You Should Listen to Me: I Placed First in a Private Make-Believe World

So all my waiver-wiring and managing risk and whatnot landed me a league title in one of the two leagues I cared about (and I came in second in the other one). Booya!

Mostly though, I'm excited that fantasy baseball season is over so I can focus on (fantasy) football, as well as the baseball playoffs. Fantasy sports really enhance my spectator experience, but it's also nice to watch a game and not worry about every at-bat and how it will affect me. Here's hoping the Yankees go deep into October baseball!

Did Anyone Else Hear That?

I'm watching the Yankees @ Tigers game tonight on ESPN, and these commentaors have got to be the worst I've ever heard. They just seriously suggested that the 1-2 2 out pitch the ump called a ball was a good call because other umpires might've phoned it in and called it a strike just to get out of the inning. Seriously? Seriously. 

Merry Christmas Everybody!

Hope you all get great gifts! (like the Yankees getting Mark Teixeira)

May your Christmas be merry and joyful!

Baseball Prospectus Needs Some TARP Funds

Joe Sheehan and Jay Jaffe both HATED that the Yankees did not offer arbitratrion to Bobby Abreu and Andy Pettitte. The gist of their argument was that arbitration meant either 1 year of a good player or draft picks, and if the Yankees wouldn't mind either of them on their team, then they turned assets into dust.

But they forgot to look at the other side of the coin. Abreu and Pettitte could be assets or they could be liabilities. The two players each made $16 million each last year. In arbitration they could easily earn $18 million each. Let's look at the opportunity cost of each.

Abreu's offensive has been steadily declining since his then-record-setting performance at the 2005 Home Run Derby, but he's still pretty good at the plate. His defense, however, is terrible. I'll leave the sabrmetric analysis for others, but with Damon, Melky/Gardner (or now Cameron), and Nady as full-time outfielders and Swisher and Matsui as backups, the Yankees hardly need a declining expensive OF taking playing time away from better younger players.

The case with Andy is even simpler. The Yankees knew that Pettitte only wanted to play for the Yankees. That leaves him with no leverage. Cashman wanted to give Andy a paycut, so offering arbitration would just be throwing money at him.

And the final argument is that Cashman knew what we didn't; that the Yankees were going to put the full-court press on CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett both. Knowing that, tying up $36 million in two players who are not the solution to the Yankees' problems would be dumb*. Fiscal responsibility, folks. It's a good thing.

* Now, none of us knew that, and of course Sheehan and Jaffe didn't know it when they wrote their posts. I disagreed with them well before Cashman signed CC and A.J., but I'm a slow blogger.

Bold Prediction Wednesday! It's the Yankees Again

Prediction: Yankees fail to sign CC Sabathia. Yankees do sign Mark Texeira for $120M over 6 years.

I Thought Slavery Was Illegal

The Yankees sold a man to another team for $1 million. That's 0.7% of the money needed to sign Sabathia.

The Importance of Compensation Picks

A lot of Yankee fans don't really get the way free agency and compensation picks work. Fair enough, it's somewhat complicated. That said, they also ignore the ramifications of these picks. Whoa dog, hold on a sec. MLBTradeRumors.com reports that Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain were both picked by the Yankees with compensation picks. How about them apples?

Resign Giambi

This is my pipe dream:

1) Yankees do not sign Teixeria.
2) Yankees sign Giambi to a $5M/1Y or $8M/2Y deal.
3) Giambi holds down 1B until Posada moves there or someone else takes over (because we all know Posada's going to need some time there before his deal is up).

My reasons are this:

1) Giambi is a great teammate; this may be not appreciated but is important.
2) .247/.373/.502, 128 OPS+, in 145 games.
3) Yeah, he's a terrible defender. But his WARP-1 (Wins Above Replacement Player, defense adjusted) was 4.5 for 2008. For comparison's sake, Jeter had a 4.4 WARP-1 in 2008.

Come on, Cashman, pull the trigger!

I Haven't Ranted Against The Press Lately

Filip Bondy: I swear, you really don't have a clue about how baseball franchises are run and how the baseball talent pipeline works.

Let's talk about player talent progression, shall we? The average baseball player spends several seasons in the minor leagues before being promoted to the bigs. The average age of these players tends to be mid 20's. I can't get numbers on this, but most players progressively get better until their high 20's or low 30's.

That in mind, let's look at the current state of Yankees youth who played in the Bronx this year:

• Joba Chamberlain: age 23, less than 1 year in the minors
• Phil Hughes: 22, 2+ years
• Ian Kennedy: 23, 1 year
  
• Robinson Cano: 25, 3 years
• Melky Cabrera: 24, 2 years
• Brett Gardner: 24, 3 short years
• Justin Christian: 28, 3 years
• David Robertson: 23, 1 year
• Phil Coke: 25, 3 years

I look at that list and figure that at least half of those guys should get better over the next 3 years. Bondy, however, has decided that they're all crap:

"We aren't sure about Phil Hughes or Phil Coke."

I think you might be the only person on the planet who isn't sure about Hughes. I haven't heard a scouting report ever that thinks he won't make it. And yeah, we've only seen 14.2IP of Coke, but it was a damned good 14.2IP.

"We already see that Brett Gardner doesn't have the power to play center field on a regular basis."

I guess Bondy doesn't care that most center fielders are not power hitters, but let's forget about that. Yes, Gardner had a rough year this year. Yet he went from AAA to hitting lead off for The Most Storied Franchise in Sports. I'm willing to bet he had a little bit of a shocking transition. He also had a .296/.414/.422 line in AAA this season, and that .414 OBP sticks out. Plate discipline is a skill that translates directly from the minors to the bigs.

"Robinson Cano took a serious step backward in 2008."

I'll bet you in 2009 he beats his 2007 numbers. This kid is full of talent.

"Melky Cabrera is ordinary at best."

It's boring to say at this point, but he's 24! It's very rare for a player to peak at 22 (when he took over for Bernie Williams in CF and had a great year).

"Their starting rotation requires yet another injection of free agents."

This line is what gets me. Here is the current best guess 2009 rotation: Wang, Chamberlain, Pettitte, Hughes, Kennedy/Rasner/Aceves/Giese. Aside from the #5 spot, that looks pretty awesome. The Yankees do not need CC Sabathia (but they may as well grab him if they can). Add in a AJ Burnett or a Derek Lowe and that rotation starts to look awesome.

But the best part about that line is that Bondy doesn't understand what he's saying. You don't have to trade for free agents. Cashman will be careful about signing type A free agents (meaning the Yankees would have to cough up their 1st round draft pick), and if he managed to net any picks with teams signing his type A free agents (Marte comes to mind), then that changes the game too.

The Yankees get to drop $80 million off their books this year. Cashman has been saddled with these big contracts for the entire time he's been top dog. Now is when he really gets to shine. I can't wait to watch the Hot Stove League this year.