Of all the players I’ve ever seen wearing the uniform, Carl Pavano looks the most like a Yankee. Listed at 6 foot 5 inches tall and 241 pounds, with long, lean limbs and the handsome, slightly weathered mug of a boxer turned movie star, Pavano looks for all the world like someone you’d see in an old photograph with his arm draped over Joe DiMaggio’s shoulder.

While the business of baseball may reward good looks, the game of baseball does not. It should not be taken as an insult to Pavano to suggest that if he had the same statistics, the same injury history, and the same physical ability, but stood 5 foot 9 inches tall and had a face like a fire hydrant, he would not have been signed to a 4-year, $44 million deal this past winter. Despite his classic pitcher’s build, handsome features, and history of dalliance with movie stars, Pavano is not and has never been a star on the mound, but rather an occasionally solid pitcher.

Pavano’s flaws were evident even after he went 18-8 with a 3.00 ERA for the Florida Marlins last year. Even leaving aside his spotty history – 2004 was just the second season in his eight-year career in which he was even league average, and only his second time throwing more than 200 innings – it was clear that his performance was a mirage. While Pavano pitched well, keeping the ball down and not giving up many walks, his record was in large part a reflection of the fine defense behind him, the good pitcher’s parks in which he played a disproportionate number of his games, and a bit of luck. As I wrote in this space in March in reference to the Pavano signing, “Sometimes you wonder what the Yankees are thinking.”

Predictably enough, after moving from the National League to the American League, and from a team with a fine defense to one with the worst in the league, Pavano has posted horrible numbers in 2005. The 29-year-old’s 4-6 record and 4.77 ERA don’t even tell the whole story, as he’s also given up 13 unearned runs (he gave up six all of last year). Of the 55 AL pitchers who had thrown at least 75 innings going into last night’s games, only seven had allowed more runs per nine innings than Pavano’s 5.94.

In truth, though, Pavano hasn’t pitched all that much differently than he did last year. In 2004 he struck out 5.4 men per 9 and walked 2.0.This year, those numbers are 5.0 and 1.6, respectively. The main differences are in his home-run rate – he’s allowing 1.53 per 9 this year, as opposed to .65 last year – and his hit rate, which has gone from 8.6 per 9 to 11.6.

While Pavano has not pitched as well this year as he did last year, both those changes are due partly to context. Florida’s home park and the other pitcher-friendly parks of the NL East do a lot more to suppress home runs than those in which Pavano has pitched this year; combine that with his diminished ability to keep the ball down, and you have a lot of home runs. Similarly, his hit rate is partly a matter of not pitching as well, and partly a reflection of defense and luck. The difference this has made is staggering.

Years ago, the baseball historian Bill James invented a formula to measure how many runs a hitter had created – called, sensibly enough, Runs Created. Because it encompasses all offensive events, penalizing for double plays, giving credit for walks, steals, and so forth, it’s far more accurate than measures like runs scored or RBI, which are, of course, largely dependent on context.

Put Pavano’s numbers over the last two years through James’s formula, and the results are pretty telling. Last year, the opposition created 3.81 runs per 9 against Pavano, which is equivalent to what Bret Boone, a .237 hitter, is doing this season. This year, the opposition is creating 6.39, which is equivalent to what Alfonso Soriano is doing.

Of course, we don’t need a Bill James formula to tell us that batters have hit a lot better against Pavano this year than they did last year, or that he’s turning every hitter he faces into Soriano. The interesting part comes when you adjust Pavano’s hit rate. If he were allowing hits at the same rate as last year, he’d have given up 96 this year, rather than 129. After adjusting for the fact that with fewer hits allowed he’d induce fewer double plays and face fewer hitters, running his numbers through the formula with last year’s hit rate instead of this year’s leaves his Runs Created per 9 at 4.59 – meaning that rather than Soriano, Pavano’s opposition would be hitting like Seattle outfielder Jeremy Reed, whose batting line of .270 BA/.341 OBA/.371 SLG is hardly imposing.

In other words, if the Yankees’ defense were as good as the Marlins’, we’d clearly see Pavano for what he is – an average or slightly-above average pitcher who needs his fielders to make plays, who pitched above his head last year and has left too many balls up in the strike zone so far this year. There’s nothing wrong with that, and there are a great many teams that could use a pitcher of Pavano’s ilk – the Yankees aren’t one of them, though.

That this outcome was entirely predictable, and was in fact predicted by many, says a lot about the Yankees’ free agent policies, which sometimes seem to be influenced less by common sense than by whether or not a player looks good in pinstripes or has dated Alyssa Milano. Among the many problems the Yankees will have to solve when the off-season arrives, this may be foremost among them.