The LoHud Yankees Blog

The Yankees haven’t been making much news lately, so why not look at the rest of the American League East? We’ll start at the bottom of last year’s standings.

Baltimore Orioles
2009: Fifth place, 64-98
Key additions: 3B Garrett Atkins, RHP Kevin Millwood, LHP Mike Gonzalez
Key losses: RHP Chris Ray, 3B Melvin Mora, RHP Danys Baez (1B Aubrey Huff and LHP George Sherrill were traded late last season)
• Atkins might be an upgrade over the aging Mora at third, Gonzalez might be an upgrade over Sherrill/Ray at the back of the bullpen and Millwood is certainly an upgrade — in terms of experience – over anyone in the Baltimore rotation. 

Youth on the way: The Orioles first-round pick in 2008 was a starting pitcher named Brian Matusz who jumped to the big leagues from Double-A last season. Another starter, Jake Arrieta, pitched well in Triple-A last season, 24-year-old Brad Bergesen had a 3.43 ERA as a big league rookie and Chris Tilman got to Baltimore after 18 terrific starts with Triple-A Norfolk. Reliever Kam Mickolio and 1B Brandon Snyder are also knocking on the door.
Experience on the slide: Truthfully, there aren’t many declining players on the roster, at least not in significant roles. Millwood’s not young, but he’s coming off a strong season with Texas.
Possible upgrades: The Orioles have been linked to some third basemen who would bump Atkins to first. Joe Crede and Miguel Tejeda are two of the names that have been mentioned.
• The theme with the Orioles is youth, youth, youth. Even their “old guys” are in their early 30s, guys like Luke Scott (who brings good, fairly cheap power) and Brian Roberts (who brings speed to the lead-off spot). It’s actually not a terrible lineup, as long as guys like Jones and Nolan Reimold don’t suffer a setback. Adding a corner infielder would be a nice upgrade.    

Better than the Yankees: There’s a lot to like about the Orioles young outfield, especially Adam Jones in center and Nick Markakis in right. Matt Wieters was solid as a rookie and could become one of the better catchers in the game.
Worse than the Yankees: Aside from Markakis and possibly Jones, it’s hard to imagine any of the Orioles outperforming the Yankees at any individual position. The pitching staff is young and seems talented, but the Orioles rotation is probably too inexperienced to cause any real worries at this point.
Yankees connections: C Chad Moeller is back in the mix to compete for a bench job, so is former Yankees minor leaguer Michel Hernandez.
• No surprise here. There’s some young talent that’s worth outside envy, but the Orioles seem to be a long way from competing with the Yankees for the AL East. 

Prediction: Fourth place. I’ll take the Orioles over the Blue Jays in 2010, but this team doesn’t seem ready to compete unless the young starters really make some strides and adjust quickly at the big league level.

Back in November, the Pirates designated former Yankees right-hander Jeff Karstens for assignment. Yesterday, they designated Steven Jackson.

Today, it was Anthony Claggett’s turn to be DFA.

From a Yankees perspective, the most interesting thing about Jackson and Claggett being designated this week is that each move came with reports that the Pirates tried to make a trade instead of a DFA to open a roster spot. Obviously, the Pirates weren’t able to work out a deal. The same thing happened to the Yankees last season when they lost Jackson and Claggett on waivers rather than trading them.

I don’t think fans — or general managers — ever like to lose a player on waivers, but sometimes there simply isn’t a trade market for a particular player. Apparently the Yankees weren’t the only team to find that to be the case with Jackson and Claggett.

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Also, the Rangers have designated former first-round pick Greg Golson. I remember Golson from my days covering the Phillies. He’s a very athletic outfielder, but his numbers have never been especially good. He’s only worth mentioning because of the Yankees lack of upper-level outfield depth. Golson really hasn’t hit enough to suggest he could contend for a major league job this spring.

My sister has a Ph.D in biological chemistry. She got it from a little, no-name school called MIT. The work she does is so advanced that I literally can’t explain it. There is some sort of protein involved (I think) and she works in a lab (I’m pretty sure) and her results are broken into charts and graphs (I’ve seen them but never understood them).

My sister likes baseball, and she knows the sport pretty well, but she’s not a “baseball person.” She doesn’t follow it day-to-day, and her impression of a “baseball person” is someone like me, who prefers to use a calculator to add 4 + 2 (just to be on the safe side).

Some time last year, I sent my sister a Baseball Prospectus article about the development of advanced statistics. Her response was: “Baseball people do this?”

Yes, they do, and the development of advanced statistics has changed the way we look at baseball. Not so long ago, even a fairly routine stat like on-base percentage was not a part of the general baseball dialogue. Now we’re seeing OPS+ and VORP in the national media. Delving into a player’s splits is commonplace, as it should be.

But baseball — and sports in general — would be thoroughly uninteresting if not for the fact that stats occasionally mean nothing. Jose Veras was pretty bad last year, but he did pitch those three brilliant innings against Oakland the night Melky Cabrera hit his walk-off against Dan Giese. I once watched Jim Rushford, a minor league journeyman, hit a spring training home run against the great Mariano Rivera. In his guest post this morning, Yair mentioned the postseason struggles of two very good closers, Billy Wagner and Joe Nathan (though I forget to include the links in his post).

Statistics are key to our understanding of baseball, and the development of better and more advanced statistics does nothing but improve our understanding and appreciation of the game and its players. But the numbers can never tell us everything, and that’s the fun part of watching the game itself.

Now batting in the Pinch Hitters series is Yair Rosenberg, presenting a skeptical but not dismissive view of advanced statistics in baseball.

Yair is a junior at Harvard College, where he’s an Arts and Culture editor at The Crimson. Yair wrote that he’s been enjoying Yankees life in the middle of Red Sox country, “from the recent World Series to watching the Giants beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl during my freshman year.”

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To hear many a sabermetrics buff tell it, Derek “Intangibles” Jeter brings nothing but a sound shortstop skill set to the table. A.J. Burnett is actually a rather consistent pitcher. And Mariano Rivera has a phenomenal cutter, but not some magical “closer’s makeup” that helps him succeed when the stakes are highest. Clutch hitting? Likely a myth. Some pitchers displaying the ability to “win games?” Random chance. Given a sufficient sample size, we are told players’ hot streaks and cold streaks emerge as mere coincidence.

This argument against overestimating an individual player’s ability to influence a game has much to recommend it, and I won’t rehash the evidence here. My intent is instead to point out an unfortunate consequence of our Moneyball-influenced era: The tendency of statistical measures to unintentionally obscure the human side of baseball.

The more statistically-minded baseball community has often adopted the following implicit assumption: Players are essentially machines, largely unaffected by clubhouse atmosphere, personal psychological factors or the day-to-day effects of real life. Columnists who refer to “team cohesion” or a player’s “mindset” (think Alex Rodriguez) as factors in performance are treated with indifference, if not derision, and are considered a product of a bygone era where intuition trumped hard data. By contrast, a modern talent evaluator like Billy Beane looks at advanced metrics and finds the right players to draft without ever observing them in person. A player’s performance can thus be predicted, fantasy baseball style, without reference to anything but the numbers.

But this emphasis on statistics demonstrates a remarkable failure of imagination. What other occupation in the world do we evaluate in a similar fashion? Aren’t there days when one phones it in at the office, when one’s focus is diverted due to a family concern, or when recent failure throws off one’s confidence and productivity? Don’t some people thrive under pressure, while others collapse? Why should baseball players be any different? Could it be that some players only give a half-hearted effort on some days, while others bring their all with consistency? That some are better at coping with failure or unexpected bad breaks than others?

Certainly we frequently observe that an error or freak play (e.g. Johnny Damon’s double stolen base) can cause a previously flawless pitcher to unravel. Mentally, this makes sense. We also find that most elite closers seem far more human come playoff time, even against teams they’ve handled easily in the regular season (Joe Nathan and Billy Wagner, anyone?). Of course, these players could just be the victims of a small sample size — but they could also be buckling under the pressure of the postseason. After all, how likely is it that so many closers who have converted 95% of their career save opportunities somehow all choose the playoffs to have some of their worst — and statistically unlikely — outings? Something seems to be up.

And is it such a stretch to consider the possibility that some pitchers might do a better job — on average — of holding a lead than others? That they might focus on their craft better when pushed into a corner, where less successful starters might often freeze up or overthink their pitches? Consider the college student who falls asleep and wakes up with four hours to complete a mostly unfinished term paper. Does that student suddenly lock in to the task at hand, or become unable to concentrate with the deadline looming?

While we may not yet have adequate metrics to discern the impact of such mental and personal factors on baseball performance — to distinguish statistical noise from psychological poise — that does not mean the factors themselves do not have an impact. Indeed, intuitively, if we view baseball as a real-world job like any other, we should come to the very opposite conclusion.

Ultimately, the numbers don’t lie, but sometimes people exaggerate their significance. While statistical measures are good at tabulating a player’s value and production, they don’t tell us nearly as much about how he got there. Until we come up with better formulas which can isolate and take into account the human aspect of the sport, we still need old fashioned, pre-Moneyball baseball men and scouts to discern player makeup, and yes, intangibles.

Unless you’re a huge Doug Davis fan or really enjoy will they, won’t they retirement speculation, today has been another slow, mid-January day for baseball news. Just this once, I’m hoping it stays that way because I’m planning to see a Haiti benefit concert tonight in Brooklyn. I’ll be checking in on my phone, but unless something breaks, this is probably it for the blog tonight.

Here’s a press release from Major League Baseball. Good work by baseball to come up with programs like this.  

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As a part of the ongoing spirit of partnership with the United States military, Major League Baseball has collaborated with Columbia College (MO), a leader in military-friendly education, on the development of a certificate of professional umpiring. Following the completion of online coursework in subjects relevant to sports officiating, the program incorporates a week-long training program at the annual MLB Umpire Camp, held each November at the MLB Urban Youth Academy in Compton, California.

The partnership with Columbia College (based in Columbia, Missouri, with 34 campus locations nationwide) is the MLB Umpiring Department’s latest step in a series of initiatives that aim to provide career-oriented experiences to members of the military. During the 2009 World Baseball Classic last March, MLB and the Department of Military Affairs of the San Diego Padres organized a free one-day Umpire Camp for Marines at San Diego State University’s Tony Gwynn Stadium. More than 100 Marines attended the special MLB Umpire Camp, receiving instruction from MLB staff on all facets of umpiring.

“Major League Baseball is pleased that its Umpire Camps can provide an educational outlet for the students of Columbia College who have interest in umpiring as a profession,” said Jimmie Lee Solomon, MLB’s Executive Vice President, Baseball Operations. “Our game as a whole has taken many steps to honor our nation’s heroes. The Major League Umpires are thrilled to use the MLB Umpire Camp as a platform to work with these highly motivated and dedicated individuals as they consider potential careers in the next chapters of their lives.”

Many members of the MLB Umpiring staff, including Mark Carlson (U.S. Marine Corps), Jerry Crawford (U.S. Army Reserve), Laz Diaz (U.S. Marine Corps), Randy Marsh (U.S. Army Reserve) and Ed Montague (U.S. Navy), have military experience.

Columbia College has helped military personnel, their family members and Department of Defense civilians earn college degrees during their service for more than 30 years, being recognized as one of the most military-friendly colleges in the country. One of every four students at Columbia College is in the military or is a military dependent, and 18 of the school’s 34 extended campuses across the country are located on military bases.

“The certificate is a new and exciting concept for Columbia College,” said Dr. Terry Smith, the school’s Executive Vice President and Dean for Academic Affairs. “We are thrilled to partner with such a prestigious organization and together hope to produce a large cohort of highly-skilled baseball umpires for our communities.”

The MLB Umpire Camp assists those interested in the field of umpiring in furthering the advancement of their college, high school and little league umpiring careers and also serves as a preparatory course to those considering a career as a Major League or Minor League umpire. The Camp provides world-class umpire training, going beyond classroom instruction and field work to also focus on rules interpretations, positioning, conditioning, nutrition, safety and equipment.

Additional information on the MLB Umpire Camps is available by visiting www.MLBUmpireCamps.com or www.MLBUC.com. The official web site of Columbia College is www.ccis.edu.

The Pittsburgh Pirates lately have been stockpiling former Yankees, but there’s a chance to get one of them back now that Steven Jackson has been designated for assignment.

Back in May, the Yankees designated Jackson to make room for Kevin Cash. The Pirates picked him up, and he had a 3.14 ERA with a .236 opponents batting average in 40 games out of the Pittsburgh bullpen. ERA, though, is a pretty unreliable way to judge relievers, and Jackson also had more walks (22) than strikeouts (21). He let six of 22 inherited runners score, but half of those came on a particularly bad day against the Dodgers (he otherwise stranded 16 of 19). Nothing flashy, but he was solid.

One thing Jackson has done well throughout his career is generate groundballs, and that would probably be the best reason to bring him back. I doubt the Yankees claim him – no specific reason for thinking that, just a hunch — but Jackson would be one of the better groundball pitchers on the staff (most of the pitchers with a better percentage pitched limted innings last year).

The list of Yankees groundball percentages from last season is a fairly random assortment. It seems to be proof that generating groundballs is never a perfect indicator of success.

Pitcher — 2009 GB%
Boone Logan — 63.9%
Mark Melancon — 62.0%
Sergio Mitre — 57.8%
Chien-Ming Wang — 53.3%
Jonathan Albaladejo — 52.6%
Mariano Rivera — 51.2%
Steven Jackson — 43.6%
Joba Chamberlain — 42.9%
Andy Pettitte — 42.9%
CC Sabathia — 42.9%
A.J. Burnett — 42.8%
Chad Gaudin — 42.0%
Javier Vazquez — 41.7%
Edwar Ramirez — 36.2%
Dave Robertson — 35.6%
Alfredo Aceves — 35.2%
Phil Hughes — 34.4%
Damaso Marte — 29.3%

The thing that will always strike me about Chien-Ming Wang’s time with the Yankees was how quickly the tenor of it changed. For the better part of two years, the debate was over whether or not Wang was a “true ace” – a debate I always found sort of silly since it seemed like such arbitrary semantics. Wang won 19 games in back-to-back years and was the team’s best pitcher (often by far); call him whatever you want, but his importance didn’t change.

I always liked Wang – he was incredibly soft-spoken, but had a good sense of humor and better English than he let on. His teammates teased him like anyone else, and he enjoyed it – Derek Jeter would often walk into the clubhouse and call out, even from across the room, “What up Waaaaaaang?” just to see him laugh. Although I never felt like he was going to be an all-time legend, I really believed that Wang had the stuff (and the make-up) to be a legitimate stud for years to come.

That’s what made his downfall so stark. Greg did a nice job this morning breaking down the statistical trends that corresponded to his struggles, and the truth is that his injuries clearly affected some element of his delivery. I remember a scout once telling me that guys like Wang – pitchers who weren’t overpowering and couldn’t rely on velocity – had to be even finer with their mechanics or else their sinker would sit up in the zone and get hammered. I think we all saw at the start of 2009 just how that looked.

I know that Wang was a player who inspired a variety of reactions from Yankees fans. No doubt, it was hard to get past some of his struggles in big spots, especially the limited postseason opportunities he had. But to me, I’ll always think of Wang as the star who never fully formed. The injury in Houston was freakish and unexpected, and I’m glad to see that Wang is trying to make a comeback.

Will he revive his career and return to form? Maybe, maybe not. If he doesn’t, though, it’ll be hard not to wonder what might have been.

Our next pinch hitter is Greg Mathews, who delved into Chien-Ming Wang’s numbers and determined it might not be such a bad thing to see him sign elsewhere.

After growing up in New Jersey, Greg was a knuckleballer at at Springfield College — it seems natural that he was a pitcher – and he now works as a group sales associate at Wilmington Blue Rocks in Deleware. “In my family, you were born a Yankee fan, going all the way back to my great-grandfather who saw Lou Gehrig play,” Greg wrote. “I was 10 years old when Mattingly went deep in Game 2, and Gary Thorne’s play-by-play still echoes in my mind.”

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On the “Wang” side of a trend

In Chien-Ming Wang’s first two full seasons as a starter, he boasted 38 wins pitching in the American League East. His 2008 campaign started off at eight wins and two losses before the ankle injury occurred in Houston, and he never fully recovered, leading to his awful 2009 season.

After Wang was non-tendered this offseason, it was reported that the Yankees wanted the opportunity to match any offer that Wang receives. Sure, his Win/Loss record is great and he suffered the unfortunate injury, but would it really be a good idea to bring him back?

Off to Fangraphs.com I went.

From 2006 to 2008, there were some trends that raised a red flag when looking at a sinkerballer. During his first full season in ’06, Wang had a ground ball rate of 62.8% and his line drive rate was 16.9%. The following year, his GB rate fell to 58.4% and his LD rate rose to 18.3%. This was true again in 2008, when his GB rate was down to 55% and LD rate jumped to 22.1%. From ’06 to ’08, Wang saw a 7.8% drop in ground balls, but the negatively trending batted ball percentages weren’t the only thing that caught my eye.

In 2008, Wang began to walk batters with more frequency.

In 2006, Wang faced 900 batters and walked 52, or one walk every 17.3 batters faced. In 2007, he issued a walk to every 13.9 hitters and even more often in 2008 when the rate hit 11.5. This was especially evident in his five no-decisions prior to the injury when he was walking one out of every EIGHT batters. So not only were batters hitting the ball harder every year, Wang was walking them at a rapidly increasing rate.

When looking at these stats, my theory is that batters are laying off of that low sinker. The pitches that used to be pounded into the ground are now being let go. Wang has to throw it higher in the zone and the hitters are making better contact. These are not good trends when pitching against the perennially tough batters of the AL East. I loved Chien-Ming Wang while he was here, but it is time to move on without him. What do you think?

Yankees director of scoreboard and broadcasting Michael Bonner is bringing the World Series trophy to Queens on Wednesday, bringing it with him for career day at P.S. 166.

“I’ve been speaking at their career day since 1999,” Bonner said in an email. “And this time I get the added bonus of taking along the trophy.”

The Yankees have really let the trophy make the rounds this year, which seems like a great thing. I can only imagine how cool it would have been to have the World Series trophy come to my elementary school.

Someone suggested in the comments not so long ago that the LoHud Yankees Blog declare a one-day ban on all Johnny Damon discussion. I love the idea, except that the outfield remains the most fluid part of the Yankees roster, and Damon remains the most interesting former Yankee on the free agent market.

Damon’s list of suitors might have diminished this afternoon when the Giants re-signed Bengie Molina. For those of you still holding out hope that he’ll return to Yankee Stadium, this seems to be good news. Damon himself has stopped short of ruling it out.

Ultimately, though, it seems that Brian Cashman has once again accurately gauged the outfield market. Similar to Bobby Abreu a year ago, it’s hard to imagine Damon receiving the kind of contract he was said to be looking for at the beginning of the winter. The $13 million he earned last season seems way too high, and anything close to a four-year deal seems virtually impossible.

It’s not only Damon. The entire outfield market – beyond Matt Holliday and Jason Bay – has been slow to develop. It doesn’t seem to be helping anyone (other than every team in the market for an outfielder) that there is such a long list of options. Damon might be the headliner, but Rick Ankiel, Garrett Anderson, Rocco Baldelli, Jermaine Dye, Jonny Gomes, Reed Johnson, Xavier Nady, Gary Sheffield, Marcus Thames and Randy Winn are also out there. So are guys like Fernando Tatis, Endy Chavez, Chris Duncan and Robb Quinlan. So are a few infielders, like Felipe Lopez, who can play the outfield.

There seems to be no rush for any team — the Yankees or anyone else — to sign any of these guys. That’s why Damon remains a hot topic of discussion among Yankees fans and in the national baseball media.