New York is Very Pressure-y
I know this because sportswriters won’t ever stop telling me about it. Today’s entry in the "Javier Vazquez just can’t handle the pressure-y-ness of New York" category comes courtesy of Jeff Passan.
It was supposed to be different because he was supposed to be different. Ed Whitson and Kenny Rogers and Carl Pavano never could come back to New York again. They hated the city and the city hated them, a relationship of mutual revulsion. Javier Vazquez, though? Well, Yankees fans slaughtered their figurative fatted calves upon his return this offseason.
Alternative theory: Ed Whitson wasn’t very good to the tune of only 20 career WAR (more than half of them earned in two highly peculiar years in San Diego). Carl Pavano wasn’t — and isn’t — very good, to the tune of 9.9 career WAR (more than half of them in one career year with Florida), and the Yankees paid him $40M to pitch 145 innings once already. Kenny Rogers was considerably better, but notoriously inconsistent — probably because his pitching ability varied according to how much cheating he was getting away with at any given time.
Javier Vazquez, however, has been legitimately good. In his ten-year career, he’s amassed more WAR than Pavano and Whitson combined, and he’s had several 5+ WAR seasons spread throughout, including last year, when he finished fourth in Cy Young balloting. So, I mean, those are also ways in which Vazquez’s situation is different.
But you’re probably right. I’m sure it’s voodoo hexes the city put on him because it hates him. Or whatever it is you said.
Prodigal, unfortunately, he ain’t. The same Vazquez who toiled in mediocrity six years ago for the Yankees is back, and so as the biggest week of their season yet dawned, Yankees manager Joe Girardi for the second time this season said he was skipping Vazquez in the rotation.
Well, yeah, because he’s inconsistent. That’s what inconsistent pitchers do: they’re good one year and crap the next. Here are Vazquez’s last six years, in order, by ERA+: 92, 101, 98, 126, 98, 143. Up, down, up, down, up. This seems to indicate that a "down" was in order.
No Javy in the two games against Boston. He will park his 8.10 earned-run average on the bench for the team’s first two games against its biggest threat, first-place Tampa Bay, too. Girardi will call upon him for the first game of the Yankees’ interleague series against the New York Mets. Perhaps a different borough – and a National League opponent – will treat him better.
It probably will, since the Mets are awful and the Rays are the best team in baseball. Or maybe you’re right — it’ll be, you know, that some part of New York doesn’t hate him, I guess.
Because until he proves otherwise, the prevailing thought – the Pinstripes are a pox on Vazquez – is as apropos as it was for the handful of other pitchers allergic to New York.
Yeah, I’ll agree with that: it’s exactly as likely that Vazquez’s troubles are the result of a New York hoodoo hex as it was for Pavano, Whitson, and Rogers. And, what, no love for Randy Johnson? Another pitcher who couldn’t take the hot hot heat of the New York heatness!
The psychological often manifests itself physically, and for every time Vazquez pronounces his arm fine, the question arises: What, then, is causing the 2-mph dip in fastball velocity?
Well, he’s 34 years old. That’s something, innit? Pitchers don’t usually start throwing harder in their mid-thirties. Also, maybe his arm isn’t really fine and he’s lying. Pitchers do that.
Pitching takes brain and body working in concert, and Vazquez’s are working like a ukulele and didgeridoo.
That’s the worst metaphor I’ve ever heard.
Vazquez’s hallmark, dynamite command, has disappeared. In 30 innings, he has walked 17. Last season, in 219 1/3 innings with Atlanta, he walked 44.
Aha! So it’s not ghosts and curses and ukeleles and Carl Pavano after all. It’s just… walks. Yeah, walks will kick your ass, and his 5.1 BB/9 is really really bad. But the key you have expressed yourself: it’s only 30 IP. That ain’t much.
Vazquez has allowed 37 hits, eight of them home runs.
Pitchers have almost no control over how many hits they give up on balls in play. It’s true. That’s mainly a function of defense — and the Yankees are bad at that, whereas last year’s Braves were pretty good. As for the homers, well, I see here that Vazquez’ HR/FB% is about twice his career average, which may be luck, or also may be that short porch in New Yankee Stadium kicking his ass. I also see that he’s allowing more fly balls, though, which is definitely cause for concern.
What I don’t see in that chart is: an increase in his Black Magick Over Replacement Player stat.
Among current starters, not one has a worse opponent OPS than Vazquez’s .962, and that’s after his most recent start, a seven-inning, two-run step in the right direction.
Jeff Francis pitches seven and gives up one run, and it’s heartwarming and worthy of a standing ovation. Javier Vazquez pitches seven and gives up two runs, and it’s a "step in the right direction." I dunno, Jeff; seems like 7 IP and 2 ER is pretty fucking good to me. That gives you an ERA of, what, 2.6 or so? I’d take that.
Girardi is giving Vazquez nine days to think about how he can turn his last start into something sustained.
Does this make sense? Does this make sense to anyone ever? I’d say that the best way to turn his last start into something sustained would be by not benching him for nine days. What the fuck is that?
So what else is going on around the league, Jeff? Anything besides the Big Curse of Apples fucking with Vazquez’s walk rate?
Ichiro is 36, and perhaps because he’s buried in the Pacific Northwest, or perhaps because his team has devolved into stories about Milton Bradley’s mental issues and Ken Griffey Jr.’s narcolepsy, we do not properly appreciate him.
We don’t properly appreciate Ichiro? What? This man has been an All-Star every single year of his career, won a Rookie of the Year, won an MVP, and has received MVP votes every year but one. This is a man who has led the league in IBB three times despite a career XBH% of only 5.8%. He broke George Sisler’s hits-in-a-season record, and, unlike when several American players have tied Sadaharu Oh’s home run record, our pitchers didn’t just stop fucking pitching to him. Ichiro Suzuki is probably the single biggest international star in baseball (unless it’s Derek Jeter, who may be 100% American, but is still Derek Jeter), and the Mariners pay him $18 million every single year.
Ichiro Suzuki’s career OPS+? 118.
If there is a player more insanely overappreciated than Ichiro Suzuki, I do not know offhand who that player is. Unless, again, it’s Derek Jeter.
[Nick] Johnson needs to retire from baseball, commiserate with M. Night Shyamalan and star in a new movie: "Breakable."
I do not think that word means what you think it means. Also, joke: 2/10
He landed on the disabled list this week for the 10th time in his career.
Ten times? That’s kind of a lot. So, yeah, he should probably — oh, hold on, Jeff, I have to get the phone.
(Huh? Hey. Whoa, really? Wow. Yeah, thanks for letting me know!)
I’m back. Sorry about that. That was Kerry Wood — he wanted me to remind you that he’s made fourteen appearances on the disabled list, and so all this crying over Nick Johnson doesn’t impress him one bit.
In December, when the Yankees signed Johnson, GM Brian Cashman told the Daily News: "We’re going to go into the laboratory and experiment with the ability to provide him with most of his playing time in the DH slot and see if that provides a higher degree of health."
Brian Cashman speaks like the Babelfish translation of himself. Also, Nick Johnson was a designated hitter once before, when he played for the… huh, look at that, the Yankees. But you wouldn’t know that, because the general manager back then was… oh. Right. You. Good plan, Brian!
The lab blew up this week. Johnson received a cortisone shot in hopes that his season isn’t over. If it is, he’ll have banked $5.5 million for 12 hits, 24 walks and a .694 OPS. Though he is the biggest Yankees disappointment this season… time remains for Javier Vazquez to catch him.
Mark Teixeira: .224 / .343 / .420 / .763. 0.6 WAR. Cost: $22.5M.
But, sure, it could be the $5M part-time player. Or it could be the pitcher who just threw seven innings and gave up 2 ER and then got fucking benched for his troubles.
Which makes not just Friday’s start at Citi Field but the next few so imperative for Vazquez. He can play things the way he did in 2004, his lone season in the Bronx: get worse as the year wanes, finish with a thud and skulk along to another team. Or he can do what Sabathia and Burnett did and what Hughes is doing: embrace New York, love it, live it and learn that an arm as gifted as his can only go so far when the brain is playing Ke$ha instead of Mozart.
Ladies and gentlemen: the new worst metaphor I’ve ever heard. Seriously, what does that even mean? I honestly can’t figure it out. Good pitchers have brains that play Mozart?
A.J. Burnett’s only full year in New York so far saw him boast a stellar ERA+ of 106 and a WAR of 2.6. For $16.5M. That’s what you want from Vazquez? Embrace that shit, Javier!
Here’s a better plan. Fuck "embracing" New York and teaching your brain to stop playing shitty dance-pop all the time — which I expect is a pretty big distraction — and start not walking dudes. What do I know, I suppose, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that less focus on bullshit mysticism and more focus on baseball is a better path to success for you, Javier.
