Is Defense Undermining The Yankee Pitching Staff?
Yankee starting pitchers have a 6.08 ERA, almost a full run worse from the terrible Boston Red Sox. Given the personel on the staff, this should be a surprise. Kiroda, Nova, and Sabathia were reasonable good bets entering the season, and are still reasonable good bets going forward, to be very strong contributors to the Yankee starting rotation. Phil Hughes and Freddy Garcia were more questionable, but I don’t know anyone who expected them to both be this spectacularly bad.
I don’t want to take away anything from how bad the starters have been, but I think something else could be at play here. The Yankee defense could be just as spectacularly bad. Very small samples, even at the team level caveats apply, but the Yankees have an UZR/150 of -13.1, fourth worst in the league. They have a DRS of -16, third worst in the major leagues. Despite an overall team ERA of 4.49, 5th worst in the majors, Yankee pitchers hold a much more respectable 3.97 FIP (16th best) and 3.46 xFIP (4th best). Yankee pitchers have also allowed the 2nd highest BABIP in the league (.323).
A good defense is often the difference between a bad starter giving up 3 runs in an inning and a bad starter getting knocked out of the game by 12 balls in play and seven runs. Freddy Garcia and Phil Hughes wouldn’t be good starters had a passable defense, but they might have stayed in the game longer and allowed the offense and bullpen to win games. Sabathia and Kuroda might look much better, and Ivan Nova could be having a positively awesome start. Bad defense has real consequences, even if we can’t know precisely the severity of those consequences.
Who is the problem? It would be easy to pin an inordinate amount of blame on the bench players who are seeing too many balls in the field: Eduardo Nunez, Andruw Jones, and especially Raul Ibanez. They’ve certainly been bad, and even when Brett Gardner was healthy were playing too often. But they don’t play enough innings, or receive enough balls in play, to create a team-wide breakdown on this kind of scale. We can’t trust anything defensive statistics say for individuals right now, but I’d look squarely at Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, and Curtis Granderson if I wanted to find defensive issues to be resolved. Jeter’s range has seemed worse than usual lately, and I haven’t been impressed with Granderson out there lately.
Are there solutions to these problems? Brett Gardner could swap with Curtis Granderson, which I’ve been wanting to see since the day we got Granderson, but not much can be done about Jeter. We’ve all seen that Eduardo Nunez isn’t much better, and I’m not sure we want to disturb Jeter’s bat. Eric Chavez strikes me as a player who should see more time in the field, although that will be tough given the outfield situation.
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I should think given the outfield situation that the reserve outfielders would not be used for DH. That might mean Chavez will get all of A-rod’s off days /DH days. He may also get more DH time. On the other hand anything that keeps Ibanez out of the field is a good thing. I wonder how many runs/games his “defense” has actually cost the Yankees.
EJ- you are right on point. Besides the pitching issues, the Yanks have no depth to speak of in the minors for the OF. With Swish out and possibly headed to the DL and Gardner still out, the Yanks are left with 2 DHs starting in the OF. (Oh, tonight Nunez starts in LF. I feel alot better now). But you are correct, Jeter (and I love the guy) and A-Rod have little left in terms of range. This team needs a good young defensive backup OFr, even if it means sacrificing some offense and cutting loose Jones or Ibanez. They also need a better utitlity IFr than Nunez, who is just too unreliable defensively. And offensively, I think he’s way over-rated. Honestly, I would have preferred Bernier or Jayson Nix for that role.
I really mean no offense, but this is a rediculas article. The Yankee pitching, specifically Hughes and Garcia have been horrendous and wouldnt have been helped by the Rays D with Madden aligning them. D metrics are suspect at best and this small of a sample size is completely useless. Just watch the games to see how bad the pitching has been, there was no need to dig further. If at the end of the year you want to make a case for CC being CY winner and his D hurt him and you want to use UZR to build a case, that would be interesting. This is not.
We also dont need UZR to tell us that Ibanez shouldnt be in the OF and that Jeter is statue that is playing ss because he is Jeter. None of the D issues are a suprise, they were known before the season started or brought on temporarily do to injuries. The Yankees D isnt great but Martin, Gardner, Cano and Tex are all very good. Swish, Arod, and Granderson do the job and Ajones is a capable fill in OF. I dont know how much of an impact moving Gardner to center would have but I would rather not mess with Granderson for a guy who cant even stay healthy playing LF.
Take another small sample size when the pitchers arent getting shelled and I bet the D numbers look alot a better. I put more faith into common sence and watching the game than D matrics, with this small of a sample size it shouldnt even be a question.
I mostly agree with Fin. Other than Ibanez, I haven’t really noticed anyone playing cringeworthy defense. I have noticed a lot of balls finding the gap without an OFer even close by and many grounders not hit all that hard finding the hole. I think that its been more a question of defensive positioning though than range. Granderson shouldn’t play as shallow a CF when Hughes or Garcia are pitching. I suspect Girardi is also employing shifts that he probably shouldn’t be when the pitchers aren’t better than they are at hitting their targets.
I agree with Fin and bg. This is an example of a journalist looking for a new twist and not finding it. The Yankee pitching, including Sabathia, has not been great; all of the starters have struggled; Hughes and Garcia have stunk. Still the team are 12 and 9. With the pitching they have had it is amazing they are above .500. Infielders look like they don’t have range when pitchers are badly missing their spots and especially when, like Garcia, they have no speed.