Emphasis on the “Bombers”

After a brief digression to talk about Bruce Sutter’s beard, I’m back on track today, resuming my series on teams who are rising and falling, but whose changes might fall under the radar. Before I get into my first forthcoming disappointment, I’d like to remind everyone that the series is based on where I see teams falling relative to the popular perception of their progress.

With that said, today’s column is about an aging team with high expectations. The common sentiment is that the AL East was once again the sole property of the Yankees after Johnny Damon kissed Curt Schilling on the forehead while Bud Selig washed his hands and sealed the Red Sox fate. Still, the Yankees have enough of their own issues that Damon alone- himself vastly overrated- will not be enough to get them back to last season’s 95 wins. Before I go into more detail, it’s about time I gave this segment a heading.

New York Yankees
2005 Record- 95-67, Pythagorean- 90-72
Notable Gains- Johnny Damon, Kyle Farnsworth, Ron Villone, Mike Myers, Octavio Dotel, Miguel Cairo
Notable Losses- Tony Womack, Tom Gordon, Mark Bellhorn

The first warning sign for a team about to decline is that they played above their heads the year before. The Yankees have been especially lucky (or good in some immeasurable way) in some crucial situations the last few years. In 2004, their run differential predicted 89 wins while their actual record came out to 101-61. The second place Red Sox won 98 games, 96 by their Pythagorean differential. This year, both teams’ Pythagorean differentials predicted 90 wins, and the Yankees won 95, just enough to beat the Sox on a tiebreaker. As I mentioned in my previous article about the Blue Jays, the AL East elite is ripe for the picking due to a combination of over-performance and age. The Yankees are a prime example.

Look at the offense, for example. There has been much hullabaloo about the fact that Robinson Cano is the only regular making less than $10 million next year, but that says as much about the team’s age as it does about their qualifications. Due to major league service time rules, players don’t usually become free agents until they are in the middle or last stages of their primes. Players are supposed to reach their physical peak from age 27-29 and drop off at different rates after that period, and there are not terribly many exceptions (A-Rod became a free agent before his prime because he came up so young). Simply having a player who makes $10 million in a season is a pretty good sign that that player has already had his career year (Jason Giambi, anyone?).

So let’s take a tour of the Yankees, position by position. Jorge Posada will be 34 next year, not a particularly desirable age for a catcher, and his statistical record mirrors it. Posada’s OPS has gone from .923 to .881 to .782 the last three years while his WARP has gone from 10.4 to 8.4 to 6.5 over the same span. His defense has followed the same trend, his rate going from 106 to 101 to 98, the first time he’s been a below average defender since 1999. A rebound is exceedingly unlikely, but even if he stays at the same level, his most similar player is now Mike Lieberthal- not the greatest ever. Jason Giambi will play first base, which makes sense, since his three year OPS at 1B (.990) is almost .200 points better than his OPS as a DH (.798), and the sample is over 500 ABs at each spot. The downside is that he was 4 runs worse than a replacement first baseman last year, posting a miserable fielding rate of 88 (12 runs worse than average per 100 games). Since first isn’t particularly demanding, he’s probably better off taking the field, costing the team those runs and putting up a decent year at the plate. Problem is, none of these issues are going to get better after his 35th birthday. A-Rod’s 30, Jeter’s 31 and both are still very good, but A-Rod’s 2005 looks like Jeter’s 1999, and neither will ever have better seasons than those. A-Rod’s conditioning and pedigree makes me think that he will continue to be extremely productive, but it would extremely difficult for him to improve on such a great season, thus keeping the run differential the same. Even Cano played over his head last year, slugging almost .60 points better than PECOTA expected with .25 more points of OBP. He’s a good player, but not an All-Star, nor the stud he was last year. In the OF, three players over 30 have their own issues. Matsui is very consistent, and I expect him to remain at the same level, but I mentioned earlier that Johnny Damon’s stats will take a hit going from Fenway to Yankee Stadium, compounding the effects of aging. Sheffield is the worst case of the three, seeing his OPS slip from 1.023 to .927 to .891 the last three years. As with Posada, an older player (Sheffield’s 37) doesn’t usually reverse a three year trend like that. It’s not that the Yankees offense will suffer that badly, but I don’t see much room for improvement over what they got last year, and it will be difficult to continue performing so far over their run scoring/prevention abilities.

The pitching isn’t altogether different, as Randy Johnson and Mike Mussina started showing their age (3.79 and 4.41 ERAs respectively, not what we have come to expect from the superstar aces), and I don’t know what evidence suggests a reversal. Carl Pavano should be better and more durable than last year, but his improvement should be more than offset by the regression to the mean by Wang, Chacon, Wright and Small sharing the 4th and 5th starter slots. Just as on offense, the upside is not nearly enough to offset the natural decline of age (Sheffield, Posada, Johnson, Mussina) combined with a couple of fluky performances (Cano, Chacon, Small) coming back to reasonability. The bullpen will be better, but not enough to reverse the tide, and certainly not enough to get them 10 more (predicted) wins, back to the 100 win plateau everyone seems to expect.