Sunday, May 18, 2008
Why The Yankees Are Losing
The chart below shows the Yankees' average projections pro-rated to their actual playing time this season on the left. On the right are the actual YTD performance.| Team | NYA | Proj | Actual | |||||||||||
| Starters | POS | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | BR | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | BR | Diff | ||
| Jorge Posada | C | 66 | .293 | .392 | .499 | 11 | 66 | .302 | .333 | .476 | 9 | -2 | ||
| Jason Giambi | 1B | 139 | .256 | .399 | .499 | 23 | 139 | .193 | .345 | .468 | 19 | -3 | ||
| Robinson Cano | 2B | 164 | .312 | .347 | .489 | 24 | 164 | .208 | .256 | .318 | 10 | -13 | ||
| Alex Rodriguez | 3B | 99 | .300 | .402 | .569 | 18 | 99 | .286 | .343 | .495 | 15 | -4 | ||
| Derek Jeter | SS | 163 | .318 | .388 | .463 | 25 | 163 | .314 | .346 | .431 | 20 | -5 | ||
| Johnny Damon | LF | 175 | .286 | .357 | .438 | 24 | 175 | .257 | .341 | .454 | 24 | 0 | ||
| Melky Cabrera | CF | 158 | .281 | .341 | .403 | 19 | 158 | .262 | .325 | .426 | 19 | 0 | ||
| Bobby Abreu | RF | 176 | .284 | .392 | .461 | 28 | 176 | .288 | .352 | .450 | 23 | -5 | ||
| Hideki Matsui | DH | 163 | .291 | .370 | .489 | 25 | 163 | .306 | .387 | .458 | 24 | -1 | ||
| Starters Total | 1303 | .292 | .373 | .471 | 197 | 1303 | .287 | .336 | .436 | 163 | -34 | |||
| Bench | POS | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | BR | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | BR | Diff | ||
| Shelley Duncan | 1B | 41 | .257 | .322 | .480 | 6 | 41 | .194 | .293 | .250 | 3 | -3 | ||
| Chad Moeller | C | 41 | .231 | .287 | .373 | 4 | 41 | .243 | .317 | .378 | 4 | 0 | ||
| Alberto Gonzalez | SS | 41 | .250 | .300 | .351 | 4 | 41 | .257 | .333 | .314 | 4 | 0 | ||
| Jose Molina | C | 84 | .250 | .287 | .375 | 8 | 84 | .203 | .220 | .304 | 5 | -4 | ||
| Chris Stewart | C | 3 | .250 | .300 | .375 | 0 | 3 | .000 | .000 | .000 | 0 | -1 | ||
| Morgan Ensberg | 3B | 76 | .261 | .368 | .467 | 11 | 76 | .214 | .276 | .257 | 4 | -7 | ||
| Wilson Betemit | SS | 27 | .265 | .338 | .443 | 4 | 27 | .269 | .296 | .462 | 3 | 0 | ||
| Bench Total | 313 | .256 | .316 | .410 | 36 | 313 | .233 | .275 | .308 | 22 | -14 | |||
| Team Total | 1616 | .285 | .362 | .459 | 233 | 1616 | .258 | .325 | .410 | 186 | -48 |
BR here are batting runs by linear weights (not position-adjusted or compared to average). Apart from Johnny Damon and Melky Cabrera, every Yankee starter has provided less offense than projected and overall the starters are 34 runs below their expectations. The bench has also significantly underperformed to the tune of 14 runs below expectations.
The Yankees are 48 runs below expectations even accounting for the injuries to Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada. That's five wins, and it at least partially explains why they are 20-23. If the offense had played as expected, they'd be 25-18, which is a 94 win pace and right around where they should have been. Offense is down in the AL by around 11% this season, but the Yankees are scoring 20% less frequently than expected so that's not the whole explanation.
The pitching and defense have not been the problem. The defense is below average but it was supposed to be. The pitching staff has been a little worse than average, but not egregiously so (-2 runs saved above average). It's the lack of offense that's killing this team. Unfortunately, I don't see any moves that can be done to fix that.
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