Ken Singleton told me tonight (through the television) that there were two key things that helped shape the Yankees this season:
- Phil Hughes moved to the bullpen and has been dominating.
- Derek Jeter and Johnny Damon flipped places in the order, with Jeter batting leadoff.
Hughes going to the bullpen has obviously helped. Of his 30 appearances, 15 have occurred when the game was either tied or the Yankees were ahead by one run. Hughes has only give up five runs in 38 innings of relief, striking out 48 and walking 10.
He’s been great, no doubt. But… it’s 38 innings. In those 15 games, the Yankees average margin of victory was 1.87 runs, and that’s with only six ties and one loss. The Yankee offense has certainly carried it’s weigh and, even if Hughes had put up an ERA of 3.00 or slightly higher, they would still be in pretty good shape.
Flipping Damon and Jeter probably has had even less impact on the team than Hughes in the pen.
Jim Baumbach from Newsday reported at the time:
Manager Joe Girardi said the reason for the switch is because the team likes how Damon has looked batting second in spring training games. As long as the Yankees like what they see over the final week of spring training games, the team will bring this lineup into the regular season.
The new look at the top of the batting order also is an indication that the Yankees will use Brett Gardner as their everyday centerfielder. Gardner figures to be the ninth hitter, and if Damon was batting leadoff opponents would likely bring a lefthanded specialist to face both hitters. Putting Jeter first splits the two lefthanded hitters.
Of course the team liked how Damon looked. A good hitter looks like a good hitter and Damon is having his best season ever (with a tip of the ol’ cap to the new Yankee Stadium).
That doesn’t mean that batting him second somehow changed his approach. Damon’s slugging percentage has certainly improved this year (.519), but his road slugging percentage is .438 and right in line with his career mark of .440.
Jeter has been putting up great OBP numbers and there’s little reason to believe he wouldn’t be doing the same batting second. The only difference there may be with Jeter is his tendency to think small ball is a good idea. The man has been on fire lately, yet he still felt the need to bunt runners over last week when he should have been swinging away. Derek may take his role as leadoff hitter as a slight change in philosophy if he is indeed hungup on the so-called tenets of the game.
But realistically, the only benefit I can see from the numbers is that Jeter’s double plays are down. At the same time, Johnny Damon’s are up. The Brett Gardner experiment didn’t last too long and there was no hurry to switch them back despite a slow start.
This decision may have had as much to do with trying to ease the burden of stealing bases off of Johnny Damon’s legs as anything else. Damon stole 29 bases in 37 attempts last season. This year he’s stolen 10 out of 10. Jeter last season stole 11 out of 16. This year? 23 out of 28.
Those are the only areas where you can find any level of improvement based on the switch: a few less double plays and a few more stolen bases, averaging out to maybe a few more runs and possibly a win.
The Yankees are currently 7.5 games ahead of the Red Sox in the East. I’m not going to go out on a limb and say that Jeter and Damon switching has been a key. It hasn’t hurt, but it hasn’t changed the world, either.
Scott Ham blogs about the Yankees here and at TheBronxView.com, as well as hosting The Bronx View Yankee Podcast. He can be reached at feedback@thebronxview.com.
