Andy Pettitte Returns to New York
In the surprise move of the spring to date, Andy Pettitte is returning to the Yankees for another season. As Jack Curry of YES first reported, Pettitte has signed a minor-league contract with the Yankees that could potentially pay $2.5 million this season. Although Pettitte likely won’t be ready to start the season with the Yankees — he’ll need extended spring training or a minor league stint to get his arm strength built up — he should add another quality arm in Joe Girardi‘s starting rotation.
Pitchers — or any player — who take seasons off can be tough to project. Was Pettitte staying in shape? Will his arm respond as well to the spring training program as it did in past years? Combine these questions with Pettitte’s age — he turns 40 in June — and it’s fair to have concerns about Pettitte’s ability to come in and bolster the Yankees’ rotation.
But the Yankees lose very little if Pettitte is unable to get his arm back in shape, and if he can get healthy and stay healthy, it’s difficult to imagine him having a bad season, simply because he has never really had one before. Maybe the closest one was 2008, when the lefty posted a 4.54 ERA, his only worse-than-average mark of his career. But that year, he still managed a 2.9 strikeout-to-walk ratio and a 3.71 FIP. In his 16 MLB seasons, not once did Pettitte post a FIP higher than the league average (as measured by FIP-).
And in reality, average is probably all the Yankees need to get from Pettitte. An average Pettitte would allow the Yankees to push Phil Hughes to the bullpen (where he has excelled, albeit in a small sample) and Freddy Garcia (already dealing with a hand injury) to a long relief role. The depth in the rotation would be fantastic and should protect against all but the most dire injury situations. Most importantly, Pettitte would make five probable above-average starters when grouped with CC Sabathia, Hiroki Kuroda, Michael Pineda and Ivan Nova.
It was easy to think Pettitte had something left when he retired on the heels of a 3.28 ERA in 2010. Now he’ll get to prove it.
Don’t like the move. The guy had no wins last year and didn’t strike anyone out. He was a zero WAR pitcher! I mean, come on…
All that but a zero ERA and WHIP though.
I’m no mathmetician, nor can I even spell mathmetician correctly. But isn’t 0/0 infinity? Which would be even worse.
0/0 is either infinity or 1. That’s either a really amazing HR/9 or a horrendous. I think it’s safe to say, from the numbers, that this is a boom or bust move.
OR! It could be negative infinity!
The only quantities defined surrounding a quotient with zero in the denominator, generally, are limits of the quotient as the denominator approaches zero. If the numerator is positive, the limit as the denominator approaches zero from the positive side is positive infinity, and the limit as the denominator approaches zero from the negative side is negative infinity. If the numerator is negative, the opposite of these are true. The common belief that 1/0 = infinity is not true, the IEEE floating-point specification notwithstanding.
When the numerator and denominator are both zero, even the limit of the quotient cannot be defined. It is, in fact, possible to define functions f(x) and g(x), where f(0) = g(0) = 0, that give arbitrary values for limits of f(x)/g(x) as x approaches 0.
Actually 0/0 could conceivably be any number if examined in the limit.
Are you guys going to the outer space convention tonight?
0/0 is just infinity. dividing by zero superseeds all other operations.
I love that I’m relearning the first semester of calculus on a baseball forum. :)
Actually, 0xn=0, n/inf=0, n/0=inf and nxinf=inf are set rules (ignoring +\-). None can superseed another. So, 0/0, 0xinf and inf/inf are undefined and can be anything from zero to infinity. They have to be further analyzed, but I think that in case of ERA any analysis would leave them undefined.
This confuses me. I figured the Yankees might pick up another starter so they could send Pineda to the minors to work on his velocity, but Pettitte’s not going to be ready to start the season when Peneda would presumably be pitching extended spring training. So… what’s the deal? Are they abandoning Hughes as a starter completely? He’s looked good this spring… certainly much better than Pineda.
Pineda is not going to the minors. How a player looks in ST is of little importance. The Yankees signed him because he’s ANDY PETTITTE, and if Andy Pettitte calls the Yankees and is willing to sign a minor league contract, you don’t worry about how he fits in with your plans.
“How a player looks in ST is of little importance.”
Based on what? If a hitter’s timing is off or a pitcher isn’t locating their fastball in early-March, that’s one thing. If there’s a sudden drop in velocity, that can be a red flag. That’s one of the instances where it can be very important how a player looks in ST.
That’s a pretty strong statement. I’m sure the Yankees would like to see him pitch well at the Major League level. And sure the fact that he has played such a large part in their success over the last 15 years and is a fan favorite in the Bronx is a perk. But c’mon your statement makes it sound like he is vintage Lefty Grove, Warren Spahn or Randy Johnson. I’m sure when he called he would have loved to get a major league deal for 10 million per. I mean they gave him a minor league deal That could be worth 2.5 million. So if he makes the club this sesason and meets all incentives he gets paid the market value of a 0.5 WAR player. Not a huge risk on the Yankees part. In his prime he was never an ace. Infact I can’t think of anyone whose career better reflected the skill set of a number 2 (sometimes #3) starter. My guess would be at age 40 after a year away from the game, the Yankees would love to get 125 innings of league average production. They would likely prefer to get the production out of Pineda, Nova and Hughes if they are healthy and effective as it is safe to assume they have more upside at this point.
Shane, most of the teams I’ve rooted for would have taken Petit as their ace in a heart beat.
He should totally be sent down, hold him in AAA for 6 weeks or so to add an extra year of service time. Plus, he’s never going to be effective without a secondary pitch…
…oh wait, sorry, wrong season. As you were.
Why would they need another starter to push Pineda to the minors? They already have 6 guys competing for the rotation. Though I very, very much doubt Pineda will be the odd man out in that competition.
Signing Pettitte comes with almost no risk, so why not do it? It is, after all, a minor league contract. If he can’t get his arm back into fighting shape then he’ll just fade back into retirement.
The only real risk is that he looks ok in the minors, gets called up as a mid-season fix, and then bombs in the bigs. Even if that happens, they should still have enough pitching depth to replace him, so the damage should be relatively well-mitigated. Granted, NY could stick with him too long because he’s a True Yankee, but such is life.
They can afford to float $2.5 on a comeback, and they have all sorts of cushions to avoid getting burned to badly. Might as well give it a shot (and let’s not forget that if he does come back, they’ll probably try to flip Garcia into bench help or something).
Pineda to the what to work on his what?
Pettitte is now the Yankees’ 2nd highest paid mascot behind Derek Jeter.
Actually 0/0 is an indeterminate form. Not infinity or zero. It cannot be evaluated.
I feel like I should go all 2004 Internet and post silly photoshopped pictures.
“2004″? You’re implying they stopped…
Incorrent
*Incorrect
Is this real life?
Or just a fantasy?
Caught in a slide.
Cauught in a landslide.
No escape from reality.
open your eyes, look up to the skies and SEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
I understand the notion that you can’t just “say no” to the guy when he comes calling…but what about all of this talk of the cash-strapped Yankees? The ones that had to wait to sign Ibanez/Chavez and could barely pay a million bucks to either? Was that all just posturing?
If I were either of them, I would scream WHAT?? when they give twice that amount to a man who wasn’t even in baseball a year ago.
I mean, Ibanez was left in no-mans land when the Yankees were trying to clear AJ’s salary, and then all of a sudden he wakes up to a new, better paid teammate?
Yes, and?
Your point is that Ibanez might be offended? Who cares? He’s not as good as Andy Pettitte, so he’ll make less money.
Also, Ibanez got a major league deal and Pettitte did not.
nobody gives a shit about ibanez’s feelings towards this deal
what? that clearly wasn’t my point
My point was one of surprise that the Yankees were willing to spend (sounds very strange, I know) when all indications a month ago were that they were at their cap limit and couldn’t make any more additions despite their needs. That’s why Burnett had to go – salary relief, and I am just surprised that they still are spending.
Reading comprehension folks
“My point was one of surprise that the Yankees were willing to spend (sounds very strange, I know) when all indications a month ago were that they were at their cap limit… Reading comprehension folks”
If that was your point, you completely muddled it by spending most of your words talking about how Ibanez and Chavez would react and how now Ibanez has to wake up to this news.
Those who replied seem to have perfectly fine reading comprehension.
Now that we have all this pitching depth and Raul Ibanez looks like he will be a terrible DH, let’s trade Pineda for that Jesus Montero kid.
Yankee fans clearly have nothing on Red Sox fans. They’d have suggested he be traded straight up for Montero and Felix.
Yanks’ starting depth is really good right now; they already had 6 capable starters and now Pettitte gives them 7. Pined’s velocity would still worry me though.
Would you draft him in Fantasy leagues? I’m in an AL only and this does intrigue me.
I wouldn’t draft him unless you are in the deepest of AL only leagues.
He won’t be ready for opening day, and he’s 40 years old, and he was never really a great fantasy pitcher even when he was in his prime. He always had a high WHIP and low to average k’s.
The Ibanez/Pettite contracts can’t be compared. Generally I’m skeptical when people start talking about the added revenue that Player X can generate but in this case I’m pretty certain that the incremental revenue from an Andy Pettitte comeback is likely to be more than $2.5M.
I am concerned though at how quickly the author dismisses Hughes to the bullpen. Maybe I’m a Yankee optimist but I believe Hughes can be a better than average starter.
oh fuck yeah
They should have kept this quiet and then unveiled him in the owner’s box on Opening Day, just for Suzyn Waldman.
“Goodness gracious!!!”
I don’t think her aging heart would be able to withstand the surprise returns of two PED cheaters.
My head nearly exploded when I saw this. Very excited.
So is this equivalent to whistling in the dark as you walk by the graveyard, or is this just a stop gap until Cain’s a FA.
Any AL East team paying for the performance Cain is throwing up in the Wifflebat division is going to be very disappointed, especially if he’s in Yankee Stadium half the time.
oh? you know this for sure? that’s such a cool skill, what other things that no one can possibly know until they happen do you know?
The only people moronic enough to talk about Pineda going to the minor leagues after 3 weeks of ST are NY writers ( at least they do it to get hits on their blogs), and Yankee fans.
I guess giving him time to regain his arm strength, perfect his changeup, stop his service time clock so as to have him under control for an additional year, etc are moronic.
I agree it is unlikely, but lets see how the rest of his ST goes. I suspect he is part of the reason the Yankees signed Pettitte. He will get killed with a 91 mph FB in YS3, especially against teams like the Red Sox with a lot of LHB’ers.
I guess giving him time to regain his arm strength, perfect his changeup, stop his service time clock so as to have him under control for an additional year, etc are moronic.
It was last year, yeah…
his 1999 doesn’t count as bad?
ERA+ was 101
still above average
I am wondering if Garcias hand is worse than we believe and if Pinedas velocity drop off has the Yankees more concerned than they say publicly. In any event, a very good move by the Yankees. Pettitte, if he can return to form, matches up very well against the Red Sox LHB dominated lineup. Something they missed last year as CC has trouble against good hitting teams like the Red Sox.
What a heart-warming story. I wonder if Suzyn Waldman cried tears of joy when she heard the news.
As a Yankees fan I’m cool with this. But if they wanted a guy to fill in for the Garcia-Pineda-Hughes trifecta of injuries and other maladies, why not just sign Roy Oswalt?
Money (Oswalt looking for north of 5 million with incentives)? Pettitte willing to sign a minor league deal?. Pettittes history with the Yankees and very good 2010. Pettitte being a LHP’er to throw against the Red Sox?
Combine all of the above and you have your reason.
This comment is only peripherally related to the post but perhaps someone will answer this question. Here is the process I went through: went to baseball-reference, noticed that what was clearly Pettite’s best season (1997) he only finished 5th in Cy Young, wondered why and clicked the link to see who was ahead of him. Turns out Clemens was way better that year (by WAR), Johnson was about the same but had 20 wins to Pettite’s 18, Radke had lower WAR but also 20 wins, and Randy Myers had 293 ERA+ and 45 saves. Clemens and Johnson got all the 1st and 2nd place votes anyway and the rest just sopped up what was left over. So all this makes sense as far as the voting goes. Until I scan down the page and see that Deivi Cruz was 5th for ROY and 25th for MVP. First I thought it was a typo, then I thought maybe Deivi just had a decent season I didn’t remember, but no…
Which brings me to my actual question. How did Deivi Cruz get votes for either award? Here are his numbers: .241/.263/.316 (OPS+ 51, bWAR -0.6, 467 PA). His oWAR is -0.4 and dWAR -0.2. Did people think he was a defensive whiz and the numbers don’t back it up? I just don’t get it. I could see ROY votes if it was a bad year for rooks, but how does a guy like that get MVP votes?? 25th is pretty low, I guess it could be the hometown reporter in Detroit giving him a courtesy vote, but all in all shocking.
Tony Womack (*-1.2 WAR) got a vote in the NL MVP and Terry Francona got a mgr of the year vote with the Phillies (68-94). Might have been the same guy who voted. Maybe sending a message, drunk, whatever.
Cruz’s ability to play shortstop full-time with a 51 OPS+ probably made him look magnificent when contrasted with the part-time efforts put up the year before by a done Alan Trammell (OPS+ 34) and ineffective Andujar Cedeno (OPS+ 41) in the eyes of some local Detroit writer.
On a lighter note, Sidney Ponson -former O’s legend of the 00′s- is attempting a comeback, making O’s fans nostalgic for 2004′s 78 wins and 2005′s 2 1/2 month pipedream.
AH!
Sidney Ponson has never been on the lighter side of anything.
I hope he does for the Yankees what Ken Griffey Jr did for the Mariners on his final go around.
Maybe Junior can loan Andy his recliner. And then give him a ride home in the middle of the night when he bails unannounced mid-season.
A.K.A., Pettitte returns from retirement where he was not tested for pharmaceutical grade HGH and is now ready to play ball again.
Well, that’s silly. All Andy had to do was pay the lab tech to take the sample home with him or her and refrigerate it over the weekend.
HGH has never been tested. I think it starts this year or next year under the new CBA,
Pettite mysteriously retires after a good season and the comes back. Maybe he was secretly suspended like Micheal Jordan was for gambling.
My guess is that Nova, Garcia or Hughes are fighting for 4th/5th SP spot and that Pettitte will compete or take either of those two spots if performance or injury occurs.
Depth is always good…gotta be a bummer to be Phelps, Mitchell or Warren though; as those guys are 4-5th types and are missing their chance.
Five deep, they might be the best in the bigs, come postseason though and they are maybe top 5 rotations as you only need 3-4 SP. Maybe Bud could make it the best-of-9 like it was 90 years ago?