TAMPA — These 2014 Yankees have more ground to make up than you might realize. The good news for those of you who root for this team is the team’s decision-makers know it.
“Our team over-performed last year,” general manager Brian Cashman said Tuesday, before the Yankees defeated Florida State, 8-3, at Steinbrenner Field. “It’s a credit to everybody involved in that process. But the record didn’t reflect the talent. And so when you take a sledgehammer to the roster like we did this winter and spend the money we did, it’s more reflective of recognizing. Of not being fooled.”
If you watched the 2013 Yankees play, carrying essentially 2 ¹/₂ valuable position players — Robinson Cano and Brett Gardner, plus a half-credit for Alfonso Soriano — you know their 85-77 final record, the fact they remained mathematically alive into the season’s last week, carried an air of improbability to it.
The math backs that up. The 2013 Yankees scored 650 runs (their lowest total since tallying 603 in 1991) and allowed 671 runs, and that gave them an expected won-loss mark of 79-83. Therefore, Cashman and his front-office teammates went to work with the mentality they needed to improve upon a 79-win club, rather than an 85-win team.
They sought to find another 18 or so wins to capture the American League East, which the Red Sox claimed last year at 97-65 (and followed with a World Series title), and another 13 or so to make the playoffs, as Tampa Bay won 92 games for the second wild-card slot.
Yankees manager Joe Girardi received credit last season for his finest managing job in pinstripes, and the Yankees rewarded him with a four-year, $16 million extension through 2017. Yet Cashman said he doesn’t regard the team’s run differential as an evaluative tool, and that makes sense: Industry folks generally regard Girardi as a strong manager, yet his career 642-492 record is eight wins above his teams’ expected total. That means he has averaged a little over an extra win per season. When he won National League Manager of the Year honors with the 2006 Marlins — Florida already had fired him upon the announcement — his club finished with two fewer victories than expected.
“I’d say Joe, our coaches, our players worked their tail off and fought every step of the way, and they earned that record,” Cashman said. “But if we repeated last year’s season 100 times, that [85-77 record] would’ve been the low end of probability.”
The run differential, Cashman added, is “more reflective of the talent on the field. When you over-perform, like the Orioles did [in 2012], you realize that’s more of an anomaly. And last year was a market correction.”
Buck Showalter’s Baltimore team made big news two years ago by exceeding their expected record by a remarkable 11 games, from 82-80 to 93-69. In 2013, with the same manager and many of the same players, they actually produced a better run differential … and matched their expected record of 85-77.
Maybe those ’12 Orioles had a little more fight or spirit or what have you, looking to shock the world and end the franchise’s run of 14 straight losing seasons. Definitely also, a few more bounces went their way and their bullpen pitched better. The ’12 O’s put up a remarkable 29-9 record in one-run games, and that plummeted to 20-31 last year.
Last year’s Yankees posted an excellent 30-16 record in one-run games, showing that as unlucky as they were with injuries, they were far more fortunate with results. As a point of comparison, the 2012 Yankees were 22-25 in those close contests, and the 2011 Yankees 21-24. These Yankees could be a vastly improved club, by virtue of a more potent lineup and pitcher Masahiro Tanaka approaching his ceiling, yet they probably will be worse in one-run games.
Can they jump from a virtual 79-83 record to a real 97-65? Of course. The Red Sox made an even longer leap last year, as they were an expected 74-88 (and actual 69-93) in 2012.
But if they turn out to be more of an 85-to-90 win club, or even worse, keep in mind that they might not be regressing, or spinning their wheels. They might just be suffering from reality’s bite.