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Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Heyman: Yankees choice could be Garza vs. E-Jax

The Yankees desperately seek a No. 2 starter, and fortunately for them, there are still many viable alternatives available on the trade and free agent markets.

But ultimately, the choice could come down to Matt Garza or Edwin Jackson.
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The Yankees like Jackson’s arm, his potential and his durability. But they wonder about his consistency. He is one of only three active pitchers 27 or younger with more than 30 games started each of the past five years, the other two being Matt Cain and Felix Hernandez. He is also one of only three age 27 or younger to have thrown 950 innings with no D.L. time the last five years. The others? Cain and Tim Lincecum.

Heyman really needs to start giving Scott Boras by-line credit for these press releases.

Jackson seems a lot like A.J. Burnett coming off his 2005 season to to me.  ERA+ of 108 over his prior three seasons and heading into his age 28 year (Burnett was coming off a three year run of 112 ERA+ and heading into his age 29 year.  Jackson has a much better health record.  Jackson’s still got the stuff that makes him seem like a potential ace, like Burnett did as well.

Burnett pitched reasonably well over his ages 29-32 seasons (ERA+ of 112 and 10.4 bWAR).  After that, as you are probably well aware, it’s been a rough go.

If the Yankees could sign Jackson for two or three years, I’d probably be cool with it.  Since that’s probably not realistic, I’d rather see them pass.

On an unrelated note, Chris Jaffe takes a stab at predicting the Hall of Fame voting results for next week in this article.  It’s Bernie Williams’s first year on the ballot.  Unfortunately, I fear it’s going to be his only year on the ballot.  I don’t think Bernie’s a Hall of Famer, but I’d kind of like to see him hang around the ballot for a while so people can remember how good he really was.  Sort of like Don Mattingly.