A New Year's resolution: To not have to talk about left field anymore

So far Brian Cashman has followed through on one-third of my dream offseason plan -- the bringing Nick Johnson back component. At this point the Yankees apparently have no further interest in Ben Sheets, and it appears that the Cardinals are about to lock Matt Holliday up.

Since the Javy Vazquez trade it's been all left field all the time in Yankeeland, and I'm just as tired of talking about it as you are. Unfortunately, there's little else to set our sights on given the way the rest of the team is presently constricted for 2010. Rather than waste 1,000 words analyzing a situation that none of us truly know the ultimate resolution to, I'm just going to present a quick list of the remaining available left fielders that have been linked to the Yankees (which is basically every available left fielder):

	2010 BJ wOBA	2010 SG wOBA
Marlon Byrd	.335	.328
Johnny Damon	.348	.339
Jermaine Dye	.350	.337
Reed Johnson	.312	.313
Xavier Nady	.347	.349
Marcus Thames	.338	.320

The name that surprised me the most here was actually Xavier Nady. I've never been much of a Nady fan, but I'd love to be able to get close to a .350 wOBA out of left with passable defense. Not that Nady is a defensive wizard by any stretch, but he seems to be able to play a reasonable enough left field. Pinstripe Posts endorses bringing Nady back, but as Chris from iYankees points out, despite Nady missing nearly all of 2009 his asking price is apparently too high for the Yanks. Still, what kind of negotiating power could Nady really have? It's not even clear whether he'll be ready for the start of the season.

Here's what the Yankees' in-house options for left are projected to do:

	2010 BJ wOBA	2010 SG wOBA
Brett Gardner	.347	.321
Jamie Hoffman		.305

Bill James doesn't have a projection for Hoffman, but I can't imagine it would be much better than .305. It's great that James thinks Gardner can perform at a near-.350 wOBA level, but I have a feeling SG's .321 is a more accurate reflection of what we'll get out of Gardner. Of course, we also have to remember that James' version of wOBA reflects stolen bases, which probably accounts for the significant disparity between the Gardner projections.

The Yankees can probably get by with Gardner starting in left, but it's far from an ideal situation. With Jason Bay and Holliday off the market, and the number of teams with a need for a left fielder shrinking, I still wouldn't be surprised to see the Yankees work something out with either Johnny Damon or perhaps Nady.

Assessing the 2010 Yankee rotation

Not sure if anyone noticed, given that Mike and Jason did a stellar job of providing content in my absence as well as the fact that many of you have probably been similarly off the grid celebrating the holidays, but I was away this past week (the Bizarre Moves posts from this past weekend were written in advance). As a result, I haven't yet had a chance to properly weigh in on the Javy Vazquez trade.

The news broke last Tuesday on my first day out of town, but thankfully I was able to piece the deal together quickly thanks to the magic of BlackBerries and Twitter accounts, as well as Mike's solid analysis of the deal. I did jot down some quick thoughts on the trade in an e-mail thread a friend of mine sent around that morning, so let's have a look:

"Initial impressions of this deal are that it's a pretty nice move for the Yanks. I've always hated Melky, so to get anything of substance for Cabrera is a plus in my book. I know a lot of Yankee fans have bad memories of Vasquez's time in pinstripes, and he definitely sucked in the second half of '04, but he's actually been a pretty good pitcher since being traded, continuing to post an impressive K/9 rate while eating up a ton of innings.

He also had arguably the best year of his career last year, with the 4th-best FIP (2.77) in the NL. He obviously won't be quite that good in the AL East, but as previously pointed out, he won't need to be. During his initial go-round with the Yankees, Home Run Javy was asked to be the ace of a staff that essentially shed four out of its 5 starters from the previous season. This time, he should excel as the team's 4th starter."

I still feel the same way, although at the time I didn't realize that Arodys Vizcaino was also part of the package. Not that he should ever have held the trade up, but that bit of information made the deal make more sense for me on Atlanta's end. Truthfully, simply trading Melky Cabrera for any living, breathing Major League baseball player is pretty excellent. To go out and trade Melky for a starting pitcher that has averaged a 113 ERA+ and a 3.65 FIP in the five seasons since being traded away from the Yankees is ridiculous.

I think it's somewhat reasonable to be concerned about what Vazquez can do in the AL East circa 2010. However, as Joe noted at RAB, though no one will forget Javy serving up Johnny Damon's knife-through-the-heart of a grand slam in Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS, Vazquez was also quite good during the first half of that season until apparently both his mechanics fell out of whack and his arm may have also been hurt.

There's been some speculation that Vazquez could potentially slot in as the #2 starter, but I think the smart money is to make him the #4 starter. This will lessen the pressure on Javy to perform and pretty much ensure the Yankees have the edge in the pitching matchup nearly every time Javy takes the mound -- how many number four starters in baseball posted a 2.77 FIP last year? Yeah, didn't think so. Additionally, Vazquez has been praised for his ability to shoulder large workloads, and iYankees notes that Javy also provides insurance for Sabathia, Burnett and Pettitte, each of whom threw a month's worth of additional starts this postseason.

A few weeks ago I looked at what the Yankee rotation as presently constituted looked like using last year's FIP and Bill James' projected 2010 FIP. With Vazquez now in tow, let's take a revised look at the rotation, using both James' projected FIP and SG's CAIRO-projected FIP (though I'm not sure if James' has been updated to reflect Vazquez moving from the NL East to the AL East).

		2010 BJ FIP	2010 SG FIP
LHP	CC Sabathia	3.44	3.26
RHP	A.J. Burnett	3.85	3.95
LHP	Andy Pettitte	3.77	3.94
RHP	Javier Vazquez	3.59	3.37
RHP	Joba Chamberlain	3.73	4.11
RHP	Phil Hughes	3.35	4.06

Now the James projection for Hughes is as a reliever, so we only have SG's projection to look at for Hughes as a starter. Either way, it's hard not to like what Cashman has done to the Yankee rotation.

While I've been as big a fan as any of keeping both Joba and Hughes in the rotation, between Hughes' 2010 innings cap as well as the likelihood of someone missing a few starts somewhere along the line, there should be opportunities to continue developing both youngsters as starters. The only concern here is that Hughes continues to pitch absurdly well out of the 'pen (not that I want him to pitch poorly, mind you) and the Yankees fall in love with the idea of crowning Phil as heir to Mariano's throne without seeing what he can do with at least a few full seasons worth of starts.

Mets closing in on Jason Bay

Its now being reported that the Mets and Jason Bay have come to terms on a four year $66 million contract, pending a physical. The move makes sense for the Mets, so long as Jason Bay has enough power to lift the ball out of cavernous Federal Bailout Park ... I mean Citi Field. Bay will add power to an improved Mets lineup, provided injured stars Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran return from injury at full strength.

Attention will shift back to the Red Sox and the Yankees, now that Bay is off the market. The perception is that the Yankees need a left fielder, but to many analysts the team is currently strong enough to compete. More than anything, this will intensify the microscope on the Red Sox. So far this off season they've let Bay go, and tried to trade Mike Lowell to Texas. They replaced Bay with Mike Cameron, which may have saved money but is also an offensive downgrade.

The Sox were long thought to be out of the Bay sweepstakes, but now that he is about to be off the market its difficult to ignore that the Red Sox have failed to add power to a lineup that went cold at the end of 2009. So far, advantage Yankees.

What to expect from Derek Jeter?

Yesterday Yankeeist took a look at players who are similar Alex Rodriguez (one name stands out: Aaron, Henry) and attempted to predict a bit of what his future with the Yankees holds. Today we turn our sites on the team's other inner-circle hall of famer not named Mariano Rivera: Derek Jeter.

This may be Yankee fan bias, but it has always seemed as though baseball analysts and opposing fans have been in a rush to predict the untimely end of Derek's career. Baseball Prospectus wrote of Jeter's 2007 season, "The second half of 2007, taken together with his age, suggests that the day of reckoning finally has arrived." Jeter put an OPS+ of 121 in 2007. If that's the day of reckoning then may all Yankee players prove so decrepit.

Prior to that it always seemed as though analysts would argue Jeter's greatness, but couch the arguments in statements about how it was more than the numbers. This seemed to be an offshoot of the days when Jeter, Nomar Garciaparra, and Alex Rodriguez were vying to be the best shortstop in the game. A-Rod's numbers at short speak for themselves, but now that Nomar is all but finished in baseball its easy to forget that he hit .372 one season and that Jeter was easily the worst of the three.

But what did that mean? There was never a need to ignore Derek Jeter's numbers when arguing his credentials. Even without the five championships Derek has put up hall of fame numbers from day one of his career. In 15 seasons Jeter has never put up less than OPS+ of 102. He's never had fewer than 156 hits, and that was in an injury shortened season. He's never had fewer than 10 homers. For any player, especially a shortstop, those numbers are excellent, and I've purposefully omitted situational numbers such as runs scored (he's got a lot, by the way).

Jeter played into his detractors' hands in 2008 when he put up his worst offensive season. His ISO dropped to .108, representing an alarming decline in power. PECOTA predicted that trend to continue, projecting a .289/.354/.389 slash-stats performance from Jeter in 2009. That would have been good enough to keep Jeter on the team, but as his 2010 free agency season approached, along with the 3,000 hit mark, that performance would have put the Yankees in a bind.

Fortunately, Derek never got the message that he was supposed to fade slowly into an announcer's booth. We all know that 2009 instead turned out to be a return to form. Jeter's OPS+ of 132 is tied with his 2006 performance as the 2nd best in his career.

I like to attribute two reasons for this so-called resurgence. First, Jeter was hurt for much of 2008. He was hit on the hand early in the season. The injury derailed what had been an excellent offensive start. It has also been reported that he struggled with a pulled groin for much of 2008 as well. Either one of those injuries would do a number on any player.

Second, hall of famers aren't meant to be easy to predict. That's what makes them hall of famers. 2009 was a strong reminder that Jeter's career, as with the career of any of the all-time greats, defies expectations to begin with. On average, even the best players don't perform to Jeter's level for so long. The safe money would be to predict against a player achieving 3,000 hits or 500 home runs. Once a player has put up those kinds of numbers he has already put himself into a category of player reserved for baseball outliers. Why should it become any easier to predict such a player's later career?

Having said all that I'm still going to try to project Derek Jeter's next few seasons. Baseball Reference does the hard work for me. What stands out is that Jeter has already surpassed many of the players of his kind. Through age 35 Roberto Alomar, Frankie Frisch, and Craig Biggio are reported as being the most similar to Jeter.

None of these comparisons is satisfactory. Alomar certainly did have similar stats through age 35, except he was out of baseball by the end of his age 36 season. He also started playing full-time two seasons earlier than Jeter.

Frisch is a hall of famer from the 1920s and 30s with a career OPS+ of 110. That's fine and good, except I firmly believe it is a waste of time to compare modern players to guys from an era when ball players endorsed cigarettes. Plus, Frisch put up an OPS+ of 98 when he was 35 and was out of a baseball a couple of seasons later.

From a longevity perspective Biggio may be a suitable comparison. He played until he was 41 and his career OPS+ of 111 seems close to where Jeter's may be once his playing days are finished. But the comparison leaves me cold. Jeter's age 34 and 35 seasons were better than Biggio's (102 and 132 OPS+ versus 93 and 110). Jeter also seems to have a lot left in the tank, while the numbers show that Biggio was already in decline by the time he was 34. After his 35 season he would never perform better than an OPS+ of 104 and put up four seasons below 100.

What these 3 players have in common is that their skills were eroding rapidly by the time they were Jeter's age. Only Biggio's age 34 and 35 seasons were similar to Jeter's in that he too had something of a resurgence at that age. In light of this, it becomes easier to understand why so many baseball prognosticators have been anticipating the end of Jeter's dominance for so long. That's what players similar to him have almost always done at his age. Fortunately for Yankee fans Jeter doesn't seem to be showing any signs of doing that.

For my part, I'm going to avoid making predictions beyond 2011. Jeter is in a contract year in 2010 and I predict big things, an OPS+ of 120 at least. In 2011, barring any unforeseen circumstances, Jeter will cruise past 3,000 hits early in the season. After that, he's playing with house money.

What to expect from A-Rod?

The focus in Yankee-land is going to be on left field until the team addresses the last opening on its roster or the season begins. Yankeeist has been as involved as any other site in the left field speculation, but at this point only Brian Cashman and a handful of agents know the direction the Bombers are headed. The rest of us can just wait.

When not discussing the Giants and the Yankees' completed off season moves with my sports-minded family this holiday a surprising topic came up: Alex Rodriguez. From my mother to many of my friends, everyone wanted to know what was up with him and Kate Hudson, and what I thought he would produce in 2010 (sadly, in that order).

My father and I went so far as to debate whether or not A-Rod would be able to break the all-time home run record. I argued yes, that he doesn't even need to average his current annual home run pace of about 40 and he'll do it with time to spare. Dad argued not a chance, that no one produces at that level for so long, not Mickey Mantle, not Willie Mays, certainly not Alex Rodriguez.

In my mind this raised a question that has nothing to do with left field that may be of interest to Yankee fans. What can we expect from Alex Rodriguez over the remaining 8 years of his monster contract?

Alex Rodriguez turns 35 in July next season. He'll begin the year with 583 career home runs and 1706 RBI. Throughout his career he has averaged 44 homers and 128 RBI per 162 games. Over the past 2 seasons he has averaged only 32.5 homers, 101.5 RBI but he has also managed to play on average only 131 games. Projecting those performances out to 162 games shows that A-Rod hasn't slowed much, despite what at first seem like two sub-par (for him) seasons. His production these past two seasons translates to 40 homers and 126 RBI over a full season. Even as he gets older, A-Rod is still mashing. He's still putting up 40 homer power, so long as he stays healthy for a full year.

According to Baseball Reference Alex's career numbers through the age of 33 (his age for most of last season) are most similar to Hank Aaron, followed by Mel Ott and Jimmie Foxx. Looking at the numbers for Mel Ott and Jimmie Foxx doesn't bode well for A-Rod. Ott posted strong numbers his age 33 season and then steadily faded from Baseball. Foxx was the 2nd fastest player to hit 500 home runs, but faded faster than Ott. His last productive season came at the age of 32. On the flip side, both of these guys played in the 1930s, before players wore batting helmets.

Hank Aaron's numbers tell a different story. The Hammer played until he was 42. Through the age of 33 he'd hit 481 homers and 1541 RBI. Through the age of 34 those numbers jump up to 510 and 1627. In the five seasons that followed his age 34 season, which will be next season for Rodriguez, according to Baseball Reference, Aaron hit another 203 homers and 410 RBI. That brought him through his age 38 season. Hank had four years left, and he hit another 82 homers and 260 RBI.

Baseball Reference also suggests that for each of the past 2 seasons A-Rod has performed most similarly to Hank Aaron, given his age in those seasons. Prior to that Alex was performing more like Ken Griffey Jr.

I take two things away from these numbers. First, controversy aside, A-Rod remain a once in a generation player whose performance is difficult to compare. He is most similar to a player who sits in the top 5 all-time in nearly every offensive category (its true, Aaron is 2nd all time in homers, 1st in RBI, 3rd in hits, 4th in runs scored, and ... you get the picture). The next two players most similar to Alex shouldn't actually be compared to him because they played in completely different eras. You've done something right on the baseball field when you can only really be compared to Hank Aaron.

2nd, if the Aaron comparison holds A-Rod has many years of good baseball in front of him. All of this assumes that A-Rod doesn't suddenly become injury prone, as he has been the last two seasons. But, if he doesn't (and I think he'll be fine) and he puts up roughly identical numbers to the Hammer, then Alex will have 786 homers and 2116 RBI through his age 38 season, with three more years on his contract. That's good enough for 1st in homers and 3rd in RBI. It would also leave Alex plenty of time to jump into 1st in RBI.

Granted, comparing a ball player to Hank Aaron is a lot like comparing a rock band to the Rolling Stones, but the performance projection isn't as far fetched as it may seem. A-Rod is ahead of Aaron at this point in their careers. Projecting his trajectory to follow Aaron's therefore bakes in some decline in his numbers, and mirrors his performance over the last 2 seasons.

For my part, I believe that A-Rod has it in him. I also think that next season may well be a monster year for him, now that he has so much pressure off his back.

Bizarre Moves from Seasons Past: The trading of Ted Lilly

Welcome to the latest installment of Yankeeist's "Bizarre Moves from Seasons Past" series. We previously covered the trading of Mike Lowell, the non-signing of David Ortiz, the non-signing of Andy Pettitte after the 2003 season, the non-signing of Vladimir Guerrero and the non-signing of Carlos Beltran.

On July 5, 2002, the Yankees were 54-31 and in first place, two games up on Boston. Though the team started the year with a rotation of Mike Mussina, David Wells, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and Orlando Hernandez, injuries to both Pettitte and El Duque pressed 26-year-old lefthander Ted Lilly into starting duty in the 19th game of the season. Lilly stayed in the rotation for nine straight starts, followed by two relief appearances in mid-June, and then two more starts -- the first of which was a complete game three-hit shutout of the Padres on June 22 -- before being shipped to the A's (along with Jason Arnold and John-Ford Griffin) in which the the Yankees received Jeff Weaver from Detroit and the A's sent Franklyn German, Carlos Pena and Jeremy Bonderman to the Tigers.

Weaver, of course, turned out to be a spectacular failure in pinstripes, with his worst moment coming in Game 4 of the 2003 World Series against Florida. With a chance to take a commanding three games to one series lead, Joe Torre called on Weaver to preserve the tie in the bottom of the 12th (mind you, Mariano Rivera had yet to enter the game, being "saved" by Clueless Joe to protect a lead that would never come), and Weaver -- who hadn't pitched once in the playoffs up to that point -- gave up a game-winning walk-off home run to Alex Gonzalez. The Yankees went on to lose the next two games (Game 5 was the David Wells one-inning start; Game 6 was the Josh Beckett shutout masterpiece) and the series, falling to the Marlins four games to two.

However, at the time of the trade, I recall having conversations with people who felt like it was a good deal for the Yankees (unfortunately this trade predates blogs). Weaver was a year younger than Lilly and had a more impressive track record. But the numbers for 2002 are closer than you might think: in 17 starts for Detroit, Weaver racked up a 133 ERA+; Lilly had a 130 ERA+, albeit in six fewer starts. Lilly was also more adept at keeping runners off base, with a 1.06 WHIP compared to Weaver's 1.20. Let's take a quick look at their respective career statistics pre-trade:

	Weaver ERA+	Lilly ERA+	Weaver FIP	Lilly FIP
1999	89	59	5.22	6.13
2000	108	86	4.47	3.88
2001	104	83	3.87	4.79
2002	133	130	3.17	4.25

What really jumps out at me is Weaver's 3.17 FIP for the Tigers in 2002. Based on this relatively limited data set, dealing Lilly for Weaver does seem like an upgrade.

And here are their seasonal numbers following the trade:

	Weaver ERA+	Lilly ERA+	Weaver FIP	Lilly FIP
2002	109	94	4.19	5.23
2003	73	102	4.26	4.19
2004	102	119	3.89	4.5
2005	97	80	4.47	5.32
2006	78	106	5.47	4.79
2007	71	121	5.07	4.16
2008	N/A	112	N/A	4.41
2009	108	145	4.07	3.65
Car	93	107	4.40	4.45

The career FIPs are closer than I would have guessed, but on the whole Ted Lilly -- with the exception of the remainder of the 2002 season and 2005 -- has been a superior pitcher to Jeff Weaver. I also had no idea Lilly had as good a year as he had this past season.

Moving on from what ended up being an unfortunate trade, back in the '06-'07 offseason there were some who thought the Yankees should've re-signed the free agent Lilly. The Cubs wound up inking Lilly to a four-year, $40 million deal -- it's kind of amazing that a pitcher coming off a 106 ERA+ season was able to command such a pact (even Carl Pavano at least had the decency to have had a 137 ERA+ season in his walk year) -- and so far have actually gotten $43.5 million of value out of him (according to FanGraphs) with a year still to go on the contract. It's impossible to say whether Lilly would've lived up to his deal in the considerably more challenging AL East, but given his familiarity with both the Yankees and the division, it's a decent possibility.
While nowhere near as head-scratching as the trading of Lowell in 1999, it's interesting to think about how things might have been different for the pitching-challenged Yankee teams of 2004 and 2005 (not to mention Game 4 of the '03 World Series) had Lilly remained in the Bronx.

Bizarre Moves from Seasons Past: The non-signing of Carlos Beltran

Welcome to the latest installment of Yankeeist's "Bizarre Moves from Seasons Past" series. We previously covered the trading of Mike Lowell, the non-signing of David Ortiz, the non-signing of Andy Pettitte after the 2003 season and the non-signing of Vladimir Guerrero.

Following the nightmarish manner in which the 2004 season concluded for the Yankees, the organization correctly set out to address the team's most glaring deficiency: starting pitching. Unfortunately, not only did the Yankees end up going about addressing the problem in a startlingly shortsighted and impatient manner, signing both the injury prone and mostly mediocre Jaret Wright and the soon-to-be injury prone and altogether mediocre Carl Pavano in attempt to bolster a flagging rotation, but the team's obsession with trading for Randy Johnson resulted in the dismissal of signing a player that would have been a huge acquisition not only for 2005, but for years to come: Carlos Beltran.

At the time, the Yankees had a gaping wound opening up in center field, but unfortunately team loyalty to incumbent Bernie Williams had blinded the Yankees to their problem. The 2004 season was Bernie's last productive year, albeit with a middling -- at least by his standards -- OPS+ of 108. To make matters worse, Bernie -- never known for his fielding prowess -- posted an absolutely atrocious -42.8 UZR/150 in center that year. Incredibly, Bernie was even worse in the field in 2005, with a -45.7 UZR/150, and he also recorded the worst year of his career at the plate, with an 85 OPS+.

Beltran -- coming off a monstrous 2004 campaign in which he posted a 132 OPS+ in his age 27 season -- would have been the perfect solution to the Yankees' center field woes. To add insult to injury, Scott Boras was practically begging the Yankees to sign Beltran, reportedly coming back to the Bombers hours before taking the Mets's seven-year, $119 million offer with a discount because Beltran supposedly wanted to be a Yankee badly enough that he was willing to take less money to play in the Bronx. The Yankees, determined to land the Big Unit (and also likely feeling somewhat reluctant to dole out another $100 million-plus deal after Jason Giambi's disastrous 2004), decided to be uncharacteristically frugal and passed on Beltran.

Let's take a look at what Beltran has done since making his home in Flushing compared to the Yankees' revolving center field door (Bernie in 2005, Johnny Damon in 2006, Melky Cabrera from 2007 through 2009):

	NYYCF OPS+	C.B. OPS+	NYYCF wOBA	C.B. wOBA
2005	85	96	.303	.324
2006	115	150	.362	.412
2007	88	125	.317	.375
2008	68	129	.285	.380
2009	99	143	.331	.398

Beltran has hands-down outproduced the Yankees' center fielders since 2005. He's also been worth $95.5 million to the Mets during a time period in which he's been paid $76.6 million. And yet there are still members of the Mets' fan base that view Beltran as "unclutch" and "soft," as if the team somehow would have been better without him these past five seasons.

As pumped as I am about the Curtis Granderson deal, Bill James has Beltran posting a .379 wOBA next season compared to Granderson's .366. Obviously a .366 wOBA from Granderson would be wonderful, but it somewhat underscores the Yankees' foolishness in passing on Beltran five years ago.

Imagine the Yankees had signed Guerrero (as discussed yesterday) and then picked up Beltran the following season? Beltran had a down year in 2005, but in 2006, an outfield of Vlad, Beltran and Matsui would've combined to produce a wOBA of .393 (!). And yes, I know Matsui only played 51 games in '06, but it's still fun to hypothesize.

Ghosts of left fielders past

Merry Christmas, Yankee fans. All I wanted for Christmas this year was a deep playoff run, and I got it in spades! Next year? A repeat would be nice.

The team that is currently scheduled to take the field in April projects to do very well. With any luck, Brian Cashman will either sign or trade for a real left fieder. Larry openly covets Matt Holliday. You know what, now that we've added a real 4th starter I do too. Let's go for the kill, and secure another trip through the Canyon of Heroes in the process.

But, at a time when we're supposed to remember all the gifts life has given us, I wanted to take a moment to remind Yankee fans everywhere that Brett Gardner may not be the ideal option in left field, but it has been worse...

Gerald Williams - Williams played 99 games in left for the 1996 team and gave the Yankees a robust 88 OPS+. Brett Gardner's 2009 OPS+? 93.

Chad Curtis - Yankee fans were spoiled in 1997 with an excellent partial season from Tim Raines. Rock's 124 OPS+ was way too good for us, so in 1998 we moved him to utility and let Curtis and his OPS+ of 90 take over in left. Curtis was the '98 team's only below average hitter to play in almost every game.

Ricky Ledee - Ledee gave the Yankees decent performance platooning in left in 1999, but Joe Torre never liked him and he was off the team midway through 2000.

Chuck Knoblauch - Fans and teammates alike never saw Knoblauch as a core member of the dynasty teams. His throwing errors didn't help his cause, and landed him in left for 108 games of 82 OPS+ offense in 2001.

Rondell White - White put up strong numbers in 2001 with the Chicago White Sox. But his offensive production fell off a cliff with the Yankees. His OBP didn't even crack .300. (Note from Larry: Disgraceful).

The Yankees didn't lock left field down until 2003 when the team brought in Hideki Matsui. The Bombers never intended to replace him with Johnny Damon, but that's what happened once injuries caught up with Godzilla.

Every championship team during the dynasty years had a left fielder whose offensive production was roughly on par with what the Yankees got last season from Brett Gardner. Do I still want a real left fielder? You bet I do. But we can and have done worse than Brett Gardner.

Bizarre Moves from Seasons Past: The non-signing of Vladimir Guerrero

Welcome to the latest installment of Yankeeist's "Bizarre Moves from Seasons Past" series. We previously covered the trading of Mike Lowell, the non-signing of David Ortiz and the non-signing of Andy Pettitte after the 2003 season.

Following the Yankees' World Series loss to the Marlins in 2003, every Yankee fan immediately turned their attention to free agency, armed with the knowledge that one of the most exciting and dangerous hitters in the game, Vladimir Guerrero, was hitting the market. Guerrero, who, up until that point had played his entire career in the barren baseball wasteland of Montreal, was fresh off an age 28 season in which he posted a 156 OPS+ and .418 wOBA and -- while not exactly a defensive wizard -- also boasted one of the most feared outfield arms in the game. And, perhaps most importantly, the Yankees were in the market for a new right fielder, having traded away malcontent Raul Mondesi during the 2003 season.

The primary knock on Guerrero was concern about a balky back, which somewhat surprisingly turned many suitors off. The Mets offered a base of three years, $30 million with incentives that would have pushed the deal to $71 million over five, but Guerrero wisely went with the guaranteed money the Angels dangled -- $70 million for five years.

The Yankees sadly never even made an offer to Guerrero, as George Steinbrenner was utterly enamored of a 34-year-old Gary Sheffield. Granted, Sheffield was coming off an even more monster season than Vlad, with a 162 OPS+ and .434 wOBA, but given that Vlad was six years younger and one of the premier young sluggers in the game, Guerrero seemed like a no-brainer over an aging Sheffield. Brian Cashman obviously understood this and reportedly wanted Vlad; unfortunately this occurred before Cashman had the complete control over the team's moves he possesses today, and as a result, Steinbrenner got his way, ordering Cashman to sign Sheffield to a reported three-year, $39 million contract.

Let's take a look at what both gentlemen did through the 2003 season. I'm only going back to 1998, as that was Vlad's first full season in the bigs:

	Sheffield OPS+	Vlad OPS+	Sheffield wOBA	Vlad wOBA
1998	155	150	.411	.400
1999	139	146	.402	.408
2000	176	162	.447	.434
2001	164	139	.418	.389
2002	138	160	.401	.418
2003	162	156	.434	.418

Both Sheffield and Guerrero were absolute monsters during this six-year stretch. Sheffield incredibly never posted a sub-.400 wOBA during this time, although would also never post a .400-plus wOBA ever again.

Now here are their numbers for the duration of Sheffield's three-year tenure with the Yankees:

	Sheffield OPS+	Vlad OPS+	Sheffield wOBA	Vlad wOBA
2004	141	157	.391	.414
2005	137	154	.384	.401
2006	107	138	.350	.387

Vlad pretty handily outproduced Sheffield, and made every team that passed on him due to injury concerns kick themselves.

And for kicks, here are the Yankee right field numbers (2007 and 2008 are Bobby Abreu, 2009 is Nick Swisher) vs. Guerrero's since Sheffield left the Yanks:

	NY RF OPS+	Vlad OPS+	NY RF wOBA	Vlad wOBA
2007	113	147	.360	.393
2008	120	130	.368	.373
2009	129	106	.375	.343

So Vlad outproduced every Yankee right fielder for the entire duration of his initial five-year contract with the Angels. The 2009 season was the only instance since 2003 that the Yankees received more production out of right field than Vlad provided. As always, hindsight is 20/20, but passing on Guerrero was clearly a pretty lousy move on the Yankees' part.

Just to be clear, Sheffield obviously wasn't chopped liver at the time the Yankees signed him, but according to FanGraphs, the only year he came close to justifying his salary with New York was during his first season in pinstripes. On the whole, Sheffield was worth only $18.9 million while with the Yankees (granted, he was injured for the majority of the 2006 season), and at the end of 2006 they decided to pick up his $13 million option for 2007 and subsequently shipped him to Detroit for Humberto Sanchez, Anthony Claggett and Kevin Whelan, none of whom have amounted to anything for the Yankees and will likely stay that way.

How would the Yanks have fared had they -- not the Angels -- signed Vladimir Guerrero to a five-year deal to play right field? For one thing, they never would've traded for Bobby Abreu. It's possible they still may have acquired Nick Swisher, given Vlad's inability to play the field this past year, but then they would have had to figure out how to get plate appearances for both Vlad and Hideki Matsui.

Ironically enough Vlad is once again available, albeit as a shell of his former beast self. Of course, given the Yankees' recent acquisition of Nick the Stick, this time the Yanks really don't have a reason to finally fit Vlad for pinstripes, unless he can magically man left field.

Merry Christmas, Yankee fans!

It was a good year indeed. What do I want for Christmas this year? A repeat in 2010 sounds about right.

Options in left field

The Yankees traded Melky Cabrera for Javier Vazquez, and in so doing addressed their one glaring weakness: a 4th starting pitcher. The move meant the team was parting ways with a home-grown, fan-favorite, but the trade has been described as a slam dunk. Vazquez doesn't need to be a rotation leader for the Yankees, only a back of the rotation guy who can give them the league average in performance and eat some innings. He's better than that.

The only problem is that the team traded away its main option in left field. I've hypothesized that this trade was a gift to Johnny Damon, but its being reported he still wants more than the team (or any team) is willing to pay. Has the Brett Gardner era begun?

Many Yankee fans just screamed "god no!" at the computer screen. Are they right? Gardner was a blank slate, even last year. He appeared in 108 games, but only had 284 plate appearances. He lost his starting job to Melky early in the season.

Most Yankee fans are familiar with Gardner's positives. He'll provide excellent left field defense, at a position where his weaker-than-Melky's throwing arm won't be a factor. He is described as one of the fastest players in baseball and was 26/31 in steals last season. Most importantly, he had an OBP of .345, a better mark than Melky's. Factoring his steals into his total bases bumps his slugging up to .484.

The negatives? Gardner has zero power and relies on steals to get extra bases. If he reverts back to his 2008 sub .300 OBP then the Yankees will trot out a gaping hole in their lineup.

Cashman is reportedly not looking to make any splashy moves, and I'm shocked, shocked to find gambling going on in this establishment. Cashman has made that song and dance before, as recently as this offseason. The Yankee brass have become pros at playing it close to the chest. Right now, I find it hard to believe that Gardner is going to be our starter in left.

The team may be considering the following players, in no particular order:

Mark DeRosa: The rumor mill says the Yanks are giving him a serious look, but also that the Giants just offered him $12 million. Frankly, at these prices I prefer Gardner. DeRosa's has a similar BA and OBP to Gardner and only a .424 slugging.

Xavier Nady: Nady is a better career hitter than Gardner or DeRosa. Coming off a season lost to injury he may also be available on the cheap. His 1/2 season in New York wasn't spectacular, but for a 9-hole batter is was pretty good. If the team feels his arm is up to the task and Nady wants to sign for a small amount it may be worth rolling the dice.

Things begin to get choppy after those two. River Avenue Blues is reporting Marlon Byrd may be an option. Byrd's durability is a genuine concern, but he may be a solid option to platoon with Brett if the Yankees are willing to spend a few million.

We know the other marquis free agents: Jason Bay, Matt Holliday and Johnny Damon. The Yankees claim they have no interest in Bay and Holiday, and we know that Damon has lost his mind, but we can't count them out of last minute splurges.

Holliday would be the mind-blowing option. Brian Cashman wouldn't be so much signing a left fielder as the 2010 and 2011 Championships. Isn't that worth it? I say yes, but team executives may not agree.

The team is reported to be shopping Sergio Mitre and Chad Gaudin. Could either land a more palatable left field option than Gardner? Regardless, the Yankees are in the enviable position of having kept nearly the entire 2009 team, having upgraded in the offseason, and having until spring training to fill one roster spot. Merry Christmas Bomber faithful.

Is Scott Boras still a good agent?

We all know the players, and the dollar values. Alex Rodriguez at $252 million. Barry Zito at $126 million. Johnny Damon at $52 million. Mark Teixeira at $180 million. These are some of Scott Boras' greatest hits.

But, in the last few seasons his failures have been mounting as well. They don't get as much attention as Boras' victories. The super-agent has cemented his reputation as a money maker for his clients, but other than Mark Teixeira isn't it beggining to seem like he's failed more noticeably than succeeded of late?

Three major failures to read baseball's free-agent market stand out: Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez and now Johnny Damon. In each case Boras' greed seems to have gotten the better of him, and his willingness to advise players to sabotage their teams to get to free agency makes it unlikely teams would want to work with him.

His handling of Alex Rodriguez's opt-out still stands out in recent memory. At the end of A-Rod's 2007 season, the third basemen's best and one of the best season performances in Yankee history, Boras began leaking Rodriguez's intention to terminate his contract before game 4 of the World Series. It remains unclear if Rodriguez himself even gave the go-ahead for this move.

In parallel, the money Boras wanted was almost an order of magnitude larger than what was available. Rumors circulated that he wanted as much as $320-$350 million for his contract. In the end, A-Rod nearly burnt his bridges with the Yankees before signing for $275 million. Much has been made about the bonuses he receives for his homers, but even with that extra-money Boras misread the market.

More recently, Boras has received blame for advising Manny Ramirez to sabotage his tenure in Boston to force a trade and get the team to bypass its options on 2009 and 2010. The existence of this rumor alone shows the low esteem the agent is held in. Once again completely failing to read the market makes the situation worse. Manny was holding out for a 4 year $100 million deal that never materialized. Instead, after initially rejecting the Dodgers 2 year $40 million offer he signed with Los Angeles for almost exactly that after spring training began.

Some may argue that Boras got it right with Mark Teixeira, but my mother could have negotiated Tex's deal. Teixeira was entering his prime, had a history of high performance and good behavior, and came onto the market at a time when both the Yankees and Red Sox needed a first baseman. He was an easy sale and the measure of a salesman is his ability to make the tough deal.

Now, Johnny Damon is unemployed. After learning of the Javier Vazquez trade yesterday I was certain Damon would have signed for $20 million with the Yankees perhaps the same day. The team has traded its best left field option, bringing the team and the outfielder closer together. I now expect Damon to land with the Yankees more than ever.

But why did the team get to this point at all? Johnny wants to stay with the Yanks. The Yanks want him back. The problem, of course, is that player and agent are asking for way, way, way too much money. Damon has been reported as saying that won't even consider talking to the Yanks for less than $13 million per season, before he came down a bit after the Nick Johnson deal. He's also been said to want 3 or 4 years.

Damon just ins't that good anymore, and its foolish for a team to offer so much money to an aging outfielder. Damon hasn't signed anywhere else, so it seems as if, once again, Boras has misread the market.

Is Boras still a good agent? No one was better at getting teams to part with 8 and 9 figure contracts during the good times, but baseball seems to be moving away from albatross contracts. Boras, however, still demands them and his failures seem more abundant than his successes recently.

With teams losing money in the terrible economy and the list of bad contracts piling up, the blockbuster contract days may be behind baseball for a while. Boras' principle job is to understand the market in general, and how it changes on a case by case basis for each of his clients. Of late, he's had his finger on neither.

I'll be paying close attention to how things play out for Damon and Matt Holiday. The deals those two sign will show if Boras really has lost his mojo.

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.