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Mark Teixeira doesn't deserve your All-Star vote

Posted by Chris H. at 8:45 pm 7 Responses »
Jun 152010

With regards to this year’s All-Star voting, I absolutely refuse to vote for the slumping Mark Teixeira as the American League’s first baseman. Minnesota’s Justin Morneau, who, by about 200K votes, currently leads the voting at that position (at least as of yesterday), is a much more deserving candidate. For a quick comparison, Teixeira is hitting a paltry .229/.346/.392, while Morneau is hitting a Cano-like .350/.460/.636. Really, in terms of pure offensive output, there is no contest (KC’s Billy Butler deserves a nod before Teixeira does).

While we are all Yankee fans, I implore you – readers of this blog – to put aside blind fandom for a little while and vote inline with actual output (defensive and offensive). Mark Teixeira does not deserve to sniff the All-Star Game this season—not the way he’s swinging the bat. Justin Morneau does, however. In fact, he deserves to start and should represent the AL and its fans at first. I’m voting for him and you should, too.

Photo by Getty Images

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Andy Pettitte Is No All-Star

Posted by Stephen R. at 3:00 pm 45 Responses »
Jun 152010

Andy Pettitte is having a good year.  In 12 starts and 80 innings he has won 8 games and lost only 1, given up 24 earned runs, struck out 55 and walked 22.  He has an ERA of 2.46, a K/9 of 6.16 and a BB/9 of 2.46.  Whether it is because of the low ERA or the visually appealing win-loss record, some Yankee fans have deemed Pettitte the Yankees’ best starter and have called for him to be considered for the All-Star game this year.  With all due respect to Pettitte, and to his many fans (myself included), this would be a mistake.

Let’s get the stats out of the way. Pettitte’s ERA is artificially low.  His BABIP is a career-low .256 and his FIP is 3.73.  His batted ball data is right in line with past results, so it’s not as if he is suddenly generating weaker contact.  One thing that is slightly out of line with past results is his HR/FB ratio is 8%, slightly off his career average of 9.8%.  His strand rate of 82% is even more out of whack with his career average of 71%.  As a result, Pettitte’s xFIP stands at 4.08. What does this mean? It means that the statistics that give us the better indications of how well a pitcher did at controlling the things he can control tell us that Pettitte has pitched like a 3.75-4.00 ERA pitcher.  Are xFIP and FIP the end-all determinant of the quality of a pitcher?  Is having a top-8 FIP a requirement for inclusion into the All-Star Game?  Obviously not.  But FIP and xFIP can give us a better indication of how well Pettitte has truly done so far this year, provided you keep in mind the vagaries of small sample sizes.

Contextualizing Pettitte’s year in terms of advanced data and comparing him to other AL starters leads me to conclude that while he is having a great year so far, he doesn’t belong in the All-Star Game. In the American League in 2010, 13 pitchers have a better FIP than Andy Pettitte.  Leading the way is Cliff Lee with a 1.92 (albeit in a smaller sample than others), and behind him is Francisco Liriano with a 2.09 and one young Phil Hughes with 2.89.  If you prefer xFIP, 17 pitchers have a superior xFIP to Pettitte in 2010, including Phil Hughes with 3.69 and CC Sabathia with 3.92.  Leading the way is Francisco Liriano (2.94), followed by Cliff Lee (3.01) and Ricky Romero (3.21).

So where does this leave us with Pettitte?  Mike Axisa of RiverAveBlues looked at his start to the season and concluded the following:

“Pettitte ripped a page out of the 1997 playbook this year and has been the Yanks’ best and most consistent starter…You don’t expect him to keep performing this well, but the season is close to 40% complete, and he just keeps doing it. Season totals of a .256 BABIP and 82.1% LOB% tell us to expect a regression, but I get the sense that we might be waiting a while. Sometimes unexplainable things happen to extraordinary players, which Pettitte certainly is.”

As Mike notes, regression is likely with Pettitte, but he is still having an incredible year.  Pitching to the 14th best FIP in the American League is no small task.  The fact that Pettitte is doing it at his age, after the career he has had, makes it all the more impressive. Expecting some regression as the year progresses should not diminish a full appreciation of his 2010 season and his career in general.  But Pettitte is not an ace for the Yankees this year, and he clearly he isn’t the Yankees best starter this year either.  The Yankees’ best starter has been Phil Hughes, and if anyone should represent the team at the All-Star Game this year, it should be him.

For the record, I would pick the following pitchers to fill out the 13 man staff:

SPs: Francisco Liriano (starter), Cliff Lee, Ricky Romero, James Shields, Jon Lester, Felix Hernandez, Jered Weaver and Phil Hughes.

RPs: Neftali Feliz, Joakim Soria, Mariano Rivera, Rafael Soriano and Jonathan Papelbon

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Where Each Yankee Ranks, By WAR

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 1:00 pm No Responses »
Jun 152010

Now that the Yankees are back in first place following their sweep of the Astros, it seems as if we have reached a good point to reflect upon what has happened on the field thus far. I thought it might be interesting to look at where each player ranks at his position in terms of WAR, to try and gauge who is performing well relative to the league and who might need to step up his play. Note that WAR is a counting stat, so that injuries will hurt a player’s total, and that WAR is subject to the statistical noise created by a small sample size of UZR.

C) Jorge Posada: 7th in MLB with 1.4 WAR, leader is Olivo at 2.6.

1B) Mark Teixeira: 24th with 0.6 WAR, leader is Mourneau at 4.1.

2B) Robinson Cano: 1st with 3.8 WAR, 2nd is Phillips at 2.4.

SS) Derek Jeter: 2nd with 2.0 WAR, leader is Tulowitzki at 2.1.

3B) Alex Rodriguez: 8th with 1.8 WAR, leader is Longoria/Zimmerman at 3.1.

RF) Nick Swisher: 8th with 2.2 WAR, leader is Torres at 2.8.

CF) Curtis Granderson: 21st with 1.0 WAR, leader is Rios at 3.4.

LF) Brett Gardner: 8th at 1.6, leader is Crawford at 2.9.

DH) Marcus Thames/Nick Johnson: combine for 0.2 WAR. Leader is Guerrero at 2.0.

Notes: On the positive side, Swisher is right there with the leaders in right, and is actually 2nd in the sport in terms of offensive output from a right fielder. Considering the time that he spent on the D.L., Posada’s total is quite impressive as well. Gardner has been quite good, and Jeter’s numbers are down but are still better than almost anybody else’s at short. And what more can be said about Robbie Cano?

From a more negative point of view, Teixeira has been awful, and A-Rod could stand to improve as well. The DH spot has been a black hole for a while, and Granderson’s injury and ineffectiveness have hurt the Yankees in the outfield.

P1) Phil Hughes: 11th in MLB with 2.2 WAR, leader is Halladay at 3.9.

P2) Andy Pettitte: 36th with 1.5 WAR.

P3) AJ Burnett: 73rd with 1.1 WAR.

P4) CC Sabathia: 85th with 1.0 WAR.

P5) Javier Vazquez: 279th with 0.1 WAR.

Notes: You have to love that Phil Hughes is right there among the league leaders, as is elder statesman Andy Pettitte. AJ Burnett has been solid but not great, and CC Sabathia has been disappointing. Both have been second half pitchers in recent years, so I would expect them to move up this leaderboard as the claendar turns from spring to summer. Vazquez’ stats have been torpedoed by his awful start, and will need to pitch like a Cy Young candidate from here on to put up the kind of year many expected from him.

RP1) Joba Chamberlain: 13th at 0.9 WAR, leader is Broxton at 1.8.

RP2) Mariano Rivera: 36th at 0.6 WAR.

Notes: The tiny sample size for relievers at this point of the season tends to skew these rankings, but I included them simply to display that Joba Chamberlain has actually been pretty good. He’s had a handful of poor outings, but he is keeping the ball in the park and is missing bats. If he keeps doing those things, his ERA will begin to reflect his strong peripherals.

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Baseball and Soccer

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 11:00 am 2 Responses »
Jun 152010

I am not a big soccer fan. I don’t follow the MLS in any way, shape or form. I don’t put the time and/or energy into following a team from the English Premier League or La Liga in Spain or Seire A in Italy. Yet, every four years, I fall in love with the World Cup. Maybe I get drawn in by the fact that almost everyone else in the world loves it. Maybe I get drawn in by the fact that those games seem like a proverbial Game Seven either time. Maybe I get drawn in by the fact that it only happens once every four years. Whatever the reason, I find the World Cup fascinating. Perhaps, I thought to myself while driving home from work, I should not be focusing on the event itself, but rather the sport of soccer itself.

During my drive home from work yesterday evening, I was listening to Michael Kay’s radio show and caught the extreme tail end of a discussion he was having with a phone-in guest about soccer. Nevermind what Kay said about his dislike of soccer for a moment and allow me to explore my mind and figure out why I like soccer (at least once every four years).

As you could probably guess, baseball is my favorite sport. So, of course, I’m going to compare soccer to that gold standard and see how it matches up. Obviously, they’re rather different in many ways: number of men on the field, time keeping, which parts of the body to use, etc. Instead of focusing on the differences, though, I thought I’d focus on the similarities. Well, maybe similarities is being too generous. There’s one big similarity I’d like to touch on, and see if you agree.

The knock we hear on soccer a lot–and we hear it about baseball sometimes, too–is that it’s too boring and there’s not enough scoring. I, for one, don’t think a lack of scoring indicates boringness. Rather, it brings out a similarity with baseball that I think we all enjoy: baseball is as much about the anticipation as it is the action. Before every pitch hits the bat or the catcher’s glove, our minds can run through an infinite amount of possibilities as to where that ball will end up. Similarly, every time a player’s foot winds back in an attempt to strike the ball, the feeling of anticipation builds. Will the ball find the back of the net? Will the keeper stop it? Will it be deflected? The excitement that goes into that simple movement of the lower half of the leg is unique. And, because of the relatively low scoring nature of soccer (I think), the kick becomes that much more exciting. I liken that kick to the instant before the ball hits the bat. Anything can happen.

At the end of the day, that feeling of anticipation and unending possibility is what draws us in to any sport. With soccer and baseball, though, I feel it most.

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