Writing while refreshing my Twitter feed every 10 seconds to get the latest from Boston…
We’ll blow off the standard, evergreen list today to probe deeper into yesterday’s setbacks concerning Derek Jeter and Travis d’Arnaud. OK, it’s really going to be, like, four and a half items on Jeter and one-half on d’Arnaud.
1. Here’s my column from Yankee Stadium on Jeter and the Yankees.
Like every team nowadays, the Yankees employ a team of statistical analysts whose job is to figure out the many ways in which their team can win their division (or short of that, win a wild-card slot) and therefore qualify to win the World Series.
I wonder what their most optimistic projection was for Jeter, given the severity of the injury that ended his 2012 season and put his 2013 season in jeopardy the moment it happened. Well, I take that back. The most optimistic projection surely was for him to come back just fine and magically duplicate last year. I wonder what their most prevalent projection was.
Depending on your preferred metric, Jeter provided either 2.2 (Baseball-Reference.com) and 3.1 (FanGraphs) wins above replacement last year; average them out for 2.65. So what was a reasonable projection for this year? Half of that? Two-thirds?
Losing Jeter for this newly indeterminate length of time counts as a big blow to the Yankees only if you thought he could be last year’s Jeter. And I don’t see how you could have regarded that as anything approaching the more likely scenario.
What can we reasonably expect from Eduardo Nunez? His current OPS is a terrible .572. His best minor-league OPS was .792 for Class A Staten Island in 2005, his first professional year. His defense measures better than Jeter _ more range _ yet still slightly below average. He made his first error of the season, a throwing miscue, last night against Arizona. He is still only 25, though, so it’s not impossible that he could improve. And his athleticism, his speed, stands out among this creaky group.
This is all a wordy way of saying that I think Nunez might be able to hold down the job and not force Brian Cashman to look elsewhere for a solution. It’s a reasonable projection, if not a prevalent one.
At this juncture, I think it’s worth noting that the Yankees’ offense has fallen back significantly and expectedly since that little outburst in Cleveland. They’re now fifth in the American League with 70 runs. Twenty-five of their runs, or 36 percent, came in their two-game sweep of the pitching-challenged Indians. They have scored 45 runs in their other 12 games, fewer than four runs per game.
2. Let’s talk about the future, because that’s what we like to do, even when we understand the futility of doing so.
If you look at the way Jeter and the Yankees structured their last agreement, you can conclude there was every reasonable expectation – at least on Jeter’s part – that he would become a free agent after the 2013 season.
Jeter’s contract called for an $8 million player option for 2014, with a $3 million buyout if he opted out. The agreement featured myriad incentives in which Jeter could increase that option through his performance in 2011, 2012 and 2013.
Through two years of the deal, Jeter has hit on one incentive. He won the Silver Slugger Award last year, increasing the player option to $9.5 million. Weighed against the buyout, it becomes a $6.5 million decision. Jeter could increase the value of that option by as much as another $1 million if he returns and wins Most Valuable Player honors in the AL Championship Series and World Series; they’re worth $500,000 apiece. Yesterday’s development probably rule out the other incentives – finishing in the top six of the AL MVP vote ($4 million for first place, $2 million for second through sixth) or winning the Silver Slugger (1.5 million) or Gold Glove ($500,000).
If Jeter winds up missing the entire season, then absolutely, it would make sense for him to exercise the option, giving himself another year (at a bargain rate) to resuscitate the deal. And if he can’t be a serviceable player next year, then the Yankees won’t lose too much sleep over paying their icon $6.5 million for very little.
But if Jeter can come back in say, July, and he climbs back to where he’s even a league-average shortstop, would it make sense for him to come back at such a bargain rate?
What hurts his leverage, of course, is that no one thinks that Jeter would play somewhere else and Jeter has done nothing to shake that belief. Yet Jeter showed during his previous (and first) foray in free agency that he’ll fight and push for every last dollar — as is his right, of course. Given that he has shown no interest in retiring, you could easily see him trying to get a multi-year deal.
We need more time, more information, to resolve this issue. But this issue became more interesting with yesterday’s news.
3. The Yankees’ remaining core trio of Jeter, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera – I forget, is there some cutesy nickname for them? — hasn’t played in a game together since Game 2 of the 2010 AL Division Series. Will they ever again? Jorge Posada also played in that game, the final time the Core Four all participated in the same contest.
4. Did Jeter sustain this setback because he pushed himself too hard in an effort to get back by Opening Day? He’ll surely be asked his opinion on this issue next week, when he plans to address the media at Yankee Stadium (according to Cashman). Bet heavily on Jeter not agreeing with that and not expressing any regrets whatsoever about anything. That’s who he is.
And you can’t really change who he is. If Jeter did in fact step on the gas injudiciously, well…it’s that same determination that has made him one of the best shortstops to ever play the game in the first place.
5. Let’s talk about trades, non-trades and assessing those decisions. One of Cashman’s most famous non-trades was declining to give up Jesus Montero and a package of other prospects — including but not limited to Ivan Nova and Eduardo Nunez — to Seattle for Cliff Lee in July of 2010. Texas proceeded to acquire Lee for Justin Smoak and three other players, none of whom (including Smoak) has helped Seattle much at all. Lee pitched the Rangers into the 2010 World Series, the first in franchise history, and then left the Rangers for Philadelphia, giving Texas a pair of compensatory draft picks by doing so.
Since that time, Nova played an integral role in helping the 2011 Yankees win the AL East. Nunez hasn’t done much besides fill in nicely for Jeter during a brief stretch in ’11.
It’s hard to write with absolute certainty that the Yankees could have had Lee simply by giving up Montero (who eventually wound up with Seattle, as you know), Nova and Nunez; Yankees people believe that the game was over once Texas relented on Smoak. But if they had, should they have executed that deal?
It turns out that Lee was pretty determined to make his way back to Philadelphia, so it’s hard to believe that three months in the Bronx would have changed his mind. Especially since Lee a) seemed convinced that the Yankees were getting too old to contend; and b) really doesn’t like publicity. Lee loved the stealth way in which he and the Phillies hammered out an agreement. In the bigger picture, though, whether he would’ve stayed is moot; the Yankees were giving up their package for the rest of Lee’s 2010 and the right to either re-sign him without sacrificing a draft pick or recoup compensatory picks if he went elsewhere.
What if Lee joined the Yankees and did what he did for Texas in ’10 – pitched them to the Fall Classic but then lost two World Series games to the Giants? Would we label that a success or not so for the Yankees?
In any case, the Jeter injury, by giving Nunez this opportunity, will lead us closer to a full assessment of the 2010 Lee machinations. We also have to see what Nova gives this year and beyond, and what if anything Michael Pineda and Jose Campos, whom the Yankees acquired for Montero and Hector Noesi, provide. Thoroughly evaluating trades and non-trades, like assessing drafts, often can take a long time.
In that vein, what does this d’Arnaud development do for the Mets’ big R.A. Dickey deal? Well, it obviously hurts it. d’Arnaud’s importance in this trade is magnified by the fact that the Mets don’t have any other high-potential position players anywhere close to joining their team. (Yes, yes, it’s good for them that Brandon Nimmo is off to a good start with Class A Savannah, but that’s a long way away from the big leagues.)
As my Post teammate Joel Sherman notes, d’Arnaud is 24, six months older than Jason Heyward. He hasn’t yet displayed the essential baseball skill of durability; he surpassed the 100-games mark just once in the prior three seasons (114 in 2011, with Double-A New Hampshire) and now looks like a long shot to do that this year.
Of course, in giving up a full year of Dickey as well as his willingness to sign a below-market extension as well as knuckleball-friendly catchers Josh Thole and Mike Nickeas (both of whom are in the minor leagues), the Mets procured more than one piece in return. Right-hander Noah Syndergaard is off to a poor start with Class A St. Lucie; outfielder Wuilmer Becerra, only 18, hasn’t played in official games yet (not surprising given his age); and of course there’s John Buck.
If Buck leaves the Mets after this year without compensation, if he winds up helping the Mets get to, say, 75 wins, as opposed to 72 without him, that won’t really count for much in the big picture. If the Mets can get more from him down the road, most likely by a trade, then that would count more.
How about this for way-too-early projections? The Mets make Buck the one-year qualifying offer this coming winter — it’ll likely be in the $14 million neighborhood — and he accepts, with the understanding that he must approve the team to which he’ll be traded for 2014? The Mets could pay as much as half of Buck’s salary in return for a couple of good prospects.
Of course, that scenario is predicated on the notion that d’Arnaud will be ready for full-time duty next year. And yesterday’s news decreases that probability.
–OK, I think that’s enough. Have a great day.
