Worst is yet to come for Yankees
AP Photo/Frank Franklin IIYankees GM Brian Cashman needs to rebuild but has challenges preventing him from doing that.
Historians have devoted a lot of ink and time to the study of the collapse of empires, from the fall of the Roman Empire to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Empires and dynasties in baseball are no different, with various franchises reaching their zenith at various points before settling into either a slow, inexorable decline or a supernova-esque collapse to mediocrity.
When franchises in baseball recover from their crashes, the new dynasties never look the same as the old ones. The New York Yankees are simply the most recent -- they won't be the last -- team to fall to shambles, and the worst is yet to come for the Bronx Bombers.
It's always hard to pinpoint an exact moment when an empire collapses. The retirement ofDerek Jeter, the last active player remaining from the 1998 Yankees team that won 114 games and swept the World Series, would be a convenient place to close the successful, current-era Yankees dynasty. But in actuality, the rot present on the Yankees was visible long before Jeter walked off the field for the last time. The team's 84-78 record didn't put them at the bottom of the AL, but the team was outscored for the second straight year -- something that hadn't happened to the Yankees since the early '90s.
But those early-'90s Yankees teams had advantages the current Yankees don't have. The current Yankees are a wealthy team, but there are also indications their payroll flexibility is limited, plus they're far older and have a worse farm system than the early-'90s Yankees. There's no easy fix to these problems, as those older players are mostly saddled with contracts bad enough the team probably can't even give them away.
2015 ZiPS WAR, hitters
PLAYERBA/OBP/SLGWAR
Brian McCann.249/.316/.4312.9
Mark Teixeira.236/.326/.4331.2
Jose Pirela.253/.299/.3841.3
Martin Prado.274/.321/.4002.8
Brendan Ryan.213/.276/.2850.1
Brett Gardner.260/.333/.4092.7
J. Ellsbury.281/.337/.4243.6
Carlos Beltran.254/.310/.4340.5
A. Rodriguez.230/.311/.3990.3
Reserves--1.2
Total--16.6
Where do the Yankees stand with their roster, as of today? To answer this, I ran the 2015 ZiPS projections for the Yankees (to the right) and divvied out playing time based on where things would stand if the Yankees made no moves this offseason. This represents the baseline from which the Yankees would have to improve this winter.
Where does ZiPS have the Yankees starting the offseason? Right at 30 WAR in 2015, based on organizational talent. That puts them at about 78 wins, which would be the team's lowest win total since the 1992 team went 76-86.
It gets worse. Although 78 wins as a starting point doesn't sound all that bad for a team with lots of open positions and a lot of money to spend, that's not the situation for Yankees. Most of those positions are set in stone for 2015, and the Yankees are already in line to spend $166.6 million in guaranteed money on 10 players. Using Baseball Reference's estimations for the seven players in arbitration and the additional pre-arbitration players, the Yankees already stand at $188 million for that 78-win team.
2015 ZiPS WAR, pitchers
PLAYERW-LERAWAR
Masahiro Tanaka12-93.503.4
Michael Pineda5-43.761.3
Shane Greene8-94.321.3
Ivan Nova6-64.081.2
CC Sabathia7-74.371.0
David Phelps5-54.430.7
Dellin Betances4-12.452.0
Adam Warren4-33.710.4
Shawn Kelley4-33.780.3
David Huff4-64.780.2
Others----2.1
Total----13.8
For a 90-win projection, the Yankees essentially need to add 12 wins in free agency -- not 12 wins above replacement, mind you, but the more challenging task of 12 wins above and beyond what they currently have in-house.
ZiPS likes free agent Brandon McCarthy, one of the best candidates to re-sign with the team, to be solidly above-average, but he's also a pitcher who has thrown 200 innings just once and qualified for the ERA title twice. ZiPS projects 143 innings, a 1.9 WAR and about a 0.7 WAR upgrade over the innings he replaces, should he return to the team.
The computer is also very fond of free agentChase Headley and puts him at .254/.341/.429 with above-average defense, at 3.6 WAR, if he re-signs with the Yankees for 2015. That's a projected two-win upgrade over Pirela (about the same margin over Rob Refsnyder as well), assuming Martin Prado is moved over to second base.
If we assume $12 million for McCarthy and also assume Headley will be undervalued and cost $12 million, that's $24 million in 2015 for just fewer than three additional wins from our baseline of 78. Instead of a 78-win team that costs $188 million, we now have an 81-win team that costs $212 million.
With the Yankees not fielding a major league-average shortstop since 2012 and Hanley Ramirez being a free agent, that's an obvious fit. ZiPS projects a .273/.369/.448 line for Ramirez in New York, which is another 3-win upgrade over Brendan Ryan. ZiPS estimates Ramirez will cost $19.7 million next season, and that pushes the Yankees across the $230 million threshold just to get to their 2014 win total -- assuming the Yankees land Ramirez, who will have multiple suitors.
Beyond that, it's hard to see where the Yankees accumulate the wins to make them serious playoff contenders. While the team is unlikely to engage in last year's kabuki theater of trying to get under the luxury-tax threshold, they're still not expected to be serious players for Max Scherzer or Jon Lester.
Can a team that's 84 wins on paper make the playoffs? Absolutely. We just saw an AL team that was about that on paper make the World Series. That's not the way to bet, though, and to get to that point, the Yankees need to spend more money and get even older and give up more of their future (many top free agents come with the loss of a draft pick). Even if the 2015 Yankees are able to somehow, expensively patch together another year of relevance, they're right back in the same position a year from now. And with no contracts coming off the books next winter, they'll be starting next offseason with more than $200 million in guaranteed contracts for 2016.
At some point, there will be a new core group of players fueling a new, successful era in New York. But there are going to be a lot of ugly days before we see an October in which they celebrate a World Series victory.
- Dan Szymborski [ARCHIVE]
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- ESPN Insider | November 12, 2014
Historians have devoted a lot of ink and time to the study of the collapse of empires, from the fall of the Roman Empire to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Empires and dynasties in baseball are no different, with various franchises reaching their zenith at various points before settling into either a slow, inexorable decline or a supernova-esque collapse to mediocrity.
When franchises in baseball recover from their crashes, the new dynasties never look the same as the old ones. The New York Yankees are simply the most recent -- they won't be the last -- team to fall to shambles, and the worst is yet to come for the Bronx Bombers.
It's always hard to pinpoint an exact moment when an empire collapses. The retirement ofDerek Jeter, the last active player remaining from the 1998 Yankees team that won 114 games and swept the World Series, would be a convenient place to close the successful, current-era Yankees dynasty. But in actuality, the rot present on the Yankees was visible long before Jeter walked off the field for the last time. The team's 84-78 record didn't put them at the bottom of the AL, but the team was outscored for the second straight year -- something that hadn't happened to the Yankees since the early '90s.
But those early-'90s Yankees teams had advantages the current Yankees don't have. The current Yankees are a wealthy team, but there are also indications their payroll flexibility is limited, plus they're far older and have a worse farm system than the early-'90s Yankees. There's no easy fix to these problems, as those older players are mostly saddled with contracts bad enough the team probably can't even give them away.
2015 ZiPS WAR, hitters
PLAYERBA/OBP/SLGWAR
Brian McCann.249/.316/.4312.9
Mark Teixeira.236/.326/.4331.2
Jose Pirela.253/.299/.3841.3
Martin Prado.274/.321/.4002.8
Brendan Ryan.213/.276/.2850.1
Brett Gardner.260/.333/.4092.7
J. Ellsbury.281/.337/.4243.6
Carlos Beltran.254/.310/.4340.5
A. Rodriguez.230/.311/.3990.3
Reserves--1.2
Total--16.6
Where do the Yankees stand with their roster, as of today? To answer this, I ran the 2015 ZiPS projections for the Yankees (to the right) and divvied out playing time based on where things would stand if the Yankees made no moves this offseason. This represents the baseline from which the Yankees would have to improve this winter.
Where does ZiPS have the Yankees starting the offseason? Right at 30 WAR in 2015, based on organizational talent. That puts them at about 78 wins, which would be the team's lowest win total since the 1992 team went 76-86.
It gets worse. Although 78 wins as a starting point doesn't sound all that bad for a team with lots of open positions and a lot of money to spend, that's not the situation for Yankees. Most of those positions are set in stone for 2015, and the Yankees are already in line to spend $166.6 million in guaranteed money on 10 players. Using Baseball Reference's estimations for the seven players in arbitration and the additional pre-arbitration players, the Yankees already stand at $188 million for that 78-win team.
2015 ZiPS WAR, pitchers
PLAYERW-LERAWAR
Masahiro Tanaka12-93.503.4
Michael Pineda5-43.761.3
Shane Greene8-94.321.3
Ivan Nova6-64.081.2
CC Sabathia7-74.371.0
David Phelps5-54.430.7
Dellin Betances4-12.452.0
Adam Warren4-33.710.4
Shawn Kelley4-33.780.3
David Huff4-64.780.2
Others----2.1
Total----13.8
For a 90-win projection, the Yankees essentially need to add 12 wins in free agency -- not 12 wins above replacement, mind you, but the more challenging task of 12 wins above and beyond what they currently have in-house.
ZiPS likes free agent Brandon McCarthy, one of the best candidates to re-sign with the team, to be solidly above-average, but he's also a pitcher who has thrown 200 innings just once and qualified for the ERA title twice. ZiPS projects 143 innings, a 1.9 WAR and about a 0.7 WAR upgrade over the innings he replaces, should he return to the team.
The computer is also very fond of free agentChase Headley and puts him at .254/.341/.429 with above-average defense, at 3.6 WAR, if he re-signs with the Yankees for 2015. That's a projected two-win upgrade over Pirela (about the same margin over Rob Refsnyder as well), assuming Martin Prado is moved over to second base.
If we assume $12 million for McCarthy and also assume Headley will be undervalued and cost $12 million, that's $24 million in 2015 for just fewer than three additional wins from our baseline of 78. Instead of a 78-win team that costs $188 million, we now have an 81-win team that costs $212 million.
With the Yankees not fielding a major league-average shortstop since 2012 and Hanley Ramirez being a free agent, that's an obvious fit. ZiPS projects a .273/.369/.448 line for Ramirez in New York, which is another 3-win upgrade over Brendan Ryan. ZiPS estimates Ramirez will cost $19.7 million next season, and that pushes the Yankees across the $230 million threshold just to get to their 2014 win total -- assuming the Yankees land Ramirez, who will have multiple suitors.
Beyond that, it's hard to see where the Yankees accumulate the wins to make them serious playoff contenders. While the team is unlikely to engage in last year's kabuki theater of trying to get under the luxury-tax threshold, they're still not expected to be serious players for Max Scherzer or Jon Lester.
Can a team that's 84 wins on paper make the playoffs? Absolutely. We just saw an AL team that was about that on paper make the World Series. That's not the way to bet, though, and to get to that point, the Yankees need to spend more money and get even older and give up more of their future (many top free agents come with the loss of a draft pick). Even if the 2015 Yankees are able to somehow, expensively patch together another year of relevance, they're right back in the same position a year from now. And with no contracts coming off the books next winter, they'll be starting next offseason with more than $200 million in guaranteed contracts for 2016.
At some point, there will be a new core group of players fueling a new, successful era in New York. But there are going to be a lot of ugly days before we see an October in which they celebrate a World Series victory.
