Sunday, October 11, 2009
Yankees (103-59) @ Twins (87-76), Sunday, October 11, 2009, 7:07pm **Game Chatter**
Lineups
Minnesota Twins
Denard Span, CF (.312/.387/.417, 3.9 WAR)
Orlando Cabrera, SS (.283/.313/.385, 0.2 WAR)
Joe Mauer, C (.364/.442/.586, 6.9 WAR)
Michael Cuddyer, 1B (.276/.342/.520, 1.3 WAR)
Jason Kubel, RF (.300/.369/.535, 2.7 WAR)
Delmon Young, LF (.285/.307/.428, -0.8 WAR)
Brendan Harris, 3B (.262/.307/.363, -0.9 WAR)
Jose Morales, DH (.316/.386/.368, 0.0 WAR)
Nick Punto, 2B (.228/.326/.285, 0.8 WAR)
Total, (.293/.354/.445, 14.1 WAR)
New York Yankees
Derek Jeter, SS (.334/.404/.465, 5.7 WAR)
Johnny Damon, LF (.282/.364/.489, 3.1 WAR)
Mark Teixeira, 1B (.292/.383/.565, 4.7 WAR)
Alex Rodriguez, 3B (.286/.402/.532, 3.5 WAR)
Hideki Matsui, DH (.274/.366/.509, 1.9 WAR)
Jorge Posada, C (.285/.363/.522, 1.3 WAR)
Robinson Cano, 2B (.320/.352/.520, 3.5 WAR)
Nick Swisher, RF (.249/.369/.498, 3.0 WAR)
Melky Cabrera, CF (.274/.333/.416, 0.9 WAR)
Total, (.291/.372/.502, 27.6 WAR)
Yankee Win Probability: 63.4%
With what seems like a commanding 2-0 lead in the ALDS, the Yankees have a chance to advance to the ALCS with a victory today. They’ll be sending Andy Pettitte out to try and wrap up the series against former Yankee Carl Pavano.
By the time the 2009 All Star Break arrived, Pettitte had started 18 games and hadn’t really pitched all that well. He had an ERA of 4.85 (FIP of 4.99). Opponents hit .283/.352/.443 against him during the first half. He walked around 3.6 people per nine innings while striking out around 5.8.
Since the break, he’s been a completely different pitcher. He’s got an ERA of 3.31 (FIP of 3.29), and opponents hit .226/.296/.326 against him. His BB/9 dropped to 3.3 while his K rate spike to 8.1 per 9. Overall, it was a fine season for Pettitte after a somewhat disappointing 2008.
Pavano’s tenure in pinstripes was an unmitigated disaster, as injuries held him to 26 starts over four seasons, compared to 33 starts this season alone. All for the bargain price of $40 million.
I’m not sure why, but I really don’t hate Pavano like a lot of Yankee fans do. Maybe it’s because I am skeptical that he was faking being hurt. If he was, the Yankees would surely have filed a grievance, wouldn’t they? It was pretty clearly a bad signing at the time it was made, but is that something to blame Pavano for, or is that something to blame the Yankee front office for? Regardless, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t enjoy seeing the Yankees knock him out of the game in the first inning by putting up a ten spot.
Anyway, despite putting up a barely better than replacement-level 5.10 ERA this season between Minnesota and Cleveland, Pavano’s actually pitched ok. He had a FIP of 4.01, but was hurt by playing in front of two of the worst team defenses in MLB this year if you go by UZR, with the Twins at -36 and the Indians at -34. Because of that, Pavano allowed a BABIP of .335 this season, compared to .312 in his career. Pavano’s velocity is essentially what it has been throughout his career according to the data at Fangraphs, but one thing he’s doing differently this year is throwing his changeup more frequently (23.1% of the time compared to 15.6% career). The only AL pitcher who had a better BB/9 rate this year amongst ERA qualifiers was Roy Halladay.
All that being said, he’s probably not as good as his FIP says he is, although his HR/FB rate isn’t fluky either so he hasn’t been particularly lucky in that regard. CAIRO thinks he’s closer to that 5.10 ERA than his 4.00 FIP. But he has pitched well against the Yankees in two starts this year, with a 2.70 ERA in 13.1 IP, with 1 BB and 8 Ks. Of course that doesn’t really tell us anything more about him than his overall line does due to the small sample size.
The Yankees paid Pavano $40 million and got something like 0.4 wins above replacement out of it. That works out to around $100M per marginal win. Considering the going rate is generally $4-5M, it’s safe to say that the Pavano deal wasn’t so good. So the Yankees probably lost something like $38M over the life of Pavano’s deal.
That is clearly not good for the business side of things. If the Yankees can win today, they advance to the ALCS. That means at least two more home games. The average ticket price for a Yankee ALDS game this year is around $170 according to Stubhub. NYS holds about 52,325 if we included standing room. If we bump up the average ticket price to $200 for the ALCS and assume they sell $20 of concessions/merchandise per person, that means two more home games add $10.4M in revenue. And if the Yankees then go on to the World Series, they’d get at least another two home games and probably add even more than that.
In theory, a win today could give the Yankees eight more postseason games at home, and a total revenue of $92M additional dollars. That not only pays for the Pavano contract, it pays for Tony Womack and Jaret Wright too!
Making money is important. The Yankees can’t make more money if they don’t advance to the ALCS. That makes tonight’s game mega-important. Quite frankly, the entire financial future of the Yankees is at stake.
Go Yankees.
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