Yankees Giancarlo Stanton is the Anti-Cliff Lee

When September Ends

Phillie plummeted the following year, going 81-81; that was good enough for just third in the NL East. Not that Lee was at fault, but, more’s the pity. He threw away his age 33-season by posting a 3.16 ERA while going 211 IP with 207 SO, all for a losing club.

Lee didn’t know it at the time, but his contract would outlast his career; he would soon be out of baseball.

Had he chosen the Yankees, he might have enjoyed this year more. They went on to win their division again in 2012, with a record of 95-67. Sadly, they lost in four straight against the Tigers in the ALCS.

Now, even if Cliff were on that team and dominated, the only difference would be that the Yanks would have lost 4-1. But he would have at least gotten deep into the playoffs, and still played meaningful games in October.

And the Yankees would have had a better regular season record. Swapping out Lee’s 30 starts finally for full-time replacement Phil Hughes and his 32 starts—which concluded with a 4.19 ERA, 191 IP, 165 SO—could not have but helped the team.

All Things are Relative

By 2013, Lee realized his true folly. Yes, the Yankees regressed to 85-77, third in the AL East. But, again, that would have been different had Cliff pitched in place of Hughes. That year, Phil finished with 29 starts and a 5.19 ERA.

The Phillies did even worse, however, as you can tell from the earlier quoted comments.

The team would go on to finish 73-89; again it was no fault of Lee’s. In his last great year, he marched up the mound thirty-one times and came back down with a 2.87 ERA. And he put up one SO for every IP: 222.

That probably pushes the Yankees to a wild card game. It indeed would have readjusted the overall staff numbers.

Phil was the only Yankees’ starter with at least 20 starts to post a supra-5.00 ERA. And with him out and Lee in, the Yankees’ top three starters would have had these ERAs: 2.87 (Lee), 3.10 (Ivan Nova) and 3.31 (Hiroki Kuroda).

That smells like a wild card berth.

But Lee had only himself to blame. He had committed a cardinal baseball sin: He picked a different team as the one most likely to win. That goes against everything the baseball gods have seemingly been working at for almost a century.