The Yankees got Nick Swisher cheap but now appear to be stuck in a position to have to flip him for a similar scraps—another Teixeira tax.

I don't see how the Yanks are forced to get rid of one of Swisher/Nady. Are both of them so "estalished" that they wouldn't take on a fourth OF role?

That is, if Posada can catch most of the time. Then I have Matsui as the primary DH, with an OF of Damon, ????, and the hotter hand of Nady/Swisher. As a matter of fact, I would put Damon in CF and play both of them sometimes (Wang starts, for instance).

Hey, if someone wants to hand them a good pitcher or a CFer for Nady, then I'm all for it.

I'm on board with Erik. There's plenty of playing time here. A Damon/Swisher/Nady/Matsui/Gardner/Melky rotation through 4 lineup spots with a little Posada maybe, along with the occasional day off for Teixeira, is plenty of PAs. Nady's never been a full-time player before and it's hard to see any reason why Matsui should see a start against a LHP all year (barring a lot of injuries). Add in that Damon and Matsui (and Posada) aren't exactly Cal Ripken and the Yanks are very much going to want a good bench bat around.

But yeah, better to sell high on the older, RH, defensively limited career part-timer who will soon be an FA than to sell low on the younger, switch-hitting, defensively flexible, full-timer who you have wrapped up at a reasonable salary for a few years. Unless you can swap Swisher for a real CF -- but who would go for that trade?

Anyway, the weak link at the moment is Posada. If he can't stay healthy and play a good-enough C, neither of which I think is going to happen, then there will be one big hole in this lineup. Why they haven't gone out and gotten a good #2 C is beyond me.

Both also have enough versatility that they can both get near full-time PA. Also, I would not count on both Matsui and Damon to stay both healthy and productive. I would move either in the right move of course, but the Yankees shouldn't be seeking to dump them (nor do I think they are).

Or what Walt said.

There seemed to be interest in Matsui last off-season ... maybe Saban would be interested in the idioticly rumored Matsui-Lincecum trade?

There seemed to be interest in Matsui last off-season ... maybe Saban would be interested in the idioticly rumored Matsui-Lincecum trade?

Well, it's not like Lincecum is likely to get any better than what he is. Might as well cut bait.

Mark Teixeira is a very good player who could be on the road to greatness, but he’s replacing Jason Giambi, who was very effective last year.

No offense to B&S, who are hardly the first to make this mistake, but the idea that Teixeira is only a marginal upgrade on Giambi seems so silly. Let's not forget, Teixeira in Atlanta and Teixeira in Anaheim each had a higher VORP than Giambi did last season. And that's not even counting defense.

I would imagine Teixeira is a 3-4 win upgrade on Giambi, that's not small potatoes.

Here is a question I pose to the brilliant analysts on here, does:

2008 Mussina = 2009 CC?

Yes, Mussina had a one in 50 or one in 100 season (considering age/trends), CC is 50% likely, or better to have a season as good as Mussina did in 2008, but will he be better? How much better? Can he be better? As great as CC is, he will likely only be replacing Mussina's year. No?

Yes, Mussina had a one in 50 or one in 100 season (considering age/trends), CC is 50% likely, or better to have a season as good as Mussina did in 2008, but will he be better? How much better? Can he be better? As great as CC is, he will likely only be replacing Mussina's year. No?

Can he be better? Sure. Mussina had a good season--you won't hear me say a bad thing about it--but he wasn't even in the top 20 in VOPR.

Think of it this way, Mussina pitched 200 IP at a 3.37 ERA. That's good, but CC has pitched more innings, and with a better ERA+ both of the last two years. The CHONE projection for Sabathia is 211 IP at a 3.41 ERA. So the same level of performance, basically, a marginally more innings.

(And I'd argue the CHONE projection is relatively negative for Sabathia, that would be his highest ERA since 2005)

Mussina gave the Yankees 200 innings with an ERA+ of 132 and a WHIP of 1.223; Sabathia had an ERA+ of 162 and a WHIP of 1.115, and he's averaged 247 innings the past two years. While I'm sure the haters will jump in here and say that this past workload means that CC's arm will fall off sometime in June, I'm still pretty confident that Sabathi's 2009 will be an upgrade over Mussina's 2008. Not a huge one of course, but still a bit more than a mere replacement. Probably one win. The question marks are whether Wang can bounce back from his freakish injury and avoid another one, whether Burnett can stay in the rotation all season, whether they can keep Chamberlain around 160 IP without stupidly sending him back to a setup role, and whether some combination of Hughes, Aceves, Kennedy, and Giese can replace Pettitte's 200 league average innings. Unless Andy stops pouting and takes the $10M; then the question is whether Pettitte 2009 can replicate Pettitte 2008's 200 league average innings.

Mussina pitching in the AL East and CC pitching in the AL and then NL Central really can't be compared without a significant league adjustment, imo.

Sabthia is 22-16 vs the AL East for his career. 21-8 if you leave out the Yankees. Adjust that.

Mussina pitching in the AL East and CC pitching in the AL and then NL Central really can't be compared without a significant league adjustment, imo.

The problem is that the 2009 Yankees are not the 2008 Yankees. Last year's club had trouble scoring runs; this year's club may or may not. Last year, the defense let the pitching down. This year, they will likely get a bit worse. CC won't get Mussina's run support, defense, and bullpen support. He won't pitch to the precise quality of opponent. Comparing an actual peformance with a projection of a different person is impossible, IMO.

Plus the fact that the 2008 Mike Mussina doesn't appear to be on the FA market.

The latest on RLYW projects that they've more than closed the gap;

http://www.replacementlevel.com/index.php/RLYW/comments/extremely_early_projected_standings

Some interesting projections in there(like only 4 AL teams being over .500)

Yankees 101 wins, that's pretty good. Question is, how easy are wins to come by in the AL in 2009? I don't think that easy. I'll say Yanks 96-97 wins. Colorado 88 wins? Really? Angels 80! Doubtful.

My early breakout teams for 2009 are Twins and A's. Basically both will be right in the thick of the division title. 88 Oakland-93 Twins wins, Twins being better. No really. I see nearly every Twins pitcher improving in 2009--and they had some good seasons there in 08.

Even SG admits those are very tentative projections, as he puts it "don't these too seriously."

The point (fun) of early projections is discussing all of the anomalys. If he didn't want people discussing them, he wouldn't put them out. Now if someone was going to hold him to these come June/July, then they'd be a douche bag.

Anyway, the weak link at the moment is Posada. If he can't stay healthy and play a good-enough C, neither of which I think is going to happen, then there will be one big hole in this lineup. Why they haven't gone out and gotten a good #2 C is beyond me.

On the more positive side, the Yankees' medical people must be convinced that Posada is going to come back from the surgery to play regularly and effectively. Not that there are a lot of great alternatives in this year's market for catchers, but I don't think the Yanks would rely on Jose Molina & Kevin Cash if they thought Posada's return was iffy. Of course, they could be wrong.

To Whom It Concerns,

The catcher situation will work itself out. The New York Yankees would never punt a spot in the lineup.

Sincerely,

Centerfield

As for Nady/Swisher, the Yanks are bent on trading one to shave payroll. I did not establish that predicate. I know it's silly for them to do so. But appearances matter, I guess. And perhaps it's sound strategy long-term to try to short-circuit a movement towards a hard cap.

Oh, I don't mean to say that Posada won't be "ready" for spring training. It's more in the ...

he's an old C
he already had defensive issues
he didn't hit that well (for him) last year
he's coming back from serious injury at the age of 37

Some Cs age well -- there were some reasons to think he might
Some Cs come back from serious injury
I suppose even some 37 year-olds at any position come back from serious injury

But boy he'd be beating the odds if he played behind the plate for 100 games. Using our pal the play index and looking at C seasons, aged 37 or older, with 400+ PA and 80% of games at C ...

Fisk and Boone did it 4 times each
Santiago did it twice
Four other guys did it once

Of the 13 Cs who meet the 400 PA and 80% games crieterion at age 36, 5 repeated at age 37 and only 2 of those did it at 38. If you look at the 17 Cs with 1200+ PA from ages 34-36 (Posada qualifies), only 5 had a full-time season after age 36. So even if Posada had been healthy last year, I'm not sure we'd give him a better than 40% chance at 400 PA this year.

I have no idea how to look at injured at 36 and healthy and full-time at 37. Looks like 2 of Fisk's seasons followed an injury at age 40 but otherwise all these seasons followed healthy ones (usually a long string of healhty ones). Among recent players at other positions, there's Andres Galarraga's cancer issues and Giambi had a nice bounce-back at age 37 last year, but otherwise I'm not finding a lot of examples. But this is a shitty way to go about it.

Anyway, we have to expect both his durability and his performance to continue to decline and, if history is a guide, they are likely to decline quite quickly. I'd put his "mean" projection at either 2008 Varitek (healthy but crappy) or, oh, 70 games of 100 OPS+.

and I'm OK if he makes a fool of me -- he's my favorite (read non-despised) Yankee.

14. BeanoCook Posted: January 09, 2009 at 10:40 PM (#3048179)

Yankees 101 wins, that's pretty good. Question is, how easy are wins to come by in the AL in 2009? I don't think that easy. I'll say Yanks 96-97 wins. Colorado 88 wins? Really? Angels 80! Doubtful.

My early breakout teams for 2009 are Twins and A's. Basically both will be right in the thick of the division title. 88 Oakland-93 Twins wins, Twins being better. No really. I see nearly every Twins pitcher improving in 2009--and they had some good seasons there in 08.

well, the Angel's pythag last year was only 88-74, and now you turn a half season of decent 1B and half of great 1B to a full season of questionmarks and adjust for other declines I don't think it's that unlikely, though I suppose Lackey will give them a better season (btw any further news on Escobar?)

The Rockies, I suppose they are counting on Tulowitzki. and an insanely underwhelming division in general. that and losing Willy Tavares is an automatic +3 win!

I can see the projection's AL theme though, it seems that the ALC and ALW's best team might both be worse than the 3rd or even 4th best team in the east. yikes. if there's one team that can rightfully complain about being hosed it's the Blue Jays. in any other division they would have had made the playoff sometime in the wildcard era by now.

But boy he'd be beating the odds if he played behind the plate for 100 games. Using our pal the play index and looking at C seasons, aged 37 or older, with 400+ PA and 80% of games at C ...
Fisk and Boone did it 4 times each
Santiago did it twice
Four other guys did it once

Operating in Jorge Posada's favor is the fact that he didn't catch his 100th game until he was nearly 27 years old. At the identical age, Fisk had caught 327 games, Boone was at 305, and Santiago had 675. If-- if-- he's past the injury, that may buy Posada a year or two on the back end of his career.

dunno...maybe after Holliday..but may still need to give some thought about what to do about the filler at ss

Comparing an actual peformance with a projection of a different person is impossible, IMO.

No, the problem I was noting was about park and league adjustments, not about 'wins' and the surrounding team.

Operating in Jorge Posada's favor is the fact that he didn't catch his 100th game until he was nearly 27 years old. At the identical age, Fisk had caught 327 games, Boone was at 305, and Santiago had 675. If-- if-- he's past the injury, that may buy Posada a year or two on the back end of his career.

Minor league games count too.

Minor league games count too.

He only had 265, and was only converted to C at age 22. So, he doesn't have the college/high school/low minors games that also count in wear in tear.

Counting the minors, Posada caught 79 games at age 22, 93 games at age 23, 98 games at age 24, 60 games at age 25, 99 games at age 26, and 109 games at age 27. The total is 538.

It's tough to find minor league fielding lines before the 1990s. Mike Piazza, who was also converted to the position, had 607 games caught through age 27 (majors/minors combined). Mike Lieberthal had 715. Charles Johnson had 725. Jason Kendall had 880. Ivan Rodriguez had 1,133. Joe Mauer has 643 games caught, 105 more than Posada, through age 25.

If Posada drops off the table offensively like Jason Varitek or Javy Lopez (two catchers with similar games caught to Posada through age 27), then yeah, his workload won't have helped him. But other guys with similar totals have lasted, such as Sandy Alomar Jr. or Brad Ausmus. What's going to happen to Posada is speculative; that Posada's playing time was on the light side in his early 20's isn't.

Of course, Posada does also have all the playoff games, that's another 96 games added on top to the totals, FWIW.

Not through age 27, he didn't. He'd had about 6 postseason starts by then. But it's a good point for Posada v.2009.

As for Nady/Swisher, the Yanks are bent on trading one to shave payroll. I did not establish that predicate. I know it's silly for them to do so. But appearances matter, I guess. And perhaps it's sound strategy long-term to try to short-circuit a movement towards a hard cap.

Mike acknowledges it himself - this is awfully silly. After this offseason, would it change a single mind around MLB if they dumped Nady on someone? "Those guys aren't so bad after all, and our plans for a salary cap look really stupid now."

I don't put it past the Yankees to sacrifice some on-field roster for some off-field posturing, but I think if they wanted to play the "low salary game", they'd have let someone like Burnett pass by.

See, now, when I wrote the following:

Some Cs age well -- there were some reasons to think he might

I was (obliquely) referring to the issue that he didn't play a lot of C at a young age.

And look at what all that lack of wear and tear bought him last year.

There _were_ reasons to think he might age well. Now, after having some defensive struggles, a blown shoulder, surgery, missing most of the season and having a poor season as a hitter (for him), we have very little reason to think he will age well.

And of course counter-balancing the low wear-and-tear early is that from 2000-2007 he caught about 9000 innings, not including the post-season. Or just look at guys with 1300-1600 games caught (I think that's what P-I is giving me) through age 35 and limiting myself to those who were still full-timers (100+ games) ... and bearing in mind that Posada has essentially already missed his age 36 season:

Piazza was full-time 36-37
Fisk was a god
Hartnett was full-time at 36
Santiago was full-time 36-38
Sherm Lollar was full-time at 36
Roseboro was full-time at 36
Hegan was never full-time again
Boone was a god of durability
Ausmus was full-time 36-38
Matheny was never full-time again
Ferrell was never full-time again
Sewell was full-time at 36

12 names. 7 never made it to 37. I haven't even looked at offensive drop-off yet. For certain, Posada was a much better hitter through age 35 than everybody on that list except Piazza and Hartnett and some of those guys were undoubtedly healthy and lost their jobs because they couldn't hit. But on the other side, if any of them got hurt at 36, they never came back to full-time.

Last season I argued against re-signing Posada for these reasons but he at least had a decent chance of having another 1-3 full seasons. Last year's injury and possible offensive decline must lead us to the conclusion that his chances have greatly diminished. As I said upstream, a healthy 2008 for Posada probably would have made him no better than about a 40% chance of a full season this year; the injury and possible decline have to knock that down to around 25% or so.