What can we make of the lack of left-handed starters on the Yankees’ 2004 roster? While our impulse may be to yell like Chicken Little, the reality may not be as harsh as we fear. Shawn Bernard, who recently launched a Yankee-based blog called The Greatest Game, ran a simple but informative study the other day which noted that neither Andy Pettitte nor David Wells were particularly effective vs. right-handed hitting in 2003. At the same time Javier Vazquez (who agreed to a four-year, $45 million contract with New York this afternoon) and Kevin Brown were not killed by lefties either.

Jim Gerard, a reader of Bronx Banter, sent me an e-mail responding to quotes made by unnamed sources in Tyler Kepner’s story in yesterday’s Times:

One source claims Vasquez is going to have to adjust his style and will be sorely taxed by lineups “stacked with lefties.” Just who is he referring to? The Red Sox have four good lefthanded hitters (Varitek, Ortiz, Nixon, Mueller when he hits that way), the Blue Jays about the same. Vasquez hasn’t faced lineups of this stature in the National League? Silly. As is the comment that “teams are going to stack their lineups with lefties against the Yanks.” What are they going to do — import players for the series? The truth is there isn’t a team in the AL that has more than four good left handed hitters, and some teams don’t even have that many good hitters in total. Vasquez has a good BAA lefthanders; if he faces some tough lefties once in a while, well, isn’t that what he’s getting paid for?
And while Vasquez will have to work harder in a league with a DH instead of the pitcher, the Yanks’ newly fortified pen will enable their starters to go a hard six or seven and not worry about getting the ball to Mo.

As Mike Carminati correctly points out:

Yankee lefties have fared better than righties in the Yankee Stadium era (3% better ERA). However, the latest Yankee dynasty didn’t seem to benefit much from southpaws (5.23 ERA in 2000?).

Given the turnover in the Yankee rotation