The Futility Infielder

As you might expect, the New York papers are abuzz with Thursday's Yankee activity -- both the loss of Andy Pettitte and the tentative deal of Dodger ace Kevin Brown for Jeff Weaver and two prospects. Everybody and their paperboy is weighing in; New York Daily News alone has a dozen links to the story. If you want to know what Pettitte's wife or Red Sox Nation is supposedly thinking, start there. For a more thorough rundown of the dailies, check out the monster job Alex Belth has done compiling links.

In the end, Pettitte's decision clearly wasn't about money, or the treatment he received from the Yankees, it was about wanting to pitch at home. You can point fingers at the way Steinbrenner or Cashman bungled this decision, but the New York Yankees shouldn't have to hard-sell one of their own. Their message is clear: you wear the pinstripes, you have a chance to compete for a World Championship every year, end of story. Pettitte, aided by the Yanks' willingness to give him the space to explore his options, chose Door #2.

Rob Neyer ran a neat little chart in his column yesterday showing that the two starters the Yanks have lost were outperformed by their two replacements (assuming the Brown deal goes through). Here it is:

         Innings  ERA+

Clemens    212    112

Pettitte   208    109

Brown      211    169

Vazquez    231    153

Add it up and you've got 420 innings at a 111 ERA+ (that's a park-adjusted ERA of 11 percent better than league average) leaving town and 432 innings at a 164 ERA+ arriving. But that doesn't tell the whole story; if we include Jeff Weaver in the equation (159 innings, 73 ERA+) that comes out to 579 innings at a 97 ERA+; in other words, a few hairs below league average. To mathematically balance that equation would take a pitcher that allowed just over a run per inning over about 150 innnings. So suffice it to say that pitching-wise, the Yanks come out well ahead in all of this, but that doesn't begin to account for the loss of Nick Johnson in the Vazquez trade. When we try to figure that out, however, the simple algebra moves to a more complicated calculus. But until the Yanks are done making moves, it's premature to point to a single decision and say "See! That's where they blew it!"

I've been unable to find out which prospects the Yanks are including in the Brown deal. The one to rail at the gods about would be Dioner Navarro, a 19- year-old switch-hitting catcher who split his season, hitting .341/.388/.471 in Double-A Trenton and .299/.364/.467 in high-A Tampa. That's about all the Yanks have left in terms of blue-chip prospects [Update: Baseball America reports that the two are righty pitchers Yhency Brazoban and Brandon Weeden. Brazoban (what a name!) is a converted outfielder who reached Trenton last year; Weeden finished 2003 in short-A Staten Island. Not much to get worked up about unless you're related to one of them].

Anyway, I'm still hacking away at the DIPS reliever stuff before I head off to New Orleans tonight -- Mr. Belth and I are going to take in the Winter Meetings from a bird's-eye perspective. Mostly that will mean bending elbows with other writers, but who knows what we'll see and hear?