At least then we can DFA them all.

Wow, Pittsburg. That has to be a record pace. Hard to believe that they have actually been worse than their runs record. I´m fantasy starting any pitcher that will play against them.

Yeah, I thought my spreadsheet was broken when I saw that Pittsburgh number.

The top two teams played Boston in Fenway.  I think there needs to be some kind of adjustment for facing Red Sox pitching in that disgraceful bandbox.

Very cool. LgAvg = MLB average? I’d be curious to see AL and NL averages split out.

Yep, LgAVG is MLB average.  Here are the splits.

NL R/G: 3.96
NL BR/G: 3.94

AL R/G: 4.50
AL BR/G: 4.46

So what you are saying is the Yankees offense has been better than Texas and their pitching has been better than Texas.

And, given the absence of the middle of the line-up until recently, they’ve been doing it with the proverbial one hand tied behind their proverbially collective back.

[6] Is it too simplistic to read those numbers and say “OK, having a hitter instead of the pitcher is worth .5 runs over 9 innings” and then extend that to “every batter is worth, on average, .5 runs over 9 innings”, since 8*0.5=4, and 9*0.5 = 4.5. Which is what those LgAVG numbers say about the leagues ?

The NL clinging to pitchers batting is more than about the AL increasing scoring artificially. It’s the NL artificially depressing scoring, because pitchers don’t even try. It’s an accepted black hole.

But given that, in our simplistic mind, would a pitcher put the time and effort into becoming a non-nothing hitter hurt their ERA by more than 0.5 ?

[9]Nope, it’s not too simplistic.  The only thing I’d factor in is that there’s still a gap in overall talent between the two leagues so a direct comparison may be flawed.  But in general, a DH vs. a pitcher has been worth about 0.5 runs per nine, and you can see a similar gap going back all the way to when the DH was first implemented.

So what you are saying is the Yankees offense has been better than Texas and their pitching has been better than Texas.

I’m not sure about the pitching thing.  I don’t think we can just hand wave away the HR/FB rate and BABIP gap between the two teams.  Texas is a better defensive team which helps their pitching too.

But I do think they’re closer than their records to this point, which is the larger overarching point.

If Michael Pineda wasn’t a bust the Yankees would almost certainly be better IMO.

Thanks, SG. So, what’s harder for a pitcher - working to lower your ERA by .5, or learning to become an average-ish hitter without tanking your ERA (or whatever metric you want use as runs/9) ?

If Michael Pineda wasn’t a bust the Yankees would almost certainly be better IMO.

Particularly if you combine the dog-bites-man occurance where Mo blew the save in the Trop, with substituting Garcia for Pineda. Oh, and TEX stealing the game in Detroit on the blown bunt call.

Somebody get hold of this motherfucker Ja Rule to help me make sense of all this.

Maybe this is why the AAA team has to be on the road all year:

http://deadspin.com/5904543/tonights-weather-forecast-will-not-be-seen-because-our-set-has-been-invaded-by-bears

When do we find out that Pineda’s career is over?

Probably the same day Montero wins his fifth consecutive MVP.

My employer decided that they did not want me to finish out this week. So… If the lightning bolts aren’t liveblogging, tomorrow or Thursday, I would love to. I’d volunteer for tonight, but I already have plans.

Sorry to hear that Snuggles, unless you’re happy about it.  I can set you up with access to liveblog whenever you want.

[19] My last day was supposed to be Friday, so it’s not a big deal. Sounds cool. I’ll see what my travel plans end up looking like, but I’ll probably be up for it tomorrow.

George King, in his own George Kingian way, is reporting Pineda won’t be available until mid-June, assuming his MRI reveals no structural damage.

http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/yankees/no_hurry_to_skip_freddy_RgDgyJuw9v40rF3ZiAm9bM

/no_hurry_to_skip_freddy_

FREE DAVID PHELPS!

[21] So he writes up an article about how long a pitcher will be out, before getting the MRI results that should be forthcoming within, what, a day?  WTF?

[23] Shh. Don’t question the ways of George King.

[21] Geroge King believes in the famous saying “Timing is nothing”.

George King is focused on the important things:  Getting drunk in the Caribbean.

Well, he scooped everyone, you have to admit that.

A non-story today beats everyone’s real story tomorrow.

And face it, it’s not like he was going to write a better article once he had the information anyway. May as well get it out of the way early.

Regarding drunkbloggers livebloggers, I would like to endorse the way that Shaked did it the other night. Bouncing to the bottom of the master post and catching up with the chatter at the same time is exhausting. Shaked did his inline and it was much easier to pay attention to everything.

Just my opinion.

[28] I agree. Maybe we should have a live blogger of the day icon, like a lightning bolt, spider or Yankee signal.

[28]
Thirded.

[29] Way to exclude SSF from the fun.

SSF must read SoSH.  And he’ll be able to see Teh Jaysus live for the next five years.
How much fun does one man deserve?

[29] FWIW, I think it should be a beer bottle.

[28] Fourthed.

[32] He also gets SIX more years of TSCC! Remember how TWN snuck in and stole him from the Yankees? (Even though the Yankees had seemingly no interest)

Shaked did his inline and it was much easier to pay attention to everything.

If the consensus prefers this I’m fine with it.  I’ll figure out what to do to get an icon set up for it.

It would probably be annoying to setup, but you could give the liveblogger a third button (next to submit and preview) that would both post a comment and add the comment to the end of the initial post.

Am I the only one who thought the list of MLB offenses from its inception through April 23 of this year would be longer?  I mean, segregation for starters.  Collusion.  Jeffrey Loria.

.