Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Wednesday Afternoon Food For Thought

Guys the Yankees decided they didn't want/need back this season:

Raul Ibanez- 28 HR, .354 wOBA, 0.6 fWAR in 463 PA
Nick Swisher- 20 HR, .335 wOBA, 2.3 fWAR in 585 PA
Russell Martin- 14 HR, .318 wOBA, 4.1 fWAR in 480 PA

Guys the Yankees chose as replacements for the departed:

Travis Hafner- 12 HR, .303 wOBA, -0.4 fWAR in 293 PA
Ichiro Suzuki- 7 HR, .282 wOBA, 1.2 fWAR in 528 PA
Vernon Wells- 11 HR, .286 wOBA, -0.2 fWAR in 434 PA
Chris Stewart- 4 HR, .259 wOBA, 0.3 fWAR in 323 PA

That's an almost 30-HR and 6+ WAR swing from 2012 to 2013.
That's a lot to overcome for a third of a lineup even if the rest of the starters were healthy.  And that doesn't even factor in Eric Chavez, who left not because the Yankees didn't want him, but because he wanted to be closer to home.  The rest of these guys were all part of the Yankees' offseason plan to start shoring up the 2014 payroll situation, and there's few visual representations of how poorly that plan was conceived with respect to 2013 than the one above.

New York has scored 7 runs in their last 4 games.  They've lost all 4 of those games.  I'm not a betting man, but I'd be willing to plunk down a few dollars on the front office wishing they had a few of those 2012 bats in their lineup tonight.

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