River Ave. Blues studies the recent improvement in the Yankees defense, as measured by UZR/150. They basically went from a terrible team to a slightly above average defensive team, but that saved them quite a few runs. Although Brian Cashman never talked about it much, he realized that defense had become a problem and took steps to fix it, the biggest of which was probably getting Derek Jeter to work on becoming a better defender.
I watch quite a few Yankee games despite being a Red Sox fan. Jeter made a big improvment defensively in 2009 but took a big step back in 2010 despite his GG.
The biggest improvement came as a result of Teixiera at 1B as this seemed to make all the IF’ers better. Must be nice knowing you do not have to make a perfect throw every time. Gardner starting more games in OF was also huge, as was the departure of Abreu and replacing him with Swisher. Cano also improved quite a bit defensively in 2010.
Catcher is the biggest hole in the Yankee defense after Jeter.