I’ve argued for a while that the Yankees are not going to make a big move this offseason and that the team doesn’t need to. My argument has been that there is no equivalent to or available this winter and the Yankees are currently good enough and have enough prospects in the farm system to compete for at least the AL East crown without committing to another nine figure contract. What I’ve yet to do is provide deeper analysis of how the Yankees can improve even if they don’t make a major roster move. Allow that to be my first post of 2012.
5. A full season of a healthy bullpen.
Count me among the Yankee fans who are convinced that Joe Girardi is an excellent bullpen manager. Season after season he manages to get excellent performances out of players like and or spurts of brilliance from and . That, however, doesn’t mean that the bullpen has no room to improve. It can always get better. One of the easiest ways for it to improve is if the Yankees get a full season of , and manning innings seven through nine. A lot is made about Soriano’s terrible contract, and terrible it is, but that doesn’t change the fact that Soriano is an excellent reliever who spent a lot of time on the DL last year. If he can avoid that in 2012 the Yankees will have, without question, the best trio of pitchers manning the latter innings of any game.
4. Keeping on the field.
Over the past few seasons a lot has been made about A-Rod’s declining power numbers, and with good reason. In 2007 he posted a career high SLG of .645. His SLG has declined each season after that, until it finally dipped below .500 last season, coming in at .461. The kerfuffle over the homers A-Rod isn’t hitting has overshadowed the fact that with or without the pop in his bat he has remained an excellent option at third base, for this or any team (his bloated contract aside). Fangraphs says A-Rod was worth 4.2 fWAR in 2011, good for third among all third basemen in the game, had he qualified to be among the leaders.
There are plenty of reasons to argue the details of those numbers, but one thing is clear: Alex is still a productive player, even if he is no longer the game’s premier slugger. As a result, far more important than his declining SLG numbers (which were artificially deflated in 2011 from his injury riddled return) are these: 158, 138, 124, 137, 99. Those are the numbers of games Alex has played since 2007. Once durable, Rodriguez has become injury prone. He’s working to get healthy this offseason. If the Yankees can get 135 games of healthy A-Rod, with scheduled resting time attributing for the missing games, as opposed to leg injuries, then the team will improve tremendously. (I’d rate this higher, but Alex has suffered from lower half injuries every season since 2008. Until he proves me wrong, I expect some kind of a leg problem to recur in 2012.)
3. remembers that he once was a .300 hitter.
There’s no need to spend more time complaining about Tex’s relatively disappointing 2010 and 2011 seasons. The disappointment aside, Tex remains a good hitter and a great homer threat. He can be more than that though if he figures out how to return to his MVP candidate form from the left side of the plate. Tex will only be 32 years old next season. He should have plenty left in the tank. Furthermore, his weaknesses are isolated to one side of the plate, making them easier to correct. Mark has indicated that he knows of his struggles and wants to improve. If he can, even a little bit, it will be a tremendous boon to the Yankees.
2. returns to being serviceable while continues to improve.
Too much was made of Phil Hughes’ 2010 season. He was great in the first half, really only dominant in the first third of the season, and managed a respectable season line only because of the uneven distribution of his performance. Then he was spectacularly bad in 2011. Despite all that, Hughes is a legitimate big league arm. He may not be a big league starter, but he was excellent in October out of the bullpen. Given the Yankees’ rotation struggles this year Hughes will have every opportunity to prove himself. If the team can harness his potential somewhere it will be a big boost.
Ivan Nova was one of the biggest story lines of 2011. The Yankees have given Phil Hughes every opportunity to prove he is a consistent big league starter. Doing so required them to pull the rug out from under Nova again and again. All Ivan has done during that time is get better and better. If the Yankees can get a full season of the production Nova gave them in 2011 then he will cement himself as a front line member of the team’s rotation.
1. A full season of Jesus Montero.
The Yankee offense doesn’t need anymore juice to be among the game’s best, but what self-respecting Yankee fan doesn’t love a 17-2 ball game? After waiting what seemed like a life time, fans finally got to see what all the hype surrounding Montero was about. Jesus did not disappoint. Over just 69 plate appearances Montero mashed a .421 wOBA and hit four home runs.
For whatever reason, the Yankees seem hesitant to green light a full-time DH role for Montero next season, even though they have no obvious stronger options. Zips projects Montero to hit .271/.333/.486 in 2012, while Bill James projects .289/.351/.505. Either of those would translate to a wOBA of .350 or better. That would mean adding a bat about as good as ‘s to the lineup and would put Montero among the front runners for Rookie of the Year.
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Many reasons to hope, Mike, remembering we won 97 without them! Add to these five, hope for Brett Gardner to gain consistency thru the year, Jete to be healthy and productive, Nunie to forget his jitters, Swish to improve his consistency, and we’ll have a dominant team.
Of course, we’ll see some setbacks, but the makeshift rotation, strong bullpen, good defense, and strong lineup got us to the playoffs last year. Wonderful basis to develop young pitchers!
The Yankees figure to be the favorite to win the AL East again. But, there are also legitimate reasons to believe the team will be better in 2012 than it was in 2011. Pitchers and Catchers report soon.
Gardner is a 28 year bum.
Girardi stinks at everything he does. His 7th inning bullpen management last year stunk! He needs to go!
Huh? How exactly is Girardi doing this? Aside from the fact that Logan’s performance was not excellent, isn’t it really the player that determines the performance for the most part? And if you’re going to give Girardi so much credit for Veras’ and Ramirez’ “spurts of brilliance” doesn’t he also get marked down for the rest of what they did, which was far from brilliant, resulting in a net loss? Otherwise it’s just the Joe Torre worship syndrome – when the Yankees did well it was because of Torre’s managing and intangible leadership qualities. When they didn’t it was just bad luck. Can’t have it both ways.
Girardi doesn’t over tax his bullpen, understands the strengths and weaknesses of his pitchers, and has managed to get better performances than I would have expected from players who were not known for being good before they joined the Yankees year after year.
In no way is he more important than the pitchers, but having seen so many managers who were bad at bullpen decisions, such as Joe Torre, I am confident in saying that Girardi is good at it. Furthermore, during his tenure the Yankee bullpen has the 9th best FIP in the game and the 2nd best fWAR. Girardi uses the talent in the bullpen well, something I do not at all feel when he suggests Granderson bunt, for example.