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



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The Curious Case of Robinson Cano’s Defense in 2008
(85 Comments - 9/7/2008 2:25:39 pm)

NY Post: ‘FRAUD’ IS ‘JOBA’ THE NUT
(31 Comments - 9/5/2008 4:56:42 pm)

MLB Team Defense by Zone Rating through September 4, 2008
(99 Comments - 9/5/2008 2:51:47 pm)

Yankees (75-64) @ Rays (84-53), 7:10pm **Game Chatter**
(89 Comments - 9/5/2008 9:40:32 am)

Yankees (74-64) @ Rays (84-52), 7:10pm **Game Chatter**
(170 Comments - 9/4/2008 8:39:38 am)

tRA and the 2008 Yankees
(83 Comments - 9/4/2008 12:40:22 am)

Yankees (73-64) @ Rays (84-51), 7:10pm **Game Chatter**
(133 Comments - 9/3/2008 11:17:45 am)

Newsday - O’Brien: Chamberlain back today, will work out of bullpen
(33 Comments - 9/2/2008 5:26:24 pm)

NY Daily News: Yankees’ Minor League Report
(18 Comments - 9/2/2008 4:47:20 pm)

Yankees.com: Joba to face hitters in next rehab phase
(189 Comments - 9/1/2008 10:25:06 pm)

Player

 Current Projected
Brian Bruney
11 G
15 G
12 IP
16 IP
Dan Giese
11 G
15 G
21.7 IP
29 IP
Damaso Marte
5 G
7 G
4.7 IP
6 IP
Edwar Ramirez
37 G
49 G
40.7 IP
54 IP
Mariano Rivera
44 G
58 G
48.3 IP
64 IP
David Robertson
14 G
19 G
16.3 IP
22 IP
Jose Veras
38 G
50 G
38.7 IP
51 IP
Total
274 G
364 G
328.3 IP
435 IP
Look what people have to say about Larry Mahnken's commentary!

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Boring and predictable."
- No Guru No Method

"Are you the biggest idiot ever?"
- Randal

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

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

Friday, March 28, 2008

Looking Ahead to 2008 - Pitcher and Team Wrapup

We're finally through all the projections so it's time to look at what they mean. First up, here are the links to all the pieces for anyone who wants to get caught up.

Position Players
Looking Ahead to 2008 - Jorge Posada
Looking Ahead to 2008 - Jason Giambi
Looking Ahead to 2008 - Robinson Cano
Looking Ahead to 2008 - Derek Jeter
Looking Ahead to 2008 - Alex Rodriguez
Looking Ahead to 2008 - Johnny Damon
Looking Ahead to 2008 - Melky Cabrera
Looking Ahead to 2008 - Bobby Abreu
Looking Ahead to 2008 - Hideki Matsui
Looking Ahead to 2008 - The Bench

Pitchers
Looking Ahead to 2008 - Chien-Ming Wang
Looking Ahead to 2008 - Andy Pettitte
Looking Ahead to 2008 - Mike Mussina
Looking Ahead to 2008 - Phil Hughes
Looking Ahead to 2008 - Ian Kennedy
Looking Ahead to 2008 - Joba Chamberlain
Looking Ahead to 2008 - Mariano Rivera
Looking Ahead to 2008 - Kyle Farnsworth and LaTroy Hawkins
Looking Ahead to 2008 - The Rest of the Pen

If you've been keeping up with these you'll recall that I projected the position players and bench to score 938 runs in 2008 using estimated playing time and depth charts. I projected their defense to be about 13 runs below average. For the pitching, that's a little bit trickier, so I'm going to present two scenarios.

Scenario 1
In this scenario, I'm going to assume that everything that I think the Yankees are planning for falls into place fairly well. This is basically the best case scenario assuming everyone plays to their average projections and innings limits.

Starters IP H R ER FR HR BB SO ERA
Chien-Ming Wang 200 215 97 90 95 13 58 97 4.05
Andy Pettitte 200 220 103 94 98 19 62 137 4.25
Phil Hughes 160 152 78 72 77 16 57 129 4.07
Ian Kennedy 170 170 89 82 91 20 67 130 4.35
Mike Mussina 150 170 83 77 75 18 38 103 4.61
Joba ChamberlainS 100 94 47 43 45 11 33 99 3.90
Starters Total 980 1020 498 459 482 98 314 696 4.22
Relievers IP H R ER FR HR BB SO ERA
Mariano Rivera 70 64 24 22 23 4 15 60 2.88
Joba ChamberlainR 40 34 15 14 16 4 14 48 3.10
Kyle Farnsworth 60 57 30 28 31 7 25 55 4.19
LaTroy Hawkins 60 66 31 29 32 6 20 34 4.36
Chris Britton 40 39 19 18 20 5 13 31 3.99
Brian Bruney 40 39 23 22 24 5 23 33 4.88
Edwar Ramirez 40 37 20 18 19 5 18 44 4.12
Ross OhlendorfR 40 44 21 19 23 6 13 27 4.37
Jonathan Albaladejo 40 41 22 20 23 6 14 30 4.59
Scott Patterson 40 40 20 19 20 5 12 33 4.23
Relievers Total 470 461 226 209 231 53 169 396 4.01
IP H R ER FR HR BB SO ERA
Starters + Relievers 1450 1481 723 669 713 151 483 1092 4.15
Average 1450 1513 783 720 769 163 535 1070 4.47
Difference 0 -32 60 51 57 -12 -52 22 -0.32


FR in the table above is FIP(fielding independent pitching) runs allowed, which is an approximation of what the Yankee pitchers would allow with an average defense. You can probably move the innings around in the pen but most of the relievers project fairly closely to each other so it shouldn't make a ton of difference. In this scenario, the Yankees as a team would allow 723 runs in total, with the defense being responsible for about ten of them.

Scenario 2
Starters IP H R ER FR HR BB SO ERA
Chien-Ming Wang 180 193 87 81 86 12 52 87 4.05
Andy Pettitte 160 176 83 75 79 16 50 110 4.25
Phil Hughes 150 143 73 68 73 15 53 121 4.07
Ian Kennedy 150 150 78 73 80 17 59 115 4.35
Mike Mussina 150 170 83 77 75 18 38 103 4.61
Kei Igawa 100 111 62 58 62 17 36 73 5.26
Jeff Karstens 90 105 60 56 58 15 33 53 5.56
Joba ChamberlainS 70 65 33 30 31 8 23 69 3.90
Starters Total 1050 1113 560 518 544 118 344 731 4.44
Relievers IP H R ER FR HR BB SO ERA
Mariano Rivera 60 55 21 19 19 4 13 52 2.88
Joba ChamberlainR 30 25 11 10 12 3 11 36 3.10
Kyle Farnsworth 50 47 25 23 26 6 21 46 4.19
LaTroy Hawkins 50 55 26 24 27 5 17 29 4.36
Chris Britton 30 29 14 13 15 3 10 24 3.99
Brian Bruney 30 29 17 16 18 4 18 25 4.88
Edwar Ramirez 30 27 15 14 15 4 13 33 4.12
Ross OhlendorfR 30 33 16 15 18 4 10 20 4.37
Jonathan Albaladejo 30 31 16 15 17 4 11 22 4.59
Scott Patterson 30 30 15 14 15 4 9 25 4.23
Sean Henn 30 33 19 17 18 4 15 20 5.24
Relievers Total 400 396 196 182 199 45 147 331 4.09
IP H R ER FR HR BB SO ERA
Starters + Relievers 1450 1509 756 700 742 163 490 1063 4.34
Average 1450 1513 783 720 769 163 535 1070 4.47
Difference 0 -4 27 20 27 0 -45 -7 -0.12


Here the assumption is the Yankees lose some time from their penciled-in starters and have to give Igawa and Karstens 190 innings. Sean Henn makes an appearance in the pen as well and the better-projected relievers pitch a little less. It should be noted that any or all of the pitchers could also pitch worse than projected, so this is not exactly the worst-case scenario by any means. I'd consider this more of a realistic/likely scenario assuming average fortune with health and performance. Here the Yankees as a team allow 783 runs, with 14 of them due to the defense.

So we have a runs scored of 938, and two different runs allowed totals. I'll use Pythagenpat to estimate the Yankees' schedule-neutral winning percentage. Pythagenpat is a more accurate way to estimate a team's pythagorean winning percentage by using a custom exponent instead of either the standard 2 or slightly more accurate 1.83. The formula to get the custom exponent is (RS/G + RA/G)^.28. Then we take RS^custom exponent and divide by (RS^custom exponent + RA^custom exponent).

Scenario 1
Runs Scored: 938
Runs Allowed: 723
Exponent: 1.92
Pythagenpat%: .62
Neutral Schedule Wins: 101

Scenario 2
Runs Scored: 938
Runs Allowed: 783
Exponent: 1.94
Pythagenpat%: .59
Neutral Schedule Wins: 95

We're not quite done yet, because now we have to look at the strength of the Yankees' schedule. Thankfully someone already did this on a post related to my Diamond Mind projections on Baseball Think Factory.

The AL East minus the Yanks has an expected winning percentage of .523. If we use Bill James's log 5 method to calculate the Yankees' expected winning percentage over their AL East games we get a winning percentage of .598 for scenario 1 and a winning percentage of .568 for scenario 2. I'm going to assume the rest of the schedule is .500 which is probably lazy but should be close enough with the margin of error.

Scenario 1: .598*76 + .62* 86 = 98.7 wins
Scenario 2: .568*76 + .59* 86 = 93.8 wins

I'm going to assume that the Yankees' luck will fall somewhere between scenarios 1 and 2. Split the difference and they should end up at 96 wins. Of course this depends on the key players staying healthy and hitting their projections, but on paper this is a very good team. Let's hope they show it starting Monday. The long off-season is almost over. Thanks to everyone who's stopped by over the last few months. Writing the blog and having people read and comment makes the off-season go by much faster for me.

Update: My Hardball Times' season preview for the Yankees has been posted on their site today for anyone who wants to check it out. Link: Five Questions: New York Yankees

--Posted at 8:52 am by SG / 38 Comments | - (664)


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