Ca(nò) Can Deal

According to MLB Trade Rumors and the St. Louis Dispatch, the Cardinals inquired after Yankees' second baseman Robinson Canò. The Yankees' asking price?

One Adam Wainwright.


As you might imagine, the conference didn't last very long.

At the very least, if this story is true, it shows how highly the Yankees value Canò. They obviously think that his 2008 season was a fluke; as fans we certainly hope that was the case.

There's no question that if Canò ever figured out how to hit in April and May, he could easily contend for a batting title, but he was in such a rut last year that even his normal second-half surge was not enough to really help the Yankees.

Maybe this year they should just tell him the season starts in January...

Should the Yankees consider Braden Looper?

Late last night the Atlanta Braves signed Derek Lowe to a four year deal.

While this is good news for Atlanta and gives them a possible rotation of Lowe, Vasquez, Jurjens, Campillo, Reyes and the new guy Kawakami, which could easily challenge the Phillies for the NL East, it's not such good news for the Yankees and, of course, even worse news for the NY Mets.

For the Yankees, the signing of Lowe means that one of the options they had for the fifth spot in the rotation, should they be unable to come to terms with Andy Pettitte, is now no longer viable.

ESPN's free agent tracker provides a wonderful list of the starting pitchers still on the market; as you can see, there are not a whole lot of options.

One option, though, that seems to be continually glossed over is that of Braden Looper. Sure, he's no spring chicken, but the Yankees right now are not looking for a long-term option, since conventional wisdom states that by sometime in 2010 Hughes and Chamberlain would have established themselves in the rotation.

Let's take a look at Looper's numbers.

Last year, while pitching for the Cardinals, Looper went 12-14 with a 4.16 ERA. These aren't the most attractive numbers, of course, but when you consider what Pettitte did in the #2 spot--14-14, 4.54--Looper's basic line doesn't seem so far off.

Of course, the worst thing to do is judge a pitcher on a won-loss record, so let's look at some of Looper's other numbers.

Looper pitched 199 innings last year, which compares similarly to Pettitte's 204. Pettitte had more strikeouts--158 to Looper's 108--and Pettitte also had a better K/BB ratio, 2.87 to Looper's 2.4.

However, Pettitte was tagged for 112 runs, while Looper was only tagged for 101. Whether this has something to do with the defense playing behind them is entirely possible, given the Yankees' nearly league-worst defense last year and the type of pitcher that Pettitte is, but, even so, the ultimate results are similar.

In another statistic that SABR and stats geeks everywhere love, Pettitte's ERA+ was 98 for 2008, while Looper's was 102. Over the course of their careers, Pettitte's is higher-117 to 109, but Looper's career WHIP is lower, 1.35 to Pettitte's 1.36.

You can view Pettitte's complete stats here and Looper's here.



So what does this mean?

On the surface, the two pitchers seem remarkably similar, so the thinking would go that if Pettitte is the best fit for what the Yankees need, that, failing that, Looper would be a good option.

It is, of course, entirely possible that there's something I'm missing--Looper might want a long-term deal the Yankees don't want to give, or perhaps has a medical history of which the Yankees are wary (though I have not heard anything like that), but it does seem strange to me that names like Jon Garland and Randy Wolf are bandied about with more force than Looper, when Looper might seem to be the better fit.

[Edit]: This post, from LoHud gives a better take on the situation:

Looper isn’t good and he was nowhere close to as good as Pettitte was last year.

The numbers you’re looking at probably aren’t the best way to compare them.

By adjusted pitching stats in 2008 Looper was around 9% worse than a league average pitcher. In 2007 Looper was 11% worse. In 2008 pettite was 7% better than league average. In 2007 8% better.

So the past two seasons Pettitte has been Looper by 16% and 19%.

And that was while looper was pitching in the NL which is very difficult to truly adjust for.

A lot people keep talking about Looper (Cliff Corcoran in particular…) but they are simply looking at his ERA without considering the defense he plays in front of and the league.

Stupid numbers. Always getting in the way of everything...

A Preview A Day Keeps the Winter Away, #7

For the month of March I will be doing a season preview, with a new team each day, going in alphabetical order by team so I can save the Yankees for last, because I am, in fact, that devious.

As this is a Yankees' blog, the previews for AL East teams will be more detailed than those of AL Central and AL West teams, and any AL team previews will be more detailed than NL team previews, save maybe for the Mets. Each preview will involve consideration of how much 'threat' a team is to the Yankees, for fairly obvious reasons.

Up Today: The St. Louis Cardinals

I'm going to let you guys in on a little secret: the 2007 Cardinals were, more or less, the immediate inspiration for The Season. All the off-field problems they had to deal with would be enough to ruin any season; that the Cardinals stayed in the running until near the very end speaks volumes.

Rick Ankiel had some amazing heroics last year, and Albert Pujols is arguably the NL's greatest player, but their starting rotation has been bit bad by the injury bug, and Tony LaRussa is rumored to be a, shall we say, interesting presence in the clubhouse?

Yeah. It's a wonder this team won the World Series in 2006, but then I generally think of that entire baseball season as an anamoly.

Anyway.

Threat to the Yankees: Green, Proceed Normally.

In the NL Central, the Cardinals have to contend with the Cubs and the Brewers, and in the Wild Card, the entire NL West (save the Giants). The likelihood they will have any impact on the Yanks is extremely slight.


(I know this was a really short one but I'm tired and have to drive four hours tomorrow, and, yeah, it's not like the Cardinals are in the same league, let alone the same division).

There are Some Stories We'd Rather Not Hear...

By now most of you have probably heard that Rick Ankiel received shipments of HGH.

While you should read the entire article, basically Ankiel received shipments for a year before the substance was banned by MLB.

I want to believe in Ankiel so much, but if it was another player, like Bonds or whomever, we'd crucify him before he'd get a chance to reply.

When I first heard the story on ESPN last night/this morning, it was 2 AM and, well, my mind doesn't work very well at 2 AM most of the time. I refused to try to comprehend it, refused to acknowledge it as fact.

However, browsing the 'net this morning, I have to be able to accept it.

I have to accept it because the story is not going to go away.

There is no good way to test for HGH since the body produces it naturally, so it's not as clear cut as having Ankiel take a simple test. I bet, right now, that Ankiel wishes more than anything that he could do that.

I'm curious to see how Ankiel handles it...that will perhaps say a lot more about the situation than a newspaper article ever could.


Pre-game notes later, I've got an English project to work on. Oh, that Victorian literature...

Ankiel Seems to Have a Thing for October...

I don't really know what's going on in the St. Louis/Pittsburgh game, except that St. Louis is up by a lot.

And that Rick Ankiel has two home runs today.

I think we've now passed from the Roy Hobbs to the Okay, Enough, to the Get Hollywood Ready, and we're now at: Jeez, Rick, you really like October, don't you?

This is where being a purist gets to be the most fun, when the truly amazing occurs.

There's no other way to describe it.

Rick Ankiel is single-handedly willing St. Louis to the postseason.

If St. Louis, a team like the Yankees considered dead at the end of May, holds on and wins today, and they're up 16-3, they'll have a share of the NL Central FIRST PLACE.

[edit]: Okay, the Cardinals are one game out...but TIED in the loss column.

You know, I used to think that if there was ever a Yankees/Cubs World Series, I'd be torn, because I bleed pinstripes, but, damn, it's the Cubs.....but now I'm thinking, it's getting harder and harder to not root for St. Louis this year.

Consider:

The death of Josh Hancock
The injuries to Chris Carpenter and Scott Rolen
The problems of Scott Spezio (best wishes here)
The horrifying injury to Juan Encarnacion (Again, my thoughts and prayers are with him)

If that's not adversity, I don't know what is.

And now we have Rick Ankiel, saying 'Y'know what, I really like baseball. I also really like October. Wouldn't it be fun to play baseball in October?'

This is not to say that the Yanks haven't had their share of adversity, what with injuries to Mientkewiecz, Giambi, Wang in April, Hughes in May, the death of Scooter, etc...

Sometimes you can just feel it.

Yanks-Cards in the 2007 World Series.

You heard it here first.