SG,

Who are the Yankee starts going to in that projection? I would assume that Pavano’s getting a bunch and being pretty decent in doing so. That might offset Clemens/Hughes slightly.

That said, I much prefer the BPro projections.

Who’s Pavano?

Rotation is Clemens, Pettitte, Wang, Mussina, Hughes, with spot starts by Rasner,  Chase Wright, and Tyler Clippard (about 30 between them).

Whoops, sorry. I misread your intro.

SG, the division title isn’t lost.  It’s just very unlikely.

Much larger deficits have been made up in less time.

A 10.5 deficit is not insurmountable id mid-May.  It is insurmountable for a team playing like the Yankees are playing.  Is this a huge offensive slump coupled with crappy injuries or are they playing like they will be playing all year.  More likely the former.  Which means they can’t afford any more injuries and they better get their act together at the plate (excluding Posada and Jeter).
My biggest fear is that players like Damon and Giambi will be useless all year because of injury which would definitely hurt the team immensely.

SG, the division title isn�t lost.  It�s just very unlikely.

Hence my use of “pretty much”.

The problem is not just the 10.5 game deficit, it’s that Boston appears to be stronger than originally projected.  From here on out they averaged 104 wins.  That’s almost insurmountable.  To match 104 wins, the Yankees would have to go 86-35 from today on.

Of course, Boston could tank, and the Yankees could roll.  That’s why we watch.

If the Yanks had a 10.5 game lead, would you all be saying that the division title was still up for grabs? I doubt it and I think it has to do with the histories of these two teams. But those histories (1978, 2005, etc) are largely irrelevant because the rosters of the 2007 teams are quite different from the rosters of those teams. I have the same seemingly irrational feelings, FWIW.

the Yankees are NOT catching Boston.  i’m over it.  it’s quite liberating really.

but i do think the Yankees are going to make a run at the WC.  they will.  and it’s going to start soon. 

SG, is there anyway to compare LD% and BABIP on a team by team basis and determine if the Yankees have been any luckier/unluckier than other teams?  maybe just looking at the last few weeks. i swear every ball they’ve hammered recently is right at someone (though this is probably just my fanboy bias).  i thought they were hitting Glavine pretty hard, but had a lot of balls hit right at people.

i don’t know, it seems like this team is snakebit.  look at yesterday, even a crappy start by Rasner, say 4 runs in 5 innings, is PROBABLY enough to win that game since the bullpen was pretty fresh.  but having to put Myers against Wright twice…

ehh, i’ll quit my whining now.  nothing you can do about what has happened.  all they can do is win tonight.  with another rookie.  on ESPN.

play today, win today, DAS IT!!!

The Yanks really ought to get some runs off Maine, who was a garden variety righty in the AL.  If Clippard can keep the ball down and get a decent amount of strikeouts, he’ll not only be an upgrade on Chase Wright, but also Rasner and DeSalvo as well.

Yeah, like SG mentioned, if the Red Sox keep up this pace, a VERY GOOD Yankee team wouldn’t catch them, which is why I’m not even paying attention to the divison any more.

It’s like being an Oakland fan in 2001, just say, “Congrats on having an awesome year” to the team ahead of you, and just concentrate on winning as many games as possible, and hope it’s good enough for the Wild Card.

By the by, taking a look at the Yankee splits, and it is astonishing that they are OVER .500 at Home, and OVER .500 against the Central and West. The Eastern division is KILLING them - you have to figure that the Yankees will correct that against Toronto, Tampa Bay and Baltimore, no?

SG, is there anyway to compare LD% and BABIP on a team by team basis and determine if the Yankees have been any luckier/unluckier than other teams?  maybe just looking at the last few weeks. i swear every ball they’ve hammered recently is right at someone (though this is probably just my fanboy bias).  i thought they were hitting Glavine pretty hard, but had a lot of balls hit right at people.

THT runs PrOPS, which looks at LD rate, BABIP, GB/FB %, and a couple other factors to predict how lucky or unlucky players are. Per JC Bradbury, it is a better predictor of OBP/SLG going forward than straight up OBP/SLG is.

By that, the Yankees have been generally somewhat unlucky to date. A-Rod has lot 33 OPS points, Giambi has lost 40, Damon has lost 82, Melky has lost 126, Abreu has lost 77, and Cano has lost 1. On the lucky side, Posada has gained 202 points (making him by far the luckiest hitter in the AL - Magglio Ordonez is 2nd at +177, and BJ Upton is 3rd at +134). Jeter has also gained 102 points of OPS.

Doing a quick and dirty “net” calculation (without weighting for differing numbers of plate appearances, since everyone listed is pretty much equal, but that’s why is quick and dirty), the Yankees have lost 48 points of OPS across these eight hitters, for an average cost of 6 points of OPS per hitter. The Yankees without enough PA to qualify have also been somewhat unlucky.

A similar analysis for the Red Sox shows them having been unlucky to the tune of -9.63 OPS points per hitter. Their hitters without enough PA have also been somewhat unlucky, but less so than the Yankees unqualified hitters, because of the luck box that is Alex Cora.

thanks!

If the Yanks had a 10.5 game lead, would you all be saying that the division title was still up for grabs? ?

Idiom: up for grabs
  colloq
    Available, especially easily or cheaply.

For all those who think the division title is lost, you’re pretty much right.(Me)

SG, the division title isn’t lost.  It’s just very unlikely. (Larry)

Yeah, we’re saying the division’s up for grabs.

Yup (and of course Mariano Duncan) hit it right on the head. We play today, we win today, DAS IT! The Captain and Posada have been great, Matsui and Cano are starting to hit, but it always comes down to the starting pitching. If Clippard can go 6 solid innings, we got a great chance at winning. Maine got hit around his last start, hopefully that’ll continue.

It’s not quite that simple.  If you will remember, Andy Pettitte went SEVEN solid innings on Friday.  Moreover, this is not the first good outing by him they have wasted.  The Yanks need to hit, hit consistently and bash mediocre pitchers - be they righty or lefty.  That’s this team’s strength.  Otherwise, the current misery will continue.  If A-Rod and Cano begin swinging the bats like they should, that’s a good place to start.

The Yankees can easily win the division if they start playing well. Will that happen? I have no idea, but the 10.5 game deficit means very little at this point.

I have no idea, but the 10.5 game deficit means very little at this point.

i disagree.  this is crazy talk.

if the Sox play at a very moderate .550 pace the rest of the season, they win 95 games.

the Yanks will have to play balls out the rest of the season to win 95 games.

the 10.5 is not insurmountable, but it is VERY significant.

I’m trying to decide if 20% is a reasonable weight to use for the current season data.  If we weight each 2007 game (about 25% of a season) at 1.0, each 2006 game at 0.67 and each 2005 game at 0.33, that gives a 20% weight to this year’s games, so I suppose it’s in the ballpark.  That means that even fully considering the recent bad news, the Yankees remain well placed to make a run at the wild card.

Baseball prospectus probably uses different weightings.  As an extreme example, if you assume that 2007 to date is as important as all prior years, any projection will come back looking ugly (the Yankees Pythagorean record might be 23-18, but that doesn’t remove the 23 losses which have happened, and it’s still only .560 feeding into the projection for the rest of the season).  Finishing that example, if they were .600 pre-season, even weighting of 2007 would mean a projection of .580 for the rest of the season, or 70.18 more wins to go with 18 so far for 88.18 total.  That isn’t even good enough to be favored for the wild card.  Fortunately, 50% weighting on 2007 seems way too high.  The Yankees are a veteran team.  Their players are likely to return to their career averages minus a small age adjustment.  It’s not as if they were mostly rookies who we have no way to predict other than their 2007 stats.

On a more discouraging note, has anyone noticed that this projection has Boston playing 75 and 45 (or .625) for the remainder of the season?  If they really do that, not only will the Yankees not catch them, the Red Sox are going to pull further ahead over time.

Crap, just realized we have to listen to “Bel-TRON” all night.  Shoot me.

bibigon, that’s a very interesting statistic. Does anyone have the formula?

Maybe we can win a cheap, undeserved, Wildcard World Series this year like Boston did in 2004…

“Jeter has also gained 102 points of OPS.”

I don’t know, but I would bet that Jeter is routinely over his Props by alot every year (I wasn’t all that correct, .82 over last year, .14 over in 2005, .12 over in 2004). Anyway, I’m pretty sure Jeter’s average is gonna finish over .330 this year, potentially alot higher. His “luck” isn’t an accident.

SG, I think youre projections looks more or less right - I don’t think the Red Sox will play .625 ball from here on out, but even if they play to roughly their preseason projection (93ish wins) the rest of the way, they’ll be right around 100.  That’s almost certain not to happen for this Yankee team.  Not to say that the division race is over; far from it - but 10ish percent is probably about right.

I also agree that I would still consider the Yankees the Wild Card favorites, and I’ll be shocked if they don’t win at least 90 games.  77-44 is within their grasp, and that’s 95 wins.  They need to pick it up soon, but you still have to think they will.

FREE KEVIN GILLIGAN!!!

Andruw Jones just missed a hanging curve by Papelbon with men on first and second and the team down by three in the 9th.  Yet another break goes the way of Bahston.

Okay, SG, you’ve got me on the misuse of an idiom. But my overall point stands. I think that the main reason that the Yanks are viewed as having ‘some reasonable, if small, chance of getting the division, is that it is the Yankees and the Red Sox.

I think that the main reason that the Yanks are viewed as having ‘some reasonable, if small, chance of getting the division, is that it is the Yankees and the Red Sox.

No, it’s because the season is only 1/4 over, and a lot can happen in 120 games.