PeteAbe provokes the interesting question of what the Yanks should do once Jose Molina returns to the team (which should be in about a week). Pete thinks the Yanks should send Ramiro Pena and Francisco Cervelli down to triple A to get consistent playing time, while activating Molina and calling up Shelley Duncan. I disagree slightly. Here’s my plan.

Activate Molina and Keep Him: The pitchers love working with Molina and he is signed through the end of the year (making $2mm for the season). Molina is an experienced veteran and although he isn’t a whiz with the bat (.238/.278/.340 career line) he has enough experience to call a good game and keep the pitchers calm. Like Cervelli, Molina is a defense-first player, so we don’t sacrifice that portion of his game, but we do allow Cervelli to improve the offensive side of his game in Scranton while Jose gives us that stellar defense at the big league level.

Send Cervelli to Triple A: Cervelli has been much better than we anticipated, but a .269/.290/.343 line isn’t exactly a rookie of the year campaign. Cervelli is only 23, and I say we let him spend the rest of the season at triple A as the full time catcher to let him work a little more on his offense by playing everyday.

Designate Cody Ransom for Assignment: Am I crazy? You might think so, but think about it for a second. A backup infielder is supposed to be able to pinch run, play strong defense, and handle himself at the plate adequately, although not neccesarily at the same level as a starter. In 2008, Ransom had a -0.4 UZR at both second and short, while he posted a  0.5 UZR at third. Overall, he cost us 0.3 runs last year through his defense. Remember, he only played 13 innings at second, 24 at third, and 63 at short. This year he saved us half a run in 9 innings at second, but he cost us 1.8 runs in his 117 innings at third. Doesn’t seem like Ransom is much better than average when it comes to the glove. Ramiro Pena on the other hand has saved us 0.5 runs in 130 innings at third, saved us 0.4 runs at short in 92 innings, and was league average in his 10 innings at second. Sure, those numbers don’t seem like they’re years apart from Ransom’s, but let’s look at UZR/150, a stat that shows how many runs a player would save defensively over the course of 150 games. For this portion I’m only going to look at the positions where the players have a significant amount of playing time.

Using his stats from this year, Cody Ransom would cost us 19.2 runs at third base. And with his stats from last year at short (he hasn’t played there yet this year) he would cost us 9.5 runs. Pena, based on this year since he didn’t play in the bigs last year, would save us 3.4 runs over 150 games at third, and he would save us 3 runs above average at short. These number are obviously in comparison to the league average, but when you compare Pena and Ransom using the above stats you see that Pena saves 22.6 more runs than Ransom over 15o games at third, and 12.9 runs at short. He is definitely a big upgrade defensively over Ransom.

Then comes speed and usage as a pinch runner. Ransom has one stolen base on the year, and his career high is two (way back in 2004). Pena, however, has already stolen 3 bases in 4 attempts. Again the edge goes to Pena.

As hitters I say Pena is better than Ransom. Using Bill James’s infamous runs created formula we can see that Pena has already created 8.4 runs this year in just 92 plate appearances/46 games. Ransom meanwhile has created 3.6 runs in 58 plate appearances/17 games. So they have about the same level of run production in relation to plate appearances.

Here’s where I decided that Pena is definitely better than Ransom. Pena walks in 5.5% of plate appearances, strikes out in 19.8% of them, and he hits line drives on 23.9% of his batted balls in play. Meanwhile, Ransom walks in 5.2% of his PA’s, strikes out in 27.3% of them, and only hits line drives on 12.8% of his batted balls in play. With all of that in his favor, I say Pena definitely deserves the primary backup infielder spot. I know Joe Girardi prefers to have two infielders on his roster, but as we saw with Angel Berroa, a second infielder really doesn’t add much value to the team. If we can trade Cody for some prospects, great, if someone just takes him off his hands or offers up cash for him, great, but I don’t think we need him on the big league roster, which brings me to the next move…

Call up Shelley Duncan: Shelley has a .293/.368/.614 line in Scranton. He has 21 homers (1 for every 11.7 at bats). Shelley is drawing walks in 11% of his PA’s while striking out in 18.9% of them (both better rates than Ransom). With power like that Shelley could be the big right handed bat we’re missing with Nady out for the rest of the year. Shelley can play both corners in the outfield as well as first base, so in addition to being used off the bench he could also help give Johnny Damon, Nick Swisher, Melky Cabrera, Brett Gardner, and Mark Teixeira a break every once in a while. I think he’s best used defensively as a first baseman, because although Swisher has experience there, we’d like him to be focused on outfield defense rather than adjusting to first when Tex needs a day off.

Designate Brett Tomko for Assignment: I had begun to believe in Brett Tomko, but his recent performances have me back to my old opinion of him. He’s useless. The only good thing about Tomko is that he can go multiple innings, but since he went 3 innings in Texas on June 3rd, he’s been atrocious. Since then he’s allowed 8 runs in 8 innings of work while walking 4 and allowing 8 hits. That’s a 1.50 WHIP, which is far from decent. The Yanks shouldn’t be using Tomko when they have much better options at triple A, leading to the final roster move…

Call up Zach Kroenke: Kroenke is a 25 year old lefthanded reliever who has been cruising in Scranton. Kroenke has a 1.07 ERA through 33.2 innings of work. He has 26 strikeouts (or about 6.95/9 innings) and a nice low WHIP of 1.19. With Phil Coke currently the only lefty in the ‘pen, Kroenke would be a nice addition to give Girardi options late in the game. Kroenke’s 33.2 innings have come over only 19 appearances, so like Tomko he can pitch more than an inning at a time. In fact, in his last ten outings he has pitched at least two innings 4 times. Hitters are only batting .184 against him as well. He’s been as good as anyone could have asked and has earned a promotion. He can’t be worse than Tomko, so there’s no reason not to make this move. And with Damaso Marte expected back around mid-July, we have insurance if it doesn’t work out.

All in all, three active roster spots occupied by Francisco Cervelli, Cody Ransom, and Brett Tomko would be taken over by Jose Molina, Shelley Duncan, and Zach Kroenke. Agree, disagree, applaud, frown upon, however you feel about these ideas, let’s hear it in the comments.

Tags: Brett Tomko, Cody Ransom, Francisco Cervelli, Jose Molina, Ramiro Pena, Roster Moves, Shelley Duncan, Zach Kroenke