High Can O' Corn

OK, my first original thought laid out here...

Maybe intentionally, maybe not, but I think the Yankees may have tapped into a new efficiency model: using their greater financial resources to compile a pitching staff that permits them to use their best pitchers to throw the greatest number of innings. It sounds so simple, but it never seems to happen.

The average AL team totaled 1,441 innings pitched in 2009. The Yankees expected 2010 starting rotation - Sabathia, Burnett, Vazquez, Pettitte and Chamberlain - threw 1,008 combined in 2009. Rivera, Hughes and Aceves totaled 236 more. If you assume a slight innings increase from Joba, you are looking at somewhere between 1,250-1,300 IP in 2010 from the Yankees' top 8 pitchers (usual caveats, disclaimers and provisos apply). This leaves only 150-200 innings for the rest of the bullpen, which can be filled by only two or three pitchers from the Marte, Gaudin, Mitre, Robertson group.

So the Yankees fill more innings from their top 8 pitchers - in fact, as many as 90%. This in and of itself constitutes a competitive advantage. In 2009, the Yankees' top-8 gave them only 1,085 innings out of 1,450, or 74.9%, leaving 365 innings for the likes of Wang, Veras, Albaladejo and Tomko. Squeezing an extra 150-200 innings from your frontline guys rather than your roster filler sure seems like a great way to ease any potential burden on the offense.

The ancillary benefit to this is that they could realistically have only an 11-man pitching staff, instead of the 12 or 13-man staff that has become the norm. This could give them more roster flexibility than other teams, which is another competitive advantage, allowing them to carry, say a third catcher (letting Montero caddy for a while?) or add another platoon outfielder.