Five players from my beloved Yankees.

Having been a lifelong Yankees fan, I am not one of the new bandwagon jumpers. I was a fan through the sad days of the late 80s and early 90s when Charles Hudson was our best pitcher and Mel Hall was our best hitter. I sat in the Fenway Bleachers in college with my Boston Sucks T-shirt only to watch the Yankees get swept. Those were dark days indeed.

One thing that irks me a bit is the notion that Steinbrenner has been a poor model for the game. Personal quirks aside, George is the epitome of what every fan should want his owner to be. He is willing to pump his own cash into the team just to build a winner, as he did during the 70s, and again in the 90s. The team has always taken the approach that payroll is not a cost but an investment in the on-field product, and though the decision making process hasn’t always been perfect, I am sure every fan would love to have a similarly committed owner.

This is a guy who actually paid radio networks to broadcast Yankees’ games when he took the team over, that’s how bad it was. He was never as rich as Carl Pohlad nor as evil as Jeffrey Loria; he was just absolutely committed to winning and making money.

Now that my diatribe is over, let’s get to the players:

Ian Kennedy Most people are jumping on the Phil Hughes bandwagon, and for good reason, but can Kennedy get a little love? He has simply been an excellent pitcher at every stop and has gone as far and as fast as one could have hoped. Despite his allegedly average stuff he has pitched like a power pitcher at every level. The generally pessimistic PECOTA gives him a very solid 155 IP and 4.24 ERA. That is a completely realistic scenario in my opinion, putting him on the path to stardom. He should be a nice number two starter. Despite conventional wisdom on drafting young pitchers in mixed leagues, I would have no hesitation grabbing him in the late rounds.

Johnny Damon I sure hope he has one more good season left, since I auctioned him at $13 in my high stakes league. His skill set overall is remarkably consistent; in the last five years he has had contact rates between 86%-89%, walk rates between 8%-11% and OBP between .346 and .381. He had a nice second half rebound after an nagging-type injury riddled first half. Pay the extra dollar for the consistency at least for this year.

Robinson Cano I have written about him before as have other Generals. The shape of his career so far has been far greater than anyone could have thought and the nature of his future stardom has yet to be determined. The power seems to me to be a bit of a mirage with GB rates over 50%, though most projection systems have him close to 20 HR. PECOTA’s most comparable players: Carlos Baerga, George Brett, Al Oliver, and a little further down the list at #11, Rod Carew. As we discussed in the General Speculator column, he is a dark horse for 3,000 hits.

Mariano Rivera This is another good litmus test for the fantasy GM in my opinion. Surface stats aside, 2007 was perhaps his best season in the last five years from a skills perspective. His 33% H rate was far higher than his normally established baseline, and he routinely has strand rates higher than 80% but last year saw a big dip. He still gets tons of groundballs, with a 54% GB rate. Would you rather have him or J.J. Putz, who had a 21% hit rate and 89% strand rate, both of which will regress hugely this year?

Shelly Duncan Don’t go spending double digits just yet. Shelly is
exactly the type of player the Yankees needed on their bench the last few years, when instead Torre was wasting our time with Miguel Cairo and Luis Sojo and their ilk. He would be stretched as an every day first baseman, but would be a solid platoon partner. They could do worse than keep Giambi on the bench and play Duncan and Betemit at 1B. They might even get 30 HR from those two.