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| Juan Miranda celebrates the walk-off with the Yankees (Star-Ledger) |
Showing posts with label Juan Miranda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Juan Miranda. Show all posts
Monday, September 27, 2010
PHEW
Monday, August 2, 2010
Late to the Party: My Reaction on a Busy Trade Deadline for the Yankees
I know, I know, I'm late to the party. But after writing a trade deadline wishlist, I was shocked to see the Yankees check off quite a few boxes. While none of the moves guarantees the Yankees a chance at the playoffs (much less the pennant or the World Series), the deadline transactions shows that Brian Cashman is willing to shrewdly work the system towards the Yankees benefit in different ways than they truly have before. Let's take a look at the deadline moves and, putting them in the context of what they improved on, show that while it's not a clear home run for the Yankees, the July 31st moves were clearly a win.
Austin Kearns: Probably my favorite move of all just because it fit a need perfectly. Kearns can play all three outfield positions and is extremely solid out there (with a plus arm). He's played most of his career in rightfield where he has a 58.0 UZR in over 6,000 innings, but moved back to leftfield in 2010 for the first time since 2003. After Kearns was a solid hitter from 2000-2007, his hitting dipped to below average numbers for 2008 and 2009 (with much lower BABIPs) and some felt he may be slowing down. But Kearns has been much better in 2010 (though some of that is buoyed by a great start to the season--.689 OPS since May 18th) and the Yankees were looking for a solid right-handed bat off their bench.
Kearns basically replaces Marcus Thames in the field (big win) and Curtis Granderson at bat against lefties (another big win). Kearns has a career OPS of .799 vs. lefties and his .353 wOBA and .383 OBP are exactly what the Yankees need from him when we consider Granderson has given them a .252 OBP, .538 OPS and a woeful .242 wOBA vs. southpaws. The smart move against lefties would be to play Brett Gardner in CF, Kearns in left, and DH Thames (and more on this below). The fear is that Kearns hot start masked a declining player who will flounder playing for his first big-market team--but I don't see that. For what the Yankees need Kearns for (platoon righty and bench bat), Kearns seems to make perfect sense). That he basically replaced Colin Curtis on the roster is a win (despite the fact I like Curtis). And all for the ole PTBNL or cash it was a shrewd and cheap move in what turned into a light outfield market.
Lance Berkman: The Big Puma is no longer and Fat Elvis seems to reign now--but regardless of which nickname you use, Berkman is a player who can certainly help the Yankees down the stretch. With Nick Johnson in a black hole of injury, the Yankees have been working through a platoon of Marcus Thames and Lance Berkman with a few games of Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada in their DH slot. For all intents and purposes, Berkman replaces Miranda on the roster. No matter how much I liked Miranda in the little time I saw of him, this can't be seen as anything but a win. Now it's never as clear cut as that, though. Lance Berkman is not the same guy who finished in the top-5 in MVP voting 4 different years. He's not even close to the player who put up a Wins Above Replacement (WAR) number of 7.5 in 2008 (only Albert Pujols, Chase Utley and David Wright were higher that year). But Berkman is still a premium hitter who knows how to get on base (career OBP of .409). The biggest problem for Berkman has that he's been bad vs. lefties this year (.188/.278/.281 w/ 1 HR) and was not as good away from Minute Maid Park (almost 200 points lower OPS). But the fact that he's going to have Marcus Thames as his right-handed DH caddy and that he's moving to a good hitters park in the Bronx should alleviate some of those concerns--as does his excellent 16.4% BB rate and his top-20 rank in pitcher per plate appearance (4.14) which makes him another patient, dangerous hitter to work through.
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| Austin Kearns adds a solid OF bat (ESPN) |
Austin Kearns: Probably my favorite move of all just because it fit a need perfectly. Kearns can play all three outfield positions and is extremely solid out there (with a plus arm). He's played most of his career in rightfield where he has a 58.0 UZR in over 6,000 innings, but moved back to leftfield in 2010 for the first time since 2003. After Kearns was a solid hitter from 2000-2007, his hitting dipped to below average numbers for 2008 and 2009 (with much lower BABIPs) and some felt he may be slowing down. But Kearns has been much better in 2010 (though some of that is buoyed by a great start to the season--.689 OPS since May 18th) and the Yankees were looking for a solid right-handed bat off their bench.
Kearns basically replaces Marcus Thames in the field (big win) and Curtis Granderson at bat against lefties (another big win). Kearns has a career OPS of .799 vs. lefties and his .353 wOBA and .383 OBP are exactly what the Yankees need from him when we consider Granderson has given them a .252 OBP, .538 OPS and a woeful .242 wOBA vs. southpaws. The smart move against lefties would be to play Brett Gardner in CF, Kearns in left, and DH Thames (and more on this below). The fear is that Kearns hot start masked a declining player who will flounder playing for his first big-market team--but I don't see that. For what the Yankees need Kearns for (platoon righty and bench bat), Kearns seems to make perfect sense). That he basically replaced Colin Curtis on the roster is a win (despite the fact I like Curtis). And all for the ole PTBNL or cash it was a shrewd and cheap move in what turned into a light outfield market.
Lance Berkman: The Big Puma is no longer and Fat Elvis seems to reign now--but regardless of which nickname you use, Berkman is a player who can certainly help the Yankees down the stretch. With Nick Johnson in a black hole of injury, the Yankees have been working through a platoon of Marcus Thames and Lance Berkman with a few games of Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada in their DH slot. For all intents and purposes, Berkman replaces Miranda on the roster. No matter how much I liked Miranda in the little time I saw of him, this can't be seen as anything but a win. Now it's never as clear cut as that, though. Lance Berkman is not the same guy who finished in the top-5 in MVP voting 4 different years. He's not even close to the player who put up a Wins Above Replacement (WAR) number of 7.5 in 2008 (only Albert Pujols, Chase Utley and David Wright were higher that year). But Berkman is still a premium hitter who knows how to get on base (career OBP of .409). The biggest problem for Berkman has that he's been bad vs. lefties this year (.188/.278/.281 w/ 1 HR) and was not as good away from Minute Maid Park (almost 200 points lower OPS). But the fact that he's going to have Marcus Thames as his right-handed DH caddy and that he's moving to a good hitters park in the Bronx should alleviate some of those concerns--as does his excellent 16.4% BB rate and his top-20 rank in pitcher per plate appearance (4.14) which makes him another patient, dangerous hitter to work through.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
The Yankee Clipper: The Infield
Yesterday we looked at the Yankees' outfield at the All-Star Break. Today we'll check out the Yankees infield and see how they've been fairing so far in 2010. We'll leave out the catchers for now, but we'll make sure to get back to them later. We'll also examine any places of weaknesses to see where the Yankees could make some strikes before July 31st:
- Alex Rodriguez. We'll work our way around the diamond but start first with A-Rod. In what's been his least controversial year (so far), A-Rod's bat hasn't been producing either. His .269/.345/.481 line would all be his worst mark since 1995 and his 27 home run pace would his worst since 1997 (and his first time not hitting 30 since then). The one thing that A-Rod is still doing offensively is driving in runs and his 70 RBI are 3rd in the American League--and puts him on pace for 133 which would be the 4th highest mark of his career. He's also hitting doubles and triples at a high pace and his projected total of 42 non-HR XBH would be his highest since 1997. Now that could mean that he's just had bad luck and some of his flyballs haven't left the park this year--and the numbers support that. Only 11.2% of A-Rod's flyballs have left the park which would be his lowest mark since 1995 and way under his 18.5% career mark and his BABIP of .281 is way under his career mark of .320. So what does this mean for the man who is about to hit 600 home runs? There's probably some sort of correction coming (especially since he's also been battling a bad hip). I would assume he ends the season with higher slash lines and his regular 30+ HR and 100+ RBI power numbers (though his steals have gone down from 24 in 2007 to 18 in 2008 to 14 in 2009 to only 2 so far in 2010). The weirdest part of A-Rod's stats: he hits righties at a much better clip (175 points higher in OPS) than he hits lefties. This mostly seems to be because his inability to hit lefties cutters and it is a small sample size--but it is strange (as was his All-Star Game exclusion). His UZR number is actually his best since 2005 so despite his bad hip, he's still about average defensively. The key for A-Rod is finding a good backup so the Yankees feel comfortable sitting or DH'ing him once every week to 10 days. Right now, I don't think they have confidence in any one of the backups (and we'll get to that later) and need to hope for more A-Bombs from A-Rod. Best Month: May .330/.408/.534 with 5 HR and 27 RBI.
- Derek Jeter. "El Capitan" had one of the best years of his career last season. This year has been a little rougher on the aging shortstop. A free agent in the off-season, he's at least made the Yankees think twice about giving him too many years. .274/.340/.392 would amazing all be the lowest marks of his entire career. He's on pace for 112 runs, 32 2B, 15 HR, 80 RBI and 17 SB so the production is still there, but he's certainly fallen off of his 2009 mark (and this is all with his HR/FB % the highest of his career). There is still hope for Jeter, though. He's typically a better second half player with his three best months of July, August and September (in ascending order). In many ways this season looks a lot like 2008 when Jeter had a horrible first half but raised his OPS 75 points in the second half. The Yankees need to keep their fingers crossed that Jeter can do the same in 2010 (or they need to move Brett Gardner to the leadoff spot to get a high OBP player in front of Jetes. You also hope that maybe playing for the memory of George Steinbrenner will propel Jeter to greatness in the second half of the season. Here's one big issue: Jeter can't hit righties. He's hitting .323/.372/.504 vs. lefties and an atrocious .248/.323/.332 vs. righties. If Jeter can turn that around, it will go a long way in helping his overall numbers. If not (and RotoGraphs thinks his days of being a .300 hitter may be behind him), the Yankees need to think long and hard about how many years to give an aging shortstop this off-season. Best Month: April .330/.354/.521 with 4 HR, 18 RBI and 3 SB.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Yankees Finding Ways To Utilize Open DH Spot
I don't think the Yankees planned to have Nick Johnson miss time. I don't think they got him thinking "hey, he'll probably get injured and open up the DH slot." But while Nick Johnson's injury isn't a good thing for the Yankees, the vacancy in the DH spot has been a positive point at times for the Yankees. With an older team and injuries to key players, the Yankees have needed to use the DH spot to ease players back in the lineup (as they did last night with Alex Rodriguez). Let's take a look at how the DH spot has gone for the Yankees this season.
The graph below from Baseball-Reference shows all the people that have spent time at DH this season for the Yanks:
Jorge Posada has played the most games besides Johnson on this list and for good reason. The 38-year-old would have probably spent a good deal of time at DH anyways due the fact that he can't squat for 162 games, but his foot injury kept him from being the Yankees catcher for quite longer than expected. Posada has historically been a better hitter when he catches and 2010 is no different. A caveat though, Posada's time at DH was spent while he was still pretty injured so the results may have also been hindered by the fact he was not always healthy while DH'ing. His .229/.362/.438 splits in 58 PAs out of the DH slot is not bad as it contains 3 HR in his 11 hits. Joe from FanGraphs wrote about catchers who are good enough to DH back on June 1st, and Posada has given the Yankees a great option of using the better defensive player (Francisco Cervelli) at catcher and preserve Jorge's body while DH'ing. Even now that he's returned behind the plate, I expect that quite a few of Jorge's ABs will come with the other half of the day off.
| Age | G | |
|---|---|---|
| Nick Johnson | 31 | 19 |
| Jorge Posada | 38 | 14 |
| Juan Miranda | 27 | 7 |
| Marcus Thames | 33 | 7 |
| Mark Teixeira | 30 | 5 |
| Alex Rodriguez | 34 | 4 |
| Derek Jeter | 36 | 3 |
| Nick Swisher | 29 | 2 |
| Robinson Cano | 27 | 1 |
Jorge Posada has played the most games besides Johnson on this list and for good reason. The 38-year-old would have probably spent a good deal of time at DH anyways due the fact that he can't squat for 162 games, but his foot injury kept him from being the Yankees catcher for quite longer than expected. Posada has historically been a better hitter when he catches and 2010 is no different. A caveat though, Posada's time at DH was spent while he was still pretty injured so the results may have also been hindered by the fact he was not always healthy while DH'ing. His .229/.362/.438 splits in 58 PAs out of the DH slot is not bad as it contains 3 HR in his 11 hits. Joe from FanGraphs wrote about catchers who are good enough to DH back on June 1st, and Posada has given the Yankees a great option of using the better defensive player (Francisco Cervelli) at catcher and preserve Jorge's body while DH'ing. Even now that he's returned behind the plate, I expect that quite a few of Jorge's ABs will come with the other half of the day off.
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