Monday, December 29, 2008
Yankees.com: Big signings affecting Pettitte’s return
Though the Yankees have not pulled their offer, they may be preparing for life without Pettitte, who has been advised not to accept such a dramatic pay cut from the $16 million he earned in each of the last two seasons.
Citing a source, Newsday reported that the Yankees felt comfortable with their offseason spending and the roster as comprised. Nothing has been finalized, but the Yankees are reportedly leaning toward not re-signing Pettitte. The New York Post characterized the chances of retaining Pettitte as “doubtful.”
“Right now it’s doubtful on Pettitte, given where we are financially with this stuff,” a Yankees official told the Post. “But things change, especially here, if Hank and Hal [Steinbrenner] decide to do something.”
Pettitte may seem like a luxury, but is that really the case?
Pettitte projects to pitch 210 innings and save 22 runs above replacement according to CAIRO.
Replacing Pettitte’s innings with 150 innings of Phil Hughes and 60 innings of Ian Kennedy project to be only a two run shortfall, although young pitchers are notoriously difficult to project so there’s a fair amount of risk in that approach.
Hughes hasn’t demonstrated enough durability to automatically pencil him in for 150 innings, so if we give him 100 innings and Kennedy 110, it’s a four run shortfall.
Let’s say A.J. Burnett gets hurt and only pitches 100 innings, moving Hughes up the depth chart and requiring 150 innings of Kennedy and 60 innings of Alfredo Aceves. Now we’re down nine runs.
You can see the effect as we move down the depth chart, ending up with Phil Coke and Dan Giese starting, both of whom CAIRO projects as around replacement level.
In a nutshell, the Yankees can weather an injury or two even if they don’t bring back Pettitte IF Hughes/IPK can pitch to their projections, but anything more than that starts to hurt them in the area of one to two wins.
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