Pinstripe Alley did a little Q & A with Frankie Piliere of Fanhouse. They discuss Hector Noesi, Jesus Montero, and a few other topics.

Alex Pedicini analyzed the MLB draft using WAR over at The Hardball Times. The major takeaway is no surprise: first round college hitters tend to be the most productive of all draft picks.

I was invited to the Bloomberg Sports luncheon where they introduced the Fantasy Baseball consumer product. Luckily, IIATMS, RAB, and Fack Youk all attended and shed some light on the product.

Matt Imbrogno at TYU looks for a middle ground in the various projections for Joba Chamberlain. The averages produce a 4.10 ERA and 8.81 K/9 over 153 innings. If he stays healthy, he'll throw more inning than that. Either way, I'll sign up for a 4.10 ERA any day.

Back in August, I took a look at how "unclutch" Robinson Cano is. SG at RLYW delved into the same question and came up with a much better and more thorough response.

So go and check all of these out... they're worth your time.

Ivan Nova

RHP

6'4" 210 lbs

Ivan Nova was a 2004 international signee from the Dominican Republic. The big right hander has had a strange pro career where his abilities have remarkably never really matched up with results. Before we go too much further, Nova was the only name on our list that Greg and I both winced at placing this high- I think it’s more than fair to say if we were to do this again, Nova would most likely be lower. Here’s why.

Ivan Nova got off to a noticeable start in the GCL as a 19 year old in 2006, posting results that were in keeping with his impressive Dominican summer league results. Nova was 3-0 with a 2.72 ERA in 43 innings as a starter. He had 37 strikeouts compared to just 7 walks. He earned plaudits for his poise and relaxed demeanor (more on that later) and along with his size plus size (6’4”, 210 lbs) and good velocity (touching 95) Nova was hailed a major sleeper prospect for the Yankees. Here’s how his advanced line from Fangraphs looked in 2006:

Right off the bat, you’ll notice the very low BABIP and high LOB% which are good indicators of a flukey performance. Altogether though, 2006 was a good season for the young Nova and the Yankees had to be pleased with what they saw.

2007 and 2008 were a little less kind. 2007 saw Nova start the season with arm troubles and the wheels never really got back on the train. It was chalked up as a growing season, a learning experience for Nova. Scouts and coaches continued to heap praise on him because of his outstanding stuff and saw his developing body as a good sign. No one seemed too concerned about the precipitous drop in the K/9 rate and prognosticators were still interested in the talent behind the numbers. 2008 caused a little more stir. People inside and outside of the organization started to wonder why Nova, who truly does have impressive talent, could not turn that into tangible success. The first signs that the relaxed demeanor might be part of the problem were also brought up, that his lack of aggressiveness in finishing off hitters was weakening his season. The lack of concentration from start to start limited his consistency.

Entering 2009 Nova was left off the 40 man roster was claimed by the Padres where he was auditioned for a bullpen role. It didn’t work out for him as voices inside the Padre organization echoed the same concerns that had been said before about Nova.

2009 was a tale of two levels for Nova. After he was released from the Padres the Yankees sent him to extended spring training to get him stretched out for starting and sent him to AA where he pitched exceedingly well. He went 5-4 with a 2.36 ERA and 47 Ks in 72 IP before being called up to AAA. Scranton was a different experience for Nova, one that begot a 5.10 ERA and 43 Ks and 67 IP. But were these two levels really night and day? Look at the advanced numbers from Frangraphs for both levels in 2009:

The results are clearly different, but is that the difference you expect between a 2.36 ERA and a 5.10? I would surmise not- this might say something about the ultimate utility of ERA but I’ll save that argument for Greg to make more succinctly another day. Two noticeable features of these numbers would be the BABIP and the LOB% which again, could be an indication that Nova was getting a bit lucky in his Trenton starts.

Throughout his career so far, despite the plus stuff, Nova has not really had any great results. He has only a 5.82 K/9 rate for his career, and his walk numbers have been trending slightly upward since his GCL debut. On the positive side, Nova does a good job keeping the ball on the ground (51% GB%) which in turn leads to his ability to limit the HR (0.51 HR/9).

Scouting Report:

Nova has a report that would make you think he would be an upper echelon type prospect. But as we’ve seen, he’s clearly not. His fastball sits 91-94 and is a plus offering due to his ability to maintain velocity throughout his starts. He also has a sinking fastball he’ll throw as well that had good movement down in the zone that he can command well and get on top of due to his size. His changeup and curveball are also plus offerings, his changeup probably more so than the curve. He has good fade and maintains solid arm action on the change up, but the curveball can be inconsistent and flattens out from time to time.

Nova doesn’t always use his stuff effectively however as mentioned earlier. He doesn’t pitch aggressively and fails to put away hitters partly because he avoids pitching inside. He’ll start 2010 in AAA’s rotation and should see some time in the Bronx this year. It remains to be seen if he’ll be used as a reliever where his pitches may play up, or as a starter at the next level.

Ultimately I think Nova’s ceiling is somewhere in the backend of the rotation. The low strikeout totals would prohibit him from any sort of higher projection and I would think they might limit his use as a bullpen arm as well. On a team like the Yankees, I’m not sure what purpose Nova could fill, but I wouldn’t be surprised to start finding out sometime in 2010.

Ivan Nova's Fangraph page

Photo Credit: Dirk Hansen

Baseball America recently released their top ten prospects of the decade for each major league team(h/t NYaT). Here is the Yankees list:

I'm not sure how Phil Hughes didn't make it onto that list, considering he was BA's top pitching prospect one season and is coming off a successful year in the majors. Marcus Thames has been worth 1.5 WAR over the course of 522 games, so I'm not sure why he makes the list.

If the Yankees had been devoting resources to their farm system for the entire decade, instead of just the past five seasons or so, this list would look a whole lot better.

The reaction to the Yankees signing of Randy Winn has been mainly negative. One fan even cancelled his ticket plan because the Yankees "hav[sic] lost their focus of winning another championship this year." This morning, Tommy Bennett of Baseball Prospectus tweeted the following:

I wonder what percentage of Yankee fans realize that Randy Winn is just about as good a player as Johnny Damon. Over/under: 5%?

At first, this just didn't sound that accurate to me. Considering how poor Randy Winn's offense was in 2009, it's hard to believe that him and Damon project similarly in 2010. Factoring in defense, the two might be closer than you think.

The Fan's projections on FanGraphs are contrary to Bennett's assertion that fans don't realize the comparable value of the two players. Whether the fans realize it or not, as a whole they are projecting Randy Winn to be equivalent to Johnny Damon in 2010.

While Winn is projected for 1.6 WAR and Damon is projected for 2.2, their playing time differs. If you go by WAR/600 PA, the fans are projecting Damon to be worth 0.6 runs more than Winn, which is extremely negligible.

I'm pretty sure 99.9% of fans will tell you that Johnny Damon is better than Randy Winn, but when filling out their projections, they are calling the two players comparable. I think this is a very good utility of the Fan's projections, but it's always worth taking a look at multiple systems.

My projection system of choice is to use CHONE's offensive projections along with Jeff Zimmerman's UZR projections for defense. Using this method, there is a much bigger discrepancy:

That's a difference of around 14 runs or 1.4 wins, which is a substantial difference. However, I think that Damon's UZR projection is wildly optimistic. I don't claim to be any type of scout, but anyone watching Damon play the outfield last season saw an aging outfielder with declining range and a terrible arm.

I think projecting Damon for -5 defensive runs is a better baseline that is still quite conservative. Even if you do that, there is still a one win difference between the two players.

Now, no one seems to think Damon will get more than a one-year, $7 million deal. Is that one win upgrade worth the extra $5 million? Given that teams have been paying $3.5-$4 million per WAR this offseason, it would not be worth it. Add in that one more win would barely help the Yankees, and it absolutely made sense to pass on Damon.

Yesterday, the Yankees acquired the recently designated for assignment Greg Golson from the Texas Rangers in exchange for infield prospect Mitch Hilligoss. Hilligoss is best known for maintaining a 38 game hitting streak while playing with for the Charleston RiverDogs in 2007. He always possessed an "empty" batting average and since 2007, the bottom has fallen out. He has been terrible over the past two seasons in High-A Tampa.

Golson was drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies in the first round of the 2004 draft. He spent five seasons with the team and was always regarded as a good prospect. After the 2008 season, the Phillies dealt Golson to the Rangers for a more powerful outfield prospect, John Mayberry, Jr.

When people talk about Golson, you'll hear them talk about his tremendous tools. After he was traded to the Yankees, Frankie Piliere gave us a brief overview of Golson via Twitter:

Skinny on Golson from good source: Plus-plus speed/arm, good defender, outstanding makeup. Big holes at the plate, lacks feel w/ the bat.

Obviously, that last sentence is the most important, and it is what has kept Golson from developing into the player many thought he'd become. Baseball America sang Golson's praises for years.

For the 2006 season, Baseball America ranked Golson the Phillies' second best prospect. They also noted that he was the system's best athlete and possessed the system's best outfield arm.

In 2007, BA dropped Golson down to the tenth best prospect, but still continued to love his tools. He was the best athlete, the fastest baserunner, the best defensive outfielder, and he had the best outfield arm in the system.

After struggling in 2007, BA still had high hopes for Golson and ranked him the team's seventh best prospect for the 2008 season. He remained tops in the system in the four categories from the year before, but he also ranked as the system's best power hitter after posting a mediocre .153 ISO.

This is the point where I usually try to use a graph to show a statistical trend, but I can't find a lasting trend that is positive or negative. There were some differences in his game last season, though. In 2009, Golson posted by far the lowest ISO of his career. At the same time, he posted the lowest K-rate of his career and second highest walk rate.

This signals a change in approach, but it did not appear to work as he put together a miserable offensive season. Golson is still only 24, but it is unlikely that he turns into the offensive force he once was predicted to be. Maybe if he can continue to cut down his strikeouts and increase his walks, he will have value as a bench player for a National League team, even if that means sacrificing his power.

Golson's tools give him all the potential in the world, but sometimes that just doesn't transfer over into hitting a baseball. Even with his weak hitting, he can still play a role in 2010 for the Yankees. Freddy Guzman was on the Yankees postseason roster in 2009, and there isn't a single thing he does better than Greg Golson.

Golson is good depth to have as a sixth outfielder waiting in the minors because of his remarkable tools. If you put him in the outfield, it's likely he'll be the best defender out there. He has also improved his baserunning and can be an asset as a pinch runner. He was a very low risk pickup for the Yankees, and has the chance to contribute in some form or another.

*For those of you who are big Melky Mesa fans, take a look at Golson and remember that hitting a baseball is a terribly difficult thing to do, even with all the tools in the world. Mesa probably has a bit more power potential than Golson, but it's unlikely he'll ever amount to much more than Golson has.