Saturday, July 7, 2007
Johnny Damon, Left Fielder
I saw that Johnny Damon, who has 2.5 seasons left on a contract where he’s being paid $13 million per annum to be the CF, started in LF. Running the zone rating numbers from last night it doesn’t sound like Damon distinguished himself, as he converted only 1 of 3 playable chances into outs. That’s just one game, so I’m not so worried about that. I like the move in theory, for a few reasons.
1) .908 > .834. Those are Damon and Hideki Matsui’s career zone ratings in LF. While Damon hasn’t played left field since 2001, even with just a normal rate of decline equivalent to about 1.5 runs a season he should be about five runs better than Matsui defensively over a half season.
2) .349/.429/.664. That’s what Matsui has hit as a DH in his career, although it’s only over 170 plate appearances. Research has shown that there is a DH effect and that most players do underperform there. I think it’s fair to assume that Matsui, at least so far, doesn’t seem to suffer from it.
3) .320/.381/.477. Since May 3, that’s Melky Cabrera’s line. Combine that with his .911 zone rating this year (equivalent to around being 11 runs above average over a full-season), you have a 22 year-old plus CF. I don’t know that Melky is that good, and we can’t pretend April didn’t happen, but with the likelihood that the Yankees aren’t making the postseason this season, playing Melky full-time in CF can let them see what they’ve got there for the future.
4) 2 years, $26 million. That’s what’s left on Damon’s deal after this season. The Yankees need to determine if Damon can be their LF over the next couple of years if he can’t handle CF any longer.
In the most amazing scenario ever, the Yankees beat the Angels last night, 14-9. Alex Rodriguez played brilliant defense and homered to increase a lead the Yankees didn’t seem to want to keep from one run to three. He also got two more tabloid covers in the process. At some point, the clowns that wanted “A-Fraud” run out of town need to step forward and admit just how wrong they were.
Scott Proctor broke out his slow curve and dominated the Angels over 1.2 innings. Since the
Proctor has looked like a different pitcher.
I mentioned Melky earlier, and he also had a great game, going 3 for 5 and moving his season line up to .279/.337/.390. His offensive YTD performance when compared to other AL CF is about 4 runs below average, but his defense makes him average, at least so far.
Andy Pettitte stunk again after calling his teammates out. His numbers are now closer to where most projections would have had him, and his early performance masked his somewhat mediocre peripherals so this is probably just a correction. Hopefully his health is ok and not to blame.
Roger Clemens takes on the difficult John Lackey today, on Old-Timers’ Day. Get it? Clemens is pitching on Old-Timers Day? Because he’s Old!!!! You see how that works????? Expect plenty of stupid headlines tomorrow one way or the other. For some reason I have this idea of Lackey dominating the Yankees, but in 11 career starts he has an ERA of 5.35 and is only 4-6.
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