Trading Montero for Pineda could prove costly for Yankees

Joel Sherman
Blog: Hardball

HARDBALL

We should start with this proviso: Just about every personnel expert I respect thinks the Yankees did very well in shipping Jesus Montero and Hector Noesi to the Mariners for Michael Pineda and Jose Campos.

In fact, quite a few of the executives thought it was an overwhelming triumph for the Yankees, namely because they view Pineda as an ace in training and Montero as a special bat, but one unqualified to play a position.

Yet, after all of these conversations, I still have big doubts if the Yankees made the right decision. They acted from the accepted trading playbook: If you can obtain an ace-type, you must do it. The No. 1 starter continues to be viewed as the Holy Grail of the sport.

AP

GONNA MISS YA: The Yankees may rue the day they traded away young slugger Jesus Montero to Mariners for Michael Pineda (inset), because hitters like Montero, with Seattle manager Eric Wedge, left, and general manager Jack Zduriencik (right), can be as hard to find as top-notch starters, says The Post’s Joel Sherman.

But what might be lost is that great hitters are becoming as rare to find. Maybe it is about fewer illegal performance enhancers in the game or, perhaps, we have ushered in an era of better pitching. The result is that offensive numbers are down across the board. For example, slugging percentage dropped below .400 sport-wide in 2011 for the first time since 1992. Consider that just

28 players who qualified for the batting title last year reached at least a .500 slugging percentage compared with 47 five years ago.

Whether Montero can play in the field remains in dispute. But there is little doubt about his hitting. The consensus is that what you saw in his cameo last year — .328 average, .590 slugging percentage — reflects his ability. It is not a stretch of the imagination to think he would have become the Yankees’ No. 5 hitter as early as the 2012 campaign en route to becoming the long-term cleanup man behind Robinson Cano.

Still, the Yankees would argue they used an area of strength (offense/catcher) to address a weakness (high-end starting pitching). On the surface, this is accurate. Nevertheless, the Yankees’ offense is the young George Foreman: A mighty bully against weak foes, but something considerably less fierce against standout pitching.

It is intuitive to recognize all offenses grow less effective against better pitching. But the Yankees’ first-round elimination against the Tigers exemplified how few of their hitters can handle above-average pitching. In fact, the advanced metrics show only Cano and, to a lesser degree, Mark Teixeira performed well against top pitching last year. (Thanks to Derek Carty at Baseball Prospectus for doing the research.) Conversely, Curtis Granderson, Russell Martin, Nick Swisher, Brett Gardner and Alex Rodriguez struggled significantly against the better arms in the game.