Sunday, May 6, 2012
Yankees.com: Hughes makes Yankees’ outburst hold up
KANSAS CITY—Phil Hughes brought more than just an extra-zippy fastball with him as he returned to the mound for the seventh inning on Sunday. He seemed to be carrying a few extra ounces of his manager’s trust.
Hughes’ strong effort earned him a chance to head back out and wrap up an impressive day of work in which he made a big lead stand up for a 10-4 win over the Royals that figures to keep him in the Yankees’ starting rotation.
I just finished watching my DVR of the game, and Hughes looked the best he’s looked all year. He was hitting 95 in the 7th inning and was actually somewhat efficient for most of the game, getting through several innings with fewer than 20 pitches. I’m still not sure he’s going to end the year as an effective member of the starting rotation, but over his last four starts he’s walked 4.4% of the batters he’s faced while striking out 21.1%. A ratio like that is generally an indicator of someone who can be a successful pitcher, even if his 7.52 RA over that stretch disagrees.
The lineup looks a lot better with Nick Swisher back in it, and hopefully he’ll be joined by Brett Gardner soon, and then maybe the Yankees can move out of fourth place.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
NJ.com: Carig: Phil Hughes is just okay for Yankees in 7-1 loss to Orioles
In what ultimately went down as a 7-1 loss to the Orioles, Hughes gave his team a chance to win, departing with the Yankees trailing only by two runs.
For others, allowing four runs in 5⅔ innings is hardly a cause for celebration. But for Hughes, whose season until Tuesday night had been marked by short, brutish appearances, it was a step forward.
It was tentative step, but a step nonetheless, and both Hughes and the Yankees seemed eager to take it.
Perhaps it is why the crowd gave the pitcher a lukewarm round of applause, despite the fact that Hughes displayed some of the same issues that have plagued him all year.
It was almost certainly Hughes’s best start of the year, but it still wasn’t a great one. I did see enough to think that if Hughes eventually winds up back in the bullpen, he’ll be pretty good there, because he got his fastball up to 95 and he probably had his best curve of the year on top of it. Until Andy Pettitte is ready to return Hughes is safe in the rotation, but it’ll be interesting to see what happens if David Phelps outpitches him in the rotation until then.
As for the rest of the team, feh. Aside from Derek Jeter and Curtis Granderson,there’s really no compelling reason to watch them right now. I don’t expect it to last, but that doesn’t mean it’s not frustrating to watch right now.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
American League K-Rates
All qualifying AL relievers 2009
All AL relievers from 2011 to April 30th, 2012
The bottom list makes me happy. The top makes me a little sad.
Monday, April 30, 2012
MLB.com: Yanks move Garcia to ‘pen, Phelps to rotation
NEW YORK—Freddy Garcia has been dispatched to the Yankees’ bullpen, and rookie David Phelps will have an opportunity to pitch out of the club’s rotation.
Garcia was battered by the Tigers for six runs in 1 2/3 innings on Saturday in a 7-5 Yankees loss, the second straight start Garcia only recorded five outs, and the change did not come as a shock to the hurler.
“When you’re pitching [poorly] out of the rotation, what do you expect?” Garcia said. “When you don’t do your job, what are they supposed to do? That’s what happened. They’re honest. I didn’t pitch the way I was supposed to pitch. It’s reality.”
I don’t think Garcia’s as bad as he’s looked so far this year, and his peripherals generally agree. Repeated from yesterday’s game thread.
Garcia 2011: 15.3% K/BF, 7.2% BB/BF, 4.36 xFIP, 87.2 mph average fastball velocity
Garcia 2012: 15.7% K/BF, 7.1% BB/BF, 3.95 xFIP, 87.0 mph average fastball velocity
Unfortunately, there’s also this:
Garcia 2011: .292 BABIP against, 22.3% LD, 8.2% HR/FB, 77.1% LOB
Garcia 2012: .440 BABIP against, 42.3% LD, 23.1% HR/FB, 41.0% LOB
I get the feeling that Garcia will get another chance to start at some point, and will probably do ok if he does. That being said, I think removing him from the rotation for now is the right thing to do, moreso to see what the Yankees have in David Phelps, but also to give Garcia a chance to regroup.
As far as what the Yankees have in Phelps, I have no idea. He’s pitched pretty well this year, but that’s the extent of his MLB resume. His projections are all based on translating his minor league numbers and have huge error bars because of that. Rather than rehash those, I’ll. just point you to his pre-season projections.
If all we knew about Phelps was what he’d done as a reliever at the big league level (17.2 IP of 3.57 ERA), we could try and fudge how that would translate to a starter. In general, a reliever who moves to the rotation will be about 15-20% less effective. Hits, homers and runs will go up by 15-20%, strike outs will drop by about the same rate. Walk rate stays pretty stable. If you were to use his performance so far to project him as a starter and reliever, it’d look something like this.
| Role | W | L | G | GS | IP | H | ER | HR | BB | SO | ERA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 7 | 7 | 20 | 20 | 120 | 93 | 58 | 34 | 45 | 82 | 4.35 |
| Reliever | 4 | 3 | 70 | 0 | 70 | 48 | 28 | 16 | 28 | 55 | 3.60 |
The problem here is that it’s probably not realistic to think Phelps can hold hitters to a .178 BABIP all year. FIP has him at 5.66 and xFIP has him at 4.09. Splitting the difference puts him at around 4.87. That’s a hair better than his average ERA projection heading into the year, and although it’s not great, it’s better than what they’ve gotten out of Garcia at least. And Phil Hughes, for that matter.
Friday, April 27, 2012
NYDN: Cashman avoids bad press, fan outrage over Montero trade for injured Pineda
When it came to legit Cashman pitching blunders, whether it be A.J. Burnett, Kei Igawa, Carl Pavano or Jeff Weaver, the GM didn’t exactly skate, but his relationship with certain reporters, and the respect many others have for him, softened what could have been severe body blows.
Only now it will be fascinating to watch how Cashman’s relationship with the media evolves going forward. By normal Yankees standards, the pitching is in shambles, filled with inconsistent arms after CC Sabathia and Ivan Nova take their turns in the rotation.
I’m bringing back the complaint thread. If you don’t like them, don’t read this.
The impact of the Pineda injury is huge. If the Yankees were looking at Pineda as a 3-4 win player, it probably would have helped them move towards the $189 payroll in 2014 that they’ve been eyeing. Not having him for 2012, and possibly never having him, should possibly change the organization’s plans. I don’t know if it will, but let’s think about it logically.
- Say the Yankees were a 95 win team with Pineda, and that losing him makes them a 93 win team (assuming they get better than replacement level pitching from his replacement(s))
- In 2013, with just about every key player on the team likely to be worse since they’re past the age of the typical player’s peak, what would they be then? An 88 win team?
-Now subtract Mo, Hiroki Kuroda, Nick Swisher and Russell Martin from that. Say that’s 10 wins. So now what, 78 wins?
-They have $120M committed to 2013, without including arbitration salaries for Brett Gardner, Phil Hughes, Boone Logan, Joba Chamberlain and David Robertson. Giving them a 20% raise bumps the payroll commitment to about $135M or so.
-Assume that 90 wins is the target to qualify for the second wild card in most seasons. So the Yankees need to add about 12 wins for $54M to get to 90 wins in 2013, and that really just puts them on the periphery of the wild card race.
You probably can’t buy 12 wins for $54M on the free agent market due to what’s available and how it fits your roster as well as with competition from other teams. The better free agents are probably not going to want to settle for one year contracts and anything longer than that impacts the 2014 payroll.
Maybe they can replace Pineda’s wins with someone from the farm, although at this point it sure doesn’t seem like Dellin Betances or Manny Banuelos are ready and the other arms behind them are either too far away or don’t project to be much more than back-end guys. They don’t have the position player prospects to replace the hole in RF, at least not for 2013. They could use a rotating DH to fill the hole there, but then that necessitates having a backup player or two that you’re comfortable playing in the field every day. I don’t know if Eduardo Nunez is that guy given his defensive issues and the uncertainty of his offense. Martin’s not making much of a case to be retained, but the falloff from him to some combination of Francisco Cervelli, Austin Romine or Chris Stewart is probably still significant.
Because of that, the only way I can see the Yankees being competitive in 2013 is going over the $189M payroll target. If they’re not going to do that, I’d suggest rebuilding, but they don’t have anyone trade-able that would help reduce their payroll. Is anyone really going to take Rodriguez or Mark Teixeira off their hands?
As of now the Yankees only have $75M commited to the 2014 payroll. However, that number only includes CC Sabathia, Rodriguez, Teixeira and a $3M Derek Jeter buyout. They’d still have arbitration rights to Gardner, Robertson, Pineda, Ivan Nova, Nunez, Cervelli, Stewart and Ramiro Pena. How many games would that team win?
I understand the benefit to getting under the salary cap limit, but if the trade-off is a crappy team that will draw fewer fans and make less revenue it may not be worth it.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
NY Times: Yankees Lose Pineda for Season, and Hughes Adds to Worries
ARLI
NGTON, Tex. — It was a dreary day for the Yankees’ pitching rotation Wednesday, as news about Michael Pineda’s season-ending injury was followed by a bad outing from one of the pitchers the Yankees hope can make up for Pineda’s loss.
IIn the afternoon, the Yankees announced that Pineda had a torn labrum in his right shoulder and would miss the season, and the first month of next year. Several hours later, Phil Hughes compounded the problem.
I wanted to try and show the projected impact of losing Pineda, but at this point given the fact that those innings are going to be replaced by some combination of Hughes, Freddy Garcia and Andy Pettitte I don’t think I can do it. I have no idea how to project any of them right now. Hughes and Garcia are worse than replacement level and I’m not sure they’ll be better than that at any point this year. With Pettitte we have the uncertainty of what a year off may have done to him.
If we assume Pineda’s replaced by replacement level innings, the Yankees lose about three wins. Hopefully it’s not worse than that.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
2012 MLB Starting Pitching Through April 24
| Team | IP | TBF | RA | ERA | FIP | xFIP | BB/BF | K/BF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nationals | 104.7 | 401 | 2.15 | 1.72 | 2.03 | 2.85 | 5.5% | 24.2% |
| Cardinals | 112.0 | 439 | 2.73 | 2.57 | 3.06 | 3.42 | 5.7% | 17.8% |
| Rangers | 120.7 | 497 | 2.83 | 2.76 | 3.25 | 3.90 | 7.6% | 19.1% |
| Pirates | 86.7 | 354 | 3.01 | 2.8 | 3.10 | 3.86 | 7.3% | 14.7% |
| Phillies | 117.3 | 473 | 3.14 | 2.84 | 3.17 | 3.20 | 5.3% | 20.1% |
| White Sox | 110.7 | 442 | 3.17 | 3.09 | 3.42 | 3.63 | 7.9% | 23.8% |
| Athletics | 122.0 | 495 | 3.32 | 2.95 | 3.63 | 4.19 | 6.1% | 13.3% |
| Marlins | 100.3 | 414 | 3.50 | 3.41 | 3.30 | 3.51 | 6.5% | 18.4% |
| Giants | 107.7 | 439 | 3.59 | 3.51 | 3.66 | 3.80 | 6.8% | 19.6% |
| Dodgers | 104.7 | 435 | 3.61 | 3.01 | 3.63 | 3.80 | 9.4% | 21.8% |
| Rays | 107.3 | 453 | 3.77 | 3.44 | 4.16 | 4.31 | 9.9% | 16.1% |
| Blue Jays | 109.7 | 443 | 4.02 | 3.78 | 5.45 | 4.32 | 9.3% | 13.5% |
| Tigers | 95.3 | 406 | 4.25 | 3.87 | 3.29 | 3.43 | 6.2% | 21.4% |
| Reds | 106.0 | 448 | 4.42 | 3.99 | 3.92 | 4.23 | 6.5% | 14.3% |
| Angels | 106.0 | 440 | 4.50 | 4.33 | 4.24 | 3.40 | 5.9% | 20.2% |
| Mariners | 107.7 | 454 | 4.51 | 4.43 | 3.62 | 3.88 | 5.9% | 18.3% |
| Mets | 96.3 | 418 | 4.58 | 3.92 | 3.62 | 3.25 | 7.7% | 20.8% |
| Indians | 84.0 | 367 | 4.61 | 4.18 | 4.19 | 4.31 | 9.0% | 13.9% |
| Astros | 108.3 | 466 | 4.65 | 4.24 | 4.14 | 4.02 | 8.2% | 16.7% |
| Diamondbacks | 108.0 | 456 | 4.75 | 4.33 | 4.17 | 3.68 | 7.5% | 18.4% |
| Cubs | 106.0 | 455 | 4.75 | 4.25 | 3.42 | 3.63 | 8.8% | 21.8% |
| Braves | 101.7 | 430 | 4.78 | 4.16 | 3.80 | 3.99 | 9.1% | 19.3% |
| Brewers | 102.7 | 441 | 4.91 | 4.82 | 3.91 | 3.60 | 7.0% | 21.8% |
| Padres | 104.0 | 445 | 4.93 | 4.15 | 3.92 | 3.85 | 11.0% | 19.8% |
| Orioles | 100.3 | 433 | 5.02 | 4.22 | 4.33 | 4.15 | 9.5% | 18.7% |
| Royals | 88.0 | 386 | 5.32 | 4.81 | 4.11 | 4.49 | 11.7% | 16.8% |
| Rockies | 88.3 | 390 | 5.40 | 4.89 | 4.96 | 4.83 | 9.5% | 12.6% |
| Red Sox | 94.3 | 413 | 5.72 | 5.63 | 4.92 | 4.22 | 9.9% | 17.9% |
| Yankees | 96.3 | 427 | 6.17 | 5.51 | 4.35 | 3.44 | 6.1% | 21.1% |
| Twins | 95.0 | 423 | 7.01 | 6.73 | 5.50 | 4.38 | 6.9% | 13.0% |
FIP: Fielding-independent pitching
xFIP: Expected fielding-independent pitching
Twins pitching vs. the Yankees: 2-2, 6.09 RA
Twins pitching vs. the rest of the league: 3-11, 5.88 RA
Remember how the Yankees’ starting pitching was supposed to be a strength? Now they’re hoping a 40 year old who hasn’t pitched in a year can ride in and save the day.
CC should be fine. I think Nova’s a good bet for continued success thanks to the big improvement in his peripherals. Whether that makes him a 2 or a 3 I don’t know, but it’s probably safer to think he’s a 3. Kuroda will also be ok I think, but I don’t think he’s a 2 in the AL. It’d be nice if Phil Hughes wasn’t awful, because with Michael Pineda looking less and less likely to pitch this year Andy Pettitte could in theory fill one hole between Hughes and Freddy Garcia, but he can’t fill two. My guess is Garcia’s start on Saturday will be his last for this turn in the rotation.
Despite what they’ve shown to date I’d bet a reasonable amount of money the Yankees will not remain the second worst starting rotation in MLB by the end of the year. I think they have a chance to crack the top 20.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Yankees.com: Yanks’ four homers cost Twins in the Bronx
NEW YORK—The Twins jumped out to an early four-run lead against right-hander Phil Hughes but ultimately couldn’t recover from the three homers hit by Curtis Granderson in a 7-6 loss to the Yankees on Thursday at Yankee Stadium.
Granderson’s began the game hitting .208/.321/.458 and ended it hitting .283/ .377/.679. Not a bad day’s work, and the Yankees needed every single bit of those three HRs.
Just like seemingly every Phil Hughes start so far this year, it was a mixed bag. Eduardo Nunez’s first inning error obviously didn’t help, but Nunez didn’t allow the walk, single and double that followed. After that, Hughes pitched fairly well until the sixth, when he gave up a leadoff walk and a HR to turn a 7-4 game into a 7-6 nail-biter. Fortunately for Hughes, his bullpen was able to shut down the Twins over the final 3.2 innings of the game and the Yankees eked out the 7-6 win and salvaged a disappointing split.
On a side note, Derek Jeter tied David Winfield on the all-time hit list with his second inning RBI single. Winfield’s one of my favorite players ever, and I liked the sentiments he expressed. Jeter’s heading into some really rarefied air now.
Now let’s hope we get to see them go ruin the 100 year anniversary of that disgraceful bandbox in New England.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Yankees.com: Yanks can’t catch Twins after Kuroda stumbles
t was a discouraging encore performance at home for Kuroda, who threw eight shutout innings against the Angels last Friday. He was responsible for 10 of Minnesota’s 12 hits, and all six of the Twins’ runs.
Twins slugger Justin Morneau tagged Kuroda for two homers, the second one knocking New York’s starter out of the game. Minnesota has won two of three games in the set after entering the series with a 5-28 record in the Bronx since 2002.
This series is now officially a disappointment, and a Phil Hughes start away from being a disaster.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Yankees.com: Hughes chased early; Yanks can’t recover
NEW YORK—With too many starting pitching options for five spots, each turn through the Yankees’ rotation is essentially another audition. Phil Hughes didn’t provide an encouraging one on Saturday.
The right-hander served up six runs in 3 1/3 inefficient innings, including homers to Chris Iannetta and Howard Kendrick, as the Angels roughed up the Yankees, 7-1, at Yankee Stadium.
I didn’t see any of Hughes’s innings, so I can’t tell you how he looked. In comparing his last start to this one, here are some stats.
| Date | IP | H | R | ER | BB | K | HR | BF | P/BF | BB/BF | K/BF |
| 8-Apr | 4.7 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 21 | 4.71 | 9.5% | 23.8% |
| 14-Apr | 3.3 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 2 | 6 | 2 | 20 | 4.20 | 10.0% | 30.0% |
I guess we can be happy that he was more efficient on a per batter basis. Other than that, it’s tough to see much to be happy about with this outing.
Hughes probably gets at least three more starts before the Yankees have to make a decision about whether he should be bumped for someone. Hopefully he makes the decision harder than it is looking to be right now.
Even if Hughes had pitched much better and held the Angels to say, two runs, it wouldn’t have mattered today. I was bothered by the fact that the Yankees seemingly had no interest in C.J. Wilson this offseason, although I didn’t know about their payroll mandate at the time. Time will tell if they’ll regret that decision, but at least today I’m sure they did.
Friday, April 6, 2012
Looking Ahead To 2012 - Team Wrap Up
Opening Day is here, which means we can forget about projections and start complaining about games that count.
We’ve looked at the projections for most of the key players on the Yankees Opening Day roster, with apologies to Chris Stewart.
Russell Martin
Mark Teixeira
Robinson Cano
Derek Jeter
Alex Rodriguez
Eduardo Nun-E-z
The Speedy Brett Gardner
Curtis Granderson
Nick Swisher
Andruw Jones and Jesus Montero Raul Ibanez
CC Sabathia
Hiroki Kuroda
Phil Hughes
Michael Pineda
Ivan Nova and Freddy Garcia
$36M and a lost draft pick
David Robertson
Booooone Logan and Clay Rapada
Cory Wade and David Phelps
Mariano F’ing Rivera
So now I try to assemble that into a team projection. I’ll show the depth charts I used for the 2012 MLB Projection Blowout with CAIRO.
| order | player | position | pa | outs | avg/obp/slg | woba | br | def |
| 1 | Derek Jeter | SS | 575 | 392 | .286/.345/.384 | .325 | 69 | -7 |
| 2 | Curtis Granderson | CF | 625 | 421 | .263/.351/.502 | .366 | 98 | 0 |
| 3 | Mark Teixeira | 1B | 675 | 447 | .263/.359/.493 | .368 | 105 | 4 |
| 4 | Robinson Cano | 2B | 675 | 460 | .303/.352/.504 | .368 | 105 | 0 |
| 5 | Alex Rodriguez | 3B | 450 | 300 | .273/.363/.474 | .365 | 68 | 0 |
| 6 | Nick Swisher | RF | 625 | 418 | .259/.356/.455 | .354 | 90 | 4 |
| 7 | Raul Ibanez | DH | 400 | 279 | .266/.329/.458 | .340 | 55 | 0 |
| 8 | Russell Martin | C | 500 | 346 | .253/.347/.383 | .329 | 60 | 0 |
| 9 | Brett Gardner | LF | 600 | 410 | .262/.347/.371 | .324 | 76 | 16 |
| Starters | 5125 | 3473 | .271/.351/.449 | .350 | 726 | 18 | ||
| bench | player | position | pa | outs | avg/obp/slg | woba | br | def |
| Eduardo Nunez | IF | 375 | 271 | .262/.315/.392 | .310 | 44 | -6 | |
| Andruw Jones | OF | 275 | 194 | .221/.318/.413 | .321 | 34 | 0 | |
| Eric Chavez | 3B | 250 | 182 | .240/.296/.356 | .288 | 24 | 0 | |
| Chris Stewart | C | 100 | 72 | .228/.299/.328 | .283 | 9 | 0 | |
| Francisco Cervelli | C | 100 | 70 | .264/.328/.373 | .312 | 11 | 0 | |
| Ramiro Pena | IF | 50 | 37 | .240/.290/.340 | .280 | 5 | 0 | |
| Brandon Laird | 1B/3B | 40 | 29 | .247/.292/.407 | .304 | 4 | 0 | |
| Chris Dickerson | OF | 0 | 0 | .243/.321/.369 | .308 | 0 | 0 | |
| Jack Cust | DH | 0 | 0 | .243/.362/.420 | .349 | 0 | 0 | |
| Russell Branyan | DH | 0 | 0 | .240/.330/.458 | .341 | 0 | 0 | |
| Dewayne Wise | OF | 0 | 0 | .243/.286/.406 | .298 | 0 | 0 | |
| David Adams | 2B | 0 | 0 | .244/.311/.377 | .305 | 0 | 0 | |
| Bench | 1190 | 855 | .244/.309/.381 | .304 | 131 | -6 | ||
| Team | 6315 | 4328 | .266/.343/.436 | .341 | 857 | 12 |
woba: Weighted on-base average
br: Linear weights batting runs
def: Estimated runs saved compared to average using an average of zone rating, DRS, UZR and Totalzone
The biggest area of concern for the position players is probably Alex Rodriguez’s health. A weighted average of his past four years puts him at 459 PA. I’m also not particularly optimistic that Raul Ibanez can hit that projected line, although as half of a platoon it’s more feasible. To a lesser extent the team’s overall health is probably a concern, although in my mind it’s not a huge one. Losing Curtis Granderson or Robinson Cano for an extensive period of time wouldn’t be good since they’re probably the two most valuable position players on the team right now, but you can say that for any team losing one or both of their top two position players.
Regarding Chris Stewart vs. Francisco Cervelli, it’s a clear offensive downgrade. The question is how defense changes things. If we use Cervelli’s 2011 playing time as an estimate for the 2012 backup catchers, you’re looking at something like 137 PA. Let’s round that up to 200 PA in case Russell Martin misses some more time than expected.
200 PA of Cervelli projects to be worth 22 runs. For Stewart, 200 PA projects to be worth about 18 runs. As far as defense, I’m going to ignore pitch framing and blocking and just compare the difference between them in SB/CS. In their careers, that looks like this:
| player | inn | sb | cs | sba | cs% |
| Cervelli | 1295 | 93 | 23 | 116 | 19.8% |
| Stewart | 590 | 44 | 28 | 72 | 38.9% |
Runners may not run as frequently against Stewart if teams have more respect for his arm than they do for Cervelli’s, although runners have attempted 0.12 steals per inning vs. Stewart compared to 0.09 steals per innings vs. Cervelli in their respective careers. I’ll split the difference, which means 42 stolen base attempts over 400 innings. Using the linear weights values for SB/CS gives us this.
| player | inn | sb | cs | sba | cs% | rv |
| Cervelli | 400 | 34 | 8 | 42 | 19.8% | 4 |
| Stewart | 400 | 26 | 16 | 42 | 38.9% | -1 |
rv: linear weights run value of SB/CS.
A positive run value means more runs for the team stealing bases, so the difference between Stewart and Cervelli there effectively nullifies Cervelli’s offensive edge. Whether other factors of catcher defense change things beyond that, I have no idea.
Back to the rest of the team, the Yankees actually project to score more runs than any other team in baseball according to the aggregate projections I ran, although CAIRO sees them about nine runs behind Boston. They may be able to pick up a few more runs if they swap out Ibanez for Russell Branyan and/or Jack Cust at some point.
Most of the defense projects as average, aside from Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira, Nick Swisher, Brett Gardner and Nun-E. Overall they project about 12 runs better than average.
Of course, 90% of the game is pitching, so how’s that look?
| Role | Player | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP |
| SP1 | CC Sabathia | 220 | 220 | 91 | 82 | 19 | 64 | 203 | 3.57 | 3.24 | 3.23 |
| SP2 | Hiroki Kuroda | 190 | 190 | 91 | 80 | 21 | 44 | 126 | 4.57 | 4.01 | 3.92 |
| SP3 | Michael Pineda | 150 | 150 | 82 | 76 | 21 | 53 | 157 | 4.37 | 4.06 | 3.79 |
| SP4 | Ivan Nova | 150 | 150 | 78 | 72 | 16 | 57 | 89 | 4.93 | 4.50 | 4.52 |
| SP5 | Phil Hughes | 150 | 150 | 75 | 73 | 19 | 50 | 114 | 4.63 | 4.49 | 4.26 |
| SP6 | Andy Pettitte | 110 | 110 | 51 | 47 | 11 | 35 | 76 | 4.33 | 4.01 | 4.00 |
| SP7 | Freddy Garcia | 40 | 40 | 18 | 17 | 4 | 11 | 23 | 4.55 | 4.28 | 4.28 |
| SP8 | Manny Banuelos | 20 | 20 | 12 | 11 | 3 | 10 | 12 | 6.20 | 5.72 | 5.43 |
| SP9 | Dellin Betances | 20 | 20 | 13 | 12 | 3 | 12 | 13 | 6.51 | 6.02 | 5.75 |
| SP10 | Adam Warren | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5.41 | 5.00 | 4.72 |
| Starters | Total | 1050 | 1050 | 510 | 469 | 117 | 335 | 813 | 4.38 | 4.02 | 3.98 |
| Role | Player | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP |
| CL | Mariano Rivera | 65 | 65 | 25 | 23 | 5 | 16 | 77 | 2.63 | 2.46 | 2.71 |
| SU | David Robertson | 70 | 70 | 28 | 26 | 5 | 43 | 109 | 2.96 | 2.77 | 2.84 |
| SU | Rafael Soriano | 60 | 60 | 31 | 29 | 8 | 26 | 69 | 3.82 | 3.60 | 3.64 |
| MR | Boone Logan | 50 | 50 | 23 | 20 | 5 | 19 | 46 | 4.29 | 3.76 | 3.71 |
| MR | Cory Wade | 40 | 40 | 20 | 18 | 6 | 10 | 28 | 4.44 | 4.08 | 4.31 |
| MR | Clay Rapada | 50 | 50 | 26 | 24 | 5 | 23 | 39 | 4.63 | 4.35 | 4.25 |
| LR | David Phelps | 50 | 50 | 26 | 24 | 6 | 14 | 24 | 5.58 | 5.16 | 4.88 |
| LR | D.J. Mitchell | 23 | 23 | 13 | 12 | 3 | 10 | 10 | 5.99 | 5.54 | 5.26 |
| Relievers | Total | 408 | 408 | 191 | 177 | 43 | 161 | 403 | 4.21 | 3.90 | 3.75 |
| Team | Total | 1458 | 1458 | 701 | 646 | 160 | 496 | 1216 | 4.33 | 3.99 | 3.91 |
Assigning innings to the staff was a bit trickier this year. The Yankees have a whole bunch of guys who could pitch in the middle/back of the rotation and injuries/circumstances may have a greater say in that than merit. There’s not a ton of difference in the projections of starters 2-7, although it’s probably fair to wonder how accurate projecting Andy Pettitte will be after a year off. But really, you can juggle the innings around between Pettitte, Hiroki Kuroda, Michael Pineda, Ivan Nova, Phil Hughes and Freddy Garcia and probably not see a big difference. CC Sabathia is really the one starter the Yankees can’t afford to lose for any appreciable amount of time.
As far as the pen, it looked better before Joba Chamberlain got hurt. There’s still probably not an end-game you’d take over Mariano Rivera/David Robertson, and for all the crap I spew about the Soriano signing he should be solid, but an injury to either Mo or Robertson suddenly makes it look a bit thin. David Aardsma may be able to pitch at some point, but that’s uncertain.
So, adding this up, this is what CAIRO says.
| RS | 848 |
| Def | 12 |
| RA | 701 |
| wpct | .598 |
| p162 | 97 |
848 runs scored and 701 runs allowed plus 12 runs saved compared to average puts the Yankees at a Pythagenpat winning percentage of .598, which is equivalent to a 97 win team. CAIRO projected them at 96 in the projection blowout, which is probably a strength of schedule thing.
The other projections I ran say:
Marcel: 92
Oliver: 94
PECOTA: 95
ZiPS: 95
Average: 94
Clay Davenport has them at 93, the official version of Oliver has them at 96 and the official version of PECOTA has them at 94 wins.
I am fairly certain about one thing in baseball this year. The best team in the American League will be the best team in baseball. I’m not quite as certain that the Yankees are that team. They project to be, but Texas has represented the AL in the last two World Series (shamefully, but still…) and if Yu Darvish is a front-line MLB starting pitcher(I think he is), it’s not a stretch to see them as the best team in the league. If the Angels stop dicking around with Vernon Wells and put Mike Trout in their outfield they also have a chance to be the best team in the league, plus they’ll sweep the Yankees in the regular season even if they’re not. Detroit’s defense looks like a problem to me, and while they should score plenty of runs, I have a hard time seeing them as being better than all three of the Rangers, Angels, and Yankees. Of course, we also have the two chief rivals in the AL East to worry about. It wouldn’t take much in the way of good fortune for Boston/Tampa Bay or bad fortune for the Yankees to drop the Yanks into third place.
Still, it’s hard to envision a scenario where the Yankees fail to qualify for the postseason. I suppose losing any of CC Sabathia, Robinson Cano or Curtis Granderson for an extended period of time would be one such scenario.
According to the average team projections I ran their probability of winning at least the second wild card at 82.5%, which is the highest in baseball and 7% ahead of Texas who rank second. CAIRO likes the Yankees even more than that at 83.5%, but that ranks second to Texas’s 84.1%. On average, it took 92 wins to win the first AL wild card and 89 wins to get the second one, but these are the Yankees. Division or bust! Wild cards are for losers!
Since rilkefan asked about how these projections have fared in the past, I did a quick little chart. This compares the average of however many projections I ran that year to what the Yankees actually did.
| Year | Projected | Actual | Difference |
| 2005 | 94 | 95 | 1 |
| 2006 | 90 | 97 | 7 |
| 2007 | 95 | 94 | -1 |
| 2008 | 95 | 89 | -6 |
| 2009 | 96 | 103 | 7 |
| 2010 | 96 | 95 | -1 |
| 2011 | 92 | 97 | 5 |
| average | 94 | 95.7 | 1.7 |
| rms | 4.8 |
So the Yankees have been a bit less than two wins better than projected on average since I began running these in 2005. The methodology has changed, I think for the better, but it’s still limited. But I’m pretty comfortable the Yankees will be one of the best teams in baseball. That’s really all you can ask for as a fan when the season starts, right?
Yay Opening Day!
Monday, April 2, 2012
Looking Ahead to 2012 - Ivan Nova and Freddy Garcia
Ivan Nova
Time to double up on these with Opening Day fast approaching. I’m hoping to have my projected standings up tomorrow, so today we’ll round out the rest of the opening day rotation by looking at Ivan Nova and Freddy Garcia.
After a decent showing in his 2010 MLB debut, albeit one with shaky peripherals, Ivan Nova earned a spot in the Yankee rotation to start 2011. Nova’s main calling card as a prospect was his fastball velocity, but until 2009 he hadn’t really shown the type of performance you’d like to see in a pitching prospect.
Because of that track record, his projections heading into the season weren’t pretty.
| projecton | G | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RSAR | WAR | BABIP |
| cairo | 22 | 116 | 130 | 72 | 67 | 15 | 49 | 72 | 5.59 | 5.20 | 5.04 | 5 | 0.5 | .303 |
| marcel | 17 | 71 | 69 | 35 | 32 | 7 | 26 | 52 | 4.44 | 4.06 | 4.20 | 12 | 1.2 | .287 |
| oliver | 37 | 155 | 170 | 90 | 82 | 18 | 69 | 97 | 5.24 | 4.79 | 4.80 | 13 | 1.3 | .302 |
| pecota | 20 | 119 | 136 | 75 | 69 | 15 | 53 | 66 | 5.68 | 5.23 | 5.19 | 4 | 0.4 | .303 |
| zips | 28 | 150 | 170 | 94 | 88 | 19 | 69 | 88 | 5.65 | 5.29 | 5.18 | 5 | 0.5 | .304 |
| average* | 25 | 122 | 135 | 73 | 68 | 15 | 53 | 75 | 5.40 | 4.99 | 4.97 | 8 | 0.8 | .301 |
| 2010 | 33 | 187 | 179 | 72 | 67 | 14 | 65 | 141 | 3.47 | 3.22 | 3.74 | 52 | 5.2 | .291 |
| 2011 | 27 | 159 | 155 | 70 | 64 | 13 | 57 | 95 | 3.96 | 3.62 | 4.14 | 35 | 3.5 | .279 |
RA/ERA: Runs/Earned runs allowed per nine innings
FIP: Fielding-independent pitching
RSAR: Runs saved above a replacement level pitcher(park and role-adjusted, using RA)
WAR: Wins above replacement level (RSAR divided by 10)
BABIP: Batting average on balls in play
The 2010 line includes his minor league performance so ignore that RSAR/WAR. As you can see Nova exceeded just about every projection in 2011.
2011
So was Nova lucky? Probably a bit, but we do have some evidence of genuine development. For the majority of pitchers, their effectiveness ties directly into their command of the strike zone. It’s the reason Mariano Rivera has been the best closer of all time, for example. You can look at the percentage of batters a pitcher walks and strikes out (and or their K/BB ratio) as a proxy for strike zone command. But don’t just take my word for it.
The fear with Nova, and the primary reason he didn’t get much respect among more statistically inclined analysts was that he had walked about 7.7% of the batters he’d faced in the minors while striking out 16.8%, a K/BB ratio of 2.19. You can be a useful pitcher in MLB with a K/BB ratio like that in MLB, but translating that from the minors doesn’t give you much of a margin of error.
In 2011, Nova walked 8.1% of the batters he faced and struck out 13.9%. His K/BB ratio of 1.72 was less than stellar, and although he had a decent FIP of 4.01 it was buoyed by a lower than average HR/FB rate, a particularly impressive achievement in DNYS.
That’s not to say it’s all doom and gloom for Nova. Even his xFIP, which corrects for HR/FB rate, was a more than respectable 4.16, which is fine for a middle of the rotation guy. In addition to that, if we go a little deeper into his numbers we can find evidence of the aforementioned genuine development. In this case it’s in his splits through May 28, and his splits afterwards. Why that date? That’s the date his slider appeared to become another weapon.
| dates | ip | bf | h | hr | bb | k | ra | era | fip | xfip |
| 4/4-5/28 | 54 | 246 | 62 | 4 | 24 | 27 | 5.50 | 4.67 | 4.37 | 4.96 |
| 6/3-9/25 | 105 | 431 | 93 | 9 | 33 | 68 | 3.17 | 3.09 | 3.83 | 4.01 |
| Dates | fb% | gb% | ld% | bb/bf | k/bf | babip | hr/fb |
| 4/4-5/28 | 28.4% | 54.2% | 17.4% | 9.8% | 11.0% | .312 | 7.4% |
| 6/3-9/25 | 29.3% | 51.5% | 19.1% | 7.7% | 15.8% | .267 | 9.5% |
bf: batters faced
fip: Fielding independent pitching
xfip: Expected fip (uses league average hr/fb rate instead of actual hr)
fb% Percentage of batted balls that were fly balls
gb% Percentage of batted balls that were ground balls
ld% Percentage of batted balls that were line drives
bb/bf: walks per batters faced
k/bf: strikeouts per batters faced
babip: batting average on balls in play
Nova’s ERA/RA was still a bit better than you’d expect from his peripherals post-slider, but they support the notion that Nova can be a capable starting pitcher in MLB. We always want to be cautious about drawing large meaning from small samples, but changes in walk rate and strikeout rate stabilize more quickly than changes in most other stats, for both pitchers and hitters.
So what about 2012?
2012 Projections
| Projection | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RAR | WAR |
| cairo | 129 | 135 | 71 | 65 | 15 | 52 | 80 | 4.93 | 4.50 | 4.52 | 17 | 1.7 |
| davenport | 132 | 131 | 62 | 61 | 13 | 50 | 79 | 4.24 | 4.17 | 4.33 | 27 | 2.7 |
| marcel | 144 | 138 | 65 | 59 | 12 | 49 | 98 | 4.06 | 3.69 | 3.85 | 27 | 2.7 |
| oliver | 170 | 178 | 89 | 81 | 16 | 63 | 103 | 4.74 | 4.30 | 4.23 | 21 | 2.1 |
| pecota | 156 | 177 | 96 | 87 | 18 | 62 | 90 | 5.53 | 5.03 | 4.64 | 8 | 0.8 |
| steamer | 165 | 174 | 93 | 85 | 15 | 68 | 102 | 5.08 | 4.61 | 4.27 | 12 | 1.2 |
| zips | 178 | 189 | 94 | 88 | 20 | 60 | 111 | 4.74 | 4.44 | 4.33 | 20 | 2.0 |
| average | 153 | 160 | 81 | 75 | 15 | 58 | 95 | 4.76 | 4.39 | 4.31 | 19 | 1.9 |
| 2011 | 165 | 163 | 74 | 68 | 13 | 57 | 98 | 4.03 | 3.71 | 3.98 | 35 | 3.5 |
RA: Runs allowed per nine innings
FIP: Fielding-independent pitching
RAR: Runs above replacement level (using RA adjusted for park)
WAR: Wins above replacement level (RAR divided by 10)
For more information on the projections above you can look at the first post in this series.
I’ve included his 2011 and the league average as frames of reference. League average is based on role (starters vs. relievers), and is not adjusted for park so unlike with hitters mentally adjust that up a bit.
The consensus now is that Nova can be a bit better than league average, particularly if you give him a full starter’s workload. That’s a big step up from his projections entering last year and that’s probably a solid #3 in an average MLB rotation, at a cost-controlled salary. I think his 16-4 record in 2011 may lead the MSM and some fans to overrate him, but that’s not his fault. You’d have to imagine the Yankees hope to see him more like a #5 should they get a healthy and effective Phil Hughes and Michael Pineda this year, but I don’t really like the odds of both of those things happening right now.
CAIRO Percentile Forecasts
| % | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RAR | WAR |
| 80% | 194 | 186 | 94 | 85 | 16 | 67 | 133 | 4.34 | 3.94 | 3.84 | 38 | 3.8 |
| 65% | 168 | 168 | 87 | 79 | 16 | 62 | 110 | 4.64 | 4.22 | 4.18 | 27 | 2.7 |
| Baseline | 129 | 135 | 71 | 65 | 15 | 52 | 80 | 4.93 | 4.50 | 4.51 | 17 | 1.7 |
| 35% | 103 | 113 | 60 | 55 | 13 | 44 | 60 | 5.22 | 4.78 | 4.84 | 10 | 1.0 |
| 20% | 90 | 103 | 55 | 51 | 13 | 41 | 50 | 5.52 | 5.06 | 5.17 | 6 | 0.6 |
CAIRO is actually less sanguine on Nova than the average projection, but that 65% forecast is probably about what you’d expect if he were to repeat his 2011 with a bit less of the good fortune in HR/FB rate and BABIP.
I’d probably be more worried about Nova’s 6.86 spring training ERA if he hadn’t walked one hitter and struck out 14 of them. But since he has, I’m not. He may end up out of the rotation if everyone is healthy and effective this year, but that never really happens.
Freddy Garcia
I have to admit I expected nothing out of either Freddy Garcia or Bartolo Colon last year. At this point it seems like Garcia is superfluous, but at the time he was signed the Yankee rotation was CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Ivan Nova and 2011 Phil Hughes. That the Yankees subsequently added three pitchers who are probably better options for the rotation than Garcia isn’t his fault, and I’ve seen no evidence that he hasn’t acted professionally even though his short and long-term role on the Yankees has been in doubt. With Michael Pineda out with tendinitis and Andy Pettitte working his way back from retirement, Garcia will open the year in the rotation.
2010 & 2011 Projections
| projecton | G | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RSAR | WAR | BABIP |
| cairo | 31 | 31 | 32 | 17 | 16 | 4 | 11 | 22 | 4.94 | 4.65 | 4.62 | 2 | 0.2 | .292 |
| marcel | 25 | 144 | 152 | 76 | 72 | 18 | 44 | 91 | 4.75 | 4.50 | 4.54 | 12 | 1.2 | .291 |
| oliver | 18 | 101 | 111 | 63 | 60 | 15 | 29 | 62 | 5.64 | 5.35 | 4.76 | -2 | -0.2 | .294 |
| pecota | 20 | 109 | 119 | 63 | 58 | 17 | 33 | 68 | 5.23 | 4.81 | 4.97 | 3 | 0.3 | .291 |
| zips | 15 | 82 | 90 | 47 | 44 | 12 | 23 | 51 | 5.16 | 4.83 | 4.77 | 3 | 0.3 | .295 |
| average* | 22 | 93 | 101 | 53 | 50 | 13 | 28 | 59 | 5.14 | 4.82 | 4.75 | 4 | 0.4 | .292 |
| 2010 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | #DIV/0! | #### | ###### | ##### | ##### | ##### |
| 2011 | 25 | 141 | 146 | 63 | 59 | 16 | 44 | 93 | 4.03 | 3.77 | 4.29 | 23 | 2.3 | .292 |
RA/ERA: Runs/Earned runs allowed per nine innings
FIP: Fielding-independent pitching
RSAR: Runs saved above a replacement level pitcher(park and role-adjusted, using RA)
WAR: Wins above replacement level (RSAR divided by 10)
BABIP: Batting average on balls in play
I guess the most amazing thing is going from not pitching at all in 2010 to giving the team 141 strong innings. His FIP is probably a better indicator of how effective Garcia actually was, but he certainly blew away every projection.
2011
Garcia doesn’t throw had anymore. He came up throwing in the mid-90s but injuries have him sitting around 87 mph with his fastball, which has forced him to become more reliant on his secondary stuff. In some ways he was like a less-effective Mike Mussina circa 2008. Garcia increased his use of his split finger fastball last year, including one that was used in a physics lecture in Australia about how to curve a baseball. He had a higher than typical percentage of runners left on base and like Nova allowed a few less HRs per fly ball than an average pitcher. Throw in another year of aging and it’s probably a safe bet he won’t be quite as effective as last year, but here’s what the projections say.
2012 Projections
| Projection | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RAR | WAR |
| cairo | 102 | 112 | 51 | 48 | 12 | 30 | 64 | 4.55 | 4.28 | 4.28 | 17 | 1.7 |
| davenport | 56 | 60 | 32 | 31 | 8 | 17 | 31 | 5.12 | 4.96 | 4.73 | 6 | 0.6 |
| marcel | 149 | 156 | 72 | 67 | 17 | 46 | 97 | 4.36 | 4.06 | 4.19 | 23 | 2.3 |
| oliver | 136 | 150 | 73 | 68 | 16 | 39 | 79 | 4.84 | 4.50 | 4.31 | 14 | 1.4 |
| pecota | 126 | 140 | 72 | 67 | 17 | 37 | 83 | 5.13 | 4.78 | 4.40 | 7 | 0.7 |
| steamer | 113 | 121 | 61 | 57 | 15 | 30 | 69 | 4.88 | 4.54 | 4.41 | 11 | 1.1 |
| zips | 128 | 143 | 74 | 69 | 18 | 40 | 75 | 5.20 | 4.85 | 4.64 | 8 | 0.8 |
| average | 116 | 126 | 63 | 59 | 15 | 34 | 71 | 4.87 | 4.57 | 4.42 | 12 | 1.2 |
| 2011 | 146 | 152 | 63 | 59 | 16 | 45 | 96 | 3.88 | 3.63 | 4.09 | 23 | 2.3 |
| LgAvg | 146 | 148 | 75 | 68 | 17 | 46 | 107 | 4.60 | 4.21 | 4.21 |
Not surprising that Garcia’s expected to drop across the board, although Davenport, PECOTA and ZiPS are expecting a major fall off. Still, as the ostensible seventh starter on the team you could do worse.
CAIRO Percentile Forecasts
| % | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RAR | WAR |
| 80% | 152 | 152 | 66 | 62 | 13 | 36 | 108 | 3.91 | 3.66 | 3.55 | 37 | 3.7 |
| 65% | 132 | 138 | 62 | 58 | 14 | 35 | 88 | 4.23 | 3.97 | 3.93 | 27 | 2.7 |
| Baseline | 102 | 112 | 51 | 48 | 12 | 30 | 64 | 4.55 | 4.28 | 4.30 | 17 | 1.7 |
| 35% | 81 | 94 | 44 | 41 | 11 | 26 | 48 | 4.86 | 4.59 | 4.67 | 11 | 1.1 |
| 20% | 71 | 86 | 41 | 39 | 11 | 24 | 39 | 5.18 | 4.89 | 5.03 | 7 | 0.7 |
I think in this case the 35% forecast is probably closer to how Garcia will perform and how often he’ll pitch. There’s a lot of uncertainty with Andy Pettitte and Michael Pineda that could end up with the Yankees needing him more often than that though, and I’m not sure counting on a full season out of Phil Hughes is wise yet. Garcia could still be expendable if the Yankees feel his innings can be mostly replaced by some combination of Adam Warren, David Phelps, D.J. Mitchell, Dellin Betances or Manny Banuelos, but they probably have some time to determine that.
The Yankees’ postseason hopes if they should make it by some miracle may not be affected all that much by Nova and Garcia. You’d have to think the postseason rotation would contain some combination of CC Sabathia, Hiroki Kuroda, Phil Hughes, Michael Pineda and/or Andy Pettitte. But you do have to get there first, and Nova and Garcia can be big parts of that.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Looking Ahead to 2012 - Phil Hughes
By the time a baseball player’s been in the major leagues for five seasons, you generally have a pretty good idea of what he is. In Phil Hughes’s case we know that
a) He was arguably the best pitching prospect in baseball at one time (Baseball America had him as the #2 prospect behind Daisuke Matsuzaka in 2007.
b) He came up at age 21 and carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning of his second start before injuring his hamstring and missing a large chunk of the year. He returned from that injury and ended the season by giving the team 72 league average innings.
c) He followed that up by being awful and then getting injured again in 2008.
d) He started 2009 in the minors but was called up when Chien-Ming Wang went on the DL. He didn’t pitch all that well over his first seven starts and when Wang returned from the DL he was shifted to the bullpen instead of the minors. He then proceeded to outpitch every single reliever in the American League over the rest of the season.
e) He built on that by storming out of the gate as a full-fledged rotation member in 2010, making the All Star team. Unfortunately, his second half wasn’t quite as good.
Then came 2011.
2011
Hughes’s velocity was down all spring in 2011. While the Yankees kept saying publically they weren’t concerned about it, it never got better and after Hughes gave the team three dreadful starts of 13.94 ERA they determined he had tendinitis and he was shut down for a few months. Hughes was better upon returning, but not great as he finished the year with a 4.48 ERA over his final 65.1 innings.
So all this is a really long way of saying that even though Phil Hughes is entering his sixth major league season, we really have no idea what he is.
2012 Projections
Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but Hughes came into camp in great shape this year. His velocity has been better than it was at this time last year and he seems to have better secondary stuff as well. Although we have no idea what Hughes is, that doesn’t stop us silly forecasters from trying to forecast him anyway.
| Projection | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RAR | WAR |
| cairo | 95 | 97 | 49 | 47 | 12 | 32 | 74 | 4.63 | 4.49 | 4.26 | 15 | 1.5 |
| davenport | 147 | 144 | 74 | 73 | 18 | 44 | 109 | 4.53 | 4.47 | 4.09 | 25 | 2.5 |
| marcel | 103 | 98 | 50 | 49 | 12 | 34 | 84 | 4.37 | 4.28 | 3.96 | 16 | 1.6 |
| oliver | 119 | 118 | 54 | 53 | 14 | 39 | 94 | 4.11 | 4.03 | 4.02 | 18 | 1.8 |
| pecota | 135 | 129 | 59 | 58 | 16 | 46 | 119 | 3.92 | 3.84 | 3.89 | 22 | 2.2 |
| steamer | 107 | 107 | 52 | 51 | 15 | 37 | 82 | 4.40 | 4.31 | 4.45 | 16 | 1.6 |
| zips | 123 | 127 | 71 | 66 | 18 | 44 | 96 | 5.21 | 4.84 | 4.55 | 7 | 0.7 |
| average | 118 | 117 | 59 | 57 | 15 | 40 | 94 | 4.45 | 4.32 | 4.18 | 17 | 1.7 |
| 2011 | 74 | 84 | 48 | 48 | 9 | 27 | 47 | 5.82 | 5.82 | 4.56 | 4.4 | 0.4 |
RA: Runs allowed per nine innings
FIP: Fielding-independent pitching
RAR: Runs above replacement level (using RA adjusted for park)
WAR: Wins above replacement level (RAR divided by 10)
For more information on the projections above you can look at the first post in this series.
I’ve included his 2011 and the league average as frames of reference. League average is based on role (starters vs. relievers), and is not adjusted for park so unlike with hitters mentally adjust that down a bit.
The projections expect a better Hughes in 2012, closer to his 2010 than his 2011 albeit in fewer innings. Despite CAIRO’s Yankee bias, it’s not even the most bullish on Hughes, until we look at these.
CAIRO Percentile Forecasts
| % | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RAR | WAR |
| 80% | 190 | 175 | 83 | 81 | 18 | 53 | 165 | 3.96 | 3.84 | 3.35 | 45 | 4.5 |
| 65% | 142 | 139 | 68 | 66 | 16 | 44 | 117 | 4.30 | 4.16 | 3.76 | 28 | 2.8 |
| Baseline | 95 | 97 | 49 | 47 | 12 | 32 | 74 | 4.63 | 4.49 | 4.18 | 15 | 1.5 |
| 35% | 76 | 82 | 42 | 41 | 11 | 28 | 56 | 4.96 | 4.82 | 4.58 | 10 | 1.0 |
| 20% | 47 | 54 | 28 | 27 | 8 | 19 | 33 | 5.29 | 5.14 | 4.96 | 4 | 0.4 |
I really think that 80% forecast is in his range, although I would put the FIP closer to the ERA.
It’s easy to forget that Hughes is still just 26 years old. He hasn’t been the superstar we hoped he’d be when he was in the minors, but overall he’s been about league average. If he’s ever going to take a step forward, a year before potential free agency seems like the time to do it.
Monday, March 26, 2012
NYDailyNews: Yankees’ Phil Hughes wraps up spot in starting rotation early: source
TAMPA — The Yankees are unlikely to make anything official for another week or so, but it appears that Phil Hughes has captured a spot in the rotation.
According to a source, “it would be a shock” if Hughes wasn’t one of the Yankees’ five starters when the season opened, as his spring has given the Bombers hope that the 18-game winner of 2010 is back.
Hughes threw six innings of two-run ball in a minor-league game at the Yankees’ complex Monday, continuing his impressive spring and taking another step toward putting his hellish 2011 season behind him.
“I’ve done everything I can do,” Hughes said. “Whatever direction they want to go in, it’s their call. I feel like right now, I’m doing everything I can to make that decision as hard as possible. That’s all I really wanted to do.”
Sunday, March 25, 2012
NYDailyNews: Yankees’ Freddy Garcia a hit again in return to mound vs. Detroit Tigers
Garcia has a 2.91 ERA in four spring starts, allowing 10 hits in 12.1 innings while striking out 11 and walking four. Girardi said he probably won’t decide on the back end of the Yankee rotation until April 3 or 4, meaning there is still time for Garcia to impress.
Garcia says he doesn’t mind the competition for a job, noting that “it’s making my thinking straight you concentrate better on what you’re doing.” But he did admit, “The way I pitched (Saturday), I needed it. I’m glad I pitched good.
“I’m glad I could come back and pitch. That’s really important, because we’re in competition. I don’t want to lose any starts.”
It’s nice to see Freddy Garcia pitching well after getting hit in the hand by a comebacker a couple weeks ago. The Yankees may not have 16 aces, but Freddy and Phil have so far shown they could be in the starting rotation of almost any team outside of New England.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
NY Post: Yankees see ‘night and day’ improvment from Hughes
“Night and day,” manager Joe Girardi said, comparing this year’s Hughes to a year ago. “He looks like the guy we had two years ago ... with an improved changeup.”
Hughes hopes that’s enough to get him back to where he was when he won 18 games. His spring ERA is 2.02 after he gave up two runs — when Matt Joyce launched a cutter over the center-field fence in the second — over five innings in a 5-2 Yankees win.
“There’s always a need for good pitching and as long as I go out and pitch well and am one of those guys, there’s gonna be a spot,” Hughes said. “Andy Pettitte [coming back], I don’t think about that. Six starters for five spots, I don’t think about that.”
That’s easier this year than last, when it appeared his arm was about to fall off. And while his velocity still hasn’t returned to the pre-2011 levels, he did hit 93 mph and also featured an effective changeup, which was consistently 10 mph slower than his fastball.
“I really hadn’t gotten a chance to throw as many changeups as I wanted to,” Hughes said of this spring.
But yesterday, he finished off two of his three strikeouts with the pitch.
“I took a step forward today,” Hughes said. “I haven’t had a great feel of it, ever.”
Last year, Phil Hughes ranked in the bottom 5% in wOBA and bottom 8% in swing-and-miss percentage in two-strike counts. It’s too early to know whether his change is going to be an effective pitch in 2012. But if it is, maybe we won’t be such Negative Nancies when Phil gets to two strikes this year.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
NYDN: Girardi Throws Down the Gauntlet
For Michael Pineda, Phil Hughes, Freddy Garcia and Ivan Nova, Pettitte’s arrival will be a wakeup call.
That’s what Joe Girardi is hoping for anyway. He’s looking for Pettitte’s return to inspire the rest of his staff.
“If you don’t want somebody to take your job, pitch that way; it’s really simple,” Girardi said. “Let’s say the job was given to you and you were struggling; they’re going to look for someone to give the job to. You have to produce. That’s the world we live in in New York. It’s not like, ‘You’re this guy and we’re going to give you 20 starts no mater what happens.’ We don’t live in that world here.”
Is that really ‘the Gauntlet?’
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Lohud: Hughes shows renewed arm strength in spring debut
Before Hughes found out he’d reached 93 mph pretty steadily, he was asked what he’d like his velocity to be.
“100 would be nice,” he said. “To be successful, 92, 93 would be nice. Obviously the first time in spring I’m not expecting 100 percent, in-season velocity. Just to have some life on the fastball, see some swings and misses, some late foul balls maybe, would be nice. That would be a good thing for me right now.”
Encouraging news, I think.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
NYDN: Brian Cashman talks about ‘awkward’ sit-down he had with CC Sabathia about ace’s weight gain
It wasn’t just that Brian Cashman revealed on Sunday that he arranged a sit-down with Sabathia over the winter that included Girardi and trainer Steve Donahue to talk about the lefthander’s weight. It was also that he called the undertaking of such a task “tough” and “awkward,” making it clear just how important he felt that it be done.
Matter of fact, you got the feeling that Cashman was awfully tempted by September of last season to confront Sabathia and demand to know if he was back on the Cap’n Crunch.
The picture in the article shows both CC and Phil Hughes in noticeably better shape than last year, as far as I can tell.
Monday, January 30, 2012
TGS NY: 25Q/25D: Will the real Hughes please stand up?
The Yankees have sent personnel to see Hughes in California this winter and, while they didn’t ask Hughes to strip down to check out what type of shape he is in, the reports are that he looks “great.”
Whew. I was afraid the Yankees were going to cut into our Naked Phil Hughes traffic…
On one hand, if Hughes comes into camp in great shape and has a great year, I’ll be ecstatic. On the other hand, I’ll wonder if the only reason he did so poorly last year was because he didn’t bother conditioning himself? If that’s the case, you could make the case that Hughes cost the Yankees Jesus Montero, right?
Saturday, January 14, 2012
CBS Sports: Miller: Savvy Yankees hit home run with Pineda, Kuroda
Just a few days after meeting with the representatives for free agent Edwin Jackson, the Yankees became the talk of the industry on what had been a slow Friday night with their stealth move for Pineda, who, at 22, already is within sight of becoming an ace.
“He’s got that kind of stuff,” a scout who spent part of last summer focusing on AL West clubs said Friday night. “If you wanted to be conservative, he’s a No. 2. He’s got velocity, he came up with a slider that got better and better last year and he throws strikes. When he gives up a home run or a hard-hit ball, it does not chase him out of the strike zone.
“He’s got that rare combination of stuff and control. He’s young, he’s not afraid, he’s big, he’s still growing and he’s got makeup. He’s a prize.
“And the Yankees will have, what, five years of control over him? He’s the kind of guy you build around. Holy cow.”
...
By season’s end, over 28 starts, he struck out 173 hitters while walking just 55 over 171 innings. His average fastball was clocked at 94.7 m.p.h., according to FanGraphs.What’s notable about that? The fastballs of only three other AL starters checked in higher: Texas’ Alexi Ogando, Detroit’s Justin Verlander and Tampa Bay’s David Price.
Kuroda? He turns 37 next month. But he gave the Dodgers 202 innings in 2011, going 13-16 with a 3.07 ERA. He’s a competitor with fierce pride.
“Solid No. 3,” the scout said. “He throws strikes, he’s got good stuff, a crisp fastball that’s deceptive and he throws harder than people think. He’s at 90 to 94 with sink down in the zone, a crisp breaking ball and a good split.
“He’s got out pitches. I’d love to have Kuroda.”
If you’re going to trade Montero, trading him for a potential ace with five more years under team control makes it sting a little less.
Anyway, the starting pitcher WAR I posted in the last thread were off, so here is the revised version.
Before
CC Sabathia, 220 IP, 6.1 WAR
Ivan Nova, 190 IP, 2.4 WAR
Phil Hughes, 175 IP, 2.8 WAR
A.J. Burnett, 175 IP, 2.1 WAR
Freddy Garcia, 150 IP, 2.6 WAR
Hector Noesi, 50 IP, 0.3 WAR
Adam Warren, 25 IP, 0.2 WAR
David Phelps, 15 IP, 0.1 WAR
Starters, 1000 IP, 16.6 WAR
After
CC Sabathia, 220 IP, 6.1 WAR
Hiroki Kuroda, 182 IP, 3.1 WAR
Michael Pineda, 168 IP, 3.2 WAR
Ivan Nova, 175 IP, 2.2 WAR
Phil Hughes, 100 IP, 1.6 WAR
A.J. Burnett, 100 IP, 1.2 WAR
Freddy Garcia, 100 IP, 1.7 WAR
Starters, 1045 IP, 19.1 WAR
So figure something in the area of a 2.5 win upgrade in the rotation, more if they can split those Burnett innings between Hughes and Garcia.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
CAIRO 2012 v0.2
Here’s the latest version of the 2012 CAIRO projections, which can be downloaded here: cairo_2012_v0.2.xls.
What’s changed?
- Added more minor leaguers
- Added defensive projections for catchers and added Totalzone and Zone Rating projections for the other positions
- Added W-L for the pitchers, based on their current team and that team’s runs scored in 2011. This will change as teams’ offensive projections change, so keep that in mind.
- Took the Marcels and changed the underlying assumptions and components in a bunch of ways that make the Yankees look better.
So, what does CAIRO 2012 v0.2 think about how good the Yankees are right now?
| Lineup | Player | Pos | PA | avg/obp/slg | wOBA | Outs | BR | BRAR | Def | WAR |
| 1 | Derek Jeter | SS | 550 | .286/.345/.384 | .317 | 360 | 64 | 20 | -6 | 1.3 |
| 2 | Curtis Granderson | CF | 600 | .263/.351/.502 | .350 | 389 | 91 | 38 | 0 | 3.8 |
| 3 | Robinson Cano | 2B | 625 | .303/.352/.504 | .352 | 405 | 93 | 39 | 0 | 3.9 |
| 4 | Alex Rodriguez | 3B | 450 | .273/.363/.474 | .351 | 286 | 66 | 27 | 0 | 2.7 |
| 5 | Mark Teixeira | 1B | 625 | .263/.359/.493 | .352 | 401 | 93 | 26 | 4 | 3.0 |
| 6 | Nick Swisher | RF | 600 | .259/.356/.455 | .341 | 386 | 83 | 22 | 4 | 2.6 |
| 7 | Jesus Montero | DH | 500 | .267/.322/.470 | .326 | 339 | 66 | 9 | 0 | 0.9 |
| 8 | Russell Martin | C | 500 | .253/.347/.383 | .319 | 326 | 58 | 22 | 1 | 2.3 |
| 9 | Brett Gardner | LF | 500 | .262/.347/.371 | .315 | 326 | 61 | 10 | 22 | 3.2 |
| Starters | 4950 | .271/.350/.452 | .337 | 3220 | 675 | 212 | 25 | 23.7 | ||
| Bench | Player | Pos | PA | avg/obp/slg | wOBA | Outs | BR | BRAR | Def | WAR |
| Eduardo Nunez | IF | 350 | .262/.315/.392 | .299 | 240 | 40 | 10 | -5 | 0.5 | |
| Chris Dickerson | OF | 250 | .243/.321/.369 | .298 | 170 | 27 | 3 | 0 | 0.3 | |
| Ramiro Pena | IF | 152 | .240/.290/.340 | .272 | 108 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | |
| Francisco Cervelli | C | 150 | .264/.328/.373 | .303 | 101 | 16 | 5 | -3 | 0.5 | |
| Colin Curtis | OF | 75 | .244/.312/.391 | .299 | 52 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 0.1 | |
| Brandon Laird | IF | 75 | .247/.292/.407 | .291 | 53 | 8 | 2 | 0 | 0.2 | |
| Corban Joseph | 2B | 75 | .237/.304/.356 | .284 | 52 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 0.1 | |
| Zoilo Almonte | IF | 75 | .227/.282/.379 | .277 | 54 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 0.1 | |
| Justin Maxwell | OF | 75 | .220/.315/.397 | .303 | 51 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0.1 | |
| Bench | 1277 | .248/.311/.378 | .294 | 880 | 135 | 24 | -5 | 1.9 | ||
| Team Total | 6227 | .266/.342/.436 | .328 | 4100 | 810 | 236 | 17 | 25.6 |
wOBA: Weighted on-base average
BR: Linear weights batting runs
The Yankees are not likely to add a position player who will significantly improve these projections, so I think the critical number here is 450. If they can get more than 450 PA out of Alex Rodriguez they’ll project a bit better. They can also probably shore up the bench by adding an outfielder who projects better than Chris Dickerson, or who can at least be platooned with Dickerson. That could be accomplished by bringing back Andruw Jones or signing Cody Ross perhaps. Ross would project to hit .261/.328/.444 as a Yankee, and is capable of playing all three OF spots. Plus he’s a clutch postseason monster. Until he isn’t.
We do know the Yankees are going to try and improve their pitching.
| Role | Player | IP | H | R | HR | BB | K | RA | ERA | FIP | WAR |
| SP1 | CC Sabathia | 220 | 199 | 87 | 18 | 62 | 195 | 3.58 | 3.25 | 3.23 | 5.5 |
| SP2 | Ivan Nova | 200 | 197 | 109 | 22 | 80 | 124 | 4.91 | 4.48 | 4.52 | 2.1 |
| SP3 | Phil Hughes | 175 | 169 | 94 | 23 | 60 | 136 | 4.86 | 4.72 | 4.26 | 1.9 |
| SP4 | A.J. Burnett | 175 | 172 | 102 | 24 | 73 | 151 | 5.22 | 4.88 | 4.52 | 1.2 |
| SP5 | Hector Noesi | 100 | 112 | 65 | 16 | 33 | 68 | 5.83 | 5.44 | 4.80 | 0.0 |
| SP6 | Adam Warren | 50 | 55 | 32 | 6 | 19 | 29 | 5.71 | 5.28 | 4.72 | 0.1 |
| SP7 | David Phelps | 50 | 57 | 33 | 7 | 17 | 29 | 5.88 | 5.44 | 4.88 | 0.0 |
| SP8 | D. J. Mitchell | 25 | 28 | 17 | 3 | 13 | 14 | 6.29 | 5.81 | 5.26 | -0.1 |
| SP9 | Manny Banuelos | 25 | 27 | 18 | 4 | 14 | 17 | 6.52 | 6.01 | 5.43 | -0.2 |
| SP10 | Dellin Betances | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6.80 | 6.29 | 5.75 | 0.0 |
| Starters | 1020 | 1018 | 557 | 124 | 370 | 763 | 4.92 | 4.57 | 4.29 | 10.5 | |
| Role | Player | IP | H | R | HR | BB | K | RA | ERA | FIP | WAR |
| CL | Mariano Rivera | 60 | 44 | 16 | 4 | 11 | 55 | 2.36 | 2.21 | 2.71 | 1.9 |
| SU | David Robertson | 75 | 58 | 24 | 4 | 38 | 95 | 2.88 | 2.70 | 2.84 | 2.0 |
| SU | Rafael Soriano | 60 | 46 | 25 | 6 | 21 | 57 | 3.78 | 3.57 | 3.64 | 1.0 |
| MR | Cory Wade | 60 | 56 | 28 | 8 | 16 | 42 | 4.19 | 3.86 | 4.31 | 0.7 |
| MR | Joba Chamberlain | 50 | 47 | 25 | 5 | 19 | 47 | 4.43 | 4.04 | 3.72 | 0.5 |
| MR | Boone Logan | 50 | 49 | 24 | 5 | 20 | 48 | 4.36 | 3.82 | 3.71 | 0.5 |
| MR | Mike O’Connor | 25 | 26 | 15 | 3 | 9 | 18 | 5.32 | 4.94 | 4.37 | 0.0 |
| MR | Kevin Whelan | 25 | 25 | 17 | 3 | 18 | 20 | 6.16 | 5.70 | 5.30 | -0.2 |
| LR | George Kontos | 15 | 16 | 11 | 3 | 7 | 10 | 6.51 | 6.03 | 5.64 | -0.2 |
| Relievers | 420 | 366 | 184 | 43 | 158 | 392 | 3.95 | 3.64 | 3.69 | 6.2 | |
| Total | 1440 | 1384 | 742 | 167 | 528 | 1154 | 4.64 | 4.30 | 4.12 | 16.6 |
FIP: Fielding-independent pitching
Basically, the Yankees can add a win for every WAR they add to the rotation, since their rotation projects as replacement level after A.J. Burnett. That doesn’t mean none of the kids are better than their projections and would do the job in 2012, it just means they shouldn’t plan for that as what’s going to happen. The bullpen is fine, although they could probably benefit from adding a lefty reliever. An intriguing name that I’ve seen mentioned here and on Fangraphs is Dontrelle Willis. I’ll do a detailed post about him later.
Here’s what the overall picture looks like.
| RS | 810 |
| Def | 17 |
| RA | 742 |
| wpct | .553 |
| p162 | 90 |
So we’re looking at around a 90 win team right now. I think 95 wins is the sweet spot for projecting as the favorite in the AL East. Adding C.J. Wilson probably gets them there. Adding Yu Darvish might. Other than that it’s tough to see a single move that would accomplish it.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
ESPN.com: Yanks demand a slimmer Phil Hughes
Last season, Hughes was supposed to graduate to become CC Sabathia’s new wingman, the No. 2 starter the Yankees could turn to in the postseason. Instead, he arrived to spring with a couple of extra pounds on his frame and a few miles per hour missing from his fastball. He finished the year 5-5 with a 5.79 ERA.
“He came him into spring training a little bit out of shape,” Cashman said. “Not grossly, not overly, but he wasn’t in optimal position when spring training opened. That is not going to happen in 2012. He had to deal with it. We have what we call ‘fat camp’ so he went into that program to do the extra work to close the gap. You are in better position if you can get that all taken care of in the wintertime.”
Joba was not invited to the fat camp seeing as how he’s just “big boned”.
Also, A-Rod determined to rebound for Yankees:
“I know Yankees fans were disappointed last year, but [they] won’t be next year,” Rodriguez said.
To that end, what is going on in Miami is more vital to the Yankees than what is going on in The Bronx executive offices. Rodriguez has returned home to rebuild, refashion and rehabilitate himself. Both sickened and motivated by how 2011 played out (“There are nights I still have trouble sleeping — we could have been the St. Louis Cardinals.”), Rodriguez triggered his offseason workouts three weeks earlier than normal.
His initial program has been about strengthening and stabilizing a right knee that underwent surgery for a torn meniscus in mid-July. The knee never did seem right late in the year as Rodriguez lost his power stroke and endured the kind of pre-2009 postseason that made him again the enemy of the Yankees state. He kept refusing excuses, but it was clear that he was not 100 percent. He found the pride to get on the field, but could not revive enough of his skills to make his presence matter.
Rodriguez’s strategy is to lose at least five pounds and shake that robotic feeling that haunted him, particularly late in the 2011 campaign. The mantra is get lighter, more flexible, more agile. The term he repeats is “functional movement,” and he says this was his mindset and body condition in 2007-08, “which were the best years of my career.”
Getting that right knee healthy would go a long way towards Rodriguez regaining his swing. As a righty, that knee endures a lot of pressure and motion with every swing - even a little tweak can throw off a batter’s form.
Of course, Rodriguez will be turning 37 next year. Even if close to optimal health, he may not produce like he did in 2008 or even 2009.
But it sure would be nice to see him try.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
CAIRO 2012 v0.1
I’m heading on vacation for about three weeks, and will probably not be online at all, so I’m releasing my 2012 CAIRO v0.1 now, even though they still need a bit of work. If you have any players you want projected that aren’t in here or see anything that looks off let me know in this thread and I’ll check it when I get back. In the meantime Jonathan will keep you covered on the major happenings in Yankee-land. I hope to return with the news that the Yankees have re-signed CC and won the posting for Yu Darvish, but we’ll see what happens.
Here are some of the key Yankees’ projections.
| Last | First | Age | Pos | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | SO | avg | obp | slg | wOBA | BR | WAR |
| Cano | Robinson | 30 | 2B | 676 | 620 | 97 | 188 | 42 | 4 | 25 | 100 | 5 | 3 | 42 | 84 | .303 | .352 | .504 | .352 | 95 | 4.1 |
| Granderson | Curtis | 31 | CF | 644 | 560 | 103 | 147 | 24 | 7 | 32 | 86 | 16 | 6 | 73 | 142 | .263 | .351 | .502 | .350 | 92 | 4.0 |
| Teixeira | Mark | 32 | 1B | 692 | 594 | 98 | 156 | 34 | 1 | 33 | 109 | 3 | 1 | 81 | 113 | .263 | .359 | .493 | .352 | 98 | 2.7 |
| Rodriguez | Alex | 37 | 3B | 459 | 398 | 65 | 109 | 21 | 1 | 19 | 78 | 6 | 2 | 53 | 82 | .273 | .363 | .474 | .351 | 63 | 2.6 |
| Montero | Jesus | 23 | C | 380 | 348 | 42 | 93 | 19 | 1 | 17 | 49 | 1 | 1 | 27 | 69 | .267 | .322 | .470 | .326 | 48 | 2.2 |
| Martin | Russell | 29 | C | 511 | 443 | 60 | 112 | 19 | 0 | 13 | 54 | 9 | 3 | 59 | 81 | .253 | .347 | .383 | .319 | 56 | 2.2 |
| Swisher | Nick | 32 | RF | 626 | 533 | 84 | 138 | 31 | 1 | 24 | 82 | 2 | 2 | 80 | 129 | .259 | .356 | .455 | .341 | 81 | 2.2 |
| Jeter | Derek | 38 | SS | 581 | 519 | 82 | 149 | 22 | 1 | 8 | 56 | 16 | 5 | 46 | 83 | .286 | .345 | .384 | .317 | 64 | 2.1 |
| Gardner | Brett | 29 | LF | 484 | 418 | 74 | 109 | 16 | 6 | 6 | 38 | 35 | 8 | 53 | 82 | .262 | .347 | .371 | .315 | 56 | 1.0 |
| Romine | Austin | 24 | C | 346 | 321 | 37 | 78 | 15 | 1 | 8 | 37 | 3 | 2 | 22 | 62 | .242 | .294 | .365 | .282 | 31 | 0.8 |
| Maxwell | Justin | 29 | CF | 267 | 233 | 33 | 51 | 11 | 1 | 9 | 26 | 10 | 3 | 31 | 79 | .220 | .315 | .397 | .303 | 29 | 0.8 |
| Laird | Brandon | 25 | 3B | 392 | 364 | 42 | 90 | 18 | 1 | 13 | 50 | 2 | 1 | 22 | 72 | .247 | .292 | .407 | .291 | 39 | 0.8 |
| Nunez | Eduardo | 25 | 3B | 281 | 256 | 34 | 67 | 14 | 1 | 5 | 28 | 13 | 4 | 20 | 35 | .262 | .315 | .392 | .299 | 30 | 0.7 |
| Jones | Andruw | 35 | RF | 315 | 271 | 38 | 61 | 13 | 1 | 14 | 41 | 4 | 1 | 37 | 76 | .224 | .320 | .431 | .313 | 36 | 0.7 |
| Cervelli | Francisco | 26 | C | 185 | 164 | 20 | 43 | 7 | 1 | 3 | 22 | 2 | 1 | 15 | 32 | .264 | .328 | .373 | .303 | 18 | 0.6 |
| Posada | Jorge | 41 | DH | 420 | 368 | 44 | 94 | 20 | 1 | 16 | 55 | 2 | 1 | 46 | 87 | .255 | .340 | .442 | .329 | 51 | 0.6 |
| Molina | Gustavo | 30 | C | 131 | 121 | 12 | 29 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 14 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 25 | .240 | .285 | .376 | .278 | 12 | 0.3 |
| Bernier | Doug | 32 | SS | 346 | 310 | 34 | 71 | 15 | 2 | 4 | 29 | 5 | 2 | 28 | 76 | .227 | .291 | .324 | .267 | 27 | 0.2 |
| Pena | Ramiro | 27 | SS | 201 | 183 | 23 | 44 | 7 | 1 | 3 | 18 | 4 | 1 | 13 | 35 | .240 | .290 | .340 | .272 | 17 | 0.2 |
| Curtis | Colin | 27 | LF | 231 | 209 | 26 | 51 | 11 | 1 | 6 | 26 | 3 | 1 | 19 | 44 | .244 | .312 | .391 | .299 | 24 | 0.2 |
| Dickerson | Chris | 30 | LF | 188 | 165 | 23 | 40 | 8 | 2 | 3 | 15 | 7 | 2 | 19 | 46 | .243 | .321 | .369 | .298 | 19 | 0.2 |
| Chavez | Eric | 35 | 3B | 149 | 136 | 15 | 33 | 7 | 0 | 3 | 17 | 1 | 0 | 11 | 31 | .243 | .298 | .364 | .282 | 14 | 0.1 |
| Golson | Greg | 27 | CF | 216 | 198 | 23 | 47 | 7 | 2 | 4 | 17 | 6 | 2 | 13 | 51 | .235 | .285 | .355 | .273 | 19 | 0.1 |
| Russo | Kevin | 28 | 2B | 384 | 350 | 41 | 83 | 15 | 2 | 5 | 30 | 7 | 3 | 27 | 73 | .236 | .295 | .329 | .272 | 31 | 0.0 |
| Last | First | Age | Role | G | GS | IP | H | HR | BB | IBB | SO | ERA | FIP | RAR | WAR |
| Sabathia | CC | 32 | SP | 33 | 33 | 227 | 218 | 19 | 64 | 4 | 201 | 3.25 | 3.23 | 64 | 6.4 |
| Nova | Ivan | 25 | SP | 30 | 29 | 168 | 176 | 19 | 67 | 2 | 104 | 4.48 | 4.52 | 23 | 2.3 |
| Rivera | Mariano | 43 | RP | 65 | 0 | 65 | 50 | 4 | 12 | 2 | 59 | 2.21 | 2.71 | 23 | 2.3 |
| Burnett | A.J. | 36 | SP | 32 | 32 | 190 | 198 | 26 | 79 | 2 | 164 | 4.88 | 4.52 | 19 | 1.9 |
| Colon | Bartolo | 39 | SP | 23 | 22 | 134 | 145 | 18 | 35 | 3 | 103 | 4.16 | 4.07 | 18 | 1.8 |
| Robertson | David | 27 | RP | 63 | 0 | 62 | 50 | 4 | 31 | 5 | 78 | 2.70 | 2.84 | 18 | 1.8 |
| Garcia | Freddy | 37 | SP | 18 | 17 | 102 | 112 | 12 | 30 | 3 | 64 | 4.28 | 4.28 | 18 | 1.8 |
| Hughes | Phil | 26 | SP | 22 | 16 | 95 | 97 | 12 | 32 | 1 | 74 | 4.72 | 4.26 | 13 | 1.3 |
| Soriano | Rafael | 33 | RP | 46 | 0 | 45 | 37 | 5 | 16 | 2 | 43 | 3.57 | 3.64 | 9 | 0.9 |
| Chamberlain | Joba | 27 | RP | 47 | 5 | 69 | 68 | 7 | 26 | 1 | 64 | 4.04 | 3.72 | 8 | 0.8 |
| Warren | Adam | 25 | SP | 28 | 28 | 147 | 173 | 18 | 57 | 0 | 85 | 5.28 | 4.72 | 7 | 0.7 |
| Wade | Cory | 29 | RP | 37 | 0 | 43 | 43 | 6 | 11 | 1 | 30 | 3.86 | 4.31 | 6 | 0.6 |
| Feliciano | Pedro | 36 | RP | 64 | 0 | 48 | 52 | 4 | 20 | 4 | 40 | 4.09 | 3.83 | 6 | 0.6 |
| Logan | Boone | 28 | RP | 56 | 0 | 43 | 45 | 4 | 17 | 3 | 41 | 3.82 | 3.71 | 6 | 0.6 |
| Ayala | Luis | 34 | RP | 42 | 0 | 46 | 48 | 5 | 17 | 2 | 31 | 3.99 | 4.40 | 5 | 0.5 |
| Phelps | David | 26 | SP | 28 | 27 | 152 | 185 | 23 | 50 | 0 | 88 | 5.44 | 4.88 | 4 | 0.4 |
| Prior | Mark | 32 | SP | 13 | 10 | 47 | 52 | 6 | 17 | 1 | 33 | 4.91 | 4.44 | 4 | 0.4 |
| Valdes | Raul | 35 | RP | 30 | 3 | 47 | 51 | 6 | 16 | 1 | 40 | 4.72 | 4.08 | 3 | 0.3 |
| Marte | Damaso | 37 | RP | 43 | 0 | 36 | 32 | 4 | 16 | 2 | 30 | 4.68 | 4.36 | 3 | 0.3 |
| Farnham | Jeffrey | 25 | RP | 35 | 0 | 37 | 36 | 4 | 19 | 2 | 30 | 4.53 | 4.51 | 3 | 0.3 |
| Flannery | Ryan | 27 | RP | 58 | 0 | 70 | 79 | 7 | 26 | 1 | 42 | 4.91 | 4.43 | 2 | 0.2 |
| Mitre | Sergio | 31 | RP | 31 | 2 | 51 | 52 | 6 | 17 | 1 | 28 | 4.55 | 4.58 | 1 | 0.1 |
| Laffey | Aaron | 27 | RP | 30 | 5 | 54 | 65 | 6 | 24 | 1 | 29 | 4.85 | 4.77 | 1 | 0.1 |
| Norton | Tim | 29 | RP | 39 | 0 | 45 | 47 | 7 | 18 | 1 | 40 | 4.98 | 4.71 | 1 | 0.1 |
| Noesi | Hector | 25 | RP | 31 | 10 | 79 | 94 | 12 | 26 | 2 | 53 | 5.44 | 4.80 | -3 | -0.3 |
| Whelan | Kevin | 28 | RP | 36 | 0 | 39 | 41 | 5 | 28 | 0 | 32 | 5.70 | 5.30 | -3 | -0.3 |
| Mitchell | D. J. | 25 | SP | 32 | 30 | 171 | 205 | 22 | 86 | 0 | 92 | 5.81 | 5.26 | -3 | -0.3 |
| Schmidt | Josh | 30 | RP | 60 | 1 | 75 | 81 | 9 | 46 | 1 | 57 | 5.48 | 5.06 | -3 | -0.3 |
| Venditte | Pat | 27 | RP | 61 | 0 | 82 | 94 | 12 | 35 | 1 | 58 | 5.55 | 4.96 | -4 | -0.4 |
| Isabel | George | 23 | RP | 41 | 0 | 42 | 45 | 7 | 29 | 1 | 33 | 6.03 | 5.80 | -5 | -0.5 |
| Reyes | Yobanny | 24 | RP | 45 | 0 | 48 | 53 | 7 | 32 | 1 | 35 | 5.93 | 5.60 | -5 | -0.5 |
| DeLuca | Evan | 21 | SP | 19 | 19 | 92 | 105 | 14 | 53 | 1 | 62 | 6.07 | 5.48 | -5 | -0.5 |
| Proctor | Scott | 36 | RP | 34 | 0 | 36 | 42 | 7 | 21 | 2 | 28 | 6.38 | 5.92 | -5 | -0.5 |
| Banuelos | Manny | 21 | SP | 26 | 26 | 126 | 147 | 19 | 72 | 1 | 88 | 6.01 | 5.43 | -5 | -0.5 |
| Betances | Dellin | 24 | SP | 16 | 16 | 73 | 82 | 12 | 47 | 0 | 55 | 6.29 | 5.75 | -5 | -0.5 |
| Stoneburner | Graham | 25 | SP | 22 | 21 | 111 | 137 | 19 | 45 | 0 | 64 | 6.10 | 5.48 | -6 | -0.6 |
| Kontos | George | 27 | RP | 30 | 5 | 56 | 65 | 11 | 27 | 0 | 39 | 6.03 | 5.64 | -6 | -0.6 |
WAR for position players does NOT include defense yet.
You can download the full spreadsheet here. I still need to add catcher defense and zone rating/total zone to the other fielders, and playing times are likely to be somewhat off. I need to double-check my MLEs since I usually find a mistake or two so don’t get too hung up on the minor leaguers’ projections just yet.
If I was to build a preliminary depth chart for the 2012 Yankees right now using the players currently under contract, it’d look something like this.
| Player | Pos | PA | BR | Player | Role | IP | R |
| Jeter, Derek | SS | 580 | 64 | Sabathia, CC | SP1 | 220 | 87 |
| Granderson, Curtis | CF | 640 | 91 | Nova, Ivan | SP2 | 200 | 109 |
| Cano, Robinson | 2B | 670 | 95 | Hughes, Phil | SP3 | 175 | 94 |
| Rodriguez, Alex | 3B | 459 | 63 | Burnett, A.J. | SP4 | 185 | 107 |
| Teixeira, Mark | 1B | 675 | 95 | Noesi, Hector | SP5 | 140 | 91 |
| Swisher, Nick | RF | 625 | 81 | Betances, Dellin | SP6 | 50 | 38 |
| Montero, Jesus | DH | 550 | 69 | Banuelos, Manny | SP7 | 50 | 36 |
| Martin, Russell | C | 500 | 55 | Brackman, Andrew | SP8 | 0 | 0 |
| Gardner, Brett | LF | 550 | 63 | Rivera, Mariano | CL | 60 | 16 |
| Nunez, Eduardo | IF | 340 | 36 | Robertson, David | SU | 80 | 26 |
| Cervelli, Francisco | C | 250 | 25 | Soriano, Rafael | SU | 65 | 27 |
| Pena, Ramiro | IF | 50 | 4 | Logan, Boone | MR | 60 | 29 |
| Dickerson, Chris | OF | 300 | 31 | Wade, Cory | MR | 70 | 33 |
| Golson, Greg | OF | 50 | 4 | Chamberlain, Joba | MR | 60 | 30 |
| Laird, Brandon | IF | 50 | 5 | Laffey, Aaron | LR | 25 | 15 |
| Russo, Kevin | UT | 25 | 2 | Warren, Adam | LR | 0 | 0 |
| Romine, Austin | C | 0 | 0 | Phelps, David | LR | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 6314 | 784 | Total | 1440 | 737 |
That’s about an 86 win team, before considering defense. If we assume the 2012 Yankees would be about the same as the 2011 Yankees defensively (around +20) then you’re closer to an 88 win team. It’s not impossible to think some of the young pitchers will be better than CAIRO projects, but the offense looks like it could use a bit more oomph, particularly if we assume we’re only going to get about 450 PA of Alex Rodriguez. They probably need someone who can play 3B and outhit/outglove Eduardo Nunez for at least 40 games.
As far as the pitching staff, the Yankees probably should at least consider bringing Freddy Garcia and/or Bartolo Colon back. Garcia projects better than everyone but CC in the rotation, so I’d like to see the Yankees at least offer him arbitration. If he goes elsewhere, they should get a supplemental first round pick. If he can’t find another team he comes back on a one-year deal, which would be great. 150 innings of Garcia instead of Noesi as a starter makes the Yankees about two wins better.
So the Yankees have some work to do this offseason, IMO.
Monday, October 24, 2011
BBTF: 2012 ZiPS Projections - New York Yankees
While we wait for me to take the Marcels and change the underlying assumptions and components in a bunch of ways that make the Yankees look better, the first set of 2012 Yankee projections are out. With CHONE now being gobbled up by some MLB team, these are probably the best projections available now, and I know Dan Szymborski puts a ton of work into making it so.
I’ll just show the starters here..
Batting Projections Player B PO Age BA OBP SLG G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB CS OPS+ Robinson Cano L 2B 29 .299 .347 .506 156 609 92 182 41 5 25 103 40 76 6 3 121 Mark Teixeira B 1B 32 .263 .359 .495 147 562 88 148 32 1 32 109 76 112 2 1 122 Curtis Granderson L CF 31 .256 .346 .495 147 547 104 140 22 8 31 92 71 143 16 7 118 Alex Rodriguez R 3B 36 .264 .350 .474 108 405 62 107 20 1 21 82 51 89 7 2 115 Jesus Montero R C 22 .271 .333 .486 156 576 79 156 37 3 27 93 55 116 0 0 112 Nick Swisher B RF 31 .253 .358 .456 142 498 76 126 27 1 24 82 80 129 1 2 113 Andruw Jones R LF 35 .234 .335 .455 80 222 31 52 10 0 13 38 32 65 3 1 106 Brett Gardner L LF 28 .260 .352 .370 149 462 80 120 17 8 6 39 61 91 43 10 91 Russell Martin R C 29 .249 .346 .382 123 422 60 105 17 0 13 58 58 76 10 4 92 Jorge Posada B 1B 40 .238 .329 .414 105 324 35 77 15 0 14 47 41 80 1 1 94 Eduardo Nunez R SS 25 .273 .312 .379 141 480 57 131 23 2 8 48 26 64 21 7 81 Derek Jeter R SS 38 .268 .329 .362 129 542 78 145 22 4 7 58 46 84 14 5 82
And some selected pitchers.
Pitching Projections - Starters Player T Age ERA W L G GS IP H ER HR BB K ERA+ CC Sabathia L 31 3.55 17 8 31 31 218.0 211 86 19 63 189 126 Ivan Nova R 25 4.44 13 10 31 30 178.3 189 88 20 60 111 100 LEAGUE AVERAGE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 96 Bartolo Colon R 39 4.77 7 6 20 19 111.3 121 59 17 32 78 93 Phil Hughes R 26 4.84 9 8 25 22 122.7 127 66 18 44 96 92 Freddy Garcia R 35 4.85 9 8 23 22 128.0 143 69 18 40 75 92 Hector Noesi R 25 5.24 6 6 32 14 103.0 120 60 14 35 68 85 A.J. Burnett R 35 5.31 9 10 28 27 159.3 170 94 25 70 128 84 David Phelps R 25 5.40 6 7 23 22 121.7 148 73 18 39 73 83 Manny Banuelos L 21 5.45 7 8 25 25 115.7 128 70 15 65 85 82 Dellin Betances R 24 5.66 5 7 24 24 105.0 111 66 15 72 85 79 Player T Age ERA W L G GS IP H ER HR BB K ERA+ David Robertson R 27 3.06 4 2 69 0 64.7 50 22 5 34 87 146 Mariano Rivera R 42 3.12 3 1 53 0 49.0 44 17 4 10 43 143 Rafael Soriano R 32 3.14 4 2 67 0 63.0 50 22 6 21 74 142 Joba Chamberlain R 26 3.88 3 2 46 0 46.3 43 20 5 14 45 115 Boone Logan L 27 3.91 4 2 62 0 48.3 46 21 5 17 48 114 LEAGUE AVERAGE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 108 Pedro Feliciano L 35 4.30 2 1 33 0 23.0 24 11 2 10 18 104 Cory Wade R 29 4.61 4 4 47 0 56.7 62 29 8 13 37 97 Luis Ayala R 34 4.62 4 3 44 0 50.7 56 26 6 19 32 96 Sergio Mitre R 31 5.08 1 1 26 2 44.3 49 25 6 17 22 88
Go to the link to see whatever players I didn’t include here.
Projections are inherently limited, so remember to take these for what they are. They are rough estimates of a player’s current talent level. They are not predictions for what a player is going to do in 2012, and they are not playing time predictions either.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Yankees.com: With plenty of help, Burnett forces Game 5
DETROIT—The American League Division Series is going to be decided in New York. A.J. Burnett and the Yankees staved off elimination with a 10-1 victory over the Tigers in Game 4 on Tuesday at Comerica Park.
Originally slated to be in New York’s bullpen during this series, Burnett rose to the occasion, delivering 5 2/3 innings of one-run ball to prolong the Yankees’ season for at least another two days.
Two terrific catches by center fielder Curtis Granderson aided the effort, as the former Tigers star patrolled his old stomping grounds with aplomb.
Granderson backtracked and made a leaping grab of a Don Kelly line drive to leave the bases loaded in the first inning, then made a sensational diving grab of Jhonny Peralta’s drive toward left-center with a runner on to end the sixth.
If you were going to judge A.J. Burnett’s start by his BB/K ratio and his BABIP against and his HR/FB rate, you’d probably be correct in saying he didn’t pitch all that well tonight and was at least somewhat lucky.
But if you judge a start by the results and the importance of the situation, Burnett saved his team’s season tonight. After walking the bases loaded in the first inning (one intentional), Burnett appeared to be headed for disaster, but one of the two aforementioned great Granderson catches ended the inning, and Burnett was able to pitch into the sixth while walking just one other batter. Rafael Soriano, Phil Hughes and Boone Logan retired the final 10 Tigers to close things out.
The offense struggled a bit early but by the fifth the team had built up a 4-1 lead and eventually broke things open in the eighth. So now they’ll head home for a day off before a deciding Game 5 on Thursday.
At the very least, we won’t have a repeat of the 2006 ALDS.
Friday, September 30, 2011
2011 ALDS Preview: Tigers vs. Yankees
The first obstacle in the quest to end the dreaded curse of The Curse of Jerry Hairston, Jr./Eric Hinske is the Detroit Tigers.
Seriously, it has been 694 days, 11 hours, 15 minutes, and 45 seconds since the New York Yankees have won a World Series. We have suffered long enough, haven’t we? When will this infernal madness end?
So how big of an obstacle are the Tigers? Let’s take a look.
First, I’ll acknowledge the obvious fact that the Tigers played in and won the AL Central which is probably the weakest division in the AL.
I’ll then say that it doesn’t matter. This is a very good team, and it’s not a stretch to envision them representing the AL in the World Series.
If you read the Rays/Rangers preview you can skip the next paragraph.
I don’t particularly find any series previews that focus on what a team did in the preceding full season of much use. It doesn’t really matter if a team scored 5.2 runs per game and allowed 4.2 runs per game over the preceding six months. Rosters change, injuries happen, players come and go, talent changes, and player and team performance is often subject to fluctuations that are not predictive. What I want to know is how many runs will the team and roster as currently configured score and allow. Because of that, for these previews I’ll be using projections in lieu of 2011 stats. Despite having my own system in CAIRO, I’m going to use the Hardball Times’s Oliver forecasts since I haven’t had the time to re-run CAIRO for this year. Oliver is updated weekly during the season and includes 2011 MLEs for players who saw time in the minors.
The biggest consideration in trying to see how any series may shape up is allocating playing time. So here are depth charts for the two teams, based on the assumption that each team will make 25 outs at the plate over 5 games and that pitchers will combine for 45 innings. Since I didn’t have official postseason rosters while writing parts of these, some of it is guesswork and is subject to change.
Here are the Oliver projections for the Tigers’ postseason position players.
| Name | Pos | PA | AVG/OBP/SLG | Outs | BR | wOBA | vs. L | vs. R |
| Jackson, Austin | CF | 21 | .263/.315/.374 | 14 | 2.24 | .303 | .311 | .300 |
| Kelly, Don | 3B | 21 | .268/.312/.413 | 14 | 2.34 | .314 | .286 | .317 |
| Young, Delmon | LF | 21 | .283/.314/.446 | 14 | 2.52 | .327 | .344 | .320 |
| Cabrera, Miguel | 1B | 21 | .334/.422/.602 | 12 | 4.11 | .435 | .455 | .429 |
| Martinez, Victor | C | 21 | .312/.365/.480 | 13 | 3.08 | .367 | .372 | .364 |
| Peralta, Jhonny | SS | 21 | .270/.324/.426 | 14 | 2.50 | .326 | .339 | .321 |
| Avila, Alex | C | 21 | .270/.351/.456 | 14 | 2.89 | .350 | .327 | .356 |
| Dirks, Andy | RF | 21 | .265/.311/.415 | 14 | 2.45 | .315 | .294 | .318 |
| Santiago, Ramon | 2B | 21 | .276/.319/.394 | 14 | 2.30 | .307 | .304 | .308 |
| Starter Total | 189 | .282/.337/.444 | 125 | 24.42 | .338 | .338 | .338 | |
| Bench | Pos | PA | AVG/OBP/SLG | Outs | BR | wOBA | vs. L | vs. R |
| Betemit, Wilson | IF | 0 | .259/.323/.424 | 0 | 0.00 | .325 | .298 | .334 |
| Ordonez, Magglio | OF | 0 | .282/.344/.412 | 0 | 0.00 | .334 | .352 | .329 |
| Raburn, Ryan | OF | 0 | .268/.317/.465 | 0 | 0.00 | .334 | .349 | .323 |
| Rhymes, Will | 2B | 0 | .272/.326/.361 | 0 | 0.00 | .303 | .283 | .307 |
| Inge, Brandon | 3B | 0 | .230/.304/.384 | 0 | 0.00 | .303 | .328 | .294 |
| Worth, Danny | IF | 0 | .229/.284/.328 | 0 | 0.00 | .272 | .283 | .263 |
| Kelly, Don | UT | 0 | .268/.312/.413 | 0 | 0.00 | .314 | .286 | .317 |
| Santos, Omir | C | 0 | .228/.255/.333 | 0 | 0.00 | .255 | .264 | .250 |
| Bench Total | ||||||||
| Team Total | 189 | .282/.337/.444 | 125 | 24.42 | .338 | .338 | .338 |
Outs: Outs at the plate (assumes 25 outs per 9 innings, calculated as (1 - OBP) times PA + GDP per PA
BR: Linear weights batting runs
wOBA: Weighted on-base average
vs. L/R: Projected wOBA splits vs. LHP/RHP using regressed platoon splits
Rather than guess about how the Tigers may allocate playing time, I just gave the expected starting lineup all 125 outs.
The biggest problem here is Miguel Cabrera. Cabrera’s pretty much the best hitter in the AL. In fact, only one player has been a better hitter than him over the last three years, and that’s Albert Pujols. That projected wOBA of .455 vs. LHP is terrifying for Game 1. The Yankees probably don’t have much room for error facing Verlander, so the Cabrera/Sabathia matchup is probably going to be the one to watch. You can see by the OBP of the rest of the team that keeping people like Austin Jackson, Don Kelly and Delmon Young off the bases in front of Cabrera is going to be imperative.
The Tigers overall don’t have much of a projected platoon split, so the Yankees’ lack of left-handed pitching shouldn’t be a big deal.
I don’t think any Tigers fans would disagree that the Yankees’ lineup is better. Their hopes are going to lay on their pitching staff, and that’s not a bad position to be in.
| Name | Role | IP | R | RA | ERA | FIP |
| Verlander, Justin | SP1 | 14 | 4.8 | 3.11 | 2.89 | 3.05 |
| Fister, Doug | SP2 | 6 | 2.6 | 3.94 | 3.67 | 3.49 |
| Scherzer, Max | SP3 | 6 | 3.1 | 4.61 | 4.10 | 3.98 |
| Porcello, Rick | SP4 | 5 | 2.7 | 4.88 | 4.51 | 4.35 |
| Penny, Brad | SP5 | 0 | 0.0 | 5.43 | 4.85 | 4.65 |
| Starter Total | 31 | 13.3 | 3.85 | 3.54 | 3.52 | |
| Name | Role | IP | R | RA | ERA | FIP |
| Valverde, Jose | CL | 3 | 1.3 | 3.90 | 3.61 | 3.72 |
| Benoit, Joaquin | SU | 3 | 1.1 | 3.25 | 3.01 | 3.10 |
| Alburquerque, Al | SU | 2 | 0.9 | 4.20 | 3.89 | 3.71 |
| Coke, Phil | SU | 2 | 1.0 | 4.40 | 4.07 | 3.68 |
| Pauley, David | MR | 2 | 1.1 | 4.76 | 4.41 | 4.44 |
| Perry, Ryan | MR | 1 | 0.5 | 4.61 | 4.27 | 4.12 |
| Schlereth, Daniel | MR | 1 | 0.5 | 4.85 | 4.49 | 4.31 |
| Marte, Luis | LR | 0 | 0.0 | 5.26 | 4.87 | 4.97 |
| Below, Duane | LR | 0 | 0.0 | 5.49 | 5.08 | 5.33 |
| LR | 0 | 0.0 | ||||
| Reliever Total | 14 | 6.4 | 4.12 | 3.81 | 3.75 | |
| Team Total | 45 | 19.7 | 3.93 | 3.62 | 3.59 |
RA: Runs allowed per 9, calculated as 1.08*ERA
ERA: Earned runs allowed per 9
FIP: Fielding independent pitching
Justin Verlander’s obviously the man here. He’s been the best pitcher in baseball this year and is a worthy MVP candidate. He’s backed up by mid-season acquisition Doug Fister, who’s been sublime for the Tigers. The Tigers are 9-2 in his 11 starts, and he’s pitched 70.1 innings and allowed just 19 runs. He’s faced 273 batters and walked 5 of them. Seriously. He’s probably not quite that good, but he’d project as the second-best starter on the Yankees.
Jim Leyland has said that he will not pitch Verlander on three days rest, so I’m giving Rick Porcello five innings. I don’t know if things would change if the Tigers go down 2-1. If they did that, they could throw Fister in Game 5 and not use Porcello in the rotation at all.
The Tigers’ defense has been about average overall, not much different than the Yankees. So I’m not going to bother with talking about that.
So, how about the Yankees’ projections?
| Name | Pos | PA | AVG/OBP/SLG | Outs | BR | wOBA | vs. L | vs. R |
| Jeter, Derek | SS | 22 | .306/.363/.416 | 14 | 2.83 | .345 | .369 | .337 |
| Granderson, Curtis | CF | 22 | .259/.342/.496 | 14 | 3.24 | .358 | .314 | .374 |
| Cano, Robinson | 2B | 22 | .312/.359/.511 | 14 | 3.38 | .374 | .358 | .381 |
| Rodriguez, Alex | 3B | 18 | .289/.367/.527 | 11 | 2.89 | .382 | .389 | .380 |
| Teixeira, Mark | 1B | 22 | .265/.357/.498 | 14 | 3.29 | .369 | .380 | .364 |
| Swisher, Nick | RF | 21 | .271/.364/.475 | 13 | 3.03 | .364 | .375 | .359 |
| Posada, Jorge | DH | 16 | .259/.345/.448 | 10 | 2.12 | .347 | .347 | .347 |
| Martin, Russell | C | 21 | .252/.345/.380 | 14 | 2.39 | .326 | .344 | .320 |
| Gardner, Brett | LF | 19 | .269/.353/.376 | 12 | 2.34 | .326 | .306 | .332 |
| Starter Total | 183 | .277/.355/.460 | 118 | 25.50 | .355 | .354 | .355 | |
| Bench | Pos | PA | AVG/OBP/SLG | Outs | BR | wOBA | vs. L | vs. R |
| Montero, Jesus | DH | 4 | .278/.329/.483 | 3 | 0.54 | .348 | .361 | .340 |
| Jones, Andruw | OF | 2 | .251/.344/.502 | 1 | 0.30 | .363 | .381 | .357 |
| Nunez, Eduardo | IF | 0 | .278/.308/.381 | 0 | 0.00 | .301 | .302 | .300 |
| Chavez, Eric | 3B | 4 | .245/.296/.355 | 3 | 0.38 | .288 | .257 | .300 |
| Romine, Austin | C | 0 | .246/.289/.364 | 0 | 0.00 | .287 | .300 | .283 |
| Dickerson, Chris | OF | 0 | .239/.315/.341 | 0 | 0.00 | .295 | .272 | .299 |
| Pena, Ramiro | IF | 0 | .239/.283/.327 | 0 | 0.00 | .269 | .256 | .273 |
| Cervelli, Francisco | C | 0 | .263/.314/.365 | 0 | 0.00 | .298 | .310 | .293 |
| Bench Total | 10 | .260/.319/.435 | 7 | 1.22 | .327 | .323 | .327 | |
| Team Total | 193 | .276/.353/.458 | 125 | 26.72 | .353 | .352 | .354 |
I’ve relegated Jesus Montero to pinch-hitting status, since DH vs. LHP is effectively a non-position vs. Detroit. I suppose we may see him pinch-hit for Posada if a one of Phil Coke/Daniel Schlereth is on the mound. Or he could get a start if Posada doesn’t look so good. Statistically, Posada’s projection vs. RHP is better than Montero’s so I suppose it’s the logical approach. I’m also not sanguine on A-Rod playing every inning so I’ve given Chavez four PA, and I’m assuming we may see Andruw Jones pinch-hit for TSBG in a late situation vs. a LHP where an XBH would be of additional benefit.
Oliver thinks the Yankees have the best offense in the postseason, and I’d agree with that. Unfortunately, the Yankees have to pitch too.
| Name | Role | IP | R | RA | ERA | FIP |
| Sabathia, CC | SP1 | 14 | 5.8 | 3.70 | 3.43 | 3.28 |
| Nova, Ivan | SP2 | 12 | 6.4 | 4.77 | 4.36 | 4.33 |
| Garcia, Freddy | SP3 | 5 | 2.6 | 4.60 | 4.36 | 4.33 |
| Colon, Bartolo | SP4 | 0 | 0.0 | 4.82 | 4.04 | 3.97 |
| Burnett, A.J. | SP5 | 0 | 0.0 | 5.21 | 4.82 | 4.49 |
| Hughes, Phil | SP6 | 0 | 0.0 | 4.45 | 4.12 | 4.17 |
| Betances, Dellin | SP7 | 0 | 0.0 | 5.36 | 4.96 | 4.83 |
| Brackman, Andrew | SP8 | 0 | 0.0 | 6.80 | 6.30 | 5.88 |
| Starter Total | 31 | 14.7 | 4.26 | 3.94 | 3.86 | |
| Name | Role | IP | R | RA | ERA | FIP |
| Rivera, Mariano | CL | 3 | 1.0 | 3.03 | 2.81 | 2.89 |
| Robertson, David | SU | 3 | 1.2 | 3.75 | 3.47 | 3.05 |
| Soriano, Rafael | SU | 2 | 0.8 | 3.61 | 3.34 | 3.64 |
| Logan, Boone | SU | 2 | 1.0 | 4.32 | 4.00 | 3.77 |
| Wade, Cory | MR | 2 | 1.0 | 4.38 | 4.06 | 4.09 |
| Ayala, Luis | MR | 2 | 1.0 | 4.50 | 4.17 | 3.92 |
| Noesi, Hector | MR | 0 | 0.0 | 4.59 | 4.25 | 4.03 |
| Proctor, Scott | LR | 0 | 0.0 | 5.78 | 5.35 | 5.21 |
| Laffey, Aaron | LR | 0 | 0.0 | 5.56 | 5.15 | 4.59 |
| Kontos, George | LR | 0 | 0.0 | 5.38 | 4.98 | 5.02 |
| Reliever Total | 14 | 6.0 | 3.86 | 3.57 | 3.48 | |
| Team Total | 45 | 20.7 | 4.14 | 3.82 | 3.74 |
The assumption here is CC on three days rest. I’m assuming that Burnett and Hughes won’t pitch even though they’re on the roster, but if they do pitch their innings would probably just replace Ayala or Wade’s and it shouldn’t make a big difference.
The Yankees probably have the worst projected rotation in the postseason. CC’s as good as anyone, but after that there’s some concern about Nova and Garcia. I do think that projection is a little bearish on Nova since we have evidence that his new slider has made a meaningful improvement that wouldn’t be captured in a projection system.
Nova pre-slider: 226 BF, 9.3% BB/BF, 11.5% K/BF, 5.19 RA, 4.29 ERA, 4.32 FIP, 4.92 xFIP
Nova post-slider: 278 BF, 7.5% BB/BF, 15.1% K/BF, 3.52 RA, 3.44 ERA, 3.77 FIP, 4.03 xFIP
The Yankee bullpen has been one of the best in baseball this year, and although the projections think most of them pitched above their head they’re probably still better than Detroit’s from top to bottom. So the Yankees should be able to mitigate their slight disadvantage in the rotation by using the relievers aggressively. I can imagine that any David Robertson/Miguel Cabrera battles are going to be must-see baseball.
These depth charts say this.
| Team | Gms | RS | RA | wpct | p162 |
| DET | 5 | 24.4 | 19.7 | .600 | 97 |
| NYA | 5 | 26.7 | 20.7 | .620 | 100 |
If I play the series out 10,000 times in my Monte Carlo simulator I get these odds.
Yankees: 53.9%
Tigers: 46.1%
If the Tigers do decide to use Verlander in Game 4 and Fister in Game 5 they improve to about a .612 wpct/99 win team. Basically, those two teams are equivalent. The Yankees get the slight edge of one extra home game if necessary. In that case the odds look like this.
Yankees: 51.9%
Tigers: 48.1%
Jack Curry’s Projected Postseason 2011 ALDS Yankee Roster
We still don’t have official ALDS rosters, but Jack Curry used the information that’s been released to try and project them. Here’s who Curry sees on the roster.
Position players (14)
Teixeira
Cano
Jeter
Rodriguez
Chavez
Nunez
Gardner
Granderson
Swisher
Jones
Martin
Posada
Montero
Dickerson
Pitchers (11)
Sabathia
Nova
Garcia
Burnett
Rivera
Robertson
Soriano
Logan
Wade
Ayala
Hughes
I like the roster, for the most part. Nunez shouldn’t be playing at all over Cano and Jeter, and if Rodriguez is unable to play they have a better option in Chavez. I’m happy to not see Austin Romine or Raul Valdes on there, as I don’t think either really helps the team that much right now.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Yankees.com: Burnett helps Yanks burn Red Sox in Game 1
NEW YORK—Nearly three years have passed, but A.J. Burnett has finally done what the Yankees asked when they chased him so passionately as a free agent: Beat the Boston Red Sox.
The right-hander hurled 7 2/3 strong innings on Sunday, defeating the skidding Red Sox, 6-2, in the first game of a day-night doubleheader at Yankee Stadium.
Burnett’s effort ended a string of 10 overall starts against the Red Sox—including nine as a Yankee—dating back to Sept. 19, 2008, taking advantage of a Boston club that continues to fret about their postseason chances.
While Burnett may not have a place in the first-round postseason rotation, where Ivan Nova and Freddy Garcia could follow CC Sabathia in the American League Division Series, he offered some optimism for his inclusion in some form.
Burnett’s final line looks pretty good, but he was shaky early. Through four innings he’d thrown 32 strikes and 29 balls. Over the rest of the game he threw 32 strikes and just 12 balls, and ended his day by striking out the last two batters he faced. It’s only natural to wonder how much of his performance can be attributed to pitching against a Boston team that’s probably pressing versus him battling through adversity. I suppose we can say that we’ve seen that when A.J.‘s bad enough, he can make the worst team in MLB look good (the Twins), so this outing has to be viewed positively, although I’m sure it won’t be by some.
If I had to guess, he’s probably earned a shot at the postseason rotation, maybe as the #4 in the ALDS should the Yankees by some miracle be up 2-1. I’m fine with that, provided he’s got a short leash with someone like Bartolo Colon or Phil Hughes shadowing him. There’s no reason to think he’d be appreciably worse than either of them in a single start.
Tampabayrays.com: Four homers help Rays gain ground
ST. PETERSBURG—A home-run barrage coupled with an inspired pitching performance led the Rays to a 5-2 win over the Blue Jays on Sunday afternoon at Tropicana Field.
By winning, the Rays moved to within a half-game of the American League Wild Card-leading Red Sox, who lost to the Yankees in the first game of a day-night double-header on Sunday.
We’re about two hours away from a game that has the potential to be an absolute smorgasbord of schadenfreude.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
NJ>com: Yankees pitcher Phil Hughes diagnosed with inflammation of old herniated disc injury
NEW YORK — Just hours before the game, scheduled starter Phil Hughes was scratched because of complications due to his lingering back spasms. There was hope that he would be able to throw a bullpen session between games, but instead Hughes was sent for an MRI for complications on his back spasms.
Afterwards, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman revealed the diagnosis: An inflammation of an old injury from 2004. But since it wasn’t getting better as quickly as the Yankees and doctors had hoped, Hughes received an epidural shot to relieve the pain.
I have to think Hughes’s spot on the postseason roster is now in jeopardy.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Yankees.com: Homers, one reviewed, lift Yanks through rain
NEW YORK—Francisco Cervelli and Brett Gardner blasted back-to-back seventh-inning homers through the rain drops, leading the Yankees past the Orioles, 5-3, as Tuesday turned into Wednesday at Yankee Stadium.
Cervelli broke a tie with a video-reviewed home run off Baltimore starter Tommy Hunter, which was touched by a fan leaning over the left-field wall. But the original call was upheld by the umpires after the replay.
Gardner left no doubt with his blast, rocketing a laser off the right-field foul pole to give the Yankees a two-run lead in a contest that was played in inclement conditions because of an already difficult September schedule. New York won its sixth straight game and maintained a 2 1/2-game lead over Boston in the American League East.
What are the odds of Cervelli and Gardner hitting back to back homers?
I thought Phil Hughes looked pretty good tonight, although his velocity was down somewhat from his last few starts. He threw 22 curves, 14 for strikes, and managed to get nine swinging strikes. Coming off two straight games where he allowed six runs, he was probably pitching for his spot in the rotation and I’d imagine he’s saved it for another turn.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
NY Post: Hughes gets his chance to stay in Yankees rotation
BOSTON—Phil Hughes’ last performance was rotten and immediately raised questions about him being the odd man out when Yankees manager Joe Girardi goes from six to five starting pitchers following tomorrow night’s game.
And because Hughes’ awareness on issues is very high, he said worrying about what decision Girardi makes isn’t dominating his thought process going into tonight’s start against the Red Sox at Fenway Park.
“It’s easy, I go out and pitch and not think about anything else,” Hughes said of blocking out the hottest topic in the Yankees’ universe other than Alex Rodriguez’s bothersome thumb.
Whenever I say I’d rather see the Yankees’ pitcher pitch well in a loss than see the Yankees win a game 10-9, they get shelled. So I am not going to say that I’d rather see Hughes pitch seven strong innings in a 2-1 loss than see him pitch poorly in a win.
The bar to stay in the rotation is pretty low. Be better than Burnett.
Monday, August 29, 2011
NY Post: Yankees plan to cut to five-man rotation
Speaking before yesterday’s 2-0 loss in the opener of a day-night doubleheader at Camden Yards, Girardi said he will attempt to shave his suspect rotation from six to five arms following Thursday night’s game against the Red Sox in Boston.
“I’m not going to base it on one outing,” Girardi said of judging Bartolo Colon (yesterday’s starter), Freddy Garcia (tonight’s starter) or Burnett (who starts Thursday). “I don’t think it’s fair. The bottom line is that we need to pitch well. If we’re going to win the [AL East], we need to pitch better.”
Don’t worry Joe, I’m pretty sure the decision will be made for you on Thursday.
What I find interesting is the possibility that the people on the bubble are/were Colon, Garcia and Burnett. I don’t know if the author is inferring this or if I’m reading too much into this, but it does seem to indicate faith in Phil Hughes and Ivan Nova.
If I had to pick a four man rotation entering the postseason today, I’d probably go CC/Colon/Nova/one of Hughes or Garcia. Actually, I’d let CC opt out and then go Colon/Nova/Garcia/Hughes.
We’ll see how that looks a month from now if by some miracle the Yankees win the wild card.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Yankees.com: Yanks pound A’s with record three slams
NEW YORK—Russell Martin’s sixth-inning grand slam fueled a historic Yankees rout, as the Bombers rallied to post a 22-9 victory over the Athletics on Thursday at Yankee Stadium.
Robinson Cano also belted a fifth-inning grand slam for New York, which avoided a series sweep by overcoming a poor start from Phil Hughes, who served up six runs in just 2 2/3 innings. Curtis Granderson’s eighth-inning slam was the third of the afternoon for the Yankees, who set a Major League record for most slams in a single game.
Expect Boston to his four grand slams in some game this weekend.
Admit it. When the Yankees went down 7-1 in the top of the third, you didn’t think they had a chance, right?
For a brief shining moment, Derek Jeter’s average sat at .300, although when he struck out in his seventh PA of the game he dipped back down to .299.
Watching first baseman Nick Swisher dig out a low throw from second baseman Jorge Posada for the final out of the game (yes, seriously) was fun too.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Yankees.com: Motivated Posada fuels Yanks with six RBIs
Pulled from regular designated-hitter duty last week, Posada returned to the lineup in dramatic fashion on Saturday, belting a grand slam and collecting six RBIs as the Yankees rolled to a 9-2 victory over the Rays.
***
Making his first start since tossing a rain-shortened shutout at Chicago, Phil Hughes limited Tampa Bay to two runs and four hits in six innings before leaving with a seven-run lead. Hughes appeared to be on the bubble as the Yankees prepared to whittle their rotation down to five starters, but with the news that Freddy Garcia will miss at least Sunday’s start, Hughes’ rotation spot is safe for the time being.
Hughes looked good. He gave up only 4 hits, and this was the third start in a row that he walked only one batter through 6 innings.
Freddy Garcia may not make this list, but he’s taken a step towards A.J. territory with his recent injury.
UPDATE: Apparently, the Yankees signed Scott Proctor to a minor league deal.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
CBS New York: With Ivan Nova’s Spot Secured, Who’s The Odd Man Out In Yankees’ Rotation?
“I think he took it as a challenge and said, ‘This is going to be the last time you send me down,’” said Girardi.
But who’s the odd man out? CC Sabathia admitted recently that he’s no fan of the six-man rotation, and Girardi said last night that the team has to “eventually get down to five.”
“Sometimes it’s not easy to just move one piece and say, ‘That’s it.’ Because you’ve got to worry about how it affects everything you do,” Girardi said. “Some guys are maybe a little more suited, if you do decide to move someone to the ‘pen, than others. Those are all things we have to take into account.”
The best move might be to put erratic starter A.J. Burnett in the bullpen. Or Phil Hughes, no stranger to relief duty, who is coming off an early-season “dead arm” period.
How the Yankees handle this will be pretty interesting. It’s a tossup as to whether Hughes or Burnett is the better choice for fifth starter right now, but I think the Yankees need to look beyond that and think about what will benefit them more in the long-term. To me that says put Hughes in the rotation. Even if he may be worse than Burnett right now over the rest of the season, he’s the better bet to be a valuable starter to the Yankees in 2012 and 2013.
Maybe Burnett would thrive in a role where he could come in and throw gas for an inning or two.
Friday, August 5, 2011
The Monkey On Their Backs
By any reasonable viewpoint, the Yankees have had a great year in 2011. They lead MLB in run differential/Pythagorean record, are tied for the top in the best division in baseball and have gotten a lot of good performances from unexpected places. In particular, a pitching staff that was touted as the team’s Achilles’ heel all offseason has been a legitimate strength.
Despite all that, it seems like a lot of us haven’t fully embraced the good things that this team has done, and I think it really just comes down to one thing. This team has gotten its ass handed to it by Boston every time they’ve played this year.
So who to blame? Here are the splits for the Yankees’ hitters vs. Boston and vice versa.
| Player | PA | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | IBB | HBP | K | SB | CS | BA | OBA | SPct | wOBA | BR |
| Derek Jeter | 44 | 4 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 1 | .200 | .273 | .225 | .238 | 1.9 |
| Curtis Granderson | 41 | 8 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 7 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 17 | 1 | 1 | .229 | .341 | .571 | .383 | 6.6 |
| Mark Teixeira | 38 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 11 | 0 | 0 | .121 | .211 | .121 | .171 | 0.2 |
| Nick Swisher | 36 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | .188 | .278 | .281 | .258 | 2.7 |
| Robinson Cano | 36 | 3 | 9 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 0 | .281 | .361 | .500 | .374 | 5.8 |
| Alex Rodriguez | 36 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 10 | 1 | 0 | .194 | .306 | .419 | .319 | 4.4 |
| Brett Gardner | 35 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 1 | .167 | .286 | .267 | .260 | 2.3 |
| Russell Martin | 27 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | .227 | .370 | .636 | .419 | 5.1 |
| Jorge Posada | 20 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | .333 | .400 | .333 | .342 | 2.3 |
| Andruw Jones | 11 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 | .182 | .182 | .455 | .259 | 1.0 |
| Eric Chavez | 8 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .500 | .500 | .750 | .535 | 2.2 |
| Francisco Cervelli | 7 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | .500 | .571 | .667 | .537 | 1.8 |
| Eduardo Nunez | 7 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .167 | .286 | .167 | .231 | 0.3 |
| Chris Dickerson | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 2.000 | 1.240 | 0.9 |
| Total | 347 | 37 | 68 | 15 | 2 | 10 | 35 | 31 | 1 | 10 | 78 | 6 | 3 | .223 | .314 | .384 | .311 | 37.5 |
| Player | PA | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | IBB | HBP | K | SB | CS | BA | OBA | SPct | wOBA | BR |
| Carl Crawford | 40 | 4 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | .125 | .125 | .200 | .139 | -0.2 |
| David Ortiz | 42 | 7 | 12 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 9 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 0 | .324 | .405 | .676 | .451 | 8.8 |
| Jacoby Ellsbury | 38 | 7 | 13 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 1 | .371 | .421 | .571 | .430 | 7.6 |
| Adrian Gonzalez | 44 | 8 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 11 | 8 | 3 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 0 | .235 | .386 | .500 | .382 | 6.6 |
| Kevin Youkilis | 42 | 8 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 13 | 0 | 0 | .242 | .381 | .424 | .359 | 5.7 |
| Dustin Pedroia | 39 | 8 | 15 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 8 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 0 | .500 | .605 | .733 | .556 | 10.9 |
| J.D. Drew | 33 | 4 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 0 | .280 | .424 | .400 | .376 | 4.6 |
| Marco Scutaro | 22 | 4 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | .300 | .364 | .450 | .357 | 3.3 |
| Jed Lowrie | 21 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | .316 | .333 | .421 | .322 | 2.3 |
| Jarrod Saltalamacchia | 20 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | .333 | .400 | .556 | .412 | 3.6 |
| Jason Varitek | 18 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | .200 | .333 | .200 | .270 | 1.2 |
| Mike Cameron | 13 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | .273 | .333 | .364 | .289 | 1.2 |
| Total | 372 | 60 | 92 | 18 | 2 | 12 | 59 | 44 | 6 | 5 | 58 | 6 | 1 | .290 | .379 | .473 | .372 | 55.7 |
wOBA: weighted on-base average
BR: Linear weights batting runs.
Mark Teixeira has been abysmal vs. Boston this year with some support from Derek Jeter, Nick Swisher and Brett Gardner.
Here’s a “fun” stat for you. Dustin Pedroia has provided more offense in 39 PA versus the Yankees than Jeter, Teixeira, Swisher, Gardner and Jorge Posada have provided in 173 PA against Boston (10.9 BR to 9.4 BR). Maybe fun is not the right word.
Boston’s outscored the Yankees at close to a 2-1 rate and if you compare the BR to the actual runs there’s not a lot of evidence of good or bad luck in there.
Two other things I found interesting aggravating are the HBP and IBB columns.
Well, maybe looking at the pitching will cheer us up.
| Player | W | L | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | K | HBP | RA | ERA | FIP |
| Bartolo Colon | 0 | 2 | 10 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 9 | 0 | 4.35 | 2.61 | 3.88 |
| Jeff Marquez | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4.50 | 4.50 | 2.20 |
| Phil Hughes | 0 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 27.00 | 27.00 | 12.70 |
| Boone Logan | 0 | 0 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 1.93 | 1.93 | 3.41 |
| Lance Pendleton | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 16.20 | 16.20 | 20.00 |
| Hector Noesi | 0 | 0 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.53 |
| Joba Chamberlain | 0 | 0 | 4 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 12.27 | 12.27 | 9.75 |
| Ivan Nova | 0 | 0 | 4 | 7 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 8.31 | 8.31 | 4.58 |
| Luis Ayala | 0 | 0 | 5 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 2.83 |
| Rafael Soriano | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 7.20 |
| Freddy Garcia | 0 | 2 | 8 | 11 | 10 | 9 | 3 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 11.25 | 10.13 | 9.20 |
| Mariano Rivera | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 4.20 |
| A.J. Burnett | 0 | 1 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 7 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 12.71 | 11.12 | 6.55 |
| CC Sabathia | 0 | 3 | 19 | 24 | 13 | 13 | 1 | 9 | 15 | 3 | 6.16 | 6.16 | 4.20 |
| David Robertson | 1 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 4.15 | 2.08 | 3.43 |
| Total | 1 | 8 | 79 | 92 | 60 | 55 | 12 | 44 | 58 | 5 | 6.84 | 6.27 | 5.57 |
| Player | W | L | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | K | HBP | RA | ERA | FIP |
| Dan Wheeler | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 9.00 | 9.00 | 1.20 |
| Daniel Bard | 0 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2.08 | 2.08 | 4.12 |
| Jonathan Papelbon | 0 | 0 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 3.60 | 3.60 | 0.60 |
| Alfredo Aceves | 0 | 0 | 7 | 8 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 0 | 4.91 | 3.68 | 6.47 |
| Jon Lester | 2 | 0 | 12 | 13 | 7 | 7 | 2 | 5 | 12 | 3 | 5.25 | 5.25 | 5.37 |
| Rich Hill | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 | -0.80 |
| Matt Albers | 0 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 3.70 |
| Clay Buchholz | 1 | 1 | 11 | 13 | 7 | 6 | 2 | 4 | 9 | 0 | 5.91 | 5.06 | 5.08 |
| John Lackey | 1 | 0 | 5 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 10.80 | 10.80 | 6.80 |
| Felix Doubront | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 13.50 | 13.50 | 11.45 |
| Josh Beckett | 3 | 0 | 21 | 10 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 25 | 4 | 0.86 | 0.86 | 2.72 |
| Tim Wakefield | 1 | 0 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 6.14 | 6.14 | 5.52 |
| Bobby Jenks | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 7.20 |
| Total | 8 | 1 | 81 | 68 | 37 | 35 | 10 | 31 | 78 | 10 | 4.11 | 3.89 | 4.40 |
FIP: Fielding independent pitching
That didn’t really help.
It would have been nice to have Alex Rodriguez back for this series, although maybe Eric Chavez can stay healthy through Sunday (assuming he’s off tonight with Jon Lester pitching).
Pitching matchups for the weekend are Colon vs. Lester tonight, CC vs. Lackey tomorrow, and Garcia vs. Beckett on Sunday. So the Yankees are probably slight underdogs tonight, favorites tomorrow, and strong underdogs Sunday. Logic says we should be happy if they take one of the three, and that’s the most likely scenario, but after losing 8 of 9 to Boston, including all 6 at home, I won’t be happy with anything less than a sweep.
I suppose I could settle for a 2-1 series win.
Seriously though, barring catastrophe both of these teams will be in the postseason, so I suppose we shouldn’t get that worked up about whatever happens here.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Phil Hughes’ Pitch Location
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Yankees.com: Rain cuts into Hughes’ gem as Yanks roll
CHICAGO—Phil Hughes made what seemed like his most important start of the season on Tuesday night and wound up with by far his best pitching effort of 2011.
In the end, the only thing that got in his way was the weather.
By the time a second rain delay hit in the middle of the seventh inning at U.S. Cellular Field, the Yankees held a 6-0 lead, and Hughes had hurled six stellar innings.
That’s the Hughes we’ve been waiting to see all year. Granted, the White Sox lineup isn’t exactly fearsome, but Hughes had better stuff than he’s had at any point this year and looked every bit as impressive as his final line did (6 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K). If Hughes was indeed pitching for his job, he probably saved it tonight.
Couple Hughes’s performance with a nice debut by Manny Banuelos in his first AAA start and a Jesus Montero HR with Brian Cashman in attendance and tonight was a good night to be a Yankee fan.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Yankees.com: Bullpen scuffles as Yankees fall to Mariners
NEW YORK—Hours after the 273rd Major League no-hitter was completed Wednesday, the Mariners put an end to a different, uglier chapter in baseball history.
Their 9-2 win over the Yankees capped a franchise-record 17-game losing streak, which was tied for the 14th longest in Major League history. It lasted 21 days, starting July 6 in Oakland and ending Wednesday in the Bronx.
In between came none of the breaks they received Wednesday, when Ichiro, Dustin Ackley and Mike Carp each recorded four hits, none bigger than Carp’s three-run triple in a five-run seventh inning.
You obviously take six innings and two runs from your starter if you can get it, but Hughes didn’t really look that impressive, particularly against a team that’s somewhat offensively challenged. Hughes allowed nine hits and one walk over six innings which normally translates to allowing a bit less than four runs, so his final line is probably a bit misleading.
One thing that I’ve noticed since Hughes came back is he’s been moving away from the cutter. Here are his pitch charts for the four starts since he returned from the DL.
| Date | Pitch Type | Avg | Max | Count | % | Strikes | Swing & Miss |
| 6-Jul | FF (FourSeam Fastball) | 91.5 | 92.9 | 40 | 46.0% | 29 | 0 |
| 6-Jul | CH (Changeup) | 83.6 | 84.7 | 6 | 6.9% | 3 | 1 |
| 6-Jul | CU (Curveball) | 74.3 | 76 | 21 | 24.1% | 11 | 1 |
| 6-Jul | FC (Cutter) | 88.5 | 91.1 | 20 | 23.0% | 14 | 0 |
| 6-Jul | Total | 87 | 57 | 2 | |||
| 17-Jul | FF (FourSeam Fastball) | 91.3 | 92.8 | 45 | 28.1% | 30 | 6 |
| 17-Jul | CU (Curveball) | 75.0 | 78 | 25 | 15.6% | 17 | 1 |
| 17-Jul | FC (Cutter) | 88.4 | 90.6 | 10 | 6.3% | 4 | 1 |
| 17-Jul | Total | 80 | 51 | 8 | |||
| 22-Jul | FF (FourSeam Fastball) | 90.9 | 92.5 | 59 | 60.2% | 45 | 0 |
| 22-Jul | CH (Changeup) | 84.0 | 84.9 | 6 | 6.1% | 1 | 0 |
| 22-Jul | CU (Curveball) | 74.5 | 77.2 | 24 | 24.5% | 17 | 3 |
| 22-Jul | FC (Cutter) | 87.7 | 89.3 | 9 | 9.2% | 3 | 1 |
| 22-Jul | Total | 98 | 66 | 4 | |||
| 27-Jul | FF (FourSeam Fastball) | 91.2 | 93.3 | 60 | 59.4% | 43 | 4 |
| 27-Jul | CH (Changeup) | 83.5 | 84.5 | 5 | 5.0% | 1 | 0 |
| 27-Jul | CU (Curveball) | 73.8 | 75.7 | 31 | 30.7% | 19 | 5 |
| 27-Jul | FC (Cutter) | 88.1 | 88.9 | 5 | 5.0% | 2 | 0 |
| 27-Jul | Total | 101 | 65 | 9 |
He went from throwing 20 on July 6 to just two today. The cutter was a very effective pitch for Hughes as a reliever and through the first part of the season last year, but I felt he got a bit too cutter happy, and it wasn’t fooling hitters the way it had before. It looks like he’s moving towards throwing more curveballs instead, and as a starter I think that’s the smart choice. If you’re only throwing an inning changing speeds isn’t really all that important, but if you’re facing hitters multiple times you need to make it a little harder for them.
If you want to draw a positive from today’s outing, I guess you can like the fact that he got four swinging strikes with his fastball and five swinging strikes with his curveball. The fact that he only walked one is good too I suppose, although again, this is a Mariners team that’s hitting .224/.288/.332 this year, good for an OPS+ of 79, which is far and away the worst in MLB.
Since it appears Hughes is trying to make adjustments as he’s moving along, I think we need to exercise a bit more patience with him. Maybe it’s not the best way to maximize wins in 2011, but it may pay dividends down the line.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
NY Post: A-Rod on schedule; Chavez ready to rejoin Yankees
The Yankees may still need pitching—especially as far as a left-handed reliever is concerned—but they won’t feel utterly compelled to go find another bat before the trading deadline.
Not when they expect to have Alex Rodriguez back by the second week of August following the possible activation of Eric Chavez as soon as today.
Rodriguez, who underwent right knee surgery just over two weeks, is right on schedule for a return that originally was pegged at 4-6 weeks. Rodriguez is showing all signs of making the sooner rather than later return.
“I’ve had some communication on what he does. He sends me usually what he does every day. He’s feeling pretty good. He’s moving along,” manager Joe Girardi said last night. “I can’t tell you when we’ll see him. I don’t have that date. I think our doctors are discussing . . . when we might see him but he’s progressing fine. He’s on schedule.”
General manager Brian Cashman told ESPN Sunday night that he was eying “maybe the second week of August . . . That’s just us being conservative. I think we can push it and get him back sooner, but why? Our offense is strong.”
Eh, I don’t see the sense in trading for another lefty reliever. J.C. Romero should be capable as a second lefty if they really need one, and Boone Logan appears to have found whatever it was that worked for him last year. In theory, a healthy Chavez fixes the need for a bat and a better defensive 3B, but the notion of a healthy Chavez is probably not one we should get used to.
Obviously, the starting rotation is a concern in the postseason, because the fall off after CC Sabathia is pretty steep, but if the Yankees want to upgrade there they have to get someone better than each of Bartolo Colon, Freddy Garcia, Ivan Nova, A.J. Burnett and Phil Hughes. People that fit that description are out there, but they’re not cheap.
I don’t suppose Andy Pettitte’s getting frisky?
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
NY Post: Yankees’ Hughes gets a new grip on curveball
Phil Hughes’ curveball was not working. There was no deception, no knee-buckling feedback from the hitters to show that the pitch had the right stuff.
“It never looks like a strike,” Hughes said. “And I just wasn’t getting the reactions that I really should be getting out of a curveball.”
In response, Hughes revealed to The Post that he will employ a new power curve, hopefully as soon as his start on Sunday in Toronto. It’s one of two major changes for the struggling 25-year-old, who said he will also implement new mechanics to his delivery.
Hughes will be using a new grip on his curveball, one that he characterized as more customary than his old grip and that he believes gives him more velocity as well as stronger spin and drop. Mechanically, he is changing the way he raises and plants his front, left leg, believing his current motion has gotten to “a point where it was really hindering my stuff.”
Although the headline talks about the curveball, I think the mechanical change is more important. The fact is that Hughes can’t put hitters away and they aren’t missing his pitches when they swing. An improved curve helps a bit, but until he makes his fastball harder to hit I don’t see him being a viable long-term MLB starter.
Thankfully, he appears to be healthy, and he certainly seems to understand that things aren’t quite right and he’s working towards fixing them however he can. Hopefully he can get there.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Yankees.com: Hughes progresses, but Yanks can’t help
CLEVELAND—Phil Hughes returned with five innings that flashed promise for the rest of his season on Wednesday night, but Justin Masterson gathered more buzz with his effort, dealing the Yankees a commanding 5-3 loss to the Indians.
Masterson silenced the Bombers’ bats over eight dominant innings as the Yankees lost two of three in Cleveland, completing their six-game road trip with an even record.
One of New York’s three hits off Masterson came off the bat of shortstop Derek Jeter, who talked his way into the starting lineup and doubled with one out in the eighth inning for career hit No. 2,997.
To quote David Cone, it was Hughes’s best start of the year, but that isn’t saying a lot.
I don’t understand a universe where pitching Sergio Mitre in a 3-0 game in the eighth inning makes sense, but even if the Yankees had pitched a scoreless eighth that just means they’d have faced Chris Perez to start the ninth and he pretty much mowed them down once he came in. Really, the Yankees lost this game when Justin Masterson took the mound. They hit some balls well throughout the game, but a few nice catches and a pair of game-saving plays by Asdrubal Cabrera in the eighth effectively ended any realistic chance they had of winning tonight.
The story tonight was Hughes though.
The Good
His velocity was a lot better than it’s been this year, particularly early on. It dipped a bit as the innings went on, but his last two fastballs of the night were still clocked at 92 and 91 mph respectively.
He went five innings and only gave up two runs.
The Bad
Unfortunately, pretty much everything else. Hughes faced 25 batters and 10 of them reached base safely. If Cleveland hadn’t stranded 8 of those 10 runners, Hughes’s line could have been really ugly.
Of the 87 pitches Hughes threw, Cleveland batters swung and missed exactly two of them (one changeup and one curve).
The Ugly
According to FIP or xFIP, Hughes was actually lucky to only have allowed two runs.
Here are some charts comparing Hughes’s basic Pitch F/X data from 2010, 2011 prior to tonight, and tonight.
Average velocity by pitch type
| Date | FA-Vel | CU-Vel | FC-Vel | CH-Vel | Pitches |
| 2010 | 92.5 | 75.8 | 88.8 | 84.5 | 3003 |
| 2011 | 89.3 | 72.1 | 84.1 | 81.2 | 207 |
| 6-Jul | 91.5 | 74.3 | 88.5 | 83.6 | 87 |
Average horizontal break by pitch type
| Date | FA-X | CU-X | FC-X | CH-X | Pitches |
| 2010 | -5.7 | 6 | -0.4 | -9.3 | 3003 |
| 2011 | -4.3 | 6.7 | 1 | -7.5 | 207 |
| 6-Jul | -3.7 | 6.8 | 0.9 | -8.5 | 87 |
Average vertical break by pitch type
| Date | FA-Z | CU-Z | FC-Z | CH-Z | Pitches |
| 2010 | 10.2 | -8.7 | 6.8 | 6.8 | 3003 |
| 2011 | 11.4 | -6.5 | 7.8 | 7.7 | 207 |
| 6-Jul | 7.5 | -8.2 | 5.2 | 5.0 | 87 |
FA: Fastball
CU: Changeup
FC: Cut Fastball
CH: Changeup
I don’t know how much we should make of most of the variations within this data. It could as easily be a calibration issue as anything, but I think the velocity data should be somewhat informative. Hughes was closer to his 2010 self stuff-wise in this start than he’s been this season. So I think we’re now almost back to where we were at the end of 2010, with the Hughes that was not nearly as effective in the second half of the season as he was in the first half.
That’s a far sight better than the Hughes that wasn’t a major league pitcher anymore, but there’s obviously still a lot of work to be done here. He’s certainly going to get another start, so let’s hope he takes another step forward.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Yankees.com: Granderson helps CC torch former club
CLEVELAND—On a night when Derek Jeter moved two hits closer to 3,000 and Curtis Granderson homered twice, CC Sabathia loomed largest, striking out 11 as the Yankees defeated the Indians, 9-2, at Progressive Field.
Overlooked for the American League All-Star team, Sabathia won his fifth consecutive start, shutting out the Tribe over seven innings and striking out the side in three separate frames.
I’m glad CC’s not going to the All Star Game, I’d rather see him saving his pitches for games that matter. I don’t want any Yankees helping Boston’s quest for home field advantage in the World Series.
FWIW, according to Baseball Reference Sabathia only ranked 10th in WAR among pitchers entering tonight (in a tie with a few others), so he’s not necessarily the All Star snub the MSM is making him out to be. His seven scoreless innings dropped his ERA to 2.90 so I’m sure he’s moved up the list a bit though.
Nice win to break a two-game schneid that really could have been part of 10 game winning streak, but all eyes will be on Phil Hughes tomorrow. If he’s able to show us that he’s closer to what he was in 2010, I’m pretty sure this is the best team in baseball.
At least until Rafael Soriano returns.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
NYDN: Yankees’ Phil Hughes shows improved stamina, velocity in rehab start
Wednesday, the Fisher Cats could barely touch Hughes. His velocity clocked in at 93-94 mph on an unofficial radar gun even in the fifth inning. He struck out eight in 61/3 innings of three-hit ball, and induced 20 swinging strikes, a vast improvement over the six swinging strikes he got in Friday’s less-than-impressive showing in New Britain.
The swinging strikes are a good sign. From reading the article I get the sense Hughes will probably make at least one more start in the minors, although circumstances could always change that.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
NY Post: As race with the Red Sox heats up, Yankees may pay price for arms
There just is not a lot available right now as teams have turned their attention fully from the draft to the trade deadline. The initial read is that there are not going to be a lot of attractive pitching pieces in the market.
Cashman’s early read, in fact, is “I don’t think I can trade for any starter that is better than Bartolo Colon or Phil Hughes, or a reliever better than Rafael Soriano.”
Cashman believes the Yankees could have Colon, Hughes and Eric Chavez off the disabled list by a week from today and Soriano later in July. Cashman is more dubious that he will get either of his lefty relievers — Feliciano or Damaso Marte — back and said he is proceeding on the market as if he will not.
“Do the Yankees really have significant needs? I don’t think so,” one AL executive said. “They are not doing better in this market than Colon coming off the DL. I know Colon is old and risky, but the risk in the market is just as great. I think the Yanks end up doing something because they are the Yankees and can’t help themselves.”
Pitching is not the biggest need on this team. If the Yankees want to make a realistic upgrade that would be worth giving up prospects, they should go get a better shortstop. Since that’s not happening, I’d rather not see them make any move that costs them anything of value.
But what starter? There are no obvious aces, and Cashman has indicated to other organizations that the prospects needed to land an ace — Manuel Banuelos, Dellin Betances, Jesus Montero and Austin Romine — are close to untouchable. That could just be brinksmanship, especially since Montero has been available previously, including for Cliff Lee last year.
As the AL executive said, “[Montero] is struggling offensively [at Triple-A], and we think he is non-athlete who cannot catch, so you might be getting a DH. He may be losing value.”
I wonder if this AL executive’s initials are TE?
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Team A vs. Team B
| Team | RS/G | RA/G | w% | Pyth w% |
| A | 4.58 | 3.85 | .462 | .579 |
| B | 5.23 | 4.06 | .646 | .617 |
I’ve gotten the sense that Yankees lose the opener of every series at a percentage disproportional to their overall record, and so far that’s certainly happening. They’ve gone 12-14 in series openers and 31-17 in all other games. Despite that, as the numbers above show, it’s more of a statistical curiosity than anything else.
In other news, Yankees’ Phil Hughes has mixed results in second rehab start:
Hughes, who went on the disabled list with shoulder inflammation April 15, hit a high of 94 miles per hour on the radar gun, but was typically throwing his four-seam fastball between 90 and 92 mph.
Hughes felt his most effective pitch was his cut fastball, which he throws around 87 mph, while he struggled to get his curveball over for strikes. New Britain, the Twins’ Double-A affiliate, scored one run against Hughes, on three hits. Two of those hits were infield singles, but there were several hard-hit outs. Hughes struck out three, but only produced six swings-and-misses and struggled to put hitters away.
Looks like he’s still got a few more games of rehab ahead of him.
In other injury news, Soriano to see doc; Feliciano to throw.
Reliever Rafael Soriano is expected to see a doctor on Monday and hopes to get a clearer idea of when he can start throwing.
Take your time Soriano.
Joe Girardi also said that Pedro Feliciano, who has missed the entire regular season with a left rotator cuff strain, will play catch tomorrow.
[...]
Another left-handed specialist, Damaso Marte, will play catch on Monday. Marte is out indefinitely with left shoulder labrum inflammation. He had offseason shoulder surgery to correct the problem.
I would love to have a job where I was paid $4 million a year to play catch once every two months.
In other injury news, infielder Eric Chavez continues to work in the battting cage but still has not tested his foot injury by running on it. Chavez has been out since May 6 with a fractured left foot. He is on the 60-day disabled list.
Bold prediction: Chavez and Mark Prior will come off the DL on the same day which will be the equivalent of matter and anti-matter coming into contact with each other.
Monday, June 20, 2011
NYDN: Phil Hughes’ fastball hums consistently at 93 mph in rehab start
Struggling all year with his velocity, Hughes fired fastballs that consistently clocked in at 93 mph.
That was encouraging to the Yankee righthander, who has been out since April 15 due to a dead arm and inflammation in his pitching shoulder.
“Sometimes it’s tough when you haven’t thrown in a while. I was worried my command might be off a bit,” said Hughes, excited to see his fastball popping. “But I was pleased that I was throwing strikes and getting ahead in the count.”
In an appearance in Tampa on Tuesday, Hughes said he was throwing 91-93 mph. Sunday night, against the host Brooklyn Cyclones, he went as low as 89 but topped out at 95.
Encouraging news. I’d imagine we won’t see Hughes until after the All Star Break, but that’s not too far off.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Just How Awful Have The Yankees Been Against Boston?
The Yankees dropped their seventh game in eight tries against the Red Sox last night in yet another inspired effort. It’s been frustrating to see the way the Yankees have rolled over for the Red Sox this year. What they’ve done is spotted Boston a six game advantage in the standings.
We know the won/loss record is bad. It’s even worse when you realize they’ve played three games in Boston and five(soon to be six) in New York and are on the verge of being swept at home twice. After today the Yankees will only play Boston three more times at home and they still have to play them six times in Fenway, which rarely goes well.
For a team to go 1-7 against another team while playing five of those eight games at home, they’d have to be around a 49 win team playing against a 113 win team. At this point I don’t doubt the Red Sox are better than the Yankees, but I’m not sure that they’re 65 wins better.
So let’s assign the blame.
| Player | PA | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | BB | HBP | K | SB | CS | GDP | AVG | OBP | SLG | BR | BRAA |
| Russell Martin | 27 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .227 | .370 | .636 | 5 | 2 |
| Robinson Cano | 32 | 3 | 8 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 1 | .286 | .375 | .500 | 5 | 2 |
| Francisco Cervelli | 4 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.333 | 2 | 2 |
| Eric Chavez | 8 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .500 | .500 | .750 | 2 | 1 |
| Curtis Granderson | 36 | 7 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 15 | 1 | 0 | 0 | .219 | .306 | .500 | 5 | 1 |
| Alex Rodriguez | 32 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0 | .207 | .281 | .448 | 4 | 0 |
| Jorge Posada | 16 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .286 | .375 | .286 | 2 | 0 |
| Andruw Jones | 11 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .182 | .182 | .455 | 1 | 0 |
| Eduardo Nunez | 7 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .167 | .286 | .167 | 0 | 0 |
| Brett Gardner | 31 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | .192 | .323 | .308 | 3 | -1 |
| Nick Swisher | 32 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .207 | .281 | .310 | 3 | -1 |
| Derek Jeter | 39 | 3 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 2 | .194 | .256 | .222 | 1 | -3 |
| Mark Teixeira | 34 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .138 | .235 | .138 | 1 | -3 |
| Total | 309 | 34 | 62 | 13 | 2 | 9 | 28 | 7 | 71 | 5 | 2 | 4 | .227 | .314 | .388 | 34 | 0 |
| AL Avg | 309 | 35 | 70 | 14 | 1 | 8 | 26 | 3 | 54 | 6 | 2 | 6 | .253 | .321 | .396 | 34 | 0 |
BR are linear weights batting runs. BRAA are BR above an average AL hitter, not adjusted for position.
Because the offense in MLB is down significantly this year, while that line looks awful relative to our normal context, in the context of today’s AL it’s not that bad. AL average line right now is .253/.321/.396. We also don’t know if that performance is good or bad in the context of the “strength” of the Yankees and the strength of the Red Sox. It’s really only useful in terms of comparing how the players stack up against each other. In this case you can see the Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira are the chief problems on offense, but there’s a whole lot of stinking going on there.
The team’s actual runs scored are a direct match for their batting runs, which indicates they’ve scored as many runs as they should have given their component stats and have not been unlucky or lucky in terms of how their performance has translated to runs on the scoreboard.
There’s more blame to dish out!
| Player | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | HBP | K | RA | ERA | FIP | RSAA |
| Freddy Garcia | 8.0 | 11 | 10 | 9 | 3 | 6 | 1 | 6 | 11.25 | 10.13 | 8.87 | -6.2 |
| A.J. Burnett | 5.7 | 7 | 8 | 7 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 12.71 | 11.12 | 6.22 | -5.3 |
| Phil Hughes | 2.0 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 27.00 | 27.00 | 12.37 | -5.0 |
| Joba Chamberlain | 3.7 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 12.27 | 12.27 | 9.42 | -3.3 |
| Lance Pendleton | 1.7 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 16.20 | 16.20 | 19.67 | -2.2 |
| Ivan Nova | 4.3 | 7 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 8.31 | 8.31 | 4.25 | -1.9 |
| CC Sabathia | 12.3 | 16 | 7 | 7 | 1 | 7 | 2 | 10 | 5.11 | 5.11 | 4.49 | -1.1 |
| Bartolo Colon | 10.3 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 9 | 4.35 | 2.61 | 3.55 | -0.1 |
| Rafael Soriano | 1.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 6.87 | 0.5 |
| Mariano Rivera | 1.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 3.87 | 0.5 |
| Hector Noesi | 6.0 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.20 | 0.9 |
| David Robertson | 4.0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 2.25 | 0.00 | 3.12 | 0.9 |
| Boone Logan | 4.7 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 1.93 | 1.93 | 3.08 | 1.2 |
| Luis Ayala | 5.3 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 2.50 | 2.5 |
| Total | 70.0 | 80 | 52 | 47 | 12 | 42 | 4 | 52 | 6.69 | 6.04 | 5.58 | -18.7 |
| AL Avg | 70 | 67 | 33 | 30 | 7 | 25 | 3 | 52 | 4.28 | 3.91 | 3.91 | 0.0 |
RSAA are runs saved compared to an average pitcher using RA vs. league average RA. FIP is Fielding-independent pitching which focuses on a pitcher’s HR, BB/HBP and Ks against. Again, neither of these account for the context of the opponent so it’s more for comparison among Yankees.
I’m thinking the Yankees may want to skip Freddy Garcia’s next turn against Boston. The Yankees have allowed 52 total runs against Boston, and according to linear weights they should have allowed 49, so just like on offense there’s no evidence of bad luck here. They’ve pitched as poorly as the basic stats say they did. The Yankees have a team BABIP against of .281 this season against everyone but Boston. Against Boston it’s .311. Whether that’s on the pitchers or the defense or some combination of both, I don’t know.
It’s sad, but it’s gotten to the point where I am not even bothering to watch these games. When you finish dinner and turn on the game and see your team is already down 3-0 before they’ve even gotten an out, why watch?
I’d like to say I have a good feeling about CC Sabathia going today, but unfortunately with the Yankee offense backing him you get the feeling that anything less than perfection won’t be good enough.
Again, I’ll say I don’t think the Red Sox are 65 wins better than the Yankees. 60, maybe.
Friday, June 3, 2011
NYDN: Joe Girardi says Ivan Nova not pitching for spot in Yankees rotation
ANAHEIM - Ivan Nova won’t be pitching for his job Friday night when he takes the mound against the Angels, but the rookie is taking that approach anyway.
Despite Nova’s recent struggles, Joe Girardi said the 24-year-old’s spot in the rotation is safe as he heads into Friday night’s matchup with Jered Weaver.
“We want him to pitch well just because we want him to pitch well,” Girardi said. “I wouldn’t say he’s pitching for a slot.”
I suppose this is technically true right now, but should Phil Hughes eventually return Nova is probably the guy who is going to be bumped from the rotation. As long as he’s got a 1:1 BB/K ratio that’s fine by me. I just can’t see sustained success unless that improves significantly.
Monday, May 30, 2011
NJ.com: Carig: Yankees’ Phil Hughes is making progress in shoulder rehab
SEATTLE — Plenty of hurdles remain for Phil Hughes to clear before he returns to game action for the first time since April 14. But the right-hander has taken a critical first step toward that goal.
Hughes has started throwing off a mound.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” Hughes said. “Hopefully I can keep having these days where I don’t have any issues.”
FInally. The Yankees need to replace Rafael Soriano and Hughes is just the guy to do it.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Yankees.com: Cortisone shot has Hughes eying June return
NEW YORK—Yankees right-hander Phil Hughes said he feels “relieved” after having a cortisone injection in his ailing pitching shoulder and hopes to be activated as early as mid-June.
Unable to maintain his velocity, Hughes saw a St. Louis-based specialist this month who ruled out the possibility of a circulatory ailment. The Yankees are proceeding under their original diagnosis of shoulder inflammation.
“I was hopeful that it would be good news,” Hughes said. “I went just because they’d seen a couple of things that may have led them to believe there was something else going on. I was confident that everything was fine. It’s certainly encouraging.”
Given the unlikelihood of the current five members of the rotation remaining healthy and effective through the rest of the year, it’s good to read that Hughes has a chance to be back sooner rather than later.
In more trivial matters, Rafael Soriano is getting a precautionary MRI on his pitching elbow.
NEW YORK—Yankees right-hander Rafael Soriano will undergo a precautionary MRI on his sore pitching elbow after the reliever was not available to pitch in the eighth inning on Tuesday.
Soriano, the Yankees’ designated eighth-inning hurler, said that he complained of discomfort and asked to see team physician Dr. Christopher Ahmad before New York’s 3-1 victory over the Royals.
I’ll never wish an injury on anyone, so I hope Soriano is healthy. However, even if he misses significant time it’s not likely to have much of an impact on the Yankees. So I’ll ask again, if you’re paying someone $12M a year and they don’t make your team any better, WTF are you paying them for, and WTF does the jackass that signed him still have his job?
But I digress.
Friday, April 29, 2011
MLB.com: Bats intimidate, but starters set up Yanks
The Yankees’ only pitching downside in this series came from setup man Rafael Soriano, whose early-season struggles continued when he gave up a game-turning two-run homer to Paul Konerko in the eighth inning on Tuesday.
But the starters’ performances, particularly from Nova and Colon—a breakthrough of sorts and an apparent restoration, respectively—offered substantial encouragement. And then the Yankees became the Yankees with the bats.
Losing Phil Hughes hurts, but if Burnett can give the Yankees what Hughes projected to give them and Freddy Garcia can give them what Burnett projected to give them then they’re essentially where they looked to be heading into the season, hoping they can get enough out of the 4/5 spots to contend. Between Bartolo Colon and Ivan Nova, I think they’ve got that, although Colon’s health is probably going to be a concern all year.
I do wish they’d stop hitting all these homers though. You can’t win games when you homer all the time.
Monday, April 25, 2011
USA Today: Yankees pitcher Phil Hughes has setback in rehab routine
Injured Yankees pitcher Phil Hughes had a setback during a throwing session today and will see a doctor, according to initial reports from manager Joe Girardi’s pre-game meeting with reporters.
An injury makes more sense than inadequate arm strength unfortunately. Hopefully it’s not a serious issue. This is an example of why I fully supported the Yankees getting as much rotation depth as possible, even mediocrities like Bartolo Colon, Freddy Garcia and Kevin Millwood. They’re going to need it.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Wall Street Journal: Yankees RHP Silva set to throw batting practice
TAMPA, Fla. — Yankees pitcher Carlos Silva is scheduled to throw batting practice for the first time since signing with New York this month.
Silva threw 45 pitches Thursday in his third bullpen session at the Yankees’ spring training complex and will throw batting practice Saturday.
Hasn’t Silva been throwing batting practice for most of his career?
Also: NY Post: Yankees’ Hughes lets it fly in bullpen session
Phil Hughes labeled yesterday’s bullpen session as “high intensity,” but until the right-hander gets into a game he won’t know if the time spent on the disabled list will have cured his dead arm problem.
“I will be able to judge it after one game,” said Hughes, who has not been told when he will begin a rehab assignment. “If I see arm strength is still an issue and I am not letting the ball go, I won’t be ready.”
Hughes was placed on the 15-day shelf last Friday. He has been long-tossing, and yesterday had his first bullpen since being shut down. He is slated for another one tomorrow at Camden Yards
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
2011 Yankees projected vs actual through April 19
As a card-carrying member of the baseball stat nerd cult, I understand that we shouldn’t read too much into the results of early-season performance. We should generally trust that a player’s performance will more often than not regress towards their expected performance as the season moves on.
That doesn’t mean the data we have so far this season is useless in terms of telling us what’s happened. It just means we shouldn’t expect it to tell us all that much about what will happen.
Here’s a quick comparison of the differences between the Yankees’ projections and actual performance so far.
| player | team | pa | ytd_woba | proj_woba | ytd-proj |
| Rodriguez, Alex | Yankees | 50 | .531 | .376 | 6.8 |
| Martin, Russell | Yankees | 52 | .398 | .328 | 3.1 |
| Chavez, Eric | Yankees | 20 | .421 | .285 | 2.4 |
| Granderson, Curtis | Yankees | 55 | .377 | .345 | 1.5 |
| Jones, Andruw | Yankees | 12 | .414 | .326 | 0.9 |
| Cano, Robinson | Yankees | 64 | .375 | .360 | 0.8 |
| Teixeira, Mark | Yankees | 66 | .395 | .383 | 0.7 |
| Posada, Jorge | Yankees | 54 | .322 | .344 | -1.0 |
| Swisher, Nick | Yankees | 64 | .309 | .356 | -2.6 |
| Jeter, Derek | Yankees | 66 | .262 | .332 | -4.0 |
| Gardner, Brett | Yankees | 51 | .182 | .325 | -6.3 |
| Total | 554 | .352 | .348 | 2 |
ytd_woba year to date weighted on-base average
proj_woba average projected wOBA
ytd-proj run value of difference between projected and year to date woba
Brett Gardner’s the biggest disappointment so far offensively. Whether’s it’s just a rough start or indicative of something that we should worry about is something we just don’t know yet.
Did you know Gardner’s not the player who’s under-peforming his projection by the most? Here’s that list.
| player | team | pa | ytd_woba | proj_woba | ytd-proj |
| Crawford, Carl | Red Sox | 66 | .166 | .351 | -10.6 |
| Loney, James | Dodgers | 71 | .192 | .329 | -8.5 |
| Pujols, Albert | Cardinals | 73 | .308 | .431 | -7.8 |
| Johnson, Dan | Rays | 54 | .196 | .350 | -7.2 |
| Alvarez, Pedro | Pirates | 65 | .218 | .340 | -6.9 |
| Wells, Vernon | Angels | 74 | .220 | .325 | -6.7 |
| Morneau, Justin | Twins | 56 | .246 | .381 | -6.6 |
| Choo, Shin-Soo | Indians | 74 | .271 | .372 | -6.5 |
| Jackson, Austin | Tigers | 72 | .213 | .315 | -6.4 |
| Gardner, Brett | Yankees | 51 | .182 | .325 | -6.3 |
Apparently Austin Jackson did not have the BABIP skill to maintain his 2010 performance, at least so far.
The net on the offense is actually fine. As a unit they’ve collectively slightly overperformed, but not to a large extent.
The pitching is the real problem.
| Last, First | mlbam_id | ip | ytd_ra | ytd_fip | p_ra | p_fip | diff_ra | diff_fip |
| Garcia, Freddy | 150119 | 6.0 | 0.00 | 3.37 | 4.96 | 4.75 | 3.3 | 0.9 |
| Sabathia, CC | 282332 | 25.0 | 2.88 | 3.08 | 3.66 | 3.62 | 2.2 | 1.5 |
| Burnett, A.J. | 150359 | 22.7 | 4.76 | 4.88 | 4.98 | 4.55 | 0.5 | -0.8 |
| Nova, Ivan | 467100 | 14.7 | 7.36 | 4.22 | 5.43 | 4.95 | -3.2 | 1.2 |
| Hughes, Phil | 461833 | 10.3 | 13.94 | 8.81 | 4.19 | 4.12 | -11.2 | -5.4 |
| Total | 78.7 | 5.49 | 4.59 | -8.3 | -2.6 | |||
| Last, First | mlbam_id | ip | ytd_ra | ytd_fip | p_ra | p_fip | diff_ra | diff_fip |
| Robertson, David | 502085 | 6.0 | 0.00 | 1.87 | 3.95 | 3.70 | 2.6 | 1.2 |
| Pendleton, Lance | 459983 | 3.0 | 0.00 | 1.87 | 5.25 | 4.94 | 1.7 | 1.0 |
| Rivera, Mariano | 121250 | 9.3 | 1.93 | 2.02 | 3.02 | 3.32 | 1.1 | 1.4 |
| Colon, Bartolo | 112526 | 11.3 | 4.76 | 2.85 | 5.56 | 4.96 | 1.0 | 2.7 |
| Ayala, Luis | 425646 | 5.0 | 3.60 | 6.20 | 5.39 | 4.60 | 1.0 | -0.9 |
| Chamberlain, Joba | 501955 | 10.0 | 4.50 | 2.40 | 4.41 | 3.88 | -0.1 | 1.6 |
| Garcia, Freddy | 150119 | 1.0 | 9.00 | 4.20 | 4.96 | 4.75 | -0.4 | 0.1 |
| Nova, Ivan | 467100 | 0.7 | 13.50 | 3.20 | 5.43 | 4.95 | -0.6 | 0.1 |
| Logan, Boone | 457429 | 3.0 | 9.00 | 6.53 | 4.68 | 4.41 | -1.4 | -0.7 |
| Soriano, Rafael | 400089 | 7.7 | 7.04 | 3.59 | 3.37 | 3.51 | -3.1 | -0.1 |
| Total | 22.3 | 10.48 | 7.90 | -5.7 | 1.1 | |||
| Team Total | 101.0 | 6.59 | 5.32 | -14.0 | -1.6 |
ytd_ra: year to date runs allowed per nine innings
ytd_fip: year to date fielding-independent pitching
p_ra: average projected ra
p_fip: average projected fip
diff_ra: difference in runs between projected and actual ra
diff_fip: difference in runs between projected and actual fip
Add about 7 inches and 65 pounds to Brett Gardner and you’ve got Phil Hughes. The thing that really scares me here is seeing that A.J. Burnett’s FIP is actually worse than his projected FIP. He’s looked better than that to me, although I guess last night’s game is evidence that he’s still a work in progress.
The pen has been a bit worse than expected, primarly thanks to Boone Logan and Rafael Soriano. I’d expect Soriano to be fine going forward, but I’m not so sure on Logan.
I figured Hughes had to be the pitcher who’s been underperforming by the most this year, but it turns out that’s not quite true.
| Last, First | mlbam_id | ip | ytd_ra | ytd_fip | p_ra | p_fip | diff_ra | diff_fip |
| Pelfrey, Mike | 460059 | 16.7 | 10.80 | 5.66 | 4.52 | 4.15 | -11.6 | -2.8 |
| Hughes, Phil | 461833 | 10.3 | 13.94 | 8.81 | 4.19 | 4.12 | -11.2 | -5.4 |
| Bedard, Erik | 407853 | 13.7 | 10.54 | 8.03 | 3.87 | 3.91 | -10.1 | -6.3 |
| Figueroa, Nelson | 150153 | 16.0 | 10.13 | 2.89 | 4.54 | 4.39 | -9.9 | 2.7 |
| Lackey, John | 407793 | 14.7 | 9.82 | 6.00 | 4.61 | 4.08 | -8.5 | -3.1 |
| Westbrook, Jake | 150414 | 15.3 | 9.39 | 6.85 | 4.47 | 4.36 | -8.4 | -4.3 |
| Hernandez, Felix | 433587 | 27.0 | 6.00 | 3.24 | 3.24 | 3.29 | -8.3 | 0.2 |
| Penny, Brad | 207267 | 21.3 | 8.44 | 5.78 | 4.97 | 4.46 | -8.2 | -3.1 |
Over at Baseball Think Factory there’ve been a few threads that were essentially arguments between Yankees fans and Mets fans about who you’d rather have, Hughes or Mike Pelfrey. Apparently, the correct answer is neither.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
NY Post: DL trumped Triple-A for Hughes
The Yankees’ plan to send Phil Hughes to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to build arm strength changed abruptly Friday afternoon when the pitcher didn’t answer a question with enough conviction.
“I was going to Scranton and then Joe [Girardi] and Cash [Brian Cashman] said, ‘Are you all right?’ ” Hughes said yesterday.
Hughes couldn’t exactly say what the problem was, but he didn’t believe continuing to pitch—even in the minors—was the right way to inject life into his dead right arm.
Hughes is probably right, although being the occasionally cynical person that I am I can’t help but think that being on the MLB disabled list in lieu of the AAA rotation and the way that affects his service time is also part of the calculus. Not that I begrudge Hughes in any way if that is the case. I’d just like to see him pitching better, whatever it takes..
Saturday, April 16, 2011
NY Post: Rangers score six double plays in 5-3 win over Yankees
Double plays helped get the Yankees into double trouble last night.
The Yankees banged into a franchise record six double plays, Rangers starter Mitch Harrison seemingly inducing two outs on one pitch every time the hosts had something bubbling.
If you ever wondered what a team comprised solely of Derek Jeter circa 2010-2011 would look like, that’s what it would look like.
In other more cheerful news:
From dead arm to dead rotation
The Red Sox own the atrocious record, but with Phil Hughes placed on the disabled list yesterday with a “dead arm” and another young starter not able to make it out of the fifth inning, the first-place Yankees are in deep trouble.
The rotation now includes Bartolo Colon, rookie Ivan Nova, who lost 5-3 to the Rangers last night at frigid Yankee Stadium, and Freddy Garcia, who goes today against Texas.
I’d be enjoying Boston losing more if the Yankees were taking better advantage of it.
Friday, April 15, 2011
PItcher W vs. Pitcher H
| Pitcher | IP | H | R | ER | HR | HBP | BB | SO | ERA | FIP | xFIP | BF | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS | BAbip |
| Chien-Ming Wang: Apr 8, 2009 - Apr 18, 2009 | 6 | 23 | 23 | 23 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 34.50 | 10.37 | 9.13 | 45 | .622 | .667 | 1.027 | 1.694 | .618 |
| Phil Hughes: Apr 3, 2011 - Apr 14, 2011 | 10.3 | 19 | 16 | 16 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 13.94 | 8.81 | 6.49 | 53 | .388 | .434 | .673 | 1.107 | .357 |
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Yankees.com: Swisher works overtime for Yanks
Though Phil Hughes struggled, Joba Chamberlain’s defense prevented a pivotal run, Jorge Posada’s homer tied it and Nick Swisher’s sac fly won it
Once again, Phil Hughes didn’t pitch well. Fortunately for the Yankees, Bartolo Colon, Joba Chamberlain and Mariano Rivera did. That allowed the Yankees to recover from a 5-0 deficit, with Jorge Posada tying the game in the bottom of the ninth, and with Nick Swisher winning it with a sac fly in the bottom of the 10th. The Yankees now have sole possesion of first place, which doesn’t really mean much right now, but it’s better than being in last place.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Phil Hughes Through Two Starts
Yes, Phil Hughes' fastball velocity is down. We get it. Is that his only problem? Probably not, but it sure makes it harder for him to be successful with his other pitches.
Some readers have commented on his location issues. I haven't really noticed Hughes sitting in the middle of the zone in his last two starts, but let's take a look at how he's locating compared to the last three seasons.
The major difference so far has been Hughes' attempt to come in on lefties. The main reason for this is that he's been relying on his cutter more over his first two starts, while shying away from his velocity-challenged fastball.
| FB% | CHNG% | CURV% | SLD% | CUT% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008-10 | 63.5% | 4.4% | 20.5% | 1.3% | 10.2% |
| 2011 | 11.9% | 6.0% | 13.4% | 0.0% | 68.7% |
| FB% | CHNG% | CURV% | SLD% | CUT% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008-10 | 61.5% | 0.1% | 17.0% | 3.2% | 18.1% |
| 2011 | 12.9% | 1.4% | 20.0% | 0.0% | 65.7% |
Having to rely more on his cutter has not produced positive results for Hughes. Batters are hitting .412 off it, compared to .290 in his three previous seasons; he's only induced a handful of swings and misses on the pitch as well. In his three previous seasons, Hughes was able to get opposing righties to chase his cutter out of the zone 38.4 percent of the time. So far this season, he's produced just 2 total swings on 21 cutters out of the zone to RHB. This could be a sign that his location is somewhat iffy. But it could also be a side effect of the ineffectiveness of his fastball. With batters seeing the cutter more, it's likely easier for them to lay off the pitch when it's thrown to the outside edge of the plate. And the reduced velocity on his fastball means batters have more time to identify the pitch, differentiating it from the cutter.
| P | PA | K% | BB% | Miss% | Strk% | Foul% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008-10 | 2806 | 666 | 20.3% | 11.4% | 18.2% | 62.7% | 46.6% |
| 2011 | 67 | 17 | 0.0% | 5.9% | 3.0% | 70.1% | 48.5% |
| P | PA | K% | BB% | Miss% | Strk% | Foul% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008-10 | 2700 | 676 | 22.0% | 5.5% | 21.5% | 67.6% | 46.2% |
| 2011 | 70 | 16 | 6.3% | 18.8% | 6.7% | 55.7% | 53.3% |
With only two starts under his belt, you can't really get too bent out of shape about any of these numbers, although they don't inspire much confidence going forward. His swing and miss rate is pretty awful even for the limited sample. Basically, opposing batters are making contact on 95 percent of their swings against Hughes. He's obviously not going to be racking up the Ks at that rate.
On the plus side, with all that extra contact, Hughes' walk rate is down nearly 50% against lefties.
All heatmaps and data courtesy of the In Depth Baseball analytics platform
NYDN: Phil Hughes eager to get back on mound
Hughes was knocked around for five runs in four innings in his first start against the Tigers, though that was nothing compared to the six-run beating he took in two innings against the Red Sox last Friday.
The common trend between the two starts was Hughes’ lack of velocity on his fastball, which sat between 88-90 mph, occasionally hitting 91. He routinely threw 92-94 mph during his 18-win season a year ago, so he is left wondering where the extra heat has gone.
Hughes had a productive bullpen session with pitching coach Larry Rothschild on Sunday, though he said it’s hard to tell whether his fastball had its old life during a side session.
“With adrenaline and everything else, in the bullpen is never going to be as hard as in a game situation,” Hughes said. “If it’s not there, I still have to find a way to pitch, get outs and keep us in the game. I can’t go out there and, if I’m not throwing 94 or 95, just chalk this one up as another bad one.
“I have to find a way to battle and get through it, hopefully pitch as well as I can.
For some reason, I’m not eager to see Hughes back on mound.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Boston Herald: Theo Epstein’s speech gets ’em going
Epstein only spoke for three or four minutes, but his words hit the mark. The Red Sox went out and beat the Yankees 9-6 to earn their first win, avoid the worst start in team history and start what feels like a new season.
Seriously? I could have swore that Phil Hughes, Mark Teixeira, Boone Logan and Derek Jeter were the ones that got them going.
In other news, Manny Ramirez has chosen to retire rather than be suspended for 100 games for failing a second steroid test. I’m pretty sure that means that anything his teams did while he was in their employ should be stricken from the record. What I find most surprising is that George Mitchell’s steroid investigation didn’t uncover any evidence about the only MLB player who’s failed a test twice (that we know about). Shocking.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
NY Times: Yankees Find Quality in a Rookie Starter
“Win, win, win,” said Nova, smiling, when asked his goals for the season.
By fulfilling the minimum requirements for a quality start, going six innings and allowing three runs, Nova reinforced the Yankees’ belief that their offense and relief corps are enough to overcome rotation pitfalls. The same overpowering effort produced by their bullpen on opening day stymied the Twins, as the newly anointed seventh-inning man Joba Chamberlain, Rafael Soriano and Mariano Rivera worked three scoreless innings to assure the two-run homers from Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada were not wasted.
Are we really officially anointing seventh inning men now?
I thought Nova looked pretty good last night. He was not throwing as hard as he did in his MLB debut, but I think that was by design because his fastball had better movement. Last year his average fastball was about 93 mph, and according to Brooks Baseball it was around 91.5 yesterday. His stuff kind of reminded me of Ramiro Mendoza’s last night. The Twins lineup is a good one against RHP, and Nova navigated through it pretty well in my opinion.
I was particularly pleased with what he did over the last four batters he faced. First he retired Joe Mauer with the potential tying run on second and two outs in the fifth. Then, after allowing a leadoff single to Justin Morneau in the sixth he induced a double play and struck out Jim Thome, who’d doubled in two runs off him in the fourth.
Phil Hughes aside, you have to be pretty happy with how the Yankees have looked so far.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
2011 Minor League Preview Part 1 (Positivity and Wishful Thinking Thread)
The Yankees’ Major League season is underway and the minor league season kicks off on April 7th. In order to streamline your minor league viewing experience I will be highlighting select players from the four full-season clubs and giving you an idea of what to look for. Players are listed alphabetically and grouped by minor league level. I have also listed their current position as well as age as of minor league Opening Day. No doubt, many/most of these names will be familiar to you.
Scranton Three-Year Weighted Park Multipliers:
| R | H | 2B | HR | BB | K |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| .95 | .99 | .96 | .93 | .95 | 1.02 |
Andrew Brackman, SP, 25-Keep throwing strikes. Brackman may be the single most important minor leaguer for the 2011 season and so it is imperative that he continues to throw strikes. If/when The Rock, Bartolo-y and Millwood turn into pumpkins, Brackman will likely be the first prospect given a shot. While an early Spring Training groin injury killed any chances he had at making the team it was clear the Yankee brass felt it was important for him to get his feet wet (doesn’t hurt that he has a ML contract). As he makes the transition to AAA, Brackman will also have to focus on developing his command. While he has dramatically cut the walks, and that’s a good thing, he has become more hittable than you would like for a pitcher with his physical talent. 2011 will be all about striking that balance.
Key Stat(s): BB/9, H/9
Dan Brewer, OF, 23-Brewer does not have any plus tools, but has performed, thus far. As is often the case when a guy lacking physicality or dominant statistical performance comes along, Brewer has been tagged as a future 4th OF or fringe starter. This means he is going to have to continue doing what he has done thus far and that is prove himself in all facets of the game.
Key Stat(s): All
Colin Curtis, OF, 26-Curtis is another future 4th OF type, but with less ability on the bases, more pop and a better pedigree. Curtis had a good first full season at AAA last year, better than you would have thought given his prior AA performance and will look to repeat. With Chris Dickerson now in the system as well as Brewer and Laird at the AAA level, there will be a lot of competition for that first call-up if/when one of the Yankee OFs gets hurt.
Key Stat(s): All
Brandon Laird, CIF/OF, 23-The Yankees seem to like the idea of Laird as a future backup at all 4 corner positions and I would agree that this is a good use of his talents. The toughest position he would have to play, 3B, is also one that he has a lot of minor league experience at. Despite some iffy defensive scouting reports when I’ve seen Laird play the hot corner he has shown average range and a plus arm. He can be erratic at times, but as a guy who is only going to see action in spurts I don’t think it will be much of a concern. While Laird had a monster offensive performance in a very tough AA league he scuffled at AAA. Laird comes from the grip it and rip it school of hitting and the numbers (his .246/.268/.344 line turns into .211/.237/.246 when you remove his first 2 games) seem to indicate that once the book was out on him he was unable to adjust. In ’11 he will have to prove that last year’s AA offenseive performance was not a fluke. While I have faith the power is real, I am concerned about the approach.
Key Stat(s): BB, BB/K
DJ Mitchell, SP, 23-D.J. is in a tough spot. Because almost every pitcher in the system had a huge year last year guys who are either more talented or more ready now surround him. Normally, someone with his profile would be a prime candidate for some spot action this year, but I think he gets tacked on to a deal at some point. If he can keep the ball on the ground and the walks in check, he will prove useful out of the bullpen, wherever he ends up.
Key Stat(s): BB/9, GB%
Jesus Montero, C, 21-I didn’t see every inning of Montero’s (televised) Spring Training appearances but, apparently, he was really bad whenever I stopped watching. When I did watch, Montero didn’t stand out, which was a triumph considering scouting reports had lead me to believe he would make a mistake on every pitch. Joel Sherman aside, everyone in the world believes Montero will hit at the big league level and so all he needs to do is prove that his defense is “not terrible” enough so that the Yankees can use him to replace the corpse of Turtle.
Key Stat(s): PB, WP, CS%, BA/OBP/SLG
Hector Noesi, SP, 24-I think this is the year Noesi’s hype as a prospect, lukewarm as it may be, dies out. Dominican Scary Fly-Ball Guy has more velocity than the original Scary Fly-Ball Guy but the same love for balls in the air. This has worked out fine for him thus far but 2011 will mark the first time he does not play in a home park that hugely depresses home runs. I’m not optimistic about his odds of maintaining his success as a starter but he could pitch teh fifth.
Key Stat(s): HR/9, K/9
David Phelps, SP, 24-Phelps, a small righty with “stuff” questions, made it to AAA last year and saw his K rate tumble and HR rate increase. However, he also cut some walks and increased the K:BB ratio while keeping runs off the board at a solid rate. Any projection beyond back of the rotation or middle relief is tough for a guy with this sort of profile and he will return to AAA hoping to miss a few more bats and limit quality contact.
Key Stat(s): HR/9, K/9, H/9
Adam Warren, SP, 23-Because he’s a small right-hander with outstanding minor league performance I often think of Warren as the Yankees’ second shot at the Ian Kennedy thing. Warren has more fastball than Kennedy did though, but has yet to demonstrate a secondary pitch as effective as Kennedy’s change. While the fastball velocity is better, Warren, like Kennedy, will have to work on his command and keep the ball in the park. I like his chances of doing so and think he will be the first guy up for an extended look this year.
Key Stat(s): HR/9, K/9
Yankees.com: Hughes can’t capitalize on Yanks’ homers
NEW YORK—Phil Hughes was hit for five runs in four innings, including a pair of Miguel Cabrera homers, as the Yankees fell to the Tigers on Sunday, 10-7, at Yankee Stadium.
Jorge Posada homered twice and drove in four runs for the Yankees, leading a charge that also included round-trippers from Mark Teixeira and Robinson Cano, but it was not enough to outslug Detroit’s attack.
Having tied a franchise record by surrendering 20 homers in the Bronx last season, Hughes saw his struggles within the cozy confines continue, as he was charged with five runs on five hits in a 90-pitch outing.
Cabrera slugged a two-run homer off Hughes in the first inning, teeing off on a flat slider, and the slugging first baseman struck again for another two-run shot in the third on a cutter over the heart of the plate.
...
The Yankees had eyed Hughes’ velocity closely this spring, with manager Joe Girardi stating that he would be curious to see when Hughes begins to sit comfortably at 93-94 mph, where he pitched at times last season.Against Detroit on Sunday, however, Hughes was more in the area of 88-89 mph, maxing out at 91.
It was a frustrating game to watch, as the Yankee offense kept trying to get the team back into the game only to see the pitchers continue to give it back. I’m not going to get that concerned about the results of this game, but I didn’t like what I saw out of Hughes. As the excerpt says, his velocity was crappy and he couldn’t compensate for it with his secondary pitches. On the other hand, although Bartolo Colon’s final line looks pretty bad, I thought he was throwing well. He got up to 95 a few times, and struck out five in four innings while walking only one. He gave up four runs, but FIP says he only should have given up two.
On the plus side, with another homer today it’s starting to look like Mark Texeira may be able to avoid his typical early season woes, and Jorge Posada showed that his bat still has some life in it. Posada’s offense has always been superlative for a catcher, but as a DH now the bar is higher. Also, by losing the Yankees were able to rest Mariano Rivera, so that’s good.
I’m a bit concerned about Hughes’s velocity, but it is just one start. Hopefully he’s got a bit more juice in his next one.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Yankees.com: Yanks’ bats relentless in rout of Tigers
NEW YORK—A.J. Burnett fought a head cold for five good innings and Mark Teixeira continued to win his battle with April’s chills as the Yankees defeated the Tigers, 10-6, on Saturday at Yankee Stadium.
Congested and weakened by illness this week, Burnett limited the Tigers to three runs and was cushioned by Teixeira’s second three-run homer of the young campaign, a blast off Detroit starter Brad Penny.
Russell Martin also slugged a three-run homer, connecting in the fifth off Brad Thomas, and Alex Rodriguez took rookie Brayan Villarreal deep for a solo shot in the sixth, the 614th homer of Rodriguez’s career.
I liked what I saw out of Burnett, especially factoring in the fact that he was fighting an illness. The Yankees will go for the sweep tomorrow afternoon with Phil Hughes on the hill.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Looking Ahead To 2011 - Phil Hughes
It took a few years, but Phil Hughes finally completed a full season as a starter at the MLB level in 2010. Hughes got off to a very good start before fading over the final two-thirds of a season.
| dates | gs | ip | h | r | er | hr | bb | so | fb% | gb% | ld% | hr/fb% | babip | ra | era | fip | xfip | bb/bf | k/bf |
| 4/15-5/12 | 6 | 38 | 22 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 14 | 39 | 43.6% | 37.2% | 19.1% | 2.4% | .226 | 1.41 | 1.41 | 2.60 | 3.79 | 9.5% | 26.4% |
| 5/17-6/19 | 7 | 42 | 46 | 23 | 23 | 6 | 11 | 39 | 46.6% | 32.3% | 21.1% | 9.7% | .315 | 4.88 | 4.88 | 3.98 | 4.23 | 6.0% | 21.3% |
| 6/29-10/2 | 16 | 92 | 94 | 54 | 53 | 18 | 33 | 68 | 49.0% | 37.5% | 13.5% | 12.4% | .273 | 5.29 | 5.19 | 5.34 | 5.05 | 8.3% | 17.0% |
| total | 29 | 173 | 162 | 83 | 82 | 25 | 58 | 146 | 47.4% | 36.1% | 16.4% | 10.1% | .275 | 4.33 | 4.28 | 4.40 | 4.57 | 7.9% | 20.0% |
fb%: percentage of batted balls that were fly balls
gb%: percentage of batted balls that were ground balls
ld%: percentage of batted balls that were line drives
hr/fb%: percentage of fly balls that were home runs
babip: batting average against on balls in play
fip: fielding independent pitching
xfip: expected fielding independent pitching (replace HRs with 0.11 times fly balls)
bb/bf: percentage of batters walked
k/bf: percentage of batters who struck out
Hughes’s peripherals over his first six starts didn’t support his 1.41 RA/ERA, primarily because of an unsustainably low HR/FB rate and BABIP against of .226. The correction in those two stats came over his next seven starts, which put his season line at:
| dates | gs | ip | h | r | er | hr | bb | so | fb% | gb% | ld% | hr/fb% | babip | ra | era | fip | xfip | bb/bf | k/bf |
| 4/15-5/12 | 6 | 38 | 22 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 14 | 39 | 43.6% | 37.2% | 19.1% | 2.4% | .226 | 1.41 | 1.41 | 2.60 | 3.79 | 9.5% | 26.4% |
| 5/17-6/19 | 7 | 42 | 46 | 23 | 23 | 6 | 11 | 39 | 46.6% | 32.3% | 21.1% | 9.7% | .315 | 4.88 | 4.88 | 3.98 | 4.23 | 6.0% | 21.3% |
| total | 13 | 81 | 68 | 29 | 29 | 7 | 25 | 78 | 45.4% | 34.4% | 20.3% | 6.8% | .277 | 3.23 | 3.23 | 3.32 | 4.02 | 7.6% | 23.6% |
That’s a very good overall line, with his peripherals and his results lining up pretty well, although his HR/FB rate was still probably still a bit lower than it should have been.
From that point on Hughes didn’t pitch all that well. The Yankees skipped his turn in the rotation after his June 19th start, and his next start came 10 days later. Here’s how he performed over the rest of the season.
| dates | gs | ip | h | r | er | hr | bb | so | fb% | gb% | ld% | hr/fb% | babip | ra | era | fip | xfip | bb/bf | k/bf |
| 6/29-10/2 | 16 | 92 | 94 | 54 | 53 | 18 | 33 | 68 | 49.0% | 37.5% | 13.5% | 12.4% | .273 | 5.29 | 5.19 | 5.34 | 5.05 | 8.3% | 17.0% |
Because Hughes allowed a higher percentage of fly balls and a lower percentage of line drives over this stretch, I don’t think that his BABIP against of .273 was particularly lucky. His biggest issue was his inability to put hitters away, as evidenced by his strikeout rate dropping. In addition to that, a higher percentage of fly balls became HRs, which didn’t help things.
Anyone who watched Hughes in 2010 didn’t need numbers to tell them that he had problems with finishing off a hitter once he got to two strikes. As a reliever in 2009, he didn’t have that issue because he was able to dial up a bit more velocity when needed and he was able to get by with primarily two pitches (fastball and cutter). You can see the difference between 2009 and 2010 pretty clearly if you look at some of his splits by count.
| split | year | pa | bb/pa | k/pa | year | pa | bb/pa | k/pa |
| 0-2 Count | 2009 | 38 | 0.0% | 55.3% | 2010 | 65 | 0.0% | 53.8% |
| 1-2 Count | 2009 | 56 | 0.0% | 50.0% | 2010 | 125 | 0.0% | 38.4% |
| 2-2 Count | 2009 | 62 | 0.0% | 40.3% | 2010 | 120 | 0.0% | 37.5% |
| Full Count | 2009 | 54 | 25.9% | 40.7% | 2010 | 107 | 37.4% | 16.8% |
| After 1-0 | 2009 | 133 | 15.8% | 24.8% | 2010 | 271 | 12.5% | 17.0% |
| After 2-0 | 2009 | 42 | 21.4% | 28.6% | 2010 | 80 | 31.3% | 15.0% |
| After 3-0 | 2009 | 10 | 50.0% | 30.0% | 2010 | 25 | 60.0% | 12.0% |
| After 0-1 | 2009 | 179 | 3.9% | 35.2% | 2010 | 387 | 6.2% | 25.8% |
| After 1-1 | 2009 | 149 | 12.8% | 30.2% | 2010 | 296 | 9.5% | 21.3% |
| After 2-1 | 2009 | 77 | 24.7% | 29.9% | 2010 | 148 | 16.9% | 16.2% |
| After 3-1 | 2009 | 33 | 45.5% | 18.2% | 2010 | 50 | 40.0% | 12.0% |
| After 0-2 | 2009 | 82 | 0.0% | 47.6% | 2010 | 172 | 2.9% | 41.3% |
| After 1-2 | 2009 | 116 | 3.4% | 42.2% | 2010 | 247 | 7.3% | 34.0% |
| After 2-2 | 2009 | 101 | 10.9% | 40.6% | 2010 | 199 | 14.6% | 28.6% |
| Three Balls | 2009 | 74 | 37.8% | 29.7% | 2010 | 138 | 42.0% | 13.0% |
| Two Strikes | 2009 | 210 | 6.7% | 45.7% | 2010 | 417 | 9.6% | 35.0% |
| Batter Ahead | 2009 | 110 | 25.5% | 20.0% | 2010 | 225 | 25.8% | 8.0% |
| Even Count | 2009 | 127 | 0.0% | 19.7% | 2010 | 248 | 0.0% | 18.1% |
| Pitcher Ahead | 2009 | 114 | 0.0% | 43.0% | 2010 | 257 | 0.0% | 32.3% |
The split that really jumps out at me are the splits after he got to a full count. He struck out 40.7% of the batters he faced with a full count in 2009 and that dropped all the way down to 16.8%. His overall performance when he got two strikes was also worse, as he walked about 3% more batters and struck out about 11% fewer in any count where he got to two strikes.
I got the sense that early in the season Hughes was pretty much still pitching the way he did as a reliever in 2009, using mostly fastballs and cutters and challenging hitters. I also got the sense that after a while the league adjusted to that, and that’s when he started to struggle. Luckily, we don’t have to go by my sense(s), we have the data to see what exactly Hughes was doing.
| date | ip | h | r | hr | bb | k | FF | % | FC | % | CH | % | CU | % | FF+FC% |
| 4/15/2010 | 5.0 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 50 | 49.5% | 31 | 30.7% | 5 | 5.0% | 15 | 14.9% | 80.2% |
| 4/21/2010 | 7.3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 10 | 53 | 53.5% | 32 | 32.3% | 0 | 0.0% | 14 | 14.1% | 85.9% |
| 4/27/2010 | 5.7 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 66 | 60.6% | 28 | 25.7% | 0 | 0.0% | 15 | 13.8% | 86.2% |
| 5/2/2010 | 7.0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 41 | 53.2% | 22 | 28.6% | 3 | 3.9% | 11 | 14.3% | 81.8% |
| 5/7/2010 | 7.0 | 7 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 60 | 60.6% | 29 | 29.3% | 1 | 1.0% | 9 | 9.1% | 89.9% |
| 5/12/2010 | 7.0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 62 | 61.4% | 28 | 27.7% | 0 | 0.0% | 11 | 10.9% | 89.1% |
| 5/17/2010 | 5.0 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 36 | 43.4% | 30 | 36.1% | 3 | 3.6% | 14 | 16.9% | 79.5% |
| 5/22/2010 | 5.7 | 8 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 7 | 65 | 63.7% | 27 | 26.5% | 1 | 1.0% | 9 | 8.8% | 90.2% |
| 5/28/2010 | 7.0 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 57 | 54.8% | 24 | 23.1% | 2 | 1.9% | 21 | 20.2% | 77.9% |
| 6/2/2010 | 7.0 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 68 | 71.6% | 8 | 8.4% | 2 | 2.1% | 17 | 17.9% | 80.0% |
| 6/8/2010 | 6.0 | 9 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 65 | 65.0% | 21 | 21.0% | 1 | 1.0% | 13 | 13.0% | 86.0% |
| 6/13/2010 | 5.7 | 7 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 61 | 60.4% | 22 | 21.8% | 0 | 0.0% | 18 | 17.8% | 82.2% |
| 6/19/2010 | 7.0 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 71 | 73.2% | 9 | 9.3% | 2 | 2.1% | 15 | 15.5% | 82.5% |
| 6/29/2010 | 5.7 | 10 | 7 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 52 | 65.0% | 13 | 16.3% | 2 | 2.5% | 13 | 16.3% | 81.3% |
| 7/4/2010 | 6.0 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 61 | 61.6% | 18 | 18.2% | 0 | 0.0% | 20 | 20.2% | 79.8% |
| 7/9/2010 | 7.0 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 59 | 64.1% | 16 | 17.4% | 0 | 0.0% | 17 | 18.5% | 81.5% |
| 7/20/2010 | 5.0 | 9 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 56 | 60.9% | 10 | 10.9% | 11 | 12.0% | 15 | 16.3% | 71.7% |
| 7/25/2010 | 5.3 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 56 | 62.2% | 10 | 11.1% | 4 | 4.4% | 20 | 22.2% | 73.3% |
| 7/30/2010 | 6.0 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 35 | 33.7% | 39 | 37.5% | 0 | 0.0% | 30 | 28.8% | 71.2% |
| 8/4/2010 | 5.3 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 63 | 63.6% | 16 | 16.2% | 3 | 3.0% | 17 | 17.2% | 79.8% |
| 8/9/2010 | 6.0 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 68 | 64.8% | 10 | 9.5% | 2 | 1.9% | 25 | 23.8% | 74.3% |
| 8/14/2010 | 6.0 | 9 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 66 | 69.5% | 16 | 16.8% | 0 | 0.0% | 13 | 13.7% | 86.3% |
| 8/19/2010 | 6.0 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 57 | 75.0% | 9 | 11.8% | 0 | 0.0% | 10 | 13.2% | 86.8% |
| 8/31/2010 | 5.0 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 68 | 71.6% | 7 | 7.4% | 4 | 4.2% | 16 | 16.8% | 78.9% |
| 9/5/2010 | 6.0 | 7 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 63 | 67.0% | 6 | 6.4% | 4 | 4.3% | 21 | 22.3% | 73.4% |
| 9/10/2010 | 1.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 90.9% | 0 | 0.0% | 0 | 0.0% | 1 | 9.1% | 90.9% |
| 9/15/2010 | 6.7 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 41 | 38.7% | 31 | 29.2% | 4 | 3.8% | 30 | 28.3% | 67.9% |
| 9/21/2010 | 6.3 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 65 | 58.0% | 10 | 8.9% | 15 | 13.4% | 22 | 19.6% | 67.0% |
| 9/26/2010 | 6.0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 64 | 61.0% | 13 | 12.4% | 9 | 8.6% | 19 | 18.1% | 73.3% |
| 10/2/2010 | 1.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 11 | 84.6% | 1 | 7.7% | 0 | 0.0% | 1 | 7.7% | 92.3% |
| 10/9/2010 | 7.0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 72 | 72.7% | 7 | 7.1% | 2 | 2.0% | 18 | 18.2% | 79.8% |
| 10/16/2010 | 4.0 | 10 | 7 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 44 | 52.4% | 24 | 28.6% | 1 | 1.2% | 15 | 17.9% | 81.0% |
| 10/22/2010 | 4.7 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 39 | 52.0% | 15 | 20.0% | 2 | 2.7% | 19 | 25.3% | 72.0% |
FF: # of four-seam fastballs
FC: # of cut fastballs
CH: # of change ups
CU: # of curves
There’s some ambiguity in the the Pitch F/X pitch classification algorithm, so these are are not concrete.
Hughes was definitely pitching primarily with his fastball and cutter over the first half of the season, although it was working so there really wasn’t any reason for him not to. In his first three starts after the All Star Break he used a few more curves, but with mixed results. In August he seemed to try and move away from his cutter a bit, and aside from September 15 he did seem to try and make more use of his curve and changeup, although it didn’t seem to help him pitch any better.
I’m not sure that Hughes’s struggles over the last part of the season were due to pitch selection after looking at this chart. There’s not a clear delineation of a change in approach here, at least that I can see.
Despite all these somewhat depressing numbers, overall I thought 2010 was a good year for Hughes, primarily because he was able to demonstrate the ability to stay healthy and in the rotation for a full MLB season. Now that he’s done that, there should be no more concern about innings limits going forward.
So here’s how Hughes projects in 2011.
| projecton | G | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RSAR | WAR | BABIP |
| bill_james | 32 | 177 | 160 | 72 | 70 | 20 | 60 | 166 | 3.68 | 3.56 | 3.88 | 45 | 4.5 | .287 |
| fans | 31 | 185 | 171 | 84 | 81 | 22 | 58 | 161 | 4.07 | 3.94 | 3.95 | 39 | 3.9 | .284 |
| cairo | 41 | 172 | 161 | 84 | 81 | 21 | 58 | 147 | 4.40 | 4.24 | 4.16 | 30 | 3.0 | .285 |
| marcel | 39 | 141 | 126 | 63 | 61 | 17 | 46 | 123 | 4.02 | 3.89 | 4.07 | 31 | 3.1 | .276 |
| oliver | 37 | 134 | 127 | 63 | 61 | 17 | 45 | 121 | 4.23 | 4.10 | 4.05 | 26 | 2.6 | .291 |
| pecota | 34 | 121 | 112 | 55 | 50 | 16 | 43 | 109 | 4.06 | 3.74 | 4.28 | 26 | 2.6 | .284 |
| zips | 26 | 148 | 145 | 72 | 67 | 18 | 46 | 131 | 4.39 | 4.08 | 3.99 | 26 | 2.6 | .300 |
| average* | 35 | 143 | 134 | 67 | 64 | 18 | 48 | 126 | 4.23 | 4.03 | 4.12 | 28 | 2.8 | .287 |
| 2010 | 31 | 176 | 162 | 83 | 82 | 25 | 58 | 146 | 4.24 | 4.19 | 4.42 | 34 | 3.4 | .273 |
RA/ERA: Runs/Earned runs allowed per nine innings
FIP: Fielding-independent pitching
RSAR: Runs saved above a replacement level pitcher(park and role-adjusted, using RA)
WAR: Wins above replacement level (RSAR divided by 10)
*average does not include bill_james or fans
The projections assume Hughes will be at least as good as he was in 2010, aside from CAIRO which is biased against the Yankees. His average 2011 projected RA is essentially the same as his actual 2010 RA, so he should be as valuable as he was last year on a rate basis, plus additionally more valuable if he can pitch more innings.
Here are Hughes’s CAIRO percentile forecasts.
| cairo% | G | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RSAR | WAR |
| 80% | 48 | 189 | 151 | 76 | 73 | 17 | 51 | 162 | 3.64 | 3.50 | 3.48 | 49 | 4.9 |
| 65% | 45 | 180 | 156 | 80 | 77 | 19 | 55 | 155 | 4.00 | 3.86 | 3.81 | 39 | 3.9 |
| Baseline | 41 | 172 | 161 | 84 | 81 | 21 | 58 | 147 | 4.40 | 4.24 | 4.16 | 30 | 3.0 |
| 35% | 34 | 149 | 151 | 80 | 77 | 21 | 56 | 127 | 4.82 | 4.65 | 4.54 | 19 | 1.9 |
| 20% | 28 | 127 | 139 | 75 | 72 | 20 | 52 | 108 | 5.28 | 5.10 | 4.95 | 10 | 1.0 |
Ignore the # of games since it’s still screwed up by his relief stint in 2009, and just focus on the other stats.
I’d really like to see Hughes at least hit that 65% forecast, and I think he can if he makes better use of his secondary pitches.
There’s a very good chance that Hughes is the Yankees’ second-best starting pitcher right now. If he’s at his 65% or higher forecast and can pitch 200 innings he’d probably be one of the top twenty pitchers in the AL. You can’t ask for much more than that out of your #2 starter. Unless your #2 starter is one of 16 aces.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
NY Daily News: Phil Hughes working on changeup,
Hughes has discussed the need to develop an offspeed pitch in previous camps, but the Yankees firmly believe their heavily counted-upon No. 2 starter must refine and learn to rely on his changeup to avoid the struggles he endured for much of the second half of his 18-win campaign in 2010.
“I feel like right now, it’s a start,” Hughes said after tossing three changeups among six batters faced over two scoreless innings in his spring debut, the Yankees’ 2-0 loss to the Pirates.
| player | pa | ab | h | 2b | 3b | hr | bb | hbp | so | avg | obp | slg | woba | braa | bb/pa | k/pa |
| A | 771 | 681 | 171 | 38 | 1 | 27 | 86 | 4 | 156 | .251 | .339 | .429 | .338 | 4 | 0.112 | 0.202 |
| B | 773 | 725 | 166 | 33 | 1 | 17 | 44 | 4 | 167 | .229 | .277 | .348 | .277 | -37 | 0.057 | 0.216 |
This comparison of two batting lines is related to the subject of Hughes making better use of his changeup. Whoever guesses what it is first gets nothing but bragging rights, but that’s something, isn’t it?
Friday, February 25, 2011
NY Post: Workout plan has Yankees’ Sabathia full of zip
As he pumped a river of batting-practice fastballs under a warm blue sky, the Yankees ace noticed the results of a rigorous offseason conditioning program.
“I don’t get tired,” Sabathia said following a 25-pitch session at George M. Steinbrenner Field that was caught by Russell Martin. “Every spring training in years past I [tired]. My stamina is a lot better.”
Since CC is going to opt out after this year to sign with Boston anyway, the Yankees should use him as their first, third and fifth starter this year. CC, Hughes, CC, Burnett, CC is a hell of a rotation.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Daily News: Manny Banuelos is turning heads at spring training
TAMPA - A year ago Manny Banuelos barely registered on the Yankees’ radar, but now, not even 20 yet, he has this camp buzzing like spring training of 2007 when veterans were wowed enough by a young Phil Hughes to promptly label him the next Roger Clemens.
Hughes hasn’t quite lived up to that hype, although he is surely beginning to deliver on his promise, which is more than you can say for a lot of spring training phenoms.
Who knows how it will go for Banuelos, but to see him up close Wednesday, you had to be impressed. The lefthander is only 5-foot-10, yet the ball explodes out of his hand, the mid-90s velocity further enhanced by a smooth, polished delivery that looks effortless.
Beyond that, GM Brian Cashman noted a poise that he likened to that of Orlando (El Duque) Hernandez.
“Banuelos has a presence, a confidence on the mound that’s a lot like when El Duque showed up,” Cashman said Wednesday. “Guys hadn’t even seen El Duque throw yet, and I remember (Joe) Torre and (Mel) Stottlemyre seeing him and saying, ‘There’s something about this guy.’”
I think a Clemens/El Duque combination would be acceptable from Banuelos. Sans the perjury.
Monday, January 17, 2011
NY Times: Yankees’ Chamberlain Could Be Odd Man Out
The Yankees’ bullpen, though not yet complete, is further along than their rotation, and packaging Chamberlain with additional young talent from their impressive system would be one way to net a viable starter. Addressing that need through a trade rather than free agency, where appealing options are scarce, is more likely to yield the sort of dependable pitcher they desire.
If only there was a way that the Yankees could use Chamberlain in an area of need instead of in an area of strength. If only.
I keep trying to tell myself the Yankees are not really this obtuse, but all evidence indicates otherwise.
With the Yankees’ rotation understaffed, it is logical to wonder whether they will revisit the merits of Chamberlain’s return to a starting role; as they no doubt realize, finding a reliable starter is more challenging than adding a middle reliever. Throughout the off-season, General Manager Brian Cashman has insisted that Chamberlain will remain a reliever — and Soriano’s arrival will not affect those plans.
Logical unless you’re the Yankees.
They steadfastly say, for better or worse, that Chamberlain’s repertory is more conducive to success in short bursts out of the bullpen. His fastball, according to FanGraphs.com, averaged 94.6 miles per hour in 2010, his first full season in relief, a 2.1-m.p.h. spike from 2009, when he made 31 starts
If only the Yankees had a pitcher who pitched primarily in relief with good success in one season and moved back to the rotation the next season and still managed to be effective despite the exact same drop in velocity.
If only.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Yankees.com: Hughes, Joba, Logan set for arbitration process
NEW YORK—Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes should be in line for substantial raises before they throw their first pitches of 2011, as the pair of right-handers prepares for their first crack at arbitration eligibility.
Left-handed reliever Boone Logan is also eligible for arbitration. The trio of Yankees hurlers was offered contracts for the 2011 season in advance of the Dec. 2 deadline, but they have not yet agreed to those deals.
I wish I could get a raise after being as bad at my job as Joba was at his.
Frankly, we have no idea how good any of these three guys are going to be in 2011, so I don’t mind the Yankees going year-to-year with them. It may cost them a bit if they all have good years, but it still won’t cost them as much as Jaret Wright cost them in 2004.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
What If the Yankees Go in 2011 With the 40 Man Roster they Have Right Now?
With it looking like the Yankees contract negotiations with Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera aren’t going to be decided any time soon, and with Andy Pettitte still undecided about a return, I was wondering what would happen in the highly unlikely scenario that the Yankees signed no one and traded for no one and went into the season with the team they have right now.
So here’s a run-through the position players and pitching staff using my 2011 CAIRO projections.
| Player | Pos | PA | wOBA | Outs | BR | Def |
| Gardner, Brett | LF | 575 | .331 | 368 | 73 | 13 |
| Swisher, Nick | RF | 600 | .356 | 386 | 85 | 2 |
| Cano, Robinson | 2B | 625 | .369 | 403 | 95 | 0 |
| Teixeira, Mark | 1B | 624 | .382 | 388 | 100 | 3 |
| Rodriguez, Alex | 3B | 550 | .382 | 345 | 90 | -3 |
| Posada, Jorge | DH | 500 | .352 | 322 | 69 | 0 |
| Granderson, Curtis | CF | 525 | .345 | 348 | 72 | 3 |
| Montero, Jesus | C | 500 | .335 | 336 | 64 | 0 |
| Nunez, Eduardo | SS | 475 | .286 | 334 | 43 | -1 |
| Starter Total | 4974 | .350 | 3230 | 690 | 17 | |
| Player | Pos | PA | wOBA | Outs | BR | Def |
| Cervelli, Francisco | C | 275 | .303 | 185 | 27 | -1 |
| Pena, Ramiro | SS | 200 | .274 | 142 | 16 | 0 |
| Curtis, Colin | RF | 175 | .295 | 122 | 17 | -1 |
| Russo, Kevin | LF | 175 | .286 | 121 | 15 | 0 |
| Laird, Brandon | 3B | 175 | .304 | 123 | 18 | 0 |
| Corona, Reegie | 2B | 150 | .289 | 104 | 14 | 0 |
| Golson, Greg | RF | 100 | .272 | 72.8 | 9 | 0 |
| Bench Total | 1250 | .291 | 870 | 117 | -2 | |
| Team Total | 6224 | .338 | 4100 | 807 | 15 |
BR: Projected linear weights batting runs
Def: Projected runs saved compared to average defensively.
The offense doesn’t really look that good, projecting to score about 40 fewer runs than last year’s team. I’d also be hesitant about assuming they’re a +15 defense given the uncertainty of Jesus Montero and Eduardo Nunez’s defense.
The pitching staff is actually even worse off right now.
| Pitcher | Role | IP | R |
| Sabathia, C.C. | SP1 | 210 | 91 |
| Hughes, Philip | SP2 | 180 | 89 |
| Burnett, A.J. | SP3 | 170 | 95 |
| Nova, Ivan | SP4 | 150 | 94 |
| Moseley, Dustin | SP5 | 140 | 84 |
| Brackman, Andrew | SP6 | 70 | 46 |
| Noesi, Hector | SP7 | 60 | 37 |
| Igawa, Kei | SP8 | 30 | 20 |
| Starter Total | 1010 | 555 | |
| Pitcher | Role | IP | R |
| Robertson, David | CL | 75 | 35 |
| Chamberlain, Joba | SU | 80 | 41 |
| Logan, Boone | SU | 60 | 32 |
| Mitre, Sergio | MR | 60 | 35 |
| Sanchez, Romulo | MR | 50 | 31 |
| Pope, Ryan | MR | 40 | 24 |
| Garrison, Steve | MR | 40 | 23 |
| Aceves, Alfredo | LR | 25 | 12 |
| LR | 0 | ||
| Reliever Total | 430 | 232 | |
| Team Total | 1440 | 787 |
If the Yankees don’t bring back Pettitte or Rivera and don’t sign Cliff Lee, here’s what they may look like. While I doubt Kei Igawa sees any time in MLB, I’m using him as a proxy for sub-replacement level pitching.
If Alfredo Aceves can come back healthy that will help the bullpen some, but it’s still a little ugly.
Adding it up looks like this.
| Offense | 807 |
| Defense | 15 |
| Pitching | 787 |
| Pythagenpat W | 84.5 |
Pythagenpat W:Estimated Pythagenpat wins
You can subtract a win from that 84.5 estimate for every ten runs below average Montero and Nunez may be defensively. So if they’re a collective 20 runs worse than average the Yankees would be more like an 82.5 win team.
Thankfully, it’s not very likely that the Yankees will go into 2011 with this team. Can they add the 10+ wins they probably need to put themselves solidly in contention with what’s available to them? That’s the next question.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
2011 Yankee Pitcher CAIRO Projections v0.1
It took a little longer to get these done than I had hoped, but now we’ve got the first set of Yankee pitcher projections to go with the hitter projections.
| Last, First | Tm | Age | Role | IP | H | HR | BB | K | RA | ERA | FIP | RSAR | WAR |
| Sabathia, C.C. | NYA | 31 | SP | 219 | 200 | 20 | 60 | 176 | 3.73 | 3.39 | 3.68 | 48 | 4.8 |
| Hughes, Philip | NYA | 25 | SP | 172 | 162 | 21 | 58 | 147 | 4.29 | 4.11 | 4.17 | 29 | 2.9 |
| Pettitte, Andy | NYA | 39 | SP | 163 | 167 | 16 | 51 | 119 | 4.43 | 4.03 | 4.07 | 24 | 2.4 |
| Rivera, Mariano | NYA | 42 | RP | 68 | 50 | 5 | 14 | 62 | 2.83 | 2.60 | 2.99 | 19 | 1.9 |
| Burnett, A.J. | NYA | 34 | SP | 187 | 191 | 23 | 74 | 156 | 5.14 | 4.77 | 4.50 | 17 | 1.7 |
| Chamberlain, Joba | NYA | 26 | RP | 106 | 102 | 11 | 40 | 100 | 4.68 | 4.27 | 3.94 | 9 | 0.9 |
| Robertson, David | NYA | 26 | RP | 67 | 64 | 6 | 30 | 71 | 4.17 | 3.91 | 3.68 | 9 | 0.9 |
| Warren, Adam | NYA | 24 | SP | 85 | 89 | 11 | 30 | 61 | 4.98 | 4.61 | 4.56 | 7 | 0.7 |
| Aceves, Alfredo | NYA | 29 | RP | 49 | 43 | 5 | 13 | 34 | 4.09 | 3.77 | 4.11 | 6 | 0.6 |
| Pope, Ryan | NYA | 25 | SP | 116 | 127 | 17 | 41 | 82 | 5.41 | 5.02 | 4.83 | 5 | 0.5 |
| Banuelos, Manny | NYA | 20 | SP | 61 | 65 | 8 | 24 | 44 | 5.31 | 4.92 | 4.77 | 4 | 0.4 |
| Stoneburner, Graham | NYA | 24 | SP | 58 | 62 | 8 | 22 | 41 | 5.26 | 4.87 | 4.83 | 4 | 0.4 |
| Logan, Boone | NYA | 27 | RP | 48 | 50 | 5 | 18 | 39 | 4.64 | 4.30 | 4.24 | 3 | 0.3 |
| Noesi, Hector | NYA | 24 | SP | 80 | 88 | 12 | 27 | 57 | 5.50 | 5.09 | 4.91 | 3 | 0.3 |
| Phelps, David | NYA | 25 | SP | 94 | 106 | 14 | 34 | 63 | 5.61 | 5.19 | 5.05 | 2 | 0.2 |
| Nova, Ivan | NYA | 24 | SP | 83 | 94 | 11 | 35 | 51 | 5.65 | 5.26 | 5.03 | 2 | 0.2 |
| Mitchell, D.J. | NYA | 24 | SP | 73 | 81 | 10 | 33 | 48 | 5.62 | 5.20 | 5.08 | 2 | 0.2 |
| Betances, Dellin | NYA | 23 | SP | 52 | 56 | 8 | 24 | 39 | 5.68 | 5.26 | 5.16 | 1 | 0.1 |
| Mitre, Sergio | NYA | 30 | RP | 72 | 77 | 9 | 21 | 43 | 5.24 | 4.66 | 4.69 | 1 | 0.1 |
| Brackman, Andrew | NYA | 26 | SP | 63 | 71 | 10 | 28 | 43 | 5.92 | 5.48 | 5.26 | 0 | 0.0 |
RSAR: Runs saved above a replacement level pitcher (using RA)
WAR: Wins above a replacement level pitcher (RSAR divided by 10)
I haven’t adjusted these for defense, although it’s not likely that’ll change much since the Yankees are effectively bringing back the same team next year. Chamberlain’s projection still includes his time as a starter, if he’s a pure reliever he should project about a half run better across the board (RA, ERA, FIP) and his inning total should be closer to what it was in 2010. Other than that I’d just say that projecting pitching is a crapshoot, so don’t take any of these projections as gospel.
It’s probably safe to say this team could use Cliff Lee and Andy Pettitte, huh?
I do have most of the minor leaguers projected already but didn’t want to include them all yet, so I just kept the ones that are most likely to be asked about. I will probably release the full CAIRO projections soon, which will have just about anyone who played above rookie ball in 2010.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Phil Hughes’ 2010 Cutter (Part Two)
| AVG | SLG | wOBA | |
|---|---|---|---|
| April - May | .185 | .407 | .331 |
| June - July | .381 | .667 | .441 |
| August - October | .250 | .500 | .344 |
| AVG | SLG | wOBA | |
|---|---|---|---|
| April - May | .225 | .275 | .232 |
| June - July | .444 | .778 | .530 |
| August - October | .316 | .632 | .411 |
Below the break you'll find heat maps for Hughes' pitch frequency throughout the season.
Since his performance numbers are based on plate appearances decided on a cutter, we're working with a relatively small sample size, especially when looking at splits.
Nonetheless, when viewed with his overall pitch frequency, two things stood out to me. First, against RHB in June and July, Hughes kept the cutter down more, and apparently this got him into more trouble. Second, Hughes avoided throwing the cutter in to lefties in June and July. However, when I split the map in half, I found he got hit harder when throwing the pitch inside during that period (.385 SLG% on the outer half compared to 1.125 SLG% on the inner half). As noted in the previous post, his cutter had less movement in June and July. This is pure speculation, but if Hughes knew he wasn't getting as much cut on that pitch, he may have avoided throwing it in to lefties.
All heatmaps and data courtesy of the In Depth Baseball analytics platform
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Phil Hughes’ 2010 Cutter
Phil Hughes season was neither awful, nor spectacular. After a great first couple of months, Hughes slipped a bit with a stretch of less than optimal starts. And despite what the media might say, his problems were probably not caused by a skipped start in June.I wanted to take a look at Phil's cutter to see if there was any noticeable change throughout the season. Here are a few nifty heatmaps along with some interesting data points.
On the left, you can see all the hits coming off Hughes' cutter and their locations in the field throughout April and May this season. On the right, you can see the movement on his cutter. This is determined as the pitch is crossing the plate. The x-axis indicates a 13
So the above heat map indicates that Hughes' cutter in April and May had an average downward movement of 12.5
The first thing that stands out is Hughes' June and July heat map. He was not as consistent with his cutter's movement, as you can see the blue creep toward the center of the map a bit more. Same thing from August on, although not nearly as bad. In April and May, Hughes did not seem to throw any flat cutters, as you can see nothing at all nearing that y-axis of 0
| PA | P | H-PlateVel | V-PlateVel | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| April - May | 75 | 251 | 7.8 | -12.5 |
| June - July | 51 | 166 | 7.1 | -12.7 |
| August - October | 33 | 126 | 7.3 | -13.3 |
PA: Plate Appearances decided on a cutter
P: Cutters thrown
H-PlateVel: Horizontal movement in
V-PlateVel: Vertical movement in
| Cntct% | Fly-Dist | HR | wOBA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| April - May | 83.5% | 289 | 2 | .276 |
| June - July | 81.0% | 299 | 3 | .493 |
| August - October | 76.3% | 309 | 3 | .385 |
Cntct%: Contact Rate (in play + foul / swings) on cutters
Fly-Dist: Fly ball distance on cutters
Interesting that Hughes got more swings and misses on his cutter as the season went on (I recall complaining more and more about his inability to get swings and misses). In the middle of the season, Hughes' cutter had the lowest average right to left movement. Not surprising that he was hit hardest during that stretch. It's also interesting that Hughes' cutter had more drop as the season went on, almost an entire
I'll try to dig up anything else on Hughes that may be of interest.
All heatmaps and data courtesy of the In Depth Baseball analytics platform
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Hughes with Two Strikes
Phil Hughes had a little trouble with two strikes against the Rangers’ hitters on Saturday. He went to two strikes on two lefty batters, walking one and yielding a double to the other. After two strikes to 10 right handed Rangers, Hughes allowed 4 hits (2 doubles, 1 triple) while striking out 3.
The top map shows the contact rate (number of balls in play + fouls / number of swings) against Phil Hughes with two strikes on Saturday. Too much red there. The bottom map shows the in play rate (balls put in play / swings). It seemed as though Hughes was trying to elevate his pitches with two strikes against the Rangers, but they weren’t missing. Just for comparison, here’s his 2010 in play map:
UPDATE: Just realized I only put up the in play rate for RHB. Here it is for LHB:
All heatmaps courtesy of the In Depth Baseball analytics platform
Thursday, October 14, 2010
2010 ALCS Preview: Rangers vs. Yankees
Rangers in 3 or 4?
Well, we’re down to two teams in the quest for who gets to lose to the Phillies in the World Series.
The Rangers have returned to the postseason for the first time since 1999 and have won a postseason series for the first time in their history, beating the AL East champion Tampa Bay Rays in the ALDS.
The Yankees weren’t even good enough to beat out the Rays for the AL East and instead had to back into the playoffs as the wild card. To put this simply:
A) The Rays are better than the Yankees as evidenced by winning the AL East
B) The Rangers are better than the Rays as evidenced by winning their playoff series against them
Despite this, they are actually going to play the games, so maybe the unexpected will happen.
Here’s how the Rangers’ position player project.
| Lineup | Pos | 2010 OBP | 2010 wOBA | Proj OBP | Proj wOBA | PA | Outs | BR | Def |
| Elvis Andrus | SS | .335 | .296 | .310 | .309 | 35 | 24 | 3.52 | 0.2 |
| Michael Young | 3B | .331 | .336 | .340 | .341 | 35 | 23 | 4.51 | -0.6 |
| Josh Hamilton | CF | .411 | .444 | .366 | .392 | 35 | 22 | 6.06 | 0.0 |
| Vladimir Guerrero | DH | .346 | .361 | .355 | .374 | 35 | 23 | 5.5 | 0.0 |
| Nelson Cruz | RF | .372 | .405 | .343 | .374 | 35 | 23 | 5.49 | 0.5 |
| Ian Kinsler | 2B | .380 | .357 | .352 | .357 | 32 | 21 | 4.59 | 0.2 |
| Mitch Moreland | 1B | .360 | .362 | .319 | .316 | 21 | 14 | 2.25 | 0.1 |
| Bengie Molina | C | .292 | .275 | .286 | .302 | 20 | 14 | 1.85 | 0.0 |
| Julio Borbon | LF | .304 | .287 | .314 | .297 | 1 | 1 | 0.09 | 0.0 |
| Andres Blanco | 2B | .326 | .298 | .311 | .297 | 1 | 1 | 0.09 | 0.0 |
| David Murphy | LF | .355 | .356 | .334 | .340 | 1 | 1 | 0.13 | 0.0 |
| Cristian Guzman | SS | .308 | .289 | .305 | .302 | 1 | 1 | 0.09 | 0.0 |
| Chris Davis | 1B | .279 | .267 | .286 | .319 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| Matt Treanor | C | .285 | .266 | .289 | .277 | 6 | 4 | 0.44 | 0.0 |
| Jorge Cantu | 1B | .301 | .302 | .317 | .330 | 5 | 3 | 0.6 | 0.0 |
wOBA: Weighted on-base average
PA: Plate appearances
Outs: calculated as (1- Proj OBP) times PA
BR: Linear weights batting runs over series estimate of playing time
Def: Projected defense over series estimate of playing time using an average of DRS, TZ, UZR and ZR
The Rangers offense isn’t great, but they’ve got some pretty good hitters and and a strong defensive team. One thing that they may benefit them is that they project slightly better against LHP.
| Vs. L | PA | wOBA | BR | Outs | |
| Elvis Andrus | 5.0 | .296 | 0.4 | 3.4 | |
| Michael Young | 4.7 | .356 | 0.7 | 3.0 | |
| Josh Hamilton | 4.0 | .365 | 0.6 | 2.6 | |
| Vladimir Guerrero | 4.0 | .391 | 0.7 | 2.5 | |
| Nelson Cruz | 4.0 | .387 | 0.7 | 2.6 | |
| Ian Kinsler | 4.0 | .378 | 0.6 | 2.5 | |
| Jorge Cantu | 4.0 | .340 | 0.5 | 2.7 | |
| Bengie Molina | 4.0 | .323 | 0.5 | 2.8 | |
| Jeff Francoeur | 4.0 | .331 | 0.5 | 2.9 | |
| Total | 37.7 | .350 | 5.2 | 25.0 | |
| Vs. R | PA | wOBA | BR | Outs | |
| Elvis Andrus | 5.0 | .278 | 0.4 | 3.5 | |
| Michael Young | 4.5 | .335 | 0.6 | 3.0 | |
| Josh Hamilton | 4.0 | .413 | 0.8 | 2.5 | |
| Vladimir Guerrero | 4.0 | .367 | 0.6 | 2.6 | |
| Nelson Cruz | 4.0 | .371 | 0.6 | 2.6 | |
| Ian Kinsler | 4.0 | .350 | 0.5 | 2.6 | |
| Mitch Moreland | 4.0 | .357 | 0.6 | 2.6 | |
| Bengie Molina | 4.0 | .292 | 0.3 | 2.9 | |
| Julio Borbon | 4.0 | .301 | 0.4 | 2.7 | |
| Total | 37.5 | .339 | 4.8 | 25.0 |
I’m assuming they would play Jeff Francoeur and Jorge Cantu against lefties since they project better than Julio Borbon and Mitch Moreland, but the Rangers may have reasons for not doing that. Even if they don’t, they still project better versus lefties, which is good for them since the Yankees would be starting lefties in four of the potential seven games.
Truth be told, the pitching staff is where the Rangers really shined in 2010. Here’s how they project.
| Pitcher | Role | 2010 RA | 2010 FIP | Proj RA | Proj FIP | IP | R |
| C.J. Wilson | SP1 | 3.66 | 3.59 | 3.93 | 3.68 | 13 | 5.7 |
| Colby Lewis | SP2 | 4.04 | 3.51 | 4.70 | 4.03 | 13 | 6.8 |
| Cliff Lee | SP3 | 3.56 | 2.59 | 3.75 | 3.40 | 15 | 6.2 |
| Tommy Hunter | SP4 | 3.87 | 4.99 | 5.19 | 4.98 | 5 | 2.9 |
| Neftali Feliz | CL | 2.73 | 2.97 | 3.51 | 3.06 | 4 | 1.6 |
| Darren O’Day | SU | 2.18 | 3.58 | 3.26 | 3.61 | 4 | 1.4 |
| Darren Oliver | MR | 2.97 | 2.64 | 3.41 | 3.43 | 4 | 1.5 |
| Derek Holland | MR | 4.71 | 4.04 | 5.94 | 4.63 | 2 | 1.3 |
| Alexi Ogando | MR | 1.33 | 3.16 | 3.75 | 3.77 | 2 | 0.8 |
| Dustin Nippert | MR | 4.37 | 4.95 | 5.47 | 4.97 | 1 | 0.6 |
2010/Proj RA: 2010/projected run allowed per nine innings
2010/Proj FIP: 2010/projected Fielding Independent Pitching
IP: Estimated innings pitched in this series
R: Estimated runs allowed in this series (Projected RA divided by nine times IP)
Obviously, we all know about Cliff Lee, the greatest postseason pitcher ever. Lee’s not scheduled to start until Game 3 though, with C.J. Wilson getting the nod in the opener and Colby Lewis following up in Game 2.
Wilson’s a lefty who was primarily a reliever the last few years, but was moved into the rotation this year and did very well. He may not be 3.35 ERA good, but he’s good.
Lewis was a pretty hot prospect a few years ago but put up a 6.71 ERA from 2002-2007 before winding up in Japan, where he pitched for the Hiroshima Carp in 2008 and 2009. Lewis pitched very well there and then made a triumphant return to MLB and put up a very good year. He doesn’t throw as hard as he did when he first came up, but he’s shown an improved slider and better command. His peripherals are in line with his performance too, so he looks like he’s a legitimately good pitcher now.
Cliff Lee has NEVER lost a postseason game. EVER. Think about how amazing that is. No one has every faced Cliff Lee in a postseason game and beaten him. In the entire history of baseball.
Seriously, we know Lee’s good, and the Yankees are probably going to have to beat him at least once if they want a shot at advancing.
I’m not sure if the Rangers will go with Tommy Hunter as their fourth starter, but it could be him or Matt Harrison I guess. Whomever it is, he’ll be better than A.J. Burnett at least.
Here are the Yankees’s position player projections. They’re the same as they were for the ALDS aside from adjusting the playing time to reflect a seven game series.
| Lineup | Pos | 2010 OBP | 2010 wOBA | Proj OBP | Proj wOBA | PA | Outs | BR | Def |
| Derek Jeter | SS | .339 | .322 | .361 | .346 | 30 | 19 | 3.99 | -0.4 |
| Nick Swisher | RF | .357 | .370 | .353 | .359 | 30 | 19 | 4.34 | 0.1 |
| Mark Teixeira | 1B | .366 | .369 | .372 | .388 | 30 | 19 | 5.09 | 0.2 |
| Alex Rodriguez | 3B | .341 | .360 | .369 | .388 | 30 | 19 | 5.09 | -0.1 |
| Robinson Cano | 2B | .382 | .394 | .356 | .376 | 30 | 19 | 4.77 | -0.1 |
| Jorge Posada | C | .358 | .358 | .361 | .367 | 26 | 17 | 3.93 | -0.1 |
| Curtis Granderson | CF | .323 | .343 | .334 | .348 | 25 | 17 | 3.37 | 0.2 |
| Lance Berkman | DH | .368 | .350 | .381 | .384 | 20 | 12 | 3.32 | 0.0 |
| Brett Gardner | LF | .379 | .358 | .356 | .325 | 20 | 13 | 2.3 | 0.4 |
| Francisco Cervelli | C | .350 | .311 | .314 | .296 | 5 | 3 | 0.45 | 0.0 |
| Marcus Thames | DH | .352 | .364 | .310 | .340 | 16 | 11 | 2.05 | 0.0 |
| Austin Kearns | RF | .351 | .336 | .335 | .326 | 5 | 3 | 0.58 | 0.0 |
| Ramiro Pena | SS | .256 | .237 | .296 | .274 | 3 | 2 | 0.21 | 0.0 |
| Greg Golson | RF | .261 | .226 | .265 | .268 | 1 | 1 | 0.07 | 0.1 |
There’s really not much I can tell you here that you don’t already know. Expect to see Thames against lefties and Berkman against righties at DH, and I have a hunch that Francisco Cervelli will get a start with Burnett since they had such good chemistry this year.
And the pitching projections, again just adjusted for a seven game series.
| Pitcher | Role | 2010 RA | 2010 FIP | Proj RA | Proj FIP | IP | R |
| CC Sabathia | SP1 | 3.48 | 3.55 | 3.48 | 3.39 | 14 | 5.4 |
| Phil Hughes | SP2 | 4.24 | 4.29 | 4.56 | 4.12 | 12 | 6.1 |
| Andy Pettitte | SP3 | 3.63 | 3.96 | 4.35 | 3.97 | 13 | 6.3 |
| A.J. Burnett | SP4 | 5.69 | 4.81 | 5.11 | 4.68 | 5 | 2.8 |
| Mariano Rivera | CL | 2.10 | 2.85 | 2.43 | 2.77 | 4 | 1.1 |
| David Robertson | SU | 3.54 | 3.54 | 3.97 | 3.39 | 4 | 1.8 |
| Kerry Wood | MR | 3.33 | 4.09 | 3.99 | 3.95 | 4 | 1.8 |
| Joba Chamberlain | MR | 4.58 | 2.94 | 4.70 | 3.94 | 3 | 1.6 |
| Boone Logan | MR | 2.97 | 3.73 | 4.55 | 4.24 | 3 | 1.5 |
| Sergio Mitre | MR | 3.91 | 4.79 | 5.21 | 4.52 | 1 | 0.6 |
| Dustin Moseley | MR | 4.77 | 5.81 | 5.88 | 5.53 | 0 | 0.0 |
| Total | 63 | 28.9 | |||||
| 63 |
The Yankees will go with CC Sabathia, Phil Hughes, Andy Pettitte and Burnett in the first four scheduled games, which sets up Sabathia, Hughes and Pettitte to pitch in Games 5-7 if necessary. Expect to see most of the relief innings going to Mo, Kerry Wood, Dave Robertson and Boone Logan primarily, perhaps with some Joba Chamberlain mixed in.
On paper, the Yankees are probably the better team. However, if we factor in the fact that the Rangers are better against LHP and the Yankees are worse against LHP, that narrows the gap some. Since the Rangers did the honorable thing by winning their division, they get home field advantage in this series, which narrows the gap a hair more.
I received an email asking me about this article at Fangraphs by Dave Cameron saying that there was no difference in win probability between Cliff Lee starting Games 1 and 5 versus 3 and 7 and running some simulations to show that it’s false. The only problem is, it’s not false. A team’s probability of winning a series is the sum of their probabilities of winning each game, and the order doesn’t matter, assuming playing time is the same. If you want to argue that starting Lee earlier means you have the potential to use him more later in the series, then I suppose that’s possible, but aside from that, it doesn’t matter which games he starts.
| Team | Offense | Defense | Pitching | Pythagenpat | p162 |
| Rangers | 35.2 | 0.4 | 28.9 | .603 | 98 |
| VS | |||||
| Yankees | 39.6 | 0.3 | 28.9 | .647 | 105 |
Pythagenpat: Estimated win percentage based on projected offense/defense + pitching, adjusted for home field advantage
p162: Pythagenpat times 162 games (full season win equivalency)
Anyway, based on these depth charts and accounting for HFA, the Rangers look like around a 98 win team and the Yankees look like around a 105 win team. So what happens if they play the ALCS 10,000 times?
Rangers: 45.2%
Yankees: 54.8%
Which is all just a fancy way of saying Rangers in 3.
NY Daily News: Phil Hughes takes ball for Yankees in Game 2 of ALCS
Phil Hughes will start Game 2 of the ALCS in Texas. That was the only surprise in the ALCS rotation the Yankees released Wednesday night.
In the AL division series, the 24-year-old righthander was the third starter, and veteran lefty Andy Pettitte started Game 2. This time, Pettitte will start Game 3 Monday at Yankee Stadium. As expected, A.J. Burnett will start Game 4 despite his wild simulated game Wednesday.
...
Obviously, the Yankees looked at Hughes’ history in Texas and could not resist it. In three career appearances (two starts) at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Hughes has never given up a run. He is 2-0, has allowed three hits and walked four in 15-1/3 innings.
...
The Yankees also released their roster for the ALCS. There are no changes from the division series.
Since Texas is less susceptible to LHP, I like the idea of using Hughes second. I don’t think his history in Texas has any predictive value though, and I would kind of like it if Joe Girardi didn’t think it did either. So it looks like the rotation will be CC Sabathia in Game 1, Hughes in Game 2, Andy Pettitte in Game 3, and A.J. Burnett in Texas’s clincher. If by some miracle Texas hasn’t clinched after four games, you have Sabathia in Game 5, Hughes in Game 6 back in Texas, and Pettitte in a potential Game 7.
Speaking of Burnett’s wild simulated game, Yankees hurler A.J. Burnett hits Greg Golson and Austin Kearns with pitches in wild simulated start:
Even in a simulated game against Curtis Granderson and some Bomber benchwarmers, Burnett was less than stellar, reinforcing the fact that he’s the weak link in the Yankee rotation. His very first pitch flew over catcher Francisco Cervelli’s head, and his fifth plunked Greg Golson on the left arm. Joe Girardi and pitching coach Dave Eiland looked on from behind the mound as Burnett hit two batters - he also plunked Austin Kearns - and displayed iffy control, throwing around 80 pitches in four-plus simulated innings.
“They know I didn’t mean to do it,” a sheepish Burnett said of hitting Golson and Kearns. “But it’s still not a good feeling.”
No A.J., it’s not a good feeling.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
2010 ALCS Schedule
The prospect of needing to use a fourth starter in the ALCS terrifies me, because it’d mean A.J. Burnett starting a postseason game. However, looking at the ALCS schedule, the Yankees could get away with a three man rotation but it’d require using CC Sabathia on three days rest twice, and Andy Pettitte and Phil Hughes on three days rest once each.
| Series | Date | Starter? |
| Game 1 - NYY @ TB/TEX | Friday, October 15 | Sabathia |
| Game 2 - NYY @ TB/TEX | Saturday, October 16 | Pettitte |
| Sunday, October 17 | ||
| Game 3 - TB/TEX @ NYY | Monday, October 18 | Hughes |
| Game 4 - TB/TEX @ NYY | Tuesday, October 19 | Sabathia |
| Game 5* - TB/TEX @ NYY | Wednesday, October 20 | Pettitte |
| Thursday, October 21 | ||
| Game 6* - NYY @ TB/TEX | Friday, October 22 | Hughes |
| Game 7* - NYY @ TB/TEX | Saturday, October 23 | Sabathia |
I’m fairly certain Sabathia would be up to the task. I don’t know if the Yankees feel Pettitte’s health and Hughes’s innings limit preclude them from being used in this manner. I’d guess they’d be fluid on this and figure out how to run the rotation for games 5-7 (if needed) based on how the series has shaped up.
I really hope it doesn’t go seven games though, since I have to be in a wedding on October 23. That’s the problem with having Mets fans for friends, they can schedule a wedding in the middle of October and know it won’t matter for them.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Yankees.com: Punishing Twins in three, Yanks barrel into ALCS
Phil Hughes took the ball for his first career playoff start feeling like it was going to be his biggest assignment of the year, and the young right-hander came through to help the Yankees finish off a three-game sweep of the Twins in the American League Division Series. The series win marks the first time that the Yankees have advanced past the ALDS as a Wild Card entrant.
Hughes pitched seven scoreless innings of four-hit ball as the Yankees defeated the Twins, 6-1, in Game 3 of the ALDS on Saturday at Yankee Stadium, popping the corks as they advanced past the first round for the second successive season.
If you needed evidence that a stretch of poor play shouldn’t change our assessment of how good a team is, you’ve got it.
I know Hughes has had better statistical lines in prior games, but given the importance of this game I think this is the best game he’s ever pitched as a starter. He was efficient, he was aggressive, and he was dominant.
| Pitch Type | Avg Speed | Max Speed | Avg H-Break | Avg V-Break | Count | Strikes / % | Swinging Strikes / % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FF (FourSeam Fastball) | 92.02 | 94.2 | -5.74 | 9.01 | 72 | 52 / 72.22% | 8 / 11.11% |
| CH (Changeup) | 84.25 | 84.4 | -9.89 | 5.79 | 2 | 2 / 100.00% | 0 / 0.00% |
| CU (Curveball) | 74.27 | 76.5 | 4.79 | -10.55 | 18 | 7 / 38.89% | 1 / 5.56% |
| FC (Cutter) | 87.31 | 90.2 | -0.39 | 5.27 | 7 | 6 / 85.71% | 0 / 0.00% |
I like how much he used the curveball. Even if it wasn’t effective in and of itself, part of being a successful starting pitcher is keeping hitters guessing, and the change of speed and movement of Hughes’s curve should only help make his other pitches more effective.
That Rivera kid that pitched the ninth looks like he’s got a shot to be pretty good too.
I find it somewhat gratifying that Lance Berkman and Marcus Thames both got big hits that helped the Yankees win the last two games. The Yankees gambled with Nick Johnson and lost, but thanks to getting Thames on the team to start the year and trading for Berkman later, they’ve gotten some key contributions out of DH, both during the regular season and so far in the postseason.
But mainly, I’m just happy to see the Yankees’ chance at winning it all extended for at least another four games.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
First Draft of the Postseason Roster
I still need to run my projections and do this with more effort, but I figured we could start goofing around with a what a potential 25 man roster for the postseason could look like.
First, here are the locks:
Starting Pitchers (4)
Sabathia
Pettitte
Hughes
Burnett
Relief Pitchers (5)
Mo
Robertson
Wood
Chamberlain
Logan
Catchers (2)
Posada
Cervelli
Infielders (4)
Cano
Jeter
Teixeira
Rodriguez
Outfielders (3)
Gardner
Granderson
Swisher
DH (2)
Berkman
Thames
That’s 20, which leaves five spots open to fill out the bullpen and bench. They’re probably going to carry at least one long reliever, and the best candidate for that is probably Javier Vazquez. If they’re playing Minnesota, they may want to take Royce Ring as a second lefty to deal with Jim Thome. Against Texas it’s less of an issue as most of their best players are RH. I really think they should try Nova out of the pen a couple of times during the last few games and see if he can be a second long man, one with a fastball that can crack 88 mph.
They’re almost certainly going to take one of Ramiro Pena/Eduardo Nunez and possibly both. Although Thames is in theory a candidate for the outfield, if they’re smart they’ll try to avoid putting him out there at all costs. 0 So that probably opens up a spot for Greg Golson as a defensive replacement and pinch-runner. Update: I forgot about Austin Kearns, he’d probably get this spot instead of Golson.
So the 20 locks plus Vazquez, Ring, one of Pena/Nunez and Kearns leaves one open spot. I’d like to see Nova get it.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Yankees.com: Yanks’ five-run first the difference vs. Rays
NEW YORK—Phil Hughes pitched into the seventh inning and the Yankees got two-run doubles from Lance Berkman and Robinson Cano to defeat the Rays, 8-3, on Tuesday at Yankee Stadium, further extending their lead in the American League East race.
I realize Hughes hasn’t pitched as well over the last three months as he did over the first two months of the year, but let’s look at the big picture and how he’s pitched overall this year.
| ip | h | r | er | hr | bb | so | hbp | ra | era | fip |
| 169.1 | 159 | 82 | 81 | 25 | 54 | 140 | 0 | 4.36 | 4.31 | 4.42 |
What Hughes did in April and May counts just as much as what he’s done since then, and the overall ledger is pretty damn good for a 24 year old pitcher in his first full season as a starter. It’s also important to note that ERA underrates Hughes, who has only allowed one unearned run. A pitcher with an RA of 4.36 will generally have an ERA of 4.19. This is why I suggest using RA instead of ERA for a pitcher. All runs count.
Entering this season, I felt that the most important thing Hughes needed to was stay healthy and effective enough to pitch a full season in the rotation, and he’s certainly headed there now. He’s going to have to work on refining his pitch selection and sequencing to improve, but I’m cautiously optimistic about his future.
Hell, I was optimistic enough to re-up our sponsorship of his Baseball Reference page.
Still not sure he’ll be nails in the postseason, but I am never sure of anyone or anything in the postseason.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
NY Times: A Total Loss in Texas Before the Yankees Head to a Showdown Series
ARLINGTON, Tex. — The visiting clubhouse at Rangers Ballpark has an eclectic décor: a few neon beer signs, a flag of Texas, a set of longhorns, some motivational sayings. One hangs above the primary bank of lockers.
It reads, “The road to success is always under construction.” So the Yankees learned this weekend, when the Texas Rangers sent them reeling into a crucial series at Tampa Bay with a three-game sweep.
If you want to know why the Yankees losing two of three to Baltimore before embarking on this road trip pissed me off, this series with Texas is Exhibit A. It’s hard to win games on the road, especially against good teams.
If the Yankees still want to win the AL East, they probably have to take two of three from Tampa Bay in this upcoming series. If they could actually beat Toronto the way Tampa Bay has they wouldn’t have to, but since they can’t then that’s probably what they have to do. However, given the way Joe Girardi’s managing lately, I’m not so sure they’re really going all out for the division.
Pitching matchups for the three games vs. Tampa Bay are:
Monday, September 13
Sabathia vs. Price
Tuesday, September 14
Nova vs. Garza
Wednesday, September 15
Hughes vs. Shields
I guess the fact that neither Vazquez nor Burnett is pitching is good. I can’t see the Yankees winning both of the final two games though, so let’s hope CC can help them take the opener.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Phil Hughes and his Home Field Disadvantage
Phil Hughes stormed out of the gate this season, winning 10 of his first 11 decisions and putting up an RA of 3.17 through through his first 13 games. Opposing batters hit .224/.281/.329 over that stretch.
However, hidden in those first 13 starts was something that’s starting to become more and more apparent, and that was the fact that Hughes has not pitched as well at home as he had on the road.
| Split | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | FB% | GB% | LD% |
| Home | 43.7 | 36 | 18 | 18 | 7 | 14 | 40 | 45.5% | 35.0% | 19.5% |
| Road | 38.7 | 32 | 11 | 11 | 0 | 11 | 38 | 45.2% | 33.7% | 21.2% |
| Total | 82.3 | 68 | 29 | 29 | 7 | 25 | 78 | 45.4% | 34.4% | 20.3% |
| Split | HR/FB | BIP | BABIP | RA | ERA | FIP | xFIP | Stk% | BB/BF | K/BF |
| Home | 12.5% | 123 | .250 | 3.71 | 3.71 | 4.41 | 4.16 | 67.0% | 7.9% | 22.6% |
| Road | 0.0% | 104 | .308 | 2.56 | 2.56 | 2.09 | 3.83 | 69.3% | 7.1% | 24.7% |
| Total | 6.8% | 227 | .277 | 3.17 | 3.17 | 3.32 | 4.01 | 68.0% | 7.6% | 23.6% |
FB%: Percentage of batted balls that were fly balls
GB%: Percentage of batted balls that were ground balls
LD%: Percentage of batted balls that were line drives
HR/FB: Percentage of fly balls that were home runs
BABIP: Batting average on balls in play
FIP: Fielding-independent pitching
xFIP: FIP using league average HR/FB rate
Stk%: Percentage of pitchers that were strikes
BB/BF: Percentage of batters faced who walked
K/BF: Percentage of batters who struck out
Hughes’s batted ball types against and other peripherals were pretty consistent home and away, but at home he’d given up all seven of the home runs he’d allowed to this point. Because of that, the disparity between his home and road FIP was pretty large. If we adjust for the big difference in his HR/FB rate by using xFIP, which substitutes the league average rate of 11.1% HR/FB for actual HRs allowed and regresses BABIP to league average, the gap between his home and road performance narrows quite a bit.
So although there was a big difference in his results to this point, it wasn’t necessarily really indicative of anything other than small sample size fluctuation.
Unfortunately, since then Hughes’s performance has fallen off markedly.
| Split | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | FB% | GB% | LD% |
| Home | 50.3 | 56 | 34 | 33 | 12 | 16 | 33 | 52.7% | 33.9% | 13.3% |
| Road | 22.7 | 25 | 12 | 12 | 3 | 8 | 17 | 44.0% | 38.7% | 17.3% |
| Total | 73.0 | 81 | 46 | 45 | 15 | 24 | 50 | 50.0% | 35.4% | 14.6% |
| Split | HR/FB | BIP | BABIP | RA | ERA | FIP | xFIP | Stk% | BB/BF | K/BF |
| Home | 13.8% | 165 | .288 | 6.08 | 5.90 | 5.94 | 5.31 | 63.8% | 7.4% | 15.3% |
| Road | 9.1% | 75 | .306 | 4.76 | 4.76 | 4.48 | 4.84 | 66.9% | 7.9% | 16.8% |
| Total | 12.5% | 240 | .293 | 5.67 | 5.55 | 5.49 | 5.17 | 64.8% | 7.6% | 15.8% |
Hughes has been much worse overall since then, but his performance at home has gotten even worse. He’s allowed both a higher rate of fly balls combined with a higher than average rate of HR/FB. Suffice it to say, that’s a combination that is not conducive to success. His road HR/FB has corrected to be closer towards league average as well, although you can still see the gap in his peformance if you look at his FIP and xFIP.
As far as why this is happening, I have no idea. Is he tiring? Has the league adjusted to him? Are his mechanics out of wack? It could be any of these things in addition to multitudes of others. Possibly all of them in some sort of combination.
In the big picture, we need to look at everything Hughes has done this year, because that tells us more than two samples chosen using selective endpoints.
| Split | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | FB% | GB% | LD% |
| Home | 94.0 | 92 | 52 | 51 | 19 | 30 | 73 | 49.7% | 34.4% | 16.0% |
| Road | 61.3 | 57 | 23 | 23 | 3 | 19 | 55 | 44.7% | 35.8% | 19.6% |
| Total | 155.3 | 149 | 75 | 74 | 22 | 49 | 128 | 47.8% | 34.9% | 17.3% |
| Split | HR/FB | BIP | BABIP | RA | ERA | FIP | xFIP | Stk% | BB/BF | K/BF |
| Home | 13.3% | 288 | .271 | 4.98 | 4.88 | 5.23 | 4.78 | 65.2% | 7.7% | 18.6% |
| Road | 3.8% | 179 | .307 | 3.38 | 3.38 | 2.97 | 4.20 | 68.3% | 7.5% | 21.6% |
| Total | 9.9% | 467 | .285 | 4.35 | 4.29 | 4.34 | 4.55 | 66.5% | 7.6% | 19.8% |
The difference in his batted ball types at home and on the road is not really statistically significant.
| Std | FB% | GB% | LD% |
| 2 | 54.1% | 40.4% | 21.2% |
| 1 | 50.9% | 37.6% | 19.3% |
| Mean | 47.8% | 34.9% | 17.3% |
| -1 | 44.6% | 32.2% | 15.4% |
| -2 | 41.4% | 29.4% | 13.5% |
We shouldn’t necessarily think that Hughes has some kind of issue that prevents him from pitching well at home. Players do generally pitch better at home than on the road, so if anything we should probably expect that Hughes would do the same going forward unless we see more evidence that he can’t.
Still, I have to admit that the specter of Hughes starting in the postseason right now is not exactly one that fills me with warm fuzzies, if by some miracle the Yankees get there. But I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that he pitches well enough over the rest of the year to deserve the chance.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Yankees.com: Long ball burdens Hughes as Yanks cooled
NEW YORK—Phil Hughes served up three home runs, and the Yankees saw their eight-game winning streak halted in a 7-3 loss to the Blue Jays on Sunday.
It was the second time this season that Hughes had surrendered a trio of long balls, and both have come against the Blue Jays—an unsurprising fact given Toronto’s stranglehold on the Major League lead in home runs. Vernon Wells, Aaron Hill and John Buck were the perpetrators on Sunday, with the first two blasting particularly frustrating two-run shots on 0-2 counts.
“Two 0-2 pitches cost him the game,” manager Joe Girardi said. “He wasn’t too bad. But when you make those mistakes 0-2 against a club that, when you make those mistakes they’re usually home runs, it cost him the game.”
“Those are the two worst pitches I made in the game,” said Hughes. “This team pounces on mistakes, and that’s what they did today.”
It’s a good thing that mistakes are easy to overcome in the postseason.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Yankees.com: Yanks close August alone in first
NEW YORK—Mark Teixeira crushed a three-run homer and Nick Swisher and Curtis Granderson also went deep, leading the Yankees to a 9-3 pounding of the Athletics on Tuesday at Yankee Stadium.
By virtue of the Rays’ loss to the Blue Jays, the Yankees enter September with sole possession of first place in the American League East.
Teixeira cracked the game open with his fourth-inning shot off A’s starter Vin Mazzaro, reaching the second deck of right-field seats for his 30th home run of the season and second in as many games.
With the blast, Teixeira became just the sixth Yankees player all-time to hit at least 30 homers in each of his first two seasons after joining the club, a feat also accomplished by Babe Ruth, Roger Maris, Jason Giambi, Alex Rodriguez and Gary Sheffield.
I’d suggest the Yankees rent in first place and not buy, because they’ll be out of first by Thursday.
That being said, the next time someone tells you that Brian Cashman is a horrible GM who only appears competent because of his payroll advantage, remind them that he turned the tattered remains of what used to be Scott Proctor’s right arm into Nick Swisher.
Hughes was meh, but he’s also now cracked his prior career high for IP in a season, so I’d expect him to struggle a bit now.
In unrelated news, Aroldis Chapman has hit 103 mph twice in his first inning in MLB. Let’s ignore the fact that he signed for about the same cost that the Yankees paid for Kei Igawa, and just be happy that the fans of a team that’s not considered a large market team get to enjoy having a top talent pitching for them.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
NJ.com: Carig: As pennant race heats up, Yankees face pitching decisions
A string of five ineffective starts has caught up to the veteran right-hander, who may have started his last game for the Yankees. Manager Joe Girardi said on Tuesday that Vazquez is going to be skipped on Sunday in favor of rookie Ivan Nova.
I approve.
“I saw a toughness, I saw a resiliency,” said Girardi, who believes Nova’s stuff is better than what he showed against the Blue Jays. “It’s only one start and you don’t want to make too much of it but he got the bases loaded with nobody out and Vernon Wells up. He could have caved right there. But he didn’t. He continued to make pitches.”
I just saw the fact that he was not Vazquez, which works for me.
“We’ll be flexible with Hughes as we’re moving down the stretch here,” Girardi said. “You never know what he’ll give you every night so you don’t want to get too locked in.”
Something to keep in mind: Vazquez’s presence in the bullpen could make it easier to shorten Hughes’ starts to keep him under the cap.
Unless you want to win the games, of course.
Also, Girardi said the team is likely to stay at 13 pitchers for the rest of the month.
Sure, if you’re missing your cleanup hitter as well as your starting DH, add more people to the bullpen.
Although I guess it’s only for six more days.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Who Are the Best 2010 AL Cy Young Candidates Through Games of August 20
Since rilkefan asked about Trevor Cahill being a Cy Young Candidate in a previous thread, I figured I’d do a quick comparison of the pitchers who should be in the running for the Cy Young Award.
In my mind, the most important statistic to look at when evaluating a pitcher’s value to his team is RA, simply because it is an exact match to how many runs a pitcher has allowed per nine innings. While it does get influenced by the errors made behind a pitcher, as far as I’m concerned the pitcher is still responsible for what happens after an error is made. Suppose a pitcher gets two outs in an inning, at which point an error is committed on a play that would have ended the inning. If the pitcher proceeds to give up ten runs, ERA would ignore those runs, whereas RA would not.
That being said, when looking at who should be mentioned in the Cy Young, we do want to try and avoid penalizing a pitcher too much for his defensive support or lack thereof. For that reason, I usually like to also look at a pitcher’s FIP, which focuses only on the HRs, BBs and strikeouts of a pitcher while regressing the batting average on balls in play against them to league average.
That’s not ideal either, because there IS a skill component to a pitcher’s BABIP against. It’s just that you need a very big sample to ascertain it. Over at the Book Blog, MGL wrote a nice summary about understanding DIPS (defense independent pitching stats that explains this in more detail.
Using FIP as the exclusive measure of a pitcher’s value is just not common sense to me, because it moves a little too far into the abstract when compared to what actually happened on the field. So I would never use it by itself.
I think the stat that bridges the gap between RA and FIP in a way that I like is component ERA. Component ERA takes a look at everything a pitcher’s allowed and converts it to a linear weights run value. The advantage of this is you give the pitcher credit if he does have BABIP skill, and you remove the impact of the bullpen support they may get. I find this especially useful for relievers, since a reliever can give up a bunch of runs when relieving another pitcher with men on base that don’t get charged directly to him. It also looks at the big picture by ignoring the sequence in which events happen, which is something that can be missed by RA. A pitcher who walks the bases loaded and gives up a grand slam is probably not four times worse than a pitcher who gives up a solo homer followed by three BBs, but that’s what RA would tell you.
The problem with component ERA is that you don’t necessarily want to absolve the pitcher of his responsibility of a bad sequence, and it does not account for the defense behind the pitcher.
So, my preference is to calculate the runs saved above a replacement level pitcher using RA, FIP and CERA and then take the average of them. So here’s what that looks like:
| Player | Team | Lg | Role | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | CERA | RSAR | FRSAR | CRSAR | aRSAR |
| Cliff Lee | - - - | AL | SP | 169.0 | 150 | 57 | 52 | 9 | 10 | 147 | 3.04 | 2.77 | 2.35 | 1.71 | 46.2 | 53.3 | 52.0 | 50.5 |
| Jon Lester | Red Sox | AL | SP | 161.0 | 127 | 55 | 50 | 10 | 55 | 165 | 3.07 | 2.80 | 3.13 | 2.32 | 47.3 | 40.5 | 38.8 | 42.2 |
| Felix Hernandez | Mariners | AL | SP | 189.0 | 163 | 68 | 55 | 13 | 52 | 172 | 3.24 | 2.62 | 3.19 | 2.65 | 41.7 | 36.4 | 38.5 | 38.8 |
| John Danks | White Sox | AL | SP | 162.3 | 137 | 62 | 60 | 10 | 49 | 125 | 3.44 | 3.33 | 3.40 | 2.33 | 41.1 | 35.9 | 38.9 | 38.6 |
| CC Sabathia | Yankees | AL | SP | 181.7 | 165 | 70 | 63 | 15 | 61 | 143 | 3.47 | 3.12 | 3.77 | 2.93 | 45.4 | 32.7 | 31.4 | 36.5 |
| Francisco Liriano | Twins | AL | SP | 151.3 | 144 | 58 | 58 | 3 | 50 | 165 | 3.45 | 3.45 | 2.43 | 2.76 | 33.5 | 45.5 | 29.1 | 36.0 |
| Colby Lewis | Rangers | AL | SP | 155.0 | 131 | 60 | 58 | 15 | 50 | 154 | 3.48 | 3.37 | 3.54 | 2.65 | 39.4 | 32.9 | 31.6 | 34.6 |
| Jered Weaver | Angels | AL | SP | 168.0 | 141 | 65 | 58 | 20 | 43 | 186 | 3.48 | 3.11 | 3.30 | 2.68 | 35.6 | 33.2 | 33.7 | 34.2 |
| Clay Buchholz | Red Sox | AL | SP | 133.3 | 109 | 43 | 35 | 7 | 50 | 89 | 2.90 | 2.36 | 3.76 | 2.41 | 41.7 | 24.2 | 30.7 | 32.2 |
| C.J. Wilson | Rangers | AL | SP | 149.3 | 115 | 59 | 53 | 8 | 70 | 116 | 3.56 | 3.19 | 3.93 | 2.57 | 36.8 | 25.1 | 31.8 | 31.2 |
| Justin Verlander | Tigers | AL | SP | 162.3 | 141 | 69 | 68 | 11 | 62 | 152 | 3.83 | 3.77 | 3.45 | 2.83 | 31.2 | 32.3 | 29.8 | 31.1 |
| Trevor Cahill | Athletics | AL | SP | 148.7 | 103 | 49 | 42 | 13 | 44 | 86 | 2.97 | 2.54 | 4.17 | 2.14 | 38.2 | 13.4 | 38.7 | 30.1 |
| Carl Pavano | Twins | AL | SP | 174.0 | 172 | 70 | 68 | 16 | 29 | 100 | 3.62 | 3.52 | 3.83 | 2.99 | 35.2 | 25.2 | 29.0 | 29.8 |
| Ricky Romero | Blue Jays | AL | SP | 160.0 | 145 | 68 | 61 | 11 | 58 | 136 | 3.83 | 3.43 | 3.58 | 3.00 | 29.7 | 28.6 | 26.5 | 28.3 |
| David Price | Rays | AL | SP | 151.7 | 127 | 55 | 48 | 10 | 64 | 141 | 3.26 | 2.85 | 3.54 | 2.94 | 34.0 | 24.2 | 26.1 | 28.1 |
| Gavin Floyd | White Sox | AL | SP | 156.3 | 158 | 75 | 69 | 11 | 48 | 129 | 4.32 | 3.97 | 3.44 | 3.13 | 24.3 | 33.9 | 23.6 | 27.3 |
| Zack Greinke | Royals | AL | SP | 166.0 | 162 | 83 | 72 | 15 | 37 | 139 | 4.50 | 3.90 | 3.50 | 2.98 | 20.4 | 33.1 | 27.7 | 27.1 |
| Gio Gonzalez | Athletics | AL | SP | 154.0 | 129 | 61 | 58 | 10 | 70 | 127 | 3.56 | 3.39 | 3.80 | 2.99 | 29.3 | 20.2 | 25.5 | 25.0 |
| Mark Buehrle | White Sox | AL | SP | 160.3 | 178 | 74 | 69 | 13 | 35 | 68 | 4.15 | 3.87 | 4.06 | 3.33 | 27.9 | 23.7 | 20.6 | 24.1 |
| Phil Hughes | Yankees | AL | SP | 140.7 | 132 | 62 | 61 | 18 | 38 | 116 | 3.97 | 3.90 | 4.02 | 3.12 | 27.4 | 21.4 | 21.3 | 23.4 |
| Andy Pettitte | Yankees | AL | SP | 115.7 | 101 | 41 | 37 | 12 | 38 | 90 | 3.19 | 2.88 | 4.06 | 2.93 | 32.5 | 17.2 | 20.0 | 23.2 |
| Jason Vargas | Mariners | AL | SP | 145.7 | 132 | 53 | 51 | 14 | 42 | 92 | 3.27 | 3.15 | 4.07 | 3.02 | 31.5 | 13.8 | 23.7 | 23.0 |
| Shaun Marcum | Blue Jays | AL | SP | 144.0 | 134 | 63 | 59 | 18 | 33 | 120 | 3.94 | 3.69 | 3.95 | 3.14 | 25.0 | 19.8 | 21.6 | 22.1 |
| Dallas Braden | Athletics | AL | SP | 136.0 | 131 | 59 | 52 | 13 | 26 | 86 | 3.90 | 3.44 | 3.82 | 3.05 | 20.8 | 17.5 | 21.7 | 20.0 |
| Jeremy Guthrie | Orioles | AL | SP | 161.0 | 152 | 75 | 71 | 19 | 42 | 84 | 4.19 | 3.97 | 4.68 | 3.25 | 25.3 | 10.9 | 22.1 | 19.5 |
| Jeff Niemann | Rays | AL | SP | 141.3 | 121 | 50 | 49 | 19 | 44 | 102 | 3.18 | 3.12 | 4.54 | 3.31 | 32.9 | 6.8 | 18.5 | 19.4 |
| Brian Duensing | Twins | AL | RP | 76.3 | 61 | 18 | 17 | 5 | 19 | 42 | 2.12 | 2.00 | 3.78 | 2.22 | 26.4 | 11.4 | 19.2 | 19.0 |
| Brett Cecil | Blue Jays | AL | SP | 125.0 | 112 | 57 | 55 | 13 | 39 | 89 | 4.10 | 3.96 | 4.06 | 3.00 | 19.4 | 15.6 | 20.7 | 18.5 |
| Brandon Morrow | Blue Jays | AL | SP | 131.3 | 121 | 68 | 65 | 10 | 60 | 153 | 4.66 | 4.45 | 3.39 | 3.48 | 12.2 | 26.2 | 14.7 | 17.7 |
| Mariano Rivera | Yankees | AL | RP | 44.3 | 24 | 7 | 5 | 1 | 7 | 37 | 1.42 | 1.02 | 2.50 | 0.49 | 19.3 | 14.1 | 19.7 | 17.7 |
| Matt Garza | Rays | AL | SP | 156.3 | 139 | 68 | 65 | 21 | 47 | 124 | 3.91 | 3.74 | 4.40 | 3.46 | 23.7 | 10.1 | 17.7 | 17.2 |
| Joaquin Benoit | Rays | AL | RP | 44.0 | 20 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 7 | 61 | 1.23 | 1.23 | 2.09 | 0.54 | 18.1 | 14.0 | 19.3 | 17.1 |
| Max Scherzer | Tigers | AL | SP | 137.7 | 127 | 66 | 59 | 15 | 56 | 126 | 4.31 | 3.86 | 4.12 | 3.58 | 18.9 | 17.2 | 13.8 | 16.6 |
| Daisuke Matsuzaka | Red Sox | AL | SP | 110.0 | 96 | 53 | 51 | 9 | 51 | 95 | 4.34 | 4.17 | 4.06 | 3.15 | 16.9 | 16.2 | 16.3 | 16.5 |
| Darren O’Day | Rangers | AL | RP | 49.0 | 35 | 9 | 8 | 1 | 10 | 30 | 1.65 | 1.47 | 3.16 | 1.42 | 20.4 | 12.3 | 16.7 | 16.4 |
| Daniel Bard | Red Sox | AL | RP | 54.7 | 31 | 13 | 12 | 5 | 20 | 57 | 2.14 | 1.98 | 3.46 | 1.58 | 19.4 | 11.6 | 17.7 | 16.2 |
| Kevin Slowey | Twins | AL | SP | 134.3 | 140 | 64 | 63 | 17 | 25 | 98 | 4.29 | 4.22 | 4.03 | 3.52 | 17.2 | 16.4 | 14.5 | 16.0 |
| Joel Pineiro | Angels | AL | SP | 131.3 | 140 | 62 | 61 | 13 | 32 | 83 | 4.25 | 4.18 | 3.98 | 3.53 | 16.6 | 16.1 | 14.0 | 15.6 |
| Francisco Rodriguez | Angels | AL | RP | 36.3 | 33 | 16 | 16 | 3 | 16 | 31 | 3.96 | 3.96 | 3.97 | 3.34 | 23.3 | 16.9 | 4.6 | 14.9 |
| John Lackey | Red Sox | AL | SP | 161.7 | 186 | 87 | 83 | 14 | 59 | 104 | 4.84 | 4.62 | 4.23 | 4.04 | 15.7 | 21.0 | 7.9 | 14.9 |
| Doug Fister | Mariners | AL | SP | 121.7 | 130 | 57 | 53 | 9 | 23 | 65 | 4.22 | 3.92 | 3.76 | 3.37 | 13.6 | 15.8 | 15.1 | 14.8 |
| Jake Peavy | White Sox | AL | SP | 107.0 | 98 | 55 | 55 | 13 | 34 | 93 | 4.63 | 4.63 | 4.13 | 3.21 | 13.0 | 15.0 | 15.1 | 14.4 |
| Fausto Carmona | Indians | AL | SP | 156.3 | 160 | 82 | 72 | 10 | 54 | 84 | 4.72 | 4.14 | 4.17 | 3.60 | 11.6 | 15.9 | 15.4 | 14.3 |
| Joakim Soria | Royals | AL | RP | 51.0 | 45 | 11 | 11 | 4 | 14 | 55 | 1.94 | 1.94 | 3.00 | 2.55 | 18.7 | 12.8 | 11.0 | 14.1 |
| Rafael Soriano | Rays | AL | RP | 47.3 | 29 | 11 | 9 | 3 | 10 | 40 | 2.09 | 1.71 | 3.03 | 1.18 | 14.9 | 10.1 | 17.4 | 14.1 |
| Ervin Santana | Angels | AL | SP | 167.0 | 166 | 79 | 73 | 22 | 55 | 131 | 4.26 | 3.93 | 4.51 | 3.91 | 21.0 | 10.6 | 10.7 | 14.1 |
| Matt Thornton | White Sox | AL | RP | 47.3 | 37 | 14 | 14 | 3 | 15 | 64 | 2.66 | 2.66 | 2.40 | 2.23 | 14.1 | 15.6 | 11.9 | 13.8 |
| Darren Oliver | Rangers | AL | RP | 49.7 | 42 | 17 | 14 | 3 | 13 | 56 | 3.08 | 2.54 | 2.64 | 2.36 | 12.7 | 15.3 | 11.7 | 13.3 |
| J.J. Putz | White Sox | AL | RP | 45.0 | 32 | 14 | 13 | 4 | 11 | 52 | 2.80 | 2.60 | 2.84 | 1.77 | 12.7 | 12.6 | 13.6 | 12.9 |
| Brett Anderson | Athletics | AL | SP | 56.0 | 53 | 20 | 18 | 2 | 8 | 39 | 3.21 | 2.89 | 2.91 | 2.42 | 12.8 | 12.8 | 12.9 | 12.9 |
FIP: Fielding Independent Pitching
CERA: Component ERA
RSAR: Runs saved above a replacement level pitcher using park-adjusted RA minus pitcher RA divided by nine times IP
FRSAR: RSAR using FIP instead of RA
CRSAR: RSAR using CERA instead of RA
aRSAR: Average of RSAR, FRSAR, and CRSAR
It’s Cliff Lee and everyone else at this point, although Felix Hernandez will get a big boost after his perfect game tonight. Trevor Cahill’s having a great year, but he hasn;t thrown enough innings to really be in the top five at this point.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Yankees.com: WOE Takes Day Game after Night Game Off
NEW YORK—The Yankees exploded for nine runs in the sixth inning on Thursday to clinch their first series victory in the month of August with an 11-5 rout of the Tigers at Yankee Stadium.
The game was tied, 2-2, entering the eventful bottom of the sixth, in which the Yankees sent 13 men to the plate and scored off four different Detroit pitchers.
Starter Rick Porcello lost his command in the inning, walking Mark Teixeira after getting ahead, 0-2. After an RBI double by Robinson Cano, Porcello walked Nick Swisher and allowed an RBI single to Jorge Posada on a 3-0 pitch. Swisher had also driven in a run with a single on a 3-0 pitch earlier in the contest.
Just like you can get heads three times in a row once in a while if you a flip coin three times, WOE can score runs in three straight games.
Don’t be fooled by three games. That’s the very definition of small sample size.
Aside from a HR to Miguel Cabrera. which is hardly something to be ashamed about, I thought Hughes was very good today. He was pulled after six because of the long sixth inning, but he could have probably gone seven if needed.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Sporting News: Pettitte rehab stalls; Yankees lefty still sore
Andy Pettitte’s return to the Yankees has been further delayed. The team said in a statement Tuesday that an MRI exam revealed the left-hander still has “a small persistent strain of the left groin.”
Pettitte reported problems Tuesday after throwing lightly during batting practice. The MRI was scheduled soon afterward.
It’s starting to look more and more likely that a Pettitte return would not happen before mid-September, if at all. As far as what that means, let’s consider the worst case scenario, that Pettitte’s done for the season.
- With 43 games left in the season, we can probably assume each spot in the rotation will get 8-9 more turns.
- Dustin Moseley’s CAIRO projection is to have an RA of about 5.98 over the rest of the season compared to Pettitte’s projected rest of season 3.98. Moseley’s RA may seem high, but the fact of the matter is, he’s never shown himself to be as good as he’s been so far for the Yankees and there’s still not enough data to assume he’s established a new talent level.
- Now obviously, since Moseley’s not as good as Pettitte, we should probably assume he would average something closer to five IP/start than Pettitte’s six IP/start. We can give the ten inning difference to the bullpen.
- So you’re looking at something like 40 IP and 27 runs from Moseley and another 8 IP and 3.5 runs from the bullpen instead of 48 IP and 21 runs in the case of Pettitte
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. The Yankees are also going to have to deal with:
Phil Hughes’s innings limit
I’m not sure Hughes’s innings limit is a big deal at this point. It’s generally thought to be in the 175 inning range. He’s thrown 134 innings and with 8 starts left, if the Yankees restrict him to 5 IP/start or skip him once he’ll be right there. Of course, we know that if you skip a pitcher’s start it will more than double his ERA over the rest of the season.
Javier Vazquez’s complete collapse
Frankly, this is probably the biggest problem the Yankees faced heading into the stretch run. I wouldn’t even try to project Vazquez at this point, because nothing he did in his career prior to this season tells us anything about him if he doesn’t regain his stuff. Really, I don’t envision a scenario where he suddenly picks up 3 MPH on his fastball after it’s been missing for five months. The Yankees should probably not be favored to win any of the games that he starts, because he’s pretty much replacement level at this point. With Pettitte gone, the Yankees don’t have the option to skip Vazquez a time or two to see if he’s really just dealing with dead arm, or to help him clear his head, or for whatever reason. If they wanted to pull him from the rotation now, it’d mean starting Sergio Mitre and Moseley in 40% of the games left this season. I’m thinking that’s not too exciting, but then again, is Vazquez and Moseley starting 40% of the games left this season any more exciting?
A.J. Burnett’s Jeckyl and Hyde routine.
I will project Burnett rest of the season. He’ll have an RA between 0 and 1,000,000,000 and will average somewhere between 0 inning and 9 innings per start.
Time is still on the Yankees side, and we need to be cognizant of that fact, but right now, this may be the worst version of the 2010 Yankees we’ve seen so far this year. Can the Yankees as currently constituted play as well as Tampa Bay is likely to play over the rest of the season? Probably, but maybe not. And while it’s true that Boston has to outplay them by six games with fewer than 45 games left just to tie them, it’s also true that they can match the Yankees in all non head-to-head matchups and then sweep them in the remaining six head-to-head games to do it.
Should we panic? No.
Should we be concerned? I think so.
If the Yankees were a 96 win team at full strength heading into the season, how good are they now without Pettitte, with Kei Vazquez instead of Javy Vazquez and with several of their key offensive performers having disappointing years?
I think the safe answer is, worse.
But they’re still pretty good, which we should probably try and remember.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Yankees.com: Blind Squirrel Finds Acorn
Three years to the day after Rodriguez hit his 500th home run, he became the seventh player in Major League history to hit 600 homers in his career with a first-inning blast off Blue Jays starter Shaun Marcum.
Rodriguez’s landmark long ball came on a 2-0 delivery from Marcum with two outs and Derek Jeter on first. The shot into the netting over Monument Park was Rodriguez’s 17th of the season, his 255th career home run as a member of the Yankees, his second career off Marcum in 18 at-bats and his 51st career blast against Toronto. It gave the Yankees a 2-0 lead.
- Congratulations to Alex Rodriguez for reaching a round number milestone.
- It’s almost certain at this point that Derek Jeter and Rodriguez are going to end up with their worst seasons ever. That does NOT make them bad players. It just makes them less good than they were. They’re still plenty good, and good enough to help this team win.
- I realize it was annoying to watch Phil Hughes nibbling, but given the profile of the 2010 Blue Jays (heavy on HRs, light on BB/OBP) was it not the right approach to take? I’d obviously prefer not to see him using 20 pitches an inning, but in the context of this game against this opponent I’ll take it.
- Boone Logan > Damaso Marte?
- Apparently Joba can’t pitch the eighth, but he can rock the seventh.
- Over his last 30 games (31.1 innings), David Robertson has an RA of 2.01, a FIP of 2.56, and a component ERA of 2.79. Opposing batters have hit .223/.326/.250 over that span in 132 PA.
- I had no idea Mo was still on the team.
It was a nice way to go into an off day in front of a four game series with Boston.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Yankees.com: Yanks fall to Rays on Hughes’ one mistake
Derek Jeter led off with a single to center field, and Nick Swisher followed that up by slamming his 19th home run of the season to right field. Tampa Bay right-hander Wade Davis looked rattled, and it was hard to imagine the rookie would recover.
But after giving up three hits in the first inning, Davis dominated the next six. And the Rays took advantage of the lone mistake by Yankees starter Phil Hughes—Matt Joyce’s three-run homer in the sixth—to escape the matchup between baseball’s two best teams with a 3-2 win before a sellout crowd of 36,973 at Tropicana Field.
It’s hard to get that upset over this loss. Hughes curveball looked excellent, and but for one bad pitch, the Yankees may have ended up the victor. Sure, they didn’t hit a lick after the first inning, but Wade Davis looked pretty sharp.
Really, the worst part of the game was that a perfect two innings of relief from Joba were wasted in a loss. Go figure.
In other news, it looks like the Yankees have added Austin Kearns in addition to Lance Berkman.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Yankees.com: Granderson powers Yanks past Royals
NEW YORK—Curtis Granderson hit a pair of solo home runs and Phil Hughes won for just the second time in July as the Yankees beat the Royals 12-6, on Sunday.
Granderson’s leadoff homer into the bullpen in right-center in the third was the Yankees’ first hit of the game and first off of Royals’ starter Sean O’Sullivan in a span of seven innings—dating back to his Tuesday start against them when he was a member of the Angels.
Granderson’s second homer an inning later was a bomb into the second deck in right field, and it gave the Yankees a 5-3 lead.
Who is this Granderson person, and why hasn’t he been playing this year until today?
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Yankees.com: A-Rod, Jeter highlight Yanks’ wild win
NEW YORK—Alex Rodriguez sent his 599th home run over the wall and Derek Jeter legged out the second inside-the-park homer of his career as the Yankees defeated the Royals, 10-4, on Thursday at Yankee Stadium.
Rodriguez’s knock on the doorstep of the 600-homer club came in the seventh inning facing Kansas City reliever Robinson Tejeda, who grooved an 0-2 pitch that was dispatched by A-Rod, rocketing over the right-field wall for his 16th home run of the season.
A-Rod had the option of trotting, but Jeter didn’t in the third, smashing a drive toward the New York bullpen that eluded David DeJesus when the center fielder crashed into the plexiglass fence and suffered a right thumb sprain. Jeter slid home safely with his first inside-the-parker since Aug. 2, 1996, off Kansas City’s Jeff Montgomery.
Despite the final score, this was a bit too close for comfort through the first 7 and a half innings. Brett Gardner’s arm saved the Yankees a big run, and Jorge Posada’s arm cost them one and almost cost them again. Posada’s clearly making the case to keep Jesus Montero at catcher, as it’s not possible he could be any worse defensively.
CC Sabathia wasn’t good, but he was due for a clunker, and managed to at least get out of the fifth inning, a sore spot for many of the Yankee starters of late. The Yankees are going to need innings with Andy Pettitte out for the next month, with Kei Igawa in an A.J. Burnett mask starting every fifth day and with Phil Hughes irreparably damaged .because the Yankees skipped his turn in the rotation once.
And don’t look now, but Mark Teixeira’s seasonal line is creeping to respectability. He started the night at .256/.366/.471 and exited it at .261/.369/.475. Now we can turn our attention to Jeter’s quest for a .400 SLG.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Highest Ground Ball Percentages, 2002-2010
| Rank | Year | Player | Team | BABIP | GB/FB | LD% | GB% | FB% | IFFB% |
| 1 | 2010 | Derek Jeter | Yankees | .297 | 4.25 | 17.3% | 67.0% | 15.7% | 2.0% |
| 2 | 2007 | Luis Castillo | - - - | .325 | 3.63 | 14.9% | 66.7% | 18.4% | 6.7% |
| 3 | 2004 | Luis Castillo | Marlins | .325 | 3.53 | 16.6% | 65.0% | 18.4% | 5.6% |
| 4 | 2004 | Ichiro Suzuki | Mariners | .399 | 3.55 | 18.4% | 63.7% | 17.9% | 9.6% |
| 5 | 2002 | Luis Castillo | Marlins | .346 | 3.32 | 17.2% | 63.6% | 19.2% | 5.1% |
| 6 | 2005 | Luis Castillo | Marlins | .317 | 4.13 | 21.9% | 62.8% | 15.2% | 11.5% |
| 7 | 2006 | Luis Castillo | Twins | .324 | 2.95 | 17.7% | 61.5% | 20.8% | 13.1% |
| 8 | 2002 | Juan Pierre | Rockies | .314 | 3.14 | 19.3% | 61.2% | 19.5% | 8.4% |
| 9 | 2010 | Juan Pierre | White Sox | .279 | 2.49 | 14.3% | 61.1% | 24.5% | 6.5% |
| 10 | 2009 | Skip Schumaker | Cardinals | .341 | 3.49 | 21.6% | 61.0% | 17.5% | 9.9% |
| 11 | 2005 | Derek Jeter | Yankees | .351 | 2.89 | 19.3% | 60.0% | 20.7% | 2.7% |
| 12 | 2006 | Derek Jeter | Yankees | .391 | 3.25 | 22.3% | 59.4% | 18.3% | 2.1% |
| 13 | 2003 | Jacque Jones | Twins | .352 | 2.78 | 19.4% | 59.3% | 21.3% | 6.9% |
| 14 | 2010 | Elvis Andrus | Rangers | .339 | 2.96 | 21.0% | 59.1% | 19.9% | 5.5% |
| 15 | 2005 | Jacque Jones | Twins | .279 | 2.24 | 14.9% | 58.8% | 26.3% | 4.7% |
| 16 | 2009 | Luis Castillo | Mets | .338 | 3.14 | 22.7% | 58.6% | 18.7% | 2.6% |
| 17 | 2010 | Hunter Pence | Astros | .277 | 2.25 | 15.3% | 58.6% | 26.1% | 14.3% |
| 18 | 2010 | Michael Bourn | Astros | .316 | 2.49 | 18.1% | 58.5% | 23.5% | 1.6% |
| 19 | 2008 | Derek Jeter | Yankees | .333 | 2.45 | 17.9% | 58.3% | 23.8% | 3.3% |
| 20 | 2008 | Yunel Escobar | Braves | .311 | 2.35 | 17.1% | 58.2% | 24.7% | 3.6% |
| 21 | 2003 | Juan Pierre | Marlins | .320 | 2.96 | 22.3% | 58.1% | 19.6% | 6.4% |
| 22 | 2008 | Skip Schumaker | Cardinals | .328 | 2.88 | 21.7% | 58.1% | 20.2% | 3.1% |
| 23 | 2009 | Michael Bourn | Astros | .366 | 2.68 | 20.6% | 57.8% | 21.6% | 4.3% |
| 24 | 2004 | Royce Clayton | Rockies | .343 | 2.22 | 16.2% | 57.7% | 26.1% | 9.0% |
| 25 | 2006 | Matt Murton | Cubs | .319 | 2.38 | 18.0% | 57.7% | 24.3% | 12.5% |
| 26 | 2010 | Ichiro Suzuki | Mariners | .356 | 2.27 | 16.9% | 57.7% | 25.4% | 8.3% |
| 27 | 2010 | Denard Span | Twins | .301 | 2.27 | 16.9% | 57.7% | 25.4% | 2.4% |
| 28 | 2003 | Luis Castillo | Marlins | .342 | 3.08 | 23.7% | 57.6% | 18.7% | 15.3% |
| 29 | 2003 | Ken Harvey | Royals | .305 | 2.46 | 19.1% | 57.5% | 23.4% | 8.7% |
| 30 | 2008 | Ichiro Suzuki | Mariners | .334 | 2.54 | 19.9% | 57.5% | 22.6% | 14.4% |
| 31 | 2003 | Luis Rivas | Twins | .284 | 2.34 | 18.1% | 57.4% | 24.5% | 13.1% |
| 32 | 2010 | Skip Schumaker | Cardinals | .284 | 3.00 | 23.5% | 57.4% | 19.1% | 2.1% |
| 33 | 2005 | Royce Clayton | Diamondbacks | .333 | 2.63 | 21.0% | 57.2% | 21.8% | 6.8% |
| 34 | 2004 | Darin Erstad | Angels | .333 | 2.09 | 15.7% | 57.0% | 27.3% | 8.7% |
| 35 | 2009 | Derek Jeter | Yankees | .368 | 2.51 | 20.3% | 57.0% | 22.7% | 0.8% |
| 36 | 2004 | Cristian Guzman | Twins | .295 | 2.13 | 16.4% | 56.9% | 26.7% | 11.1% |
| 37 | 2008 | Ryan Theriot | Cubs | .339 | 2.80 | 23.2% | 56.6% | 20.2% | 3.8% |
| 38 | 2007 | Tony Pena | Royals | .309 | 2.29 | 18.8% | 56.5% | 24.7% | 6.7% |
| 39 | 2004 | Endy Chavez | Expos | .292 | 2.01 | 15.6% | 56.3% | 28.1% | 4.8% |
| 40 | 2007 | Ichiro Suzuki | Mariners | .389 | 2.39 | 20.1% | 56.3% | 23.6% | 7.9% |
| 41 | 2007 | Derek Jeter | Yankees | .367 | 2.33 | 19.9% | 56.1% | 24.0% | 3.9% |
| 42 | 2006 | Jacque Jones | Cubs | .319 | 2.19 | 18.6% | 55.9% | 25.5% | 1.9% |
| 43 | 2004 | Juan Pierre | Marlins | .340 | 2.38 | 20.8% | 55.8% | 23.5% | 18.6% |
| 44 | 2009 | Orlando Hudson | Dodgers | .328 | 2.17 | 18.5% | 55.8% | 25.7% | 4.3% |
| 45 | 2004 | Jacque Jones | Twins | .282 | 1.85 | 14.2% | 55.7% | 30.2% | 7.7% |
| 46 | 2010 | Ryan Theriot | Cubs | .309 | 2.28 | 19.9% | 55.7% | 24.4% | 4.0% |
| 47 | 2006 | Dave Roberts | Padres | .327 | 2.23 | 19.4% | 55.6% | 24.9% | 9.6% |
| 48 | 2006 | Willy Taveras | Astros | .330 | 2.06 | 17.5% | 55.6% | 26.9% | 14.7% |
| 49 | 2009 | Ichiro Suzuki | Mariners | .384 | 2.12 | 18.2% | 55.6% | 26.2% | 8.8% |
| 50 | 2009 | Adam Jones | Orioles | .308 | 1.97 | 16.5% | 55.4% | 28.1% | 5.6% |
BABIP: batting average on balls in play
GB/FB: ground ball to fly ball ratio
LD%: percentage of batted balls that were line drives
GB%: percentage of batted balls that were grounders
FB%: percentage of batted balls that were outfield fly balls
IFFB%: percentage of batted balls that were infield fly balls
This list only includes players who qualified for the batting title (502 PA) except for 2010, where it still only includes players who currently qualify. Full batted ball data only goes back to 2002, which is why that’s where the list starts.
I was wondering about how much we should take from Jeter’s current GB%. A weighted average of 2006-2009 for Jeter’s GB% is about 57%. The standard deviation on that over a full season is around 2.4%. For 2010 as a partial season, it’s around 3.0%.
-2 StD: 51.4%
-1 StD: 54.4%
Mean: 57.4%
+1 StD: 60.4%
+2 Std: 63.4%
So yeah, Jeter’s high ground ball percentage is statistically significant.
Is it a concern? Maybe. As you can see, he’s managed to be productive throughout his career despite often hitting a lot of ground balls. Realistically though, the fact he was able to do what he did as he progressed into his 30s might be deluding us into thinking he’ll revert to form. It’s very possible this is Jeter going forward.
And without getting too deep into the Phil Hughes thing, here are some charts to look at.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Yankees.com: Hughes lets Angels walk over Yanks
NEW YORK—A brilliant opening act to Phil Hughes’ season punched the ticket for his first All-Star selection, but as the Yankees open the second half, the young right-hander is now being challenged to recapture that magic.
It didn’t happen on Tuesday, as Hughes flopped in his first start coming out of the midsummer break. Giving back an early lead, Hughes served up a pair of two-run homers and left after five-plus innings as the Angels pounded the Yankees, 10-2, at Yankee Stadium.
I picked the wrong day to visit the new stadium.
2010 All Star Break Review - June Edition
A little late, but following up on April and May here’s the June All Star Break review.
June looked like the Yankees’ easiest month on paper, with 18 of their 27 games at home, and with a bunch of those games against minor league teams from Houston, Philadelphia and Queens. Log5 would have estimated them winning about 18 of those 27 games.
| Series | Start Date | # Gms | xW | aW | diff |
| Orioles at Yankees | 6/1/2010 | 3 | 2.3 | 3 | 0.7 |
| Yankees at Blue Jays | 6/4/2010 | 3 | 1.8 | 1 | -0.8 |
| Yankees at Orioles | 6/8/2010 | 3 | 2.1 | 2 | -0.1 |
| Astros at Yankees | 6/11/2010 | 3 | 2.3 | 3 | 0.7 |
| Phillies at Yankees | 6/15/2010 | 3 | 1.8 | 1 | -0.8 |
| Mets at Yankees | 6/18/2010 | 3 | 1.9 | 2 | 0.1 |
| Yankees at Diamondbacks | 6/21/2010 | 3 | 1.9 | 2 | 0.1 |
| Yankees at Dodgers | 6/25/2010 | 3 | 1.6 | 2 | 0.4 |
| Mariners at Yankees | 6/29/2010 | 3 | 2.1 | 1 | -1.1 |
| Total | 27 | 18 | 17 | -1 |
xW: Expected wins for this series using log 5
aW: Actual wins
diff: Difference between xW and aW. Positive means team exceeded expectations
The Yankees did about a win worse than expected, with the home series against Seattle to end the month the biggest problem (this does include the game in July 1). It felt worse than that, but I think a big part of that was the drop in offense, as the team went from scoring 5.6 runs per game in April and 5.7 runs per game in May to 4.7 in June.
| Player | month | pa | h | 2b | 3b | hr | bb | hbp | so | sb | cs | gdp | avg | obp | slg | wOBA | br |
| Derek Jeter | 6 | 118 | 25 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 15 | 0 | 18 | 3 | 2 | 4 | .243 | .339 | .379 | .323 | 13 |
| Mark Teixeira | 6 | 116 | 25 | 6 | 0 | 5 | 13 | 3 | 20 | 0 | 1 | 1 | .250 | .353 | .460 | .359 | 16 |
| Robinson Cano | 6 | 113 | 34 | 6 | 0 | 4 | 9 | 2 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 3 | .333 | .398 | .510 | .398 | 19 |
| Nick Swisher | 6 | 117 | 25 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 13 | 0 | 22 | 0 | 1 | 2 | .240 | .325 | .423 | .328 | 14 |
| Alex Rodriguez | 6 | 90 | 20 | 6 | 0 | 4 | 8 | 0 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 2 | .244 | .311 | .463 | .333 | 12 |
| Brett Gardner | 6 | 71 | 23 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 9 | 2 | 12 | 6 | 1 | 0 | .383 | .479 | .533 | .450 | 14 |
| Curtis Granderson | 6 | 100 | 22 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 8 | 0 | 25 | 2 | 0 | 0 | .239 | .300 | .457 | .325 | 13 |
| Jorge Posada | 6 | 90 | 15 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 14 | 2 | 23 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .203 | .344 | .351 | .323 | 10 |
| Francisco Cervelli | 6 | 69 | 11 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 2 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 3 | .180 | .275 | .246 | .250 | 4 |
| Marcus Thames | 6 | 15 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .071 | .133 | .071 | .108 | -1 |
| Nick Johnson | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | .000 | .000 | .000 | 0 |
| Ramiro Pena | 6 | 25 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | .136 | .240 | .136 | .200 | 1 |
| Randy Winn | 6 | 51 | 13 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 9 | 2 | 0 | 0 | .277 | .333 | .383 | .322 | 6 |
| Kevin Russo | 6 | 26 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | .130 | .231 | .130 | .192 | 1 |
| Juan Miranda | 6 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | .000 | .000 | .000 | 0 |
| Colin Curtis | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | .000 | .000 | .000 | 0 |
| Chad Huffman | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | .000 | .000 | .000 | 0 |
| Chad Moeller | 6 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .200 | .333 | .400 | .327 | 1 |
| Greg Golson | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | .000 | .000 | .000 | 0 |
wOBA: Weighted on-base average
br: Total linear weights batting runs, not position-adjusted or compared to average/replacement level
Once again, Robinson Cano was the most valuable offensive player on the team although Brett Gardner has the best rate performance. Derek Jeter had a relatively rough month, and reality slammed into Francisco Cervelli’s over-sized batting helmet with extreme force. But in general, the team overall just didn’t have a good month offensively. The only players who hit at least as well as they projected entering the season were Cano and TSBG.
On the plus side, the team’s run prevention in June improved over May, falling to 4.3 from 4.4. Of course, that’s at least partially a function of only pitching to 88.9% of a major league lineup for a large part of the month, and a function of playing some bad teams.
| pitcher | g | gs | ip | h | r | er | hr | bb | hbp | k | ra | era | fip | rsar |
| CC Sabathia | 5 | 5 | 37.0 | 25 | 9 | 9 | 2 | 2 | 12 | 35 | 2.19 | 2.19 | 3.15 | 14.3 |
| Javier Vazquez | 6 | 6 | 39.0 | 26 | 14 | 14 | 6 | 2 | 12 | 35 | 3.23 | 3.23 | 4.48 | 10.6 |
| Andy Pettitte | 5 | 5 | 34.0 | 28 | 15 | 12 | 4 | 0 | 12 | 33 | 3.97 | 3.18 | 3.85 | 6.4 |
| Phil Hughes | 5 | 5 | 31.3 | 37 | 19 | 18 | 4 | 0 | 8 | 24 | 5.46 | 5.17 | 4.09 | 0.8 |
| A.J. Burnett | 5 | 5 | 23.0 | 35 | 29 | 29 | 9 | 3 | 17 | 19 | 11.35 | 11.35 | 9.24 | -14.5 |
| SP Total | 26 | 26 | 164.33 | 151 | 86 | 82 | 25 | 7 | 61 | 146 | 4.71 | 4.49 | 4.64 | 17.6 |
| pitcher | g | gs | ip | h | r | er | hr | bb | hbp | k | ra | era | fip | rsar |
| Mariano Rivera | 11 | 0 | 13.0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 16 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 1.43 | 7.5 |
| David Robertson | 9 | 0 | 9.0 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 9 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 2.53 | 4.2 |
| Boone Logan | 4 | 0 | 7.7 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 7 | 2.35 | 2.35 | 3.33 | 2.4 |
| Joba Chamberlain | 12 | 0 | 10.7 | 12 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 10 | 4.22 | 4.22 | 2.45 | 1.2 |
| Sergio Mitre | 1 | 0 | 2.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 2.70 | 1.2 |
| Chad Gaudin | 7 | 0 | 12.7 | 12 | 7 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 7 | 4.97 | 4.97 | 6.04 | 0.3 |
| Chan Ho Park | 9 | 0 | 11.7 | 11 | 7 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 11 | 5.40 | 5.40 | 3.46 | -0.2 |
| Damaso Marte | 8 | 0 | 5.3 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 3 | 6.75 | 6.75 | 7.33 | -0.9 |
| RP Total | 61 | 0 | 72 | 57 | 26 | 26 | 4 | 2 | 32 | 65 | 3.25 | 3.25 | 3.53 | 15.8 |
| SP + RP | 87 | 26 | 236.33 | 208 | 112 | 108 | 29 | 9 | 93 | 211 | 4.27 | 4.11 | 4.30 | 33.4 |
A.J. Burnett’s June could’ve gone a little better. Phil Hughes also had a disappointing month, but the it’s tough to quibble with how Sabathia, Vazquez and Pettitte did. The bullpen had its best month of the season overall, with David Robertson finally starting to resemble the 2009 vintage. It’s easy to forget how dominant Mo can be at times, but look at that June line and marvel at his awesomeness.
Once again the Yankees ERA was lower than their FIP, this time to the tune of about six runs. So it’s probably a safe assumption that the defense played pretty well, even if they don’t deserve all the credit for that difference.
The Yankees’ run differential in June was by far their worst of the season, as they allowed 114 runs to go with the 128 runs scored, a Pythagenpat winning percentage of .554. So the Yankees may have been a bit fortunate to actually only miss their expectations by one game.
And since it was requested, here’s a WAR pie chart for the Yankees through Sunday’s games.
Not shown:
Boone Logan: 0.2
Romulo Sanchez: 0.2
Damaso Marte: 0.2
Juan Miranda: 0.2
Alfredo Aceves: 0.2
Ivan Nova: 0.2
A.J. Burnett: 0.1
Kevin Russo: 0.1
Sergio Mitre: 0.1
Greg Golson: 0.1
David Robertson: 0.0
Colin Curtis: 0.0
Chad Moeller: 0.0
Chad Huffman: -0.1
Dustin Moseley: -0.2
Mark Melancon: -0.3
Ramiro Pena: -0.3
Chan Ho Park: -0.3
Joba Chamberlain: -0.4
Monday, July 12, 2010
2010 All Star Break Review - May Edition
After a solid April, the Yankees headed into May hoping to continue their winning ways.
On paper, the May schedule looked to be a bit easier than April’s. In terms of expected winning percentage, the Yankees were expect to win 12.3 of 21 games in April, a winning percentage of .585. May had 30 games scheduled, and their log5 expected wins was about 18.3, or a .609 winning percentage.
| Series | Start Date | # Gms | xW | aW | diff |
| White Sox at Yankees | 5/2/2010 | 3 | 1.9 | 2.0 | 0.1 |
| Orioles at Yankees | 5/5/2010 | 3 | 2.3 | 3.0 | 0.7 |
| Yankees at Red Sox | 5/9/2010 | 3 | 1.5 | 2.0 | 0.5 |
| Yankees at Tigers | 5/13/2010 | 4 | 2.3 | 1.0 | -1.3 |
| Twins at Yankees | 5/16/2010 | 3 | 1.8 | 2.0 | 0.2 |
| Red Sox at Yankees | 5/18/2010 | 2 | 1.1 | 1.0 | -0.1 |
| Rays at Yankees | 5/20/2010 | 2 | 1.1 | 0.0 | -1.1 |
| Yankees at Mets | 5/23/2010 | 3 | 1.6 | 1.0 | -0.6 |
| Yankees at Twins | 5/27/2010 | 3 | 1.6 | 2.0 | 0.4 |
| Indians at Yankees | 5/31/2010 | 4 | 2.8 | 3.0 | 0.2 |
| Total | 30 | 18.3 | 17.0 | -1.3 |
xW: Expected wins for this series using log 5
aW: Actual wins
diff: Difference between xW and aW. Positive means team is ahead of their projected pace
The Yankees took care of business in the first three series they played, taking two of three against the White Sox and sweeping Baltimore before shipping up to Boston and taking two of three.
Then came a disappointing series in Detroit where they lost three of four, when they probably should have split.
They finished off the month by taking two of three from Minnesota at home then splitting a two-gamer with Boston. Then came the first series of the year were they didn’t win a game, as Tampa Bay came into DNYS and took a two-gamer. Next up came a three game exhibition series against the Mets in Flushing, where the Yankees dropped two of three. However, for some reason Bud Selig decided exhibition games should count so the Yanks got saddled with a series loss.
They finished up the month by doing what they should have done on the road against Minnesota and Cleveland, winning both series and finishing up the month with 17 wins, about one win less than log5 would have expected.
The Yankees scored 171 runs in May, an average of about 5.7 per game. That was a hair better than April. Here’s how the hitters performed.
| Player | pa | h | 2b | 3b | hr | bb | hbp | so | sb | cs | gdp | avg | obp | slg | wOBA | br |
| Derek Jeter | 140 | 36 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 9 | 3 | 23 | 2 | 0 | 2 | .281 | .343 | .359 | .320 | 16 |
| Mark Teixeira | 134 | 33 | 5 | 0 | 6 | 15 | 1 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 5 | .280 | .366 | .475 | .368 | 19 |
| Robinson Cano | 125 | 39 | 11 | 0 | 3 | 7 | 2 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 3 | .336 | .384 | .509 | .390 | 20 |
| Nick Swisher | 102 | 34 | 6 | 0 | 7 | 9 | 2 | 23 | 0 | 0 | 2 | .374 | .441 | .670 | .472 | 23 |
| Alex Rodriguez | 118 | 34 | 6 | 0 | 5 | 14 | 1 | 21 | 1 | 1 | 1 | .330 | .415 | .534 | .414 | 21 |
| Brett Gardner | 127 | 32 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 15 | 0 | 18 | 8 | 3 | 2 | .286 | .370 | .375 | .339 | 16 |
| Curtis Granderson | 18 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .333 | .444 | .533 | .434 | 3 |
| Jorge Posada | 35 | 11 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .355 | .429 | .581 | .434 | 7 |
| Francisco Cervelli | 84 | 23 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 1 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .307 | .381 | .400 | .353 | 11 |
| Marcus Thames | 57 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 9 | 3 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .222 | .386 | .311 | .341 | 6 |
| Nick Johnson | 17 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .286 | .412 | .643 | .441 | 3 |
| Ramiro Pena | 36 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 3 | .235 | .278 | .265 | .249 | 2 |
| Randy Winn | 56 | 12 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 1 | .250 | .357 | .354 | .326 | 6 |
| Kevin Russo | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .250 | .250 | .250 | .225 | 0 |
| Juan Miranda | 34 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .226 | .294 | .419 | .309 | 4 |
wOBA: Weighted on-base average
br: Total Linear weights batting runs, not position-adjusted or compared to average/replacement level
The injury bug hit the Yankees in May, with Curtis Granderson, Jorge Posada and Nick Johnson all going down, pressing Francisco Cervelli, Randy Winn and Juan Miranda into the lineup a bit more than you’d hope for. Cervelli was up to the task, but it’s probably safe to say the others weren’t so much.
Nick Swisher was the best offensive player on the team in May, hitting .374/.441/.670 with seven homers. Alex Rodriguez also had a good month, and although Cano dropped from otherworldly to really good he was also very valuable. Mark Teixeira also showed signs of life after a disastrous April.
In April the pitching staff allowed an average of 3.76 runs per game, but they fell off in May, going to 4.4 runs per game.
| pitcher | g | gs | ip | h | r | er | hr | bb | hbp | k | ra | era | fip | rsar |
| Phil Hughes | 6 | 6 | 38.7 | 35 | 13 | 13 | 3 | 0 | 8 | 39 | 3.03 | 3.03 | 2.81 | 11.4 |
| A.J. Burnett | 6 | 6 | 38.0 | 38 | 22 | 17 | 3 | 3 | 15 | 33 | 5.21 | 4.03 | 3.91 | 2.0 |
| CC Sabathia | 6 | 6 | 36.7 | 40 | 22 | 21 | 8 | 1 | 11 | 26 | 5.40 | 5.15 | 5.60 | 1.1 |
| Andy Pettitte | 5 | 5 | 31.3 | 29 | 11 | 10 | 4 | 0 | 7 | 16 | 3.16 | 2.87 | 4.51 | 8.8 |
| Javier Vazquez | 5 | 4 | 22.0 | 21 | 12 | 12 | 4 | 0 | 11 | 18 | 4.91 | 4.91 | 5.43 | 1.9 |
| Total | 28 | 27 | 167 | 163 | 80 | 73 | 22 | 4 | 52 | 132 | 4.32 | 3.94 | 4.34 | 25.1 |
rsar: runs saved above replacement level, calculated as n times league average RA minus pitcher RA time innings pitched, where n = 1.25 for starters and 1.15 for reliever.
May was the Phil Hughes show, as he was the most valuable pitcher on the team. Although his ERA went up by about a run, his FIP went down as he improved his walk rate from 5.5 batters per nine inning to 1.9. Andy Pettitte also continued to pitch well, and although Javier Vazquez’s final May line wasn’t very good, he ended the month pitching quite well. CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett both had rough months after good starts to the season.
Once again, the bullpen disappointed.
| pitcher | g | gs | ip | h | r | er | hr | bb | hbp | k | ra | era | fip | rsar |
| Sergio Mitre | 8 | 2 | 18.7 | 13 | 8 | 7 | 3 | 6 | 1 | 11 | 3.86 | 3.38 | 5.24 | 2.8 |
| Joba Chamberlain | 11 | 0 | 11.3 | 13 | 11 | 10 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 17 | 8.74 | 7.94 | 1.52 | -4.4 |
| David Robertson | 11 | 0 | 11.0 | 13 | 7 | 7 | 2 | 8 | 1 | 11 | 5.73 | 5.73 | 6.02 | -0.6 |
| Boone Logan | 10 | 0 | 8.3 | 10 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 4 | 5.40 | 5.40 | 5.60 | -0.2 |
| Chan Ho Park | 6 | 0 | 7.7 | 14 | 8 | 8 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 9.39 | 9.39 | 7.50 | -3.6 |
| Mariano Rivera | 8 | 0 | 7.3 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 6.14 | 3.68 | 4.70 | -0.7 |
| Damaso Marte | 10 | 0 | 5.3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 1.69 | 1.69 | 3.39 | 2.1 |
| Mark Melancon | 2 | 0 | 4.0 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 11.25 | 9.00 | 4.95 | -2.7 |
| Chad Gaudin | 2 | 0 | 3.7 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 4.91 | 4.91 | 10.02 | 0.1 |
| Romulo Sanchez | 1 | 0 | 3.7 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 2.38 | 2.1 |
| Alfredo Aceves | 4 | 0 | 3.3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 2.60 | 1.9 |
| Ivan Nova | 2 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 2.53 | 1.7 |
| Total | 75 | 2 | 87 | 89 | 52 | 47 | 13 | 34 | 3 | 70 | 5.36 | 4.84 | 4.80 | -1.3 |
Even Mo had a rough month before going down for a while with an oblique injury. Joba Chamberlain had three spectactular disaster games.
On May 16 he started teh eighth with a 3-1 lead. He did manage to get two outs in between allowing two singles and a walk to load the bases, at which point Mo came in and did things he’d only done four times in his career.
a) He walked in a run
b) He gave up a grand slam
Apparently, one implosion wasn’t good enough for Joba, as he came in two days later on May 18 in a home game against the Red Sox with a 5-1 lead, and proceeded to allow four hits and four runs as Boston tied the game. An error in the ninth allowed Boston to score one against Mo and the Yankees had one of the most painful losses of the season.
Apparently, that wasn’t good enough either, because on May 29 he once again turned what looked like a sure win into a loss. This time, he came in with the Yankees ahead 10-6. Despite the fact that Cleveland had runners on first and second, the Yankees had a win expectancy of about 95% since there were two outs.
- A single cut the lead to 10-7, and the win expectancy to 90%
- A walk loaded the bases and cut the win expectancy to 85%
- A double cut the lead to 10-9, and the win expectancy to 67%
- Another double put Cleveland ahead 11-10 and cut the Yankees’ win expectancy to 33%.
- Another single gave Cleveland another run and cut the Yankees’ win expectancy to 21%.
Joba finished up strong though, striking out Shin-Soo Choo to end the inning and moving the Yankees’ win expectancy back up to 22%.
And hey, his FIP was 1.52 in May, so that’s something. I know bebop was wondering about Joba’s BABIP and if we could expect it to get better, and I’ll try and get to that in a few days.
The rest of the pen really didn’t do anything of note, although it should be noted that Chan Ho Park’s ERA of 9.39 was almost two runs higher than his 7.50 FIP, so he may have been a little unlucky.
As far as the defense, once again the Yankees cumulative ERA(4.25) was lower than their FIP (4.50). The gap wasn’t quite as big as it was in April, but that’s a difference of about seven runs. Again, I don’t think we necessarily want to give all the credit for that to the defense, but I’m sure they deserve some of it.
Despite the frustrating games where Joba turned what looked like wins into losses, in the big picture May wasn’t really a bad month either. You could almost say that to this point, the Yankees had been consistent.
