Scott Proctor
Age: 30 Years Old (Turns 31 in January).

Three-Year History, three-year splits and last year's splits.

SEASON Team W L ERA G SV BS IP H R ER HR BB SO
2004 Yankees 2 1 5.40 26 0 0 25.0 29 18 15 5 14 21
2005 Yankees 1 0 6.04 29 0 0 44.2 46 32 30 10 17 36
2006 Yankees 6 4 3.52 83 1 7 102.1 89 41 40 12 33 89
2007 Bill James 5 5 4.64 80 0   95.0 96     13 43 80
2007 CHONE     3.96       91.0 86 44 40 14 30 77
2007 Marcel 4 3 4.33   0   81.0 80 42 39 11 29 65
2007 ZiPS 5 4 4.60 73     90.0 90 50 46 13 33 76

SEASON Team K/9 BB/9 K/BB HR/9 AVG WHIP BABIP LOB% FIP
2004 Yankees 7.56 5.04 1.50 1.80 .291 1.72 .327 69.4 % 5.80
2005 Yankees 7.25 3.43 2.12 2.01 .268 1.41 .286 64.7 % 5.77
2006 Yankees 7.83 2.90 2.70 1.06 .236 1.19 .278 77.4 % 4.01
2007 Bill James 7.58 4.07 1.86 1.23 .264 1.46 .306   4.78
2007 CHONE 7.62 2.97 2.57 1.38 .251 1.27 .286 75.5 % 4.60
2007 Marcel 7.22 3.22 2.24 1.22 .259 1.35 .297 72.2 % 4.51
2007 ZiPS 7.60 3.30 2.30 1.30 .262 1.37 .302 69.7 % 4.49

Outlook: Anyone who expected Scott Proctor to be as good as he was last year, please step forward. Okay, now that I've smacked those folks for being liars, we can all appreciate the job Scott did for the Yankees last year. Though there was much speculation that his first month of effectiveness was a fluke, he surprised a lot of people (myself included) by remaining good for the whole year. A lot of that success can be attributed to Proctor's addition and subsequent use of the sinker in his arsenal. He learned to use it quite well and as a result, his GB ratio went up while his FB ratio, and more importantly his HR per FB ratio, went down. Also, while Proctor was originally regarded as death on righties and mediocre against lefties, he changed that up last year, shutting down lefties to the tune of .204/.269/.354/.622. While this may be due to a small sample size, that's still one heck of a turnaround from 2005.

In any case, once Torre realized how effective Proctor was, he used him. A lot. Close game? Warm up Proctor. Blow-out win? Warm up Proctor. Off day? WARM UP PROCTOR! Yes, I do understand that Torre didn't have that many options at that point as Farnsworth was a little up and down but he could very well have used Villone (who at that time was wasting away) to spell Proctor even a little bit. Unfortunately, because of that, you now are putting a lot of weight on a guy who so far has had one good year and is coming off 102.3 innings (by far the most in the AL amongst relievers). Also, while we have only seen Proctor for the past few years, it's not like he's a spring chicken by any means. Still, a good amount of weight from the Yankees pen will fall on Proctor's right arm so let's just hope that Joe doesn't add Proctor to the scrap heap with the arms of Villone, Karsay and Quantrill.

Please post your predictions for the following stat line in the comments section:

G Innings W L BB KSVBlSv ERA