The Curse of... oh, let's say, Clay Bellinger:








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RedSox (50-37) @ Yankees (45-40), 7:05pm **Game Chatter**
(136 Comments - 7/4/2008 1:43:30 am)

NY POST: FINALLY BATS MORE LIKE IT!
(97 Comments - 7/3/2008 6:43:21 pm)

Rangers (44-41) @ Yankees (44-40), 7:05pm **Game Chatter**
(132 Comments - 7/3/2008 10:03:45 am)

NY Daily News: Joba Chamberlain, Yankee offense come up short in loss to Rangers
(93 Comments - 7/2/2008 5:49:15 pm)

Rangers (43-41) @ WOE (44-39), 7:05pm **Game Chatter**
(445 Comments - 7/2/2008 10:25:02 am)

Yankees.com: Yanks edged by Rangers in opener
(121 Comments - 7/1/2008 6:32:08 pm)

Rangers (42-41) @ Yankees (44-38), 7:05pm **Game Chatter**
(362 Comments - 6/30/2008 11:31:39 pm)

The Times and Democrat: Holly Hill’s Brett Gardner called up to New York Yankees
(102 Comments - 6/30/2008 6:18:41 pm)

Easy Schedule Checkpoint - June 29
(16 Comments - 6/30/2008 4:54:52 pm)

Yankees (44-37) @ Mets (39-41), 1:10pm **Game Chatter**
(194 Comments - 6/30/2008 1:32:45 am)



Player

Current Projected
Jonathan Albaladejo
7 G
21 G
13.7 IP
42 IP
Chris Britton
4 G
4 G
7 IP
7 IP
Kyle Farnsworth
27 G
69 G
28.3 IP
73 IP
Dan Giese
2 G
5 G
6.3 IP
16 IP
LaTroy Hawkins
22 G
57 G
26.7 IP
69 IP
Ross Ohlendorf
19 G
49 G
33.3 IP
86 IP
Edwar Ramirez
16 G
41 G
17 IP
44 IP
Mariano Rivera
30 G
68 G
32 IP
73 IP
Jose Veras
15 G
39 G
16.3 IP
42 IP
Total
171 G
440 G
204.3 IP
527 IP

Look what people have to say about Larry Mahnken's commentary!

"Larry, can you be any more of a Yankee apologist?.... Just look past your Yankee myopia and try some objectivity."
- Bernal Diaz

"Mr. Mahnken is enlightened."
- cordially, as always,
rm

"Wow, Larry. You've produced 25% of the comments on this thread and said nothing meaningful. That's impressive, even for you."
- Anonymous

"After reading all your postings and daily weblog...I believe you have truly become the Phil Pepe of this generation. Now this is not necessarily a good thing."
- Repoz

"you blog sucks, it reeds as it was written by the queer son of mike lupica and roids clemens. i could write a better column by letting a monkey fuk a typewriter. i dont need no 181 million dollar team to write a blog fukkk the spankeees"
- yan

"i think his followers have a different sexual preference than most men"
- bob

"Boring and predictable."
- No Guru No Method

"Are you the biggest idiot ever?"
- Randal

"I'm not qualified to write for online media, let alone mainstream media."
- Larry Mahnken



This site is best viewed with a monitor.

Disclaimer: If you think this is the official website of the New York Yankees, you're an idiot. Go away.


Sunday, June 29, 2008

Easy Schedule Checkpoint - June 29

Date Opponent Exp W Exp L Act W Act L
20-May Orioles 0.6 0.4 0 1
21-May Orioles 1.2 0.8 1 1
22-May Orioles 1.8 1.2 2 1
23-May Mariners 2.5 1.5 3 1
24-May Mariners 3.2 1.8 4 1
25-May Mariners 3.8 2.2 5 1
26-May @Orioles 4.4 2.6 5 2
27-May @Orioles 4.9 3.1 5 3
28-May @Orioles 5.4 3.6 6 3
30-May @Twins 5.9 4.1 7 3
31-May @Twins 6.4 4.6 8 3
1-Jun @Twins 6.9 5.1 8 4
2-Jun @Twins 7.4 5.6 8 5
3-Jun Blue Jays 8.0 6.0 8 6
4-Jun Blue Jays 8.6 6.4 9 6
5-Jun Blue Jays 9.2 6.8 10 6
6-Jun Royals 9.8 7.2 10 7
7-Jun Royals 10.4 7.6 11 7
8-Jun Royals 11.1 7.9 12 7
9-Jun Royals 11.7 8.3 12 8
10-Jun @Athletics 12.2 8.8 13 8
11-Jun @Athletics 12.7 9.3 13 9
12-Jun @Athletics 13.1 9.9 14 9
13-Jun @Astros 13.7 10.3 15 9
14-Jun @Astros 14.2 10.8 16 9
15-Jun @Astros 14.8 11.2 17 9
17-Jun Padres 15.4 11.6 18 9
18-Jun Padres 16.1 11.9 19 9
19-Jun Padres 16.7 12.3 20 9
20-Jun Reds 17.4 12.6 20 10
21-Jun Reds 18.0 13.0 20 11
22-Jun Reds 18.6 13.4 21 11
24-Jun @Pirates 19.2 13.8 21 12
25-Jun @Pirates 19.7 14.3 22 12
27-Jun @Mets 20.2 14.8 22 13
27-Jun @Mets 20.7 15.3 23 13
28-Jun @Mets 21.2 15.8 24 13
29-Jun @Mets 21.7 16.3 24 14


Despite losing 5 of their last 9 games, the Yankees are still ahead of expectations on the easy portion of their schedule. I'd probably extend the easy schedule to include the upcoming 3 game set with the Texas Rangers, who are hitting pretty well (team OPS+ of 116) but pitching poorly (team ERA+ of 83).
--Posted at 9:25 pm by SG / 16 Comments | - (12)




Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Easy Schedule Checkpoint - June 24

Date Opponent Exp W Exp L Act W Act L
20-May Orioles 0.6 0.4 0 1
21-May Orioles 1.1 0.9 1 1
22-May Orioles 1.7 1.3 2 1
23-May Mariners 2.4 1.6 3 1
24-May Mariners 3.1 1.9 4 1
25-May Mariners 3.8 2.2 5 1
26-May @Orioles 4.3 2.7 5 2
27-May @Orioles 4.8 3.2 5 3
28-May @Orioles 5.3 3.7 6 3
30-May @Twins 5.8 4.2 7 3
31-May @Twins 6.2 4.8 8 3
1-Jun @Twins 6.7 5.3 8 4
2-Jun @Twins 7.2 5.8 8 5
3-Jun Blue Jays 7.8 6.2 8 6
4-Jun Blue Jays 8.4 6.6 9 6
5-Jun Blue Jays 9.0 7.0 10 6
6-Jun Royals 9.6 7.4 10 7
7-Jun Royals 10.3 7.7 11 7
8-Jun Royals 10.9 8.1 12 7
9-Jun Royals 11.5 8.5 12 8
10-Jun @Athletics 12.0 9.0 13 8
11-Jun @Athletics 12.4 9.6 13 9
12-Jun @Athletics 12.9 10.1 14 9
13-Jun @Astros 13.4 10.6 15 9
14-Jun @Astros 13.9 11.1 16 9
15-Jun @Astros 14.5 11.5 17 9
17-Jun Padres 15.1 11.9 18 9
18-Jun Padres 15.8 12.2 19 9
19-Jun Padres 16.4 12.6 20 9
20-Jun Reds 17.1 12.9 20 10
21-Jun Reds 17.7 13.3 20 11
22-Jun Reds 18.3 13.7 21 11


The good news is that the Yankees are still playing ahead of expectations since the easy schedule started. On May 19th they were 20-24 and 6.5 games out of first. They lost the next game to drop to 20-25 and 7.5 out, and have since then gone 21-10 and now sit 41-35 and 4.5 games back.

So that's the good news. The bad news is that it's almost over.

--Posted at 8:08 am by SG / 64 Comments | - (27)




Sunday, June 15, 2008

Easy Schedule Checkpoint - June 15 Happy Father’s Day Edition

On May 19th, I took a look at the Yankees' schedule through the All Star Break. It appeared, at least on paper, that the Yankees were entering a fairly soft part of their schedule. Here's how they've done since then, comparing their expected W/L record using Bill James's log 5 method for calculating expected winning percentage and their actual performance.

Date Opponent Exp W Exp L Act W Act L
20-May Orioles 0.7 0.3 0 1
21-May Orioles 1.3 0.7 1 1
22-May Orioles 2.0 1.0 2 1
23-May Mariners 2.7 1.3 3 1
24-May Mariners 3.3 1.7 4 1
25-May Mariners 4.0 2.0 5 1
26-May @Orioles 4.6 2.4 5 2
27-May @Orioles 5.2 2.8 5 3
28-May @Orioles 5.8 3.2 6 3
30-May @Twins 6.3 3.7 7 3
31-May @Twins 6.9 4.1 8 3
1-Jun @Twins 7.4 4.6 8 4
2-Jun @Twins 8.0 5.0 8 5
3-Jun Blue Jays 8.6 5.4 8 6
4-Jun Blue Jays 9.2 5.8 9 6
5-Jun Blue Jays 9.8 6.2 10 6
6-Jun Royals 10.4 6.6 10 7
7-Jun Royals 11.1 6.9 11 7
8-Jun Royals 11.8 7.2 12 7
9-Jun Royals 12.4 7.6 12 8
10-Jun @Athletics 12.9 8.1 13 8
11-Jun @Athletics 13.2 8.8 13 9
12-Jun @Athletics 13.7 9.3 14 9
13-Jun @Astros 14.3 9.7 15 9
14-Jun @Astros 14.8 10.2 16 9
15-Jun @Astros 15.4 10.6 17 9


So the Yankees have played a little less than two wins better than expected over the last 26 games. They've picked up 1.5 games in the division, and have scored 148 runs while allowing 118. So that's 5.7 runs scored per game and 4.5 runs allowed per game, equivalent to 922 runs scored and 735 runs allowed over a full season.

It's also a Pythagenpat winning percentage of 60.7%, which is equivalent to 16 wins over 26 games and 98 wins over 162 games.

Today's blowout 13-0 victory over Houston also gives them a positive run differential for the first time since May 10.

That's the good news. The bad news is that because of the ridiculous farce that is inter-league play, Chien-Ming Wang injured his foot doing something he shouldn't have been doing. Right now it's being called a sprained foot. Wang will have tests on his foot when the team returns to New York. Let's hope it's not too serious, as Wang appears to have recovered from a rough stretch to throw 12.1 innings of one run ball over his last two starts.
--Posted at 6:07 pm by SG / 77 Comments | - (29)




Monday, June 9, 2008

A Graphical Representation of Mediocrity

--Posted at 3:36 pm by SG / 34 Comments | - (41)




Sunday, June 1, 2008

Easy Schedule Checkpoint - June 1

Date Opponent Exp W Exp L Act W Act L
20-May Orioles 0.7 0.3 0 1
21-May Orioles 1.3 0.7 1 1
22-May Orioles 2.0 1.0 2 1
23-May Mariners 2.6 1.4 3 1
24-May Mariners 3.3 1.7 4 1
25-May Mariners 3.9 2.1 5 1
26-May @Orioles 4.5 2.5 5 2
27-May @Orioles 5.1 2.9 5 3
28-May @Orioles 5.7 3.3 6 3
30-May @Twins 6.2 3.8 7 3
31-May @Twins 6.8 4.2 8 3
1-Jun @Twins 7.3 4.7 8 4


Exp W: Expected wins using log5
Exp L: Expected losses using log5
Act W: Actual wins
Act L: Actual losses

Despite falling to the Twins earlier today, 5-1, the Yankees have so far been able to exceed their expected record through what on paper looks like an easy part of their schedule by a little less than a win.

On a completely unrelated note, rilkefan asked if I could plot the distribution of RA-ERA to see if Mike Mussina gives up a larger percentage of unearned runs than the typical pitcher. That's certainly been true this year, with Moose's respectable 4.26 ERA masking 9 unearned runs and an RA of 5.58.

Here's a graph with three sets of data. The blue line is Mussina's RA - ERA for every season of his career. The red line is the AL average for the same numbers. Lastly, the yellow line is for just Moose's teams, to account for the quality (or lack thereof) of the defense behind him in each season.


On average, Mussina's RA - ERA is 0.31, with a standard deviation of 0.28. The league average over that same stretch (1991-2008) is 0.41 with a standard deviation of 0.03. For his teams, the average RA - ERA has been 0.33 with a standard deviation of 0.08. So Moose has actually given up slightly fewer unearned runs than his teammates, but there is a fair amount of volatility in his season to season performance.

Update: yfinBrazil caught something I missed from rilkefan's original question, which is that we should divide RA-ERA by RA to account for the fact that Mussina has typically prevented runs of all kinds better than most other pitchers. Here's how that chart looks.



The numbers here show that on average, Mussina has allowed about 7% more runs than earned runs with a standard deviation of 0.05. The AL over that same stretch has allowed a very consistent 8% more runs than earned runs. Mussina's teams are at 7% as well, with a lower standard deviation (0.02).
--Posted at 7:29 pm by SG / 67 Comments | - (45)




Wednesday, May 21, 2008

2007 vs. 2008 through 45 games

Here's a game by game comparison of the first 45 games of the Yankees' 2007 and 2008.

2007 2008
Gm W/L RF RA W/L RF RA
1 1-0 9 5 1-0 3 2
2 1-1 6 7 1-1 2 5
3 1-2 4 6 2-1 3 2
4 2-2 10 7 2-2 4 13
5 2-3 4 6 2-3 3 6
6 3-3 8 2 3-3 2 0
7 4-3 10 1 4-3 6 1
8 4-4 1 5 4-4 2 5
9 4-5 4 5 4-5 0 4
10 5-5 4 3 5-5 6 1
11 5-6 4 5 6-5 4 1
12 6-6 10 3 6-6 3 4
13 7-6 9 2 6-7 5 8
14 8-6 8 6 7-7 8 7
15 8-7 6 7 8-7 5 3
16 8-8 5 7 9-7 15 9
17 8-9 6 7 9-8 5 7
18 8-10 8 10 9-9 2 8
19 8-11 4 6 9-10 0 6
20 8-12 0 6 10-10 7 1
21 8-13 4 11 11-10 9 5
22 9-13 3 1 12-10 6 4
23 9-14 4 7 12-11 6 7
24 10-14 10 1 12-12 4 6
25 11-14 4 3 12-13 3 4
26 12-14 5 2 13-13 1 0
27 12-15 11 15 14-13 5 2
28 13-15 8 1 14-14 4 6
29 14-15 5 0 14-15 2 6
30 14-16 2 3 14-16 4 8
31 15-16 8 2 15-16 5 1
32 16-16 6 2 16-16 6 1
33 16-17 2 14 17-16 8 2
34 16-18 0 3 17-17 3 5
35 17-18 7 2 17-18 0 3
36 17-19 1 2 18-18 6 3
37 17-20 3 5 18-19 5 6
38 18-20 8 1 19-19 5 2
39 18-21 1 4 19-20 1 7
40 18-22 2 3 19-21 1 2
41 18-23 7 10 20-21 2 1
42 19-23 6 2 20-22 2 5
43 20-23 6 2 20-23 4 7
44 20-24 3 7 20-24 2 11
45 21-24 8 3 20-25 2 12
244 212 181 209
PtyhagenPat 26-19 20-25
On Pace 87-75 71-91


Gm: Game # of season
W/L: Win-Loss record after that Gm
RF: Runs for
RA: Runs against

Although the Yankees are only one game off last year's pace, it's worth noting the difference in run differential between last year. Last year's team was 21-24 but if they played to their run differential for the rest of the season they'd have been expected to win 66 of their remaining games and a end up with a total of 87 wins using Pythagenpat (a more advanced form of the Pythagorean theorem). This year's team has allowed 3 fewer runs than last years, but has scored 63 fewer. The reduced run-scoring this year is part of the offensive reduction, but that also means the pitching/defense has been worse. If the 2008 Yankees play to their current run differential for the rest of the season, they're a 71 win team.

This team's record is reflective of their poor play to this point as opposed to last year, where there were reasonable expectations for improvement based on their runs for and runs against. That doesn't mean we shouldn't expect individual players to improve if they are playing below their talent level, but right now this team is every bit as bad statistically as they are in the standings.

Easier schedule starts tonight, I swear.
--Posted at 11:42 am by SG / 57 Comments | - (48)




Monday, May 19, 2008

Is the Yankees Schedule About to Get Easier?

This was a topic of debate in the last thread, so let's try and look at it empirically. I'll be using Bill James's log 5 method to assign a probability for the Yankees winning each game.

I'm assuming a 4/3/2/1 weight for 2008/2007/2006/2005 which means 2008 should be weighed at 15.6%, but I'm going to bump that up to 20% to account for roster changes that weren't captured in the original projections. So a team like Baltimore would have projected to be a 67 win team going into the season but their better than expected play gives them a four win boost to a 71 win team. The Yankees were projected around 95 wins but their underperformance to this point makes them a 91 win team right now.

Home teams get a 0.02 boost, road teams get a 0.02 debit. I then ran each game through the log 5 formula and summed it up.

So here's the Yankee schedule through the All Star Break.

Date Opponent W L
20-May Orioles 0.7 0.3
21-May Orioles 1.3 0.7
22-May Orioles 2.0 1.0
23-May Mariners 2.6 1.4
24-May Mariners 3.3 1.7
25-May Mariners 3.9 2.1
26-May @Orioles 4.5 2.5
27-May @Orioles 5.1 2.9
28-May @Orioles 5.7 3.3
30-May @Twins 6.2 3.8
31-May @Twins 6.8 4.2
1-Jun @Twins 7.3 4.7
2-Jun @Twins 7.9 5.1
3-Jun Blue Jays 8.4 5.6
4-Jun Blue Jays 9.0 6.0
5-Jun Blue Jays 9.6 6.4
6-Jun Royals 10.3 6.7
7-Jun Royals 10.9 7.1
8-Jun Royals 11.5 7.5
9-Jun Royals 12.2 7.8
10-Jun @Athletics 12.7 8.3
11-Jun @Athletics 13.2 8.8
12-Jun @Athletics 13.7 9.3
13-Jun @Astros 14.3 9.7
14-Jun @Astros 14.8 10.2
15-Jun @Astros 15.4 10.6
17-Jun Padres 16.0 11.0
18-Jun Padres 16.6 11.4
19-Jun Padres 17.2 11.8
20-Jun Reds 17.8 12.2
21-Jun Reds 18.5 12.5
22-Jun Reds 19.1 12.9
24-Jun @Pirates 19.7 13.3
25-Jun @Pirates 20.2 13.8
26-Jun @Pirates 20.8 14.2
27-Jun @Mets 21.3 14.7
28-Jun @Mets 21.7 15.3
29-Jun @Mets 22.2 15.8
30-Jun Rangers 22.8 16.2
1-Jul Rangers 23.4 16.6
2-Jul Rangers 24.1 16.9
3-Jul Red Sox 24.6 17.4
4-Jul Red Sox 25.1 17.9
5-Jul Red Sox 25.7 18.3
6-Jul Red Sox 26.2 18.8
8-Jul Rays 26.8 19.2
9-Jul Rays 27.4 19.6
11-Jul @Blue Jays 27.9 20.1
12-Jul @Blue Jays 28.4 20.6
13-Jul @Blue Jays 28.9 21.1


Through June 26th Yankees play enough bad teams that we'd expect them to go somewhere in the neighborhood of 21-14, which is equivalent to a pace of 96 wins over 162 games. That would get them to 41-38 which still doesn't seem all that impressive, so maybe they can steal a few extra games in here.

Looking at the bigger picture through the All Star Break, the schedule gets harder but the Yankees should go 29-21 or so over their next 50 games, which is equivalent to a 93.5 win pace over a full season. If they can do that or something close to that, they'll go into the All Star Break at a record of 49-45.

So I think we'll know by June 26th if this team has any chance at contending.
--Posted at 5:01 pm by SG / 33 Comments | - (62)




Friday, May 2, 2008

MLB Actual Standings vs Projected Standings as of May 1,2008

I don't feel about writing about last night's 8-4 loss to the Tigers, so here's a little comparison of how MLB is shaping up so far this season compared to the preseason projections I ran. The first group of columns if or actual YTD performance, the second set is for the average of the projection systems I ran in the post linked above, and then the last set are the differences between the two. So in the case the Yankees, they were projected to win 18 of 30 games and score 171 runs while allowing 142. Instead they've won 4 fewer games and scored 42 fewer runs than expected.

This doesn't factor in difficulty of schedule which may impact some teams more than others, I am strictly multiplying overall 162 game projections time actual games played. That shouldn't be a huge impact, but it should be considered.

American League Actual Projected Diff
EAST W L RS RA W L RS RA W L RS RA
Tampa Bay 16 12 134 111 14 14 141 138 2 -2 -7 -27
Boston 17 13 136 133 17 13 159 137 0 0 -23 -4
Baltimore 15 13 118 126 12 16 130 158 3 -3 -12 -32
NY Yankees 14 16 129 141 18 12 171 142 -4 4 -42 -1
Toronto 12 17 119 112 15 14 139 131 -3 3 -20 -19
CENTRAL W L RS RA
Chicago Sox 14 12 131 105 12 14 126 139 2 -2 5 -34
Cleveland 14 15 130 122 16 13 150 132 -2 2 -20 -10
Detroit 14 15 150 152 16 13 154 136 -2 2 -4 16
Minnesota 13 14 102 122 13 14 121 131 0 0 -19 -9
Kansas City 12 16 101 131 13 15 131 146 -1 1 -30 -15
WEST W L RS RA
LA Angels 18 12 148 144 16 14 148 136 2 -2 0 8
Oakland 18 12 150 110 15 15 141 143 3 -3 9 -33
Seattle 13 16 129 122 14 15 128 137 -1 1 1 -15
Texas 11 18 132 178 13 16 146 160 -2 2 -14 19
National League
EAST W L RS RA W L RS RA W L RS RA
Philadelphia 16 13 136 124 15 14 156 145 1 -1 -20 -21
NY Mets 14 12 119 118 15 11 134 113 -1 1 -15 5
Florida 15 13 124 142 12 16 129 151 3 -3 -5 -9
Atlanta 12 15 129 107 15 12 137 127 -3 3 -8 -20
Washington 12 17 107 136 13 16 137 156 -1 1 -30 -20
CENTRAL W L RS RA
St. Louis 18 11 135 104 14 15 136 140 4 -4 -1 -36
Chicago Cubs 17 11 174 124 15 13 143 130 2 -2 31 -6
Milwaukee 16 12 130 131 15 13 142 134 1 -1 -12 -3
Houston 13 16 131 132 13 16 136 148 0 0 -5 -16
Cincinnati 12 17 124 139 14 15 139 148 -2 2 -15 -9
Pittsburgh 11 17 130 163 12 16 124 145 -1 1 6 18
WEST W L RS RA
Arizona 20 8 165 109 15 14 131 127 5 -6 34 -18
LA Dodgers 15 13 142 110 15 13 132 127 0 0 10 -17
San Francisco 13 16 93 131 13 16 122 135 0 0 -29 -4
Colorado 11 17 114 144 14 14 143 140 -3 3 -29 4
San Diego 11 18 94 133 15 14 132 126 -4 4 -38 7


So like I said above, the Yankees have been 4 wins worse than projected so far. What's interesting is that despite all the noise/blame being assigned to the young pitching staff, their offense is the real problem. They allowed right around the same number of runs as they projected to, but they scored 42 fewer, which matches up with the 4 win shortfall.

The Yankees are tied with San Diego for the dubious honor of biggest disappointments so far. The Diamondbacks are the biggest positive surprise. Another interesting thing to note is that scoring is down about 7.3% from the projections. It's probably more early statistical noise than anything.

I'm going to be on vacation next week so no posts from me most likely, although I may pipe in if something big happens. Sean and Jonathan will cover for me and hopefully bring better luck than I have been bringing.
--Posted at 7:09 am by SG / 157 Comments | - (55)




Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Winning Ugly

It wasn’t pretty, but the Yankees managed to take the last game of their four game set with Cleveland last night, 5-2.  Mike Mussina pitched well although he was only able to last through five innings.  I’m pretty happy with how Moose is pitching this year, although I have to be honest that I don’t know how he’s doing it.

The Yankees didn’t get a hit until the sixth inning, then came the weakest rally ever.

Yankees sixth. Cabrera infield single to third. Jeter infield single to third, Cabrera to second. Abreu singled to left, Cabrera to third, Jeter to second. Rodriguez was hit by a pitch, Cabrera scored, Jeter to third, Abreu to second. Giambi grounded out, first baseman Garko unassisted, Jeter scored, Abreu to third, Rodriguez to second. Matsui grounded out, first baseman Garko unassisted, Abreu scored, Rodriguez to third. Lewis pitching. Ensberg infield single to third, Rodriguez scored. Cano grounded out, pitcher Lewis to second baseman Carroll to first baseman Garko.

That turned out to be enough, as the Yankee pen pitched four scoreless to back up Moose and the Yankee offense added an insurance run in the 8th for the final margin of victory.

At this point, let’s look back at the April Expectations post.  Using log5 and the projected winning percentages of the Yankees and their opponents, we see that at this point in the season we should have expected the Yankees to be 15.4 - 11.6.  They’re 14-13 instead, so they underperformed by about 1.4 wins.  All things considered with injuries and individual players disappointing, that’s not too bad in my opinon.

Alex Rodriguez looks to be out for at least the next two games after re-aggravating his quad injury. 

Yanks finally come home after playing more April road games than any team in baseball history to take on the Detroit Tigers, who started out 0-7 but have gone 11-8 since. 

--Posted at 7:16 am by SG / 104 Comments | - (56)




Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Kansas City Here We Come

Behind Bobby Abreu and Mike Mussina the Yankees took the final game of their series with Tampa last night, 6-1., salvaging a series split after losing the first two games.  Moose was brilliant, allowing just two hits and one run over six innings.  Tampa doesn’t look to have a great offense this season, but they are probably middle of the pack and have some dangerous players in the lineup, so this was a very encouraging outing.  Moose’s fastball sat around 85 most of the night, but he had a great slow curve going that helped him keep the Rays off balance.  I feel a little more comfortable that Mussina will be serviceable after this game than I did after his first start.

Abreu started the offense off with a two-run HR in the first inning, one of his three hits and a walk on the night.  Hideki Matsui also chipped in a couple of hits.

The news wasn’t all good as Derek Jeter left the game with a strained quad and is being listed as day-to-day.  While losing Jeter hurts, it shouldn’t be for too long.  Also, having Wilson Betemit to replace him instead of my beloved Miguel Cairo makes it sting a little less.  With Jason Giambi seemingly unavailable this looks like Morgan Ensberg’s chance for some PT.  He hasn’t looked good at scooping throws at first although he seems pretty good at fielding batted balls. 

LaTroy Hawkins finally pitched a full scoreless inning as a Yankee.  I’m willing to give Hawkins a bit of a long leash because he has a long track record of being useful and he seems like a good guy, as well as our experience with Luis Vizcaino last year.  It seems like the fans at the Stadium don’t care about that because he’s had the audacity to wear Paul O’Neill’s number.  Hopefully he can get himself sorted out.

Next up, a three game set with the Kansas City Royals.  They’re 4-2 and in second place in the AL Central. 

To hammer home how early it is, here’s how the final AL standings would look if each team played to their PythagenPat record for the rest of the season.

AL East
TOR 121-41
BAL 98-64
TB 94-68
NYA 65-97
BOS 57-105

AL Central
CHA 105-57
KC 101-61
CLE 78-84
MIN 57-105
DET 26-136

AL West
TEX 94-68
OAK 90-72
LAA 84-78
SEA 76-86

Somewhere Steve Phillips is weeping.

--Posted at 8:05 am by SG / 32 Comments | - (90)




Sunday, March 23, 2008

The 2008 Diamond Mind Projection Blowout Pt 2

Apparently this entry was too big for one post, so I’ve split it up into two.

Lastly, 1000 iterations of CAIRO
Team High Low StD StD StD Median Mode Div W Wild Card
American League W L RF RA DIV WC Playoff% Wins Wins W RF RA Wins Wins Avg Avg
East
Bos08 94.2 67.8 874 734 488 245 73% 114 77 88 - 100 830 - 919 696 - 771 94 93 98 92
NYA08 93.0 69.0 940 802 394 302 70% 114 74 87 - 99 893 - 986 762 - 842 93 95 92
Tor08 86.4 75.6 779 714 99 182 28% 105 67 80 - 92 737 - 820 679 - 749 86 86 86
Tam08 81.4 80.6 818 806 19 79 10% 101 63 75 - 88 777 - 859 765 - 846 81 80 80
Bal08 66.6 95.4 760 948 0 2 0% 88 46 60 - 73 721 - 799 901 - 996 66 66 66
Central
Det08 88.5 73.5 870 785 496 64 56% 107 63 82 - 95 830 - 910 745 - 826 89 87 92
Cle08 87.9 74.1 825 739 439 78 52% 108 68 82 - 94 784 - 865 701 - 776 88 88 86
KC08 76.6 85.4 753 813 31 13 4% 99 53 70 - 83 714 - 792 771 - 855 77 75 80
Min08 75.5 86.5 709 765 26 5 3% 94 53 69 - 82 672 - 746 727 - 803 76 76 75
ChA08 73.5 88.5 769 839 9 5 1% 96 49 67 - 80 728 - 809 798 - 881 74 74 69
West
LAA08 87.2 74.8 793 731 685 9 69% 108 67 81 - 93 755 - 832 694 - 769 87 88 89
Sea08 80.0 82.0 741 763 172 11 18% 98 63 74 - 86 702 - 781 722 - 804 80 81 82
Tex08 75.9 86.1 816 877 84 3 9% 97 54 70 - 82 776 - 856 834 - 921 76 75 77
Oak08 75.2 86.8 757 816 59 3 6% 98 54 69 - 82 718 - 795 775 - 857 75 75 71
National League
East
NYN08 94.6 67.4 833 704 712 125 84% 115 76 88 - 101 793 - 873 666 - 742 95 95 96 90
Atl08 88.4 73.6 818 738 243 235 48% 109 71 82 - 95 777 - 859 700 - 776 88 88 88
Phi08 81.8 80.2 866 839 45 87 13% 104 59 76 - 88 823 - 909 799 - 880 81 81 81
Was08 69.2 92.8 770 888 0 1 0% 89 51 63 - 75 730 - 810 846 - 930 69 67 72
Flo08 68.5 93.5 743 869 0 3 0% 90 48 62 - 75 705 - 781 830 - 909 69 70 65
Central
ChN08 88.7 73.3 839 754 586 41 63% 112 72 83 - 95 798 - 880 716 - 792 89 91 91
Mil08 84.0 78.0 795 762 231 63 29% 105 57 78 - 90 755 - 836 725 - 799 84 84 85
StL08 79.7 82.3 772 777 84 26 11% 100 60 74 - 86 734 - 810 738 - 816 80 83 81
Cin08 77.8 84.2 780 825 61 16 8% 99 59 71 - 84 741 - 817 783 - 867 78 77 77
Hou08 75.7 86.3 780 823 37 11