THE YAN-KEI'S KAMIKAZE

On Friday, May 9, 2008, The New York Yankees will send Kei Igawa, the organization's $46 million dollar albatross, into the Tigers' den, to be, in all likelihood, bludgeoned and devoured.

Indeed, the most salient folly of Cashman's reign as plenary GM started 12 games in 2007 and with minor exception, flopped in every one. In those 12 games, Igawa threw 60.6 innings. His number appear below.

• 47 earned runs
• 74 hits
• 33 walks
• 14 Home Runs
• 53 Keis
• WHIP = 1.77
• ERA = 6.98
• Quality Starts (6 innings allowing 3 or less runs) = 1

His one quality start occurred on April 18 against Cleveland, throwing 6 innings of 2 run ball.

He registered another quality performance, however, in a memorable quasi-start on April 28 against Boston. Julio Lugo's lead-off hit in the 1st inning broke Jeff Karstens's leg. A batter later, Kei Igawa relieved the very pitcher who just had supplanted him from the starting rotation, and pitched 6 shut-out innings of 2 hit, 4 walk baseball. After which, David Ortiz, with all the charitable grace of a self-proclaimed Idiots, appraised Igawa's perfomance, as follows, "He was all right. Nothing special." Was bin-Papi being petty or prophetic? In his next outing, Igawa surrendered 8 runs in all of four innings.

In fact, in the 8 starts Igawa made after 04/28, he lasted into the 6th inning precisely ONCE, on June 30 against Oakland, in a game in which he allowed 4 earned runs, 3 of which homeruns produced.

Igawa's numbers at AAA Scranton hardly impress either, neither in 2007, nor in 2008. In fact, his 2008 stats roughly approximate his 2007 AAA numbers, over about one-half the sample size.

• 2007- AAA- 11 GS-- 68.1 IPs, 3.69 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 10 HRs, 6.2 Innings per start
• 2008- AAA- 7 GS-- 39.2 IPs, 3.86 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, 3 HRs, 5.6 Innings per start

So how often do the Yankees promote starters who register little better than a prosaic 4.00 ERA in AAA? Well, one hopes not often. So why has Igawa earned this rare indulgence? Is it the $21 million posting the Yankees paid for his free-agent rights and $4 million dollar annual salary due him each season through 2011?

THE FECKLESS KENNEDY

Here's perhaps an instructive comparison. Take the respective struggles that led the Yankees to demote Ian P. Kennedy in 2008 and Igawa in 2007. After all, Igawa earns $4 million; the Yankees pay IPK the league minimum. As it happens, the Yankees demoted them within almost one year of each other. The Yankees optioned IPK on May 3, 2008; Igawa, on May 7, 2007. More uncanny still is the similarity in the stats they posted beforehand.

Before his demotion on May 3, Ian Kennedy's 2008 numbers as an MLB starting pitcher were as follows:

• 5 GS, 23.7 IPs, 8.37 ERA, 2.02 WHIP, 1 HR, Avg. Innings Per Start = 4.74

Before his demotion on May 8, Kei Igawa's 2007 numbers as an MLB starting pitcher were as follows MLB statistics were as follows (the first without the quasi-start against Boston, the second with):

• 5GS, 24.1IPs, 10.08 ERA, 1.66 WHIP, 8 HR, Avg. Inning Per Start = 4.82
• 6GS, 30.1 IPs, 7.63 ERA, 1.53 WHIP, 8HR, Avg. Inning per Start= 5.02

Not only do the numbers differ very little, excluding the Karstens' start, Igawa's and IPK's numbers bear an striking resemblance. The parallel here implies that far from money animating the Yankees' decision-making, the pitchers' ineptitude largely dictated the Front-Office's decision. Performance, at the very least, would appear to supersede money as the guiding index.

On the other hand, what about at the opposite end of the continuum? Did money influence Igawa's promotion in 2008? Once again, a comparison, albeit conversely, with the successs IPK enjoyed before the Yankees promoted him in 2007, illuminates.

CAMELOT'S IPK

Before the Yankees tapped IPK for his major league debut on September 1, 2007, IPK had excelled so effortelessly in A-ball the Yankees promoted him from single-A to triple A within a single season. (Much like Joba.) As a consequence, IPK didn't amass a represenative number of starter innings in any one level (63IP in Single-A Tampa, 48IP in Trenton, 34IP in Scranton) Still, the last of these figures sheds light on the question because Ian Kennedy's 2007 inning totals in Scranton before the Yankees elevated him roughly mirror the number of inning Igawa will have accumulated in Scranton before he starts against Detroit this Friday.

• 2007-IPK (Scranton)- 6 GS, 34.2 IPs, 2.08 ERA, 1.04 WHIP, 2HRs, 5.7 Innings per start
• 2008-Kei (Scranton)- 7 GS, 39.2 IPs, 3.86 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, 3 HRs, 5.6 Innings per start

IPK's numbers are considerably better than Igawa's, it seems, but not drastically better. Money could account, in this instance, for the Yankees' readiness to promote Igawa, despite his mediocrity, but the sample size is too sample and the differential too narrow, to draw a definitive conclusion.

In fact, with Alan Horne on the DL, Jeff Marquez foundering, and McCutchen still in AA, the case of the most seasoned alternative to Kei Igawa, only blurs matters. His name is Steven White. Over the last two years White has compiled almost as many starter innings in Scranton as Igawa has. Compare,

• White- (07-08), 21 GS, 124.4 IPs, 3.32 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, Avg. Innnings per Start = 5.92
• Igawa-(07-08), 18 GS, 107.3 IPs, 3.77 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, Avg. Innings per Start = 5.96

They're almost identical. White has a slightly lower ERA and has ceded fewer home runs, 7, to Igawa's 13, but otherwise neither especially recommends himself over the other.

THE MONEY PIT

Now, because the Yankees generate the most revenue in baseball, their detractors and assorted cynics, invariably, will attribute their every motive to the all-mighty dollar. To explain why the Yankees have promoted Kei Igawa, for example, a starter who has foundered consistently in the major leagues, they will look no further than the $4 million he earns: i.e., $3 million more than any other pitcher in the Yankees' farm system, and will surmise that the Yankees are desperate to salvage a scintilla of value from an otherwise $46 million dollar waste.

However, the above statistical examples, anecdotal to be sure, would paint a far more intricate picture. They appear to compel the conclusion, rather, that money only exercises perceptible influence when all else is equal; all else meaning, above all, the player's performance.

That is, Igawa's $4 million a year salary no more kept him in the Yankees' 2007 rotation when he struggled than IPK's league minimum salary secured when he faltered in 2008. Performance dictated the organization's decision regarding each; ineptitude consigned them to the minors.

On the other hand, when the need for a starter from AAA arose, money may have played some unquantifiable role in the Yankees decision to promote Igawa instead of White because their performances otherwise parallel each other. Unquanitifiable because Igawa's experience in having actually pitched in the major leagues before, among other factors, just as easily may have accounted for his selection over White.

Regardless, it's likely the Tigers lineup would ravage any of minor leaguers the Yankees could choose to oppose them on Friday. But by expending high-priced cannon fodder now, perhaps, the Yankees secure time to develop their more promising and potent weapons for the future.

THE CURSE OF CARL: POST-TRAUMA DISORDERS

The most implacable, unforgiving Yankees fan will trace the moment to Luis Gonzales' broken bat, bloop over 2nd base. Others will cite his namesake, Alex's, walk-off home run two years later in the 12th inning against Jeff Weaver.

For me however the defining moment of recent Yankees history, the watershed that heralded all the malaise to follow, and underscored the singular, overriding deficiency that has plagued this ball club ever since is Johnny Damon's grand slam. Not good, clean-shaven, Johnny Yank. No, heaven's forbid, not him. The other Johnny Damon, I mean. The evil double with the full, unkempt, beard; the long flowing locks; and the scarlet letter on his head-- Johnny Reb.

The moment's significance for our purposes, of course, arises not from whom hit the ball anyway but rather from whom pitched it. Or more accurately, the two starters who threw that ill-fated day in immediate succession-- the one who pitched Johnny Reb's coup de grace and his predecessor, the one who tossed Osama Bin Papi's bomb one frame earlier. In case you've forgotten their identities, the pitchers of that Game-- the game that is taboo, the game about which we shall not speak, the Game of Infamy--- were Kevin ("Harper's Ferry") Brown and Javier ("I'm Your Daddy") Vasquez.

Yes but, you object, how is that possible? After all, "Vasquez didn't return in 2005 and Kevin Brown retired that year mid-season." Indeed. They did. But Vasquez and Brown begat Cursed Carl and the Wall Unit and the scourge that afflicts them still.

In the off-season following That Game, the reeling, dejected Yankees, you will recall, traded Vasquez for the Wall Unit, and signed Carl "The Curse" Pavano to a four year $40 million dollar contract. An expenditure that, for the Yankees, has become synonymous with Ronald Reagan's three favorite words about government largesse, "waste, fraud, and abuse."

Indeed, when his expires at the end of 2008, Carl Pavano's total number of starts over four years, 19, will furnish the word futility new dramatic illustration in Yankee lore aside Ed Whitson, Britt Burns, and Pascual Perez.

To place the Pavano boondoggle in a modern perspective, compare him with another notable free-agent signings that followed in That Game's wake. While the New York Yankees signed 29-year old Carl Pavano for 4 years and $40 million dollars, the Los Angeles Dodgers, following That Game, signed That Game's winning pitcher, 31-year-old Derek Lowe, for 4 years and $36 million.[1] The comparison: since 2005, Carl Pavano has started 19 games and thrown 111.3 inning and made 19 starts; Derek Lowe has started 109 games and thrown 673.6 innings.

Now, understood literally, curses and hexes are superstitious twaddle fit for guilt-ridden, Puritan Nation and fodder for a vacuous, sensationalist media. Yankees fans don't believe in curses. So allow me this exercise instead in ominous coincidences and contagions.

PAVANO POX

Since signing Carl Pavano on December 20, 2005, key Yankees players seem to have suffered an aberrant rash of serious injuries-- serious, defined as sidelining a player for 4 weeks or more-over the last three-plus seasons. To recount,

2005

• Accursed Carl, 07/07/05, rotator cuff, DL- duration of season
• Jared Wright, 04/24/05, shoulder injury, DL-- 4 months
• Wang, 07/14/05, shoulder tendinitis, DL-- 2 months
• Kevin Brown, 06/16/05, 07/28/05, back, DL-- forever

Total Number of Starters Used for 2005 Season = 14

2006

• Accursed Carl, 04/01/06, back, tuchus, forearm, shoulder, ribs, DL-- entire season
• Gary Sheffield, 04/30/06, wrist, DL- 5 months
• Hideki Matusi, 05/11/06, wrist, DL- 4 months
• Mariano Rivera, 08/31/06, elbow/forearm, DL 1 month
• Tanyon Sturtze, 05/19/06, rotator cuff, DL- season
• Cory Lidle, 10/12/06- RIP

Total Number of Starters Used for 2006 = 12

2007

• Accursed Carl, 04/13/07, forearm, DL--season
• Jeff Karstens, 04/29/07, leg, DL-- 3.5 months
• Phil Hughes, 05/01/07, hamstring, DL-- 3 months
• Daryl Rasner, 05/20/07, finger, DL -- season
• Clemens, 09/03/07, elbow, DL- 1 month
• Jason Giambi, 05/29/07, foot, DL- 2.5 months
• Minky, 06/03/07, wrist-- 3 months
• Phillips, 09/03/07 wrist-- 1 month

Total Number of Starters Used Through 2007 season = 14

2008

• Accursed Carl, 04/13/07- forearm, DL- season
• Jorge Posada, 04/27/08- shoulder, DL- 1 month or more
• Phil Hughes, 05/01/08- ribs, DL - 6 to 8 weeks

POST-TRAUMATIC PAVANO DISORDER

I don't cite the above list, of course, to ascribe to Carl Pavano some nefarious supernatural power to afflict other players with his tender constitution and susceptibility to injury or to blame him for the remarkably high number of starting pitcher the Yankees have had to resort to the last three seasons. (Although I do often wonder whether a sudden rash of injuries can beset a team because the outbreak can make healthy players anxious, self-conscious, or taut and therefore more injury-prone or alternatively, propels them to be inordinately aggressive in running bases, chasing hits, or throwing ball, to compensate for another teammate's lost productivity.)

No, the Pavano Plague has been as its most pernicious not in afflicting Yankees players' bodies but rather in traumatizing the Front-Office's mind, distorting its perceptions and blighting its judgment, ever since.

The Yankees 2004 debacle, as the GM's office right recognized, stemmed, above all, from a deficient starting rotation that by season's end had two reliable starters: Mike Mussina and John Lieber. So the Yankees' proceeded that off-season, as they always have, to fortify their weakness through acquisition. I acquire; therefore, I am. They spent bountiful sums for the free-agent market's then most coveted pitching commodity, Carlapalooza Pavano, and they traded their prize pitching acquisition of the previous year, 28-yr-old Javier Vasquez, for their old (very old) nemesis, 41-yr-old Randy Johnson. As George always advocated, If you can't beat 'em, acquire 'em.

Well, Yankees fans, by now, know how the 2004 Improvement Plan fared. Carl Pavano pitched one-half of one contract year before dissolving into an absent punch-line synoymous with malingering and waste. Meanwhile, The Big Unit, waited until he donned Pinstripes to show his autumnal age. Come October, he degenerated into the stiff, immobile Wall Unit formidable only in size.

In fact, as one might expect, the Yankees, steeped in tradition and memory, like no other franchise, drew from this ignoble history what seemed two obvious axioms: the first from Accursed Carl, the second from the Wall Unit.

Only applied to distinctive circumstances, as we all know, axioms become fallacies. Ergo,

Rule 1: The Carla Commandment or "The Contract Canard": Thou shall not sign to large, multi-year contracts starters whose temperament the NY pitching crucible has not forged.

Rule 2: The Randy Rule or "The Farm Fallacy": Thou shall not trade "Your Youth" for "Acquired Age".

ILLLOGIC & BLIGHT: THE GHOST OF OFF-SEASONS PAST

Cut to the Winter Meetings 2007. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

Three years have elapsed. But little has changed. Yet again, the Yankees' odious, arch-rival has won the World Series. While the Yankees, yet again, have endured another ignominious early October exit-- an exit deriving from the same Achilles Heel, incidentally, an aging and ace-less pitching staff.

And the parallells proliferate: Yet again, there looms on the market in the off-season an elite lefty-- the kind of premiere starter available once a decade-- who promises in one salutary swoop to cure the Yankees of their chronic deficiency.

The problem, of course, is that he happens to evoke, not one, but both of the 2004 Commandments. First, the Minnesota Marvel stipulates he will sign for no less than 6-years and $120 million. He thus triggers Axiom 1, The Contract Canard. Long-Term Contract. Large Sums of Money. Starter Un-tested in the crucible of New York.

Worse, because the Minnesota Marvel isn't a free-agent, his acquisition would require the Yankees to cede Phil Hughes, Melky Cabrera, Jeff Marquez, and Mitch Hilligoss-- thus violating Axiom 2, The Farm Fallacy. Prospects Sought: four homegrown players. All four ripe and under 24. By contrast, the Minnesota Marvel is 29, 8 years older than the trades's plum sacrifice, Phil Hughes.

Bad enough to violate Axiom 1, but to violate Axiom 2, as well, the Yankees front-office cannot abide. So applying the lessons of history, or more accurately, misapplying them, the Yankees forsake the opportunity to acquire Johan Santana and one month into the season the youthful, homegrown pitcher they jealously hoarded ends up where, but for 2006, he has, for prolonged stints, every season since the Yankees drafted him-- on the Disabled List. (Hmmn, that sounds vaguely familiar, doesn't it? Are you fearing what I'm fearing?)

How, Why could the lessons of history steer the organization wrong? Well, primarily because both baseball and the Yankees' franchise in particular have changed so dramatically as to render the lessons of 2004 obsolete.

First, the 2007 Yankees, thanks to Brian Cashman (more ironies) abound in young pitching talent. Back in '04, by contrast, the farm was fallow. Javier Vasquez was the one and only young pitcher the Yankees possessed of any trade value. Trading him for a pitcher then 13 years his senior not only exchanged youth for age but stripped the franchise bare. In trading Phil Hughes, on the other hand, the Yankees still would have retained a riches of starter prospects: Joba, IPK, Brackman, Horne, and McCutchen.

What's more, the all-star, starting lefty they'd have acquired for 2008 was 29 on Opening Day not the 41 Randy Johnson was for April 1 three years earlier. The difference: acquiring the pitcher who is among the best pitchers in baseball, instead of acquiring the pitcher who was among them.

Finally, Johan Santana is sui generis. Pitchers of his caliber are so rare, and rarer still are they available that no rules apply, other than the obvious: Get him if you can.

More instructively, Santana differed so profoundly in talent, constitution, record, and prior performance from Axiom 1's example, Pavano, that he precluded comparison, let alone applied wisdom. Pavano had had one good year, 2004 and had acquitted himself well in one post-season. Santana, in contrast, had proven the best pitcher in baseball for five consecutive years and had thrived in multiple post-seasons. Johan Santana suggested a constitution of steel. Carl Pavano intimated a cast of plaster.

Why do I belabor the moot, you might ask? After all, Santana is an opportunity long since foreclosed. Indeed, he is. But the Pox of Pavano lives still. That is, there still exists the danger that "The Contract Canard" and "The Farm Fallacy" reside like vestigial phantoms in the deep recesses of Yankees' psyche haunting them indefinitely, obscuring future perception of an Oswald and/or distorting tomorrow's judgment of a Sabathia.

So let the exorcism begin.

[1] Of course, the irony of the Yankees, for the first time in recent memory, forsaking the chance to acquire the very pitcher who just had thwarted them in the post-season will not be lost on many Yankee fans. Oh, but for the days of Tommy John and Luis Tiant.

BIDEN FOR (VICE) PRESIDENT

Dear Baseball Fan, I ask you to excuse this brief, one-time digression from baseball coverage. Ordinarily, the only allegiance this blog endorses is to the greatness of America's pastime, in general, and to its polestar and standard-bearer, in particular, the New York Yankees.

I published the endorsement that appears below for Biden's Presidential candidacy back in January, the day before the Iowa primaries in fact. However, now that Barack Obama has chosen Senator Joe Biden for his Vice-Presidential running mate, I thought it worth re-printing. All of the personal and political virtues I then touted when Biden was running for the Presidency are as applicable and relevant now that he's become the Democrats Vice-Presidential nominee. He's an excellent choice; Kudos to Obama.

With tonight's Iowa caucuses commencing American Presidential primaries season, I'd like to interrupt, or rather to supplement, my baseball commentary with a plug for the candidate I consider best equipped to deliver the nation from its current malaise-- a malaise bred by a gratuitous, catastrophic war in Iraq and the dogmatic President whose cavalier arrogance, slipshod judgment, and criminal ignorance led us there.

That candidate is Joseph R. Biden, Jr., the senior Democratic Senator from Delaware. His candidacy at the moment is a quixotic one, I concede; Biden registers, on average, about 4% in the polls. However, Iowans cherish the leading role they play in the Presidential selection process and have a habit of defying pundits and subverting expectations. Republican Pat Robertson finished 2nd in the Iowa primaries in 1988, as did Democrat John Edwards in 2004. And finally, as every politican historian is fond of observing, an obscure one-term, Georgia governor emerged from nowhere in 1976 with a victory in the Iowa caucuses that catapulted him to the Presidency.

BIDEN THE MAN
Why Biden? Well, taking up the woman's movement old maxim that assumes the "personal is political," let's start with the Biden, the man.

Now, at one time in my life, election politics captured my imagination with something of the fervor only baseball, literature, and occasionally, the law, can today. As such, I've had the equivocal pleasure of becoming acquainted with my fair share of poltical candidates: Biden during his first Presidential election campaign in 1988; Bill Clinton, four years later, while working for his campaign during the Democrats nominating convention at Madison Square Garden and later in Pennsylvania during the general election cycle; and Al Gore, Jr, in 2000, providing legal counsel, albeit in a minor role, to his campaign's post-election challenge to Florida's results. (The latter, perhaps the more frustrating case I've ever been involved with as a lawyer and certainly, the most infuriating miscarriage of justice I've ever witnessed.) Finally, over the years, I've attended more political breakfasts, lunches, and dinner than I care to count. At which, many a Senate and gubenatorial candidates have shaken my hand with their right arm while endeavoring to pick my pocket with their left.

Yet in all this time, I've met precisely two candidates whose public demeanor, if not a facsimile of their private personality-- after all, whose is?-- impressed me as at least of reflection of it: Mario Cuomo and Joe Biden. Perhaps, out of principle, they disdain the artifice and dissimulation politics normally requires. Perhaps, they simply can't act. Whatever the reason, unlike with the ever protean Clintons, liberals one day, triangulators the next, with Biden (and Cuomo) you get what you vote for.

And when I vote for Joe Biden-- if his candidacy, that is, survives through the New York primary -- I, at least, will have the confidence of casting a ballot for a man I both like and admire.

Sure, Biden, on occasion, talks too much. But rarely, unlike his colleagues, does he say too little. Biden, in his volubility, is often trenchant, cogent, and erudite. And his candor, Biden is always seductive and endearing. Even when indiscrete, in fact, his glibness has the virtue of its sincerity and the extenuation that it's largely free of malice.

As for the personal qualities that inspire my admiration of the man. Well, Biden has suffered the personal tragedy of losing both a wife and daughter with more grace, resilience, and poise than we should expect of any man. Americans, it's true, too often exaggerate the relationship between domestic vritue and professional competence. That being said, how can one not admire a man, who at the age of 29, months after he wins his first Senate election, discovers a car accident has killed his wife and three-year-old daughter and nonetheless summons the strength and discipline not only to nurse his two critically injured sons back to health without ever neglecting his legislative responsibilities, but also exhibits the loyalty and devotion to commute 3-hrs back and forth to Washington every day to ensure he's home with them and the rest of his family every night for the rest of their lives.

BIDEN THE SENATOR
Biden's experience in public life commend his candidacy as well. Indeed, in a time when politicians imagine themselves qualified for the Presidency before they've completed a single-term in national office and/or hold out their last names as a Presidential credential, as though America were some kind of a aristocracy rather than a democracy, Joe Biden, US Senator for 35-years, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relation Committe, foreign policy expert and visionary, eminence grise of the Democratic party, and self-made man of a modest working-class origins provides a welcome and bracing relief.

Now, it's true that the importance of Presidential candidate's command of foreign affairs dwindles in times of peace and prosperity. Alas, 2008 isn't one of those historical moments. Not with Iraq confronting the U.S. with its most momentous foreign crisis perhaps since the Soviets installed missles in Cuba.

And no other candidates is more equipped to resolve the Iraq imbroglio than Joe Biden. Indeed, the confederal arrangement he proposed for Iraq over two years ago is perhaps America's last best hope for curtailing Iraq's civil war, restoring a viable state, establishing a functioning government, ejecting its foreign jihadis, and resurrecting Iraq's critical role as a buffer to Iran, a reliable source of oil, and a secular, moderate Arab bulwark in region inflamed by Islamic fundamentalism: all of which are indispensable to bringing U.S. troops home safely and quickly.

What's more, Biden recognizes that the U.S. has vital geo-political interests abroad, in the Middle East and elsewhere, and therfore never can retreat entirely from international engagement. However, he has never subscribed to the neocon's utopian delusion that American can transplant its pluralist democracy in Iraq or anywhere else, for that matter, and would pursue a course that restores realism, sanity, and restraint to our foreign policy without shriking from America's commitments, jeopardizing its interests, or surrendering its pivotal international leadership.

Finally, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., to my mind, is the only candidate with the intellectual gravity, moral authority, verbal facility, vision, expertise, and temperament to lead that fluid, constantly evolving, great democratic enterprise our Founding Fathers once called the "American Experiment."

A PLEA FOR G

Amidst the furor Hank Steinbrenner recently stirred about Joba Chamberlain's role, his thwarted desire for Johan Santana, and the travails of the Yankees starting rotation, he actually succeeded in obscuring the other glaring deficiency currently beseting the New York Yankees-- their slumbering offense.

Through 21 games this year, the Yankees have scored 94 runs, a total that places them 8th in the American League. Worse, 15 of them stem from a single game on April 16. Exclude their fifteen-run bender against the Red Sox and the Yankees have averaged less than 4 runs per game. Accordingly, if one is apportioning blame for the team's mediocrity, the lineup's paltry offensive output should bear its burden alongside Hughes, Kennedy, and Mussina.

Of course examining the precise proportion of each's contribution would require facility with mathematical derivatives beyond this writer's skill.

Then too there is what I call the Donne fallacy ("no man is an island"). That is, examing the effect of a team's pitching and hitting independently always distorts your analysis because on the field, the starting pitcher and his lineup inextricably influence each other. Treating pitching from hitting as separate spheres, then, doesn't truly capture the interactive system encompassing the field. For example, even the worst pitcher can quell a formidable lineup through 6 or 7 innings staked to a 7-run lead. Alternatively, even the best lineup will press, sabotaging its potential and defeating itself, mired in a 7-run hole.

Still, for the sake of argument, let's assume runs scored and runs allowed are genuinely independent variables. Applying the Jamesian Pythagorean theorem (Runs Scored^2 / Run Scored^2 + Runs Allowed^2), the Yankees' mound and plate performances translate into a 10-11 record through 21 games, an extrapolation very close to the reality: the Yankees presently stand at 11-10. So for argument's sake, assume the Yankees, actually, had scored more runs. At an additional run per game, the Yankees would have produced 115 runs, to date-- a number roughly equivalent to the Red Sox's current AL-league leading 119 runs scored. And 21 additional runs, according to the Jamesian Pythagorean theorem, would have resulted in two more wins or a record of 13-8 instead of 11-10.

Now, were the Yankees enjoying a .621 winning percentage, instead of playing .500 ball, Hank Steinbrenner might have had less reason to vent his frustration with the Yankees' current starting rotation yesterday. Then again, perhaps not. His acquiescence to Cashman's decision not to acquire Johan Santana probably will rankle him every time Hughes proves ineffective. And if I can't endorse Hank ranting in the press-- it certainly won't help Hughes any-- I certainly can empathize with his frustration. Santana would have alleviated much of the burden the under 24 yr olds must now bear themselves.

Still, young pitching is invariably erratic. It's not fair to punish Hughes and Kennedy, then, for Cashman's hubris. For the Yankees lineup of veterans and superstars, on the other hand, there is no excuse.

THE SCAPEGOATS
Of course taking the Yankee lineup to task indiscriminately obfuscates the problem as well. It's not the whole lineup, after all, that hasn't performed up to its ability and to fans' expectations. Rather, in team's overall offensive futility, a few hitters have distinguished themselves especially (Damon's recent surge excludes him from this ignominious company):

• Cano at .173/.212/.247, 1 HR and 5 RBIs
• Giambi at .120/.286/.340, 3HR and 7RBIs

What's interesting however is to observe the divergence in fan's reaction to each. Few revile Cano. Perhaps because they recall that Cano struggled in the beginning of last year as well. And he did; yet not nearly as badly as he has foundered this year. Through April of 2007, Cano also had only 1 HR and 8 RBIs but he otherwise was .270/.320/.337, numbers dramatically better than the .173/.212/.247 splits enumerated above.

The same fans that shrug off Cano, however, would as soon flog Giambi. In a recent visit to Pete Abraham's LoHud Blog, in fact, I discovered a consensus of otherwise astute contributors in favor of designating Giambi for assignment. Why the difference? Well, many, I suspect, deny Giambi the indulgence they extend Cano because of Giambi's age, bloated contract, and his evident defensive shortcomings. (The time his play robs fan favorite, Shelly Duncan, no doubt, fuels their ire as well.) Most of the clamor to cut Giambi nonetheless seems irrational. A reaction I can only attriubute to the lingering resentment his steroid use and injury-plagued tenure in Pinstripes still produces.

Whatever the reason, they're not alone. Even some of the more rational and objective voices have joined the chorus. The widely esteemed, Steven Lombardi, of "Was Watching," agrees and he has brought his stat book with him to lend their argument credibility: http://waswatching.com/2008/04/19/giambis-batting-skill-worthless-yanks-should-cut-him/ Lombardi compares Giambi's numbers against "finesse" and "power" pitchers, purports to show that Giambi can hit the former but not the latter, concludes that Giambi's skills have regressed, and argues the Yankees should cut him.

I'm not convinced. I don't entirely accept the validity and reliability of the metric Lombardo employs. He cites Baseball Reference's taxonomy of finesse pitchers, defined as pitcher who strike out or walk less than 24% of batters faced, and power pitchers, those who strike out or walk more than 28% of the batters they face. The finesse/power metric, for example, classifies Chien-Ming Wang as a finesse pitcher by a considerable margin. Would Giambi really fare much better against Wang, a finesse pitcher, than Becket, a power pitcher, for example, against whom Giambi is 27 Plate Appearances is .236 with 2 HRs and 6 RBIs?

Anyway, I found a rebuttal that convinced me otherwise. The Replacement Level Yankees Weblog ran a convincing statistical analysis that attributes Giambi's woes, in part, to a streak of especially bad luck. "Is Giambi Cooked?" (April 20, 2008) http://www.replacementlevel.com/

The pieces authors compiled stats on (i) the number of balls Giambi has put in play per plate appearance over the last few years and a comparison of (ii) his walk to strikeout ratios. From the relative constancy in the latter they concluded that Giambi actually has not undergone a marked regression in his plate skills. From the former they deduced that Giambi's dreadful numbers thus far stem, in part, from a streak of woefully bad luck.

I PLEA FOR G
Of course, Replacement Level persuaded me and WasWatching didn't largely because the former's analysis conforms more closely to (i) what I've Been Watching and (ii) too acute a memory of 2005 and 2007.

In 2005, if you recall, Giambi just had returned from a nearly season long absence to which his pituitary tumor had relegated him. And after a month in which he'd hit .224/.395/.373 with 3 HRs and 6 RBIS, the Yankees wanted to send him to the minors. Meanwhile the hanging jury on talk radio wanted to lynch him from the highest tree. Fortunately, Torre's loyalty to Giambi didn't waver. And with a little patience and perspective, lo and behold, Giambi suddenly snapped out of his doldrums, and with a superb June and July, he ended the season hitting with impressive numbers .271/.440/.558, 32 HRs and 87 RBIs and won the Comeback Player of the Year Award.

Then too, last year, I still recall with indignation all the fans who had concluded Bobby Abreu was finished and were prepared to bury him alongside Giambi. In May 2007, Abreu hit .208/.267/.274 with 1 HR and 9 RBIs after an April in which he didn't fare much better. Still, by the end of the year, Abreu compiled stats close enough to his career averages .283 vs. .300/.369 vs. .408/.445 vs. .500 that it made all the brouhaha in April and May about Abreu's skill regression seem risible in perspective.

Quite simply, one month, perhaps even two, does not a season make.

To be sure, Giambi's proclivity to pull the ball and the defensive shift played against him have diminished his offensive proficiency-- he's not the Giambi of 2002-3 and never will be. While the Giambi who hits so effectively to left-field during Spring Training, regrettably, vanishes come April.

Nonetheless, I recall too many Giambi at-bats through the season's first 21 games (a mere 13% of the season), during the series at Fenway in particular, when he hit the ball hard, if right at a outfielder, and which afterward led me to believe the numbers lied. A subjective impression, I concede, but one which Replacement Level's statistical anaylsis would seem to reinforce

Accordingly, nothing would surprise me less than for Giambi to rebound in the months of May and June, when the Yankees play over 50% of their games at home, when the weather improves and the RF porch beckons-- nothing would surprise me less than to see Giambi trotting around the bases to the guilty roar of the amnesic and fickle mob.

JOBA FOR STARTER: THE EXPERT-LAY DIVIDE

Please excuse the title's political allusion but I couldn't resist.

The fierce debate that has divided Yankees fans and the baseball cognoscenti who cover the team recalled to mind the chasm between the "nattering nabobs," liberal and conservative, who wanted to impeach Bill Clinton and the wide swath of the American public from whom the President's escapades evoked little more than a shrug.

Of course the gravity of their consequences couldn't differ more. Then again, to the Yankees franchise, perhaps they compare after all. In 2008, the Yankees Front-Office is unlikely to face a dilemma more momentous for their fate than whether to keep Joba Chamberlain in his current role as the Yankees redoubtable 8th inning set-up reliever or whether to return him to the starting pitcher he once was, the role in which he awed the Yankees' organization last year and rocketed through their farm system.


THE "EXPERTS"
Almost the entirety of the reporters, columnists, radio hosts, and ex-athletes turned television pundits who cover the Yankees favor leaving Joba in his current role as an 8th inning setup reliever, at least for the 2008 season. To name just a few who advocate as much: WFAN's Pope Mike and The Idio-Savant, John Heyman, Sweeny Murti; the YES Network's and 1050 Radio's Michael Kay and David Cone, Newsday's Jim Baumbach, The Record's Bob Klapisch, and former baseball players ranging from Goose Gossage to John Kruk, Fernando Vina, Eric Young and the rest of the punditocracy Red Sox Reich's House Organ, ESPN, employs.

Their argument proceeds something like this. Baseball increasingly has become a sport of specialized roles. Organization confine starters to pitch counts and innings limits. The complete game has vanished. And a "quality" start now consists of little more than six innings pitched surrendering three or less runs. Meanwhile, closers rarely pitch more than the 9th inning and the rare out or two in the 8th.

As a consequence, the pivotal moment in most games occurs in the 6th, 7th, and 8th inning after the starter has exited but before the Sandman has entered. (Naturally, the experts don't adduce statistics to demonstrate this point. In the meantime, the fan awaits a Jamesian study that derives a metric that identifies the game's watershed inning.)

Indeed, the talent margin between a league's best team and its worst often hinges on its middle relief. Teams that can resort to dominant relievers in the 7th and 8th innings, typically, are the teams that play in October: e.g, in 2007, the Angels with Scott Shields and Justin Speier; the Indians, with Betancourt and Perez; the Red Sox, with Okajima; the Rockies, with Herges and Fuentes. Teams like the 2007, Devil Rays, Orioles, Rangers, and Tigers (without a healthy Zumaya) in contrast, lost innumerable games in the late innings precisely because they lacked one or more consistently effective relivers who could preserve leads late in games.

Enter Joba. In the expert's view, he delivers the shock before the Sandman registers the kill. Indeed, four of the six Yankees wins to date have administered the Joba-Sandman prescription for throttling opponents' late-inning rallies. Thus the nostalgia it evokes in the experts who never tire of hearkening to 1996 to remind us that the Yankees haven't possessed this formidable a late-inning tandem since Rivera and Wettleland (who they conveniently forget Yankees fans called Sweat Land that year.) But they have a point: middle relief, the 7th and 8th innings in particular, has been a Yankees' Achilles Heel since 2001 and the swan song of Nelson, Stanton, Mendoza.

Moving Joba into the starting rotation, in their view, then is suicidal. It leaves the Yankees with two equally unpalatable alternatives, the one more noxious than the other: either (i) assigning the 8th inning role to Farnsworth or Hawkins, two pitchers who in this still nascent season already have demonstrated they can't handle the role (Farnsworth of the 2.00+ WHIP and Hawkins of 15.75 ERA) or (ii) entrusting the job to Ohlendorf, Bruney, Albaledejo, Veras, or one of the many relievers untested in the role. Of course, before last year, Joba himself was untested in this role as well. Actually, Joba not only had not navigated the shoals of a precarious 8th inning lead before, he hadn't ever worked as a reliever. In fact, he hadn't ever pitched in the major league in any capacity, besides.

Accordingly, a little imagination or exercise of logic might have prompted the experts to wonder whether there isn't someone else in the Yankees' system poised to rehearse Joba's trajectory before they rendered their verdict that moving Joba was tantamount to a death-wish. Alas the experts never do. The reason is because the great majority of New York's baseball media -- writers like Ken Davidoff and Pete Abraham genuinely interested in minor league baseball are the exceptions that prove the rule-- don't bother to familiarize themselves with the Yankees (or the Mets, for that matter) farm systems.

People like Francesa, Russo, Kay, and many of the senior writers, know the names, perhaps, of a few choice prospects but little else beyond that. They couldn't distinguish Steven White from Steven Jackson. They can't identify the pitches in Alan Horne's repertoire. They couldn't name any of the Yankees' elite pitching prospects recovering from Tommy John surgery. More damaging still, they don't know whether if a prospect with the composure and stuff to parallel Joba's remarkable ascension in '07 currently exists in the Yankees system. But that hasn't deterred them, nonetheless, from rendering judgment with a vehemence in direct proportion to their ignorance.

THE AMATEUR SCHOLARS

Ask a Yankees' fan, on the other hand. Consult one of the many blogs operated or frequented by the Yankees zealots, like Lohud or NoMaas, and you not only can obtain a quasi-professional scouting report on the top 25 Yankees prospects but an authoritative projection of their likely success. Question them about Joba and how he most profits the '08 Yankees. And the answer you receive is almost univerally the diametric opposite. Joba belongs in the starting rotation as soon as his innings limits allow. That is, at the first juncture in the season Joba can pitch 6 innings a start every fifth day through the schedule's final game (and perhaps October) without exceeding 150 total innings (accumulated in both his roles), Joba should start.

To them, it's axiomatic. Why confine a pitcher to 3 - 5 outs per game as an 8th inning reliever when he can provide you 15 to 21 outs per game as a starter. Why waste a commodity so scarce and precious as a pitcher with a repertoire of 4 above-average pitches-- two superb pitches, his fastball and slider, a third very good pitch, his curve, and a fourth pitch, his changeup, that's above average-- when the Yankees can draw from the surplus of hard-throwing relievers with which the organization abounds to replace Chamberlain.

For the setup role, the Yankees could call upon Ohlendorf or Bruney from the current major league roster, or Mark Melancon, Humberto Sanchez, Alan Horne, Jeff Marquez, or Jose Veras anyone of whom has at least a dominating fastball and another plus pitch besides. Only Joba however has four plus pitches. What's more when the Yankees need to turn to a sixth starter, as they will at some point, because of injuries or inning caps, they have no one to throw every fifth day who can duplicate Joba's talent, no other pitcher with the potential to develop into the staff's ace or to join Wang in that role. To match Beckett-Buchholz, Halliday-Burnett, King Felix-Bedard, or Sabathia-Carmona, the Yankees have one option and only one, Wang-Joba.

The precedent for transforming Joba from the bullpen to the rotation mid-season is, of course, Johan Santana's similar trajectory in 2003, as Joel Sherman reported last Sunday in The New York Post ("Jo-Joba's Witness," April 6, 2008) Through July 11, 2003, Santana pitched in the Twins bullpen, accumulating 66 innings. From July 11, onward, Santana started. Over those 90.3 innings as a starter, Santana went 8-2 and catapulted the Twins from a 44-46 to AL Central Division Title, with Santana recording the only Twins win in the 2003 ALDS against the Yankees.

JOBA: WARP SPEED

One way to quantify this potential impact is by examining Joba's likely contribution in each role through through the prism of WARP or (Wins Over Replacement Player), a statistic Pecota and Baseball Prospectus utilized to measure a player's contribution to his team.

Assume Joba could throw approximately 150 innings this year in a mixed role of starter and reliever and approximately 70 innings in his role as set-up man, about the league average for a effective set-up man or closer on a winning team. Okajima threw 70 inning for the Red Sox in 2007; Scott Shields, 77 innings for the Angels; Casey Janssen, 72.7 for the Blue Jays; Rafael Betancourt, 79.3 innings for the Indians. (The median number Mariano Rivera has pitched the last four seasons is 75 innings)

The mixed role would confine Joba to throw approximately 110 innings as a starter, about 20-30 innings in the bullpen and 20-30 innings in the minors while they extend his arm.

At their best a dominating set-up man contributes under a 4.0 WARP. In 2007, Okajima, Shields, and Janssen amassed the following stats:

• Betancourt-- 79.2 IPs, 1.48 ERA = 4.0 WARP
• Okajima-- 69.0 IPs, 2.22 ERA = 3.3 WARP
• Janssen-- 72.7 IPs, 2.35 ERA = 3.1 WARP
• Shields -- 77 IPs, 3.86 ERA = 2.9 WARP

Now compare the difference to a starting pitcher, even one who throws half a season. The sample size for comparison is small obviously because few starters pitch less than 100 innings over a season. But in 2007, Jessie Litsch a rookie starter for the Toronto Blue Jays, threw 111 innings, about what the Yankees could expect of Joba once they transform him into a starter.

• Jessie Litsch-- 111 IPs, 7-9, 4.49 ERA = 3.5 WARP

The ramifications of the above comparison are momentous. A mediocre starting pitcher, in just half a season, contributes about the same number of wins over a replacement player as some of the league's best set-up men over a season's entirety. If Joba pitches slightly better than Jessie Litsch did in 2007-- and there is great reason to expect his totals as a starter would excel Litsch-- he would contribute about as much to the Yankees success in 2008 than if he duplicated Rafael Betancourt's success last year as the AL's best set-up man.

Or consider Joba's likely WARP if his statistics as a starter parallel the dominance he's demonstrated as a reliever. Witness the impact in 2006 of Jered Weaver for the Anaheim Angels.

• 2006- Jered Weaver, 123 innings, 11-2, 2.35 ERA = 5.9 WARP

Compare Weaver's WARP to the Angel's set-up man Scot Shield's WARP in the very same year.

• 2006- Scot Shields, 87.7 IPs, 1.07 WHIP, 2.87 ERA = 4.9 WARP

The statistics would seem to bear out the Yankees' fan's contention that even the best set-up man contributes less to a team's success over the duration of an entire season than an above average starting pitcher will through one-half a season. A verity that the salary differences between dominant set-up men and even mediocre starter reflects.

The question is whether the Yankees Front-Office, when deciding Joba's fate, will ignore the onslaught of "expert" opinion and base their decision instead on the layman's impassioned reason.

SPORTSTALKNY

For those of you interested in hearing me expound upon everything Yankees, you can now hear me weekly at http://web.mac.com/rosenmans11/site_3/SPORTSTALKNY.html
I will be covering the New York Yankees all season for Mark Rosenman's Sportstalkny.

The show streams live at 9:00pm every Wednesday night at the above link. In the first hour, Mark and AJ Carter conduct a very professional, wide ranging and in-depth interview of a author about his recent book- this week they interview former Yankee Jim Bouton, author of the notorious BALL FOUR and Phil Mushnick, The New York Post's Sports Media Critic and scourge of WFAN's Pope Mike and The Idio-savant.

Mark, typically, fields calls from, or streams live webcasts of, the New York beat writers in the 10:00pm hour and usually features mine on the Yankees sometime between 10:30pm and 11:00pm. The show also utilizes an interactive chat which enables the viewer to ask the host questions.

In the meantime, feel free to E-mail me or post questions and/or subjects you'd like me to address.

2008: THE YEAR THE YANKEES LOST THE PENNANT IN JANUARY

As Sun Tsu famously wrote in the Art of War, "Every battle is won before it's ever fought."

And for this author, the Yankees lost the 2008 pennant on January 29, 2008. On that infamous day, the Bronx ceded the New York arms race to Queens. The pedigreed Bombers retreated and the Amazing Arrivistes claimed victory in the Santana Offensive[1]

So with the dawn of Opening Day looming just over the horizon, this Yankee fan anticipates the 2008 season with more anxiety, reservations, and pessimism than he has at any time since the early 90's. Not because the Yankees won't fare better than they did in 1993-- the last year they won less than 90 games in a full season and didn't qualify for the post-season -- they probably will.

But rather because in the past few years, the competition has improved as revenue-sharing and the sport's financial prosperity have evened the playing field. Six to seven AL teams now can stake a claim to the crown: LAA, Seattle, Detroit, Cleveland, Toronto, Boston, and the Yankees. What's more, the AL East, in 2008, will stand among the most competitive in baseball, with both the dark-horse Jays and the upstart Rays capable of winning 160 games between them.

So for the first time in over a decade, the Yankees not only are not the presumptive heir, but prognosticators from Peter Gammons to John Heyman find them wanting in the stuff of October aristocracy. (Much as I hate to concur with the Red Reich's Minister of Propaganda and one of George St. Mitchell's Apostles about anything; in this instance, I can't disagree with them.)

THE DISPOSSESSION OF THE BRONX GENTRY
The Yankees enter the 2008 season as a team with a conflicted identity-- a lineup of aging, but still prolific, superstars and a pitching rotation fraught with callowness, enigma, and regression-- a team poised somewhere between the greatness of yesterday and the promise of tomorrow.

Sure, the Yankees' offense will keep them in playoff contention all year. But only the most willfully blind, deluded booster could look at the Yankees' 2008 roster and book World Series reservations. Cashman thwarted that possibility by forsaking Santana, gambling that he could parlay youth and austerity into future glory.

As a consequence, the Yankees should consider themselves fortunate if the Stadium doesn't host its last baseball game on September 21, 2008 because the prospects of October baseball hasn't looked this dim in the Bronx since Jimmy Key, Jim Abbot, and Melido Perez headed the Yankees starting rotation.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. CASHMAN

Now, in an age where Harvard B-School grads run front-offices, Fortune 500 corporations own baseball teams, and politicians claim jurisdiction over sports, perhaps, it's presumptuous to expect anything but scripted platitude, self-serving rhetoric, and cockeyed optimism from the General Manager.

Still when Brian Cashman says the Yankees can win a World Series in 2008 with their current pitching rotation, he speaks with such earnestness I only can only wonder whether he actually believes his own bravado.

And it's here that my worries lie. Because to quote, one of The Yankees Republic loyal readers, the notion that the Yankees' Team can achieve its mission statement in 2008 is about as likely as the Yankee Army achieving theirs. That is, with a rotation of Wang, Pettitte, Mussina, and three fledgling pitchers who, as starters, have not a 100 major league innings between them and who are confined to innnings caps besides, the Bronx's Chief Executive has about as much chance of bringing New York a pennant, let alone a World Series ring, as Washington's Chief Executive of bringing viable democracy to Iraq.

I couldn't agree more.

CASHMAN'S YIPPIES
Still, the Yankees offense should keep the team in contention for a playoff spot all season. The Yankees can count on the 2008 lineup to generate, if not necessarily the most runs in the AL-- the Tigers likely will claim that honor-- they certainly will place among the top three teams in run scored. A reasonable estimate would anticipate them scoring anywhere between the 886 they scored in 2005 and the 968 they totalled in 2007. (Indeed the Yankees haven't produced less than 877 runs in a season since 2002.) A hundred-run continuum along which Giambi, Damon, and Matsui's production will go a long way to determine where the Yankees fall, on the one hand; and how the Blue Jays, Rays, Red Sox, Angels, and Mariners' starting pitchers perform against the Yankees' lineup, on the other. Almost 50% of the Yankees schedule consists of games against these five teams.

However, as with most teams, the Yankees ultimate fate in '08 will hinge largely on how their pitching staff fares, their starting rotation, above all. But the bullpen will shape that destiny as well. Indeed, with innings caps confining the starters, the bullpen's performance, will exert more influence, perhaps, than in any season of recent memory.

If the lineup is the ballast that anchors the Yankees ship, their pitching is the hole likely to sink the Ship it. How many runs the Yankees will allow this season stands as the great imponderable,

Since 2002, the Yankees have yielded over 700 runs every season, ranging from a high of 808 in 2004 to a low of 716 in 2003. Despite the anomalous rash of injuries that struck their pitching staff in April last year, the 2007 Yankees' yielded about as many runs, 777, as the year before, 767, and slightly less than the 789 of 2005.

Much of the unpredictability stems from Cashman's dynastic gamble. By forsaking Santana for future glory, President Cashman has entrusted 50-60% of the Yankees starts in '08 to a 39-year Mike Mussina who posted a 5.15 ERA last year and three YIPS. YIPS, an acronym, The Sporting News' David Pinto evidently coined and defined as follows: "A pitcher who has spent no more than one season (partial or full) in the majors, has started fewer than 15 games and whose seasonal age (as of July 1) in the current year is 24 or younger."

Of the 162 starts Yankees pitchers will make in 2008, I estimate YIPS (Hughes, Kennedy, and Chamberlain) will account for anywhere between 60 and 80 of them. (I figure I derive by assuming 180 starter innings for IPK, 160 starter innings for Hughes, and 100 starter innings for Joba and using the 5.5 innings as the average per start, the figure the Yankee starters averaged last year.) Not a very comforting prospect considering how many of even the elite pitchers of our era have fared as YIPS. I include just a few below.

• 1984 Roger Clemens (Age 21), 133.3 IPs, 4.32 ERA, 1.31 WHIP
  
• 1987 Greg Maddux (Age 21), 155.7 IPs, 5.61 ERA, 1.64 WHIP


• 1987 Tom Glavine (Age 22), 195 IPs, 4.56 ERA, 1.35 WHIP


• 1988 John Smoltz (Age 21), 64.0 IPs, 5.48 ERA, 1.67 WHIP
  
• 2000 Roy Halliday (Age 23), 67.7IPs, 10.64 ERA, 2.20 WHIP


• 2000 Brad Penny (Age 22), 119.7IPs, 4.81 ERA, 1.50 WHIP


• 2001 CC Sabathia(Age 20), 180.3IPs, 4.39 ERA, 1.35 WHIP
  
• 2002 Jake Peavy (Age 21), 97.7 IPs, 4.53 ERA, 1.43 WHIP


• 2002 Josh Beckett(Age 22), 107.7IPs, 4.10 ERA, 1.27 WHIP

Evidently, pitchers who dominate in their first season at a young age, like Justin Verlander and Doc Gooden, prove the exception rather than the rule

So with Yankee YIPS accounting for between 60 and 80 starts and Mike Mussina another 25 to 30-- over the last four years, Mussina has averaged 29 starts-- YIPS + Mussina will accumulate 50 to 60 % of the Yankees' total starts this year. Not a figure to inspire confidence in the heart of too many Yankees fans, certainly not this one anyway.

In 2007, Wang, Pettitte, and Mussina accounted for 266 Earned Runs. The rest of their starters yielded another 178. Can Kennedy, Hughes, and Joba match the latter figure? To do so, they'd have to average a 3.64 ERA over their estimated 440 combined starter innings (IPK 180, Hughes 160, Chamberlain 100). I assume 100 starter innings for Chamberlain by figuring he will have accumulated 20-30 innings in the bullpen and will amass another 20-30 in the minors while they build his arm strength and transition him from reliever to starter.)

Should the Yankees YIPS, in contrast, post average ERAs, consistent with the performances of the YIPS listed above, approximately a 4.50 ERA, they'll cede 220 Earned Runs or 42 earned runs above the total yielded last year by Clemens, Hughes, Rasner, Kartsens, DeSalvo, Clippard, and Igawa. And a 42 extra runs allowed translates, using James' Pythagorean theorem, and hold runs scored constant, to about 4 fewer wins. (Which would result in about the 90-win total ESPN's Rob Neyer picks for the Yankees.)

The more you study the numbers, then, the more you begin to see how difficult a task the Yankees confronts entering a season relying on three YIPS and Mike Mussina for 50% to 60 % of their starts while still expecting to contend for a championship.

THE ASCENT OF THE BLUE JAYS' YIPS

Another way to illustrate the height of the obstacle the Yankees will have to surmount in '08 to contend is via comparison to the 2007 Blue Jays. (Keep in mind however that the Yankees offense in '08 should be infinitely superior to the injury depleted lineup the Jays fielded in '07.)

Recall that in 2007, the three Jays YIPS, McGowan, Marcum, and Litsch accounted for 439.7 starter innings, approximately the same amount we can expect of Hughes, Kennedy, and Chamberlain. The Jays YIPS ceded 197 earned runs over their 440 innings of work for a combined ERA of 4.03.

But the reason why, according to statistics, the Jays' had the second best pitching staff in the AL is because the rest of their pitching staff compensated. Non-YIP Jay's starters pitched 580.6 innings, averaging about 6 innings a start, conserving the Jays bullpen and enhancing its efficacy when used.

Jays starters pitched, in total, 1020.3 innings and ceded 476 earned runs for a 4.20 ERA. (Compare Yankees' 2007 starters: they allowed 444 earned over 885 inngs for a 4.52 ERA.) As a consequence, the five Jays relievers with the most innings, amassed 317 innings in total and allowed 102 earned runs for an ERA 2.90 ERA. (Compare the ERA and innings totals for the 5 Yankees' relievers with the most innings: over 310 innings, Rivera, Viz, Farnsworth, Proctor, and Bruney surrendered 142 earned runs for a 4.12 ERA.)

The challenge for the '08 Yankees, then, is whether their bullpen can dramatically improve last year's performance. Joba's presence in the 8th inning should helo, for as long as he remains there. But if the Yankees adhere to their plan to transition Joba into the rotation, Ohlendorf, Bruney, or one of three kids recovering from ligament replacement surgery, Cox, Melancon, Humberto Sanchez, will have to replicate him-- a Herculean task for anyone. Meanwhile, Farnsworth, Hawkins, Ohlendorf, Bruney, in their 6th and 7th inning roles, will have to exceed expectations, no small hurdle either.

PREDICTION

The '08 Yankees will entertain throughout the season, if we tailor our expectations accordingly. Provided the lineup performs as expected and Wang and Pettitte stay both healthy and productive, the Yankees should flirt with a playoff spot and play meaningful games through the last few weeks in September. However, fans who demand an AL East title, an AL pennant, let alone, a World Series championship in 2008 are likely to suffer the abject October disappointment that recently has become our inheritance as Yankee fans.

[1] Of course, it was a calculated withdrawal. Cashman fancies himself a strategic visionary willing to cede today's battle to win tomorrow's war. One-year victories are fleeting, after all. And so, by husbanding arms and treasure, Cashman plans to construct a Yankee dynasty for many seasons to come.