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Projecting Current Yankee HOFers

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The hall of fame results are set to be announces tomorrow at 2pm and it got me thinking, How many current Yankees will end up making the Hall? Now even though I project the holy trinity to dominate for years lets skip the kids, including Cano, for this exercise and only look at players with 10+ years in the league.

No-Brainers
Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Alex Rodriguez
All three are first-ballot candidates even if they never played another game. Jeter will have 3,000 hits barring injury (has 2356) and with all his gold gloves and clutch play he is in. ARod might become a guy everyone starts rooting for as he starts to erase Bonds from history, he really could retire today and be a first ballot candidate. Rivera is the greatest closer ever, period.

Borderline
Mike Mussina, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada
Mussina
Now Mussina has a real good shot. His numbers are pretty close;
Top Ten Cy Young - 8 times
Top Ten Wins - 8 times
Top Ten K's - 10 times
Top Ten adjusted ERA+ - 10 times
Five Time All-Star(Seems low)
6 Gold Gloves
Career ERA 3.70
250 Career Wins
The biggest issue Mussina will have is not with the quality of his numbers but the fact that he doesn't have any of he criteria that voters love; a high peak, reaching number thresholds and postseason excellence. High Peak-Moose never won 20 games and never won the Cy Young. He was always overshadowed by Roger Clemens, Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson. Reaching Numbers - 250 wins is nice but 300 is still where automatic election begins. Postseason excellence - Moose pitched some great games in the post season but his numbers (Except Wins) are almost a carbon-copy of his regular season numbers(3.42 Era more then a K per inning). I once heard Moose referred to as Mr Almost, almost wins 20 games, almost won a series, almost pitches a perfect game and it looks like almost makes the hall.

Andy Pettitte
Andy has 200 Wins at age 35 and could become a strong candidate if he pitched well for 3-4 more years. Add in his 18-7 postseason record and he becomes a real strong maybe. However, it looks like he will pack it in sooner rather then later and end his career with 230+ wins, that won't be enough but if he has a late career surge he could make it in.

Jorge Posada
I was surprised to find myself putting Jorge on this list but he has 5 silver slugger awards in the eight years since he been a full-time player. Does the best player at a position for almost a decade deserve consideration for the hall? I think so. Jorge does only have 218 career home runs, to have a reasonable shot he needs to eclipse 300.

Most likely we are probably looking at four who end up getting in; Rivera, Jeter, ARod and one from Posada, Moose and Andy.

SI Covers

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Over the holidays I received the year-end Sports Illustrated magazine. My life being Yankee-centric, I looked over the covers for the year and there was not one Yankee cover this year. I decided to look back and find the last year that the Yankees were shut out from SI cover. I had to go back all the way to 1995. We all know what happened next.....

Here's to another 4 in 5 years..

Red Sox Perception

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Tyler Kepner has a short piece in the times on Theo Eptein. Theo is quoted as saying;

"If someone wants to compare us to the Yankees based on winning and results, that’s an incredible standard,” said Epstein, the general manager of the Boston Red Sox. “If they want to compare us to the Yankees in how we do things, that’s a little off base.”

Tyler goes on to give credit to the boy genius for all his shrewed moves and his continues investment in developing players.

"Homegrown players contributed directly to the title, including closer Jonathan Papelbon, second baseman Dustin Pedroia and pitcher Jon Lester, who won the clinching game."

I decided to take a look at the Boston team and compare the postseason(ALDS) 25 man roster to that of the Yankees and see where each player was originally acquire; drafter/signed to minor league deal, Trade or Free Agency. Here are the results;

Boston - 10 Free Agency, 9 through Trade, 6 Drafted/Signed
Yankees - 12 Drafted/Signed, 7 Free Agency, 6 through Trade.

So here is where some recent contributions from some young players creates a little bit of false perception. The truth of the matter is the 2004 Red Sox team was built almost completely on imported players and just recently have they begun to produce anything of substance. However, for Theo to imply that the Red Sox do things differently because they give young players more of a chance is just plain wrong. Also, the Yankees might have a starting rotation next year built completely with homegrown players (Wang, Pettitte, Joba, Hughes, and Kennedy) so who relies more on homegrown players again?

What the...???

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Ok, I am officially ticked off. Why is it that the Yanks have to offer not just a little bit more, but A LOT more in trades than do the Red Sox in order to get the same players? The Johan thing is a perfect example...we offer Hughes, and they want Jackson and Kennedy too. They are supposedly 'close' with a package centered around Jon Lester and Ned Lowrie. Well, seeing as how Phil Hughes has been the #1 pitching prospect in baseball for the past 24 months, Lester must be da man, huh? Let's take a look at their minor league numbers side by side -

Lester has 6 seasons minor league experience to Hughes' 4.

Age -
Lester - 1/7/84 - 24 on opening day
Hughes - 6/24/86 - 22 on opening day

W/L
Lester - 32-31 in 102 games started
Hughes - 25-8 in 53 games started

ERA
Lester - 3.33
Hughes - 2.03

K's/9
Lester - 8.31
Hughes - 10.18

BB/9
Lester - 3.78
Hughes - 2.16

HR/9
Lester - 0.56
Hughes - 0.20

Hits/9
Lester - 7.99
Hughes - 5.56

The numbers go on and on and on! Hughes is a potential ACE; Lester is a potential #3 (AT BEST!). It's not even close!

Some might then say, "Lowerie is going to be a great player, and that makes the Sox' offer as good if not better." Lowrie is a career .291 hitter with ZERO power (20 HR in 3 years). The Yanks were prepared to give up Melky Cabrera who in 3 MAJOR LEAGUE seasons has a .275 average and 15 HR. The argument that Lowrie has more upside is crap too; they are both 23 - Lowrie was born April 17, 1984, and Melky is a whopping 116 days older (Aug. 11, 1984). Melky has stats in the majors that are almost identical to Lowrie's in the minors! Assuming Lowrie hits AAA pitchers better than major leaguers (gee, ya think?), this tilts hugely in favor of the Yanks' offer as well.

So what the hell? Why is it that the Yanks have to offer SOOOOO much more than the Sox to get the same player back?

An argument could (and should!) be made that the most comparable offer the Yanks could make to the Sox' offer of Lester/Crisp/Lowrie/Masterson (23, 3.74 era in 2 minor league seasons)would be:

*Alan Horne (AA pitcher of the year, at least an equal to Lester, probably better)
*Melky (better, younger, with more upside and cheaper than Crisp)
*Alberto Gonzalez (24 yr old SS who hit .304 @ SWB last yr - a plus glove with upside, comparable to Lowrie)
*Russ Ohelndorf (a more major league ready pitcher than Materson).

When you compare offers this way it is obvious why the Yanks pulled out...why should we get so totally fleeced when the next best offer is far less than ours?

Hank - hold tight! Johan is good, but if the Twinkies really liked the Sox' offer more Santana would be in Boston already!