Chase Wright Trade, the Bench, the Dodgers, More UConn Basketball

Alright first, I'll touch on the minor trade the Yankees made. They dealt the DFA'd Chase Wright to the Brew Crew for Minor Leaguer Eric Fryer. Fryer raked in the low A South Atlantic League, which is great...but he was old for the league so we'll see how he does moving up a level. I'd assume they're gonna start him for the "regular" A Tampa Yankees as a jump from the Sally League to the Eastern League may be too dramatic.

Fryer doesn't seem to be anything special but getting him for Wright--who is probably the better end of the deal--is better than getting nothing at all, which probably would've happened if Wright passed through waivers. I'll keep an eye on Fryer and Wright throughout the season, and I wish Chase the best of luck in Milwaukee.

The only thing left to look out for on the Yankee horizon is a bench infielder. River Avenue Blues raised the possibility of adding Mark Grudzielanek. I like this idea. Grudzielanek is a solid player who could probably start somewhere else. However, he said himself (via the RAB article) he wants to win, and the market has been D E A D silent on him. Adding him would mean taking someone off the 40 man roster--probably Dan Giese--which I would be fine with. The pitching depth is fine without Danny Boy and the bench is a more pressing issue now.

Next, there's the Dodgers and Manny. Manny rejected the team's one year, $25 million offer after rejecting a 2 year, $45 million dollar deal right after the season ended. At this point, no other market for Manny has surfaced. Brian Cashman, along with Jim Bowden and Omar Minaya, has said that his team will not be in the Manny sweepstakes. That leaves only the Dodgers and the Giants. Albert Pujols wants the Cards to make a play for him, but I doubt that happens.

Basically, there are two things the Dodgers can do: move on or make another offer. What would I do if I were Ned Coletti and company? I'd move on. There are other corner outfield options--Adam Dunn and Bobby Abreu--and that money could also be used to bring in another player or two, such as Randy Wolff or maybe even Orlando Hudson, relegating Blake DeWitt to the bench.

By my calculations, Manny will be worth 2.61 Wins Above Replacement in 2009--his -15 defensive projection from CHONE really kills him. Adam Dunn projects to be worth 2 WAR and Orlando Hudson projects to be worth 3.09 WAR. Added together, Dunn and Hudson project to be worth 5.09 WAR, 2.48 more WAR than Manny alone. So, two heads seem to be better than one here, even if the one is one of the best hitters ever. There is also the price issue. Manny will cost anywhere from 20-25 million a year. Right now, the market is so low on Dunn and Hudson that the Dodgers could probably get them both for 10-20 million combined.

Onto UConn basketball. They're the number one team in the land. Woo! I know that doesn't mean much in early February, but UConn is really clicking. They have upcoming tests against Michigan and Syracuse, and the latter will be very tough. Regardless, the Huskies are looking absolutely fantastic and look poised to make a long run.

Sorry for the lack of posts. The semester's just started so I'm still getting into the academic swing of things and as we all know, baseball news is in an incredible lull. Hopefully more will come when Spring Training starts. Anyway, have a good one guys.

-Matt

What's Next?

After locking up the three biggest free agents on the market and trading for Nick Swisher, it would seem that the Yankees are essentially set for 2009. However, there are still holes.

PITCHING

The fact that the one year, ten million dollar contract offer to Andy Pettitte hasn't been rescinded shows that the Yankees aren't quite ready to go to the season with a rotation of Sabathia/Wang/Burnett/Chamberlain/Hughes? Kennedy? Aceves?

So what should be done with Andy Pettitte? The first thing that should be done is that a hard deadline should be made for Pettitte to accept the offer and move on. I'd say give Pettitte two more weeks to decide. If he doesn't accept the offer, then the Yankees should go into the season with the rotation listed above. While it's nice to have an "innings eater" (code for: the guy generally sucks but at least he can throw a lot) on a one year deal who would essentially be keeping Phil Hughes's spot warm, the Yankees can do with out him. His 07 ERA was decent at 4.05 but his 4.54 mark this year and 07/08 WHIPs of 1.426 and 1.412 respectively can be done with out.

OUTFIELD SURPLUS

Next there is the issue of the OF surplus. There is a simple solution to this. Make Brett Gardner the fourth outfielder, play Xavier Nady in left, Johnny Damon in center, and Nick Swisher in right. This would yeild a good amount of runs, defense could be a problem. Of that alignment, Nick Swisher is the only one projected to be a plus defender. While the offense could probably out-slug the defensive issues, that approach hasn't always worked for the Yankees.

Another problem with that alignment is that Brian Cashman has said that Brett Gardner and Melky Cabrera will battle for the CF spot in spring training and that neither Swisher nor Damon will be in CF. So, that could eliminate my idea. However, Brian Cashman also said Nick Swisher would be the first baseman going forward, and we all know how that turned out.

But I'm gonna take Brian Cashman at his word and believe that only Brett the Jet and the Melk Man are CF candidates. That leaves us with three outfielders for two spots. Or, two outfielders for two spots. Johnny Damon is a lock in left--he's a great defender there and his bat can still more or less hold up there; after all, he was second on the Yankees in VORP last year.

So who gets the nod in right and what do we do with the odd man out? In my mind, Nick Swisher is the right fielder. He's got a better track record as a hitter and a fielder. Want the numbers to prove it? Okay!

OPS:
Swisher: .805
Nady: .793

wOBA:
Swisher: .347
Nady: .342

ISO:
Swisher: .208
Nady: .178

RC/G:
Swisher: 5.6
Nady: 5.3

Alright you get the idea. As for fielding, the two would be up for the right field job. Swisher has a career UZR/150 of 14.2 in right, compared to Nady's 0.5. Swisher has to be out there in right.

What, then, do you do with Xaiver Nady? My gut reaction is to trade him. But, for the life of me, I can't think of what I'd ask for in exchange and what could be given back. Nady's got the highest value coming off of a career year and would be the easiest to move, but he's in a contract year so would teams really be willing to take him on as a rental? Maybe, maybe not.

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense for the Yankees to keep Nady on. Now, he's not great, but he's definitely better than a bench outfielder, especially with one of Gardner or Cabrera already there. So what I suggest is a platoon between him and Hideki Matsui at DH. Nady absolutely crushes lefties and is 'meh' against right handers for his career and this platoon could help Matsui stay healthy. Keeping Nady also allows for more off days for Damon when he needs to take one as he's no spring chicken.

THE BENCH

Then there's the issue of the bench. Jose Molina's definitely the backup catcher, with new acquisition Kevin Cash waiting if he or Posada gets hurt. One of Melky Cabrera and Brett Gardner will be on the bench as an outfielder obviously, and probably one of Swisher or Nady. However, there doesn't seem to be anyone who can fill the middle infield positions or third if need be. Who can do that job? There were rumblings that Justin Christian was being converted to infield but I haven't heard anything of that lately. The free agent class for infielders this year isn't all that great either. I really have no idea what they're gonna do here. I'm gonna throw this out there just for shits and giggles: Nomar. I'm not sure if I'm serious about that(EDIT: You know what? Forget that I said that. Just being comical). When I hear more about what the Yankees are doing about the bench, I'll post more seriously about it. Anyway, thanks for reading the essay. As always, feedback is encouraged.

Ramblings on Robbie

While the chatter has calmed down in the mainstream media, every so often it pops up that the Yankees should consider trading Robinson Cano. Well, this just isn't a very smart. Yes, he had a crappy year last year, but he picked it up in the second half:

First Half: .246/.285/.358/.643
Second Half: .307/.333/.482/.815

Cano is more than capable of putting up those numbers from the second half for an entire season; hell, it looks an awful lot like his 2007 season. So why did Cano have the jump? His BABIP jumped from .252 in the first half to .320 in the second. That big jump led to a lot of hits. Now, that doesn't tell the whole story, of course. Cano had a line drive percentage of 19.4 this season, which is a good mark. He also had the most line drives in his career with 104. However, he also had a career high mark in fly balls at 178 which translated to a career high fly ball percentage of 33.2%.

Based on those numbers, it appears that Cano had trouble getting on top of the ball. When a player hits a fly ball, the chances of it becoming a hit are pretty small. That career high fly ball percentage shows that Cano was probably dipping his shoulders or not driving with his lower half while at the plate. Hopefully, he and Kevin Long have worked this out with a new stance.

Since I'm big on projections and what not, let's see what CHONE has for Robbie in 2009.

.300/.340/.468/.808, 16 HR, 79 RsBI, 29 BB, 65 SO in 556 AB. That's very good for a 2B

Now let's work something out like I did in my last post and project his worth via Marcels batting projections and CHONE defense.

Cano projects to be 4.6 runs over average. Adding the positional adjustment (+2.5), that number goes to 7.1. Cano's CHONE defensive projection, 0, it stays the same. Divide by 10.5 and add 2 for the replacement adjustment and you get about 2.70 Wins Above Replacement. Multiply that by five and that's 13.5. Cano projects to be worth 13.5 million dollars. Cano is being paid $6 million for 2009. That's a big value.

So, yeah, don't trade Robbie. He's good, he's young, and he'll probably easily out play his salary.