One of the various reasons given when people pick the Yankees to finish out of the money in 2009 is that their defense is bad. Like the claim that the Yankees bullpen is weak, this claim has no factual or statistical support. ESPN posted two articles on defense today, with the first touching on the importance of defense and how the lack of it has hurt the Yankees for the last 8 seasons:
There are a variety of reasons the Yankees have not won a World Series since 2000, but it’s clear that the demise of their defense has been a major factor. As a team, they didn’t crack the top 20 in defensive efficiency (percentage of batted balls in play converted into outs) from 2001 to 2005, and a look at their rosters from this era can’t help but leave you with the feeling that the front office was ignoring defense…..
It’s not uncommon to see a one-dimensional team of sluggers — like the early 2000s Yankees — mash its way to the postseason. But once those Bronx Bombers reached October, they had nothing to fall back on at the first sign of a slump. Everyone always thought they were going to simply overpower their playoff competition, but it always seems to be forgotten that much of their regular season record was based upon pounding teams like the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Baltimore Orioles into submission. The pitching and defenses the Yankees faced in the postseason were always a lot tougher.
Defense is vital to a club against better teams, as it is harder to cover up mistakes in the field when you cannot slug the opposition into submission. In the second article, Nate Silver uses PECOTA to project an improvement in defense for the Yankees in 2009:
Yankees (2008 FRAA: –26 | 2009 Projection: +9)
First basemen are rarely impact defenders, but two-time Gold Glove winner Mark Teixeira is a significant exception. Plus he replaces Jason Giambi, who had only slightly less range than the Miller Huggins monument at Yankee Stadium. If Jorge Posada has trouble coming back from right shoulder surgery, take note: Backup José Molina, one of the best defensive catchers in the game, threw out 44% of potential basestealers last year.
The Yankees defense projects to be on the positive side of the ledger in 2009. Replacing Giambi with Teixeira, Cabrera with Gardner, and Abreu with Nady/Swisher should have a huge effect, such that the Yankees will be, at worst, a slightly below average defensive team even if players like Cano and Posada do not bounce back in the field. The Yankees being a poor defensive team is a thing of the past.
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6 Responses to Yankees Defense Should Be Fine
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TIQ IQ
Really cool article, M. Though defensie metrics are somewhat unreliable, still. That certainly jibes with what all of our eyes can see for ourseles. Unfortunately, Tampa will hae another incredible defensie lineup this year
They will, but they also won’t score many runs again. Tampa also doesn’t have the kind of depth where they can withstand any major injuries, and they were remarkably healthy last year. Also, they got a ton out of a very unremarkable bullpen last year, and bullpens tend to fluctuate year to year. Tough to expect a repeat bullpen performance.
Tampa will have a terrific rotation, even with a short term injury or two. But the rest of that team doesn’t scare me one bit.
Once again, I think the defense of some world series champs throughout history should be examined before saying that defense becomes more important in postseason.
I don’t think any aspect of a team changes in importance from the regular season to the post season other than the 5th starter becoming far less important.
When Bill James did his first (and by far best IMO) historical abstract, he noted that slugging teams tended to do better in post season play than teams built on pitching (though the margin was fairly narrow). I don’t think that means that slugging or scoring runs is really more important than stopping the other team from scoring. I do believe it shows slugging doesn’t become less important in post season.
You would think that teams that beat up on bad pitching during the season may have trouble when they face better teams in the postseason, same with pitchers that feast on bad hitting clubs. Defense seems like the most likely variable to remain fairly constant no matter the opponent.
Too many WS games are won with HRs throughout history for me to think power is less important in postseason play than regular season play.
In any case, I like to see some research (over decades) that shows whether or not something like this is true. While it seems intuitive to some that it is, it seems intuitive that it isn’t true to me.
I do agree that this year’s team is better defensively than some of recent seaons (especially with Gardner out there), and that can only help-regular season and post-season.
Didnt say power is less important, just that a team built upon power may be easier to neutralize.