Friday, October 12, 2001

(Sigh) Young A's Rotation Pushing Old Yanks Around

It didn't take long for the Oakland A's to push this year's model of the New York Yankees to the brink of elimination. Quite simply, the A's are beating the Yanks at their own game. Their hitters are using their discipline at the plate to work deep into the count, exacting a toll from the pitcher even when lose a battle, collectively outlasting the starter and breaking into the soft, creamy center of the opposition's relief pitching to increase their margin. The A's pitchers are getting ahead in counts and controlling the at bats, forcing the Yanks into weak tappers and infield popups.

In the two games, the A's hitters have forced the Yankee pitchers into throwing 329 pitches, an average of 4.83 per plate appearance. The Yanks, who once excelled in this category, are down at 4.04, slightly above the major league average (3.78) but clearly not good enough against the A's fine young starters. The A's have drawn seven walks to go with their 19 hits, while the Yanks have only two, and it took them until the fifth inning of Game 2 to draw their first one.

Mark Mulder looked like the one in the catalog on Wednesday night, the man who racked up a 21-8 record in only his second season. In the harsh environment of a Yankee Stadium playoff, he had no shortage of poise or control, and dominated the Yankee hitters. Roger Clemens, on the other hand, didn't look right from the start, and left after four grueling innings with an ailing hamstring. Sterling Hitchcock pitched credibly in relief of Clemens, but Joe Torre stayed with him too Long (as in Terrence, the A's leftfielder who clubbed his second HR of the game off of Hitchcock in the 8th). The Yanks had a shot against setup man Jim Mecir, thanks to Tino Martinez's 2-run HR, but closer Jason Isringhausen slammed the door on their fingers in the 9th.

Last night, Andy Pettitte pitched a typically gutty game, allowing only one run, but he threw 115 pitches in only 6.1 innings and was out of bullets. Tim Hudson's 113 pitches, by contrast, took him through 8 innings, and he was simply brilliant, as the Yanks could barely manage to get the ball out of the infield until late in the ballgame.

Thus far, the thing that's driven me and nearly every other Yanks fan up the wall is Joe Torre's lineup selection. Starting two gimpy lefties, Paul O'Neill and David Justice, against A's lefty Mark Mulder looked like a bad idea on paper and an even worse one on TV. Justice's at bats, in particular, looked wretched. He was either way out in front or about five minutes late on each swing, with a little hop thrown in there to insure his bad timing. O'Neill, likely playing his final days, just doesn't seem to have fire anymore. I'd kill to see that helmet-throwing intensity, the defiance in his eyes, one more time, but he looks like a golfer in search of the clubhouse after a rough back nine.

As Rob Neyer pointed out, righty Shane Spencer would have been a much better option for either of those two against Mulder. Not only is Spencer healthy, but he also hits lefties LAMF: .313 AVG/.348 OBP/.563 SLG this year (though in only 64 ABs), and .335/.361/.616 for the previous three. Hello, Joe?

Torre's unswerving loyalty to those who brought him to this point has manifested itself up and down the Yankee lineup: from the decision to start Roger Clemens (who had lost his last two starts to Tampa Bay) over Mike Mussina (his hottest pitcher) in Game 1, to using Knoblauch in the leadoff spot (one decision that's working, at least, as the Lil' Bastard is 3-for-8 with some good at bats), to playing the struggling lefties, to the last-minute decision to fill his final roster spot with good-luck charm Luis Sojo over spot lefty Randy Choate (who pitched well against Oakland this season) or rookie first baseman Nick Johnson, whose keen batting eye could come in handy in the late innings.

Considering Torre spent so much time agonizing over the selection of his bench, it seems amazing that thus far he's been so reluctant to use it. Anybody, including Sojo, who stumbles into clutch hits like a blind squirrel with a nose for acorns, could have given Torre a better at bat in the late innings of Game 1 than Justice. Brosius has looked fairly lost as well, and with FOUR potential third basemen on the bench-- Velarde, Wilson, Sojo and Bellinger--there's no excuse for watching him pop out every damn time up. Brosius, O'Neill, and Justice thus far are a combined 1-for-24 with 15 men left on base. C'mon, Joe, take a risk, play a hunch, pull a lever once in awhile just to see if the result changes and to prove that you're not a statue waiting for the birds to land on you.

Even with Mussina, their hottest hand, going for the Yanks tomorrow, the outlook for the Yanks is not good. The A's are tough at home, they're loose, and they've got another young lefty, Barry Zito, going for them. Zito's only won 9 straight starts. The Yanks have no choice but to get past him and hope that El Duque can pull a win the magnitude of his '98 ALCS Game 4 start against Cleveland. Can it be done? Yes. Will it? Ask Joe Torre, he's the one with the lineup card.

--posted by Jay at 11:56 AM LINK

Tuesday, October 09, 2001

Yankees-A's: Measuring the Rotations

I don't have enough time to do all of the in-depth analysis I'd like to regarding the playoff matchup between the Yankees and the A's. But I did want to take a look at what is probably the series' most important aspect, starting pitching.

There's a lot of talk about how good the A's top 3 pitchers (Mark Mulder, Tim Hudson, and Barry Zito) are. They're young, they're successful, and with two out of three lefties, they're likely to give the Yanks plenty of trouble. But looking at their combined stats compared to the Yanks big 3 (Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, and Mike Mussina), I don't see a distinct advantage. Both have impressive Won-Loss records, and their ERAs are virtually a wash. The Yanks trio has better strikeout-related ratios and better durability (I excluded Andy Pettitte's recent 3-pitch outing from the IP/GS calculation because it's such an obvious fluke, but they still come out ahead if you factor that in). Both teams play in pitchers' parks, but Oakland's is a more extreme one, which leads me to give the Yanks trio a slight upper hand.

Yanks Big 3 combined:
52-24 (.684), 3.53 ERA, 649.2 IP, 6.70 IP/GS, 1.21 WHIP, 3.88 K/W, 8.18 K/9

A's Big 3 combined:
56-25 (.691), 3.43 ERA, 678.2 IP, 6.53 IP/GS, 1.20 WHIP, 2.66 K/W, 7.14 K/9

The key here is bases on balls: both Mussina (1.65 walks per 9) and Pettitte (1.84) are very stingy with the walks, as is Mulder (2.00). Hudson (2.72), Clemens (2.94) and Zito (3.36) are considerably higher in this department. Given the emphasis both teams place on drawing walks, an advantage here could be significant. It isn't too big a stretch to say that the Yanks have been known to turn a postseason series around on the basis of a single base on balls.

As it stands, both managers are planning to use four-man rotations, and on the surface it would appear that Oakland has an edge. Unless the two managers deviate from their plans, Cory Lidle (13-6, 3.59) opposes Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez (4-7, 4.85). But El Duque was 0-5, 5.14 when he went on the DL for two months, and he finished the season looking like the one in the catalog, going 4-1, 2.88 in September and October. Of course, he's been nothing but money for the Yanks in Octobers past: 8-1, 2.20. If he's healthy--and at the very least he should be well-rested--that's a big plus in favor of the Yankees.

Looking at the home-road breakdowns of the pitching matchups, with Games 1 and 2 in New York, Games 3 and 4 in Oakland, and Game 5 back in da Bronx:

Game 1: Clemens (10-1, 3.10 at home) vs. Mulder (10-6, 4.12 on the road)
Game 2: Pettitte (10-3, 3.16 at home) vs. Hudson (11-5, 3.33 on the road)
Game 3: Mussina (6-6, 3.19 on the road) vs. Zito (9-3, 3.71 at home)
Game 4: Hernandez (3-4, 4.74 on the road) vs. Lidle (8-5, 4.03 at home)

The Yanks have the better ERA in 3 of the four matchups. But the most interesting thing about these breakdowns is two splits that aren't shown because they're not scheduled to come into play: Mulder was dominant in Oakland (11-2, 2.69); Andy Pettite has struggled away from Yankee Stadium (5-7, 4.97). That combination of non-occurrences definitely favors the Yanks (still with me?). Based on this, I'd conclude that the Yanks rotation is better optimized for the venues and the schedule.

As I see it:

* The key for the Yanks starters is simply the health of Pettitte and Hernandez. With serious question marks hanging over their heads, both pitched well in their tuneups last weekend, but Pettitte has been very
spotty in the second half (6-6, 5.22).
* The key for the A's starters is whether the extra innings they've thrown this season will catch up to them. So far there aren't any signs of that; like the rest of the team, they are, dare I say, en fuego: a combined 14-3 with a 2.81 ERA since the beginning of September. But their big three all three set career highs for themselves in Innings Pitched, by a wide margin, and they're in uncharted territory now.
* The Yanks rotation has a huge advantage in postseason experience, with 51 starts and 23 postseason wins versus 2 starts and 1 win.

It's a classic experience-vs.-youth showdown, and of course I'm not addressing the other aspects of both teams. But this one's probably going 5, and if I had to pick, I'd take the Yanks because of the home-field advantage and because their rotation is better set up for the venue. That may be an analysis that comes more from the heart than the head--after all, I could dig through statistical splits until the cows come home and end up proving entirely the opposite of what I'm arguing here. But these Yanks have shown me too much over this extended championship run to ever count them out.

Other picks:

Seattle over Cleveland in 4 (I'll admit, I revised this from my post earlier today on Baseball Primer, after the Indians surprised everyone by taking Game 1)
Atlanta over Houston in 4
Arizona over St. Louis in 5

Right now, I don't see the Yanks getting past Seattle even if they should survive Oakland, but the time to worry about the nuts and bolts of that matchup is a long ways away. As for the National League, I'd love to see Houston finally shed their postseason jinx, but I don't think that's going to happen. My money is on whoever wins the Arizona-St. Louis matchup going to the World Series and losing to the American League representative, no matter who shows up.

--posted by Jay at 7:09 PM LINK

Monday, October 08, 2001

Bye Bye Bauman

With his 73rd dinger yesterday, Barry Bonds capped one of the most remarkable performances in baseball history. He set single-season records for Home Runs, Slugging Percentage (.863), Bases on Balls (177), and Home Run Percentage (15.34 per 100 At Bats). And don't forget the share of the National League record for Extra Base Hits (107), a share of the major league record for OPS with 1379 (tying Babe Ruth's 1920 mark), and an On Base Percentage of .515, the first man over .500 since Mickey Mantle in 1957.

But there's one other record Barry broke. Not only did his 73 homers set a Major League record, they also broke much less well-known record for HRs at any level of professional baseball. In 1954, Joe Bauman, a 6'5" lefty first-baseman slugged 72 HRs for the Roswell (New Mexico) Rockets of the Class C Longhorn League. Playing in some small parks (the Sporting News article places the dimensions at 340 to left, 385 to center and 330 to right) and aided by high elevations (Roswell sits at 3570 feet above sea level--not as high as Denver, but higher than any other Major League city), Bauman put up a remarkable line for the year, batting .400 with 72 HR, 224 RBI, and 456 Total Bases in 138 games. Bauman, who was 32 at the time, won 4 minor league home run titles but never reached the majors. According to Bill James's Historical Abstract, he finished his minor league career with 337 HRs and a .337 average.

Incidentally, the Longhorn League, which covered New Mexico and western Texas, featured some colorfully-named teams in 1954: the Artesia Numexers, Big Spring Broncs, Carlsbad Potashers, Wichita Falls/Sweetwater Spudders, Midland Indians, Odessa Oilers, and the San Angelo Colts, along with the Roswell Rockets. The league operated as a Class D league for the first few years of its inception (1947-1950), then became a Class C league from 1951-1955. It evolved into the Southwestern League (1956-1957) and finally the Sophomore League (1958-1961) before going defunct (all of this info comes from Mike McCann's Minor League Baseball Page, an complete list of minor leagues and their franchises).

--posted by Jay at 2:24 PM LINK