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Projection and Performance: The 2010 Yankees

Posted by Stephen R. at 1:00 pm 1 Response »
Jun 202010

Over the past two days I’ve reviewed how the Red Sox and the Rays have fared against their preseason CHONE projections.  I’ve also handed out some awards.  The “Baseball Isn’t Played on Spreadsheets” Award has gone to the player who has outperformed his projection in a significant way.  Adrian Beltre earned it for the Red Sox and Evan Longoria earned it for the Rays.  The other award is the “He Needs LASIK, a New Workout Regimen, a New Pitch/Stance, and/or To Get Into the Best Shape of His Life” Award and has gone to the player underperforming his CHONE projection.  John Lackey received it for the Red Sox and Carlos Pena received it for the Rays.  Today, we will look at our beloved Yankees.

OFFENSE

C – Francisco Cervelli. Projection: .257/.311/.376, 4 HR, 26 RBI.  Performance: .291/.376/.355, 0 HR, 29 RBI.

1B – Mark Teixeira.  Projection: .287/.375/.543, 34 HR, 112 RBI. Performance: .224/.343/.390, 10 HR, 38 RBI.

2B – Robinson Cano.  Projection: .305/.342/.496, 20 HR, 85 RBI. Performance: .367/.414/.610, 14 HR, 49 RBI.

SS – Derek Jeter.  Projection: .302/.373/.434, 14 HR, 70 RBI.  Performance: .280/.334/.419, 8 HR, 39 RBI.

3B – Alex Rodriguez.  Projection: .282/.383/.548, 34 HR, 106 RBI. Performance: .285/.356/.42, 8 HR, 44 RBI.

LF – Brett Gardner. Projection: .266/.351/.375, 3 HR, 30 RBI (note that CHONE only projected Gardner to have 357 ABs). Performance: .308/.393/.417, 3 HR, 22 RBI in 211 ABs.

CF – Curtis Granderson. Projection: .264/.342/.482, 26 HR, 70 RBI. Performance: .238/.319/.429, 5 HR, 18 RBI.

RF – Nick Swisher.  Projection: .242/.362/.459, 27 HR, 79 RBI. Performance: .294/.381/.511, 11 HR, 42 RBI.

DH/Util – Jorge Posada.  Projection: .262/.349/.453, 16 HR, 65 RBI. Performance: .291/.403/.552, 9 HR, 24 RBI.

STARTING PITCHERS

SP 1 – CC Sabathia.  Projection: 206 IP, 3.45 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, 177 K, 50 BB, 7.73 K/9, 2.18 BB/9.

Performance: 92 IP, 4.00 ERA, 1.213 WHIP, 76 K, 30 BB, 7.4 K/9, 2.9 BB/9.

SP 2 – AJ Burnett.  Projection: 181 IP, 4.33 ERA, 1.41 WHIP, 173 K, 80 BB, 8.60 K/9, 3.98 BB/9.

Performance: 87 IP, 4.33 ERA, 1.397 WHIP, 63 K, 33 BB, 6.5 K/9, 3.4 BB/9.

SP 3 – Andy Pettitte.  Projection: 183 IP, 4.28 ERA, 1.43 WHIP, 131 K, 66 B, 6.44 K/9, 3.25 BB/9.

Performance: 87 IP, 2.47 ERA, 1.111 WHIP, 62 K, 25 BB, 6.4 K/9, 2.6 BB/9.

SP 4 – Javier Vazquez. Projection: 196 IP, 3.72 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 182 K, 50 BB, 8.36 K/9, 2.30 BB/9.

Performance: 70 IP, 5.01 ERA, 1.286 WHIP, 62 K, 30 BB, 8.0 K/9, 3.9 BB/9.

SP 5 – Phil Hughes.  Projection: 116 IP, 4.03 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, 109 K, 41 BB, 8.46 K/9, 3.18 BB/9.

Performance: 75 IP, 3.11 ERA, 1.128 WHIP, 74 K, 22 BB, 8.8 K/9, 2.6 BB/9.  Them’s some Cy Young numbers.

Without further ado, the “Baseball Isn’t Played on Spreadsheets” Award goes to…

Robinson Cano!  With apologies to Nick Swisher, Cano has blown everyone out of the water this year and is the MVP of the Yankees thus far, with a legitimate claim to the AL MVP award.  Cano leads the Major Leagues in Wins Above Replacement, is 4th in the major leagues with a .436 wOBA, and has the second-highest SLG in baseball.  Cano has done a fantastic job providing on-base and power skills in a lineup chock full of underperformers.  He’s getting some help in the way of BABIP, as expected, but has improved his BB/K ratio and is showing some more power.  Generally speaking, the power has come from a higher conversion of fly balls to home runs than he’s gotten in the past.  It may not continue at this clip, but a .300/.400/.500 second baseman is still incredibly valuable.  It’s going to be a very fun couple of years as Robinson Cano steps into his prime.

The “He Needs LASIK, a New Workout Regimen, a New Pitch/Stance, and/or To Get Into the Best Shape of His Life” Award goes to…

Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez!  Now, Teixeira has been in a league of his own ineptitude this season. That’s not news to Yankees fans, and I’m not going to detail his failures.  I will simply note, by way of reference, the following reasons to expect improvement from Teixiera going forward: 1. Career low BABIP. 2. LD% largely in line with career norms. 3. Career low HR/FB ratio. I know that many authors have noted his troubles with offspeed pitches, and I’m certain that his problem is multifaceted.  But it is also good to keep in mind that he appears to be having a lousy time with things entirely out of his control.

Alex Rodriguez is having a bit of a down year as well.  His OPS is the lowest it’s been since he broke into the league with the Mariners and he only has 8 home runs.  Unlike Teixeira, Rodriguez’s BABIP of .309 doesn’t portend a batted balls correction in the future.  In fact, his decrease in OBP appears to be driven by a decrease in his walk percentage, down 6% from 2009 and 2% from his career average.  He’s striking out less than he has in the past, which is a positive sign, but does appear to be chasing balls outside the zone more often.  The one piece of good news for ARod, if you could call it good news, is that his HR/FB% is 11%, a solid 12% lower than his career average.  While we are almost halfway through the year, it’s good to keep in mind that 250-300 ABs is not a large enough sample to draw statistical conclusions. Flukes happen, and it wouldn’t be at all surprising to see things start to go ARod’s way again.

In sum, Teixeira and Rodriguez’s performances have been causes for concern but no need to panic.  The negative impact of their 2010 performance has been mitigated by the career year of Robinson Cano.  If the Yankees can get all three of these guys going at the same time, then AL East beware.

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Some perspective on the Yankee offensive woes

Posted by Steve S. at 10:07 am 4 Responses »
Jun 202010

Al Bello/Getty Images

On the heels of the Yankee recent offensive troubles, many fans and some sportswriters have painted this recent slump as a sign of something larger more fundamentally wrong with the Yankee team. Age, injury and bad off season decisions have conspired to hamper the team that won the World Series last year. Our own EJ Fagen was kicking around the idea yesterday of a lineup change to shake things up. I’ll address a recent column by Joel Sherman, and then make the case to call for some perspective on the matter. Here’s Joel Sherman’s take from yesterday:

“You can’t jump off of a bridge,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said of the recent slump. “You have to look at the big picture.”

This was the Yankees sound bite after the game: That these three games are a small sample size and that over the long season the offense will be a wrecking ball. But there are issues that are not three-game problems that make you wonder about just how devastating this offense will be.

Jeter’s groundball tendencies are more dramatic than ever. Teixeira’s pull-happy slump is now at three months. Rodriguez still is stuck on just eight homers. Curtis Granderson is so impotent against lefties that Girardi started baseball anonymous’ Chad Huffman against the southpaw Takahashi. Francisco Cervelli is hitting .220 this month, returning to an offensive form familiar to his minor league career at a time when the Yankees want to play him more because of their distrust of Jorge Posada’s catching. And the Yankees still are searching — rather futilely — for an acceptable second-place hitter to replace Johnny Damon.

With all the talk about Cliff Lee, it appears the Yankees might have to fixate more on adding a hitter between now and the July 31 trade deadline.

Jeter slumped badly in May and we later found out that he was dealing with a leg injury. Given how well he hit before and after that (.333 before May 2nd/.304 since May 22nd) I’m not overly concerned by Derek in that department. A better argument might be his career low .334 OBP which is his lowest since his .352 mark in 2004.  But looking at his game log, his OBP plummeted along with his BA in May, so I’ll just chalk that up to the injury as well.

Alex (like most HR hitters) tends to hit them in bunches. Look at his monthly splits from his last full season in 2008. He had 7 HRs on June 1st, then hit another 16 in June and July of that year, finishing the year with 35 dingers. Also, we tend to compare every year Alex has to his monstrous 54 HR 2007 campaign. But that was a season for the ages, especially for a Righthanded batter in Yankee Stadium. He’s averaged 36.8 HRs in his 5 other seasons with the team, and one good month (or one big week) will put him back on that pace.

As far as the #2 hitter goes, more and more it appears that job will be going to Nick Swisher. He’s batting .294/.379/.506 and everyone has noticed his new, quiet batting stance at the plate. Johnny Damon, by contrast, is batting .287/.375/.409. I’ll also take Brett Gardner’s defense in Left Field and 1.6 WAR over Johnny’s 1.2 WAR for 2010. I think Nick Swisher and his extra 100 points of OPS represents “an acceptable second-place hitter to replace Johnny Damon” and the only futility is in Sherman’s argument.

As EJ noted yesterday, The Yanks are #2 in Runs Scored, 1st in OBP, 2nd in OPS, 1st in walks in all of Baseball. They are 1st Run Differential, which reflects not only their ability to score runs but their ability to suppress them with a 3rd best AL Team ERA and a vastly improved defense (1st in AL defensive efficiency). I think Brian Cashman has done a terrific job of re-balancing the team from the all-hit/no-pitch teams of 04-07 to the team we see today that excels in every area of the game. I also suspect that most of Baseball wishes they had the same ‘problems’ the Yankees do.

NOTE-A very happy Father’s Day to all the Dads out there. If you’re a father, a son, daughter or just a Yankee fan I would highly recommend this Steve Serby Sunday Q&A piece with Derek Jeter about his relationship with his dad. Terrific, very moving stuff, and to think that all this time I thought Derek was a mama’s boy.

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