Interesting Stat
with which to continue our discussion about the Yanks post-season line-up (see Cruise Control comments box). Over all of last year and this Shefield's batting average is considerably lower than Melky's against righties; his OBP is lower and his OPS is about the same. The same cannot be said of Hideki. His BA, OBP and OPS over last year and his entire time with the yankees is onsiderably higher than Melky's is against lefties and than either Sheffield or Melky's is against righties. All of this is important because if you are considering who to play and when, it's not who is a better hitter but when they are a better hittier and against whom. If you throw in Giambi's current 196 avg. against lefties, I think the solution to the overcrowded Yankee OF becomes clear. Melky must play, for his defense, his speed, and because offensively he's as good an option as Sheff against righties and a better option than giambi against lefties. hideki must DH becasue he's better than anyone except Giambi against righties and better than anyone except Sheffield against lefties. giambi and Sheff must platoon, because everybody hits lefties better than Giambi and everyone hits righties as well or better than Sheffield, as well as playing better in the other aspects of the game. The beauty part of all of this is the kind of pinchitting threat you'd have when they switch arms out of the bullpen.
All that is left to consider is whether Sheffield will make it more trouble than its worht to platoon him, by going all diva as only he can. I'd rather he be in than out of the line-up, but I'd rather he be out of the roster than poisoning the team from within.
All that is left to consider is whether Sheffield will make it more trouble than its worht to platoon him, by going all diva as only he can. I'd rather he be in than out of the line-up, but I'd rather he be out of the roster than poisoning the team from within.
posted by joe valente | 4:48 PM
8 Comments:
ah, the glory of stats. Let's see if Status Quo Joe can pick up on them.
Did you see the motley lineup the Yanks put out there tonight? And they still scored 7 runs. Scary.
The big unknown is Sheffield's health, as Matsui seems likely to be close to 100% by playoff time. My guess, given the nature of the damage, is that Sheff really won't be close to 100% and that it's better (personality issues aside) to keep him on the bench for a potential Kirk Gibson moment (and maybe start him against lefties) than to start him regularly.
That said, if Sheff really is back, I'm not convinced that Melky is his match against rights. No disrespect to Melky, who's been 277/361/404 vs. righties, but Sheffield's 299/361/433 is better. Last year he was 266/359/453, which again is better, and '04's 282/384/529 is much better. Sheffield's advantage is almost entirely power. Power is at a premium in the playoffs because sequence offenses get shut down by good pitching more than power offenses. See , e.g., 2005 White Sox. [That said, power is also the thing more likely to be affected by a wrist injury.]
As for Giambi, there's no doubt that he's much better vs. righties, but we should be careful reading too much into a small sample size. His 2005 vs. lefties was very good (261/418/464) and he actually hit lefties better during his otherwise lost 2004 (263/385/538).
In reality, given Giambi's and Sheff's health, I wouldn't be surprised if we see a lot of Melky in the playoffs no matter what.
Michael
2004 is a long time ago in the career of aging and oft-injured players like Giambi and Sheffield. I think Melky's numbers are preferrable to Sheffield's 2005 numbersagainst righties, though I can see where the power numbers leave much room for debate.
I don't at all buy the power offense being preferable to sequence offense argument however in this case, for the very simple reason that the Yankees don't have a sequence offense, Melky or no Melky--with AROD, Giambi, Matsui, Sheffield and Posada, you've got a power offense to burn. Jeez, the leadoff hitter has 22 homers and the number 2 will finish with 15, benchwarmers like Wilson and Guile are also power first guys. The problem the yanks' offense has encountered in volves waiting around for the long ball, too little sequence, too little speed and contact. When they were completely healthy in April, they sucked for that very reason. Hence the virtue of continuing to play Melky as your wrap-around guy in the offense, giving you four consectutive contact guys, all of whom have decent pop, before you get to the big sluggers. What I don't want to see is torre falling for the temptation to put all the power glamour names back in his line-up, reconstituting the team of April, for fear the results will be the same. When Sheffield and Matsui went down, i repeatedly insisited this could be an opportunity to reinvent the Yanks on a new footing and they might be able to pull through. thanks to the acquisition of Abreu, they did considerably more than pull through, but it was largely on that revised footing. They will not win a championship; they won't even get to the series if they revert to the passive days of waiting for godot.
While the sheffield numbers are debatable, I don't think there's any debate that Giambi has stunk this year against lefties and the sample isn't really all that small. Last year he was better, but the OBP for Giambi is really a degraded statistic because you don't want him on base anyway. If he's not driving in runs, he's useless. You can't send him to avoid double plays; he never gets close enough to pressure pivotmen; he needs deep flies to score from third and almost never scores on a ground out; and he can't get home from second on a single. I just don't see any percentage in playing Giambi against lefties.
Right now Torre is set on not playing Melky at all, so I guess I'd be assuaged some if he played Sheffield at first against lefties and sat Giambi, while DHing Sheffield against righties and sitting Melky. It's better than nothing I suppose and it would avoid the "personality" problem, or rather the problem with Sheffield's character, which is necessary to do in some way. Championships are rarely fueled by bad team chemistry, the Bronx Zoo teams of the seventies notwithstanding.
I think BGW's point about Torre insisting that it is inevitable that Hideki resume playing left is a good one. Consider this: if Torre is going to settle on Matsui in left, no matter what, then we might wind up with a significantly weakened outfield defense, a still injured Sheffield not playing, giambi at DH, and Craig Wilson or Aaron guile at first. I imagine we can all agree that would be a horrendous trade-off. That is the implication of slow Joe reserving positions for his established players irrespective of the options available.
It's also the implication of Torre's anti-youth bias. He's like a retired old man out there yelling at the kids to get off his lawn, except that his lawn is the outfield grass at the stadium.
That's a fair point, and my comment didn't really deal with defense. There's no question in my mind that getting Bernie out of center was a big part of this team's success. My sense is that replacing the defense of Sheff and Matsui with Cabrera and Abreu (and part of Giambi with various better defenders) was also a significant part, but I don't have a good handle on how heavily that weighs compared to the offensive issues.
The good news is with Liriano down there's really no team I'm all that afraid of (except the Angels, who won't be there), regardless of how Joe resolves these issues....
Michael
A couple things:
1) Liriano is not necessarily out for the season; the MRI was negative, the Twins are saying they won't use him, but the pressure seems to be mounting for them to use him since they've discovered nothing physically wrong with his arm;
2) I thought Torre has said that Matsui would DH for the rest of this year, post-season included, but that LF is his in the longer term (ie, he won't have to worry about competing for the starting LF spot next year). Is that wrong? Has Torre modified his stance about not letting Matsui play OF this year? It wouldn't surprise me if he did, as I mentioned in an earlier comment, but I haven't seen where he has.
Don't you hate it when you're settling in with some dinner and a beer for a nice evening of Yankees baseball, since you haven't been able to watch a game in at least two weeks, and you turn on ESPN to discover the game has been rained out? What a bust. At least we've got games tomorrow and Sun on ESPN. Life was so much easier when I lived in NYC and could pop in and out of games every night of the summer.
I don't know where the pressure to pitch Loriano is mounting other than from ESPN morons like Eric Ca-Silly-Ass. Loriano was out for weeks, came back in his first major league outing and 2 innings in his arm goes pop. I was home watching the game and it was ugly. The Twins cannot pitch him again this year, without risking his entire career, the career of a youngster whose stuff is Pedro Martinez-Doc Gooded level. His upside is way higher than Santana and S is the best in the majors. The MRI may show no structural damge, but there is indeed something "physically wrong with his arm," and the first structural damage they see might be the last of that devastating slider they see. You know I'm perpetually disgusted with Momma Joe for mollycoddling his players, but if this were Phillip Hughes and the Yankees were planning to try and squeeze some late season heroics out of him at this level of jeopardy, I'd be screaming bloody murder. And so, by the way would their team lawyers in charge of player liability, an issue not lost on the frugal Twins.
As for Matsui, today old man Joe repeated his intention of giving LF back to Matsui as soon as possible. Whether that means this season/post-season or not remains to be seen. but when asked about Cabrera, Torre said he's done a great job filling in, but the job is Matsui's. I really don't think he was addressing next season, not at this point.
Oakland's still up 5, but I'm not convinced the Angels are dead. They're winning close games again (2-1 tonight) and they have 7 left with Oakland. If they can win 5 of them, it's a horse race. The good news is they are still unlikely to get in as a wild card, which would mean a 7 game series if at all. and I like our chances against anyone in 7.
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