Stretch Drive Previews: The AL Central

We started in the AL East and now we head to the American League Central for our Stretch Drive Previews series. This is a division which has had two pennant winner in the past dozen years (the 2005 White Sox and the 2006 Tigers)  and has only captured the Wild Card once (2006 when Detroit and Minnesota both made it). An AL Central playoff team has played the AL East in the playoffs each of the last 7 years, advancing only in 2005 and 2006. With that in mind, let's take a look at the September outlooks for the AL Central teams (% slashes per team are division/wild card/overall playoffs):

Rk	Tm	W	L	W-L%	GB	Strk	R	RA	Rdiff	pythWL	Home	Road	1Run	≥.500	<.500	last10	last20	last30
1	MIN	76	56	.576	---	W 1	4.8	4.0	0.8	77-55	41-22	35-34	24-20	28-27	48-29	5-5	13-7	20-10
2	CHW	72	60	.545	4.0	W 2	4.8	4.2	0.6	74-58	38-27	34-33	21-21	22-29	50-31	6-4	9-11	14-16
3	DET	65	67	.492	11.0	L 1	4.5	4.6	-0.1	65-67	43-25	22-42	14-20	26-40	39-27	6-4	11-9	13-17
4	KCR	56	76	.424	20.0	W 1	4.1	5.3	-1.2	51-81	30-34	26-42	25-25	28-44	28-32	4-6	9-11	14-16
5	CLE	53	79	.402	23.0	L 3	4.0	4.9	-0.9	54-78	29-38	24-41	19-17	31-45	22-34	3-7	6-14	11-19
	Avg	64	67	.488			4.4	4.6		64-67	36-29	28-38	20-20	27-37	37-30	4-5	9-10	14-15

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 9/1/2010.

Minnesota Twins (85.9% / 0.2% / 86.1% chance of making the playoffs according to coolstandings.com, 89.4% / 0.1% / 89.6% chances according to Baseball Prospectus, and 86.6% / <.1% / 86.7% according to PECOTA)

Will the addition of Manny Ramirez make a difference in this race? (CBC)

Last year Minnesota tracked down Detroit at the very end of the season to stage one of the greatest end-of-season comebacks in the Wild Card era. This year, it's Minnesota who tries not to collapse and give up their AL Central lead. While the Red Sox, Phillies and others have been praised for their play despite injuries, the Twins may be even more reslient. They lost All-Star closer Joe Nathan before the season even started and have had 2006 AL MVP Justin Morneau for only 81 games (though he amazingly still is tied for the team lead in HR). And yet they're cruising right along in the AL Central. Part of that certainly has to do with a starting pitching staff anchored by Carl Pavano (15-10, 3.52 ERA, 3.73 FIP, 3.94 xFIP) and Francisco Liriano (12-7, 3.41 ERA, 2.31 FIP, 3.01 xFIP, 9.72 K/9) and really good defense. But a lot of credit has to go to the depth of the lineup which has forged ahead and put together the 3rd highest wOBA and Runs Above Average (according to FanGraphs) in the majors behind only the Yankees and Red Sox. This is impressive in what has been a pitching-friendly, home-run-suppressing Target Field (where they play Texas, Oakland, and Toronto--their three out-of-division opponents the rest of the way).

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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.

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Is There a Free Agent Market For Cliff Lee?

One of the biggest off-season moves of this past winter was the Seattle Mariners acquisition of Cliff Lee from the Philadelphia Phillies. With one year left on his contract, Lee was deemed expendable by a Philadelphia team that didn’t think they could resign him once his contract was up. The Mariners had dreams of pairing Felix Hernandez and Lee together for one season and seeing what they could do in the spacious confines of Safeco Field.

Well, it may only be one year that they have together. Lee’s agent, Darek Braunecker, told ESPN’s Buster Olney that Lee will be testing the free agent waters in five months. With Josh Beckett locked up, Brandon Webb injured and Javier Vazquez having a rough go of it in the Bronx, Lee is definitely the cream of the free agent pitching crop.

But what type of market awaits Lee? Which teams will be involved in the bidding? While 5 years ago, Cliff Lee would be looking at a huge contract deal, in 2010 with a depressed economy, sagging attendance in some parks, and teams looking to be more fiscally responsible, it seems like Lee’s prospects are drying up in certain areas. So will Lee get a CC Sabathia-type contract or will he be left disappointed after the off-season is over? Let’s take a look at the possibilities (with thanks to Cot’s Baseball Contracts on the salaries):

Seattle Mariners: The Mariners traded away some of their best prospects to get Cliff Lee so it would make sense they would keep him, right? Well some of thought behind acquiring Lee was that they would keep him for a year and try to recoup the prospect loss in draft pick compensation for Lee signing elsewhere (Lee should be a Type A free agent). And since the Mariners are yet to approach Lee about a contract, that draft pick grab may be the path they are going to head down. If Lee has a huge season in Seattle, though, the Mariners will have a lot of incentive to resign him. If the team struggles, however, they may have to trade him and The News Tribune says they should think about doing that now, rather than later. The Seattle P-I says that the Mariners haven't really been showing much love Lee's way (picture to the right from that article).

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The Yankee Clipper: Another Series Win In Beantown

Even though it feels like the Yankees haven't really gotten hot, they have started at an all-time pace. They won their first give series to match the 1926 squad for the best mark in team history. Coming into the series, they had won eight of their first nine series. The last time they had done that was 2003. Now, after taking two of three in Boston, the Yankees have won nine out of their first ten series. The only two Yankees teams to do that? The 1939 team (11 of 12) and the 1928 team (14 of 15). And at 21-9, the Yankees are off to one of the best 30-game starts in the Derek Jeter Era (in 1998 and 2003, the team went 23-7 to begin both seasons). Last year after 30 games the Yankees were 14-16, 5.5 games out of first, and A-Rod had just returned from the DL the game before. So this team is a little bit ahead of last year's pace. Let's talk a little bit about the series that was in Fenway Park this past weekend:

1. Mark Teixeira and A-Rod started to wake up. It was only a matter of time before the middle of the Yankees lineup got rolling. It was this time last year when A-Rod came off the DL so it's really a year since they were this cold. Now they're heating up. Tex had 3 home runs on Saturday (though the last one was off of an outfielder) and A-Rod had a .556/.615/1.000 mark for the weekend at the plate and seemed to look more comfortable at the plate. A-Rod's home run yesterday was number 586 for his career, tying Frank Robinson on the all-time home run list. ESPN New York's Andrew Marchand says this could signal more A-Bombs ahead. Moshe at TYU says they were getting plenty of consistent offense even without those guys. That was, until Robinson Cano stopped hitting in May.
2. The "Sore Four" expands. The Yankees injuries are starting to pile up. Curtis Granderson is out a month. Chan Ho Park hasn't been seen in a month. Nick Johnson is on the DL. Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera are battling issues. Jorge Posada missed a week. A-Rod missed a few games. Alfredo Aceves left Saturday's game with an injury. Robinson Cano left Friday's game with an injury. The wild card for the Yankees was always their health with a veteran team. They've gotten great contributions from guys like Francisco Cervelli and Sergio Mitre helping to fill in for others. But the Yankees need to work on getting guys healthy ASAP and the Post's Joel Sherman writes that these injuries should give the Yankees pause before committing too many more years to older players this off-season.

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A Look Back at the Detroit Moves: A Trade I Would Support

Jason over at IIATMS had a very thought-provoking post up today about the player movement between the Yankees and the Tigers. Basically Jason wanted to pose the question that if the trade for Granderson, and signings of Thames and Damon were seen as one big trade, would we be in favor of it. Jason boils it down to Johnny Damon, Austin Jackson, Phil Coke, and Ian Kennedy for Curtis Granderson and Marcus Thames. He further breaks down the financial commitments:

Yankees 2010 committment: (via Cot’s)

• Granderson: $5.5m [contract runs for three more years ($25.75m, all in, including a $2m buyout)]
• Thames: $0.9m (minor league contract)
• TOTAL: 6.4m

Detroit’s 2010 committment: (via Cot’s)

• Damon: $8.0m
• Coke: $0.4m
• Austin Jackson: League Minimum ($0.4m)
• ADD: Max Scherzer: $1.4m
• ADD: Dan Schlereth: League Minimum ($0.4m)
• LESS: Edwin Jackson: $4.2m
• LESS: Ian Kennedy: ~$0.4m
• TOTAL: $6.0m

Factoring in the second trade of Edwin Jackson and IPK for Scherzer and Schlereth, the Tigers were able to shed some 2010 payroll. Whether they are better for it or not remains to be seen, but in doing so, it puts the trade virtually neck and neck from a 2010 financial committment.  Of course, it doesn’t include the other moves the Yanks (or Detroit) made to fill in for the pieces traded, such as the Yanks signing Chan Ho Park.

So, knowing what we know now, on the eve of players reporting, are you still happy with this trade?

I've been mulling this one all day. While what Jason present is correct and overall really interesting, it sort of shortens the narrative for the way the Yankee fan should think about the trade (ie--the Edwin Jackson/Max Scherzer/Dan Schlereth part shouldn't factor into the Yankees thinking of their off-season). And for this purpose, I'm going to shorten the narrative as well: let's only look at 2010 commitments.  In factoring the true trade value for the Yankees side, what they "traded away" was ~$9.2 million (Damon+Coke+Jackson+Kennedy).

So $9.2 M minus $6.4 M (what they're committing to Granderson and Thames) equals $2.8 M. Would you trade Damon, Coke, Jackson, and Kennedy for Granderson, Thames, and $2.8 M?

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Damon (finally) gets a 2-year offer

Ken Rosenthal is reporting that the Detroit Tigers have made a 2-year, $14 million offer to Johnny Damon, matching the offer that the Yankees made to him before they eventually signed Nick Johnson.

This obviously trumps the 1-year, $4-4.5 million offer Damon got from the Atlanta Braves, who do play closer to Damon's offseason home in Orlando. Not that Scott Boras would allow Damon to take a 1-year deal in the National League over a 2-year deal in the American League because of the city's proximity to his home, but still.

The other deal on the table is the Tigers' offer of 1 year at $7 million, but that seems unlikely as Damon has been seeking a multiyear deal all along.

Since it seems unlikely that any team will outbid Robert Illitch's two-year offer, expect Damon to take it. As a result, in 2010 the Yankees will feature Curtis Granderson in CF, while the Tigers get Johnny Damon in LF. As far as outfielder switcheroos go, I'm happy to have Granderson!

The only remaining question is: why, Illitch, why? What did the nice people of Detroit do wrong?

UPDATE: Rob Neyer proposes platooning Damon (vs. RHP) with Ryan Raburn (vs. LHP) in left field. That may be the best fit for Damon in Detroit, but it seems like $7 mil per year is a lot to spend on an aging, part-time player, doesn't it?