A Cat Has Nine Lives - A Bird Is Not A Cat

I wrote during Spring Training about the need to resist hope about Greg Bird finally becoming the player Brian Cashman has kept saying he was going to be. Greg Bird had a great spring for the New York Yankees. There was a lot of talk from manager, Aaron Boone, and Cashman about Bird making a significant contribution to the Yankees. After yet another dismal start to Bird's season and his .555 OPS along with his failure to scoop up throws at first base, we now learn that Bird has a left plantar fascia tear and is out indefinitely. I have not been this shocked at either development since the days of Nick Johnson.

And really, that is a solid knock on Nick Johnson. Yes, Johnson had injury after injury and his career was never what it should have been. Johnson's one full season for the Nationals showed what a healthy Johnson could have been like. So, yes, Nick Johnson was a constant disappointment. But at least he produced at times when he was available. Except for Greg Bird's first 178 Plate Appearances for the Yankees in 2015, Greg Bird's production has been a black hole with scorched earth.

Sometimes I feel badly about writing such a piece. Greg Bird seems like a nice guy. He seems earnest and nice and it is not his fault that his legs have been a mine field since that 2015 season. And I am quite sure he was trying his hardest to perform better on the field than he has. Unfortunately, baseball is a business and it is about what you have produced lately and what you can be expected to produce in the future. And four years of history has shown us that he has about as much chance of being a "significant contributor" at some point for the Yankees as Jacoby Ellsbury.

It is time for the Yankees to cut the cord on Greg Bird just like they did with Nick Johnson years ago. The injury is unfortunate. The body of work, though, does not lie. And his spring did not fool any of  the smart folks who put together evaluations and projections. A .710 OPS was the highest projection he received. That is not anywhere close to what you want from a first baseman, especially a first baseman that is not very good at defending that position.

Bird's injury piles on to the Yankees' physical misfortunes thus far. But his injury is the least significant. That says something right there. Ben Heller on the DL hurts more right now than Greg Bird.

So what should the Yankees do when Greg Bird returns? That might not be a question that can even be answered right now. This particular injury is a terrible injury that could possibly end his season. He is listed on the injury report as, "No timetable for recovery."

If I were running the Yankees, I would totally and unequivocally dismiss Greg Bird from any future plans. If he comes back this year, he should either stay in the minors or be traded. Or he could be released. In some ways, Greg Bird has held first base hostage for the Yankees since Mark Teixeira's retirement and that should end immediately.

For the Yankees, it is an addiction that should be quit cold turkey. They have held onto, hoped and wrung hands that Greg Bird would take his sweet swing and become a star with the Yankees. It is not going to happen. Enough is enough and it is time to move on. I am still not convinced that Luke Voit is the answer. We will see how his season goes. Come on down, Mike Ford, whatcha got?

Personally, this Greg Bird addiction led against looking at a guy like Mike Moustakas, who has been killing the ball for the Brewers. For basically chump change, Moustakas could have stepped in at third when Miguel Andujar went down or he could have played first. Maybe Moustakas was not the answer. But something creative has to be done about the future of first base for the Yankees. Heck, Giancarlo Stanton would be a big target over there. I still think Stanton is a better player when he is not the designated hitter.

Nice guy or no, earnest or not, a Bird is not a cat. There is not nine lives and Greg Bird's Yankee lives are burned up. It is time to move on or at least let him try to move on someplace else.

The Yankees Best Laid Schemes...Go Awry

The title of this series of thoughts paraphrases the great poet, Robert Burns, whose words of 1785 still ring true today. Yankee fans had salivating thoughts coming into this season. The team was loaded with talent. The lineup was stacked. The pitching was led by an ace and a free agent brought in with the stuff of an ace. The rest of the rotation seemed solid. Many pundits and predictors positioned the Yankees as the team to beat. This was going to be fun! Wee! But then it started crumbling.

And it started fast. First there was the pitching ace, Luis Severino, who felt something pop in his shoulder before his first spring start. Then there was Aaron Hicks with a funky back. We should have all seen that coming. Hicks has had problems staying on the field his entire career. Is he another Jacoby Ellsbury?

Then the team lost Dellin Betances and that boom-boom-boom-boom bullpen lost a boom. CC Sabathia was always going to be a late start, so that was no surprise. Then the season started and the losses have mounted. Giancarlo Stanton and Miguel Andujar went on the disabled list on the same day! The latter might be looking at a season-ending surgery.

Combine it with the TJ surgery for Didi Gregorius and top-pitching prospect, Jordan Montgomery, and the Yankees currently have nine players on the disabled list. And no, I will never call it the Injured List. It has been the Disabled List for generations and Disabled List is what I will write. Sheesh.

So here we are four games into the season and a lot of the wind has already left the sails. One wonders about training in Florida in the warmth and then having to play in the bitter cold of New York City. Would Stanton and Andujar's injuries happen if this scenario had not happened? It is hard playing baseball in the cold. It is akin to playing golf in the cold. The swing is not free and easy. You are wearing layers instead of having free motion. Maybe the season IS too long and expecting teams to play in 36 degree weather is asking too much.

All these players could return and play a significant factor this season. But what if some do not? What if Severino never gets right without surgery? What if Andujar needs surgery and needs to miss the season? Nobody is going to weep for the Yankees or the team's fans. But, man, this is not how we all envisioned it.

If you look back to the most recent championship seasons for the Yankees (2009, 2000, 1999, 1998), you see teams with limited injury situations. Particularly with the starting pitching, the Yankees received 29 or more starts from at least four of its starters in every one of those seasons. The most a position player was lost to the team was typically for 20-25 games. But there were no major losses of talent that drained its fans of all color.

Did you watch the game last night? When Gleyber Torres came up flexing his thumb after whiffing on Gary Sanchez's throw, did you not expect the worse? I know I did. How much do you want to bet that he will be "resting" in tonight's game? By the way, that should have been his error and not Sanchez's. The throw was there and the runner should have been out. Sanchez has made some errant throws but that was not one of them and Sanchez looks MUCH improved on blocking balls in the dirt.

Well...our dreams of a dream season with a homer record and All-Stars at nearly every position have pretty much been dampened. But this team is not done. The Red Sox look considerably weaker as a team and Tampa Bay is not this good. If a couple of the replacements for injured players play well, the team can get through this early part of the season. It is too early to lose all hope.

It is just sad when things do not work out as hoped and players do not get the chance to shine as expected. Warm weather will come and some of the wounded will come staggering back. We will all just have to see how it goes.

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I should not be as negative about Greg Bird as I am. So I apologize right up front. But I remember watching the first game against the Tigers and Brett Gardner was on first and Bird was at the plate. Gardner stole second and I remember thinking, "That was a mistake," because it put Gardner in scoring position with Bird at the plate. It also freed the pitcher from really having to worry about what Gardner was going to do. The predictable happened and Bird looked awful striking out to end the inning.  Bird is simply useless with runners in scoring position. Just a small observation in three hours of baseball action.

The over/under of PECOTA's top 15 players

I love projections. I fully understand that they are simply computer-generated predictors based on past performance and current playing factors. I also fully understand that they are somewhat helpful to fantasy baseball players. But projections are not perfect and never have been.

I do not have a favorite projection system. I may like ZiPs a little more because I follow the guy on Twitter and he is personable. But they all have their place and some are more conservative than others.

PECOTA is Baseball Prospectus' proprietary system and it tends to be conservative. I found their top fifteen position player projections very interesting. As such, I wanted to spend some time with these fifteen players and give you an over/under on whether PECOTA was too conservative or not. Too conservative is an over vote. Not conservative enough is an under vote. I will give you the player, the projected triple slash line, WAR(P) and then a justification of over or under. Here we go.

15 - Evan Longoria - .261/.350/.480  4.3 WARP: This is very conservative, so over. I don't have too much of a problem with the triple slash line as they are near to what Longoria did last year. But I consider Longoria's season a year ago to be disappointing on the offensive side. I think he will be better. And his fielding puts him over six WAR easily.

14 - Joe Mauer - .315/.402/.456  4.4 WARP: These numbers are all under his career averages and he beat each of them last year. Playing first base will free him up physically and as I wrote a few days ago, I think that will lead to bigger offensive numbers and make up for his loss of positional value by moving to the dead zone of first base. Over.

13 - Matt Kemp - .282/.344/.486  4.5 WARP: PECOTA must be still smoking whatever Kemp was having back in 2011. Of all the systems I have looked at, this is the most optimistic version of Matt Kemp of all of them. Unless proven otherwise, the 2011 Matt Kemp is gone for good in a haze of shoulder troubles. Under.

10 - Prince Fielder - .285/.393/.518  4.7 WARP: All the systems are conservative on Fielder, which is odd considering that he is moving from one of the toughest stadiums on hitters to one of the best. PECOTA is more optimistic than all the others for the big first baseman but still only projects him to hit 33 homers. Based on an albeit small sample size, I think he will hit 20 homers at home and 13 on the road should be a piece of cake. All Fielder has to do is get back to where he was in 2012 to beat this projection. Over.

10 - Andrew McCutchen - .278/.358/.465  4.7 WARP: This is probably the easiest one of the bunch. McCutchen has beaten these numbers in each of the last two seasons. Barring injury (knocking wood), he should breeze by these numbers. My only concern is if the Pirates fall back to a non-contention team. Over.

10 - Buster Posey - .294/.367/.466  4.7 WARP: Projecting a catcher is always problematic because so much depends on dings and dents accumulated over the season. All you have to do is look at the wild swing of Posey's fWAR numbers over the last four seasons to see what I mean: 3.9, 1.7, 7.7 and 4.8. PECOTA pegs Posey right around his numbers for last year, which I considered a bit of a down year for him. If he bounces back at all to somewhat near what he did in 2012, he will blow past these numbers. But again, for a catcher, this is a crap shoot at best. Over.

7 - Robinson Cano - .293/.343/.490  4.9 WARP: PECOTA is really expecting Safeco Field and the lack of protection in the lineup to mess with Cano. But let's look at it this way: In forty games played at that field, Cano has a .837 OPS, which is four points higher than this projection. All Cano has to do to blow away this projection is to do better on the road. Cano has batted over .300 in six of his last seven seasons including the last five in a row. His OBP has been 35 to 40 points higher than this for the last two seasons. And he has been over .500 slugging for five straight seasons. Yeah, Safeco will dampen him a bit, but come on. Over.

7 - Adrian Gonzalez - .286/.366/.485  4.9 WARP: Perhaps I have to admit my bias here. I really can't stand Adrian Gonzalez. There is no rhyme or reason for my antipathy, but there is. Even so, this is overly optimistic. Gonzalez's fWAR figures the last two seasons were 3.3 and 2.8. That is hardly close to 4.9. PECOTA has him hitting 28 homers. Not a chance. Under. But I am biased.

7 - Giancarlo Stanton - .267/.345/.546  4.9 WARP: Every projection system expects Stanton to have a monster season. The average projection for him is 5 WAR and 35 homers or more PECOTA has him at 40 homers. There are two things that concern me. First, pitchers have stopped pitching to him, second he strikes out too much and lastly, he cannot stay on the field for 150 games. I see only a chance for one of those three things to change. Under.

6 - Mike Trout - .288/.354/.467   5.2 WARP: Are you kidding me? Over. Easily. The Angels are going to have a better year and that can only help Trout. Over. Over. Over.

5 - Troy Tulowitzki - .298/.369/.524   5.4 WARP: One of these years, Tulowitzki is going to play 150 games or more. And if he does, these numbers will look puny. He is the best overall shortstop in the game, who unfortunately, cannot seem to get a full season in. I am going out on a limb here and saying that this is the year. Over.

3 - Miguel Cabrera - .313/.392/.560  5.7 WARP: Duh. Over. He will miss Prince Fielder, but the guy has murdered these numbers for years now.

3 - Ryan Braun - .302/.364/.544  5.7 WARP: Would you really say Ryan Braun in the same breath as Miguel Cabrera? No, but he has put up these kinds of numbers regularly. But how will he react after last year's fiasco? What will it be like with all that pressure to show he is that good without the drugs? I think this is 50/50. But I'm going under.

2 - Joey Votto - .299/.400/.531  5.9 WARP: The final OPS number is similar to what Votto put up last year. His on-base percentage was much higher, but his slugging was lower. I really don't understand the knock on him that Reds fans have of the guy. He is a great hitter. All that said, last year seemed like a down year for him when he did put the bat on the ball, though his BABIP was right in range with his career average. I don't know. The guy seems like a lock to get at least 5.9 WARP, but I am not real sold on the lineup around him. Under.

1 - Albert Pujols - .296/.382/.548  6.9 WARP: Surprise! I bet you wouldn't guess this in a million years. Not only does PECOTA project Pujols as the top WARP guy in baseball, but by a win! Wow. Pujols hasn't had a WAR this high since 2010. He is older. He is not the guy anymore. The guy now is Cabrera. Pujols isn't even the best player on his team. That would be Mike Trout. But...what if his struggles the last three years were because of his legs? What if that was fixed now and he has his base back under him. The guy was the superstar of superstars. He was better than Cabrera during his peak. What if, for one magical season, we see the Albert Pujols of old with a monster year? It could happen. Will it? I would not bet real money on it. But it is in the realm of possibility. Just ask the computer. Well...ask PECOTA's computer as no other projection system has him close to these numbers.

Giancarlo Stanton is the old man of the Marlins' outfield

Giancarlo Stanton has been one of the youngest players in baseball for so long that it seems surreal that he could be the old man of the Marlins' outfield this coming season. Heading into his age 24 season, Stanton looks to be joined by young guys, Marcell Ozuna and Christian Yelich, who both had a successful first taste of the Majors in 2013. Despite the youthful nature of Stanton and his outfield mates, this could actually work out quite well for the Marlins.

Let's start out with Stanton himself. Despite the fact that he has hit 117 homers before he turned 24 years old and despite the tape measure of many of those homers, he has still been a bit of a disappointment. He has not been able to stay on the field the last two years and his strikeout rate is one of the highest in baseball. Plus, his fielding seemed also to stumble in 2013. His career has had superstar written all over it, but the reality has been less than so.

But you have to consider the age as well. He could easily come into his own and be the kind of player we have expected him to be. There were some positives in 2013 in what was otherwise a disappointing season. While he still struck out 140 times, his plate discipline improved and his swinging strike rate (though still enormous) went down. There seemed to be a little more selectivity in what he was swinging at in 2013.

Projection systems still love the guy. The Oliver projections have him averaging six WAR per season for the next five seasons with plenty of power and despite the continued strikeout rate. I still think he can be even better if he can stay on the field, plays better on the road and improves on his strikeout rate. I still see a superstar there.

And I see fun things for Christian Yelich too. He did quite well in his first 62 games in the Major Leagues. The former first round draft pick for the Marlins in the 2010 draft held his own despite being only 21 years old in 2013.

What I liked best about his debut was that he held onto his plate discipline from the minors to the big show. He walked over eleven percent of the time and finished with an on-base percentage of .370 for the Marlins. His ISO and slugging percentage did not show what he did in the minors, but that will come.

I also loved that he stole ten bases for the Marlins without once getting caught. Yelich held his own in the outfield and did not make an error in 2013. The fielding numbers show that he is much better in center field than in left and center is where he should be stationed from now on. His one fielding flaw is that he does not have much of an arm.

The weakest link of the three to me is Marcell Ozuna. I like his play in the outfield and it will be a tough decision whether to use him in center or left with Yelich. But his offensive game leaves me a bit concerned.

Ozuna showed no plate discipline in his 70 games in the Majors. He swung at 35.5% of pitches out of the strike zone. And while that is not quite in Josh Hamilton territory, it is a high rate. Combine that with his swing and miss rate of over 12% and that is a problem. He only batted .265 despite a BABIP of over .320 and that concerns me as well. A major league outfielder with little power and a .303 on-base percentage is a problem.

Ozuna showed some occasional power in the minors and that would be welcome if that reappeared for the Marlins. He was an .820 OPS guy in the minors despite being so young. If he can improve his on-base percentage and have a little of that power show up, then he could be useful, but I am not that optimistic on him. The projection systems are not either. So we will have to see what happens.

Not all the youngsters the Marlins throw at the Major League wall are going to stick. It is a risky strategy, but I like it too. Why not find out what young players can do rather than paying fringe veteran players a million or two to do the same thing.

But it is strange that Giancarlo Stanton has become the old man of the Marlins' outfield at the age of 24. It has the potential toe be a very good outfield. Or it could fall apart. Either way, it will be interesting to see how it all works out for the Marlins.