An unlikely tandem in right field

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Look, guys: Mike started it. Me? I love Nick Swisher. I want him patrolling right field in Yankee Stadium next year, and I wouldn’t mind seeing the Yankees ink him to a three-year extension afterward. But no. Mike had to be all like, they should pick up his option and trade him and they should totally trade him for Shaun Marcum. Thanks, Mike. Thanks a lot. So now in the hypothetical world of RAB the Yankees are without a right fielder. Oh, and guess what? Brian Sabean just gave Carlos Beltran four years at $60 million. So where’s the hypothetical RAB right fielder now?

The Yankees do have a few guys in the system who could tag team in right field. Chris Dickerson spent plenty of time with the big league club this year, and has about a season’s worth of MLB at-bats under his belt. He has been almost perfectly league average in that span, a 103 wRC+, so he could probably hold his own in a platoon situation. Think Karim Garcia in the second half of 2003. Not an ideal solution, but you could do worse with half a platoon.

The right-handed side gets a little trickier. The Yankees clearly have little regard for Greg Golson. Unless they plan to go with Nunez as the primary backup at 2B, SS, 3B, RF, and LF — thus freeing up a few bench spots — chances are Golson, who is out of options, won’t be with the team come April. The alternative is Justin Maxwell, whom the Yankees claimed off waivers from the Nationals last spring. Like Dickerson, Maxwell has major league experience, producing a 91 wRC+ in 260 PA. He’s clearly a flawed player, but he does have some pop. Perhaps limiting his appearances to just lefties would help prod him along. He’s been quite a deal better against them in limited major league duty, and he absolutely crushed them in the minors.

Really? A Chris Dickerson/Justin Maxwell platoon in right field? As if. While they’re certainly an unlikely tandem, especially for the Yankees, they’re not the pair to whom I refer in the post title. But they are on the 40-man roster, which makes them a bit more likely than, say, two players who aren’t on the roster. Or, to be more accurate, one who is on the roster but will not be once the World Series ends, and one whom most Yankees fans would probably decry before the ink dried on his contract. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a platoon alternative to Nick Swisher:

Andruw Jones and J.D. Drew. Please, hold your rotten vegetables until the end.

Jones we all know from his time with the Yankees this season. After a slow start he really came around, punishing baseballs delivered from left hands. It’s clear that he’s no longer a full-time player, nor is he in any way an elite defender. But he can hold his own, especially in the relatively small right field of Yankee Stadium. A few people would rather see him depart, I’m sure, but given what’s on the market and what’s in the Yankees system, if they were to trade Swisher it’s hard to argue that the Yankees would be better off with anyone else, within reason, as the right-handed half of a RF platoon.

It’s Drew that will make many fans cringe. To those who have followed his career only in passing he’s an oft-injured softie who, given the opportunity, will make like Jason Giambi in the 2003 World Series. But that ignores the massive good Drew has done throughout his career. Sure, his .222/.315/.302 line from 2011 is fresh in everyone’s minds, but someone with his career resume probably has something left in the tank. He did hit .264/.370/.455 during his five years with the Red Sox, and was .275/.382/.478 against right-handed pitching. The right-field porch could help add some pop, leaving him as a decent one-year stopgap solution in a platoon role.

Convinced? Good, because I’m not, either. Yet this is an example of what the Yankees could have in right field if they opt to move Swisher. The only other alternative is to explore the trade market, but that’s never a sound primary strategy. It’s tough to determine what teams will trade a quality player at any given position, and even tougher to determine what they want in return. You can try to figure out a trade that would net the Yankees a right fielder, but may I remind you that your trade proposal sucks.

The Yankees have a fine right fielder in Nick Swisher. If you don’t believe me, check out Larry Koestler’s post on the matter. Given the alternatives in right field, the Yankees are pretty clearly best served by picking up Swisher’s option and returning him to the position he’s manned for the past three seasons. Unless, you know, you want a Jones/Drew or a Dickerson/Maxwell platoon in his stead.

The Five Longest Yankees Homers of 2011

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For the second time in three years, the Yankees led the majors in homeruns in 2011, whacking 222 balls over the fence during the 162-game regular season. It was just about a 55-45 split between home (122 homers) and road (100), probably not as extreme as you might expect given Yankee Stadium‘s cozy right field porch. Unsurprisingly, a number of those 222 homers were absolute moonshots, traveling well beyond the MLB average of 396.3 ft.

With some help from Hit Tracker, let’s look at the five longest homers hit by a Yankee this season. Surprisingly, that Andruw Jones blast you see above did not make the cut.

May 6th: Curtis Granderson vs. Matt Harrison (video)

The Yankees were in the middle of a stretch to forget in early-May, coming into this Friday night game in Texas having lost three straight and six of their last ten games. Thankfully, the Grandyman gave his team some breathing room with a first inning homer off the lefty Harrison, a two-run shot thanks to Derek Jeter‘s leadoff single. The 1-1 fastball traveled 443 ft., and landed in the second deck in right-center field, well beyond (and above) the Rangers bullpen. For good measure, Granderson hit another homer later in the game, but that one only traveled 411 ft.

August 16th: Robinson Cano vs. Danny Duffy (video)

Not only was this the fourth longest homer of the Yankees season, it was also their third longest plate appearance. The Yanks and Royals had been trading blows for the first three innings of this game, and Mark Teixeira had just singled in a run to make it 5-5 when Cano stepped to the plate. Duffy appeared to be running on fumes, and sure enough he fell behind in the count 3-1. That’s when Robbie started hacking. He fouled off seven straight pitches – fastballs, sliders, you name it – before the rookie southpaw hung a breaking ball on the 12th pitch of the at-bat. The no-doubt shot landed just shy of the fountains in right-center, 449 ft. from home plate. The homer gave the Yankees an 8-5 lead in a game they would eventually win 9-7.

August 24th: Mark Teixeira vs. Grant Balfour (video)

One week after Cano’s shot, Tex one-upped him with a game-tying, eighth inning solo shot. The Yankees were down 3-2 when Balfour grooved a 3-1 fastball belt-high and right over the plate to the first batter he faced. It was long gone off the bat, a mammoth 450 ft. blast that landed halfway up the bleachers in right-center. The Yankees went on to lose the game in extra innings, but they only got that far because of Teixeira.

April 9th: Robinson Cano vs. Al Aceves (video)

The Yankees didn’t win very many games against the Red Sox early in the season, but the one time they did beat them in April, they did so on the strength of four homers. The third of those four homers came with the good guys up 7-4 in the sixth inning with Aceves, the former Yankee, on the bump. The Mexican Gangster quickly got ahead of Cano, but the 0-2 fastball was too far up in the zone and Robbie tomahawked it into deep right field for a solo homer. The ball landed in an exit ramp about halfway up the stands, and like Teixeira’s shot off Balfour, it traveled 450 ft.

June 10th: Alex Rodriguez vs. Fausto Carmona (video)

Coming out of a stretch in which he went deep just five times in 182 plate appearances, A-Rod was in the middle of a homer binge in early-June. He’d hit two balls out of the park in the five games prior to this one, and he hit one out the next day as well. This sixth inning solo homer traveled further than them all though. The Yankees had jumped all over Carmona for an early 5-0 lead, but he was left in the game to take one for the team and spare the bullpen. The 2-0 sinker ran right back over the plate, and Alex launched the pitch to dead center field. It landed just to the left of the restaurant and in the first row of the left field bleachers, beyond Monument Park. At 460 ft., it was a) the longest homerun hit by a Yankee in 2011, b) the 29th longest homer hit by any player in 2011, and c) the second longer homer in the history of New Yankee Stadium.

What Went Wrong: Phil Hughes

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Over the next few weeks, we’re going to look back at what went right, what went wrong, and what went as expected during the 2011 campaign.

(AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

The 2010 season was something of a breakout for Phil Hughes. The right-hander stayed healthy all year and performed just a touch better than league average in terms of ERA (4.19), FIP (4.25), and xFIP (4.13) across 176.1 IP, and the Yankees counted on him to solidify a patchwork rotation coming out of Spring Training a few months ago. The problem was that his velocity had vanished in March, and it never did pick up as the team expected it would after a few starts.

Miguel Cabrera and the rest of the Tigers smacked Hughes around for five runs in four innings in his first start of the season, in what would eventually become the Yankees first loss of 2011. The Red Sox battered him for six runs in two innings five days later, and through two starts, Phil had generated just three swings and misses out of 137 pitches. He had walked four and struck out just one, and the fastball was sitting in the danger zone of 87-88 mph.

The Yankees finally pulled the plug after Hughes’ third start, in which the Orioles hung five runs on him in 4.1 IP. They put him on the disabled list with what was termed a “dead arm” after originally planning to send him to the minors, and they starting pumping him with anti-inflammatories. “After 30 pitches, there was nothing there,” said Hughes. “I felt like a reliever who had thrown four straight days. Something had to be done. My velocity’s just not there. My arm feels dead. This will able me to build arm strength and get this right.”

The plan was to put Hughes on a throwing program after a few days of rest, and things went well at first. He was ready to start a minor league rehab assignment about two weeks after his start against the Orioles, but the team cut short a bullpen session after just a dozen pitches and called it a “setback.” Hughes was sent for an MRI the next day, and after some concerns about low-level thoracic outlet syndrome, it was announced that he’d miss another six-to-eight weeks with shoulder inflammation that was bad enough to require a cortisone shot. While all that was going on, a report came out that Hughes showed up to camp out of shape, leading to speculation about how it may have contributed to his arm troubles.

(AP Photo/Bill Kostroun)

More rest and more rehab followed. The Yankees put their right-hander on a Spring Training-esque throwing program, which stretched him out over an extended period of time. A simulated inning soon followed, and then a few more after that. After throwing 49 pitches in one of those simulated games, Hughes was deemed ready for a minor league rehab assignment. He made a total of three rehab starts, striking out eight and holding his velocity deep into the game the final time out. Ready to return to the rotation, the team made the decision to demote Ivan Nova to Triple-A in favor of Hughes in early-July.

The first start back was okay at best; Phil allowed two runs in five innings against the Indians, striking out two and getting just a pair of swings and misses out of 87 pitches. He looked better in his next start (two runs in six innings against the Jays) eleven days later (with the All-Star break in between), then got completely shellacked by the punchless Athletics next time out (seven runs in 4.1 IP). Hughes’ velocity had returned to the 91-92 range, and he rattled off four straight quality starts after that (five runs in 25.2 IP), but Oakland again hit him around in late-August (six runs in 2.2 IP) and the Red Sox did the same a few days later (six runs in 5.2 IP).

Hughes started September with a pair of strong starts against the Orioles and Mariners (three runs in 12 IP), but back inflammation flared up and kept him out of action for two weeks (rain contributed to that a bit as well). The Yankees brought him back strictly as a reliever and kept him in that role through the postseason. In four relief outings at the end of September and in the ALDS, Phil did not allow a run in five innings (three hits, three walks, six strikeouts). As expected, his velocity jumped into the 94-95 range in relief, and he generated eleven swings and misses with 90 pitches.

All told, Hughes pitched to 5.79 ERA with a 4.58 FIP in 74.2 IP in 2011. Even if you disregard his first three starts, when he clearly wasn’t right, he still had a 4.48 ERA with a ~3.90 ERA in 64.1 post-DL innings. His strikeout and swing and miss rates dipped to 5.67 K/9 and 6.2%, respectively, well-below-average and down considerably from 2010. Was the decline the result of poor conditioning? Poor mechanics? The 80.1 IP jump from 2009 to 2010? All of the above? Something else all together? We all have our theories, but the only thing we know for sure is that Hughes heads into the 2012 season as a giant question mark.

Yankees ties to the World Series

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(Photo via CBS Sports)

For the second consecutive year, the Yankees are not playing in the World Series this fall (oh what a horrible drought!), but that doesn’t mean they’re an afterthought. There are Yankees ties to both the Cardinals and Rangers, thanks in part due to the age of free agency and non-stop transactions. Texas knocking the New York out of the playoffs last year is another connection as well, but that’s not really the angle I was planning to take.

Two players on the Cardinals once suited up for the Yankees, and two current Yankees helped get the Rangers to the Fall Classic in consecutive years by virtue of their departures. Let’s dig in…

Lance Berkman

More than anything, Berkman is the reason why I’m pulling for the Cardinals in the World Series. A platoon DH for the Yankees late last year, Puma hit a respectable .255/.358/.349 in 123 regular season plate appearances (.298/.404/.417 in his final 99 PA) before emerging as the team’s third best hitter in the postseason (.313/.368/.688). He became far more important than expected in the ALCS thanks to Mark Teixeira‘s hamstring injury in Game Four.

One of the conditions of the trade that brought Berkman to New York was that the Yankees could not exercise his $15M option for 2011, which was perfectly fine because he had all the look of a declining and increasingly injury-prone player. Fat Elvis signed a one-year deal with the Cardinals, had a monster season (.402 wOBA) that won him Comeback Player of the Year honors, and will bat cleanup behind Albert Pujols in the Fall Classic. Go Puma go.

Mark Teixeira

There’s not a direct Yankees-Rangers relationship here, but there’s no doubt that current Yankee Mark Teixeira helped the Rangers get to where they are today. Less than a month after reportedly turning down an eight-year, $140M extension offer, Tex was traded by Texas to the Braves (along with Ron Mahay) for a five-player package that included starting shortstop Elvis Andrus, closer Neftali Feliz, and likely Game Four starter Matt Harrison. That’s some haul, the gold standard when it comes to trading elite hitters.

Alex Rodriguez

(Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

A-Rod‘s connection to the Rangers and their success is a bit more concrete than Teixeira’s, at least from the Yankees point of view. When the Yankees acquired Alex in exchange for Alfonso Soriano and Robinson Cano Joaquin Arias in 2004, Texas gained more than $112M worth of financial flexibility through the 2010 season. That money was redistributed in a multitude of ways; some of it went to Michael Young and his long-term deal, and some was invested in prospects via the draft and international free agency (Derek Holland, Mitch Moreland, Alexi Ogando). Who knows how they rest was spent. That money wouldn’t have been available to the team if the Yankees hadn’t taken A-Rod off the Rangers’ hands.

Octavio Dotel

There’s not much connection here, especially since Dotel has seemingly played for all 30 teams at one time or another, but the right-hander did appear in 14 games (10 IP, 18 H, 13 R, 11 BB, 7 K) for the 2006 Yankees. They signed him off the scrap heap following his Tommy John surgery, rehabbed him for the first half of the season, then stuck him in the bullpen for the stretch run. It didn’t work out. Five years later, Dotel is still slinging it at age 37, this time in middle relief for the Cardinals.

* * *

There are a few other very loose ties (Cards backup catcher Gerald Laird is Brandon’s brother), but those four up there cover most of it. Berkman is the most obvious connection, but I think it’s clear that the Tex and A-Rod stuff will have more impact in this World Series in the grand scheme of things.

Pro-scouting meetings begin in the Bronx

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(AP Photo/John Marshall Mantel)

The Cardinals and Rangers will kick off the 2011 World Series on Wednesday night, but the Yankees will have already started planning out their offseason by then. The team’s annual pro-scouting meetings began at the home base in the Bronx on Monday, after Billy Eppler’s scouting department was given a week off following the club’s elimination from the ALDS. Advance scouting in the playoffs can be pretty intense, I imagine.

Brian Cashman spoke to Chad Jennings about the meetings on Monday afternoon, but he didn’t say much of anything. Typical Cashman-speak. “We assess ourselves,” said the GM when asked about what happens this week. “We assess our system. We assess the market that’s available to us. It’s all of it.” Despite reports of an imminent meeting with Hal Steinbrenner, Cashman said talks about a new contract might happen in the near future and might not be anything more than a phone call. As we’ve heard a number of times already, the two sides are expected to reach a deal without much of a problem.

There was a “no comment” on CC Sabathia and the status of his opt-out clause, and any talks about the futures of Eric Chavez, Andruw Jones, and Freddy Garcia have yet to take place. Obviously Bartolo Colon and Luis Ayala will come up at some point as well, but I’m pretty sure a decision has already been made about the future of Jorge Posada. At least on the team’s end of things.

The offseason started a little earlier than we all would have liked this fall, but that’s going to happen most years. The baseball season is a year-round thing these days, and the Yankees have already starting preparations for the upcoming offseason. The World Series will end in about ten days, maybe less, and Sabathia’s opt-out decision will come no more than three days after that. The hot stove’s coming in a hurry, folks.

Mustelier makes a brief return in the AzFL

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AzFL Phoenix Desert Dogs (8-7 loss to Salt River) Saturday’s game
Rob Segedin, LF: 3 for 4, 1 R, 1 RBI – up to .324/.425/.441, but it’s an extreme offensive environment
Chase Whitley, RHP: 1.2 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 0 K, 1 HBP, 2-0 GB/FB, 1 E (pickoff) – 14 of 23 pitches were strikes (60.9%)
Preston Claiborne, RHP: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 0 K, 1 WP, 3-0 GB/FB – half of his 24 pitches were strikes … three walks and two strikeouts in four innings

AzFL Phoenix Desert Dogs (7-4 win over Scottsdale) Monday’s game … remember, they don’t play on Sundays
Ronnie Mustelier, 3B: 0 for 3, 2 K – first appearance since leaving a game with an apparent injury twelve days ago … he played five innings before being lifted, possibly by design
Corban Joseph, 2B: 1 for 3, 2 R, 1 HR, 1 RBI, 1 BB, 1 E (missed catch) – that’s his second homer in eight games out here after hitting just five in 131 games with Double-A Trenton

Open Thread: No Baseball

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Jerry Jr. had a sad last night. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Man, nothing sucks more than a night without baseball. Game Seven of the NLCS was supposed to be played tonight, but the Cardinals had to go and ruin it by clinching the pennant yesterday. Now we’ve got no baseball for not one, but two days, a harsh little reminder of what lies ahead starting in about ten days. Oh baseball, don’t leave me.

Here is your open thread for the night. The Jets and Dolphins are the Monday Night Football Game (8:30pm ET on ESPN), and that’s pretty much it for local sports. Sigh. Talk about whatever you want here, anything goes.