Sunday, August 23, 2009
2008 vs. 2009 Yankees by Position
I'm pretending yesterday's game didn't happen, and I advise everyone else to do the same. I've been thinking about exactly how much better the 2009 Yankees are compared to the 2008 version, so I thought it'd be instructive to look at the contributions they got out of each position last year and what they've gotten this year as a quick point of comparison.To do this, I just pulled the positional splits from Baseball Reference.com, so this is not done on a player by player basis, rather it's the combined stats of everyone from when they played a specific position.
I'm going to show the PAs, AVG, OBP, SLG and batting runs by linear weights for each position. I'm using a park factor divider of 1.015 for 2008 and a park factor divider of 1.03 for 2009. So batting runs are calculated then divided by the park factor divider (half of the estimated park factor) to park-adjust them. There is no position-adjustment here since we're comparing apples to apples.
I'm also adding in defense at each position. For non-catchers, RS are runs saved compared to average using an average of standard zone rating and UZR from Fangraphs. For catchers I am using a system that looks at SB, CS, WP and PB, similar to Sean Smith's system detailed here.
In order to compare the numbers directly, I've pro-rated the 2009 data to 162 games. To really do this right, I should probably add revised projection data to the YTD totals instead of pro-rating, but this is just a snapshot comparison so it should be close enough for now.
| 2008 | 2009* | |||||||||||
| Split | PA | AVG/OBP/SLG | BR | RS | PA | AVG/OBP/SLG | BR | RS | dBR | dRS | WAR +/- | |
| as C | 608 | .230/.290/.335 | 51 | 0 | 504 | .273/.331/.443 | 80 | -8 | 30 | -8 | 2.2 | |
| as 1B | 674 | .246/.349/.460 | 91 | -9 | 569 | .287/.388/.567 | 130 | 3 | 39 | 12 | 5.1 | |
| as 2B | 661 | .265/.299/.404 | 67 | -6 | 529 | .313/.344/.500 | 98 | -2 | 31 | 3 | 3.4 | |
| as 3B | 696 | .283/.364/.511 | 109 | -6 | 517 | .249/.358/.427 | 88 | -9 | -20 | -3 | -2.3 | |
| as SS | 731 | .295/.359/.402 | 86 | 1 | 581 | .324/.384/.463 | 112 | 4 | 26 | 3 | 2.9 | |
| as LF | 714 | .284/.349/.427 | 91 | -2 | 567 | .282/.355/.511 | 114 | -5 | 23 | -3 | 2.0 | |
| as CF | 676 | .261/.320/.391 | 75 | 5 | 506 | .270/.337/.413 | 78 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 0.4 | |
| as RF | 724 | .290/.362/.451 | 100 | -23 | 534 | .259/.369/.482 | 101 | -4 | 1 | 19 | 2.1 | |
| as DH | 662 | .282/.378/.461 | 97 | 0 | 496 | .263/.355/.507 | 98 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0.1 | |
| Total | 767 | -41 | 900 | -15 | 133 | 26 | 15.9 |
*Pro-rated to 162 games
dBR: Difference in batting runs (2009 BR - 2008 BR)
dRS: Difference in runs saved (2009 RS - 2008 RS)
WAR +/-: Difference in wins above replacement, calculated as dBR + dRS divided by 10, since 10 runs is generally equivalent to one win.
Sorting this by just WAR +/- looks like this:
| Split | WAR +/- |
| as 1B | 5.1 |
| as 2B | 3.4 |
| as SS | 2.9 |
| as C | 2.2 |
| as RF | 2.1 |
| as LF | 2.0 |
| as CF | 0.4 |
| as DH | 0.1 |
| as 3B | -2.3 |
| Total | 15.9 |
Mark Teixeira at first base has been the biggest upgrade, offensively and defensively. Robinson Cano's return from the dead has been the second biggest factor in the 2009 Yankees' improvement on the position player side. Cano has been better on both sides of the ball, and is on pace to be 3.4 wins better than he was last year. Derek Jeter's resurgence is another key factor, as he's also been more valuable both offensively and defensively. Jorge Posada's bat makes up for the defensive downgrade from Jose Molina to the tune of around two wins, and Nick Swisher's offense has been right around where Bobby Abreu was last year, while his defense is an upgrade (although it's worth noting Abreu is playing much better defense this season, at least according to the metrics). Johnny Damon's hitting better and fielding worse this year, but is still a net gain. CF and DH aren't really much improved over last year at this point, and I probably don't have to go through the backstory behind the 3B decline.
Overall, what this is telling us is that the Yankee position players would collectively be 16 wins better than last year if they were to play to the same level going forward. 13.3 of those wins are on the offensive side, as they've gotten better performance from every single position except 3B, even when adjusted for park. Defensively, they've primarily benefitted from swapping out Jason Giambi with Teixeira and Abreu with Swisher, leading to a 2.6 win defensive upgrade.
I'll look at the pitchers in the next day or two.
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