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.
Page 1 of 1 pages: