The Yankees HAVE Improved. Shit.

This post is in relation to David "MVP" Eckstein's December 24th, 2008 post entitled "The 2008 Yankees" and his viewpoint on this in posts after this blog. His contention is that the free-agent signings the Yankees now have do not improve the team all that much from the departures the team had.

First point: Mark Tiexeira replacing Jason Giambi. Looking the the offensive numbers one sees that actually this is not the biggest improvement. Last year, Giambi had this stat line: .373/.502/.875 with 32 HRs. Tex's stat line is predicted to be this: .404/.564/ .969 with with 39 HRs. While there is a difference between the HR and OBS, in reality, this disparity is not as big as public perception make it out to be. But here's the thing, Tex is a gold glove defender and is only like 29 years old. Giambi was an old fuck who couldn't move that well. So the Yankees do get an improvement both offensively and defensively which could tack on at least one more win to their 88/89 win season last year.

Second point: Nick Swisher replaced Bobby Abreu. This is a valid point. Bobby Abreu walked a shit ton (.371 OBS last year) and has decent power and still probably better at walking, hitting for power, and defense. So I'll give Ecksetin that here is not an improvement. But in the Yankees defense, it was never meant to be and they could have done a lot worse.

Third Point: AJ Burnett replaces Mike Mussina. Last year, Mussina had one of his best years getting 20 wins, having a 3.74 ERA, and having a 4.84 K/BB ratio. This is getting replaced with this projected stat line: 15 wins, 3.98 ERA, and 2.71 K/BB with about 10 less IP. Again, this is not an improvement and again, another valid point. But here's the thing, Mussina was the ace of the staff last year and Burnett's only the 2nd guy in the rotation and he's NOT the ace.

Fourth Point: CC Sabathia was worked too hard during the end of the year and this will manifest itself with poor performance while Sabathia is in pinstripes. Again, I can take this as a valid point considering how shitty did Sabathia in like his first maybe 7 starts? I don't but in the beginning he did shit. However, after this, he was amazing. Sabathia pitched well before he went to Milwaukee and amazing once he got there. There's no reason that the vast majority of the season that CC can't be great. Here's his projected stat line: 19 wins, 3.33 ERA, 231 K, 4.44 K/BB ratio, and in 243 innings. You're gonna tell me that's not an improvement for a team?

MY REBUTTAL

The thing that Eckstein overlooks is that the improvements of this team come from more than just off-season free agent signings, they come internally as well. He's other areas where the Yankees with improve.

Xavier Nady: This guy is a damn fine baseball player and a player that helps with their offensive woes. In recent years with Hideki Matsui and Johnny Damon were the outfield, the Yanks didn't really have an outfield because these players were oft injured. With Nady (and Swisher) the Yankees finally have depth and talent in the outfield. And this year, Nady will be on the team for an entire year to help this club instead of just half of one.

A-Rod: Remember, this is from a purely objective, on-the-field basis. Last year, A Rod had a down here (if that's possible for him considering he was 2nd in OPS in the AL last year). And this year, he's expected to "rebound". He is projected to get 44 HRs as opposed to his 35 last year and have an OPS 17 points higher than it was last year. His performance should improve thus helping this offense.

Chien-Ming Wang: Wang only pitched 95 innings last year. This was because of a freak injury when Wang was rounding home after playing some NL team. Wang should log significant innings this year and there's no reason to think he can't pitch throughout a 162 game season, something he didn't do last year.

Joba Chamberlian: This year he'll be in the rotation all year. Last year, he started off in the bullpen, then went down to AAA, then was in the starting rotation, and then back in the bullpen. This year, he'll be in the rotation. For sure. Chamberlian needed AAA help and some experience to fully get into the groove of being a full time starter, and watching him last year, he seemed to get it. With a year under his belt and seemingly developed, Chamberlian should be much better than he was last year.

A rotation of Sabathia, Burnett, Wang, Chamberlian and Pettitte is still better than a 2008 rotation that included Mussina, Pettitte, Darrell Rasner with Chamberlian, Wang, Ian Kennedy, Phil Hughes, and Carl Pavano getting significant starting time as well.

Now I'm not saying in this post that the Yankees will make the playoffs or anything like that. I am however saying that David "MVP" Eckstein is, hmmm how to word this nicely wrong?, to think the Yankees can't or won't be better than their 2008 counterparts.