Monday, May 8, 2006
Pitching, pitching, pitching
Coming into the season, it was a pretty safe assumption that the Yankee offense was going to be good. Pitching and defense looked like they were going to be an issue. 29 games have passed, and thus far, they have been strengths.
The charts below are sorted by Runs above Average, which is how many runs the pitching staffs have saved over a league average staff over the same number of batters faced. ERA is what the league average ERA would be if a team played in that stadium, divided by the team’s ERA and multiplied by 100. OPS is the OPS that opponents have against the team, and HR< BB< and K are calculated just like I did in the Chacon entry below. All comparisons are based on the splits, so starters are only being compared with other starters, and relievers are only being compared with other relievers.
Let’s start (get it? start?) with the starters.
Update: Thanks to shawn for calling my attention to the fact that I messed up the K column. Values were inverted in my original post.
American League Starters
The Yankees’ starters have been the third best group in the league, primarily due to preventing the long ball. Can that continue? I’m not sure.
Next up the relievers.
American League Relievers
It’s interesting that the relievers and starters have performed similarly when compared to their peers.
Add them up, and you get the second most valuable overall pitching staff in the American League by RAA.
Can it continue? I’d be concerned about the HR rate correcting itself. On the other hand, I figure Randy Johnson will get better which would offset Moose getting worse, and there’s also the potential of replacing Tanyon Sturtze and Jaret Wright’s innings with Octavio Dotel and Carl Pavano. I don’t see that Shawn Chacon or Chien-Ming Wang are overperforming expectations. In other words, it’s a surprise, but it may not be a fluke.
Ron Guidry for MVP.
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