Yankees' catchers in 2014

I wrote a piece about who should catch for the New York Yankees in 2014. You can find that piece here at It's About the Money. So who did I go with? Austin Romine? Brian McCann? A.J. Pierzynski, J.R Murphy? Jarrod Saltalamacchia? Click the link and find out.

The Joba Question

Joba Chamberlain lost another game last night for the Yankees. Javier Vazquez pitched brilliantly for seven innings without giving up a run and turned the ball over to Chamberlain with a 1-0 lead. These are the kinds of games that last year, the Yankees always won. This year has been an adventure. Chamberlain came in and promptly gave up four runs on a grand slam and the Yankees lost 4-1. It was Joba's fourth loss, all in relief. The big question is whether the Yankees can go as far as they want to go with Joba bridging the gap between the starter and Rivera? The answer has a surprising conditional answer.

Joba Chamberlain is facing what happens to relief pitchers who have bad outings. The lack of innings compiled allow a couple of bad outings to blow up their ERAs. Joba still has 9.6 strikeouts per nine innings. He still has an almost three to one strikeout to walk ratio. He has given up 39 hits in 36.1 innings pitched, which is too high for a high power relief pitcher. But his BABIP for this season is .369 which shows that he's unlucky so far. Last night's grand slam was the first homer he's allowed all season.

Regular readers of this blog are going to groan at this next statement because the Fan has harped on this all year. Part of Joba's problem depends on who is catching him. Yeah, there is a difference when Chamberlain pitches to Cervelli and when he pitches to Posada. When Joba pitches to Cervelli he has a 3.71 K/BB ratio. When he pitches to Posada, that figure drops to 2.33. Joba's OPS against is .649 with Cervelli and .766 with Posada. This simply continues a trend that is over two years long which the Fan has proven over and over again.

And what about Javier Vazquez's beautiful performance last night? Is it a coincidence that it occurred because Cervelli started the game behind the plate? No. Vazquez has a 3.28 ERA pitching to Cervelli and a 7.52 ERA pitching to Posada. It's not a coincidence. The Yankees have to know this stuff right? Do they have high powered statisticians in their organization? This Fan doesn't know. But either way, the evidence is overwhelming.

The Yankees will win if their pitching holds up. Plain and simple. The playoffs and World Series are all about who pitches better. The Yankees have spent millions to get the pitching they need. So why then do they throw that pitching to a catcher who doesn't do them any favors? If the Yankees would want to maximize their pitching, then put Cervelli as the number one catcher and put Posada at DH without delay. There are questions on whether Cervelli can hit long term. Doesn't matter. They need to pitch well and they will have enough offense.

Oh, and in case you think this is a new phenomenon, remember the first time Vazquez pitched for the Yankees? Remember how that didn't go so well? That was 2004 in case you've forgotten. That year, Vazquez pitched 28 times to Posada. His ERA was 5.23 in those games. He pitched five games to John Flaherty in 2004. His ERA in those games was 3.31.

So where did this post go wrong? It probably got lost because this is a subject that frosts the Fan's hide like no other because it is so obvious. If this writer can at least finish it up with Joba and tie the post up in a bow, that would be nice. Okay, here goes: Joba has had a few bad outings, but his stats are still impressive and he can still dominate. Stick with him (as there are few other options out there anyway) and at the very least, bring Cervelli in for a defensive replacement in the late innings and things will work out just fine.

A. J. Burnett Is Killing the Yankees

The arguments on whether A. J. Burnett is just flat out bad, or only bad when he pitches to Jorge Posada is a moot point. Jorge Posada is the Yankee's number one catcher. And if Burnett can't pitch to him, he is of little use to the Yankees. Watching the game on Monday night in Arizona, Burnett and Posada looked like a couple of middle high students dancing together for the first time. But why would that mean that Burnett couldn't hit a target if he had a hundred chances to do so? It's hard to fathom.

Burnett has pitched 39.2 innings to Francisco Cervelli. his ERA is 3.63 and his OPS against is .705. He's pitched to Posada for 28.2 (not including Monday night's fiasco) and his ERA with Jorge is 4.71 and his OPS against is .866. This is certainly not an isolated statistic. Overall, for the Yankee pitchers in 2010, they have an ERA of 3.54 with an OPS against of .680 when pitching to Cervelli and a 4.26 ERA with a .725 OPS against with Posada. That makes this year no different than last year when the same phenomenon occurred.

It would be interesting to get a catcher's perspective to break that down and figure out why. Does Posada call a bad game? Does he set up too late? Does he receive the ball badly and not get strike calls? The Fan hasn't seen enough games to detect a difference. But something is different when Posada catches. And that difference affects Burnett more than any other Yankee pitcher.

Whether you blame Burnett or blame Posada, the situation is untenable. The Yankees don't have enough wiggle room in a three team horse race for two spots in the playoffs to give away games when the tandem are together. Monday night's game was the fourth straight bad outing for Burnett. The last two have been with Posada and the previous two with Chad Moeller. Without throwing any of those games to Cervelli, you can't rule out if Cervelli would have made a difference.

The problem with Burnett has always seemed to revolve around two problems. Burnett can't seem to finish an inning when he gets two quick outs. And he can't seem to finish off a batter when he gets two quick strikes. Burnett's first seven runs given up against the Diamondbacks all came with two outs and all with nobody on base after those two outs.

So what do you do about this situation? Do you have to catch Cervelli every time Burnett pitches? Posada makes a lot of money and is one of the cornerstones on the Yankees. Burnett makes a lot of money and would be impossible to trade and is too expensive to put in the bullpen. In a perfect world, Posada would DH every game for the rest of the year, but you know that won't happen. It's a problem. It's a very big problem

Yankees Need to Consider Catching Change

The Boston Red Sox know when to cut the cord. Despite the spring debacle of the Nomar Garciaparra retirement party, the Red Sox are quite good at separating reality and devotion. They won a World Championship with Damon and set him free. Pedro? Gone in a heartbeat. Lowell? Thanks for the fine work. Last year, they understood that Varitek was done as a viable catcher and despite his mythical stature in Boston and despite his captaincy, they brought in Victor Martinez to take over. David Ortiz already looks bad this year. Don't expect them to let that go as far as it did last year. The Yankees are starting to learn (letting go of Damon and Matsui was the right call) but in the case of their catcher, they have a blind eye.

Look, the Fan gets it. It's Posada and Jeter and Pettitte and Rivera. The stalwarts. The legends. But when it gets to the point where it hurts the ball club, it's time to take a second look. Two games are certainly a small sample size. But we've already seen a passed ball that cost a run and possibly the game and a throwing error that cost another run in Tuesday's game. But small sample size or not, it's a pattern. His defense was staggeringly bad in the post season last year and his incessant trips to the mound are enough to drive everyone batty. The reality is that Posada is simply a liability on defense.

But he can hit and there is some intrinsic value in his leadership. But you have to prevent runs as much as you have to score them. Posada was a wash on Sunday. He homered. He missed a fastball and let a run in. That's a wash. Washes aren't good. It's time to do something creative.

The Fan will even state with understanding that it can be a gradual process. Here is what the Fan would do. Make Posada the DH against every lefty starter. He would be more effective than Nick Johnson in those situations as the DH. This way you get him out of harms way as often as a lefty starts. He still gets his hacks and hopefully his dignity stays somewhat intact. But the heck with dignity. The Red Sox don't worry about that do they? Cervelli is a better catcher. And it appears that he isn't too harmful with a bat in his hand. So a Cervelli/Posada, catcher/DH combination cannot hit any less against lefties than a Posada/Johnson combination. Plus, you get better defense behind the plate.

The future is a Montero/Cervelli catching mix. All Yankee watchers realize that. Posada's shelf life is limited and he could go all Varitek at any time. His defense already has.