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Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Re-assessing the 2010 Yankees as of December 23, 2009

Since I last assessed the Yankees for 2010, they’ve added Nick Johnson to DH and Javier Vazquez to slot into the rotation, so it’s probably a good time to use my CAIRO projections and re-assess them.

Here's how the lineup and bench looks now.

Player Pos PA AVG/OBP/SLG BR Outs BRAR RS WAR
Derek Jeter SS 625 .307/.371/.425 84 393 29 -4 2.5
Nick Johnson DH 450 .271/.412/.418 65 265 10 0 1.0
Mark Teixeira 1b 670 .280/.379/.529 111 416 34 3 3.8
Alex Rodriguez 3b 605 .282/.389/.546 105 370 44 -4 4.0
Curtis Granderson CF 625 .257/.338/.462 87 414 26 5 3.1
Jorge Posada C 425 .266/.352/.455 58 276 21 -5 1.6
Robinson Cano 2b 625 .311/.348/.494 90 407 30 -1 3.0
Nick Swisher RF 550 .235/.355/.444 74 355 16 0 1.6
Brett Gardner LF 500 .262/.348/.351 59 326 7 2 0.9
Starters Total 5075 .277/.365/.463 733 3221 217 -2 21.5
Player Pos PA AVG/OBP/SLG BR Outs BRAR RS WAR
Jamie Hoffmann RF 350 .242/.317/.359 35 239 -2 2 0.0
Juan Miranda 1b 300 .247/.331/.427 37 201 3 0 0.3
Francisco Cervelli C 250 .251/.322/.357 24 170 2 0 0.2
Ramiro Pena SS 225 .240/.301/.316 19 157 -1 0 -0.1
Reegie Corona 2b 167 .246/.325/.335 17 113 1 0 0.1
Bench Total 1292 .245/.319/.363 131 879 2 2 0.4
Player PA BR AVG/OBP/SLG Outs BRAR RS WAR
Team Total 6367 864 .270/.356/.442 4100 219 -1 21.9


BR: Absolute linear weights batting runs based on estimated playing time, not adjusted for position.
Outs: Outs made while batting. Team outs should add up to around 4100 over a full season.
BRAR: Batting runs above replacement level at position.
RS: Runs saved compared to average, using an average of zone rating and UZR pro-rated to projected playing time.
WAR: Wins above replacement (BRAR + RS).

I've held the playing time for the holdover starters constant to my last post, but the addition of Johnson and the subsequent increased PAs for the entire team, as well as more playing time for TSBG over Melky leads to the Yankee position players projecting to score about 21 more runs (from 843 to 864) than the team as of December 16 without Johnson. The defense is essentially unchanged, going from -2 to -1.

On the pitching side, there are two scenarios right now. One has Joba Chamberlain as the fifth starter and Phil Hughes in the pen, and the other has the converse. For now I'll assume that whomever loses the rotation spot battle isn't going to get any starts, so extra starts will go to the 6-8 pitchers.

With Joba in the rotation, the pitching staff looks like this:

Pitching Role IP H R ER HR BB HBP K RA ERA FIP RSAR WAR
CC Sabathia SP1 200 179 77 72 15 49 7 176 3.48 3.24 3.26 55 5.5
Javier Vazquez SP2 200 183 84 78 21 46 5 194 3.76 3.52 3.37 49 4.9
A.J. Burnett SP3 175 161 84 78 18 72 8 169 4.30 4.02 3.95 33 3.3
Andy Pettitte SP4 175 184 89 80 16 59 4 131 4.59 4.12 3.94 27 2.7
Joba Chamberlain SP5 151 151 79 70 15 66 8 140 4.71 4.19 4.11 21 2.1
Chad Gaudin SP6 50 48 28 26 5 22 2 41 5.04 4.64 4.30 5 0.5
Sergio Mitre SP7 40 50 25 22 5 10 2 24 5.70 4.87 4.37 1 0.1
Zachary McAllister SP8 40 48 26 23 5 15 0 21 5.87 5.12 4.73 0 0.0
Starter Total 1031 1004 492 449 98 338 0 897 4.30 3.92 3.68 192 19.2
Mariano Rivera CL 69 51 20 18 5 11 2 71 2.55 2.36 2.70 21 2.1
Phil Hughes SU 70 62 30 29 6 24 3 69 3.92 3.67 3.54 10 1.0
Damaso Marte SU 50 48 25 21 5 18 2 49 4.54 3.81 3.76 4 0.4
David Robertson MR 65 57 30 26 4 35 1 76 4.14 3.60 3.25 8 0.8
Alfredo Aceves MR 65 66 35 33 9 16 2 45 4.87 4.60 4.42 3 0.3
Mark Melancon MR 50 53 29 26 5 18 2 35 5.27 4.72 4.42 0 0.0
Edwar Ramirez LR 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 0 0.0
Kei Igawa LR 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 0 0.0
Ivan Nova LR 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 0 0.0
Reliever Total 369 337 170 153 34 123 12 345 4.14 3.74 3.64 46 4.6
Pitching Total 1400 1340 662 602 132 461 12 1242 4.25 3.87 3.67 238 23.8


RA: Runs allowed per nine innings
ERA: Earned runs allowed per nine innings
FIP: Fielding independent pitching
RSAR: Runs saved above replacement level
WAR: Wins above replacement level (RSAR divided by 10)

Flipping Hughes and Chamberlain looks like this:

Pitching Role IP H R ER HR BB HBP K RA ERA FIP RSAR WAR
CC Sabathia SP1 200 179 77 72 15 49 7 176 3.48 3.24 3.26 55 5.5
Javier Vazquez SP2 200 183 84 78 21 46 5 194 3.76 3.52 3.37 49 4.9
A.J. Burnett SP3 175 161 84 78 18 72 8 169 4.30 4.02 3.95 33 3.3
Andy Pettitte SP4 175 184 89 80 16 59 4 131 4.59 4.12 3.94 27 2.7
Phil Hughes SP5 151 147 82 77 14 58 7 126 4.89 4.59 4.06 22 2.2
Chad Gaudin SP6 50 48 28 26 5 22 2 41 5.04 4.64 4.30 5 0.5
Sergio Mitre SP7 40 50 25 22 5 10 2 24 5.70 4.87 4.37 1 0.1
Zachary McAllister SP8 40 48 26 23 5 15 0 21 5.87 5.12 4.73 0 0.0
Starter Total 1031 1001 495 456 97 330 0 883 4.32 3.98 3.68 193 19.3
Mariano Rivera CL 69 51 20 18 5 11 2 71 2.55 2.36 2.70 21 2.1
Joba Chamberlain SU 70 63 29 26 6 27 4 77 3.77 3.35 3.51 10 1.0
Damaso Marte SU 50 48 25 21 5 18 2 49 4.54 3.81 3.76 4 0.4
David Robertson MR 65 57 30 26 4 35 1 76 4.14 3.60 3.25 8 0.8
Alfredo Aceves MR 65 66 35 33 9 16 2 45 4.87 4.60 4.42 3 0.3
Mark Melancon MR 50 53 29 26 5 18 2 35 5.27 4.72 4.42 0 0.0
Edwar Ramirez LR 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 0 0.0
Kei Igawa LR 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 0 0.0
Ivan Nova LR 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 0 0.0
Reliever Total 369 338 168 151 35 126 12 353 4.11 3.68 3.63 45 4.5
Pitching Total 1400 1339 664 606 132 456 12 1236 4.27 3.90 3.66 239 23.9


Although Joba will be without innings limits this year, I restricted him to 151 to allow for a direct comparison with Hughes, who I believe will have an innings limit, although I'm guessing at the 151.

There is one key point about the pitching projections. Projection systems don't understand that player skill/talent is static and never changes. They incorrectly assume that a weighted average of the most recent seasons adjusted for context such as league, park and defense combined with regression towards the mean and adjusting for aging tells us more about a player than what that player may have done five or six years ago for a team. So even though Javier Vazquez projects to put up a nice 3.52 ERA, we know for a fact that he is going to have a 4.91 ERA in 2010 because that's what he did in 2004 for the same exact Yankee team in the same exact stadium against the same exact opposition he faced back then with the same exact pitching coach and the same exact defense behind him.

Anyway, I went a little conservative on the IP by the starters to account for the fact that expecting your entire rotation to stay healthy all season is not particularly realistic. In the Hughes rotation/Joba bullpen scenario, the Yankees' team would project to do this:
Component R WAR
Offense 864 21.9
Defense -1 -0.1
Starting Pitchers 495 19.3
Relief Pitchers 168 4.5
RS/RA 864-663 45.8
Pythagenpat wpct .623
W-L 101-61


And in the converse scenario, they'd project to do this:
Component R WAR
Offense 864 21.9
Defense -1 -0.1
Starting Pitchers 492 19.2
Relief Pitchers 170 4.6
RS/RA 864-661 45.7
Pythagenpat wpct .625
W-L 101-61


Last year's team projected to be about a 95 win team heading into the season, and although they won 103 games their Pythagenpat record was around 95-96 wins. So even though the Yankees have had a terrible offseason, they look like they're six wins better while costing no more than last year's team did. If they can find a league average LF they would pick up maybe one more win.

I'll sign up for terrible offseasons like this every year.

Update: Here's a more optimistic version of the position player depth chart:

Player Pos PA AVG/OBP/SLG BR Outs BRAR RS WAR
Derek Jeter SS 670 .307/.371/.425 90 421 31 -4 2.7
Nick Johnson DH 560 .271/.412/.418 81 329 13 0 1.3
Mark Teixeira 1b 670 .280/.379/.529 111 416 34 3 3.8
Alex Rodriguez 3b 605 .282/.389/.546 105 370 44 -4 4.0
Curtis Granderson CF 670 .257/.338/.462 93 444 28 6 3.4
Jorge Posada C 475 .266/.352/.455 65 308 23 -5 1.8
Robinson Cano 2b 650 .311/.348/.494 93 424 31 -1 3.1
Nick Swisher RF 620 .235/.355/.444 84 400 18 0 1.9
Brett Gardner LF 525 .262/.348/.351 62 342 7 3 1.0
Starters Total 5445 .276/.366/.461 784 3454 230 -2 22.8
Player Pos PA AVG/OBP/SLG BR Outs BRAR RS WAR
Jamie Hoffmann RF 300 .242/.317/.359 30 205 -2 2 0.0
Juan Miranda 1b 200 .247/.331/.427 25 134 2 0 0.2
Francisco Cervelli C 250 .251/.322/.357 24 170 2 0 0.2
Ramiro Pena SS 100 .240/.301/.316 8 70 -1 0 -0.1
Reegie Corona 2b 100 .246/.325/.335 10 67 0 0 0.0
Bench Total 950 .245/.320/.365 97 646 2 2 0.3
Player PA BR AVG/OBP/SLG Outs BRAR RS WAR
Team Total 6395 881 .271/.359/.446 4100 232 -1 23.1


--Posted at 10:29 am by SG / 137 Comments | - (205)


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