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.

Mark Teixeira's early season struggles

Posted by Chris H. at 7:00 pm 5 Responses »
May 242010

Mark Teixeira, the Yankees’ powerful first baseman, has been horrendous this season. As he slumped last month, hitting .136 while posting an anemic .559 OPS, many attributed his poor performance to historically identifiable early season struggles. “Tex always looks bad in April,” pursed through the lips of seemingly every Yankee fan as they attempted to process the slump.

Is such a statement all that true, though?

If we exclude this season’s numbers, Teixeira, for his career, has put together a .252/.352/.437 triple slash line in April. That’s not particularly terrible – many ballplayers would kill for a .789 OPS right out of the gate – and this notion that Teixeira is, historically, a slow starter has often been overemphasized in order to justify Teixeira’s ineffectiveness this year. The same also occurred last year, his first in New York, when Teixeira hit .200/.367/.361 in the first month of the season (his ensuing offensive rebound was then connected to the return of Alex Rodriguez).

If you subtract Teixeira’s rookie year in 2003 (and this year) from his career numbers, his April line increases significantly, improving to .260/.361/.449 – that’s an .810 OPS – which is hardly indicative of a negative historical trend. Saying otherwise makes for an easy explanation, though.

In reality, as a Yankee, Teixeira has been historically awful in April, posting a .166/.332/.311 line. So, over the past two years, yes, Teixeira has been terrible in that particular period. That is, without a doubt, the case. Outside of that, though, his performance in April was never written in stone. He could have had a great April this year, just as he did in 2008 and in 2006, and it would not have been a case of trend bucking. However, the April pattern seems to be becoming a legitimate, tangible trend now that he has donned the pinstripes. Why that is, exactly, is unclear.

Photo by Getty Images

Tagged with:

CC Sabathia's poor May

Posted by Chris H. at 5:00 pm No Responses »
May 242010

Last night, although CC Sabathia, the Yankees’ ace left-hander, gave up 6 runs – 5 of which were earned – against Johan Santana and the Mets, I don’t think I would say that such an outing was surprising, really. After a strong start in April – he posted a 3.38 FIP and struck out 7.27 per nine innings – CC has been unimpressive this May.

Prior to last night’s game, CC owned a May ERA of 3.86, however, that number was more of an illusion than a legitimate indication of what the big southpaw was doing with a baseball. His FIP – again, the numbers I am using were produced prior to last night’s game, as I am looking at why such an outing against the Mets was somewhat expected – stood at 5.93 and his xFIP was 4.48. CC had walked 2.45 batters per nine, which is not a bad figure, however, he was also not striking out many hitters as his strikeouts per nine was 5.26. On top of that, CC had given up 6 home runs, allowing for an abnormally high 2.10 home runs per nine. After facing Jason Bay last night, that number has obviously gone up. In fact, CC has now given up 8 homers in May, which is a career-high for him (he had never given up more than 7 home runs in a month in previous years).

So, in light of the way he was pitching this May prior to last night’s ballgame, the results against the Mets were not especially surprising. CC has had trouble locating his fastball all month, leaving too many pitches up in the zone – even when he struck hitters out last night, the ball was up – and that same issue was on display at Citi Field. If I had to pick a cause for the struggles, I think mechanics are probably the key culprit. Whatever the case may be, I am sure CC will right the ship, as he always does. One only wonders when that will be, though.

Photo by Getty Images

Tagged with:

Following Up on Phil

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 3:00 pm 2 Responses »
May 242010

In my post from Yesterday about Phil Hughes’ lack of non-fastball pitches, Steve H. of Mystique and Aura posed a good question:

Do you think this is a case where Posada calling pitches would actually be beneficial as opposed to Cervelli? Posada is extremely hard headed, and he might force Hughes to use the offspeed stuff more, while Cervelli may be a little more deferential to the pitchers and their game plan.

Obviously, this interested me so I decided to use Phil’s gamelogs section from Baseball Reference to see who caught Phil when and then went to Brooks Baseball’s pitch f/x section to see how well Hughes mixed his pitches with the two different catchers.

Hughes has eight starts this year. In four he’s thrown to Posada and in the other four, obviously, he’s thrown to Francisco Cervelli. Let’s start, as we often do, at the beginning…

Date: 4/15
Catcher: Posada
Number of Pitches: 108
Non FB Pitches (%): 20 (18%) 15 CB, 5 CH

D: 4/21
C: Posada
NOP: 101
NFBP (%): 14 (14) 14 CB

D: 4/27
C: Posada
NOP: 109
NFBP: 15 (14%) 15 CB

D: 5/2
C: Posada
NOP: 97
NFBP: 14 (14%) 11 CB, 3 CH

D: 5/7
C: Cervelli
NOP: 100
NFBP: 10 (10%) 9 CB, 1 CH

D: 5/12
C: Cervelli
NOP: 101
NFBP: 11 (11%) 11 CB

D: 5/17
C: Cervelli
NOP: 104
NFBP: 17 (16%) 14 CB, 3 CH

D: 5/22
C: Cervelli
NOP: 117
NFBP 10 (9%) 9 CB, 1 CH

After breaking it down individually, let’s add it all up.

On the season, Phil has thrown 415 pitches to Jorge Posada and 422 to Francisco Cervelli. Out of those pitches to Posada, 63 of them have been non-fastball pitches (15.18%). Of the pitches to Frankie Blue Eyes, only 48 (11.37%) have been non fastballs. His total for the season is 111 non-fastballs out of 837 pitches (13.26%)

It would seem Steve’s casual observation is right: when Posada was catching, Phil Hughes threw more curveballs and changeups. Now, this is a very elementary study. I didn’t adjust for the teams/batters Hughes faced. Perhaps those starts with Cervelli behind the dish, his last four starts, have featured teams that can be attacked with just a fastball. I’m also, so far, conducting this in a vacuum, comparing Phil to nobody. So, I’m going to look at CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Andy Pettitte, and Javier Vazquez to see their non-fastball percentages.

CC: 55.3 % non-fastball (includes sinkers, sliders, changeups, and curveballs)
A.J.: 25.1 % non-fastball (includes curves and changeups)
Andy: 20% non-fastball (includes curves and changeups)
Javy: 52.5% non-fastball (includes curves, sliders, changeups)

What we’ve seen with our eyes is definitely backed up by the numbers. Phil Hughes does not throw his non-fastball pitches nearly as much as his teammates. This problem also seems to be compounded when Francisco Cervelli is catching. If the two of them don’t start mixing pitches soon, Phil’s going to start to get hit around. That’s not going to be good for anybody.

Tagged with: ,

The Bright Side

Posted by Stephen R. at 1:00 pm No Responses »
May 242010

On Sunday, May 9, the Yankees had won 6 games in a row and had defeated the Red Sox in consecutive games in Fenway.  The club was 21-8 and sat a mere half game back of Tampa in the AL East. Since then, the Yankees have gone into a tailspin, losing 10 of their next 15 games.  They lost 3 of 4 in Detroit, won 2 of 3 against Minnesota, split a two game series with Boston, lost both games of a two game series with Tampa, and most recently lost 2 of 3 to the Mets.   The club now has a record of 26-18 and sits six games back of the white-hot Tampa Bay Rays.  The Red Sox are a mere two and a half games back.  That’s the bad news.  There are three, small bits of good news.

The first bit of good news is that the team gets a day off today.  For some fans, this is frustrating.  It would be nice to see them get back on the field and clobber an opponent and erase the memory of a bad two weeks.  It’s probably better for the team to have a day off.  Teixeira needs to get his head straight, Swisher could probably use the extra day off to rest his arm, and every day that passes is one day closer to Granderson returning and bumping the hated, loathed Randy Winn back to the bench.  I’d rather see the team play as few games as possible without the team at full strength.

While the team is resting today, Tampa rolls into Boston for a three game series.  Of the four possible outcomes (Tampa sweeps, Tampa wins 2-1, Boston wins 2-1, Boston sweeps), it’s hard to say which one is best for the Yankees.  It would be nice to gain ground on Tampa, but it would be very satisfying to see Boston fall further down the standings.  The pitching matchups are superb (Buchholz v. Davis, Lester v. Shields and Lackey v. Garza), so hopefully the games are intense and taxing.

Finally, the team has a rather advantageous schedule in the coming weeks.  On Tuesday, the Yankees travel to Minnesota to face the Twins in the new Target Field.  They will throw Burnett, Pettitte and Vazquez against Scott Baker, Francisco Liriano, who I will profile on Wednesday, and Nick Blackburn.  The Yankees have done well against the Twins in recent years and would have swept them last weekend if not for Mariano’s little meltdown.   Of course, nothing is guaranteed and the Twins are no pushover.  On Friday, the Yankees will return home for a seven game homestand against Cleveland and Baltimore.  As of today, the Yankees are scheduled to face Carmona, Huff, Masterson and probably Mitch Talbot.  With Sizemore on the DL and the team struggling to score runs, this series will be a good opportunity for the Yankees to pick up some wins.  After Baltimore, the team travels to Toronto and Baltimore for three games apiece, and then returns home to face Houston.  So, only 3 of the next 19 games the Yankees play will be against teams with winning records.  This soft portion of the schedule couldn’t have come at a better time.

Tagged with:

Time to Move Swish Up and Other Observations from the Mets' Series

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 11:00 am 3 Responses »
May 242010

I’m writing this at the height of frustration. CC hasn’t recorded an out in the 5th yet and the Yankees are down 6-0 against the Mets. Barring an awesome come back, they’ll drop the series. Before going on to other things, I’d like to say that this series reminds me of a similar series last year: the 2-1 series loss to the Nationals in June. Like they did for the last three games, the Yankees looked pretty flat and played some uninspired ball. After that series, the Yankees won all but three games in the rest of the month. They then reeled off an 18 win month in July, a 21 win August, and a 19 win September. Hopefully the same thing happens here.

Clearly, the team has hit a rough patch and it’s not looking pretty at all. It was bound to happen, as the Yankees hadn’t really hit a poor stretch until recently. Some of the pitchers (especially Phil Hughes) are coming back down to Earth, as are some of the hitters. Let’s start with Brett Gardner, who’s found himself batting second now that Nick Johnson is on the disabled list.

Since leaving Boston, Gardner is hitting .236/.311/.327/.639. This comes from a few things. One is simple regression. Gardner wasn’t going to continue his hot start. The second is possibly exposure at the top of the lineup. I think it’s time to move him down and let Nick Swisher bat second.

His new approach seems to be working well this year as he’s right around .300 with his batting average and still has a good IsoP (.230 going into last night’s game). The only thing that concerns me is that Swisher’s walk rate is down below 10% (career 13.9%). Right now, he’s making up for it with hits but when his .351 BABIP starts to correct itself down to his .279 career level, that’s going to change. Right now, Nick’s line drive percentage is ridiculously high at 25% so when that comes down, so will the BABIP and so will the batting average. Hopefully when that happens, Nick’s walk rate begins to climb back up. Regardless, he’s hitting well right now and Gardner isn’t. Swisher should be bumped up to second and Gardner should be back down in the bottom third of the order.

Now, time for some subjective observations from this series:

1. Mark Texieria looks absolutely lost. Maybe the karma from that Jolly Green Giant haircut is catching up to him. Is it time to move him down, too? Perhaps he and Cano could switch places until Tex straightens himself out.

2. Alex Rodriguez looks fine in general, but there still seems to be something just a liiiiiittle of with him. At least once a game, I find myself saying “Wow, he should crush that!” It also seemed that this weekend, A-Rod looked very bad on anything that was low, away, and offspeed.

3. It’s a shame Javier Vazquez had to leave the game on Friday night (I didn’t see it, I was busy playing in a 21-8 losing effort…we kept it close ’til the 4th, then fell apart…I was 2-3 with an RBI and a walk). Hopefully, he’s getting back on track and reels off some more good starts in a row.

4. He’s got a positive UZR mark right now, but Derek Jeter looks pretty poor on defense. He seems to be a step slower than he was last year. Oh well, there’s plenty of time for his defense to improve.

5. Curtis Granderson is in rehab games and should be back soon. His return will definitely help put some pop back in the lineup. When he gets back, this is what the lineup should look like:

1. Jeter SS
2. Swisher RF
3. Tex 1B or Cano 2B
4. A-Rod 3B
5. Cano 2B or Tex 1B
6. Granderson CF or LF
7. Miranda/Thames DH
8. Cervelli C
9. Gardner CF/LF

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