Friday, September 4, 2009
This Is the Best Yankee Lineup Since…
There's a question that's been popping up a lot recently here, so let's see if we can figure it out. The question, or statement, is usually 'This is the best Yankee team since...', usually ending in 1999 or 1998. While I'd rather wait until the end of the season to try and answer this question correctly, here's a quick and dirty look at what the answer may be. I'm only looking at the lineup right now, and only looking at offense.Full-season pythag or run differential may tell us who the best Yankee lineup was over a full season considering all the contributions of everyone who played, but the more interesting question to me is what's the best concentrated set of talent the Yankees have ever run out on the field. To look at this question, I used my Lahman database to identify the primary position at each position on the field plus DH. Since the OF positions are not always split in the Lahman database prior to 1980, I'm only looking at the period between 1980-2009 for now.
From there, I calculated the wOBA
If we want to look at the real question about most talented Yankee team ever, we shouldn't use a single season's stats, we should probably use some of the prior season data for everyone on the team and do a retro-projection on them to smooth out any fluke seasons, but like I said, this is quick and dirty.
Update: Revised chart with correct park factors now posted.
| Year | wOBA | lgWOBA | r600aa |
| 2009 | .374 | .332 | 228.2 |
| 2005 | .369 | .330 | 212.5 |
| 2007 | .369 | .334 | 189.8 |
| 2003 | .368 | .333 | 189.8 |
| 2002 | .363 | .330 | 176.4 |
| 1986 | .354 | .325 | 160.6 |
| 2004 | .366 | .337 | 157.1 |
| 1998 | .365 | .337 | 154.5 |
| 2006 | .367 | .339 | 151.8 |
| 1983 | .349 | .321 | 150.9 |
| 1999 | .366 | .343 | 122.9 |
| 1985 | .345 | .323 | 121.5 |
| 1988 | .337 | .316 | 116.1 |
| 1994 | .362 | .341 | 110.4 |
| 1980 | .342 | .323 | 101.7 |
| 1984 | .338 | .320 | 99.2 |
| 1997 | .353 | .336 | 87.2 |
| 2001 | .347 | .333 | 74.2 |
| 1989 | .328 | .315 | 73.1 |
| 1993 | .340 | .328 | 63.1 |
| 1981 | .320 | .309 | 62.2 |
| 1982 | .332 | .322 | 50.5 |
| 1996 | .354 | .347 | 35.8 |
| 1987 | .339 | .332 | 34.4 |
| 2008 | .336 | .332 | 25.7 |
| 1991 | .324 | .320 | 22.2 |
| 2000 | .349 | .346 | 16.8 |
| 1995 | .341 | .338 | 12.3 |
| 1992 | .317 | .317 | 2.2 |
| 1990 | .293 | .317 | -132.1 |
wOBA: Yankee wOBA
lgwOBA League average wOBA in this season.
r600aa: Runs above average over 600 PAs (totaled for the starting nine).
Well, that surprised the hell out of me. While the season isn't over yet, the starting nine for the 2009 Yankees rate as the best offensive Yankee lineup relative to their league since 1980. How is that possible? According to wOBA they've gotten an above average performance relative to league from every single player listed as their primary starter. It looks like not even the 1998 Yankees can make that claim thanks to Chad Curtis's below average performance in LF.
The team-by-team breakdown is too big of a table to post, but anyone who wants to look at it can download it in CSV format.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
The Wang Effect?
If you're a baseball fan with at least some proclivity towards stats, you're probably familiar with Voros McCracken's DIPS theory. McCracken basically stated that a pitcher's ability to control what happens on balls in play is variable and volatile. Some overly extreme devotees to this theory take it to mean that a pitcher has zero control over a ball hit into play, but that's not really true. If it was, you wouldn't have groundball pitchers and fly ball pitchers. Also, selection bias would mean that anyone who reaches the majors may have a certain level of skill on balls in play that allowed them to get that far. I still think DIPS theory is useful in many ways, primarily because it taught me to look more closely at a pitcher's peripherals, but it's really just a fraction of any evaluating of pitching that I do.One of the often-stated mantras about Chien-Ming Wang is that he generates easily fieldable ground balls, which means his success despite a low strikeout rate is not really that much of a fluke. It's possible this is true, at least in the regular season, but is there a way to quantify it?
I recorded zone rating daily throughout 2007 to see if I could use the day by day data to answer questions like this. Here's a look at what the numbers showed.
| Split | G | GS | Ch | INN | PO | A | E | DP | ZR | PM | Diff |
| Team Total | 1307 | 1133 | 3054 | 10150 | 3211 | 1337 | 74 | 450 | .830 | 2535 | -18 |
G: Games
GS: Games started
Ch: Fieldable chances as defined by zone rating
INN: Defensive innings
PO: Putouts
A: Assists
E: Errors
ZR: Zone rating (PM/Ch) PM: Plays made Diff: Plays made compared to average This is how the Yankees did as a team in 2007. Overall they made 18 plays fewer than average.
Here's a look at how the team did in the games Wang started. This does include all innings in those games including those not pitched by Wang, but I have no way to separate those out.
| Split | G | GS | Ch | INN | PO | A | E | DP | ZR | PM | Diff |
| Wang Total | 248 | 215 | 591 | 1957.1 | 631 | 318 | 7 | 96 | .853 | 504 | 10 |
Interesting, huh? In the games that Wang pitched, the team was 10 plays better than average.
Lastly, here's the team in games Wang did not start.
| Split | G | GS | Ch | INN | PO | A | E | DP | ZR | PM | Diff |
| Total - Wang | 1059 | 918 | 2463 | 8192.9 | 2580 | 1019 | 67 | 354 | .825 | 2031 | -28 |
A few things to bear in mind about this data before we make too much of it.
1) It's only one year. Unfortunately no one I know of tracked daily zone rating before this season so sample size is an issue.
2) Like I said, this includes innings pitched by relievers and not just Wang. That muddies the numbers up a little.
3) BIP (ball in play) distribution. Perhaps Wang's balls in play just happened to find their way to the better fielders on the team? We can check that too.
| Player | Pos | wG | wINN | wCh | wPM | wZR | wDiff | nwG | nwINN | nwCh | nwPM | nwZR | nwDiff | ZR Ratio | ||
| Phillips, Andy | 1B | 13 | 90 | 17 | 14 | .824 | 0 | 44 | 341 | 73 | 62 | .849 | 1 | 97.0% | ||
| Mientkiewicz, Doug | 1B | 13 | 79 | 16 | 13 | .813 | 0 | 57 | 379 | 73 | 61 | .836 | 0 | 97.2% | ||
| Cairo, Miguel | 1B | 4 | 33 | 13 | 9 | .692 | -2 | 18 | 123.1 | 29 | 23 | .793 | -1 | 87.3% | ||
| Phelps, Josh | 1B | 5 | 23 | 6 | 4 | .667 | -1 | 24 | 139.3 | 21 | 18 | .857 | 0 | 77.8% | ||
| Betemit, Wilson | 1B | 3 | 21 | 1 | 0 | .000 | -1 | 11 | 53.1 | 17 | 14 | .824 | 0 | 0.0% | ||
| Giambi, Jason | 1B | 4 | 21 | 7 | 4 | .571 | -2 | 14 | 100 | 19 | 17 | .895 | 1 | 63.9% | ||
| Nieves, Wil | 1B | 1 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1.000 | 0 | 0 | -5 | -1 | -1 | 1.000 | 0 | 100.0% | ||
| Damon, Johnny | 1B | 1 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 1.000 | 0 | 4 | 2.1 | -2 | -2 | 1.000 | 0 | 100.0% | ||
| Cano, Robinson | 2B | 30 | 267 | 117 | 105 | .897 | 9 | 129 | 1141 | 401 | 333 | .830 | 3 | 108.1% | ||
| Rodriguez, Alex | 3B | 30 | 258 | 85 | 70 | .824 | 5 | 124 | 1072 | 285 | 213 | .747 | -4 | 110.2% | ||
| Phillips, Andy | 3B | 2 | 10 | 2 | 2 | 1.000 | 0 | 7 | 7 | 0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | 0.0% | ||
| Cairo, Miguel | 3B | 2 | 5 | 2 | 1 | .500 | -1 | 5 | 30 | 8 | 8 | 1.000 | 2 | 50.0% | ||
| Gonzalez, Alberto | 3B | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1.000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | -1 | 1.000 | 0 | 100.0% | ||
| Jeter, Derek | SS | 28 | 242 | 105 | 85 | .810 | -1 | 127 | 1076 | 372 | 280 | .753 | -25 | 107.6% | ||
| Betemit, Wilson | SS | 3 | 18 | 3 | 2 | .667 | 0 | 5 | 21 | 6 | 6 | 1.000 | 1 | 66.7% | ||
| Cairo, Miguel | SS | 4 | 17 | 3 | 2 | .667 | 0 | 12 | 35 | 26 | 22 | .846 | 1 | 78.8% | ||
| Gonzalez, Alberto | SS | 2 | 10 | 5 | 4 | .800 | 0 | 9 | 29.2 | 14 | 11 | .786 | 0 | 101.8% | ||
| Matsui, Hideki | LF | 19 | 159 | 37 | 33 | .892 | 1 | 93 | 821 | 212 | 172 | .811 | -11 | 109.9% | ||
| Damon, Johnny | LF | 10 | 87 | 15 | 14 | .933 | 1 | 22 | 184 | 64 | 54 | .844 | -1 | 110.6% | ||
| Cabrera, Melky | LF | 2 | 17 | 5 | 5 | 1.000 | 1 | 16 | 125 | 29 | 26 | .897 | 1 | 111.5% | ||
| Thompson, Kevin | LF | 3 | 12 | 1 | 1 | 1.000 | 0 | 2 | 10.2 | 6 | 5 | .833 | 0 | 120.0% | ||
| Cairo, Miguel | LF | 1 | 8 | 9 | 8 | .889 | 0 | 2 | 5 | -6 | -6 | 1.000 | -1 | 88.9% | ||
| Cabrera, Melky | CF | 28 | 239 | 68 | 63 | .926 | 3 | 103 | 833 | 312 | 280 | .897 | 4 | 103.2% | ||
| Damon, Johnny | CF | 6 | 50 | 13 | 13 | 1.000 | 1 | 42 | 327 | 121 | 106 | .876 | -1 | 114.2% | ||
| Abreu, Bobby | RF | 30 | 262 | 53 | 44 | .830 | -2 | 127 | 1071 | 307 | 265 | .863 | -2 | 96.2% | ||
| Duncan, Shelley | RF | 2 | 12 | 3 | 3 | 1.000 | 0 | 6 | 31 | 9 | 8 | .889 | 0 | 112.5% | ||
| Sardinha, Bronson | RF | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1.000 | 0 | 3 | 10 | 2 | 2 | 1.000 | 0 | 100.0% |
Columns prefaced with a w are the stats in the games started by Wang, columns prefaced by an nw are the non-Wang games. The ZR ratio is the difference between each player's zone rating in Wang games and non-Wang games. A percentage less than 100 means they were worse in Wang's starts and a percentage greater than 100 means they were better in Wang's starts. I'm not looking at runs saved here, but plays made above/below average. Rough rule of thumb is .8 runs per play although it varies a bit by position
Again, I don't know how meaningful this is due to the sample size and non-Wang innings in the 30 Wang games but I think it's pretty cool to look at. Robinson Cano, Derek Jeter, and Alex Rodriguez all had better zone ratings in Wang's starts than in the other games. The first base collective did worse. (wil Nieves at first? WTF?). What's interesting to me is that even the OF saw a boost in games started by Wang, with the exception of RF and Bobby Abreu.
I don't think we can say with any absolute certainty that Wang does allow more easily fieldable balls in play than the typical pitcher, but there's at least circumstantial evidence that he may. It'll be something worth following going forward. It may also make us want to think a little bit more about DIPS theory and about how we assess defense. Just like pitching is partly-related to defense, perhaps defense is partly-related to pitching.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Picking the 2007 Postseason Roster
Now that the Yankees are officially in the playoffs, I can finally talk about the postseason roster. With the injuries to Carl Pavano, Darrell Rasner, Humberto Sanchez, and Andy Phillips, the Yankees basically have the flexibility to use anyone they want from their 40 man roster. Here’s a look at the candidates, with the players on the bubble separated out.
Starting Pitchers(4)
Andy Pettitte
Roger Clemens
Chien-Ming Wang
Mike Mussina
Relief Pitchers(5)
Mariano Rivera
Joba Chamberlain
Phil Hughes
Kyle Farnsworth
Luis Vizcaino
On the Bubble
Chris Britton
Brian Bruney
Tyler Clippard
Matt DeSalvo
Chase Wright
Jose Veras
Ron Villone
Sean Henn
Kei Igawa
Jeff Karstens
Ian Kennedy
Ross Ohlendorf
Edwar Ramirez
Catchers(2)
Jose Molina
Jorge Posada
Infielders(5)
Robinson Cano
Derek Jeter
Doug Mientkiewicz
Alex Rodriguez
Wilson Betemit
On the Bubble
Alberto Gonzalez
Outfielders (5)
Bobby Abreu
Melky Cabrera
Johnny Damon
Shelley Duncan
Hideki Matsui
On the Bubble
Bronson Sardinha
Designated Hitters(1)
Jason Giambi
There are 22 players I consider locks to make the roster, four starting pitchers, five relievers, two catchers, five infielders, five outfielders, and one DH. That gives the Yanks three slots to fill. If it were up to me, I’d take two more pitchers and one position player.
The position player seems like an easy choice to me, if choosing between Alberto Gonzalez or Bronson Sardinha I’d take the more valuable defensive player. Either can pinch-run, but Gonzalez gives the Yankees a little more depth in case of multiple injuries to their starting infielders.
The pitching situation is a little less clear-cut. Phil Hughes slots in as a long reliever, but the rest of the choices are mainly short relievers and that’s a concern with a gimpy Roger Clemens and Mike “Box of Chocolates” Mussina taking two starts. Because of this, one of the extra relievers should probably be someone who can pitch multiple innings. Out of the players on the bubble, the best choices for that kind of role in my mind are Kei Igawa or Ron Villone. Neither inspires much confidence, but we have to remember that you don’t have to win every single game in the playoffs, you just have to win 3 or 4 before your opponent does. If Clemens can’t go past the second inning, odds are the game is lost but you don’t want to have to burn out your bullpen either. The off days built into the schedule mitigate that to some degree. The other thing the Yankees should do is break up Pettitte and Wang. Since they’ll be starting on the road, I’d start Pettitte in game one, Clemens in game two, and Wang in game three at home. However, to be safe I think the Yankees should take Igawa. I know he hasn’t been good this year, but he could come into a game in the early innings and pitch 5 or 6 innings and put the Yankees in a position to win the next game. Now all the readers can proceed to tell me I’m insane.
That leaves one other pitcher to take. Ian Kennedy’s hurt so scratch him. Realistically it comes down to taking one of Chris Britton, Brian Bruney, Jose Veras, Villone, Ross Ohlendorf or Edwar Ramirez.
Britton - had success in the AL East last year and did well in AAA this season. For whatever reason he doesn’t seem to be well-regarded by the organization right now, and his stuff isn’t really that great for a short reliever.
Bruney - You know the deal with this guy. Great fastball, horrendous command.
Veras - See Bruney, although with a slightly better breaking pitch. I swear I have not seen Veras hit the catcher’s target on a single pitch yet this season.
Villone - Chock full of veterany-goodness. Hasn’t been horrible this year, but his control scares the hell out of me and he has a very high likelihood to implode in any given outing.
Ohlendorf - He’s looked pretty good so far in the majors, but it’s only been three innings. He’s got good stuff but his minor league numbers are pretty bad, but he was injured for much of the year and converted from a starter to a reliever so that should be considered.
Ramirez - I was pulling like hell for Edwar to come up the majors and succeed, but he still needs to work on his approach IMO. Until he can consistently get ahead in the count and make optimal use of his killer changeup, I wouldn’t have any faith in him in a tight spot. He does have strikeout ability (29 Ks in 19.3 innings), but he also has giving up HR ability (6 in 19.3 innings). He’s probably pitched himself off the postseason roster at this point.
Not a very inspiring bunch. I’d imagine we’ll get a healthy dose of all of these guys over the last four games of the year to see if one becomes a hot hand. I find Ohlendorf the most intriguing of this group, so he’d probably be my pick.
I’d like to see what other people would do instead of me, so let’s hear it…
Friday, August 31, 2007
Yankee Defense by Zone Rating through Games of Aug 30
Most regular readers are familiar with zone rating by now. For those that are not, you can read this article for some more background. Here's how the Yankees rate at this point in the season.| Player | Pos | G | GS | Ch | INN | PO | A | E | DP | ZR | PM | Avg PM | Diff | RS | RS/162 |
| Phillips, Andy | 1B | 55 | 47 | 89 | 417 | 370 | 28 | 0 | 43 | .854 | 76 | 75 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Cano, Robinson | 2B | 132 | 130 | 431 | 1161 | 267 | 411 | 11 | 114 | .842 | 363 | 355 | 8 | 6 | 8 |
| Rodriguez, Alex | 3B | 129 | 129 | 312 | 1117 | 90 | 210 | 10 | 25 | .763 | 238 | 237 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Cabrera, Melky | CF | 105 | 92 | 306 | 841 | 282 | 10 | 2 | 1 | .912 | 279 | 272 | 7 | 6 | 10 |
| Matsui, Hideki | LF | 99 | 98 | 219 | 864.1 | 193 | 5 | 3 | 0 | .845 | 185 | 190 | -5 | -4 | -6 |
| Abreu, Bobby | RF | 130 | 124 | 287 | 1098 | 251 | 3 | 4 | 1 | .861 | 247 | 248 | -1 | -1 | -2 |
| Jeter, Derek | SS | 130 | 128 | 412 | 1108.1 | 172 | 341 | 16 | 94 | .762 | 314 | 338 | -24 | -18 | -24 |
| Total | 780 | 748 | 2056 | 6606.2 | 1625 | 1008 | 46 | 278 | .828 | 1702 | 1715 | -13 | -10 | -15 | |
| Player | Pos | G | GS | Ch | INN | PO | A | E | DP | ZR | PM | Avg PM | Diff | RS | RS/162 |
| Mientkiewicz, Doug | 1B | 48 | 36 | 59 | 330.1 | 353 | 14 | 2 | 46 | .797 | 47 | 50 | -3 | -2 | -9 |
| Phelps, Josh | 1B | 29 | 20 | 27 | 162.2 | 167 | 9 | 3 | 16 | .815 | 22 | 23 | -1 | -1 | -5 |
| Cairo, Miguel | 1B | 22 | 17 | 42 | 156.1 | 162 | 9 | 4 | 16 | .762 | 32 | 35 | -3 | -3 | -25 |
| Giambi, Jason | 1B | 7 | 7 | 11 | 52 | 44 | 2 | 0 | 6 | .909 | 10 | 9 | 1 | 1 | 16 |
| Betemit, Wilson | 1B | 8 | 6 | 10 | 46.1 | 39 | 3 | 0 | 6 | .800 | 8 | 8 | 0 | 0 | -10 |
| Duncan, Shelley | 1B | 7 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 3 | .000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Damon, Johnny | 1B | 5 | 0 | 0 | 8.1 | 9 | 0 | 1 | 1 | .000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Posada, Jorge | 1B | 1 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Nieves, Wil | 1B | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Cairo, Miguel | 2B | 3 | 3 | 10 | 23 | 6 | 7 | 0 | 0 | .700 | 7 | 8 | -1 | -1 | -58 |
| Betemit, Wilson | 2B | 1 | 1 | 2 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | .500 | 1 | 2 | -1 | 0 | -88 |
| Phillips, Andy | 2B | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 96 |
| Cairo, Miguel | 3B | 7 | 3 | 10 | 35 | 1 | 9 | 1 | 2 | .900 | 9 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 46 |
| Betemit, Wilson | 3B | 5 | 2 | 7 | 20 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 2 | .714 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | -19 |
| Phillips, Andy | 3B | 9 | 0 | 2 | 17 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 32 |
| Basak, Chris | 3B | 3 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 55 |
| Damon, Johnny | CF | 45 | 42 | 129 | 352 | 116 | 1 | 0 | 0 | .884 | 114 | 115 | -1 | 0 | -2 |
| Thompson, Kevin | CF | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Damon, Johnny | LF | 17 | 17 | 48 | 146 | 42 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .854 | 41 | 42 | -1 | 0 | -5 |
| Cabrera, Melky | LF | 18 | 16 | 34 | 142 | 34 | 2 | 0 | 0 | .912 | 31 | 29 | 2 | 1 | 13 |
| Thompson, Kevin | LF | 5 | 2 | 7 | 22.2 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .857 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | -3 |
| Cairo, Miguel | LF | 3 | 1 | 3 | 13 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .667 | 2 | 3 | -1 | 0 | -55 |
| Duncan, Shelley | LF | 2 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 64 |
| Betemit, Wilson | LF | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 161 |
| Cabrera, Melky | RF | 5 | 4 | 5 | 35 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 23 |
| Duncan, Shelley | RF | 6 | 3 | 9 | 34 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1.000 | 9 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 43 |
| Thompson, Kevin | RF | 5 | 3 | 7 | 24 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 | 7 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 48 |
| Damon, Johnny | RF | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .500 | 1 | 2 | -1 | -1 | -296 |
| Cairo, Miguel | SS | 16 | 2 | 29 | 52.2 | 7 | 22 | 0 | 4 | .828 | 24 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Betemit, Wilson | SS | 7 | 3 | 7 | 32 | 7 | 7 | 1 | 2 | .857 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 9 |
| Basak, Chris | SS | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 290 | 189 | 465 | 1749 | 1039 | 96 | 13 | 106 | .847 | 394 | 398 | -4 | -3 | -16 |
Pos: Position
FPCT: Fielding Percentage
G: Games
GS: Games Started
INN: Defensive Innings at Position
PO: Putouts
A: Assists
E: Errors
DP: Double Plays
RF: Range Factor
Ch: Playable Chances
PM: Plays Made
ZR: Zone Rating (PM/Ch)
AvgPM: Estimated Plays Made over the same # of chances by an average defender
Diff: Difference between PM and AvgPM
RS: Runs Saved
RS/162: Runs Saved pro-rated to 162 games
Is Derek Jeter a good shortstop? Discuss...
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Lineup Permutations
With Jason Giambi back in the fold, the Yankees have a problem now. It's not a bad problem, because having more talent than you have spots for is a good thing. The key will be using the talent on hand in the way that is most likely to help you win games.This is not as clear-cut as the numbers that will follow may make it seem, because you're dealing with egos, over/under performances, possible injuries and fatigue, and many other factors(base clogging, chemistry of the lineup,etc.,). However, since I don't have any way to quantify any of that, I'm just going to look at the data that is available to me and see how the different options shake out.
For offense, I'm using a runs created formula that multiplies OBP times SLG times .92. This is then multiplied by 4.4 PA per player, which is the average PA per game for the Yankees's lineup. This doesn't consider lineup order. OBP and SLG are 2/3 based on the players' projections coming into 2007 and 1/3 based on their YTD performance. For Shelley Duncan I've included his MLEs so his stats aren't skewed by his small sample size MLB performance to this point. Since no one projected Duncan coming into the season, here's the projection I used for him:
| Year | Team | Last | First | G | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | K | BA | OBP | SLG |
| 2005 | Trenton | Duncan | Shelley | 142 | 521 | 76 | 113 | 23 | 1 | 27 | 71 | 43 | 147 | .216 | .277 | .422 |
| 2006 | Tre-Col | Duncan | Shelley | 104 | 384 | 43 | 88 | 21 | 0 | 18 | 51 | 31 | 91 | .230 | .287 | .426 |
| 2007 | Scranton | Duncan | Shelley | 91 | 325 | 53 | 88 | 17 | 1 | 23 | 66 | 38 | 88 | .271 | .350 | .537 |
| 2007 | Yankees | Duncan | Shelley | 17 | 42 | 9 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 13 | 5 | 12 | .310 | .383 | .738 |
| Projection | 109 | 416 | 59 | 106 | 26 | 1 | 25 | 67 | 43 | 109 | .255 | .325 | .501 |
I just figured out my own versions of Duncan's MLEs (major league equivalencies) then weighed each season to get a .325 OBP and .501 SLG, which doesn't seem out of line.
For defense, I'm using a combination of career defense as rated by zone rating combined with YTD 2007 performance as far as runs saved per game. For players with small sample size I made some assumptions based on scouting reports and my visual observations. I realize this turns what is supposed to be an objective exercise into a somewhat subjective one, but I think that the logic I used here is at least somewhat sound.
So the numbers that follow are the overall runs created on offense and the runs saved above/below average on defense for a single game. Multiply by 162 if you want to see how that translates to a full season.
Let's first look at the lineup that had become the basic lineup of choice prior to Giambi's return.
| Pos | Player | RC | Def |
| 1B | Phillips | .537 | .037 |
| 2B | Cano | .686 | .077 |
| 3B | Rodriguez | .900 | .073 |
| SS | Jeter | .721 | -.164 |
| LF | Matsui | .741 | -.062 |
| CF | Cabrera | .588 | .042 |
| RF | Abreu | .677 | -.018 |
| DH | Damon | .620 | .000 |
| Off | 5.469 | -.015 | |
| Over 162 | 886 | -2 | |
| Per Game | 5.454 |
We'd expect this lineup to score 5.469 runs per game using the runs created formula I'm using assuming 40 plate appearances per game. We'd expect them to be .015 runs below average defensively per game. So net, offense plus defense this lineup is worth 5.454 runs per games. Over a full season, we'd expect them to score around 886 runs and be around 2 runs above average on defense. Bear in mind that Melky's projection coming into the year was a little a low and that his YTD performance would be worth .684 RC for ever 4.4 plate appearances. If we swap that out with his .575 combined projection you get an extra 17 runs over a full season. However, as much as I'd like to that, that's not objective analysis, so the projection stays as is with the understanding that it's possibly not indicative of a likely change in Melky's talent level (or a decline by Damon which makes him worse than projected).
So, let's look at a few other combinations.
First up, let's just swap out Damon for Giambi.
| Pos | Player | RC | Def |
| 1B | Phillips | .537 | .037 |
| 2B | Cano | .686 | .077 |
| 3B | Rodriguez | .900 | .073 |
| SS | Jeter | .721 | -.164 |
| LF | Matsui | .741 | -.062 |
| CF | Cabrera | .588 | .042 |
| RF | Abreu | .677 | -.018 |
| DH | Giambi | .818 | .000 |
| Off | 5.668 | -.015 | |
| Over 162 | 918 | -2 | |
| Total | 5.653 |
No impact on the defense obviously, but over a full season it'd be about a 30 run upgrade on offense.
How about Damon at first and Giambi at DH? To make this work I assumed that Damon would be a slightly below average defensive 1B, but not too bad of one. I have no idea if that's a reasonable assumption or not.
| Pos | Player | RC | Def |
| 1B | Damon | .620 | -.006 |
| 2B | Cano | .686 | .077 |
| 3B | Rodriguez | .900 | .073 |
| SS | Jeter | .721 | -.164 |
| LF | Matsui | .741 | -.062 |
| CF | Cabrera | .588 | .042 |
| RF | Abreu | .677 | -.018 |
| DH | Giambi | .818 | .000 |
| Off | 5.751 | -.059 | |
| Over 162 | 932 | -10 | |
| Total | 5.692 |
It's too bad this isn't a realistic option, because it's better than the first two. Unfortunately, it likely isn't or we'd have seen it already.
We also have to consider Wilson Betemit and Shelley Duncan in the mix. How about Duncan at first and Giambi at DH?
| Pos | Player | RC | Def |
| 1B | Duncan | .659 | -.059 |
| 2B | Cano | .686 | .077 |
| 3B | Rodriguez | .900 | .073 |
| SS | Jeter | .721 | -.164 |
| LF | Damon | .620 | -.003 |
| CF | Cabrera | .588 | .042 |
| RF | Abreu | .677 | -.018 |
| DH | Giambi | .818 | .000 |
| Off | 5.668 | -.052 | |
| Over 162 | 918 | -8 | |
| Total | 5.616 |
We don't have enough data to have a good read on Duncan's defense at first although the consensus is it's not good, so I gave him a rating equivalent to a -10 over a full season.
Another option is, Betemit at first, Giambi still at DH.
| Pos | Player | RC | Def |
| 1B | Betemit | .612 | -.006 |
| 2B | Cano | .686 | .077 |
| 3B | Rodriguez | .900 | .073 |
| SS | Jeter | .721 | -.164 |
| LF | Matsui | .741 | -.062 |
| CF | Cabrera | .588 | .042 |
| RF | Abreu | .677 | -.018 |
| DH | Giambi | .818 | .000 |
| Off | 5.743 | -.059 | |
| Over 162 | 930 | -10 | |
| Total | 5.684 |
We have a winner. According to these numbers, this is the best combination the Yankees can run out there if Damon at first is not an option, at least against righties. The nice thing is that since Betemit doesn't hit lefties they could use Duncan against lefties. I'd also assume that Betemit is a better defender at first base than Duncan, although without enough data to know I made him touch below average for this exercise.
The Yankees can also use Duncan in the OF corners although he's supposedly going to be pretty bad out there.
The best defensive team is probably the one below.
| Pos | Player | RC | Def |
| 1B | Phillips | .537 | .037 |
| 2B | Cano | .686 | .077 |
| 3B | Rodriguez | .900 | .073 |
| SS | Jeter | .721 | -.164 |
| LF | Damon | .620 | -.003 |
| CF | Cabrera | .588 | .042 |
| RF | Abreu | .677 | -.018 |
| DH | Giambi | .818 | .000 |
| Off | 5.547 | .044 | |
| Over 162 | 899 | 7 | |
| Total | 5.591 |
For all the crap Andy Phillips has been getting lately, offense plus defense he's not really that big of a problem.
There are way too many potential combinations for me to run through in this space, so I've uploaded the spreadsheet that I used for this if you want to play around with it yourselves. Just select a player's name and you'll get a pulldown which lets you change the player and their values will fill in automatically.
There are 39 games left in the season. I'd try to use the Duncan/Betemit platoon at first in at least half of them. I'd use Damon to rest Melky, Abreu, and Matsui once a week, and I'd save Andy Phillips for late inning defense. The nice thing about the current Yankee bench is they can rest almost anyone on the team without losing a ton of value. It seems to me that the main thing the Yankees have to avoid is starting Phillips at first base on the same day they start Damon at DH. If they avoid that, they'll be putting a pretty strong lineup out there no matter what combination they use. Except for House Money day of course.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
NY Daily News: A-Rod lets bat do the talking
Rodriguez did clout one of three early Yankees homers, the 496th of his career, but it was Phillips who built on his hitting and fielding heroics Sunday in Tampa with a bloop two-run single to center in the sixth to snap a 4-4 tie and send the Yanks (46-44) to their ninth win in 12 games.
Andy will have to keep this production up if he wants to ward off Mientkiewiczitis. The poor kid is just getting over a case of Cairosis.
Before the game, Torre acknowledged he was enthused after personally watching Igawa throw a bullpen session Saturday in Tampa, a rarity for the Yanks skipper. Torre even indicated that the $46 million lefty still would get a few more chances to prove himself before phenom Phil Hughes returns from his injury rehabilitation to challenge for the No.5 slot.
“This kid pitching tonight is very important,” Torre said of Igawa. “His stuff is good but the biggest part of it is confidence. He knows he’s better than the way he’s been pitching, and obviously we know that too, otherwise we wouldn’t have signed him.”
So confidence is the problem? What about leaving belt high fastballs over the middle of the plate?
Update: TORRE: FARNSWORTH STILL THE MAN IN 8TH
Joe Torre revealed yesterday afternoon that Kyle Farnsworth still has his eighth-inning job. . . .
Farnsworth, who has allowed 13 hits and five runs in his last 10 appearances (nine innings), denied that he is in a rut. He responded to inquiries about his rough stretch with the classic: “Have you ever pitched out there before?”
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
2007 Yankee Defense at the All Star Break
Wrapping up my All Star Break review of the Yankees so far, here's how their defense rates by zone rating. If you want to read a good explanation about zone rating, you should read this article by Chris Dial, but I am going to run through an example as well, to try and clarify exactly what the numbers that will follow mean.I could pick on Derek Jeter, but I'm not going to go there. Instead I'm going to look at the brightest spot on the Yankee defense so far, Robinson Cano. We all know Cano's been a disappointment on offense, but let's look at his defense.
To help clarify the numbers I'm about to run through, here's the Stats Inc. Zone Rating grid, with the 2B area of responsiblity highlighted.
Any ball hit in that highlighted area that is converted into an out at least 50% of the time is considered a fieldable chance for a second baseman. This is based on observation by Stats Inc. scorers, but there are three people scoring these at every game and they score them independently to help cut down on subjectivity.
When a fielder has a ball hit into their zone of responsiblity, they are given a fieldable chance, which is the denominator in ZR. When they convert that into an out, it's considered a play made. When a fielder makes a play that is not his defined zone, it gets added to his chances and plays made so they get credit for it. The question is if they get enough credit for doing so, which is one limitation of zone rating. Another limitation is the zones of responsiblity are fixed, and do not account for positioning. This is a limitation when trying to assess a player's actual talent, but as far as their value in any given time, I don't think it's much of one. If a player is not put into position to make more plays than he is, that means they are not as valuable to their team as they should be, regardless of who is responsible for the positioning.
ZR is expressed as a three digit decimal from 0 to 1, and it's just plays made divided by fieldable chances. So if a player has 10 fieldable chances hit into his defined zone and converts 8 of them into outs, his ZR is .800. Plays are either made or not made in ZR. If a player makes an error, it's no worse than if their range never let them get to the ball in the first place.
So let's get back to Cano. Cano has played 84 games this season, and 747 defensive innings at second base. He has seen 274 fieldable chances, and has a ZR of .880. So we multiply his fieldable chances by .880 to get his plays made, which is 241.
The next thing we do is multiply the chances that Cano has had times the average ZR, to get an average plays made. This assumes that the types of chances a player faces over the course of a period are the same, and it's not necessarily true. Players could have stretches where they face easier chances or more difficult chances, which is why you will see players' defensive numbers fluctuate from season. Again, I consider this a limitation when trying to assess a player's ability, but not their value. This is the type of thing that should even out over time, which makes multi-year zone rating a decent gauge of a player's defensive talent.
In the American League, the average 2B has a ZR of .831. I separate the leagues because I've noticed systemic differences in the infields, and I assume it's at least partly due to pitchers "hitting." So, using the .831 avg ZR times Cano's 274 chances, we get an average plays made of 228. We subtract this from Cano's actual plays made to get a difference. 241 - 228 = 13, so Cano has converted 13 more plays into outs than average. This difference is then multiplied by the average run value of a play at that position, which was calculated by Dial and is based on the linear weights values of the single or XBH that the play would turn into if it is not made, as well as the marginal value of the out that was not recorded.
Here are the run values for the average plays at each position.
POS RV
1B: .798
2B: .754
3B: .800
CF: .842
LF: .831
RF: .843
SS: .753
For 2B, the average play is worth .754 runs, so we multiply that by Cano's +13 plays made and get a runs saved above average of 10. To calculate this over a full season, you just divide the runs saved by the innings played and multiply by 1440 innings.
Credit for this methodology goes to Chris Dial and his article Dr. StrangeGlove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Zone Rating and to Chone Smith and his article Tweaking Zone Rating. Without them breaking zone rating down this clearly for me I never would have been able to understand it.
The same basic idea is used for figuring out all players except pitchers and catchers, and here are the numbers for the Yanks.
| Player | TM | LG | Pos | G | GS | INN | PO | A | E | DP | Ch | PM | ZR | Avg ZR | AvgPM | Diff | RS | RS/162 |
| Cano, Robinson | NYY | AL | 2B | 84 | 84 | 747 | 178 | 271 | 6 | 78 | 274 | 241 | .880 | .831 | 228 | 13 | 10 | 19 |
| Rodriguez, Alex | NYY | AL | 3B | 83 | 83 | 724 | 63 | 149 | 5 | 15 | 207 | 168 | .812 | .762 | 158 | 10 | 8 | 16 |
| Cabrera, Melky | NYY | AL | CF | 59 | 48 | 445 | 154 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 166 | 152 | .916 | .889 | 148 | 4 | 4 | 12 |
| Cabrera, Melky | NYY | AL | LF | 18 | 16 | 142 | 34 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 34 | 31 | .912 | .872 | 30 | 1 | 1 | 11 |
| Cairo, Miguel | NYY | AL | 3B | 7 | 3 | 35 | 1 | 9 | 1 | 2 | 10 | 9 | .900 | .762 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 45 |
| Cairo, Miguel | NYY | AL | SS | 8 | 2 | 36.2 | 3 | 15 | 0 | 1 | 18 | 16 | .889 | .824 | 15 | 1 | 1 | 35 |
| Thompson, Kevin | NYY | AL | RF | 4 | 2 | 18 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 1.000 | .859 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 48 |
| Cabrera, Melky | NYY | AL | RF | 4 | 3 | 26 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 1.000 | .859 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 20 |
| Giambi, Jason | NYY | AL | 1B | 2 | 2 | 14 | 11 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1.000 | .842 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 26 |
| Basak, Chris | NYY | AL | 3B | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1.000 | .762 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 91 |
| Posada, Jorge | NYY | AL | 1B | 1 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | .000 | .842 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Damon, Johnny | NYY | AL | 1B | 3 | 0 | 4.1 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | .000 | .842 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Nieves, Wil | NYY | AL | 1B | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | .842 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Phillips, Andy | NYY | AL | 3B | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | .762 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Thompson, Kevin | NYY | AL | CF | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | .889 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Basak, Chris | NYY | AL | SS | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | .824 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Thompson, Kevin | NYY | AL | LF | 4 | 1 | 13.2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 5 | .833 | .872 | 5 | 0 | 0 | -21 |
| Phillips, Andy | NYY | AL | 1B | 13 | 10 | 90.1 | 85 | 4 | 0 | 12 | 16 | 13 | .813 | .842 | 13 | 0 | 0 | -6 |
| Cairo, Miguel | NYY | AL | 2B | 2 | 2 | 17 | 5 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 6 | .750 | .831 | 7 | -1 | 0 | -41 |
| Cairo, Miguel | NYY | AL | LF | 3 | 1 | 13 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 | .667 | .872 | 3 | -1 | -1 | -57 |
| Phelps, Josh | NYY | AL | 1B | 29 | 20 | 162.2 | 167 | 9 | 3 | 16 | 27 | 22 | .815 | .842 | 23 | -1 | -1 | -5 |
| Abreu, Bobby | NYY | AL | RF | 84 | 81 | 720 | 156 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 183 | 156 | .852 | .859 | 157 | -1 | -1 | -2 |
| Damon, Johnny | NYY | AL | LF | 1 | 1 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | .333 | .872 | 3 | -2 | -1 | -215 |
| Damon, Johnny | NYY | AL | CF | 41 | 38 | 318 | 106 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 119 | 104 | .874 | .889 | 106 | -2 | -1 | -7 |
| Mientkiewicz, Doug | NYY | AL | 1B | 48 | 36 | 330.1 | 353 | 14 | 2 | 46 | 59 | 47 | .797 | .842 | 50 | -3 | -2 | -9 |
| Cairo, Miguel | NYY | AL | 1B | 21 | 17 | 155.1 | 161 | 9 | 4 | 16 | 42 | 32 | .762 | .842 | 35 | -3 | -3 | -25 |
| Matsui, Hideki | NYY | AL | LF | 68 | 67 | 586.1 | 131 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 152 | 127 | .836 | .872 | 132 | -5 | -5 | -11 |
| Jeter, Derek | NYY | AL | SS | 84 | 83 | 726.1 | 128 | 246 | 13 | 69 | 295 | 227 | .769 | .824 | 243 | -16 | -12 | -24 |
| Total | 678 | 601 | 5345.2 | 1765 | 748 | 42 | 261 | 1633 | 1370 | .839 | .840 | 1371 | -1 | -1 | -2 |
Legend
INN - Innings
PO - Putouts
A - Assists
E - Errors
DP - Double plays
Ch - Fieldable chances
PM - Plays made
ZR - Zone Rating
AvgZR - Average ZR
AvgPM - Average PM
Diff - PM minus AvgPM
RS - Runs saved
RS/162 - Runs saved pro-rated to 162 games
So yeah, Cano's been great. Also great, Alex Rodriguez, who has rebounded from two sub-par years at third after a solid 2004 defensively. Melky's flashing a plus glove in LF and CF and this doesn't even include his arm.
The rest of the numbers seem to match my observations pretty well, although I'd have pegged Abreu to be a little worse and Matsui to be a bit better. This is part of the reason I've grown fond of zone rating. It's freely available, it's easy to convert to runs, and for the most part the players I think are good and bad defenders show up as such in ZR.
These numbers are not meant to be an absolute assessment of either a players' defensive ability or value. First of all, we're dealing with a small sample size. The difference between Jeter being average or horrible is about one play a week. Second of all, as I've listed above, there are limitations in zone rating which need to be acknowledged and understood. Over at Bronx Banter the other day there was a heated discussion about defensive metrics and their pros and cons. The way I described it to someone over there is this. Let's say you have a group of hitters, and the only thing you know about him is their batting averages. Would you prefer to use your visual observations of the players' abilities and whether they have good at bats, or would you rather use batting average to determine their skill at least partially, even acknowledging that batting average has limitations? That's kind of where I think defensive metrics should fall into place.
For catchers, I use a combination of passed balls and stolen base percentage. It's not a great method because pitchers deserve some of the blame for stolen bases, but again, if we think of it in terms of value instead of ability it's better than nothing.
| NAME | GP | GS | INN | TC | PO | A | E | DP | FPCT | PB | SB | CS | CS% | CERA | RS | RS/150 |
| Jorge Posada, NYY | 77 | 68 | 621 | 427 | 394 | 30 | 3 | 2 | .993 | 3 | 61 | 19 | 0.24 | 4.42 | -3 | -7 |
| Wil Nieves, NYY | 21 | 18 | 142 | 105 | 99 | 5 | 1 | 1 | .990 | 0 | 17 | 5 | 0.23 | 4.12 | -1 | -5 |
| Josh Phelps, NYY | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Posada's defense has typically been average or slightly below, but he was great last year. He's back below average this year, but he's hitting more than well enough to compensate. Wil Nieves has a wonderful smile, which is apparently all he needs to have to be the Yankees' backup catcher.
With the pitching, offense and defense all assessed it's time to see where everyone on the Yankees ranks in terms of overall value, so here you go.
| Last | BR | DR | PR | TR |
| Rodriguez | 33 | 8 | 42 | |
| Wang | 18 | 18 | ||
| Posada | 19 | -3 | 16 | |
| Bruney | 8 | 8 | ||
| Cano | -2 | 10 | 8 | |
| Myers | 7 | 7 | ||
| Clemens | 6 | 6 | ||
| Matsui | 8 | -5 | 4 | |
| Rivera | 3 | 3 | ||
| Villone | 3 | 3 | ||
| Jeter | 15 | -12 | 2 | |
| Pettitte | 2 | 2 | ||
| Hughes | 2 | 2 | ||
| Britton | 2 | 2 | ||
| Giambi | 1 | 0 | 2 | |
| Proctor | 1 | 1 | ||
| Cabrera | -5 | 5 | 1 | |
| Mussina | 0 | 0 | ||
| Ramirez | 0 | 0 | ||
| Phillips | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Basak | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Rasner | -1 | -1 | ||
| Thompson | -1 | 0 | -1 | |
| Pavano | -1 | -1 | ||
| Henn | -1 | -1 | ||
| Farnsworth | -1 | -1 | ||
| Bean | -2 | -2 | ||
| Wright | -3 | -3 | ||
| Vizcaino | -3 | -3 | ||
| Desalvo | -3 | -3 | ||
| Phelps | -3 | -1 | -4 | |
| Clippard | -4 | -4 | ||
| Karstens | -5 | -5 | ||
| Damon | -4 | -3 | -6 | |
| Cairo | -5 | -2 | -7 | |
| Abreu | -6 | -1 | -7 | |
| Nieves | -7 | -1 | -8 | |
| Mientkiewicz | -6 | -2 | -8 | |
| Igawa | -13 | -13 | ||
| Total | 38 | -6 | 15 | 47 |
BR = Batting runs
DR = Defensive runs
PR = Pitching runs
TR = Total runs
I'd take Bruney and Myers's high ranking with a big grain of salt. It may be better to use a linear weights type formula for relievers' value to the team since ERA or RA can hide their performances with inherited runners.
I was surprised to see that Cano's defense makes him such a plus contributor, but I guess that's the case at least by this methodology. If you want to get angry, you can figure out how much the "contributions" of Abreu, Mientkiewicz and Igawa have cost the team this year.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Yankee Offense at the All Star Break
I'm going to use the All Star Break to explain a little bit about the way I rank players' offensive values. As most regular readers know, I'm a big fan of linear weights.The concept for linear weights was introducted by Pete Palmer in his ground-breaking book, The Hidden Game of Baseball. In a nutshell, linear weights assigns a marginal value to just about every event that can happen on the baseball field, both good and bad. You can incorporate batting, baserunning, defense, etc., to really look at the overall contribution that a player is providing to his team.
Instead of getting too heavy into the mechanism of LWTS, I'd just point anyone that is interested in the guts behind it to this link. Today I'm just going to focus on the offensive portion of the Yankees' linear weights.
The formula I use was refined by Tango Tiger and uses the following weights:
Batting Runs(BR) = (.47 x H) + (.38 x 2B) + (.55 x 3B) + (.93 x HR) + (.33 x (BB + HBP)) + .22 x SB + (-.38 x CS) + (-.1 x (AB - H))
The one change I make is I add GDP into the outs factor (AB - H). You could also add reaching on errors although I tend to ignore that out of simplicity.
Anyway, unless a player is really bad, they will have a positive value for BR, because any positive contribution creates some kind of run value. The only Yankee with a negative BR is Wil Nieves, and he's only at -1.
Once you have a players BR, you can do a couple of things. The first thing is to compare them to the average batter, regardless of position. This is useful for just figuring out the net value of a player, and for when you want to look at moving players around the different positions, as well as for direct comparisons.
The other thing that you can do, is position-adjust the players. As should be fairly obvious to most baseball fans, the average shortstop does not hit as well as the average first baseman (unless it's the Yankees), so offense from the shortstop position is harder to find, and therefore more valuable. So what I do is calculate the BR at every defensive position. I then divide BR by plate appearances, and I subtract the average BR/PA from a player's BR/PA, and then multiply by the number of plate appearances that the player has had. This tells you how much better a player has been compared to an average player over the same playing time.
Let's run through an example with Derek Jeter. Jeter's raw BR this season so far is 60. Divided by his plate appearances, he creates .152 BR/PA. The average AL SS has created 596 BR this eason, over 5194 PA, a BR/PA of .115. So Jeter's position-adjusted batting runs above average would be (.152-.115) x his PA, which comes out to about 15 runs above the average AL SS this year. That makes him the third most valuable offensive Yankee this season, behind Alex Rodriguez (the most valuable offensive player in the league regardless of position by linear weights), and Jorge Posada.
So, here are the Yankees' offensive players sorted by most valuable in position-adjusted batting runs.
| Last | pBRaa | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | K | BA | OBP | SLG |
| Rodriguez | 33 | 85 | 380 | 319 | 79 | 101 | 21 | 0 | 30 | 86 | 47 | 71 | .317 | .413 | .665 |
| Posada | 19 | 82 | 331 | 291 | 46 | 95 | 25 | 0 | 9 | 48 | 34 | 61 | .327 | .399 | .505 |
| Jeter | 15 | 85 | 395 | 348 | 57 | 117 | 23 | 3 | 5 | 44 | 35 | 47 | .336 | .408 | .463 |
| Matsui | 8 | 73 | 316 | 274 | 46 | 75 | 19 | 0 | 11 | 53 | 36 | 38 | .274 | .358 | .464 |
| Giambi | 1 | 45 | 179 | 149 | 19 | 39 | 5 | 0 | 7 | 23 | 25 | 35 | .262 | .380 | .436 |
| Phillips | 0 | 15 | 43 | 38 | 6 | 12 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 6 | .316 | .381 | .474 |
| Basak | 0 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | .000 | .000 |
| Thompson | -1 | 11 | 17 | 15 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 7 | .200 | .294 | .333 |
| Cano | -2 | 85 | 350 | 328 | 40 | 90 | 24 | 4 | 6 | 40 | 15 | 52 | .274 | .314 | .427 |
| Phelps | -3 | 36 | 88 | 80 | 8 | 21 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 12 | 6 | 19 | .263 | .330 | .363 |
| Damon | -4 | 76 | 313 | 273 | 44 | 67 | 10 | 1 | 5 | 27 | 38 | 42 | .245 | .339 | .344 |
| Cabrera | -5 | 76 | 299 | 265 | 31 | 73 | 9 | 4 | 4 | 31 | 22 | 33 | .276 | .331 | .385 |
| Cairo | -5 | 44 | 111 | 99 | 9 | 26 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 6 | 16 | .263 | .308 | .323 |
| Mientkiewicz | -6 | 50 | 141 | 124 | 17 | 28 | 7 | 0 | 4 | 16 | 10 | 16 | .226 | .292 | .379 |
| Abreu | -6 | 85 | 375 | 322 | 59 | 85 | 16 | 2 | 5 | 41 | 44 | 65 | .264 | .352 | .373 |
| Nieves | -7 | 22 | 53 | 50 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 5 | .120 | .154 | .120 |
pBRaa = position-adjusted batting runs above average
Some more numbers that you may or may not find interesting:
| Last | HBP | GDP | SB | CS | P/PA | BA/BIP | LD% | GB% | HR/F | BA/RISP | BR | BRaa | pBR/150 |
| Rodriguez | 9 | 8 | 9 | 2 | 3.8 | .333 | 18.2% | 41.5% | 29.4% | .303 | 81 | 33 | 57 |
| Posada | 3 | 14 | 1 | 0 | 3.8 | .395 | 22.7% | 42.1% | 11.0% | .274 | 55 | 14 | 37 |
| Jeter | 8 | 11 | 7 | 7 | 3.6 | .380 | 20.8% | 55.7% | 7.1% | .427 | 60 | 10 | 24 |
| Matsui | 2 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 4.1 | .290 | 15.8% | 48.3% | 12.8% | .268 | 45 | 6 | 17 |
| Giambi | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4.4 | .302 | 19.1% | 28.7% | 11.7% | .318 | 26 | 3 | 5 |
| Phillips | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3.7 | .355 | 21.9% | 43.8% | 9.1% | .500 | 6 | 1 | 5 |
| Basak | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | .000 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | N/A | 0 | 0 | -147 |
| Thompson | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4.2 | .375 | 25.0% | 12.5% | 0.0% | .500 | 2 | -1 | -26 |
| Cano | 5 | 6 | 2 | 4 | 3.3 | .313 | 15.2% | 53.3% | 6.9% | .214 | 41 | -3 | -4 |
| Phelps | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 3.9 | .322 | 21.3% | 36.1% | 7.7% | .280 | 9 | -2 | -24 |
| Damon | 1 | 0 | 15 | 0 | 4.4 | .276 | 17.3% | 51.9% | 7.0% | .238 | 36 | -3 | -8 |
| Cabrera | 2 | 7 | 6 | 1 | 3.7 | .308 | 19.7% | 55.7% | 7.1% | .234 | 33 | -4 | -10 |
| Cairo | 1 | 2 | 7 | 1 | 3.7 | .317 | 13.6% | 42.0% | 0.0% | .303 | 11 | -3 | -29 |
| Mientkiewicz | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3.7 | .233 | 23.9% | 36.7% | 9.3% | .200 | 14 | -4 | -28 |
| Abreu | 3 | 10 | 12 | 4 | 4.2 | .325 | 21.5% | 45.4% | 5.8% | .239 | 45 | -2 | -11 |
| Nieves | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3.4 | .133 | 13.3% | 53.3% | 0.0% | .214 | -1 | -8 | -83 |
BR is the raw batting run total as I mentioned before, BRaa is batting runs above the average player without any position-adjustments, and pBR/150 is position-adjusted batting runs per 150 games. That really hammers home how bad Wil Nieves has been to this point. A full season of Wil Nievers would be eight wins worse than average. EIGHT WINS! That means that as as good as Alex Rodriguez has been to this point, he still wouldn't neutralize how bad Wil Nieves would be as a full-time starter. A-Rod plus Nieves would end up as 26 runs below average. Pray for Jorge's continued health.
LD% and GB% are just some batted ball numbers. Line drives are the most likely type of balls to be hits, so the higher the LD%, the better the hitter typically. BABIP is the player's batting average on balls in play, calculated the same way as it is calculated for pitchers. Hitters do exhibit repeatable skill here to a certain extent, but an excessively high BABIP typically will correct itself at least partially.
So what do these numbers mean?
As I mentioned earlier, Alex Rodriguez has been the most valuable player in the league. He's already been as valuable offensively as he was all of last year, and there are still 77 games to go. An amazing season for an amazing player who is finally getting the respect he deserves by the mouth-breathing contingent of Yankee fandom.
Jorge Posada is also having his strongest season in years. He's never hit higher than .287 but is on pace to beat that. I am worried about his workload and his luck on balls in play catching up to him in the second half, but there are plenty of people underperforming who should pick up some of the slack.
Derek Jeter continues to shine offensively. Only Carlos Guillen has been more productive as a SS in the AL.
Posada and Jeter have a very high BABIP, although in Jeter's case his speed likely helps. Posada is a very probable candidate to fall off in the second half, at least a little.
Hideki Matsui's recent hot streak has pushed him from slightly above average to +8. Unless Jason Giambi comes back, Matsui is probably the second best power threat in the Yankee lineup, so they need him to continue his surge badly.
Jason Giambi was underperforming expectations, but despite the media's claims about him being out helping the Yankees be more flexible, if he can come back he makes the team better.
Andy Phillips is making the most of his second chance in pinstripes. Whether it's just the fact that he has 43 plate appearances, or if it's the result of adjustments he's made due to his struggles last year, he's filled what's been a giant hole of suck so far this year. I'm not willing to bet that it's going to last, we have a much larger sample size that shows he was overmatched in the bigs, but at the very least he's an upgrade on Miguel Cairo.
Chris Basak and Kevin Thompson haven't played much. Thompson seems like an ideal fourth OF, so if Melky becomes entrenched in center he may end up getting some more playing time going forward.
Robinson Cano's been a big disappointment offensively. Some falloff from .342 was certainly expected, but not this much of one. He's walking a touch more this season, but he's also striking out a lot more. Until he gets a better approach at the plate, expect him to be consistently inconsistent.
Josh Phelps is gone. He didn't get a fair chance to play regularly, so it's tough to know if he wasn't very good or if the erratic playing time hurt him.
Johnny Damon has stunk while batting leadoff, so he gets more chances to stink than anyone else on the team when he's in the lineup. It doesn't look like him going on the DL is a consideration at this point. If he can play some LF going forward he can rest Matsui and perhaps contribute defensively, but the contract he signed last season is starting to look like a disaster.
Melky's seasonal output has been disappointing, but he's been hitting well since May 1. Ignore the bleating that his early struggles were due to not getting regular playing time in April, he played in 21 of 24 games that month.
Miguel Cairo has been brutal offensively, which isn't a surprise. The problem is he's played far more than he should be, primarily at a position where his lack of offense is even more glaring. Add in the fact that his calling card of good defense no longer even seems to be a factor, and he's hurting the team on both sides of the ball. I personally like Miggy for some reason that I really can't understand, but the less he plays going forward the better. I don't know that Basak would be a better option than him as the backup infielder, but it may be worth considering.
Doug Mientkiewicz has hit like garbage. His supposedly great defense at first wasn't reflected in zone rating to this point, although ZR doesn't capture all the elements of first base defense . I wish him a healthy recovery from his multitude of injuries, but I'd prefer he doesn't get back before November. I'd really prefer to see Phillips get first base for the rest of the season just to see once and for all what he's got.
Bobby Abreu has been the biggest problem on the team relative to his expectations. Unless he hits going forward, the Yankees aren't going anywhere. Meanwhile, Gary Sheffield has been tearing it up in Detroit. Brian Cashman made the right move on paper, but it didn't play out on the field. Sheffield's +18 pBRaa, so he's been 24 runs better than Abreu offensively, but he's primarily DHing now.
Wil Nieves has pulled off the amazing feat of being the least valuable offensive player on the team despite only getting 53 plate appearances. He seems like a nice guy, but the sooner the Yankees can replace him with anyone they'll be better. In praise of Nieves, he's hitting much better with runners in scoring position at a lofty .214.
Overall as a team the Yankees are +38 pBRaa. Take out Alex Rodriguez, and they're just +5. Unless Cano, Abreu and Damon play better going forward, they're not going anywhere.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
A Little Exercise about Reliever Utilization (plus Playoff Odds through June 27)
One of my favorite sabermetric researchers, Tango Tiger, has done a lot of research about reliever usage. He came up with the statistic Leverage Index, which uses win expectancy to determine the most crucial situations in a given game.Let's look at two situations in particular.
Situation 1: Two teams, we'll call them NYY and BAL are playing in BAL. They are tied heading into the bottom of the ninth. In this situation, the win expectancy for the visiting team (NYY) is
Situation 2: The same two teams are playing again, but this time BAL is leading NYY 4-0 heading into the bottom of the eighth. In that situation, the win expectancy for NYY is .027.
So in situation 1, NYY had a 36.6% chance of winning the game, and in situation 2, NYY had a 2.7% chance of winning the game. In that spot, preventing the winning run is the most important thing that NYY could do. So which situation should their best reliever have been used in?
But what if your best reliever had thrown 20 pitches over 1.2 innings in a game four days prior? Well in that case, you could use arguably your second best reliever, since he had only thrown 22 pitches in that same game, plus 40 pitches in the next game. You could even watch while he walks three batters, including one with the bases loaded to lose the game.
Anyway, the Yankees' recent skid has had a dramatic effect on their already fading playoff chances. When I ran my playoff odds exercise on June 18, the Yankees had a 9.3% chance at the division, and a 59.7% chance at the wild card. And after going 1-7 in their last eight games, here's where they are now after simulating the rest of the season 1000 times using projections weighted 80% on 2007 projections coming into the season and 20% on current performance.
| American League | W | L | RF | RA | DIV | WC | DIV% | WC% | PO% | High | Low |
| East | W | W | |||||||||
| Bos07 | 101.2 | 60.8 | 888 | 701 | 977.5 | 17.0 | 97.8% | 1.7% | 99.5% | 113 | 90 |
| NYA07 | 88.3 | 73.7 | 847 | 706 | 22.5 | 336.0 | 2.3% | 33.6% | 35.9% | 102 | 76 |
| Tor07 | 80.7 | 81.3 | 802 | 782 | 0.0 | 45.5 | 0.0% | 4.6% | 4.6% | 95 | 69 |
| Bal07 | 71.7 | 90.3 | 755 | 821 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 86 | 59 |
| Tam07 | 67.2 | 94.8 | 787 | 960 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 82 | 55 |
| Central | |||||||||||
| Cle07 | 92.8 | 69.2 | 883 | 761 | 592.0 | 162.0 | 59.2% | 16.2% | 75.4% | 107 | 76 |
| Det07 | 90.9 | 71.1 | 902 | 777 | 363.0 | 220.0 | 36.3% | 22.0% | 58.3% | 105 | 78 |
| Min07 | 83.7 | 78.3 | 782 | 748 | 45.0 | 75.5 | 4.5% | 7.6% | 12.1% | 97 | 71 |
| ChA07 | 72.7 | 89.3 | 740 | 838 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 86 | 61 |
| KC07 | 66.2 | 95.8 | 746 | 889 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 77 | 52 |
| West | |||||||||||
| LAA07 | 93.0 | 69.0 | 805 | 711 | 868.5 | 25.0 | 86.9% | 2.5% | 89.4% | 104 | 76 |
| Sea07 | 83.8 | 78.2 | 793 | 803 | 71.0 | 71.5 | 7.1% | 7.2% | 14.3% | 97 | 72 |
| Oak07 | 82.8 | 79.2 | 738 | 705 | 60.5 | 47.5 | 6.1% | 4.8% | 10.8% | 96 | 65 |
| Tex07 | 70.0 | 92.0 | 825 | 908 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 84 | 55 |
So they've gone from an already meager 9.3% shot at the AL East to an even more scant 2.3%. More concerning is their wild card chances have plummeted, from 59.7% to 33.6%. I guess it still means they have a chance.
Peter Abraham reported yesterday that the Angels will be DFA'ing Shea Hillenbrand by Friday and that he could be a Yankee by the weekend. Hillenbrand might be better than Cairo, but he won't be a difference-maker, and he'll be awfully tough for me to root for. I'd rather not see him in pinstripes.
And what happened to the pledge to get Andy Phillips some playing time? Phillips was called up on June 19, and in the 8 games since he's gotten one start and 8 AB. Meanwhile, Miguel Cairo has started six games and hit .238/.304/.286. I have no expectations for Phillips, but odds are he cannot be any worse than Cairo has been, and he'd be a hell of a lot easier to root for than someone like Hillenbrand.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
NY Daily News: Andy Feels Mile High
DENVER - Andy Phillips got the word late Monday night that he would join the Yankees in Denver, making his return to the majors for the first time in 2007.
For the 30-year-old, it was more exciting than the first time he got that call as a rookie in 2004.
“I was very surprised; it was a good way to be caught off-guard,” Phillips said. “I didn’t really see an opportunity. Generally speaking, most of the time when a guy comes up, it’s because something happens. A guy gets hurt or something else. With nothing really going on, you start to think, ‘Did someone get hurt?’”
Nobody was hurt, but the Yankees decided that Phillips was a better option at first base then Josh Phelps, who was designated for assignment, or utility infielder Miguel Cairo, who has been playing first for most of the past two weeks.
Phelps was designated for assignment. If he clears waivers he will have to be offered back to the Orioles. It’s tough to say he got a fair chance after an impressive spring training, but Phillips is a better option at first base than Miguel Cairo, so if Phelps wasn’t going to play much anyway this is a net gain overall, even if Phelps is better than Phillips.
Tough loss last night, but sometimes you run into a Josh Fogg.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Sunday Links - June 3
Sunday News Links
It looks like any chance of Roger Clemens saving the Yankees’ season (which is a ridiculous notion) are on hold for at least two weeks, as Clemens has a fatigued groin. It’s expected that the “new and improved” Kei Igawa will get the start in his stead on Monday. The rebuilt Igawa has pitched 14 innings in the minors, and allowed 15 hits, 1 HR, with 4 BB and 12 K, and an ERA of 3.86. I don’t think this will go well.
Doug Mientkiewicz was involved in a nasty collision at first base yesterday, and will be placed on the 15 day DL. The list of injuries is pretty long, a concussion, a cervical sprain (aka whiplash), and a fractured wrist. That last one is the scariest, because you never know how a hitter’s wrist is going to heal.
No word on who will be called up to replace him, although a 40 man roster move will probably have to be made if one of Andy Phillips or Shelley Duncan is the choice.
According to the Daily News, Hal Steinbrenner is the new managing general partner of the Yankees. Your guess is as good as mine as to what that means.
I did not see yesterday’s game, and I’m pretty happy that I didn’t. I’m just wondering why no one in the media is killing Derek Jeter for making two errors in the seventh inning that ended up costing the Yankees the game? Can you imagine if that had been Alex Rodriguez? Add in Jeter’s two double plays, and Jeter was as responsible for that loss as anyone else on the team yesterday, go-ahead HR aside.
And can someone explain why Scott Proctor was pitching yesterday, after having pitched on three of the past four days, and with all the drama that occurred in Friday night’s game?
Thursday, March 29, 2007
NJ.com - Yankees: Phelps’ chance has come, but Villone may go
TAMPA, Fla.—Josh Phelps has apparently won a spot on the Yankees roster. Andy Phillips, who had been competing with Phelps to platoon at first base with Doug Mientkiewicz, yesterday was placed on outright waivers. The move (which was revealed by a major-league official who asked not to be identified because waivers are confidential)
means that by tomorrow Phillips will be claimed by another team or sent to the minors by the Yankees. Meanwhile, lefty reliever Ron Villone might have clinched his fate last night by failing to retire any of the three men he faced in a 12-2 loss to the Houston Astros.
The roster is tightening up. While I’m happy to see Phelps make the team, I do feel for Andy Phillips. I hope Phillips does get claimed and gets a chance to play in the majors somewhere. I still think he may have a chance at being a productive player, but I don’t the Yankees are in the position to wait for it to happen.
Ron Villone looks shot. It would seem that Sean Henn’s going to get the spot that was supposed to go to Villone, and I think that’s a good move as well.
I’ll wrap up the looking ahead pieces with the bullpen tomorrow.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Looking Ahead to 2007: The Bench
DATE: 3/14/2007 11:06:00 PM
I’ll wrap up my Looking Ahead pieces for the position players with the Yankee bench. I already looked at the backup catcher candidates here, as well as Melky Cabrera here, so let’s finish it off with a look at Miguel Cairo, Andy Phillips, and Josh Phelps.
Here are their offensive projections.
Anyone who can’t see the embedded Google spreadsheets below can use this link instead.
And here are their defensive projections.
I know Cairo is a horrible hitter, but I still like him. He makes up for an awful bat with decent defense all around the infield. The Yankees didn’t have a lot of options in the utility infielder market this offseason, so I was fine with bringing him back. Now we just have to hope he doesn’t play a lot.
The last spot on the bench is going come down to one of Andy Phillips or Rule 5 pick Josh Phelps. Phillips brings a good glove at first and some good AAA numbers to the battle, whereas Phelps brings his former top prospect billing and lead glove. Phelps has a better major league track record than Phillips, and projects to be a better hitter. He also gives the heavily left-handed Yankee lineup an option to rest one of their lefties, as he’s hit .293/.357/.500 vs. lefties in his career, compared to .257/.325/.460.
Phillips’s glove is superfluous with Doug Mientkiewicz around. I championed Phillips getting a chance last season, and he got it. He disappointed, and unless the Yankees are willing to carry 11 pitches, either he or Phelps has to go. The smart move is keeping Phelps, who is younger, projects to hit better, and who has shown more talent at the major league level. I think Brian Cashman knows this, or they wouldn’t have taken Phelps in the Rule 5 draft.
That wraps up the position players. What does it all add up to? This.
I used some rough playing time projections, then filled in the gaps with replacement level play on both offense and defense. The Yankees project to score 142 runs above average using linear weights. The average AL team scored 804 last year, so adding 142 to that, I get a team that projects to score around 950 runs. We should probably knock that down a bit since Yankee Stadium tends to play as a slight pitchers’ park, but 940 or so seems eminently reachable, and with some health and performances that exceed projections, 1000 has an outside chance.
The defense is ugly, but no worse than it’s been in the recent past.
I’m pretty happy to see the position players projecting so well. Now they just have to say healthy and meet or exceed their expectations. Next up, the pitchers…
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Who’s On First?
Right now the Yankees’ roster is apparently short at a position that is traditionally the biggest offensive position in baseball. They have Andy Phillips and drafted Josh Phelps in the Rule 5 draft, but neither one is particularly inspiring. The Yankees have been linked to free agents Doug Mientkiewicz, Shea Hillenbrand, Eduardo Perez, and Craig Wilson. There have also been rumors about the availability of Richie Sexson in trade. One other name I haven’t seen mentioned but who is available is Matt Lecroy.
None of these choices really seem all that appealing, but we can try and compare them based on how they project heading into 2007. To do this, I’m going to use the newest kid on the projection block, CHONE, by Sean Smith who runs the great sabermetric blog Anaheim Angels all the way. Smith’s one of the guys who got me into zone rating for analyzing defense and does a lot of other interesting work.
So, using Smith’s projections for offense and defense, here’s how the people listed above compare for 2007.
In the table above, def is the player’s projected defensive value in 2007. lw/600 is runs above/below average using linear weights and the projected numbers above for 600 plate appearances.
Richie Sexson’s the best projected player going forward, but he’d also be the most expensive to acquire in terms of salary and talent. It’s interesting to see that Andy Phillips still projects as the second best option despite his terrible season last year on offense. A lot of that is based on his solid minor league track record, but I don’t have much confidence in him matching that projection after watching Phillips hit last year. While I think translating minor league numbers is useful in many cases, it has limitations and someone like Phillips may be an example of those limitations.
It seems that Doug Mientkiewicz would be the best free agent option available, as he makes up for a lackluster -7 offensive projection with +5 defense, which would net out at -2, which is close enough to average. I’ve been championing Craig Wilson due to his ability to balance out a heavily left-handed lineup, but overall he would project to be about as valuable as Mientkiewicz. Full season numbers in a case like this need to be tempered with the platoon difference in mind. If Wilson makes the Yankees worse overall but better in games started by left-handers, it may change what appears to be a similar full-season contribution, but I have no easy way of quantifying that.
Wilson didn’t do much to impress the Yankees during his brief stint in the Bronx, and is supposedly looking for a long-term deal, so I’m not sure he’s much of an option.
A little worse than the Phillips/Mientkiewicz/Wilson triumverate is the Matt Lecroy, Eduardo Perez, Josh Phelps, and Shea Hillenbrand group. None are very good defensively by the numbers. Perez and/or Phelps may have some use as lefty mashers who don’t see a lot of defensive time. Lecroy is an average hitter but a pretty bad defender, and Shea Hillenbrand brings little to the table as far as I can see on either offense or defense.
So there you have it. A bunch of options, none of whom are that good. It doesn’t seem that it matters much whether it’s Mientkiewicz, Wilson, Phillips, Phelps or some combination of them. If only the Yankees could get Albert Pujols, who projects at +65 on offense+defense.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Run Values of the 2006 Yankees
With the Yankees’ 2006 season at its end, I wanted to take one last look back at the contributions of everyone who wore pinstripes this season. I posted the details of a lot of these calculations in this entry a while back, so if you want more background you can check that out.
First up, the offense.
Next up, the defense.
Lastly, the pitching.
Add it all up, and here’s the sum total of everyone’s contributions to the Yankees in 2006.
Do these numbers make sense? The Yankees were 167 runs better than an average team, or 16.7 wins better. Add 16.7 wins to an 81 win team, you get a 97.8 win team. I guess they do.
In other Yankee news, Joe Torre is staying.
Monday, October 2, 2006
ALDS Preview - Tigers vs. Yankees
It’s ALDS preview time, as the Yankees will be taking on Detroit Tuesday night on FOX at 8 PM.
First up, here is a look at the position players on the 25 man playoff rosters. As I am wont to do, I’m using linear weights for offense and zone rating converted to runs for defense. BR is the player’s total output above/below average on the season compared to others listed at the same position. DR are the defensive runs above/below average. For the bench players who played multiple positions, I’ve combined all their defensive numbers.
I’ve combined the lines for players who played for multiple teams. I’ve removed the defensive stats of Marcus Thames and Jason Giambi as their primary roles will be as DH. Matt Stairs was acquired post Sept 1 so I don’t think he can be on the Tigers’ post-season roster.
As you can see from this list, Detroit’s is a much better defensive team than the Yankees, but overall they’re not on the same level. The Yankees have the edge on a per game basis at C, 1B, 2B, LF, CF, RF, and DH, and the difference between Derek Jeter and Carlos Guillen is basically negligible. They Yankees have 8 of the top 9 players as far as total run value per game (based on this season’s performance).
The Tigers’ starting nine hit .280/.337/.458 compared to a league average of .275/.338/.437. It should be noted that they play in a pitcher’s park, so this is not a bad overall line for them. As a team overall, their season OPS was 100, or exactly league average. The starting nine put up an OPS of around 105. That’s around what Mike Lowell hit this season.
On the Tigers bench, they don’t pack much offensive punch, although Chris Shelton may get a start against Randy Johnson in Game 3.
The Yankees’ starting nine hit .299/.392/.499, which is the equivalent of an OPS of 129. That’s around what Miguel Tejada had, with a bit less batting average and bit more OBP.
The Yankee bench isn’t too bad this season for once, although I’m not sure how much time they’ll get. Bernie would seem to be a good pinch-hitter against a lefty, but which lefty do you pinch hit for? Melky Cabrera will be there to back up all three OF and perhaps to spot Matsui for defense late in games. That is the right role for him. Matsui is right now the clearly superior player. Miguel Cairo will mainly just be around in case of an emergency, and I’d guess we’ll see Andy Phillips replacing Sheffield in the 8th and 9th innings for defense. Hopefully, Sal Fasano doesn’t get an AB.
On paper, it’s a pretty clear position player edge for the Yanks.
Of course, there’s the matter of pitching. First, a look at the starters. I’m using linear weights for the pitchers as well.
One thing about the chart above, I’m only using the pitchers’ numbers as starters.
In Game 1, the Yankees seem to have a fairly good-sized edge. Chien-Ming Wang has been better than Nate Robertson in most measures this season except for strikeout rate. His ERC (component ERA) also indicates that his success to this point hasn’t been fluky. I remain concerned about Wang’s workload on the season, as he’s thrown 218 innings this season after never topping 160 prior to this year, but I think/hope he’ll be fine.
Robertson’s a pretty good pitcher, and a fellow blogger, so I have a soft spot for him. Being left-handed is a slight advantage for him facing Abreu, Giambi, Cano, and Damon. I think he’ll pitch reasonably well, but I doubt he’ll shut the Yankees down completely or anything.
Game 2 seems like a very big edge for the Yankees by the numbers, but you never know with rookie pitchers that throw 100 mph. Justin Verlander’s been solid for Detroit, and was rated as the AL starter with the highest average fastball velocity this season by Basebll Info Solutions. Fatigue seems to have caught up with him a bit recently, and Jim Leyland had him skip a start to rest him a bit. He has the stuff to dominate, although his BB rate is a touch below average which would seem to be a benefit for the Yankees.
Mike Mussina started the season out great, but has faltered a bit lately. He typically pitches well in the postseason, and his last start was very impressive (particularly his velocity, which was up to 91-92). I think Moose will be fine.
Game 3 is about as big of a tossup as you can get. Kenny Rogers didn’t face the Yankees this season, but had a solid season, and amazingly did not push any cameramen. He’s a lefty nibbler who has had pretty good control and a good HR rate but doesn’t have much stuff. I think the Yankees could light him up.
Unfortunately, with Randy Johnson opposing him, they may have to. Johnson’s got a herniated disk and had an epidural to relieve the pain he was feeling. In some ways, the fact that there is a physical explanation for Johnson’s recent struggles is encouraging. The problem is if the epidural was done too late to rectify it. Johnson supposedly had a good BP session and is on target to pitch this game. He could be great, or he could be shelled. Hopefully the Yanks are up 2-0 when he pitches.
Johnson’s had an odd season. If you look at his component ERA (3.80), he’s been solid. The problem he’s had is the hits and walks and HRs he’s allowed have not come scattered, but tend to come in bunches, something ignored when looking a pitcher’s peripherals. This is very likely a manifestation of his health issues, and probably likely to continue.
If Game 4 is needed, it’ll be Jeremy Bonderman vs. Jaret Wright. If Game 4 is needed, the Yankees may be in trouble. Bonderman’s another guy with a lot of talent who has tired in the season’s homestretch, but he’s a lot better than Wright.
That’s a little harsh-sounding on Wright, who did a serviceable job this season and ended up a touch about average. His peripherals indicate that it’s not likely to continue, but he was an important part of the rotation this season and was useful, even if he’s a bit painful to watch at times.
And if Game 5 is needed, it’ll be a rematch of Game 1.
So the Yankees seem to have a slight edge in the starting pitching with 3 out of 5 matchups being favorable, which is a bit surprising honestly. How about the bullpen?
Joel Zumaya has been dominant out of Detroit’s pen, but that below average walk rate seems to scream out as an advantage for the Yankees. Baseball Info Solutions rated him as the hardest throwing pitcher in baseball, with an average fastball velocity of 98 MPH.
Fernando Rodney’s been pretty solid as well. His season has been remarkably similar to Scott Proctor’s, minus 20 appearances.
It’s a rare bullpen where the closer is probably the third or fourth worst option, but that’s where Todd Jones sits.
The Tigers also have two solid lefties in Jamie Walker and Wil Ledezma, who will be used in key spots to try and neutralize the Giambi/Abreu/Matsui/Cano/Damon contingent, which makes it imperative for Joe Torre to keep the lefties as separated as possible in the lineup. Zach Miner and Jason Grilli will round out the pen. Despite appearing in the chart above, Andrew Miller will not be a part of Detroit’s bullpen.
The Detroit pen as listed above (minus Miller) has held opposing hitters to a line of .230/.308/.350, and saved 44 runs above average. This is the biggest strength on the team, and their only statistical advantage over the Yankees.
The Yankee bullpen starts and ends at the top, with Mariano Rivera. He appears to be healthy heading into the postseason, and he has had a lot of rest and has proclaimed that he is ready to do whatever is needed (pitch on back-to-back days, pitch two innings). He may have to, because the bridge to him is shaky.
Scott Proctor had a great season as the most used reliever in the American League(holy crap, Salomon Torres pitched in 94 games???). At this point, he’s probably the Yankees second best reliever as long as he’s got some juice left in his arm. Proctor pitched in 16 games in September, and pitched well, posting a 1.65 ERA over 16.1 innings, walking 3, and fanning 14, so if he’s tired, it’s not showing.
Someone on the Nomaas discussion board has coined Kyle Farnsworth “It is high, it is Far-nsworth”. I can’t disagree with that. At times he’s unhittable, at other times he scares the crap out of me. While I don’t think his past post-season results indicate some inability to pitch in the playoffs, I think his general inconsistency might. I guess we’ll find out, but I’m not looking forward to it.
Brian Bruney brings a great fastball and bad command as the fourth RHP in the pen. Thankfully, patience is not a strength of the Tigers.
The Yankee pen is rounded out with Ron Villone, who had a great first half that led to many(including yours truly) whining about his lack of use, and an awful August and September that led to the same many (including yours truly) whining about him being used all the time. I think he’s on the roster as more of a reward for a solid half season, and less in a role where he’ll be expected to get many key outs. Detroit’s heavily right-handed, so the Yankees don’t need to worry about platoon advantages when they have Mike Myers on hand. Myers had a reverse platoon split this year, but I’m not ready to think that those 132 batters faced are more meaningful than the 2008 he had faced prior to this season. He’ll likely be asked to come in to get Sean Casey or Curtis Granderson out, and that’s about it. Cory Lidle will sit in the pen as well, in case any of the starters gets bombed.
All these numbers seem to indicate a classic mismatch. I’m not ready to go that far. Detroit’s a good team in a great baseball town. They led arguably the toughest division in baseball almost all season. They’re not just the team that went 26-30 over their last 56 games, they’re also the team that went 71-35 over their first 106.
This is an organization that lost 119 games just three seasons ago. Their turnaround has been remarkable and a credit to all involved. I think they can beat the Yankees, and I wouldn’t take them lightly. A great defensive team loaded with hard throwers can beat anyone if things break right.
But I don’t think they will. Yankees in four.
Peter Abraham posted the Game 1 lineup on his fine blog.
Johnny Damon CF
Derek Jeter SS
Bobby Abreu RF
Gary Sheffield 1B
Jason Giambi DH
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Hideki Matsui LF
Jorge Posada C
Robinson Cano 2B
Rodriguez 6th? Interesting.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Yankees.com: Torre sets postseason roster
NEW YORK—Joe Torre settled on his 25-man roster for the American League Division Series, choosing Andy Phillips and Miguel Cairo to round out his bench.
In addition, Torre announced that Brian Bruney would be the final man in the bullpen, as the Yankees will take 11 pitchers into the opening round of the postseason.
New York will take seven infielders (Gary Sheffield, Jason Giambi, Robinson Cano, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Cairo and Phillips), two catchers (Jorge Posada and Sal Fasano) and five outfielders (Hideki Matsui, Johnny Damon, Bobby Abreu, Bernie Williams and Melky Cabrera).
The 11 pitchers will be Chien-Ming Wang, Mike Mussina, Randy Johnson, Jaret Wright, Cory Lidle, Ron Villone, Bruney, Mike Myers, Scott Proctor, Kyle Farnsworth and Mariano Rivera. If Johnson’s back injury causes him to miss his Game 3 start, the Yankees would leave him off the roster and add either Jeff Karstens, Darrell Rasner or Sean Henn.
The decision to take Phillips as the backup first baseman over Craig Wilson or Aaron Guiel had as much to do with Phillips’ ability to play second and third base as his defense at first.
“We felt Phillips gave us the defense at first base,” Torre said. “Plus, in the event we want to use Cairo as a pinch-runner, we have a backup infielder who can play third, second or first.”
I can’t say have much issue with any of the choices. While I’d rather see them take 10 pitchers and add Aaron Guiel or Craig Wilson, given Johnson’s uncertain status taking 11 pitchers is the safer move.
Update: I saw this posted on Baseball Think Factory and thought it was interesting.
Another update: Since the batting race is the hot topic of the day, I’ll keep the table below updated in real-time.
| Player | Today | AVG |
|---|---|---|
 | 2-4 | .347 |
 | 1-5 | .343 |
 | 2-4 | .342 |
Monday, September 25, 2006
Picking the Postseason roster
I didn’t get to see much of this weekend’s debacle against Tampa. The lack of offense in the last two games is a little worrisome, but I’d imagine the Yankees are just going through the motions, with the notable exception of Robinson Cano, who continues to just rake. On the season Cano is now hitting .341/.365/.519. Recent defensive improvement has pushed him to a # on the season. He’s still not walking, and it’s doubtful he’s a true talent .341 hitter, but even if he were to hit .320 while maintaining everything else, he’d be at .320/.344/.499. For a second baseman, that’s pretty damn good, especially one who’s average or slightly above defensively.
Cano needs a total of 19 PA over the team’s remaining 7 games to qualify for the batting title, although Joe Mauer seems to be making it a moot point. Cano’s averaging a bit over 4 PA a game, so he can probably afford to sit one or two games out towards the end if necessary.
We know the Yankees can hit, so the offense is not as troubling as the starting pitching. Randy Johnson continued a bad string of starts on Saturday, and Mike Mussina wasn’t much better yesterday, although he was a victim of some bad defense. I saw bits and pieces of the games thanks to TiVO and thought Gary Sheffield looked decent at first aside from one play yesterday, although he still seems to be unsure about when to let Cano take plays that are between them. Visually he looks rangy enough and he’s a better thrower than Jason Giambi (then again, who isn’t?), but he still has some learning to do. I don’t know that he can get there in seven games, but I guess if the Yankees carry Craig Wilson and Aaron Guiel on the postseason roster they’ll have the people to take him out for defense in the later innings if needed. FWIW, Sheffield’s zone rating is 1.000 so far, so he hasn’t missed any plays that he’d be expected to make as far as zone rating, although that doesn’t include any throws from other infielders.
Mussina took a ball off his hand and now has a bruised thumb to deal with. He’ll get one more start to show us that he’s not something to be worried about. I see no way the Yankees can’t start Chien-Ming Wang in the first game of the playoffs now, especially if they have home field advantage in the first round.
The best news was the healthy return of Mariano Rivera, who threw a good inning on Friday. The plan now is to get him to pitch in at least one set of back-to-back games, but he should be good to go. Ron Villone is not regressing towards his mean, he blew past that point and probably does not belong on the postseason roster. While having two lefties would be nice, if one can’t get anyone out, what’s the point?
Speaking of the postseason roster, here’s how I see it now. First, the near-locks.
Pitchers (8)
Wang
Mussina
Johnson
Rivera
Proctor
Farnsworth
Myers
Wright
Catchers (2)
Posada
Fasano
Infielders (4)
Cano
Jeter
Giambi
Rodriguez
Outfielders (5)
Damon
Abreu
Melky
Matsui
Bernie
If Villone doesn’t go, I don’t think the Yankees should take more than 10 pitchers. I’d add Brian Bruney and Darrell Rasner. Rasner can give the team innings as a long reliever if needed. Odds are that if Lidle is healthy he’d either take the Rasner spot, or be the 11th pitcher, but time’s running out for him.
For backup infielders, I’d add Miguel Cairo and Andy Phillips. I know Cairo can’t hit, but he’s solid defensively at all four positions. Some people may prefer Nick Green in this spot, but he’s hitting .186/.264/.283 on the season (yes, games played for teams other than the Yankees do count). Phillips is probably the best defensive 1B on the team, and could fill in at third and second in a pinch. He also has a little pop of the bench, even though he’s not a good hitter.
Adding two pitchers and two infielders brings the roster up to 23, which leaves two spots left. One will probably go to Gary Sheffield unless he fails to start hitting or his defense at first becomes an issue. That leaves the last spot to either Craig Wilson or Aaron Guiel. Guiel’s been better than Wilson as a Yankee, and gives them a little more defensive flexibility (he can play all 3 OF positions and first base). Wilson would have the capacity to serve as a third catcher in an emergency, but if it gets to that point the Yankees have pretty big problems. I suppose you could argue Wilson over Phillips, and assume you don’t need two backup infielders. Wilson would be nice as a lefty masher, but Bernie Williams is going to be on the postseason roster and can fill that role as well.
So, my 25 man postseason roster would be:
Pitchers (10)
Wang
Mussina
Johnson
Rivera
Proctor
Farnsworth
Myers
Wright
Bruney
Rasner
Catchers (2)
Posada
Fasano
Infielders (6)
Cano
Jeter
Giambi
Rodriguez
Cairo
Phillips
Outfielders (7)
Damon
Abreu
Melky
Matsui
Bernie
Sheffield
Guiel
Thursday, September 21, 2006
2006: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
With the Yankees clinching the division and with the postseason starting in two weeks, it’s a good time to reflect on the season and what they accomplished. A lot of the commenters already got the ball rolling on this in the previous entry. I did this last year and it was enjoyable for me, so I figured I’d run through it again for 2006.
Too often we as Yankee fans discount the regular season and the difficulty of reaching this point. Granted, the Yankees have the financial advantage to put
themselves in a favorable position to reach the postseason every season, but that should not take away from getting there. When the Yankees lost two All Star outfielders early in the season, players like Bernie Williams and Melky Cabrera stepped in, and filled in well. Bernie’s nothing like he used to be, and his defense is pretty awful, but he did provide some offense and prevented the team from needing to gut their farm system in a trade, although they eventually picked up Bobby Abreu in a salary dump. Abreu’s arrival has been huge.
Scott Proctor’s development from a talented but erratic hard-thrower to a resilient and valuable setup man was another one of the treats to watch this season, as was Robinson Cano’s development into an offensive stalwart at second base. After what looked like the start of his decline phase, Jorge Posada bounced back with a solid season, and has arguably been the second most valuable catcher in the AL this season. Derek Jeter has a statistical case as the AL MVP, and other players like Jason Giambi and Alex Rodriguez all had their moments (besides SI articles).
As much as Joe Torre’s tactical decisions and bullpen management can be questioned at times, there’s no doubt his team respects him and he manages his clubhouse and the media well. That is valuable, even if we can’t quantify it. Let’s just hope he lays off Proctor for a few days now after his recent stretch of 7 appearances in 10 days. He won’t get much credit for it, but Larry Bowa coached the hell out of third base this season. I can’t think of any bad sends from him off the top of my head. It also appears he’s helped Robinson Cano find more defensive consistency, as Cano has been a @ defensively this season by ZR and been more sure-handed. Tony Peña apparently made a big difference in Jorge Posada’s throwing this season too, as Posada has his best defensive season in a long time. It’s tough to know how much of the Yankee staff’s ERA this season can be attributed to new pitching coach Ron Guidry and bullpen coach Joe Kerrigan, but the staff ranks fifth in the league in ERA at 4.40, compared to their ninth place ranking last season at 4.52.
To the games. I’m sure I’ll miss some in here so by all means pipe in.
April 4: The Yankees open the season in style, mauling Oakland 15-2. Randy Johnson pitched well, and Alex Rodriguez’s second inning grand slam made the game a laugher from the start.
April 11: Trailing 7-4 in the bottom of the eighth, the Yankees rallied for five runs, topped off by a Derek Jeter 3 run HR, beating Kansas City 9-7 at the Stadium.
May 8: The Yankees get mauled at home by the Red Sox, 14-3. Red Sox Nation throws a premature victory parade.
May 16: This was probably the game of the season. Shawn Chacon got shelled, giving up 8 runs in 1.1 innings, and the Yankees trailed 9-0 heading into the bottom of the second. The Yanks scored in the second, but Texas answered right back in the third off Aaron Small. Trailing 10-1, the Yankees scored two in the bottom of the third, two in the bottom of the fifth, and then six in the bottom of the sixth to take an 11-10 lead. Scott Proctor gave the lead right back by allowing two runs in the top of the seventh, but a Jorge Posada sacrifice fly tied the game. Rod Barajas drove in the go-ahead run in the top of the ninth against Mariano Rivera, making it 13-12 Texas. Johnny Damon led off the bottom of the ninth with a single. Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez both made outs, and then Jorge Posada hit a game-winning two run HR.
May 20: Trailing the “best team in New York” by four entering the ninth, the Yankees rallied for four runs to tie off the Mets’ closer, Billy Wagner. Andy Phillips drove in the go-ahead run in the top of the 11th, while Mariano Rivera pitched two scoreless innings, allowing one hit and fanning four toget the win.
May 20: Kyle Farnsworth couldn’t hold a 6-5 eighth inning lead against Detroit, but Mariano Rivera pitched three brilliant innings, needing just 25 pitches. Contrast that to Farnsworth’s eighth inning which also required 25 pitches. Jason Giambi’s 11th inning HR led the way to a five run rally, and an 11-6 win in Detroit.
June 7: Chien-Ming Wang outdueled Dave Pauley over seven innings, scattering eight hits and allowing just one run. Manny Ramirez’s bid for a game-tying homer was robbed on a leaping catch by Melky Cabrera in the top of the eighth, and Melky-mania was in full swing. Mo closed out the 2-1 win over the Red Sox with five pitches in a perfect ninth.
June 13: More Wang, as he held the potent offense of the Cleveland Indians to five hits and no runs over 7.1 innings, in a 1-0 pitcher’s duel with Paul Byrd. Yeah, that Paul Byrd.
June 17: Possibly the worst loss of the year. Shawn Chacon again failed to give the team innings, and the Yankees gave up five runs over the seventh and eighth innings, turning a 9-6 lead into an 11-9 loss.
June 18: Actually, this loss was probably worse. With Rivera unavailable, and Torre still not fond of Ron Villone (he made up for this, didn’t he?), the Yankees took a 2-1 lead into the bottom of the ninth. With Villone the annointed closer not even warming up, Chien-Ming Wang got an out and then gave up the game-winning two run HR to Ryan Zimmerman on his 107th pitch of the game.
June 25: I love a good pitcher’s duel, and this one between Dontrelle Willis and Mike Mussina was a treat. Moose allowed one run over seven innings, and the Yankees edged Florida 2-1.
June 28: The unclutch Alex Rodriguez hits a two-run HR in the bottom of the twelfth inning, turning a 3-2 deficit into a 4-3 win over Atlanta.
July 4: I’m not sure what was worse, Shawn Chacon’s one inning of seven run ball, or T.J. Beam’s 2/3 of an inning of six run ball. Either way, it all contributed to a 19-1 blowout by Cleveland at Jacobs Field.
July 14: The Yankees opened the second-half of the season in style, edging the White Sox 6-5. The White Sox made it scary in the ninth scoring two runs and putting the tying run on third. Mariano Rivera got the better of A.J. Pierzynski after a long at bat, and the Yankees would go on to sweep the defending World Series champs at home.
July 18: Sidney Ponson’s lone useful Yankee appearance, as he pitched 6.2 innings, allowing four runs. Trailing 4-2 in the bottom of the ninth, the Yankees scratched out two runs. The bullpens traded zeros until the bottom of the 11th, when Melky Cabrera hit a walkoff HR in the 5-4 win over Seattle.
July 20: The Yankees blew a 3-0 lead when Mike Mussina imploded in the sixth. They managed to tie the game in the eighth, but Vernon Wells hit a high cutter in a bad spot for the game winner of Mariano Rivera in the bottom of the 11th, as the Yankees lost to Toronto 5-4.
July 26: Scott Proctor has been a big part of the Yankees’ success this season, but he just didn’t have it in this game, combining with T.J. Beam to blow a 6-4 eighth inning lead in Texas. Shawn Chacon entered the game with the bases loaded and no outs and the Yankees trailing 7-6. Chacon got a big strikeout then a lineout into a double play. Jason Giambi hit a two-run HR in the top of the ninth to give the Yankees the 8-7 win.
Aug 8: A Joe Crede HR in the bottom of the eighth at US Cellular turned a 7-2 laugher into a 7-6 nail-biter. Mariano Rivera closed out the 7-6 win, although it was a bit more stressful than his typically style.
Aug 18 (Game 1): The first game of the 2006 Boston Massacre. Johnny Damon went 3 for 6 with 4 RBI, and Chien-Ming Wang gave the team six solid innings as they edged Boston 12-4.
Aug 18 (Game 2): In the nightcap, Sir Sidney’s final Yankee game went about as well as could be expected, as he did not make it out of fourth inning. Boston took a 10-7 lead in the bottom of the fifth. Then came the seventh inning.
Top 7th: NY Yankees
- C. Hansen relieved J. Tavarez
- R. Cano grounded out to shortstop
- J. Giambi hit for C. Wilson
- J. Giambi walked
- B. Williams singled to right, J. Giambi to second
- J. Posada hit for S. Fasano
- J. Posada singled to left, J. Giambi to third, B. Williams to second
- M. Timlin relieved C. Hansen
- M. Cabrera singled to right, J. Giambi scored, B. Williams to third, J. Posada to second
- J. Damon flied out to left
- D. Jeter doubled to deep right, J. Posada, B. Williams and M. Cabrera scored
- B. Abreu intentionally walked
- A. Rodriguez doubled to left, D. Jeter scored, B. Abreu to third
- R. Cano singled to right center, A. Rodriguez and B. Abreu scored
- J. Giambi popped out to shallow left center
7 runs, 6 hits, 0 errors
NY Yankees 14, Boston 10
Mariano gave up a solo HR to David Ortiz in the bottom of the ninth, but the Yanks held on for the 14-11 win.
Aug 19: Randy Johnson wasn’t particularly good, but Josh Beckett was far worse, and the Yankees rolled to a pretty easy 13-5 win.
Aug 20: This is probably the game that broke Boston’s back. Yankee nemesis Curt Schilling pitch seven strong innings, holding them to three runs, while Mike Mussina, Ron Villone, and Mike Myers gave up five. The Yankees managed to load the bases with no outs in the top of the eighth, and the Red Sox went to their closer, Jon Papelbon. Jason Giambi hit a sacrifice fly that was just a shade away from being a HR, and then Alex Rodriguez drew a walk, but Papelbon recovered to strike out Robinson Cano and Jorge Posada, preserving a 5-4 lead. Melky Cabrera led off the top of the ninth with a double. Papelbon threw a wild pitch that advanced Melky to third, then struck out Bernie Williams and Johnny Damon, bringing up Derek Jeter. Jeter took a strike, then singled to right to score the tying run. The game went to the 10th, and then Jason Giambi homered (his second of the game) to give the Yankees the lead. Jorge Posada added a two run HR for insurance, and the Yankees had an 8-5 win.
Aug 21: Having won the first four games in the series, the Yankees busted out the brooms, with Cory Lidle out-dueling David Wells in a 2-1 victory, effectively eliminating Boston from the AL East race.
Sep 4: Trailing Kansas City 5-1 in the eighth, the Yankees explode for 10 runs and win 12-5.
Sep 9: Chien-Ming Wang picks up his 17th win, out-dueling the feared Adam “Cy” Loewen in the process, as the Yankees win 3-2.
Sep 20: The Yankees lose to Toronto 3-2, but clinch the AL East when Minnesota beats Boston.
I’m sure I missed some along the way, so feel free to add to the list.
Now the Yankees have 10 games to experiment with Gary Sheffield at first base, to rest their pitchers and position players, and to set up their rotation for the first round of the playoffs. While home field advantage would be nice, being healthy heading into the postseason would probably be nicer. Mariano Rivera has made progress and is expected to make his return to the mound over the weekend. That seems like the last hurdle for the team to be at just about full strength heading into the postseason.
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