The Curse of... oh, let's say, Clay Bellinger:



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The Curious Case of Robinson Cano’s Defense in 2008
(64 Comments - 9/6/2008 12:22:32 pm)

NY Post: ‘FRAUD’ IS ‘JOBA’ THE NUT
(31 Comments - 9/5/2008 4:56:42 pm)

MLB Team Defense by Zone Rating through September 4, 2008
(99 Comments - 9/5/2008 2:51:47 pm)

Yankees (75-64) @ Rays (84-53), 7:10pm **Game Chatter**
(89 Comments - 9/5/2008 9:40:32 am)

Yankees (74-64) @ Rays (84-52), 7:10pm **Game Chatter**
(170 Comments - 9/4/2008 8:39:38 am)

tRA and the 2008 Yankees
(83 Comments - 9/4/2008 12:40:22 am)

Yankees (73-64) @ Rays (84-51), 7:10pm **Game Chatter**
(133 Comments - 9/3/2008 11:17:45 am)

Newsday - O’Brien: Chamberlain back today, will work out of bullpen
(33 Comments - 9/2/2008 5:26:24 pm)

NY Daily News: Yankees’ Minor League Report
(18 Comments - 9/2/2008 4:47:20 pm)

Yankees.com: Joba to face hitters in next rehab phase
(189 Comments - 9/1/2008 10:25:06 pm)

Player

 Current Projected
Brian Bruney
11 G
15 G
12 IP
16 IP
Dan Giese
11 G
15 G
21.7 IP
29 IP
Damaso Marte
5 G
7 G
4.7 IP
6 IP
Edwar Ramirez
37 G
49 G
40.7 IP
54 IP
Mariano Rivera
44 G
58 G
48.3 IP
64 IP
David Robertson
14 G
19 G
16.3 IP
22 IP
Jose Veras
38 G
50 G
38.7 IP
51 IP
Total
274 G
364 G
328.3 IP
435 IP
Look what people have to say about Larry Mahnken's commentary!

"Larry, can you be any more of a Yankee apologist?.... Just look past your Yankee myopia and try some objectivity."
- Bernal Diaz

"Mr. Mahnken is enlightened."
- cordially, as always,
rm

"Wow, Larry. You've produced 25% of the comments on this thread and said nothing meaningful. That's impressive, even for you."
- Anonymous

"After reading all your postings and daily weblog...I believe you have truly become the Phil Pepe of this generation. Now this is not necessarily a good thing."
- Repoz

"you blog sucks, it reeds as it was written by the queer son of mike lupica and roids clemens. i could write a better column by letting a monkey fuk a typewriter. i dont need no 181 million dollar team to write a blog fukkk the spankeees"
- yan

"i think his followers have a different sexual preference than most men"
- bob

"Boring and predictable."
- No Guru No Method

"Are you the biggest idiot ever?"
- Randal

"I'm not qualified to write for online media, let alone mainstream media."
- Larry Mahnken

This site is best viewed with a monitor.

Disclaimer: If you think this is the official website of the New York Yankees, you're an idiot. Go away.

Monday, June 2, 2008

Should the Yankees be thinking about swapping Melky Cabrera for Brett Gardner?

After starting off 2008 well, Melky Cabrera's been mired in a horrific slump. Through April 24th Melky was hitting .309/.380/.515. Since then he's only hitting .250/.295/.367. His defense has been solid according to zone rating, as he have saved 2 runs above average (on pace to be +7), but his offense has been a disappointment.

In the meantime, Brett Gardner appears to be having a strong season for Scranton in AAA. Does bringing Gardner up to take some playing time from Melky make any sense?

The first thing we should do is translate Gardner's minor league performance to its Major League Equivalency.

G AB H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB K HP AVG OBP SLG
2008 AAA 53 184 53 8 7 3 22 19 7 38 42 0 .288 .410 .457
2008 MLE 53 178 47 7 5 3 18 12 6 27 45 0 .264 .359 .410


That would be an improvement over Melky's current line, but we can't ignore Gardner's body of work coming into this year. He projected to hit .253/.326/.327 on average coming into this year. If we weigh his projections at 70% and then give his MLE a 30% weight, we get a revised projected line of .258/.343/.366. Here's how Gardner's revised projection would compare to what Melky is currently on pace for as well as Melky's revised projection using the same 70%/30% split.

Projection PA AB H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO HBP AVG OBP SLG BR
Gardner 650 573 148 22 11 6 52 37 15 74 135 1 .258 .343 .366 74
Melky(pace) 650 598 159 23 0 19 78 10 3 49 78 3 .265 .323 .400 75
Melky(rev prj) 650 588 162 27 4 13 76 13 4 53 77 3 .276 .335 .401 78


BR are batting runs by linear weights (not position-adjusted or compared to average). Offensively at least, there's not much difference here. Gardner may get on base at a slightly better clip and has the edge on the basepaths, but Melky's better power makes up for that. There's also the concern about how someone like Gardner's game would translate to the majors, which is not something that MLEs can capture.

Assuming the MLE is accurate, it then comes down to a question of defense. The only real edge Gardner could have on Melky is on catching fly balls, and he may give some of that back with his arm.

So no, replacing Melky with Gardner is most likely not much of an upgrade.

And unrelated to the Yankees, I helped Chris Jaffe run some simulations to determine the best Cubs team ever and it's posted over on the Hardball Times. I think I'm going to do this for the Yankees at some point as well.
--Posted at 1:11 pm by SG / 37 Comments | - (89)


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