Over the years the Yankees have spent countless millions signing the biggest name free agent hitters on the market. However, more often than not it seemed to me that those hitters then underachieved with respect to the contract. And then I started thinking that it seemed like maybe they actually performed worse in the Yankee lineup as opposed to how they performed with their previous team, so I decided to check it out.

 

I have assembled all the stats of some of the more significant offseason free agent signings by the Yankees since 1990 and have come to the conclusion that it is not good for your career batting average to sign with the Yankees. Signing with the Yankees has also affected the players’ slugging percentage in a negative way.

Batting Average before signing with Yankees: .294 Batting Average after signing with the Yankees: .276

Slugging Percentage before signing with the Yankees: .406 Slugging Percentage after signing with the Yankees: .395

Here is the list of players that I used to comprise this information: Jason Giambi, Danny Tartabull, Wade Boggs, Rondell White, Robin Ventura, Gary Sheffield, Kenny Lofton, Tony Womack, Johnny Damon and Mark Teixeira.

I only used the stats comprised before they were acquired by the Yankees and not afterward. I did not include players acquired via trade such as Alex Rodriguez (although his average went from .308 down to .296 and his slugging percentage fell from .581 to .558) nor did I include lesser free agent signings (sorry Tony Fernandez, you didn’t make the list). The drops in average and slugging could be attributed to the players being later in their careers, as are most free agent acquisitions, but this is the result regardless.

Not all of the Yankee effect is negative and there is some increase in home runs and RBI. Here is a summary of all the stats associated with this research based on averaging out all the players stats to 162 games a year:

Before Signing with NYY

AB       H       R       2B       3B       HR       RBI       SB       BB       SO       AVG       SLG 607    179   101     33          5        21         86       20        78        88        .294      .406

While with NYY

AB       H       R       2B       3B       HR       RBI       SB       BB       SO       AVG       SLG 579    160    98      30          2        26         94         7        90      106        .276      .395

Considering the drop in average, slugging percentages and stolen bases, the Yankees were still able to get significant production out of their free agent acquisitions. When I started this project I thought I would find a substantial drop in production. I was wrong.