35 pitches meaning that starters will be lucky to get around the lineup 3 times.
 

	Pit/PA ▾
Brett Gardner*	4.61
Curtis Granderson*	4.11
Nick Swisher#	4.04
Alex Rodriguez	3.96
Jorge Posada#	3.95
Mark Teixeira#	3.87
League Average	3.83
Derek Jeter	3.54
Francisco Cervelli	3.54
Robinson Cano*	3.42
Team Total	3.90

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/5/2010.

2009 (3.88)
Nick Swisher was a huge addition to this team and the list as he came over to the Yankees after leading the majors in 2008 (at 4.53) and takes over for Bobby Abreu who was a P/PA cog in the Yankees lineup. Mark Teixeira has impressive first-year results as well as he takes over for the patient Jason Giambi in the lineup. Amazingly only Jeter (who had an MVP-type season but has been below league average his entire career) and Cano fall below the league average putting this group at a very impressive 3.88 P/PA for the entire 2009 season.

Read more>>

NYaT's Yankee Wishlist for the Trade Deadline

It's hard to "fix" a team that's on pace to win 104 regular season games, has the best record and run differential in baseball, and has won more games at home than Baltimore has in their entire season--but we're going to try. With the trade deadline fast approaching and Tampa Bay right on the Yankees' heels, I asked my fellow NYaT'ers what they think the Yankees need to do to put this group over the top. A compiled list of results below: 

Brett the Jet hitting #1 could help Yanks (Star-Ledger)

1. Move Brett Gardner to the leadoff spot. I'm not sure why this hasn't been done already, but I'm going to throw this out there as my personal "big fix" for the Yankees. The Yankees have argued that hitting him 9th gives them a "second leadoff hitter". Explain to me that logic? Why not just have him as your first leadoff hitter? Gardner is hitting .300/.397/.403 with a .372 wOBA and is on pace for almost 50 steals. Derek Jeter is having a down year, hitting .274/.338/.388 with a .324 wOBA which is just a tick under Juan Miranda's. And yet Jeter is unmovable from the leadoff spot while Gardner is left for the bottom 3rd of the lineup? The Yankees have been at a loss to find their #2 hitter since Nick Johnson went down with an injury early in the season, but I'm pretty sure their solution has just been hitting first. Imagine how much better the Yankees lineup would be with Gardner-Jeter-Tex-ARod-Cano-Posada-Swisher. Moving Swisher down creates more of a fluid lineup and will stretch their lineup even deeper. Gardner also gets on base vs. lefties (remember when the Yankees were worried about his right-handed caddy for Gardner instead of for Granderson) with a .391 OBP.

And here's another factor: Gardner leads the Major Leagues in pitchers per plate appearance at 4.61 (and by a lot). The last guy to even approach that number was Rickey Henderson's 4.55 in 1997. That many pitches makes the starter work harder and helps to tire him out faster. And, by the way, the last Yankee to have an OBP of at least .397 and steal 45 bases? Rickey Henderson in 1985. I'm not saying that Gardner is Rickey--but wouldn't you want to give him more plate appearances to find out?

Joba hasn't stepped up as the "Bridge to Mariano" (NYDN)

2. An upgrade in the bullpen. This is where my compadres and I differ in our opinions. I've seen the Yankees waste decent prospects on mediocre relievers just to theoretically get a small advantage before the trade deadline. I saw the Red Sox go out and get Eric Gagne in 2007. I'm just not a fan of the big fix reliever. I don't think they exist. You need a closer, and some solid guys in front and that's it, in my opinion. The Yankees could tweak that bullpen by calling back up Jonathan Albaladejo and Ivan Nova (and getting rid of dead weight guys like CHoP and Chad Gaudin). But others differed.

Paul said: "They don’t need to do much but the one issue is the bullpen. They need help, I just don’t know who. I would love Scott Downs but the Jays are asking too much. I don’t want them to trade any good prospects for middle relief so they should be careful. I also hope they don’t trade Joba."

Read more>>

The Yankee Clipper: The Outfield

As the All-Star break comes to a close, it feels like a good time to review the season so far. We'll try to roll a different one of these out for the next week reviewing the Yankees different positional groups to see how they've performed so far this season. We'll also be reviewing this to see where weaknesses are before the July 31st non-waiver trade deadline. Let's start out with the outfield:

1. Brett Gardner. One of my favorite players coming into this season has rewarded the Yankees' faith in making him an everyday player. He's hitting a robust .309/.396/.415 and at his current pace would finish the season with 10 HR and almost 50 SB. He's 10th in the AL in runs (56), 5th in OBP (.396), and 4th in SB (25). Baseball-Reference has his defense in left rated as tops in the American League. In my opinion, the best thing about his game is the amount of pitches he sees. He averages 4.58 P/PA which would be the highest average since Rickey Henderson had 4.55 in 1997 (and if you want to read up on the correlation of P/PA and production, I found this Hardball Times piece from 2005). Better yet, FanGraphs says that only 5 players in the Majors swing at less balls outside the strike zone than Gardner--then again, he's also swung at the least amount of pitches inside the strike zone in the Majors and overall meaning he only swings 31.3% of the time (but he makes contact at balls inside the strike zone a league-leading 98.1% of the time when he does swing). FanGraphs tracks Gardner's Wins Above Replacement number at 2.3 which already surpasses his 2009 value and puts him in the top 15 among American League outfielders and Baseball-Reference has Gardner's WAR at 3.4 with would be tied for 6th among all AL positional players (with Carl Crawford and Kevin Youkilis). Whether it's "Gardner Planted One" (for his Inside-the-Park home run), "Gardy Goes Yardy" (his regular home run call), or "Brett The Jet" (his stolen base call), Gardner has not only turned into an important Yankee regular, but he may be a reason the Yankees second-guess giving big money to Carl Crawford in the off-season. Best Month: June .383/.472/.533.
2. Nick Swisher. I will repeat: the Yankees acquired Nick Swisher for Wilson Betemit. Wow. Swisher came into camp this year in even better shape than last year and it has showed. The Yankees starting rightfielder is having his best Major League season with career highs at every slash (.298/.377/.524) as well as his Weighted On Base Average (wOBA) of .391 (only Robinson Cano has a better mark. He's projected to have 28 HR, 93 RBI and 72 XBH. And although UZR rates him as a negative defender, he's shown definite improvement in right with both his arm and his glove. His 2.7 WAR in both FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference means that he's on pace to greatly surpass last year's output. And as shown by his recent All-Star Final Ballot selection, he's having a lot of fun doing it, bringing a loose atmosphere to the clubhouse that the Yankees needed after guys like Johnny Damon and Jason Giambi left. Swisher has moved around in the lineup a lot, hitting 2nd some games and anywhere from 4th to 8th in others--but wherever he's hit in the lineup, he's produced. Although he hasn't walked as much in 2010 (mostly due to who he's had hitting behind him), Swisher has still taken over 18% of his at bats to a full count and done damage when he's gotten there (.554 OBP). Swish has been extra Swishalicous in 2010 and the Yankees can control him for cheap through 2012 (according to Cot's Contracts, signed for bargains of  $6.75 M this year, $9 M in 2011 and a $10.25 M club option in 2012 with a $1 M buyout). Best Month: May .374/.441/.670 with 7 HR. Picture from the New York Daily News

Read more>>

The Yankee Clipper: The Game That Ain't Got No Alibi

Last night's Yankees game against the Diamondbacks was U-G-L-Y. No doubt about that one. The Yankees were gifted opportunities because of a plethora of walks and some basehits but they weren't able to turn them into runs due to baserunning errors, great defensive plays by Arizona, GIDPs or just bad "clutch" hitting. It was a game the Yankees had no business winning...but good teams win games like that and they gained a game on Tampa Bay and Boston. Let's look back at the week that was in Yankee land:

1. An Ugly Game, Indeed. Bronx Banter's Emma Span has a title that knocks mine out of the park (and has some good suggestions at the bottom. The key stat: 10 hits and 13 walks for the Yankees. Yowza! Joe Pawlikowski from FanGraphs writes about Derek Jeter's propensity to hit into double plays (which he did twice last night and the team did 5 times!). Jay from Fack Youk has many more of the gory details. But the New York Times' Ben Shpigel put it best: "The first inning of the Yankees’ game against Arizona on Wednesday night included five walks, four hits, three runs, two base-running blunders, two caught stealings and one wild pitch, and the mayhem was only starting. To the exasperation of both managers, an evening of ragged baseball and mediocre pitching dragged on and on at Chase Field, all the way into the ninth inning and beyond."
2. Mariano Rivera Walked A Tightrope...and Won. Bases loaded. No one out. One-run lead. And on the mound where his most replayed, most famous, and most scarring collapse occurred. But is there a man you would rather have on the mound than Mariano Rivera. After most of us on the East Coast had gone to bed, the Sandman sent the D-Backs to bed with a pop up, a pop up and a strikeout. Goodnight. LoHud's Chad Jennings writes about Mo's long and strange night but it went beyond that. It reminded all of us how good Mariano has been at the Houdini act for so long and Mark Simon of ESPN reviews Mariano's best. It will be a sad, sad day when this man decides to hang it up. As Joe Pawlikowski writes for River Ave Blues, we should thank Mo. The same with Andy Pettitte who Bobby Valentine wrote about on Tuesday.
3. I Think They Can Still Play Better. After reading this blog post from Rebecca of This Purist Bleeds Pinstripes, I can see I'm not the only one. This year they're 45-27 through their first 72 games with the best run differential in baseball (last year they had 40 wins and were 4 games out of first). The last time they had more wins through 72 games was 2004 (46). Although the Yankees have been getting great production from certain parts they've been getting less than expected from the top 4 in their Opening Day lineup considering Derek Jeter is nowhere near last year's numbers, Nick Johnson occupies the DL, Mark Teixeira has not figured out April has ended and Alex Rodriguez looks like a less-powerful version of himself. That doesn't even begin to factor in a sub-par bullpen, Curtis Granderson's struggles, Jorge's injury, a bad start for CC Sabathia, or the fact that A.J. Burnett has been awful lately and, as Matt Imbrogno of TYU writes, his K-rate has begun to disappear thanks to a lack of a good out pitch. So I think this team still has room to improve. Scary as that is for the rest of the American League. 
4. Patience At The Plate From An Unlikely Source. Quick, who leads the Major Leagues in pitches per plate appearance? It's not Mr. Three-And-Two, Nick Swisher. It's not the AL batting leader, Robinson Cano. It's not Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira, A-Rod, or Posada. It's Brett freaking Gardner. And how about this stat from ESPN's TMI blog: Brett Gardner leads the majors with 4.53 pitches per plate appearance. That would be the highest average since Rickey Henderson’s 4.55 in 1997. After a 4-4 night on Monday and going 2-5 last night, Gardner is now 11th in the AL in hitting (.322), 4th in SB (24), 6th in runs (49), and 5th in OBP (.402). Not too shabby for the guy most people thought was nothing but a fourth outfielder. 

Read more>>

My All-Star Team: American League Hitters

The Major League Baseball All-Star Game in baseball is probably not a game that should count and sometimes the fans seem to get the wrong players elected--but then again, that doesn't make it different than any other form of democracy. And sometimes, people certainly get picked for the wrong reasons as The Common Man showed  last week. In the end, the Mid-Summer Classic is all about being an exhibition of baseball's best players. So I'm going to take only the best players, rule-about-taking-one-player-per-team be damned! Here's my list of the best candidates for the All-Star Game starting with the AL guys who will be swinging the bat (all stats min 100 PAs):

Catcher: Jorge Posada, Victor Martinez, and Joe Mauer. Mauer is the leading vote getter for all of Major League Baseball so he's in without a doubt. But if you were picking a player on pure stats, this wouldn't be the year to take Mauer at first glance (his numbers perfectly mirror his 2007 output). But when you drill down, Mauer has still had a pretty great season and is worth of an All-Star nod. Although not as adept defensively, Posada and Martinez may beat Mauer with the bat this year. Although he's been battling injuries (and therefore spent quite a bit of time at DH as well as only racked up 171 PAs), Posada leads all the catchers in OPS (slash lines of .287/.398/.538) and wOBA (.406 to Martinez's .363 and Mauer's .356). Martinez leads all catchers with 29 XBH so far this season. Amazingly (considering his lack of speed), one stat that favors Jorge this season is GIDP: Mauer has 14, Martinez 9 and Posada 1. "Counting" stats: Mauer .304 avg, 3 HR, 21 RBI; Martinez .291 avg, 9 HR, 37 RBI; Posada .287 avg, 9 HR, 25 RBI. Honorable Mentions: John Buck (.271/.309/.532, .356 wOBA, 12 HR, 38 RBI) and Mike Napoli (.251/.329/.478, .354 wOBA, 11 HR, 27 RBI). Picture from The Star-Ledger.

Firstbase: Justin Morneau, Miguel Cabrera and Kevin Youkilis. All three players are having monster years and all three are early candidates for MVP. Morneau's numbers are off the charts (almost Mauer like) with a ridiculous slash line of .340/.448/.622 and a wOBA of .452 to go along with 15 HR and 47 RBI. That wOBA is the highest (among all players who have qualified for the batting title) in the Majors. Second is Youk (.440) and third is Cabrera (.437). Mourneau's OPS of 1.070 leads all 1Bs trailed by Cabrera (1.041) and Youkilis (1.026). The WAR numbers tell the difference thus far though. Due to extremely positive fielding numbers, Morneau takes the lead with 4.3, Youkilis is seen about even and Cabrera is marked down for his defense. Cabrera leads in the counting stats while Youkilis has been hitting the tar out of the ball recently for the surging Red Sox. Morneau has the lead and should start but the other two should be named replacements on the team. Counting stats: Morneau .340 avg, 15 HR, 47 RBI; Cabrera .328 avg, 19 HR, 60 RBI; Youkilis .312 avg, 14 HR, 47 RBI. Honorable Mentions: Paul Konerko (.296/.396/.574, 17 HR, 51 RBI, .413 wOBA) and Billy Butler (.330/.383/.491, 7 HR, 37 RBI, .381 wOBA). Picture from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Read more>>

The Yankee Clipper: We're Going Streaking

The Yankees have hit their soft part of their schedule and after taking 3 of 4 against the Indians, the Yankees just finished off a sweep of the Baltimore Orioles. After the bats had gone silent for a few weeks, health has come back to the Yankees and so has their Bronx Bomber persona. Those bats mixed with great pitching has allowed the Yankees to take advantage and beat up on bad teams. Let's take a look at how we got here:

1. Javy Vazquez, Curtis Granderson, and a break in Game 1. ESPN's TMI blog summarized why Javier Vazquez won and it was pretty simple: he threw first pitch strikes (73% of the time), he kept the ball down (set season-highs with 64 pitches down, 9 ground ball outs, and 52.9% of balls in play resulted in ground-balls), and he got swings and misses (27.5%, his second-highest mark this year). I know that this was "only the Orioles", but pitching is really that simple: keep the ball down, throw first pitch strikes and get swings and misses. As Mark Feinsand of The Daily News points out, the one run that Vazquez gave up was on a pitch up to Corey Patterson. The overall numbers are ugly, but since they skipped his start in early May, Vazquez has pitched in 5 games has a 2.77 ERA and has a .202/.270/.348 line against. Granderson is also out to prove people wrong by hitting lefties and he continued that movement in Game 1 by hitting a home run. As LoHud's Chad Jennings pointed out, Joba Chamberlain also bounced back nicely. And a costly error by Miguel Tejada gave the Yankees the extra runs needed to seal a 3-1 win.
2. Phil Hughes, Robinson Cano, Nick Swisher and Granderson in Game 2. I was at this game and wrote about it from there. ESPN's Buster Olney gives us more details about why Hughes won: "He held Orioles hitters to just 1-for-15 after the count got to two strikes, including 0-for-9 against his fastball. Hughes registered five of his seven strikeouts with the fastball on the night. Hughes challenged Orioles hitters with his fastball up in the zone with success. Hughes got four of his five strikeouts on the fastball on pitches in the upper third of the strike zone. Hughes went to three balls on just one hitter and to a 2-0 count on only two hitters."
3. Today was about CC Sabathia returning to form and A-Rod and Brett Gardner getting in on the power game. CC Sabathia wasn't great today, but what he did well was keep runners off base. The Yankees have been getting great pitching from AJ Burnett, Phil Hughes and Andy Pettitte but this team really took off last season when the hefty lefty was at his best. As Mike from Yankeeist writes, the Yankees made it a lot more interesting than it needed to be, especially Mariano Rivera in the 9th inning but Jay from Fack Youk points out that despite the fact that the Orioles brought the tying run to the plate it never felt like the sweep was going to get away from the Yankees. The Yankees have to be happy to see Gardner and A-Rod starting to swing the bats well again.

Read more>>

Biggest Fantasy Baseball Surprises: Outfielders, DHs and Pitchers

Yesterday we looked at the biggest fantasy baseball surprises in the infield, today we'll look at those that play the outfield, are solely utility, starting pitchers or relief pitchers. All stats and rankings courtesy of Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball. Here we go:

Utility (AKA DH)

Biggest Surprise - Vladamir Guerrero. Former Angels made popular fantasy baseball draft picks from John Lackey to Chone Figgins. But who would have thought that the best former Angel was going to be Vladamir Guerrero. He was ranked the 145th best player coming into this season and is now the second best player in baseball and looking like his MVP form of the past (as well as a sure-fire candidate to go back to Anaheim for the All-Star Game). He's hitting .339 with 29 runs, 12 HR, 42 RBI, and 4 SB.  Two points to make. One is that the weather hasn't really gotten hot so the balls are going to start jumping out even more in Texas this summer. And two, the craziest point about this whole thing is that if the Rangers had completed their trade for Mike Lowell in the off-season, Vlady may be sitting with Jermaine Dye at home still looking for work. Picture from USA Today 

Biggest Disappointment - Pat Burrell. This is pretty bad. Burrell was drafted in a fair amount of leagues for those hoping to get a bounce-back year from the Tampa DH. But he rewarded those people (and the Rays) with a .202 average, 9 runs, 2 HR and 13 RBI in 84 ABs before being released. Ouch. For a small market team such as Tampa, that's gotta hurt.

Read more>>

The Yankee Clipper: Despite Great Pitching, a Doubleheader Split

Two days after losing a tough game to the Tigers (and Jose Valverde's chicken dance) and one day after being rained out, the Yankees went back at it again yesterday with a day-night doubleheader. It's odd how it turns out, but most of the time, no matter how unbalanced the teams might be, it usually ends up that doubleheaders get split. Last night was no exception. The Tigers took the afternoon affair and the Yankees won the evening game. Let's take a look at how that happened:

1. Javier Vazquez's best start of the season. If he wasn't making over $11 million, you would probably feel bad for the guy. After being all out of whack this season, he pitched a really good game giving up only 2 runs over seven strong innings, striking out 7--and his team got shutout for the first time all season. The two runs were on groundballs that just snuck through the infield so hopefully this is a start that Vazquez can build on as we move forward. Mike at River Ave Blues noted that Vazquez worked at a quicker pace and with confidence--and that is usually half the battle with struggling pitchers--and got 16 swings and misses. Vazquez was a little wild early on but settled down to retired 14 of 15 at one point. In the words of Herm Edwards "we can build on this!"
2. Phil Hughes' continued dominance. Johnny Damon told Mark Feinsand of the Daily News that Hughes could be the ace on 15-20 teams in Major League Baseball. LoHud's Chad Jennings agrees. At this point, they may be right. You forget how young he is, too--he won't turn 24 until June 24th. The only Yankees in the past 30 years to win more games than Hughes by age 24 were Andy Pettitte, Dave Righetti, and Bob Wickman. Hughes leads the league in ERA (1.38), wins (5), H/9 (5.077), ERA+ (289), Win Probability Added (1.7), 2nd in WHIP (.923), 4th in HR/9 (.231), 4th in WAR (1.3) and 6th in K/9 (9.000). Hughes' FIP is 2.50 and his xFIP is 3.60 so you expect that ERA to creep up a bit (he's probably going to give up another home run at some point), but so far he's been fabulous. The regular season domination we saw last year with Hughes as a set-up man has translated into Hughes as a confident starter. His cutter has been a tremendous pitch for him.

Read more>>

The Yankee Clipper: 5 April Surprises

Another series, another series win for the New York Yankees. The Yankees had a chance to sweep this series, but lost the rubber game behind another weak outing from Javier Vazquez (and BP's Jay Jaffe does a great job of breaking down Javy's troubles so far). But they bounced back last night in the rubber game and beat the White Sox 12-3 behind another strong pitching performance from Phil Hughes and some big games from their surprise bats. Let's take a look at some of those early-season surpises so far as we turn the calendar from April to May:

1. Brett Gardner - Patience was a virtue for this gritty, gutsy outfielder. Many fans were clamoring for Johnny Damon, Matt Holliday or Jason Bay to come to the Bronx to play left but the Yankees stuck with Brett Gardner and the results have been excellent so far. And while I thought that Gardner would be fine in leftfield because of his glove (UZR of +20.8 for his career) and his speed, he's so far been showing that given enough playing time, Gardner can impress with his bat. Gardner is 6th in the American League in batting average at .342, 10th in OBP at .415, 9th in runs scored at 18, tied for 9th in wOBA at .411, and 1st in stolen bases at 11 (which leads the Majors and is great in comparison to his one caught stealing). He is now on pace for 80 steals for the season. As the New York Times writes, the most important play in Sunday's win may have been Brett Gardner's infield hit in the second inning which drove in the game's first run. As a bonus, the little guy hit a home run too. Gardner, a slow starter at all levels over his professional career, has come on strong this season with his selectivity with the bat, seeing 4.43 P/PA good for 3rd in the AL. Oh, and those who thought that Gardner should face a strict platoon to guard him against lefties are looking off so far: he's hitting .409 against lefties so far this season. The one cause of concern? Gardner's .381 BAbip may be unsustainable (even with his speed). But so far, it's been a great start for the man who replaced Johnny Damon in left...and now Curtis Granderson in center.
2. Phil Hughes - I want to repeat: my preference of Joba Chamberlain being a starter had nothing to do with Phil Hughes' ability; I really though, eventually, he'd be a solid starter...but even I didn't see this coming. Hughes is becoming everything that the Yankees thought he would when they refused to package him in a deal to get Johan Santana. And after their starts yesterday, the Yankees look somewhat justified--a place that no one thought they'd be after Hughes' dismal 2008. Well he's showed them so far. He's 3-0 so far and looked like an ace. Hughes is 2nd in the AL in ERA (1.44), 3rd in wins (3), 2nd in WHIP (.880), 1st in H/9 (3.600), 9th in K/9 (8.640), 8th in HR/9 (.360), and first--in the majors--with a .122 BA against. Although his FIP (3.13) and xFIP (4.24) show that maybe he's been the bearer of some good luck, Hughes has looked as good as he did in the bullpen last season. You hope that players take bullpen assignments like that as motivation to trust in their stuff and use their fastball to get ahead and Hughes is certainly doing just that so far in 2010.

Read more>>

Should We Read More Into Today's Yankees Starting Lineup?

Brett Gardner in center. Nick Johnson hitting 2nd. Robinson Cano hitting 5th. Nick Swisher hitting 8th. A while back we debated the Yankees starting lineup but now it seems to be coming to some sort of conclusion. As Chad Jennings of The LoHud Yankees Blog wrote, today's lineup looks like the expected Opening Day lineup:

1. Derek Jeter SS
2. Nick Johnson DH
3. Mark Teixeira 1B
4. Alex Rodriguez 3B
5. Robinson Cano 2B
6. Jorge Posada C
7. Curtis Granderson LF
8. Nick Swisher RF
9. Brett Gardner CF

Two big observations there: the Yankees have faith in Cano turning around his putrid RISP numbers from last year (and, let's all admit, it might just have been bad luck) and the Yankees have more faith in Gardner playing center than Granderson. As I've said, I don't usually put a lot of stock in what goes on in Spring Training but when Ben pointed out to me that Granderson looked awful in CF, it worried me a bit. Maybe it worried the Yankees too. Leftfield at Yankee Stadium is a hard position to man so having Granderson play there is not a large knock on his abilities. And if the small sample size we have of Brett Gardner holds, this will actually make the Yankees (marginally) better defensively.

Nick Johnson hitting in the two-hole is not a surprise. Although some feel that he will "clog up the bases", I rather a guy clog up the bases by getting on base 4 out of 10 times than one who speeds through the bases 3 out of ten times. If Johnson can stay healthy, the top 4 of that lineup is probably the best in baseball. I thought that Swisher may hit a little higher in the lineup, but I don't think his hitting 8th is truly a reflection of his ability. I think, rather, it's a reflection of how deep the Yankees lineup is. I wonder if, by season's end, the Yankees will have moved him up a bit, though.

Read more>>

Yankees Over/Under: Starting 9 Hitters

I thought it would be fun to do Over/Under for the Yankees to see where people predict people will end up by the end of the year. So I'll put out a list of over/under numbers and you'll put your predictions in the comments below. Let's start out with the Yankee starting 9 hitters:

1. Curtis Granderson - 30 HR (his career high set last year)
2. Jorge Posada - 111 games (the amount he played in last season)
3. Mark Teixeira - 35 HR, 114 RBI (his career average)
4. Robinson Cano - .365 OBP (career high set in 2006)
5. Derek Jeter - 200 hits (a benchmark we seem to have for him every season)
6. Alex Rodriguez - 30 HR and 100 RBI (numbers he's hit every year since 1998)
7. Nick Swisher - 8 HR at home (his odd number from last season)
8. Brett Gardner - 39 SB (his career SB total)
9. Nick Johnson - 438 PAs (his average plate appearances since he left New York)

And now a few non-stat related ones:

10. Nick Johnson - 1.5 trips to the disabled list
11. Kate Hudson - 0.5 times on TV at a Yankee game this season rooting on A-Rod
12. Derek Jeter - 0.5 pies in the face after game-winning hit (he had none last year)
13. Jorge Posada - 25 games caught for his buddy, A.J. Burnett
14. Derek Jeter - 0.5 engagements
15. Nick Swisher - 2 hairstyles 

So what do you think? Put your answers in the comments below and pick an over/under for whichever ones you want. The next group we'll go with are the pitchers so stay tuned.

Picture from the New York Daily News

On Power-Hitting Corner OFs and #4 Pitchers

"Javier Vazquez can relax now on the Yankees because he's the #4 starter." "The Yankees can't go into the season with Brett Gardner as the leftfielder because that's a power-hitting spot."

Have you heard either of those (or something similar) recently? I've heard it a lot which got me thinking: what's with the labels? Now, yes, traditionally, starters have been broken down into #1-#5 and you wanted power hitting corners in your infield and outfield...but haven't we evolved in our thinking to eliminate this problem? I mean we've moved past RBIs and Wins to advanced statistics, so why can't we evolve our thinking when evaluating team makeups?

Let's start with Javier Vazquez and this idea that Vazquez can relax more because he's a #4 starter with #1 starter stuff. Do I think that there's less pressure on Vazquez this time around? Absolutely. He's coming to a team that just won the World Series instead of a team that was beaten by an underdog. He's coming to a New York pitching staff that has CC Sabathia, Andy Pettitte, and A.J. Burnett as holdovers from the year before instead of one that was rebuilding with Kevin Brown, Jon Leiber, and Vazquez--who was supposed to be the "young ace".

But to say that Vazquez is going to be able to relax is ridiculous. Do you think he's going to be able to relax on Sunday night in Fenway against Josh Beckett because he pitches 4th in the Yankees rotation? Nope. Do you think that if he gets bombed in the first round of the playoffs fans will lay off him because he isn't the ace? Not a chance. Especially not with his last playoff memory in New York being the 2004 ALCS.

But I think that too often we fall into the trap as categorizing guys as #1s or #4s without realizing that those numbers don't matter. I don't think any team in the 5-man rotation era has ever gotten through a season with 5 starters going 1-5 every time. Just doesn't happen. If CC Sabathia needs to be skipped a start, is AJ Burnett suddenly their #1 starter? Nope. Is there any real difference between a #2 and #3 starter? A prospect like Joba Chamberlain may project as a #4 starter on the Yankees but as a #1 starter on a team like the Pirates--does that change his value at all? It shouldn't. The key is to find a way to get a certain amount of quality innings from your starters in a season. If you get 450 great innings from your "#4" and "#5" guys combined, is your rotation a failure? Nope...not at all.

I think the same type of narrow-minded thinking goes into evaluating where your hits come from. Traditionally teams were built with light-hitting guys up the middle (catcher, short stop, second and center) and power at the corners. But times have changed. A catcher, Joe Mauer, is winning batting titles in Minnesota, a second baseman, Dustin Pedroia, won an MVP two seasons ago, and a shortstop, Derek Jeter, posted a WAR of 7.4 last season. Yet when the Yankees think about starting Brett Gardner in leftfield, people go nuts. One of my favorite bloggers, Steven Goldman of Pinstriped Bible, was guilty of this in his 12/24 mailbag when he said of Garnder: "What I don’t know is if he has the bat for left field. Remember, left field is one of the more offensively productive positions in the game."

Now I only bring up Goldman's piece for a few reasons: 1) I read it today, 2) It perfectly displayed my issue and 3) I think of Goldman as a more progressive blogger so I was surprised to see this. The truth is that Gardner may not be an everyday player. But in a small sample size last year in centerfield, Gardner posted a WAR of 2.1. That was higher than AL East foe Jacoby Ellsbury or teammate Melky Cabrera. Now would Johnny Damon (3.0 WAR) or Matt Holliday (3.0 WAR) be more valuable? Sure. But at what cost?

The reason I say this is that for what Gardner may lack in his bat at this point of his career (and no one ever expects him to hit for power), he makes up for in he field. The goal of a team is to have more the most net runs possible. So a run saved on defense (or, in Vazquez's case pitching) is equal to a run earned on offense. The Oakland As, Boston Red Sox and Seattle Mariners have turned their focus away from big sluggers and have tried to improve their defense. The Yankees have an in-house way to do just that in Gardner. And Gardner is not a total wash on offense either. Bill James' projections (via FanGraphs) has him with an OBP of .368, a wOBA of .347, and a better BB% (with plus plus speed) for next year which could be valuable at the bottom of the Yankees lineup that will feature power at every position other than LF. Could the Yankees use a right-handed OF like Reed Johnson, Jonny Gomes, Marcus Thames, or someone like that (NOT Jermaine Dye who is an awful defender at this point in his career) with lefties in CF and LF? Sure. But I don't think they need to get a starting leftfielder just because Brett Gardner is penciled in on December 28th (and, truthfully, it may be all smoke and mirrors). There certainly is no "gaping hole" in leftfield. And if the Yankees truly need a leftfielder midseason, they can wait until the trade deadline and try to pick one up then as Joel Sherman writes.

Now, I do think the Yankees would be better off with Gardner in CF and Granderson in LF (and that may still occur) and IIATMS agrees. Gardner was the better defensive CF last year (and many forget his huge catch in the Angels series pictured above from The Star-Ledger). If you're going to play both, this may be your best defense. So if you move Gardner to CF and Granderson to LF, have you solved your problem of not having a power-hitting corner OF since Granderson is a power-hitting threat in LF, especially with the short porch? Haven't you basically just replaced Damon in LF and Gardner/Melky in CF from last year with a better version of Granderson in LF and Gardner in CF (especially defensively)? I think too often we get into traps of projecting positional traits when, as long as the whole is good, a team can have different strengths at different positions (as Ken Davidoff writes in Newsday). The Yankees may not have a better lineup with Brett Gardner instead of Jason Bay in their outfield, but when you factor in defense and money and speed and age, they actually may be a better team in 2010 and beyond sticking with what they have.