The Buhner.com Blog

I started to post this over on the OTBL boards, but it got bloggy enough to pull it over here, since it’s bound to ramble. In discussion over the Yankees winning the bidding for Japanese pitcher Kei Igawa there was a reference to the Yanks not having any excuse for the lack of depth in their bullpen, since they have the resources to be able to offer more money to relievers and sign the best ones, worrying about roles later.

It’s not as easy as that, as my ramble would end up showing. But it allowed me to dig a little deeper into the Yankees slash and burn style of player acquisition that ended up throwing a huge monkey wrench into the Yankee dynasty and nearly caused Brian Cashman to walk away from the team twice, and possibly explaining why Joe Torre sticking around for another season wasn’t on my wish list.

The bullpen is such a complete crapshoot in that there are few day in-day out relievers who are worth going after and spending good money on. A “good bullpen” pretty much comes down to a combination of good scouting and good management. Relief pitchers are probably the most strongly affected players by false statistics (at least on the most obvious levels - wins, ERA, etc) due to the circumstances they’re used in and who pitches before and after them. Good management can make use of their bullpen’s strengths and weaknesses to make the group as a whole better than its parts. Scouting can add the pieces of the bullpen necessary for that cohesive unit that wouldn’t be more obviously in demand due to statistics or past use.

Unfortunately (surprise! Torre bashing!) the Yankees don’t have a manager who knows how to use his bullpen outside of the “call Mariano” button. In the past, the Yanks had a closer-quality setup reliever that the team could call on in the 7th and 8th inning (Tom Gordon, Mike Stanton, Jeff Nelson, even Mariano in the Wetteland days) that they paid decent money to in order to give themselves a “good bullpen”. After all, if a reliever is coming in during the sixth inning or earlier, it’s not a successful start from the starter and shouldn’t be expected on a regular enough basis to need to overspend on a 5th-6th inning reliever.

It’s not like the Yanks haven’t overspent in the past to try to replicate the Gordon/Nelson/Stanton experience (see Karsay, Steve; Farnsworth, Kyle; Quantrill, Paul; Dotel, Octavio) - it’s just that they end up looking too shallow at statistics (especially in the case of Quantrill, whose numbers were greatly helped by playing in LA) and not necessarily at the pitcher or if he fits in with the needs of the bullpen.

Part of it definately lies within Torre’s fickle nature regarding his favorites, and Steinbrenner’s quick trigger to go with whatever the back page is asking for. Stereotypical Yankee fans are quick to get on Steinbrenner’s case regarding his style, but essentually he’s just a big generic Yankee fan, cheering on the new guy one minute and wanting his head the next. In Steinbrenner’s case though, he can actually do it. Players essentually auditioned for the Yankees after they signed their contracts. If they failed, they were gone - just as long as someone was willing to take them.

This was especially the case with the bullpen. The Yanks had no problem going out and signing free agents (or making trades) to pick up pieces for the bullpen they felt they needed. But between Steinbrenner and Torre, a rough stretch meant death to a player - either Torre put you in the back of the bullpen never to be used unless the run difference in the game was larger than 5, or Steinbrenner was booking your flight for the first trip to San Diego or LA. Take, for example, the case of Jay Witasick (a buhner.com favorite). Witasick, a failed starter going into the 2001 season, made the switch to the bullpen and was having a great year for the Padres, striking out 53 in 38 2/3 innings and posting a 1.86 ERA when the Yankees dealt uber-prospect D’Angelo Jimenez for him. The move was ripped by the Yankee purists who saw the production out of fellow (and lower ranked) prospect Alfonso Soriano and envisioned Jimenez (who nearly died in a car accident during the prior offseason, allowing Soriano to leapfrog him and get the opportunity) manning third base and solidifying a young, home-grown infield of Soriano, Jimenez, and Derek Jeter. But the Yankees were in a pennant race, dammit, and Witasick was the second best reliever available, and their number one choice, Ugueth Urbina, didn’t pass a team physical. Urbina, coming off of elbow surgery the previous year, was considered too much of a risk although there may have been some bitterness on the Yankees side as Brandon Knight (whom was being packaged with Jimenez) also failed a physical. Urbina would remain with the Expos until the trade deadline, where he’d be dealt to the rival Red Sox, posting a 2.25 ERA and 32 strikeouts in 20 innings versus just three walks. Jimenez would spend spend parts of two seasons with the Padres before being traded to the White Sox and Reds (who dumped him), then signing on with Texas (DFA in June) and Oakland (where he’s not welcome back after a poor playoff performance). At 29, he’ll be looking for a NRI this season at best.

But I digress. Witasick wasn’t a bad option. As I mentioned before, he was pitching lights out for the Padres and at 28 was an acceptable option for long-term service. But alas, Jay Witasick is not Mariano Rivera. He isn’t Mike Stanton. He was some guy Joe Torre hadn’t heard of, and he wasn’t going to call on him in too many critical situations. Why? Could it have been his debut?

On June 25th, Jay Witasick made his first Yankees appearance in a game against the Cleveland Indians. In front of the home crowd and watching as starter Randy Keisler starts to let a 6 run lead disappear, Joe Torre turned to his new toy in Witasick and let him play, giving him runners on second and third and Marty Cordova at the plate, with the Indians already putting two runs on the board. Cordova would take Witasick’s first pitch and bloop it for a single, driving in another run. After striking out Jim Thome, Witasick would give up three more hits before striking out Ellis Burks to get the second out. Tied now at 6, he’d walk Roberto Alomar to load the bases before getting Juan Gonzalez to put the ball on the ground, but a Scott Brosius error made it 7-6 Indians. Witasick struck out Travis Fryman to end the threat, but the damage was already done - not just to the game (which Witasick would end up winning after the Yanks scored twice in the bottom of the seventh after a 1-2-3 7th from Witasick), but to Witasick’s image in Torre’s eyes.

Witasick would end up mainly being used in garbage games after that, with the occasional use in closer situations if one of the more trusted pitchers was ready to explode (a June 29th appearance in the 8th with a runner on third was to relieve Mike Stanton, who had come on in the 7th and went too long, especially after being two days removed from a stretch of five straight appearances). From the time of his debut to the time the Yanks clinched the AL East in 2001 (28 appearances), Jay Witasick was brought into a critical situation (a game where the pitcher’s team is winning but by less than three runs) eight times. In those eight games, the Yankees went 7-1 (the one loss, oddly enough, came when Mariano Rivera started the 10th and gave up three runs) and Witasick’s line looked like this: 2-0, 8.1 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 9 K.

Horrible numbers, I know. Witasick’s numbers at the end of the season looked nothing like that though, ending up with a 4.69 ERA and a WHIP of 1.61. Whahappen? Witasick had four games where he gave up more than one earned run after his debut. In those games, the Yanks were down 6 runs, down five runs, down five runs, and down seven runs respectively when Witasick entered the game. Already out of hand and mopping up, Witasick can afford to take risks and try things that he wouldn’t try in a close situation. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t. In Witasick’s case, it didn’t work four times, and it reflected on his final numbers.

Witasick made the playoff roster however (looking at the other options, you’d understand why) and made three appearances - one in each series. In the Oakland divisional series, Witasick came on in the 8th to relieve Sterling Hitchcock with the score 4-1 Oakland. Witasick pitched two thirds of an inning, giving up one run on a sacrifice fly before being relieved by Mike Stanton. That would be Witasick’s only appearance of the series, as Torre chose to turn to familiar Ramiro Mendoza in the pre-Stanton Pre-Rivera role.

In the ALCS against Seattle, Witasick again made only one appearance, this time with the Yankees down 10-2 in the top of the seventh. To show how much Torre entrusted Witasick, with the score 3-2 Mariners and runners on first and second, Torre turned to Mike Stanton in the SIXTH inning (Stanton had only been brought in before the 7th inning three times that season, and not since June 8th) and when Stanton ran into trouble, Torre turned to… Mark Wohlers, who hadn’t exactly blown the Bronx away after being acquired from Cincinnati shortly after Witasick was. Wohlers got hammered around enough until finally Torre called on Witasick after 2/3 of an inning of Wohlers, and the Mariners up 10-2.

Witasick would pitch one game in the 2001 World Series, an appearance in Game 6 played on November 3rd, 2001 - a full two weeks after Witasick mopped up against Seattle. During that time, seven games passed and Torre went to Mike Stanton and Ramiro Mendoza four times, and Mariano Rivera five. While Torre’s cautiousness can be understood in the playoffs, using his big guns in the clinching Game 5 of the ALCS while up six runs and turning to #2 man Stanton to pitch the last inning of Games 1 & 2 of the World Series. Fatigue eventually set in, and as Rivera pitched in Game 7 with the Series on the line in his 16th inning of work in the playoffs, he gave up the runs that would give the championship to Arizona. To his credit, Rivera hasn’t let this bother him, but after a string of four championships in five years, the Yankees lost what would have been 5 in 6, and haven’t won one since.

Witasick? As shown above, Torre had no confidence/use for the reliever, so the Yankees shipped him off to the West Coast (this time to San Francisco), picking up 36 year old veteran outfielder John Vander Wal straight up. The move was easy to explain for the Yankees - Witasick’s stats were mediocre at best for the Yankees, and with Paul O’Neill retiring the Yankees needed someone to play right field. They wanted to give the job to Shane Spencer, but Spencer struggled against righthanded pitching, so the lefthanded Vander Wal would be there just in case the Spencer experiment didn’t work out, and if it did Vander Wal would be a great bat off the bench (Vander Wal finished his career with 129 pinch hits, second only to Lenny Harris).

The flaw in the reasoning however was that Witasick wasn’t as bad as his numbers showed, and it was Torre’s usage of him and the rest of the bullpen that ran him out of town. Filling the spot that Witasick was supposed to fill would be Steve Karsay, a converted starter who was best known at that time for being traded to Atlanta for John Rocker. Karsay signed a four year, $22.25 million contract to be the ying to Mike Stanton’s yang. Karsay would later blow out his shoulder after one season with the Yankees and pitch in only 11 2/3 innings after the 2002 season in pinstripes.

Vander Wal? The concern about Spencer was justified - never a plus fielder, Spencer couldn’t back it up with his bat either, and ended up batting .247/.324/.375 in his final season as a Yankee. Vander Wal, especially at 36, wasn’t an everyday outfielder so the Yankees did what the Yankees tend to do. They jumped for the available name, picking up Raul Mondesi and his horrible contract for essentially nothing (Mondesi, making way too much money and clashing with Toronto management, was available for the taking to anyone who would take his contract.) None of them would have been needed though if the Yankees had the confidence to turn to an unknown. Juan Rivera, a 23 year old who the previous season split time between AA and AAA and exploded both places (.881 OPS in AA, .975 OPS in AAA) continued to hit in AAA as the Yankees went through the Spencer/Vander Wal/Mondesi experiments. When the Yankees rid themselves of Mondesi midway through the following season, the Yanks turned to… Karim Garcia, whom the Yankees had purchased from the Cleveland Indians as an insurance policy when Bernie Williams got hurt and Hideki Matsui shifted to center. Rivera was finally shipped off to Montreal the following offseason in the Javier Vazquez deal. Rivera, who will be 28 when the 2007 season starts and eligible for arbitration, has a career line of .291/.341/.474, can play all three outfield positions, and had a higher OPS+ last season than Jorge Posada, Melky Cabrera, Johnny Damon, Bernie Williams, or Gary Sheffield.

Witasick? Despite posting a 2.37 ERA the following year with San Francisco, the pitcher was non-tendered and signed a free agent with San Diego, where he pitched for two years. Released in Spring Training the following season by Baltimore, he was signed to a conditional minor league deal by Colorado and was called up by them, first causing me to talk about him here. Witasick pitched quite well in Colorado, but ended up getting shipped off to Oakland, who then re-signed him to a 2 year, $2.5 million deal after the season. This past season, Witasick sprained his ankle in April covering first base which essentially ruined his season. After making two ill-advised appearances in June (Witasick was later returned to the DL with tendinitis in the previously sprained ankle, but not before giving up 7 earned runs and walking five in 2/3 of an inning), Witasick returned to the A’s in August and gave up two hits, two runs, and two walks in an inning of work. It was later learned that Witasick forgot his shoes before the game, causing him to pitch in a teammate’s cleats which were a size too small. Witasick’s numbers after the mini-shoe game? 1-0, 2.81 ERA, 16 IP, 14 H, 10 BB, 18 K.