Money doesn’t talk in the postseason. The Yankees, with an opening day payroll topping $200M, were ousted from the playoffs last night at the hands of the Detroit Tigers. The series was hard fought, but in the end the Yanks big bats (aside from Robinson Cano) failed to come up big in the fatal fifth game.
Though the Yankees outscored the Tigers 29-17 in the series, the only $10M-plus talents to make a big impact at the dish were Cano and Jorge Posada. The rest of the high priced hitters ended up with the following stat lines…
Alex Rodriguez, $32M – .111/.261/.111, 3 RBI
Mark Teixeira, $23.125M – .167/.286/.278, 1 RBI
Derek Jeter, $15M – .250/.280/.292, 2 RBI
Nick Swisher, $9.1M – .211/.250/.368, 1 RBI
Curtis Granderson, $8.25M, .250/.375/.550, 3 RBI
Granderson’s .250 AVG means very little, as he got on base and hit for power in the series, but the rest of the group above represents the Yankees’ first, fourth, fifth and sixth hitters. Not a good combination to have fall into a slump.
On the pitching end, $24.3M man CC Sabathia allowed six earned runs in 8.2 innings with eight walks and 11 strikeouts. Obviously, the rain interrupted game one may have played a role in his performance. There was also a bit of umpire controversy in game three, which, based on the strike-zone plot from BrooksBaseball.net, seems to be warranted.
The high-priced arm of CC Sabathia may not have resulted in postseason success, but quite unexpectedly, the high-(over)-priced arm of A.J. Burnett did.
Due to the rain induced suspension of game one, the Yanks had to change their rotation plans for the rest of the series. Those changes must have caused more than a little ajeda for Yankee fans. After all, the Yanks were down two games to one and any hope of living to play another day rested on the $16.5M arm of a pitcher that had posted a 5.15 ERA in the regular season, not to mention a 5.26 ERA in 2010.
Burnett, after struggling with his control in the first inning, actually settled in to pitch 5.2 solid innings, allowing only one run. The Yanks went on to score 10 runs and win the game with ease.
This isn’t meant to criticize the Yankees for failing to reach the World Series even thought they had the highest payroll in baseball. Rather, it’s simply another example of how anything can happen in October. The fact of the matter is that five games and around 20 at-bats is such a small sample size that no concrete conclusion can be drawn from the numbers. Of course, there is sure to be a horde of people calling out the lack of “clutch” hitting as the means to the Yankees demise.
Let’s examine some Yankee “clutch” hitting throughout the past few years…
In 2006, Robinson Cano hit .342/.365/.525 during the regular season. In 15 postseason plate appearances, he hit .133/.133/.133. Not clutch, I guess. The next season, Cano hit .333/.375/.800 with two home runs in 16 post season at-bats. Clutch? In 2009, Cano hit .193/.266/.281 in 64 plate appearances as the Yankees went on to win the World Series. Not clutch? Both last season and this season, Cano has hit over .300 with an OBP over .350 and has totaled six home runs in 48 combined plate appearances. I guess he’s clutch again.
Alex Rodriguez spent years trying to shake his postseason stigma – even though he had a 1.021 OPS in his first postseason with the Yankees back in 2004. Then, in 2009, A-Rod suddenly hits .365/.500/.808 with six home runs in 68 plate appearances.
“Clutch” or randomness?
The Yankees season is done and, clutch, random or otherwise, one can make quite an easy argument that the Tigers were just the better team.
Of the 12 $100M-plus payroll teams this season, only two remain in postseason play (Tigers and Phillies). As for the Yankees, well, they’re about to endure weeks of sports talk banter about their 2011 failures. Fair or not, Such is life in the biggest baseball market in America.
