River Avenue Blues

Update: Pettitte will return in 2013

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7:36pm: Pettitte has informed the team that he intends to pitch next season, reports Bryan Hoch. The two sides hope to have a deal done within 48 hours.

8:45am: According to Buster Olney, Andy Pettitte is close to formally announcing his return in 2013. He says the two sides are close to a new contract, which Joel Sherman says will be worth $10-11M. No surprise there.

Pettitte, 40, has reportedly started his offseason workout routine to test his body in advance of a decision. That was an indication a) his family gave him to thumbs up to return in 2013, and b) he actually wanted to play again. I don’t think he would have started his routine if his heart wasn’t into it. Nothing is final yet, but it appear to be only a matter of time before Pettitte is officially back in pinstripes.

Open Thread: Marvin Miller

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If there was a baseball version of Mount Rushmore, two of the four figures would be Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson for pretty obvious reasons. Cy Young would probably get a spot since he’s the greatest pitcher of all time, but the fourth spot would go to someone who didn’t play even a single game: Marvin Miller. Miller served as head of the player’s union from 1966-1983, and he was one of the few people to spark legitimate change within the game. Most notably, he fought the reserve clause and paved the way for free agency. That impacted all sports, not just baseball.

Miller passed away today at the age of 95. He was never inducted into the Hall of Fame, which is ridiculous. As he said in 2010: “A long time ago, it became apparent that the Hall sought to bury me long before my time, as a metaphor for burying the union and eradicating its real influence. Its failure is exemplified by the fact that I and the union of players have received far more support, publicity, and appreciation from countless fans, former players, writers, scholars, experts in labor management relations, than if the Hall had not embarked on its futile and fraudulent attempt to rewrite history.”

Miller is a historic figure not just in the world of baseball, but in the world of labor relations. No one did more to advance the sport. He was an icon.

* * *

Here is your open thread for the evening. There’s no football and neither of the basketball locals are in action, so you’re on your own for entertainment. Go nuts.

Martino: Yankees hire Pete Mackanin

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Via Andy Martino: The Yankees have hired former Pirates manager and Phillies bench coach Pete Mackanin as a Major League scout. The 61-year-old was at the helm for Pittsburgh briefly in both 2005 and 2007, and he was by Charlie Manuel’s side in Philadelphia for the last four years. I don’t know much about Mackanin outside of the fact that he’s interviewed for a number of managerial openings (Red Sox, Cubs, Rockies) in recent years and is reportedly very highly regarded within the game. Good hire? Sure, why not.

Heyman: Yankees believed to have interest in Shane Victorino

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Via Jon Heyman: The Yankees are one of seven teams “believed” to have interest in free agent outfielder Shane Victorino. I wrote a Scouting The Market piece on the Flyin’ Hawaiian last week, so check that out. Heyman says several clubs are prepared to offer Victorino a three-year contract, and if that’s true you can forget about him replacing Nick Swisher in right field. No way the Yankees will offer that.

In other hot stove news, Jeff Keppinger recently suffered a broken leg during a fall in his home according to Heyman. It’s a small crack in his right fibula near his calf, and he’s expected to be ready in plenty of time for Spring Training following surgery. The Yankees have interest in the infielder, and coincidentally enough, their attempt to acquire him from the Astros two years ago was interrupted by another injury, that one a foot problem requiring surgery.

What Went Wrong: McGehee & Pearce

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The Yankees went into the season thinking Andruw Jones was going to be their designated left-handed pitching masher, and for the first half of the season he was. Things went horribly wrong for Jones in the second half, and when coupled with Alex Rodriguez’s hand injury in late-July, the Yankees were suddenly very light on right-handed power and thus susceptible to lefty pitching. They acquired two players to help fill that void, neither of whom worked out.

(Tom Szczerbowski/Getty)

Casey McGehee
Acquired from the Pirates for Chad Qualls (!) just prior to the trade deadline, the 30-year-old McGehee brought with him a track record of hitting southpaws and an 86 wRC+ in 293 plate appearances for Pittsburgh. He bounced between first and third bases in his first few starts with New York, and he actually hit well early on: 6-for-21 (.286) with three doubles, three walks, and the team’s third longest homer of the season. McGehee looked like a shrewd deadline pickup, but instead things fell part.

He went 2-for-22 (.091) with six strikeouts and no walks in his next seven games, and fell so out of favor that the Yankees sent McGehee all the way down to Low-A Charleston. It was a procedural move that allowed the team to recall him sooner than the usual ten days. All told, McGehee hit just .151/.220/.264 (28 wRC+) in 59 plate appearances with the Yankees, including 7-for-37 (.189) against lefties.. He was obviously left off the postseason roster, and after the season he elected free agency after being removed from the 40-man roster.

(Charles Wenzelberg/NY Post)

Steve Pearce
The Yankees originally signed Pearce way back at the end of Spring Training, and he spent two months absolutely mashing in Triple-A (173 wRC+). Pearce exercised an opt-out clause in his contract in early-June, forcing the Yankees to either release him or trade him to a team willing to place him on their 25-man big league roster. A few days later he was dealt to the Orioles for cash, but nearly three months after that he was back in pinstripes — the Yankees acquired Pearce from the Astros for cash after Houston claimed him off waivers from Baltimore earlier in the summer.

Pearce, 29, made his debut with the team as the cleanup hitter against the Blue Jays on August 28th, and he responded by scoring the winning run on a walk, wild pitch (move to second), ground out (move to third), and sacrifice fly. Pearce hit a two-run homer against the Orioles two weeks later, but that was pretty much it. He hit .160/.300/.280 (66 wRC+) in only 30 plate appearances with the team, including a 4-for-24 (.167) mark against southpaws. The Yankees designated Pearce for assignment when Brett Gardner came off the DL in late-September, and the Orioles subsequently claimed him off waivers. That was that, neither he nor McGehee contributed much to the team’s cause in 2012.

A look at the Yanks’ infield defense from ’03-’12

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Pastalunging. (Alex Trautwig/Getty)

The Yankees will never be mistaken for a pitching and defense team, especially over the last 10-15 years. They’ve fielded some stellar individual defensive players during that time, but as a whole they’ve been consistently below*average. Heck, the 2005 Yankees were arguably the worst defensive team in baseball history. That club was brutal.

The additions of Mark Teixeira and Brett Gardner have improved the defensive situation in recent years, but not enough to bring the Yankees to league average, nevermind above-average. Today I want to look at the team’s infield defense over the last ten years, which is as far back as reliable batted ball data goes. Rather than use UZR or DRS or FRAA or some other complicated defensive metric, I’m going to use regular old BABIP. It tells us how many balls in play were converted into outs, which is exactly what we’re looking for here. We don’t care about who has the most range or the strongest arm, just the number of batted balls the defense turned into outs.

Infield defense is pretty complicated because there are all sorts of plays that need to be made. Ground balls are the most common, but there are also line drives, pop-ups, the double play pivot, and in the case of first baseman, receiving throws from other infielders. I’m going to keep this simple and stick to ground balls exclusively. Apologies for the tight and busy table, but here’s the data…

#GB NYY BABIP
 AL BABIP
 xOuts aOuts dOuts Primary Infield
’12
 1,917 0.250 0.238 1,461 1,438 -23 A-Rod, Jeter, Cano, Tex
’11 1,962 0.250 0.238 1,495 1,472 -24 A-Rod, Jeter, Cano, Tex
’10 1,885 0.246 0.231 1,450 1,421 -28 A-Rod, Jeter, Cano, Tex
’09 1,844 0.230 0.238 1,405 1,420 15 A-Rod, Jeter, Cano, Tex
’08 2,029 0.256 0.240 1,542 1,510 -32 A-Rod, Jeter, Cano, Giambi
’07 1,981 0.244 0.245 1,496 1,498 2 A-Rod, Jeter, Cano, Phillips
’06 2,003 0.240 0.245 1,512 1,522 10 A-Rod, Jeter, Cano, Giambi
’05 2,152 0.246 0.239 1,638 1,623 -15 A-Rod, Jeter, Cano, Tino
’04 1,998 0.238 0.245 1,508 1,522 14 A-Rod, Jeter, Cairo, Clark
’03 2,037 0.256 0.236 1,556 1,516 -41 Ventura, Jeter, Soriano, Giambi

xOuts: Expected number of outs based on the league BABIP.
aOuts: Actual number of outs recorded.
dOuts: The difference between actual and expected outs, so aOuts – xOuts.

The Yankees have converted fewer ground balls into outs than expected in six of the last ten years, and we’re talking big (red) numbers too — an average of 25 fewer outs than expected per year over the last three seasons plus two other seasons of 30+ fewer outs. It doesn’t seem like a lot — 25 fewer outs than average is one extra ground ball squeaking through every six or seven games — but it is a lot when you consider that fielding ground balls is just one aspect of defense. Combine the missed ground balls with a poor outfield defense (missed fly balls) and botched double plays and all that, and it adds up in a hurry.

Derek Jeter is the one constant in our sample and we all know he’s a below-average defender at short. The ground ball problems aren’t all on him though. Jason Giambi had a huge hand in it for a long time, as did Alfonso Soriano (to a lesser extent). Alex Rodriguez was a defensive liability both early in his Yankees career (learning a new position) and in recent years (breaking down and losing mobility). Below-average defense isn’t an isolated event; turning fewer batted balls into outs results into more pitches for the pitcher, more wear and tear on the bullpen throughout the season, and so on. It’s a continually compounding problem.

The good news is that ground balls are generally harmless. The vast majority of grounders that get through the infield turn into singles, but a few will result in doubles and triples if they’re hit hard enough and down the line. The next ground ball homer I see will be my first. The Yankees have compensated for their defensive woes in recent years by targeting high strikeout pitchers — seriously, look at the staff strikeout rate the last few seasons — who tend to take non-catcher fielders right out of the equation. I think the Yankees have a truly elite defense on the right side of the infield, but they’re very much lacking on the left side. There isn’t much they can do about it now outside of moving Jeter or A-Rod to DH full-time, so they’ll have to continue targeting pitchers who can miss bats and record outs by themselves.

What Went Right: Andy Pettitte

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(Elsa/Getty)

I can’t believe I’m actually writing a season review post for Andy Pettitte. The 40-year-old left-hander was retired a little more than ten months ago, having thrown what we thought was his final big league pitch in Game Three of the 2010 ALCS against the Rangers. He spent all of last season at home and showed up to camp as a guest instructor this year, which is pretty routine for notable former players. Little did we know what was going on behind the scenes.

While in Spring Training as an instructor, Pettitte threw a bullpen session for Joe Girardi, Brian Cashman, pitching coach Larry Rothschild, the whole nine. The two sides actually discussed a substantial contract ($10-12M range) during the offseason, but Andy told the team to proceed without him because he wasn’t sure he wanted to make a comeback. That money went to Hiroki Kuroda, then in camp Andy again broached the subject of coming back to pitch. On March 16th, halfway through the Grapefruit League schedule, he signed a one-year minor league contract worth $2.5M.

Pettitte was obviously behind the rest of the pitching staff, so his comeback attempt started in the minor leagues. He made one appearance at the end of Spring Training then progressively climbed the minor league ladder. First came three innings with High-A Tampa, then four innings with High-A Tampa, then five innings with Double-A Trenton, then another five innings with Triple-A Scranton. He was ready to go by early-May and the Yankees needed him — Michael Pineda just had shoulder surgery, Phil Hughes had a dreadful April, and Freddy Garcia was so bad that David Phelps took his spot in the rotation.

Andy’s first start back came at home against the Mariners on May 13th. He allowed two two-run homers in 6.1 innings in the loss, but he looked like the Andy Pettitte of old. He was cutting his fastball, sweeping his slider, and inducing double plays at just the right time. Five days later he struck out nine Cincinnati Reds in eight shutout innings, officially putting an exclamation point on his comeback attempt. Through the end of June, his first nine starts back, Pettitte pitched to a 3.22 ERA (3.37 FIP) in 58.2 innings with ungodly peripherals: 9.05 K/9 (25.2 K%), 2.30 BB/9 (6.4 BB%), and 58.3% grounders. He wasn’t just a solid veteran starter, he was pitching like an ace.

(Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

The comeback came to screeching halt in the fifth inning of a start against the Indians on June 27th, when a Casey Kotchman hard-hit ground ball clanked off Pettitte’s left ankle. He went after the ball but crumbled to the ground, then was lifted one pitch later. Andy talked the training staff into leaving him in the game after some warm-up tosses, but it was obvious something was wrong. The diagnosis came down after the game: Pettitte had fractured his left ankle and would be out six weeks.

Those six weeks became seven weeks when Andy pushed his rehab a little too hard and suffered a setback, so he didn’t return to the team until mid-September. He did all of his prep work in simulated games — no minor league rehab games at all — and returned to the rotation against the Blue Jays on September 19th. Limited to 75 pitches, Pettitte threw five scoreless innings and followed up with six scoreless innings on 88 pitches against the Twins five days later. Rain threw a wrench in the late-September plan, limiting Andy three starts instead of four. The Yankees lost both of Pettitte’s playoff starts but they weren’t hit fault — he allowed five total runs in 13.2 innings.

Andy’s comeback featured a 2.87 ERA (3.48 FIP) in 75.1 innings across a dozen starts, plus some of the best peripherals of his career: 8.24 K/9 (22.8 K%), 2.51 BB/9 (6.9 BB%), and 56.3% grounders. There was legitimate concern about how the year-long layoff would impact Pettitte, but I joked that maybe it did his body good and gave him ample time to rest and heal up. That’s exactly what appeared to happen, funny enough. Pettitte looked as good as ever when he was on the mound, though the ankle injury obviously took a little blush off the rose. Either way, the Yankees came into the season expecting to get literally nothing out of Andy, but he made a successful comeback and became a valuable and important member of the rotation.