Is every day Old Timer's Day?
Whenever the Yankees go on a losing streak, you begin to hear a common refrain. “They’re old”. These stories usually focus on the ‘Core 4′ players and maybe a few of the aging bench players they bring in annually. But is this criticism accurate, especially in comparison to most MLB teams? Further, is it a problem?
Let’s start with the average age of the roster. ESPN has them listed at 30.4 years, which puts them in 29th place overall, with 28th being the Phillies and 30th the Boston Red Sox. I’ve yet to read any “Boston is old” or “Philly is old” columns, but maybe as a Yankee fan I missed them. So clearly the Yanks are among the oldest teams in the game, but average age can be somewhat deceiving, since it weights everyone equally while some older players get the bulk of playing time and other young players are backups. In the case of the Yankees, the starting 9 (inc DH) has 3 players (Jeter, A-Rod, Posada) over the age of 35 and the 3/5 of the starting rotation (Burnett, Colon, Garcia) features pitchers age 34 or older.
Next, lets look at what kind of production the Yanks are getting, regardless of age. Fangraphs has the Yankees first in the AL and #2 in all of baseball in Total WAR, so clearly they’re getting production out of their players overall. Let’s go player by player and see where the production is coming from:
(players ranked in Total WAR, age 34 or older in bold)
Age PA Rbat Rbaser Rroe Rdp Rfield Rpos Rrep RAR WAR oRAR oWAR dWAR Salary Acquired Pos. Summary
CurtisGranderson* 30 178 11 0 0 0 1 1 6 19 1.9 18 1.8 0.1 Traded *8
AlexRodriguez 35 164 6 -0 0 0 2 0 6 14 1.4 11 1.1 0.3 Free Agency *5/D
RobinsonCano* 28 174 6 1 0 0 -1 1 6 12 1.2 14 1.4 -0.2 Amateur Free Agent *4
RussellMartin 28 143 6 1 0 0 -2 2 5 12 1.2 14 1.4 -0.2 Free Agency *2/5
BrettGardner* 27 145 1 -2 0 0 6 -2 5 9 0.9 2 0.3 0.6 Amateur Draft *7/8
MarkTeixeira# 31 185 9 0 0 0 -5 -3 6 8 0.8 12 1.2 -0.4 Free Agency *3/D
NickSwisher# 30 169 -2 -0 0 0 6 -2 6 7 0.7 2 0.2 0.5 Traded *9/3
EricChavez* 33 39 2 0 0 0 1 -0 1 4 0.4 3 0.3 0.1 Free Agency 5/3D
DerekJeter 37 188 -6 -0 0 0 0 2 6 2 0.3 2 0.2 0.1 Free Agency *6/D
HectorNoesi 24 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 /1
ChrisDickerson* 29 7 0 0 0 0 -0 -0 0 0 0.0 0 0.0 0.0 Traded /9
GustavoMolina 29 6 -0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0 -0 0.0 0.0 Free Agency /2
A.J.Burnett 34 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Free Agency /1
EduardoNunez 24 34 1 0 0 0 -3 -0 1 -1 -0.1 2 0.2 -0.3 Amateur Free Agent /64D579
FranciscoCervelli 25 18 -0 0 0 0 -2 0 1 -2 -0.2 0 0.0 -0.2 Amateur Free Agent /2
AndruwJones 34 47 -2 0 0 0 -1 -1 2 -2 -0.2 -1 -0.1 -0.1 Free Agency 7/D9
JorgePosada# 39 134 -2 -0 0 0 -1 -3 4 -3 -0.3 -2 -0.2 -0.1 Free Agency *D/3
Team Total 31.5 1631 29 -1 0 0 3 -5 55 80 8.0 78 7.8 0.2
Age PA Rbat Rbaser Rroe Rdp Rfield Rpos Rrep RAR WAR oRAR oWAR dWAR Salary Acquired Pos. S
Age IP GS R Rrep Rdef aLI RAR WAR Salary Acquired
CCSabathia* 30 67.2 10 29 44 1 .9 15 1.4 Free Agency
BartoloColon 38 51.1 6 20 33 0 1.0 13 1.2 Free Agency
FreddyGarcia 34 43.1 7 16 28 0 1.0 12 1.2 Free Agency
MarianoRivera 41 20.0 0 4 11 0 2.2 7 1.1 Free Agency
DavidRobertson 26 17.2 0 4 10 0 1.5 6 0.8 Amateur Draft
A.J.Burnett 34 56.1 9 29 36 0 1.1 7 0.7 Free Agency
LuisAyala 33 9.2 0 2 6 0 1.3 4 0.4 Free Agency
HectorNoesi 24 4.0 0 0 2 0 2.9 2 0.4 Amateur Free Agent
JobaChamberlain 25 22.1 0 10 13 0 1.1 3 0.3 Amateur Draft
IvanNova 24 43.2 8 26 29 0 1.1 3 0.3 Rule 5 returned
BuddyCarlyle* 33 6.2 0 2 4 0 .9 2 0.2 Free Agency
LancePendleton* 27 6.1 0 0 4 0 .1 4 0.2 Rule 5 returned
BooneLogan 26 12.0 0 6 7 0 1.1 1 0.1 Traded
RafaelSoriano 31 15.0 0 9 9 0 1.4 -0 0.0 Free Agency
AmauriSanit 31 6.1 0 6 3 0 .1 -3 -0.2 Amateur Free Agent
PhilHughes 25 10.1 3 16 6 0 .9 -10 -0.9 Amateur Draft
Team Total 31.3 392.2 43 179 244 3 1.1 65 7.2
Age IP GS R Rrep Rdef aLI RAR WAR Salary Acquired
Clearly, while the Yankees may be one of the older teams in the game their problem isn’t age, except in the case of Posada and Jones. Jeter is pulling his weight at SS, and at the 1/4 mark of the season is on pace for a 3+ win season. We can argue whether or not he deserves to bat leadoff (he doesn’t) but that’s a column for another day. While the Yankees may be one of the older teams in the game their problem isn’t age. Most of their best performances, particularly on the pitching staff, are coming from their older players. Whether or not they’ll be able to maintain that production all year is a fair question, but in the middle of May, age simply isn’t their problem.
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2 Responses to Is age really an issue for the Yankees?
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TIQ IQ
the Yanks need to make a change to shake things up. Bring up Jesus Montero to help spark the team, the lineup seems lifeless, there;s no reason why the Yanks should not be able to hit Dickey, its not that he pitched good, because other teams have touched him up…. if this happens now, what then in the playoffs when good pitchers are pitching…will they be held scorless, bring up a natural hitter like Montero…. Sit down Posada and Swisher,,,, Swisher has been horrible. Get that bat shaking out of Tex;s stance, he needs to hold his bat still and be prepared to hit, all that shaking has not been helping.
Tex is having a good year dude. Age isnt the problem. The only, place age will b a big prob is ss. They have solid young pitching on rhe way. I expect arod to remain productive ay the plate and servicable at 3rd for 3 more years . They have veteran but not old ofs and have imo 4 young mlers in the minors in sanchez, heathcott, montero an murphy. Right there yout have a c, a cf, a dh/ c and c/3b/lf type. Every thing is fine for continued contention. They will need nunez, culver or someone to emerge as a starting ss by 2013 but otherwise all the age talk is overblown. If the yankees didnt always contend you wouldvhave montero and one of the phelps noesi mitchell group in the rotation now,and youd look younger. This is a particularly annoying yearly story that is utterly irrelevant