The Futility Infielder

Remaking the Yankees, Part VI: The Bullpen

In the era of the Feel-Good Yankee Dynasty, it's ironic that one of the team's most glaring weaknesses last season had its roots in an old-school Bronx Zoo-style feud. It started when Joe Torre bypassed his own righty setup man, Jeff Nelson, for a spot on the 2000 AL All-Stars. Nelson, en route to a 6-2, 1.69 ERA first half, publicly vented his frustration at Torre. The seeds of ill will thus sown, they were further cultivated when Nelson questioned Torre's use of him later in the season as the team began to struggle. Nelson's complaints earned a put-up-or-shut-up rebuke from the Boss himself: "I want to offer Nelson the following advice," Steinbrenner told the New York Daily News in early September. "Just give us what we need and zip the lip."

Nelson began talking like a man on the way out. "I have 29 more days plus the playoffs to put up with this stuff," he responded, then made good on his prediction by signing a 3-year, $10.5 million contract with the Seattle Mariners during the offseason. The Yankees had offered Nelson $9 million over the same period, and despite his role in bolstering a dominating bullpen which anchored four World Championships in five years, Steinbrenner let him walk over such a relatively small amount.

The Yankees never did replace Nelson adequately last season, and their failure to do so had a trickle-down effect on the entire bullpen. They auditioned a sordid assortment of righties, trading away prospects such as D'Angleo Jiminez and Ricardo Aramboles to get mediocrities like Jay Witasick and Mark Wohlers. Lefty Mike Stanton got the bulk of the setup duty in the bullpen, appearing in 76 games and wearing down as the season progressed. Randy Choate stepped into the spot-lefty role with mixed results, including some serious control problems. With the back end of the starting rotation struggling, Ramiro Mendoza racked up lots of innings in middle relief instead of the type of setup duty in which he's excelled in the postseason.

In the end, Torre put his trust in only three relievers--Stanton, Mendoza, and Rivera. Not coincidentally, they were the only ones to pitch over 50 innings for the team. This short bullpen had ramifications during the playoffs, as Rivera was called upon for five outings of longer than an inning, including Game Seven of the World Series, where... well, you know the rest.

Here's a breakdown of the relievers' stats, with the pretenders to Nelson's role grouped together in roughly chronological order (I threw Nelson's stats with Seattle on for comparison's sake). Note that while those relievers' ERAs weren't uniformly bad, they allowed a high number of baserunners per inning (WHIP) and a majority of inherited baserunners (IR) to score (IS). The last column is saves (SV) and blown saves (BS):

                  IP    ERA    WHIP  IR-IS  SV/BS

Todd Williams     15.1  4.70   2.02  12-8    0/0

Carlos Almanzar   10.2  3.38   1.50  13-11   0/2

Brian Boehringer  34.2  3.12   1.36  14-6    1/1

Jay Witasick      40.1  4.69   1.61  18-10   0/1

Mark Wohlers      35.2  4.54   1.43  17-5    0/0



Randy Choate      48.3  3.35   1.25  19-4    0/0

Ramiro Mendoza   100.6  3.75   1.11  46-7    6/2

Mike Stanton      80.1  2.58   1.36  44-12   0/1

Mariano Rivera    80.2  2.34   0.81  25-5    50/7



Jeff Nelson (SEA) 65.1  2.76   1.13  38-5    4/1

The good news is that the Yankee brass has recognized the cost of their penny-wise, pound-foolish decision to let Nelson walk. Brian Cashman even took public responsibility for his less-than-stellar work in this department. And so the Yanks did what they have done all winter--carefully evaluated their options, then threw A LOT of money at their top choice and induced him to sign a contract. In this case, they settled on righty Steve Karsay, who started the year in Cleveland before being traded to Atlanta in the John Rocker deal. Karsay signed a 4-year, $23 million dollar contract to serve as the belated replacement for Nelson. Reportedly, Joe Torre plans to have Karsay, who has a history of elbow trouble, share the righty setup role with the equally fragile Mendoza so as not to overwork either. This in turn should take some of the pressure off of Stanton to throw as many innings as he did. And it should also take some pressure off of Rivera; Karsay's experience in the closer role (though not wildly successful--29 saves, 15 blown saves overall) may prevent Mariano from working too many days in a row.

While the signing was emphatic (almost twice the amount they offered to Nelson per year), this was one example where they overspent significantly. The Yanks also toyed with the idea of signing David Weathers, a former Yankee with a longer track record of mediocrity (save for his '96 postseason in pinstripes, when he won two games) who just signed with the Mets for three years at $9.4 million. The two posted very similar stats, though Weathers entered many more games with men on base:

                    IP    ERA    WHIP  IR-IS  SV/BS  Car. ERA

S. Karsay (CLE-ATL) 88.0  2.35   1.11  19-3    8/4   4.00

Weathers (MIL-CHC)  86.0  2.41   1.15  44-8    4/6   4.81

If you see double the annual value in Karsay, you'll have to show me how that works, because I certainly don't see it.

Be that as it may, the Yankees bullpen is much stronger than it was when Luis Gonzalez's broken-bat single fell for a game-winning base hit one sad November night. Rivera will be back, and he's expected to shrug off that devastating defeat with the same success he did Sandy Alomar's home run in the 1997 AL Divisional Series. With one inning to go and the World Championship on the line, he's still the man any manager in baseball would be thrilled to turn to. As for the rest of them... Witasick was just traded for outfielder John Vander Wal. Wohlers was offered arbitration but is probably a longshot to make the team in the spring. The question marks are:

• Whether Randy Choate will emerge to take on significant innings and earn the trust of Torre. Rather than being used as a spot lefty, Choate pitched most of his innings doing mop-up, perhaps to better showcase his trade value. Looking at his game log, 15 of his last 19 outings were in games decided by more than three runs, and his last six appearances (from August 18 on) were all in losses. Choate showed control problems, walking 27 batters in his 48+ innings (5.0 per 9 IP). Given the Yanks' surplus of developing lefties, it wouldn't be surprising to see him traded.

• Whether Ted Lilly, bumped to the bullpen by the signing of Sterling Hitchcock and Brian Cashman's assertion that the team will keep El Duque (I think he reads my column, as Baseball News Blog's Pete Sommers has suggested), will get enough work in the bullpen to develop. Given Lilly's high strikeout rate (8.4 per 9 IP) and success out of the pen (3.78 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, 5.0 K/W in 16.2 innings), this may be an appealing option.

• Whether another Yankee youngster, such as Adrian "El Duquecito" Hernandez, will make the club and get some major league innings. Hernandez, a Cuban defector, is at least 27. He didn't wow anybody at Columbus (5.51 ERA, 7.4 K/9, 1.5 WHIP as a starter), but he acquitted himself reasonably well with the Yanks (3.68 ERA, 1.14 WHIP in 22 innings). If they're going to find out what they've got in him, now may be the time.

Those are minor questions, however. The Yankees seem very content with the answers they can offer out of the bullpen at this point.

Before I put the issue of the Yanks' big makeover to bed and depart for the ski slopes of Utah, I have some final thoughts on the ramifications of their spending this winter. I'll be back with those in my next piece, as well as some words about what's going on elsewhere.