Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Daily News - Feinsand: Yanks ink three to minor-league deals
From the in-case-you-missed-it department: The Yankees have signed pitcher Jason Johnson, INF Angel Berroa and OF John Rodriguez to minor-league contracts and invited them to spring training.
I missed this, and I’m kind of glad I did. Here’s how I’d have them projected as Yankees.
Rodriguez: .260/.341/.414, which is around league average, which is below average for an OF, but above replacement level (around 9 batting runs above a replacement level LF over a full season). We don’t have a ton of defensive data, but he’s played LF and RF and and has been around average. He’s not a bad guy to have on the farm for depth, plus he’s a former Yankee.
Berroa: There’s a short list of players who can go in the ___________ in the statement, Cody Ransom is better than ___________. Berroa is one of them: CAIRO says .244/.285/353 for Berroa, compared to .229/.301/.421 for Ransom. That’s a difference of about 2 runs for every 100 PA, although Berroa may make up for it defensively.
Jason Johnson: 150 IP, 182 H, 23 HR, 43 BB, 86 K, 5.52 ERA. But at least he won’t pout like Andy Pettitte.
CF and bench are really the places where the Yankees can make the biggest upgrades at this point, but it looks like they are willing to let Gardner and Cabrera battle for CF and go with a bench of Jose Molina, the loser of Gardner/Cabrera, one of Ransom/Berroa, and the loser of the Swisher/Nady derby I guess. I’m not sure that’s a strong enough bench.
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