IMPORTANT BLOG ANNOUNCEMENT

PLEASE CHANGE YOUR BOOKMARKS AND FEEDS TO THE NEW URL, YANKEEANALYSTS.COM. TYU IS IN NO WAY AFFILIATED WITH THE NEW YORK YANKEES OR YANKEES UNIVERSE.

Discussion: Do Yanks Trade For Javy If They Know About Phil?

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 3:00 pm 6 Responses »
May 132010


I was having a discussion this morning with @NYBD on twitter, and he raised an interesting question that I wanted to pose to you: if the Yankees had known that Phil Hughes would be as good as he has been thus far, would they have made the move for Javier Vazquez? To elaborate, let’s assume that Hughes finishes the year with 14-16 wins and an ERA below 4.00. If you had guaranteed to Brian Cashman that Hughes would turn in that sort of season, would he have felt it necessary to bring in Javier Vazquez and relinquish Arodys Vizcaino? Or would he have allowed Hughes to be the 4th starter and gone with Joba Chamberlain or possibly Alfredo Aceves at #5?

I happen to think that Vazquez would be a Yankee no matter what the Yankees expected out of Hughes. The allure of Vazquez had a lot less to do with his sub-3.00 ERA in the NL last year and a lot more to do with the fact that he is practically a lock for 200 league average innings every year. With Hughes on an innings limit, Andy Pettitte aging, and the two horses at the front of the rotation having thrown a lot of innings last year, Vazquez represented a quality insurance policy against injury. Having 200 guaranteed innings in the rotation is something that takes a lot of pressure off the GM, and the quality level of Phil’s 170 innings does not really impact those considerations.

Conversely, one could argue that Cashman made the move with the playoffs in mind. After being forced to use just 3 starters in last year’s postseason, Brian wanted to assure that he would have 4 solid starters come playoff time. Under this angle of reasoning, Hughes stepping up and becoming a reliable rotation member might have precluded a move for a veteran such as Vazquez. A playoff rotation with Sabathia, Burnett, Pettitte, and an effective Hughes would be more than adequate, and would probably make the Yankees the favorite in any playoff series. If the move was made with the playoffs as the primary consideration, then Hughes’ emergence might have rendered it moot.

I lean towards the belief that the move would have been made regardless of the emergence of Phil Hughes as a strong starter. How about you?

Tagged with: , , ,

What Was Different For Javy Yesterday?

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 1:00 pm 5 Responses »
May 132010

Let’s take a look at Javy’s pitch types and results from his starts up to yesterday, and then compare yesterday’s outing:

Season up to yesterday (courtesy of texasleaguers.com)

Yesterday

Looking at each pitch, a few things jump off the page.

Going into yesterday, Javy had thrown four seam fastballs just 35.6% of the time, and was not throwing it past anybody. He had a startlingly low 7.2% whiff rate on the pitch, meaning that the fastball was quite easy to make contact with. By contrast, he threw more fastballs yesterday (46.9%) and got a significantly higher whiff rate (22.2%), contributing to his being able to notch far more fastballs for strikes. Considering that his velocity remained in the 88-91 range, his location on the pitch was likely the difference yesterday, as he threw it with confidence and hit his spots.

His change was not working particularly well yesterday, as the whiff rate on it was down and it was put into play an a startling 47% of the time. However, the curve seemed to be freezing hitters, as he threw it for strikes 75% of the time despite a low whiff rate. As you can see, hitters swung at the pitch at a rate of just 31.3%, suggesting that they were caught looking for something else a number of times. Finally, the slider looked better across the board as well, with the whiff percentage up significantly and few of them being put into play.

Yesterday’s performance does not erase Javy’s poor start, nor does it guarantee that he is going to continue to improve. But there were some good signs there, with his command and confidence in his fastball and the sharp nature of his breaking pitches being chief among them. He had 16 swinging strikes yesterday after compiling just 41 in his 5 previous starts (or 8.2 per start), which indicates that his stuff was much more difficult to hit than it had been previously. It will be interesting to track his ability to avoid contact going forward, as it will be a vital element to a potential recovery.

Tagged with: , , ,

Thoughts on the Double Header and Looking at Runs Differently

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 11:00 am 8 Responses »
May 132010

As I wrote this, the Yankees took game number two of their double header against the Yankees and some things passed through my head during both games:

Vazquez on track?

It’s just one start, but Javy looked fantastic yesterday. If not for one “meh” inning, the game might still be going on. 7 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 7 K? I’ll take it every time. Hopefully, Javy builds from here and gets on a roll.

Hughes

What more can we say about this? Hughes has been stellar thus far. He did just about everything right last night. My favorite moment came when he struck out the side after allowing a leadoff double to Miguel Cabrera. Throwing 3-2 curves to Boesch and Avila was ballsy, but Hughes got away with it. I suspect he threw those pitches because those guys are young hitters and, hence, more likely to chase curves, even in a full count. That shows me that Phil and Frankie were thinking out there, and it paid off.

Jackson’s defense

Austin Jackson was great on defense yesterday. He’s very fast and appears to get good reads on the ball. He may not have made any fancy looking plays, but because of good reads and good speed, he didn’t need to.

Swisher hurt?

I can’t recall anything about it in the YES broadcast, but Joe Girardi said that Nick’s left bicep is sore and he may be “day-to-day”. Awesome.

Anyway, I’d like to divert this to a more “big picture” moment. In a simple Google search, I didn’t find anything like what I’m about to present. If I stole your idea, please let me know and I’ll give you your credit.

So, all of our runs allowed stats–ERA, RA, FIP, tRA, etc.–are all based on something rather intuitive: how may runs the pitcher gives up per nine innings. This is convenient because it normalizes the different innings pitchers throw and is pretty easy to understand.

However, in this day and age, we see very few nine inning games by pitchers. Frankly, I don’t really care about this. A lot of media people get up in arms about the lack of complete games in baseball (non-Halladay Division), but it doesn’t seem like a big deal to me. There are tons of reasons why there are fewer complete games (better/more patient hitters, middle IFs/C’s turning into power hitters, etc.), but that’s a post for another day.

Today’s standard seems to be 100 pitches. So, I’m proposing we start looking at how many runs (earned and unearned, like run average) a pitcher gives up per 100 pitches rather than per 9 innings. Let’s see how the Yankee starters perform in this “new” (it’s probably not new) category. For number of pitches, I’ll be relying on the Gamelogs section of Baseball Reference.

CC Sabathia:
Pitches: 687
Runs: 17
R/100P: 2.47
ERA: 3.04

A.J. Burnett:
Pitches: 720
Runs: 20
R/100P: 2.78
ERA: 3.40

Andy Pettitte:
Pitches: 589
Runs: 9
R/100P: 1.53 (!!)
ERA: 2.08

Javier Vazquez:
Pitches: 563
Runs: 27
R/100P: 4.80
ERA: 8.10

Phil Hughes:
Pitches: 619
Runs: 6
R/100P: 0.97 Damn!
ERA: 1.38

So, what do we see? Well, R/100P certainly makes Javier Vazquez look better. I’d guess that this is because 100 pitches is generally fewer than nine innings so it follows that a pitcher will allow fewer runs in a shorter amount of time.

Obviously, this isn’t perfect. It’s something that’s likely to overrate pitchers more than ERA will. However, I think it’s useful to look at because 100 pitches is something a pitcher is more likely to reach than nine innings is. Tomorrow, I’ll look at the ’09 Yankees and see how R/100P compared to ERA over a full season.

Tagged with: , , ,

Quick notes after a long day of Baseball

Posted by Steve S. at 7:03 am 6 Responses »
May 132010

-Phil Hughes is currently the best pitcher in the American League.

-Just what we needed. If Swisher needs a day off, then today’s afternoon matinee could feature an outfield of Brett Gardner, Randy Winn  and Greg Golson in what may very well be the weakest Yankee offensive outfield ever assembled. Doesn’t sound serious, though.

-Girardi weighed in on Mo’s question from yesterday, and it appears that Sergio Mitre will get the start on Sunday. That pushes Vazquez’s next starts to Monday against the Red Sox at the stadium, and Saturday against the Mets at Citifield. The Red Sox are a tough match up for Javy, but the Twins have some very tough lefty hitters as well. Neither would have been easy, so he’ll just need to build on yesterday’s performance.

-Alex’s slow start with his power numbers have led some to question whether or not he will challenge the all-time HR record after all. While I don’t want to make too much out of a few bad weeks, ones where he was admittedly banged up (knee) it’s always fair to question whether anyone can set an all-time record. They are by definition the rarest of rare events, and we all thought Ken Griffey Jr was going to chase history a few years back.

-Larry over at IATMS is wrapping up his terrific series on salary caps and why they don’t work in Baseball. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend reading all four parts for anyone who wants to get up to speed on the business of Baseball and the inner workings of the team-union issues. These issues will be very prominent when the current CBA expires next year.

-In other blog news, Rational Pastime is the best new Baseball blog I’ve seen in quite a while. It’s a general Baseball blog, but there’s loads of Yankee-related stuff for us pinstripe lovers. Check it out.

-For the folks who think Vazquez doesn’t have the stuff or heart to pitch in the AL, do you know who’s #2 on the active list for Strikeouts? Guess who. Some of that is durability to be sure, the only reason Moyer or Wakefield are on there is they’ve pitched for a very long time, they’ve never been big strikeout guys. Active Leader lists are typically filled with some great players and others who’ve simply hung around forever, which is why modern fans favor rate stats over these aggregate numbers. But it shows the kind of company he’s in, and how rare it is for someone to have the career he’s had. He’s also the fourth youngest out of the top 10, and the other three are named Johan Santana, CC Sabathia and Roy Halladay.

-Finally, the last section of the old Yankee Stadium was finally taken down over the weekend. If you look at the site from the elevated train tracks, you will now see nothing but debris and construction equipment.  On this occasion, I’d like to ask our readers for their remembrances of the old facility. Is there any one moment that stands out for you? For me, it was a July 17th, 1990 game where Bo Jackson hit 3 HRs and Deion Sanders hit an inside-the-parker in the same game, in what was an otherwise awful season for the Yanks. Maybe that one stands out for me because it was such a rare event in an otherwise forgettable stretch of teams. What’s yours?

Tagged with: , ,
© 2011 TYU Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha