Yankees Hit The Panic Button

Yes, the Yankees signed Roger Clemens this past weekend to save their season from oblivion. Everyone can breathe a sigh of relief because the “who will sign him this year???” saga is over. I know I was all excited to find out which team would coddle him for another two-thirds of a season. But there’s bad news for the Yankees: Clemens won’t change a thing. Oh, sure, he’ll win some games and pitch well, maybe even get the team into the playoffs. But the Clemens signing is an attempt at a quick-fix for a problem that teams can’t buy their way out of.

Let’s look at this comparatively. The Yankees and Tampa Bay both have 14 wins as of Monday night and the Devil Rays are one game behind the Yankees for second place in the AL East. Both are under .500, both are in the top 15 offensively, and the bottom 5 in pitching. The D-Rays’ team ERA is even a full run higher than New York’s. Their offensive stats are very similar. The Yankees have scored more runs and have a higher batting average but Tampa has hit more home runs and doubles. Roger Clemens’ pro-rated $28 million contract is worth more than all the money the Devil Rays are paying their entire roster, which, by the way, is loaded with nearly as much talent as the Yankees current lineup. All of Tampa’s guys are just young. So basically the Yankees could be in the same position they’re in now for about 12 percent of what they’re paying their current lineup.

The last time the Yankees made the World Series was 2003 when they lost to the Marlins. Then, as now, they had a loaded lineup and an aging pitching staff. Not quite as loaded a lineup or as old a staff as now, but still. Mussina, Pettite, and Clemens were all there, just like now and that team made the World Series.

So what’s the difference between the 2003 Yankees and the 2007 Yankees? Simple. Bad luck. They’ve had a ton of random injuries to key players this year which has crippled their chances of winning and creating a huge lead early in the season. In ’03 Clemens, Pettite, Mussina, and David Wells all made 30 starts or more. This year, only Pettite and the awful Kei Igawa have made five or more starts, and the season is a month and a half old already. Maybe it’s bad mechanics or it really is the strength and conditioning coach’s fault, but who knows where the Yankees are if their guys are healthy this whole time?

The problem is that the Yankees tried to build their pitching staff the same way they built their lineup: sign as many expensive veterans as possible, take a flyer on some guys, and make sure to get the ball to Rivera. Thing is, all the money they’re spending on Pettite, Mussina, Pavano, and now Clemens doesn’t change that a team’s pitching fortunes depend largely on whether or not they avoid injuries. It’s a form of sheer, dumb luck that George Steinbrenner can’t seem to understand. So they keep spending and spending, hoping that the next big check solves the problem.

It makes sense why they do this over and over again too. They did it with Pavano, with Pettite this year, and now Clemens after their bad start. Big spending usually does help an offense. Their fantasy baseball lineup of a starting nine is first in the A.L. in runs scored. However, their pitching has to catch up, which is why they figured Clemens would save them for a cool 900K per start. But the Rocket coming in and pitching well only adds another arm to the depleted rotation. What happens if the other guys continue to get hurt? It’s not like Mussina and Pettite have Ripken-like streaks going. Wang was hurt and they just lost Pavano for the season. Maybe Phil Hughes pans out and maybe he doesn’t. What happens if 45-year-old Roger Clemens gets hurt?

Coming into the season, the top nine salaries for pitchers on the Yankees added up to $58 million which has given them a team ERA of 4.74, good enough for 26th overall in baseball. The San Diego Padres are paying all of their pitchers $36 million and have a team ERA of 3.52, which is 7th in baseball. The Padres have stayed healthy, the Yankees haven’t. The Yankees could be in the same position for nearly $100 million less than they’re paying.

As Brian Cashman and George Steinbrenner woke up Monday morning, refreshed and excited for Clemens to join the team, there had to be a feeling in the back of their minds that renting Roger for two-thirds of a season really only helps this team break even as far as productivity from their starting pitchers. They could just as easily have traded for a much less expensive pitcher that they might even keep beyond this season. Won’t happen with Clemens and they’ll be back to this same problem a year from now, only Pettite and Mussina and Rivera will be a year older and more likely to get hurt or just plain lose it altogether.

Teams can pay all they want for offense and pitching, but it doesn’t make them any more likely to win the next day than if they had gone the cheaper route like San Diego. The Yankees are victims of their own wealth. They only know how to spend their way out of problems, but there’s now way to buy your way out of bad luck and having already paid too much for free-agent pitchers.

All we can say is, good. Screw the Yankees.