To Ibanez’s credit, however, he surprised everyone with some genuinely solid defensive play. He wasn’t replacing Gardner, by any means, and at 40 years old he doesn’t have the speed to run down scorchers in the gap, but considering the circumstances he acquitted himself well in left field, which was hugely beneficial as it allowed for both Alex Rodriguez and Eric Chavez to be regular fixtures in the lineup against right-handed starters. What’s more, he seemingly developed a knack for being the one guy on the team who could come up with the big hit during the spring, something that definitely ingratiated him with fans, coaches, and media personnel. If nothing else, he would go down as the official “professional hitter” for the 2012 Yankees.
The problem now, however, is that that early season success might be helping Ibanez’s reputation out well past its expiration date. While the struggles of guys like Russell Martin, Curtis Granderson, and Robinson Cano have drawn plenty of attention, the fact that Ibanez has more or less cratered at the plate in the last month seems to have gotten much less notice from everyone. How bad has it gotten? After last night’s game, Ibanez owns a slash line of .230/.297/.430, which translates to a wRC+ of just 91. And that looks positively attractive compared to his wRC+ in the month of August, a ghastly low 69! He’s also hit just one home run since the trade deadline passed, though he does have two triples in that time span, oddly enough. In his defense, he does have a wRC+ of 101 against right-handed pitchers, which is slightly above league average, but then, you’d kind of like to see a level of production that’s at least a bit better than average from a guy whose only real responsibility is to hit opposite hand pitching. All in all, as I said to Rob Abruzzese of Bronx Baseball Daily during last night’s game, Ibanez seems like the most overpraised Yankee in recent memory.
That’s not to say that I’m trying to completely trash the guy or anything; he really was a productive member of the lineup early on in the season, and as I said earlier, his surprisingly decent work in the outfield was a tremendously important part of helping the team win in the spring and early summer. But the Yankees’ front office really made a big mistake in counting on him (and Andruw Jones, for that matter) to continue to be an everyday part of the lineup once they knew that Gardner wouldn’t be back this season, and really should have looked for someone much better than Ichiro Suzuki to come in and fill the hole in the outfield. If this season does wind up ending in disaster for the pinstripers, that bit of inaction is as good a place as any to begin trying to explain how it came to pass.
It's gotten to the point where I dread two-thirds of this line up when it comes to the plate. Ibanez is front and center.
Exactly. My eyes told me Ibanez hadn't been doing much – nice to know that the stats back me up on this. So – you're good with Jeter and Swisher at the plate – Who's the third one?
Right now, this lineup can't be striking fear into anyone's heart. (Just occurred to me – I'll bet Freddy could hold these guys to 2 runs.)
double-wow – just saw these numbers: Ibanez is hitting .162 in his past 24 games and Jones has a whopping .114 in his 14 games the past four weeks. And here folks were calling out Martin for being a black hole, offensively.
Who's your Daddy now?
Mea Culpa. Funny game, baseball….
Bingo. Chris Dickerson great or not deserved ti start over the geriatric outfielders. Clueless Joe rode ibanez into the ground and continues to use Jones to torture Yankee fans everywhere. This is what happens to poorly managed old age teams.
Just proves the age-old adage: "You never get a second chance to make a first impression." Ibanez is milking the good will from his solid start the same way Russell Martin milked last April for the past year and a half.
I was never confident when they were 10 up. This is an old team, with a lot of poor batting averages that used the HR to cover it up. Pitching was always suspect going into the season where 3 out of 5 starters were over 35. I didn't think they would survive in the playoffs. Now they may not make it to the playoffs. Cashman used too much spit and glue and the team is coming apart when compared to younger teams on the rise such as O's and Rays.
Paging Shane Spencer…Paging Shane Spencer. This team needs a September call-up to make an impact desperately…
"But the Yankees’ front office really made a big mistake in counting on him (and Andruw Jones, for that matter) to continue to be an everyday part of the lineup once they knew that Gardner wouldn’t be back this season, and really should have looked for someone much better than Ichiro Suzuki to come in and fill the hole in the outfield. If this season does wind up ending in disaster for the pinstripers, that bit of inaction is as good a place as any to begin trying to explain how it came to pass."
I don't see the link between the poor recent play of Ibanez and the Ichiro trade. Ichiro was brought in to replace Gardner.
It's fine if you want to criticize the front office for picking Ibanez as the part-time DH before the season. Although many of the big-name alternatives like Damon and Matsui haven't done much to discredit that choice.
It's fine to criticize the Ichiro trade as not being enough of an upgrade. Although at the time he was essentially the 9th man of a lineup that was supposed to include AROD and Teixeira.
At that time they weren't counting on Ibanez & Jones to be anything more than part-time DH/bench guys, which is a role that they should be fine to fill on a roster that should be much deeper than it has been.
On the broader point, I do agree that Ibanez has been terrible lately and has largely escaped scrutiny. I think part of that though is that he ideally is not a major cog on this team.
In Ibanez's defense, he does look like he's actually trying out there. He hustles to balls whenever he's in the outfield and as far as I can tell he's one of the ridiculously few players on this team that will ALWAYS bust his a$$ to first on a grounder. I do agree that he is overrated though, if only because of his over-performance for the first couple weeks/months of the season.
I was going to write a lot more but there are just way too many things bothering me about this team right now so I will instead summarize a few of them with bullet points:
-Just release Andruw Jones already
-Bench Cano until he decides he wants to stop playing like an entitled jabroni
-Keep Dickerson in the starting lineup
-Give Cervelli a few starts he seems to have a knack for firing the team up
-It would be nice to see management invest in a quality player at the trade deadline instead of just expiring contracts/loaners/band-aids
-Is Russell Martin ever going to catch a break? Admittedly I know very little about the advanced stats but I checked his out on baseball-reference and his peripherals and ratios didn't seem all that different from (and in some cases were better than) his 2007 numbers when he hit .293/.374/.469. I could very easily be wrong here but it seems like he's having a historically unlucky year at the plate
Russell's batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is only .211. The norm in baseball is about .295. So yeah, it is a very unlucky season for him.
Let's hear it for SSS – for the last week, exactly three Yankees were hitting over .300 – Nunez, Nix, and MARTIN!
otoh, Chavez, Jeter, Granderson, Suzuki, and Ibanez are all nicely under .200, with Swisher and Jones at .100(!) or less.
I think that explains all of our recent victories. It ain't ALL Freddy's fault.
There's far more wrong with Russell Martin's hitting than bad luck. You can't simply attribute a low BABIP to being unlucky.
Well, I assume you have all the bat speed data and how fast the ball came off of Martin's bat all season. What I see, without that data, is nearly the exact line drive percentage, ground ball percentage and fly ball percentage as his more successful seasons and yet less success.
No, I don't have any of that data but by the eyeball test Martin was making weak (or no) contact for a good portion of the first part of the season. He's done better lately, yes and I'm sure he's had his share of bad luck but come on – it's just not credible that he's been the victim of well hit balls going straight at fielders all year long. Yes, he may have the same LD and GB percentages but from what I've read there's not a little subjectivity in those numbers and even if I were, for argument's sake, to concede that those data are 100% accurate those numbers don't say anything about the quality of the GB and LD – there are such things as humpbacked line drives and weak ground balls you know.
Why isn't it credible that Martin has been the victim of bad luck all season long? Is it any less credible than the fact that tonight's opponent has been the beneficiary of exceptional good luck over the course of the season? Haven't you ever seen someone go on a heater at a craps table and just fire out point after point? It happens. All he can do is continue to hit the ball hard (which he has done). As an example, consider that a better right fielder probably runs a better route and catches his 2-run double last night. Granted, it would still be a sacrifice fly, but not a hit. He's scorched a lot of balls this year right at people. Anyone with his LD% and a .211 BABiP has been really unlucky.
Martin, Granderson, Ibanez, Jones…….four guys who can't even hit .250! That is sad when 3 out of these four appear in the line-up every night! Add in the 20+ million a year crew of Tex and A-rod who can't hit .275 no less what their paydays warrant and you get a team that needs stellar pitching to win. Unfortunately they don't have a $300 million dollar budget to get the pitching this offense would require to be successful against good teams.
Jeter and Cano are the only quality hitters on this team and two guys can't do it by themselves……..
Ibanez has always been a lazy/easy answer for the Yankees as DH. That won't change but luckily he has a short deal. Likewise Jones is simply Chili Davis for this era – an aging guy who can still hit it over the fence. He didn't give the lineup any depth or shave off any years. I've complained about Ibanez, Martin and Granderson enough. Fact is that Ibanez is giving more than the team could have expected from him including his fielding. Martin is another story. Cashman over valued his performance in 2011 and hopefully we have someone in the minors who can be groomed as a catcher. Ironic that Posada was essentially pushed out after 2011 and his stats at the end of the season were pretty comparable to Martin's right now except Posada's average was about 40 points higher than Martin's and he was a switch hitter. And we can talk about defense but Posada managed to do OK during a pretty impressive championship run with catching pitchers.