Nothing is official at the moment, but RAB recently reported that the Yankees do not expect Andy Pettitte to start the 2011 season with the team. Larry isn’t convinced that we’ve seen the last of All Day AP, but I’m less certain. Whatever Pettitte decides to do, there is no time like the present to begin understanding what his absence means for the 2011 season.
As it stands right now, the 2011 Yankee rotation isn’t actually and pray for rain, but it’s pretty close. After the big man, the Yankee rotation projects to be , , and . Put another way, the Yankees have an ace, a league average pitcher with considerable upside, a head case with considerable downside, hack journeyman Sergio Mitre and fifth-starter-at-best-if-he-can-figure-out-how-to-retire-batters-the-third-time-through-the-order . What could this mean for the team?
The answer rests squarely on the four shoulders of and . If Pettitte stays retired then the Yankees will be trotting out an entirely untested back end of the rotation in 2011. (This smells like 2008 all over again.) Here’s how these guys did in limited duty in 2010:
The problem isn’t their rate stats, which would be phenomenal over the course of a full season from a couple of stand-ins. The problem is that there is no way the Yankees can ask a couple of guys who pitched less than 60 innings to turn around and give them 150-plus innings of semi-reasonable ball this coming season.
In his entire career, Mitre has never pitched more than 149.0 innings, which he did in 2007 with the Marlins. That season he put up an ERA of 4.65 in the NL East, good for an ERA+ of 94. His WHIP was 1.483. These are below-average numbers, and the WHIP suggests he may have gotten lucky. Making matters worse, he didn’t go deep into games. He started all 27 games he appeared in that season, averaging only five and a half innings per start. That’s fine for a spot start, but it will kill the bullpen if it’s called on to give the team four innings every five games. In other words, Mitre would have to have the best season of his career for him to be a suitable solution in the rotation.
is even more of an unknown. He started well in 2010 in the rotation, but he labored as time went on, both within games and the season. He too lost steam around the fifth inning of any given start. Unlike Mitre, Nova showed promise a bit more recently, except it was in AAA. In 23 starts for Scranton Ivan averaged 6.1 innings per start. He pitched to a 2.86 ERA and a 3.54 FIP. The problem here is that, at best, we have to assume he’ll be able to give the Yankees at most about five innings of work per game in the Bigs, unless he improves dramatically. That means that the Yankees would be getting short length from their #4 and #5 starters on a regular basis, putting considerable strain on the bullpen, more if proves to be his usual self. (Suddenly doesn’t look so bad.)
These numbers suggest that the Yankees have, at best, a solution to start the season and nothing else. The projection systems agree. CAIRO sees Nova giving the Yankees only 83 innings of work. It sees Mitre giving the team only 72 innings in 2011. Bill James isn’t much more optimistic, projecting 80 innings from Nova and 61 innings from Mitre. Both of these projections probably will need to be updated if the Yankees start the season with these guys in the rotation, but the forecasts are based in reality. It is improbable to expect that the Yankees will get much more than that from either pitcher.
The Yankees know this. So far the team is keeping its cool, but it has a rotation for one-third of the season at best, perhaps less if one of the front three implodes. Did I mention is on this team? The only conclusion I can draw from this is that the Yankees have to be much deeper in the market for starters than they’ve been letting on. Behind the scenes it may very well be an all-hands-on-deck situation for Brian Cashman. Whether he fills out the holes with veteran free agents, or tries to make an unforeseen trade is anyone’s guess, but it is certain that the team needs one more legitimate starter at least. Upping the offer to is a pretty good place to start. $20 million anyone?
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Nova threw 187 innings last year (145 in the minors). That was the most innings he ever threw and he was clearly exhausted when he started for the Yankees. He should be able to throw between 150 and 175 this year which, if it happens, would make the Tankees quite happy.)
If they open the season with Mitre and Nova in the rotation, Cashman should be fired. We could be talking about a rotation of Sabathia, Hughes, Derek Lowe, Ian Kennedy, Chamberlain. But the G.M. (generally mediocre) chose to sign Burnett instead of Lowe (who had proved he could pitch in the AL East), then took Vazquez in trade, passing up Lowe again. Then traded Kennedy (3.84 ERA, 194 innings) and A. Jackson (.293 BA) for Granderson. And for some reason, with the team desperate for starters, is keeping Chamberlain in the pen.
Now of course Lowe is not Lefty Grove, and Kennedy was not highly regarded, but the G.M.'s job is to judge talent, and he blew it. So we're stuck with nutcase Burnett, will watch Kennedy blossom in Arizona, and can only scratch our heads at the whole Mitre thing. What is it with this guy, why is the organization so high on him? He's 30, has had exactly 1 decent year, and after pitch 60 sees batters hit .455 against him, uh oh.
Fire Cashman.
Tom– We certainly appreciate the feedback. I think I can speak for all of though when I say neither Ian Kenedy ir Derek Lowe would have been desirable long term soluttions. Also, what will you say if Ajax has an awful 2011? Perhaps it might be prudent to assess that trade after we've seen it fully play out.
The Yankees cannot win with Mitre and Nova as starters. If Burnett doesn't strike guys out again, the Rays might beat them (even without Carl Crawford). Mitre isn't even a good reliever (he had some luck last year). They really thought they'd get Cliff Lee.
I don't know what they have against Joba, but they should trade him to some team with SP's to burn, who wants to go young. They have to have something in the works.
AL Playoffs: Red Sox, Rays, White Sox, A's (yes, not Texas)
NL Playoffs: Phillies, Braves, Brewers (please, finally), Rockies (ugh)
Tanned Tom:
I’m one of Cashman’s biggest critics (as Larry Koestler can attest), but you have to be fair in judging the man:
I’m also upset about the AJ trade, but you really have to wait three years or so to judge that trade. I think we’re probably going to regret that trade, but we really have to wait and see how AJ’s career pans out.
Now that we’ve signed Soriano, I agree with you that Joba needs to be in the starting rotation over Mitre or Nova. Your Derek Lowe argument, however, leaves a lot to be desired.
Lowe signed with the Braves because everybody and his sister was kicking the crap out of him in the AL East. Lowe had a 5.42 ERA and a 1.61 WHIP his last year in the AL East; Burnett’s numbers were better even in his bad 2010 year.
Furthermore, Lowe gave up 224 hits in just 182.2 innings in his last year in the AL East. The year before that, in 2003, he had a 4.47 ERA and a 1.42 WHIP, and he gave up 216 hits in 203.1 innings.
If you total Lowe’s walks and hits allowed his last two years in the AL East, he put 583 runners on base in 386 innings! That’s almost 200 more runners allowed than innings pitched!
Lowe had a decent year last year in the vastly inferior NL East, but the year before he had a 4.67 ERA and a 1.52 WHIP. That was the same year that Burnett helped us win World Series title #27 with a 4.04 ERA and 1.40 WHIP in a much, much tougher league. So your argument that signing Burnett over Lowe just doesn’t make any sense.
Furthermore, there’s reason to hope that Burnett will have a big bounce-back year, as I noted in another post. He was going through a nasty divorce and, as anyone who’s gone through a divorce can tell you, that can really f-up your life.
Your Ian Kennedy argument also seems a bit shortsighted. This was the same guy that said he was happy a few years ago with the improvement he was making after he got knocked out of his fourth or fifth straight start in less than five innings.
Yes, Kennedy had a 3.84 ERA last year, but he had it in the poorest hitting division in baseball. That 3.84 ERA he amassed against teams like San Diego and the Dodgers (not to mention other NL powerhouses like Pittsburgh), would have been, at minimum, 5.25 to 5.75 in the AL East. And let’s not forget that his ERA in 10 god-awful starts for the Yankees in 2008 was 8.17 and his WHIP was 1.92.
You can rightly knock Cashman on a lot of counts, but Lowe and Kennedy aren’t appropriate knocks.
By the way, so we don't have to hear anymore talk about how trading Ian Kennedy was a mistake, here are some additional Kennedy stats for 2010.
In three starts against AL competition, including two AL East teams, Kennedy pitched 18 innings and gave up 13 earned runs. That's a 6.50 ERA, I believe.
In those three starts he gave up 3 HRs, walked 10 batters, and he put 27 runners on base in 18 innings (16 hits and 10 walks).
Boy, that's impressive, right?
Keep in mind, folks, there's a world of difference between doing well in the NL (particularly the weak hitting NL West) and the AL East.
On average, NL pitchers face at least two more inferior hitters every game than AL pitchers do, and they get to pitch to those inferior hitters roughly 6-8 times a game.
Based on 25 starts, that's 150 to 200 more opportunities to get inferior hitters out than their AL counterparts. That's a nice way to pad your stats, and I don't believe the stat junkies come close in their adjustments to compensating for the differences between the two leagues.