A theme we touched on frequently this season was the poor hitting of Robinson Cano. He started off slow in 2007, but picked it up to finish strong. This year, he had a similarly slow start, but didn’t really pick it up the way he did in ‘07. He had a good May, followed by a mediocre June, a very good July, solid August, and a bad start to September, followed by a strong finish.

To further break down September, Cano hit .167/.167/.229 from September 1 through his benching on September 14-15. From the 16th on he went on a tear, hitting .413/.431/.587. The benching might have served as a wake up call, it might not have. We can’t get in Cano’s head, so we don’t know for sure, but it sounds like it was part of it. The other part, of course, can be illustrated.

The one on the left is Cano’s stance on April 29 (pardon the half-Kenny Rogers). The one on the right is at the end of September. That’s quite a difference in stances. I’m figuring that had something to do with it, too. As Kevin Long said a few times this season, there were just too many moving parts in Cano’s swing. Closing Cano’s stance simplifies his swing, allowing him to make a more balanced strike at the ball.

So why wasn’t this changed earlier in the season? It seems that’s not Long’s style. From Cano himself, in May of this year:

“He gives you a lot of confidence, and that’s the best thing,” Cano said. “He doesn’t change your stance or anything. He’ll tell you you’re a good hitter, but he doesn’t lie to you, either. If he thinks it’s a bad pitch, it’s a bad pitch.”

This helps explain Long’s reluctance to tinker with Cano. He said as much himself:

“You’re reluctant to make those changes when he’s had success,” Long said. “He’s pretty much got to (level) off before you overhaul somebody.”

Long plans to join Cano in the Dominican Republic this winter to continue the refinement of this new approach.

Hopefully, he can get into the groove early in the season and silence critics before they can start up. It’s clear that Cano is a top talent. He plays a premium position, and most of the time plays it well. If he can get his bat going to even 2007 levels, he’ll be a staple in the lineup for years to come. If he can produce at 2006 levels, he’ll be a perennial All-Star, and also win the batting crown that so many pundits have predicted.

In 2008, though, he was a disappointment. There were good times, but those were offset by horrible times. Things came to a head in September, and it looks like he turned things around. Then again, it looked like he turned things around in July, so who knows what this means for the future. At this point, though, I’m not sure the Yanks should shop Cano. His contract, his position, and his potential make him a valuable chip, but they also make him valuable to the team.

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Over his last four postseason appearances, CC Sabathia has not impressed. He’s 1-3 over that span, and in 19 innings, the lefty has surrendered 20 runs on 27 hits and 17 walks. Tonight, against the Phillies, CC had the velocity, but he had no command. Clearly, he seemed fatigued after throwing 500 pitches over two weeks and making three starts in a row on three days’ rest.

While the media will spin this as a story about CC’s inability to pitch in a big game, he’s thrown in three straight big games before today. Rather, if the Yanks are to pursue CC, they should pay careful attention to his regular season innings and realize that, if they want an effective postseason pitcher, they’ll have to manage his innings better than the Indians did last year and the Brewers did this year.

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As part of our continuing effort to run a post mortem on the Yankees’ season, we’re looking at what went wrong. Earlier this week, we looked at Andy Pettitte’s poor second half and the lack of production out of the catcher’s spot. Today we turn to a subject near and dear to our hearts.

Last winter as the Yanks did or did not make an offer for Johan Santana — the official record on that remains a little hazy — we staked a lot on the concept of the Big Three. We were vehemently opposed to included both Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes in the same deal, and we even sold t-shirts.

Needless to say, that didn’t quite work out.

On the season, Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy made 18 appearances for the Yankees, and most people would prefer to forget 16 of those outings. Overall, the pair went 0-8 with a combined 7.45 ERA in just 73.2 innings. They allowed 93 hits and walked 41 while striking out just 50. After a promising end to 2007, these two did not deliver as anyone expected.

Had Hughes and Kennedy turned in at least average performance — 25-30 starts with ERAs under 4.75 — the Yanks would never have needed Darrell Rasner and Sidney Ponson. They probably would have won a few more games, and the team wouldn’t have ended up six games out of a playoff spot.

Of course, it’s not really fair to lump these two pitchers in together. Right now, one still has standing within the organization while the other is in limbo and could very well be moved this off-season. Phil Hughes lost his season to a rib injury. He cracked his rib due to a repetitive motion stress and was on the shelf from May through August. When he finally arrived back in the Bronx, he made two very promising starts, and at 22, he remains a big player in the Yanks’ plans going forward.

Ian Kennedy is a different story. Showing a mix of brash cockiness, confidence and arrogance, Kennedy just couldn’t get outs at the Major League level. He was sent down to AAA twice this year and recalled twice. Each time he came back to the Bronx, he was worse than before. The Yankees don’t seem to mention him too often in their plans for 2009, and he’ll really have to earn a trip back to the Bronx.

But while Kennedy’s stock in the eyes of the fans has fallen, he still has value to the team. The Yanks could include him a trade. He would still fetch a pretty penny, and the Yanks would probably part with him if the price were right. The team could also recognize that young pitchers can take a few years to mature at the Major League level. Kennedy has ran his way through AAA in a way that suggests he’s not being challenged. In the Majors, this year, he looked overmatched, but that’s hardly indicative of future successes or failures.

In the end, the Yankees weren’t bargaining on a Hughes’ injury and Ian Kennedy’s inability to get outs. They could have sustained either one if the other had stayed healthy and effective, but they couldn’t overcome both. It ended up costing them greatly, but we — and the team — will stand behind them. This year may have been a lost year for them, but the slate will be wiped clean in 2009. Next year, you can be though that the Yanks will have a better back-up plan.

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Andy Pettitte will forever be remembered as the last winning pitcher at Yankee Stadium. A week and a half ago, he threw five solid inning to earn himself the W against the Orioles in the Yankee Stadium finale. While the fans gave Pettitte, in potentially his last start, a huge ovation, the last few months of the season were not kind to Pettitte, supposedly one of the anchors of the Yankee rotation.

After the Yanks and Joba Chamberlain downed the Orioles 13-3 on Wednesday, July 30, everything was coming up roses for the Yankees. Counted out in May, the Yanks were four games behind Tampa Bay and just one game the Red Sox for the Wild Card lead. That tantalizing glimpse of postseason hopes would fade the next day.

Andy Pettitte, 12-7 with a 3.76 ERA, would draw the start against Jon Garland and the Angels. While the Yanks would plate eight, Pettitte gave up nine. Over the next few weeks, the Yanks would slip in the standings, and Andy Pettitte couldn’t buy an out.

From that July start until he shut it down early due a sore shoulder, Pettitte would make 11 starts and win just two of them. He would go 2-7; the Yanks would go 2-9. Pettitte threw 65 innings to the tune of a 6.23 ERA. He allowed 87 hits and 22 walks while striking out 51. Opponents hit .323/.374/.461 against him.

On the surface, Pettitte’s numbers didn’t change that much during that 11-start run. Over his first 139 innings, he had a K/9 IP of 6.92 and a K/BB of 3.24. Over those final 65 innings, he would strike out just over 7 per 9 innings, but he would strike out just 2.31 per walk. With the worse walk rate and the higher hit rate, Pettitte’s overall numbers slumped.

Watching the games, it seemed as though Pettitte just ran out of steam in August. The velocity on his fastball was down, and he couldn’t locate his pitches as well as he had been earlier in the year. While Mike Mussina adjusted to a new physical reality, Pettitte was trying to pitch as he always had but with little success.

Had Pettitte and the Yanks won three more of his 11 starts — or even four more — the Yanks would have been that much closer to the playoffs by mid-September. But it was not to be, and as the Yankees face a tough off-season, Andy Pettitte’s status, if he choose not to retire, will be front and center on the agenda. If the Yanks can find a way to ensure that first-half Pettitte shows up for a full year, they’ll be set. If not, I’m not sure for how much they should rely on Pettitte next year.

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The Yankees finished this season with the fourth best record in the American League, but a strong September wouldn’t be enough to catapult them into the playoffs. Dealing with both the demands of high expectations and the need to focus on the farm system, 2008 was a quasi-rebuilding year in which the Yanks were expected to compete. But somewhere along the way, things went wrong, and the Yankees will be home on Wednesday while four other AL teams begin their quests for the World Series title.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll delve into what went wrong with the Yankees. From injuries to unmet expectations, this season had its fare share of problems. Today, the catchers take center stage.

In 2007, the Yankee catchers, led by a career year from Jorge Posada, were the league’s best. In 689 plate appearances, Yankee catchers hit .323/.396/.502 with 19 home runs and 100 RBIs. While Wil Nieves had little to contribute, Posada was an MVP candidate and midseason back-up replacement Jose Molina hit .323/.338/.446 in limited playing time.

From the start, though, 2008 would prove to be a far cry from 2007 for Yankee backstops. Jorge Posada injured his throwing arm on a throw on Opening Day, and he wouldn’t be able to shoulder the catching duties this year. While he attempted a mid-June comeback, Posada wasn’t up to the task. In July, he opted for season-ending surgery.

His replacements, while adequate as backups, were abysmal as starters. On the season, Yankee catchers hit .230/.290/.335 with eight home runs and 45 RBIs. In 2007, Yankee catchers were tops in the AL in OPS; in 2008, they were ranked 14th out of 14 teams, dead last in the Junior Circuit. None of the five other catchers the Yanks used this year could do much of anything, and it cost the team dearly.

From a statistical perspective, the Yanks’ playoff hopes were severely damaged by Jorge’s shoulder. He nailed down 26 win shares in 2007 and just five in 2008. Overall, Yankee catchers contributed 13 win shares in 2008 after putting up 29 in 2007. At three win shares per victory, that swing of 16 nearly accounts for the Yanks’ missing the playoffs by itself.

To drive the point home, none of the replacements for Jorge Posada put up a positive VORP this year. Of course, this begs the question of replacement level because the Yanks were, in effect, using replacement level players all year with little to no success.

Of course, we can’t expect a healthy Posada to have enjoyed yet another career year in 2008. He probably wasn’t going to duplicate that .338/.426/.543 line, but had Posada produced in line with his career .277/.380/.477 line, the Yanks still would have had the top-producing backstop in the AL. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been enough by itself to bring the Yanks to October, but it would have gone a long way toward closing that six-game gap.

In the end, we all love Jorge Posada, and in 2008, we saw firsthand what would happen if Posada were to miss a part of the season. Derek might be the leader of the team and A-Rod, for better or worse, its offensive heart, but when Jorge Posada went down with a season-ending injury, the Yanks’ October dreams went down with him.

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Ed Price, Yankee beat writer for the troubled Star Ledger, has been one of the more reliable reporters this year. He’s consistently offered up what I feel are fair assessments of the team through thick and thin. If The Star-Ledger goes under, as has been rumored around the New York media circuit recently, I hope Price lands himself a good gig with another paper.

Today, Price tackles a topic bound to come up over the off-season: Joe Girarid’s effectiveness in his first season as Yankee manager. The piece is both a fair and blunt assessment of Girardi’s shortcomings this season. Compiling some info from anonymous clubhouse sources, Price writes:

Girardi’s shortcomings this season have been a lack of communication with players and some of his coaches, an inability, at times, to create a productive atmosphere, a lack of a deft touch with the media (no small issue in New York) and an occasional disregard for players’ egos…

The media skills of Girardi — who has worked as a television analyst — became a topic again last week when Girardi, at Mariano Rivera’s request, tried to hide Rivera’s shoulder issue. In the aftermath, Girardi wound up apologizing for his handling of injury news over the course of the season.

The same tension that often comes across in Girardi’s interview sessions also affects the players. He has been described as “tight” from about an hour before the game through its duration, and players feed off that.

So as the team dug itself a deficit in the standings, the players found it hard to relax.

Price also notes that Girardi relied too heavily on Bobby Meachem and Mike Harkey, coaches of his from the Marlins, and did not do a great job with talent evaluation, including decisions regarding Morgan Ensberg and the center field role.

In the end, we’ll all have a lot to say about Joe Girardi this year. He has his flaws; he has his strengths. The real test will, of course, come next year when we find out if Joe learned anything from his first year in New York.

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It’s not unreasonable to expect a 90-win team from the third-place Yankees this year, but no matter how anyone tries to spin it, for a team expected to win the World Series each year, 90 wins is hardly a plateau to celebrate. To that end, everyone and their mothers will offer up their takes on fixing the Yankees. We start with Joe Sheehan’s free column on Baseball Prospectus.

Here’s what the Yankee fan suggests:

• Sign Mark Teixeira
• Bring back Bobby Abreu
• Avoid the Pitchers (except for maybe Sabathia)
• Put Joba in the rotation and leave him alone
• Re-sign Mussina or Pettitte
• Pick up Carl Pavano’s option
• Don’t touch the bullpen

On the surface, Sheehan’s suggestions make sense, and we’ll spend some time over the next few weeks delving more in depth on these issues. But there are a few problems. Sheehan would again have the Yanks head into the season with Hughes and Kennedy expected to play a big role on the team. Since Joba won’t be able to make 34 starts next year, someone else will have to, and it would fall on the other two members of the erstwhile Big Three to pick up the slack.

The Carl Pavano move makes some financial sense. For $11 million ($13 million less than the $2 million buyout), the Yanks can have insurance better than Darrell Rasner and Sidney Ponson.

The rest of the argument rests on the realization that, this year, the Yanks’ problem was their offense and not their pitching. Considering that Ponson finished third in innings pitched on this team, it’s a hard idea to grasp, but he’s on the money. Had the Yanks come close to approaching their projected runs scored totals this year, the team would be playoff-bound. Instead, they’ve scored nearly 200 fewer runs this year than last, and they’ll be going home when the season ends this weekend. Convincing the pitching-obsessed team of this reality may be a bit tougher.

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For the next nine years, we’ll continue having the same debate over and over again: Is A-Rod clutch? Clearly, he’s not doing himself any favors this year. His lack of timely hitting is pretty indisputable this year, though he has brought his average with RISP up to .268, from .248 at the end of August.

Many people think that clutch is unquantifiable and/or a luck-prone stat and disregard it. That’s been a popular sentiment since Baseball Prospectus became relatively mainstream. While I’m not sure where I fall on the issue, I do know that there seems like a perfect stat to qualify clutch situations: Leverage Index.

We saw this stat last year, when we ran some WPA graphs after early-season games. I’ve linked to the definition of Leverage Index above, but the premise is that the higher the leverage index, the more critical the situation. This takes into consideration score differential, outs, runners on, and inning. Basically, it answers the question: How important is this at-bat to fate of my team?

Last week, Carl Bialik, The Wall Street Journal’s Numbers Guy, examined A-Rod’s clutchiness. He uses A-Rod’s OPS in high, medium, and low-leverage situations. He funs:

His career OPS in high-leverage situations is .975. In medium-leverage, it’s .960. And in low-leverage, it’s .972. That’s consistent with the American League as a whole during his career, when each year batters in high-leverage situations hit somewhere between 1% worse and 6% better than they did in low-leverage situations.

Since we’re talking about A-Rod’s failures this year, Bailik shows us that yes, A-Rod hasn’t been that clutch in 2008″

In 2004, he hit 19% better in high-leverage situations than in low-leverage ones. In 2005 and 2006, he hit 17% worse. Last year, he hit 15% better. And this year, he’d hit 32% worse, through Monday.

Bialik went to Jim Albert, Bowling Green State University statistician, for further findings.

The problem is small sample size: In a typical season with the Yankees, Mr. Rodriguez only gets about 130 plate appearances in clutch situations. That’s also why we can’t learn much from his 44 at bats in the last three postseasons, when his performance was abysmal.

Prof. Albert was apologetic about his findings: “Sorry for not giving you better news — no significance is generally not front-page stuff — but this illustrates the dangers of trying to make too much from this type of situational data.”

Take what you will from this. For me, it’s just more uncertainty in the perennial clutch debate.

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We’ll wrap up both games of the double header later tonight. Needless to say, the Yanks didn’t look too impressive this afternoon as they lost meekly to the Rays 7-1. With that win, Tampa extends their AL East lead to three games over the Red Sox, and the Rays are going to exceed expectations I set for them when I compiled their BP Depth Chart in late March. The Yanks, on the other hand, are utterly underperforming this year.

As we await the start of the second game in less than three hours, let’s ponder Mike Mussina for a minute. Despite his gaudy numbers this year — 17-9, 3.63 ERA — Mussina has been far from impressive lately. In five innings today, Mussina gave up five earned runs on eight hits, two walks and seven strike outs. He couldn’t really get anything past the Rays’ hitters, and this start continues a recent trend.

Since August 12, Moose has now made seven starts, and in those seven starts, he’s 2-2 with a 4.81 ERA. In 43 innings, he’s allowed 53 hits and seven walks while striking out 41. The K totals are great; nothing else is blowing me away.

As the Yankees head into the off-season, the status of Mike Mussina will be one of the team’s biggest internal question marks. He’s been something of a baseball godsend this year, but he’s showing some signs of wearing out down the stretch. Moose will be 40 come Opening Day 2009, and while six weeks ago, I would have advocated bringing him back with no hesitation, now, I’m not so sure about that anymore.

If the Yanks can find reasonable replacements for him, might they be better off cutting ties? I’m glad I’m not the one making that decision.

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According to Bryan Hoch, Kevin Long and Robinson Cano are going to work together to retool Cano’s swing this off-season. The Yanks seem to feel that Cano’s moving parts are to blame for his sub-par season. However, I’m not quite convinced this is indeed the case.

On the season, Cano’s batting metrics are right in line with his previous seasons’ numbers. His line drive percentage is at 19.1, 2.2 percentage points higher than his 2007 number; his groundball percentage is 48.4, 3.8 percentage points lower than last year’s total. Meanwhile, Cano’s batting average on balls in play is sitting at .273, nearly .060 points lower than it was last year. These numbers seem to suggest that Cano is simply having one of the unluckiest seasons in recent memory.

So as the Yankees head into the off-season, looking to turn around one of the players most responsible for the team’s offensive malaise this year, I have to wonder if this is just a misguided effort or if the Yankees are seeing something in Cano’s swing and results that we’re not seeing reflected in the numbers.

To me, Cano’s steeply declining home run total is the biggest indication of a problem. He’s gone from a home run every 32.5 ABs to one every 41.6 ABs. If Cano were simply unlucky, his absolute power — his ability to hit the ball over the fence — shouldn’t decline as much as it has. For now, we’ll just have to wait ’til next year on this one, but this could just be case of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Hat tip to Manimal for the article.

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