What Do The Projections Tell Us?

Last Thursday, over at ESPN.com, Paul Swyden wrote an article showing that the projected infield for 2014 falls incredibly short of the infield the Yankees had in their championship season of 2009.

They're not as young good as they were five years ago.

While the 2009 foursome of Mark Teixiera, Robinson Cano, Alex Rodriguez, and Derek Jeter had a combined fWAR of 19.7, the 2014 foursome of Mark Teixeira, Brian Roberts, Kelly Johnson, and Derek Jeter are projected to have a combined fWAR of only 4.8*.
*going by the Oliver projections at Fangraphs.com

There's a good chance Swyden was just preying on the pessimism of a lot of fans, as well as playing to the Yankees haters, in order to get more views. So I decided to take a look at all of the projected starters for next year's squad, and compare them to the World Champion 2009 team. It didn't make things much better.

Here we have the starters for the 2009 Yankees, along with their fWAR for that season...

C - Posada 2.3
1B - Teixeira 4.9
2B - Cano 4
3B - Rodriguez 4
SS - Jeter 6.8
LF - Damon 3.2
CF - Cabrera 1.4
RF - Swisher 2.9
DH - Matsui 2.2
Total: 29.5

And here we have the projected starters for the 2014 Yankees, along with their projected fWAR...

C - McCann 4.1
1B - Teixeira 1.5
2B - Ryan 1.1
3B - Johnson 1.1
SS - Jeter 1.1
LF - Gardner 3.5
CF - Ellsbury 3.8
RF - Beltran 2.4
DH - Soriano 1.5
Total: 20.1

Although the catchers and outfielders made things a bit closer, you can see that the front office has some more work to do before the season starts. Also, keep in mind that I don't expect Brendan Ryan or Kelly Johnson to get as much work as their 2009 counterparts (Cano and Rodriguez). The thing is, both of those men could very well be part of a platoon along with guys like Eduardo Nunez, Brian Roberts, and Dean Anna.

Of course, hitting is only half the game. I was going to compare the top five starters for the 2009 Yankees to the projected top five starters for the 2014 Yankees, but that's pretty much impossible.

One, the 2009 Yankees didn't have a true #5 starter. CC Sabathia, Andy Pettitte, AJ Burnett, and Joba Chamberlain combined for 130 starts, while the remaining 32 starts were split up between five pitchers.

Two, after the top three (Sabathia, Kuroda, and Nova), the 2014 Yankees rotation is totally up in the air. If Masahiro Tanaka is signed (by the way, I don't have a good feeling about him being ending up in Yankee pinstripes), then things may get easier.

So the only thing we can really say is that the rotation needs the most work since the Yankees don't even have a real starting rotation in place.

In conclusion, the front office has some work left to get to the same level of their 2009 championship squad, and some players (Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira) will have to play above their expectations.

"Wondertwin powers... activate!"*

*I know they're not actually twins, but work with me here.