Thursday, January 28, 2010

2010 off season #8

Ahh, some news that is worthy of having some substance to a blog. Well, not exactly breathtaking, but Johnny Damon not coming back does have some emotion to it for many people. I am not one of them though. Nothing against Damon, he is worth about the same as Gardner and possibly even a little more if you project the same year for an aging Damon and a younger Gardner. It is probably a wash if you take the slight increase one would project for Gardner and a decrease for Damon, especially with his defense.

The real question is whether the yanks were better off taking the 2 mil for Randy Winn (just signed), and another 4 mil for Gaudin and Mitre and offered a one year 6 mil dollar deal?
Without any injuries, I will say probably not. Gaudin and Mitre may be middle relief and nothing else, but if they pitch well or if one of them pitches well it could be a nice chip for a deal.
I also want to see what Gardner has because even with what he did last year, it is more productive than Melky and what if he improves.

“Will you get to the Randy Winn deal, what do you think?”

At 2 mil the deal can’t be horrible, but I am not excited by it either. Winn was atrocious against lefties last year and a little below average against righties last year. However, Winn is coming off one of his worst seasons with an OPS of .671 and he was even worse against lefties with a .384 (yes that was his OPS). This is even more curious considering the Yanks need some help against lefties with Granderson and Gardner?

Obviously the Yankees are hoping that last year was an aberration as Winn was pretty good the 2 previous years and actually hit lefties very well over the last 2 years with an OPS against lefties around .870.

His defense is supposed to be very solid as he runs well and gets good breaks on the ball. He can also play all 3 OF positions so he can help in RF as needed, perhaps coming in to pinch run for Posada or even Nick Swisher and staying to play RF. He could also pinch run for Nick Johnson, but you would lose the DH. He is not blazing but even as he gets older he is a guy who can steal 15 bases and get caught only a few times.

Overall, at 36 in June, I am not expecting a huge turnaround, but last year did seem like a bit of a sharp decline and perhaps it was just one of those years. I see him as a guy who gives a little late flexibility in defense and speed while also providing a little better OF depth in case of an injury. He probably would not be much worse than Melky overall. I still would have liked a lefty bopper, but we will need to hope that Jamie Hoffman can provide some help in that area. Overall, when a team brings in a lefty specialist to face Curtis G or Brett G we won’t have a good answer.

On a minor note, not sure if anyone noticed, the Yanks also signed Greg Golson. He is a 24 year old fast outfielder with a good arm. He has not developed much as a hitter yet (.703 OPS) but when Texas couldn’t keep him on their 40 man roster when they signed Khalil Green, the Yanks grabbed some depth with the hopes he could develop. Last year was his first at AAA. He had 20 SB’s only getting caught a few times in about 400 AB’s

I still owe a recap of my thoughts last year. Overall, the off season was OK. Not as exciting as last year, but not bad either. We replaced Damon with Granderson, Matsui with Nick Johnson, Melky with Winn and Hoffman for Hairston. We also added Vazquez and Logan for Coke and Bruney. If you think about it, the only one that is not a win is the Matsui one, but Nick could be better as an every day player compared to Matsui. 100 wins with normal health should happen.
The Genius Maker tm is a tribute to Mariano Rivera who makes coaches look a like a genius...