The Price Of Lost Production

52 G, 216 PA, 6 HR, 23 R, 22 RBI, -0.6 fWAR

That's the combined offensive output of Derek Jeter, Curtis Granderson, Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, and Kevin Youkilis this season.  The Yankees are paying those 5 guys a combined $95.855 million in 2013, or a cool $443,773.15 per plate appearance, $4.168 million per run scored, or $15.976 million per home run.  It's a horse that's been beaten to death 10 times over, but that's a lot of production to lose for any team and a lot of money being paid to players who aren't helping the team.


410 G, 1,578 PA, 29 HR, 133 R, 145 RBI, -0.1 fWAR

That's the combined output of all the lukewarm-to-warm replacement-level bodies (Lyle Overbay, Jayson Nix, Luis Cruz, Zoilo Almonte, Vernon Wells, Corban Joseph, Melky Mesa, Travis Ishikawa, David Adams, Thomas Neal, Chris Nelson, Brent Lillibridge, Brennan Boesch, Alberto Gonzalez, Reid Brignac) the Yankees have brought in to try to replace that lost $96 mil worth of production.  As you can see, it's been less than stellar.  In a little over 2 full season's worth of plate appearances, this cast of characters has turned in an old school counting stats total lower than what Miguel Cabrera or Chris Davis are going to churn out on their own this year and collectively been worth negative sabermetric value.  For a team with the payroll of the Yankees, that's almost unfathomable.

The Yankees aren't paying that replacement group of players much at all this season, but the results once again speak to just how flawed their entire approach to this season has been.  They're essentially paying for the same lack of production twice.  They've got a shit ton of money tied up in 30-and-older guys based on past performance and they attempted to mitigate that by shopping at the dollar store for present performance.  In both cases, they're getting exactly what they paid for.  Nothing new or surprising here, just still inexplicable how this plan came to be developed, executed, and botched in such a spectacular fashion.