Scranton is our last team to take a look at by way of TotalZone rating. Here's the info once more:

TotalZone invented and calculated by Sean Smith of Baseballprojection.com. "Runs" is relative to league average. The meaning of specific numbers varies from position to position, but in general, +10 is a very good fielder, +15 or more is outstanding. Below -10 is not very good at all. Runs/150 estimates runs saved per 150 games, and is shown for players with at least 1/3 that playing time at a position. This article describes preliminary work in translating across levels.

The article describing the translation is a must read for fully understanding what these numbers represent, but in short, infield numbers are slightly more reliable than outfield ones and sample size issues are in play with any infielders with less than 350 chances and outfielders less than 1000 (2 full seasons roughly). Also these performances are relative to their league, so a AA third baseman would be slightly worse than a AAA third baseman. Reading the whole article is definitely recommended.

Kevin Russo’s numbers are a little troubling. As a guy who could be in the mix for the utility infielder role, Russo’s defense is important. However this number is unusually low, well below his normally average ratings. Miranda’s TotalZone rating was very surprising and I’m not sure what to make of it. He’s been pretty bad before this year yet this is the most chances he’s had at 1B.
Austin Jackson actually posted some solid defensive numbers which is a little bit surprising. Looking at his career he as a pattern of HORRIBLE numbers one year (2006, -14/2008, -13) and then looking solid the next (2007, +3/ 2009, +4). I’m not really sure what to make of this either because the sample seems solid. Scouting reports are kind of mixed on him, rating him as average overall. Should be interesting to see what UZR says about him in Detroit this year though. Again here, Colin Curtis has a pretty solid showing as a corner outfielder. They're very similar to the numbers he posted in Trenton (LF +4). I think if he can develop a little further he could be a nice utility outfielder for the Yankees in 2011.

The Trenton Thunder are our second to last team to examine defensively by way of TotalZone rating. Here's the stuff you need to know:

TotalZone invented and calculated by Sean Smith of Baseballprojection.com. "Runs" is relative to league average. The meaning of specific numbers varies from position to position, but in general, +10 is a very good fielder, +15 or more is outstanding. Below -10 is not very good at all. Runs/150 estimates runs saved per 150 games, and is shown for players with at least 1/3 that playing time at a position. This article describes preliminary work in translating across levels.

The article describing the translation is a must read for fully understanding what these numbers represent, but in short, infield numbers are slightly more reliable than outfield ones and sample size issues are in play with any infielders with less than 350 chances and outfielders less than 1000 (2 full seasons roughly). Also these performances are relative to their league, so a AA third baseman would be slightly worse than a AAA third baseman. Reading the whole article is definitely recommended.

Infield

Outfield

Well the biggest controversial nugget here is the Eduardo Nunez numbers for sure. Well after ticking defense off the list of things Nunez might do well, I guess we just have batting average, and thank goodness that's so important! Oh, wait. This isn’t a sample size thing either. He’s had WELL over 1000 chances in his career at SS and never posted a TotalZone rating above 0. That’s pretty clear. Now while I think that Nunez probably has a lot of nice skills as a baseball player, at some point those skills just have to turn into results. MAYBE they’ll develop in the future, but its really extremely unlikely at this point.

Colin Curtis grades out as a very nice defensive outfielder at this point, at least in LF anyhow. He’s been solidly above average for his career there- not terrific certainly, but very solid. I wouldn’t get too worked up about the Edwar Gonzalez numbers either. Edwar Gonzalez is probably a good RF but most likely not THIS good- not that it matters as he’s certainly a non-prospect.

NoMaas has a two part interview up with John Manuel of Baseball America with a bunch of solid information. There are of course questions discussing guys like Andrew Brackman and Jesus Montero, but Manuel also talks about some less heralded prospects: Jonathan Ortiz(?), David Adams, and Christian Garcia.

Head over to NoMaas and give it a read:

It's all but official that Nick Johnson will be the number two hitter in the Yankees lineup, taking Johnny Damon's place in that spot. There are many fans who aren't sold on the idea of putting Johnson in the two-hole, and wanted the Yankees to re-sign Johnny Damon so he could be plugged back in there.

Their thinking is that while Nick Johnson has superior on-base skills, his speed(or lack thereof) will do the team damage in the two-hole. Last season, the Yankees switched Johnny Damon and Derek Jeter in the lineup and one of the reasons was that Jeter was hitting into too many double plays.

Johnny Damon, on the other hand, is one of the best players in the majors at avoiding double plays. On average, batters hit into double plays in around 11 percent of their double play opportunities. For his career, Johnny Damon has only hit into double plays in five percent of his chances.

The switch was definitely successful in this regard. Damon had a career high 160 double play opportunities and hit into only nine double plays(5.6 percent). Jeter had only 106 opportunities and still hit into 18 double plays(17 percent).

Basically, if the Yankees didn't switch them and they had faced the each other's double play opportunities instead, they would have combined for 33 double plays instead of 27. While this isn't a huge number, it makes a difference. On average, a double play costs a team .35 runs. So, it seems that this switch netted the Yankees 2.1 runs, just based on double plays. This isn't especially substantial, it's important for teams to find runs wherever they can.

Now lets bring the newly acquired Nick Johnson into play. Johnson is the ideal number two hitter for statheads everywhere. Last season, he put together an absurd .426 OBP, good for third in the majors. It's unlikely he'll post such an impressive number again in 2010, but getting on base has always been Johnson's specialty.

Damon is no slouch in that department either, as he got on base at a .365 clip last season. As we all know, just using last season's numbers is not an effective way to project a player going forward.

CHONE projects that Johnson will put up a .392 OBP in 2010 while Damon will have a .357 OBP. While getting on base is extremely important, I wanted to see if Damon's other prowess make up for the big OBP gap between the two players.

I prorated each of their CHONE batting lines to 600 plate appearances and got that Damon projects to be worth 10 runs above average and Johnson projects to be around 20 runs above average, so he has a nice ten run advantage here.

Now, onto baserunning. Johnson is known as a very slow runner, and that's an accurate description. Damon has always been quick, but he only stole 12 bases in 2009. I'm sure part of this is based on the fact that you don't want to risk getting caught stealing when Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez are coming up behind you. In terms of total baserunning value, Damon gains some runs back.

Using a simple MARCEL-like 5-4-3 projection with some regression of the two players eqBRR, I get that Damon has around a four run edge on the bases. Cut Nick Johnson's advantage down to six runs now.

Getting back to where we started, Damon stands to make up some more ground because of his superb ability to avoid the double play. Looking at their career numbers on Baseball-Reference, I'd say it's fair to make a rough estimate that Damon will hit into a double play in six percent of his opportunities and Johnson will in 12 percent of his.

The player hitting second in the Yankees lineup is sure to see a ton of double play opportunities, but there's no real way of knowing how many. I'm just going to put the number at 150, slightly below the number Damon had last season.

Using that -.35 linear weight and the 11 percent average, we find that Damon projects to be around 2.5 runs above average and Johnson looks to be about a half of a run below average. Put it all together and here's what we get:

When the Yankees signed Johnson, I assumed he would be a huge upgrade over Damon batting second because of his 35 point edge in OBP; it just isn't that cut and dry. The numbers tell me it is way closer than I thought, but they still bear out the fact that Johnson is the better option for the Yankees.

There are still some people who would prefer Damon to Johnson in the two-spot, but the numbers suggest that's the wrong move. As I said earlier, teams need to find ways to add runs in any little way they can. Just from an offense and lineup perspective, the Yankees did just that by signing Nick Johnson to be their two hitter.

Thanks to Daniel of Camden Crazies and Matt K. of FanGraphs for some help with these numbers. Also, I feel like I may have just put some numbers in here without fully explaining them. I didn't want to overwhelm the piece with numbers, so if you have any questions about my methodology just let me know and I'll elaborate.