River Avenue Blues

Scouting The Free Agent Market: Scott Hairston

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(Jeff Zelevansky/Getty)

Regardless of how the Yankees replace Nick Swisher in right field this winter, they’re going to need to bring in a right-handed outfield bat. Brett Gardner and Curtis Granderson are both left-handed and you can make a case either guy needs a platoon partner, plus the club has to replace some of the righty power they’re losing as Alex Rodriguez ages and Swisher (and potentially Russell Martin) heads elsewhere.

About two weeks ago we learned the Yankees “continue to have conversations” with free agent outfielder Scott Hairston, the younger brother of former Yankee Jerry Hairston Jr. The 32-year-old Scott is coming off a career year with the Mets (.263/.299/.504, 118 wRC+) and is well-known for his ability to pound left-handed pitching. Just ask Gio Gonzalez or Cole Hamels or Cliff Lee or Hamels again, they’ll tell you. Let’s see if Jerry’s little brother is a fit for the outfield-needy Yankees.

The Pros

  • Hairston will be paid to hit lefties, and he does it very well. He produced a .286/.317/.550 (135 wRC+) batting line against southpaws this year and a .263/.308/.464 (110 wRC+) batting line over the last three years.
  • Although he is known as a platoon player, Hairston can at least hold his own against righties. He hit .239/.281/.457 (100 wRC+) against them this year and .218/.289/.420 (96 wRC+) over the last three years. You can live with that from a fourth outfielder.
  • Hairston came up as an infielder but has since moved to the outfield full time, and the various metrics rate him as an average defender in left and a tick below (but still playable in a pinch) in center.
  • It’s not a big part of his game, but Hairston can steal the occasional base. He swiped eight bags in ten tries this year and 15 in 19 tries over the last three years. He’s also about average when it comes to taking the extra base.
  • Hairston obviously has some experience playing in New York given his two years with the Mets, plus they did not make him a qualifying offer. He won’t require draft pick compensation to sign.

The Cons

  • If he doesn’t get a hit, he’s not going to reach base. Hairston is a hacker who walked in just 4.8% of his plate appearances this year and 6.9% over the last three years. He’s consistently swung at ~30% of the pitches seen outside of the strike zone, leading to a below-average strikeout rate (21.2% since 2010).
  • Hairston has been on the DL seven times since making his debut in 2004, including once a year from 2005 through 2011. Most of the injuries were various strains (oblique, hamstring, quad, etc.), but he did have some more serious shoulder problems earlier in his career. He did avoid injury this year, however.
  • He’s limited to left because he can’t throw to save his life — this little rainbow is about the best you’re going to get from his arm. Maybe the early-career shoulder problems are to blame. Hairston only has about 446.1 career innings in right field.

Jonny Gomes did Hairston a favor by signing a two-year, $10M contract with the Red Sox and setting the market for right-handed platoon outfielders. The Yankees are looking to get under the $189M luxury tax threshold by 2014, so therefore any multi-year contract has to be viewed through the prism of average annual value and its impact on next year’s payroll limit. Assuming he signs a contract similar to Gomes, Hairston will be a very pricy fourth outfielder at $4-5M annually.

I liked the younger Hairston quite a bit two years ago, when the Yankees opted to instead sign Andruw Jones to serve as their left-handed pitching masher. Jones worked out wonderfully in 2011 but didn’t help at all this season. We’ve gathered some more data on Hairston these last two years and I do worry quite a bit about his complete reliance on power. If he stops hitting the ball out of the park, he’ll be useless offensively because he never walks and only hits for a decent average. Jones, for example, still drew more walks than Hairston this year (28-19) in 108 fewer plate appearances. Imagine second half Andruw without the walks, and that’s what you’re getting from Hairston when the bat speed starts to slip.

With Gomes signed and Reed Johnson slipping with age, the free agent outfield market is devoid of quality right-handed platoon bats. I’d love to think Brian Cashman & Co. could get Hairston to sign a one-year contract like they have so many veterans the last few years, but he’s been a fringe roster player for most of his career and he’s coming off the best season of his life, so I have to think he’ll look to parlay that into the biggest payday possible. Hairston makes a ton of sense for the Yankees, but he’s a risky (and limited) player who will command multiple years as a free agent.

Season Review: Joe Girardi & Coaching Staff

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(Jonathan Daniel/Getty)

Evaluating a manager and his coaching staff is a very difficult thing for outsiders. The vast majority of their work takes place behind the scenes, so we’re left looking for clues in places they might not be. That pitcher learned a changeup? Great job by the pitching coach! That hitter is only hitting .250 when he usually hits .280? Fire the hitting coach! We have no idea what clues we dig up are actually attributable to the coaching staff, so we end up guessing.

Because of that, I don’t want to review Joe Girardi and his coaching staff in our typical “What Went Right/What Went Wrong” format. This review is almost entirely subjective and we can’t really pin anything (good or bad) on the coaching staff specifically. We know Curtis Granderson essentially revived his career after working with Kevin Long two summers ago, but having a specific example like that is very rare. Instead, we’ll have to take a broader approach.

Joe Girardi
I think 2012 was Girardi’s worst year as Yankees’ manager. Every manager makes questionable in-game moves during the season, but I felt Girardi made more this year than he had in any year since 2008, and it all started in the very first inning on Opening Day with the intentional walk to Sean Rodriguez. That still bugs me.

Girardi has long been considered a strong bullpen manager given his ability to spread the workload around and squeeze water out of scrap heap rocks, but this year he leaned very heavily on Boone Logan, David Robertson, and Rafael Soriano. Working Soriano hard wasn’t a huge deal because he was expected to leave after the season, but Logan made more appearances in 2012 (80) than any other reliever under Girardi, including his time with the Marlins. Robertson appeared in 65 games despite missing a month with an oblique injury. Part of it was a lack of alternatives (blame the front office for that) and the tight race, but this was something that started before the Yankees blew their ten-game lead.

Girardi also had two notable meltdowns (for lack of a better term), lashing out at a fan following a loss in Chicago and then getting into a shouting match with Joel Sherman after calling him into his office. Maybe my conduct standards are too high, but that kind of stuff is a major no-no in my book. It stems from pure frustration and there is zero good to come from it. Girardi didn’t have a bad year as manager, he did a fine job guiding the team despite an overwhelming about of injuries, but I feel that he’s had better years in the past.

(Leon Halip/Getty Images)

Larry Rothschild & Kevin Long
When the Yankees hired Rothschild as pitching coach two years ago, he came to the club with a reputation of improving both strikeout and walk rates. That is exactly what has happened overall, and we can see it specifically with someone like CC Sabathia (strikeouts, walks). Obviously the personnel has changed over the last few years, but the Yankees managed to get productive seasons from scrap heap pickups like Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia last year while getting better than expected production from Hiroki Kuroda and even Andy Pettitte this year. We don’t know how much of a role Rothschild played in all of this, but the team’s pitching staff has exceeded expectations the last two years.

Long, on the other hand, came under big-time scrutiny following the club’s offensively-inept postseason showing and Mark Teixeira’s continued decline from elite all-around hitter to pull-happy, one-dimensional slugger. At same time, he remade Granderson and helped Robinson Cano go from good to great. Long does preach pulling the ball for power and apparently that contributed to the team’s poor postseason, but the roster overall is built around guys who pull the ball for power. Outside of Cano and Derek Jeter (and later on, Ichiro Suzuki), the Yankees lacked hitters who could hit to the opposite field. Like Rothschild, we don’t know how much a role Long has played in all of this, and I’m not even convinced preaching power these days is a bad thing given the decline in offense around the league.

Tony Pena, Mike Harkey, Rob Thomson & Mick Kelleher
Not really much to add here. Thomson, the third base coach, does have a knack for being a little overly-aggressive with his sends in tight games while at other times he will hold guys who would have clearly been safe, but every third base coach does that. The Yankees have had an above-average stolen base success rate in recent years (77-79%), so I guess Kelleher is doing a fine job of reading moves and relaying that info over at first base. Other than that, we have very little basis for which to judge these guys on. Despite the whole “everyone should be fired because there are obviously better coaches available!” mentality than can fester following an embarrassing playoff loss, all indications are the entire staff will return fully intact next year.

Yankees shouldn’t stop at Kuroda & Pettitte

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(Patrick McDermott/Getty)

After a little more than a month of waiting, the Yankees re-signed Andy Pettitte to a new one-year contract worth $12MM yesterday. He’ll join the recently re-signed Hiroki Kuroda and the incumbent CC Sabathia to give the club a strong, veteran top three while Phil Hughes fills in as the fourth starter and the fifth spot presumably goes to David Phelps or Ivan Nova. Michael Pineda might come back at midseason to help out further, so the Yankees appear to have a set starting staff. I don’t think they should act that way, though.

Pettitte, who will turn 41 at midseason, has not thrown more than 130 regular season innings since way back in 2009. Kuroda, who will turn 38 just before Spring Training, threw a career high 235.2 innings between the regular season and postseason in 2012. Sabathia, who will turn 33 at midseason, will be coming off offseason elbow surgery to clean out a bone spur. Add in the fact that Hughes has never made it through back-to-back seasons as a full-time starter and both Phelps and Nova are largely unknowns, it’s easy to see why the Yankees should continue to pursue rotation depth.

Joel Sherman recently reported the Yankees intend to “bottom-feed” for pitching depth later in the offseason, as in January and February, meaning they’ll seek a Freddy Garcia-type on (a minor league?) low-risk, prove-yourself contract. Dig through the list of free agent pitchers and you’ll see a ton of candidates for that kind of contract (Dallas Braden? Tim Stauffer? Dustin Moseley?), but I think the Yankees should pursue some more certainty when searching for pitching depth. Frankly they should pursue higher-quality pitchers as well.

Considering the plan to get under the $189M luxury tax threshold in a year, it’s easy to feel the team should go all-in this year, their final season of an “uncapped” payroll. It would be awesome to see them pursue someone like Brandon McCarthy or (my preference) Shaun Marcum on a one-year contract to fill out the back of the rotation, pushing one of Phelps and Nova into the long-man’s role and the other into Triple-A as added depth. Carlos Villanueva makes sense as well since he has experience both as a starter and as a swingman, but he’ll likely find multiple years and more opportunity somewhere this winter.

A front three of Sabathia, Kuroda, and Pettitte is as good and reliable as you’ll find in the American League, but all three do carry some risk at the moment. Sabathia is usually the rock you can pencil in for 230+ innings every year, but his elbow procedure and the fact the team is already discussing lightening his workload means they might have to treat him as a 200-inning guy going forward, not a 230-inning guy. Bringing Kuroda and Pettitte back was very important, but I don’t believe the team should stop there. If another proven starter on a 2014 payroll-friendly contract comes along, adding him to the stable of arms would be a wise move.

Angels, Madson set the market for Soria

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The Angels have signed Ryan Madson to a one-year contract according to multiple reports, and the deal will pay the right-hander a $3.5M base salary. He can earn another $2.5M in roster bonuses (based on days on the active roster) and $1M in incentives (bases on games finished).

The 32-year-old Madson was one of two formerly-elite relievers recovering from Tommy John surgery on the free agent market this winter, joining Joakim Soria. Soria, 28, has indicated a willingness to setup for the Yankees just so he could be around his idol Mariano Rivera, and now we have an idea of what it would take to sign him. Soria is several years younger than Madson with a much longer track record in the closer’s role (saves pay) though, but he’s also coming off his second Tommy John surgery. It would be a pretty big coup if the Yankees could add him to their bullpen with a similarly structured contract, say a one-year deal worth $5M with another $3M in bonuses.

Red Sox name Greg Colbrunn hitting coach

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The Red Sox have named Greg Colbrunn as their new hitting coach, the team announced. The 43-year-old spent the last six years on the Low-A Charleston coaching staff in the Yankees’ system, with one year as manager (2010) and the other five as hitting coach.

“This was a very astute hire,” said Brian Cashman to Pete Abraham. “Greg is more than qualified for that job and in our estimation there was no better hitting candidate in the market place than him. We were lucky to have him for as long as we did.” I don’t know much about Colbrunn, but I do know he was very well-regarded within the organization and will be missed. He worked with everyone from Austin Jackson to Jesus Montero to Tyler Austin, with many more in between.

Wednesday Night Open Thread

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In honor of the 2013 Hall of Fame ballot being released today, here’s the video of Roger Clemens’ masterpiece in Game Four of the 2000 ALCS. He one-hit the Mariners in the complete-game shutout, striking out 15 against just two walks while throwing 138 pitches. The Yankees were up two games to one in the series and would eventually win it in six. With a Game Score of 98, it was the second best start of Clemens’ big league career (here’s number one).

Here is your open thread for the night. Both the Knicks and Nets are playing, but talk about anything you like here. Have at it.

[video link in case the embed doesn’t work]

Clemens & Bonds headline 2013 Hall of Fame ballot

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The BBWAA announced the 2013 Hall of Fame ballot today, which is headlined by first-timers Barry Bonds, Mike Piazza, Sammy Sosa, Craig Biggio, and former Yankee Roger Clemens. David Wells and Mike Stanton are also among the first-timers while Don Mattingly is entering his 13th year of eligibility and Bernie Williams is entering his second.

We’ve now entered the PED thunderdome with guys like Bonds, Sosa, and Clemens becoming eligible, and if Mark McGwire’s six years on the ballot are any indication, they’re going to have to wait a while for induction. Hell, there’s zero evidence linking Jeff Bagwell to PEDs and he only received 56% of the vote last year. I count no fewer than eight guys I would definitely vote for plus at least six others I’m on the fence with. The ballots are going to be very crowded the next few years.