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Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Finishing Off The Road Trip(Baltimore Edition)

It started in Oakland the moved on to Anaheim and now the Yankee’s road trip finishes up with a three game set against the struggling Baltimore Orioles.

The pitching matchups for the series are:

Tuesday, April 27
Phil Hughes vs. Kevin Millwood

Wednesday, April 28
CC Sabathia vs. Jeremy Guthrie

Thursday, April 29
A.J. Burnett vs. Brian Matusz

Coming into 2010, the Orioles projected to be on an upswing.  In fact, one projection system had them pegged for 79 wins.  On average, they were projected to win about 74 games. 

However, by starting the season 3-16, they now look like they’d end the season at about 65 wins even if they play to their pre-season projections for the rest of the year.

Offense has been a problem for Baltimore, if you look at how they rank in the AL through yesterday’s games.

Rank	team	lg	PA	H	2B	3B	HR	R	RBI	BB	SO	HBP	GDP	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	BR
1	Yankees	AL	699	159	31	7	22	96	90	87	111	10	14	19	5	.265	.366	.450	.359	101.0
2	Tigers	AL	799	195	54	3	14	96	86	92	136	8	18	6	5	.280	.369	.426	.354	109.1
3	Twins	AL	762	176	38	4	20	101	95	96	106	4	23	11	1	.270	.362	.433	.350	105.4
4	Royals	AL	737	198	35	3	20	88	82	50	108	5	19	18	5	.293	.343	.442	.342	99.0
5	Red Sox	AL	786	185	46	1	24	95	91	71	138	6	20	8	3	.264	.333	.434	.335	101.6
6	Rays	AL	737	168	43	4	20	113	112	80	151	4	12	21	10	.259	.342	.431	.339	96.6
7	Blue Jays	AL	762	158	56	3	28	93	90	67	175	7	9	14	1	.232	.304	.447	.322	98.2
8	Angels	AL	775	185	44	0	21	87	84	62	141	9	20	17	6	.265	.330	.418	.328	96.7
9	Rangers	AL	705	155	29	4	14	85	78	64	145	8	13	20	4	.248	.322	.374	.310	78.6
10	Athletics	AL	739	166	35	3	12	92	90	68	126	6	18	12	2	.253	.325	.370	.310	81.4
11	White Sox	AL	693	137	24	2	26	74	67	63	96	10	23	21	7	.222	.303	.393	.306	76.7
12	Orioles	AL	723	162	35	3	17	62	59	50	130	8	19	5	4	.244	.304	.383	.303	75.5
13	Mariners	AL	725	154	33	4	9	73	70	68	133	4	11	17	6	.238	.312	.344	.295	71.5
14	Indians	AL	697	137	30	2	12	62	59	72	142	7	20	9	5	.223	.310	.337	.293	66.4

wOBA: Weighted on-base average
BR: Linear weights batting runs

A team OBP of .304 is generally not conducive to scoring runs, although the Orioles have actually scored fewer runs than you’d expect given their context-neutral linear weights batting runs.  This is probably mostly due to them hitting .183/.270/.294 with runners in scoring position. 

The Orioles have played 19 games this year, and have used 18 different lineups.  With Brian Roberts out with a back injury, here’s what is probably their most likely current lineup and how they compare to the Yankees.

Player	Pos	PA	Outs	BR	OBP	Player	Pos	PA	Outs	BR	OBP
Derek Jeter	SS	5	3.1	0.69	.372	Lou Montanez	LF	5	3.4	0.58	.320
Nick Johnson	DH	5	3.0	0.72	.405	Adam Jones	CF	5	3.3	0.69	.336
Mark Teixeira	1B	5	3.1	0.84	.381	Nick Markakis	RF	5	3.1	0.75	.371
Alex Rodriguez	3B	5	3.1	0.87	.387	Miguel Tejada	3B	5	3.3	0.62	.332
Robinson Cano	2B	5	3.3	0.70	.338	Matt Wieters	C	5	3.0	0.65	.358
Jorge Posada	C	5	3.2	0.70	.355	Luke Scott	DH	4	2.6	0.56	.339
Curtis Granderson	CF	5	3.0	0.65	.341	Ty Wigginton	2B	4	2.7	0.52	.329
Nick Swisher	RF	4	2.6	0.56	.360	Garrett Atkins	1B	4	2.7	0.49	.332
Brett Gardner	LF	4	2.6	0.47	.341	Cesar Izturis	SS	4	2.8	0.36	.306
Total		43	27.0	6.20	.365	Total		41	27.0	5.22	.337

Although they’ve only scored about 3.2 runs a game so far this season, the Orioles lineup is more like a 5.2 runs a game lineup that’s going through a rough stretch.

PA: # of PA in a single game
Outs: Outs made at the plate, equals PA times (1 minus OBP)
BR: Linear weights batting runs for listed PA
OBP:projected OBP

Oriole pitching hasn’t been very good either.

Rnk	team	lg	Role	G	GS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	IBB	HBP	SO	RA	ERA	FIP	RSAR
4	Yankees	AL	SP	18	18	112.7	92	47	45	8	45	0	6	95	3.75	3.59	3.79	25.8
12	Orioles	AL	SP	19	19	110.0	123	70	58	11	35	4	5	84	5.73	4.75	4.06	1.1
9	Yankees	AL	RP	42	0	42.3	40	20	19	6	13	0	3	33	4.25	4.04	4.62	3.0
10	Orioles	AL	RP	55	0	53.7	55	28	28	7	26	5	1	48	4.70	4.70	4.62	1.1
5	Yankees	AL	Total	60	18	155.0	132	67	64	14	58	0	9	128	3.89	3.72	4.02	28.8
12	Orioles	AL	Total	74	19	163.7	178	98	86	18	61	9	6	132	5.39	4.73	4.24	2.2

Their bullpen hasn’t been that much worse than the Yankees’, although they save all their sucking for blowing leads against Boston.  Their rotation has a pretty good FIP, but they’ve allowed a lot more runs than their peripherals say they should have.  They’ve also allowed 12 unearned runs, compared to the Yankees whio’ve allowed three.

Defensively, the Orioles projected around average going into the year, but so far this year they’ve been around four runs worse than average.

Pos	Player	RS	RS/150	Player	RS	RS/150
C	Jorge Posada	-0.03	-5	Matt Wieters	0.00	0
1B	Mark Teixeira	0.02	3	Garrett Atkins	-0.01	-1
2B	Robinson Cano	0.00	-1	Ty Wigginton	-0.02	-3
3B	Alex Rodriguez	-0.03	-5	Miguel Tejada	0.00	0
SS	Derek Jeter	-0.03	-4	Cesar Izturis	0.04	6
LF	Brett Gardner	0.02	3	Lou Montanez	0.00	0
CF	Curtis Granderson	0.04	5	Adam Jones	0.02	3
RF	Nick Swisher	0.00	0	Nick Markakis	-0.01	-1
Total		-0.01	-2		0.01	2

RS: Projected runs saved compared to average defensively per game, using an average of projected zone rating and UZR
RS/150: RS pro-rated to 150 games

As bad as the Orioles have looked to this point, we really can’t expect them to be this bad going forward.  Let’s just hope the correction comes AFTER this series.

So here are the inputs to figure out the win probablity of each game.

Yankees
Offense: 6.20 runs
Defense: -0.01 runs
Game 1 pitching: 4.1 runs
Game 2 pitching: 3.7 runs
Game 3 pitching: 4.3 runs

Orioles
Offense: 5.20 runs
Defense: +0.01 runs
Game 1 pitching: 5.1 runs
Game 2 pitching: 5.1 runs
Game 3 pitching: 4.9 runs

Yankee Win Probabilities
Game 1: 65.8%
Game 2: 69.6%
Game 3: 61.9%

After losing two of three games to the Angels, the Yankees are now on pace to win 97.5 games, which puts them behind the Rays who are on pace to win 98.8.  Because of that, a sweep would be nice, but the most likely outcome is the Yankees taking two of three. 

I’ve always felt that Baltimore plays better against the Yankees than they do against Boston, but to see if that’s actually true, here are some splits going back to 2005.

2005-2009 Orioles vs.	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
Boston Red Sox	3411	3064	370	795	169	9	77	352	52	16	280	571	.259	.323	.396	.719
New York Yankees	3543	3168	477	888	160	15	108	459	67	28	284	548	.280	.342	.443	.785

2005-2009 Orioles vs.	W	L	RA	ERA	FIP	GS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	HBP	SO
Boston Red Sox	25	65	6.32	5.84	5.38	90	779	914	547	506	101	448	37	535
New York Yankees	35	56	6.04	5.67	5.53	91	797	894	535	502	136	371	44	577

Well, that’s pretty f’ing annoying, isn’t it?