Sunday, August 19, 2007
Heading West
A little over a week ago I went through the Yankee schedule through August 30 and concluded that the Yankees should be expected to go 10-10 or 11-9 over that stretch, using Bill James's Log5 method and the teams' winning percentages, both actual and pythagorean.| Date | Opp | W% | Pyth% | aW | aL | pW | pL |
| Fri, 8/10 | @Indians | 0.582 | 0.566 | 0.44 | 0.56 | 0.53 | 0.47 |
| Sat, 8/11 | @Indians | 0.582 | 0.566 | 0.44 | 0.56 | 0.53 | 0.47 |
| Sun, 8/12 | @Indians | 0.582 | 0.566 | 0.44 | 0.56 | 0.53 | 0.47 |
| Mon, 8/13 | Orioles | 0.449 | 0.483 | 0.59 | 0.41 | 0.63 | 0.37 |
| Tue, 8/14 | Orioles | 0.449 | 0.483 | 0.59 | 0.41 | 0.63 | 0.37 |
| Wed, 8/15 | Orioles | 0.449 | 0.483 | 0.59 | 0.41 | 0.63 | 0.37 |
| Thu, 8/16 | Tigers | 0.542 | 0.541 | 0.50 | 0.50 | 0.58 | 0.42 |
| Fri, 8/17 | Tigers | 0.542 | 0.541 | 0.50 | 0.50 | 0.58 | 0.42 |
| Sat, 8/18 | Tigers | 0.542 | 0.541 | 0.50 | 0.50 | 0.58 | 0.42 |
| Sun, 8/19 | Tigers | 0.542 | 0.541 | 0.50 | 0.50 | 0.58 | 0.42 |
| 5.1 | 4.9 | 5.8 | 4.2 | ||||
| Actual | 7 | 3 |
W%: Opponent's winning percentage
Pyth%: Opponent's pythagorean winning percentage
aW: Expected log5 wins based on actual winning percentage
aL: Expected log 5 losses based on actual winning percentage
pW: Expected log5 wins based on Pythagorean winning percentage
pL: Expected log 5 losses based on Pythagorean winning percentage
We're about halfway through that stretch now, and the Yankees went 7-3. We'd have expected them to go either 6-4 or 5-5 so they outplayed expectations by one or two games, which is good.
The next stretch will see seven road games and then three home games against Boston. Here's how Log5 says that stretch should play out.
| Date | Opp | W% | Pyth% | aW | aL | pW | pL |
| Mon, 8/20 | @Angels | 0.606 | 0.578 | 0.43 | 0.57 | 0.51 | 0.49 |
| Tue, 8/21 | @Angels | 0.606 | 0.578 | 0.43 | 0.57 | 0.51 | 0.49 |
| Wed, 8/22 | @Angels | 0.606 | 0.578 | 0.43 | 0.57 | 0.51 | 0.49 |
| Fri, 8/24 | @Tigers | 0.563 | 0.558 | 0.48 | 0.52 | 0.53 | 0.47 |
| Sat, 8/25 | @Tigers | 0.563 | 0.558 | 0.48 | 0.52 | 0.53 | 0.47 |
| Sun, 8/26 | @Tigers | 0.563 | 0.558 | 0.48 | 0.52 | 0.53 | 0.47 |
| Mon, 8/27 | @Tigers | 0.563 | 0.558 | 0.48 | 0.52 | 0.53 | 0.47 |
| Tue, 8/28 | Red Sox | 0.579 | 0.619 | 0.48 | 0.52 | 0.49 | 0.51 |
| Wed, 8/29 | Red Sox | 0.579 | 0.619 | 0.48 | 0.52 | 0.49 | 0.51 |
| Thu, 8/30 | Red Sox | 0.579 | 0.619 | 0.48 | 0.52 | 0.49 | 0.51 |
| 4.7 | 5.3 | 5.1 | 4.9 | ||||
| Actual | ? | ? |
Today's win was an important one, not just because of the win, but because some of the people who contributed. As I ran through on Saturday, the best version of the Yankee lineup has Wilson Betemit at first base, at least against righties. Betemit went two for five and drove in four runs in his bid to cement more playing time. Hopefully he gets it.
We all know how great Joba Chamberlain is already, but the question of who will be getting the innings he doesn't pitch is going to go a long way towards determing how the last 1/4 of the season goes. Edwar Ramirez has been great in his return from the minors. Joe Torre acknowledged that he did not use Ramirez properly in his first go-around, but he appears to be making amends towards that now.
All's not great, as Chien-Ming Wang was a little shaky, but it should be noted that Detroit is a strong offensive team and even if it wasn't pretty, it was six innings and three runs, which qualifies as a quality start. I'm still not sure Wang's completely healthy, but he's better than whomever would take his spot if he was hurt, so it's a moot point to think that he should be DL'ed right now.
The series coming up with the Angels is huge. If the Yankees can knock the Angels down a little, they can make the AL West a tight race and perhaps put themselves in a better position for the Wild card. Seattle and LA of A play each other seven times over the rest of the season, so that's four games the Yankees can pick up on one or the other. Since Seattle apparently has 40 games left against the Chicago White Sox, the Yankees can't wait for them to lose on their own. I know the common belief is that Seattle's not that good, but I think a blanket look at their run differential is going to give a false impression of them. They're a good team that's got blown out a few times. They're not going anywhere as far as I'm concerned.
Update: Someone emailed me asking about an MLE for Edwar. I posted one in a thread a while back, but here it is for those who may not have seen that. An MLE is a major league equivalency, which is a translation of a minor league performance to the majors. It's a tool that can be useful but has some limitations, because not all physical talent translates the same across leagues.
| Team | Last | First | Year | Org | MERA | G | IP | H | ER | HR | BB | K |
| Trenton | Ramirez | Edwar | 2007 | NYA | 3.94 | 9 | 16.0 | 11 | 7 | 2 | 10 | 22 |
| Scranton | Ramirez | Edwar | 2007 | NYA | 2.31 | 25 | 39.0 | 26 | 10 | 1 | 16 | 49 |
| New York | Ramirez | Edwar | 2007 | NYA | 5.40 | 5 | 6.7 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 10 |
| Total | 3.06 | 39 | 61.7 | 41 | 21 | 4 | 31 | 81 |
I'd take a line like that from a setup guy.
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