Marcus Thames Returns, Nostalgic Offseason Continues

I don't think Brian Cashman would actually make decisions based on something as irrational as nostalgia, but he has spent much of this offseason reacquiring players that were dealt away when the Tampa "brain trust" was purportedly controlling the Yankee organization. First it was Javy Vazquez, next Nick Johnson and this afternoon the Yanks signed Marcus Thames - who was dealt to the Rangers in exchange for Ruben Sierra back in 2003 - to a minor league deal.

Thames had spent six seasons in the Yanks' minor league system before he was dealt. After being drafted in the 30th round of the 1997 draft, he was placed in Rookie ball, slowly moved up through the levels of the farm and was promoted to AA in the middle of 1999. After a marginal 2000 campaign, Thames broke out with a massive 2001 in which he jacked 31 homers for the Norwich Navigators and hit .321/.410/.598. His excellent season earned him a promotion to AAA the following year but he regressed badly, mustering a line of only .207/.297/.378. Despite those dismal results, he still earned a call up to the Major League club in June and famously debuted by hitting a home run of Randy Johnson.

Thames was traded at the behest of George Steinbrenner who was dead set on acquiring a left handed bat for the team. The 37 year old Ruben Sierra apparently fit that bill, but had only a 90 OPS+ over his last 6 seasons in the majors. The salaries were pretty much comparable and the Rangers decided to take a shot on Thames. Neither end of the transaction worked out especially well but the Yankees did slightly better. Sierra hit .276/.323/.432 (100 OPS+) in 189 plate appearances while Thames was fairly dreadful (47 OPS+) in 84 PAs for the Rangers. Thames was DFA'd by Texas at the end of the season to make room on their 40 man roster.

The Tigers signed Thames the following offseason. He provided solid value for Detroit over the first two years of the deal but was below replacement level in both 2008 and 2009. Last year, he missed two months with a severely pulled muscle in his rib cage. The Tigers elected to non-tender him instead of going through arbitration on his salary of $2.275M.

The deal with the Yankees could be worth up to $900K if Thames makes the Major League team. Not coincidentally, Randy Winn's base salary was $1.1M (with $900K in incentives, based on PAs) so regardless how the competition for the 4th outfielder in Spring Training goes, the Yanks will be paying out a maximum of $2M for that spot, all told.

Thames has a career .360 wOBA against lefties as opposed to .324 against righties, so he could be useful as a platoon option in right field. But as we are slowly learning, platoon splits are not always as pronounced as they seem. His value is derived from his power; he's hit an average of 33 home runs per 500 ABs over the course of his career. Thames provides an interesting depth option for the Yanks and with the structure of the deal, it's essentially a no-risk move. I don't think the team has any use at all for Juan Rivera, but at this point I wouldn't be totally shocked if they traded for him anyway.

25 Days Until Spring Training: Mark Teixeira

There are 25 days until pitchers and catchers are due to report to George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa so we begin our countdown to Spring Training, as we did last year, with Mark Teixeira.

While Jason Giambi was a valuable player during his career with the Yankees, the franchise made a major upgrade by replacing him with Mark Teixiera last winter. Better both defensively and at the plate, the Maryland native and Georgia Tech alum started of the Pinstriped portion of his career on the right foot.

Teixeira cleaned up the postseason awards by finishing second in the MVP vote, and being awarded both the Gold Glove and Silver Slugger among American League first baseman. Depsite the accolades, Teixeira's first season in the Bronx didn't quite measure up to the two previous ones he split between in Texas, Atlanta and Anaheim. However, being shuttled between the AL and NL midseason prevented him from getting credit for his robust production in the award voting.

In both 2007 and 2008 he batted over .300 and got on base at better than a 40% clip but in 2009 he did neither - hitting .292/.383/.565 - but did record a slugging percentage 20 points above his career average. He tied for the AL lead in home runs with 39 and led the Yanks in slugging percentage and OPS (.948) but he by no means reached his ceiling last year.

Part of this can be attributed to an an awful April which put him in a hole that took until the end of May to climb out. However, even in that terrible month, he walked 17 times in 90 plate appearances and had a respectable on-base percentage of .367.

Teixiera's defense is well-regarded by fans, broadcasters and scouts alike, but it doesn't seem to show up in UZR. He posted a below average rating last season and his defense over the the previous three comes out to be almost exactly neutral. Tom Tango acknowledges that there is likely something that UZR might be missing about Teixeira's defense. What might that be? Well for one, infield line drives aren't counted by UZR, and those go a long way in determining who the best defensive first basemen are.

Teixiera hit for a higher batting average and on-base percentage from the right side of the plate while slugging better as a lefty in 2009, which could be attributed to playing half of his games in the Bronx if it wasn't a patten that has been evident over his entire career. Of course, Yankee Stadium probably enhanced those splits, as 24 of his 39 long balls were hit at home and his numbers were better there across the board.

Partially lost in the Yankees' World Series victory was the fact that Teixeira struggled during the postseason. He made some sparkling defensive plays including one that helped David Robertson wriggle out of an 11th inning jam in Game 2 of the ALDS which he followed with a game-winning home run in the bottom half of the inning. But his overall line was .182/.282/.311, walking only 6 times in 71 plate appearances.

Similar to his funk at the beginning of the season, Teixeira could have been rusty from all the days off that the Yanks had during the postseason. He's said in the past that batting from both sides of the plate makes it harder to find his rhytym. While many players didn't seem to mind it, the inactivity might mess with Teix's timing more than it does with other players'. He's a notoriously slow starter, so there is likely some truth to that notion.

Odds are, Teixeira will have many more Aprils and Octobers in Pinstripes to try to sort these problems out.

Two Thoughts On Game Two

I know Game One isn't even until tomorrow, but here are two thoughts on the two hot button issues from this post-season, both of which affect Game Two (weather permitting).

First, Mike Scioscia's decision to pitch Joe Saunders in Game Two has been widely questioned, and with good reason in my opinion. I understand Scioscia's desire to utilize a lefty in Yankee Stadium in order to neutralize the Yankee lefties and switch hitters, since Yankee Stadia have historically favored lefties.

However, this Yankee Stadium has been a launching pad of historic proportions through its first 85 games. And as I pointed out when Saunders pitched against the Yanks three weeks ago, he is particularly prone to giving up the gopher ball. Saunders surrendered 29 long balls this year, tied for second in the American League despite the fact that an August DL stint limited him to 186 IP on the year. His 1.4 HR/9 also tied for second worst in the AL. Meanwhile, fellow lefty Scott Kazmir has more experience in the new Yankee Stadium, is a better pitcher overall, and allowed just 1.0 HR/9 this year, slightly less than league average.

A further thought regarding Saunders, Yankee batters this year hit .282/.360/.476 against right handed pitching and a slightly better across the board .286/.365/.480 against left handed pitching. There's no discernible platoon advantage there. The Angels would be best off throwing their best available pitcher in Game Two, and that pitcher is not Joe Saunders.

The second issue is whether Jose Molina will again catch A.J. Burnett. The Yankees have yet to announce that decision, though I'm inclined to believe that he will. But, even if he doesn't, I think we may see a bit of Jose Molina in this series anyway. Despite ranking just 11th in the AL in SB%, the Angels ranked third in the league in stolen bases with 148. In an effort to neutralize their running game, I wouldn't be surprised to see Jose Molina behind the plate in the late innings of game if the Yankees are leading.

This happened once already this year, early in the season in this game. Afterwards, Jorge Posada left the park without addressing the media. If this were to happen in the ALCS, the media storm would dwarf the Molina-gate squall that preceded Game Two of the ALDS.

I'm not sure what to make of this one. No one is going to confuse Jorge Posada with vintage Pudge Rodriguez behind the plate. And Posada shouldn't put his ego ahead of the good of the team. But, given that the Angels were below average in SB% and that all Yankee catchers, including Posada, were above league average CS%, it might be to the Yankees' advantage to tempt the Angels to give outs away on the bases.

Furthermore, if you subtract out caught stealings attributed to the pitcher making a pickoff attempt, Jorge Posada's catcher's caught stealing percentage of 21.6% is close to the league average of 21.9% and superior to Jose Molina's 17.9%. In fact, though the sample size is relatively small, the numbers suggest that if the Yankees decide to make a running based defensive substitution behind the plate, the nod should go to Franciso Cervelli who had an off the charts catcher's caught stealing percentage of 38.1% (8 of 21) in the equivalent of about 27 games behind the dish.

Bruney & Marte

About two weeks ago, I took issue with Joe Girardi for giving Brian Bruney too many chances to make the postseason roster despite repeated poor performances and was not allowed to fail. Today I would like to log the opposite complaint about Damaso Marte. Despite rising to the occasion nearly every time he's been used, he hasn't been given the chance to succeed.

It's interesting that Girardi favors Bruney over Marte because they've had opposite trajectories to their seasons. Bruney started off well but up until getting 5 outs against the Red Sox on Sunday, he had been pretty bad since coming off the DL. Marte on the other hand, was poor at the beginning of the year but has been perfect - with the exception of one game - since rejoining the team. You'd think the guy with the better track record recently would get the benefit of the doubt, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

Marte has pitched in 11 games since coming off the DL and made it through 10 of them without allowing a run. The one bad outing he had was against the Orioles on September 11th, costing Andy Pettitte the chance at a win on the night when Jeter broke Gehrig's hit record. Even on that night, when he gave up 4 runs, he didn't give up an extra base hit but was instead allowed three singles and a walk and Jonathan Albaladejo let one of his inherited runners score. Needless to say, he wasn't pitching under the most favorable conditions that night either.

Aside from that outing, he's allowed only two hits and one walk over 6 1/3 innings. In his career, Marte has held righties to .728 OPS, which is pretty respectable when you consider that Phil Coke has help RHB to a .695 OPS and he is asked by Girardi to face righties at a higher frequency.

I understand it was a meaningless game, but last night, Girardi pulled Chad Gaudin with no one on base so he could bring in Marte to face Alex Gordon. Although his numbers are pretty terrible this year, Gordon is a talented left handed hitter, so I understand that Girardi was trying to give Marte some reps against lefties in preparation for the postseason.

As soon as he came back up to the Big League club, Girardi publicly announced that Marte would be used as a lefty match-up specialist. I don't understand what good it does to pigeonhole a reliever with a good track record who has never been just a LOOGY.

My contention is that this is the time to see if Marte can get be trusted to get right handed batters out. In fact, Marte has 1187 against RHB compared to only 850 against LHB, indicating that he hasn't been insulated from right handed bats at other points in his career. Coke has only 121 plate appearances against RHB compared to 159 against lefties.

Marte is not Mike Myers. He's not an inverted Chad Bradford. He's not the pitching Freddy Guzman. Yet I know that's exactly how Girardi is going to use him in the postseason.

For whatever reason, I like Damaso Marte. I liked him when the Yankees acquired him and a big part of the reason was that he was a solid lefty reliever who could get guys on either side of the plate out. I'm guessing that's what the Yankees organization saw when they signed him to a three year deal for $12M during the offseason.

I don't think the unidentified injury that kept him stashed away in exile for the better part of the regular season has destroyed his ability to get RHB out. I hope that over the next 5 games, he gets a chance to pitch a few full innings, because there's a pretty good chance that we are going to need him to do that at some point during the postseason because of a shortened outing by a starer or an extra innings contest. Brain Bruney figures to get that chance. So should Marte.

Godzilla Against Southpaws

Good morning, Fackers. Thanks largely Hideki Matsui's continued success against lefthanded pitchers, the Yankees celebrated yet another walk off victory last night. They needed it to stay 6.5 games up on the Red Sox who had some heroics of their own, scoring two in both the bottom of the 8th and 9th, en route to beating the Angels 9-8. However, the Angels' loss means that they Yanks are now 7 games up on the Halos for homefield advantage.

Back to the Yanks, though. Sure, Chad Gaudin put together a solid effort and Frankie Cervelli got the pie, but had Joe Girardi chose to sit Matsui like he did his other power hitting lefty, Johnny Damon, the Yanks might not have been within striking distance when the bottom of the ninth came around.

Hideki started early, as he drove in a run off of lefthanded starter Brian Tallet with a single to put the Yanks up 2-0 in the first inning. He also chipped in late, during cruch time, with the biggest hit of the game in terms of WPA, a game-tying, two run homer in the eighth inning off of lefty reliever Scott Downs.

Amazingly, 12 of Matsui's 25 home runs this season have come against southpaws despite having less than 1/3 of his plate appearances against them. He's averaging a home run in every 11.6 PAs against lefties (which would be good for 51 HRs/600PA) but only every 26.1 PAs against righties (23/600). Matsui has a pretty even platoon split over his career (including HR/PA), but this year, what he lacks in BA and OBP against lefties, he's making up for with long balls, now slugging a truly Godzillian .610.

Is this a product of the New Yankee Stadium? Eight of his 12 dingers off lefties have come at home and all of them have gone out to right or right-centerfield. His BB/K ratio against lefties is down at home, meaning he might be trying to swing for the fences more often.

He also has an even home/road split, which means that only 5 of his longballs against righties have come at TNYS. This seems to be a symptom of the rare but deadly Reverse Inverted Nick Swisheritis.

Is there some luck involved? It's baseball, isn't there always? Sixteen of his 21 doubles have come against righties and you would expect the doubles and home runs to even out on each side of the platoon split over time. His BABIP is lower against lefties too (.242/.291), but that's partially as a result of all the homers.

It seems a foregone conclusion that the Yankees will let Matsui walk at the end of the season and it's almost impossible to argue with that. They aren't going to plug up the DH spot with a guy who can no longer play the outfield. But perhaps a team like the Royals who have the lowest production out of their cleanup hitter in the majors by a staggering margin could use his help. Or perhaps he'll go back to Japan and continue to mash over there. Or maybe he'll just hang up his cleats for good.

Regardless, it's nice to see Matsui during his last our of duty make a graceful exit from the Bronx. He's been nothing short of dignified in his tenure here and it would have been terrible to see him exit with a bunch of strikeouts and errors. Credit goes to Joe Girardi and Brian Cashman who saved his knees by not letting him play the field, but most of all to Matsui who has played a crucial role in the Yankees resurgent offense this year.