Organizational Rankings: Current Talent – Yankees
It turns out even the Yankees have a budget. After years of steady increases in payroll, the Yankees have topped out around $200 million for each of the past five seasons, the most recent of which saw them reclaim a championship. At an estimated $212 million though, the Yankees 2010 payroll looks to be their highest in history trumping 2008 by a couple million.
The Yankees clearly had a successful season last year with 103 wins and a playoff championship. Our varied projection systems do not expect much of a drop off this year. You the readers ended up with 98 wins for the Yankees, four more than any other team in baseball. CHONE pegs New York at 99 wins, six more than any other team. CAIRO agrees with 99 wins and once again, six more than any other team.
What’s there to say about the Yankees current talent? Given the nature of the team, it’s not like there are any big surprises lurking on the roster that people haven’t heard of. It’s hard to find fault with players the like the Jorge Posada, Mark Teixeira, Robinson Cano, Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez around the infield, but one issue that might come up for New York is their depth behind the starters. Aside from Cano, none of the starting five are young pups.
Teixeira is probably a good bet to stay healthy, but he’s also the one with the best backup, either Nick Johnson or Nick Swisher. Ramiro Pena, currently the backup 2B, SS and 3B overproduced last season thanks to his .340 BABIP. He isn’t bad as a backup but would be highly exposed if pressed into a starting role due to injury. Francisco Cervelli looks like a fine enough insurance policy on Posada that catching shouldn’t be much of a concern.
The outfield will depend a lot on how Gardner does with a full time role for the first time at the big league level. His bat strikes me as mostly average, but he’s a good fielder that can play in center and that will help overcome the positional hit in left field and should make him a roughly average player overall. Granderson is a nice upgrade over Melky Cabrera and with Randy Winn as a roving backup, the outfield defense should be very good this season.
In the rotation, the Yankees brought in Javier Vazquez for another go-around hoping that it works out better than the first time. even if it doesn’t, Vazquez should provide his steady 200 innings. For the “oh” decade (2000-2009), Vazquez was second only to Livan Hernandez (by 38 IP) for total innings pitched. Joba Chamberlain is out (for now) and Phil Hughes starts the year as the fifth starter.
Mariano Rivera, Joba Chamberlain, Sergio Mitre, Damaso Marte, Alfredo Aceves and David Robertson were all above average last season in relief and should provide the bulk of the relief innings. Whether a Boone Logan or others fills out the back end is entirely negligible. It will be a solidly above average unit provided they do a better job avoiding the Jonathan Albaladejo‘s and Jose Veras‘ of 2009 this time.
Great hitting, improved fielding, improved starting pitching and a decent bullpen. $200 million helps a lot, but the Yankees have assembled a great team with that money.
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I agree that the Yankees have fielded excellent teams most years but $200M really is a lot of money. That’s roughly $8M per major-league roster spot. Subtract bench players and a few long relievers, and you’re looking at about $10M – 12M per player *on average*. And that doesn’t even include the Yankees’ player development budget. A GM would have to be pretty daft not to field a great team with that kind of money (especially when he or she has that level of money to work with year over year).
Tell that to the Mets.
I think Omar proved that Cashman knows what he’s doing.
That’s my point; it’s not easy to field a winning team in MLB, even with a $150 million budget. Cashman does know what he’s doing, then question is will be he allowed to do it? For example, good economics might suggest playing hardball with Jeter and/or Rivera and maybe even letting someone walk, but will the media/fans allow it?
It is a balancing act. Yes, it is a lot of money, but it is also a lot of money locked up into a few players with long contracts. That is why Cashman’s recent acquisitions of Swisher and Granderson, who are inked into somewhat team-friendly budgets is significant, as well as the signing of Cano. If they can have both Phil and Joba to the rotation next year (I am assuming Pettitte will probably retire and Javy will probably move on), they still have enough budget flexibility for a starting pitcher and Carl Crawford. So they should be
The broad point of all this is Cashman is finding a way to outmuscle other organizations with financial power (Teix and Sox), while also retaining some degree of flexibility in doing so.
Wait? Peter Gammons told me Teixeira chose the Yankees because his wife doesn’t like shopping in Duxburry street.
The difference between the Yankee’s payroll and the next largest team’s payroll (Mets, ~$50 million less last year) would field a team! I understand this isn’t ranking the efficiency with which they use the money and in fact having that much of a resource is a major plus, but you should probably frame that $212 million payroll in the context of the other teams.
Everybody knows the Yankees have tons of money. It’s not like the article fails to mention their payroll.
Everyone knows the Yankees have tons of money but some people don’t realize they have a 1/3 more then the 2nd highest paid team. That is HUGE!!!!
Exactly as Derek R-C says. I follow baseball closely and know a lot about the game, but didn’t realize the payroll gap was that incredibly large. I guess one could say I was unaware the other “giants” spent so, comparably, “little.” But that sounds ridiculous.
Given more money, teams would still have to prove that they can field a competitive team. Plenty of teams don’t.
Yes the Yankees have money, we all know this. I hate them for that. But, they do an oustanding job fielding a great team with that money so no one can really argue with this ranking. They are simply the healthiest organization in baseball.
In all sports, even. It kills me to say that…
What about UConn women’s basketball?
Or UNC women’s soccer?
I don’t disagree with the Yankees ranking as a great–the best–organization in baseball and that they spend their money very well. Basically, I agree with Dave’s whole article. Just thought I’d mention that here, since here is where I first commented on it.
I can find a flaw with Cano: He sucks defensively and doesn’t walk. Not a problem if he hits 320 and homers 20+ times, but it is an if.
whatever….blah
He may not take many walks, but he also strikes out at a ridiculously low rate, and has a well above average BABIP, which is controllable to a certain extent by hitters, which help make up for his low walk rate.
His wOBA was a hearty .370 last year, good for second in the league amongst second basemen, and has been very strong three of the past four years, as has his OPS.
His defense, as others have pointed out, is below average, but hey, nobody said he was perfect. Only one second baseman in the league is, in my book, and he doesn’t get much of the credit he deserves, which is a shame.
Throw it all together and you have a 27 year old second baseman (should be in the midst of his prime now) who is signed to a very reasonable 4-year, 30 million dollar contract, who has been worth 3.5, 5.0, and 4.4 WAR in three of the past four years, and in his down year, was worth just $800,000 less than his salary.
He doesn’t suck defensively, he’s not pedroia out there, but he’s got a cannon arm and his gloves usually rates out to just below league average.
He doesn’t like to walk, but I think his biggest flaw is his inability to hit with RISP. Granted the sample size isn’t the largest in the world, but his stats with RISP, when compared to his stats with the bases loaded are stunning.
good read. I do have to say though, in regards to the money thing, that while the yanks clearly spend much much more than any other team, people need to understand the concept of diminishing marginal returns. The degree to which $40 million can improve an $80 million payroll team is obviously quite different from the degree to which that same figure can improve a $170 million team. I know most of the people here realize that, but there are always the Steve Lombardi types who expect a linear correlation between payroll and product, which is impossible to achieve.
That’s not to say that it’s completely fair to the teams that don’t have the yankees largesse, but should it be? There are plenty of owners out there as rich as if not richer than the Steinbrenners, it’s the Yankees Organization itself that generates the finances to afford itself. This, in my opinion, anyway, is perfectly fair. The franchise has spent nearly a century developing itself into one of the stablest big businesses in the world, on a simple business model: win. It has succeeded historically in achieving that business goal, and thus has succeeded financially, allowing it to continue succeeding on the field. It’s a vicious cycle for the rest of baseball, sure, but it’s an undeniably impressive organization.
Also, while the big market in NY certainly helps maintain that fiscal productivity, it doesn’t generate it entirely. The Mets play in the same market, have a similarly huge (albeit significantly smaller) payroll, and suck. Not only that, but over their 40 year history they have yet to achieve sustained success. Success breeds financial firepower, but financial firepower only HELPs breed success. Success has to come first. And with the yankees, it has. The organization has been devoted to its city and devoted to producing a winning product for 90 years. If you ask me, that’s perfectly fair.
Hey, I view all your posts, keep them coming.
i 100% agree with pete.. we’ve got a lot of homegrown talents doing equally as well with a lower pay, such a gardner, hughes, joba, and hopefully cisco. its erroneous to infer that the yankees bought the essential part of their team. you cant buy shortstops like jeter, relievers like mo or catchers like posada.. not at any price.
This is why the Rays are baseballs best story, You just don’t need the mega buck payroll to win
The Yankees area clear also ran this year who will struggle for wild card honors but I wouldn’t bet they win that either. If they do, the playoff run will end early.
Well, if you suck bad for many years in a row you get a lot of good draft picks. If those draft picks then actually pan out (no sure thing) and you don’t trade them away, you can create a strong nucleus at the league minimums. If you can also sign those guys to very-team friendly contracts (again, no sure thing), you then have enough of the older ones still hanging around when the younger ones arrive that your team is both very good and very cheap.
But your fans have to put up with you sucking for a long time before you get there. And even then you have to be both smart (in evaluating your talent) and lucky (not having it get injured or go bust).