One of the most controversial moves Brian Cashman made this off season was the decision to let Johnny Damon go, and the trade for Curtis Granderson was viewed at the time as being a huge dagger in the hearts of fans hoping to bring Johnny back. Since then Curtis and Johnny have been forever linked, and Grandy’s sub-par offensive season has some fans and columnists declaring the move a bust. So I’d like to delve into this and see what the facts really are.
First, the Damon and Granderson moves were not as interconnected as they’re made out to be. Curtis was acquired to play Centerfield, Johnny was a LF/DH with the Yanks in 2009. If you’re going looking at Cashman’s offseason moves position by position, you should compare the production of Curtis Granderson vs Melky Cabrera and Brett Gardner vs Johnny Damon. But I know, that ruins all the fun. Nobody’s pining to bring Melky back.
Next, is Damon really having such a better year than Granderson? Not when you look at their entire game. At first blush, you could look at Johnny’s .278/.365/.422 triple slash against Granderson’s .239/.306/.415 line and conclude Johnny’s been much better this year. But factoring in Johnny’s fielding and adding Curtis’ plus glove at a premium position, the gap narrows substantially. Overall, Johnny’s been a 1.7 WAR player this season and Curtis has been a 1.6 WAR . Considering that Curtis missed a month, that’s a wash.
I don’t mean to suggest that I’m not concerned with what I’ve seen out of Granderson this season. His past four year OPS+ numbers have declined steadily (135, 123, 100 and 97) and he has never shown the kind of plate discipline (148 K/65 BB per 162) that you’d like to see throughout his career. There’s a good chance that he simply is who he is, and that first big year in Detroit will never be repeated. But his struggles against Lefties may not matter and could be something that is getting too much focus from both fans and the Yanks. Here’s his annual platoon split numbers:
2007:
vs RHP .337/.393/.621
vs LHP .160/.225/.269
2008:
vs RHP .288/.383/.517
vs LHP .259/.310/.429
2009:
vs RHP .275/.358/.539
vs LHP .183/.245/.239
2010:
vs RHP .258/.338/.490
vs LHP .206/.243/.275
2007 was by far his best season, and it’s the year he suffered the widest gap in his platoon split. Maybe the league has just caught up with him as a Righty hitter, or maybe he’s gotten away from his strengths trying to narrow the gap. He’s always been a dead red fastball hitter, with good power to both gaps. That should be a good fit for Yankee stadium. The Yanks may want to sit him against the tough lefty in a playoff game, but could be better served learning to live with his platoon splits day in and day out.
We should put all of these numbers in some context as well. Offense is down all across Baseball this year. Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez are both having among the worst seasons of their career and Jorge Posada is so banged up that Francisco Cervelli is getting most of the starts at Catcher. Despite this, the Yanks are leading all of Baseball in Runs Scored and OPS+ with 115.
Finally, you can’t run a Baseball team and be nostalgic. Even when you make mistakes, your bias as a GM has to be toward getting younger and more athletic. Rob Neyer summed this up nicely the other day:
I suppose there’s a larger point to be made here, about spending real money on non-elite older players. I’ll bet you can find columns last winter complaining that the Yankees should have kept Matsui and Johnny Damon, because by golly they were still pretty good hitters and what’s a few more million dollars to the Yankees, anyway?
It was never about the money. It was about getting younger and (perhaps) better. Granted, Damon’s and Matsui’s replacements — Curtis Granderson and Nick Johnson — haven’t exactly hit their projections, and the Yankees might have won about as many games if they had kept the older guys. But the get-younger impulse will serve the organization well in coming years.
Amen, Rob.
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I disagree with your first point. You don’t just match up the guys playingthe same position. As I said yesterday, Gardner is actually a better CF than Curtis and can play it easily if you don’t have Curtis. As such you compare Granderson to any alternative that you could have had in CF OR LF. I still prefer him to Damon, but the strict comparison you suggested when the guy you push to left is Brett Gardner.
I”d prefer Gardner in CF as well, but criticizing Brian Cashman letting his LF go by using the CF’s numbers is apples and oranges. Johnny was a horrendously bad CF in recent years and Curtis plus play there adds to his value. Why not throw Swisher in the mix as well? He could play LF adequately. You have to go position by position.
I’m not saying their numbers are comparable, and you need to adjust them. But going position by position simply ignores the alternatives the Yankees had available to them. As you did in your post, you can adjust the numbers by using WAR or the like.
Another sloppy post. You totally gloss over the fact that Damon did not want to come back to the Yankees at a pay cut and declined offers that were better than what he ultimately took from Detroit. The same thing happened with Abraeu one year earlier.
What about Granderson vs Jackson? I would view it more like Granderson vs. Jackson and Damon Vs. Johnson. If you view it that way, at least this year the Yankees lost.
You should have included Austin Jackson in your argument if you want to analyze the outcome of Cashman’s outfield roster moves.
The way to get younger was to play Gardner in CF and Austin Jackson along with the under rated Colin Curtis in Left and some RF.
Cashman talks a good game about the improtance of the farm system and homegrtown players but then has little confidence in them.
i like Granderson and wouldn’t be surprised if he got hot late and had a better season next year but GArdner belonged in CF, not a corner position.
sorry, but there is no way gardner/jackson/curtis outfield would ever exist in the yankee universe, except for maybe on the AAA team.
I still miss Johnny’s bat in the Lineup…Big game, tough pitcher, Damon knows how to work the count making the Lineup that much more dangerous. I agree that Granderson is a major defensive upgrade in the outfield and the pitching staff is better for it, but for Granderson in the line up, bring in a LHP with the game on the line and you’ll be an out closer to going home losers. I would love if the Tigers put Damon on waivers and we picked him up for the final push to the finish line. Just a pipe dream, I know, but I’d feel better about our chances this October with Damon in the clubhouse.