Yankees 2010-2011 Hotstove Thread

[jacksonianmarch]

So Dipre, what's the unrealistic portion? I never predict injuries since they are variable. But seeing a rebound from Jeter and ARod is hardly unrealistic. It's not like I am predicting late 90s numbers from them, but something that would put them between their career lows last season and their previous seasons which were fantastic. Otherwise, I have a dropoff for Posada and Cano and pretty much the same for everyone else except Tex. Tex is 29, he's in his prime and is coming off a terrible start last yr. He'll rebound. Otherwise, where is the big purple unicorn?

[SoxFanForsyth]

So Dipre' date=' what's the unrealistic portion? I never predict injuries since they are variable. But seeing a rebound from Jeter and ARod is hardly unrealistic. It's not like I am predicting late 90s numbers from them, but something that would put them between their career lows last season and their previous seasons which were fantastic. Otherwise, I have a dropoff for Posada and Cano and pretty much the same for everyone else except Tex. Tex is 29, he's in his prime and is coming off a terrible start last yr. He'll rebound. Otherwise, where is the big purple unicorn?[/quote']

 

67 wins from your front 4??? Dude. Come on now.

 

If this is your prediction, where is their pitching problem? Apparently, they're going to have the best front 4 in the MLB.

 

Hughes with 19 wins is extremely unrealistic. His FIP last year was 4.25 and he had 18 wins. To put that into perspective, DiceK's FIP in 2008 was 4.03 when he had 18 wins, and everyone was claiming that to be the biggest aberration in MLB history. Hughes will sit at around 13 or 14 wins.

 

Nova at 13 wins?? I mean seriously dude. A career 3.80 ERA in the MiLB, comes up and throws 42 IP to the tune of a 4.50 ERA last year (4.91 ERA when starting), wins 1 game in the majors, and is suddenly good for 13 wins?

 

You can shave off 10 wins between those two right there.

[SoxFanForsyth]

You do realize that only 6 teams last year got 67 or more wins from their entire SP, yet you're predicting 67 from your starting 4?!?

 

That's absurd.

[jacksonianmarch]

I realize that, but Hughes won 18 yrs with a worse bullpen and a lineup that had 4 players posting career lows. I am predicting that he builds on last season, improves his ERA into the high 3's and brings his WHIP down a little as well, which I think will translate into one more win. Obviously, injury is involved, but we shall see. Also, with Nova, I have been following him for a long time now. Sinkerballers who have good control typically do okay in the bigs. I am definitely optimistic, but there will be no innings limit on him and I do think he has the potential to be an average starter. And at a 4.50ERA, he'd lose 15 games for the Pirates, but in NY, he'd win double digits

[jacksonianmarch]

In the playoffs, though, we need one more starter. Once you start facing good lineup and elite pitching in a short series, you need someone who projects to throw up better numbers than a mid 4's ERA

[SoxFanForsyth]

Hughes won one of his games as a RP, and he started of mega hot. From June 8th - end of the season, he won 10 games while posting an ERA of 5.15. Marking Hughes down for 18 again would have been crazy. Saying he's going to improve upon his 18 wins last season is even crazier. If he gets 15 wins, you should be happy.

 

I cannot get my head wrapped around how you think that your top 4 this year will be better than your top 4 last year by 8 games, and you're removing Pettitte and inserting a rookie.

 

I mean honestly. If you get these win totals, then your number 5 man gets 8, and you get 5 wins from spot starters, you've got 80 wins from your SP. Tack on 20 from your RP and you're at a 100 win season.

 

Your pitching projections are way off.

 

FYI - Bill James projections -

CC - 18 wins

Hughes - 12 wins

Burnett - 12 wins

[Dipre]

So Dipre' date=' what's the unrealistic portion? I never predict injuries since they are variable. But seeing a rebound from Jeter and ARod is hardly unrealistic. It's not like I am predicting late 90s numbers from them, but something that would put them between their career lows last season and their previous seasons which were fantastic. Otherwise, I have a dropoff for Posada and Cano and pretty much the same for everyone else except Tex. Tex is 29, he's in his prime and is coming off a terrible start last yr. He'll rebound. Otherwise, where is the big purple unicorn?[/quote']

 

Ah, i am glad you ask, old chap.

 

Forsyth has already covered the pitching area better than i could have, so allow me to focus on your offensive presumptions in a simple, concise manner:

 

Alex Rodriguez' days as a mid- 900-1000 OPS hitter are done for. Predicting an OPS near 1.000 for him is absurd.

 

Teixeira at a .950 OPS would be nearing career-year numbers, and predicting such numbers for him with his brutal starts to every season (which are a trend by the way) is pretty darn optimistic, good sir.

 

Gardner with a .400 OBP and Martin, coming off injury and switching leagues with a .370 OBP? Only in a land where Wily E. Coyote's wacky experiments could actually work.

 

On the flip side, you're incredibly conservative on the players who, in the middle of their prime, should offer a considerable increase in their offensive output in Cano (who's potential is limitless) Swisher (middle of his prime, improving power numbers should meet an increase of last season's flukey OBP), Granderson (Fluke injury, enormous power potential in that stadium.)

 

Put a little more effort into it, old friend!

 

Cheers!

[jacksonianmarch]

How do they win more games? Pettitte was injured and threw only 120IP last yr and our bullpen wasnt nearly as good especially in the first half of the season. I also think that the offense will be better this yr as well.

[SoxFanForsyth]

Seriously?

 

You've got 4 guys winning 67. Last year, your top 4 winners won 59. And Pettitte started 21 games. It's not like he was out half the season. Now he's being replaced by Nova, who had 9 starts last year, and had 1 win. So that's 60 wins total, so my bad, you are saying that your starting 4 are 7 wins better than CC - Hughes - Burnett - Pettitte/Nova of last year.

 

According to you, you've got the best pitching staff in the MLB. If Freddy Garcia starts as your 5th man, all of a sudden you've got 75-78 wins from your front 5!

[Palodios]

His argument is that with one of the top 2 offenses in the league, and an insane bullpen, this team can preserves more wins for its starters. The ERA and WHIP stats seem reasonable enough. The problem is that he seems to be overlooking that bullpen's strength is at the end of the game, and I see the starters losing wins in the 6th and 7th innings, rather than than the 8th and 9th where other teams will run into a brick wall.

[jacksonianmarch]

Knowing Girardi, only the top 3 will be allowed to go past the 6th inning, and probably only CC and Hughes by midseason. I love our pen. Soriano and Mariano lock down anything past the 7th and Robertson, Joba, Feliciano, Logan and probably Mitre is a pretty good middle relief as well. I expect the pen to be absolutely lights out. My hope is that Girardi doesnt lean on them too too much or else they'll be burnt out by October

[SoxFanForsyth]

I understand his argument. I'm saying that 67 wins from your front four is ridiculous for any team. I would be pretty surprised if Halladay - Lee - Oswalt - Hamels combined for 67.

 

The Yanks bullpen last year had 23 wins, which has gotten a lot better this year, but even if they stay consistent with last year, that's 90 wins alone from your bullpen and your starting 4. Add Garcia and some spot starters, and all of a sudden you're looking at a 100+ win season for the Yankees??

 

Not even close. Yanks will be at around 92 wins as currently constructed.

[jacksonianmarch]

Seriously?

 

You've got 4 guys winning 67. Last year, your top 4 winners won 59. And Pettitte started 21 games. It's not like he was out half the season. Now he's being replaced by Nova, who had 9 starts last year, and had 1 win. So that's 60 wins total, so my bad, you are saying that your starting 4 are 7 wins better than CC - Hughes - Burnett - Pettitte/Nova of last year.

 

According to you, you've got the best pitching staff in the MLB. If Freddy Garcia starts as your 5th man, all of a sudden you've got 75-78 wins from your front 5!

 

You are looking solely at wins rather than things pitchers can control here. If you put this rotation on the Pirates, they win 40 games or less. The Yankees will be top 2 again in runs scored. Their pen will be top 5 in the game as well. And their defense aside from SS and RF is GG caliber all around. Not sure why this doesnt register for you. If the Yankee staff averages 6IP and 3ER per game, they're gonna win 2 out of every 3 decisions

[SoxFanForsyth]

Really? Now the Yankees are going to win 108 games?

[jacksonianmarch]

Now you are just being an ass. Of course they wont win 108 games. I think they win themselves about 92-95 games again like last yr and win the WC.

 

Look at it this way. The Yankee offense made sure that most games werent save-worthy as they only had 57 save opportunities, which is good for 18th in the game even though they had the 3rd highest win total in the game. But they blew 18 of those save opportunities. And only 5 of those opportunities were blown by Mo. So that leaves 13 save opportunities blown. Now, since a save entails the final 3 innings of a ball game, the leaves those 13 in the 7th and 8th innings. Adding Soriano should tighten that up a bit. Also, looking at the pen numbers, only 23 of our 95 wins came out of the bullpen, meaning that our starters won 72 games last yr. Now we had a bunch of them due to Vazquez being s*** and Pettitte being out, but we still saw 75% of our wins come from our rotation. Plus, our offense should be improved as almost half the lineup saw career worst seasons. I honestly think we see a higher win % out of the rotation (maybe 80% of our wins) because our offense should be giving our pitchers leads and a higher save % with a higher SvOpp (due to the decreased effectiveness of the back end of the rotation) based upon the additions of Soriano and Feliciano. If you assume that we win 95 games, that's 74 wins from our rotation. 67 from the top 4, then 7 more scattered about the 5 hole and scrubs. Its not too unrealistic if you go off the premise that you arent correcting for injury.

 

Now, I know the numbers are high, but nobody can predict which guy goes down with injury. It is VERY rare that even the top 4 of a staff stays healthy through the entire yr.

[RedSoxfanforlife305]

Yankees aren't getting 67 wins from SP. ForSyth you're new to the site so allow me to say he does say some ridiculous stuff. Which surprises me because he knows a lot about baseball. There will be more to come so be prepared.

[SoxFanForsyth]

Dammit to Hell. I'm not even concerned about the 67 wins anymore. The S in Forsyth is NOT capitalized. :rant::rant::rant::rant::wtf:

[RedSoxfanforlife305]

I thought you said you didn't mind haha? Sorry Forsyth

[SoxFanForsyth]

Ahh I changed my mind! Haha. I guess it annoyed me more than I thought haha. Oh well.

[Meh]

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/odds/

[Palodios]

I'd put money on the Brewers now before the Cardinals situation gets worse.

[Meh]

I like the Reds for the division personally. They've got a nice farm system to make some moves too. Not a bad rotation either with Cueto, Leake, Volquez, Arroyo, Bailey and Wood.

[Palodios]

Marcum moving from the AL East to the NL Central. If he hasn't "broken out" yet, this is the year for him to do it. Greinke's no slouch either. When you add a #1 and an elite #2 to a 77-85 team, good things happen. The Yankees 2009 is a different situation, but they added 14 wins.

[BSN07]

I believe I had the Brewers winning the Central in the predictions thread. What's going on in St. Louis has only made me more confident in them. I worry about their BP though a bit.

[bsox0407]

The Yankees are starting Colon against the Phillies tomorrow.

[jacksonianmarch]

Continued rumors about Liriano today. Sounds like Yankee scouts are watching him and the Twins scouts have been watching the Yanks.

[BSN07]

Continued rumors about Liriano today. Sounds like Yankee scouts are watching him and the Twins scouts have been watching the Yanks.

 

I guess Montero would be good insurance for Morneau. But if the Twins are heavy in pitching, why trade one of the best? He's not making a ton is he? I'm not just saying this because the Yanks are involved. I'm just curious in general.

[bsox0407]

I guess Montero would be good insurance for Morneau. But if the Twins are heavy in pitching' date=' why trade one of the best? He's not making a ton is he? I'm not just saying this because the Yanks are involved. I'm just curious in general.[/quote']

 

He is set to make 4.3 million this year.

[Palodios]

He has two full cost-controlled years ahead of him. The Yankees might want him, but what team doesn't want a quality pitcher with good upside at low cost?

 

This is a guy that started a game #1 in the post season 4 months ago. He's not going to go for middle end prospects. It went completely under the radar in 2010, but the Yankees traded several cost controlled years of Kennedy/Jackson last year for players that both respectively had lower WAR values. I honestly don't think the Yankees want to overpay again, even if that means a bridge year.

[jacksonianmarch]

I agree that it doesnt seem to make sense on the surface. But I read an article when this first broke about how the Twins think they will get more if they deal him with a full yr left on his contract. I have a feeling the Twins are going to deal him by the start of the 2012 season. And if they drop out of the race early, I have a feeling he gets moved. He isnt resigning in Minny, we all know that, but I doubt he gets moved this spring or even until July at the earliest