Note: If you are of the belief that Javy Vazquez simply can’t pitch in New York, then stop reading. You probably also find value in watching Baseball Tonight.

It’s no secret that Javy Vazquez has been awful in his first four starts of the 2010 season. In Vazquez’s own words, he’s embarrassed by the way he’s pitched. His ERA+ of 44 certainly gives him reason to feel that way. Before we get all crazy though, let’s keep in mind that it’s only been four starts. For now, let’s break down Javy’s performance by The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

The Good

Despite his struggles, Javy is still striking out hitters at a high rate. His K/9 of 8.10 is better than the rates of CC Sabathia, AJ Burnett, and Andy Pettitte.

His left on base percentage is 57.6%, meaning just about half of the runners who get on base are scoring. That’s highly unusual for both Vazquez and MLB in general. Typically, about 70% of runners who get on base end up stranded. In addition, his BABIP of .342 is 33 points above his career average. Some tough luck for Javy and numbers that are likely to show significant improvement.

Another sign of bad luck can be found in Javy’s HR/FB rate, as 18.5% of flyballs are leaving the park. That’s 7.3% higher than his career rate. Look for that to normalize.

The Bad

Javy is walking hitters at more than double his career rate. His BB/9 of 4.95 is crazy bad for him.

Swinging strikes are significantly down too. During his Chicago years, he never averaged less than 10.7% of his pitches resulting in a swinging strike. He’s at 8.4% currently.

The Ugly

His fastball. Typically around 91 mph for his career, he’s clocking in for an average of 88.8 now. But not only is the velocity down, the end result of his fastball has been poor. The pitch has been worth -4.7 runs below average. In fact, every type of pitch but his slider (+1.3 runs) has been below average.

Some bad luck + control issues + ineffective pitches = Javy looking terrible. It’s still extremely early though, so calm down.

*Props to Louis Winthorpe III, Jake Fratelli, and Vizzini for also contributing to this post. Data source: Fangraphs

In this NoMaas feature, we present Minor League Player of the Week awards to standout performers in the Yankees’ system. We hope this will serve as a good resource for lots of folks who don’t have the time to track the farm on a daily basis, and could really use a nice summary.

Minor League Players of the Week:

Pitcher:
Graham Stoneburner, 22, RHP, A
14 IP, 16 K, 3 BB, 11 H, 2 ER

You can’t ask for much more from Stoneburner in the two starts he made last week. The NoMaas interviewee is tearing up Sally league hitters so far, striking out 30 total batters in 25 innings, while keeping his free passes to a paltry 6. Graham is a power pitcher whose stuff is going to allow him to post lines like this against young low level hitters. His real challenge is going to be developing his changeup and this will ultimately determine his role as either a reliever or starter. The Yankees will likely be hesitant to push him up the ladder quickly if they don’t feel his offspeed pitches are coming around the way they’d like them to. There’s a lot to like here.

Position Player:
Corban Joseph, 21, RHB 2B, A+
.385/.448/.769 in 29 PAs

This line is a microcosm of what Joseph is all about. He has a great approach at the plate (10.3% BB this past week) that allows him to get on even when he’s slumping. When he’s really going well at the plate, he’s utilizing his gap power to spray the ball around (5 2Bs) and turning on inside pitches (2 HRs). CoJo is going to be a very interesting player moving forward. He’s still young for his level and his power appears to be coming around, though that might just be due to the inflationary Florida State League, a noted hitter’s environment. In either case, his performance this past week was nothing short of spectacular and for how much attention the Yankees’ minor league catchers get, maybe a portion of that should be paid to their second basemen.

Honorable Mentions:

David Adams, 23, RHB 2B, AA
.304/.448/.522 in 29 PAs
Adams continues his ridiculous start to the season (.344/.420/.557).

Austin Romine, 21, RHB C, AA
.407/.484/.593 in 31 PAs
NoMaas’ #2 prospect gives us a glimpse of what he can do.

Adam Warren, 22, RHP, A+
12.1 IP, 9 K, 2 BB, 10 H, 1 ER
Would have been pitcher of the week if not for Stoneburner.

Look at the jump (lack of) he gets on this ball. The broadcast has enough time to switch cameras before he takes off.

http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=7658725

From Marc Carig of the Star-Ledger:

“I screwed up,” manager Joe Girardi said, a blunt assessment of a seventh-inning meltdown on Sunday that capped what became an 8-4 Yankees loss.

“I probably should have stuck with my first instinct,” Girardi said after the game.

The quotes above are from Girardi describing the extremely bizarre AB between Damaso Marte and Kendry Morales in Sunday’s rubber match versus the Angels. Girardi did screw up like he said, but his “first instinct” was also wrong.

Here was the situation:

Bottom of the 7th, Angels leading the Yanks 5-4. Two outs, Matsui on 1st, Hunter on 2nd. Damaso Marte pitching, Kendry Morales at the plate. Morales is turned around to the right side.

Just about all of Morales’ success in his career has been as a left-handed hitter. So we can understand why Marte was kept in the game to pitch to Morales as a righty (.266/.293/.429 career as RHB). But for some odd reason, Girardi signals for the intentional walk. What made the IBB decision even more mind-boggling is that walking Kendry Morales would move the existing runners to 2nd and 3rd. What?? Morales getting the Barry Bonds treatment??

So following Girardi’s orders, Marte throws ball one. And then this happens:

As the Angel Stadium fans booed, Alex Rodriguez jogged to the pitcher’s mound and Girardi appeared to be joining them. Girardi said after the game that he was going to summon Robertson, who would complete the intentional walk before facing Rivera with the bases loaded. Just as planned.

But before he reached the grass, Girardi tore up the plan.

Ok, so Girardi was going to remove Marte one pitch into the AB and then call in David Robertson to finish the intentional walk? What the….

Why in the world would you bring Robertson in now? If you want to intentionally walk a guy (as dumb as it was to begin with), then let the current pitcher finish the task. Don’t bring a fresh pitcher in, tell him to throw three straight balls, and then expect him to settle down and go after the next hitter. That is messed up.

But, as noted above, Girardi changed his mind on his way to the mound and told Marte to go after Morales.

Marte is already at a disadvantage though because of Girardi’s initial IBB call. Damaso pitches and misses, and Torii Hunter also steals 3rd. 2-0 count and runners are on 1st and 3rd. Marte deals again and throws ball three. 3-0 count. The pitch sequence of this AB is a catastrophe at this point. Marte looks terrible and is clearly out of sorts. Just cut your losses and give Morales the free pass. Yes, you’d be moving Matsui over to 2nd now, but the odds are greatly in favor of the hitter on a 3-0 count.

But, Girardi doesn’t issue the signal for ball four. Marte throws a batting practice fastball and Morales hits it out. 8-4 Angels, game now out of reach.

Awesome.

Opening game of the series in Anaheim.

The Angels take a 2-run lead in the bottom of the 8th despite Joba’s aggressive, bulldog mentality. Not looking good. All hope is not lost though. We’ve got our two biggest home run threats in Tex and ARod due up 2nd and 3rd in the top of the 9th. Just as important, Nick “The Walking Stick” Johnson — leading all of MLB with a 25.0% walk rate — is going to lead off in front of them against one of the wildest closers in baseball (Brian Fuentes has a career 3.85 BB/9 rate).

“But, wait!” says Joe Girardi. “I always see other managers doing that lefty-righty matchup thing. Let me pull Nick Johnson and pinch-hit righty Marcus Thames against the left-handed Fuentes!”

Unfortunately for Joe, the Yankees, and the many fans staying up late to watch this game hoping for an exciting comeback, Thames struck out.

Career OBP vs Lefties:

Marcus Thames .332
Nick Johnson .423

Oops.

Down 2 in the top of the 9th…who needs a baserunner, really?

*Props to Louis Winthorpe III for also contributing to this post

The Yankees couldn’t pull off the sweep of Oakland on Thursday, despite a triple play from Alex Rodriguez. Even so, the Yankees have won all five of their series in the young 2010 season. Can’t ask for anything more than that.

7.1 IP, 1 H, 10 K, 2 BB — and he’s the Yankees 5th starter!

This is a reminder that NY fans need to be patient with young pitching. The early years of a pitcher don’t move in straight trends.

This is also a reminder that West Coast games often cause late updates, as some of us have other responsibilities and require sleep.

*Props to Stringfellow Hawke, Louis Winthorpe III, Michael Knight, Mick Shrimpton, Reginald Cornelius III, and Larry King’s wife’s sister for also contributing to this post.

Joe Girardi has a reputation as a smart, stats-savvy manager. But, with his recent usage of Mariano Rivera, he appears to be unfamiliar with the concept of leverage.

For those of you who are not so sabermetrically inclined, “leverage” is the idea that when it’s a really important part of the game with, like, the score being close in later innings late – you should use your best available pitcher. To the contrary, when the game is not so much on the line, you should not waste that pitcher because you might be forced to rest him in a subsequent situation with higher leverage. Follow?

Fangraphs features a play-by-play Leverage Index which tells you how much the game is on the line. All games start off at a neutral 1.00. If the game remains close into the late innings, the Leverage Index goes up above 1.00. If the game becomes a blowout, the Leverage Index falls below 1.00. It updates this live throughout a game. Somebody get Joe a laptop!

Example: In Oakland on Tuesday night, the Yankees had a 4-run lead going into the bottom of the 9th. At this point, you can throw pretty much anybody out there against the jokers in the A’s lineup. A league-average pitcher will secure the win here 99% of the time. Now, the choice of Damaso Marte makes less sense than others, since he’s a lefty and the first two guys due up are righties…but whatevs. Maybe Joe had a gut feeling. So, Marte does the worst possible thing and walks the first batter (apparently Marte’s 6.35 BB/9 against RHBs isn’t in Joe’s stats binder). Girardi calls for Rivera.

The leverage of that situation was .97… below average. There’s no need to waste Mo in that situation. Bringing in DRob or Ace or even Mitre still keeps your win expectancy at about 98%. Using Mo to squeeze out an extra percent or so of win expectancy is not efficient.

Fast forward one night to Game 2 of the Oakland series…8th inning, Yanks up 2-0 on a gem of a game by Phil Hughes. After Chavez’ comebacker breaks up the no-no, Hughes K’s Kouzmanoff, but walks Gross. Now with two on and one out, the leverage is 4.12. Girardi decides to go to pen and calls for… Joba Chamberlain. We all agree Joba is an above-average pitcher, and we hope he can regain his old form at some point. But whatever he is, he’s not The Best Relief Pitcher In The History Of Mankind. That title belongs to a man who was resting his Panamanian rump on the bench when leverage was over four times the neutral game situation.

After Joba gets Adam Rosales on a flyball to right, Jake Fox fists one to opposite field for a run scoring single. It’s now 2-1, with runners at the corner and four outs to go. The Leverage Index is up to 5.12! The Yankees win expectancy has fallen to 69%. Can you think of a better spot to use your far-and-away, no-doubt-about-it bestest reliever? Mais non – Joe sticks with Question Mark and The Mysterians for another crucial out, which fortunately they get with a nice stab by Teixeira on a hard chopper to first.

Mo finally made it into the game… after the Yankees scored in the top of the 9th and the Leverage Index had dropped to 1.89.

For a supposedly-forward thinking manager, he doesn’t know how to maximize the impact of our Lord and Savior. We think Girardi is an above-average MLB manager (not exactly a great selection pool), but you cannot eschew higher leverage situations for lower ones with Mariano Rivera.

Runners are 23 for 24 in stealing bases off run-prevention specialist, Victor Martinez (4% CS).