River Avenue Blues

Report: Soria willing to setup for Yankees

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Via Andrew Marchand: Right-hander Joakim Soria is willing to pitch as a setup man for the Yankees just so he could have an opportunity to play with Mariano Rivera, his idol. “If the Yankees call, we will be all ears,” said Soria’s agent, who has heard from eight teams so far. “If there is a fit, Joakim would be elated to work with Mo. He would close everywhere except there.”

Soria, 28, missed all of last season with his second Tommy John surgery, but was one of the game’s very best relievers prior to that. Marchand says the Yankees have not yet contacted Soria’s camp, but that’s not unusual this early in the offseason. New York has had on-and-off trade interest in the former Royals closer through the years and they were going to take him in the 2006 Rule 5 Draft before Kansas City beat them to the punch, so I imagine a phone call will occur at some point. The Yankees need relief help and landing Soria on a one-year, incentive-laden deal with an option for 2014 and the promise that he’s first in line to take over as closer following Rivera’s retirement would be a fantastic get.

Monday Night Open Thread

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(REUTERS/Ray Stubblebine)

If you’re looking for some quality and thought-provoking Monday night reading, I highly recommend this piece by Cliff Corcoran. Cliff, as you probably know, is a long-time Yankees blogger who currently plies his trade at SI.com, and within the piece he discusses becoming a lapsed Yankees fan. I agree with some of his points and disagree with others, but I can definitely relate to the piece and found it interesting. Make sure you check it out, I think it’s a must-read for any Yankees fan these days.

Once you’re done with that, use this as your open thread. The Monday Night Football game is the Eagles at the Saints, plus there’s various NBA action going on as well. I know the election is coming up, but please keep politics out of the thread. There are other places to discuss that stuff. Thanks in advance.

Yankees claim Eli Whiteside off waivers from Giants

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The Yankees have claimed catcher Eli Whiteside off waivers from the Giants, the team announced. Since they finished with the best record in the AL and have last waiver priority on an NL player, I suspect they’ll slide him through waivers again to get him off the 40-man roster.

Whiteside, 33, is a terrible hitter (65 wRC+ in 537 plate appearances) and really is no better than someone who gets called up in case of injury or as a third catcher in September. If he sticks with the organization heading into next year, he’ll likely serve as Austin Romine’s backup and mentor in Triple-A.

Report: Yankees have interest in David Ross

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Via Ken Rosenthal: Although the Yankees want to re-sign Russell Martin, the club has “long had interest” in free agent catcher David Ross. A starting catcher — Chris Stewart, Frankie Cervelli, and Austin Romine give the team three viable backup options — is a top priority this winter.

Ross, 35, has been the best backup catcher in baseball for several years now, hitting .269/.353/.463 (122 wRC+) with 24 homers for the Braves over the last four years. Therein lies the problem: he’s a backup. Ross hasn’t topped 200 plate appearances in a season since way back in 2007, and it’s impossible to know if he would maintain that level of production in a full-time role. I’d love to see the Yankees sign both Martin and Ross this winter, but Rosenthal says that’s unlikely to happen.

What Went Right: Russell Martin’s final 62 games

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(AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

As we discussed earlier, Russell Martin’s first 100 games of the season were a nightmare offensively. He hit .182/.300/.364 in his first 283 plate appearances and the Yankees were sliding in the standings. The trade deadline brought no catching help, so any improvement down the stretch was going to have to come from Martin himself. It was easy to have no confidence in him.

Instead of continued to falter, Russ turned things around. He went 2-for-2 with a homer and two walks in Game 101 and 8-for-22 (.364) with four walks in the next seven games. He doubled in his next game, homered a week after that, and homered again a few days later. On September 5th, the team’s 136th game of the season, Martin went 2-for-4 with a double and a homer to raise his season battling line to .202/.305/.376. It was very late in the season, but he was above the Mendoza Line for good.

Along with deadline pickup Ichiro Suzuki, Martin was arguably the Yankees’ very best hitter in the final month of the season. He hit .277/.355/.578 with seven homers in the club’s final 28 games of the year, including .375/.500/1.000 (!) with runners in scoring position. Russ hit walk-off homer against the Athletics (video) on September 21st, and three of those seven homers either tied the game or gave the Yankees the lead. Martin didn’t hit a lick in the postseason like most of his teammates, but he did hit the game-winning homer off Jim Johnson in Game One of the ALDS. That was enormous.

Despite all those late-season homers, the 62-game hot streak to close the season was fueled by a BABIP return to normalcy…

As I wrote this morning, you would expect Martin to have a low-ish BABIP because of the type of hitter he is, but anything below .200 is venturing into massively unlikely territory for any player. He enjoyed a .271 BABIP in the final 62 games of the season, which is right around his true talent level based on recent years. That raised his season line up to  .211/.311/.403, a 95 wRC+ that was a bit below the league average overall but actually identical to the MLB average for the position. Catchers get a little slack.

If there’s one thing we learned about Martin offensively these last two years, it’s that he can be very streaky. The downs are longer and more frequent than the ups, but the ups are power-filled stretches with a lot of clutch hits. Martin always seems to put quality at-bats together as well, even when he’s struggling, and he never seems to take his problems with the bat out to the field defensively. He’s no Jorge Posada, especially at the plate, but Russ has been serviceable if not solid for the Yankees at the catcher position these last two years and especially down the stretch in 2012.

Scouting The Free Agent Market: Torii Hunter

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(Stephen Dunn/Getty)

The Yankees have a number of holes to fill this offseason, perhaps none bigger on the position player side than right field. Nick Swisher was incredibly productive there both in 2012 (128 wRC+) and throughout his four years in New York (also 128 wRC+), but he will almost certainly head elsewhere as the free agent this winter. Outside of dropping nine-figures on Josh Hamilton, it’s tough to see how the Bombers won’t downgrade at the position this offseason.

Even before free agency officially opened for business, we heard that the Yankees had some interest in Torii Hunter. It’s unclear if they’ve spoken to his agent already, but it wouldn’t be surprising if they hadn’t at this stage of the offseason. With the 2014 payroll plan looming and no obvious long-term solutions available, it makes sense that they would target a veteran who is likely to sign a one-year contract. It also makes sense that they would target a right-handed hitter since both Brett Gardner and Curtis Granderson swing it from the left side of the dish. Let’s breakdown the long-time Twin and Angel…

The Pros

  • It’s been nine years since Hunter was a below-average hitter and seven years since he was less than 10% better than the league average. His .313/.365/.451 batting line in 2012 was good for a 130 wRC+, and he hit .340/.403/.465 against left-handers. Over the last three years it’s a .292/.371/.469 line against southpaws.
  • Although most of his power is to the pull side, Hunter is an all-fields hitter — here’s his spray chart from 2012 as well as 2010-2012. His 191 wRC+ to the opposite field ranked fourth among all right-handed hitters in 2012, trailing only Mike Morse, Derek Jeter, and Miguel Cabrera.
  • Hunter was never as amazing defensively as he was made out to be, but he was always above-average and the move to right field has helped him remain that way later in his career. He’s a very smart and instinctive defensive player who, for the most part, is fundamentally sound (throws to the correct base, etc.).
  • His durability is a plus, as Hunter has played at least 140 games in each of the last three years and in six of the last seven years. He hasn’t come to the plate fewer than 500 times since 2005.
  • The Yankees value strong makeup and character, and Hunter is extremely well-respected throughout the game. He also has plenty of postseason experience, though almost all of it involves series losses to New York.
  • The Angels did not make Hunter a qualifying offer, so he won’t require any kind of draft pick compensation to sign.

The Cons

  • At age 37, Hunter just had the best offseason of his career thanks to absurdly high .389 BABIP that is far out of line with his career average (.307). Hitting between Mike Trout and Albert Pujols would lead you believe he saw more fastballs in 2012, possibly explaining the increased production, but PitchFX disproves that theory — Hunter saw 65.6% fastballs in 2012 after seeing 64.4% from 2010-2011. Negligible difference.
  • Although he fared well against righties this year (.303/.351/.446), Hunter has had a a pretty sizable platoon split over the last three years. He’s put a .282/.343/.439 line against righties since 2010, but it was .271/.339/.436 from 2010-2011. That’s solid, but he’s not as productive against same-side pitchers.
  • Hunter hit the ball on the ground more than any other point his career this season (52.0%), which is not uncommon for older players. He dipped below 20 homers (he hit 16) for the first time since 2000, not counting his injury-shortened 2005 campaign. He’s always been double play prone as well.
  • Hunter’s strikeout rate (22.8%) this year was the worst full-season mark of his career, and his walk rate (6.5%) was his lowest since 2007. Coincidentally enough, that was his last walk year. Both rates were worst than the league average.
  • Keith Law recently wrote that Hunter has been “losing bat speed for the past few years and compensated this season by being much more aggressive earlier in the count,” and the data backs it up. His 3.57 pitches per plate appearance in 2012 was (by far) his lowest in the last four seasons, hence the low walk rate.
  • This isn’t a huge deal, but Hunter isn’t all that fast despite this year’s 9-for-10 in stolen base attempts. He was 14-for-33 in the two years prior to that, and he’s taken the extra base 47% of the time since 2010. That’s above-average but nothing special in the grand scheme of things.

Earlier this year, Hunter said the only teams he would consider playing for are the Angels and Dodgers (to stay in Southern California), the Rangers (he lives in the Dallas suburbs), or the Yankees. All four are contenders (at least in theory) but the Yankees are at the geographical disadvantage. The Bombers have had some success getting guys to come out of their comfort zone in recent years though (specifically Hiroki Kuroda, Ichiro Suzuki, and Lance Berkman), thanks in part to their veteran clubhouse. I don’t think selling Hunter on New York would be that big of the deal as long as the contract offer is reasonable.

Anyway, any team considering Hunter has to understand that he’s very unlikely to repeat his 2012 performance. There are a lot of red flags there with his average on balls in play and increased ground ball rate, plus his age in general makes him a decline risk. A return to his 2011 level of performance — .262/.336/.429 OBP and 114 wRC+, which was his worst season of the last four years — seems like a more realistic expectation, and that’s still enough to make him an above-average corner outfielder as long as his defense skills don’t completely vanish. Hunter won’t add the kind of contact skills I’ve been talking about for the last few weeks, though that’s hardly any kind of mandate.

The Angels offered Hunter a one-year deal with a massive pay cut from his $18M salary, though the outfielder is reportedly seeking a two-year deal. That’s not terribly surprising, everyone wants multiple years. I don’t think a one-year deal in the $4-5M range is realistic at all and frankly it shouldn’t be. Hunter is a better player than that. A one-year deal worth $10-12M might be more in line with the market, and really it’s just the one-year part that is important to the Yankees. I doubt they want to sign a 38-year-old to a two-year deal with the 2014 payroll plan looming. Either way, it’ll be tough to find a more productive outfielder than Hunter on a one-year contract this offseason.

What Went Wrong: Russell Martin’s first 100 games

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(Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

For more than a decade, Yankees fans were very spoiled by Jorge Posada. The switch-hitting backstop was a premium offensive catcher who more than made up for his shoddy defense with his bat. A borderline Hall of Famer, Posada hit .288/.381/.497 from 2006-2010, his age 34-38 seasons. Catchers are supposed to turn into pumpkins at that age. The Yankees replaced Jorge behind the plate with free agent pickup Russell Martin last year, and he had a solid first year in pinstripes. Year two was not as kind.

Martin, 29, spent the vast majority of the season below the Mendoza line. He went deep just four times in the team’s first 50 games, so the power wasn’t there either. The only thing that kept Russ from being a total drain on the offense was his plate discipline, which allowed him the draw nine walks in the team’s first nine games and 22 walks in the first 50 games. Immediately prior to the All-Star break, Martin battled through an ugly 0-for-30 slump. He snapped out of it with a double in his second to last at-bat before the break.

Russ carried a hideous .178/.300/.348 batting line into the second half, which was awful production even considering the low standards at the position. Martin was solid on defense as always, but the Yankees thrive on getting above-average production from up-the-middle positions and he certainly wasn’t providing it. After all the years of enjoying Posada’s offense, fans were annoyed and hoping the club would bring in some catching help at the trade deadline. Instead, none came.

(AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

The Yankees stuck with Martin in part because they love his defense, but also because the rest of the lineup was strong enough to carry his noodle bat at the bottom of the lineup. His second half started decently, with two homers in his first six games and three homers in his first 11 games, but on July 28th, the date of New York’s 100th game of the season, Martin was hitting just .182/.300/.364 in 283 plate appearances. Add in the fact that he hit just .223/.311/.362 in his final 410 plate appearances of last season, all of the good will he built up in April 2011 was gone. It looked like a mirage.

Now, no matter how much you may dislike a player, I think we can all agree it’s unlikely that someone with Martin’s track record had suddenly transformed into a true talent sub-Mendoza Line hitter. It’s certainly possible, but it seems unlikely. He was still drawing walks (12.4%) and he wasn’t striking out a ton (19.1%) during those first 100 games, so it wasn’t like he was completely overmatched at the plate. Martin did, however, put up a measly .186 BABIP during that stretch, which is so extreme that bad luck absolutely played a part. He isn’t fleet of foot and he does hit a lot of weak ground balls, which is conducive to a low BABIP, but not that low.

The question for the Yankees became this: when will Martin’s luck turn around? It wasn’t guaranteed to happen in 2012. It’s also worth noting that an extremely low BABIP like won’t necessarily be met with an extremely high BABIP when it does correct either. He could have just produced to his true talent level — he had a .275 BABIP in over 1,400 plate appearances from 2009-2011 — and that might not have been good enough to help the team either. Given the lack of deadline activity, the Yankees had faith in their catcher’s ability to maybe not turn things all the way around, but at least contribute more than he had been down the stretch,

Martin did have a signature moment or two in the first half the season — the walk-off homer against the Mets (video) or the game-winning single against the Angels (video) for example — but for the most part he was a non-factor at the plate. With those 100 ugly games under his belt, his season batting line was beyond saving. The Yankees were watching the Orioles draw closer as the division race got tight at this point of the season, and their starting catcher’s lack of production was a big reason why.