Clemens Part II: Sip's Response

A quick excerpt from a post on 3/22/07:

Without Roger Clemens, the Yankees pitching just won't be there. With a weak bullpen before an aging/less dominant Mariano Rivera, the Yankees will rely heavily on the arms of Mike Mussina, Andy Pettitte and Chien Ming Wang.

In Wang, the Yankees have their best bet. He pounds the strikezone with a mid 90's sinker and fresh off a very impressive 2006 campaign appears ready to follow up in 2007 with another impressive showing.

But what happens when the rusting Mussina and Pettite hurt themselves or show wear or slow down or do whatever it is that all pitchers north of 35 do? (PLEASE NOT TOM GLAVINE)

The Yankees would then rest their hopes in a 21 year old kid, Phil Hughes, an overpaid crappy Japanese pitcher (Kei Igawa) or a guy who hasn't pitched in two years that has really only pitched one good season in his career (Carl Pavano).

Without Clemens, the Yankees might not make it to October. Not after losing Sheffield from the lineup and watching the Red Sox and Blue Jays continue to improve in the offseason.

But with Clemens... well, we might be changing the name of this site to Yankees2007.killme.org.

Add Clemens to a rotation and you get a power arm who will be fresh in September and October and push back Mussina and Pettitte to 3 and 4, respectively, in a short series. The Yankees rotation goes from solid to scary and all of a sudden, the Yankees are the team to beat.

Brian Cashmen has done everything in his power to De-Yankee this Yankee team and make them the new Cashman Yankees. The team has the most money but spends it wisely. The team develops talent as opposed to stealing it.

But what happens come May 15th when the Yankees are 3 games back of the Red Sox and tied with the Blue Jays?

Pretty close.

Monday's post, #600 in Y2K's history was met with a lot of controversy. Please allow me to elaborate and clarify.

We've seen it so far this year. It doesn't seem like the Yankees can get anyone out. Their starters can't get out of the 5th inning. Their middle men can't hold a lead. Mariano Rivera isn't Mariano Rivera.

The end result? The Yankees are in 2nd place, 5 games out of the wild card and 6 games out of 1st place. They're tied for 2nd in the AL in run differential (Red Sox are 1) and have scored the most runs in baseball. In short, the Yankees are good.

Before Roger Clemens joined the Yankees they were a playoff team. Say what you want about their slow start, the injuries, etc., the Yankees would have bounced back. If their pitching went from terrible to mediocre they'd be an 88-92 win team.

Now, they are a 92-96 win team.

Assuming Roger Clemens gets 22 starts, starts that would have otherwise gone to Igawa/Rasner/Wright/Momo/Kelly Kapowski, it's probably a safe bet that the Yankees will win about 15 or 16 of those vs. going .500 otherwise.

Again, this is all conjecture, but there you have your 5-6 wins.

Assumption # 2: Clemens gets you 6 innings per start.

Say what you want about what went down in Houston. You forgot two major factors. First, Clemens doesn't have to hit. There are no pinch hitters or baseball strategy here. No one is pulling Clemens for his stick. He is there to pitch and pitch only.

Second, this is Joe Torre and Joe Torre wants to win now. He will do nothing to save Roger Clemens. He does not care about his welfare.

He cares about getting his giant shnoz off of the backpage. He knows his middle relief is his Achilles heel and he will stretch Clemens as long as he can. And for good reason. The guy makes a mil a start or roughly 150k per inning.

Corrolary to assumption #2: The bullpen will save about 20-25 innings because of Clemens.

An inning or so a game for 20 games. The math makes sense. That is pretty important.

Assumption #3: The reason why Clemens is truly important is the postseason.

Assuming the Yankees get there, which they always do, now they are looking at four potentially solid starters: Clemens, Wang, Pettitte, Mussina.

This does not even factor in Phillip Hughes.

This provides insurance for one of Pettitte or Mussina going down. It also means that opponents will be seeing Roger Clemens twice a playoff series as opposed to one of the other three.

That is huge.

Finally, think about the psychological factor. The Yankees now have the best pitcher of our generation pitching for them every 5th day as opposed to a kid fresh off the AAA bus. You go from hoping your pitcher doesn't implode to assuming a W with every start.

The marginal gain for the Yankees here is much greater than it would have been for the Sox. The Sox have servicable 5 men. The Yankees do not. The Sox have starting pitching depth. The Yankees do not.

Writing off the Yankees before they got Clemens would have been foolish. Assuming Clemens won't be a huge lift over a terrible #5 starter is silly.

Put it all together and I stand by Monday's column. That is of course assuming that Roger Clemens will be as good this year or even close to where he was the last couple of years.

Vaya con dios,

Sip

PS- De La Hoya v. Mayweather was fixed to be inconclusive. They'll have another one and we'll all get it. It's crap. Still, the show on HBO, 24/7, which documented the weeks before the fight is the best TV I have ever seen.

(Pics courtesy of Allposters.com, mlblogs.com)