Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Yahoo: Yankees-Blue Jays Preview
Already without Mariano Rivera (torn ACL), New York placed fill-in closer David Robertson on the 15-day disabled list Tuesday with a strained muscle in his left ribcage.
“We lost Mariano first. The bullpen will do whatever we have to do,” said Rafael Soriano, who is expected to take over for Robertson. “Now with two guys down, it’s not easy for us.”The Yankees have dropped 12 of 19 at Toronto.
I thought the Yankees had done pretty poorly in Toronto recently, but had no idea it was that bad. Needless to say I’m not expecting a great series this week given the current state of the team. Luckily it’s only a two-gamer. Then it’s back home to begin the inanity of interleague play.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Yankees.com: Snapping late tie, Teixeira finishes O’s
BALTIMORE—The Yankees have come to accept Mark Teixeira’s slow starts as par for the course, but the slumping switch-hitter delivered a big blow at a most opportune time.
Teixeira blasted a two-run homer in the seventh inning to put his club ahead and the Yankees made it hold up, posting an 8-5 victory over the Orioles on Monday at Camden Yards.
What a bizarre night. The Yankees 3-4-5 hitters combined for 7 hits and Rafael Soriano almost pitched his first 1-2-3 inning of the year, sabotaged by an Eric Chavez error.
Ivan Nova left the game in the sixth with a bruised right foot and sprained right ankle which sounds like a crappy night for his lower right leg. He’ll probably miss a start or two, but hopefully not much more than that.
Since I complain about Joe Girardi a lot, I’ll commend him for how he managed the bullpen tonight. I much prefer choosing pitchers based on match-ups to choosing pitchers based on the inning, and Clay Rapada, David Phelps Boone Logan and Cory Wade made it work. Losing Mo is a big blow, but since Girardi became Yankee manager they’ve had the best relief ERA in the majors so I think he’ll be able to handle it about as well as anyone could.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
NY Times: Robertson Fails in Second Test as Closer, Giving Up 4 Runs
If Dave Robertson is going to follow in Rivera’s footsteps, then he, too, must learn this difficult trick. After blowing his first save as Rivera’s successor on Wednesday night, he has the opportunity to show the Yankees how he will respond.
One day after he pitched his way out of a jam to earn his first save of the season, Robertson put himself in the same situation Wednesday, but his good fortune ran out. He gave up four runs in the ninth inning — the first runs he allowed since Aug. 21 — as the Tampa Bay Rays stunned the Yankees, 4-1. The last three runs came on a homer by Matt Joyce.
Robertson was going to give up some runs at some point. It just stinks that it happened last night. Should the AL East come down to a game or two between Tampa Bay and the Yankees at the end of the year, we can look back at two costly blown saves. Last night’s by Robertson and Opening Day by Mo.
On a somewhat related note.
Players A, B, C and D
| player | PA | AB | Hits | 2B | 3B | HR | BB | K | avg | obp | slg | ops |
| A | 521 | 447 | 114 | 20 | 1 | 18 | 53 | 70 | .255 | .336 | .425 | .761 |
| B | 521 | 476 | 135 | 26 | 1 | 23 | 43 | 99 | .283 | .345 | .488 | .833 |
| C | 521 | 455 | 117 | 24 | 3 | 14 | 47 | 91 | .256 | .327 | .410 | .737 |
| D | 521 | 477 | 117 | 25 | 2 | 15 | 40 | 101 | .246 | .309 | .401 | .710 |
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Yankees.com: Ibanez’s homers return Nova to win column
Nova turned in arguably his best outing of the season during a rainy evening at Yankee Stadium, striking out eight and leading the Yankees to a 5-3 win over the Rays that saw former setup man David Robertson record his first save since Mariano Rivera sustained a season-ending right knee injury last week in Kansas City.
Raul Ibanez homered twice, including a long two-run blast, and Curtis Granderson belted a solo shot, his 10th of the year, to provide the offense as the Yankees toppled James Shields, posting their third victory in four games.
This game felt like a playoff game to me, and it was a tight one with a lot of tension and drama. Nova was very good except for the continued HR issue he’s been having this year, and he reward Joe Girardi’s faith by pitching out of a big jam to end the 7th in what may have been the key point in the game.
Robertson got his first save of the year, hopefully the first of many, although it took loading the bases and facing Carlos Pena to get it. I’m not worried about Robertson at all, but I do have concerns about the bridge to him.
And I have to say that I’m happy to see Ibanez exceeding my admittedly low expectations for him. He seems like a good guy and I hope he can continue to do so.
But mostly it was nice to finally beat the Rays after losing seven straight to them going back to last year, although some of those losses felt like wins.
Friday, May 4, 2012
USA Today: Reggie Jackson: Rivera ‘would definitely like to’ pitch in 2013
New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera privately told friends he planned all along to continue pitching at least one more season in 2013, and now that he’s facing season-ending knee surgery, Yankees executive Reggie Jackson believes he’ll definitely try to return.
Hmmm.
MLB: Gammons: Civil Mariano garners respect like no other
“Good call,” laughed Showalter. “Mariano Rivera. Remember the name.”
A year later, in 1995, Showalter brought Rivera to the Yankees. Seventeen years later we all remember the name of the greatest relief pitcher in baseball history. I’ve never forgotten that moment in Spring Training, because in more than 40 years of covering baseball, Rivera is the person I most respect. “I think everyone who knows him feels the same way,” Derek Jeter said this spring.
I know Peter Gammons isn’t a particularly popular writer around these parts, but he’s always been one of Mo’s biggest boosters and I thought this was an interesting article.
YES: Rivera on torn ACL
I’m not the emotional type, but I teared up a little watching this. According to Mariano Rivera he has both a torn ACL and meniscus. I have no idea how hard the rehab for that is, but I’d imagine it’s not easy.
I really hope this isn’t the end for Mo. I didn’t want him to retire after this year, but I figured at least we’d have the chance to appreciate his greatness for another five months. Now that’s gone, and frankly it changes the entire season for me. The Yankees are still a good team. You could make the sacrilegious case that David Robertson is better than Rivera, and the Yankees will lose little in the closer department. But Rafael Soriano isn’t as good as David Robertson. Then again, Cory Wade is better than Soriano so the 7th inning got upgraded.
But it’s not about wins. It’s about no longer watching someone who may have done his job(even if you discount the job itself) on the baseball field better than anyone else ever. How many current fans can say they saw the best player ever in his role ply his trade? Yankee fans can.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Yankees.com: Mariano twists right knee while shagging flies
KANSAS CITY—The Yankees prepared for Thursday’s game against the Royals with their fingers crossed after closer Mariano Rivera crumpled on the outfield warning track while shagging fly balls during batting practice.
The club said that the preliminary diagnosis of Rivera’s injury is a twisted right knee, but the 42-year-old all-time saves leader is being sent for an MRI during Thursday’s game.
He was examined on-site at Kauffman Stadium by Royals associate physician Joseph Noland, as well as the Yankees’ training staff.
Once this happened the result of tonight’s game seemed meaningless to me. Here’s hoping we get good news.
Anyway, the Yankees lost, the first home game the Royals have won all year in 11 tries. I’d be shocked if they didn’t win their second tomorrow.
Update: Lohud: Jennings: Torn ACL diagnosis for Rivera
The early diagnosis for Mariano Rivera is a torn ACL. He will be checked again in New York, but this almost certainly means hes out for the season.
You know what? Eff this season.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Yankees.com: Efficient Kuroda helps own cause to top O’s
NEW YORK—Hiroki Kuroda turned in a stellar seven-inning effort and Eric Chavez slugged a two-run homer, as the Yankees defeated the Orioles, 2-1, on Monday at Yankee Stadium.
The Yankees received a strong starting performance for a second straight day, as Kuroda followed up CC Sabathia’s winning effort with a gem of his own, permitting just one run on four hits and saving the lead with his own defensive play at home plate.
Kuroda looked like he had nothing over the first two innings as seemingly every ball was hit hard, but he settled down nicely to give the Yankees seven innings of one-run ball. His final play of the game was probably the most important one. The Orioles had the tying run on third and the go-ahead run on second with two outs in the seventh when a pitch got away from Russell Martin. It rolled into foul territory but not all that far and the Orioles gambled by sending the runner but Martin was able to retrieve the ball and flip it to Kuroda who beat the runner to the plate and applied the tag to the end the inning. The Orioles could not muster anything against David Robertson or Mariano Rivera over the final two innings and the Yankees had a nice win in a rare briskly played pitcher’s duel.
I’m enjoying watching Kuroda pitch so far and hope he can keep it going. I’d take a 3.69 ERA from him over the rest of the year.
I was not particularly enamored with the Eric Chavez re-signing, but so far he’s been great. I don’t know if he’ll stay healthy or keep it up all year, but he’s probably already been worth his salary.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Crashing the Party
I decided to make use of my field pass during Yankees' batting practice on Friday afternoon. I figured that I should make the most of it before somebody wised up and revoked it.
Trying to remain as incognito as possible, I snapped off a few pictures using my phone (hence the poor picture quality). Click on any of them to enlarge.
I took this shot just as the Red Sox were finishing up their BP - all the Yankees were still in the dugout getting ready to come out and stretch.
Papelbon is right, Mo has a great smile.
CHB asked asked A-Rod about his favorite Fenway moments. I believe A-Rod mentioned his first major league game in July of 1994.
One of the funnier moments I witnessed was when Nick Swisher came into the dugout before taking BP. Russell Martin was just about to sit down with a reporter from a Canadian news outlet, and Swisher started yelling out, "French time? Time for French!?"
Another interesting thing I caught was Swisher talking to Ibanez about the difference between Yankee Stadium's short porch and the wall in left at Fenway. He said something about how if you get jammed at Yankee Stadium, you won't be able to muscle it out; but you can get jammed and still go deep over the monster. Or maybe it was the other way around. The funny thing was that it almost looked like he got jammed in his first plate appearance on Friday and he actually took it the other way for a HR over the monster.
Kuroda sitting down for an interview with Japanese TV. I only caught one word: Ichiro.
Every time I get an assignment for a Yankee game, I hope to see Mariano Rivera take the mound. So when Cody Eppley came in with a four run lead in the bottom of the ninth, I was a bit disconcerted. However, it only took one single off the bat of Jarrod Saltalamacchia for Girardi to make the inevitable call to the bullpen, and I once again got to see my absolute favorite player in action. Two strike outs and a ground out was all the Red Sox could muster against the greatest closer in baseball history, and the Yankees took the first game of the season series 6-2.
Happy Birthday Fenway.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Yankee.com: Swisher lifts Yanks out of Baltimore with sweep
BALTIMORE—Nick Swisher connected for a long two-run homer off Kevin Gregg in the 10th inning, lifting the Yankees to a 6-4 win over the Orioles on Wednesday at Camden Yards.
One batter after Mark Teixeira blooped a two-out double just inside the left-field line, Swisher unloaded on a full-count fastball from the Baltimore right-hander and sent it toward Eutaw Street, depositing the ball in the green seats well beyond the outfield wall.
The timely blast made a winner of Rafael Soriano, who pitched 1 1/3 innings after being unavailable in Tuesday’s 12-inning win due to a split fingernail on his right hand. Soriano escaped a bases-loaded jam in the ninth with a key strikeout of Adam Jones.
This game really felt like a loss all game, especially with a bad start by CC Sabathia combined with a short pen, but Boone Logan and Rafael Soriano carried the team until Swisher was able to push across the go-ahead runs and get the lead to Mo.
With this sweep of Baltimore, the Yankees are effectively back to where they should be after getting swept by Tampa Bay and will have a much needed off day tomorrow before the home opener on Friday.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Yankees.com; Ibanez ends drama as Yanks prevail in 12
BALTIMORE—Raul Ibanez provided the Yankees with the big hit that they’d been searching for all night, delivering a go-ahead ground-rule double that powered a 5-4 victory over the Orioles in 12 innings on Tuesday at Camden Yards.
I didn’t think Joe Girardi managed this game all that well, but I’m glad the team won. I didn’t really have a problem with using Boone Logan to start the ninth, particularly since he was on a short leash and got pulled as soon as the first batter reached. My primary beef was the whole sequence in the top of the 11th. After Russell Martin walked to lead off the inning, Girardi pinch-ran for him with Eduardo Nunez. The benefit to this is getting a stolen base threat into the game. Instead, Girardi had left-handed hitting Brett Gardner bunt Nunez to second against a RHP so that Derek Jeter could try to drive him in with the platoon disadvantage. This also meant that the next time Martin’s spot came up, it’d be Chris Stewart in his spot. It turned out to not matter, but I think Girardi would be better off not trying to be so active when an opportunity presents itself.
Of course if one of the Yankees #4 or #5 or #6 hitters could have gotten a hit in the fifty times they came up with a chance to drive in a runner it would have been a non-issue.
On the plus side, David Phelps was nails after a crappy outing by Freddy Garcia, as was Cory Wade. Raul Ibanez’s big hit was obviously cool, and Mariano Rivera closed it out with a perfect 12th inning, lowering his ERA to 7.71. The Yankees have a chance to head home at .500 if they can win tomorrow behind CC Sabathia, and after starting out 0-3 you can’t ask for more than that.
Friday, April 6, 2012
Yankees.com: Mo proves human, as Rays deny Yankees
ST. PETERSBURG—What could well turn out to be Mariano Rivera’s final Major League season began with an Opening Day blown save, as the Rays toppled the game’s all-time saves leader to post a 7-6 victory on Friday at Tropicana Field.
Joe Girardi should get at least half of the blame for his loss. His asinine decision to intentionally walk Sean Rodriguez in the first inning probably was as big of a reason for this loss as Mo’s blown save.
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!
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Looking Ahead to 2012 - Mariano Rivera
On September 19, 2011, Mariano Rivera recorded the 602nd save of his career, passing Trevor Hoffman to become the all-time MLB leader in saves. Saves are a somewhat flawed stat, but what’s not flawed is Rivera’s performance. He’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer who might be the best reliever ever, although he has surely benefitted from having the workload of a modern closer.
I forget who asked me about whether there were any players that constantly exceeded their projections. I think it was Ugly Johnny D. There’s only one I can think of for sure.
| First | Last | Year | age | mIP | mERA | aIP | aERA |
| Mariano | Rivera | 1995 | 26 | 40 | 4.50 | 67 | 5.51 |
| Mariano | Rivera | 1996 | 27 | 77 | 4.91 | 108 | 2.09 |
| Mariano | Rivera | 1997 | 28 | 88.7 | 3.65 | 71.7 | 1.88 |
| Mariano | Rivera | 1998 | 29 | 72.7 | 3.10 | 61.3 | 1.91 |
| Mariano | Rivera | 1999 | 30 | 63 | 2.86 | 69 | 1.83 |
| Mariano | Rivera | 2000 | 31 | 65.3 | 3.03 | 75.7 | 2.85 |
| Mariano | Rivera | 2001 | 32 | 69.7 | 3.36 | 80.7 | 2.34 |
| Mariano | Rivera | 2002 | 33 | 73.3 | 3.19 | 46 | 2.74 |
| Mariano | Rivera | 2003 | 34 | 56 | 3.38 | 70.7 | 1.66 |
| Mariano | Rivera | 2004 | 35 | 65 | 3.05 | 78.7 | 1.94 |
| Mariano | Rivera | 2005 | 36 | 71.3 | 3.03 | 78.3 | 1.38 |
| Mariano | Rivera | 2006 | 37 | 72 | 2.63 | 75 | 1.80 |
| Mariano | Rivera | 2007 | 38 | 70.3 | 2.82 | 71.3 | 3.15 |
| Mariano | Rivera | 2008 | 39 | 68 | 3.31 | 70.7 | 1.40 |
| Mariano | Rivera | 2009 | 40 | 67.7 | 3.06 | 66.3 | 1.76 |
| Mariano | Rivera | 2010 | 41 | 65 | 3.18 | 60 | 1.80 |
| Mariano | Rivera | 2011 | 42 | 61.7 | 2.77 | 61.3 | 1.91 |
| Total | 1147 | 3.27 | 1211 | 2.21 |
mIP: Marcel projected innings pitched.
mERA: Marcel projected ERA.
aIP: Actual innings pitched
aERA: Actual ERA
Marcel regresses more heavily than any other projection system, but it’s the only one I have going all the way back to 1995 so I’m using that. Rivera’s pitched 65 innings more than projected and allowed 119 fewer earned runs. This is more remarkable because every year where he beats his projection should make his projection better. His best projected ERA was 2.63 in 2006. He’s had an ERA better than 2.63 in 13 of his 16 seasons as a reliever.
So it’s safe to say he’s exceeded his projections.
2011
Despite putting up a 1.80 ERA in 2010, Mo seemed to be a bit less dominant. It continued what appeared to be a downward trend.
| Year | IP | BF | ERA | FIP | BABIP | BB/PA | K/PA |
| 2008 | 70.7 | 259 | 1.40 | 2.10 | .218 | 2.3% | 29.7% |
| 2009 | 66.3 | 257 | 1.76 | 2.99 | .248 | 4.7% | 28.0% |
| 2010 | 60.0 | 230 | 1.80 | 2.93 | .222 | 4.8% | 19.6% |
| 2011 | 61.3 | 233 | 1.91 | 2.37 | .275 | 3.4% | 25.8% |
I try to make the point as often as I can that things that appear to be trends in baseball are not predictive. Rivera’s walk rate appeared to be trending up while his K rate was trending down, but it didn’t really tell us anything about 2011. FIP says Rivera was better in 2011 than he was in 2009 and 2010, but FIP ignores his BABIP supressing ability. It’s probably also worth mentioning that Rivera actually threw a smidgen harder last year than he had over the prior two season.
Even though projections are always wrong about Mo, I’ll post them anyway.
2012 Projections
| Projection | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RAR | WAR |
| cairo | 65 | 50 | 19 | 18 | 4 | 12 | 59 | 2.63 | 2.46 | 2.71 | 21 | 2.1 |
| davenport | 60 | 51 | 19 | 19 | 5 | 10 | 51 | 2.85 | 2.85 | 3.03 | 18 | 1.8 |
| marcel | 62 | 53 | 21 | 19 | 5 | 15 | 52 | 3.06 | 2.77 | 3.24 | 15 | 1.5 |
| oliver | 59 | 52 | 21 | 19 | 4 | 11 | 48 | 3.19 | 2.89 | 2.96 | 17 | 1.7 |
| pecota | 67 | 56 | 20 | 18 | 6 | 12 | 66 | 2.71 | 2.45 | 2.88 | 18 | 1.8 |
| steamer | 58 | 54 | 24 | 22 | 5 | 15 | 53 | 3.74 | 3.39 | 3.24 | 9 | 0.9 |
| zips | 49 | 44 | 18 | 17 | 4 | 10 | 43 | 3.31 | 3.12 | 3.11 | 10 | 1.0 |
| average | 60 | 52 | 20 | 19 | 5 | 12 | 53 | 3.07 | 2.85 | 3.02 | 15 | 1.5 |
| 2011 | 61 | 47 | 13 | 13 | 3 | 8 | 60 | 1.91 | 1.91 | 2.17 | 22 | 2.2 |
| LgAvg | 61 | 57 | 28 | 26 | 6 | 25 | 52 | 4.15 | 3.82 | 3.82 |
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.
Yay, CAIRO Yankee bias! Just like every year, the projections expect Mo to take a step back, but even so he still projects as well as just about any reliever in baseball. Here is Rivera’s rank in projected ERA for each system.
cairo: 3
davenport: 2
marcel: 2
oliver: 2
pecota: 8
zips: 35
Boo ZiPS!
CAIRO Percentile Forecasts
| % | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RAR | WAR |
| 80% | 78 | 52 | 17 | 16 | 3 | 11 | 80 | 2.02 | 1.87 | 1.90 | 30 | 3.0 |
| 65% | 71 | 51 | 18 | 17 | 3 | 12 | 69 | 2.33 | 2.16 | 2.28 | 25 | 2.5 |
| Baseline | 65 | 50 | 19 | 18 | 4 | 12 | 59 | 2.63 | 2.46 | 2.67 | 21 | 2.1 |
| 35% | 52 | 43 | 17 | 16 | 4 | 11 | 44 | 2.93 | 2.75 | 3.04 | 15 | 1.5 |
| 20% | 45 | 40 | 16 | 15 | 4 | 11 | 36 | 3.23 | 3.04 | 3.41 | 11 | 1.1 |
The 65% forecast looks like a typical Rivera year. I don’t think he can pitch that many innings at that rate of performance though.
It’s no secret that Mariano Rivera is my favorite player ever. I don’t know if 2012 will be his last season, although if I had to handicap it I’d say it’s maybe 3-1 that it will be. Because of that, I’m going to just try and enjoy every appearance, every entrance, every warm-up pitch, every broken bat, every nasty cutter that a lefty hitter will flail at aimlessly, every four-seamer inside that freezes a righty and every win that Rivera closes out. Hopefully the final game of the MLB 2012 postseason will be one of those games. It’d be the most appropriate way for Mo to ride off into the sunset, wouldn’t it?
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Looking Ahead to 2012 - David Robertson
The best part of the Yankees’ 2011 season may have been watching David Robertson. Robertson entered 2011 as the fourth right-hander on the Yankees’ relief depth chart, expected to pitch some middle innings with the hope of getting the ball to the better relievers like Joba Chamberlain and Rafael Soriano. Instead, he outpitched every reliever on the team except may Mariano Rivera, and is probably now the favorite for the thankless job of “heir to Mo.”
2011
Robertson’s always racked up strikeouts. From 2008-2010 he struck out 170 hitters in 135.1 innings. The problem for him is that also racked up walks. He also had a much higher BABIP against than league average from 2008-2010, which is why he came into 2011 with a career ERA of 3.99.
So how did Robertson wind up as the most valuable relief pitcher in baseball last year (at least according to Baseball Reference)?
| dates | bf | ip | h | hr | r | er | bb | so | ra | era | fip | xfip |
| 6/29/2008 - 10/3/2010 | 595 | 135.3 | 124 | 12 | 63 | 60 | 71 | 170 | 4.19 | 3.99 | 3.41 | 3.67 |
| 4/2/2011 - 9/27/2011 | 272 | 66.7 | 40 | 1 | 9 | 8 | 35 | 100 | 1.22 | 1.08 | 1.97 | 2.70 |
| dates | babip | hr/fb | fb% | gb% | ld% | bb/bf | k/bf |
| 6/29/2008 - 10/3/2010 | .338 | 9.0% | 38.8% | 39.1% | 22.2% | 11.9% | 28.6% |
| 4/2/2011 - 9/27/2011 | .293 | 2.3% | 32.1% | 46.3% | 21.6% | 12.9% | 36.8% |
bf: batters faced
fip: Fielding independent pitching
xfip: Expected fip (uses league average hr/fb rate instead of actual hr)
babip: batting average on balls in play
hr/fb: Percentage of fly balls that were homers (league average is about 10-11%)
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
He actually walked a higher percentage of the batters he faced in 2012. He just had a lower BABIP against, got a higher percentage of ground balls and saw a big drop in his HR/FB rate. His K rate went up a bit as well. He picked up about 1 mph on his fastball last year (93.1 mph) compared to his average of 91.8 from 2008-2010. He also added a cutter that he used quite a bit according to Pitch F/X.
We know that things like BABIP against and HR/FB are more volatile and should be regressed more than most other stats when looking forward, so it’s probably a safe bet that Robertson won’t be putting up a 1.08 ERA in 2012.
2012 Projections
| Projection | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RAR | WAR |
| cairo | 62 | 50 | 20 | 19 | 4 | 31 | 78 | 2.96 | 2.77 | 2.84 | 17 | 1.7 |
| davenport | 65 | 52 | 29 | 28 | 6 | 33 | 72 | 4.02 | 3.88 | 3.60 | 11 | 1.1 |
| marcel | 65 | 54 | 23 | 21 | 5 | 28 | 74 | 3.20 | 2.92 | 3.11 | 14 | 1.4 |
| oliver | 63 | 50 | 26 | 24 | 4 | 31 | 76 | 3.72 | 3.40 | 2.98 | 14 | 1.4 |
| pecota | 72 | 57 | 27 | 25 | 6 | 35 | 92 | 3.43 | 3.13 | 3.08 | 13 | 1.3 |
| steamer | 60 | 48 | 23 | 21 | 5 | 28 | 73 | 3.40 | 3.11 | 3.24 | 12 | 1.2 |
| zips | 65 | 50 | 24 | 22 | 5 | 34 | 87 | 3.34 | 3.06 | 3.01 | 13 | 1.3 |
| average | 64 | 52 | 25 | 23 | 5 | 31 | 79 | 3.44 | 3.18 | 3.12 | 14 | 1.4 |
| 2011 | 66 | 40 | 9 | 8 | 1 | 35 | 100 | 1.22 | 1.09 | 1.81 | 36 | 3.6 |
| LgAvg | 66 | 61 | 31 | 28 | 7 | 27 | 56 | 4.15 | 3.82 | 3.82 |
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.
Robertson’s expected to take a big step back, although even with that he still projects as a solid reliever who could be a closer for all but a handful of teams. CAIRO likes him more than the other systems, but not to the extent that it should given the way CAIRO was designed to make the Yankees look better than they are. Luckily, I can correct for that with these.
CAIRO Percentile Forecasts
| % | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RAR | WAR |
| 80% | 74 | 52 | 19 | 18 | 2 | 31 | 104 | 2.30 | 2.13 | 1.92 | 26 | 2.6 |
| 65% | 68 | 51 | 20 | 18 | 3 | 31 | 91 | 2.63 | 2.45 | 2.38 | 22 | 2.2 |
| Baseline | 62 | 50 | 20 | 19 | 4 | 31 | 78 | 2.96 | 2.77 | 2.84 | 17 | 1.7 |
| 35% | 49 | 43 | 18 | 17 | 4 | 27 | 59 | 3.28 | 3.09 | 3.30 | 12 | 1.2 |
| 20% | 43 | 40 | 17 | 16 | 4 | 26 | 49 | 3.61 | 3.41 | 3.74 | 9 | 0.9 |
While I wouldn’t be surprised to see Robertson hit the 65% or even the 80% forecast, the annoying logical side of my brain tells me we should expect a regression in HR/FB and BABIP and the baseline is more reasonable. Really, any of those projections make Robertson better than Rafael Soriano, who’s getting paid more than all but four relievers in the history of baseball.
When Joe Girardi anointed Joba Chamberlain as his official seventh inning guy early into last season, I was very annoyed. Primarily because it meant that he’d be using a bullpen-by-numbers approach and not trying to take advantage of matchups or any other things that require a more flexible approach. But another part of that annoyance was that I felt Robertson was a better reliever than Joba, and I didn’t understand why he was below him in the pecking order. Robertson forced Girardi’s hand, made the All Star Team and even got MVP and Cy Young votes in 2011. Not bad for a 17th round draft pick who wasn’t really ever considered a prospect. I also think it was awesome that Robertson started the High Socks for Hope charity to help people recover from the horrible tornado that hit Tuscaloosa, Alabama last year.
I think Robertson will have another strong year, and may cement himself into position to be the heir to Mo should Mo decided it’s time to go. Those are some pretty big shoes to fill, but an unflappable guy like Robertson (who struck out 14 of the 19 batters he faced with the bases loaded last year) might be the best candidate for it.
Looking Ahead to 2012 - Rafael Soriano
I’m waiting on how the back end of the bullpen is shaping up so I figured I’d write about my favorite signing from last offseason until that’s done.
2011
According to Baseball References’s version of wins above replacement(WAR), there were 109 pitchers who were worth at least 0.7 WAR. That’s what Rafael Soriano was worth in 2011, ranking at 101 on the list for all relief pitchers. According to the linked list, he was worth less than Edgmer Escalona, who I am convinced is fictitious. He was worth less than Logan Ondrusek. He was worth less than Kameron Lo and Cristhian Martinez. Anyway, this is all just a long way of saying there were 100 relievers who were more valuable than him in 2011.
There were four relievers in baseball that made more money than Soriano in 2011. Mariano Rivera, Brad Lidge, Francisco Rodriguez and Joe Nathan. In fact, those are the only four relievers in MLB history to earn as much as Soriano’s contract will pay him per year over its duration. So aside from the 96 pitchers who provided more value than Soriano and earned less than him, it was a great signing.
I’m not sure if I ever mentioned how I feel about the Soriano signing. I wasn’t particularly enamored with it, but that was more because I felt it was an overpay and not because I didn’t think he was a good reliever. So you can imagine my dismay as I watched him storm out of the gate to a 7.84 ERA through April 26. He then pitched shutout ball over his next five games before winding up on the DL. After returning from the DL he pitched decently enough, with a 3.33 ERA and 26 Ks in 24.1 innings, but that’s really not the kind of performance you pay $12M per year for. Unless you’re the buffoon who made the signing.
Anyway, while the Soriano contract is in the discussion for worst contract ever, it doesn’t mean Soriano can’t provide 5 cents on the dollar’s worth of value in 2012.
2012 Projections
| Projection | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RAR | WAR |
| cairo | 45 | 37 | 19 | 18 | 5 | 16 | 43 | 3.82 | 3.60 | 3.64 | 8 | 0.8 |
| davenport | 60 | 52 | 25 | 24 | 7 | 20 | 56 | 3.75 | 3.60 | 3.71 | 16 | 1.6 |
| marcel | 51 | 43 | 21 | 19 | 5 | 18 | 46 | 3.71 | 3.35 | 3.59 | 12 | 1.2 |
| oliver | 55 | 48 | 24 | 21 | 6 | 18 | 52 | 3.86 | 3.49 | 3.57 | 12 | 1.2 |
| pecota | 54 | 43 | 20 | 18 | 6 | 17 | 57 | 3.26 | 2.94 | 3.34 | 11 | 1.1 |
| steamer | 47 | 44 | 22 | 20 | 6 | 16 | 43 | 4.16 | 3.77 | 4.02 | 8 | 0.8 |
| zips | 63 | 50 | 24 | 22 | 6 | 21 | 74 | 3.43 | 3.14 | 3.04 | 16 | 1.6 |
| average | 54 | 45 | 22 | 20 | 6 | 18 | 53 | 3.71 | 3.41 | 3.56 | 12 | 1.2 |
| 2011 | 39 | 33 | 18 | 18 | 4 | 18 | 36 | 4.14 | 4.14 | 3.95 | 7 | 0.7 |
| LgAvg | 39 | 39 | 20 | 18 | 4 | 12 | 29 | 4.15 | 3.82 | 3.82 |
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.
Those are some amazingly great projections. You can count the number of relievers who could give you 50-55 innings of 3.41 ERA on about 30 hands. Or 15 hands and 15 feet.
CAIRO Percentile Forecasts
| % | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RAR | WAR |
| 80% | 68 | 46 | 22 | 21 | 4 | 18 | 74 | 2.95 | 2.76 | 2.52 | 24 | 2.4 |
| 65% | 59 | 44 | 22 | 21 | 5 | 18 | 60 | 3.38 | 3.18 | 3.09 | 18 | 1.8 |
| Baseline | 45 | 37 | 19 | 18 | 5 | 16 | 43 | 3.82 | 3.60 | 3.66 | 8 | 0.8 |
| 35% | 36 | 32 | 17 | 16 | 5 | 14 | 32 | 4.25 | 4.03 | 4.21 | 7 | 0.7 |
| 20% | 32 | 30 | 17 | 16 | 5 | 14 | 25 | 4.69 | 4.45 | 4.75 | 5 | 0.5 |
I think we’ll see Soriano at that 20% forecast but he won’t pitch that many innings.
David Robertson’s emergence helped cover for a signing that was idiotic at the time and continues to look worse and worse. If Joba Chamberlain was healthy I’d guess the Yankees would have three right-handed relievers who were better than Soriano. But with Joba out, Soriano will be called upon to pitch those crucial seventh innings. You can’t get to the eighth if you don’t get out of the seventh, right?
Monday, March 12, 2012
FoxSports: Jeter, Rivera inseparable? Only seems so
Jeter and Rivera have starred in New York for so long that it’s easy to forget they were prospects once, too. Between now and Opening Day, promising players in 30 camps will be summoned to managers’ offices and told that they must go back to the minor leagues.
Jeter and Rivera received the same news after the Yankees’ 10-7 victory over the Seattle Mariners on June 11, 1995. And they handled it with the traits — professionalism and class — that have defined their careers ever since.
“That wasn’t a happy day for us,” Rivera recalled Sunday before pitching a 1-2-3 fourth inning against the Philadelphia Phillies in his spring debut. “It was tough. When you get sent down, you think about it. Your mind starts wandering. We were down. I was down. But that went away after we got where we were supposed to go, with Columbus, and started working. I needed to get my shoulder right. He worked on his stuff. A few weeks later, I was up again.
“Back then, if you had to work on something, The Boss would send you down in a heartbeat. He didn’t mess around.”
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Fox Sports: Yanks’ Robertson hurt in fall down stairs
David Robertson walked out of the Yankees clubhouse, holding a pair of crutches, his right foot in an oversized black boot.
Instead of making his second spring training appearance, he had gone to a hospital Thursday for an MRI after a household accident: He sprained a foot when he stumbled on stairs while moving boxes.
‘‘It’s embarrassing. I already had Mo rag me out about it,’’ he said after speaking with closer Mariano Rivera.
The New York Yankees were waiting to find out the cost of their first misstep of 2012. An initial X-ray on the All-Star setup man was negative, and Robertson awaited the results of the MRI.
Manager Joe Girardi said the initial diagnosis was a mid-foot sprain.
Thankfully ,the eighth is in the capable hands of Rafael Soriano.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Klapisch: Yankees’ Mariano Rivera tried but failed to teach signature pitch
It’s not uncommon for pitchers to teach and enlighten each other. It’s actually a ritual, in fact. Everyone tries to crack the code on the perfect pitch, which is why Mariano Rivera has spent most of his career explaining what makes his cutter so lethal.
But unlike the change-up, which the Yankees believe Pineda will eventually master, it’s unlikely anyone will ever clone Rivera’s cutter. As the Yankees’ closer approaches retirement, the cutter will ride off into the sunset with him. Like some endangered species, the mysterious, awe-inspiring break that has been Rivera’s signature since 1997 will be nothing more than a memory this time next year.
“Anyone who’s ever asked, I show them the grip, the release, how I control it, anything they want,” Rivera said. “But so far, no one’s got it.”
Thinking about a Mo-less Yankees team makes me a sad panda.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
NY Post: Yankees’ Rivera coy about early start
Monday, the 42-year-old Rivera dropped strong hints this will be his final season. At the minor league complex, Derek Jeter didn’t say anything to refute that and strongly indicated that Rivera has informed his longtime teammate of the decision.
I’ve been ignoring this story on the hope that it didn’t have any traction, but I fear it does.
Friday, February 17, 2012
THT: 20,000 days since the Copacabana incident
Martin went out with Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, Hank Bauer, Johnny Kucks, Yogi Berra, and their assorted wives. It promised to be a good night, as Sammy Davis Jr. was the headline performer that night at the Copa, and the Yankees were enjoying the show.
It started out nice. Then some bowlers showed up.
These bowlers weren’t looking for just a nice pleasant evening like the Yankees were. They also weren’t big fans of Sammy Davis Jr. Oh—and they were drunk. They began heckling Davis. They began race-baiting Davis. And the Yankees, Sammy Davis Jr. fans that they were, decided they weren’t going to stand for it. Martin was especially infuriated, as he was the roommate of Elston Howard, the team’s first black player.
Exactly what happened next is something of a Rashoman incident. Different people told different stories. What is clear is a fracas broke out pitting Yankees versus bowlers. When it was over, one bowler was knocked unconscious with a broken jaw and a concussion.
Also of note, it’s the 23nd anniversary of this event:
1990 The Yankees sign amateur free agent Mariano Rivera.
So Happy Mo Day!
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Fangraphs: Mariano Rivera: Thinking Man’s Cutter
”You need to use your brain to pitch effectively in the big leagues,” explained the future Hall of Famer. “You can’t go out there and do exactly what you want to do without a brain. As you get older, you mature and put your knowledge to work, It’s like when you go to school for the first time. In first grade, you’re not going to know what you know in the sixth or seventh grade. Pitching is just the same. If you don’t learn, you won’t have the success that you could have. I‘ve learned a lot over the years.”
I think this is my favorite split for Mo.
| Year | Tm | ERA | G | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | HBP | BF | ERA+ | WHIP | H/9 | HR/9 | BB/9 | SO/9 |
| 1996-2003 | NYY | 2.15 | 493 | 582.2 | 444 | 151 | 139 | 26 | 147 | 531 | 13 | 2325 | 217 | 1.01 | 6.9 | 0.4 | 2.3 | 8.2 |
| 2004-2011 | NYY | 1.89 | 530 | 561.2 | 419 | 128 | 118 | 28 | 98 | 529 | 30 | 2189 | 236 | 0.92 | 6.7 | 0.4 | 1.6 | 8.5 |
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
NY Post: Mo says ’12 may be end, faces vocal cord surgery
Mariano Rivera, while he waits to find out if he needs a surgical procedure done on his vocal chords, speculated 2012 could be the final year of his Hall of Fame career.
“I don’t know what will happen,’’ said the Yankees closer, who turns 42 Tuesday and has one year and $15 million remaining on his contract. “I have one year left. I might call it over. I will know more in spring training.’’
Bothered for a month by a condition that has turned his voice into a raspy whisper, Rivera has been to one doctor and Monday will get a second opinion.
“Every time I talk it gets worse and worse,’’ Rivera said yesterday at his New Rochelle restaurant, 42 Clubhouse Grill, where his foundation paired with HOPE Community Services to feed 42 children and their families Thanksgiving turkey meals.
Say it ain’t so Mo.
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.
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.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
NYDN: Every Yankees pitcher, from CC Sabathia to Mariano Rivera, ready for Game 5
With young Ivan Nova getting the ball, it is Girardi’s hope that he will be able to follow his usual winning formula of Rafael Soriano in the seventh and David Robertson in the eighth with Mariano Rivera closing things out in the ninth and advancing to Saturday’s ALCS Game 1 against the Rangers.
Girardi also said that, if needed, Rivera would pitch more than one inning.
“He’s the one-plus guy (Thursday night), yes,” Girardi said.
Hopefully Luis Ayala is not available.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Yankee WPA through Game 3 of 2011 ALDS
Win probability added is a stat that tries to estimate how a player has contributed to his team’s chances of winning a game. I don’t think it’s a good statistic for trying to assess value because it is heavily dependent on the contributions of others, but it’s fun to look at if you want a rough idea of which players performances have helped/hurt their teams the most.
Positive means an increase in the probability of winning, negative means a decrease. More positive is more gooder.
If you have anyone in the mainstream media sitting next to you, please send them away. And don’t tell them there’s no Santa Clause.
| Player | WPA |
| Ivan Nova | 0.280 |
| Brett Gardner | 0.269 |
| Jorge Posada | 0.262 |
| Curtis Granderson | 0.081 |
| Russell Martin | 0.078 |
| David Robertson | 0.031 |
| Boone Logan | 0.029 |
| Cory Wade | 0.024 |
| Mariano Rivera | 0.005 |
| Luis Ayala | -0.019 |
| Eric Chavez | -0.043 |
| Alex Rodriguez | -0.060 |
| Robinson Cano | -0.074 |
| Rafael Soriano | -0.097 |
| Andruw Jones | -0.102 |
| Freddy Garcia | -0.122 |
| Mark Teixeira | -0.162 |
| CC Sabathia | -0.237 |
| Nick Swisher | -0.258 |
| Derek Jeter | -0.421 |
FWIW, here are the ten lowest WPA in the 2011 postseason to this point.
| Player | WPA |
| CC Sabathia | -0.237 |
| Koji Uehara | -0.252 |
| Nick Swisher | -0.258 |
| Daniel Hudson | -0.269 |
| Chris Carpenter | -0.286 |
| C.J. Wilson | -0.334 |
| James Shields | -0.354 |
| Brad Ziegler | -0.375 |
| Derek Jeter | -0.421 |
| Cliff Lee | -0.465 |
| Kyle Lohse | -0.542 |
Make it 11, so we can get CC on the list. The more to complain about, the better.
If only the Yankees had signed proven postseason pitcher Cliff Lee…
What the hell, ten best too.
| Player | WPA |
| Ryan Howard | 0.436 |
| Mike Napoli | 0.401 |
| Neftali Feliz | 0.388 |
| Yovani Gallardo | 0.371 |
| Ivan Nova | 0.280 |
| Brett Gardner | 0.269 |
| Lance Berkman | 0.263 |
| Jorge Posada | 0.262 |
| Jason Motte | 0.255 |
| Ryan Braun | 0.251 |
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Yankees.com: Suspension of disbelief: Cano puts on show
Robinson Cano missed a homer by a matter of inches on his go-ahead double, and his grand slam put the game away one night after it began as the Yankees won Game 1 of the ALDS. Ivan Nova picked up the win in relief of CC Sabathia by stifling the Tigers for 6 1/3 innings.
Nova pitched well enough in relief that I think he deserves a start.
Although Doug Fister was charged with six runs, he was pitching pretty well until the sixth. Obviously Cano had a monster day, but there were a few other key plays that I though were worth mentioning.
1) Curtis Granderson, Derek Jeter and Russell Martin combining on a relay throw and tag to nail Alex Avila at home after a Jhonny Peralta single that would have given Detroit a 2-1 lead in the fifth.
2) Nova retiring Wilson Betemit on the very next play with runners on second and third. As I mentioned in the last thread, Betemit hit .307/.374/.557 vs. RHP in 2011.
3) Brett Gardner’s two-out, two-run single to push the Yankees lead to 4-1 and help set the stage for Cano’s grand slam that basically won the game.
I had no problem with how Joe Girardi handled the ninth. Nova was only around 80 pitches and he got the first out. And I was fine with using Ayala to try to close it out since the team had an eight run lead. I was also fine with using Mo to throw three pitches to close it out.
Now we just have to hope that Freddy Garcia’s smoke and mirrors act last for a few more weeks, beginning with tomorrow’s game.
With every series underway, here are my updated odds for each team’s advancing out of their respective series through tonight.
| Team | DS |
| Phillies | 77.4% |
| Brewers | 74.5% |
| Yankees | 67.6% |
| Rangers | 57.2% |
| Rays | 42.8% |
| Tigers | 32.4% |
| Diamondbacks | 25.5% |
| Cardinals | 22.6% |
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.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
WSJ: The Yankees Have Many Postseason Roster Decisions
Even with the season ending Wednesday, the Yankee postseason roster is still not set—as a number of decisions could come down to whether the Yankees play Texas or Detroit in the first round.
A few things are set in stone: CC Sabathia will start Game 1 on Friday, and Ivan Nova will start the second game on Saturday. Freddy Garcia looks like the most likely option for Game 3 on Monday, but manager Joe Girardi wouldn’t commit. Meanwhile, it seems likely that Bartolo Colon would not make the roster for the first round.
It’s probably much ado about nothing to think about what the best postseason roster might be since the Yankees are going to do whatever they’re going to do. Then again, blogging by nature is much ado about nothing, so why not?
As the excerpt says, we know CC and Nova are going in 1 and 2. We also know that Girardi intends to start CC on short rest in Game 4, if necessary. That would allow Nova to pitch Game 5 on normal rest. So they probably only need one more starter. It sounds like that will be Freddy Garcia.
Catcher is one area where things get interesting. We know Russell Martin is a lock. Francisco Cervelli is out for the postseason. The only true backup catcher in the organization right now (according to their thought process) is Austin Romine. Romine is not a major league caliber offensive player right now, and may never be one. In an ideal series, he’d never play. So I think I’d rather see the Yankees take just Martin, with Jorge Posada and Jesus Montero available in an emergency. Should Martin get hurt, the Yankees would have the option to add Romine to the roster. They would also have the option to add him to the roster in the ALCS if they made it there by some miracle.
The thing with Posada and Montero is that they’re likely to be DH’ing if they’re in the lineup. So if one of them has to switch to catcher while already in the lineup as DH, the Yankees will lose the DH. For that reason I think you need both of them on the roster.
On the infield, the question is what combination of Eric Chavez, Eduardo Nunez and Ramiro Pena the Yankees will use to backup Robinson Cano, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira.
For the outfield, I think you’ll see Curtis Granderson, Nick Swisher, Brett Gardner, and Andruw Jones. Chris Dickerson’s probably a long-shot.
In my mind, these are the locks.
Starting Pitchers (3)
Sabathia
Nova
Garcia
Relievers (6)
Rivera
Robertson
Soriano
Logan
Wade
Ayala
Catchers (1)
Martin
Infield (4)
Cano
Jeter
Rodriguez
Teixeira
Outfield (4)
Gardner
Granderson
Swisher
Jones
That’s 18 players, which leaves seven spots which can be filled by some of the following players.
Other pitchers
Burnett
Colon
Hughes
Laffey
Noesi
Valdes
Other catchers
Montero
Posada
Romine
Other infielders
Chavez
Laird
Nunez
Pena
Other outfielders
Dickerson
Golson
I think/hope the Yankees will take Posada/Montero in lieu of Romine. I hope that they’re not going to employ a strict platoon at DH, since it basically means Montero will sit on the bench for the entire series with Detroit. I was hoping they could get by with one backup IF, but given A-Rod’s health issues I’d imagine they’ll take both Chavez and Nunez.That would leave them three more spots for pitchers, but I don’t see carrying 12 pitchers in a 5 game series. So that opens up a spot for someone like Dickerson or Pena or Romine I suppose.
Monday, September 19, 2011
TGS: Stark - Mariano Rivera a true model of greatness
If you really needed to see Mariano Rivera break the “all-time” saves record to anoint him as The Greatest Closer ever, we need to ask you this question immediately:
What the heck have you been watching for the past decade and a half?
This man would have been The Greatest Closer Ever if he’d retired a week ago, or a year ago, or even five years ago.
He’s a special man, with a special gift and a special pitch. And he’s been riding that pitch and that gift to a level of dominance we shouldn’t need a record—any record—to pay notice.
h/t to Dave S..
Yankees.com: Rivera new saves king as Yanks top Twins
NEW YORK—The familiar opening guitar riff and drum beat from Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” blared, and what has become perhaps the most legendary custom in the Yankees’ rich history commenced.
As the door to the outfield bullpen opened and Mariano Rivera appeared, the Yankee Stadium crowd rose to its feet. It would grow louder still through the scoreless ninth as the ever-dominant reliever converted yet another save. This one, the 602nd of his career, was one for the record books.
In preserving New York’s 6-4 victory against the Twins on Monday afternoon in the Bronx, Rivera eclipsed Trevor Hoffman for the top spot on baseball’s all-time saves list. The win, coupled with a Boston afternoon loss, trims New York’s playoff magic number to four and the club’s magic number to win the American League East to five.
Rivera didn’t need to hold the all time saves record to be acknowledged as the best closer of all time, but it’s pretty cool that he has it.
Update: Updated AL East postseason odds through 6pm today.
| American League | |||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL |
| Yankees | 97 | 65 | 863 | 656 | 97.9% | 1.9% | 99.8% |
| Red Sox | 92 | 70 | 867 | 716 | 1.7% | 80.3% | 81.9% |
| Rays | 90 | 72 | 707 | 619 | 0.4% | 16.3% | 16.8% |
| Blue Jays | 82 | 80 | 752 | 765 | 0.0% | - | - |
| Orioles | 67 | 95 | 696 | 840 | 0.0% | - | - |
W: Projected final 2011 wins
L: Projected final 2011 losses
RS: Projected final 2011 runs scored
RA: Projected final 2011 runs allowed
Div: Division win percentage
WC: Wild card win percentage
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Yankees.com: Rivera ties Hoffman as Yanks rally past Jays
TORONTO—Move over, Trevor Hoffman. A religious man who reluctantly enters to Metallica music and throws an evil cutter will temporarily keep you company.
Mariano Rivera closed out the Yankees’ 7-6 win against the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre on Saturday, giving him 601 career saves and tying him with Hoffman for first place on the all-time list. A rough start by Bartolo Colon found the Yankees down five early, but a three-run homer by Alex Rodriguez and a two-run shot by Curtis Granderson brought them all the way back.
Then Rivera did what he’s done better than any other man over the last 16 years: pitch a scoreless ninth inning to preserve a tight lead.
Not sure why, but I thought today was a night game. Oh well. Yay win, yay Mo.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Yankees.com: Mo’s 600th save preserves win for Burnett
SEATTLE—All was good in Yankee land Tuesday night at Safeco Field.
Not only did the Bronx Bombers keep their American League East lead at four games with a 3-2 win over Seattle, but closer Mariano Rivera made history with his 600th career save, securing New York’s third straight victory in front of 18,306.
It was save No. 41 on the season for Rivera, who needs just one more save to tie Trevor Hoffmann atop the all-time saves list.
Rivera helped starter A.J. Burnett secure his first win since Aug. 15. Burnett’s six-inning outing wasn’t pretty by any means—the righty hit two batters, walked two more and threw two wild pitches—but the 34-year-old fooled the Mariners with his off-speed pitches all night to set a season high with 11 strikeouts.
Good for Mo. It’d be nice to see him tie the record tomorrow and then break it at home. Rivera seems genuinely emotional in the post-game interview with Kim Jones. Probably the most emotional I’ve ever seen him.
Yeah, Seattle isn’t that good, but Burnett pitched well. Will it last? Who knows? But it helped shrink the magic number tonight, and that’s a good thing.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
SI.com: As he nears record, Rivera’s career a study of poetry in motion
“Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity.” Those are the words of Plato but the ways of Mariano.
Such is the simplicity of Rivera that he has reached the precipice of a major all-time record—most career saves—while spending his entire career with the famed New York Yankees and somehow been taken for granted. He is, at age 41 and at 599 saves, just three away from breaking the record held on a short lease arrangement by Trevor Hoffman
Because the save stat is somewhat flawed, and has seemingly led managers to change how they use relievers, I don’t really care about Mo breaking the “all-time saves record” as such. What will be cool will be that it will give us a chance to think about how fortunate we’ve been to have him on our favorite team for so long.
I don’t know if Rivera’s lost something this year. He’s allowed a higher BABIP against than his career rate, and his highest since 2007 which was his worst relief season. Because of that he hasn’t appeared as dominant, but his BB/BF (removing IBB) and K/BF are both better this year than last year (3.26% BB/BF and 24.65% K/BF in 2011 vs. 3.48% BB/BF and 19.57% K/BF in 2010). His average velocity is actually a hair higher this year (91.6 mph vs 91.3 mph in 2010). Since I do think Rivera’s ability to suppress BABIP is a skill, I do think the higher BABIP is more than just “bad luck”, but he’s pretty clearly still one of the top tier closers in the game, and I’m not sure there’s one I’d take over him right now over the rest of this season and into the postseason. If by some miracle the Yankees got to the postseason.
Except for Rafael Soriano. Luckily we don’t have to choose, we can enjoy both.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Yankees.com: Yanks muster little at plate in loss to Halos
ANAHEIM—Maicer Izturis’ game-winning drive landed in Curtis Granderson’s glove, too deep in center field to attempt a throw, and all Derek Jeter thought about was the toss he should have made.
Izturis connected for a bases-loaded sacrifice fly facing Luis Ayala in the ninth inning on Friday night, lifting the Angels to a 2-1 victory over the Yankees that made Jeter’s hurried fifth-inning throwing error loom even larger.
“It boils down to giving them extra outs,” Jeter said. “I gave them an extra out throwing that ball away.”
More importantly, Jeter added, the Yankees couldn’t afford to cough up runs facing a stellar Jered Weaver, who limited the Bombers to just Jesus Montero’s homer over eight innings, striking out 11.
I’ll give Jeter a pass, since it was Jeff Mathis busting it down the line. It’s pretty hard to throw out a backup catcher on a routine grounder.
I didn’t get to see the game, but reading the recap and the game chatter here’s what I have to say about it.
1) Jered Weaver is a good pitcher, and from what I can glean he pitched well. Sometimes you face a good pitcher and he shuts you down.
2) As I’ve gotten older, I’ve lost the ability to “hate” players. Frankly, if I was the absolute worst player in MLB history, I’d bat or pitch every time a team kept giving me a chance to do it. So I don’t hate players who aren’t particularly good. If their team puts them in a position to fail, that’s the team’s fault, not theirs. So with regards to using Aaron Laffey last night (or Scott Proctor the day before) in the absolute highest leverage a team can be in at the start of an inning, I won’t blame Laffey (Proctor) for that. I’ll blame Joe Girardi. If you think this game is unimportant enough to use Laffey in that spot, you shouldn’t have wasted David Robertson in the eighth, since now you probably won’t be able to use him in a game you may actually try to win tonight. If you think these games are unimportant, why not audition some of the people who have upside and may have a meaningful role with this team in the years to come? Perhaps they’ll surprise you and show that they’re ready now? Does anyone think Buck Showalter would have used Jack McDowell to replace Mariano Rivera in the 9th inning of the fifth game of the 1995 ALDS if he knew how good Rivera was? If Hector Noesi didn’t get a shot against Baltimore in extra innings in his MLB debut, would the Yankees ever have made him a useful part of their bullpen?
3) As I said, the Yankees always find a way to lose to the Angels, and it’s really infuriating. Your pitcher’s pitching brilliantly against them? Make an error that gives them the run that ends up costing you the win.
4) The Yankees are probably exhausted right now given the way their last three games have unfolded. A four hour rain delay in New York resulting in a game that ended around 2:00 am followed by a trip for a day game to Baltimore followed by a flight to the West Coast to play a game at 10:00 pm Eastern time. So maybe we’re seeing some effect from that.
5) Any schadenfreude from the Red Sox’s recent tailspin is pretty much gone with the fact that the Yankees haven’t been able to gain even one iota from it, aside from shortening the amount of time the Red Sox might have to catch them.
It’s still really unlikely that the Yankees miss the playoffs, and with Detroit and Texas in a near dead heat record-wise there’s not necessarily going to be a huge advantage from winning the division. So I can at least be happy that Bartolo Colon pitched well, something he hasn’t done as much of since his return from the DL. I can also appreciate the fact that Jesus Montero pulled a HR off one of the best pitchers in the league and helped make his case for full-time play. Also, the Angels are just two games back of Texas in the loss column and it wouldn’t necessarily be the worst thing in the world if they forced Texas to go all out down the stretch. It can only benefit whomever faces the AL West winner if the race goes down to the wire.
I seriously expect the Yankees to lose every game they play against the Angels. Because of that, I just can’t get that worked up about it anymore. As a card-carrying stat-nerd, I really have a tough time reconciling the fact that what’s happened in the past has no bearing on what happens now when these two teams play and that the talent on the field that given day should be the primary factor in who wins or loses with the way the Yankees constantly roll over for Anaheim.
Friday, September 2, 2011
MLB.Network: Mariano Rivera Interview with Bob Costas
Interesting interview with Mo. He talks about potential retirement and wanting to play CF for an inning before he does.
Boston Globe: Edge to Yankees
Gonzalez took a two-strike pitch from Rivera that was low and on the outer corner of the plate. On a night when his strike zone had been tight, umpire Alfonso Marquez called Gonzalez out to end the game.
Sitting in front of his locker after a 4-2 loss, Gonzalez looked up as reporters entered the clubhouse.
“That pitch was low, I should still be hitting. That’s all I have to say,’’ he said.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Does Aaron Laffey Really Help the Yankees?
I was curious about whether or not Aaron Laffey really helps the Yankees all that much, so I decided to do a quick estimate of each pitcher currently in the pen and their splits vs. RHB/LHB.
First, here are the overall wOBAs against each pitcher from 2008 through yesterday, sorted from worst to best. The lower the wOBA, the better the pitcher.
| Player | Split | wOBA |
| Rivera | Overall | .218 |
| Soriano | Overall | .242 |
| Wade | Overall | .262 |
| Robertson | Overall | .289 |
| Noesi | Overall | .306 |
| Logan | Overall | .323 |
| Laffey | Overall | .338 |
| Ayala | Overall | .338 |
WWWMW™ notwithstanding, it shouldn’t surprise anyone here that Mariano Rivera tops the list. As you can see, Laffey joins Luis Ayala at the bottom of the list.
Of course, the reason the Yankees went for Laffey is because of his handedness. So here are the estimated platoon splits vs. LHB for each of the above pitchers. I’m using career wOBA splits applied to 2008-2011. Not quite a projection, but close enough for all intents and purposes
| Player | Split | wOBA |
| Rivera | vs LHB | .209 |
| Wade | vs LHB | .241 |
| Robertson | vs LHB | .272 |
| Soriano | vs LHB | .280 |
| Logan | vs LHB | .295 |
| Laffey | vs LHB | .319 |
| Noesi | vs LHB | .331 |
| Ayala | vs LHB | .367 |
I guess Laffey’s a better option against lefties than Luis Ayala and Hector Noesi.
And last, platoon splits vs. righties.
| Player | Split | wOBA |
| Soriano | vs RHB | .209 |
| Rivera | vs RHB | .227 |
| Wade | vs RHB | .278 |
| Noesi | vs RHB | .284 |
| Robertson | vs RHB | .304 |
| Ayala | vs RHB | .316 |
| Laffey | vs RHB | .346 |
| Logan | vs RHB | .354 |
I suppose he’s a better long relief option against a lefty-heavy team than Noesi, and probably a better option to face a lefty than Ayala and Noesi, but other than that he’s probably not a better option vs. a LHB in a tight situation than any of the Mo/Robertson/Wade/Soriano/Logan.
I guess I should note that Laffey’s faced 1221 batters as a starter and 383 as a reliever, which would ordinarily mean that as a pure reliever he’d be more effective than his career totals indicated. Unfortunately, for whatever reason Laffey’s been no more effective as a reliever than he was a starter in his career (.289/.361/.407 vs. .291/.354/.427).
Seems like a meh move to me, but whatever.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Yankees.com: Yanks have their way with resilient Royals
KANSAS CITY—Robinson Cano teed off on a monster three-run homer toward the right-field fountains at Kauffman Stadium, highlighting the Yankees’ offensive attack in a 9-7 victory over the Royals on Tuesday night.
Cano’s fourth-inning blast off Kansas City starter Danny Duffy helped the Yankees patch over a rare blip from their own young hurler, Ivan Nova, who has found the Royals to be a more challenging opponent than expected this year.
I was driving when Cano’s PA against Duffy started in the fourth inning and I think I covered about 10 miles by the time it ended. 12 pitches, seven straight foul balls and then boom.
Nova wasn’t good tonight, but I’m hopeful it was just a blip.
And we won’t know for sure for another game or two, but it does look like we just saw another chapter of WWWMW™ and not the end of the line for the greatest closer of all time. Shame on any of us who thought differently.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Yankees.com: Cano slams Angels after two-out error
NEW YORK—Robinson Cano made the Angels pay a heavy price for a crucial error, blasting a seventh-inning grand slam to lead the Yankees to a 6-5 victory on Thursday afternoon at Yankee Stadium.
Second baseman Maicer Izturis booted Mark Teixeira’s soft tapper, which appeared to be the final out of the inning, sending up Cano with the bases loaded against reliever Scott Downs.
Cano took advantage of the opportunity, pelting the facing of the second deck in right field, earning a curtain call for his fifth career grand slam, and his first since Aug. 22, 2010, against the Mariners.
For Cano, the homer was his second in less than 24 hours, having also homered in the seventh inning on Wednesday, and the first permitted to a left-handed batter by Downs this year.
Yay Cano!
Derek Jeter went 3 for 3 with a walk, continuing to be a lot more productive since his return from the DL on July 4.
| Dates | PA | H | 2B | 3B | HR | BB | SO | SB | CS | HBP | GDP | avg | obp | slg | woba | isoD | isoP |
| 3/31-6/13 | 293 | 68 | 9 | 1 | 2 | 23 | 31 | 7 | 2 | 4 | 6 | .260 | .324 | .324 | .295 | .065 | .065 |
| 7/4-8/11 | 139 | 39 | 8 | 1 | 2 | 11 | 23 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | .312 | .374 | .440 | .359 | .062 | .128 |
| Dates | br | br/650 | babip | FB | GB | LD | IFH | fb% | gb% | ld% | bb/pa | k/pa |
| 3/31-6/13 | 28 | 62 | .288 | 52 | 153 | 27 | 12 | 22.4% | 65.9% | 11.6% | 7.8% | 10.6% |
| 7/4-8/11 | 20 | 93 | .370 | 13 | 63 | 25 | 6 | 12.9% | 62.4% | 24.8% | 7.9% | 16.5% |
FB: fly balls
GB: ground balls
LD: line drives
IFH: infield hits
woba: weighted on-base average
isoD: Isolated plate discipline (obp - avg)
isoP: Isolated power (slg - avg)
br: linear weights batting runs
br/650: br pro-rated to 650 PA
babip: batting average on balls in play
Granted, 6 of his 39 hits have been of the infield variety, but that’s actually only 15.4% of his hits, compared to 17.6% prior to going on the DL.
And I am hoping that WWWMW™ is not going to last any longer. It’s been long enough.
I was wondering if Russell Branyan was the first player to ever homer off Rivera on his first pitch of the game. It turns out it’s happened twice before.
April 11, 1997 to Mark McGwire
I remember this one. It was a shot to the black in dead center and it was early in Rivera’s first year as an official closer, supplanting John Wetteland after Rivera’s superlative 1996. The media decided to play up the whole ‘maybe he can’t get those last three outs since they’re so much harder to get’ thing, but I guess it turns out he could.
I don’t remember this one, a blown save against the White Sox in Chicago.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Some Mo Pitch FX stuff
I just wanted to do a quick comparison with some of Mariano Rivera’s Pitch FX data from last year and this year, so here it is.
First, here’s the 2010 data.
| % | FF | FFv | FC | FCv |
| 4 | 8.8% | 91.8 | 91.2% | 90.6 |
| 5 | 11.6% | 91.5 | 88.4% | 90.9 |
| 6 | 18.3% | 92.1 | 81.7% | 91.4 |
| 7 | 22.8% | 92.5 | 77.2% | 91.3 |
| 8 | 17.9% | 92.5 | 82.1% | 91.1 |
| 9 | 16.5% | 91.6 | 83.5% | 91.0 |
| 10 | 1.8% | 93.1 | 98.2% | 91.5 |
| All | 14.6% | 92.1 | 85.4% | 91.1 |
FF: 4 seam fastball
FC: Cutter
Really basic here, just the percentage of time he threw his cutter and four-seamer by month, with the average velocities as well.
| Month | Ball | Str_C | Str_S | Foul | In play |
| 4 | 32.6% | 20.3% | 9.4% | 23.9% | 13.8% |
| 5 | 37.2% | 18.2% | 5.0% | 20.7% | 19.0% |
| 6 | 34.0% | 19.8% | 10.8% | 22.6% | 12.7% |
| 7 | 31.4% | 15.3% | 10.2% | 23.4% | 19.7% |
| 8 | 37.8% | 9.4% | 6.3% | 21.3% | 25.2% |
| 9 | 32.0% | 13.8% | 8.3% | 24.3% | 21.5% |
| 10 | 32.1% | 19.6% | 3.6% | 25.0% | 19.6% |
| All | 33.8% | 16.7% | 8.1% | 23.1% | 18.4% |
Ball: Pitches that missed the strike zone, includes HBP, pitchouts
Str_C: Called strikes
Str_S: Swinging strikes, includes missed bunts
Foul: All fouls including outs
In play: All balls hit into play, including HRs
I’m just trying to keep this simple, so I’m not separating out hits from outs or whatever. I’m more interested in what Rivera’s pitches are doing as they get to home plate and what the batters are doing to them. What I find interesting here is the marked drop in August. Despite no obvious drop in velocity, he pretty clearly wasn’t quite as effective. He threw more balls, got fewer called and swinging strikes, and batters hit a lot more balls into play. He pitched nine innings in August 2010 and only allowed two runs, but he walked three and struck out just two, so that kind of jibes with a decreased effectiveness at the pitch level, even if it didn’t manifest itself in runs.
The good news is that Rivera seemed to rebound a bit in September and was fine in October, which is the most important thing.
So what about 2011? Are we just seeing another August dip? We won’t know for a while, but here are the numbers.
| % | FF | FFv | FC | FCv |
| 3 | 100.0% | 90.1 | ||
| 4 | 9.1% | 91.0 | 90.9% | 90.5 |
| 5 | 14.6% | 91.5 | 85.4% | 90.9 |
| 6 | 10.9% | 92.3 | 89.1% | 91.6 |
| 7 | 15.7% | 93.0 | 84.3% | 91.8 |
| 8 | 23.5% | 93.2 | 76.5% | 92.3 |
| All | 12.9% | 92.2 | 87.1% | 91.2 |
| Month | Ball | Str_C | Str_S | Foul | In play |
| 3 | 15.8% | 10.5% | 21.1% | 21.1% | 31.6% |
| 4 | 27.3% | 16.0% | 7.5% | 31.0% | 18.2% |
| 5 | 33.1% | 19.7% | 6.3% | 20.5% | 20.5% |
| 6 | 25.6% | 17.8% | 10.1% | 27.1% | 19.4% |
| 7 | 25.9% | 18.5% | 11.9% | 24.4% | 19.3% |
| 8 | 27.5% | 15.7% | 7.8% | 23.5% | 25.5% |
| All | 27.5% | 17.4% | 9.1% | 25.9% | 20.1% |
We obviously don’t have enough data to make any meaningful observations about Rivera’s 2011 August. I do have to admit that as a fan this year, ignoring whatever the numbers tell me, Mo hasn’t been quite as dominant as he’s been over the last few seasons. If that means he’s now just a very good closer instead of the greatest of all time, there are worse things that could happen. He is 41, and it is going to happen at some point. I’d imagine that we’ll see Mo being used a bit more sparingly if he continues to look human.
Or it could just be yet another chapter of WWWMW™, one that we’ll look back on at the end of the year and laugh at. Again.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Yankees.com: Yankees run themselves out of rally after Mo falters
NEW YORK—Bobby Abreu crushed his second homer of the night, a two-run blast in the ninth inning off Mariano Rivera, to help the Angels rally for a 6-4 victory over the Yankees on Tuesday.
Abreu’s sixth shot of the year came after the Yankees had covered for a late skid by starter A.J. Burnett, mounting a three-run rally in the seventh inning that spoiled a strong start by Angels starter Dan Haren.
In the ninth, Rivera recorded the first two outs by firing to second base on a sacrifice bunt and inducing a groundout, but Abreu connected with Erick Aybar aboard for the crushing blow.
The Yankees mounted a rally against Jordan Walden in the bottom of the ninth, but Curtis Granderson was picked off first base to end the game with Eduardo Nunez on third and Mark Teixeira at the plate.
When the Yankees were down 4-1 in the 7th, it seemed like just another run of the mill loss. A bad start by A.J. Burnett and the offense not doing enough to compensate, but one that’d be easily forgotten. Instead, the Yankees rallied to tie it, then saw Mariano Rivera unable to preserve a tie after blowing a save in his last appearance, still managing to get the tying run on base with their cleanup hitter up, only to have Granderson get picked off.
If you could pin this one on Burnett, we’d have a nice easy scapegoat. Since we now have to blame Rivera and Granderson too, it’s a little harder.
It really is amazing the way this team rolls over for the Angels. It’s almost as bad as the way the Angels roll over for Boston.
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.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Yankees.com: CC denies White Sox, earning 16th win
With the practically unbeatable CC Sabathia on the mound, the Yanks came out swinging against White Sox starter Jake Peavy but got little else after the first inning. Still, Sabathia’s arm preserved an early lead and led them to a 3-2 victory at U.S. Cellular Field to get the start of August and a seven-game road trip off on the right foot.
The Yankees—the ones who surprisingly didn’t make a single trade in July—have now won seven of their last nine games.
It’s a testament to how good CC’s been this year that a game where he pitched eight innings and allowed two runs seemed like one of his less impressive outings.
And how great is Mo? Nine pitches (all between 92-94 mph), nine strikes and most importantly three outs.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
NY Times: Strong Effort by Colon Helps Yankees Take Care of Business
In the oppressive heat of a playoff race, this stretch serves as an oasis — three series against teams that entered Sunday a combined 43 games under .500. As the Yankees strive to keep pace with — and, they hope, overtake — Boston in the American League East, these are the games that they should win, that should fatten their victory total.
On Sunday, they accomplished their primary objective, closing this three-game set against the Oakland Athletics with a series victory. Behind seven strong innings from Bartolo Colon and a two-run home run by Curtis Granderson, the Yankees won, 7-5, holding on after Mariano Rivera staggered while recording his first four-out save of the season. Rivera stranded both runners he inherited in the eighth with a two-run lead, but stumbled in the ninth, allowing four consecutive singles with one out, including Hideki Matsui’s fifth hit of the afternoon. But with the bases loaded, he got David DeJesus to line out to Mark Teixeira, who stepped on first base to complete the game-ending double play.
Maybe it’s just me, but I thought the first two singles that Rivera “allowed” were plays that should have been made by Cano. So I’m going to pretend Mo retired all four batters he faced.
Everything is now set up for the Yankees to gift the Mariners with the end of their losing streak.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Yankees.com: Walks come in handy as Yanks edge Rays
ST. PETERSBURG—Russell Martin drew a two-out bases-loaded walk in the ninth to plate Curtis Granderson, giving the Yankees a 5-4 win over the Rays in the series opener from Tropicana Field on Monday night.
Forced into action after a 16-inning Sunday night game, Alex Torres made his Major League debut in a 4-4 game in the top of the ninth. With Granderson on third and two outs, Torres intentionally walked Nick Swisher to pitch to Andruw Jones, but walked Jones to load the bases.
I guess we should give the Red Sox an assist for forcing the Rays to use a pitcher making his MLB debut in the ninth inning of a tie game. Thanks fellas!
After A.J. Burnett’s pitching and glove put the Yankees in a 4-1 hole after two innings it looked like one of those nights. A late rally in the 8th tied the game and David Robertson and Mariano Rivera retired the final six Rays to bat while the Yankees took advantage of Joe Maddon’s largess to tally the winning run in the ninth.
As an aside, after starting the year being caught stealing 6 times in 11 attempts, Brett Gardner’s now stolen successfully in 22 of his last 26 attempts. Maybe he doesn’t need those remedial base running lessons after all.
Monday, July 4, 2011
USA Today: Derek Jeter finishes rehab stint, set to join Yankees Monday
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Derek Jeter went 1-for-2 with a bunt single, a walk and a throwing error in six innings Sunday night in his second rehab start with Class AA Trenton as he looks to return from a right calf strain.
A throwing error? Great.
In other stuff:
NY Post: Nova deep-sixed from crowded Yankees rotation
NY Post: Yankees’ Rivera blows first save vs. rival since ‘99
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Yankees.com: Young Nunez delivers on Old-Timers’ Day
Leave it to the Yankees’ youngest player to highlight their 65th Old-Timers’ Day.
A Sunday afternoon that began with the Yankees celebrating stars such as 86-year-old Yogi Berra and 82-year-old Whitey Ford featured 24-year-old Eduardo Nunez providing the decisive hit, a seventh-inning RBI single in the Yankees’ 6-4 win over the Rockies that kept the Bombers in first place after the Red Sox’s win earlier in the day.
Forty-one-year-old Mariano Rivera, the Yankees’ oldest player, ended the day by recording the save.
If Nunez hadn’t made 9 errors in the game I’d feel happier about him grounding a single through the SS hole with a runner in scoring position. I keep hoping that as he gets more comfortable playing every day he’ll tighten up that defense, but so far my hopes are unanswered.
For the umpteenth time this season the Yankees win a series after dropping the opener. Imagine if they’d win an opener once in a while? In winning today they were able to remain in sole possession of first place, something I would not expect to last for more than another day or two at the most.
Once again the bullpen pitched well, picking up for a somewhat lackluster outing by Ivan Nova. Boone Logan has been very good against lefties of late after struggling against them for most of the year. Hopefully he’s found whatever it was that worked for him last year. David Robertson and Mariano Rivera struck out five of the final six batters to seal off the win.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Yankees.com: Gardner’s walk-off RBI seals Yanks’ sweep
NEW YORK—A day before he put pen to paper, before he could put on a Major League uniform for the first time in three years, Brian Gordon went to a field across the street from Yankee Stadium.
Thirty-two years old and not yet officially a Yankee, Gordon tossed with baseball operations assistant Brett Weber, catching the eye of one passerby who stopped to say Gordon had a nice arm.
Unbeknownst to that observer, Gordon would take the mound one block over for the real thing the next day.
The New York-born, Texas-raised Gordon gave the Yankees everything they could have hoped for, and then some, in his first career start Thursday against the Rangers, a 3-2, 12-inning win that completed a three-game sweep and made this 10-game homestand a winning one after it began with three straight losses.
Gordon held his own in his first career start, but it was his bullpen’s outstanding work after he left that held Texas scoreless long enough for the Yankees to finally score the game winner on Brett Gardner’s single. Hector Noesi, David Robertson, Mariano Rivera and Cory Wade faced 22 batters and only three of them reached.
Wade’s already provided more value than Pedro Feliciano and Rafael Soriano.
After coming in for defense, Gardner went 2 for 2 and is now hitting .286/.364/.427. If only he could steal bases more successfully…
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.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
TGS NY: Joe’s handling of ‘pen not so mighty
David Robertson got out of a bed in Tuscaloosa, Alabama at 4:30 a.m. Eastern time Friday morning. Nearly 20 hours later, he was on the mound at Safeco Field, doing his job to perfection, pitching an overpowering eighth inning against the Mariners.
Trouble was, the game had already been lost two innings earlier.
But that’s what happens when a manager sticks to a game plan even if the game no longer fits his plan.
Robertson, back from a mission of mercy to his tornado-ravaged hometown, was no doubt the most tired man in the Yankee bullpen. He was also the only one able to do his job. Unfortunately, by the time he was asked to do it, it was too late. At the time, the Yankees trailed 4-3, and that’s the way it would stay.
I didn’t get to watch the game, so I’d be interested in everyone else’s take, but here’s how I see the situation. With Burnett at 97 pitches with five walks through five innings, I don’t think anyone would quibble with the fact that he was pulled prior to the sixth inning. So the question then is who should have started the bottom of the sixth. With Adam Kennedy (LHB), Miguel Olivo (RHB) and Carlos Peguero (LHB) due up, I can understand the thought process behind starting the sixth inning with Boone Logan. You need to get four innings out of your bullpen, so unless you want one of Robertson, Joba Chamberlain or Mariano Rivera to pitch two innings you needed to get some outs from someone other than those three.
Logan allowed a leadoff single to Kennedy. So now with a RHB up and with the likelihood of a pinch-hitter for Peguero to re-gain the platoon advantage, going to the bullpen for a RHP made sense as well. Unfortunately, Girardi opted for Luis Ayala instead of Robertson and that’s when the game was lost.
Ayala probably would have pitched an inning at some point in the game, so the real problem is that he and Logan didn’t do their jobs. However, once Kennedy reached Girardi should have used a better pitcher due to the leverage of the situation, and not the pitcher who’s ordinal spot in the bullpen hierarchy was now due. If you intended to pitch Robertson or Chamberlain if necessary anyway, they’d have been the better choices in that spot. If they extended themselves to get out of the inning, you could then go to Ayala to begin the seventh with whichever of Robertson or Chamberlain wasn’t used as a safety net to get the game to Rivera.
Again, the real issue is that Logan and Ayala didn’t execute. But it’s fair to say that Girardi’s deployment of the bullpen after Logan is also culpable.
The Yankees really don’t have much margin for error on this road trip if you look at the schedule for the Yankees, Red Sox and Rays over the rest of this West Coast swing.
| Date | Yankee | xW | xL | Red Sox | xW | xL | Rays | xW | xL |
| 5/28/2011 | @ Mariners | .58 | .42 | @ Tigers | .53 | .47 | vs Indians | .58 | .42 |
| 5/29/2011 | @ Mariners | .58 | .42 | @ Tigers | .53 | .47 | vs Indians | .58 | .42 |
| 5/30/2011 | @ Athletics | .51 | .49 | vs White Sox | .62 | .38 | vs Rangers | .54 | .46 |
| 5/31/2011 | @ Athletics | .51 | .49 | vs White Sox | .62 | .38 | vs Rangers | .54 | .46 |
| 6/1/2011 | @ Athletics | .51 | .49 | vs White Sox | .62 | .38 | vs Rangers | .54 | .46 |
| 6/2/2011 | @Mariners | .54 | .46 | ||||||
| 6/3/2011 | @ Angels | .54 | .46 | vs Athletics | .59 | .41 | @Mariners | .54 | .46 |
| 6/4/2011 | @ Angels | .54 | .46 | vs Athletics | .59 | .41 | @Mariners | .54 | .46 |
| 6/5/2011 | @ Angels | .54 | .46 | vs Athletics | .59 | .41 | @Mariners | .54 | .46 |
| 4.32 | 3.68 | 4.72 | 3.28 | 4.95 | 4.05 |
At this point Boston and the Rays have around a one game advantage over the Yankees over the next nine days, at which point the Yankees will return home to face Boston, Cleveland and Texas on a nine game home stand. It’s not inconceivable that the Yankees could be trailing Boston and/or Tampa Bay by three or four games by then. And that’s not exactly the kind of home stand that would allow the Yankees to catch up if they falter on the rest of this trip.
Right now I’ve got Boston projected to finish around 93-69, the Yankees around 91-71 and Tampa Bay around 88-74. If that’s how things still look by the end of this road trip I’d happily take it.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Yankees.com: Yanks’ jolt better late than never (aka Joe Girardi is a Dummy)
Mariano Rivera blew his third save, but Robinson Cano drove in two of the Yanks’ three 15th-inning runs. .
Bartolo Colon pitched about as well as a pitcher can pitch tonight, throwing mainly two and four seam fastballs on the edges of the strike zone over eight scoreless innings and needing just 87 pitches. This of course makes the decision to pull Colon after the eighth something that was questionable.
I was fine with it. Almost all the evidence we have about pitchers shows that they are less effective on each pass through the batting order. It’s part of the reason why bad starters can be good relievers. With the top of the Orioles lineup coming up in what would be their fourth look at Colon, pulling him was a defensible move. That’s particularly true when you’re going to Mariano Rivera to try and preserve the lead.
That it didn’t work out tonight doesn’t change that.
That doesn’t absolve Joe Girardi of some of the blame for this game almost being a loss though.
I don’t think I can overstate how stupid it was to bunt with Brett Gardner in the top of the 12th inning. Consider this:
A right-handed pitcher was on the mound.
Due up after Gardner (who bats left-handed) were Eduardo Nunez, Russell Martin and possibly Derek Jeter, all of whom hit right-handed.
Gardner was the best hitter due up out of that group given the platoon advantage. Instead, Girardi gave away an out which was far more important to his team’s chances of scoring a run than advancing a runner by one base so one of the three weaker hitters due up next could try to drive him in.
It’s even more egregious since it was the second time in the game that Girardi pissed away an out, although bunting with Eduardo Nunez was a bit more defensible.
Fortunately for us, the Orioles weren’t able to take advantage of Girardi’s generosity and Hector Noesi pitched four scoreless innings in his MLB debut despite allowing eight baserunners and the Yankees miraculously scored three runs in the top of the fifteenth inning and held on to win. Maybe one they didn’t deserve, but a win regardless.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Yankees.com: A-Rod, timely relief buoy Yankees
NEW YORK—Alex Rodriguez slashed a two-run single that put the Yankees ahead and Dave Robertson escaped from a key seventh-inning jam, securing a 3-1 victory over the Royals on Tuesday.
Rodriguez has been fiddling with a mechanical adjustment to his leg kick, hoping to escape a power drought that has followed the slugger for weeks, and he now has even more reason to be encouraged by the results.
The Yankees took the lead in the fifth inning, as Kansas City starter Kyle Davies walked Brett Gardner and allowed a one-out Derek Jeter single before hitting Mark Teixeira in the left thigh with a two-out pitch.
Jeter went 2 for 4 and both hits were hit solidly up the middle. He’s now hitting .283/.336/.354 in a league where the average SS has hit .254/.310/.352 (entering tonight). I don’t know if he’s back or not, but I am less pessimistic than I was a week ago.
Freddy Garcia had another solid outing after being hit a bit harder in his last two starts, although he allowed the first two runners to reach in the seventh, which brought Robertson into the game. Robertson made things interesting by loading the bases with one out, but he came back to fan the last two hitters of the inning. Joba Chamberlain pitched what might have been his best inning of 2011, and Mo closed it out with a nice stab on a shot up the middle that he was able to turn into a double play.
Hopefully they can keep it going tomorrow.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Yankees.com: Yanks outlast Tigers after Colon’s fine start
DETROIT—Bartolo Colon delivered yet another solid start, Nick Swisher broke a tie with an RBI single in the ninth inning and Mariano Rivera closed the door, giving the Yankees a 5-3 win over the Tigers at Comerica Park on Monday night.
Colon had given up just three runs in his previous two starts combined—a span of 14 2/3 innings—and limited the Tigers to three runs over seven innings in start No. 3.
The Yankees wore out Justin Verlander, who needed 127 pitches to get through six innings, but going 1 for 11 with RISP prior to the ninth inning meant they needed Swisher’s late heroics to pull this one out. Colon looked good again, with two solo opposite field HRs by Alex Avila the only real ding on his performance. He struck out seven and walked none, continuing his very encouraging strike throwing ways. Joba looked very good in pitching the eighth, and Mo pitched a perfect ninth, hopefully burying the 2011 edition of WWWMW™.
Brett Gardner continued his better play of late, getting on base three times in four PA, and Jorge Posada and Derek Jeter also added two hits apiece. Hopefully that’s a sign of things to come.
In other news, Phil Hughes’s circulatory tests came back negative. This is good news and I’m happy for Hughes, although it means that the cause for his problems so far this year are still a question mark.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Yankees.com: Pesky Yanks come away winners
The Yankees endured Mariano Rivera’s second blown save and a 40-minute delay to edge the Orioles in 11.
It was a win that felt like a loss. I think the Yankees should get a refund on their shutdown bullpen.
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.
Yankees.com: Mo shoulders blame after Yanks fall in 10th
“It wasn’t a good night tonight,” Rivera said. “I didn’t make good pitches. I think the guys did tremendous today. It’s my fault.”
Rivera had been perfect in seven previous opportunities, but it was easy to see he wasn’t sharp this time out.
“It happens. Mo is as close to perfect in these situations as you can be, but as we know, no one is perfect,” manager Joe Girardi said.
#### happens. Girardi tried to blow this game in the sixth by leaving in A.J. Burnett for at least two batters too long, only to be bailed out by David Robertson who came in with the tying run on third and the go-ahead run on second with one out and struck out Yunel Escobar and Travis Snider to preserve a 4-3 lead. From there, the auto-manager took over and did what it always does in this situation. If inning = 7, then pitcher = Joba Chamberlain. If inning = 8, then Rafael, Soriano. If inning=9, then Mariano Rivera. Chamberlain and Soriano did their jobs, and Rivera didn’t.
I think the Yankees are one of only two teams that has yet to lose two games in a row this season. Their hopes for extending that will fall on Bartolo Colon tonight.
Monday, April 4, 2011
MLB.com: Yankees’ bullpen finishes job for Nova
NEW YORK—Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada hit two-run homers to support Ivan Nova’s first start of the year as the Yankees defeated the Twins, 4-3, on Monday at Yankee Stadium.
I thought Nova looked pretty good overall. His location was great for most of the game. Even the pitch that Thome hit for a two-run double was good one, a changeup down in the zone. He could have located it a bit more outside, but it wasn’t a bad spot really; tip your cap to the forty year old on that one.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Yankees.com: Granderson’s homer gives Yanks opener
Homers by Mark Teixeira and Curtis Granderson carried the Yanks’ offense, and the bullpen finished the Tigers with spotless work on Opening Day in the Bronx.
Granderson’s homer came off Phil Coke, which means the Yankees have officially won the trade that sent Austin Jackson and Coke to Detroit and Ian Kennedy to Arizona in return for Granderson. Yay trade win! Granderson also made a couple of nice defensive plays, one in the first and one in the ninth.
CC Sabathia didn’t pitch great, allowing three runs over six innings, but he was good enough to keep the Yankees in the game against Justin Verlander on a cold day.
Joba Chamberlain, Rafael Soriano and Mariano Rivera each pitched a perfect inning to close it out, and the Yankees staved off division elimination for one more day.
It’s always nice to start the year off with a win, isn’t it?
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Looking Ahead To 2011 - Mariano F’ing Rivera
At the advanced age of 40, Mariano Rivera had another superlative year. It was the 10th season of his career with a sub 2 ERA.
Rivera’s career is fascinating. He’s now pitched 16 seasons in his career. Over the first eight seasons of his career he pitched 579 innings with a 2.60 ERA (although that includes his rookie year where he pitched primarily as a starter to a 5.51 ERA). Over the last eight seasons, he’s pitched 571 innings of 1.86 ERA.
There are some reasons to be concerned about Rivera. As great as he is, he will be 41 this year, and the list of relievers who were successful at that age is somewhat short. Of course, the list of relievers who were ever as good as Mo for as long he’s been is probably even shorter. The other concern would be a somewhat precipitous drop in his strike out rate.
| Year | BB/BF | K/BF |
| 2007 | 4.1% | 25.1% |
| 2008 | 2.3% | 29.7% |
| 2009 | 4.7% | 28.0% |
| 2010 | 4.8% | 19.6% |
In general, drops like that aren’t necessarily predictive.
| Year | BB/BF | K/BF | Diff |
| 1996 | 8.0% | 30.6% | — |
| 1997 | 6.6% | 22.6% | -8.0% |
| 1998 | 6.9% | 14.6% | -8.0% |
| 1999 | 6.7% | 19.4% | 4.8% |
| 2000 | 8.0% | 18.6% | -0.8% |
| 2001 | 3.9% | 26.8% | 8.1% |
| 2002 | 5.9% | 21.9% | -4.8% |
| 2003 | 3.6% | 22.7% | 0.8% |
| 2004 | 6.3% | 20.9% | -1.9% |
| 2005 | 5.9% | 26.1% | 5.3% |
| 2006 | 3.8% | 18.8% | -7.4% |
| 2007 | 4.1% | 25.1% | 6.3% |
| 2008 | 2.3% | 29.7% | 4.6% |
| 2009 | 4.7% | 28.0% | -1.7% |
| 2010 | 4.8% | 19.6% | -8.5% |
diff: K/BF in year n minus K/BF in year n - 1.
As you can see, we’ve seen dips in Mo’s strikeout rate before, and it hasn’t meant anything. Of course, now that it happened at the age of 40, it might be more telling. But we won’t know that for a while.
Here’s how Mo projects for 2011.
| projecton | G | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RSAR | WAR | BABIP |
| cairo | 67 | 68 | 49 | 22 | 20 | 5 | 14 | 62 | 2.91 | 2.65 | 3.08 | 19 | 1.9 | .246 |
| marcel | 61 | 62 | 51 | 21 | 19 | 5 | 16 | 51 | 3.05 | 2.76 | 3.52 | 17 | 1.7 | .263 |
| oliver | 60 | 61 | 51 | 21 | 19 | 5 | 11 | 53 | 3.10 | 2.80 | 3.07 | 16 | 1.6 | .271 |
| pecota | 65 | 67 | 56 | 21 | 19 | 6 | 14 | 61 | 2.79 | 2.57 | 3.35 | 20 | 2.0 | .273 |
| zips | 53 | 49 | 44 | 19 | 18 | 5 | 12 | 45 | 3.47 | 3.28 | 3.51 | 11 | 1.1 | .285 |
| average* | 61 | 61 | 50 | 21 | 19 | 5 | 13 | 54 | 3.04 | 2.79 | 3.33 | 17 | 1.7 | .267 |
| 2010 | 61 | 60 | 39 | 14 | 12 | 2 | 11 | 45 | 2.10 | 1.80 | 2.83 | 23 | 2.3 | .223 |
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
Rivera breaks projection systems, because he constantly performs outside of their boundaries. Since projection systems are designed to work for the entire population of MLB players, they don’t necessarily do well with the outliers.
Even if Rivera “only” pitches to those projections, he’s probably one of the top five relievers in baseball (non-team composed of strictly aces division). At his age he probably needs to be used a bit more judiciously, and that’s probably where having Rafael Soriano will really help.
Here are his CAIRO percentile forecasts.
| cairo% | G | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RSAR | WAR |
| 80% | 77 | 78 | 43 | 18 | 16 | 3 | 10 | 71 | 2.04 | 1.83 | 2.29 | 30 | 3.0 |
| 65% | 72 | 73 | 46 | 20 | 18 | 4 | 12 | 67 | 2.45 | 2.22 | 2.66 | 25 | 2.5 |
| Baseline | 67 | 68 | 49 | 22 | 20 | 5 | 14 | 62 | 2.91 | 2.65 | 3.08 | 19 | 1.9 |
| 35% | 57 | 57 | 47 | 22 | 20 | 6 | 14 | 52 | 3.43 | 3.13 | 3.55 | 13 | 1.3 |
| 20% | 47 | 48 | 45 | 21 | 20 | 6 | 14 | 43 | 4.02 | 3.69 | 4.09 | 8 | 0.8 |
The 80% forecast seems like a typical Rivera season, although he probably won’t pitch more than about 60 innings.
As long as Rivera can keep doing that, I’m fairly comfortable he’ll remain effective over the next two years. I’m just glad we’ll get to keep watching him, because I really don’t want to think of the day that Rivera’s not coming out of the pen to seal another victory.
Looking Ahead To 2011 - Bartolo Colon, Pedro Feliciano and Boone Logan
A lot of the Yankees’ hopes are based on a bullpen that has the potential to be the best in baseball. I originally thought of doing one post titled CoNoLoRoJoSoMo, but decided that would be Michael Kay-ish and that Mariano Rivera deserves his own post, so here’s a look at the projections for the first group of relievers.
Bartolo Colon
Colon and Eric Chavez are probably the biggest surprises to be starting the season in pinstripes. Colon did not pitch in the majors in 2010 and since 2007 he’s thrown a grand total of 200 innings, with an ERA of 5.20 and a FIP of 4.97. Colon had a surprising good spring and made the team as the long reliever. It’s important to understand that the reason Colon made the team was not for the statistics he put up, which are meaningless, but for how he did it. More than one scout raved about how Colon looked this spring, throwing a 91-94 mph two-seam fastball and a decent curve and good change with command.
For that reason, I think Colon’s projections are basically useless. He’s not the same pitcher he was when he last pitched in the majors (averaging 89 mph for the White Sox in 2009). Regardless, since I can’t do anything but look at stats here are his projections.
| projecton | G | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RSAR | WAR | BABIP |
| cairo | 19 | 107 | 117 | 65 | 55 | 16 | 35 | 70 | 5.42 | 4.66 | 4.90 | 7 | 0.7 | .295 |
| marcel | 13 | 66 | 69 | 37 | 31 | 9 | 23 | 46 | 5.05 | 4.23 | 4.72 | 7 | 0.7 | .292 |
| oliver | 16 | 80 | 91 | 58 | 48 | 14 | 25 | 49 | 6.48 | 5.43 | 5.19 | -4 | -0.4 | .296 |
| pecota | 52 | 56 | 61 | 33 | 31 | 5 | 26 | 37 | 5.38 | 4.95 | 4.55 | 4 | 0.4 | .311 |
| zips | 8 | 38 | 44 | 26 | 24 | 6 | 14 | 20 | 6.10 | 5.63 | 5.52 | -1 | -0.1 | .294 |
| average* | 22 | 69 | 76 | 44 | 38 | 10 | 24 | 44 | 5.66 | 4.91 | 4.96 | 2 | 0.2 | .297 |
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)
Those projections assume that he’s a starter, so you can probably knock about a run off if he’s strictly used as a reliever, but as I said I think they’re effectively meaningless. If Colon pitches that poorly, he won’t be on the team for long.
As you’d expect, with Colon he has a wide range of possible forecasts in CAIRO.
| cairo% | G | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RSAR | WAR |
| 80% | 24 | 120 | 108 | 58 | 49 | 12 | 29 | 80 | 4.32 | 3.68 | 3.96 | 22 | 2.2 |
| 65% | 22 | 114 | 112 | 61 | 52 | 14 | 32 | 75 | 4.85 | 4.15 | 4.41 | 14 | 1.4 |
| Baseline | 19 | 107 | 117 | 65 | 55 | 16 | 35 | 70 | 5.42 | 4.66 | 4.90 | 7 | 0.7 |
| 35% | 15 | 92 | 110 | 62 | 53 | 16 | 34 | 59 | 6.05 | 5.22 | 5.43 | -1 | -0.1 |
| 20% | 12 | 77 | 102 | 58 | 50 | 16 | 32 | 49 | 6.74 | 5.85 | 6.03 | -7 | -0.7 |
I’m not sure what they’ll get out of Colon. I’m cautiously optimistic that what we saw in spring was indicative that he’ll be pretty good when he pitches, but I don’t know how long he’ll last before breaking down. As the long reliever and I assume possible sixth starter, Colon’s success isn’t vital to the success of the Yankees in 2011, but if he does pitch well he can help them possibly exceed expectations.
Pedro Feliciano
Assuming Feliciano doesn’t go Marte, he should return to the Yankees by May and be their primary left-handed specialist. Projections and WAR and whatever don’t really tell us the value of a platoon pitcher, because they are better considered as a tactical option that can be used strategically in specifically high-leverage situations to improve your win expectancy. But Ill put his projections up anyway.
| projecton | G | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RSAR | WAR | BABIP |
| cairo | 87 | 65 | 69 | 33 | 30 | 6 | 21 | 53 | 4.57 | 4.15 | 3.92 | 7 | 0.7 | .317 |
| marcel | 93 | 62 | 62 | 28 | 25 | 5 | 25 | 55 | 4.06 | 3.63 | 3.83 | 10 | 1.0 | .314 |
| oliver | 89 | 59 | 59 | 34 | 30 | 6 | 25 | 51 | 5.13 | 4.58 | 4.06 | 2 | 0.2 | .306 |
| pecota | 93 | 61 | 58 | 29 | 26 | 5 | 27 | 52 | 4.20 | 3.86 | 4.03 | 9 | 0.9 | .296 |
| zips | 82 | 55 | 54 | 27 | 25 | 5 | 22 | 50 | 4.39 | 4.07 | 4.03 | 7 | 0.7 | .308 |
| average* | 89 | 61 | 60 | 30 | 27 | 5 | 24 | 52 | 4.47 | 4.05 | 4.00 | 7 | 0.7 | .308 |
| 2010 | 92 | 63 | 66 | 24 | 23 | 1 | 30 | 56 | 3.45 | 3.30 | 3.20 | 14 | 1.4 | .341 |
| cairo% | G | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RSAR | WAR |
| 80% | 98 | 75 | 62 | 28 | 25 | 4 | 17 | 61 | 3.36 | 3.02 | 2.94 | 18 | 1.8 |
| 65% | 93 | 70 | 65 | 30 | 28 | 5 | 19 | 57 | 3.93 | 3.55 | 3.40 | 12 | 1.2 |
| Baseline | 87 | 65 | 69 | 33 | 30 | 6 | 21 | 53 | 4.57 | 4.15 | 3.92 | 7 | 0.7 |
| 35% | 74 | 55 | 66 | 32 | 29 | 7 | 21 | 44 | 5.30 | 4.83 | 4.51 | 1 | 0.1 |
| 20% | 62 | 46 | 62 | 31 | 28 | 7 | 20 | 37 | 6.12 | 5.61 | 5.19 | -3 | -0.3 |
The peripherals and overall performance don’t look great, but that’s because the projections include his numbers against righties. Over the last four seasons here are Feliciano’s splits.
| PA | AB | H | 2B | 3B | HR | BB | SO | SO/BB | BA | OBP | SLG |
| 508 | 429 | 125 | 23 | 4 | 11 | 70 | 86 | 4.99 | .291 | .390 | .441 |
| 526 | 472 | 96 | 18 | 1 | 7 | 35 | 140 | 17.31 | .203 | .270 | .290 |
Basically, Feliciano’s season will be judged on how he does against Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez, David Ortiz, Johnny Damon, Dan Johnson and any other lefties he faces in crucial situations. The numbers show that he should be successful more often than not, but then again they showed the same for Mike Myers prior to his forgettable Yankee tenure.
Boone Logan
Logan is the only thing that kept the Javier Vazquez trade from being an unmitigated disaster, although with Arodys Vizcaino back and healthy nothing may be able to salvage it. Logan was a surprise, in that I knew nothing about him but his stat line before he was acquired so I was surprised to see a lefty who could touch the mid-90s. He had the best year of his career in 2011, which was good for the Yankees but also means that until we see him repeat it we don’t know if it was due to ability or random variance. Here are his projections.
| projecton | G | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RSAR | WAR | BABIP |
| cairo | 54 | 48 | 49 | 25 | 23 | 5 | 18 | 39 | 4.69 | 4.31 | 4.18 | 4 | 0.4 | .305 |
| marcel | 59 | 47 | 46 | 22 | 21 | 5 | 19 | 39 | 4.21 | 4.02 | 4.26 | 7 | 0.7 | .296 |
| oliver | 69 | 55 | 56 | 31 | 29 | 7 | 24 | 46 | 5.04 | 4.81 | 4.49 | 3 | 0.3 | .302 |
| pecota | 60 | 57 | 56 | 31 | 28 | 7 | 26 | 51 | 4.81 | 4.43 | 4.58 | 4 | 0.4 | .298 |
| zips | 56 | 54 | 54 | 29 | 27 | 6 | 24 | 49 | 4.80 | 4.47 | 4.37 | 4 | 0.4 | .305 |
| average* | 60 | 52 | 52 | 27 | 26 | 6 | 22 | 45 | 4.73 | 4.42 | 4.42 | 4 | 0.4 | .301 |
| 2010 | 51 | 40 | 34 | 13 | 13 | 3 | 20 | 38 | 2.93 | 2.93 | 3.93 | 11 | 1.1 | .284 |
| cairo% | G | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RSAR | WAR |
| 80% | 63 | 56 | 43 | 20 | 19 | 3 | 14 | 46 | 3.28 | 2.98 | 2.99 | 14 | 1.4 |
| 65% | 58 | 52 | 46 | 23 | 21 | 4 | 16 | 43 | 3.93 | 3.60 | 3.54 | 9 | 0.9 |
| Baseline | 54 | 48 | 49 | 25 | 23 | 5 | 18 | 39 | 4.69 | 4.31 | 4.18 | 4 | 0.4 |
| 35% | 45 | 40 | 47 | 25 | 23 | 6 | 18 | 32 | 5.56 | 5.13 | 4.91 | 0 | 0.0 |
| 20% | 37 | 33 | 45 | 24 | 22 | 6 | 18 | 26 | 6.57 | 6.09 | 5.77 | -4 | -0.4 |
I doubt Logan will be as good as he was last year, but I do think his projections are underselling him a bit. His 65% forecast seems about right to me, and would make him a useful part of the team. This will be especially true if Pedro Feliciano doesn’t return soon.
The fact that these are probably the three worst relievers on the team means the Yankees look to have one hell of a pen.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Huffington Post: Rivera has 3 strikeouts in spring debut
TAMPA, Fla. — Yankees closer Mariano Rivera struck out all three batters he faced during his first spring training appearance, New York’s 9-2 loss to a Minnesota Twins spilt-squad on Sunday.
Two of Rivera’s strikeouts were looking during a perfect sixth. He threw nine of 12 pitches for strikes.
I usually don’t get amped for the season until Mo’s spring debut. So I’m now amped.
Friday, March 11, 2011
NYDN: With Rivera, Soriano at back of Yankees bullpen, only starting spots up for grabs
While the last two spots in the rotation are up for grabs, the bullpen appears to be set, with the top six arms all but in place.
“It’s nice that you’re not making three decisions in your bullpen and two in the back end of your rotation; you’re just doing it really kind of in one area,” Joe Girardi said. “The great thing about being the Yankee manager is a lot of things are addressed before you get to camp.”
The Yankees do have a potentially great bullpen, but the impact of that is probably being overstated. It’s not like they haven’t had good bullpens since Joe Girardi replaced Joe Torre’s circle of trust and overwork with a rational approach that incorporates everyone based on their strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps I’ll feel differently when I’m kneeling before Soriano.
For anyone who may be affected or has family that is being affected by the tsunami in the Pacific, my thoughts are with you.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Some of My Thoughts On Andy Pettitte’s Career
After going 67-95 in 1990, the Yankees were rewarded with the first overall pick in the 1991 MLB entry draft. With that pick, they took Brien Taylor, a left-handed pitcher out of a North Carolina high school. Taylor had a rocket arm, consistently hitting the upper 90s and he profiled as a future top of the rotation starter.
After some prolonged negotiations Taylor eventually signed for what was at the time the highest bonus ever paid to a draftee ($1.55M).
In the previous year’s draft, the Yankees drafted Andy Pettitte in the 22nd round, but did not sign him right away. However, by drafting him they were able to hold exclusive negotiating rights with him up until a week before the following draft provided he did not attend a four year college. This allowed them to monitor him through the summer to get a better idea of whether or not they want to sign him. This was known as draft and follow, or DFE (draft, follow, evaluate). Changes in 2007 requiring teams to sign any drafted player by August 15 of the same draft have effectively ended this.
Pettitte improved over the summer, dropping some weight and adding some velocity, and the Yankees eventually signed him a week before the 1991 draft for $80,000.
Because the major league Yankees were so putrid, I was spending a fair amount of time trying to follow what was happening in the minors. It was a lot harder to do back then since we only had carrier pigeons and rotary phones, but I’d trudge down to U.S. News twice a month to grab Baseball America so I could read about the exploits of Ed Martel, Russ Springer, Robert Eenhorn, Hensley Muelens, Kirt Ojala, Kevin Mmahat, Ricky Rhodes(Arthur’s brother), and of course Taylor.
I still remember all those names. I remember reading articles about them and looking up their statistics. I really don’t remember reading anything about Pettitte at the time.
Taylor’s career was effectively ended one night in a fight that ended with him tearing his labrum and dislocating his shoulder.
Meanwhile, Pettitte continued his climb up the minor league ladder, putting up impressive numbers along the way. He started getting some prospect buzz, but he still didn’t seem as highly touted as some of the other pitchers on the farm including Sterling Hitchcock. He would get some mentions on some prospect lists, but he was more of an afterthought. Kind of like a skinny kid from Panama who was moving through the minors around the same time.
Pettitte made his MLB debut on April 29, 1995. He came in to relieve Melido Perez and managed to retire two batters, although he also allowed three hits and two runs, plus one inherited runner to score.
There was a Yankee farmhand named Bob Davidson who pitched in one game in his career. I still remember that game to this day. It was on July 15, 1989, and Davidson came in with the Yankees trailing KC 5-1 in the ninth. He got a groundout, then walked Kevin Seitzer. George Brett followed that with a HR and then two more groundouts ended the inning. And that was the last we saw of Davidson, whose final MLB line was 1 IP and an 18.00 ERA.
So I figured Pettite was basically Bob Davidson part deux, and we’d never see him again.
It turns out, I was really, really wrong.
Pettitte was able to recover from that inauspicious debut and ended his rookie year with solid numbers. The 1995 Yankees won the AL wild card and Pettitte was on the starter in the classic Game 2 of the ALDS against Seattle. It was the first of 42 postseason starts for Pettitte, all but four of which were with the Yankees.
87 different pitchers have started games for the Yankees since 1995, but none started anything even close to Pettitte’s 396.
He was probably the best starter on the Yankees in 1996 and 1997, but aside from that he’s never been the best starter on any of his teams. Mike Mussina, Roger Clemens, David Cone, David Wells, Chien-Ming Wang, Randy Johnson, Hideki Irabu, Javier Vazquez, Ramiro Mendoza, Dwight Gooden, Kenny Rogers, Jaret Wright, Sterling Hitchcock, Jimmy Key, Kevin Brown, Ted Lilly, Jeff Weaver, Jack McDowell, Darrell Rasner, Jose Contreras, Jon Lieber, Carl Pavano, Shawn Chacon, Scott Kamienecki, Snacks Pontoon, Denny Neagle, Kei Igawa, Melido Perez, Aaron Small, Ian Kennedy, Randy Keisler, Al Leiter, Jeff Karstens, Cory Lidle, Dusin Moseley and Brad Halsey either came or left during that time. Many of them overshadowed Pettitte in any single season, but none provided as much overall value to the Yankees.
Only Whitey Ford (438 GS) started more games for the Yankees than Pettitte.
I never really got the sense when I was watching Pettitte that I was watching a great pitcher. He seemed to always be pitching out of trouble, but that was part of his charm. More often than not he did pitch out of it. Conversely, I always felt that Pettitte would keep the Yankees in every game he started, even though every once in a while that didn’t quite happen.
My favorite play in baseball is the strike ‘em out, throw ‘em out double play. I just like the way it changes the whole tenor of an inning. My second favorite play might be when a pitcher picks off a runner trying to steal, something Pettitte excelled at. That’s something else I’ll always remember fondly.
Pettitte took a three-year sojourn to Houston following the 2003 season, but the Yankees soldiered on. They brought in Brown, Vazquez and Lieber to fill out the rotation and made it to the 2004 ALCS, which was unfortunately canceled after game 3. It was tough seeing Pettitte leave, although the draft pick compensation for him signing with the Astros was Phil Hughes so it’s turned out pretty well.
The Yankees brought Pettitte back to shore up a somewhat thin rotation in 2007, and over the past four seasons he gave the Yankees 743 innings of above average pitching, punctuated with eight postseason starts where he went 5-1 with a 2.82 ERA in 51 innings. For his career, Pettitte made 38 postseason starts as a Yankee, and went 18-9 with a 3.79 ERA over 238 innings. He only allowed four unearned runs, so ERA probably underrates how good he was.
So in effect he pitched an extra full season in the playoffs at a level consistent with his career. His reputation as a ‘big game pitcher’ is probably a bit overblown as the team only went 20-18 in those games and he did throw some clunkers, but when the Yankees were winning postseason series, Pettitte was a big part of it much of the time.
I’ve never sat down and tried to actually quantify it, but I’m positive I’ve seen more innings pitched by Pettitte than any other pitcher in baseball. I do know that in games I’ve attended in person I’ve seen more starts by Pettitte than anyone. I’ve seen him pitch games at Yankee Stadium, at Shea Stadium, at Fenway Park, at Progressive Field and at the Rogers Center.
I’ve often consoled myself about the Brien Taylor injury by thinking that I’d have been happy if he ended up having Pettitte’s career.
We’ve been very spoiled as Yankee fans over the past fifteen seasons, because we’ve gotten the chance to see some of the best players in baseball and we’ve got to see our team winning more World Series titles than anyone. That they were able to do it with important contributions from some of the same players who came up through their organization in every single one of these seasons is an amazing thing. Now we’re starting to see some of those players go. It started with Bernie Williams not being brought back after 2006, and now it looks like Pettitte will follow him. It’s a pretty good bet that 2011 will be Jorge Posada’s swan song. We’ll have to see what happens with Mo and Jeter.
I don’t know if Pettitte belongs in the Hall of Fame, and I don’t really feel like thinking about that right now. I just know that whenever I think of Pettitte I’ll remember 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2009, and that will always bring a smile to my face.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Rafael Soriano: Pros and Cons
I’ve been having an inner-dialogue with myself regarding the Yankees’ signing of Rafael Soriano last night, and I’m still not sure if I like it or not. So I thought if I wrote the pros and cons I could decide whether to complain or jump for joy.
Pros
1) Soriano becomes the second-best pitcher in the Yankee bullpen, and probably makes them better by at least one full win
2) Soriano becomes insurance for the nightmare scenario of Mariano Rivera getting injured or the even worse scenario of him losing effectiveness
3) In signing Soriano rather than trading for Joakim Soria or someone of that ilk, the Yankees were able to hold onto their top prospects
4) If adding Soriano opens up the possibility of moving Joba Chamberlain back to the rotation, that is another potential benefit. However, since the Yankees are dummies I’d bet against it.
Cons
1) Soriano is coming off a career year that was buoyed by several things that are not likely to be repeated.
a) His BABIP against in 2010 was .212, compared to .256 in his career. That will almost definitely go up.
b) His HR/FB rate was 4.8% in 2010 compared to 7.8% in his career. That will almost definitely go up.
2) Soriano’s an extreme fly ball pitcher. His career GB% is 31%, league average is around 45%. Fly ball pitcher + DNYS = ?
3) Although the Yankees were able to protect their top prospects, signing Soriano cost them their first pick in June’s 2011 entry draft. A first round pick. A pick that will go to their division rival Tampa Bay Rays. Who already have at least seven additional first and supplemental round picks thanks to losing Carl Crawford, Soriano, Joaquin Benoit, Randy Choate and Brad Hawpe. In one of the deepest drafts in recent memory according to the people who track that sort of thing.
4) Soriano missed significant time due to injury in 2004, 2005 and 2008. While he appears to be healthy now, I’m skeptical he’ll hold up for three years
5) Even accounting for leverage, it’s hard to justify paying $12M/year for a non-Mo relief pitcher (h/t to Mel Hall)
Here are the contract details from The Great Satan’s New York Branch.
Soriano has player options after the first and second years of the deal, according to the source. In the first year, Soriano will receive $10 million and get an additional $1.5 million if he opts out. In the second year, he’ll receive $11 million and an additional $1.5 million if he opts out. He’ll get $14 million in the third year of his contract.
An official said the player options were the Yankees’ idea because they wanted Soriano to be comfortable.
Here are Soriano’s CAIRO projections for 2011.
| % | G | GS | IP | H | HR | BB | K | RA | ERA | FIP | RSAR | WAR |
| 80% | 74 | 0 | 73 | 48 | 5 | 15 | 78 | 2.82 | 2.58 | 2.52 | 22 | 2.2 |
| 65% | 70 | 0 | 69 | 49 | 6 | 17 | 70 | 3.14 | 2.89 | 2.99 | 18 | 1.8 |
| Baseline | 67 | 0 | 66 | 50 | 7 | 18 | 63 | 3.46 | 3.20 | 3.46 | 15 | 1.5 |
| 35% | 60 | 0 | 59 | 48 | 7 | 18 | 54 | 3.78 | 3.51 | 3.92 | 11 | 1.1 |
| 20% | 54 | 0 | 53 | 46 | 7 | 17 | 45 | 4.10 | 3.82 | 4.39 | 8 | 0.8 |
RA: Runs allowed per nine innings
ERA: Earned runs allowed per nine innings
FIP: Fielding independent pitching
RSAR: Runs saved above a replacement-level pitcher using RA
WAR: Wins above a replacement-level pitcher (RSAR divided by 10)
I still think I dislike more than like this signing. If Soriano pitches well enough to earn his salary in 2011 and/or 2012, there’s a very good chance he opts out. That’s the best case scenario IMO, and would make the signing a win, since you’d get one or two years of great relief pitching and you’d get your draft pick back at some point. The problem with this contract is the downside risk. If Soriano gets hurt or doesn’t pitch well, you are on the hook for an average of $12 million a year for the next three years. Yeah, it’s only money, but for a team that’s going to be paying possibly four declining players (CC Sabathia, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira) around $90 million a year and are probably going to need to set some money aside for their best player (Robinson Cano) before he can elect free agency after 2014 money is no small thing. This team may have to try and compete while paying $90 million for maybe $50 million worth of value and every penny is going to count.
But I suppose we should really only care about 2011 and 2012, since there won’t be a 2013.
Monday, January 10, 2011
NDYN: Royals refusal to listen to offers for Joakim Soria adds to winter woes for Brian Cashman
Having struck out everywhere in his quest to land a frontline starter, Cashman has since sought to strengthen the staff from the back end, only to run into another stonewall with Kansas City Royals GM Dayton Moore’s refusal to consider offers for his closer Joakim Soria. Moore’s “no way” stance on Soria - who recently said he would waive his no-trade clause and approve a deal to the Yankees - is puzzling.
If the Yankees do want to shore up the bullpen, signing Rafael Soriano and/or trading for Joakim Soria would inarguably help. However, in order to determine how much of an upgrade they’d be, it would probably help to do a comparison of the Yankee bullpen without either of them first.
Assume the following five pitchers are locks for the bullpen
Mariano Rivera
David Robertson
Joba Chamberlain (yeah, I know)
Pedro Feliciano
Boone Logan
Here are the pitchers on the 40 man roster who may be candidates for the bullpen.
Dellin Betances
Andrew Brackman
Robert Fish
Steve Garrison
Damaso Marte
Sergio Mitre
Hector Noesi
Ivan Nova
Ryan Pope
Romulo Sanchez
Brian Schlitter
Daniel Turpen
For now, let’s assume Marte’s going to spend the season throwing from flat ground with the occasional setback. Let’s also assume that the Yankees aren’t going to add a starter for now and that Ivan Nova and Sergio Mitre are penciled in for the fourth and fifth spots in the rotation. I’m also going to assume that for now none of Betances, Brackman or Noesi would start the year in the bullpen, since they’d probably be better served getting regular work in the minors.
Last year’s bullpen pitched 469.1 innings, but let’s figure that this year’s rotation is weaker and so they’ll be needed to pitch more than that. The 2008 Yankees got a little less than 900 innings from their starters, and had Darrell Rasner and Sidney Ponson in the rotation as the third and fifth-most used starters, neither of whom was any better than how Nova and Mitre project, so that seems like a reasonable number of innings to allocate to the rotation in 2011. So that leaves around 550 innings for the bullpen.
Let’s assume the following allocation of innings for the starting rotation and the five locks in the bullpen.
| Pitcher | Role | IP | R | RA/9 | RSAR |
| Sabathia, CC | SP1 | 200 | 87 | 3.89 | 48 |
| Hughes, Phil | SP2 | 190 | 94 | 4.44 | 34 |
| Burnett, A.J. | SP3 | 170 | 95 | 5.02 | 19 |
| Nova, Ivan | SP4 | 150 | 94 | 5.63 | 7 |
| Mitre, Sergio | SP5 | 100 | 58 | 5.20 | 9 |
| Noesi, Hector | SP6 | 50 | 30 | 5.48 | 3 |
| Igawa, Kei | SP7 | 30 | 20 | 5.97 | 0 |
| Starter Total | 890 | 477 | 4.82 | 119 | |
| Pitcher | Role | IP | RA/9 | R | RSAR |
| Rivera, Mariano | CL | 60 | 2.93 | 20 | 17 |
| Robertson, David | SU | 70 | 4.25 | 33 | 10 |
| Chamberlain, Joba | SU | 70 | 4.62 | 36 | 7 |
| Feliciano, Pedro | MR | 45 | 4.58 | 23 | 5 |
| Logan, Boone | MR | 50 | 4.74 | 26 | 4 |
| Reliever Total | 295 | 4.20 | 138 | 44 | |
| Team Total | 1185 | 4.67 | 615 | 164 |
IP: Projected innings pitched
R: Total runs allowed
RA/9: Projected runs allowed per nine innings
RSAR: Runs saved above replacement level
As should be abundantly clear at this point, I’m being deliberately pessimistic in order to amplify the possible gain from adding Soriano or Soria. Also, Kei Igawa is not necessarily the actual Kei Igawa, but a proxy for some replacement level pitcher who ends up pitching some innings.
This means we need to add about 255 innings from the rest of the bullpen to get to the normal 1440 innings in a season. Let’s assume the Yankees fill those 255 innings with Turpen, Garrison, Fish and Schlitter. Here’s what that looks like.
| Pitcher | Role | IP | RA/9 | R | RSAR |
| Sabathia, CC | SP1 | 200 | 3.89 | 87 | 48 |
| Hughes, Phil | SP2 | 190 | 4.44 | 94 | 34 |
| Burnett, A.J. | SP3 | 170 | 5.02 | 95 | 19 |
| Nova, Ivan | SP4 | 150 | 5.63 | 94 | 7 |
| Mitre, Sergio | SP5 | 100 | 5.20 | 58 | 9 |
| Noesi, Hector | SP6 | 50 | 5.48 | 30 | 3 |
| Igawa, Kei | SP7 | 30 | 5.97 | 20 | 0 |
| Starter Total | 890 | 4.82 | 477 | 119 | |
| Pitcher | Role | IP | RA/9 | R | RSAR |
| Rivera, Mariano | CL | 60 | 2.93 | 20 | 17 |
| Robertson, David | SU | 70 | 4.25 | 33 | 10 |
| Chamberlain, Joba | SU | 70 | 4.62 | 36 | 7 |
| Feliciano, Pedro | MR | 45 | 4.58 | 23 | 5 |
| Logan, Boone | MR | 50 | 4.74 | 26 | 4 |
| Turpen, Dan | MR | 65 | 5.16 | 37 | 3 |
| Garrison, Steve | MR | 65 | 5.29 | 38 | 2 |
| Fish, Robert | LR | 65 | 5.72 | 41 | -1 |
| Schlitter, Brian | LR | 60 | 5.91 | 39 | -2 |
| Reliever Total | 550 | 4.81 | 294 | 45 | |
| Team Total | 1440 | 4.82 | 771 | 165 |
If CAIRO’s projected 835 runs scored for the 2011 Yankees is accurate right now, that’s about an 87 win team.
Here are how Soria and Soriano would projected as Yankees in 2011.
| Pitcher | Role | IP | RA/9 | R | RSAR |
| Soria, Joakim | MR | 65 | 3.24 | 23 | 17 |
| Soriano, Rafael | MR | 65 | 3.61 | 26 | 14 |
Soriano’s projection looks a bit high to me, but it shouldn’t matter that much. We can even just assume he’ll be as good as Soria would be to simplify things.
So the obvious upgrade here is that you remove something like 65 of the worst projected innings here with Soria/Soriano. So replacing Schlitter and five innings of Fish with Soria looks like this.
| Pitcher | Role | IP | RA/9 | R | RSAR |
| Rivera, Mariano | CL | 60 | 2.93 | 20 | 17 |
| Soria, Joakim | SU | 65 | 3.24 | 23 | 17 |
| Robertson, David | SU | 70 | 4.25 | 33 | 10 |
| Chamberlain, Joba | MR | 70 | 4.62 | 36 | 7 |
| Feliciano, Pedro | MR | 45 | 4.58 | 23 | 5 |
| Logan, Boone | MR | 50 | 4.74 | 26 | 4 |
| Turpen, Dan | MR | 65 | 5.16 | 37 | 3 |
| Garrison, Steve | LR | 65 | 5.29 | 38 | 2 |
| Fish, Robert | LR | 60 | 5.72 | 38 | -1 |
| Reliever Total | 550 | 4.50 | 275 | 64 | |
| Team Total | 1440 | 4.70 | 752 | 184 |
It’s about a 19 run upgrade on a spreadsheet. If you want to include leverage for that, assuming Soria pitches in the same spots that Robertson, Chamberlain and Kerry Wood pitched in last year, you can multiply that by about 1.27 (their weighted average leverage index in 2010). That makes it about a 24 run upgrade.
So that’s probably about the theoretical ceiling of how much Soria or Soriano would be worth, and it’s based on what I think are some pessimistic assumptions. In reality I’d expect an upgrade of slightly less than two wins.
If Soriano didn’t cost you a draft pick and was about as good as Soria projects to be, he’d probably be worth a 1 year/$10M or 2 year/$20M deal for the Yankees. I don’t think I’d want to commit to him for a third year, especially if the market for him isn’t particularly strong.
If the alternative is trading for Soria, then it’d have to be a trade that cost the Yankees less than however much they think their first round pick in 2011 is worth. Otherwise you’re overpaying for what might be a three run difference. So in absolutely no way should they consider trading Jesus Montero or the three B’s. At least that’s what I think.
Unfortunately, I doubt the Royals would accept anything less than at least one of those players.
So if I had to choose one, give me Soriano and the lost draft pick over Soria and the lost top five prospect(s).
But I just don’t see a two win upgrade being worth either one. It still doesn’t make the Yankees better than Boston on a spreadsheet.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Hardball Talk: There’s “a very real possibility” that Andy Pettitte will retire
Someone in the last thread suggested that maybe Pettitte has already decided to retire, the Yankees know it, and that they both agreed to keep mum about it so as not to make the Yankees seem even more desperate for pitching than they are, thereby making it slightly easier for them to make a deal.
I have no idea if that’s true. I will say, though, that it makes more logical sense than a grown man taking several months to make a decision with as few variables in play as the one facing Andy Pettitte.
The longer this goes, the more likely it seems that Pettitte is not coming back. It’d be disappointing for the 2011 team, but it’d also be disappointing for a lot of Yankee fans who may have wanted to give Pettitte the proper sendoff that he’s earned for his years of being an important part of our favorite team.
Make the call Mo. You’re our only hope.
In an unrelated note, the 2011 Hardball Times Forecasts are now available. It is a subscription service, but there’s a lot of good stuff there if you can part with a few bucks, including their Oliver projections with six year forecasts. There are also player comments from some of the best bloggers around, aside from the Yankees where you only get my comments. You’d also be helping to support a site that provides a lot of good free content.
Friday, December 17, 2010
NYDN: Mariano Rivera may call Andy Pettitte soon to convince him to return to Yankees
Rivera even said he might try to talk Pettitte out of retiring, if the lefty tells him he’s finished playing. “He would have the last word, but yes,” Rivera said after helping with the Yankees’ annual holiday food drive at the Stadium. “Andy, to me, is one of the best left-handers out there. I would take him any time.”
This could be Mo’s biggest save opportunity yet.
Friday, December 3, 2010
ESPN Boston: Source: Sox courted Mariano Rivera
BOSTON—The Red Sox offered reliever Mariano Rivera a two-year, $30 million deal and were prepared to non-tender closer Jonathan Papelbon, according to a baseball source with direct knowledge of the negotiations.
Rivera turned down the Red Sox to return to the Yankees, who offered the same money as Boston. Rivera’s pending agreement with the Yankees was first reported by the New York Daily News.
If Mo wound up in Boston, it’d be the worst baseball moment since they canceled the 2004 ALCS after Game 3.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
NYDN: Closer Mariano Rivera to sign two-year, $30 million deal with New York Yankees by Friday night
According to a source familiar with the negotiations between the Yankees and future Hall of Fame closer Mariano Rivera, the 41-year-old will sign a two-year deal believed to be worth $30 million by Friday night.
While the Yankee winter has been dominated by the negotiations between Yankee captain Derek Jeter and the club’s front office, Rivera’s free agent status went quietly under the radar, although his importance is immeasurable.
Yay!
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Is Mariano Rivera on the Verge of Collapsing?
I was going to just post this as a comment in the previous thread but I decided it’d work better as a new post. This is all in rebuttal to sd2528’s understandable concern about Mariano Rivera’s decline in some of his peripheral stats last season and what that may mean going forward. I’m not picking on you sd2528, I just think it’s an interesting discussion.
The first point is that Rivera’s K rate dropped significantly in 2010. That is a legitimate concern, because a decline in K rate typically leads to a decline in effectiveness.
Here are Mo’s rates for unintentional BBs plus HBP and strikeouts per batters faced over his career.
There’s no indication of a trend, not that trends are particularly predictive. Rivera’s rates have fluctuated over his entire career, and it’s almost certainly partly due to the fact that he only faces about 234 batters a year. That’s the equivalent of one-third of a full season for a batter, and we wouldn’t overreact to a bad 230 PA stretch, would we? Well, actually we would, but we probably shouldn’t.
I’d like to quote someone who knows a thing or two about this.
Which brings me to something else, and that is the career WAR for pitchers that uses only FIP. Once you reach a certain number of BIP, say 2000 or 4000, whatever it is, then you NEED to know the pitcher’s BABIP, because that tells you more than not having it at all. That’s why you need to be careful with coming up with career totals of the advanced metrics which themselves have a defacto regression component.
By my count, Rivera’s allowed 2337 BIP in his career.
The BABIP discusstion segues to the next thing.
FIP and xFIP have been underselling Rivera for his entire career. Rivera has a career RA of 2.41, and a career FIP of 2.79. Since FIP is scaled to ERA and not RA, you need to multiply that by FIP by about 1.08 to get it on the same scale. He’s got a career BABIP against of .273. FIP would regress that to league average (.304) xFIP would tell you that Rivera should have allowed a HR rate of of something like 10-11%, and that his career rate of 6.3% is due to luck. That means he’s allowed about 23 fewer home runs than expected, and again that’s due entirely to luck (2002-2010 since batted ball data is not available before that). And this is while he’s pitched in a a pair of parks that have boosted HRs by about 14.6% on average since 2002.
So the RA scaled FIP would tell you that Rivera has allowed 115 fewer hits and 76 fewer runs than he should have over his 1150 career innings, and that it’s all due to luck. And he’s done this with a defense behind him that has more often been bad and at times horrendous than good. RA scaled xFIP would tell you he’s alowed 109 fewer runs than he should have, again all due to luck.
The fact is Rivera does induce weak contact and he does suppress BABIP and it’s mainly due to skill, not luck. Is some of it possibly due to luck? Yeah, because the small sample size that says we shouldn’t worry about fluctuations in his rate stats also means there’s a bigger chance he has been lucky in every season. Not sure what the likelihood of that is, but I’d say probably less than 10%
Taking off my stat nerd goggles and thinking about his physical ability, his average fastball velocity dropped by about 1.4 mph from 2008 to 2009, but it increased by about 0.5 mph in 2010. His cutter dropped from 92.8 mph in 2008 to 91.3 mph in 2009 and 91.1 mph in 2010, so he’s managed to maintain his effectiveness over the past two seasons despite that.
It’s a good bet he will need to be used less and less frequently because a 40-41 year old body just doesn’t recover like one that’s 30. That’s a legitimate point in discussing Rivera’s value, because value is not just about rate of performance. You’re not very valuable if you aren’t pitching.
Just because he’s now turned 40, there’s very little reason in his statistical record to think that he’s about to fall off a cliff. He certainly could, and he’s got the same risk any pitcher does of hurting his arm and becoming worthless, but consider the following table.
| Player | Year | Age | IP | ERA+ |
| Dennis Eckersley | 1995 | 40 | 50 | 90 |
| Dennis Eckersley | 1996 | 41 | 60 | 129 |
| Dennis Eckersley | 1997 | 42 | 53 | 107 |
| Dennis Eckersley | 1998 | 43 | 40 | 99 |
| Dennis Eckersley | Avg | 51 | 106 | |
| Doug Jones | 1997 | 40 | 80 | 232 |
| Doug Jones | 1998 | 41 | 85 | 99 |
| Doug Jones | 1999 | 42 | 104 | 129 |
| Doug Jones | 2000 | 43 | 80 | 142 |
| Doug Jones | Avg | 87 | 150 | |
| Trevor Hoffman | 2008 | 40 | 45 | 101 |
| Trevor Hoffman | 2009 | 41 | 54 | 226 |
| Trevor Hoffman | 2010 | 42 | 47 | 67 |
| Trevor Hoffman | Avg | 49 | 131 | |
| Mariano Rivera | 2010 | 40 | 60 | 238 |
Dennis Eckersley and Doug Jones pitched through age 43 and were reasonably effective the entire time. Trevor Hoffman pitched well in 2008 and 2009 before tanking in 2010, and based on his peripherals it doesn’t look like he was unlucky. Rivera was inarguably better than any of these three pitchers in his age 40 season, so if they were able to pitch effectively at 41 you should feel comfortable Rivera will be able to as well.
Rivera’s CAIRO projection is still top tier for all relief pitchers, and it does include both aging and some component regression to the mean for his FIP and xFIP. For CAIRO, his projection for runs allowed is based on 35% RA, 30% ERA, 15% FIP, 10% xFIP, and 15% component ERA. So 40% of his projection includes data that is most likely to regress, and he STILL projects about as well as anyone.
He will eventually reach the point where he’s not an asset. But all the evidence we have says that’s not going to happen in 2011.
But you never know.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Toronto Sun: Yanks close to signing Rivera
While Derek Jeter and the Yankees remain at an impasse, Mariano Rivera is quietly closing in on a new contract that will pay him $17 million.
Rivera, 41, is seeking a two-year deal but the Yankees have not yet agreed to go beyond one more season for their iconic bullpen closer, though they haven’t balked at giving him a raise over his previous $15 million stipend.
I have a theory that it is not possible to overpay Mo. So yay!
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 11, 2010
NY Post: Yankees, Jeter pleased with first meeting; no talks with Rivera
Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner and two of his main lieutenants met Monday in Tampa with Derek Jeter and his agent, Casey Close, and the parties left continuing to believe that the shortstop eventually will sign an extension that will keep him a Yankee.
In an attempt to re-confirm to each other that they want the team-player marriage to continue, Steinbrenner, Yankees president Randy Levine and general manager Brian Cashman had a far-ranging discussion with Jeter and Close, a person briefed on the meeting told The Post.
Money was not discussed. But just about everything else that is part of the negotiations was, such as the market past and present for iconic players, Jeter’s strengths and weaknesses, and his contributions past, present and future to the organization.
The only talk with Mo should be the one where they present him with a blank check.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Sporing News: Yankees’ Brian Cashman expects Derek Jeter back at shortstop
Yankees general manager Brian Cashman told the New York Daily News that contract negotiations between the team and shortstop Derek Jeter haven’t begun, but he believes Jeter will re-sign.
Speaking about Jeter as well as closer Mariano Rivera and lefthander Andy Pettitte, Cashman stressed that the organization’s desire is to keep its core veterans. All three will become free agents this offseason, though Pettitte could retire.
I’m already tired of this Jeter stuff. Hurry up and sign him to a horrible contract so we can bitch about it.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Rangers Beat Yankees, Win ALCS 4 - 2
It’s our first reaction as fans to say “our team lost” rather than the other team won. No one should be able to beat our team, they can only beat themselves.
The Rangers beat the Yankees. They outplayed them this series. We can talk about why it happened, but that’s the bottom line, and that’s why they’re going to the World Series and the Yankees are going home. The Rangers outscored the Yankees 39-18 over the six games of the ALCS.
Joe Girardi did not manage a good series IMO. While his biggest flaw prior to this series was a love for the sacrifice bunt which is actually probably not nearly the issue we made it out to be, I refuse to think his strategy of IBB half the Rangers lineup was anything but asinine. Of course, a proper analysis of each situtation when it came up would tell us more, and I’d guess it probably won’t be as bad on paper as it ended up turning out. But that doesn’t make it any less aggravating right now.
As poorly as I thought Girardi managed, to the point where I really don’t care if he is not back next year, the Yankees lost because the Rangers out-hit them and out-pitched them. Although they won CC Sabathia’s two starts, he really didn’t pitch that well. Phil Hughes didn’t pitch well either, obviously, and Andy Pettitte’s gem came in a game where Cliff Lee pitched one of the best games you’ll ever see.
Is it Dave Eiland’s fault that some of the key Yankees didn’t pitch well in 2010 after pitching well in 2009? Or is it the fact that pitching is unpredictable and volatile? Do we blame Eiland for Hughes and Joba Chamberlain having “disappointing” seasons, or do we blame ourselves for setting unrealistic expectations for young pitchers and ignoring the historical fact that the majority of pitching prospects don’t become elite pitchers?
To be honest, I think calling Hughes’s season disappointing is a stretch too, even though it didn’t end well, but that’s a post for another day.
The bullpen didn’t distinguish themselves much in this series either, but most of the damage done came in games the Yankees were already well on their way to losing. Sure, Girardi could have used Mo in games earlier and kept them closer, but I saw nothing from the offense that indicated they would have come back from a 7-3 deficit rather than a 10-3 deficit.
Of course, the offense is as much to blame as the pitching. Give some credit to the Rangers for pitching well, but that doesn’t make the performances by anyone not named Robinson Cano any less frustrating.
I try not to think of any Yankee season where the Yankees don’t win a World Series as a failure, because the odds are against even the best team in baseball in any given year winning the World Series. But when you don’t win your division and have to back into the postseason as the wild card, getting your asses handed to you in the ALCS doesn’t feel like much of an accomplishment to me. I wouldn’t call this season a failure, but I wouldn’t call it an achievement either.
As far as where the Yankees go from here, emotion would tell us to get rid of all the chokers and bring in new blood, Working off emotion is probably stupid though.
The Yankees shouldn’t need to make drastic moves to be in a position to be back in the hunt for the World Series, but they do need to be smart about this offseason, because many of the key players on this team aren’t going to be any better than they are now and some will almost certainly be worse, and adding a few veteran band aids to try and coax another World Series out of them may be as fruitless as it was this year.
I haven’t really thought about who the Yankees should go after in 2011. Obviously most of the talk will be about Cliff Lee, but my first impulse is he alone wouldn’t make this team a clear World Series favorite. I’m also not sure the Yankees will be able to just outbid everyone for him. If Texas decides to try and keep him, they’ll have the advantage of no state income tax in any bid they make for him, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a team like the White Sox go after him hard as well.
You also have the questions about who to bring back in 2011. While the idea of letting Girardi and Eiland go seems tempting, it would depend on who would replace them, wouldn’t it? I’m certain no matter who the manager ends up being, he’ll have flaws that we fixate on anyway. Jeter and Mo will obviously be back, but the terms of their returns will be the subject of much conjecture. Do the Yankees eschew Carl Crawford and stick with Brett Gardner, or do they try and trade Gardner for something they can’t get through free agency? Do they promote Jesus Montero to the majors, and if so is it as a catcher or a DH? Does that mean the end of Francisco Cervelli’s reign of terror, or does it mean more Jorge Posada at DH?
Anyway, I don’t feel like thinking about 2011 yet. I’m just going to get very inebriated at this wedding I have to serve in today and forget about baseball for a few days.
Friday, October 15, 2010
2010 ALCS Game 1 Complaint Thread
This game sucked ruled.
I’m not sure where to start. After a really bad start by CC and a WOE-ful job by the offense, I had pretty much given up. When Joba Chamberlain walked Nelson Cruz with one out in the fifth I figured we’d get one of his patented implosions, but he got out of it.
When Dustin Moseley got the call to relieve Joba, I pretty much figured it was done, but Moseley was outstanding, retiring everyone he faced aside from an E-5 over two scoreless innings. Kerry Wood’s eighth inning started off with a four pitch walk to Ian Kinsler, but Kinsler got picked off and from there Wood was great.
And of course, the best out-getter in the history of MLB’s postseason did his job, with the help of a great play by Mark Teixeira on a sacrifice bunt by Elvis Andrus. Mo vs. Josh Hamilton with the tying run on second and two outs had the potential to be some of the best drama baseball can offer, but Mo spared us by retiring Hamilton on one pitch.
The bullpen was great in relief of Sabathia, but this was the offense’s night.
Remember when Robinson Cano was both a bad hitter with runners on base and in the postseason? Me either. His solo HR in the seventh seemed meaningless at the time, but it sure ended up being huge.
And while it’s generally not beneficial to slide into first base, in this case by doing it Brett Gardner was able to elude a tag and reach base safely leading off the eighth, which allowed him to score on a Derek Jeter double to cut the deficit to 5-2. Jeter’s double drove out Texas starter C.J. Wilson, who pitched very well until the eighth.
Two walks by Nick Swisher and Mark Teixeira against Darren Oliver were then followed by an Alex Rodriguez single off Darren O’Day that drove in two runs and cut the deficit to 5-4, which again sent Ron Washington to his pen to bring in lefty Clay Rapada to pitch to Robinson Cano. It was the right move on paper, but Cano has killed lefties this year and tied the game with a sharp single and brought up Marcus Thames.
I have no idea why Ron Washington did not bring a right-hander in here rather than Derek Holland, although it’s likely the Yankees would have pinch-hit for Thames with Lance Berkman. It still doesn’t make sense to have brought in a lefty to face Thames, Thames fell behind 1-2 then fouled a pitch and took one in the dirt before dumping a soft single to LF which brought in Cano with the go-ahead run.
I’m going to pretend Nick Swisher didn’t bunt in the ninth for health reasons. My own health.
So complain away.
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.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Mariano Rivera’s Pitch Frequency
I was recently granted access to a platform called In Depth Baseball. It’s a pretty impressive tool that provides heatmaps using pitchfx and hitfx data. One of the most telling heatmaps I was first shown was Mariano Rivera’s pitch frequency.
Notice how Rivera barely touches the middle of the plate.
Here are Mo’s Righty-Lefty heatmaps vs. the rest of the league:
As you can see from the top map, Rivera lives on the inside corner to lefty batters. In fact, the majority of his pitches fall outside the designated strikezone. Meanwhile, the rest of the league favors throwing down and away to LHB.
Against RHB, Mo spreads out his pitches a bit more. However, notice how he barely ever throws to the middle inside part of the plate to righties. He also busts righties up and in, again in contrast to the rest of the league.
As a matter of comparison, here are the pitch frequency heatmaps for 3 other AL closers:
All three of the above closers tend to pitch to the middle of the plate, a striking contrast to Rivera’s pitch frequency.
Lastly, here’s Mariano’s pitch frequency since 2008:
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.
Taco Bell Ad with Mo and Girardi
Thanks to colin for the heads up.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Yankees.com: Berkman’s damage all Pettitte needs to win
MINNEAPOLIS—When Lance Berkman was approached with a list of interested teams he could waive a no-trade clause to join in late July, the veteran slugger selected the Yankees, believing they would have the best chance of winning a World Series.
Berkman seized his opportunity to help that cause on Thursday, hitting a tiebreaking homer and a go-ahead RBI double as the Yankees defeated the Twins, 5-2, in Game 2 of the American League Division Series at Target Field to take a 2-0 advantage in the best-of-five set.
A career Astro before this year, Berkman had hit just one home run in pinstripes before connecting off Carl Pavano in the fifth, then added a big hit in the seventh to provide the necessary support for good friend Andy Pettitte, who improved his all-time numbers with his 19th victory in postseason play
I have been nervous about Andy Pettitte’s starts in the postseason given the shakiness of his last two regular season starts, but that sure feels dumb now.
It’s also nice to see some of the guys who were acquired by Brian Cashman in deals that have been criticized for much of the year being the key contributors in tonight’s win.
Curtis Granderson has been very good the last few months, and he’s carried that into the postseason.
And Lance Berkman’s track record should have spoken for itself. He was an outstanding hitter at one time, and even if he’s not what he once was, he’s an asset to this team and he showed it tonight. Sometimes good players have 30 bad PA.
If you could have any closer in baseball right now for the rest of the postseason, is there anyone you’d take over Mo?
I think Joe Girardi’s managed the first two games of this series very well, both with his lineup and bullpen decisions as well as with his strategy.
But tonight belonged to Pettitte. I don’t know if he’s going to be back next year, and he probably doesn’t know either, but I’m glad he’s here in 2010.
Twins in 4 is the new prediction BTW.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Yankees.com: Teixeira’s homer nudges Yanks past Twins
MINNEAPOLIS—Mark Teixeira crushed a two-run tiebreaking home run off Jesse Crain in the top of the seventh inning on Wednesday, lifting the Yankees to a 6-4 victory over the Twins in Game 1 of the American League Division Series at Target Field.
The slugging first baseman fought through a nagging right thumb injury that sapped his power in the final month of the regular season, but he mustered enough to turn on a hanging Crain slider and hook it inside the right-field foul pole, stunning an exuberant crowd of 42,302.
Apparently the Yankees aren’t the awful team we saw in September after all. Who knew?
CC Sabathia wasn’t great, but after last postseason he doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone. Fortunately, his teammates picked him up, and even more fortunately we still have Mariano Rivera.
I know that we shouldn’t change our expectations for how players will perform based on a few PA, but I am feeling much more optimistic about the Yankee offense after seeing Teixeira hitting well tonight. He was was basically invisible last postseason. And perhaps Curtis Granderson is better than Austin Jackson right now after all?
Seriously though, how cool is Mo?
a) Worked back from 3-0 to retire Span with the tying runs in scoring position and two outs in the eighth
b) Calmly made the play on Mauer’s shot up the middle for the second out in the ninth
c) Retired Thome on one pitch after the umps blew the Golson catch call that would have ended the game
I’d like to revise my prediction to Twins in 3.
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
WWWMW
Back in the early 2000s, I stumbled upon the site Baseball Primer, which is now known as Baseball Think Factory. Although I have several friends who are big baseball fans, they’re either a) Mets fans or b) not statheads. It got pretty annoying to have discussions that begin with “Ty Wigginton is playing some ball” followed by me trying to describe how his OBP wasn’t very good, so it was refreshing to find fellow Yankee fans who were as passionate about baseball as I was, but were also interested in objective analysis and logical thinking.
Around that time, we came to the collective realization that it seemed like every year Mariano Rivera had a stretch of games where he struggled and the papers would run their “What’s Wrong With Mariano?” headlines and then it would end and we’d forget about it, until it happened again the next season.
We coined the phrase WWWMW™, which stands for What’s Wrong With Mariano Week. The earliest reference I can find to is in this post from the first generation of this blog.
Of course, we know now that whenever it happened it was a short-term thing that was not cause for alarm.
That doesn’t mean that Rivera’s not going to lose it at some point, and when he does it could happen quickly. But I don’t think a few shaky games over the past week are cause for alarm.
Reminder
As a reminder, our very own fgaspirini has a screening of his movie Pelada tonight.
September 21st, 2010 - 8pm - Legends Bar and Restaurant
Doors open at 7:00pm
*Seating is first come, first serve - so come early!
*Kids are welcome and encouraged
Introduction by Ethan Zohn, Q&A with Directors to follow screening
Legends Bar and Restaurant
6 West 33rd Street
New York, NY 1001-3321
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 12, 2010
NY Post: Yankees’ Granderson sits for hitting overhaul
ARLINGTON, Texas—Having hit very little but rock bottom Curtis Granderson went to Kevin Long Tuesday for help.
Granderson, the Yankees’ biggest off-season acquisition who was counted on to replace some of the left-handed power lost when Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui departed, figured there was only one direction his hack could go and it wasn’t down.
“He said, ‘How much worse can it get?’ ” Long said before the Yankees’ 7-6 come-from-behind victory over the Rangers last night. “I agreed.”
So, the hitting coach went to work on Granderson with such intensity that Long asked Joe Girardi to give him a few more sessions before the left-handed hitting center fielder returns to the lineup.
I may be nuts, but I think Granderson’s going to finish off the year well.
Also of note from the same article:
Andy Pettitte takes a big step today in his rehab program from a left groin injury in Tampa when he pitches in a simulated situation. If Pettitte doesn’t experience any problems, he would likely pitch in a minor league game Tuesday in Trenton (Double-A). When Pettitte went down on July 18, the Yankees hoped he would be back by Sept. 1. Providing there are no setbacks he might return before then.
Yeah, hurry back Andy.
Versatile reliever Alfredo Aceves will make a second rehab appearance tomorrow night for Trenton and the hope is that he is sharper than Tuesday night when he worked two-thirds of an inning, walked two and fanned one.
“He wasn’t sharp but I am not surprised, he hasn’t been on the mound since [May 8],” Girardi said.
What’s next after Friday hasn’t been decided.
If Aceves comes back, suddenly the Yankee bullpen looks pretty strong to me. I’m assuming Chad Gaudin goes, which means a pen of Dustin Moseley, Sergio Mitre, Boone Logan, Joba Chamberlain, Kerry Wood, David Robertson and Mo. I’d imagine that when Damaso Marte comes back it, it would probably be after rosters expand, at which point they’ll probably use September to finalize the bullpen the Yankees would take into the postseason if by some miracle they sneak in. The obvious choice would be to take only one of Mitre/Moseley.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Yankees 7, Rangers 6
I didn’t think there was any way the Yankees were going to win this game. Trailing 6-1 with Cliff Lee on the mound and absolutely dealing, it sure looked bleak, but they were able to chip away to tie and then eventually take the lead in the top of the ninth, with Marcus Thames as the man of the hour thanks to his 8th inning HR that cut the deficit to 6-5 and then his 9th inning single that scored Brett Gardner with the eventual winning run. The Yankees scored runs in each of the 6th-9th innings, against a combination of Lee and six Texas relievers who are all having great seasons.
With Mo coming in, the only thing left to do was count down the outs, until Elvis Andrus decided to lead off the bottom of the ninth with a triple. So yeah, once again it looked bleak. Michael Young hit a flare to shallow RF and Austin Kearns raced in and made a great shoestring catch that saved a run. Kearns had just been shifted to right after Curtis Granderson pinch-ran for Lance Berkman and then was moved into CF. I can’t recall a better Yankee defensive OF than Gardner/Granderson/Kearns.
Rivera then got Josh Hamilton to ground right back to him to hold Andrus at third and get the second out, before finally retiring Vlad Guerrero on a grounder to third to end the game and close out the win.
This win wouldn’t have been possible without Sergio Mitre and Kerry Wood pitching 3.2 scoreless innings after Javier Vazquez crapped the bed again. I haven’t really talked about Wood’s acquisition at all, and I’m not sure how good he really is, but his job description is pretty simple. Be better than Chan Ho Park.
A loss tonight would have cut the Yankees’ lead over the Red Sox to just four games, so avoiding that was also nice.
Yankees.com: Rare hiccup for Mo ends in loss for Yanks
ARLINGTON—Mariano Rivera watched David Murphy’s line drive, probably the sharpest ball the Rangers managed that inning, secure a grassy patch in right field. The closer shrugged and headed for the showers, knowing there was now nothing else to be done.
Murphy turned around Rivera’s full-count offering and dispatched it safely for a bases-loaded, walk-off single at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, lifting Texas to a 4-3 victory over the Yankees in 10 innings on Tuesday.
I’d like to go ahead and congratulate Cliff Lee on the first perfect game of his career tomorrow night.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Yankees.com: Sabathia settles in, bats back Yanks’ ace
With Rodriguez shut down due to a left leg contusion suffered from a batting practice line drive, Ramiro Pena stepped into the lineup and drove in two of New York’s runs.
Curtis Granderson also scored a pair of runs as the Yankees got to John Lackey for five runs in six innings, and Sabathia took care of the rest, taking the ball straight to Mariano Rivera for the closer’s 23rd save.
Losing the next two is inevitable, but at least they prevented the sweep.
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.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
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
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Yankees.com: Yanks win one for The Boss, Sheppard
Joe Girardi’s eyes were damp, and several of his Yankees stared into space as they stood clapping. Most everyone at the Stadium was on their feet, cheering, for about three minutes following a video tribute to George Steinbrenner, part of the emotional ceremony Friday night celebrating the famous owner before the Yanks’ first game since The Boss’ death on Tuesday.
Steinbrenner and The Voice - P.A. announcer Bob Sheppard, who died on Sunday - were both feted during a 20-minute tribute in which closer Mariano Rivera laid two long-stem roses on home plate to honor each Yankee icon and shortstop Derek Jeter called both men “shining stars in the Yankee universe.”
After honoring The Boss, the Yankees then honored Steinbrenner’s prime directive - to win - by rallying to beat the Rays, 5-4, in front of 47,524. Nick Swisher hit a game-winning RBI single in the ninth inning off Lance Cormier, knocking in Curtis Granderson from second base and bringing most everyone in the ballpark to their feet. “The agenda today was winning,” Swisher said. “On a day like this when we celebrate his life, we’ve gotta take him out with a ‘W.’... It was Mr. Steinbrenner’s day.”
A fitting ending to an emotional game for the Yankees.
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.
2010 All Star Break Review - April Edition
With the All Star Break’s arrival, we have a chance to look back at what’s happened so far in 2010 and think about what it means going forward. So here’s a look at the Yankees’ performance in April.
| Series | Start Date | # Gms | xW | aW | diff |
| Yankees at Red Sox | 4/7/2010 | 3 | 1.5 | 2.0 | 0.5 |
| Yankees at Rays | 4/11/2010 | 3 | 1.4 | 2.0 | 0.6 |
| Angels at Yankees | 4/15/2010 | 3 | 2.0 | 2.0 | 0.0 |
| Rangers at Yankees | 4/18/2010 | 3 | 1.7 | 3.0 | 1.3 |
| Yankees at Athletics | 4/22/2010 | 3 | 1.8 | 2.0 | 0.2 |
| Yankees at Angels | 4/25/2010 | 3 | 1.8 | 1.0 | -0.8 |
| Yankees at Orioles | 4/29/2010 | 3 | 2.1 | 2.0 | -0.1 |
| Total | 21 | 12.3 | 14.0 | 1.7 |
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
April had the potential to be a very rough month, with 15 of the first 21 games on the road, including the first six on the road against arguably two of the three best teams in baseball.
After dropping the season opener, the Yankees went on to win four of five games against Boston and Tampa Bay to jump a bit ahead of their log5 estimated pace. They then went home to win five of six against the Anaheim Angels of Los Angeles and the Arlington Rangers of Texas. Next up came a six game west coast trip which saw the Yankees pick up two of three at Oakland before losing two of three to California. The Yankees then headed to Baltimore and finished out May by taking two of three.
The key series in April was the sweep of the Rangers, as it gave the Yankees an extra win over expectations.
The Yankees scored 118 runs during April, about 5.6 per game. Here’s how the hitters performed.
| Player | pa | h | 2b | 3b | hr | bb | hbp | so | sb | cs | gdp | avg | obp | slg | wOBA | br |
| Robinson Cano | 83 | 30 | 4 | 1 | 7 | 5 | 1 | 10 | 2 | 2 | 2 | .390 | .434 | .740 | .492 | 19 |
| Derek Jeter | 98 | 31 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 8 | 3 | 1 | 2 | .330 | .357 | .521 | .379 | 15 |
| Jorge Posada | 66 | 18 | 4 | 0 | 5 | 7 | 1 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .310 | .394 | .638 | .435 | 13 |
| Alex Rodriguez | 96 | 21 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 11 | 1 | 13 | 1 | 1 | 2 | .250 | .344 | .440 | .345 | 12 |
| Nick Swisher | 83 | 18 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 8 | 2 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .247 | .337 | .438 | .343 | 11 |
| Brett Gardner | 63 | 18 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 1 | 8 | 8 | 1 | 1 | .321 | .397 | .393 | .360 | 10 |
| Curtis Granderson | 82 | 16 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 9 | 0 | 16 | 4 | 0 | 0 | .219 | .305 | .342 | .292 | 8 |
| Nick Johnson | 81 | 8 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 21 | 2 | 21 | 0 | 1 | 1 | .138 | .383 | .224 | .318 | 8 |
| Mark Teixeira | 100 | 11 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 17 | 2 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 4 | .136 | .300 | .259 | .273 | 7 |
| Marcus Thames | 18 | 10 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .625 | .667 | 1.000 | .695 | 7 |
| Francisco Cervelli | 15 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .231 | .333 | .231 | .285 | 1 |
| Randy Winn | 13 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .077 | .077 | .077 | .069 | -1 |
| Total | 798 | 185 | 35 | 9 | 25 | 90 | 12 | 129 | 18 | 6 | 14 | .266 | .360 | .450 | .358 | 111 |
wOBA: Weighted on-base average
br: Total Linear weights batting runs, not position-adjusted or compared to average/replacement level
Robinson Cano obviously stormed out of the gate, as did Jorge Posada. Derek Jeter and Brett Gardner were also strong at the start. The rest of the starters were a bit underwhelming, although Marcus Thames did very well in his part-time role.
On the pitching side, it was all about the starting pitchers.
| pitcher | g | gs | ip | h | r | er | hr | bb | hbp | k | ra | era | fip | rsar |
| CC Sabathia | 5 | 5 | 34.7 | 25 | 13 | 12 | 2 | 12 | 1 | 28 | 3.38 | 3.12 | 3.46 | 8.9 |
| Andy Pettitte | 5 | 5 | 34.0 | 28 | 8 | 8 | 1 | 11 | 1 | 25 | 2.12 | 2.12 | 3.17 | 13.4 |
| A.J. Burnett | 5 | 5 | 33.3 | 31 | 10 | 9 | 1 | 9 | 3 | 20 | 2.70 | 2.43 | 3.47 | 11.0 |
| Javier Vazquez | 4 | 4 | 20.0 | 25 | 20 | 20 | 5 | 11 | 1 | 18 | 9.00 | 9.00 | 6.45 | -7.4 |
| Phil Hughes | 3 | 3 | 18.0 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 11 | 0 | 18 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 3.76 | 7.4 |
| Total | 22 | 22 | 140 | 115 | 55 | 53 | 10 | 54 | 6 | 109 | 3.54 | 3.41 | 3.86 | 33.3 |
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.
With one notable exception, the starting pitching was outstanding to start the season. CC Sabathia, Andy Pettitte, A.J. Burnett and Phil Hughes combined for about 40 runs saved above replacement level in 18 games. How good is that? To put it in perspective, if you had that rate of performance from your first four starting pitchers over a full season (132 games) you’d be 30 wins above a theoretical replacement level team. If replacement level is 60 wins, you’d win 90 games if the only thing you had was these four pitchers plus replacement level everywhere else.
The bullpen wasn’t quite as happy of a tale.
| pitcher | g | gs | ip | h | r | er | hr | bb | hbp | k | ra | era | fip | rsar |
| Joba Chamberlain | 11 | 0 | 10.3 | 10 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 10 | 3.48 | 3.48 | 3.39 | 2.0 |
| Mariano Rivera | 10 | 0 | 9.0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 9 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 2.20 | 5.2 |
| Alfredo Aceves | 6 | 0 | 8.7 | 8 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 5.19 | 4.15 | 6.20 | 0.0 |
| Chan Ho Park | 3 | 0 | 5.7 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 6.35 | 4.76 | 6.73 | -0.7 |
| David Robertson | 7 | 0 | 5.0 | 10 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 10.80 | 10.80 | 3.80 | -3.1 |
| Damaso Marte | 9 | 0 | 4.7 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 5.79 | 5.79 | 7.27 | -0.3 |
| Sergio Mitre | 3 | 0 | 4.3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 2.08 | 2.08 | 3.66 | 1.5 |
| Boone Logan | 3 | 0 | 2.3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 3.86 | 3.86 | 4.06 | 0.4 |
| Total | 52 | 0 | 50 | 46 | 24 | 22 | 6 | 17 | 4 | 38 | 4.32 | 3.96 | 4.50 | -2.2 |
Before Joba Chamberlain became some hybrid of Juan Acevedo and Jose Veras, he was decent in April and of course Mo was Mo. The only real glaring weak spot was David Robertson, although in six innings anyone can look lousy, and his FIP was ok.
I don’t have the defensive data to look at the April split, although the team had a collective FIP of 4.03 compared to an ERA of 3.55. If you want to ascribe the entirety of that difference to the defense, they’d have been around a +10 overall. Of course, just because you need a large sample size of BABIP to ascertain a pitcher’s real skill doesn’t mean it’s not there, so it’s likely that at least some of that difference is due to the pitchers.
Anyway, unlike many recent Yankee teams, the Yankees started out well, which was nice.