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Yanks bring back Chad Gaudin

Posted by Chris H. at 5:12 pm No Responses »
May 262010

How inevitable was this move? The Yankees have re-signed right-hander Chad Gaudin, who was recently released by the A’s, adding him to their bullpen as a long reliever. This is likely a reaction to the loss of Alfredo Aceves, as the reliever reaggravated a back injury yesterday that could ultimately lead to surgery. Presumably, Sergio Mitre will take over Aceves’ role in the bullpen with Gaudin supplanting Mitre. To be honest, while many are worried about the loss of Aceves, I don’t see the concern, at least not to the degree in which it is being discussed. While I get that he was a valuable piece to the bullpen last season, I suspect that Mitre could be as good in the same role. Then, Gaudin simply fills in as the long man/sixth starter. This, in my opinion, is not a huge problem, really.

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Discussion: The "Right Way" to Play the Game

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 3:00 pm 12 Responses »
May 262010

Allow me to steal a page from Moshe’s book and start a discussion.

Last night, during the top of the first inning, Al Lieter was saying what everyone always says about the Twins: They play good defense. Their pitchers throw strikes. And, of course, they have players that play the game the right way. In all my years of playing, watching, and following baseball, I still have no idea what this means.

This term is always used to describe players or teams who are okay-or-good-but-not-quite-great. Maybe they do one or two “little” things properly, but they’re not all around great players. So, I ask you, what’s playing the game the right way? The commentators will say that the team does a lot of bunting, or running, or employs a lot of hit-and-runs. One of those things–bunting–generally has a negative effect on a team (unless playing for exactly one run) so why is that right? Stealing can be good, but if it’s overused, it hurts the team as well. Hit and runs are rarely used as it is, and I don’t think there’s much value it in. Why is that right?

How come a guy like Alex Rodriguez–a complete player in every sense of the term–is never described as a guy who plays the game the right way? He hits for a good average, he works the count and takes walks, he obviously hits for power, he’s a fair defender with a strong arm, he’s a good base runner…so how come the commentators during games never say A-Rod’s a guy who plays the game the right way?

The Yankees, as a team, are also quite complete. They have good starters who generally strike guys out, they have a patient and powerful lineup (patience and power are most heavily correlated with run scoring), and they play decent defense. Yet, because they have a lot of stars who make a lot of money, they’ll never be praised for playing the game the “right way”. I can’t think of any other way a team should play.

Previewing Liriano

Posted by Stephen R. at 1:00 pm 2 Responses »
May 262010

cano pwning

After beginning the 2006 season in the bullpen, Francisco Liriano was converted back to a starter and promptly set the American League on fire like Sherman to the sea.  Over 121 innings Liriano posted a 2.16 ERA, an ERA+ of 208, a FIP of 2.55 and an xFIP of 2.35.  He struck out 144 batters, which gave him a K/9 of 10.7, and walked only 32, giving him a BB/9 of 2.4 and a K/BB ratio of 4.50.  Imagine how good the Twins would have been if he had been in the eighth inning!!1!.  I kid.  Liriano was worth 4.1 Wins Above Replacement in 2006, but had elbow pain in August and September and eventually went under the knife for Tommy John surgery in November.  Liriano missed the entire 2007 season and was inconsistent in both 2008 and 2009.  At times he showed flashes of dominance, but he was often very hittable and struggled with command.

2010 has been a different story.  While he hasn’t notched a 10.7 K/9, his numbers have been very impressive.  In eight starts and 52.2 innings, Liriano has an ERA of 3.25, having struck out 52 batters and walked 17.  Here is a log of his first eight outings, courtesy of Baseball Reference.

fl gamelog

As you can see, Liriano strung together several excellent outings in April before hitting a bit of a rough patch in May.  At .332, Liriano’s BABIP currently a bit higher than his career average of .313.  Like always, it pays to look at the underlying factors behind this before predicting regression.  His line drive rate is 20.5%, a point higher than his career average and two points higher than his 2009 results, but Liriano is also inducing 7% more groundballs than he did in 2009, leaving his fly ball percentage 10% points down at 31.5%.  One fluky aspect to Liriano’s 2010 campaign is his HR/FB ratio, which is currently an unsustainably low 4.3%.  Historically he has averaged 11.1%.  This explains why his FIP stands at 2.67 and his xFIP (which normalizes HR rate among other things), is 3.36.

In 2010, Liriano is stranding 75% of batters that get on base.  In his 2006 banner year, that number was an absurdly high 83.2%, and 2008 and 2009 that number dropped to 68% and 66%.  It’s difficult to know what to expect from him going forward, given that he’s only thrown 410 major league innings in his entire career, but it doesn’t seem unreasonable to expect his strand rate to be somewhere in the neighborhood of his 08-09 numbers, or slightly down from where it is now.  In short, Liriano should probably be giving up a few more home runs, but the help he gets from a correction in BABIP may negate the effect on his ERA.  At least, that’s what FIP and xFIP tell us.

Liriano is a three pitch pitcher who features a fastball, a slider and a changeup.  In 2010, his fastball has averaged 93.9 mph and in his last outing against Boston he dialed it up to 96 mph.  This is a marked difference from 2008 and 2009 when he averaged 90.0 mph and 91.5 mph, respectively, and may suggest that Liriano is just now fully recovered from  Tommy John surgery.  Liriano’s best pitch, from the perspective of Twins fans and Fangraphs’ Pitch Type Values chart, is his slider.   So far in 2010 he has thrown this pitch 31.0%,which is the fifth most of any pitcher in the major leagues this year, and would have represented the third highest percentage of all pitchers in 2009, behind Ryan Dempster and Brett Anderson.  In 2006, he threw his slider more than anyone else in the majors (min IP 100). There are some that argue that the slider is dangerous and hard on the arm, because of the supination of the wrist during release.  The Yankees often have their pitching prospects scrap their sliders and switch to curveballs, but it’s unclear as to whether they are doing so specifically because of the danger involved when throwing a slider or because Nardi Contreras simply loves curveballs.  Regardless, Liriano throws his slider an awful lot, and he is throwing it dangerously close to 2006 levels so far this year.

In Liriano, the Twins currently have a hard-throwing, groundball-generating strikeout artist.  It’s too early to say that Liriano is “back”, and it’s doubtful that he’ll ever get back to his absurd level of domination in 2006. He is, however, getting batters to chase pitches out of the zone at a rate higher than he did in 2006 and is clearly the best pitcher on the Twins right now.  The Yankees have their work cut out for them.  Given that he’s especially tough on lefties, now might be a good time to move Gardner down in the lineup and move Swisher into the two-hole.  Those bats have to start hitting soon.  It might as well be tonight.

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What Granderson's Return Means for the Lineup

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 11:00 am 1 Response »
May 262010

It will be a sight for sore eyes when Curtis Granderson returns to the New York Yankees on Friday. Not only did we miss Curtis’s affable nature and good charm, but we missed his baseball skills even more.

The first thing his return does is send someone off of the active roster. There are a few ways this can be played. Option number one is, well, quite literally an option. That is, Kevin Russo gets a pat on the backside and rides the shuttle back to Scranton. If I had to be on it, I’d say this is what’s going to happen. The second choice, one that some of you may be hoping for, is that Randy Winn gets Designated for Assignment and Kevin Russo and Ramiro Pena get to stick around as the bench guys. I wouldn’t count on this happening for a while. Winn definitely hasn’t done well, but as a veteran, he’ll likely get the benefit of the doubt and get at least one more chance to succeed or fail.

The second thing is that it recircularizes the lineup. While the lineup will still be lacking without Nick Johnson at DH or Jorge Posada at catcher, getting Grandy back in centerfield and back in the lineup makes the lineup one batter deeper than it has been in the recent past. Hopefully Granderson’s return coincides with Brett Gardner being dropped in the lineup. The only negative about Gardner being dropped and Swisher moving into the two spot is that the 5-7 batters (Cano and some order of Granderson/Miranda) would be left handed and I’m not sure Joe Girardi wants to do that. Either way, with Curtis Granderson in and one of Russo or Winn out, the Yankees lineup will certainly get a boost. They could sure use it.

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Let's play . . . 1 1/3?

Posted by Steve S. at 7:01 am 4 Responses »
May 262010

Last night’s Yanks-Twins contest was suspended heading to the top of the sixth and is scheduled to resume today, Wednesday at 5:05. The previously scheduled Wednesday game is to start at either 7:10 or 1/2 hour following the conclusion of the suspended game. For the regularly scheduled contest, Andy Pettitte will be pitching for New York and Francisco Liriano will be taking the mound for Minnesota. Depending on how things go in the first game, the Yanks will have a pitcher on standby who will be ready to go if they decide to make a roster move for the 2nd game, with Jon Albaladejo as the likely candidate. AJ Burnett can still qualify for a win, should the Yanks score in the top of the 6th.

All of this just strikes me as odd. Picking up a game mid stream is something I have trouble getting my arms around. For his part, manager Joe Girardi likes the rules change that allows teams to pick up tie games. He said this last night:

“I really like what baseball has done, where you don’t start over,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “It’s not the end of the world. We’ll start in the sixth inning.”

I’m not so sure. This is just the second time the Yanks have ever done this since the bizarre ‘Pine Tar Game’ of July 24th, 1983, with the other contest being a 1.5 inning affair in 2007 that the Great Mariano seemed to have a lot of trouble getting up for (h/t Larry Koestler). Picking up a game mid stream is one of the more bizarre things you’ll ever see as a Baseball fan. A reliever will start/resume the game, in the Yanks case it will probably be one of their Lefties since three of the first four Twins batters will be left handed. But the usual cadence of a Baseball game seems completely interrupted, and it takes me a few innings to get settled in. I understand why managers like it, it’s less work for their team during an otherwise long season. I don’t like that the stats count, because rain shortened games are usually played under such poor conditions for the most/all of the game that the rain-soaked numbers seem compromised to me.

What do you think? Do you like this rule that allows rain-shorted games to be resumed at the time of the delay, or does it feel weird to you?

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