Yankees All Replacement Team of the Decade

So with the Yankees blogospohere talking about the best of the decade, I thought it would be fun to talk about the worst of the decade. I went ahead and found the worst offensive seasons for positional players on the Yankees in the past decade. In order to qualify for this list, the players had to amass 300 Plate appearances in a season. There are a few players who are just below that number and were too good to leave off the list.

As for pitchers, starting pitchers had to amass 100 IP in a season while relievers needed 45 IP to qualify.

The idea came to fruition based on one of my favorite pastimes of going back and forth with a good friend of mine rattling off role players from the early 90's (i.e Andy Stankiewicz, Mike Gallego, Hensley Muelens, Eric Plunk, Steve Howe, Melido Perez, etc.).


Some statistics used in this analysis that you may not be familiar with: wRC+, OW%, ERA+, and FIP.


Note: Some positions, most notably SS and Closer didn't really have a bad season at all but I had to choose the "worst" within the minimum amount of time played.


Offense

	Name	BA	OBP	SLG	wRC+	OW%
C	Jose Molina '08	.216	.263	.313	52	.214
C	Jorge Posada '05	.262	.352	.430	111	.555
1B	Tino Martinez '00	.258	.322	.428	92	.422
1B	Andy Phillips '06	.240	.281	.394	72	.306
2B	Alfonso Soriano '01	.268	.304	.432	98	.450
2B	Robinson Cano '08	.271	.305	.410	86	.402
SS	Derek Jeter '03	.324	.393	.450	131	.631
SS	Derek Jeter '08	.300	.363	.408	110	.502
3B	Scott Brosius '00	.230	.299	.374	73	.292
3B	Robin Ventura '03	.251	.344	.392	100	.466
LF	Rondell White '02	.240	.288	.378	77	.349
LF	Chuck Knoblauch '01	.250	.339	.351	96	.440
CF	Melky Cabrera '08	.249	.301	.341	71	.333
CF	Bernie Williams '05	.249	.321	.367	86	.390
RF	Shane Spencer '01	.258	.315	.428	99	.475
RF	Shane Spencer '02	.247	.324	.375	85	.422
DH	Jason Giambi '04	.208	.342	.379	96	.440
DH	Ruben Sierra '04	.244	.296	.456	92	.448
BN	Tony Womack 05'	.249	.276	.280	57	.250
BN	Enrique Wilson '04	.213	.254	.325	49	.209

Pitching

Pos	Name	IP	ERA	WHIP	ERA+	FIP
SP	David Cone '00	155	6.91	1.768	70	5.44
SP	Jeff Weaver '03	169.1	5.99	1.619	73	4.26
SP	Darrell Rasner '08	113.1	5.40	1.535	82	4.72
SP	Ted Lilly '01	120	5.37	1.467	83	4.79
SP	Carl Pavano '05	100	4.77	1.470	89	4.89
SP	Javier Vazquez '04	198	4.91	1.288	92	4.78
SP	Joba Chamberlain '08	157.1	4.75	1.544	90	4.82
BN	Jose Contreras '04	95.2	5.64	1.411	80	5.83
BN	Kevin Brown '05	73.1	6.50	1.718	65	3.61
BN	Kei Igawa '07	67.2	6.25	1.670	72	6.37
Bullpen
RP	Sterling Hitchcock '03	49.2	5.44	1.510	81	4.24
RP	Tanyon Sturtze '04	77.1	5.47	1.397	82	4.63
RP	Scott Proctor '05	44.2	6.04	1.410	70	5.59
RP	Scott Proctor '07	54.1	3.81	1.510	119	5.56
CL	Mariano Rivera '00	75.2	2.85	1.087	169	3.28
CL	Mariano Rivera '02	46.0	2.74	1.00	161	2.88

No surprise here, the worst offensive seasons go to Jose Molina in 2008, Enrique Wilson in 2004 and Tony Womack in 2005. On the pitching side it'd be hard to argue that David Cone's season in 2000 was downright awful. Kei Igawa did give him a run for his money in 2007, but with half the innings pitched he ultimately would have had an opportunity to bring that ERA down if he had pitched the same number of innings.

The Yankees have had a pretty successful decade by all standards. All in all they've amassed 9 playoff berths, 4 Pennants and 2 WS Championships. The only team to win as many World Series as the Yankees over the decade is the Red Sox. Even a greater testament to the AL East is that 7 out of the past 10 years have sent an AL East team to the World Series.

The Yankees have been lucky to have that stable of players from the late 90's in Posada, Jeter, Rivera and Pettitte (since he's been in pinstripes for a majority of this decade). Here's to another successful decade with a stable of players the likes of Alex Rodriguez, CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira and Robinson Cano to keep the dynasty going.