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How long will the Gardner-Thames platoon last?

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It’s tough to find controversy when a team goes 4-2 in its first two series, defeating both of its toughest division rivals. It becomes even tougher when the team scores 36 runs in those six games and has won convincingly in the two latest contests. Still, there is one issue that seems to have some Yanks fans wondering. It’s a minor issue, but an issue nonetheless. It appears, at least for the time being, that Joe Girardi will platoon Brett Gardner and Marcus Thames.

When we heard about the possibility earlier this month I didn’t think much of it. Why, I wondered, would the Yankees sacrifice so much on defense just to get Thames’s bat into the lineup? Yet when they faced their first lefty of the season, Jon Lester on Tuesday evening, Thames’s name was on the lineup card. It appeared again on Friday night when David Price took the mound for the Rays. The decision came back to bite them that evening, as Thames couldn’t run down a Jason Bartlett liner to center, which allowed two more Rays to score in an abhorrent fourth inning.

So will the Yankees continue to employ this platoon?

For now, I imagine the team wants to see if they can get anything out of Thames. The only way to do that, so they think, is to play up Thames’s skills. Well, we can really make that singular, since Thames has one skill, power, and he flashes it most proficiently against left-handed pitching. If Thames, then, is going to be of any use to this team, he’s going to have to hit against lefties. Hence the early season trial. I suspect, however, that it won’t last too long.

I don’t love the math in Greg Fertel’s analysis. It uses MLE stats, which don’t necessarily correlate to major league numbers, and it uses defensive projections. While these are better methods than pulling numbers out of thin air, they also leave plenty of room for error. Those issues aside, I think Greg has a good overall point, and one that I tried to make in Friday’s recap. Thames would have to hit a ton off lefties in order to justify his playing time.

Gardner saves runs with his glove, many more than Thames. He will also produce a non-zero average against lefties. Thames will allow many more balls to drop, balls which Gardner would catch. At the plate he might produce better, but in order to determine his value we have to look at his production over Gardner’s, and then look at his production under Gardner’s in the field. Without running through projection numbers, I’m fairly certain that the runs Gardner saves will be worth more than the runs Thames creates, even if Thames actually starts hitting lefties.

Still, Thames figures to get a few more shots against lefties. It’s tough to just on just a few plate appearances, especially early in the year. I understand where the Yankees are coming from in wanting to see if Thames can provide value to the team. The ultimate answer, I believe, will involve Thames being reduced to a pinch-hitting role — and an eventual ouster from the team once they can find a more productive player for his roster spot.

Looking at the Yanks’ projected defense

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GM Brian Cashman and the rest of the Yankees’ brass have been preaching the mantra of “get younger and more athletic” for years now, and they have done so in each of the last two offseasons. They effectively replaced the trio of Bobby Abreu, Jason Giambi, and Johnny Damon (combined 2010 age: 111) with Nick Swisher, Mark Teixeira, and Curtis Granderson (combined 2010 age: 88) while handing the 26-year-old Brett Gardner something close to a full-time job this year.

The improvement made with this transition is noticeable in more ways than one. First of all, it’s easier on the bottom line, even with Tex’s massive deal. Swisher and Granderson will combine to make $750,000 less this year than what the Yankees paid Damon by himself last year. Secondly, the younger players are less susceptible to the daily aches and pains associated with a 162 game season, and generally recover quicker than players on the wrong side of 35. Durability is a big part of it. For the purposes of this post, we’re going to focus on the third way the young players are an improvement over the old dudes, and that’s defensively.

Last year, the Yankees posted a team UZR of -18.5, 18th best in the game (or more accurately, 12th worst). Sadly, that was a massive improvement from their -44.5 UZR in 2008, which was third worst in all the land. With Damon, and to a lesser extent the perpetually average Melky Cabrera elsewhere this year, the Yankees stand to improve some more on the defensive side of the ball.

Using Jeff Zimmerman’s UZR projections, we can get an idea of how the Yanks’ projected starters for the 2010 season should do with the leather. Remember, these are just projections based on a weighted regression of the last four year’s worth of data, and are in no way predictions. They’re just a fancy estimated guesses, really. The table, obviously, is on the left.

Because we’re looking at the total defensive production from the individual positions in 2009 and comparing it to just the projected starters for the upcoming season, we’re really comparing apples to … slices of apples.  More accurate than oranges, but not whole apples. Guys like Ramiro Pena, Randy Winn, (ugh) Marcus Thames, and who knows who else will make their mark throughout the season, for better or for worse. For us though, this is fine.

The real improvement comes in the outfield, which is good because new fourth starter Javy Vazquez and new fifth starter Phil Hughes are fly ball pitchers, as are bullpen mainstays David Robertson, Damaso Marte, and Al Aceves. Despite his struggles down the stretch last year, Granderson has been an above average defensive centerfielder his entire career, which is what the UZR projections see him being in 2010. Sliding Gardner over to left instantly improves the position, even if he undershoots his projection by a few runs. Nick Swisher will probably be the same Nick Swisher in right, and while it may not always be pretty, it’s still damn effective.

As for the infield, well that crew remains unchanged from last year except for one thing: they’re all a year older. Zimmerman’s projections are age adjusted, which is why they see 36-year-old Derek Jeter’s defense dropping significantly despite the improvement he’s made in recent seasons. Shortstops that age who don’t decline with the glove are few and far between. Ditto 35-year-old third basemen. I expect Jeter and A-Rod to be collectively below average next year, though I’m hopeful it’ll just be slightly below rather than oh-my-goodness-this-is-Sarah-Jessica-Parker-ugly defense.

Cano and Tex are firmly in the primes of their career, and even though their UZR doesn’t always jive with what our eyes tell us, I think we can all agree they’re no worse than league average as a tandem. The Yankees will be fine on the right side of the infield both offensively and defensively as long as no one gets hurt.

The Yankees have come a long way since 2005, when they trotted out what was arguably the worst defense in baseball history. They’ve managed to do so while importing some long-term pieces on affordable contracts that are more than total zeroes with the bat. They figure to be even better in 2010, which can only help the pitching staff that posted the second best xFIP (4.23) in the American League last season.

Photo Credit: Gene J. Puskar, AP

Report: Granderson to play CF, Gardner LF

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Via Joel Sherman, the Yankees have decided that Curtis Granderson will start the season as the every day centerfielder, pushing the incumbent Brett Gardner to left. He notes that Granderson’s sometimes awkward routes have improved as camp has progressed, and the Yanks didn’t feel it was enough of an upgrade defensively to make the switch. The move will probably cost the Yankees something like five runs defensively over the course of the season, though we don’t have enough reliable data on Gardner’s defense to say with any certainty.

I guess the biggest thing is just making sure Granderson was comfortable. There’s no need to move him back and forth between center and left depending on who else was playing the outfield on a given day (Gardner, Randy Winn, Marcus Thames), the guy will have enough to get used to in his first season in New York as it is.

A low UZR doesn’t mean Teixeira is a bad first baseman

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Photo credit: Elise Amendola/AP

Mark Teixeira plays a mean first base. We’ve known this for a while. He quickly established his reputation in Texas, and for six or so games per year from 2003 through the first half of 2007 we got to see it ourselves. He just seems graceful patrolling the bag, snagging tough one-hoppers and picking low throws out of the dirt. In 2009 we got a real treat in watching Teixeira ply his craft every day. He resembled a ballerina compared to his predecessor, Jason Giambi. I think Bob Klapisch nailed it when he described Giambi as being “as graceful as Herman Munster around the bag.”

That quote comes from an article Klapisch wrote about Mark Teixeira’s UZR. For the second time in the past three seasons his UZR fell below the league average. We’ve discussed this issue in the past, and have heard many people claim that the gross misrepresentation of Teixeira’s defense proves that the statistic is useless. This couldn’t be further from the truth. While UZR might not cover everything that makes a first baseman, it still does tell us important things about defensive range.

As I covered in the UZR primer, the statistic is primarily concerned with assigning credit and blame on balls in play and comparing that to the league average. This can cause confusion in zones between two positions, such as second and first base. Maybe Yankees’ opponents hit an inordinate number of balls to that side. Maybe opponents ended up taking two bases, thus hurting Teixeira’s UZR more than a mere single. Maybe he wasn’t positioned optimally. There are plenty of reasons why, in this one season, his UZR — in specific the range component — was below league average.

Again, this does not discredit UZR, but perhaps points out some of its inefficiencies. It doesn’t factor in player positioning, and it certainly doesn’t assign first basemen extra credit for scooping balls out of the dirt. When we look at a first baseman’s UZR, we have to recognize that it will not tell us these things. It will tell us only what goes into it, and that mostly involves how often a player turned a batted ball into an out, in a particular zone, compared to the league average. For the other aspects of manning first base, we’re on our own.

To that end, I don’t think anyone would argue that Teixeira played a poor first base last season. At the very least, everyone was happy enough to see an improvement over Giambi. Yet there is an important point to keep in mind. What we tend to remember are the plays he did make. The one hopper that he snagged as he was falling down. The dive to get a ball headed for the hole. The scoop on a three-bouncer. What we probably don’t remember, what we might not even notice, are the balls he just doesn’t get to. I’m not saying that Teixeira didn’t get to all these grounders that other first baseman would have. I’m saying that it’s possible that he did miss a few plays, and that we don’t remember them because they weren’t particularly noteworthy at the time.

Also keep in mind that UZR works with small samples. How many chances does a first baseman get to field a ball? Fewer than shortstop and second base, and we normally take three years’ worth of UZR data to get a read on those positions. Over the past three years, and for his career, Teixeira’s UZR is positive. It’s not massively so, but he’s certainly not rated below average. I suspect that we’ll see him in the positive again in 2010. These things tend to even out over time.

*Bonus section

Sorry, but I couldn’t let these two utterances, one from Tex and the other from Klapisch, fly by without a comment.

Teixeira: “Look, if computers could run the game, why bother having general managers?” Because you need people to analyze and interpret the data. Also, no one’s arguing that computers should run the game in the first place. Also, scouts have their place, and it’s no marginal, second-class citizen status. Numbers are just a recording of what happened on the field, but we need to go much further in order to make the data useful. Also, there is no such thing as a perfect statistic.

Klapisch: But here’s the kicker: Sabermetrics don’t acknowledge a phenomenon known as “clutch.” Untrue, though Klap isn’t the first to misstate the general sabermetric view of clutch. The idea is that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to quantify. It does make for good storytelling, though, so most staheads have backed off arguing the idea of clutch. If you think a particular player is clutch and another unclutch, fine. It is, after all, your own definition you’re applying to the players.

Were the 2005 Yankees the worst defensive team ever?

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After the heartbreak of 2004, the Yankees needed a boost in 2005. From all appearances, the team’s biggest trouble in 2004 was its pitching staff. The team lost Andy Pettitte, Roger Clemens, and David Wells after the 2003 season, and replaced them by trading for Kevin Brown and Javier Vazquez. A year earlier they signed Jon Lieber while he was rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, and during Spring Training they signed old friend Orlando Hernandez. Those four, along with Mike Mussina, could have been a formidable rotation had they all been at their best. Of course, things like that never seem to work out in baseball.

In the 2004-2005 off-season, the Yankees blew up the whole project. Brown and Mussina stuck around because of their contracts, but everyone else was out. Lieber left for the Phillies, El Duque signed with the White Sox, and the Yanks traded Javier Vazquez for Randy Johnson. To replace the two departures, the team signed Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright. It was hardly a perfect solution. In fact, it seemed like more of the same, just with different names. Unsurprisingly, the team ERA, while numerically lower in 2005, ranked worse in relation to the league.

Clearly, the Yankees replaced very good pitchers with far inferior ones. In 2003 the staff posted a 3.66 FIP, second in baseball. In 2004 that jumped to 4.27, 12th in the majors. In 2005 it was just about the same, 4.28, but that ranked 15th. For years I thought the conversation ended there. Worse pitchers means a worse pitching staff. Not only were the five starters inferior to the ones in 2003, but injuries forced the Yankees to trot out even worse arms.

But as we learned in 2009, even a team with a middling pitching staff can post a quality ERA if it has quality defenders behind it. The 2009 Mariners posted a team 4.39 FIP, which ranked 9th in the AL. Yet their team ERA of 3.87 was No. 1. The difference was in the team defense. The Mariners posted a team 85.5 UZR, 16 runs better than the next best team. In other words, with a pitching staff perhaps negligibly better than the 2004 and 2005 Yankees teams, the Mariners still managed the top ERA in the AL. (Though, of course, having an ace like Felix certainly helps.)

Defensive stats weren’t widespread in 2003, but if they were perhaps the Yankees would have taken a different approach to rebuilding the pitching staff. The team UZR that year was -62.2, second worst in the majors and worst in the AL. In 2004 that was even worse, -76.3. To put that number into even more grave context, the second worst team, the Red Sox, were at -34.1. Yes, the Yankees defense in 2004 was more than twice as bad as the second worst team. While the pitching staff was not nearly as good as 2003, the worsened defense exacerbated the problem.

Yet that’s nothing compared to 2005. The Yankees, as a team, posted a -137 UZR. That’s a 137-run penalty due to their defense. The second worst team, the Reds, ranked at -67, so once again the Yankees were twice as bad as the next worst team. The second worst AL team, the Royals, ranked -52.4, so the Yankees were even worse when compared to their own league. Finally, to continue with the theme of worst, the -137 UZR is, by far, the worst team UZR since 2002, when we began tracking UZR.

While the Yankees still ranked last in 2006, a -73.9 UZR, they were a bit closer to the next worst team, the Pirates at -53.3. In terms of the AL, however, they could be considered even worse. The White Sox ranked 13th that year at -29.3, putting a huge gap between the two teams. It wasn’t until 2007 that the Yankees started to improve, with a -8.8 UZR, which ranked 21st in the majors. After a step back in 2008, the Yankees jumped up to 19th in the majors in 2009. The defense still isn’t great, not even in the top half of the league. But compared to 2005, they’re a team of Ozzie Smiths.

Photo credit: Kathy Willens/AP

Sticking the new guy in left field

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Spring Training doesn’t officially start until later this week — tomorrow to be exact — but already, most players have descended upon Tampa. The core of the Yankee team is already working out at the team’s minor league complex, and the reporters are starting to settle into their Spring Training routines. Some semblance of order is returning to this crazy time we call the Hot Stove League.

In Tampa, all eyes are on the new guys, and that obsession thrusts Curtis Granderson, who just wants to fit in, into the spotlight. Other than the return of Javier Vazquez to serve as the team’s fourth starter, Granderson is the biggest acquisition, and he’s being asked to replace Johnny Damon in the lineup. Considering Damon’s departure involved stealing two bases on one play and being lauded as a key offensive piece to the Yanks, that’s no small feat.

So after an off-season during which we obsessed over left field and searched for ways the Yanks could fill a left field gap, the reporters asked Curtis Granderson about his take on the corner slot. Maybe he’ll be the one to take it, he said to MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch. “People forget that I came up as a left fielder,” Granderson said yesterday. “In the Minor Leagues all the way up to Double-A, I didn’t start playing center field consistently until my second year in the Minors. Even when I came to the big leagues, I played a few games in left. I have no problem going back over there if that happens to be.”

It seems so simple, but does it make sense for the Yanks? In essence, the team would be shifting Brett Gardner to center field while deploying Curtis Granderson as the left fielder. On days in which the Yanks are facing a lefty and want to rest Gardner, they can slide Granderson to center and use Randy Winn, Marcus Thames or someone else in left. Granderson is versatile enough and comfortable enough to make the move.

The numbers too bear out this alignment. Playing his home games in spacious Comerica Park, Granderson has generally been an above-average center fielder. He put up double-digit UZR totals in 2006 and 2007 before slipping below 0 in 2008. He rebounded last year with a 1.6 mark, and we can assume that he would be as good if not better covering ground in left. Brett Gardner meanwhile has shined as a center fielder. In limited duty, he put up a 9.5 mark in 2008 and a 7.2 mark in 2009.

As for the guys they would be replacing, a duo of Granderson in left and Gardner in center would far outshine Johnny Damon and Melky Cabrera. Damon, after two disastrous years in center with the Yanks, had an above-average full-season showing in 2008 as a left fielder but saw his UZR slip to -9.2 in 2009. Melky, meanwhile, put up a 0.6 mark in center in 2008 and a 1.4 mark in 2009. Even assuming just a duplication of their 2010 numbers, the Gardnerson/Gardner duo would be nearly 9 defensive runs above average while the Cabrera/Damon duo would be just under -8 defensive runs below average.

The wild card in these moves remains Brett Gardner’s offense. The Yankees won’t ask Curtis Granderson to move to left if they don’t believe Gardner can hold down a starting job for long enough, and the team might not ask Granderson to move if their plan includes pursuing Carl Crawford after he hits free agency next winter. After all, they might not want Granderson to be bouncing back and forth between the outfield slots for one year with a more certain solution just around the corner.

With run prevention the next frontier in baseball analysis and team-building, the Yankees are bound to give many outfield permutations a good hard look in Spring Training. When Opening Day rolls around, no one should be surprised if the solution to the Johnny Damon hole had been around since early December after all.

Looking at minor league defense

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Sean at Pending Pinstripes is examining the Total Zone defensive ratings of the Yankees’ minor league teams from last season, one level at a time. Yesterday he covered the Rookie level GCL Yanks, and today he got to Short Season Staten Island. We’re dealing with small sample sizes at these levels, though it’s interesting to see how well (and how poorly) some guys performed in the field. Despite his 29 errors, Carmen Angelini actually graded out really well in Total Zone. Whether that suggests there’s a flaw with TZ or with the completely subjective nature of errors is a discussion for another day.

Make sure you check out Sean’s first two entries, and check back in for the rest of the series.