Archive for October, 2009
Choose your own ALDS Opponent
Posted by: | CommentsIn a few minutes, the Royals and Twins will start their game. Zack Greinke goes for his 17th win as Nick Blackburn, on three days’ rest, looks to keep the surging Twins putting pressure on the Tigers. Right now, I’m just rooting for a one-game AL Central playoff on Tuesday.
But beyond that playoff, the Yankees will have to play someone on Wednesday in their hunt for an ALCS berth. Both the Twins and Tigers have their strengths and weaknesses. While the AL Central will be the worst, record-wise, of all AL playoff teams, we can’t count either out in a very short series.
So as the games begin and we await the time until the Yanks and Rays play game 161 tonight, let’s open this one up to a poll and a discussion. We’ll be back with the game thread in a few hours.
RAB Note: Feel free to use this thread to discuss the FOX game as long as it’s the Royals vs. the Twins. We’d like to keep this one somewhat on topic.
Previewing the Jason Bay ‘sweepstakes’
Posted by: | CommentsIn a few weeks, current Red Sox outfielder Jason Bay will hit free agency for the first time in his career. With 36 home runs and 117 RBI, Bay is putting together some lofty stats at an opportune time, but still, his season comes equipped with numerous warning signs. Although the Yanks have been one of many teams mentioned as interested, they should become involved with Bay only to drive up the price for the Red Sox.
Through the middle of 2008, Bay excelled in relative obscurity. A darling for fantasy team owners, he was a stand-out player on years’ worth of terrible Pirates teams. He left Pittsburgh with a .281/.375/.515 line in six seasons and 131 home runs to complement the 131 OPS+. Bay arrived in Boston as a key piece in the three-way trade that sent Manny Ramirez to Los Angeles and clearly had some big shoes to fill.
While not nearly as good as Manny — who is? — Bay has found success in Boston. Through 198 games, he has a 132 OPS+ and has hit 45 home runs. His triple slash line this season— .275/.382/.537 — is impressive, and more than a few teams will come a-knockin’ when he hits free agency this winter.
Earlier this week, MLB Trade Rumors summarized the state of the Bay sweepstakes. Alex Speier in Boston believes that the bidding could reach $14-$15 million for Bay and that the left fielder will receive at least four years. Speier feels that Boston return is a “legitimate possibility” but notes that at least seven teams — including the Yankees — could have the interest and money to sign Bay.
To which I say, “Pass.” Right now, Jason Bay is a productive middle-of-the-order hitter, but warning signs abound. The most obvious problem is his age. He is 31, and his free agent contract will cover his decline years. With that in mind, we turn to his defense. Right now, it is atrocious. He hasn’t had a positive UZR since 2006, and even in Fenway’s limited left field, he’s putting up a -12.3 mark this year. While he may be worth 34.3 offensive runs above average, he is 12.3 defensive runs below average. That number will just get worse as he gets older.
Also of concern are his strike outs. He has a career-high 159 strike outs in 60 fewer plate appearances than when he sruck out 156 times in 2006. As he ages, his bat speed will slow, and that total should continue to climb.
Now, don’t get me wrong; Jason Bay is a very good hitter. His power bat would profile nicely for Yankee Stadium. Considering, however, the costs, years, his age and defense, I can’t see the Yanks expressing much legitimate interest. If the Yanks can force Boston to overpay for Bay without landing Bay themselves, well, that is a decent off-season plan.
Like it or not, Molina likely to catch in playoffs
Posted by: | CommentsThe past week has seen debate over what the Yanks should do with their ALDS roster construction. Which 10 pitchers should they carry? Should they add Freddy Guzman? Francisco Cervelli? None of these is the most important question — the one that will have the most impact on one or multiple games. No, that question is of playing time at catcher. We’ve seen some speculation that Jose Molina could catch A.J. Burnett, and given some of Girardi’s comments last night, it appears that will be the case. From Feinsand:
“We haven’t come up with any final decisions on how we’re going to do things,” Girardi said. “Jose is possibly going to play an important role next week, so we wanted to get him some at-bats.”
I don’t think that “an important role” means catching the eighth and ninth if the Yanks pinch run for Posada. No, “an important role” would appear to mean starting catcher. So for those who are vehemently against Molina seeing any playing time next week, commence flipping out.
I’m not necessarily against the move. If it makes Burnett pitch better, I’m actually all for it. The problem is that I don’t think there’s any certainty in that. Are we guaranteed a good Burnett start with Molina behind the plate? If so, start him. If there’s no guarantee, though, and there’s really not any objective way to say there is, then I have to question the decision to take either Jorge’s or Matsui’s bat out of the lineup.
Banuelos, Mesa ranked among Sally League’s best
Posted by: | CommentsBaseball America posted their ranking of the top 20 prospects in the Low-A South Atlantic League today, with southpaw Manny Banuelos coming in at #9. He’s the third lefty pitcher on the list, trailing only Martin Perez of Texas (#1) and Matt Moore of Tampa Bay (#3). “He’s the most impressive pitcher I’ve had at this level since Phil Hughes five years ago,” Charleston manager Torre Tyson said in the subscriber only scouting report. “For me, he’s a front-end starter in the big leagues, and you don’t have too many guys like that come through here.”
Outfielder Melky Mesa also squeezed onto the list at #20, and the report on him is the same as it’s always been: super toolsy, but held back by his overly aggressive approach. Andrew Brackman obviously didn’t make the cut, but in the chat we learned that some scouts had him up to 96 with the fastball. The Yanks could keep him in the bullpen to get him to the bigs faster, but holding him back to work on his command and other stuff would be wiser for his development.
The Florida State League comes out next Wednesday, and I’m pretty sure Jesus Montero got enough at-bats with Tampa to qualify for that sucker.
Game 160: This could have been a meaningful series
Posted by: | CommentsIt was supposed to have been a three-horse race. The Yankees, Rays, and Red Sox were supposed to battle for the top two spots in the AL East, which was assumed to house the AL East champion and the AL Wild Card. The three teams battled through the first half, but the second half has been all Yankees, and has been all against the Rays.
A team that won 97 games last season is stuck at 82 with three games left. While they were once greatly underperforming their run differential, even that has come back down to earth. As it stands, they’re just two games behind pace. The Yankees, for what it’s worth, are outperforming their run differential by eight games, though they do have the best mark in the AL by three games.
Rookie David Price takes the mound against the Yankees for the third time this season. They worked his pitch count the first time, forcing him to toss 106 through 5.2 innings, while they scored three runs. Price’s five walks didn’t help matters. He was better the second time, allowing two runs on three hits and two walks in six innings. In his last appearance, he gave up five runs in five innings to the Rangers.
While the game is meaningless for the Yankees as a team, it does mean something for CC Sabathia, who can notch his 20th win tonight. He downplays it, saying that it would be nice but not necessary. After year after year of busted free agent pitching, I think most of us want to see him get it. Not that it makes a difference in CC’s season — he was a great pickup who was worth every penny — but it’s always nice to see a pitcher hit 20 wins these days.
For some reason, Jose Molina is DHing tonight. The early lineup had him as catcher and Jorge as DH, but then they flopped. Why not just DH Hinske if you’re not going to DH Matsui? I don’t get it. I’m glad Posada is catching CC, because that’s the way it will line up in the playoffs. Molina should catch tomorrow, and Posada should catch A.J. on Sunday.
Lineup:
1. Derek Jeter, SS
2. Jerry Hairston, LF
3. Mark Teixeira, 1B
4. Alex Rodriguez, 3B
5. Nick Swisher, RF
6. Jorge Posada, C
7. Robinson Cano, 2B
8. Melky Cabrera, CF
9. Jose Molina, C
And on the mound, number fifty-two, Carsten Charles Sabathia.
Mariano’s pitch sequences and game theory
Posted by: | CommentsThis is a nerdy subject, so I’ll keep it short and link-heavy. With pitch data freely available, we’re going to start seeing Game Theory used to analyze pitcher-batter matchups. Tommy at Beyond the Box Score touched on this earlier this week, and it’s a good read on pitch type game theory. Today at The Baseball Analysts, Dave Allen looks at Mariano Rivera’s pitch sequences. But, because Marino throws only one pitch, this sequencing deals with location rather than pitch type. An amazing non-game-theory note: Mo is insanely good when throwing to his glove side. Many pitchers have trouble controlling pitches on that side. Allen goes on to show how Mo fares when throwing inside to a lefty after an outside pitch, inside to a righty after an inside pitch, and so on.
As we know, Mo dominates lefties. He’s not quite as good against righties, and he’s particularly bad when going inside after an outside pitch — and is also not quite as good when going inside-outside. Tom Tango runs with that. In most cases with Game Theory, he says, we need to take the batter into consideration, because each batter has different strengths and weaknesses. With the outside-inside sequence, though, the difference is too pronounced to chalk it up to poor choices to certain batters. Mo throws this sequence 37 percent of the time (as in, throws an outside pitch 37 percent of the time after he throws an inside pitch). He would do well to cut down on that. Mo fares best against righties when going with the outside-outside sequence.
Just how long can you continue to throw righties outside cutters? I’m not sure. This is where longer pitch sequences would be helpful. For instance, if Mo goes outside-outside-inside, does he fare well? Or is that the sequence that hurts him the most? After all, he went inside after an outside pitch, which for him produces the worst result. But just prior to that he went outside after an outside. This also raises the issue of whether these sequences cover multiple batters. In other words, if Mo strikes out a righty with an inside cutter and opens the next righty with an outside one, is that counted as an inside-outside combination? Or are the sequences limited to single plate appearances? I would think you’d produce a bit of noise if you overlapped batters. Better to stick to single-batter sequences for these analyses.
This is the type of analysis that gets me excited. Even non-stat-heads can enjoy pitch sequencing and Game Theory. It’s an attempt to break down the most fundamental game in baseball, that between the pitcher and batter. Analysis doesn’t get any better than that.
ALDS and ALCS tickets go on sale Monday
Posted by: | CommentsWhile the Yankees could be waiting until Tuesday to find out their ALDS opponent, tickets for the series will go on sale Monday. Unlike in the old days, when you’d have to get there the night before and camp out in order to have a shot, this year it will be an online-only affair. Those interested can go to yankees.com starting at 10 a.m. EDT. From then until 9 a.m. “on the date of the Yankees’ first scheduled ALDS home game” — so Wednesday — it will be an online exclusive. After that tickets will be available at the Yankee Stadium Advance Ticket Windows.
Ross at New Stadium Insider has the pricing breakdown. The limit will be two tickets to one game per customer. So choose wisely. The press release, via LoHud, also notes some additional seating options:
There will be 60 café seats on the Field Level concourse available for $81 per ticket for the Division Series and $131 per ticket for the League Championship Series. Additionally, approximately 200 standing room tickets for dedicated standing locations on the Field and Main Levels will cost $33 and $25, respectively, for the ALDS and $64 and $48, respectively, for the ALCS.
If you’re planning to purchase tickets during the public sale, try not to get your hopes up. As Ross further notes, there are a limited number of tickets available: about 4,735 for the ALDS and 3,235 for the ALCS. So the bad news is that your chances are small of scoring even two tickets. The good news is that you don’t have to wait outside forever just to find out you won’t get them.
Again, the public on-sale date is Monday, October 5 at 10:00 a.m. EDT, exclusively on Yankees.com. Good luck to anyone who tries to snag a couple. Just keep your favorite hosts in mind when you’re deciding how to use your extra one, OK?
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America: Yanks still our team
Posted by: | CommentsJust in case there were any doubts, a new poll has confirmed that the Yankees are indeed still America’s Team. In a nationwide poll of 800 respondents, Sacred Heart University pollsters found that 41.6 percent chose the Yanks for the top spot. The Red Sox came in second with 16.3 percent of the vote followed by the Braves, Cubs, Phillies, Cardinals, Mets and Tigers. If the Mets are America’s Team, that does not speak highly of our country. The margin of error for the poll was +/- 3.5 percent, and, needless to say, it’s good to be on top.
Just 21 days 'til pitchers and catchers report.
