What, in the name of the baseball gods, is going on?

You know, I was planning on writing a post today about the historical performance of Cliff Lee in this years playoffs.  It's not every year that you see a performance like what he's put on so far in 2009.  In one season, as a starter, he has dethroned Mariano Rivera as the career playoff ERA king.  Not too shabby.  I thought it was a post-worthy analysis, but then a funny thing happened.

I took a look at the box score this morning. (Note: I am overseas, and haven't seen any of the World Series or playoff games since the Division Series)  As I looked at the box score, lo and behold, what do I see but Jose Molina and Jerry Hairston Jr. in the same lineup for the Yankees.  As STARTERS.  Wow.  It's almost as if Charlie Manuel made out the Yankee lineup for game 2.

I wish I could say this was unpredictable by Girardi, but I can't say I'm all that surprised with his idiocy.  He has proven himself to be a slave to the small sample size already this playoffs.  So let's take a look at the first half of his move, a repeat of what he has done throughout the playoffs by asking Molina to catch Burnett instead of Posada.  The premise of this move is based on Burnett's performance with Molina catching as opposed to Posada catching, which has been much better this year.  But so far in this year's playoffs, Burnett had been decidedly average on the hill, posting  roughly a 4.5 ERA over 18.1 innings.  Certainly not good enough to justify the opinion that Bengie Molina makes him a better pitcher.

I don't think it takes much convincing to argue that Jose Molina should never be in the lineup over Jorge Posada in a meaningful game.  But, in case you're blinded by a) your affinity for short samples; or b) your love for the Yankees, let me quantify it for you.  This year, Molina was a mere 0.1 WAR (wins above replacement) according to Fangraphs.  To translate, that's not good.  It's actually really bad.  You could take a replacement level player and insert him into Jose Molina's spot and get comparable production.  Ouch.  Jorge Posada on the other hand, was 4.0 WAR.  In other words, he was 40 times better than Jose Molina this year.*

*Yes, I understand WAR is a counting stat, and some of the difference can be attributed to Molina playing less, but even if he plays twice as much at the same level that is only .2, at most .3

Moving on, Girardi takes this postseason's 10 game and 40 PA sampling of Nick Swisher, and relegate's the hitter to bench.  In his place?  Jerry Hairston, Jr.  Back when Hairston was a full time player (he played 2 full seasons in 2001-2002) he hit .248/.316/.348.  For those unfamiliar with baseball, that's not very good.  I would guess that he hasn't improved his skills much since then, seeing as he has been relegated to a fill in player off the bench when teams have no other options (he was playing full time in Cincinnati this year, but that's the little boys league, and, it's the Cincinnati Reds).  Or when teams want to run for their best player/best hitter in the 9th inning (Oh, hi Joe Girardi, another shout out to your terrible decision making goes here). 

Anyway, Jerry was worth 1 entire WAR in 2009.  (If you really want to insult Jose Molina, tell him Jerry Hairston was 10 times more valuable this year than he was).  Nick Swisher, on the other hand, was quite good, with 3.7 WAR.  It's not quite the same gap as the Molina/Posada chasm, but it is significant nonetheless.  Girardi's reasoning for playing Hairston?  He's 10-27 career against Pedro.  Oh, well that's significant, right?  Come on, that's less at bats against one pitcher than Swisher's short sample of this postseason.  And it was 5 years ago!  This brings back memories of Torre's insistance upon playing Enrique Wilson every time Pedro pitched.

Look, I know the Yankees won, and this is all water under the bridge because it didn't cost them the game.  But last night was the Yankees' most important game of the season to date, and they didn't even put out their second or third best lineup (Brett Gardner would have been an infinitely better choice than Hairston at least).  Teams use the regular season to evaluate their best players, the best lineup, and best bullpen order for certain situations.  Those evaluations allow the team to put its best 9 guys on the field in crunch time.  Based on this year's full season statistics, Swisher and Posada are 2 of the Yankees best players.  By taking them out, Girardi took a lineup that is legitimately 9 deep, and made it 7 deep with 2 automatic outs.  There is no justifying this, no matter what the outcome.  As someone rooting for the Phillies, I can only hope it happens again the next time Pedro matches up against AJ.  Because the odds are in the Phillies favor if it does.