We Can't Afford a Catcher: The 2013 New York Yankees

http://gs1.wac.edgecastcdn.net/8019B6/data.tumblr.com/5b0fcde39949ae042880ec07d636f546/tumblr_mijm1bPZky1qzniimo1_1280.jpg

phil franchise out two weeks with a bulging disc

amazing thread title!

def approve

http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/rod_gaga_joined_at_hips_goVHSvozbwTfT4okYgJxVP

granderson hbp, fractured forearm, out 10 weeks

RIP

vernon wells would be a great fit for this team imo

oy

cano and a lot of crossed fingers

Mr. April:

"We'll just have to have guys step up," first baseman Mark Teixeira said on YES. "It's going to be tough."

"It's hot in here, huh," Teixeira added, wiping his brow.

maybe next year

Alfonso Soriano, come on down!

time to get that Heyzeus Montrero kid up from the minors.

Heyzeus, don't make it bad

take a Banuelos and make it better

http://bronxbaseballdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/kevin-youkilis2-540x363.jpg

weird

after a year off, would jorge posada (who is in fact in camp and 'working with the catchers' as a coach) still be a better option for the yanks than cervelli/stewart? perhaps not, but it's not an instant no.

otoh they probably can't afford him either

http://mlb.sbnation.com/2013/3/1/4054924/this-is-kevin-youkilis-without-a-goatee

omg

even his normal head looks photoshopped!

dude has to have a screw loose to go play in ny

brian cashman broke his ankle sky diving for charity

obligatory joke about the yankees being old and broken, get it, it doesn't really matter cause he's the GM, etc

http://daps.tv/source-robinson-cano-alex-rodriguez-ryan-braun-and-curtis-granderson-to-be-suspended/

ZOINKS

― This is called money bags. (zachlyon), Monday, March 4, 2013 9:28 PM (0 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Posted by chris

I'm a polymath with ADD, Entrepreneur, & ENTP whose aim is to emphasize awesomeness in pop-culture. I've described the contents of my mind as "Similar to Heffalumps and Woozles"

doesn't sound shit like an ENTP, poser

maybe he's right! but at this point i'd avoid getting all het up about reports from daps.tv posted by a dude mentioning heffalumps

[Bill Simmons is] a polymath with ADD, Entrepreneur, & ENTP whose aim is to emphasize awesomeness in pop-culture. I've described the contents of my mind as "Similar to Heffalumps and Woozles"

i'm sorry -- are you chris? bless your heart

i'm bill simmons :(

this isn't really being talked about?

yeah tbf the guy who tweeted it only has 100 some followers, i just reposted it from a msg board taking it v seriously, sry :(

>:[

but hey if it turns out to be true you all owe me a coke

i hate u bill simmons

*writes 2000 words about that*

TAMPA, Fla. -- Another day, another injury for the New York Yankees.

Slugger Mark Teixeira has pulled out of the World Baseball Classic after injuring his right forearm swinging in the batting cage.

Teixeira was set to start at first base for Team USA but was scratched from the lineup for Tuesday's exhibition game against the Chicago White Sox.

"It sucks to see someone get hurt like that,'' Team USA and Texas Rangers pitcher Derek Holland said. "I know he's not on my team (in the regular season) but you never want to see anyone get hurt.

Team USA said Teixeira will be sidelined eight to 10 days.

"I was kind of shocked," said Yankees manager Joe Girardi.

Girardi said that the initial X-rays were negative, but that Teixeira would go for more tests.

"He was taking swings in the cage and felt something," Girardi said. "It was in his hand or wrist. I'm sure there will be more tests."

Girardi said he didn't know the severity of the injury or what the next step will be.

"I'm sure our people will want to see him too," Girardi said.

this has been the best offseason ever.

i assume Piniella is doing these YES games just cuz he lives in Tampa. He thinks .384 is a great OBP for a slugger -- hey loo, they get walked a lot.

juan rivera looks lost in right field

.384 is a fine obp!

fwiw:

Mark Teixeira is going to be out at least until early May with a strained right wrist tendon, the latest major injury setback for the New York Yankees.

New York general manager Brian Cashman gave the news after the Yankees' were beat 8-2 by the Dominican Republic World Baseball Classic team on Wednesday.

Teixeira was hurt swinging a bat Tuesday in an indoor cage during pregame warmups with the United States' World Baseball Classic team. Initially, Teixeira was expected to be out eight to 10 days, but Teixeira was examined by Yankees doctors in New York on Wednesday and a diagnosis of eight to 10 weeks was given.

Teixeira was hurt swinging a bat Tuesday in an indoor cage

hard knock life

http://www.nyyankeesfragrance.com/

anesthesia?

WATCH MO'S #FirstThrow exclusively here.

http://m.espn.go.com/general/blogs/blogpost?blogname=spring-training&id=923&src=desktop

think of the good times

We were all young and beautiful, once

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/40241/should-yankees-re-sign-robinson-cano

ZS: You're really good at parsing these $/WAR decisions (I'm clueless when it comes to "the market")--does this sound about right?

(The short version: worth risking a seven-year, $211 million deal.)

fitting the capn gets shut down on 9/11

Flair for the dramatic, even when injured.

sorry clemenza, just now seeing this! thanks for the compliment, but i'm no better at it than a lot of others here, and i do a pretty simple back of the envelope kind of thing.

the starting point is just how much each 1.0 WAR is worth in dollars. the rule of thumb used to be that $5 million/1 WAR was close to "fair", but i bet that's up to about $6 million now, so let's just go with that.

for the 7 year/$211 million deal to be "fair" (sorry, i can't help but use the annoying scare quotes for some reason), Cano would need to put up about 35 WAR over the period of the contract (211 million divided by 6 million/WAR). that's about 5 WAR/season, on average. so if cano puts up 5 WAR/season, on average, 7 years/$211 million would be fair.

cano's already 30, so i'm going to assume that he'll begin declining. when he's 37 at the end of the contract, he's probably not going to be putting up 5 WAR per year. so the question is, will he provide enough surplus value toward the beginning of the contract to balance out the weaker last years of the contract?

well, who knows. but one way to project, since we can assume he's probably past his peak, is to use the last 3 years as a baseline and then project a steadily declining WAR in the following years to simulate his aging.
if we assume that he'll end up with 6.2 fRAR in 2013 (per ZIPS rest of season projections), then his average fWAR over his past 3 seasons has been 6.4 WAR. Just to make things easier, let's adjust that to 6.5:

baseline (2011-2013 avg): 6.5 WAR

one method i've seen used in the past is to just assume that he'll lose 0.5 WAR every year. if that's the case, his contract looks like this:

baseline (2011-2013 avg): 6.5 WAR
2014: 6.0 WAR
2015: 5.5 WAR
2016: 5.0 WAR
2017: 4.5 WAR
2018: 4.0 WAR
2019: 3.5 WAR
2020: 3.0 WAR
2014-2020: 31.5 WAR

so even by that (really simplistic) method, he generates 31.5 WAR over the period of his contract, which is less than the 35 WAR he would need to hold up his side of a "fair" deal for 7 years/$211 million. so it's already a bad deal for the yankees.

but there are factors to consider that could tilt your opinion one way or the other. for example, maybe you watch cano play every day and you think he's going to decline faster than that simple -0.5 WAR assumption used above. if that's the case, it's going to be a pretty shitty contract when he puts up 1.0-2.0 WAR in his age 35-37 seasons while getting paid $30 million a year. (or on the flip side, maybe you think he's capable of stretching out his peak and he'll be putting up 7 WAR in 2016 or something). cano seems really durable, but there's always the possibility of injury as well.

but you could also factor in inflating salaries (especially with the wave of new tv contracts injecting even more $ into the game) and make a case that it's a decent deal for the yankees. what if the fair market price per WAR in 2014 was $6 million, but in 2020, at the end of cano's contract, it's $8 million?

fuck, time to bust out the spreadsheet:

http://i.imgur.com/I1GePcp.jpg

this shows the fair market value of WAR gradually rising from $6 million in 2014 to $8 million in 2020. i also entered in cano's contract, assuming he just gets $30 million even each year, and $31 million in the last, to add up to $211 over 7 years. the final column shows how much he would WAR he would need to generate each year to live up to his side of the deal. as the market value of WAR continues to increase, he needs to generate less value to be worth market value. in contrast to the earlier assumptions, in this scenario he only needs to generate about 30 WAR across the period of the contract for it to be a fair value.

so again, we come back to that important element that i'm lacking, which is day to day knowledge of cano's mad skillz, and an opinion of whether or not he's still at his peak or if his inevitable decline has already begun, and if so, how quickly he'll decline.

to sum up: i don't know

oops, i didn't read schoenfield's last paragraph, where he does his own simulation of cano's decline (he starts with 7.0 WAR in 2014, down to 2.5 WAR in 2020), and assumes $6.5 million/WAR as the fair market price. using those assumptions, cano needs 32.5 WAR over the period of the contract. but basically, same deal.

let's just defer to the comments on the article for advice:

Ismael Diaz · Operator at Evergreen Recycling Solutions
Yankees be stupid not to sign Cano they may not have A Rod n Jeter Grandy..Maybe Cano go to Boston n Pedroia move to 3rd base like A Rod did so he can play 2nd..lol

look, there's no way the yanks are letting cano walk

despite their luxury tax shenanigans this year, the yankees are rich enough that they don't need to be efficient. they can survive carl pavano and kei igawa and they'll survive a 'bad' cano contract too.

yup

http://wapc.mlb.com/play/?content_id=30569961&topic_id=0

whoa, missed this. bunt double from cano beats the shift

CC getting shelled again

we pray for death on this day

I've never believed this 1 WAR = $5-6 M number, the math might work out that way for 3Y/40M, but for superstar contracts it doesn't seem to make sense. IOW, I don't see clubs starting bidding wars for 3-4 win players and 20M/Y.

To me, 7Y/150 or 160M seems fair market value for Cano, assuming he puts up 30 WAR during that time. I'm ignoring positional availability in my completely non-scientific, based on gut feeling calculation.

andy pettitte wants to spend more time with his family again

probly needs to do the Lord's work now that the Pope has moved left

I almost feel sorry for John Sterling this week, as ppl have been pointing out that he is old and blind.

Alex Rodriguez passed Lou Gehrig with his 24th career grand slam tonight at Yankee Stadium.

the greatest yankee

I had no idea he had that many slams. I think Manny had around 20 slams and I sort of thought he'd be the one to eventually break the record.

CC done for the year, hamstring

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5iJR21J7QI

let's play a new game i like to call "what creepy cartoon characters does lars ulrich look like nowadays"

http://oyster.ignimgs.com/mediawiki/apis.ign.com/futurama/thumb/d/d7/Scammer_aliens.JPG/468px-Scammer_aliens.JPG

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1786351-mariano-rivera-bobblehead-night-a-disaster-as-yankees-never-receive-shipment

lol, my mom was at this game and said she waited in line from the 3rd inning through the 9th

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/09/hey-joe-girardi-let-rivera-play-center-field.html

I'm sure your mom is a nice lady, so I'll just lol. xp

yeah i mean...yeah

hope everyone is soaking in phil franchise's last outing in pinstripes

handily executed by the Indians

let's all go see Mo tomw night and sing "Na Na Na Na Hey Hey Hey"

girardi sez he'll let mo play cf in houston

hope hes runnin up that hill like k8 bush

so robbie cano, who turns 31 next month, wants 10 years/$305m

Scott Boras says $100 million for Sinn-Soo Choo is low.

mariano's exit was kinda moving

10 years / *any number here* is ridiculous

why do baseball players do this? why do they want to live out the latter half of their 30s with rapidly decaying abilities, a disappointed and angry fanbase, a team that's not as good as it could be (because so much of the salary allocation is blown on one aging dude), while making tons of money, and- oh. i guess that's it

10 years / 300 might make sense for Trout. maybe. anyone else, especially a guy who is already 30? what a joke.

OTM. I hope Cano gets it.

yeah, no kidding!

via BP podcast FB group: If Rivera pitches 1 perfect out over weekend, his career WHIP will end at EXACTLY 1.000 (1284 IP, 998 H, 286 BB)

from that sweetspot post

What kind of sport essentially encourages tanking for 10 or more teams?

hm, ever watched the NBA?

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BVN4lnXCEAAkIOF.jpg

Just going to mention this, I do realize how specious it is: Pettitte is the first pitcher ever with 15+ seasons not to post a losing record. No, I do not think he should be in the HOF. I was looking at his career box, and if you eliminate his three best years by WAR ('96/97/05), every other season is between 2.2-3.8. Every single one. Which is a) admirable consistency, and b) nowhere near a HOF career.

I have to say I felt good for Pettitte yesterday, getting your first CG win in seven years is a hell of a way to go out, even if was against an historically bad team (although even so, it carries some significance because it was against the team from his home state that he used to play for).

pettite is not a HOFer for me but it's a closer call than my gut told me

As someone pointed out, his career stats at the most basic level are comparable to Morris's:

Pettitte: 256-153, 3.85, 1.351 WHIP
Morris: 254-186, 3.90, 1.296 WHIP

Pettitte's better record attributable to his teams, his higher WHIP attributable to the era. Pettitte was better, but not by enough.

if pettitte had pitched in 2011, he gets to 2500 Ks + picks up maybe another dozen wins

still a juicer tho

girardi signs four-year deal with yanquis

john sterling is calling the kitten bowl

http://i.imgur.com/5HKipAj.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/5ZbJ8d8.jpg

tee hee