The Yankee defense

I love that photo. Whenever I see it I always think of fly balls splitting outfielders with weak or inaccurate arms and 10-8 ballgames. It reminds me that the Yankees were a one-trick pony in the middle of the past decade. The Bombers hit the ball and, well, they pretty much hit the ball.

Yankee fans understood that the team lacked pitching of any kind for much of the last decade. We sometimes overlook the fact that the team was also terrible defensively. The improved pitching of the past two seasons is the key reason the team won the 2009 World Series and will be a critical factor to postseason success this year, but the improved defense shouldn’t be overlooked. Heading into the 2009 postseason New York Magazine had Baseball Prospectus try to predict postseason success. The Yankees came out on top because of strikeout pitching, a great closer and strong defense. Defense factored more into the prediction than hitting.

Here’s how the team has fared defensively since 2005:

It’s not so much that the team is great defensively now. It’s just that they’re no longer abysmal. Just how bad was the 2005 team defensively? Nevermind that they ranked dead last in UZR, the 29th-worst fielding team was the Royals, who posted a -71.2 UZR. The Yankee defense coughed up nearly twice as many runs as the next-worst group of fielders. It is impressive that so far this year the team ranks above average defensively.

Here’s how they’ve done it:

Unsurprisingly, Brett Gardner rates as the Yankees’ best defender. Surprisingly, Robinson Cano comes in second on the team. This is a dramatic improvement for him from previous seasons.

UZR isn’t the end-all-be-all of defensive metrics. I’m leery of anything that rates Mark Teixeira negative defensively, but the statistic is generally indicative of defensive performance. In that regard, while the 2010 Yankees aren’t wizards with the leather, there’s no one up there who is a complete black hole either. This is a big change from previous seasons. It’s one that will help the Bombers in the postseason, when runs are at a premium and defensive errors are punished.