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Say It Ain’t So, Joe

Posted by Jay Jaffe on 31 August 2010, 1:09 pm

Today at Pinstriped Bible, I’ve got a more refined take of yesterday’s rant regarding distinguished Yankee alumnus Joe Torre, cataloging his litany of sins and looking at the possibility that he may not return for another year at the helm of the Dodgers:

Torre, who let a one-year contract extension offer dangle in the face of this mishegoss, may have privately seethed, but he’s publicly bitten his tongue, a wise move if he wished to ingratiate himself to his employers but not one that’s served the team’s competitive interests. A Hall of Fame-bound manager of his stature could and probably should have thrown his weight around by vocalizing, say, the Dodgers’ need for another proven starting pitcher.

Torre hasn’t exactly covered himself in glory elsewhere this season. He’s made a hash of the bullpen at times, failing to get closer Jonathan Broxton save opportunities early in the year, then overusing him in non-save situations. Worse, he quickly burned out his top setup men, a tale that will be all too familiar to Yankee fans. Righty Ramon Troncoso and lefty George Sherrill made a combined 28 appearances in April and another 25 in May, a pace that comes out to 168 combined appearances over the course of the season; not coincidentally, that not-so-dynamic duo has combined for an 8.06 Fair Run Average while each facing demotions to the minors. To be fair, the Dodger bullpen ranks third in the league by BP’s advanced metrics, but those quality arms may be in Proctorville by the time the season is all said and done.

Worse, the young, homegrown players on whom so much of the Dodgers’ present and future depends have regressed on Torre’s watch. Catcher Russell Martin, first baseman James Loney and center field Matt Kemp have played mediocre ball for most of the season. The production of Martin, who once looked to be the Dodgers’ answer to Derek Jeter — a face-of-the-franchise leader — declined for the third straight season before it ended abruptly due to a hip injury earlier this month. Torre’s overuse — starting him behind the plate 271 games in 2008-2009, the third highest total in the majors, and using him in 298 overall, the highest — can’t help but be implicated in that decline; as a former catcher himself, he should have known better, particularly as Martin’s production flagged. After earning All-Star honors last year, the still-raw Kemp has at times suffered from braindead play at the plate, in the field and on the basepaths. After some heavy-handed benching by Torre which was accompanied by unsubtle comments from henchman Larry Bowa, Kemp appears to want to talk his way out of town if he can’t play his way out.

Finally, there’s Torre’s handling of Ramirez…

And you know the rest on that score. With the 70-year-old skipper’s contract up at season’s end, I think the above are signs that he’s lost interest in the day-to-day rigamarole required to run a ballclub. I’m also not sure heir apparent Don Mattingly’s ascendancy is as likely as was once thought to be given his lack of managerial experience, which showed during the infamous double-dip mound visit debacle; the buzz now favors Triple-A Albuquerque manager Tim Wallach. Check it out.

Filed under Dodgers, Pinstriped Bible.
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Manny Didn’t Quit, Joe Did

Posted by Jay Jaffe on 30 August 2010, 1:07 pm

True story: on Sunday afternoon I sat down to write about Manny Ramirez’s apparently imminent departure from the Dodgers and was overtaken by an overwhelming anger that was so close to physically manifesting itself that I had to stop and go to the gym before I started breaking things. One of my Twitter followers suggested I sounded like Woody Allen’s Vincent van Gogh in “If the Impressionists Had Been Dentists,” which gave me a good chuckle and provided a bit of levity:

Dear Theo,

Will life never treat me decently? I am wracked by despair! My head is pounding. Mrs Sol Schwimmer is suing me because I made her bridge as I felt it and not to fit her ridiculous mouth. That’s right! I can’t work to order like a common tradesman. I decided her bridge should be enormous and billowing and wild, explosive teeth flaring up in every direction like fire! Now she is upset becuase it won’t fit in her mouth! She is so bourgeois and stupid, I want to smash her. I tried forcing the false plate in but it sticks out like a star burst chandelier. Still, I find it beautiful. She claims she can’t chew! What do I care whether she can chew or not! Theo, I can’t go on like this much longer! I asked Cezanne if he would share an office with me but he is old and infirm and unable to hold the instruments and they must be tied to his wrists but then he lacks accuracy and once inside a mouth, he knocks out more teeth than he saves. What to do?

Vincent

It was hours later before I got back to business, by which time Manny had made a surreal one-pitch appearance in the Dodgers’ loss in Colorado, having been ejected after arguing with home plate umpire Gary Cedarstrom over the strike zone. Not with a bang, but a whimper, as that great sportswriter T.S. Eliot wrote. Shortly after that, the news came that the Dodgers reportedly let Ramirez go to the White Sox via waivers, getting nothing in return but salary relief for the $4.3 $3.8 million dollars they still owed him, most of it deferred.

As I wrote over at Baseball Prospectus, Ramirez’s impending departure has been obvious for weeks:

When the Dodgers placed Ramirez on waivers last Wednesday, it was hardly a surprise, as the move had been telegraphed for nearly a month. While general manager Ned Colletti made himself look busy by making a trio of deals with the Royals, Cubs and Pirates prior to the July 31 trading deadline — acquiring Scott Podsednik, Ted Lilly, Ryan Theriot, and Octavio Dotel in the process — it was apparent to all but those in rose-tinted glasses that the moves were too little, too late. The Dodgers’ distance from first place had doubled during July as their fifth starters were pulverized (20 runs in 20 innings over four starts), a problem which in turn exposed the bullpen’s lack of depth; at the deadline, they were were seven games out of first place and 4.5 back in the Wild Card, with their Playoff Odds just below 10 percent.

As if to underscore that those trades were just a smokescreen, the team had taken down the “Mannywood” sign in Dodger Stadium’s left field, claiming it was because another buyer had purchased the advertising space. The message was clear: the Dodgers were preparing for the slugger’s inevitable departure. At the time, Ramirez was on the disabled list, serving his third stint of the season, one for a calf strain in late April, another for a hamstring strain in late June, and the final one for yet another calf strain in mid-July, after he’d made just four plate appearances since his previous stint. Why dedicate a cheering section and a promotional package to a player who wasn’t going to be around for much longer?

The final indication that Ramirez was going-going-gone came via Torre, who started him just three times in the eight games since he returned from the DL, and only once since he hit the wire. Claiming that the decision for the benching was his and not that of the front office, and that he was “trying to win games,” Torre shoveled more manure in the space of four days than he had in 13 years at the helm of the Yankees. “This is just my dumb move,” he told Los Angeles Times beat reporter Dylan Hernandez, fumfering disingenuously about getaway days, the big outfield of Coors Field, team chemistry, and the speed of Podsednik. “There’s no reason I can give you that makes sense. A lot of what I do is a feel thing.” Somewhere, Orlando Hudson nodded silently.

Torre was right: there is no earthly reason not to have Ramirez in the lineup, at least not in the service of a playoff race. It’s only slight hyperbole to say that even spouting blood from three missing limbs à la the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, he’d be a better hitter than Podsednik, though admittedly, under such conditions the latter would certainly have an edge afield. Presumably, the manager did Colletti’s dirty work by serving notice that if Ramirez didn’t waive his no-trade clause, forgo his desire for a contract extension and agree to go gentle into that good night, he’d be buried on the bench.

See, my rage at all of this isn’t directed at Ramirez, who’s a piece of fucking work in cleats but also — to borrow a phrase from Bill James about Pedro Guerrero — the best hitter God has made in a long time. Manny hit .322/.433/.580 as a Dodger while providing enough thrills to carry the team to the National League Championship series in back-to-back years. With him in the lineup over the past three years, the Dodgers have won at a .590 clip and scored 5.03 runs per game. Without him, they’ve literally been a .500 team, averaging 4.08 runs per game — yes, nearly a whole run less.

This year, the numbers are even more stark: 31-21, 5.33 runs per game with, 36-43, 3.72 runs per game without. And he hasn’t lost anything as a hitter. Once you adjust for park and league, his work in Dodger blue was actually more productive than his days in Boston and Cleveland; his True Average as a Dodger was .345, elsewhere it was .319. His mark this year (.328) is higher than his career mark (.321), so suggesting he’s in decline when he’s actually got the wood in his hands is folly. As are the bullshit narratives fostered by some of the biggest names in the business, but that’s what happens when you stop feeding the media beast, greeting their requests with “No, gracias.”

Manny Ramirez may have spent more than half the season on the disabled list — he’s a 38 year old with a history of leg problems — but I don’t in the least buy the idea that quit on the Dodgers. There’s nothing in the world the man loves to do more than pulverize a baseball, and the bigger the moment for him to do so, the better. He had every incentive to play as much as possible in order to earn a big-money contract for next year; why on earth would he dodge that?

No, it’s Joe Torre who quit on the Dodgers, which is why I’m so angry. Torre’s braindead mishandling of the bullpen in July and earlier this month already appeared to signal that he’d unplugged from the the team, that at 70 years old, he was too old for the bullshit of dealing with the Dodgers. That promising young players such as Matt Kemp, Russell Martin and James Loney have stalled in their progress on his watch doesn’t speak particularly well of him either, suggesting he’s lost the team — not an uncommon theme among managers past the age of 65.

Torre’s playing of Podsednik over Ramirez, whether for no good reason but his own gut instinct or as the henchman for the higher-ups is both aesthetically distasteful, and antithetical to winning baseball. Podzilla is a slaptastic hitter in the same mold as Juan Pierre. He’s hitting over .300 between KC and LA, but it’s a thin .309/.355/.388, good for a combined .275 TAv. His Marginal Lineup Value Rate (MLVr) — the number of runs per game he adds to an otherwise average lineup is .054. Manny’s is .316, the second-highest among major league left fielders. The theoretical difference is a quarter-run per game; the observed difference, as noted above, is even higher. Pretending otherwise, as Torre did, is a dark day for those of us who still held him in high esteem. As I wrote at BP, his actions feed the moralizers longing for another Juan Pierre, the ones ready to declare the team is much better, more versatile and more gosh-darn likablewith a slappy speedster who knows his place than with a petulant slugger who supposedly quits on his club. Please kill me before I have to read one of those again.

The circus has left town, and it’s a sad day for Dodger fans, as it’s abundantly clear this season will end in ignominious fashion — though we can always hope for the Colletti special outfield of Pierre, Andruw Jones and Ramirez, all still on the Dodger payroll, at some date to be named later on the South Side of Chicago. Manny provided more dazzling moments in his two years in Dodger blue than any of his teammates, save for maybe Andre Ethier, and he’ll rate as one of the most exciting and pivotal players in team history based on their accomplishments during his brief tenure; after all, it had been 20 years since the team had won a single playoff series before he came along, and 31 since they reached back-to-back NLCS. After nearly eight full years of viewing him as the Red Sox villain, I’m glad I got to appreciate his talents while they were still in full flower. The man can fucking hit, and watching him do so as a Dodger was tremendous fun while it lasted.

Filed under Dodgers, Joe Torre, Manny Ramirez.
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Friday’s Child: A Full Plate

Posted by Jay Jaffe on 27 August 2010, 1:36 pm

No shortage of what I’m serving today:

• Over at the Pinstriped Bible, I’ve got a look at a reliever who could help the Yankees in September, Jonathan Albaladejo, and an update of last month’s silliness regarding the possibility of Joe Girardi bolting the Bronx for the Cubs’ managerial job. The Albaladejo piece was a riff on BP colleague Kevin Goldstein including him in a list of 10 relievers who could help contenders out of the bullpen in their September callups. Knocked around during spring training, the 27-year-old ne’er-do-well scrapped his sinker for a heater which sits in the mid-90s, via which he’s set an International League record for saves:

In five Grapefruit League appearances, the hapless hurler yielded 16 hits, two walks and 10 earned runs while retiring just eight hitters, good for a 33.75 ERA — numbers that might have led to a pink slip from a less forgiving organization. But Albaladejo’s done a fine job of straightening himself out; not only has the control of his four-seamer improved, his curveball has become a useful weapon to keep hitters off balance as well. Batters are hitting just .168/.231/.241 against him, with 37 hits and 18 walks in 62 innings.

You’d think such work would be rewarded with a long look in a big league bullpen, particularly one that struggled so mightily during the first half of the season, but Albaladejo has just two appearances with the Yankees this year; he was up for all of three days in July, bridging the gap between DL moves involving Andy Pettitte and Sergio Mitre, then forgotten about once the Yankees ditched Chan Ho Park and traded for Kerry Wood. By all accounts, the pitcher hasn’t pouted about not getting his turn; last month, he told LoHud’s Chad Jennings, “I just want to do my job in Triple-A. And whenever they decide they need me, I’ll be ready.”

The Girardi piece is an updated take on the idle patter which immediately followed Piniella’s retirement announcement. With the Yankees marching into Chicago, Girardi feels he’s got to address such rumors, presumably with as much enthusiasm and candor as Derek Jeter detailing his dating life. Other than the reasons I already enumerated regarding Yankee managers not walking away under their own power, there’s this:

Looking into my crystal ball, I can tell you that the short answer is fuhgeddaboutit. Even with Girardi’s ties to the area — he’s a Peoria native and a Northwestern University alumnus who did two tours of duty with the Cubs as a player, essentially bookending his career save for a slight return in St. Louis — and the fact that his Yankees contract is up at the end of this season, it’s not happening.

For one thing, the Cubs are in rough shape, particularly compared to the Yanks. If you think the pressure to win the World Series every year while in pinstripes is something, imagine being on the spot at the helm of a team that’s gone 102 years without winning. The pressure broke Piniella, though he’s admittedly a much older man. It wasn’t kind to Dusty Baker, who got them within five outs of their first pennant since the early days of the Truman administration. It’s a job that’s eaten up and spit out men in more violent and disgusting ways than Piranha 3D. Take Lee Elia, please (warning: NSFW).

While the word around the game may be that the Ricketts family, the franchise’s relatively new owners, intends to spend big dollars, they can’t compete with the Yankees on that level. Bob Dylan wasn’t writing directly about the Bronx Bombers when he penned “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” — “Buy me some rings and a gun that sings / A flute that toots and a bee that stings / A sky that cries and a bird that flies / A fish that walks and a dog that talks” — but their winter shopping lists can go a long way towards keeping a manager in the Bronx.

Furthermore, the Cubs have some crippling contracts on the books in Alfonso Soriano (owed $72 million through 2014), Carlos Zambrano (just shy of $38 million through 2012), Aramis Ramirez ($16.6 million through 2012), Kosuke Fukudome ($14.5 million for next year), and Ryan Dempster ($28.5 million through 2012). Aside from Demptster, those players have been worth just 5.0 WARP this year for $68.6 million, which explains why a team with the majors’ seventh-highest Opening Day payroll is currently 20 games under .500 and 19 1/2 games out of first place before September. While their farm system is on the way up relative to a year ago, and while they’ve added three twenty-somethings to the starting lineup over the course of the year, the expensive regulars above average 33 years old, with a chance to be 34 next year.

It ain’t happening.

• At Baseball Prospectus, the NL and AL Hit Lists are up. A few swatches:

[#8 Dodgers[ Coming and Going: Having fallen further from first place after taking on former Royals and Cubs, the Dodgers attempt the coup de grâce by adding a Met: Rod Barajas, who arrives via waivers to patch their catching position in the absence of Russell Martin. A Dodger fan in his youth, Barajas makes a strong first impression with two doubles and a three-run homer in his first three at-bats, nearly equaling his output since June 1 (.163/.223/.221 with three doubles, a homer and four RBI in 113 PA). Meanwhile, Manny Ramirez hits the waiver wire, as do Casey Blake, Scott Podsednik and Jay Gibbons. The White Sox are supposedly warm for the dreadlocked slugger, who's hit .313/.407/.513 with eight homers in 231 PA in between three trips to the disabled list; his .322 TAv would rank fifth in the league given enough playing time to qualify. The Dodgers are 32-22 with him in the lineup, 33-40 when he sits or is DLed.

[#10 Mets] Keystone Light: Luis Castillo’s walkoff single sends the Mets past the Marlins, giving the sputtering offense (2.8 runs per game this month) the rare highlight. It’s just Castillo’s second hit since August 4; he’s just 2-for-18 since then while starting five of 18 games, hitting .237/.337/.275 overall. As bad as that line is, it dwarfs the .167/.264/.203 performance of rookie Ruben Tejada, who’s usurped Castillo’s playing time because, you know, “youth movement.” Throw in the mercifully released Alex Cora and you’ve got an execrable .218/.299/.269 performance from the team’s second basemen, good for an OPS 55 points lower than that of any other major-league team. Castillo has still got one year at $6 million remaining on his deal; he’s compiled all of 3.3 WARP through the first three years of his deal ($19 million).

[#1 Yankees] Stepping Up: With Alex Rodriguez hitting the disabled list due to a calf strain, Robinson Cano takes over the cleanup spot and, well, cleans up. After homering in three conseuctive games, he adds his fourth in a six-game span via a grand slam against the Mariners. He’s hitting .324/.439/.765 through nine games in the No. 4 spot (an idea suggested by one wag just a couple weeks back). Cano is hitting .322/.387/.563 overall and starting to earn a spot in AL MVP discussions; he ranks fifth in the league in WARP with 6.2, 1.2 behind Josh Hamilton.

• In the wake of my trip to Target Field, I didn’t get to write of my venture to Coney Island to see the Cyclones on Wednesday night with a great bunch of folks, but it’s been well-documented nonetheless. Joe Sheehan wrote about it at his BP blog, and Derek Jacques took some photos, though unfortunately no group shot. It’s the second time this month I’ve been to MCU Park; the first time was in the service of snagging an Ike Davis Upside-Down Bobblehead:

I Like Ike

That’s the free t-shirt I caught as well. It’s always a good time out at that ballpark.

Speaking of minor league baseball, I’m headed to Salt Lake City next week and will finally avail myself of the chance to check out at least two of the three ballparks in the area. I haven’t been to a game in Salt Lake since 1987 or 1988, and since then they’ve built a new park, and I’ve never seen a game in either Ogden or Provo. With my dad on the disabled list due to back surgery, thus preventing us from our near-annual backpacking expedition, we’re going to play things a bit more low-key.

Filed under Dodgers, Field Trips, Hit List, Pinstriped Bible, Yankees, bobbleheads.
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It’s Pronounced Tar-Jay

Posted by Jay Jaffe on 25 August 2010, 2:41 pm

The Twins' "Minnie and Paul" logo provides a retro feel in an otherwise modern park

Over at Baseball Prospectus, I’ve got a writeup of last week’s trip to Target Field in Minneapolis:

For the second consecutive summer, a wedding brought me to Minnesota, affording me the opportunity to check another major-league ballpark off my slowly-growing list.* The contrast between the two Twins venues couldn’t have been more stark, but the common denominator was a boisterous fan base backing a playoff contender while affirming that baseball is alive and well in the Gopher State, lest anyone have any doubts. While the Twins hardly resembled that contender on this particular night, as they were trounced 11-0 by the White Sox, their recent roll has given them a leg up on an October berth, their sixth in the nine years since Bud Selig and company tried to shut them down—ostensibly due to owner Carl Pohlad’s inability to secure public financing for a new ballpark.

Last May, I finally visited the 27-year-old Metrodome, a venue — ballpark is far too generous — which I’d always regarded from afar with a mixture of reverence and disgust. Though not a Twins fan by nature, I’d pulled hard for Hrbie, Kirby, and company in the 1987 and 1991 World Series, two of the best Fall Classics of my lifetime. The Dome itself should have been voted full playoff shares in those years given the home-field advantage it provided, as the underdog Twins went 8-0 amid deafening decibel levels to defeat the Cardinals and Braves. I don’t care how awful a stadium is, if a championship has been won there, particularly an unlikely one (or two), that’s an indelible piece of history, a distinction which rescues dives as disparate as Shea Stadium and the Dome.

On the other hand, baseball on artificial turf, in a domed stadium, is as inherently alien and unappealing as canned lettuce. Which isn’t to say I didn’t have fun at that particular game, but after taking in its plastic ugliness of the field from the distant, oddly-angled seats, I could see why the place drew frequent comparisons to a mausoleum.

Target Field will never be confused with a mausoleum, however. It’s a spacious open-air park with real grass and distant fences (339 feet down the left field line, 328 down the right field line, 411 feet to center field) that have made it the majors’ third-toughest park in which to homer this year (0.65 per team a game), though the trees behind the center field wall felt a bit forced. Its angles give it a distinctly modern feel, and unlike many of the other mallparks built over the past two decades, it carries a relatively small reserve of retro nostalgia. The bulk of the latter arrives via the giant neon “Minnie & Paul” logo in center field. Introduced in 1961, revised in 1972, and refined in 2002, the logo shows two cartoonish ballplayers shaking hands across the Mississippi River, one representing the Minneapolis Millers and the other the St. Paul Saints, the two mainstay minor-league franchises predating the Twins’ arrival.

*Alphabetically: Camden Yards, Citi Field, Dodger Stadium, Fenway Park, Jacobs Field, Metrodome, Miller Park, RFK Stadium, Safeco Field, Shea Stadium, Target Field, Tiger Stadium, Wrigley Field, Yankee Stadiums II and III.

We had a fun time gorging ourselves on a variety of Midwestern fried goodies while jeering Carl Pavano, who got his ass handed to him (6 innings, 15 hits, 7 runs), thereby proving that he still can’t pitch in front of Yankees fans.

The Harmon Killebrew statue at Target Plaza outside the Twins' new ballpark

Filed under Field Trips.
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Since We Last Spoke

Posted by Jay Jaffe on 24 August 2010, 2:35 pm

At Pinstriped Bible, I’ve got a look at the Yankees’ backup catcher situation, the post-trade deadline success of the bullpen and the trials and tribulations of Javier Vazquez, who hasn’t lasted five innings in any of his last three starts. From the bullpen piece:

The Yanks spent the first half of the season largely fumbling for the right combination of relievers in front of Mariano Rivera, who’s been as remarkable as ever at the age of 40. Joba Chamberlain didn’t have much to pump his fist about as he struggled to assert a claim on the eighth inning setup role. David Robertson looked like a nervous teenager on a first date instead of a seasoned October veteran. Chan Ho Park showed that without a scruffy beard or a locker at Chavez Ravine, his superpowers were completely neutralized. Alfredo Aceves hit the disabled list due to back woes. Chad Gaudin… well, he pitched like the second coming of Chad Gaudin. Damaso Marte faked a shoulder injury and took up residence in the south of France, just as he did last summer.

The result was a bullpen that ranked in the middle of the pack according to a pair of Baseball Prospectus’ key metrics designed do a better job of measuring reliever performance than traditional ERA, not to mention the execrable holds statistic. WXRL (reliever expected wins added) incrementally credits and debits every reliever with a fraction of a win based upon the game state in which he enters — inning, out, runners on base, relative score — and when he departs. A reliever who allows a run in the eighth inning of a one-run game has done more to cost his team a chance at winning than a reliever who yields one in the sixth inning of a blowout. Fair Run Average is a pitcher’s runs allowed (earned and unearned) per nine innings, adjusted for inherited and bequeathed baserunners and the number of outs; a pitcher who departs with a man on first base and two outs is charged with a smaller fraction of a run than one who fleees with a man on second and nobody out.

The Yankees ranked ninth in the league with 2.7 WXRL in the first half, 4.8 wins behind the Rays; with a better bullpen performance, they’d have built themselves a bigger cushion atop the standings. They were a slightly better seventh in reliever Fair Run Average at 4.30; the Twins paced the Junior Circuit with a 3.22 mark.

Since the All-Star break, however, the Yankees have been tops in the league in both categories, with 3.6 WXRL and a 2.42 FRA.

From the Vazquez piece:

This is not the first time this year Vazquez has been bumped back, and the Yankees can only hope this time around pays similar dividends to the last. Rocked for a 9.78 ERA through his first five starts of the season (a performance I examined at Baseball Prospectus), he was pulled from the rotation, making just one start between May 2 and May 21. He got his groove back, making 10 quality starts out of 14 from the time he was pulled until the end of July, good for a 3.29 ERA. But just when it looked as though he had joined the ranks of the reliable, he was tagged for an 8.10 ERA and seven homers in four starts August totaling just 16.2 innings. On Saturday he tied his season high by allowing three homers in his three frames, two of them to Ichiro Suzuki, who’d hit just three all season long. So it goes.

As Girardi noted, Vazquez has indeed been lacking velocity this year, likely the result of mechanical woes which make his delivery hard to repeat and prevent him from getting on top of his pitches. According to the Pitch f/x data at Fangraphs, Vazquez’s average fastball (four-seamers and two-seamers combined) has clocked in at 88.7 mph, down from 91.1 last year and roughly three MPH lower than his 2005-2008 mark; it’s also getting less movement, at least relative to last year. He’s throwing fewer fastballs than in 2009, getting more fouls but fewer whiffs (swings and misses) and more balls put into play… Furthermore, the whiff percentage on Vazquez’s offspeed stuff (curve, slider and changeup) has plummeted more dramatically…

If it weren’t for the fact that Vazquez has been helped out to an almost absurd degree by the Yankee defense — his .271 BABIP is 12 points below the team average, best in the rotation and 43 points better than Burnett — he’d have an ERA even higher than his 5.05 mark, which is still his worst since his 1998 rookie campaign.

Add it up and Vazquez is striking out just 7.1 hitters per nine, his lowest mark since his first tour of duty with the Yankees in 2004 (such wonderful memories that produced) and a full strikeout below his career mark. That wouldn’t be so problematic if the rest of his peripherals weren’t taking a bath as well. He’s walking a career-worst 3.7 per nine, over a 50 percent increase on his career mark (2.4), leaving him with a strikeout-to-walk ratio below 2.0 for the first time in his career. He’s also yielding 1.8 homers per nine, the product of him combining his lowest-ever groundball-to-flyball ratio (0.72) with a ballpark where teams have racked up an MLB-high 1.4 homers per game. That’s a towering 400-foot homer above his career rate of 1.2 per nine innings, a rate which ranks as the ninth-highest among pitchers with at least 2000 innings, a hair higher than that of Jamie Moyer, who earlier this year surpassed Robin Roberts on the all-time leaderboard for homers surrendered. We get it: the guy has a gopher problem.

Meanwhile, over at Baseball Prospectus, I had a piece on the Yankees’ performance through the dog days of August, one which keyed the PB bullpen piece::

The Yankees’ Playoff Odds briefly topped an MLB-best 90 percent in late July and stood an eyelash below that as of August 1. After Monday’s loss, those odds had fallen to 82.9 percent (46.1 percent division, 36.8 percent wild card), just the fourth-highest mark in the league behind the Rangers (96.7 percent), Twins (84.2 percent), and Rays (83.3 percent). While their run differential and third-order winning percentage are higher than those of Tampa Bay (+140 to +134 and .577 to .568, respectively), their remaining opponents have a slightly better record, averaging a 60-57 mark, compared to 58-59 for the Rays, which is why the odds slightly favor the latter. More on that below.

The Yankees’ rotation is in disarray thanks to the combination of Phil Hughes‘ mid-season slump, the sub-par performances of A.J. Burnett and Javier Vazquez, and the continued absence of Andy Pettitte due to a groin strain; lately, only CC Sabathia has thrown well with any consistency. Consider the contrast between the unit’s first- and second-half performances:

Period IP/GS K/9 HR/9 ERA QS% DS%
1st Half 6.3 7.3 1.0 3.68 60% 11%
2nd Half 5.8 5.8 1.3 4.79 50% 20%

QS% is the percentage of quality starts (six innings or more, three earned runs or less), while DS% is the percentage of disaster starts (more earned runs than innings pitched). The Yankees’ tendency towards the latter has nearly doubled since the break, as the rest of their numbers have suffered.

Fortunately, their bullpen has rounded into shape during that stretch with Joba Chamberlain and David Robertson stringing together several solid outings, Boone Logan emerging as a reliable lefty option, and deadline acquisition Kerry Wood providing another live arm for the late innings. At the break, the Yankees ranked ninth in WXRL (2.7) and seventh in reliever Fair Run Average (4.30); they’ve been tops in the league in both since then (3.6 WXRL, 2.42 FRA). Robertson, Logan, Wood, the amazing Mariano Rivera, and mop-up man Sergio Mitre all have FRAs below 2.00 in the second half, while Chamberlain’s 3.28 is more than 1.5 runs per nine below his engorged first-half mark.

Beyond that, travel led me to try an experiment with the Hit List: follow Twitter rules and limit myself to 140 characters per team, including shortened links. Working within those limitations wasn’t too dissimilar from writing haiku, except with a computer doing the counting. The formant wasn’t universally loved — nor did I expect it to be — but it was fun to try and enough readers did enjoy it. That plus the fact that it took about 1/4 of the time the two league Hit Lists do make it an option which I reserve the right to use in the future:

[#1 Yankees] Dog days here but Sabathia keeps rolling. 15 consec. quality starts most for Yank since Guidry ‘78 http://bit.ly/aFqTwT http://bit.ly/bn9fct

[#2 Rays] Hellickson wins again (http://es.pn/by0xhS), Upton raking (.322/.394/.559 in Aug). But “Braysers?” http://bit.ly/bz886k #thegogglesdonothing

[#3 Twins] Twins seize AL Central lead, Thome makes old team pay w/12th walkoff HR of career, ties MLB record http://bit.ly/9PhDls http://es.pn/dmZgge

I’ll have more on the Twins in my next BP piece, as I paid a visit to Target Field over the weekend.

Filed under Hit List, Hit and Run, Pinstriped Bible, Yankees.
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Real Quick Like

Posted by Jay Jaffe on 17 August 2010, 10:55 am

It’s been a busy week so far, and it’s only getting busier. Here’s what I’m selling:

• A quick follow-up to my recent Phil Hughes take, re-examining some of my earlier assumptions in the wake of more data. It turns out I was wrong about which pitches of his are leading to more groundballs, and which more home runs. Worth noting: Hughes didn’t have a great Saturday night (6 innings, 9 hits, 3 runs, 1 walk, 0 strikeouts) but he did get a season-high 14 groundballs, and threw more cutters than curves for a change. Meanwhile, Alex Rodriguez hit three homers for the first time since I saw him do it in 2005.

• Also at Pinstriped Bible, my take on the Yankees’ catching situation given the way Francisco Cervelli’s wearing out his welcome with poor hitting and mistakes in the field. The short version is that the top prospect Jesus Montero, who’s flat-out ranking in Triple-A, simply isn’t an option given how raw he is behind the plate.

• At Baseball Prospectus, Marc Normandin and I debate the Red Sox options regarding Jonathan Papelbon, who will be entering his final year of arbitration eligibility this winter and will be making somewhere around $12 million. Personally, I loathe Papelbon with an intensity I reserve for only a few other players, but I don’t seem to be alone in that lately given the Boston closer’s decline from the heights of his 2007-2008 performance. After he blew his sixth save of the year on Thursday, Marc revived the idea that Papelbon could be nontendered — not offered a contract — this winter; I found his argument highly questionable and took up his offer to debate the issue:

I realize it’s somewhat incongruous for a Yankees partisan to play devil’s advocate on an issue concerning a pitcher that Yankees fans love to hate, but I can’t help but be struck by a parallel to the scenario Marc has outlined above. Namely, it smacks of a certain faction of Yankee fans’ desires to see Joba Chamberlain traded amid his ongoing struggles.Both Papelbon and Chamberlain seem to have fallen far from the dizzying heights of their 2007-2008 performances, stoking outrage and puzzlement among their followers. Of course, the comparison breaks down because of the disparity between the two pitchers’ salaries. Chamberlain is making less than half a million dollars this year and will be arbitration-eligible for the first time, whereas Papelbon is in his final year of arb eligibility and pushing eight figures.

While most of us like to stoke our inner Steinbrenner when we run our fantasy teams, releasing struggling players only because we can’t order summary executions instead, the reality of a major-league general manager is much different. A good GM won’t simply punt a high-upside player because he’s on a bad stretch that depresses his value. On the contrary, a good GM will take advantage of the gap between the player’s perceived value and his actual value, and call Ed Wade or some other sucker to see if he’ll take him off his hands.

In an industry where Brad Lidge is being paid an eight-figure salary to close games for a contender while flirting with replacement level, Papelbon has tremendous value. This is a pitcher who’s compiled a 2.04 ERA while whiffing 10.1 hitters per nine innings in his five-plus seasons. Only Mariano Rivera and Joe Nathan can top that ERA, and only seven pitchers can top that strikeout rate. Only two of those seven, Rivera and Lidge, have closed out a World Series. Papelbon not only has “the Scarlet C,” he has it with distinction.

It’s an interesting exercise, to say the least. Personally, I hope Papelbon sticks around because he’s so much fun to root against.

Filed under Alex Rodriguez, Pinstriped Bible, Red Sox, Yankees.
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The Bible Study Group

Posted by Jay Jaffe on 13 August 2010, 5:54 pm

The second of two videos that the new Pinstriped Bible crew taped earlier this week is up here, weighing in at a meaty 13 minutes. In it, Steve, Cliff and I discuss the state of the team following the trading deadline. My worry, which I hinted at in my initial PB post, is the starting pitching; Cliff’s a bit more focused on the bullpen. We kick around the players the Yankees added at the trading deadline — Lance Berkman, Austin Kearns and Kerry Wood — and how well they fulfill the team’s needs, and worry about the offense’s vulnerability against lefties (Cliff’s got a forthcoming post on that front). Plus we bust on Kyle Farnsworth, which is always fun. Check it out.

Filed under Yankees, video.
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The Two Hugheses

Posted by Jay Jaffe on 12 August 2010, 5:31 pm

As promised, my Pinstriped Bible debut is up. In it, I break down some Pitch f/x data on Phil Hughes in an attempt to see what he’s doing differently of late than he was before, using his late-June skipped start as the dividing line:

              GS  IP/GS  K/9  HR/9  HR/FB  GB/FB  BABIP  ERA    FIP
Thru June 19  13   6.3   8.5   0.8   6.8%   0.76   .276  3.17   3.32
Since then     8   5.9   6.2   1.7  11.6%   0.65   .282  5.24   5.06

On both sides of the line, Hughes has received virtually identical defensive support from his teammates, above-average support at that, given that the league batting average on balls in play is .294. He’s got two main problems: he isn’t striking out hitters at nearly the same clip as early in the year, and his home run rate has more than doubled. The latter is a byproduct of him generating fewer groundballs (which don’t go for homers) and getting a bit more bad luck on his increased number of fly balls (which do, given enough of ‘em).

…basically, Hughes has switched from the cutter to the curve as his number two pitch, resulting in more contact and fewer whiffs or fouls. I’ll wager that many of those homers came off hanging curves, and that most of the cutters which hitters make contact with are hit as grounders, but I don’t have the processing power at my immediate disposal to confirm that. What I do know is that based upon the Pitch f/x data at Fangraphs, which is presented differently than at the TexasLeaguers site, but comes with similar caveats, Hughes’ curveball has been a net negative in terms of runs this year, while his cutter has been a net positive.

Missing from all of this is the vaunted changeup which was the talk of spring training and the so-called key to Hughes winning the fifth starter job over Joba Chamberlain and (guffaw) Sergio Mitre.

There’s plenty more where that came from, and it’s free, so I’ll avoid over-rehashing. I saw Hughes pitch against the Red Sox on Monday from the Yankee Stadium press box. While the early going was rough, and while the Yanks went down in defeat, Hughes was able to take away some positives:

[Jon] Lester’s opposite number, Phil Hughes, appeared to be in for a short afternoon in the early going, extending a slump which had seen him post an unsightly 5.16 ERA and 1.6 HR/9 over his last 14 starts, only six of them quality starts. Hughes ran up a total of 57 pitches over his first two frames, stranding runners at first and second in a 20-pitch first inning, and surrendering two runs in a 37-pitch second. The latter frame started on a positive note, as [Nick] Swisher made an outstanding diving catch on Mike Lowell’s slice down the line. [Ryan] Kalish, who walloped a huge two-run homer on Friday night and came in hitting .360/.393/.520 through his first eight games in the majors, singled, stole second, and advanced to third aided by [Jorge] Posada’s wide-right throw into center field. Bill Hall singled to deep shortstop, bringing Kalish home with the game’s first run. Jacoby Ellsbury snapped an 0-for-22 skid which had him riding the proverbial interstate (.183/.222/.250 coming in) with a single up the middle, sending Hall to third. Ellsbury then stole second, the first of a team record-tying four steals he would collect on the afternoon. Marco Scutaro walked, and at that point the sharks were circling; Hughes had gotten just four outs via 46 pitches. J.D. Drew grounded to Robinson Cano, who made a nice spin move on the edge of the infield and took the out at first as Hall scored. Luckily for the Yankees, Hughes escaped further damage by retiring Victor Martinez on an infield grounder, but at that point, the potential for an extended afternoon chockfull of Sergio Mitre and/or Chad Gaudin loomed large.

After the game, Hughes would admit that his second-inning struggles forced him to change his approach so as not to wear out the bullpen or himself on a hot day (92 and muggy at first pitch). “I backed off and tried to play catch after that inning,” he said. “I took a bit off and went for quick outs.” The 46 four-seam fastballs he threw in the first two innings averaged 92.3 mph, but the remaining 31 he threw averaged just 91.0. The strategy worked, and helped keep the Yankees in the game, as Hughes retired 14 of the final 15 hitters he faced starting with Martinez, getting the Yankees through six innings, something he’d done in only one of his previous four starts. In fact, he generated more swings and misses as the game went on; after netting just one in his first 73 pitches through three innings, he got five in his final 41, having more effectively introduced his curveball into the mix.

In all of this, it’s important to remember that Hughes is just 24 years old, still scaling the learning curve in his first full season in a major league rotation, and that coming into the year, he was expected to be the Yankees’ #5 starter, not their #3. If he can survive the season intact with an ERA below 4.00 and some innings headroom to start in the postseason, he’ll have delivered far, far more than just about every fifth starter in the majors.

Filed under Uncategorized, Yankees.
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YES, It’s True

Posted by Jay Jaffe on 12 August 2010, 12:09 pm

As I hinted at in my last post and as Duke Castgilione mentioned on the air with an exclusive, I have a new venue for my writing. Friend, colleague and mentor Steven Goldman has invited Bronx Banter’s Cliff Corcoran and myself to join him at the YES Network’s Pinstriped Bible blog. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to be part of something I’ve admired for such a long time, and to work with a swell pair of fellas. Steve’s work at the PB has always been top-notch, blending sharp analysis, sly wit and obscure pop cultural references. Cliff has done a bangup job as well with his own work over at BB and at SportsIllustrated.com. BP intern Stephani Bee will be pitching in with coverage of Yankees prospects as well; she’s out in California, so she’s not pictured above.

Us newcomers will be posting several times a week to complement Steve’s near-daily schedule, and we’ll be taking advantage of the YES Network’s resources, such as the ability to shoot videos, worm our way into the press box (not that I haven’t done so already as a member of Baseball Prospectus) and get Derek Jeter to show up at our birthday parties. I’m excited for the chance to get back to posting more in-depth analysis of the Yankees on a routine basis, something I’ve particularly gotten away from since Joe Torre stepped down and my own responsibilities at Baseball Prospectus have grown. I’ll still be doing my thing there as well, of course.

In any event, don’t miss the introductory video. We shot a longer one as well which should be up either later today or tomorrow. Cliff’s already published his first post, and I’ll have mine a bit later this afternoon.

Filed under Yankees, promotion, video.
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It’s That Guy From TV

Posted by Jay Jaffe on 9 August 2010, 10:19 am

On Sunday night I was a guest on the WNYW Fox 5 Sports Extra with Duke Castiglione. It’s the second time this season I’ve done his show, and while the spot was brief (just over three minutes), I think the comfort level shows. On the other hand, the lighting was harsh; I had a lot of makeup on because I had arrived  at the set rather damp, not surprising when you’re wearing a wool suit in August and sweating out Sunday night subway service limitations.

Most of our discussion concerned batting orders, a common topic on sports talk radio in the past couple of weeks with the Yankees adding Lance Berkman and experimenting with him in the number two spot but deciding instead to stick with Nick Swisher there, and the Mets… well, whatever the hell it is they’re doing, it ain’t working.

That last bit about Omar Minaya and the Mets is based upon some data that Duke asked me to pull regarding their spending during his tenure (2005-present). The Mets rank third in the majors and first in the NL in total payroll during that time, but just eighth in winning percentage:

Rk  Team          Payroll    W%  Rk
 1  Yankees      $1,277.6  .594   1
 2  Red Sox        $876.5  .575   2
 3  Mets           $731.6  .523   8
 4  Cubs           $698.4  .497  18
 5  Dodgers        $673.4  .518   9
 6  Phillies       $672.0  .553   4
 7  Angels         $650.8  .575   3
 8  Tigers         $616.7  .508  12
 9  Mariners       $583.4  .458  26
10  White Sox      $581.3  .534   7
11  Astros         $580.2  .491  21
12  Cardinals      $579.2  .543   5
13  Giants         $578.8  .483  22
14  Braves         $548.2  .516  10
15  Orioles        $509.0  .415  28
16  Blue Jays      $455.1  .510  11
17  Twins          $435.7  .537   6
18  Rangers        $423.3  .504  14
19  Brewers        $418.3  .501  15
20  Reds           $401.5  .478  24
21  Athletics      $399.7  .504  13
22  Diamondbacks   $397.7  .475  25
23  Rockies        $382.0  .496  20
24  Indians        $374.8  .499  17
25  Royals         $364.2  .406  29
26  Padres         $356.1  .501  16
27  Nationals      $348.0  .426  27
28  Rays           $269.8  .480  23
29  Pirates        $259.6  .402  30
30  Marlins        $238.1  .497  19

Not pretty, particularly when you consider that they’ve only made the playoffs once during that timespan (back in 2006). Even the Cubs, who spent nearly as much and who have a sub-.500 record overall, did so twice, while the Dodgers and Phillies made it three times apiece.

Anyway, twice in the clip, Duke mentions some heretofore unannounced news about the whereabouts of my writing. I’ll have more on that after the official announcement.

Filed under Press Hits, TV, promotion.
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