DH Downgrade?

As we all know the Yankees DH struggles were well documented last year.  Jorge Posada took the brunt of the criticism as he had his worst hitting year of his career with a paltry .235/.315/.398 triple slash line. Jorge took most of the AB's at DH (344) but Andruw Jones also took a good amount of AB's against lefties (128) by seasons end, which matches the 70/30 RHP/LHP frequency.  This wasn't an ideal situation by any means as many other AL teams finished with better DH production, but it was serviceable.

The platoon of Jones and Posada when examined further may not be as bad as it looked on the field in 2011.  Once Posada was relegated to hitting only left handed, against right handed pitching he performed surprisingly well posting a season ending line of .269/.348/.466/.353.  Jones held up his side of the platoon as well, mashing lefties at a .400 wOBA clip.  Although it took Girardi and others until mid June to figure out Posada/Jones were one trick ponies, the duo performed quite well from there on.

As Jorge rode off into the sunset this off season many fans assumed our DH production would increase greatly from 2011.  Enter Raul Ibanez.  Signed for $1.2 mil guaranteed with incentives that can allow him to make $4 mil, hes an inexpensive option but a tremendously flawed one as well.  Ibanez' main duty is to be the lefty half of the DH platoon a la Posada post June 2011.  Ibanez is nearing 40 and has clearly seen better days.  His production has dropped significantly since career year in 2009.  However, we can't really look at his overall value as a player anymore, as for us he has one use, hit righties.  So lets try to see how well Ibanez can perform as Andruw's platoon partner.

Last season Ibanez posted just a .322 wOBA against righties, his lowest rate in quite some time.  However, despite Citizens Bank park being heralded as a band box, the move to Yankee Stadium is a pleasant site for Raul.  It has been estimated by some calculations such as Bill James' Handbook (small sample size warning) that Yankee Stadium increases left handed home run power by 43%.  Wouldn't we like to see that as he hit 16 homers against righties last year,  id sign up for 22 homers from a platoon DH any day.  However, father time has more to say about his game than just moving to a new ballpark.  Ibanez walked just 6.9% against righties, a career low mark.  Couple that with an almost career high 15.6% K rate it is clear that swinging more often and swinging and missing more often has become a staple of his game.  I just cannot imagine a man of his age/ability to rebound tremendously, although he has been relatively consistent over his big league career.  Last years .256/.307/.440 line against righties is nothing special, but with park effects, age, and trends we should see about the same production as last year.  We can hope for some BABIP improvement from the .268 figure of last year but I wouldn't expect anything too dramatic.

Overall I find it hard to believe that Ibanez can match Posada's 2011 production against righties.  Posada out wOBA'd him by 33 points, and I would be shocked if Ibanez can improve his game that much at age 40.  So as bad as Posada seemed last year he actually was a useful player that could have been worth millions on the open market, evidenced by the Ibanez contract.  All in all, we might have downgraded at DH for 2012 despite the praise of many for the Ibanez signing.

- Alex Bardani

References: Fangraphs