Hit graphs

This is presented without much explanation.  Below is a chart of the Yankees' starting lineup (and some prominent part-time players) in hit graph form.

Derek Jeter's obviously the king, as he reached 3,000 hits earlier this year. At 2,762 for his career, Alex Rodriguez looks like he's got a handle on entering the 3K club as well. Two guys who have really leveled are Eric Chavez and Andruw Jones, who were on the fast track before being hit by injuries/general ineffectiveness. Robinson Cano is a hit-machine, though he he's not quite at Jeter's pace through his age 28 season. Nick Swisher and Curtis Granderson are similar in their hit profiles and aren't on any sort of special pace.  Jorge Posada is notable here as a good player who's been able to cut it for a long time (notice the slight bump at 2007, when he got a career best 171 hits).  I put Eduardo Nunez on the graph since he's played a lot this year, but he's no more than a blip on the radar here as a second-year role player.

Yankees' first-pitch swing rates

I noticed a question in a River Ave. Blues mailbag session from earlier today, asking about the Yankees and first-pitch swing percentage.  I've looked at that stat a few times before, so it's not too much trouble to load it up for 2011 data.  The league average so far in 2011 for swing percentage on the first pitch of an at-bat is .265.  Using a 150 plate appearance limit, leaving 207 qualified batters, Vladimir Guerrero leads the majors with a first-pitch swing rate of .423; Jamey Carroll is last at .014.  The table below shows where the Yankees fall on the list.

Rank	Batter	FP Swing Rate
6	Robinson Cano	.409
72	Russell Martin	.291
101	Nick Swisher	.263
103	Derek Jeter	.262
112	Alex Rodriguez	.252
134	Jorge Posada	.232
160	Mark Teixeira	.209
193	Curtis Granderson	.138
200	Brett Gardner	.110

Andruw Jones, the only other Yankee batter with more than 50 plate appearances, has a rate of .338. 

Yankee bunters

I've been all into this bunting stuff for the past month or so.  I think it's fair to say that I've learned some things, though not as much as I may like.  Briefly, I would like to examine some Yankee hitters with the bunting metrics I've been using.  Data are from 2008-2010; use this as your glossary.

	Attempt%	Bunt Attempts	Fair%	Hit%	Out%	Sac%	Bunt Runs	Bunt Runs / 100
Brett Gardner	.052	73	.507	.243	.378	.378	-1.73	1.16
Derek Jeter	.013	45	.489	.364	.091	.545	1.91	7.76
Curtis Granderson	.014	41	.463	.211	.368	.421	-1.29	0.37
Ramiro Pena	.056	31	.323	.400	.100	.500	0.25	4.32
Francisco Cervelli	.047	31	.613	.158	.211	.632	-0.60	1.61
Nick Swisher	.007	21	.619	.231	.231	.538	0.06	3.83

Watching Yankee games on television, I've always assumed that Gardner is a below average bunter, or at least that he's below average at getting the ball in play.  Turns out that he's right at the league average on this front, and he also turns a higher amount of fair bunts into hits than does the average player.  His speed helps with that.  Jeter and Pena look like they're good at avoiding bunt outs, though Pena hits way too many foul bunts.  Cervelli is great at getting the ball in play, and is rarely asked to do more than sacrifice.  Swisher bunts extremely infrequently and has also shown the ability to get the ball in play.  Granderson looks like an average bunter all around.