The Bronx View

The Bronx View podcast is a biweekly show hosted by Ian Collier and Scott Ham that discusses the Yankees and Major League Baseball.

This week, Ian and Scott talk about the pitching in spring training and give their division and individual award predictions.

NOTE: Sorry about the noise on this week’s show.  We’ve been having some tech difficulties the last couple of shows.

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I’m proud to announce that this is the one millionth post on the internet about Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes!  In honor of this occasion, we’re having ribs.

But seriously… I do some driving throughout the day.  Not a lot.  I’m not a salesman or taxi driver.  But I spend some time in my car.

Because of this, I usually wind up listening to sports talk radio. I’ve given up on the FM dial, especially in New York where the radio is flooded with pop music, classic rock and little else. For someone who likes sports and hates popular music, there is little choice.

It’s not easy, though.  It’s darn near impossible to be an objective baseball fan while gathering your news from the New York media. News in general is so slanted toward the negative while the pundits make their ratings by expressing what they believe to be the contrary opinion. This usually has the reverse effect when those that actually do gather their news from these sources repeat these contrary opinions at the water cooler the next day.

It’s no wonder why so many people on 660 WFAN in New York call up with so many crazy ideas.

I firmly believe that this rampant contrarian point of view is part of the reason why the baseball writing establishment has had such a difficult time accepting the concept of sabermetrics. It’s not that sabermetrics represents anything bad.  Even the most uninformed statistical person would have to concede that the intentions of the people creating some of these new statistics are pure and can therefore assume that they’re not insidiously hiding negative factors into WAR and Win Shares just to stick it to Murray Chase.

In fact, it’s not so much what sabermetrics does that is threatening to the baseball writing establishment, but what it encourages: objective analysis.

Some of the newer statistics can bend your mind a little bit.  I won’t deny that.  But there has also been an effort to make reading these statistics easier by basing them against the league average.  The higher you are above zero or one hundred (depending on your statistic), the better the player has performed. This makes looking at certain numbers pretty easy.

Most writers in the mainstream baseball media don’t care about such things, though.  The average Yankee fan isn’t going to call up Mike Francesa at WFAN and and talk about Derek Jeter’s steadily improving UZR over the last few seasons. It’s too much work for Joe Baseballfan and way too much work for Mike Francesa to either store that information in his brain or type fast enough to load FanGraphs and speak confidently on the numbers themselves.

More importantly, it’s difficult to be contrarian when presenting actual evidence. It’s much easier to create a false argument based on hyperbole than it is one rooted in fact.  With little actual fact to back up the argument, Joe Baseballfan will get agitated because he disagrees and has a different hyperbolic, unquantifiable reason why, say…  Robinson Cano can’t seem to hit in the clutch.  In it’s own way, it benefits the mainstream media to be lazy and vague because presenting good evidence would curb discussion that drives ratings and what few newspaper sale there are left.

Rarely has this dysfunctional form of communication ignited a story more than the ongoing saga of Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes.

The Yankees entered spring training saying all the right things: nobody has the fifth starter job locked up; everyone has a chance, regardless of their role last year; this is a competition and may the best man win.

That’s all fine.  Baseball is a sport, after all, and if nothing else sport is rooted in competition. It should be competition that theoretically brings out the best in an athlete’s performance.  The need to work hard and excel at one’s craft should go a long way toward improving that person’s skills and ability.

So yeah, I get why the Yankees have entered the spring with that as their mantra both in the fifth starter’s slot and in left field. The thing is, when it comes to the rotation, I have a hard time believing it.

The Yankees have spent the last two seasons nurturing Joba Chamberlain’s young arm in preparation for a hopefully injury-free career as a starting pitcher.  They did this for one reason: they believe Joba has the ability to be a good or, dare I say great, starting pitcher.

Joba’s performance to this point has been a bit confusing.  In 2008, after leaving the bullpen to join the rotation, Joba posted an impressive 2.76 ERA in an injury shortened season. In 2009 as a starter, he posted a more pedestrian and below league average 4.78 ERA.

Which is the real Joba?  One would hope he’s somewhere in between.  Considering the Joba was only 23 last season, we have every reason to believe that he will steadily improve for a couple of seasons barring any type of permanent or lingering arm damage.  That’s a reasonable expectation given what we know about how starting pitchers develop.

The Yankees are aware of this, too, which makes the current competition for the fifth starter’s spot a little strange. Surely, the Yankees can’t base the future of both Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain on a bunch of starts in spring training.  We do have a track record of what both pitchers have done in the majors so far which is much more indicative of their abilities than 22 innings in Tampa.  Joba’s ability to start without limitation this season compared to Hughes’ limited innings would seem to be the deciding factor, especially given the Yankees acquisition of Javier Vazquez in an effort to secure more innings out of their starters.

It would also seem that if Joba were to fail in spring training on such a level as to force his way out of the rotation, it would be questionable whether he could be trusted in the bullpen.  He only needs to be good, not great, to get the fifth starters spot.  If he can’t be trusted there, he probably can’t be trusted anywhere.

Consider Joba and Hughes’ career numbers in the majors:

(the bold columns are only there to make it easier to read)

Joba has more innings and also a better overall performance but his trend has been upward a bit.  Hughes, meanwhile, dealt with a leg injury in 2008 that severely limited his innings and went to the bullpen last season to get more major league experience.  Both men are decent pitchers for their ages which means their success in the bullpen should not be a surprise.  Both have also exhibited the same pattern, which is pitching very well out of the pen and having more difficulty in the rotation.

That’s to be expected for a young pitcher.  The Yankees are not an organization that typically allows a starting pitcher, never mind two, to develop on the major league roster.  That makes it difficult to plan a full season of work for both men in 2010.

But there will likely be opportunities for a sixth starter to make a major contribution in 2010.  In 2009, five starters outside of the main four combined for 32 starts.  In 2008, the Yankees spread 33 starts amongst 7 starters who weren’t considered part of the rotation while Joba,  Sidney Ponson and Chien-Ming Wang split 42 starts in the fifth spot.  In 2007, the also split 29 starts between eight different starters.

The moral of the story?  More likely than not, there will be opportunities for Phil Hughes to pitch in the rotation at the major league level, making this little competition with Joba somewhat unnecessary.

The remaining question: where do you put Hughes in the meantime that he can be stretched out and ready for the rotation when/if that opportunity arises?  They can keep him in the pen and try and get him longer outings so that stretching him out could be a relatively quick and painless process.  They can make him a long man, possibly as a caddy to Joba should he struggle, but the expected innings would be a gamble.  Or, they can send him to the minors and let him start there until needed.

The minors is probably a waste of his arm and the long man option is a minefield of missed opportunities.  The best thing is probably for Hughes to start in the pen, hopefully throwing 2+ inning outings as much as he can.  If the rotation opened up, he could either make a few short starts with a long reliever as a caddy or go to AAA Scranton for three starts and get himself up to five innings if the need is long term.

The Bronx View podcast is a biweekly show hosted by Ian Collier and Scott Ham that discusses the Yankees and Major League Baseball.

This week, Ian and Scott talk about Johnny Damon, discuss the Yankees off-season moves, and hammer out the left field and fifth starter situations.

Download | Previous Episodes

Today, Mark McGwire admitted to having used steroids during his playing career.

For anyone with even a passing interest in baseball, this won’t be surprising.

What’s surprising to me is how sad I find this whole situation.

“I’m not here to talk about the past,” McGwire so infamously stated during a 2005 Congressional hearing ostensibly called to determine just how pervasive steroid use was in Major League Baseball.  I say ostensibly because while that may be how the hearing was portrayed to the public, in actuality it was little more than a cynical witch hunt designed to put a few of our more, shall we say, ambitious Congressmen in front of a national television audience.

They wanted to appear tough to their constituency.  They wanted to act as guardians of our nation’s great pastime.  They wanted blood.

March 16th, 2005 certainly wasn’t one of Major League Baseball’s greatest days.  We saw Rafael Palmeiro, one of his generation’s very greatest baseball talents, state with conviction, “I have never used steroids, period”.  This statement  began to live in infamy when, in August of that same year, Palmeiro tested positive for a banned substance and was suspended for 10 games.

Baseball fans watched intently in July of 2005 as Palmeiro became 1 of only 4 players in the game’s great history to collect 3000 hits and 500 home runs.  Just one month later, the man had to wear cotton balls in his ears to drown out of the chorus of boos and cat calls he was receiving on a nightly basis at visiting ballparks.

Just like that, in the blink of an eye or the prick of a needle, Rafael Palmeiro was transformed from finger-wagging, steroid-denying braggadocio to lowly, sad, broken former superstar.   His reputation will never fully recover.  He has slipped from a shoo-in first ballot Hall of Famer to now occupying the same purgatory as McGwire, whose testimony at that same Congressional hearing was so disastrous, so shockingly unconvincing, that for 5 years it has been looked upon as a covert confession.

Or at least until today.  McGwire, with languishing support for his Hall of Fame candidacy and a new job as the St. Louis Cardinals’ hitting coach, felt today was the right time to admit to everything everyone has suspected him of doing long since.

Think about it – what has changed in this nation’s consciousness between 1998 and 2010 to make us all so cynical when it comes to big guys putting up big numbers?  In 1998, we watched in anticipation as McGwire and Sammy Sosa both embarked on a chase to shatter one of baseball’s oldest and most hallowed records – Roger Maris’ 61 homeruns, set in the year 1961.  McGwire finished the 1998 season with 70 homeruns, Sosa with 66. In 1998, baseball fans could look upon those numbers and smile.  Nowadays, we look upon them and frown.

We collectively made these guys into folk heros just 12 years ago.  Now, there’s a constant campaign to denigrate them with nasty rumors, with vicious innuendo.  McGwire has been routinely mocked for his Congressional performance, his reluctance to discuss the past morphing into a national punchline.  He’s been portrayed as a hermit, a liar, a fraud, a bad person.  Sosa, meanwhile, is a particular kind of punching bag.  He’s been mocked for his shaky English during the 2005 hearing, was mocked for making a comeback attempt in 2007, and more recently, was mocked for appearing ‘too white’ at a public event.

When it was all happening, it was so exciting.  Baseball took a hit following the 1994 strike, but during the 1998 season, as McGwire and Sosa slugged their way into the history books, fans began to crawl back to the game they used to passionately love.  These were big guys with big personalities, hitting baseballs a very long way, and the country was enthralled.  I’ll never forget watching McGwire’s record breaking homerun quickly disappear just over the left field wall in St. Louis, and the joyous celebration that followed.  Everyone was in the big guy’s corner.

Four years later, he followed some bad legal advice and kept his mouth shut at a Congressional hearing that felt a lot like baseball’s own version of a witch hunt.  His eyes filled with tears.  It hurt him to be there, clearly, and the barrage of questions from our nation’s concerned Congressmen made it difficult to stick to the script.  He was drowning up there, and it was sad.  A lot of people thought it was funny.

The truth is a lot more complex than simply saying “Mark McGwire broke the rules”.  Yes, of course, he did break the rules; he used steroids, and steroids were not legal in baseball despite the absence of what one could term an MLB steroids ‘policy’.  That didn’t occur until 2003, and even then was only used as a survey to determine how serious it all was.  Turns out, it was pretty serious.

But a larger part of the truth is that taking steroids helped keep McGwire on the field, doing the things that he earned millions of dollars for doing – and that earned him the adulation of millions of people.  It’s not so black and white as “he cheated”.  Yes, he cheated, but there was an culture of cheating in baseball at the time, a culture that the public and particularly the baseball press chose actively to ignore.  McGwire could have sat idly by as countless peers used steroids to extend their careers, to improve their offensive output, to get stronger, faster, better.  He could have taken the high road – of course he could have – but what’s the likelihood that you, or I, or anyone in that particular climate would have chosen peace of mind over millions of dollars in salary and endorsements and the chance to break some storied records and to be admired?

Everyone enjoyed the ride 12 years ago.  We thought baseball was entering another Golden Age.  Now, people want to look at the the numbers compiled during this era and demolish them, strike them from the books as though they never happened.

They did happen.  And you probably loved it.  Baseball owners loved it.  Fans loved it.  The press loved it.

I’m not saying what McGwire did is right.  But he’s one of many, and he’s only human.  To single him out, to ridicule him and denigrate his character seems unfair.  My takeaway from all this is not to tear down those that did use, but to have a heightened respect for those whose character was strong enough to abstain.  McGwire was only going along for the ride, giving the people what they wanted, doing the thing he most loved to do, quite possibly the only thing he could do.

Were you not entertained?

The Bronx View has a special section called The Bullpen which features writers who may not contribute on a daily or weekly basis but have a great perspective on the New York Yankees and Major League Baseball.

This week, Tom K. contributes his thoughts about left field.

Since I was so “accurate” with my pitching options entry, I have now decided to breakdown some of the options for left field in 2010.

I intentionally decided to withhold typing this up until after Jason Bay and Matt Holliday signed; as it seemed that a strong percentage of Yankees fans wanted one or the other very badly.  I am not one of those fans; while Holliday would have given this team a shot at legendary offense status, the fact is that you don’t need to be a legendary offense to win.

So, let’s run down the candidates – internally and those who are available on the market.

Brett Gardner (26 years old; .270/.345/.379; 26-for-31 stolen bases) – Back when he was a prospect in the Yankees’ system, a lot of people commented on the unique qualities of Gardner.  He wasn’t exactly a unique prospect; but he was a unique Yankees prospect in that his power had no projection whatsoever, but his speed/defense/plate discipline were all above average attributes.  Thus far, Gardner hasn’t done a great job taking walks at the major league level (34 in 425 career plate appearances), but his minor league history suggests that there could be improvement on the horizon.  The benefits of Gardner taking walks are obvious:  He can steal plenty of bases, and he doesn’t have much power anyway.  If you have a choice between a walk and a single, take the walk – the defense can make a play on a potential single, after all.

Reed Johnson (33 years old; .255/.330/.412) – Reed isn’t as much competition for Gardner as he would be a complement to Gardner.   Johnson has a history of injury issues, especially to his back, but also has a history of hitting very well vs. left-handed pitching (.313/.378/.463 in his career; and he has maintained this throughout his career).    He’s also, according to UZR, a very solid left fielder who can probably also spell Nick Swisher in right.     The injuries are a valid concern, however – so the Yankees would have to determine whether or not he can hold up even as a platoon player.   Injury issues do not tend to get better for baseball players approaching their mid-30s.     Overall, he’d likely be quite cheap – and if you can get lucky with his health, he’ll be productive in a 4th outfielder/platoon role.

Johnny Damon (36 years old; .282/.365/.489) – Someone in the front office was paying good attention when they recommended that the Yankees sign Johnny Damon.   It could have just been a lucky guess, but I doubt Brian Cashman takes very many lucky guesses when he looks to sign a player to a 4-year contract.   Damon produced his 2nd and 3rd best slugging percentage seasons while with the Yankees, all while being beyond his prime.    His defense has definitely tumbled through the years (something tells me that the Yankees thought he’d still be an adequate left fielder even as his contract winded down; but it didn’t work out that way), but overall, Damon was one very solid investment for the franchise.    So, what do they do now?  By most accounts, Damon has cost himself money on the free agent market; the Yankees were much more willing to give him a decent contract a month or so ago than they are now.   Now, they want him back at a bargain price and nothing else.      Something to ponder:   Despite a BABIP of .314 in September, Damon still stumbled to a .247/.350/.315 finish; random data noise or the beginning of an offensive decline?    That could be one reason why the Yankees would probably refuse now to go beyond one year.

Rick Ankiel (30 years old; .231/.285/.387) – Talk about UGLY.   Ankiel was flat out brutal at the plate in 2009; the Cardinals insisted on throwing him out there as often as possible (404 plate appearances), but the Cardinals at the end of the day would have been better off plucking some kid off of a high school diamond and inserting him into their starting lineup.    However, it should be noted that Ankiel did slug .417 off of right-handed pitching, and has slugged .462 off of them in his major league career.    This is not to say we should ignore his 2009 totals (afterall, his batting average & OBP vs. righties were brutal), but it could give a glimmer of hope to the Yankees if they feel his swing is made for the ballpark.   The ultimate low-risk, high-reward player if you can get him at a bargain bin price, and he may just have to take such a deal at this point.  There’s plenty of corner outfield fish in the sea, and not many fishermen are going to want to catch a guy coming off of this type of season.    The Yankees, however, have a hole to fill and a ballpark that may make Ankiel more intriguing to them than most other teams.

Xavier Nady (31 years old; barely played in 2009) – We obviously all know about Nady, a corner position player who put up a solid though not spectacular 2008 season that lead the Yankees to dealing for him midway through that campaign.   Nady has a .792 career OPS, and 108 OPS+ putting him right on the borderline as a corner outfielder.   He doesn’t really bring any one great attribute to the plate; not a big home run hitter, not someone who takes a lot of walks, not someone who is going to hit for a big average, and not someone who will steal much when he does get on.    However, he does just enough at the plate to make him a useful major league contributor and hits left-handed pitching very well (and is good enough vs. right-handed pitching where you feel comfortable giving him playing time to keep him sharp).    If reports are accurate, Nady’s price tag is too steep currently for the Yankees.  That does seem a bit odd to me, given he is coming off of an injury.  My thinking would be that Nady will gladly accept a one-year deal loaded with incentives in an attempt to reestablish his market value for 2011, but if he doesn’t feel the same way, then he is no great loss obviously.

Jamie Hoffman (25 years old; 4-for-22 in 2009 cup of coffee) – From the sounds of things, the Yankees are very intrigued by Hoffman.   So much so that they traded Brian Bruney for the mere rights to draft him in the Rule 5 draft, with no guarantees that they’ll be able to keep him.   From minor league reports, it appears that Hoffman is a gifted defensive outfielder without much power.  He has good speed, but has yet to translate that into a high stolen base percentage and is supposedly good versus left-handed pitching.    This is not the type of player you hand the keys to in spring training for a starting job, but if the Yankees feel there is potential here, they could use him as the 25th man on the roster.      I would rather have Gardner, though so his best chance to make the team in my opinion is if Gardner is handed the left-field job, leaving an additional opening on the bench.

Marcus Thames (33 years old; .252/.323/.453) – Thames’ claim to fame was hitting a home run off of Randy Johnson in his major league debut.   Some may even think that is his only claim to fame, but Thames has become a very useful major league power hitter.    One comparison I like to make is GlenAllen Hill; Thames can’t play defense very well, he’ll strike out a ton, and he won’t take a huge amount of walks.   But when he does connect, the balls jump out of the ballpark.  He has hit 101 home runs in 1,549 career plate appearances and boasts a .491 career slugging percentage despite having a .243 career batting average.   The Yankees are obviously not lacking for power, but Thames can definitely fill a role on the bench as a right-handed bat for Girardi to go to to give Nick Johnson, Brett Gardner, or Nick Swisher a night off.    He’s used to playing a reduced role, which is also helpful.      The biggest drawback of course is the defense.     Given that one role for Thames would be that of pinch-hitting for Gardner late in a game, you’d probably want another OF on the bench to go into the game once he is done hitting.  Perhaps that is where a Hoffman could come into play.

Fernando Tatis (35 years old; .282/.339/.438) – Hey, I like to make fun of Omar Minaya & the Mets as much as anyone.   But whether it was by dumb lack or not, Tatis turned into a very wise two-year investment by the Mets’ franchise.    Tatis was worth 1.6 wins over replacement in 2008, and followed that up with a 1.5 WAR in 2009.   These aren’t numbers that legends are made of, but for a part-time player, you can’t help but notice that he has been useful.     In a very small sample size of 178 innings in 2009, Tatis posted a 17.1 UZR in left field.   (In 2008, his number was -5.2 in 284 innings; though his overall outfield number was -0.8).   I am not advocating the signing of Tatis, but if it is a right-handed bench bat that the Yankees are after, they could do worse…even if he would be sloppy seconds.

Rocco Baldelli (28 years old; .253/.311/.433) – We’ve all heard about Baldelli’s illness; and whether or not he has the severe case or the not-so-severe case, the bottom line is that it will always affect his ability to play major league baseball.   The mere fact that he can actually play baseball is a testament to his will and his athletic ability.    He has plenty of limitations in that you won’t be able to play him everyday; and there may be a period of several days where he’ll have trouble getting onto the field.   But Baldelli is still a solid contributor when he does put on the uniform.  He played a poor right field for the 2009 Red Sox, but has been generally a solid outfielder throughout his career.     However, the bottom line is that Cashman probably wants to bring in someone who gives Girardi flexibility, and Baldelli doesn’t really offer that as you don’t know if he’ll be able to play until he comes to the ballpark every day. It’s no fault of Baldelli’s of course; but it is a tough way for a major league manager to operate.

Gary Sheffield (41…)  OK, I am only kidding.   Relax.

As for the trade market, you can probably always find a team or two dangling a corner outfielder in front of you.  In some cases, it’s a high-salaried player they just want to dump.  In other cases, it’s just the mere fact that there is no big shortage of corner outfielders & corner outfield prospects, making more players expendable.    I just don’t personally see anyone out there who the Yankees would be looking to acquire at this point.  For one thing, they have dealt away a decent chunk of their middling prospects over the past few seasons, thinning out the “middle layer” of their farm system a bit.    For another, they don’t want to take on someone else’s salary problem at this point and they probably feel that the free agents on the market are just as useful as anyone they could trade for.

A name you may hear, however:

David DeJesus (.281/.347/.434) – DeJesus is a decent enough hitter who was a terrible defensive center fielder in 2008.   (Though it should be noted that he has been generally solid in center field in his career).   However, he played a majority of his time in left field in 2009 and came out smelling like a rose, putting up a 15.7 UZR.   Over the course of his career, DeJesus is an 18.8 in left field in 2,263 innings.  In other words, if you want to sure up the defense with a bat that is a bit more of a sure thing than Gardner, than DeJesus could be your man.    However, the Royals probably overvalue him (they are the Royals, after all) and although I would personally see him as an upgrade over Gardner, it’s not by much.  Definitely not by enough for me to give up much of value to get him.   Chone has him at 2.5 WAR in 2010; Gardner is a projected 2.2.

Who would I choose?  I would personally go with Brett Gardner while adding Marcus Thames for some pop off of the bench from the right-side of the plate.  In an ideal world, the Yankees would have a “jack of every trades” in the #25 spot on the roster (a Jerry Hairston type) who can fill in everywhere and go in for defense on those nights you use Thames to pinch hit for Gardner late in the game.    The Yankees supposedly wanted to see if Ramiro Pena can be that type of player, and the jury is still way out there on whether or not he can do it.

Uh….  what?

Pujols is talking a good game with the Cardinals. But can he really ignore the 10-year, $27.5 million-per-year deal that Alex Rodriguez got from the Yankees two years ago, when he was older than Pujols will be when his contract ends after the 2011 season? The difficulties tying up Fielder and Gonzalez with the Brewers and Padres are self-evident.

Nothing happens in a vacuum, including the relative lack of spending by the Yankees and Red Sox this offseason. Executives with other clubs believe baseball’s two biggest spenders are sitting out the Matt Holliday sweepstakes because they want as much flexibility as possible to land one of baseball’s four horsemen at some point in the next two years.

The Red Sox have been pursuing a Gonzalez trade. Given Kevin Youkilis’ ability to play either infield corner and their holding a club option on David Ortiz’s contract for 2011, they would be a fit for any of the four.

The Yankees are keeping the DH spot clear, for the time being, as a potential way to accommodate Pujols, Fielder or even Gonzalez playing alongside Mark Teixeira. They have advanced catching prospects ( Jesus Montero and Austin Romine) to offer if the Twins reach a choking point with Mauer, which Mauer will dictate more than the club.

That’s Phil Rogers at the Chicago Tribune and this discussion is fairly ridiculous.

I agree that the Yankees have been holding off signing another large contract this winter for a reason.  Maybe even two reasons.

One of those reasons is that Matt Holliday is not worth the money or years that he is going to get.  Ditto John Lackey.

Another reason is that there is a fairly good free agent class next year, one that probably addresses the Yankees needs more than the current one.

The Yankees unwillingness to drop a large sum on players this offseason is a matter of practicality.  Most people don’t go out and overpay for things they don’t really want or need and neither does Brian Cashman.

Rogers is taking this idea a bit too far.  I’m sure the Yankees would have some interest in Pujols.  Who wouldn’t?  He’s one of the most well-rounded players to come around in some time.

Is it really reasonable to think that the Yankees have Pujols in mind for designated hitter though?  The guy is one of the best defensive first baseman in the game, arguably much better than Teixeira.  It makes little sense for the Yankees to try and take his glove away and even less sense for Pujols to willingly give it up.

Prince Fielder is a DH in waiting but that doesn’t mean he’ll just give up first base either.  He hasn’t been an average first baseman defensively, but he actually has improved in each of the last three years, giving him little motivation to devalue himself at DH.  Same goes for Adrian Gonzales.

Joe Mauer is a whole ‘nother story.   Mauer is the rare player who excels offensively and defensively at a typically weak position like catcher, making the the cost of acquiring him the biggest stumbling block.  Cashman didn’t give up the farm for Johan Santana because there was a free agent waiting in the wings named CC Sabathia.  There was no need to lose prospects and money when just money would get the job done.  The Yankees are flush with catching talent which doesn’t guarantee a future All Star catcher but it does raise the odds.  Trading a batch of grade A prospects and paying Mauer’s $20 mill/year salary is a lot more costly than having Romine or Montero succeed at the major league level with minimum salaries along the way.

There is precedent, though.  The Austin Jackson/Curtis Granderson trade taught us that a prospect is tradable if the player you get in return matches that prospects ceiling.  Nobody knew what to expect from Austin Jackson, but if he turned into Curtis Granderson, everyone would be happy.  Therefore, swapping AJax’s potential for Granderson’s resume makes sense and lessens the gamble of the prospect not working out.

In all of this discussion, we have to remember that we’re talking about the catcher position.  Catchers in the AL last season held a .724 OPS, the 2nd worst position ranking in the league (shortstop was worst at .719).  Having a catcher like Mauer in his prime (27 years old  in 2010) is a rare and valuable thing.  A league average left fielder last season had a .780 OPS, .803 in right field.  Paying premium for top shelf talent at catcher is a significant upgrade over the average character and creates a deeper lineup.

If Mauer became available this coming July, would the Yankees give up the farm for him?  Probably.  Posada wouldn’t like it and is signed through 2011, but he could be the backup catcher and DH going through the end of his contract.  Jesus Montero and Austin Romine would have good trade value whether in acquiring Mauer or through other trades.  It would be a win-win for the Yankees as their catching depth in the minors would play very well in acquiring other pieces such as corner outfielders or starting pitching.

Then there’s also the possibility Mauer decides to become a free agent.  If that happens, all bets are off.