Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men (Part 1 of 3)

(this was one long article but we broke it up into 3 parts cause we know you're not reading anything this long anyway)

Someone once said something about those plans never really working out. Sorry for the lack of originality, I’m still coming to terms with the fact that the Bronx Bombers just got shut down by Horacio (7.00+ ERA) Ramirez. Perhaps, just as he sucked the inspiration out of the Yanks bats, he’s sucked the inspiration out of my keyboard.

It is May 15th, the Yankees are 2 games under .500, and 8.5 games behind the dreaded Red Sox. To make matters worst, according to Steve Goldman of the Yesnetwork.com’s Pinstriped Blog, Yankee fans can’t even fall back on our adjusted record (see www.baseballprospectus.com), as we should only be 19-17, which while over .500, would still be 6.5 behind the Bloody Sox. So, how did the Yanks get here? Well, some of it is obvious; in the beginning of the season the hitting was superlative and the pitching not so much. The disparity between when the Yanks were on the mound versus when they were at the plate could largely be blamed on injuries to Mike Mussina, Chin-ming Wang, and arguably Carl Pavano. Now that the pitching has somewhat righted itself (thanks to Kei “Mr. Homerun” Igawa being sent to the minors and good starts by Matt DeSalvo and Darrel Rasner); the offense has gone the way of the Dodo.

Now, it is not fair to expect Brian Cashman to have foreseen matching slumps by Jason Giambi, Bobby Abreu, Robinson Cano and Alex Rodriguez, converging at the same time. Furthermore, there was no way for Mr. Cashman to predict that Mariano Rivera would wake up on Opening Day and find that he was no longer his dominant self. So the question becomes which of the seasons’ failures are matters of poor design and which are the result of bad luck. Those that are the result of poor design should be correctible, if not this season then in the future, while those that are the result of bad luck are simply that.

To make two simple groups, the following seem to be the result of bad luck:
1. Injuries to the pitching staff (notably Phil Hughes)
2. Abreu, Giambi, Cano and A-Rod all slumping at the same time
3. Injuries to Hideki Matsui, Giambi and Johnny Damon
4. Mo Rivera

The following are the result of bad design:
1. Possibly the worst bench in the bullpen
2. Kei Igawa
3. Counting on Carl Pavano

Now, what is interesting is that some of the bad luck correlates with what appears to be the biggest design failure – the horrific bench. I was listening to Michael Kay on ESPN Radio last night (he is much better in the radio format where he feels less of a need to be a shill for the home team), when a caller proposed that a large part of the Yanks’ problem is the bench. Kay scoffed at the notion, stating that it was ludicrous to blame the Yankees problems on the bench because one would never pinch-hit for Abreu, Damon, Giambi, Cano, etc. He argued that Will (1 hit in 5 years) Nieves was a good back up because he could play defense. Now, I am about to vehemently disagree with Michael Kay, however, I should add that I have heard similar arguments about the Yanks bench from Mike of Mike and the Mad Dog as well as other journalists and pundits. While I understand that one would rarely pinch hit for the above mentioned, that argument simply completely and utterly misses why the Yankees weak bench is hurting the team.

Now, before we discuss why the bench hurts lets take a quick look at the culprits:
Position BA AVG HR RBI RUNS OPS
M. Cabrera OF .226 1 11 8 .516
M. Cairo INF/OF .154 0 0 0 .467
W. Nieves C .040 0 0 1 .080
J. Phelps 1B .256 1 5 4 .700


To be fair, it must be recognized that counting numbers (HR, RBI, R) for bench players will pale in comparison to started due to opportunity. However, the rate numbers (AVG and OPS) paint a grim picture. And, I don’t want to hear any garbage about how these guys just need at-bats, give me a break, you could give Cairo and Nieves 500 at-bats and they will still struggle to come up with 100 hits between them.