Andruw Jones (Photo by J. Meric/Getty Images)
Yankee fans are all too familiar with teams of recent vintage entering a given season with a fairly lackluster bench, only to upgrade midseason. With the positive spring performances of Eric Chavez, Eduardo Nunez and Andruw Jones, I got to thinking whether this would be the deepest bench the Yankees were to start a season off with in some time.
I don’t have the time to dig back through every season in team history, nor am I interested in doing so, but if we go back for the last five years, taking a look at the presumed 2011 bench’s 2011 CAIRO projections compared to the actual numbers for the four men who (I’m pretty certain) started the year on the bench for the Yankees, it’s really no contest:
| 2011 projected | BA | OBP | SLG | wOBA |
| Jesus Montero | .261 | .326 | .446 | .337 |
| Andruw Jones | .221 | .312 | .414 | .317 |
| Eric Chavez | .245 | .299 | .405 | .306 |
| Eduardo Nunez | .257 | .296 | .350 | .286 |
| 2010 | BA | OBP | SLG | wOBA |
| Marcus Thames | .288 | .350 | .491 | .365 |
| Francisco Cervelli | .271 | .359 | .335 | .315 |
| Randy Winn | .213 | .300 | .295 | .276 |
| Ramiro Pena | .227 | .258 | .247 | .236 |
| 2009 | BA | OBP | SLG | wOBA |
| Brett Gardner | .270 | .345 | .379 | .337 |
| Cody Ransom | .190 | .256 | .329 | .265 |
| Jose Molina | .217 | .292 | .268 | .260 |
| Angel Berroa | .136 | .174 | .182 | .164 |
| 2008 | BA | OBP | SLG | wOBA |
| Wilson Betemit | .265 | .289 | .429 | .308 |
| Jose Molina | .216 | .263 | .313 | .257 |
| Morgan Ensberg | .203 | .263 | .243 | .228 |
| Alberto Gonzalez | .173 | .232 | .212 | .207 |
| 2007 | BA | OBP | SLG | wOBA |
| Josh Phelps | .263 | .330 | .363 | .311 |
| Andy Phillips | .292 | .338 | .373 | .309 |
| Miguel Cairo | .252 | .308 | .318 | .291 |
| Wil Nieves | .164 | .190 | .230 | .187 |
| 2006 | BA | OBP | SLG | wOBA |
| Bernie Williams | .281 | .332 | .436 | .328 |
| Miguel Cairo | .239 | .280 | .320 | .275 |
| Kelly Stinnett | .228 | .282 | .304 | .258 |
| Bubba Crosby | .207 | .258 | .299 | .250 |
And I actually think the CAIRO projections may be a tad low for each of Jones, Chavez and Nunez. While it’s certainly possible that Chavez falls flat on his face, Jones seems likes a decent enough bet to exceed that .317 wOBA, and Nunez has shown signs of life thus far this spring that he may have stepped his hitting game up.
Even if all four men in contention for the bench wind up with wOBAs in the low .300s it’ll still likely be the strongest collective backup unit the Yankees will have fielded in some time. And while this has zero bearing on anything, this is probably one of the only times the Yankees will have ever compiled a bench unit with a combined career fWAR surpassing 100.
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4 Responses to Will this be the deepest bench ever to kick off a Yankee season?
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TIQ IQ
CAIRO projections – Miguel is doing projections now? Or is it called that because they started doing projections only for him?
Heh, at this point I assumed most of our regular readers were familiar with SG of Replacement Level Yankees Weblog’s CAIRO projections.
If you aren’t, I strongly encourage you to check them out.
[...] Larry noted yesterday, this is one of the strongest benches that the Yankees have fielded in a long time, assuming that [...]
This is a stellar post as I was thinking the exact same thing. The 2008 contingent of Molina, Betemit, Ensberg and Gonzalez makes me want to vomit.