May
31
Open Thread: Three out of four ain’t so bad
By
"Can't wew just go home now?" (Photo Credit: Kathy Willens, AP)
The Indians had the look of a team that couldn’t wait to get out of New York today, didn’t they? If it wasn’t for the massive bullpen meltdown on Saturday, this would have been a laughable four game sweep. I’m not going to complain about taking three of four though, that’s a recipe for winning a whole lotta games.
If you’re not out barbecuing it up on this gorgeous Memorial Day, use this sucker as your open thread. The Flyers and Blackhawks resume the Stanley Cup Finals with Game Two tonight, plus you’ve got the Mets in San Diego (10pm ET start) and the Diamondbacks and Dodgers on MLB Network (9pm ET). You’ve done this before, so have at it.
124 Comments»
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The Mason Williams Watch
Yankees good, A-Rod better, Ubaldo best.
He will be at ~4 WAR after ELEVEN starts.
(B-Ref WAR)
He has a .222 BABIP and a 91.7 strand rate.
i got him in the 6th round in my league. best. pickup. ever.
Must have been a small league or you’ve got some fools out there.
Also, my best pickup (in 20-team RAB league) was Liriano in the 16th round.
It’s a 10 team league, but the scoring heavily favors position players. I got Liriano too, but my best value pick may have been Hughes actually.
Yeah, I certainly don’t have to tell you he’s been unreal. Ace numbers from a guy you probably got in the 10th round or later.
My best value I’d say is Liriano or Zito (18th round).
Worst is easily Gordon Beckham (7th round). Javy in the 5th wasn’t great either, obviously.
So from a fantasy perspective, Lincecum or Ubaldo from here out? Timmy seems to have a rough patch early on most years. What do you think?
the Yankees are in fact the best =P
May Yanks never rest, until their good is better and their better best.
Anybody catch the Giants-Rockies matchup earlier today? I saw Ubaldo throw a CGSHO and lower his ERA to 0.78. That was insane.
I know he’s a workhorse and GCSHO’s are nice, but he threw nearly 130 pitches today. It’ll be a shame if he goes down with arm troubles at some point.
I saw it too..unbelievable. He is in a pitching stratosphere right now
Ubaldo Jiminez pitched another CGSO, lowering his era to 0.78, while playing half of his games in Coors’ field.
and has allowed 1 HR. and has given up no runs in 6 of his 11 starts.
So, what are the best ever seasons by a pitcher? How does Ubaldo matchup?
Pedro 2000, Gibson 68 (with 15″ mound)
Based on b-ref WAR used as a rate stat and scaled to 250 innings:
Pedro 2000–the best season ever by a pitcher–11.64
Ubaldo 2010–12.97, and that is not including today, which will probably put him over 13
You’re looking at one for the ages here
False? 7.70 K/9 3.30 BB/9 (not including today’s start) 1.8 HR/FB ratio, .222 BABIP, and a 91.7 strand ratem 3.58 xFIP. Compared to other top NL Starters:
Roy Halladay 7.33 K/9 1.23 BB/9 and a 2.91 xFIP.
Tim Lincecum (again not including today) 10.95 K/9 3.41 BB/9 and a 2.95 xFIP.
Ubaldo’s 2010 won’t even top Greinke’s 09, let alone Pedro’s 2000. Phil Hughes has a better K/9 and BB/9 (not that it will last) in the AL East
Pedro’s 2000 had a .253 BABIP and 86.6% strand rate
xFIP is more useful for relievers–good starters can keep their HR/FB below 10.6%
I’m not saying he’ll keep this up, I don’t think he will either. At the same time, it’s not guaranteed that he will crash to earth
“xFIP is more useful for relievers–good starters can keep their HR/FB below 10.6%”
implying good relievers can’t
http://www.fangraphs.com/stats.....position=P
Yes, I realize that some starters can keep their HR/FB low, but given the average HR/FB rate of his home park, and his flyball rates I’m pretty comfortable saying that he’ll give up some HRs with runners on base in due time.
The best season by a pitcher is often considered Pedro’s 2000. Comparison of peripherals, go!
Pedro through 10 starts:
12.14 K/9
1.75 BB/9
0.765 WHIP
Ubaldo through 10 starts:
7.7 K/9
3 BB/9
0.925 WHIP
I don’t think this start will be that big for Ubaldo even though he threw 128 pitches as most of them are stress free. However, Ubaldo is going back to earth eventually even though his stuff was filthy from the 4 innings I did watch of him today. His BABIP is .226 and his HR/FB% is below 2% both which have to go up eventually. Even though his first 11 starts have been beyond incredible I think Halladay is the best pitcher in the NL at the end of the season, but we should all enjoy what Jimenez has done so far this season.
I agree actually.
the yanks are getting healthy at the perfect time, with a light-ish schedule. this is their time to do some damage.
At the end of June, the Yanks will be in first place and (hopefully) have a reasonable lead in the division.
The first might end up being true, but I doubt the secon point ends up being true.
second
I highly doubt they’ll ever have a comfortable lead in the division.
That’s why I said reasonable. A three or four game lead over Tampa Bay is reasonable enough considering how good their team is.
By the end of June? I don’t think so. I think that’d be a lot by the end of the season actually.
Ditto.
I will be interested to see the standings going into August and September if the Red Sox continue to play good ball. It is very possible that the top 3 teams in the AL East wins 95+, while the rest of the league barely tops 90.
If Liriano stays healthy Minnesota’s legit.
Ubaldo Ubaldo Ubaldo Ubaldo. This is my impression of the posts on this thread so far. =P
Seriously, dude’s a beast. As others have said, his BABIP is low and his strand rate is incredibly high. But he’s been fun to watch. The “GREATEST SEASON EVER????” is probably still a little too early, but even a “regression to the mean” won’t be too painful, I think.
What’s scary is the fact that Ubaldo is only 26. This might only be the icing on the cake, as he could morph into a Pedro like beast within the next two years.
He’s still poised for a ridiculous season even if he doesn’t stay this otherworldly
As for “he’s due to regress”–Pedro 2000 managed a .253 BABIP for the whole year and stranded 86.6% Is it likely that Ubaldo can do that? No. On the other hand, you can’t predict this game
Pedro also had an incredible K-rate, which allowed him to strand so many batters.
In addition with a BB/9 half of Jimenez. Hard to score runs when half of the outs are via the K. Also, Pedro’s FIP was known to dip below 2 in his prime, Ubaldo is still over 3.
For what it’s worth, Ubaldo has walked 6 in his last 32 innings. Then again, that includes outings against teams like Houston and SF
Ubaldo has been straight up dominating the NL, if the Rockies make the playoffs they have a chance to win because of him as long as they don’t burn out his arm.
Yeah. I don’t think BABIP is QUITE the be-all end-all, honestly. Sometimes you give up a ton of line drives that find gloves. Sometimes you give up a lot of weak contact that your fielders don’t have too many issues with, which is probably the case with elite years like Pedro’s.
A “regression” for Ubaldo might be to an ERA slightly over/under two with great peripherals. I think he’d be pretty fine with that.
This sounds probably too dismissive of BABIP. BABIPs like .200 and .400 probably won’t last the entire year. But sometimes a pitcher has a BABIP of like .340 and people talk about how they were just getting unlucky… when in fact they were badly locating pitches and getting hit really hard. Here I think of Pettitte’s 2008.
But those people who claimed he was unlucky and due for a correction were right. His 2009 was much better and his start this year is unbe-fucking-lievable.
No, they weren’t right. Pettitte pitched through a sore shoulder in the 2nd half of 2008 because the team was already down several players. When Rasner and Ponson both have spots in the rotation, you suck it up and keep pitching if you can. He wasn’t able to throw many breaking balls, and didn’t have good location on his fastball. He got hit up because he just wasn’t physically able to pitch well.
The “correction” was an offseason of rest so that his shoulder could recover. Luck had nothing to do with that.
But the BABIP still corrected itself. So in that sense, they were right.
Pettitte in 2008 not only pitching with an tired arm, he also was hurt by a poor defense, which was reflected in his BABIP. He was an obvious candidate for a rebound in 2009, although there were many who thought he was done. They were wrong.
BABIP must not be looked at in a vacuum. That is, we can’t just say “Oh his BABIP is XYZ therefore, he’s getting (un)lucky.” Instead, we must look at the player’s current BABIP and compare it to his career BABIP to make an accurate judgment of luck and skill. Of course, like all things statistical/baseball, there are other factors we must consider (HR rate, LD/GB/FB percentages, etc).
You said it a lot better than I did.
http://tinyurl.com/28scrya (safe)
This is not necessarily true. It assumes that a player is performing on the same level or scale at any point in time.
For young player’s in particular they can often make leaps in their performance that is not only an advancement in their game, but puts them on a whole other track.
At this point in time it would not be particularly useful to compare Ubaldo’s past statistics and try to use them as predictors of the future. He has greatly evolved as a pitcher over the past year.
Phil Hughes is a stark example of this. His prior statistics are basically useless right now.
I agree to some extent–I think BABIP for hitters can be a little overrated. Unless it’s Austin Jackson crazy (he is still at .454)
BABIP for pitchers is very interesting in that you can have the same type of pitcher fluctuating wildly year to year–case in point, Pedro
1998: .284
1999: .343
2000: .253
2001: .322
He was the same pitcher, yet he had the third highest BABIP in the majors in 1999 and the very lowest in 2000. That would suggest that this is something that is outside of his control and except for extreme circumstances (knuckleballers, Mariano Rivera) there aren’t really that many examples of pitchers with chronically superlow BABIPS
Going along with this thought, is Voros McCracken’s work on whether pitchers have any control over their BABIP:
http://www.baseballprospectus......icleid=878
As mentioned above, if the pitchers did, you’d question why sometimes guys like Pedro and Maddux were the best, and next season absolutely terrible (respectively so).
Just to build on that, here are the active leaders in IP and their BABIPs
Jamie Moyer: .290
Andy Pettitte: .315
Tim Wakefield: .282
Livan Hernandez: .309
Javy Vazquez: .309
Jeff Suppan: .303
Kevin Millwood: .306
Derek Lowe: .299
Roy Halladay: .299
Tim Hudson: .287
Mark Buehrle: .292
Barry Zito: .274
CC Sabathia: .295
Chan Ho Park: .296
Jon Garland: .289
Roy Oswalt: .306
Freddy Garcia: .290
Jeff Weaver: .308
Chris Carpenter: .302
Miguel Batista: .301
A good mix of the good, the bad, and the mediocre and apart from Zito (I wonder what he is doing right) there really isn’t much variation. The more innings you throw, the more your BABIP will go toward .300
No one is going to disagree that he is not fun to watch with all that great stuff, just pointing out the reality that this type of season will not continue.
Haha. And the Blue Jays take a 2 – 0 lead with a 2-run bomb by Lind. It’s amazing how unpredictable baseball is. I love it.
its still early, but if the jays can win that would be great
I’m watching the repeat of today’s game and WOW that blown call on the “neighborhood play” in the second. That’s terrible. Fire CB Bucknor immediately, please.
Don’t worry, Bex. It’ll come back to us. Bucknor will make some call, that will mess up some game, that will make some team lose, that will make the Yanks win somehow.
Gotta love karma.
He helped us a bunch on Friday actually, heh.
Yeah, he’s awful.
/didn’t watch much of this weekend’s games
Who else is excited that within the week the Yankees will bring out 8 of the starting 9 hitters that started the year with Miranda and Thames being platooned. Having Jorge back is just going to make the Yankees lineup that much better.
Dear Lance Barksdale–Ubaldo doesn’t need any help
Robot umps please
I dunno — looks like Ubaldo got screwed out of 5-6 calls while getting 8-9 gift calls. I don’t think he got all that much help after all.
The Rays cannot avoid being no-hit it seems.
And Joe West is at it again
That’s a couple of balls right down the middle
Joe West; Perpetually at it again.
So in non-Ubaldo news, how bout those Braves?
They’re the first team to take first place from Philadelphia in three years. It should be a tight race between them, the Phillies, and Florida.
Weren’t the Mets in first place just one month ago? Or do you mean they are the first team to take first place from Philly while playing a series against Philly?
I really don’t want to jinx them, but the Blue Jays going through with “this” would be awesome.
By “this” I’m assuming you mean that Morrow is pitching a no-hitter going into the 6th
He has 0 K’s, and 35 strikes, 30 balls. Not happening.
I don’t know about the ball strike ratio, but K-less no-nos have happened
Oh yeah, for sure. I only pointed out cause Morrow’s strength is in K’s. So if he has 0, he’s probably getting somewhat lucky as opposed to pitching well.
Of course. At the same time, no one has ever pitched a no hitter without getting lucky to some degree
Successful jinx is successful.
Meh, Morrow’s no-no over.
….and it’s gone
I really want the Yankees to go HS in the draft. I really am hoping Zach Lee drops in the draft and the Yankees take a flier on him.
I’m glad that they’re not married to drafting either HS pitchers or college pitchers. Both have their downsides, and there’s so much more to drafting than just that. Make up, work ethic, skills, etc.
true but I don’t see a legit top college player falling to the Yanks.
Does anybody know if there’s a website where I can find a hitter’s batting average with RISP? I looked on baseball reference but couldn’t find it. Thanks in advance if anyone can help.
The B-Ref splits should have it.
Go to player — splits, and choose your year
It’s on b-ref–one of the dropdown menus on the player page is “splits”. It’s in there
Ahh, I should’ve known. Thanks to both of you.
http://www.baseball-reference......;t=b#bases
There you go.
Wordy word. Thanks man.
So did everybody hear what went down with Oliver Perez?
http://www.sportingnews.com/ml.....erez-loose
IMO, I think the Mets should put him on waivers and make him some other team’s problem.
Even better, DL him and let him rot away for the next two years since he has no intention to do right by the team that’s paying him 12 mil per year.
Then you have the best of both worlds. He can’t come back to bite you making MLB minimum on one of your competitors AND you don’t waste a roster spot on his dithering, slack-jawed ass.
Players A and B have never slumped or struggled during their careers, so they can say that without fear of being called a hypocrite.
If that came from management, I’d have no problem. But coming from his teammates is pretty weak on their part, especially off the record.
You know, I understand the Mets players’ sentiments, but if those quotes are legit, that’s ridiculously unprofessional. You can’t have leaks like that in the lockerroom. Again, I know they’re saying what everybody is thinking, but leave that mongering to the media. I’m guessing we’ll be hearing about “Operation Lockdown” in the clubhouse pretty soon.
Imagine if the Yanks were quoted anonymously. Shit would hit the fan. I remember a few shots being taken at Pavano, but it was mostly ball-busting.
Good day. Good win. Awesome bargain shopping for shoes. And I’m trying to figure out what to do with my new Twitter!
Yay.
Follow me!
@rebeccapbp
Also
@rebexarama
@joepawl
@mikeaxisa
@bkabak
@jmktheovershare
@steveh_mandaura
@leokitty
And many others.
I’m following you now.
@AnaMariana42
I saw you joined and waved hello via Twitter.
I saw!
Twitter’s confusing. I’ll get used to it.
Cool. I’ll follow you back in a bit when I’m less distracted =)
Allow me to add just a couple off the top of my head:
@riddering
@theyankeeu
@YankeeMegInPHL
@amandarykoff
@Larry_Koestler
@iYankees
@JoeRo23
@richardiurilli
@OSingh91
@tsjc68
@Stephen_MR
Again, there are tons of great people to follow. Those are just the ones that immediately came to mind.
Wow. Weak.
@mystqueandaura
Haha figures I’d forget our own site. Ugh.
@stophammertime
@stophamm3rtime
Yes, most definitely follow Dela. He’s great.
Lol, like six or seven pitches in, Chad Billingsley has given up a double and a homer.
Bust. Just like teh Jobber.
And he proceeds to strikeout the side. Baseball’s weird like that.
http://youcantpredictbaseball.wordpress.com/
/someone had to do it
I just have one word to say to you folks.
Flotilla.
I have a friend that tore his labrum playing in an adult men’s softball league…he still wants to keep playing. Should I laugh at him, or should I encourage him to keep playing so I can laugh more later?
2 more outs to go.
Shit, Longo triples to get the tying run at 3rd with 1 out.
Yes, out at home on a gb.
Game over, Rays lose!
Damn, sounds like a hell of a game.
Do I watch Mariners/Twins or Mets/Padres?
Liriano.
Man, Kruk sure is a douche.
What the heck happened to the Mets last nite? They were leading 2-1 and BOOM, lost 18-6. Who was pitching?