December 14, 2003
Yankees Become Set
The Kevin Brown deal is done, and it looks like Sheffield will be joining the team as well (on the Boss' terms). For all the rending of clothes by Yankees fans and analysts, NY is going to put a very good team on the field next year. I can't say I like the way they've built this team, and I think long term they are going in the wrong direction, but for 2004 I like them:
- The only bad offensive position on the club will be third base. If Alfonso Soriano is your 2nd worst offensive player, you're going to score some runs.
- Brown, Mussina, Vazquez is better than Martinez, Schilling, Lowe.
On the minus side, they no longer have any depth on offense and the fielding still stinks. We'll see what Cashman does to address those issues before the season starts.
Posted by David Pinto at
02:37 PM
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Kenny Lofton should help a bit in centerfield: he had twice as many defensive win shares as Bernie Williams last year. Although that's probably offset by Sheffield vs. Mondesi/Rivera/Garcia in right.
It woule be interesting to see a chart of Total Defensive Win Shares By Team. Has someone created a chart like that? I should go to Baseball Graphs and see if they have anything. It would be interesting to see how Shef compares to the Yanks' RF-by-committee of last year. I know Shef sucks in the field, but how much more does he suck? And Lofton may have twice the winshares of Bernie, but according to David's Probabalistic Fielding, he is only an average centerfielder. And he's not that great of a hitter. So WHY is he displacing Bernie again???
I don't know...if I had my way, I would have gone for Cameron and Guerrero over Lofton and Shef. Both are better defensively and offensively, and are probably better long term investments. With Bernie at DH full time now, his value takes a huge hit. If I were the Yankees, I'd be shopping him like mad to pick up a better hitter who could spell Giambi at first. Someone like Palmeiro maybe?
Word is the Yanks were going after Palmiero. Not sure if they still are - it wouldn't make any sense if they did. They should go after someone like Travis Lee or Spiezio to spell Giambi at 1B. So you'd have Lee/Spezio playing 1B half the time, Giambi splitting time between 1B/DH, and Bernie splitting time between DH/CF, with Lofton playing half the games or so in CF. It would lead to a slightly unstable lineup, but you'd be essentially platooning Spiezio/Lee with Lofton, which isn't that bad a deal, really.
short term the yanks are almost as good/as good as the red sox. long term they are a mess and need to get alot younger than they are. their bullpen also concerns me...they WAY overspend on many old and fragile pitchers, espically releivers.
Why is Wakefield always left out?
Brown, Mussina, Vasquez, Contreras is not better than Martinez, Schilling, Lowe, Wakefield. And Contreras is the oldest of the four. The Sox have at least some probables for the number five spot, who do the Yankees have?. I think that Mussina, Clemens, Pettite, Weels, Weaver was much better tahn anything they can field next year.
i followed that link on brown. private jet trips? now THAT's a contract.
i'd take schilling's durability (and fastball) over brown's. not his mouth, though.
You can have Schilling's durability, but it comes in a package deal with Pedro's lack of durability. We have Mussina and Vazquez for the durability. If Brown pitches 180 innings, I'll be more than happy.