OK, I wasn't planning on posting something like this, and maybe the issue is just that I like Nick Swisher, and blah blah blah. But while I no longer live in New York and am no longer constantly bombarded with every little bit of Yankees news, I can't help but notice that some Yankees outlets are talking about Swisher being traded, or being in a "competition" with Xaiver Nady this spring to see who will be the Yankees starting right fielder.

There are a lot of things that go into a trade discussion besides just player quality -- there's payroll, need for prospects, what you get back in return. But some people seem to think that either a) that Nady and Swisher are about the same in talent, or b) the Yankees need to upgrade the corner outfield, and should have signed, say, Manny Ramirez.. Let's take a look at some projections for Swisher, Nady, and some "others" for 2009 to see if that is the case.

A quick look at the stats from last year tells you that Swisher had a terrible year offensively while playing center field, the corners, and first base (and finally being benched in the playoffs) for the White Sox. And Xavier Nady had a great year for the PIrates and then got traded to the Yankees.

But (hopefully) we all know a couple of things: 1) that one year of data doesn't tell us much about the player, and 2) defense matters.

I'm not going to discuss trade/contract issues much in this particular post. Clearly, the Yankees are built to win now, and there's plenty to talk about in just comparing player quality. For fun, I won't compare only Nady and Swisher, but the other corner outfielder -- types on the Yankees (Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui), as well as the man in RF whom the Yanks are trying to replace (Bobby Abreu) and the One Big Fish left in Free Agency who was sometimes floated as a possibility for the Yankees; one Manny Ramirez.

(Of course, about  the time I published this, Manny reportedly signed with LA or he didn't, or who knows... but still, it's worth comparing Swisher to Manny, too, to see exactly how good he is relative to perceptions.)

Method and Data Sources

Feel free to skip to the next section if this stuff bores you too much...

There are a number of good projection systems out there for offense. The "Big Three" are Sean "Rally" Smith's CHONE, Dan Szymborksi's  ZiPS, and Nate Silver's PECOTA. Choosing between them would be like choosing between Mother Tereasa, Albert Schweitzer, and Tim Tebow.So what I did was to get a wOBA out of each projection  system for each player (FanGraphs already has wOBA for CHONE, and I think will have one for Zips when it is ready; for now, I simply used the initial ZiPS and PECOTA spreadsheets and plugged in the wOBA formula), averaged them, and then used it as instructed to get offensive runs above average for each player over 150 games (625 plate appearances for the sake of my work here).

About the only good defensive projections that are publicly available, as far as I know, are CHONE's (although TucsonRoyal is working on what I wanted to do [although I wouldn't do it as well] -- a basic projection system for Ultimate Zone Rating).. I used his projections for corner outfielders. They are also in runs above/below average per 150 games.

Adding offense and defense together would itself let us compare these players, but to get an overall sense of their value, we also need to adjust for position.using the by-now familiar adjustments developed by Tom Tango and used by FanGraphs. The whole spectrum, for those who aren't familiar (and I recommend the links in the previous sentence wholheartedly): C +12.5, SS  +7.5, 2B/3B/CF +2.5, LF/RF -7.5, 1B -12.5, DH -17.5. Obviously, for all the players involved, it will be -7.5 (since we are considering them in their corner outfield function).

Finally, we'll add in replacement level for 150 games -- a simple +20 run bonus (which is pretty close to the 2.5 win per 700 PAs for the American League).

With that out of the way, let's quickly go through the projected offense, defense, and total value for the "candidates" we have lined up... with a series of annoying awesome graphs, of course.

Offense

The first thing you probably notice upon looking at this graph is that, wow, even at his age, the projection systems love Manny's bat. Swisher, the next best guy, is more than 20 runs -- two wins -- worse than Manny. But Swisher is the second best, even after his disastrous 2008 campaign. Over an equal number of plate apperances, he's clearly better than Nady, at least, basically the same as Abreu (given the relative, and a bit better than Matsui, who is slated to be the full-time DH in New York, last I heard. That's a good bat, if not great.

Some may doubt Swisher's offense after last season. But again, it's one season of data. Moreoever, he was incredibly unlucky, indeed, he was one of the most luckless hitters in baseball in 2008. Despite worries from even some more informed Yankees followers, he's offense more than good enough, given even average defense, to "play" in the corner outfield, where a +7.5 bat is good enough to be average, given the positional adjustment. But it's not all about the offense, is it?

Defense

The first thing you notice here is that Manny's defensive projection lives up to his reputation. Indeed, this group as a whole isn't going to make anyone forget mid-1990s Andruw Jones. Only Swisher and Damon are above average, and not one else is close. While CHONE doesn't take account of arms, everyone will conceded that Damon has never had the arm for right field.

Putting It All Together

[Note: that for the sake of conserving space, I didn't include positional and replacement level adjustments on the chart. In any case, it's sort of redundant since we're assuming playing time to be the same through this point. It also makes the scale of the chart a bit odd, since the projected offense and defense are relative to average, where as the total is relative to replacement level (20 runs below average per 625 PAs). Since playing time is equal and position is the same, position + replacement = -7.5 +20, so the projected Total Runs Above Replacement (Total RAR) = offense + defense + 12.5.]

Of the players currently on the Yankees, Swisher isn't just the projected to be best hitter among them, but CHONE's projection sees him as practically equal to Johnny Damon defensively, as well (and we're being generous to Damon by assuming he would be as good in right as he is in left).

There's no contest between Swisher and Nady. As for the man the Yankees are trying to replace, while Abreu is about as good as Swisher on offense, Swisher projects as 16 runs better (about 1.5 wins) on defense over a full season.

But is he "good enough" for the Yankees? 34 runs above replacement is almost 3.5 wins above replacement, or 1.5 above average. There are many teams who don't have a single outfielder that good. But we've only looked at the internal options.

While the Manny boat has probably sailed by now, it's worth discussing him because if the Yankees had signed him, all the pundits would call the Yankees therunaway favorites. But assuming that dumping Swisher (or putting him on the bench) would be part of that (and leaving aside the issue of who would play in right field), would it make the Yankees that much better. Manny, even at his age, is still projected to be an incredible hitter by all three systems. But his defense gives almost his entire advantage against Swisher away. He only projects as 2.3 runs better -- for all practical purposes, they are equal. And keep in mind that playing time hasn't been considered. Swisher hasn't had major injury problems that I know of, and is still a bit of a way from 30. Manny barely played 130 games in 2006 and 2007 and will be 37 in May. And Swisher clearly has positional versatility Manny doesn't.

The Nady issue is clear, as my Driveline colleague David Golebiewski points out elsewhere (although in much less wordy fashion). My point here, however, is that not only is he better than Nady, but that he's projected to be at least as good Manny Ramirez, player whose acquisition by the Bronx Bombers would make every talking head call them a lock for the division title in 2009.

Do the Yankees (or at least some of those who write about them) really think a guy in Manny's league (but costing about $20M less) is expendable? Let's put is this way:  Would any team put Manny in competition with Xavier Nady for a starting spot? What would we say about a team that traded Manny Ramirez if he was slated to earn $5.3 million this season?