Now they’re 2-10 in 1-run games. They don’t need everyone to start hitting, just one or two guys to help out Jeter and Posada would be nice.

The look on Pettitte’s face in the 8th was brutal.  If he wanted to lose games like that 3-2, he coulda stayed in Houston.

I feel bad for Pettitte…  Hopefully, the Yankees give him some support soon.

...Torre on Phil Hughes (sprained ankle): “I don’t think we can be counting on him any time soon.” ...

It would be a lot easier to endure this meltdown if I could look forward to watching Hughes pitching every fifth day.

I felt better about this team when they were losing 7-6 earlier in the year than I do now when they are losing 3-2. At least then there was some hope for the future. Not just Clemens and Hughes coming back this year, but next year with Clippard (didn’t think we’d see him this early in the season), all the guys pitching well at Trenton, Kennedy and Joba further down the road. But with the offensive problems, I don’t know where the help is going to come from. There’s certainly no one in the upper levels of the farm system who will help, and not much in the lower full-season levels either. The free agent class looks pretty thin for next year too, not that the Yankees could do much anyway with only Abreu’s contract up at the end of the season. The remaining fading stars will be around for another year or two.

Perhaps the light has begun to go on for Duncan.

WHY OH WHY?????

It’s sad that even if the Yankees wanted to rebuild via a fire sale, they can’t.  All those large contracts with no-trade clauses have hamstrung them.  The only trading chips they do have (and they are small chips at best) are in the BP.  However, the way Torre abuses his RPs, no one really will want them.

If I were Cash, I’d be sweating bullets.  How do you rebuild?  If you can’t salvage this season, (and let’s face it, unless they do a complete 180, this season is over) how do you rebuild?  You can’t trade Giambi, Matsui, Mussina, Abreu, A-Rod or Damon.  The only tradeable position players are Cano and Posada.  Cano is young and has promise.  Posada is one of the only players actually producing.

In a perfect world, I’d see the Yanks striking deals with some of the higher-priced veterans and having both sides agree to trades.  Maybe get Mussina and Giambi and Damon agree to trades to whomever would take them.  Yanks swallow as much of the contract as needed to get the deals done. 

Since that won’t happen, you have to hope those veteran hitters turn it around.  FA hitters are at a premium next year.  For the pitchers, I’d make a big run at Zambrano because I doubt Andy and the Rocket will return.  Zambrano heads the rotation, with Wang, Mussina, Hughes and TBA (Clippard/Joba/Horne, etc.).

Hopefully, Torre will be gone, so the next manager can assemble a workable BP from Rivera, Bruney, Proctor, Henn, plus whatever other arms they can get from the minors or FA.

Whatever happens, it could be a couple of years before the Yanks are ready to win it all again.

The last game the Yankees won was the last game I threw up a liveblog for.  With Fabian’s permission, I’ll throw up the post for the liveblog tonight.  But Fabian, its all yours after that if you want to analyze Clippard’s performance (or SG, Larry, or whoever else).  That is, of course, if Joe lets him pitch enough innings for meaningful analysis.

Good point. Which replacement level reliever does Joe have in mind to keep Clippard on a short leash tonight?

Which replacement level reliever does Joe have in mind to keep Clippard on a short leash tonight?

Vizcaino.  He had a (fairly) good outing last time, so Joe thinks he is on the right track to pitch part of the 5th and the 6th, and of course Proctor will pitch the 7th regardless of the score/situation.

What is the probability the yanks keep Arod next year?

I told my friend ysterday that they should give the Chevy player of the game award automaticly to the opposing pitcher and guess who won it.

Since May 3 we are 0 and 5 in one run games, 0 and 2 in 2 run games, and 0 and 3 in 3 run games is this really just a statistical anomaly?

“...Torre on Phil Hughes (sprained ankle): “I don’t think we can be counting on him any time soon.” ...

It would be a lot easier to endure this meltdown if I could look forward to watching Hughes pitching every fifth day.”

Goddamnit to hell, fuck!  That’s it exactly.  Hughes was one of the guys I wanted to watch.  I’m down to Jeter, Posada, Wang, Cano, Clippard/DeSalvo, and (if he ever gets another chance to pitch), Mariano.  I’m probably forgetting somebody, but I say that’s their fault, whomever they are, for being so forgettable.

The Yankees haven’t recorded a save since Rivera had 2 in the same day against Texas on May 3rd.  Other than that day, there has only been one save by anyone on the Yankees.  How insane is that?  Rivera is on pace for 10 saves for the ENTIRE season.

Th way the Yankees are playing now the perfect player to acquire, and he’s probably available, would be Armando Benitez.  He’d fit right in.

Am I missing something or wasn’t it a no brainer to put in Bruney with his far superior k/9 and magnificent era+ over Proctologist?

Am I missing something or wasn’t it a no brainer to put in Bruney with his far superior k/9 and magnificent era+ over Proctologist?

Now I’m a Scott Proctor fan.  I also think it is hard to criticize a relief pitcher for “blowing the game” when he faced two batters and got two outs.  That being said, Proctor is a fly-ball pitcher, and you have weak arms in CF and LF.  So the last thing you want is a FB.  Don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I think Bruney is FB pitcher as well.  But as noted the better K-rate would have made him better. 

The best thing would have been to bring Rivera in to get 5 outs.

illuminating illustration of Joe Torre’s managerial incompetence. With the game tied 2-2, Andy Pettitte gave up a lead off double in the 8th inning. The Blue Jays followed that by sacrificing the runner to third, after which Torre (correctly) pulled Pettitte for the bullpen. 

The situation was such that a sacrifice fly would have scored the run. In an ideal world, one would use a pitcher who could either strike a batter out to take away the sac fly possibility or a pitcher who at least tends toward groundballs to potentially keep the runner from leaving third. 
From Nomaas.org:

As a matter of fact, the Yankees have just such a pitcher: Brian Bruney. Although he tends to be a flyball pitcher (.59 G/F on the season), he more than makes up for this disadvantage by his excellent K/9 of 9.00. 

However, Scott Proctor, recovering from the flu and sporting both a worse G/F ratio (.49) and a significantly worse K/9 (5.47), was inappropriately brought into the game here. Throughout his career he has had flyball tendencies, and so far this season he has not struck out enough batters to potentially make sense in a situation where a strikeout is needed. Predictably enough, Proctor then surrendered the sacrifice fly.

Even if you chalk up all of Torre’s percieved managerial mistakes to bad luck (“Had it turned out the other way we’d be calling him a genius” arguement), part of his job is to get all his players to play at least to, if not above, their ability.  It has been YEARS since you could say that about a Yankee team.  It’s particularly bad this year, but when was the last time the Yankees played to or above their ability for a sustained stretch? 
Personally, I think Showalter had alot to do with the World Championships.  Yeah, players don’t like him, but 2 of his three teams won the World Series after he left.  Showalter’s flaw may be that he doesn’t know when to let up on the demands, but he definitely gets his players to play above themselves. I suspect Torre’s flaw is that he doesn’t make any demands. 

The biggest red flag about Torre is that all the players like him. 

The player’s get a fat check and a manager that doesn’t hold them accountable and continues to play them based on performance from years past.  Who wouldn’t party in the off-season rather than train?  No wonder Yankee players have sloppy fundamentals.  Who is the best bunter on the team?  Productive outs?  getting back to first on a pick off play with some sense of urgency (Abreu)?  Not having a player steal home on you? It’s little league out there. 
Torre needs to go manage a team of motivated, underpaid, gifted players so he can raise their confidence level to squeeze the last 2% of production out of them.  The yankees need a manger that will hold the players accountable and have no problem with benching a veteran for a prospect based on production.

Torre is neither as good as he seemed in 1998-2000, nor as bad as he seems now.  I’m a firm believer in the idea that the manager matters little. 

He has made some tactical errors, and I’ve yelled about them at the time (last night: WHERE THE HELL IS BRUNEY?  WTF JOE?!?!).  Then again, the same can be said for most managers.  One guy who has impressed me lately with bullpen management is Francona, but of course that’s an example of a good team making a manager look good (and he’s the same guy who is leading off with Julio Lugo and his ~.300 OBP).

I’m not opposed to letting Torre go anymore.  But let’s not pretend that under a fierly manager this same team with the same injuries is a championship ballclub.

I don’t mean to sound like a Torre apologist, because he has certainly done things wrong, but I can’t really see how all the troubles are his fault. I agree that he should have brought in Bruney instead of Proctor, but to say that the players are performing poorly because of him is ridiculous. Johnny Damon needs Grandma shoes to run the bases; Cano swings at anything and everything; I think we’re seeing why the Phillies were so willing to get rid of Abreu; Giambi is playing like the lumbering old man that he is; I can go on and on.

I think that the blame has to be placed on the players out in the field. They aren’t playing like everyone expected them too, but its not Torre’s fault, its just that we don’t have any consistent offensive producers except for Jeter and Posada.

Ralph- got to agree with you on Buck. He is often forgotten and admittedly wasn’t liked by all the players. But as you stated, the 93 team turned it around with players like Jimmy Key, Mike Stanley, Jim Abbott, an improving Bernie Williams, the great Paul O’Niell and the last pretty decent year of Don Mattingly. They were just terrible in 91-92. So bad that it was out of fashion to play in the Bronx. They couldn’t sign FA’s if they wanted to and the Boss got so messed up he was put in exile. From that morass somehow Buck rode in and made believers of this group. They went on and posted the best record in the AL the following year of 94- the year our good buddy Bud cancelled the season and Mattingly’s best chance at a WS. The following year after a lousy start, Buck led them to the Wild Card and it was that year that cameos were made by Jeter, Posada and Rivera. Rivera actually got more than that. Buck had far less talent to work with, but I do think he was a better tactician. That said, he did have his chances in Phoenix, and left in 2000 and the next year that club, well you know the rest. He didn’t get it done in Texas either, but that doesn’t mean he is a poor manager. Look at Torre’s record prior to 96 and look even closer at Stengels prior to 49. Buck had one admirer for sure and that was Don Mattingly. More importantly, he didn’t leave George Steinbrenner on good graces, so his return isn’t likely.
I wouldn’t tear this team up completely, but some changes for next year will have to be made.  I had hope for A-Rod staying, but can’t see it happening now. What a gaping hole there will be at third, first and rightfield. As good as we fans have had it, the best we will hope for in the next few years it seems is to be competitive.
Finally, the smartest thing the Yanks could do is to hire Terry Ryan from the Twins. This guy is a genious and could bring some of his evaluators with him. He is loyal and probably wouldn’t leave, but I would dangle the carrot. $$$

Why did we let Carlos Pena go in favor of Mientksksnxs?  I was so sure the Yankees were going to lose last night and I was just as sure that The Mutts would win- this is a sad world I’m living in.  I say we ride this horse until the trading deadline and then, if no progress has been made, send a bunch of these guys +cash for prospects.  I’m not excited about signing any big names to long term deals and if you think Zambrano or Andruw Jones aren’t getting 5+ years you are sadly mistaken.  As bad as things look right now they are an aberation to a certain extent- Damon had a career year last year and he doesn’t decline this much in 6 months; Giambi is poor player but not this poor; ARod was on his way to a career year; Mussina is at least a league average pitcher; Matsui will bounce back to the above average player he was; and Abreu was the savior last year and could not have declined physically this much in six months.  Things should get better but who knows- I just hope we learn from past mistakes.

By the way, 90% of baseball players screw around on their wives.  The Post can follow any player and do the exact same story as they did on ARod- what is their axe to grind with ARod?  ARod should have someone follow the Post reporter around with a camera.  The Yankees shouldn’t let whoever is responsible for this into the clubhouse.  This is ridiculous.

Good point about Pena.  I never understood why Cash gave up on him so easily.  He’s outperforming Men K a lot at an 800k salary.  Another dubious Cash move.

Memo to Abreu:wouldn’t it be nice to go off into the desert with Ricky Williams to smoke pot and do yoga instead of having to deal with all this flak.

Good point about Pena.  I never understood why Cash gave up on him so easily.  He’s outperforming Men K a lot at an 800k salary.  Another dubious Cash move.

Pena has nothing to do with Mientkiewicz.  Cashman signed him last year to a minor league deal and he needed to be called up by a certain date or released.

he hit .260/.370/.454 in Columbus, which isn’t anything special.  he was another LH hitter, and the Yankees were looking for a RH hitter to play 1B, and traded for Craig Wilson who was hitting .267/.339/.478 in the majors. 

they traded the terrible Shawn Chacon for Craig Wilson.  Wilson inexplicably stopped hitting when he got to NY, but it was still a very good trade when it was made.

Pena was released, signed on with Boston and hit .273/.351/.424.  big deal.

Pena probably should have gotten a callup last year, but Torre stuck with Andy Phillips.

re: the 90-91 yankees - those teams were bad, and players didn’t want to play for them, yes. But a lot of that also had to do with the fact that the management of the team was truly awful from about 1986-on - the constant trading of young players for older, position-less players; the prioritizing of offense over pitching; & the annual firing of managers, gms, pitching coaches perpetrated by Steinbrenner wrecked the team over a number of years, and 90-91 was the culmination of that corrosion (although they were really non-contenders from ‘89-‘92).

Men k’s last 5 year’s ops+ not including 07 75 83 54 91 94
Pena’s                         107 112 112 99

signing him over Men K might have been a good idea

What is the importance of OPS, the Runs Created Formula, and the pitching runs formula in terms of comparing the numbers to other players meaning:

1) Why is it important
2) What can you compare it to (like average)-how do you know it is average
3) How does it help as a formula to figure out a player(s) value?

Also, are there other sabermetric formulas that are good to look at to figure this same information out.

When I had a meeting with my mentor, he said it was all well and good but that they are just numbers and they basically don’t say anything. I need to know why they are worthwhile and necessary.

Also, if there is a website that has Bill James’s writing on this stuff, please jot down the link.
Thanks

Also, what is league ERA and how do you find it. I was researching and I was using Randy’s 2006 numbers and he had a Pitching Runs quantity of over 100. And on a website, it says “If the pitching runs is larger than 0, then this pitcher is better than average.” So, I’m confused

At least Mint-Cave-Witch can play a solid 1st base. When he’s been in there, he’s saved a lot of errors already this season.

Baseball-Reference has stats era+ and ops+ that are park adjusted figures that compare a given player to an average player with 100 indicating an average ops+ or era+ and over 100 indicating better performance statisticaly.

Anybody who knows something about what I mentioned before please help me out!

Although no sabermetric scholar I do view it as an important tool used in putting a team together.  But it is just that- a tool; not the be all end all.  It is backwards-looking and there are other things such as talent and, to a certain extent, character to consider.  After all, in certain circumstances, coaching can essentially change someone to a differnt player than the one whose statistics you study.  For instance, it seems Oliver Perez and John Maine seem to be different players than they were at the time they were acquired (unfortunately @#@!).  I’m not saying that statistical analysis isn’t the most important tool- it is.  I am just saying that sometimes you have to consider other things and stop looking at this as a huge game of Strat-O-Matic baseball.

Cutter, just copy and paste my Liveblog stuff, if you want to create the lucky liveblog.

One studies performance metrics because they explain a player’s value - e.g., they correlate with wins.  Wikipedia‘s discussion.  One of the first google results for OPS.  More Baseball Prospectus Basics.

What is the importance of OPS, the Runs Created Formula, and the pitching runs formula in terms of comparing the numbers to other players meaning:

Also, are there other sabermetric formulas that are good to look at to figure this same information out.

When I have more time I can give you a more detailed answer Phil, but basically the most important thing in baseball is wins.  Formulas for figuring out a player’ s offensive, defensive, and pitching value help you figure out how many wins a player can add to your team.

If you assume a team has all average players, you figure they should win 81 games or so.  You can’t compare straight OPS and ERA because different parks tend to favor offense or defense, so you should try to adjust accordingly.

In a nutshell, the runs a player can add to your team can be converted to wins, using an estimate that every ten runs they provide is worth one win.

There are lots of formulas to figure out a player’s offensive value.  My personal favorite is linear weights.  You should also factor in a player’s position, as the average shortstop provides less offense than the average first baseman, for example.  So what I do when I assess a player’s value is compare their linear weights runs to an average shortstop over the same number of plate appearances.  To do this, I pull data from the The Hardball Times into an Excel spreadsheet.

Here are links for the league averages for all players.

Average s for Offensive Players

Averages for Pitchers

I use zone rating to assess a player’s defense and convert it to runs.  I can detail the formula I use for that in a future blog entry.

For pitchers, it’s fairly simple to figure out how many runs they save above an average pitcher.  You can subtract the league ERA or RA from their ERA or RA, divide it by nine, and multiply it by the innings pitched.  So if the league ERA is 4.39, and a pitcher’s ERA is 3.00 over 100 innings, you subtract 4.39 from 3.00 and get 1.39.  Divide that by nine, and multiply it times 100, and you get -15 runs.  That means the pitcher gave up fifteen fewer runs than average over his 100 innings, and has been worth about 1.5 wins more than an average pitcher.  You should split relievers and starters when comparing pitchers as relief ERA is lower since relieving is easier.

As far as how this translates to dollars, it depends on the team.  Wins are worth more to teams depending on the market they play in, and if they push them closer to a playoff spot, which is a big source of revenue.  I’d suggest looking at some of the late Doug Pappas’s work (one example) to see how that can be figured out.

If you google for things like linear weights, marginal wins, etc., you’ll find lots of the information you’re looking for.

“If you assume a team has all average players, you figure they should win 81 games or so.”

Very technical question - is this true to second order?  That is, what’s the effect of having a variation of talent averaging to the mean?

Very technical question - is this true to second order?  That is, what’s the effect of having a variation of talent averaging to the mean?

Theoretically, it should be, but that’s where context matters. If you have a team that is two wins better than average on offense, defense, and in starting pitching, but two wins worse than average in the bullpen and with the closer, the leverage of blowing late leads could conceivably make them underperform expectations.

It’d be an interesting study to look at as far as the clustering of players’ talent levels on a team by team basis and if it leads to over and under performance.  If the Yankees continue to stink that could be something I could work on.

“If you have a team that is two wins better than average on offense, defense, and in starting pitching, but two wins worse than average in the bullpen and with the closer, the leverage of blowing late leads could conceivably make them underperform expectations.”

Here you’re just going to end up reweighting the significance of contributions from different aspects of the game.  I was more wondering if it’s better to have 9 average batters or 9 far-tail batters averaging to mean, etc.

I was more wondering if it’s better to have 9 average batters or 9 far-tail batters averaging to mean, etc.

I’m curious about that too.  I assume that you could pitch around the better hitters if there are ciphers in the lineup.  I think I’ll try a theoretical Diamond Mind Simulation with a set of 10 teams with identical pitching staffs and whose collective offensive ratings are the same, but with a different level of talent distribution throughout the lineup.

Excellent, thanks.

for the love of god, don’t use your worst reliever in a close game.

wrong thread