Yankees Add Millwood
Although the top of the Yankees rotation should be strong behind CC Sabathia and Phil Hughes, their depth is a bit, well, shaky. And that may be a kind statement – behind those two, the Yankees will trot out A.J. Burnett, Ivan Nova, and the victor of the desperate battle between Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia. Kevin Millwood won’t be able to start the season with the Yankees, as he will have to work out the kinks in extended spring training, but it’s easy to see why the Yankees were willing to drop some pocket change for his services and add him on an incentive-laden minor league contract.
Millwood was not a good pitcher last season, but tales of his demise have been greatly exaggerated. Although his ground ball rate took a dive last season, contributing partially to a spike in home runs allowed, the rest of his peripheral numbers were similar to his last few seasons: six strikeouts and three walks per nine innings. As unimpressive as the resulting 4.86 FIP and 4.66 xFIP may look, it’s not particularly easy for teams to find five guys that can do better – Millwood posted 1.3 Wins Above Replacement.
At this point, the kind of talented pitchers who could slot in and make a real impact for the Yankees are unavailable. Given the market, the Yankees found the next best thing: depth, and cheap depth at that. Millwood has shown an ability to “eat innings” on a yearly basis and do it better than the typical replacement player. ZiPS projects Millwood for a 4.87 ERA (90 ERA+), which would once again make him above replacement level. Ideally, the Yankees (or any team, really) don’t have to use a pitcher like Millwood, but the Yankees rotation is not in an ideal place right now.
Even with the rotation woes, the Yankees look to be a good bet (although not a lock) to the playoffs again this season. But with a position of clear weakness, a team in contention can always be served by adding cheap depth. That’s exactly what the Yankees did here. Millwood won’t impress anybody if he makes it back to the show with New York, but don’t be surprised if he manages to hold the fort together for a few innings in the fifth starter spot this season.
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What does Millwood offer that Colon and Garcia don’t? Guess it doesn’t hurt the Yanks to throw some cash his way, but he just another back of the rotation guy.
Nothing, except the fact that he was also willing to take a minor league deal.
He goes to AAA, Colon or Garcia take one rotation spot, the other goes to the bullpen.
Mitre was traded to Milwaukee for Chris Dickerson.
Millwood isn’t an overweight latin player who has done 2 tours with the White Sox?
So they’d take an overweight caucasian player who’d done two tours with the White Sox?
He offers another arm.
At least one of Colon/Garcia is bound to either a) suck, b) get hurt, or c) both. Millwood doesn’t need to be much of an improvement, he’s just a spare part to plug in when on of the old gears rattling around the 5 spot invariably breaks down.
he offers another 50-75 innings or so.
I think the Yanks may have signed their #2 just now, if the reports of Hughes’ velocity being down (again) are true. At least with Millwood you can count on something close to 200 IP and an ERA in the 4s. That makes him the #2.
Hahaha that’s funny. Velocity reports from a 24-year-old in spring training always dictate future success.
Hughes’ velocity was down in the 2nd half last year and he was quite hittable when that happened. Now it’s down again this spring. Maybe it’s meaningless. Maybe it’s not. Milwood has been better than Burnett each of the last 2 seasons and Burnett hasn’t had to face the Yanks while Burnett never got to face Balt. Just sayin’
hughes being hittable in the second half probably has more to do with that than him regressing from like a .190s baBIPa in the first half, huh?
While Marcel projects his ERA to be 4.68, given that it was 5.10 last season, I wouldn’t say you can “count” on it being in the 4’s.
Q: How did he do against the Yanks last year? A: 13.5 ERA
Q: How did he do against the Os last year (The worst offense in the leauge outside of seattle)? A: He never got to fatten up against them
He’s also throwing a new cutter quite a bit this spring (using it to strike out 6 batters in his last start, no less). That cutter is quite a bit slower than his normal fastball, so throwing it more often would, presumably, bring down his overall velocity.
As far as I’ve seen, none of the velocity reports have broken out his velocity by pitch; it sounds like they’re referring to overall velocity, though it’s unclear. But the reports are talking about a decline of up to 7mph, and I have a hard time believing that Yankeeland would be as quiet as it is if Hughes really had lost that much off his fastball.
Also, just for the record:
ERA/FIP/xFIP/K9/BB9/WAR from 09-10
Millwood: 4.38/4.83/4.72/5.9/3.14/3.7
Burnett: 4.65/4.58/4.47/7.73/3.9/4.7
Burnett’s got a better FIP, xFIP, K9, and WAR. You’re right, though, Millwood did have a better ERA. Of course, over the past two years, Millwood’s BABIP-against has been almost exactly career average for him (.295 v .297 career), while Burnett’s has been up almost 20 points (.307 v .289 career).
And let’s not forget, Burnett put up 1.3 WAR last year, which was a total disaster of a season for him. Millwood? He put up 1.3 WAR last year, too.
So you agree that Millwood is in the mix for the #2 as much as anyone else on the team other than CC. It’s CC and hasbeens/never was
Here is info on Hughe’s velocity. Fastball in the upper 80s so far http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/03/25/scouts-stunned-by-phil-hughes-lack-of-velocity-this-spring/
Yeah. You’re missing the point Goon. Back in reality, spring training velocity is not “stunning” either way. Hughes’ velocity was down last spring too and then sat 93-95 in April. His velo wasn’t down in the 2nd half last season either. He had the same velocity in April that he did in his playoff start against the Twins.
And Rex’s point is that Burnett 09-10 is a better pitcher than Millwood, despite what your precious ERA says. You missed that one as well.
Millwood is a depth signing to fill out the bottom of the rotation. Nothing more.
The Millwood signing could be a response to Hughes velocity drop. They said last spring his velocity was 90-94, this year 87-88. Not sure how accurate these readings are though, it could be due to the lower velocity of his cut fast ball which Hughes says is really a slider.
If real, it could be just a conditioning thing, as I have heard some Yankee fans say he is beginning to look like The Pillsbury Doughboy, or it could be arm problems.
Pitched ok against the Blue Jays the other day so this might all be nothing.
I would consider him the # 3 starter. Folks still influenced by his 18-8 record so think his 2010 season was good. This might be the worst indicator of a pitchers performance ever invented. Hughes was as bad as AJ after mid May. AJ has looked pretty good in ST.
Pft, Hughes looks like the Pillsbury Doughboy because the Yankees know that this year the rules have changed. It’s not about how many games you win, it’s about how many tacos you eat. Between CC, Garcia, Colon, Joba, and Hughes the New York pitching staff is ready to challenge Will Rhymes for the title.
I don’t know if I consider Phil Hughes a part of a “strong” top of the rotation. 4.43 career FIP as a starter(4.3 last year) is more #3/4 guy not a #2.
At 24 years old.
I bet buchholz is an ace though… amirite?
Yankees Slogan for the year, pitchingwise. (sing it with me). “CC followed by Hughes, then we Lose! “
Do you have any clue exactly how little production the Yankees have gotten from their 4-5 guy over the last 10 years?
Having the best offense in baseball has its advantages.
Milwood pitched 198 innings in 2009 and 190 innings in 2010. You won’t find a lot of No. 5 starters who eat that many innings. That has value, and he seems like a perfect fit for the Yankees. 190 innings of below average starting pitching means a lot of losses for most teams; but with the Yankees’ offense, it probably means something close to breaking even in wins and losses on his starting days.
Sounds better than their #5 starter for the last 5-6 years; and he’s more like a # 6 or #7 guy at this point as an insurance policy for Garcia/Colon
I think he has a May 1st trigger clause (call up or waive him) so it’ll be interesting what happens if both Garcia and Colon remain healthy until then. The Yankees got a marginal backup OF for Meat-tray, if nothing else Millwood could be tradebait for a stopgap backup player (if there’s an injury) and if he gets some of his velocity back he could get a B or C level prospect for a team with a pitching injury (B prospect is probably a bit ‘optimistic’)
The Red Sox and Yanks can now fight over the next Carlos Silva. This time Carlos Silva is the next Carlos Silva.