The Bronx View

The Yankees and Twins kickoff their American League Division Series tonight and we’ll be blogging it live.

Join us here, at The Bronx View, follow us on Twitter.

We’ll be blogging the whole game (minus a bathroom break and possible child-related interruptions).  Read along, comment, and be part of the conversation.

Thanks and enjoy the game!

Remember?  It was just this past winter.  Seems like a lifetime ago, but it wasn’t.  It was December 12th, 2008.  The day the Yankees officially inked AJ Burnett to a contract, locked him in as a member of the Bombers’ rotation through 2013.

There was some outcry.  Singing a historically fragile pitcher to a 5-year, 82.5 million dollar contract?  Ludicrous.  The Evil Empire at its worst.  Burnett appeared Atlanta bound for a minute, but then Brian Cashman and the big-money Yankees swooped in and overwhelmed the hard-throwing righty.  Five years?  An average annual value of 16.5 million?  Absurdity.  Burnett was a frustrating player, a guy with a world of ability and some of the best raw stuff  in the Major Leagues, but an inability to translate this talent into a great season – unless he was about to reach free agency.  In his two walk years, 2005 and 2008, Burnett had pitched two of his merely 3 years of 200+ innings.  In the first two years of his contract with the Blue Jays, Burnett threw 135.2 and 165.2 IP.  In the third year – the walk year, due to an opt out option OK’ed by then-GM JP Ricciardi – he thew a career high 221.1.  Coincidence?

Why Burnett?  Why not Lowe, a pitcher with at least 32 starts in each of his last 7 seasons, a guy who was coming off a season in which he posted a 3.24 ERA and had not posted an ERA over 4 in 4 seasons?  A guy noted for his durability, his consistency, his proclivity to induce groundballs?  I was in the Lowe camp – go for the sure thing.  Don’t overpay for upside – look at results.

I was wrong.  So was everyone else.  At least in 2009.

Lowe’s struggles this season were startling – 15-10, 4.67 ERA, 89 ERA+.  All this done in the National League.  Imagine his translated American League line, particularly pitching in the East.  He had a 5.05 ERA in the second half and gave up the most hits of any pitcher in the National League while failing to reach 200 IP (he logged 194.2, compared to Burnett’s 207).

Burnett, on the other hand, despite his streakiness, finished the season at 13-9, 4.04 ERA, 110 ERA+ in the AL East.  He was 3.2 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) and ended up being worth $14.5 million according to Fangraphs.  Lowe, meanwhile, ends up at 2.7 WAR and a value of $12.3 million.  His contract calls for an Average Annual Value of $15 million.  When we factor in league differences, it’s pretty obvious that Burnett has been the better value.

“Carl Pavano” was a name that popped up often when discussing Burnett’s deal.  An oft-injured pitcher given a lucrative multi-year contract?  Deja vu all over again.

One thing most critics – including myself – didn’t take into account was Burnett’s talent.  His stuff has always been electric.  Pavano was not that type of pitcher.  He was a pitch-to-contact, National League guy coming off a season in which he worked in a pitcher’s park with a solid defense, and posted a crazy lucky .285 Batting Average On Balls In Play (BABIP).  Burnett, meanwhile, was a guy coming off a season in which he led the American League in strikeouts and toiled in the same division as the Yankees.

In 2009, Lowe gave up a .333 BABIP, a far cry from a career rate of .295.  It was an unlucky year for him; perhaps his luck would have been different if he were with the Yankees and their much-improved defense.  But the smarter money is on this: AJ Burnett is a more talented pitcher than Derek Lowe.  He’s younger, suddenly durable, has a nuclear curveball and a fastball with a ton of movement and velocity.  Power pitching wins in the playoffs, which is where the Yankees will find themselves come Wednesday.  If you had to choose a horse to bet on in Game 2 or 3 of the ALDS, would it be Burnett and his potential for dominance and recent run of success?  Or Lowe, his inconsistent sinker, 4.67 ERA, and 5.1 K/9 rate?

When we look at Burnett’s contact, perhaps it’s best to compare apples to apples.  Rather than comparing him to Pavano, we should have been looking at a guy like Gil Meche, who had always flashed dynamite stuff but a frustrating lack of consistency.  In his first two years with the Royals after signing a widely-mocked contract, he posted ERA + figures of 128 and 107.  The Yankees banked on talent and upside, throwing caution to the wind and leaving the older, more consistent, more durable, but more underwhelming pitcher to another team.  As of October 2009, the Yankees bet right.

Random thoughts while recovering from the spate of illnesses to attack my household…

•  If you’re a basebal fan, especially a Yankee fan, October has to be your favorite time of year.

Except these two days.

I’m not much of a football fan, but if I was, the two weeks between the conference championships and the Super Bowl would destroy me.  I guess I should consider myself fortunate that there are only two off days between the end of the season and the start of the playoffs.  It could be worse.

But, man. What a long two days this is going to be.

•  Speaking of the next two days, Tuesday’s tiebreaker between the Twins and the Tigers marks the third such game in as many years.  There could have been one in the AL East in 2005, but the second place team would have clinched the wild card, so they used head to head records to determine the East winner.

I wasn’t a big fan of the wild card when it first started in 1995, despite the fact that it got the Yankees into the playoffs for the first time since 1981.  And even now, despite some great games involving wild card teams, I’m still not thrilled, mainly because of the best of five format it created in the ALDS.

Sure, the best team should be able to win in five games, but baseball doesn’t always work that way.  Maybe that should be the charm of a short round of playoff games: the chance that a darkhorse team and get some flash in the pan starting pitching and topples a favorite.

That’s not how the sport is constructed, though.  We spend six months following a team through a 162 game schedule, double that of any other professional sport.  Then, after that marathon of a season, fate is left in the hands of a shortened playoff series?

The problem is, the World Series is already scheduled to run into November, with game 7 slotted on November 5th.  How much further can you go?

•  Some people have used ARod’s 2 home run 7 RBI performance yesterday as reason to rip him a bit.

I’m not going to tell you that you should like ARod. Heck, I won’t ask you to root for him, even if you are a Yankee fan.

But let’s not fabricate more reasons to dislike ARod.  He’s given us plenty of fodder over the years.  There’s little reason to start making things up.

It was somewhat magical, unbelievable really, that Rodriguez managed to not only hit two home runs yesterday, but gather 7 RBIs as well, bringing his season total to 30 home runs and 100 RBI.  Those numbers have long been the magical dividing line between a good season and a great season.

In ARod’s case, it meant twelve straight seasons of at least 30 home runs and 100 RBI.  Oh, he also broke the AL record for RBI in an inning with 7 and tied Mark McGwire for eighth on the all-time home run list.

Of course, they came in a meaningless game, so ARod should be derided for doing his job when the game had no bearing on the standings.

That approach is simply absurd.

This reasoning creates a no win situation or ARod.  If he makes an out, he’s unclutch and struggling going into the postseason.  If he hits a home run, he’s a stat padder.

Meanwhile, ARod is just doing his job and doing it pretty well.  It’s the people who are looking for reason to criticize ARod that are creating this ridiculous scenario.

I have never had a lot of respect for ARod and the events surrounding his steroid admission this past spring didn’t help.  I have to give the man credit, however.  He’s spent the majority of this season out of the spotlight.  He’s used his time to try and fix the damage his steroid usage may have created by speaking to groups of kids throughout the country about why he was wrong.

In short, he’s done everything he should have done and more.

You don’t have to like him.  You don’t have to respect him.  But give him credit for trying to do what’s right.