Archive for Curtis Granderson
Looking ahead to 2013: The Bossman cometh?
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(Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty)
I need to preface this post by saying that I’ve made it abundantly clear that I’m a huge Nick Swisher fan, and assuming he turns in a fourth straight 120-plus wRC+ offensive campaign in pinstripes this coming season, I’d expect the Yankees to look to retain the pending free agent’s services on a multi-year deal. So long as his contract requirements remain within reason, anyway.
By “within reason,” I’d say anywhere from the three-year, $21 million ($7M average annual value) deal personal favorite Josh Willingham signed with the Twins this winter (which still seems like the steal of the offseason) to Michael Cuddyer’s three-year, $31.5 million deal ($10.5 million AAV) with the Rockies. However, since breaking into the league in 2004, Swish has been the superior all-around player by a not insignificant margin, and being that he’ll be two years younger than Cuddyer was this past offseason he definitely has a case for a bigger deal than Cuddyer’s, and a strong case for a bigger contract than Willingham’s sweetheart deal. Between his apparent superiority to these similar players and the fact that this will be his first foray into free agency, I’d expect him to start out at the very least looking for something that will pay him $13 million a year.
Given the incredible value the Yankees have gotten out of Swisher thus far — since 2009, Swish has been paid $21.2 million for his services by the Yankees, and according to FanGraphs’ $/WAR calculation, has been worth $47.6 million — $13 million seems like an eminently reasonable ask; however, at the end of the day I’d expect length to be a bigger sticking point than AAV. As an outfielder coming off his age 31 season next winter, one has to think Swish will be looking for enough financial security to take him as close to the end of his career as possible. I could see his initial ask starting at five years, but I don’t see the Yankees being interested in committing any more than three years to their switch-hitting right fielder. Maybe they’d go to four, but I’m not sure I’d expect the Yankees to hand out a four-plus-year contract to an outfielder on the wrong side of 30 that isn’t named Curtis Granderson, who — barring an unforeseen precipitous decline in production — the team will be looking to re-sign after 2013.
So, in the event that the Yankees and Nick Swisher can’t arrive at a happy medium next winter, the Bombers may in fact be finding themselves in the market for a right fielder. Enter B.J. Upton, slated to be a free agent for the first time in his career next offseason. As an outside observer, it seems as though the Rays have been waiting for Upton — the second overall pick in the 2002 amateur draft — to become the superstar many predicted he’d blossom into forever.
I asked noted Rays fan Jason Collette, of Baseball Prospectus and DRaysBay fame, for some color on this notion, and he was kind enough to respond with the following:
BJ will always leave a portion of this fanbase wanting. There’s a portion of this fanbase that finds Upton to be an unmotivated and lazy waste of talent that the Rays need to move. There’s a portion that is disappointed with him but are holding out hope that 2012 is a lot like 2007. There’s a portion that appreciates him for what he is rather than what he is not. I think he could go 30/30 in Yankee Stadium given his best swings are when he goes the other way, but he is never hitting .300 again without some serious BABIP help. He goes through hot streaks that are really hot and then slumps for long periods at a time while tinkering with his swing. He made some changes with his legkick late in the season over the final 6 weeks that yielded positive results, so it bears watching. There is a level of A.J. Burnett hate with him with a portion of this fanbase that sees nothing wrong with booing him after a strikeout or when he’s thrown out on the basepaths. However, there is a larger portion that will miss him when he leaves and hopes that he does not hang around the American League to blossom as it is tough enough to watch Carl Crawford do the same for Boston. In the end, he always leaves fans wanting something; the degree of that want comes from each fans attitude toward Upton.
Upton was drafted as a shortstop back in ’02, but was an unmitigated disaster at the position, and despite posting a respectable .323 wOBA as a 19-year-old in 177 plate appearances in 2004, his defensive woes helped demote him to AAA Durham for the entirety of the 2005 season. Upton didn’t make it back to the bigs until August 1, 2006, but he struggled mightily (.275 wOBA in 189 PAs) while playing third base, a position he’d never played professionally prior to that season.
At the outset of the 2007 season, Upton was shifted to second base to start the season, with the idea that he could play anywhere from second to short to third to the outfield on any given day. Upton responded to his first camp-breaking with the Rays by exploding out of the gate, posting a .471 wOBA in April 2007, and ultimately finishing the year with a career-high .387 wOBA (138 wRC+), shifting into center field full-time and seemingly finally establishing himself as the offensive force everyone had been waiting for. Only it didn’t last.
Upton followed his monster 2007 with a good (.354 wOBA, 118 wRC+), but disappointing 2008, given the new baseline he’d established the year prior. Upton’s OBP was still monstrous (.383, after .386 in 2007), but his power mysteriously vanished, and his slugging dropped over 100 points to .401. Upton continued his slide in 2009, falling to a below-average .310 wOBA (88 wRC+), which was easily his worst full season in the bigs. Upton has since recovered a decent amount of his value, posting near-identical 2010 (.337 wOBA, 113 wRC+) and 2011 (.337 wOBA, 115 wRC+) campaigns while providing above-average defense in center, though his erratic performances these last several seasons have rendered Upton’s true talent level something of an enigma.
One aspect of Upton’s game that would undoubtedly be very appealing to the Yankees is his ability to draw walks. Upton has a career 11.2% walk rate, well above league average. His career OBP is a respectable .342; however, the reason it’s not higher is because Upton also has a propensity to strike out. A lot. Upton’s career K% is 24.8%, and his 25.2% K% was the fifth-worst in the AL last season. His strikeouts have dramatically suppressed a batting average (career .258) that one would expect to be a good bit higher for someone with a carer BABIP of .327. Upton also has a career 11.3% HR/FB%, also an above-average rate, and the high BABIP and HR/FB% show that when Upton does put a bat on the ball, good things tend to happen. Unfortunately this isn’t as common as an occurrence as one would hope. Perhaps there’s something in Upton’s swing that Kevin Long can fix?
Upton would also probably be the best defensive right fielder the Yankees would hypothetically have fielded since perhaps Raul Mondesi, and an outfield of Brett Gardner, Curtis Granderson and Upton seems like it would be hands-down the finest defensive outfield in the game. The dropoff in offensive production from Swisher to Upton would be fairly substantial, but not massive (Swish is a 117 career wRC+ hitter; Upton 110), while Upton would make a lot of the difference up in fielding.
Upton’s patient/hacker dichotomy — his 3.86 pitches seen per plate appearance (P/PA) ranked 31st in the AL last season, ahead of the likes of Derek Jeter, Jacoby Ellsbury and Adrian Gonzalez, among others, while his swinging strike percentage of 20% that was the 4th-highest in the league, and well above the 15% league average — is somewhat reminiscent of Curtis Granderson’s, although Grandy led the league in P/PA in 2011 and recorded a 16% swinging strike percentage.
Given his abilities I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the 27-year-old Upton’s (turning 28 in August) best-case-scenario is blossoming into modern-day Curtis Granderson — if you compare the first five years of each player’s career, the results are remarkably similar, with one elite season early on followed by some good — though not great — subsequent campaigns. Upton’s got the edge in OBP, though Granderson certainly has the edge in power. Some may argue that Upton’s running out of time to get there, but his 2007 shows that it’s not crazy to envision him finally putting it all together on a consistent basis as he enters the prime of his career, similar to the way Granderson turned in a career year in his age 30 season.
The parallels between Granderson and Upton become even more apparent when you look at their WAR graphs:
Source: FanGraphs — Curtis Granderson, B.J. Upton
And cumulative by age:
Source: FanGraphs — Curtis Granderson, B.J. Upton
Also, for those curious about the righty Upton’s splits, while he unsurprisingly hits lefties better (career 118 wRC+), he’s playable against righties (101 wRC+).
So after all of this analysis, we haven’t even answered perhaps the most important question — how much will Upton be looking for, and what can he reasonably expect to be offered? Unfortunately for B.J., as a career .339 wOBA hitter, it seems unlikely he’d see anything close to the mega-deal his former teammate Carl Crawford signed prior to the 2011 season, as Carl has been the superior player (not to mention a massive disappointment one year into his monster Boston contract); although to play devil’s advocate, Carl’s career wOBA was only .008 points higher than Upton’s at the time of his free agency, so perhaps I’m selling Upton a bit short. Upton is making $7 million in his final year as a Ray, and will obviously look to exceed that on an annual basis.
With teams seemingly increasingly shy to commit mega dollars and years to anyone outside of elite talent, it seems like a stretch to see anyone signing Upton for longer than five years, and given his erratic offensive play, I’m not sure he’s worth more than $10-$12 million a year (although FanGraphs’ $/WAR valuation has him worth an average of $17.3 million over the last five years).
Upton will probably start out asking for something like seven years and $105 million ($15M AAV), but I’d ultimately expect him to end up signing for something closer to five years, $60 million — which, if the Yanks can’t agree to terms with Swish, should very seriously consider Upton if his price does fall to this range — unless he has another year like 2007 in him in 2012. In that case, all bets are off.
Cole Hamels, Curtis Granderson and the tough choices ahead
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(Drew Hallowell/Getty Images)
One of Larry’s objections to the Pineda/Montero swap is the future availability of Cole Hamels on the free agent market. If the Yankees can pick up Hamels to slide in behind Sabathia, the argument goes, then perhaps they should have kept Montero to provide cheap production out of the designated hitter slot over the next few seasons. I wrote about Hamels last week, speculating that the Yankees might be preparing to make a run at him next winter.
Last Friday’s trade radically altered the landscape of the Yankees roster. In acquiring Michael Pineda from the Mariners, the Yankees acquired a potential number one or two starter with five years of cheap team control. According to well-sourced reporter Joel Sherman, the price was particularly important because the team is serious about getting under the $189M luxury tax threshold in 2014. With the new roster in place, it seems reasonable to wonder whether the team will be able to afford Hamels, or their own Curtis Granderson, Robinson Cano, and/or Nick Swisher, all of whom hit free agency in the next few years.
In projecting precisely whom the Yankees will be able to afford, it helps to have a handle on a reasonable estimate of future prices. Towards that end, I asked Joe, Mike, Ben, Moshe and Larry to all provide me their best estimates for what they expect Swisher, Granderson, Cano and Hamels to pull in in their new contracts. These were the results of our inputs:
Robinson Cano: AAV of $22.0M, high of $23M, low of $20M.
Nick Swisher: AAV of $12.67M, high of $15M, low of $12M.
Curtis Granderson: AAV of $17.0M, high of $18M, low of $15M.
Cole Hamels: AAV of $21.67, high of $23M, low of $20M.
I’ll be using these figures going forward, and also making a few assumptions about the future Yankees payroll. The first one is that the Yankees won’t allow Robinson Cano to leave via free agency. He’s a homegrown star at a difficult position to fill, and he’ll only be 31 when he hits the free agent market after the 2013 season. It’ll hurt, but I expect the Yankees to resign Cano at $22M per year, the average listed above. The second assumption is that Alex Rodriguez will hit his 660th home run this season, and will hit his 714th home run in 2014, thus triggering his second $6M bonus. The third assumption is that Russell Martin does not sign an extension with the Yankees, and that they’ll use Austin Romine by 2014. With this in mind, this is what the roster would look like heading into the 2012-2013 offseasons:
The specific names attached to the $500k salaries aren’t all that important, but the idea that a cheap player will occupy the fifth starter’s spot and most of the bullpen. Banuelos, Betances, and Warren are interchangeable with whatever young player your heart desires. The cost is important.
The Yankees will have roughly $40M to spend on their rotation, bullpen, center field, right field and designated hitter positions. If they pay Granderson $17M and Swisher $12M, they’ll have around $10M to fill out the final rotation spot and the bullpen. They could go with a cheap arm in the fifth starter position, fill out the back end of the bullpen with minimum salary guys, and sign a decent set up reliever. If they choose to let Granderson walk and sign Hamels and Swisher, they’d have about $7M left over for the center field position (or left field, if they shift Gardner to center), bullpen and DH. This would be difficult to pull off. If they chose to forgo both Granderson and Swisher and sign Hamels, then they’d have around $18M left for two outfielders, the DH and the bullpen.
There doesn’t seem to be any way that the Yankees can get under $189M with Robinson Cano, Curtis Granderson and Cole Hamels all under contract at market rates. From a financial perspective, the “easiest” solution would be for the Yankees to acquire a cheap, cost-controlled outfielder (like a Domonic Brown) who could step in and fill Swisher’s role for cheap. This would allow the Yankees to move Gardner to center and allow Granderson to walk, replacing Gardner with a relatively cheap left fielder and spending big on Hamels and the bullpen.
Personally, I’d very much like for them to spend on Hamels, probably even at the expense of Curtis Granderson. The offense would take a bit of a hit, but the idea of a Sabathia-Hamels-Pineda-Nova rotation is enticing. That’s just me, though, so I’m providing the link to my Google Doc with all the relevant numbers. If you save your own version, you can edit and mess around with various roster scenarios and post your version in the comments. Any way you cut it, though, there are some very hard decisions ahead for the Yankees front office.
Granderson, Cano finish fourth and sixth in AL MVP race
Posted by: | CommentsThe AL Cy Young Award wasn’t enough. Justin Verlander was named the MVP of the American League today, receiving 13 of 28 first place votes. He’s the first pitcher to win the award since Dennis Eckersley in 1992, and the first starting pitcher to win the award since Roger Clemens in 1986. He’s also the first Tiger to be named MVP since Willie Hernandez in 1984.
Curtis Granderson was the Yankees’ best player all season, and was rewarded for his efforts with a fourth place finish in the voting. He received three first place votes and finished with 215 points, trailing only Verlander (280), Jacoby Ellsbury (242), and Jose Bautista (231). The top five finish triggers an escalator clause in his contract, raising the value of his 2013 option from $14M to $15M. Robinson Cano finished sixth in the voting with 112 points, though he did not receive any first or second place votes.
CC Sabathia (two sixth place votes), Mark Teixeira (one seventh and one tenth place vote), and David Robertson (one tenth place vote) also appeared on ballots. The full results are available on the BBWAA’s site. The NL MVP will be announced tomorrow at 2pm, the final award of the season.
Curtis Granderson named AL Outstanding Player of the Year
Posted by: | CommentsThe Players Choice Awards were handed out tonight, and Curtis Granderson was named the 2011 AL Outstanding Player of the Year. He beat out Jose Bautista and Adrian Gonzalez for the award. Bartolo Colon was nominated for AL Comeback Player of the Year, but he lost out to Jacoby Ellsbury. No shame in that. Chad Jennings has the full list of winners, which were voted on by the players (hence Players Choice Awards). Congrats to the Grandyman on the well-deserved honor.
Granderson, Cano take home Silver Slugger Awards
Posted by: | CommentsVia Chad Jennings and Enrique Rojas, Curtis Granderson and Robinson Cano have won AL Silver Slugger Awards at their respective positions. The winners are being announced live on MLB Network right now, but the list is being updated at MLB.com. Congrats to both of these guys, they were well deserving of the awards given their offensive dominance in 2011.
Switching Gardner and Granderson
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(AP Photo/Gail Burton)
It’s been trendy to classify the Yankees as a poor defensive team over the last decade or so, and for a while it was absolutely true. It’s not anymore though, even if Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez have lost a step over the years. Mark Teixeira and Robinson Cano are rock solid at worst on the right side of the infield, Russell Martin is very good behind the plate, and the outfield features two center fielders. Yeah, the left side of the infield is lacking, but the defensive is generally solid overall.
The Yankees outfield led baseball in good ol’ UZR this season (32.3 runs saved), and they were fourth overall last year (+28.6). At 60.9 runs saved since the start of 2010, they’ve been the second best defensive outfield in baseball behind the Diamondbacks (+61.2), who on any given night are running three players out there capable of playing center field (Gerardo Parra, Chris Young, and Justin Upton). The eye test agrees with the numbers as well; Brett Gardner is a stud in the field, Curtis Granderson is solid, and although Nick Swisher can look funny out there at times, he’s solid as well.
Over the last few months, the question has arose about whether or not the Yankees are using the best outfield alignment. Because Gardner is an elite defender, shouldn’t he be playing center instead of Granderson? The advanced metrics didn’t like Curtis’ defense at all in 2011, including UZR (-5.1), DRS (-15), Total Zone (-5), and FRAA (-13.1). One year of fielding data isn’t enough though, and his three-year rates seem much more in line with the eye test (0, +3, +3, and -12.1, respectively). Gardner, on the other hand, was one of the best fielders in all of baseball this year (+25.8, +22, +3, and +13.7) and has been since 2009 (+50.9, +35, +46, and +22.6). You’re not going to find much of an argument here, Gardner is the better defensive player whether you dig the stats or not.
Now, it is important to consider context when dealing with these defensive stats. Gardner has played left field for the vast majority of the last two years, so his performance is being compared to other left fielders. As you know, most teams have some kind of plodding, bat-first guy roaming left, only able to catch balls hit right at him. Granderson is being compared to fellow center fielders, who tend to be better than left fielders on defense. Move Gardner to center, and his +20 UZR turns into a +5 or +10 UZR real fast. That’s still very good, but the numbers can be deceiving.
SG at RLYW dug deeper into the data last week, and found that yeah, the Yankees probably are better off defensively with Gardner in center and Granderson in left, but chances are the upgrade would be small. That doesn’t mean it’s not an option worth exploring though, and I think switching the two is something the Yankees should at least consider this offseason. Granderson hasn’t played an outfield position other than center since 2007, when he spend five innings in left, and all told he’s got just 59.2 career innings in left and over 8,000 in center. A mid-season switch probably would have been tough, but it’s something he can work on during the offseason and in Spring Training. It might not be a big difference, but it’s an extra five or ten runs saved over the course of the season, it will certainly help the Yankees.
What Went Right: Curtis Granderson
Posted by: | CommentsOver the next few weeks, we’re going to look back at what went right, what went wrong, and what went as expected during the 2011 campaign.
(AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
Like Spring Training, a surge at the end of a season can be deceiving. September rosters feature a lot of players that wouldn’t be in the big leagues without expanded rosters, so a big time performance might just be an illusion. Curtis Granderson‘s late-season dominance in 2010 proved to be very real in 2011, and the best part is that we actually have some tangible evidence for his improvement. That mid-August 2010 pow-wow with hitting coach Kevin Long is world famous by now. Okay, maybe not, but you get my drift.
Granderson’s season started much like the same way last season ended, with him getting big hits and helping the Yankees win games. His Opening Day solo homer off former Yankee (and lefty) Phil Coke to leadoff the seventh inning broke a 3-3 tie and helped the Yanks win their first game of the season. He homered again in the team’s only first half win over the Red Sox about a week later, and a few days after that he homered yet again. Following a five homers in seven days binge in mid-April, Curtis was hitting .292/.343/.708 with seven dingers in the team’s first 18 games.
A short-lived slump followed that (8-for-45 across eleven games), but Granderson got right back on the horse and started raking again. He went deep twice against the Rangers on May 6th, then hit another six homers in his next 15 games. By June 1st, the Yankees center fielder was hitting a .284/.355/.627 with 17 homers, more than anyone in the game not named Jose Bautista. From that two-homer game against Texas to another two-homer game against the Orioles on August 28th, a span of 100 games and 463 plate appearances, Granderson hit .282/.389/.601 with 30 homers and 103 runs scored. Opponents started to pitch him more carefully, and rather than chase stuff out of the zone, Curtis simply took his walks and beefed up his OBP…
That performance earned him a starting outfield spot on the AL All-Star Team and Player of the Month honors for August. Although the month of September was not kind to the Grandyman (.186/.301/.340 during the team’s final 32 games), Curtis was again one of the team’s very best hitters in the playoffs, reaching base nine times in the five games, including a double, a triple, and a homer. He finished the season with a .262/.364/.552 batting line, a .394 wOBA that was dragged down by September but still managed to be the 11th highest in all of baseball. At 7.0 fWAR and 5.2 bWAR, he was either the eighth or 20th most valuable position player in the game in 2011, respectively, and either of those is pretty awesome.
Granderson finished the season with some rather gaudy old school counting stats, including 136 runs scored (15 more than anyone else), 119 RBI (most in the AL, seven behind Matt Kemp for the MLB lead), and 41 homers (two behind Joey Bats for the MLB lead). He was five steals short of becoming just the third 30-30 player in Yankees history (joining Alfonso Soriano and Bobby Bonds), but he did manage to become the first 40-25 player in team history and just the 15th all-time. Curtis also became the tenth player in history with 25+ homers, 25+ doubles, 25+ steals, and 10+ triples in a single season. He’s the only member of that group to go deep 40+ times.
As much fun as the raw numbers are, perhaps the most impressive thing about Granderson’s season is the way he demolished left-handed pitching. He’d hit just .212/.271/.336 against southpaws from 2006-2010, but Curtis actually hit them better (.272/.347/.597) than he did right-handers (.258/.372/.531) in 2011. That’s a .400 wOBA against lefties and a .388 wOBA against righties. His 16 homers off left-handers were the most in the majors, and that includes right-handed hitters. Jay Bruce was second on the left vs. left list with 11 dingers. Granderson didn’t just feast on soft-tossers either, he took Gio Gonzalez, Matt Harrison (twice), David Price (twice), and Jon Lester deep, among others. Those three combined to give up just 18 homers to lefties all season, and Curtis accounted for a third of them.
From Opening Day through Game Five of the ALDS, Granderson was the Yankees best player in 2011. He’s been one of the very best players in all of baseball since revamping his swing with Kevin Long last August, but don’t ask them about, they insist it was just a minor tweak or two. They’re probably right, but there’s nothing minor about the results. Granderson was a legitimate MVP candidate this year thanks to one of the best performances by a Yankee in recent memory.
Granderson, Cano headline MLB roster for tour of Taiwan
Posted by: | CommentsVia Sweeny Murti, Curtis Granderson and Robinson Cano are headlining a team of MLB players that will tour Taiwan from November 1st-6th, and compete against the Chinese Taipei national team. MLB has done oversees tours like this for a long time, mostly involving Japan.
I haven’t seen the full roster yet, but based on what I’ve been able to gather on Twitter, some other players that will make the trip include Jeremy Guthrie, Dillon Gee, Ross Detwiler, Erick Aybar, Jeff Mathis (hah), Logan Morrison, Emilio Bonifacio, and former Yankees Jose Veras and Mark Melancon. I’m happy Grandy and Cano are going, but I’m even happier that none of the Yankees pitchers are.
The Game Changer
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Hurts so good. (AP Photo/Duane Burleson)
Last night’s Game Four win was all about A.J. Burnett‘s surprisingly effective start and a late-inning offensive relay, where everyone in the lineup just kept passing baton to the next guy. The final score (10-1) doesn’t really tell the whole story story though, because it was just 4-1 heading into the eighth. Baseball is a team game, but one man really stood on his head a bit and contributed to that 4-1 lead. That would be Curtis Granderson, the club’s MVP.
I don’t want to say that we’re overlooking what Granderson did last night, I don’t think that’s case at all, but it’s worth taking a step back to appreciate his efforts again during the off day. The defensive stats may not like him to varying degrees this year – DRS hates him (-15 runs), UZR doesn’t like him much (-5.3), and dWAR says he’s basically average (-0.2) – but even if you don’t like Granderson’s defense, you can’t deny the two plays he made last night. That first inning lunging catch (video) completely changed the dynamic of that game. If it gets by him, that ball has inside-the-park grand slam potential. At the very least, it’s three runs for the Tigers. Instead they got zero, then Burnett settled down and kept it that way. Six innings later, he made another thrilling catch on a Jhonny Peralta fly ball (video), laying out to save a run, keep the tying run from coming to the plate, and ending the inning.
On the offensive side of the ball, which is really what Granderson is known for, he doubled in the team’s third run of the game, which also helped setup the fourth run later in the inning. He also tripled in Derek Jeter in the first inning of Game Three and whacked a solo homer in Game Two as the Yankees tried (and failed) to make a comeback. Everyone’s spent so much time focusing on how poorly Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, and Nick Swisher have hit over the last two postseasons that they haven’t bothered to notice what Curtis has done with the bat, namely hit .318/.464 (!)/.614 in the playoffs as a Yankee. Remember the came tying triple off Francisco Liriano in Game One of last year’s ALDS? Another feature in his cap.
Granderson had a weak September (.205/.300/.375 in exactly 100 PA), no denying it, but he still had an MVP caliber year. We’re talking a .262/.364/.552 batting with 41 homers, and he’s shaken off that slow September to again become a force in the ALDS. He was a two-way threat last night, creating runs with the bat and certainly saving runs with the glove. Granderson impacted the game as much as any player on the field, which is something he’s been doing all year.
