Yanks Will Not Repeat in 2010

In the 2010 baseball preview, New York Daily News writer Mark Feinsand offers 28 reasons why the New York Yankees will repeat as World Series champions, but I have one reason why the Yankees will not repeat. The Yankees do not have a legitimate number five hitter in their lineup.

The Yankees have penciled second baseman Robinson Cano as their fifth place hitter. His 2009 offensive statistics were impressive. His batting average was .320. He scored 103 runs, had 204 hits, with 25 home runs and 85 RBI. But his numbers did not translate into the post season. He hit .192 overall, and .136 in the World Series.

Cano is an impatient hitter who does not draw walks, but he was practically an automatic out in the World Series. His World Series performance reflected the fact that he is not a clutch hitter in the regular season and the post season.

In 2010, Cano will be assigned the task of protecting Alex Rodriguez in the lineup. Frankly, if I were the opposition, I would dare Cano to beat me in a clutch situation.

Another option to hit behind Rodriguez is Jorge Posada, but he is the starting catcher, and he will only start 110 to 120 games in 2010. The Yankees plan to use Posada as a DH in games he will not catch, but that will disrupt their lineup because their projected number two hitter in the lineup is Nick Johnson.

Nick Swisher is another candidate to bat fifth. He has power. Swisher hit 29 home runs in 2009, and he has a high on base percentage (.371), but he never hit above .270 in his career.

The Yankees were operating with a budget this off-season. General manager Brian Cashman wanted to reduce the payroll to under $200 million. World Series heroes Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui were not resigned. Their 2010 replacements are a significant downgrade.

In addition, Melky Cabrera, the 2009 starting center fielder, was traded to the Atlanta Braves for starting pitcher Javier Vazquez, who will be the fourth starter on the 2010 team.

In a sense, the Yankees traded Damon, Matsui and Cabrera for Curtis Granderson, Nick Johnson and Brett Gardner.

Granderson is an upgrade over Damon only because he is younger, but the Yankees are replacing their last season’s number two hitter in the lineup with someone who will hit seventh.

Nick Johnson replaces Damon as the second place hitter – when he is playing. Johnson is injury prone. Also, Johnson is not a base stealer, in contrast to Damon.

Johnson replaced Matsui, who batted fifth in 2009, and protected Alex Rodriguez in the lineup. Matsui was also a clutch hitter and proven RBI man. Matsui was the full time DH. In 2010, Johnson and Posada will share DH duties. Posada will replace Johnson as DH when Posada is not catching.

Gardner lost the centerfield job to Cabrera after a slow start in 2009. He will be the starting leftfielder in 2010, and hit ninth in the batting order.

The Yankees have a lot of two, seven, eight and nine hitters in this lineup. Jeter is not really a leadoff hitter. He is really a number two hitter, but the Yankees do not have a prototypical leadoff hitter.

Granderson strikes out too much to be a true leadoff hitter, or a number two hitter. With his speed, I would bat Granderson ninth, but Gardner occupies that spot in the lineup.

Gardner could be a leadoff hitter on most teams, but the Yankees have a “must win now” mandate, and do not have the patience to wait for Gardner to develop into a leadoff hitter.

The projected lineup of Jeter, Johnson, Teixeira, Rodriguez, Cano, Posada, Granderson, Swisher, Gardner does not project the length of a championship team. This team will have difficulty scoring runs in 2010.

To overcome this weak lineup and win another championship, the Yankees will have to depend on their starting pitchers. The Yankees added Vazquez to their staff. He will pitch fourth in the rotation behind Sabathia, Burnett and Pettitte.

Vazquez pitched successfully in the National League in 2009, but National League pitchers are not as effective when they switch leagues. National League lineups are easier to maneuver than American League lineups. I expect Vazquez’s ERA will jump from 2.87 to over 4.00.

As for Burnett, the number two starter in the rotation, it is worth repeating that he had virtually the same record as Hideki Irabu in 1998. Irabu was the fifth starter on that rotation. Burnett has the stuff of a number one, but the production of a three or four.

Phil Hughes beat Joba Chamberlain for the fifth spot in the rotation. This is a puzzling move for three reasons. First, Chamberlain was babied in 2009. The Yankees limited the number of innings he pitched because they wanted to protect his right arm.

The training wheels were supposed to come off in 2010, but management was not happy with Chamberlain’s velocity as a starter during spring training. He was throwing in the low 90’s. In contrast, Chamberlain was throwing in the high 90’s as a reliever during the 2009 post season.

The Yankees are mismanaging Chamberlain. They are sending him mixed messages. They were overly cautious with him in 2009, so he was cautious in the games he started. Chamberlain paced himself as a starter. He knew he could not throw in the high 90’s as a starter because he would run out of gas before the fifth inning.

Obviously, Chamberlain will throw harder as a relief pitcher knowing he will not pitch more than two innings. Sending Chamberlain to the bullpen nullified the progress he made as a starter in 2009. The Yankees are being seduced by the possibilities of the high 90’s fastball.

Second, the Yankees will need only four starting pitchers in the post season. As the fifth starter, Chamberlain would have been used in the bullpen during the post season.

Third, it will be Phil Hughes turn to pitch on a leash. The Yankees will face the same problem with Hughes. He will reach 120 innings by July or August, then he will be taken out of the rotation, or limited to three innings per start in order limit Hughes innings pitched to 150, and the Yankees will have to replace Hughes in the starting rotation with another retread.

The Yankees are fortunate there is parity in baseball. The era of the dominant team is over because baseball teams cannot afford to keep teams together. The Boston Red Sox upgraded their starting rotation at the expense of their starting lineup. John Lackey gives the Red Sox five solid starters, but their projected lineup of Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis, Victor Martinez, J.D. Drew, David Ortiz, Adrian Beltre, Mike Cameron and Marco Scutaro is not as imposing as their recent championship teams.

The Tampa Bay Rays are probably the best team in the American League East. They are young, talented, fast and have a stable of quality young pitchers, but the Rays are under a lot of pressure to win games early in the season. Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena are in the last year of their contracts. If the Rays are not in first or second place by June, then management will trade Crawford and Pena for prospects.

For the Yankees, winning the American League East, the pennant or the World Series is not improbable, but management’s decisions during the off season and spring training do not inspire confidence. For the first time, the Yankees are operating with budgetary constraints. Are the Yankees scaling back their payroll anticipating next year’s free agent class? As a Yankee fan, I have been salivating at the possibility of Carl Crawford joining the team as a free agent.

Also, Derek Jeter’s contract expires at the end of 2010. Will the Yankees lowball Jeter the same way they offered pay cuts to Pettitte, Damon and Matsui?

Or are the Yankees losing money, and can no longer afford the best players?

The Yankees do not have a viable farm system to replace players as they depart or retire. I wish they did. But the Yankees will have to sign free agents to remain competitive in the future.

What is troubling is that I am seeing a pattern of mismanagement first witnessed after the 2001 season. Players on World Series winners are being replaced with inferior talent. The Yankees were able to win division championships, but did not have the talent to become champions. You just cannot replace players according their position. You have to consider where they hit in the lineup.

This team could repeat, but I am predicting the Yankees will be in third place at the end of the season. The Rays and the Red Sox will finish ahead.