Bleacher Creature Feature

#13: Switching Soriano, and Other Musings

25 May 2002

Sorry 'bout that, folks -- been horribly busy, and didn't even have the chance to write up last Sunday's game. I didn't keep score, as we arrived late (we had to drive a friend to the airport in the morning), but we got to see most of Clemens' virtuoso performance.

It was also, frankly, a relief to be back in the bleachers. As nice as the Loge section was it was good to be home, with the insults to the opposing right fielder (Dustan Mohr, occasionally referred to as "Mohr-on"; to his credit, he blew us a kiss at one point during the game), Milton leading the cowbell chant, and, best of all, a complete lack of twits. Tom wasn't present, which led to some confusion the first time the tom-drum-thump was played, but we persevered.

As of this writing, the Yanks have lost two of three to the Evil Red Sox, leaving them an uneven two games back (Boston has played four fewer games; the teams have equal numbers of wins, but Boston has four fewer losses), with a chance to come out of Fenway with a split on tomorrow night's ESPN game. This will be fun to watch for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that we can watch it, since it's on ESPN. (Frustratingly, we were out celebrating good friends' wedding anniversary on Friday, so we missed most of the game on Channel 2, though we did catch the heartbreaking ending.)

What's encouraging is that the Red Sox have been at the top of their game all year. The Yankees haven't, and they're only two games back. Of course, they're getting there. Suddenly Jason Giambi is at .302/.396/.547, is in the top ten in the league in homers, and in the top twenty in RBI -- a far cry from the futility of April. As if by magic, Bernie Williams is at .290/.396/.481, and is fourth in the league in walks -- let's hear it for cortisone. Despite being presently mired in a 2-24 slump (plus two walks), Jorge Posada remains brilliant, at .284/.387/.531, and has a staggering 1.001 OPS for the month of May even with his tailspin of the past six games. Ditto Alfonso Soriano, who presently leads the league in total bases, hits, and doubles.

Speaking of Soriano, Charlie Steiner mentioned something on a recent radio broadcast that I think is worth investigating. He was thinking that the Yankees might be better off flipping Soriano and Bernie in the lineup, with Bernie leading off and Soriano batting third. Unsurprisingly, John Sterling poo-poohed the idea, but one doesn't look to Sterling for baseball wisdom. And honestly, I think this is a better allocation of resources.

Look, Soriano superficially seems like a leadoff hitter because a) he's a middle infielder, b) he's fast, and c) he's a good base stealer. But those aren't his best qualities -- his best qualities are that he can hit a ton, he drives the ball, he gets lots of extra-base hits. Hell, he's presently tied for the team lead in home runs. He's pretty much everything you'd want in a #3 hitter, with the added bonus of speed.

The most important quality in a leadoff hitter is the one aspect of Soriano's offensive game that's comparatively weak: on-base percentage. His OBP is only 23 points higher than his BA, mostly by dint of his only drawing seven walks. He's eighth on the team in OBP. Shane Spencer, hardly the poster boy for plate discipline, has 25 points of OBP on Soriano, f'cryin' out loud.

Soriano's batting style is such that he's of most use in a position where he'll come up with runners on base, because he's the type of hitter who'll drive them in, and should also bat ahead of guys like Jason Giambi, Posada, and Robin Ventura who will, in turn, drive him in. By hitting him leadoff, he's guaranteed to come up at least once a game with nobody on base, which is a waste, especially with his home run power.

Bernie, on the other hand, is presently tied for the team lead in OBP with Posada and John Vander Wal. Yes, he's a terrible base stealer (he proved that rather handily Thursday night in an ill-fated stolen base attempt late in the game), but stolen bases are, frankly, an overrated stat, and a minimal component of the game as it's played in 2002 (especially true of the Yankees, who have been scoring most of their runs on big hits).

Joe Torre has an unfortunate tendency to put people in the roles that they look on the surface like they should occupy rather than where they might do the most good. It's taken him maddeningly long to realize that Spencer and Vander Wal are an ideal platoon (and even when they were playing superbly as a tandem, he was whining that they weren't hitting a lot of home runs). This is one case where conventional wisdom needs to go out the window. Soriano needs to be in a position where he'll come up with people on base. The kid's a killer, put him where he can do the most damage.

I'd like once again sing the praises of the hard-luck Harry of the Yankees pitching staff, Ted Lilly, who is stuck with a 1-4 record, despite having a 4-1 K/BB ratio, a 2.93 ERA, and an opponent's BA of .181. The poor kid has been stuck with atrocious luck, the most recent being put up against Pedro Martinez when the latter was very much on his game.

While cleaning out my office today, I came across my scorecard from Lilly's pitching debut on 22 April 2001. Here's Lilly's pitching line from that game (for which he got a no-decision; the Yanks won 4-3, a come-from-behind victory achieved with ninth-inning solo home runs by Paul O'Neill and David Justice off Derek Lowe):

6.2 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 10 K, 114 PT

That's a pretty damn good debut against a team that was, if memory serves, in first place at the time.

(It's also amusing to look at the lineups -- Dante Bichette, Carl Everett, and Scott Grebeck all starting for the BoSox, Chuck Knoblauch, O'Neill, Justice, Tino Martinez, and Scott Brosius all starting for the Yanks.)

Finally, David Wells had another crap outing. His back's acting up again, and Wells has also only done well this year against patsies -- every time he's faced a halfway decent (or better) team, he's been creamed. The Yanks called up Mike Thurman. Sterling Hitchcock has done little to justify his bloated two-year contract (17 hits in 12.1 innings, a 5.84 ERA, only not the worst on the team by dint of Jay Tessmer and Adrian Hernandez), so this is necessary. With El Duque and Andy Pettitte on the DL, the Yankees need Thurman to step up before somebody does something stupid like panic and trade away the henhouse for an overrated starter. We shall see. (Of course, if Thurman's as dreadful as El Duquecito was in his pasting at the hands of the Blue Jays on Wednesday, panicking may be indicated.)

NEXT: T.R.'s Battle for San Win Hill

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