Last time we had a TYA Roundtable, it was about the fifth starter and happened immediately after the trade that brought to the Yankees. This one takes place after another trade, one that sends to the Pirates for some money and prospects. This roundtable discussion, though, doesn’t have to do with the present, but the (semi-near) future. Herein, we discuss possible roster changes over the course of the season. Click through for the talking.
Eric Schultz: Honestly, I don’t see many major changes for the September roster compared to the roster at the start of the season. I see replacing as the backup catcher, as he will have spent enough time in AAA to be big league ready. I also see the Yankees acquiring a salary-dump DH at the trade deadline assuming they go cheap at the position no (I will go with , though several others could fit the bill). I also see them adding to the bullpen, assuming his recovery from Tommy John Surgery continues to go well. I don’t really see any other areas where major upgrades will be needed, though I suppose there could be interest in finding something better than Eduardo Nunez/ for the utility/bench positions.
Brad Vietrogoski: Barring major injuries, I don’t see there being a big difference between the 25-man roster the Yankees will open the season with and the 25-man roster they head into the postseason with, assuming, of course, that they make it to the postseason. The starting lineup is pretty well locked down except for the DH platoon, there are four solid starters in the rotation, and the core of the bullpen is set already. This team is built for the postseason as it is; they might be one or two pieces away, but not big pieces. As the season progresses and the Yankees see what kind of production they get from the DH spot and their bench, they could be in the market for a salary dump-type bat at the trade deadline to add some depth. But they’ve taken a more cautious approach to the deadline over the past couple seasons, and I don’t see them wanting to give up the prospects it would take to make a major improvement over what they already have. If everybody stays healthy, or at least healthy enough, I would be shocked to see any major differences between the roster in early April and the roster in early October.
Matt Imbrogno: We always say that the team you enter with is never the team you leave with. That wasn’t necessarily the case in 2011, as the Yankees didn’t make any deadline deals and no major pieces, Jesus Montero not withstanding, were brought in as the year wore on. It’s likely that the same scenario repeats itself in 2012, barring an injury, of course. The only spots that could possibly be in need of upgrades would be the DH spot and the bench if guys like Eduardo Nunez and just absolutely cannot hack it. Going into Spring Training, and eventually the beginning of the season, the Yankees look to be a rather complete team. The rotation is (too) full and the lineup is as strong as ever. Things can most definitely change, but I can’t see this team needing much in the way of additions as 2012 advances.
Domenic Lanza: It seems almost naive to assume that the team that takes the field on Opening Day will be the team that will (hopefully) be suiting up for the Yankees well into October. While that does not necessary imply that big changes are on the horizon, I sincerely believe that there are several players that are (at best) fifty-fifty to make it through the entire season donning pinstripes. Francisco Cervelli, Eduardo Nunez, , , and may all be poor stretch away from finding themselves in Scranton Scranton/Wilkes-Barre or on waivers. , , , and have dealt with nagging injuries over the past few years and, with the exception of Martin (who may well be 35 in catcher years), are all in their mid-30s. For this, we may see extended appearances from Austin Romine, , Corban Joseph, , David Phelps, Adam Warren, Manny Banuelos, , and a bevy of other minor league arms. And, lest we forget the black hole at designated hitter at this juncture, I wouldn’t be shocked to see a borderline-blockbuster move for a DH and/or future replacement for .
Gun to my head … I truly believe that the Yankees will look drastically different after the trade deadline, be it due to injury, ineffectiveness, or a deal that’s just too damn good to pass up.
Mike Jaggers-Radolf: The position players and marquee pitchers will remain largely unchanged. However backup catchers, back end starters and relievers have a habit of changing by season’s end. I’d say there a decent odds that Austin Romine and one of the Killer B’s have cracked the 25 man come September.
Michael Eder: While the current roster has very few questionable starters, age will remain a huge issue. We could see, and should expect one of Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, , or go down at any point. If there is a serious concern about one of the position players making it back in time by the playoffs, I fully expect the team to go all in for a replacement. or ‘s name could show up in shortstop rumors, and I expect to hear ‘s name mentioned for third base, but would realistically love to see ‘s name out there. Designated hitter could also be a spot of interest if they’re unhappy with Jones, but I instead expect them to target an outfielder in order to have some versatility with Swisher. As for pitching, this will be the first year in a long time that I don’t expect the Yankees to be in the market for pitching. Though six starters will rarely make it through the full season, the team has five options in Scranton that could step in and make huge impacts. The bullpen is a similar situation, where quality backups are already lined up on the AAA squad. Austin Romine, David Phelps, Adam Warren, D.J. Mitchell, Dellin Betances, Brandon Laird, and Jorge Vazquez are the most likely players to earn a 25 man spot by October. Some outside shots would be Zoilo Almonte, Corban Joseph, or Manny Banuelos.
Steve Sciacco: If there’s one area that I could envision the Yanks would need to patch up midseason, it would be the 5th starter. I’m very down on Hughes, whether he’s in great shape or not he needs to reinvent his batted ball profile to succeed in YS3 and I have doubts he will be able to do so. I think we were all surprised at what did last year, and with the way he pitches to contact a little bad luck could make his numbers turn ugly. The 5th starter’s role is the kind of spot you look to fill internally, so we may get a look at guys like Phelps, Warren, or maybe even Banuelos or Betances if their innings are manageable.
Alex Geshwind: The easy, obvious, not so interesting answer is that if someone does go down mid-season the Yankees now have the payroll flexibility to make a move. If ARod suffers another setback, I could see David Wright’s name floated around. As I’ve written in the past, my biggest concern for major injury is with Russel Martin. He’s been beat up and overworked and I don’t see anyone waiting in the wings (no, not Austin Romine) to take over in the short term should he go down. Ultimately, though, this is just speculation. Realistically, like in years past, I expect the Yankees to make a couple of minor moves around the deadline. I expect they’ll bring in a bench player, maybe a platoon option at third or DH if needed. With AJ now in Pittsburgh and $13 million off the books, some of that money could be used to pay the salary of a soon-to-be free agent. Think two years back. Given our vast organizational depth on the mound I doubt we’ll be forced into making a move. But depth is never as deep as it seems. I think we’ll hear rumors about a few big name pitchers heading to New York. If or Michael Pineda go down mid-season, these rumors could come to fruition.
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I’m all for running the table from the start, so we can squeeze another year out of Mo, elated with victory! Amid the fun, wouldn’t be any need for roster adjustments. Ah, spring.
It surprises me how many people think the Jeter/ A-Rod combo is done.
It really shouldn’t. Jeter has reached an age where very few players continue success, even less when you take steroids out of the picture. I expect another year where he ends the season with slightly declined numbers, he’s at the point where anything else should be a surprise. Alex still has the talent to put up good years but his health has become a huge question mark. I’m not worried about the knee or shoulder after the surgery in Germany, and seeing what it’s done for Kobe, but the hip still has me concerned. He’s seems to have had problems with the hip at one point or another in the season every year since the original surgery. It just seems like at this point it may be a reoccuring injury he never fully gets over, if that’s the case he’s going to be extremely limited until he retires.
All that said I do have hope for Alex this season. I don’t see a return to his MVP ways, but I wouldn’t be surprised with a .270/.360/.500+ season with 30 HRs. It may be his last year with numbers like this, but I believe in this year at least.
I hope Alex didn’t push himself into those injuries, so that he wouldn’t have the hope himself that flamed that rocket he was riding last spring.
Getting the off-formal therapy is a hopeful sign for the desire he needs.
Derek showed his spark is still there, and/or they changed some key to his swing or approach. I don’t see him eroding from that in a winter. He should be fine this year, barring injury. His legs are ok, right? They were pretty vague about what his problem was.
Let’s not act like Jeter had some great season just because he had a good second half. 2011 was still the worst year of his career outside of 2012, the days of a .790+ OPS for Jeter are dead. His biggest problem is his bat speed is slowing down, no way to defend it, it happens to everyone. He’s down to hitting .277/.329/.338 with 1 HR in 397 ABs against RHP, that’s a .667 OPS. He still rakes against left handed pitching, but that isn’t the preferable split considering most of the pitchers in baseball are right handed. The reason for this split is likely due to bat speed. He honestly should be no where near lead off against RHP, but he will, and the best option for the job will hit 9th while he does. I thought last year he’d have a slightly better year than in 2010, which is pretty much where he ended up, though getting there was pretty unpredictable. This year I see a regression, I don’t think he will be as bad as 2010 but somewhere in between 2010 and 2011 seems about right.
The platoon split is not particularly encouraging, but the second-half improvement is difficult to ignore. Maybe it’s because I’m an optimist but I’m hoping that Jeter’s second-half success was in part due to a mechanical/approach change that could be sustained going into 2012. I agree that 2009 Jeter is probably not going to be seen again, but I’m not ready to write him off as done.
I’m not writing him off as “done”, but he’s honestly not far off. Even if he repeats his 2011 numbers as a whole, I don’t think there is anyway he maintains his second half for a whole year anymore, combined with his defense he’s still only average to slightly above average for a SS. He’s always been able to make up for his increasingly limited range by hitting so much better than almost every SS in baseball. But as those days are done, and his range is only going to get worse, he’s going to sink further and further back into the pack. His offense wasn’t bad this year for a SS, I would think top 10 at the position, but his defense hasn’t been in that category in a very long time. I find it very hard to believe that at his age, with 3 more years left on his contract, that 2011 is the worst we are going to see of Derek. How much can you really expect out of a 40 year old SS anyway? Assuming he goes into a slow but steady decline, and his defense does the same (without tanking to the point he can’t man the position), he’s going to become a liability by the last year of his deal and likely the last two years. If at any point his defense does tank and he can’t field the position he becomes worse than that.
I’m not saying I want him kicked off the team for 2012, but I’d feel much better if we had another SS going forward with 2013 and beyond. After this season I’d honestly be happier with an all glove no stick SS who hits 9th. The defense would help the infield with the aging Alex at 3B and the money saved would go a long way to helping the Yankees reach whatever goals they have set for the payroll. Nunez doesn’t fit that criteria.
It’d be better if he wasn’t leading off by default on name value alone. I’d be fine with a platoon lead off situation, where Gardner leads off against RHP and Jeter against LHP. But Jeter on skill alone should be no higher than 7th against RHP, to do so is hurting the team and all but wasting Granderson’s power and Cano’s high contact ability. To have a lead off man who’s only on base 33% of the time against RHP is awful, it’s amongst the worst in baseball. The Yankees would score more runs just by dropping him in the lineup.
Why doesnt Nunez fit that bill? He was a rookie this year and most of his bad fielding came at 3rd base where he never played before, and he was certainly not use to playing sporadicaly. He clearly has range and a very strong arm. Its not hard to believe that a rookie can improve. Not to mention he hit .33o when playing every day and stole bases every time he got on. I think, like most Yankee fans, you quit on young players as soon as they arent stars right off the bat.
I’m not saying Nunez is a future Jeter, but I certainly see him as a possible above average ss with the glove and the bat. If you werent paying attention hes a pretty dynamic player on the base paths, more so than Gardner.
You have no idea what you’re talking about when it comes to me. I don’t quit on a single player on this team, especially not after a rookie campaign.
Most of his bad fielding didn’t come at 3B, it came split very evenly at SS and 3B. In his two years in the major leagues (SSS beware) he has a -28.8 UZR/150 at SS and a -30.7 UZR/150 at 3B. Last year alone he had 14 errors in 50 games at SS and 6 errors in 40 games at 3B. He has decent range and a strong arm, though he hasn’t proven to be accurate at all, but there’s more to SS than that. I don’t think he will always be this bad but I don’t see him becoming a gold glove caliber SS either.
With the bat he’s proven to have holes in his swing. He creates contact in streaks but he still whips the bat around instead of strong through the zone. posting a .267/.314/.382, with a wOBA of .315 in 391 PAs isn’t exactly stellar, even for a SS. He’s always been a sub 7% walk rate player in the minor leagues, I don’t expect that to suddenly change with his free swinging approach against better pitching. That means he’s going to have to hit .300 every year just to have a respectable OBP (meaning above the .320-.330′s).
Also he isn’t a more dynamic player than Gardner on the base paths. Gardner has a career SB% of 83% after stealing 135 bases in the major leagues. Last year in fact was the first time he was below 84% in a season. Nunez is at 82% after stealing 27 bases in the major leagues, Gardner was in the 90% after only 27 bases stolen at the major league level.
Going further than stolen bases Gardner has a career 49% XBT%, which is extra bases taken when batting, Nunez is at 30% in this category. So Gardner steals at a slightly higher clip career with 108 more steals, stole at a much higher clip with the same amount of steals that Nunez has now, and he takes more bases when running the bases after hitting the ball. If you want to go off of Fangraphs new base running statistic (BsR) Gardner comes off as far better with a 4.7, while Nunez actually had a negative BsR at -1.0.
At best you could argue they are similar on the base paths when it comes to stealing, though even that is somewhat of a stretch considering Nunez has stolen 27 bases in his career. But for overall base running, Gardner is the better and more dynamic of the two.
Most scouts see Nunez as nothing more than a future utility player, I happen to agree with that assessment based on what I’ve seen as well. That doesn’t however mean I gave up on him for not being a star, I simply don’t see him as a starter. Not every Yankee prospect has to be hyped to the moon and made out to be a god just because he came from our system. I could easily make a remark like “you, like most Yankee fans, overhype all our own prospects”. But I wouldn’t do that because it’s rude. Try not to stereotype someone you haven’t even talked to yet.
I understand your arguement, but on a website created by Yankee fans was I so wrong to expect a little optimism?
Depends on what you consider optimism and what kind of site you were thinking it was. The reason I love TYA, and TYU before it, is that although we are all Yankee fans the writers here do a wonderful job of trying to seperate that when they look at the numbers and evaluate the team. Of course a little bias is always going to sneak in, as a human being that’s going to happen with everything you do in life. But this is one of the best blogs around for analytics, and the best for Yankee analytics. It would go against the sites overall goal to paint a rosey picture just because that’s what they want to happen, and they (and I) very much want Alex and Jeter to succeed.
I am pretty optimistic for Alex’s season this year, more than a lot of people actually, but I still have to keep that grounded. Many of the writers here are more optimistic than I am on Jeter, but they also keep that optimism grounded to the fact that he’s a 38 year old SS.
My perspective differs: we are married to Derek and Alex, for better or worse. As a fan, I cheer to encourage the guys, to help their hope. It’s not all numbers.
For example, you ignore the clear break in trend in Derek’s batting, when you argued above that Derek’s 2011 averages were sub-par. He figured a way to cope with his bat speed, and for a whole half-season, which is plenty of time for pitching adjustments.
Derek’s value as a SS: he may (but only on hearsay) give up a step of range, but his sure-handedness is a balm that calms all fans. I am very satisfied with what I have seen, although one cannot best adjudge thru the tv screen.
How would you propose to dispose of Derek in 2013? Make him a super-sub? Or should the Yanks defy fanbase religion by trading him (and eating a third, at least)?
When did I say I wouldn’t cheer for Jeter? Analyzing a player and criticizing him for what the numbers bear out isn’t “hating” on the player, it’s being realistic. Sure I want Jeter to post a 800+ OPS next year and get back to his .390+ OBP days, but it would be so far out of left field for it to happen it’s not worth hoping for. Nothing indicates that 2009 Jeter is ever coming back, that’s just being realistic.
I never said they were sub par (except for his splits against righties and his OBP for a lead off man). For a SS he still had a top 10 bat, that’s more because of how weak SS is overall on offense though. When you factor in defense he’s probably right around average overall, maybe slightly above it.
I’m not going to look at a half a season, or 257 ABs, and say that is who Jeter is going to be all of next year. That just doesn’t make sense, to only point to the .811 OPS in the second half ignores the .683 OPS from the first 289 ABs. The averages for the full season are much reliable when looking forward over just looking at one half or the other.
It’s not hearsay at all, Jeter has never been the rangiest short stop, he’s now one of the least range inclined SS in baseball. All the defensive metrics, as flawed as they can be individually, back that up. When your eyes say a player is lacking in range and every metric does as well, that player lacks range. He does have good hands, and he can still play the position, but he costs us runs by being out at SS. The key to Derek is that he makes those runs up in the batters box, if he stops making up those runs as he gets worse however then he becomes a burden.
I never said we could get rid of Jeter for 2013. The fact is we can’t, he’s too proud to retire before he picks up his 2014 option and finishes this contract, no one in baseball would trade for him, and we currently have no player capable of starting at SS besides him. We have to stomach him playing the field through at least 2013, and probably 2014 as well. I would just feel better if we had a all glove no stick SS over Jeter going into next season.
No, and no, I would not accuse you of being a hater, of using your stats perjoratively, or a non-cheerer. Such a well informed fan of all aspects of the game is being unrealistic only in measurement period, and maybe interpretation.
There you go, you made me do some work (how do you have time to see all those bb games?), and I have visited Fangraphs and waited interminably for it to load, maybe because the don’t know me. Much as I preach for simpler, more inclusive statistics, reserving those that are normalized, park adjusted, missing much of the pitching performance for the sake of true accountablity, over-crunched, aggregated with known weakly defined and anonymously delivered, unbelievably innaccurate defensive judgements, such as “Tex has no range,” even so, I must admit I use the delighful (otherwise) and sparkling information here, at this mighty fine websight that I appreciate for that and for the quality of the opinion, rather than look it up myself.
May – June July – Sep
OBP 320 380
SLG 316 445
BABIP 285 385
Rather than his luck rose unsustainably, I rather think he was making much better contact.
Admittedly, his K% rose between the halves, but his OBP didn’t suffer, though his September flagged, poor tired warrior. If he does continue the established relevent trend, and makes it to the end, you name the accolade.
You got a point on the platoon split for leadoff, but Brett seemed to (and I’m NOT looking it up!) fail, right about when he started leading off last year. One has to hope he wasn’t catching grief from the chief.