Bubba Links
Baseball Links
The time of year when everyone's writing the mid-term report cards. Here are a couple of the more interesting ones...
From the NY Daily News: Not Half Bad
BUBBA CROSBY: C-
Injured just when he might have gotten a chance to sub for Hideki Matsui or Gary Sheffield. He hasn't come through in sub role the way he has in past.
That's fair enough, alas. I blame that unfortunately timed injury. Hopefully the second half will be better.
Then there's this fascinating analysis from Replacement Level Yankees Weblog. They calculated the "run values" for everyone who played for the Yankees this year:
Posada 24.3
Jeter 22.6
Mussina 21.9
Giambi 20.8
Rodriguez 20.1
Damon 17.3
Rivera 15.8
Wang 10.9
Cano 9.8
Villone 8.1
Johnson 5.3
Smith 5.0
Myers 3.0
Farnsworth 2.9
Sheffield 2.9
Green 1.4
Proctor 1.2
Rasner 0.9
Thompson 0.9
Guiel 0.2
Wright 0.0
Cairo -0.2
Wilson -0.4
Bean -0.9
Reese -1.1
Matsui -1.9
Crosby -2.6
Erickson -2.7
Stinnett -3.5
Long -4.0
Phillips -4.2
Sturtze -5.6
Beam -6.5
Cabrera -7.4
Williams -12.2
Chacon -12.7
Small -13.4
They have other articles with more info; this one is also interesting.
The bad news is that Bubba has hurt the team so far this year. The worse news is that Melky Cabrera and Bernie Williams have hurt it a lot more.
That seems odd at first blush. The conventional wisdom is that Bubba has been not very good this year, while Bernie and Melky have been happy surprises. But that's an illusion, as the stats show.
Yes, I know, stats never tell the whole story. Especially with the small sample size for Bubba, given how little he's played this year. Still, it matches what I've seen watching the games. Bernie's defense is so bad his offense can't make up for it, even on a good day. Melky has struggled on offense, and his defense is uneven. Could Bubba be better than either of them if used full-time? Quite possibly.
