Previewing the Texas series
ByAfter a long three-game series up in Boston last weekend to cap a 10-game road trip, the Yanks have six games at home before hitting the road again. These will be match-ups against teams contending for the playoffs. More than that, they’re teams within striking distance, but are still a few games back of the Wild Card and AL Central division races. Since they mean a lot for the opponents, they mean something for the Yankees. First up is the Texas Rangers, who roll into town for three games starting tonight.
Texas enters the series a game and a half back of the Wild Card — and if not for an egregious blunder by Jose Contreras last night, they might have been just a half game back. Each win for the Yanks helps out the Sox, but that’s of no matter right now. The Sox will do what the Sox will do, and the Yankees just have to keep on winning. The further they pull ahead now, the more rest they can afford their regulars heading into the playoffs. If Texas leaves the series down 4.5 to the Sox in the Wild Card, so be it.
Offense vs. Offense
Both the Yanks and the Rangers have powerful offenses, ranking first and second in the league in home runs and slugging percentage. Other than that, though, the Yankees clearly have the superior squad. They lead the league in OBP, where the Rangers rank 12th in the AL. The difference in their respective team batting averages — .280 to .259 — is also stark. In fact, Texas ranks below league average in average and OBP.
The problem with the Rangers is that their offense only works well in the comfy confines of Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. There they have a .834 team OPS, with a slash line of .276/.343/.491, all more than respectable numbers for a team overall. Put them on the road, though, and they’re a shell of that team, hitting .240/.295/.417. The good news for them is that Yankee Stadium is a hitter’s park as well. The bad news is that it plays to the team’s weakness.
The Yankees have had so much success in their new digs because of the lefty power they bring to the table. Texas’s left-handed hitters represent a weak point for the team. Against righties their offense posts a line of .246/.306/.426, and against lefties that slumps all the way to .229/.271/.397. They have to be thanking their lucky stars that they avoid CC Sabathia in the final series between the two teams.
As a final note on the Rangers’ road offense, those numbers are actually brought up by good numbers at Angel Stadium of Anaheim (where they hit even better than at home), Minute Maid Park, and Camden Yards. Those are all subject to the small sample size warning, but at all other parks the team is pretty atrocious — including a .749 OPS at Yankee Stadium during the series earlier in the year.
At home, the Yankees are one hell of a team. They post a .276/.361/.494 line as a team, adding up to an insane .855 OPS. That bodes well for them in this series, considering Texas’s offensive deficiencies on the road. The difference between the two teams is that the Yankees actually hit well on the road: .284/.355/.466, a .821 OPS.
Pitching vs. pitching
On the offensive side, Texas has had a good team for years. It’s on the pitching end that they always faltered. That’s the difference with this year: they’ve gotten solid performances out of their starters, and have a solid bullpen for the first time in a long time. This is especially impressive because of the team’s home venue. If these guys can pitch in a hitter’s haven, they should be able to handle themselves on the road, right?
Surprisingly, they’re a bit worse in terms of results on the road, though in overall batting lines they’re a bit better. Texas pitchers hold opposing hitters to a .728 OPS — .252/.325/.403 — on the road vs. a .758 OPS at home, though they have a 4.22 ERA on the road against a 4.06 mark at home.
It appears their pitching has been improving as well. As starters they post a team 4.47 ERA in the first half, and so far in the second half have lowered that to 3.82. Ditto their relievers who pitched to a 4.09 ERA in the first half, only to see that improve to 3.24 in the second half. So it appears that pitching is Texas’s strength this year. Go figure.
The bad news for the Texas staff — and you know I’d find some bad news for them — is that when facing batters of the opposite handedness, they’re not quite as good. That’s expected normally, but the splits are a bit pronounced in this case. Against lefties as a RHP, the Rangers have a team .766 OPS, including a .340 OBP. Against righties as a LHP, the Rangers have .835 team OPS. This is not a good tendency against a team like the Yankees, a team which is built for match-ups like this.
With their A lineup in place, as it should be tonight against righty Kevin Millwood, the Yankees will feature three lefties and four switch-hitters, with the only true righties being Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter. They can trot out this lineup against Millwood and Thursday’s starter Dustin Nippert and gain a significant platoon advantage. On Wednesday they face lefty Derek Holland. Because Thursday is a day game after a night game, they could opt to rest Jorge Posada on Tuesday, putting Jose Molina in the lineup against a lefty, a favorable matchup for him. Play Hairston for Damon, and that’s four righties, three switch-hitters, and a lefty DH.
Despite the bandbox that is the new Yankee Stadium, the Bombers’ pitchers toss as well, in terms of slash stats, at home as they do on the road: a .748 OPS against at home and a .742 OPS against on the road. There is a difference in the ERA, but it also favors their home park: 4.18 at home vs. 4.58 on the road. So not only are the Yanks hitters comfortable at home, but so are the pitchers.
Pitching Matchups
Tonight: Joba Chamberlain vs. Kevin Millwood
After a relatively disappointing three years to open his Rangers tenure, Kevin Millwood has stepped up this year, leading the Rangers staff with a 3.48 ERA. He was rolling through the season’s first three months, pitching to a 2.64 ERA at the end of June. He’s hit some snags since then, and has allowed 27 runs in 42.2 innings since July 1. This includes an opponent OPS of .810. He’s started against the Yanks once this year, allowing three runs over 5.2 innings back in May.
Joba Chamberlain has been experiencing a hot and cold season in his first as a full-time starter. He burst out of the gates after the All-Star Break, allowing two runs over 21.2 innings in three starts. He then stumbled a bit, allowing 12 runs over his next 16 innings in three starts. He’s has a nice long rest since his last start on August 16.
Tomorrow: Derek Holland vs. Andy Pettitte
Rookie lefty Derek Holland has struggled in his rookie year, especially against the Yankees. In one start and one relief appearance he’s thrown 6.1 innings, allowing eight runs, seven earned and surrendering 13 hits. He moved to the rotation permanently after the All-Star Break, during which time he’s gone 4-2 with a 2.95 ERA. This includes a complete game shutout against the Angels on the road. He’s been pretty good in the two starts following that, so the Yanks shouldn’t count on seeing the same guy they hammered back in May.
Before Friday night’s start, Andy Pettitte had been pitching exceptionally, allowing just five runs, four earned, over 26 innings. He also struck out 28 to just seven walks in that span, an incredibly impressive run for the 37-year-old Pettitte. His rough start exploded on him Friday night, as he couldn’t record an out in the sixth inning. That was on a full week’s rest, so we’ll see how he does on the usual four days this time around.
Thursday: Dustin Nippert vs. A.J. Burnett
If Dustin Nippert’s name sounds familiar, it probably dates back to the 2006-2007 off-season. One of the names discussed in the Randy Johnson trade was Dustin Nippert, but the Yanks eventually ended up taking Ross Ohlendorf. The D’Backs sent him to the Rangers in 2008 when he was out of options. He’s also bounced between the pen and the rotation since joining the major league club on July 7. He’s yet to go more than six innings, though that was enough of an effort to defeat the Sox in their recent series. In the two starts surrounding that, though, he’s given up five runs each time.
We all know the deal with A.J. Burnett. He can dominate, but sometimes he runs into games like last time out against the Sox. He had his stuff, but couldn’t harness it. The good thing about A.J. is that sometimes he doesn’t have his stuff, and he can survive. The league leader in walks could use a bounce-back start after his effort against Boston on Saturday.
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Jeter may be a rightie, but he’s a righty who gets alll his hits to the opposite field, so I would guess that he hits righties well.
Great thing about the internet – we don’t have to guess (sorry, you walked into that one). He’s hitting righties well, you’re right (but not nearly as well as he’s hitting lefties).
http://www.baseball-reference......9&t=b
I’m new to baseball reference. I honestly used it, but I didn’t realizeyou could get splits. I should’ve known, my bad.
i’ve been using it for awhile now and it still has stuff i didnt know it did from time to time
I’m new to baseball reference. I honestly used it, but I didn’t realize you could get splits. I should’ve known, my bad.
Take like 15 minutes where you’re not doing much of anything and just browse around baseball-reference.com and fangraphs.com, clicking on links and tabs.
The amount of useful information in there on those sites is substantial.
Oh, and ESPN.com as well. B-R.com and FG.com have forced ESPN to step their stat game up. Their filters are now super handy and convenient.
I know, no biggie… Like I said, you walked into that one, you had to know it was coming.
I have to say though… If you’ve ever looked up stats on a website, how could you not know they have splits? I mean, splits aren’t some sort of hard-to-find advanced metric, you can get them on, like, yahoo or espn or any other website that has player stats. It’s not like splits are some crazy metric and b-ref is the only place you can find them, they have them everywhere.
The Yankees will destroy these 3 pitchers. Millwood’s been coming back down to earth lately. Holland has had a few good outings recently, but those weren’t against the Yankees in YS. Nippert is a joke. Joba on extra rest, Andy for the bounce back, and AJ loves pitching against the Rangers. It’ll be a 3 game sweep.
Dustin Nippert is not a joke. Dustin Diamond is a joke. Dustin Nippert is a nice young starter with good stuff and solid peripherals.
But can he write a hundred-odd page thesis about the value of the MLB draft?
No, he cannot. Let’s revisit that Randy trade, judged in terms of secondary benefits.
Micah Owings: Can hit homers, which nicely masks his propensity for sucking balls as a pitcher
Dustin Nippert: His name kinda sounds like “Dusty Nipples”
Ross Ohlendorf: Is wicked smaaht
We made the right choice.
why doesn;t owings just try to do the ankiel thing? i mean, this pitching thing hasn’t worked out too well for him so far no?
I think he’s more valuable as a league-average starter than a corner OF whose batting stats will be a lot lower than they are now.
We did. But on an unrelated side note, my diaper-wearing cat is named “Mr. Dirty Nipples”. It would have been nice to get him a custom-made Nippert jersey.
He was adopted.
my diaper-wearing cat is named “Mr. Dirty Nipples”. It would have been nice to get him a custom-made Nippert jersey.
Have you gotten your customized “VICK 7″ Philadelphia Eagles dog jersey from the NFL Shop yet? Hurry, supplies are limited.
http://www.nflshop.com/custom/.....8&cp=
That’s amazing! The dog died in May, but the cat is about 16 lbs., so he may fit. For $40, that’s totally worth it.
Thank you so much for the link.
Not to start off Topic….Deleted by RAB: Starting off a comment like that does not excuse off-topic comments. Please review the RAB Commenting Guidelines.
Sigh.
/waits for inevitable deletion
I like how the Grand Puba’s handled that. Didn’t make his whole comment disappear, just enough to show everyone what’s allowable and not allowable.
It’s like being put in the stocks back in the 1700′s. Set a public example…
It’s like leaving a dead mouse in its’ trap for all the other mice to see.
btw, I believe it is poobah.
I know, but I like referring specifically to Grand Puba as opposed to generic grand poobahs.
http://www.dustygroove.com/ima.....l_101b.jpg
Re: that picture…What’s a nubian?
http://www.google.com
Walked right into that one.
pwned
Courtesy of TJSC:
tommiesmithjohncarlos a/k/a Ridiculous Upside says:
August 25th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Texas Rangers, Road splits (sorted by AB’s, min 100):
Michael Young 231 AB, .299/.340/.537 (.877)
Marlon Byrd 205 AB, .268/.303/.400 (.703)
Ian Kinsler 195 AB, .190/.258/.364 (.622)
Hank Blalock 189 AB, .265/.305/.513 (.818)
Elvis Andrus 169 AB, .219/.275/.302 (.577)
Nelson Cruz 168 AB, .232/.291/.500 (.791)
David Murphy 150 AB, .267/.333/.413 (.747)
J. Saltalamacchia 141 AB, .227/.268/.312 (.581)
Josh Hamilton 125 AB, .320/.377/.488 (.865)
Andruw Jones 120 AB, .192/.290/.425 (.715)
Chris Davis 118 AB, .212/.268/.441 (.708)
Young and Hamilton are solid. The rest of that lineup? Meh.
I thought Hamilton was having an off year? Surprising his numbers on the road are that good.
Hamilton is a riddle wrapped in an enigma stuffed inside a conundrum.
Josh Hamilton, 2009:
Home: 176 PA, .216/.261/.352 (.613)
Away: 138 PA, .320/.377/.488 (.865)
That’s mind-bottling.
Swisher-esqe.
Nick Swisher, 2009
Home: 207 PA, .206/.385/.323 (.708), 3 HR, 18 RBI
Away: 259 PA, .277/.360/.598 (.959), 18 HR, 48 RBI
He gets on base at almost a 40% clip, but only gets hits at a 20% clip. And when he hits the ball, it’s almost all singles.
That’s insane.
Wilson Betemit….what a steal
Home Stats (in no particular order)
Cabrera 192 AB, .266/.326/.438
Cano 234 AB, .333/.367/.534
Damon 223 AB, .299/.390/.589
Jeter 232 AB, .319/.392/.496
Matsui 184 AB, .234/.319/.462 (surprising)
Posada 148 AB, .324/.390/.622
Rodriguez 157 AB .210/.358/.522
Swisher 155 AB .206/.385/.323
Teixeira 224 AB .308/.397/.634
Team: .276/.361/.494
Hmm, I guess it’s alphabetical order after all…lol
How dare you meh nelson cruz. That .500 SLG is nothing to sneeze at, young man. STOP. SNEEZING.
Yeah, but a .500 SLG with a .291 OBP?
That’s Mike Jacobsian. What is this, the Royals?
Obv. not good, but he has a career OBP of .322.
Seems to me that the abnormally low OBP is probably tied to his abnormally low BA (.232) on the road. Since he’s still slugging, this is prob a stat fluke.
IMHAMHO
If Cruz could only play 1b/DH Moore would have already found a way to deal for him
Saltalamacchia.
I just love saying that name, therefore, he is awesome.
Salty Buggah is not impressed.
What is the park factor for The Ballpark? Seeing these huge home/road splits, but my thoughts were that, while a hitters’ park, the split was not THAT dramatic. Could there be some noise in the data?
“Because Wednesday is a day game after a night game”
I hope this isn’t true, as I am flying out on business Wednesday and can possibly watch this game if I get to it on time.
Ok, I used that as an excuse to try this one more time:
Does anyone know what the scene outside the stadium is like for picking up tickets at the last minute?
It’s not bad, i usually get to games 45 minutes early, and there’s usually no one buying tickets, maybe one or two people.
Cool, thanks. I assume you are talking about the ticket window, is there much of a “ticket re-selling” business on the streets?
tickets are most definitely available on the streets, don’t know typical mark-up though
On Tuesday they face lefty Derek Holland.
a/k/a “The Dutch Oven”.
I wonder if the Texas Rangers “ruined the aura of Derek Holland” by taking him out of the pen. Seeing as how nobody would have known him as
“Jobber”Derek if he were a starting pitcher, I am worried that the aura that has been taken away from him will disallow him to effectively get Major League hitters out.Did Holland pitch the 8th inning? No? Then I don’t give a crap about him.
Sincerely,
Mike Francesa
I’m quite interested to find out the percentage of B-Jobbers that are just idiots, and the ones who are just trapped by an old-school way of thinking in regards to baseball.
The metric system is the tool of the devil. My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that’s the way I likes it.
Ditto.
To further this: it seems that the only B-Jobbers I know are older people who are stuck in their ways and will believe anything an ex-player (i.e. Gossage) says over what an analyst says.
TJSC…you have a car?
He “stinks.”
You’re “wrong”.
No. You have missed the obvious joke.
dutch oven:
The act of trapping a person under bed covers after releasing vile ass fumes
Ha, no, you both missed a joke. TSJC missed the dutch oven reference, you missed the unnecessary quotation marks reference. Everyone loses.
Well, to be fair, the quotes were only there to point out the joke. Obviously, they were unneeded though. You’re right about that.
A rule of thumb with me, I never intentionally make a statement like that unless it’s followed by statistical validation or it’s probably a joke.
Heh, I hear you. Another rule of thumb: Unnecessary quotation marks are mockable.
Yes, I did miss that vile joke. Never heard that one, before, my bad.
you have never heard of the dutch oven? seriously? i call shenanigans
I thought it was common practice to do this to your wife. I owe mine an apology or TSJC owes his wife one.
No, seriously, that one is new to me.
I feel like Andy talking to Mooj.
You disappoint me.
It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to lose this series or even get swept what with the Rangers being in second place in the wild card and all.
Assuming the Sox promised to lose all their games I’d be down for this.
Hmm… no.
Yes it would. The Yanks want to win against good teams. The Yanks want home field advantage. Getting swept would not be good.
No, it wouldn’t be the WORST thing in the world.
It would be really, really, really bad and incredibly dumb to be hoping for that on any level, but it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
Well, I’m not hoping for it, just pointing out that this particular series is not one where it would be disastrous to lose.
We’re 78-46.
No series from this point forward would be “disastrous” to lose.
That being said, I don’t like this “Oh, well, we’re playing one of the Red Sox competitors, it’s okay to lose these games” line of thinking. Nip that shit in the bud.
Fair enough.
But I still want the Red Sox to miss out.
Not to mention Pete Abraham has badly influenced me:
http://yankees.lhblogs.com/200.....this-time/
…the Yankees should consider jaking it against the Rangers this week. Wouldn’t you rather face the wild-card Rangers in the first round of the playoffs than the Central Division champs? The Tigers and White Sox have much better starting pitching.
/Suspiciously left out first sentence and first word of second sentence’d
You’ve been influenced not only by something Pete Abe said, but by something he said in jest. You need to take a time-out and think about that.
DFA’d
I will never object to anyone ever rooting for the Sox to lose and suffer misery.
Yanks Sweep = Larger % Scrubs can start in September
Scrubs starting in September = Very nice postseason rotation
Exactly.
I looked it up… wins are good.
We all want the Red Sox to suffer. I would actually prefer we beat them in the ALCS rather than they not make the playoffs altogether. I think they suffer more that way.
I want the Yanks to start Josh Towers, Gaudin, Mitre, and to have a AAA bullpen game the last week of the season. And still clinch best record by 5 games!
never a good idea to humiliate the competition.
see: met’s beating marlins by lots of runs second to last day of season and reyes et al celebrating their like 9th and 10th runs by hamming it up and dancing in front of home plate.
enter han-ram saying they took it personally.
climax: met’s lose last day of season to miss playoffs.
We’re not the Mets.
+27
“On Tuesday they face lefty Derek Holland. Because Wednesday is a day game after a night game…”
I think you’re out of synch because of Monday’s off day.
Holland goes Wednesday at night. Thursday’s game is the day game.
But thanks for the preview and your efforts.
RZG: 1
Joseph Pawlikowski: -eleventy bajillion
YOU SUCK JOE POW!
maybe, but he does get royalties everytime a batman the original tv series dvd starring adam west is sold sue to the licensing of his name.
POW!
/i know, awful’d
I like.
These previews are great, I look forward to them in the playoff series.
Too bad we won’t be seeing Billy Wagner’s name in them, since he’ll be watching the playoffs from home (regardless of which team he ended up on).
Has anyone noticed the startling difference between Joba at home versus on the road this year? His numbers away are 3.15era vs 4.72era on the road. Of course people will talk about the “bandbox” effect especially when look at OPS at home versus on the road. But the thing that is really killing him is he has 18 more walks at home in only 6 more innings pitched. Even more perplexing is he has 21 more K’s at home than on the road. Is it just a case that he is too amped when he plays at home?
Actually, I think that’s been talked about several times.
Well, it wasn’t discussed in the preview and I must have missed the other times it was talked about. Especially how high his walks are at home versus on the road. Thought is interesting to look at since there are only 6 Joba starts left before the playoffs.
I think Joba is going to end up like AJ..JOba like AJ has Ace stuff and can dominate for a every other month but in a full year I’m not sure if Joba can dominate like Verlander and Lincecum.I mean Joba has only 109 strikeouts in 126 innings and a 1.46 WHIP.
And watch when Hughes throw in the rotation he is gonna be average and lopsided like Joba once he starts throwing 92-93mph.He is a average reliver at best.
You raise some interesting points.
Maybe we should put both Joba and Hughes in the pen… do you like that idea? Hmm?
http://www.trilulilu.ro/adi/ca745feea216f5
He is a average reliver at best.
I would actually submit for your consideration that he’s a subpar-to-poor reliver.
But hey, it’s really hard to find a good reliver these days.
Good reliver: http://tinyurl.com/dmpulq (SFW)
Was that WeeBay from The Wire, I saw?
Ha, yeah, good call.
Both of you get +1s for watching The Wire
Is this a joke?
No. That guy says the exact same thing every time we mention Joba or Hughes. He’s the Pavlov’s Dog of young Yankee pitchers going to the bullpen.
It has to be.
And if Joba turns out to be AJ part two, I’d be pretty cool w/that.
Popavero would jizz in his pants.
Popazao? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCxuW1STyI0
Interesting Fangraphs article on Hughes (below). the author cites his lucky BABIP (.274) as a source of his success, but is .274 really that unusually low for an opponents BABIP?
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs.....n-reliever
I’m still praying for the day when people realize that BABIP is, on its own, a pretty horrendous way of evidencing claims of luck. They should instead do it like this, i think: split it into GB, FB, and LD, find league averages for each, and then calculate each pitcher’s BAGB, BAFB, and BALD rates (I personally have found that BALD rates are growing at an alarming rate. ha…ha…). And while i hope that within the next decade they’ll have technology that analyzes contact quality for better analysis, as in, BA on soft grounders vs. hard, etc. But the fact is, a good pitcher should have a low BABIP. It seems pretty intuitive to me that balls not struck well would be less likely to fall for hits.
I don’t quite grasp what you are trying to say here
[...] this afternoon, Joe previewed this Texas series. For an extended look at the Rangers, you should check that out. Tonight’s storyline, though, [...]
My question when reading this post is why not even mention runs scored? When you are trying to value and individual’s contribution it makes sense to place less value on counting stats that are dependent on the team’s offensive production, but here you are specifically looking at the teams’ offensive production.
Yes they are 1st and 2nd in HR and SLG%, but are 2nd and 7th in runs scored. The gap isn’t small either, the Yankees have scored 100 more runs, which is just under 1 run a game more. At the end of the game its the team with the most runs that wins, not highest OPS.
[...] counting a relief appearance). You can read more about the Pettitte – Holland matchup in our Rangers series preview. I’ll spare the regurgitation of information here, but suffice it to say that Holland is not [...]
[...] As they’ve been so many times this season, the Yankees are in a position to win yet another series. They’ve split the first two with the Rangers, and today’s rubber match finds them with the pitching advantage. For a fuller look at the pitching matchup, you can check out our Rangers series preview. [...]