As the season approaches I’m going to analyze the 2010 performance of every major player on the Yankees to draw attention to things to watch for from these players in 2011. I’ll be organizing these posts by position, publishing a single post for each position on the field, each starting pitcher, and the bullpen. I’ll be moving through the diamond in order, from catcher to right field. I’m lumping catcher and DH together as a single post because Jorge Posada will be heavily involved in each role.
The cacther position has been in flux on the Yankees for some time. Jorge Posada started at least 120 games at catcher every season from 2000 to 2007. Jorge missed most of 2008 with an injury, and has not started 90 games in a season at catcher since. Last season he made only 78 starts at the position. Over the years critics have derided Jorge’s defense while ignoring the cold hard fact that Posada made at least 80 starts at catcher for teams that went on to win the World Series four times. However bad Jorge’s defense may be, his overall play behind the plate has been good enough to make his team a contender, season after season.
The reason the Yankees have been so anxious to keep Posada behind the plate as long as they can is because he has a career slash line of .275/.377/.479 and a career wOBA of .369. That’s excellent offensive production from any player, but it puts a catcher in the Hall of Fame discussion. The Yankees get to trot out a quietly historic bat game after game at a position most teams stock with below average hitters. The effect has been to give the Yankees a full nine outs through the lineup when most teams have eight (sometimes fewer).
Although it came into focus for most fans (myself included) in 2010, the Yankees have had a wrinkle in that winning formula for a while now. Injury and age limited Jorge and his .357 wOBA to 78 starts behind the dish last season, which forced the Yankees to turn to Francisco Cervelli and his much crappier .315 wOBA for 80 starts. It doesn’t do much good to pay Jorge more than $13 million a season if he’s healing on the bench. That’s why Posada is being sent to pasture in 2011. He remains a major leaguer with the lumber, but he poses too much of an injury risk to make 120 plus starts a year behind the plate anymore (I call this risk the Frankie Factor).
Although Posada is an expensive option at DH, the move is good baseball. Jorge is a professional hitter. Unless there is some magic calculus to playing catcher for him that allows him to hit, he should be in a position to at least match his 2010 performance. If playing DH keeps him healthy — a good bet given that most of Posada’s injuries last season were related to catching — Jorge may even put up a better line this season. Furthermore, playing him at DH gives the Yankees flexibility in the other direction. There were times in 2010 that the Yankees needed to start Alex Rodriguez or Derek Jeter at DH when Posada was also unavailable. The only thing worse than having Francisco Cervelli in your lineup is to have Cervelli and Ramiro Pena or Eduardo Nunez in that lineup. A healthy Jorge at DH means that the Yankees will never have to start more than one replacement level bat in a game. If someone else needs to get half a day off then Jorge can gear up.
There are two variables that will determine whether or not this experiment is a success. One has already been mentioned, Jorge’s ability to succeed as a DH. The second variable is Russell Martin.
The Yankees added Martin this past offseason to be the team’s primary catcher, at least coming out of camp (more on that to come). The one year $4 million deal is cheap enough, but it is not without its risks. Martin missed a chunk of 2010 with a fractured hip and is recovering from knee surgery. Although he enters the season at only the age of 28, there is no guarantee Martin can recover well enough to withstand the rigors of a full major league season. If he does, then the Yankees may be in a position to go back to their offensive formula of old, one that featured nine legitimate hitters. In 2007 and 2008 Martin was one of the best offensive catchers in baseball, posting back-to-back wOBA’s of .368 and .351. Since then his wOBA has never been higher than .307 — worse than Cervelli’s.
Injuries aside, Martin’s offensive struggles have been due to declining power. His ISO was .176 in 2007, before falling to .116 in 2008, and to below .090 since then. The Yankees are betting that a fully healthy Martin will see his power numbers return. They are banking on the fact that even if he continues to be a light hitting catcher, he has never posted an OBP below .347 in the majors, which he did in 2010. As bad as it may be to have a singles hitter in your lineup in the AL East, it is most important for the Yankees to have batters who don’t make out. If Martin can’t knock in runs anymore, there are other players on the team who can. The Yankees figure to get their money’s worth if Martin can maintain an OBP of at least .350 in 2010.
Looming in the background, of course, is Jesus Montero. Montero’s performance the past few seasons in the minors can be summed up with a single table:
The data above are taken from Fangraphs. The projection is taken from Bill James‘ 2011 forecast, and is a hypothesis of what Montero would do in the big leagues. I don’t need fancy numbers or computers to say that this dude can hit. While it appears that his numbers took a beating in AAA, the truth of the matter is that he was ice cold the first half of the season, and lava hot in the second half. The numbers combine for a phenomenal season from a player who was 20 years old at the time. James’ projection seems wildly optimistic for a player who has never taken a swing in the majors, but even a fraction of that performance would be solid enough to earn Montero a spot on the big league club for some time.
Yankee fans in the blogosphere have been pining for Jesus for the past two seasons. 2011 figures to be the year they finally get their wish. This year it doesn’t appear to be a question of if we will see Montero take some big league swings, only a question of when. My money is on June. The Yankees need to see if Montero can repeat his 2010 performance in AAA, while also testing Martin’s ability to return to form. All of this will give Montero more valuable practice behind the plate in the minors, his defense being the only weak element of his game. But June is a guess, and hardly a rule. If Montero rakes in the spring, Martin struggles, or some combination of the two, the Yankees have little to lose from bringing Jesus up a bit earlier in what is clearly a rebuilding year.
The odd man out in all of this is Francisco Cervelli. Good riddance. Cisco seems like a nice-enough guy. He’s just not very good at baseball — at any element of baseball. He can’t hit. He can’t defend. His 2010 line of .271/.359/.335 was actually better than Martin’s, but it was uneven. Frankie started hot and ended hot, but was ice-cold in the middle. His upside was meant to be his defense, but that upside never materialized. Last season Cervelli rated as a minus defender. Over roughly the same number of games, putting up roughly the same slash line, Martin was worth 2.1 wins while Cervelli was worth only 1.1 due largely to Cervelli’s complete and total lack of power, and his poor defense. If Montero fights his way onto the big league club and proves he can catch, then Russell Martin becomes perhaps the game’s best backup catcher and Cisco packs his bags.
The Yankees are stronger at catcher and DH than they’ve been the past few seasons. Jorge projects brilliantly as an every day DH, while Martin figures, at worst, to be an adequate hitter who plays better defense than anyone who called pitches for the Bombers last season. That’s the worst case scenario. The middle case is that Martin is healthy and hitting well, with Jorge occasionally gearing up to give Martin’s surgically reconstructed body a break. They would combine to be excellent options at both positions. The best case scenario — the juicy one — is that Montero earns his stripes, and the Yankees go to war with a three headed monster of Montero, Jorge and Martin at catcher and DH. For my part I believe the Yankees will wind up with some combination of the latter two outcomes, with problems stemming from Martin’s hitting and Montero’s defense. Most teams would kill to have those problems.
There is a chance that Montero is traded for a starting pitcher, but that outcome seems slim. Zack Greinke was as good a starting option as the Yankees could hope to find and they didn’t offer up Montero. While Brian Cashman has been willing to trade Montero for pitching in the past, he has demonstrated a keen understanding of the prospect’s value, offering him for either Roy Halladay or Cliff Lee, essentially straight up. Both of those seem like fair trades. Cashman was smart not to sweaten those deals too much, even if it cost the Yankees great pitchers. The problem is simple. Cashman understands Montero’s value, and doesn’t want to give up the farm for pitching that can eventually be bought, while no team in the majors wants to make a fair trade with the Yankees. Expect Montero to stay in pinstripes, and take swings in The Show no later than June.
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8 Responses to Yankees position preview: Catcher/DH
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TIQ IQ
Good stuff. I think you’re right about June probably being the latest for Montero’s arrival. I think he’s going to be a difference maker soon after that. If he played on the Sox or braves, he would have been on SI’s cover and nobody would be talking about his D.
I’m actually glad in a way Montero has been overlooked as far as on a SI cover way, it’s also good people underrate (hopefully) his defense the way they do, it’s good for a kid like that with all the talent in the world to carry a chip on his shoulder. I would much rather Montero get the attention he is getting instead of being Bryce Harper’d, these kids know they are good so everyone in a while they need to realize that hard work is what will allow them to take the talent they have to the next level. Robinson Cano is a good example of someone finally clicking in with the talent level they posses and Montero could be a bigger force than Robbie and he is definitely more highly valued coming up than Cano was. Robinson has always had talent he just needed to get to a point where his work ethic matched the talent and he is finally at that point, I give a lot of credit to Alex in that way because him and Cano clearly have a pretty close relationship. Maybe giving Montero people to prove wrong is what will give Montero that push to work even harder throughout his career, Montero will also have the benefit of Alex and Cano to help him with the conentration level and dedication needed in the bigs.
Thanks for the comments. I really appreciate them.
It’s true that Montero hasn’t gotten the same hype other prospects have. It’s particularly surprising when you consider that many consider him to be the best offensive prospect in the game.
Apart from being good for his development, this is also probably because he plays for the Yankees. With so many established superstars floating around, there is no need to write stories about prospects before they come up. Once Montero does anything in the pros at all the ink will start to flow.
There’s almost zero chance that Martin will rebound this year. In fact, it’s extremely likely his stats will be far worse this year for several reasons, including the fact that he’ll be facing unfamiliar pitchers while trying to learn about a new pitching staff. Those two things alone seem to spell disaster, but things are actually much worse than that. To whit . . .
Name three players in the past 20 years who have shown real improvement in their play after their stats DECLINED for THREE CONSECUTIVE YEARS in ALL of the following categories:
Hits, 2B, 3B*, HR, RBI, SB, BA, and OPS
* Technically, he didn’t decline in triples for three consecutive years because he went from 3 to 0 to 0 to 0. (He’s consistent; you gotta give him that.)
But at least he can perform under playoff pressure, right? Wrong! His postseason BA is .224 and his SLG is .328 in five playoffs.
There’s still worse to come, though. Martin “performed” against 18 teams last year. He it .211 or less against 8 of those teams, including .091 against both the Red Sox and the Yankees: so at least we know he absolutely, positively cannot hit AL East pitchers. (There’s reason for hope, though, because Martin absolutely decimated the Tigers’ pitching staff to the tune of a .143 batting average.)
Martin is done. He’s toast. And even his defense has deteriorated. If Montero hits well in spring training, we should turn the catching job over to him and keep Martin as a sub. It’s senseless to waste time with a guy who’s totally in decline when you have a bat like Montero’s ready to join the big club. Look how AJ responded when he was given a chance to play every day by the Tigers (instead of the Yankees, unfortunately).
Let’s not waste time on a has-been when we have a potential star ready to play.
Hi Wayne,
Thank you for your spirited comments.
You are right that Martin has shown nothing but decline these past few seasons. I’m not a fan of his, but I think the Yankees view him more as an insurance plan than anything else. At worst, he’s a better option thatn Francisco Cervelli, and Jorge will have to suit up more often than the team would like.
At best, he regains form. It is fair to argue that this won’t happen, but given his age, and some of his comparables (according to Baseball-Reference his most comparable player through age 27 is Thurman Munson, although I personally find that to be a stretch) there is also a chance that it does.
If it does not, then Yankee fans everywhere may get what they’ve been dying for: A chance to see the game’s best hitting prospect on the big stage.
Thank you for your reply, Mike.
You’re absolutely right about it being a stretch for Baseball-Reference to say Martin is comparable to Thurman Munson through age 27 . . . but they won’t being saying that in three years . . .
From age 28 through 30, Thurman had
* 100+ RBIs every year
* hit .300+ every year
* won his third Gold Glove
* won 1 MVP award and finished 7th the other two years.
There’s not much chance Martin will do any of those things.
By the way, Thurman should be in the HOF. No GM in baseball would have traded Munson for Fiske during the height of their careers. Fiske deserves to be in the HOF, but so does Thurman. Munson was a markedly better hitter than Fiske and a better catcher before his knees went. And as good as Fiske was as a leader, Munson was even better.
There’s a great story (to which I was a witness) that summarizes how much Thurman was loved and respected by the fans. It took place at Newark airport, the night the Yankees completed a three-game sweep of the Royals after being down two games to none in the playoffs.
The Yankees returned from the deciding game sometime around 3 AM (I can’t recall the exact time, all these years later). I was off from college the next day, so I went to see the Yankees on their return. To my surprise, there were less than 100 people in the terminal when the happy (and largely inebriated) Yankees disembarked from the plane.
As you’d expect, every player got mobbed by the fans. Fans were cheering and patting guys on the back, and Willie Randolph was an absolute joy to watch as he joyfully interacted with the crowd. Willie came down the runway with a bottle of champagne in each hand; then he tucked one bottle under his arm and started giving high-fives to everyone he encountered with his free hand. (He eventually gave one bottle to a grateful fan.)
I was standing in front of a large bank of electronic doors when a thoroughly embalmed REG-GIE passed me to exit the airport and get into a waiting limo. When the limo driver opened the car door for Reggie, I saw three drop-dead gorgeous women inside, all wearing dresses that discretely ended about six inches below their navels. (I debated saying “Hey, Reggie, if you need any help . . .” but decided he was to “out of it” to laugh at the joke.)
A moment later, Sweet Lou Piniella came by and stopped about a yard from me, directly in front of a bank of electronic doors, which were at least 10-yards wide. Lou then preceded to rotate 360 degrees in a painfully slow and wobbly circle. After he’d completed a turn and a half and was facing the electronic doors (for the second time), I said, “Lou, what are you looking for?” “The door,” he replied in a slurred voice. I said, “Lou, it’s right in front of you.” “Oh,” he groaned before staggering through the door and into a waiting car.
The celebrating continued inside the terminal until Thurman Munson came down the ramp, his left arm draped over his wife’s shoulder. People immediately began screaming his name and then a mini-miracle happened: the entire crowd parted as if we were the Red Sea and Thurman was god’s emissary Moses. No one said anything to prompt this reaction. No one had to. Everyone simply did it out of respect and admiration for the man. It was an amazing moment.
Unlike all the other players, no one laid a hand on Thurman. We all cheered, clapped our hands, called out his name, and hollered words of encouragement about our anticipated victory in the World Series. But no one touched the man or his wife. He was our beloved royalty, our Captain, and we all paid him the respect he had so richly earned.
Only one fan raised his hand to pat Thurman on the back . . . but he never did. Thurman never said a word to the man; he just gave the man a look that said “Look, but don’t touch.” The man immediately lowered his hand and resumed clapping.
Years later, I was a reporter in the Bronx when Thurman died. I had tears in my eyes as I drove over the GW bridge that morning and thought about Thurman’s proud place in Yankee history. I later proposed that a street be named for Munson near the stadium. The then borough president, who was up for reelection, got behind the idea, as did the Yankees, with George’s blessing. They eventually named a street for Munson, but the borough president politicized and cheapened the whole event. (I recently tried to find the street again on Google maps, but couldn’t locate it, so I’m not sure if they later renamed it or if Google maps simply doesn’t have all of the Bronx mapped out.)
It was nice remembering Thurman while writing this. It brought back many happy and some sad memories. I hope one or two Yankee fans will read this post and once again remember The Great Thurman Munson (HOF !!).
Hi Wayne,
Thanks for sharing the great story. I certainly don’t think Martin and Munson will have much in common in a few years time an dI also agree that Thurm should be in the hall.
What I like most about the story is that there is no way it happens in today’s game — no way! Could you imagine how the media would react?
I also want to let you know that I may have to borrow embalmed as a phrase to describe being fall-down drunk in the future. I’ve never heard that one before.
Hi, Mike,
I’m glad you enjoyed my use of “embalmed” as a euphemism for drop-down drunk. As a writer, I love plays on words and sounds; I’m a big fan of Voltaire, Oscar Wilde, and Dr. Hunter Thompson, all of whom were notorious for their use of sarcasm and wordplay.
I’ve been working interminably on a novel based on my experiences as a mob reporter, and I employ a great deal of wordplay and sarcasm throughout the novel. I still have a hell of a lot of work to do on the book, but it’s difficult to work on it after putting in 8-12 hours a day at my day job as a corporate writer; then I come home and get sidetracked (like now) commenting about my beloved Yankees. Hopefully I’ll finish the book before I “exit stage right.” Although only 55, I have coronary artery disease (you wouldn’t know it by looking at me; I look fit as hell on the outside), and I don’t expect I’ll have an exceptionally long life: too much wine, women, cigarettes, women, and women (notice a pattern there?) . . . although I wouldn’t change anything except the cigarette smoking, which I would gladly replace in hindsight with more women.
Kudos, Mike, on your observation that the story I recounted couldn’t happen today because of the media coverage. I hadn’t thought of that. You’re right; in today’s media intensive world, players would never be able to get away with what I witnessed that night. It’s a shame. It was a wonderfully joyous night and a memory I shall always cherish. (And no one drove drunk to my knowledge; they all seemed to have rides.)
Keep up the good work Mike. I enjoy both your work and Larry’s work a great deal. (I’m still getting acquainted with the other writers on this new site.)