And I’m wondering if he will ever be the same.

The reason the Yankee DL-ed Hughes in the first place is because he had a “dead arm.” At first, it was thought that the arm fatigue was due to the fact that Hughes was unaccustomed to pitching regularly that early, since last season he was on an innings limit and did not pitch every five days for the whole year.

Pitching coach Larry Rothschild remained confident, and felt the work with Hughes on the sidelines would straighten him out. But after his session on Monday, everyone knew something was wrong.

Phil Hughes said that in his bullpen session, the 20 pitches he threw felt more like 110. That is the last thing the Yankees needed to hear.

Hughes had MRIs done today, with more tests scheduled for Wednesday. Test results are not known yet, but the Yankees will shut down the young righty until further notice.

I’m worried about him. Joe Girardi said this was a “serious” setback. Al Leiter, on last night’s Yankees broadcast, explained that every pitcher goes through dead arm periods here and there, but with Hughes, there is reason to worry, since he is so young. There is no pain in what Hughes is experiencing – just extreme fatigue. But it is quite unusual for his average fastball velocity to be struggling to reach 90 mph this season, when last year he was throwing at around 93 mph.

I’m worried that there is some kind of medical issue with Hughes – something more serious than just a baseball injury. But I should not speculate here. All I can do is wish Hughes luck. I hope that he can make it back and be the pitcher he was in the past. I hope this is not another Chien-Ming Wang story. Hughes means too much for this team.

I can’t believe I’m saying it, but I’m so thankful for Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia. These two have been saviors for the Yankees pitching rotation this season. I hope they can keep up the solid starts, because from the looks of it, Hughes is going to be out for a long time.

by Virginia Califano

As most fans will reluctantly admit, baseball is a business. The owners are in the business for two reasons: to make money and to win games. By this reasoning, the most efficient teams are the ones who win the most games while spending the least amount of money.

It’s a fairly simple concept that most people are familiar with and most fans have had a conversation about in one form or another. Almost every fan will remember wondering how it was possible in 2008 that the Rays won 97 games with a payroll of less than $45 million while the Yankees won 8 less games with a payroll of almost $210 million.

In situations like 2008, it becomes incredibly clear how inefficiently the Yankees spent money in comparison to the Rays, but it doesn’t show precisely how efficient or inefficient a team was. If you really want to judge how good a job your team’s front office is doing, you need a more specific measure than “they spend less and win more than Team X.”

Luckily, there’s a stat for that.

Developed by Doug Pappas of Baseball Prospectus in 2004, Marginal Payroll Per Marginal Win measures how efficient a team’s spending is. It’s a fairly simple statistic despite its very daunting name. Here’s how it works:

Since a team must pay a player a certain minimum salary and there are 28 players on a major league roster (25 man active roster plus 3 man disabled list), you subtract the league minimum salary multiplied by 28 from the team’s payroll. This figure is your marginal payroll. Pappas also theorized based on research that a team consisting of 28 random players earning the league minimum could win approximately 30% of their games (48.6 games assuming a 162 game season). So, you take the number of games the team won and subtract 48.6 and you get the marginal wins. Divide marginal payroll by marginal wins and you have the Marginal Payroll Per Marginal Win. In formula form, it looks like this:

(Payroll-(28*league minimum salary))/(Wins-(games played*.3))

What this figure tells us is how much additional money on top of the league required minimum the team spent for each win above the number of wins a random team of scrubs could earn. In other words, the formula tells us how much money the team spent per win above the number of wins which could be attained assuming no additional money was spent above the league required minimum.

What the formula does is gives us a precise way to measure something we already know: the teams who spend the least and win the most are the most efficient clubs.

In this column, I’m going to use this formula to evaluate the efficiency of the five teams in the AL East over the past 11 years since 2000. On Sunday, I’ll continue with the AL West and then move to the AL Central and so on. By the time I’m done, hopefully it will shed a little light on which teams are the most efficient and how they achieve their efficiency.
The obvious starting point is with the team everyone loves to hate. The chart bellow provides information on the past 11 seasons for the Yankees with the furthest right column containing their Marginal Payroll Per Marginal Win for each year.

It should come as no surprise that the Yankees spend a lot of money and also win a lot of games. They spend so much money, however, that they also spend a lot of money per win. Interestingly, the cost per marginal win has been trending upwards over the past ten years despite the fact that the team appeared in three World Series in the first half of decade (won in 2000 and lost in 2001 and 2003) and only one in the second half of the decade (won in 2009). The chart below shows the team’s spending progression over the past decade:

In other words, the Yankees have been getting less and less efficient over the past decade. This result isn’t really very surprising considering they have continued to spend more and more money. One can imagine that adding $5 million to a payroll of $200 million will have a significantly lower impact on winning games than adding $5 million to a payroll of $40 million. In other words, one can easily theorize that money becomes significantly less valuable the more of it you spend. We’ll be able to test this statistically once we have data for all of the clubs.

The Red Sox are a bit of a different story:

As you can see, there’s much less rhyme and reason to the way the Sox numbers fluctuate. You can see this more exactly in the graph:

Wins and Payroll are less correlated than with the Yankees showing that despite the Sox best efforts to mimic the Yankees by shelling out large sums of money for big name free agents, their spending hasn’t had a drastic impact on their performance. They also spend much less money than the Yankees and spend much more efficiently on the whole, so the comparison may not be warranted to begin with, but you can put one in the win column for the camp that believes you don’t have to spend the most to win in baseball.

The Blue Jays have managed to keep their marginal cost per marginal win below $3 million in each of the last 11 seasons which is something that no other team in the AL East can say (not even the Rays), but they also haven’t found a way to win many games.

If the Sox chart indicates you don’t have to spend money to win games, the Blue Jays chart indicates the opposite. They’ve been efficient in their spending but it hasn’t translated into success on the field. With a smaller payroll, you have to be even more efficient to compete which is something the Blue Jays haven’t been able to do. What’s the lesson here? Money may not buy you championships, but it does buy you the freedom to spend a little less efficiently and still get away with it.

If all of this research has done one thing, it has emphasized how poorly run the Baltimore Orioles are. In the past 11 years they’ve never notched more than 78 wins but have had a Marginal Price per Marginal Win over $3 million during five seasons, two of which were over $4 million.

There’s not much else to say here as the numbers pretty much speak for themselves. It’s been a tough decade for the O’s.

On the other hand, the Rays have managed to defy all odds and win a tremendous amount of games with very little money (at least in the latter half of the decade).

After a tough start to the decade, the Rays turned inward to their farm system and became the envy of almost everyone in the league as they developed many of today’s star players while paying them next to nothing.

Even in the middle of the decade while the team wasn’t winning, the Rays kept their payroll so low that they maintained incredible efficiency. The efficiency certainly paid off in the last three years as they’ve been able to modestly increase their payroll to reflect growing support for a team that proved how important developing minor league talent is to being an efficiently run ball club.

So, what does all of this mean? Below is the summary of the above data taking the average Marginal Price Per Marginal Win for each team over the last decade. Not surprisingly, the Yankees are the least efficient club, rightfully earning their nickname as the Evil Empire.

That being said, at least the Yankees win games with their money. It’s much worse for baseball to have a team like the Orioles spending boatloads of cash and not winning any games. The Yankees bring in a tremendous amount of profit to the MLB because they are successful at what they do and have some of the best players in the game. The Orioles certainly can’t say the same. If baseball fans want to get mad at a team from the AL East it should be the Orioles not the Yankees.

What jumps out at you? Let me know what I missed in the comments section.

Check back on Sunday for similar analysis on the AL West and come back over the next few weeks to see the rest of the divisions and figure out exactly what all of this means for the MLB as a whole.

Last night Chris Capuano decided it was time for him to step it up, and the offense thanked him for his help. Capuano went seven strong innings giving up one run while striking out four. The offense provided nine runs on eight hits in Jason Bay’s return to the lineup. The nine runs matched their season high.

“It’s nice to have those kinds of games where you have the good starting pitching and the hitting,” David Wright said.

Bay brought so much needed energy to the Mets team. He not only gave their lineup a much needed spark, but he also fired the guys up in the clubhouse.

“Obviously having Jason Bay back — to pull these guys together is one of the best things that could happen,” manager Terry Collins said. “I think his presence in the clubhouse, in the dugout, and on the field is a big factor.”

The Mets avoided getting swept by the lowly Astros who are just 7-12. By avoiding the sweep the Mets moved their record to 6-13 and will look to improve on their record when they face the Arizona Diamondbacks tonight. The 8-9 Diamondbacks will send Joe Saunders to the mound while the Mets will have their opening day starter, Mike Pelfrey, out there. Both Saunders(6.92 ERA) and Mike Pelfrey(9.72 ERA) have really struggled so far. Pelfrey knows he has to pitch better.

“You can’t feel sorry for yourself because nobody else in the league is going to feel sorry for you,” Pelfrey said. “I definitely have to be better.”

The Mets are currently 1-2 on their six game homestand and 2-8 at home on the year. Arizona is currently 4-4 on the road. First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 PM at Citi Field.

So far this year, CC Sabathia has a sparkling ERA of 2.37, but an 0-1 record. With an ERA like that, Sabathia deserves a few wins.

On Opening Day, Sabathia threw 6 innings, and allowed 3 runs (2 earned). The Yankees went on to win that game 6-3, but it was Joba Chamberlain who was credited with the victory.

His second start was a true gem: 7 innings of 2 hit shutout baseball. CC left the game with a 4-0 lead. This was the game with the Rafael Soriano/Joe Girardi controversy. Soriano was sent into the game in the 8th inning with a 4-0 lead, and he blew it. Personally, I thought it was silly of Girardi to use Soriano, because with a 4 run lead, I thought it was a night he could let his setup man have a night off. But whatever. The Yankees wound up losing that game 5-4, and Sabathia had nothing to show for his brilliant outing that night.

CC’s third start against the Red Sox was a game he had to grind through. He allowed 9 hits through 5.2 innings, but that translated into just 1 run. Unfortunately for CC, the Yankees were shut out 4-0, and he received his first loss of the season.

Sabathia’s most recent start was against the Rangers. It was another game he had to grind through, allowing  4 runs on 8 hits in 6.1 innings. The Yankees wound up winning that game thanks to a game-winning RBI single by Eric Chavez in the 8th. But CC did not get the win.

Last season, Sabathia led the league with 21 wins. He did not win the Cy Young, despite his 21-7 record and ERA of 3.18, which is extremely impressive for the tough division of the AL East. Sabathia led the league in wins in 2009 as well, with a 19-8 record and a 3.37 ERA that year.

I felt that Sabathia was robbed of the Cy Young Award two years in a row. Felix Hernandez of the Mariners won it with his 13-12 record and 2.27 ERA. In 2009, the then-Royal ace Zack Greinke won it with a 16-8 record and 2.16 ERA. So apparently, the Cy Young Award does not weigh wins heavily, despite the fact that Cy Young is the winning-most pitcher in baseball history with 511 wins.

Maybe this so-far winless April for CC Sabathia is not that big of a deal. It’s still early to be discussing the Cy Young anyway, but considering the latest trend of winners, I think CC still has a shot. He doesn’t need to have the most wins to be the winner.

And no matter what, he’s always C”Cy” to me.

by Virginia Califano

The Washington Capitals took each of the first two games in the series as the Rangers are still waiting for their offense to show up. Through two games in the series the Rangers have lit the lamp just once, on a goal by Matt Gilroy. They have taken 47 shots on Washington’s young goal tender, Michal Neuvirth, and he has stopped 46 of them. Along with 46 saves the Washington defense has blocked 53 shots.

While there is plenty for the Rangers to be frustrated about, they remain focused on fixing their offensive struggles. They don’t want to let the blocked shots get in their heads, and know they have to keep doing what has gotten them this far.

“We just need to have that mindset of bringing it to the net,” forward Brandon Dubinsky said Saturday. “Rather than cycling ourselves to death, we’ve just got to make sure we’re trying to create chances and funnel everything to the (crease) and trying to get in this guy’s face. He’s a young guy and we’ve got to try to put more pressure on him.”

The Rangers offense hasn’t just struggled during even strength play. Their power play has been nonexistent since the last nine games of the regular season. Since that time they have failed to produce on 30 of their 31 power-play chances. They know they have to get the power play group going and coach John Tortorella knows they need to change some things up.

“Let’s face it, it’s not working, and we’re going to try some different things,” Tortorella said. “Your power play is always a little microcosm of what your offense is. We’re struggling there. It can create momentum for you or hurt you.”

While the Rangers are a fairly young team, Captain Chris Drury is making sure his teammates don’t give up down two games. He says he has already talked to the team about their current situation and made sure the team knows the series is far from over.

“We already talked about that this morning,” Drury said, “one game and momentum shifts in a playoff series. They’re the number one seed, they have a ton of talent up front, on the back end, in net. They did their job at home, now it’s up to us to respond in the proper way and take care of things in our building.”

Both teams expect the crowd to be very loud in the beginning of the game, but it will be up to the Rangers to keep the crowd in the game. The Capitals are fully aware of what to expect in the first couple of minutes.

“They’re going to come out with a very strong effort, use the momentum, the energy of the crowd,” Capitals forward Mike Knuble said. “It will be absolutely crazy in there the first five, 10 minutes. It will be up to us to be as equally stingy and maybe try and take some of the momentum back by making them play in their own end.”

On the other side Chris Drury knows they need to feed off of the crowd noise. If they are able to get off to a strong start they will make the game much easier on themselves. Drury feels like the team is moving in the right direction.

“In Game 2 we played a better game, we played harder. We know we’re going to have to continue to grind it out. It would certainly be nice to get one early for our fans.”

The puck will drop around 3:00 PM ET in Madison Square Garden for game three of the best of seven series.

But after the first 9 games of the season, I’m so glad to have him.

To be honest, I didn’t have very high expectations for Martin. I knew he was coming off knee surgery, and I just didn’t expect him to be that great. On Opening Day, he convinced me otherwise, going 1-3, scoring 2 runs, and even stealing a base, while calling a good game in the Yankees 6-3 win.

So far this year, Martin is hitting at a clip of .300 with 3 HR, 8 RBI, and 2 stolen bases. I am just so astonished. I feel bad about judging him before seeing him play, because I was completely wrong. He is the best number-9 hole hitter in baseball. He’s got speed, he’s got power. He’s Russell The Hustle and Muscle Martin, and he is a beast.

Aside from his offense, Martin has contributed big time to the Yankees pitching. Joba Chamberlain, who so far is having a great season in the 7th inning spot, credits his current success to Russell Martin, expressing that Martin makes him feel confident and comfortable on the mound. Chamberlain is also using all of his pitches, and gives Martin credit for that as well.

My Dad says that Russell Martin reminds him of Thurman Munson: he’s gritty, hard-nosed, and plays solid fundamental baseball. That’s quite a compliment.

Martin said that he wants to play all 162 games. The way he’s playing now, I’d hate to see him sit out a game! Right now, this looks like one of the best signings made this offseason – a 1 year deal, just $4 million for this quality ballplayer.

And to think – he almost went to the Red Sox. That would have been tragic.

by Virginia Califano

However, if we take a look at how the Knicks were doing before they acquired Anthony, we see they were doing no worse. New York, which currently has a record of 40-38, was 28-26 before the trade. And that was with a team led by Amar’e Stoudemire followed by a group of young, competent, blossoming, and largely homegrown youngsters.

Nate Robinson, 26, three time dunk contest champion and fan favorite, brought the ball up for the Knicks. In the front court were Knicks born and bred Wilson Chandler, 23, and Danilo Gallinari, 22.

Gallinari was my favorite Knick of the current era. He is 6’10”, but has a beautiful jumper. He can hit from anywhere on the floor, even from 30 feet back off the dribble with a man in his face. I’ve always seen him as a younger Dirk. He’s certainly not that good, yet, but 6’ 10” shooters are hard to come by, and they always have huge potential.

Also, some time spent in the weight room could yield an Italian meatball down low. Imagine that—a 6’ 10”, 275 jump shooter who can also take it to you in the paint.

Dangerous.

The Knicks had a groove going. I saw them as something similar to the Lakers. Stoudemire, like Kobe, ran the show. He had the support of great talent who were only going to get better as they matured and the team gelled. They were above .500 without Anthony in their first season as a team. They had a future together.

That is not to say the New York Knicks should have passed on the opportunity to acquire one of the best players of the millennium. Any team would be crazy to push away a player as good and young as Anthony—who is only 26, which means he could have a dozen hall of fame years with the team—and who had such a strong desire to play there.

What I am discouraging is calling Anthony’s presence a saving grace. The Knicks are doing no better than they were without him. While he will certainly be an asset in the future, the team’s performance in the present doesn’t live up to expectations. The question of whether he was worth all the young talent the Knicks gave up is certainly one worth asking.

The Rangers came out and played a very uninspired game of hockey. They had energy in the first period, but they fell off when the Thrashers showed they weren’t going to back down. The score was tied at zero after the first period, but it didn’t stay that way for much longer. Less than eight minutes into the second period the Thrashers took the lead on a goal by Rob Schremp. After the goal the Rangers failed to respond as they gave up another goal just 15 seconds later. This one was scored by Andrew Ladd. The Thrashers added an insurance goal in the third by Eric Boulton.

This was the Rangers first game since losing Ryan Callahan. Callahan was injured in their game against the Bruins on Monday when he blocked a shot by Zdeno Chara. He is out indefinitely with a broken ankle. Callahan was a critical part of the team, but Brandon Dubinsky was quick to say that missing him was not the reason they lost.

“Obviously he is a big part of this team,” Dubinsky said. “That is something we put to rest (Wednesday). We have to step up and move on without him. We have to be ready to practice (Friday) and be ready Saturday.

“We didn’t make enough plays,” Brian Boyle said. “We had some chances where we were close. Close isn’t good enough, especially this time of year.”

Brandon Dubinsky still has a positive attitude through it all. He doesn’t seem worried at all about their current situation.

“As far as I know, we’re still in eighth place,” Dubinsky said. “Until something shows me otherwise, that is the attitude we’re going to have. We are going to do what we can and control what we can control. We have to do it like pros. I have said it before — we have to have a short memory.”

While the Rangers are still in eighth place they will need some help if they want to stay there. The Hurricanes are just two points back of the Rangers and they have two games left to play. If they win both of those games the Hurricanes will dethrone the Rangers of the eighth seed.

The Rangers can also make the playoffs with a win on Saturday against the New Jersey Devils if the Buffalo Sabres lose both of their last two games. Much like last season, the New York Rangers will need all 82 games to see if they will be in the playoffs.

Bay has been throwing in Port St. Lucie, but is still feeling soreness in his rib cage. Due to this soreness Bay has yet to swing a bat since the injury occurred. Terry Collins said yesterday that he expects Bay to start swing some time this week. Jason Bay said that he is improving, but is still not ready. Since there is no set time it takes for a strained intercostal muscle to heal, the Mets have no clue when to expect Bay to make his 2011 debut.

The Mets are off to a 3-2 start without Bay in the lineup. He has been replaced with a platoon of Lucas Duda, Willie Harris, and Scott Hairston. So far Willie Harris has been the star of the trio batting .357 with four runs batted in and one home run. Harris is tied for the team lead with his four runs batted in. He may have earned some extra playing time even when Bay returns with his hot start.

And last night, Yankees fans were not happy when it was over.

It started out well, like the other three Yankees wins so far in the young season. Mark Teixeira hit yet another three run home run, and Andruw Jones hit a homer in his first at-bat as a Yankee. The Yankees jumped out to an early (and seemingly insurmountable) lead off Brian Duensing and the Twins.

After that, the Yankees bats quieted, but there didn’t seem to be a need for worry. CC Sabathia was pitching a gem. He went 7 shutout innings, and surrendered just 2 hits throughout the whole night, both in the 2nd inning. I was hoping he would come out to pitch the 8th, but I wasn’t annoyed that he didn’t.

But I was annoyed that Rafael Soriano relieved him.

Now I know it sounds crazy, but I was annoyed. Soriano had worked recently, and with a 4-0 lead in the 8th, I just didn’t think it was necessary to use him. I figured since the game wasn’t too tight and the Twins bats were pretty dead, Soriano could have used a night off.

And I know it may sound crazy, but in my time watching baseball, I have noticed that closers and closer-type guys seem to struggle in games where they have a rather large lead. I don’t know why. Maybe they don’t come out with the same fire or intensity like they do knowing they have to save the game.

For whatever reason, Rafael Soriano struggled mightily for the Yankees, and cost them the game. His eighth inning performance was dreadful: he had no command, walked three, allowed a hit, and gave up four runs – and with it, the Yankee lead.

The momentum shift was too great for the Yankees to overcome. They wound up losing 5-4, in a game they came so close to winning. Perhaps I’m dwelling too much on this one loss. But in the AL East, anything can happen. This is the most competitive division in all of baseball. If the season comes down to one game, and if this one loss keeps the Yankees out of contention, then it is definitely worth being upset over.

I was hoping I could just watch Game 3 tonight and forget this horrible loss, but of course the weather had other ideas. I’m looking forward to the game (or two) tomorrow.