For our final World Series preview post before the Game 1 game thread, may I present to you the umpires…

Amidst increased scrutiny, Major League Baseball yesterday evening announced the umpire crew for the World Series. After a series of controversial and obviously bad calls during the ALCS, MLB decided to go with a veteran crew. The crew chief for the World Series will be 28-year veteran Gerry Davis, and joining him are Joe West, Dana DeMuth, Brian Gorman, Jeff Nelson and Mike Everitt.

Now, an ideal world, we would never hear about the umpires. The men in blue are supposed to go about their jobs by making calls and generally staying out of the way. Over the last few years, though, umpires have taken over more and more of the spotlight. It probably started with the Roberto Alomar spitting incident when our collective attention turned to the umps, and it grew worse when, in 1997, Eric Gregg’s NLCS home plate was about 15 inches wider than it should have been, thus allowing Livan Hernandez to strike out everyone.

Since then, umps have grown in infamy for things they say or do. We saw one ump refuse to call a strike down the middle of the plate against the Red Sox in Boston this year because the Angels’ catchers supposedly moved their mitts too frequently and too far. We saw one ump call Derek Jeter out and then tell the Yankee Captain that he didn’t need to be tagged as long as the ball got there first. We routinely see umpires take too long to call balls and strikes and generally showboat all over the place.

Until this week, fans had no real way of judging the umpires, but all that has changed thanks to Larry Granillo at Wezen-Ball. Granillo compiled 11 years of data — from 1998-2008 — to assess how umpires judge strike zones. In his post about the project, he discusses his methodology:

Using the current Retrosheet database (which still only goes through the 2008 season), I found all umpires who worked the plate 10 or more times last year. I then went through the database and gathered all relevant stats from the games the each umpire worked behind the plate between the years of 1998 and 2008. These are the “Umpires’ Stats” …

With the “umpires’ stats” calculated, we could now take a look at an individual umpire to see how many plate appearances he umped per game, or how many balls and strikes he called per plate appearance. Without more information, though, we wouldn’t be able to do much with it. How could we know, for example, that Umpire X’s tendency to rack up a lot of strikeouts per nine innings was a result of a wide strikezone and not merely because he was behind the plate for too many Tim Lincecum and Justin Verlander starts? Without knowing the performance of the pitchers that Umpire X saw in games that someone else was behind the plate, there are very few conclusions that we can draw. So I went ahead and made those calculations. For every pitcher that a particular ump called in a given year, I went through the database and gathered all relevant stats from the games in which the pitcher pitched in and in which Umpire X was not behind the plate. These are the “Pitchers’ Stats.”

In the end, Granillo made the raw data available at his site but also provided a link a Google spreadsheet with the World Series info. That data shows very little discrepancies amongst the umpires. Gerry Davis, tonight’s home plate ump, calls fewer strikes than the pitchers on the mound generally receive. The difference though adds up to only one called strike per 20 plate appearances. Interestingly, though, with Davis behind the mound, pitchers’ K/9 IP drops by around 0.54 while BB/9 IP rates increase by 0.41. Of the World Series umps, only Jeff Nelson rings up more batters than his pitchers do overall.

On the surface, these differences are small, but with more data available, we can begin to assess how an umpire behind the plate can impact a game. Hopefully, during the World Series, we won’t suffer through any egregious bad calls, and Davis and his crew will ump a fair Fall Classic.

We’ve previewed the Yankees along with their opponents through the ALDS and ALCS. Instead of re-re-rehashing all of that, we’re going to stick with just the opponents this time. We’ve already looked at their starters and their infield, and now we’ll take a look at their bullpen.

As a whole, the Philadelphia bullpen posted a 3.91 ERA in 2009, exactly equal to the Yanks’ mark. The difference between the two, however, is that the Yanks’ relief corps succeeded by striking guys out while the Phillies relied more on pitching to contact and letting their defense do the work. The Phils’ bullpen did have their own reality TV show this season, and sheesh, how are the Yanks supposed to compete with that?

Let’s break it down piece by piece.

Closer: Brad Lidge
You’ve all heard the story by now. Lidge was perfect in save opportunities last year, but he struggled so badly this year that he lost his closer’s job for a while. Main stream media types have penned a few “Lidge is back on track” pieces to fill the inches during playoff downtime, but don’t let them fool you. In a whopping four innings this postseason, Lidge has put four guys on base (three walks), and no one’s impressed by retiring players like Ronnie Belliard and Mark Loretta with the bases empty.

For whatever reason, batters aren’t just making more contact against Lidge this year, they’re making more solid contact. Among relievers with at least 55 IP this year, no one allowed a greater slugging percentage against than Lidge’s .515. To put that in perspective, just 36 batters had a SLG that high in 2009.  The Yankees have already mounted two comebacks off Lidge this year, and not enough has changed to suggest he’s returned to being an effective reliever, let alone a dominant closer.

Setup: Ryan Madson
The Phillies run to the World Series last year was boosted by Madson’s emergence in the second half, when he held opponents to a .592 OPS against over his final 26 appearances. He managed to maintain his late-2008 performance in 2009, holding opponents to a .251 average and striking out more than a batter per inning. Madson’s mid-90′s gas (check out his velo graph) and top-of-the-line changeup make him effective against both righties and lefties, and he’s Charlie Manuel’s go-to reliever in a tight spot.

None of the Yankees’ regulars have had more than three plate appearances against Madson in their careers, and unfamiliarity is always advantage: pitcher. Even though his playoff numbers aren’t great, Madson is the one pitcher in Philadelphia’s bullpen that is a true difference maker right now. The best way for the Yankees to neutralize him is by pounding the other pitchers on Philly’s staff, rendering Madson’s innings meaningless.

Lefties: Antonio Bastardo, Scott Eyre
Fans of DotF will surely remember Bastardo terrorizing High-A Tampa last year, and he was a bit of a surprise inclusion on the postseason roster. He’s faced a grand total of two batters in the postseason, striking out a batter in the NLDS and allowing a hit in the NLCS. In all likelihood, he’ll be the last man out of the Phillies’ bullpen, especially since he can provide length in extra innings if need be (he was a starter before moving to the pen in the postseason).

Scott Eyre, on the other hand, is the guy that will come on to face a lefty or two in a tough spot. His numbers are better than solid against lefties (.210-.269-.355), and he even holds his own against righties (.200-.356-.333), so you might see a situation were Eyre is brought in to face Hideki Matsui, then is left in to face Jorge Posada just so he could also pitch to Robinson Cano. He’s been hit around a bit in the playoffs (6 H in 2.1 IP), so he’s not exactly a lockdown reliever.

We should also add JA Happ into the LOOGY mix, because it’s unlikely he’ll get a start in the Fall Classic. He held lefties to a .216-.285-.358 batting line this season, but like everything else about his season, it came with the aid of a fluky low BABIP (.254 in this case).

Righties: Chad Durbin, Chan Ho Park, Brett Myers
Aside from Madson, Durbin might be Philadelphia’s most trustworthy reliever. He had extreme control issues during the season (47 BB in 69.2 IP), but but has been perfect in the postseason. Literally perfect, no baserunners in five appearances. Chan Ho Park, meanwhile, seems to be Philadelphia’s Al Aceves. He’ll work an inning, three innings, a third of an inning, whatever. Park has gotten some high-leverage work this postseason, but outside of one winning in the NLCS, he’s failed pretty miserably at it. Not to sound overly confident or anything, but the Yanks eat relievers like CHP for breakfast.

Believe it or not, Myers started Opening Day for the Phigtin’s this year, although he missed a big chunk of the season with a torn labrum in his hip. He was left off the NLCS roster after being used just once in the NLDS, and at this point he’s kind of like a reliever without a role. With subpar strikeout numbers and a propensity to give up the longball, it’s hard to picture Myers getting high leverage work in the World Series. He’s kinda like their Brian Bruney, except not really.

Unless he makes a start, Joe Blanton will also be available out of he bullpen for Charlie Manuel. Blanton’s already made two long relief appearances (and one start) this postseason, but like I said in the SP preview, it’s Joe Blanton, and the Yankees traditionally crush him.

Madson and Lidge are the only guys that bring premium velocity to the table this series, although CHP can dial it up occasionally. For the most part, this group will pitch themselves into trouble if you let them, so the key for the Yanks is to be patient and work favorable counts, then sit dead red on some average fastballs.