SPLIT DECISION
Weak-hitting righties force Yankees into desperate measures
AT THE very beginning of the Yankees’ great playoff run, they held their nose. The Yankees had acquired Jack McDowell and John Wetteland before the 1995 season and were roundly expected to win the AL East. But they couldn’t shake .500, in part because Buck Showalter was having trouble convincing the heavily booed Danny Tartabull to get on the field, especially at home — and Tartabull was performing poorly when he did play.
So the Yankees agreed to a problemforproblem trade 18 years ago this week, taking on someone with a far worse reputation than Tartabull. In fact, earlier in 1995, Ruben Sierra was called the “village idiot” by his thenOakland manager Tony La Russa because Sierra — in a San Francisco Chronicle story — had responded to comments from his general manager that he should walk more by saying he wanted to throw a pitch over the general manager’s head. That GM was Sandy Alderson.
The Yankees knew Sierra was a bad act. But they needed an offensive boost. So they made a deal with the A’s — and the devil. That Yankees team — on which Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera debuted — was one game under .500 when Sierra arrived. He drove in 44 runs in his 56 games, the Yan kees closed 3823 and won the wild card, initiating a run of 17 playoffs in 18 seasons.
Now, here in Season 19, with Rivera in his final campaign, Pettitte fading and Jeter on the disabled list, the Yankees were willing to hold their nose again for their own necessary evil — Alex Rodriguez.
On a largepicture scale, the Yankees surely wish they could make Rodriguez vanish and save as much of the roughly $97 million they still owe him via an insurance claim or MLB suspension. That may or may not happen. But in the competitive short run, the Yankees were willing to cope with the circus because even a compromised Rodriguez had to be better than what the Yankees have been using from the right side.
Remember, ARod didn’t need to be his 2007 version, simply better than the 2013 Luis Cruz, David Adams, Jayson Nix, etc. The onfield bar had never been lower for ARod.
Even in his worst season in 2012, Rodriguez had a .783 overall OPS — .924 vs. lefties. With ARod now out indefinitely with what the team is calling a Grade 1 quad strain, the Yankees are trying to land Alfonso Soriano, who like Vernon Wells is a streaky righty hitter with a low onbase percentage, but with more power. Soriano has always hit lefties well (.861 OPS). He has six homers in 118 atbats off southpaws this year, which might not sound like much. But that is as many as all the Yankees’ righty hitters have in 514 atbats against lefties.
In fact, the Yankees’ righthanded hitters went into last night collectively with a .589 OPS, which is Cruz’s career mark. Against lefties, the OPS by Yankees righties fell to .564, which would be the lowest by a team’s righties vs. southpaws since the 1947 Washington Senators.
Obviously, the Yankees’ lefty hitters have not delivered like in the recent past either. But at least they still have Robinson Cano and the potential to add Curtis Granderson in a few weeks. Soriano might be too lit tle too late, but would be a clear upgrade on the current righties if a trade could be finalized with the Cubs.
Because how could the current situation be much worse than this (statistics entering last night’s game)?
Yankees righty hitters had gone 331 atbats since their last homer — Jayson Nix on June 25. In that time, Soriano has 10 homers, tied with Miguel Cabrera for the most in the majors.
The Yankees had two homers in 743 atbats from righties — Nix and Mark Teixeira — since May 23. The last homer by a currently active Yankee was Chris Stewart on May 15. Wells hit his 10th homer earlier in that game, and had gone 172 atbats thereafter without one.
The Yankees had 24 homers by righty hitters, just six of those off lefties. Both were major league lows. Three of the six homers against lefties came off Toronto’s Mark Buehrle. Marlon Byrd has six homers off of lefties, so does Cano. Raul Ibanez has eight. Yankees righties have just one multirun homer off a southpaw — Teixeira off Cleveland’s Scott Kazmir.
As you can see, something with the Yankees just isn’t right.