Yanks look like a 95 win team
Phil Allard Reporting
The 10th Inning Journal
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) -- With the mirror-kissing A-Rod conveniently exiled to Colorado for the past few weeks, the Yankee Spring Training camp has been on cruise control. The team is looking very strong as they get ready to start the 2009 season.
The rotation is as strong as it’s been since the glory years in the late 1990s. Consider that Sidney Ponson and Darrell Rasner have been replaced with CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett, then add a healthy Chien-Ming Wang, the veteran Andy Pettitte and Joba Chamberlain, and you have arguably the deepest rotation in the majors. Burnett still needs to prove that he can stay healthy, but he certainly has looked sharp so far.
The bullpen is also extremely deep and talented. Right now it looks like it will shake out as follows: Rivera, Marte, Bruney, Veras, Coke, Edwar and most likely Brett Tomko as the long man. David Robertson may spell Edwar, but that’s unlikely as Joe Girardi is constantly singing Edwar’s praises.
As good as the bullpen is, Brain Bruney still needs to get on track and replicate the monster that showed up last year with 3-0, 1.83 ERA, 242 ERA+, 0.99 WHIP, and only 18 hits in 34.1 innings. Bruney also held batters to a .153 batting average. He’s been struggling in Spring Training, but Yankee brass isn’t worried—yet.
The biggest question mark coming into Spring Training was the health of Jorge Posada; so far his shoulder has met every challenge. A healthy Posada is vitally important to the Yankee attack. If he can catch four times a week, then Matsui can DH and all is well.
If you want to look for possible problems, however, Joe Girardi threw some cold water on the Yankee prospects when he announced that Xavier Nady will get the nod as the Yanks’ starting right-fielder.
Girardi told reporters: “If we were to break today, Nady would be my right fielder,” Girardi said. “Nady did a lot of good things last year, so he had the upper hand going in.”
Every way you measure it, Nick Swisher is the better choice for right. The comparisons are not even close.
When Swisher is going well, he is an on-base machine. He came up in the Oakland system where patience and OBP is preached, and Swisher was a model student. To be sure, Swisher had his worst year in 2007, sporting a .332 OBP for the White Sox. But his lifetime OBP of .354 is 19 points higher than the league average of .335. (.335 is also Nady’s lifetime OBP).
Although Swisher hit just .219 for the Southsiders in 2007 , a look inside the numbers suggests that Swisher was simply unlucky.
J.J.Stankevitz, who does an excellent job of covering the White Sox for examiner.com, has this take: “Swisher’s 2008 line drive rate of .204 was the highest of his career, but his BABIP—which, if a player is neither lucky nor unlucky, should be .120 higher than his LD rate—was .251, just 0.47 points higher than his LD rate. That’s not just unlucky—that’s ridiculously unlucky.”
Defensively, Swisher covers more ground than Nady, and he is a very positive clubhouse presence. Nick is a team guy, and he will bide his time and make a splash when he gets a chance to play. Girardi will have to balance Nady, Swisher, Gardner and Damon, so you have to wonder if Melky Cabrera may be on his way out. There really isn’t a need for him anymore, and he is out of options. The Yanks may decide to trade Melky for a low-level prospect.
The Yanks also have at least two more years of Derek Jeter’s poor defensive range at shortstop. Anyone who saw him in the WBC can see that’s it’s even worse than last year. Perhaps the only living human with worse range is his probable back-up, Angel Berroa. Once A-Rod returns, however, Berroa will likely be DFAd, and Cody Ransom will become the utility infielder.
Despite the Nady mistake and the Captain’s defense, this is a well-balanced team. 95 wins will get them into the playoffs, and that sounds about right. 100 is possible as well. Pitching…pitching…pitching.
Copyright 2009 WCBS 880, All Rights Reserved.
|
E-Mail
Print
