The Yankees had to try, I get that. You need some kind of fallback position, insurance, in case things don’t work out, and sometimes you can sew a staff together out of random bits of reputation you found strewn about the league. No one thinks much about the 1980 Yankees because they were swept out of the ALCS by the Kansas City Royals and the manager awkwardly canned, but insofar as the regular season goes, the unit was one of the best in Yankees history. Only 19 teams in franchise history have won 100 games, and the 1980 club was one of them. In fact, it won 103, which ties it for the seventh-most victories the team has ever had.
This post isn’t really about them, but the 2011 Yankees, so I’m not going to describe every aspect of the team. Rather, let’s concentrate on this single aspect: for a great staff, it had a singularly weird pitching staff. The group was the oldest in the league. It’s most valuable pitcher was actually a swingman, lefty Rudy May, 35, who started 17 games, relieved in another 24, and having piled up 175.1 innings, led the league in ERA. May had been a useful pitcher for years, but he had never been that good before and never would be again. Similarly, the entire staff was a patchwork of lefty aces in their prime (Tommy John and Ron Guidry) and all-time greats who were making their way out of the league: Luis Tiant (39), Gaylord Perry (41), and Jim Kaat (41) all pitched for the Yankees that year. The Yankees also half-heartedly tried a couple of kids, Mike Griffin (who never got established) and Tim Lollar (who did, though not with them). There was also another starter, lefty Tom Underwood, who was 26, young for the Yankees, but he was actually a six-year veteran. Behind them, Goose Gossage and Ron Davis did their best to keep the games short and largely succeeded.
It wasn’t a staff that was designed, and it probably shouldn’t have worked, but somehow, when combined with a strong offense and an average defense, it all came together. By the time it’s all over, the 2011 staff may look something like the 1980 version, but at this stage we can’t say if it will all work or not.
You know how the starting rotation looks like a jazz band called CC and the Question Marks? The latest attempt to replace a ? with a ! is Freddy Garcia, a comeback candidate who last pitched both healthily and well in 2006. Since then, he’s put together a 4.81 ERA in 286 innings and a strikeout rate that’s down to 5.1 per nine. I say “comeback candidate” guardedly, because as I sit here scratching the cat and trying to bring examples to mind, I can’t locate too many 36-year-old pitchers who crawl back onto the horse and deliver a quality performance in a starring role. That goes double for Bartolo Colon, who won a Cy Young Award (in a year in which the voters confused leading the league in wins with leading the league in quality) and then vanished in a cloud of cellulite, an appropriately zaftig 5.18 ERA accumulated over four seasons of poor health accompanying him out of the league after the 2009 season.
The best you can say of these pitchers is that in the past they conquered heights that Sergio Mitre has only seen in picture books. The worst you can say is that not only will they likely not work out, but that they seem spectacularly ill-suited to the Yankee Stadium environment; both are fly-balling right-handers who don’t get many strikeouts at this stage of their careers. Notify Mr. DeMille: David Ortiz is ready for his close-up.
Again, I understand that Brian Cashman didn’t feel comfortable going into the season in which the back of the rotation is composed of Ivan Nova and some other 23-year-old from his stack of Æthelred the Unreadys—or, Heaven forfend, Mitre—just because I think it will work out, but as a result of his various fallbacks, refurbs, and insurance policies, spring training promises to be extremely interesting. This is true not only because, for the first time in years, there are going to be multiple competitions going on, but because those competitions are a double-edged sword. If Colon and Garcia pitch well in Tampa, it probably doesn’t mean much of anything—as variable as pitchers are, this particular group is unlikely to sustain anything special.
Even if they can sustain something un-special, what are you really accomplishing for the organization? Last year, Garcia showed that he could win 12 games while not pitching particularly well because he got some of the best run support in the league. The Yankees can give him that, can bail him out of a 4.50 or 4.75 ERA, but why would they when they have numerous kids who can likely do the same thing? If a Garcia wins 18 games but with a 4.65 ERA while prospects continue to pitch well in the minors, that’s not a success, but it’s a failure, because a year from now, Garcia’s health, age, and luck will have caught up with him, and the team will still need to break in those youngsters, who will be a year older, a year less experienced, and a year closer to injury.
Insurance policies are understandable. Everyone needs them—automobile drivers, home owners, builders of pitching staffs. The real challenge though, will be avoiding the use of that policy at all costs, even when to do so might seem attractive. The Yankees did the right thing, but it would be a mistake to settle.
“Even if they can sustain something un-special, what are you really accomplishing for the organization?”
This is the question that seemingly goes ignored. The whole concept of breaking in a pitcher seems lost on the Yankees. The players have three option years for a reason, yet they used none with Joba. If a young pitcher can’t handle a demotion to AAA how will they handle playoff baseball? With the depth in the system the Yankees could easily go with the hot arm until he’s not. That’s surely better than righty retreads with fly ball tendencies. They’ve been down that road way too many times before (Wright, Ponson, Erickson, Lidle…).
Steve – you are so right! The Yanks are getting older and slower. With the aging left side of the infield set in stone (pun intended), a 38 y/o DH, and Swish coming off a career year, it seems a bit of a stretch to see the Yanks make the playoffs. The run support will be down, unless Montero is the monster we hope for and he gets 400 AB. That being the case, why not let Nova and the B’s have a shot this year – they’d be just as good, and get a jump on 2012.
Yes, I would rather see Andrew Brackman or Manny Banuelos make their major league debut than see Bartolo Colon try to break Babe Ruth’s record for most hotdogs consumed during the 7th inning stretch. I see no reason not to take a chance on a prospect for a back of the rotation spot–in fact, I think that’s what they should be for whenever possible. But to go into the season assuming TWO of them will be ready? I don’t know if that’s wise. At least with Garcia we know what we’re in for–nothing special, but a good solid guy to keep the team in games. I wouldn’t put him out there against the Red Sox or match him up against someone like Cliff Lee, but yes, I think it’s possible he can pitch at better than a AAA level. Remember what happened in 2008? Three rookies in the rotation, none of whom were ready for it. Then again, the team did finish with a winning record that season. But hey, at least it’s not Jeremy Bonderman.
I have little doubt that 2008 is the reason for this continuing nonsense. The problem is the loss of Jorge that season, with no competent backup behind him, and giving Melky a ton of ABs in CF (at 68 OPS+) did more to kill their playoff chances than the failure of the Big Three to mature. In fact, the pitching was actually above average that year (104 ERA+) despite the likes of Rasner and Pontoon and IPK and Hughes stinking up the joint. It was the failure of the offense (101 OPS+) to do much of anything that did them in.
The Yankees now have five or six pitching prospects that could get outs at the major league level. Other teams routinely jump pitchers from AA to the majors. Even then, with the depth in the system that option doesn’t have to be tried until they’ve given Nova, Phelps, Noesi, Mitchell, and even Brackman a shot. As it is, there’s too much emphasis being placed on the 5th man in the rotation. That slot will come maybe three times in April. By May or June, many things will have changed including further advancement from the prospects and other pitchers available through trade.
I didn’t say the failure of Hughes, Joba and Kennedy was the reason they missed the playoffs, I said giving three rookies rotation spots and hoping for the best was a mistake, which it was. One rookie shouldn’t be a problem, but assuming two of them are going to pan out in the same season is a major risk. Then again, there aren’t many options.
You’re missing the point. In spite of trying 2.5 rookies in the rotation (Joba was always going back to the pen to be babied), as well as Rasner and Pontoon, the Yankee pitching was just fine. You’re extrapolating from the smallest sample size possible when even your conclusion is flawed. 2008 wasn’t about the rookies.
Risk is all based on the options available. Colon and Garcia, in their retread form, don’t minimize risk more so than rookies with decent BB and K rates. If anything, the history of crappy fly ball righties in Yankees Stadium over the last six or seven years should be much more of an alarm than one year in which one set of rookies were poorly developed. Unless you want to indict the Yankees’ inability to develop said pitching?
Excellent point, Steve. You hit it right on the head.
If the Yanks don’t want Mitre as the 5th starter, I respect that and I don’t blame them. But don’t go trolling through the bargain bin at Goodwill looking for a diamond in the rough. If all they’re looking for is replacement level output at best, then they can probably get that from their Triple-A arms, which helps the team in the short term and long term by getting those young guys the experience they need to become viable Major League starting pitchers.
People need to ease up on Killer B talk, though. Those guys still need a little work in The Minors to adjust to the change in skill level, and 2 of them will be on innings limits this year. Think Noesi, Phelps, and Warren as a start for Triple-A guys who could come in and produce right away.
I *am* big. It’s the *parks* that got small.
“Behind them, Goose Gossage and Ron Davis did their best to keep the games short and largely succeeded”
This is an enormous understatement which leads to missing a key point. This pair delivered 230 (!) innings of butt-kicking relief. This is roughly 110 innings more than the 2011 team can expect from Rivera and Soriano. That puts far more pressure on the shoddy rotation and the rest of the bullpen.
Excellent point, Bill. But the Yankees have Joba in the 6th inning!
By the way, let’s look at how they “gave” three rookies rotation slots in 2008:
Rotation by games started:
Mike Mussina – 34 GS
Andy Pettitte – 33 GS
Darell Rasner – 20 GS
Chien-Ming Wang – 15 GS
Sidney Ponson – 15 GS
Joba Chamberlain – 12 GS
Ian Kennedy – 9 GS
Phil Hughes – 8 GS
Carl Pavano – 7 GS
In other words, Ponson and Rasner (two guys who didn’t pitch in the majors two years later) were “given” more starts than the three heralded prospects. Kennedy is now a league pitcher. And Ross Ohlendorf was only trusted out of the pen that year and the same is true of him today.
The Yankees have have committed to Hughes, despite the results. They should be doing the same to their youth. They’re not developing the prospects because they keep relying on the slop. If not now, when?
“Kennedy is now a league *average* pitcher.”
Kudos Steve for working in a reference to Æthelred the Unready.