Cash, Boras talk Tex, Lowe
As we noted, Scott Boras and Brian Cashman met yesterday to discuss some of the über-agent’s free agents. According to Tyler Kepner, Cashman met with Mark Teixeira as well, and this finally seems to confirm the Yankee interest in the man who would be, to channel Buster Olney, a great fit. No word there on an offer.
But on the Derek Lowe front, Mark Feinsand has somet developments. According to the Daily News scribe, the Yanks may be gearing up to make Lowe an offer. While Boston has also expressed interest in Lowe, I’d rather see the Yanks pursue Teixeira. Lowe doesn’t do much for me, but some of that might just be my personal reaction to him.
Sheets to the wind
With GM Brian Cashman set to meet with CC Sabathia and the market for A.J. Burnett taking shape, Ben Sheets’ name has popped up in Yankee rumors for the first time this Hot Stove season. “There’s increasing buzz,” wrote Jayson Stark, “about the Yankees’ interest in Ben Sheets, possibly an indication that they’re not confident they’re going to be able to sign Burnett. A few RAB tipsters have noted a similar vein of discussion on Michael Kay’s ESPN radio show as well. We like Sheets. Hopefully, the Yankees do too.
The all-time leaders in plate appearances per strikeout
In our lengthy discussion of Adam Dunn, one topic his detractors hit on hard was strikeouts. As in, he racks them up. He’s been in the top 10 in strikeouts for the past five years, leading the league in 2004, 05, and 06. But good players strike out, right? Does A-Rod not rack up 130 or so strikeouts a year? What’s another 30 or 40?
Yes, good players strike out. But do they strike out that often? Take a look at the all-time leaders in strikeouts. Certainly more good players up there than bad ones (damn you, Dave Kingman). That’s not really fair, though. A more telling list would be strikeout percentage. Unfortunately, the only readily available stat is lowest strikeout percentage. Not useful for our purposes, but interesting because you won’t find many modern players on the list.
So I went over to B-Ref’s Play Index — or, more accurately, Ben went to the PI. The data wasn’t readily available, but I had him put it in a spreadsheet, because I hate baseball. You can view it here. No, the names there aren’t quite as inspiring as the names on the top raw career strikeouts. And lookey there: Adam Dunn is fourth all-time, sandwiched between Pete Incaviglia and Preston Wilson.
Yet is Dunn at all like the players surrounding him? Rob Deer didn’t have nearly as much power and didn’t take as many walks; ditto Jose Hernandez; Incaviglia was never much better than mediocre; there has never been a reason to throw Preston Wilson a strike. If anything, he seems a little bit like Jay Buhner, and even then he didn’t take a walk like Dunn.
I think this is a long way of saying that strikeouts by themselves don’t mean too much. Different players have different games. Some guys, especially those that hit for a lot of power, are going to swing and miss a good deal. It’s when they bring other skills to the table, like a good eye and a power stroke, that we can forgive the strikeouts. It’s when they’re pretty much worthless — looking at you, Mr. Deer — that they’re a major issue.
Giants may but interested, but Yanks pressing hard for CC
Update 10:14 p.m.: I worte this rest of this post this afternoon. Since then, the AP is reporting that the Yankees and CC Sabathia will meet this weekend. It appears that the market is starting to move.
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Sources sure are saying a lot about CC Sabathia these days, but I’m not buying it. After last night’s Jayson Stark speculation about Sabathia and the Giants, Mark Feinsand’s sources said that the Giants were “considering” Sabathia, but only if he’s willing to accept “an extreme hometown discount.”
I just don’t buy it and neither does Ken Davidoff. To me, this sounds remarkably similar to the reports about the Angels’ supposedly interest in Sabathia that later turned out to be false. It could very well be a ploy by Sabathia’s agents to get more money from the Yanks.
We know the Yanks would be willing to up their offer if another team steps in, and perhaps Greg Genske is attempting a Scott Boras-like tactic. The Giants have major offensive woes, and signing CC would tie up nearly half their payroll in two pitchers. While Sabathia may want to pitch in the Bay Area, he won’t leave at least $30 million on the table, and if the Giants were to make a real offer, that would be the difference.
In an interview today, Giants’ GM Brian Sabean seemed to dance around the Sabathia issue. He knows the Giants can’t compete and dollars, and he knows it wouldn’t make much sense for San Francisco to commit so much to another pitcher. They may, in principle, be interested, but I don’t see a fit here.
Open Thread: A theoretical expansion draft
We’ll resume the Hot Stove League talk at 10 p.m. ET with a short CC Sabathia-related post. Let’s have some fun in the meantime…
Earlier this week, Chad Jennings engaged in a little bit of idle Yankee chatter. Noting that it’s been 11 years since the last expansion draft — the second-longest such stretch during baseball’s Expansion Era — Jennings wondered who among the current Yankees would be protected in a theoretical expansion draft.
He based his lists upon the 1997 rules and writes:
Here are the rules as they were in 1997: Any player with major league experience is eligible. Minor leaguers are eligible if they’re Rule 5 eligible. I’m not sure if someone like Andrew Brackman would have been eligible — he’s on the 40-man but has no major league experience and has not passed the Rule 5 threshold — but I’m going to bet he would have been eligible. Seems to always work that way with the 40-man.
Each team starts by protecting 15 players. No team can lose more than one player per round, and after each round, each team can protect three more. Any 10-5 players (10 years experience, five consecutive with the same team) have to be protected. So do players with no trade clauses.
In the end, he came up with the following list. Keep in mind that the Rule 5 eligibility protects many of the Yanks’ top prospects including Austin Jackson and Jesus Montero:
Must be protected
10-5 players or no-trade clauses
1. Mariano Rivera
2. Jorge Posada
3. Derek Jeter
4. Alex Rodriguez
5. Hideki Matsui
Young and vital
Or maybe not vital, but too good to risk losing
6. Andrew Brackman
7. Joba Chamberlain
8. Phil Hughes
9. Ian Kennedy
10. Chien-Ming Wang
11. Robinson Cano
12. Brett Gardner
Veterans
Not 10-5 guys, but worth protecting
13. Johnny Damon
14. Xavier Nady
15. Nick Swisher
Following the first round and second round, teams can protect more players, and Jennings adds the following eight to his list:
1. David Robertson
2. Phil Coke
3. Alfredo Aceves
4. Chris Garcia
5. Alan Horne
6. Juan Miranda
7. Humberto Sanchez
8. Frank Cervelli
So here is what I pose to you for this open thread: Who would you protect in an expansion draft? In other words, who do you see are the 10-18 most important Yankees on the field right now outside of the guys with the 5-10/No-Trade protection?
Debate away, but play nice. I’m quite curious to see how fans assess the state of the franchise both for this season and in the future in light of this question.
Torre: Pettitte not coming to LA
Joe Torre doesn’t think Andy Pettitte is coming to Los Angeles, and an interview with Newsday’s Ken Davidoff, the former Yankee manager said that the Yankees remain Andy Pettitte’s top choice. I think it’s pretty safe, right now, to say that the Yanks made the right move in not offering Andy arbitration. He’ll be back in the Bronx. It just depends upon which side blinks first.