Yeesh.  Do you sleep?

So I don’t understand about APW vs W.  No doubt there’s a link to a link to the info above, though.

Ahh, APW isn’t “Average Projected Wins”.  From the linkage:

“APW: Average placing wins. This is the average win total to take each place in the division.”

Sleep is overrated.

APW does not map to the team it’s listed next to.  It just shows the average # of wins the team that finished in that place won.  So if you look at the AL East, on average, the team that finished first won 100 games, the team that finished second won 94, the team that finished 3rd won 88, etc.,

You can sleep when you’re dead.  But are you sure you want all of this up on the site at the same time?  OTOH, mmmm… pie (charts)!

I was going to break it up, but I still have to get through the player projections so I figured I’d throw it all up.

SG,

You may have the Rays and the Jays mixed up in your write-ups, starting from “Why they might be better than projected.”

Phenomenal work, will take some digesting. But the pie-charts should help in that process.

Also, I welcome our new bar graph overlords.

“APW does not map to the team it’s listed next to.”

Yep, it’s all clear, I just hit the wrong possible acronym source and couldn’t figure out why the average projected wins were listed twice and different.

Doesn’t 100 seem rather high, btw?  I wonder if there’s an effect of taking only upward fluctuations which exaggerates that.

You may have the Rays and the Jays mixed up in your write-ups, starting from “Why they might be better than projected.”

Oops, forgot the Jays’ numbers, I added them.

How did you make the logoed pies, btw?  And did you purposely make the RS background that pinkish lilac?

Doesn’t 100 seem rather high, btw?

It does seem high, but I guess if you have three 90+ win teams in the same division it has to be.

How did you make the logoed pies, btw? 
Excel 2007 lets you import an image as the fill for data points on charts.

And did you purposely make the RS background that pinkish lilac?

That would be juvenile.

Not that it counts for that much, but it seems that Brandon Morrow is officially the Mariners closer now. Rowland-Smith is probably going to be their 5th starter.

The NYT considers Lombardi a top Yankee blogger.  Has he provided as much content over the last year as SG did just today?

Cliff Corcoran seemed surprisingly lame in that interview.

13- Does “I’m not saying Arod’s an idiot, but he’s an idiot” count as content?

Great charts!

What software are you using?

Jed Lowrie looks entrenched as the starting SS, and while his defensive metrics were very good in a very small sample size last season, his minor league scouting reports are less sanguine about his defense.

Checked his MiL TotalZone #‘s, and it looks like he’s generally low-average.  Like usually -5 to 0.  Fantastic stuff SG, as always.  Just think, one week from tomorrow we get actual, meaningful, baseball!

The NYT considers Lombardi a top Yankee blogger.  Has he provided as much content over the last year as SG did just today?

Didn’t you know?  This stuff was done using computers and geek-stats, compiled in a basement.  That means it isn’t *real* content.  Everything Lombardi writes is from actually WATCHING games, and talking to coaches and players.  That’s MEANINGFUL content.  Wins in a landslide.

What software are you using?

Diamond Mind Baseball to run the simulations, then Excel 2007 to compile the data and make the charts and whatever.

Dude, SG… nice.  Thanks.  This was a nice Monday afternoon read.

Just think, one week from tomorrow we get actual, meaningful, baseball!

wait, you mean the pennant isn’t handed out based on SG’s pre-season projections??

i’ve been wasting my life.

BTW, seriously amazing work.

“i’ve been wasting my life.”

One of the best American poems has that as its theme.

The Mariners still haven’t annointed a closer. While the role is generally overrated, it’s still nice to have a decent one.

Apparently, the Mariners listened to SG and anointed Morrow as their closer.  I fully expect “Who will pitch teh eighth!!!11!1!” crowd to use this as evidence that Joba should be teh eigth inning guy.

I love the first sentence of “why KC might be worse.”

Where did Baseball Prospectus have the Yankees in their predictions for 2009? Have they done them yet? I’m curious if their predictions match SG’s use of Pecota.

These are fantastic!

Hey, not sure why this works out this way, but does anyone else have trouble believing that the Rangers will only outscore the A’s by 8 runs?

Thanks a lot, SG.  Now I have to quit my job to read this post. 

I mean, now I get to quit my job to read this post.  Those pie-charts (finally!) might be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen here, or anywhere.

But damn, [22].  I come to this site to get away from poetry.

Where did Baseball Prospectus have the Yankees in their predictions for 2009?

Try this link: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/dc/.

If you can’t get to it, they have the AL East as:
New York Yankees 100-62
Boston Red Sox 96-66
Tampa Bay Rays 95-67
Baltimore Orioles 75-87
Toronto Blue Jays 74-88

From Lombardi @ NYT:

“Nady just seems more like a Paul O’Neill than a Jason Giambi to me.”

I loved Paul O’Neill, but what he’s saying is “Nady is more like the worse of these two players.”  For G-d’s sake.  This reeks of the Times’ flop sweat as they desperately try to avoid the toppling dominoes that are their old-media brethren.  “Let’s do something with bloggers!  Get some bloggers!”

“Cliff Corcoran seemed surprisingly lame in that interview.”

One reason I stopped hanging around Bronx Banter was that he seemed like a dick every time I had an exchange with him—sort of dogmatic and fussy, no sense of humor or tolerance for friendly exaggeration.

I guess what I’m saying is that RLYW is the ONLY blog.

Try this link: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/dc/.

Thanks a lot, SG!

So is that updated or is that pre-A-Rod injury?

Either way, I’m very pleased to see them basically agreeing with you, because I just read an article today where it quoted Baseball Prospectus as predicting under 90 wins for the Yankees, and that sounded completely absurd, so I’m glad to know that that article was wrong.

Great job SG. You are a credit to this… what… community… I suppose. Don’t know what the right word is. But whatever the hell it is, you are a credit to it.

“But damn, [22].  I come to this site to get away from poetry.”

If I should start to comment in iambics, would you leave?  Or would I catch a little yellow thunderbolt and grieve?

“I guess what I’m saying is that RLYW is the ONLY blog.”

Gotta agree with this, and as much as I’d like SG and co. to make millions off of it, I kind of like people from NYT/LoHud/etc. not poking around here.

BTW, hilarious fake conversation. Probably very accurate.

So is that updated or is that pre-A-Rod injury?

That’s with Rodriguez playing only 60% of the time.

I think Cliff is actually quite nice. But Bronx Banter operates slightly differently from RLYW, which is why he is on a “mod” mode most of the times. And that may be the reason why his demeanor is slightly different from the mods here.

If you really want to see a mod who is really arrogant and dick-ish, try Dave Cameron. The guy is really smart, and I really appreciate the hard work that he does at fangraphs, but he really has a thin skin for a mod, and takes criticisms as bad as I have seen any mod take.

The nice thing about RLYW is SG participates with the other posters on an almost equal basis (his thunderous identity notwithstanding), is incredibly open to all kinds of comments from random yahoos like yours truly, and has an incredible sense of humor. And of course, the pie-charts!

SG is teh best, no question.  But Larry and Jonathan and teh McNally’s have tehir good points too.

SG,

I think the February version of PECOTA standings had Yankees after the Red Sox. So what changed for the Yankees? Was the previous ranking pre-Teixiera?

I think the February version of PECOTA standings had Yankees after the Red Sox. So what changed for the Yankees? Was the previous ranking pre-Teixiera?

From the man who does the PECOTA depth charts himself (Clay Davenport)

Fielding. Nate changed the fielding numbers on the last weighted means spreadsheet, and when that kicked in the Yanks went way up and Boston came down. Until that point the weighted means spreadsheet was using last year’s team fielding numbers.

Ok, that doesn’t sound too good then. Are they still using RATE as their defensive metric? I remember you saying that it is nothing but noise, but I don’t know if that has improved.

I think they’ve moved to a play by play metric now (simple fielding runs?).  The Yanks were around -40 last year by ZR/UZR, they should be close to average this year, so whatever metric they are using seems to match what I’d expect.

[Minnesota]

High W: 85 (chone)
Low W: 78 (chone)

SG, those pie charts are gorgeous.

Melancon pitched three innings today.  I should note for consistency that my Top relievers should be starters hypothesis suggests he be converted if possible.

thank you SG, whoever you are.

If you really want to see a mod who is really arrogant and dick-ish, try Dave Cameron.

YES.  I love reading him, but if you have even an honest question, he’s likely to say something like, “I don’t have the time nor the inclination to explain it to you, so go look it up yourself”.  And that’s if he’s in a good mood. 

SG will bend over backwards to get you information you need, which makes me sometimes feel bad asking him to do stuff because I’m sure he actually has a paying job and all that.  Always appreciate all the hard work put into this site.

I guess what I’m saying is that RLYW is the ONLY blog.

With the above said, though this site I think is the BEST blog, I think it’s only fair to point out some of the other good ones.  FanGraphs is still good, and the other bloggers (e.g. Cartwright and Seidman among others) are much more approachable with questions and what-not.  “The Book” blog is good as well, as MGL and Tango in particular happily answer any questions.  The only problem is you need a degree in statistical research to understand half of what they are talking about, but sometimes you can correlate between the “plain English” SG uses (also much appreciated!) and the “stats speak” they use.

This website is an oasis in an otherwise dry, dry world.

thank you SG, whoever you are.

he’s Iron Man.

Is my browser refusing to show any more posts, or has yup really brought all commentary to an end?

just like when i show up at a party in real life.

Don’t worry.  If you ever show up at a party I’m at, I’ll talk to you.  Of course, I have no idea what you look like or anything, so I’ll just assume that every person standing alone at a party is you.

yup=Rorschach

and I say that with love

so rilkefan, do you believe the Yankees should have turned Mariano back into a starter after 96?  Not trying to be contentious, just want you to expound your theory.  Maybe this is something you discussed at length during my hiatus from RLYW.

“I think is the BEST blog”

Yes, that’s really what I meant.  I look at a lot of blogs occasionally, even Lombardi, but this is the only one I look at every day, and comment on.

Heresy time:  If Joba can’t figure out a way to keep his pitch count down, he won’t be that effective or valuable as a starter.  If he keeps that up maybe the bullpen IS the best place for him…we’ll see.  But he’s always had trouble with being economical.

Mike, just picture Brad Pitt.  then put a Yankee hat on him.  then give him darker hair, make him a little shorter, a little less muscular, and about 75% less good looking.  you should find me.

so I figured I’d throw it all up.

Just like Tom Gordon!

So, the Rays seem to have the strongest pitching staff in the east or am I misreading?

yup=Rorschach
and I say that with love

Rorschach was the man.
But I don’t wish for a blue superman with no clothes on to acksplode yup.

i guess the million dollar question is HOW LONG do you give Joba to figure those things out?

in New York, people want that answer to be “half a season”...but anywhere else in baseball, this could be years.

“do you believe the Yankees should have turned Mariano back into a starter after 96?”

Yes.

[54] - From Jun 13 through Jul 30 of 2008 (from the end of the stretch-out to the game before the injury) Joba pitched in 9 games, with 54 IP and threw 899 pitches.  That’s 6 innings per game and 16.6 pitches per inning.  While that’s no Greg Maddux, I think that’s a respectable level of “economy”.  Obviously if he regresses from there it’s something to think about, but I like the chances to improve on that.

I’d give him the next two seasons, minimum, unless he shows signs of actually getting worse.  Minimum.

Even as a 5-6 inning pitcher, Joba’s value as a starter would be higher than as a ~75IP reliever, no?  And I think we know he has the potential to do better than 5-6IP/start.  We’ve seen him do it.  He just needs to do it more consistently.  He’s what, 23?

But he’s always had trouble with being economical.

It’s taken Scott Kazmir some time to get more efficient…but five innings of him is still pretty good.

Why is it that just about every other radio announcer team sounds better to me than Sterling and Waldman?  Ed’s tooling on them in the Gardner thread is the rough parody equivalent of the movie “Office Space” to life in cubeland.  Honestly, in the GF league, only the Astros announcers are less tolerable.  The Reds have a guy whose drawl is just awesome.  Joba K’d a Red to finish the 2nd, and he just said “nayuhsty” so simply and perfectly.

Other teams’ announcers are also bad.  The Angels crew sucks, for the Dodgers Rick Monday is a complete moron PLUS he works with Charlie Steiner, Hawk Harrelson is odious, the Blue Jays guys do nothing but complain about how much money the Yankees have…not that S&W are any good, they’re awful.

Less snarkily, I would want to know if he could really throw a changeup or whatever, if batters can adjust to the cutter in-game after three ABs.  In e.g. 2007 his RSAR was 13, or maybe 1.3*1.5/10 = 2 wins, which is less than what an average starter who throws 200 innings is worth.  In 2008 it was 23 RSAR, so 3.5 wins, or a bit less than Mussina’s 3.8.

Off topic: The big lie about the rise in sea levels. For all you global warming believers out there.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5067351/Rise-of-sea-levels-is-the-greatest-lie-ever-told.html

Note to self: Do not feed Don.

It’s not heresy because you said “if.”  Heresy would be saying that “teh eight” is so much more important than the first seven that it’s a no-brainer.  Of course, to the people who would say that, making Joba a starter is the heresy.

Suzyn and Sterling are the worst in the biz.  Clearly.  I don’t think The Yanks can ever win with Suzy in the booth.  Deep down we are all rooting against them so we don’t have to hear her get excited (goodness gracious Rog-ah Clemens).

“So, the Rays seem to have the strongest pitching staff in the east or am I misreading?”

I’d guess that defense skews RA(pitching) above.

That’s right rilkefan, the truth might just set you free.

PagsRags @69 -  You just discovering this? Unlistenable.

Don: keep fightin the good fight.  If AGW is not a total sham it’s close.  Another way to tax and spend.

The party’s over and all the dishes are dirty.  And someone puked on the carpet.

DNFTT

fgas: So what about [59]/[65]?

[76]

Sorry, I did read them.  With hindsight, maybe they should have given him another shot at the rotation.  I haven’t done any digging to try and see what the Yankees thinking was back then.  If Mo came up today, would he get more of a shot in the rotation?  Probably. 

Bob Watson and Gene Michael were not dummies, though.  Maybe there were reasons for the decision, or maybe they just decided hey, Mo succeeded in relief, don’t mess with it—because he did have some bad starts too.

The only qualitative differences I can think of between starting and relieving are that when relieving a) you don’t have to go to a second pitch when batters adjust, because they only get one PA against you and b) you don’t need to sustain velocity/command over 6+ innings, so you can throw harder/more stressfully (whatever it is that makes the cutter cut so well).

So, maybe Rivera would have worked out if given another chance as a starter, but my guess is that the relieving is the role where you can maximize the effectiveness of his best pitch and minimize the ineffectiveness of his others (if they are in fact ineffective).

In light of that, I’d want to adjust Rilke’s hypothesis to “top relievers who pitch like starters do should be converted if possible.”

Of course Mo didn’t have (or for that matter need) the cutter back in 96.

You know, converting Mo could have been on Mel Stottlemyre too.  Didn’t he famously tell Dwight Gooden to try and strike out fewer guys?  Maybe he saw a live arm and lots of Ks and thought, “Bullpen!”

But that may be misleading re: Gooden.  After all the guy’s arm was tired.  Maybe it *did* make more sense for DG in 1996 to pitch to contact and trust the defense.

If Joba can’t figure out a way to keep his pitch count down, he won’t be that effective or valuable as a starter.

Pitch count didn’t seem to be a problem today. According to Pete Abe, he was at 67 through 5 innings. That seems pretty economical for a strike-out pitcher. You would think at that rate he could get through 7 innings in under 100 pitches. Today seemed more a case of endurance - he seemed to run out of gas after about 70 pitches. Hopefully he continues to build that endurance and is regularly going 7 IP in early May.

“Maybe it *did* make more sense for DG in 1996 to pitch to contact and trust the defense.”

Considering that the Yankees had a good defense back then, yeah, probably.

did you mean 1986?

No, 1996.

Stottlemeyer actually tried to get Gooden to throw less hard with the Mets in 1986. Whether that was based on a philosophy to strike out less hitters is something that I don’t know, but it had that result.

I believe that was what yup was referring to.

Oh thanks—maybe I’m getting confused, I was remembering that Stott said this in 1996.  Quite probably I’m wrong then.

FWIW, I’m finding site access a bit unstable today.

You know, Mariano Rivera has a 3-3 record with a 5.94 ERA as a starter.  And that is a really small sample size.  Pointing to the one truly excellent MLB start that he ever had and saying he should have been given more of an opportunity to succeed as a starting pitcher is kind of silly, and rather unlike rilke.  He made five more starts after that, and was pretty ordinary in them, allowing 16 earned runs in 27 innings.  Two quality starts of 6 innings each, followed by two starts where he couldn’t get out of the sixth and one where he couldn’t get through five.

Also, Rivera never threw more than 131 innings in a minor league season, so there may have been legitimate concerns about his ability to handle a starter’s workload.  And finally, they didn’t convert him into a one inning reliever in 1996.  They got 107.3 innings of 2.09 ERA out of him.  Given the leverage of those innings, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Rivera’s ‘96 was more valuable than 180 innings of 110 ERA+ as a starter would have been.

Yes, and it’s possible that Joba would be more valuable pitching 100 great innings instead of 180 mediocre ones too, but we don’t know yet, right?  I think rilke is saying Rivera should have gotten more opportunity to show whether he could be a starter and therefore be more valuable—not that he definitely would have been—and that there were some solid performances and one brilliant one to make one think he could go through a lineup multiple times.

[88], see “Less snarkily” in [65].  And I’m not insisting on the claim - note “hypothesis” above.

I wonder what value, if any, we can assign to the fact that it’s been 12 years since the Yankees’ front office has had to spend the offseason expending resources on placating the manager, the players, the media, and the fans, by figuring out who is going to close games.

That my memory is poor has been demonstrated many times, but I don’t recall that letting Wetteland go and elevating Mo caused nearly the controversy that attends such decisions today.

Also, here’s evidence that evolution is a hoax, and very likely a liberal scheme to raise taxes and increase government spending.

That my memory is poor has been demonstrated many times, but I don’t recall that letting Wetteland go and elevating Mo caused nearly the controversy that attends such decisions today.

i would guess that there are probably 20 times the number of media outlets/blogs today that need to fill space covering every detail of this team.

could you imagine the hand-wriging if Luis Sojo were a Yankee today?  a 37 OPS+ in 1998, 37!!  i don’t even remember the Eric Almonte era causing half the anguish as the Angel Berroa/Cody Ransom “situation”, and that was a fairly catastrophic event when Jeter seperated his shoulder.  the Yankees simply called someone up and played him, and that was that.

Luis Sojo’s grit and determination stats were historically high.

Good for nothing blogs.

I’m not insisting on the claim - note “hypothesis” above.

I don’t recall insisting that anyone was insisting on anything.  But citing a sample of n=1 as evidence in support of anything is still rather unlike you.

More importantly, my son threw 46 pitches and 37 strikes in four innings today.  Struck out five and allowed just four singles—two infield hits and two bloops.  Anybody got Boras’s number?

Looking for $50M?

14 pitches between 100 and 103 MPH…in the same game? Good god.

Just keep him away from Guitar Hero.  At least until after he signs.