The Yankees may not be long for first place. After all, their second-best pitcher is a 38-year-old reclamation project and the only regular they have hitting better than .280 is Robinson Cano at a whopping .284. Come to think of it, this team has no business being in first. Perhaps it's just force of habit. I'll just savor it for as long as it lasts…maybe I should pull an all-nighter.
32 replies on “What Goes Around…”
OMG, it’s SO OBNOXIOUS!
I’m kidding, of course. May the best team win.
Nice! At least they’re actually in first!
It’s awfully nice being the underdogs who aren’t supposed to win. And Bart Colon is one nasty man.
To be fair, Bartolo would be a lot of teams’ 2nd best pitcher.
“To be fair, Bartolo would be a lot of teams’ 2nd best pitcher.”
If this team is relying on him for that, they’ll be done the first week of October, if not before.
“…they’ll be done the first week of October, if not before.”
I would be very surprised if this team is not done by the first week of October. Seriously. I don’t think they stink – they clearly don’t – and they may give others a good run for the wild card. They may even win it. But they do not have what it takes to go deep into the post-season, at least not now. Can effective-Colon last them until Hughes returns? Can Hughes return healthy and effective? Can they make a move come July to land a strong starter (will there even be one on the market??)? When you are relying on that many very big “if”s I think you are unlikely to go far. But hey, they are hanging in for now and on most nights are fun to watch.
What is intriguing is that the Sox have no business being in first either (they aren’t, so I guess all is right). Crawford has been famously terrible, Pedroia has been mediocre at the dish, Drew awful (his awfulness has been lost in this recent stretch of goodness), the catching spot is the catching spot, their #4, #5 starters are both out, their best setup guy has been mediocre at best and their setup-setup guy (Jenks) and another guy expected to get innings (Wheeler) have both been so awful as to not be worthy of adjectives of any sort.
This is what makes their recent run that much more intriguing: they haven’t really all been in sync.
It has been one weird season.
Yeah SF – it is interesting. This may simply be the pessimistic-fan in me (some fans’s bias is reflected in seeing only roses when they assess their team – my bias more often manifests itself in the anxiety of seeing pit falls around every corner), but the difference to me btween the two teams (or at least, one difference) is that I believe most of the parts of the Sox that are currently poor or mediocre are underperforming and likely to improve, with the possible exception of C.
Crawford has never been a major OBP guy, but there is no way at all in any universe that he remains anywhere near his current .267 OBP. I see no reason for Pedroia to remain where he is unless he is hurt. Drew I have less of a feel for – he is older and maybe he is declining.
When I look at the Yankees, I have trouble seeing their starting rotation continue as well as it has been to-date unless Hughes comes back strong AND they land another starter mid-season. I think it will at best stay where it is and more likely decline.
I do get more optimistic when I look at the offense. I know BA is not everything and can in fact be misleading, but that NO regulars are hitting north of .285 seems to me something that simply won’t last. On the whole, the offense simply doesn’t worry me, even with jeter’s woes and the black hole known as Jorge Posada. A-Rod could simply have an off-year, and that would drag alot of other things down. But on the whole I expect the bats to be fine.
I just think this starting pitching is really performing on borrowed time.
In other words, i see the Sox as underfperforming to their potential in many aspects of the game. I see the Yanks doing about as well as they can do when I balance out the likelihood that they will bang out some more hits and runs with the likelihood that they will also give up a lot more.
Oh, and I forgot about Scutaro (who was ably replaced by Lowrie for a couple of weeks until Lowrie started facing more righties and then has basically stunk since then). Cameron has been awful, MacDonald a non-factor. And Lester has been nothing like Lester of the past couple few years.
Yuck, the more I think about this the more the Sox are really just smoke and mirrors! Egads!
SF – I think the right thing for our underperforming, crappy teams to do is simply resign from the 2011 season and let Toronto have a crack at contending for once.
The thing I was wondering, from on offensive standpoint, is what we are hitting on the season with RISP. I tried to look it up on baseball reference but I am no Paul and couldn’t find what I was looking for…
My point is, like IH mentioned, our ENTIRE TEAM is hitting terribly from an AVG standpoint. We strand SO many runners that I wondered what our runs scored would look like if the team hit just a little bit better with RISP? How many games would have went from L’s to W’s?
This may be overly positive, especially coming from me, but maybe we are going to have one of those typical (not last year) Yankee second halfs where we win at like a .720 clip? I mean, a couple more hits here and there and those runners LOB become runs? Maybe? Please?
(not even mentioning the Mo/Soriano blown leads which currently stands at I think 8 games we lost?)
Yankees’ overall line: .253/.335/.447
Yankees with RISP: .246/.333/.436
With bases empty: .252/.345/.425
With runners on: .254/.322/.475
Pretty much even. Their tOPS+ (where 100 is the team average) in those splits is, respectively, 97, 98 and 102. It doesn’t look like they’re getting any particular good or bad luck from an overall standpoint.
Their “Clutch” number on Fangraphs is near the bottom, 26th out of 30. Clutch measures a team/player’s “clutchiness” based on WPA and WPA/LI and the number is derived based on the team/player’s overall performance (as opposed to league average or anything like that). So in that sense, it is possible that the Yankees, while not overall hitting any worse with RISP, are getting unlucky in how those hits and runners are distributed (driving them in when the game is already won or lost and stranding them when the game is close).
Krueg, the Yankees are batting .246 with RISP this season.
They generally do nicely when a man gets to 3rd (team BAs of .362; .394; and .378 respectively with a man on 3rd; men on 1st and 3rd; and bases loaded);
They have been horrible when guys get on 2nd base (team BA’s of .195; .180; .207 respectively with man on 2nd; men on 1st and 2nd; and men on 2nd and 3rd).
I should never cross-post statistic analysis with Paul. crawling away…
Thanks Paul. I never could have found all that info…
So if we are hitting .246 overall with RISP, what if we were hitting say .275? How many additional runs would that equate to? And since we are getting plenty of men on base, increasing that average should equate to more wins? My point being that if we can get that average up, we could be fine. Seeing that in spite of the “clutchiness” that is missing, we are still right around first place.
Ha, now SFs here want to play down expectations! One week later!
The Yankees were predicted to be a wild care team, by some, and that’s what they look like to me. Six years after Cashman got control they have yet to develop any starting pitching and they have Freddy Garcia and Bartolo Colon manning rotation slots in October. Awesome!
How much leverage is CC going to have this off-season? Is he going to be the first $30M/year pitcher? He’s twice the pitcher of Burnett (11.1
11.1 WAR for CC over the last 2+ years versus 3.2 WAR for Burnett in the same time frame.
If I’m CC’s agent, I’m demanding mucho money.
The problem with the Sox is they’re simply giving away outs at two positions (C, LF) and with out much of an upgrade in the offering for either. A down season from Crawford is exactly what we’re seeing (see 2008, like from Swisher too). Otherwise they’re in decent shape for October with a front three of Lester, Buchholz, and Beckett, assuming Beckett stays healthy (not a given).
The Yankees look a lot like the 2004-2007 teams. The offense to get to the post-season, but not enough pitching to do anything once there.
Yes. We were totally guilty of overconfidence and cockiness. Yeah, that’s us.
What’s next, calling Krueg a “special kind of optimist”?
The CC opt-out drama will indeed be interesting to watch. He is literally the only sure thing in a starting rotation of a team spending over $200 million in payroll. That’s just astonishing. I couldn’t care less how much money they would add to his deal to keep him – it’s the prospect of extra years that makes me queasy.
CC is one of, if not the healthiest pitcher in baseball. I have less concerns about him at an older age than any other pitcher, save perhaps Roy Halladay. Hopefully the Yankees feel the same way, and secretly break their rule about in-season negotiation. Sabathia is truly the Yankees’ most important (and irreplaceable) player.
What’s next, calling Krueg a “special kind of optimist”?
Awesome.
“Yes. We were totally guilty of overconfidence and cockiness. Yeah, that’s us.”
Who put up a giant red #1 when you were in second place? I also seem to remember projections on this site showing 103 wins for this year’s Sox team.
I notice that IronHorse a least used a “Humor” tag – prolly cause the Yankees are a giant joke! Any thing they do this year is a bonus. I’m freaking having to watch Bart Colon and Freddy Garcia.
CC is a big man. He will get what he wants. But no pitcher is worth $30M a year, not when a simple injury means they lose a quarter of their value.
By the way, it’s easy to crap on Swisher right now, but he’s a significantly better hitter than Crawford and he’s been more valuable than Drew over the last 2 plus seasons and for significantly fewer dollars.
So if we are hitting .246 overall with RISP, what if we were hitting say .275? How many additional runs would that equate to?
It would be an extra 12 hits. Assuming they were 1. all singles (unlikely) and 2. distributed evenly with the way the various at bats in those situations are distributed (even more unlikely), you would get this breakdown:
Runner on second only: 4
Runners on 1st and 2nd: 4
Runner on third only: 1
Runners on 1st and 3rd: 1
Runners on 2nd and 3rd: 1
Bases loaded: 1
If each single advanced each runner one base, you’d score four additional runs, but then you’d also have an additional opportunity to score more runs, and of course many singles will score a runner from second. If all the runners from second scored in this scenario, you’d have 14 extra runs. Split the difference, and you have nine. That’s probably a safe bet.
But hitting .275 with RISP would be pretty extraordinary in a league where the average team bats .251 in that scenario. Only Baltimore and Cleveland have averages that high.
The problem with the Sox is they’re simply giving away outs at two positions (C, LF) and with out much of an upgrade in the offering for either.
Well, don’t let facts get in your way. Just keep repeating the same thing over and over again. Maybe some day, it will turn out to be true.
“Well, don’t let facts get in your way.”
You mean like putting up a big ole #1 when you’re in second place?
Zing!
Ok, at least we have clarity with one of our posters here, who apparently cannot read and therefore identify the difference between the two SF authors at this site, who are distinguished by name.
This explains a lot, actually.
You mean like putting up a big ole #1 when you’re in second place?
The fact that you so clearly are the only one bothered by that is pretty amusing to me. Of course, you did notice that I actually acknowledged the facts in my post, right? I have yet to hear any acknowledgment of facts from you, however. Just repeating the same gibberish, over and over and over and…
By the way, this is the last time I’ll be clicking on this thread. Just want to be clear, in case you have any other great “zings” you were dying to get out there. :-)
thanks for the “what if” on hitting with risp paul…looks like the yankees aren’t far off the league average when it comes right down to it…the problem is that we expect, and rightfully so, more than just average from this team…it seems like they squander so many golden opportunities to score, but that’s maybe just the frustrated fan in me talking…
Thanks Paul. So they would have to hit considerably more for what I am thinking to play out, i.e. win more games with better offense.
I guess it all goes back to my 15-0 every game expectation. ;)
And for the record, the big red #1 post bothered me somewhat, but it is what it is. This site has certainly become much more rah-rah than it has been the last couple years so that’s better for YFSF. In spite of my sensitivities so it’s all good.
PS GO CANUCKS GO!!!
“the problem is that we expect, and rightfully so, more than just average from this team…it seems like they squander so many golden opportunities to score, but that’s maybe just the frustrated fan in me talking…”
Exactly. TOO much talent to hit .246. That’s why I thought maybe .275 but I really just pulled that number out of my ass. We just need some more “clutchiness”. And Ichiro.
PS GO CANUCKS GO!!!
Bob Sauve sucked d*gballs, I was at the game that Brad Park beat him in OT, greatest sports moment of my life in person (besides maybe Pedro pitching in Fenway at the ASG).
And Mike Foligno was a coward, utterly.
So there.
GO BRUINS!!!!
You are really dating yourself with those references SF…wow.
I’ve been to 3 Sabres games in Buffalo the last 3 years…all Sabres victories. :)