With the Yankees about to start a series with their old manager (taking 2 of 3 would be a success), I wanted to review the hitting after the 4th inning of the year.
First, I will look at where we stand as a team in both pitching and offense compared to the league:
The Yankees offense is 2nd in baseball in OPS (.802) and not coincidentally 2nd in baseball in runs scored (Boston is 1st in both categories)
SB’s – SB’s should be added to the OPS number to get a better feeling of all offensive production and while the Yanks are just a little ahead at +13 total bases or an equivalent of adding 5 points of OPS, the Mets are #1 in SB production gaining 41 bases or 17 points of OPS. The Red Sox gained 9 bases and TB gained 32.
The defense/pitching:
In the AL only TB and Minnesota have allowed less runs than the Yanks (278-291-293).
Boston is 22nd overall allowing 346 runs.
BTW, based on the Pythagorean theory the Yanks are right where they should be based on runs scored and runs allowed. Interestingly, across baseball the wins and losses are correlating very well to the same theory which is for every 10 runs more you score you should have a win over .500. So if you have scored 40 runs more than you have allowed you should have 29 wins if you played 50 games (25+4). Take a look at the standings; it works surprisingly well.
Onto the individual guys:
Cano is leading the team in OPS with a 1.004. He has obviously been great all year and there is no reason to expect a much worse performance…he could easily keep it up if he can keep away form chasing bad pitches.
Some people may be surprised that Posada is 2nd on the team in OPS with a .910 OPS. Even with that bad slump, he still has walked a lot and hit for good power. He and Cervelli have about the same amount of AB’s and while Cervelli has been applauded for his big RBI’s, Posada has only 3 less RBI’s than Cervelli.
Swisher is 3rd in at an OPS of .892. Swisher has hit better than expected thus far and it appears the stance switch of having him rest the bat on his shoulders to limit the movement has worked out very well. If he can hit at .275 or above his walks and power should make him very solid.
ARod is 4th at only an .830 OPS. He has been banged up and obviously has lost some of his leg strength. Power and average are down, but he has still be productive, just not ARod productive.
Gardner is 5th, but has really been more productive than ARod so far as his SB’s have given him about an .890 OPS. His normal OPS is .823.
Granderson at .776 has been disappointing, but as I pointed out the lower OPS is caused partially because he is facing a lot more lefties than he should. His OPS against righties is .888 and while it should be closer to .940 (his previous 3 year total) at least .888 is solid. I still believe what I said preseason and that is Gardner should be in CF playing every day and Granderson should be in LF being platooned. Gardner is not great against lefties, but he is better than Granderson.
Teixeira comes in next at an OPS of .749. Obviously, he has been the most disappointing guy offensively. Tex has been better for May and June keeping an OPS of about .830 over that period, but coming from a guy with a career .912 OPS that is not good enough. As has been pointed out before, His main issue is batting from the left side because his OPS is .703 compared to .858 batting right handed. Usually Tex is equal from both sides of the plate.
Jeter comes in with a pedestrian .751 OPS. He needs to step up the 2nd half of the year as the first half was about 90 points below his career numbers. I am fine with Jeter putting up an OPS of .800 from here on out.
Cervelli – I included him just for perspective and he has an OPS of .735
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