Over the past few weeks I’ve been taking a lighthearted look at what sabermetric sage Bill James has projected for various parts of the Yanks’ squad, starting with the rotation. Next I jumped to the lineup, and then last week I sorted out the bullpen. Now it’s time to wrap up this little series of posts by tying up the loose ends.
The Yanks’ bench was pretty brutal last year, as injuries forced several guys into more playing time then designed. Jose Molina did his best as Jorge Posada’s injury fill-in, and poor Wilson Betemit was ripped endlessly for being a two true outcomes bench player (extra base hit or strikeout). The latter was eventually jettisoned off in favor of the older but cheaper Cody Ransom, a career minor league journeyman who whacked a couple of meaningless longballs when the team was basically out of it.
Ransom and guys like Juan Miranda and Frankie Cervelli didn’t see enough big league action to earn themselves a projection, so we’re out of luck there. All we’ve got for now is Molina:
Jose Molina, C
Projection: .232-.274-.333, 20 R, 12 2B, 3 HR, 19 RBI, 45-9 K/BB, .271 wOBP
Offense is definitely not Molina’s calling card. The middle Molina brother owns a career 61 OPS+, and actually underperformed it last year (51 OPS+). Luckily James sees a little bit of a “rebound” in Molina, who projects to raise his OPS back up over the .600 level. We love Hava Molina here at RAB, but the less he plays the better.