Archive for C.C. Sabathia
Sabathia’s poor luck in no-decisions
Posted by: | CommentsCC Sabathia has started 26 games so far this season, and has recorded a decision in 21 of them. His current four-game win streak has tied him with Josh Beckett, his opponent tonight, for the AL lead in wins. That seems impressive, especially given Sabathia’s slow start to the season. Yet he could be doing much better if not for those five no-decisions.
The first came early in the season, in that infamous home opening series against the Indians. Sabathia and Cliff Lee dueled, and the former clearly didn’t have his best stuff or command. He tossed 122 pitches through 5.2 innings, which seems like quite a lot, even for a workhorse like Sabathia. After Edwar Ramirez allowed a hit in relief, Phil Coke shut the door on the sixth, leaving Sabathia’s one-run effort in tact. The game was tied at one then, but Cleveland exploded in the top of the seventh, hammering Jose Veras for three runs without him recording an out. Damaso Marte was equally embarrassing, and that led to an Indians victory. Sabathia pitched well, but not deep enough and it cost the Yanks.
The next was the only Sabathia no-decision this year which the team won, the 14-inning affair against Oakland. The Yanks had a 6-5 lead when Sabathia went out for the seventh, but a walk and a single to lead off the inning allowed the A’s to manufacture two runs and tie the game. Strange that the CC no-decision in which the Yankees won is the one where Sabathia is eminently culpable.
Perhaps the most frustrating no-decision came against the Phillies. Sabathia gave up an early lead, but settled down and completed eight innings of three-run ball. The Yanks were down when he left, but by no means did he pitch poorly. In fact, this start was better than many of the starts in which Sabathia recorded a victory. Alas, win-loss record has plenty to do with the offense, and this time around the Yanks couldn’t muster more than two off Cole Hamels. They tied it off Brad Lidge in the ninth for the second consecutive day, but Brett Tomko would blow the game in extras. No-decision for Sabathia, though he pitched much better than that.
Next up is a tough outing at the Stadium against Tampa Bay. Five runs through eight innings isn’t all that great. Yes, you’re giving your team length, but the five runs just hurt. It came mostly in a three-run sixth, which put the Rays out ahead by two. After Sabathia finished the eighth, the Yanks rallied for two in the bottom half, handing the ball to Mariano Rivera in hopes they could walk off with another win in the ninth. Mo was sick that day, though, and gave up four runs in the ninth, sealing the game for the Rays. Not the best start, and Sabathia probably did deserve to lose it. Mo was obviously the bigger story that day.
The final one I’m not sure even counts. It was Sabathia’s 1.1 inning appearance against the Marlins, which he left with biceps tendinitis. He did allow a run in that span, and Aceves did come on to get the Yanks through the fourth inning, but again it was Tomko who blew the lead. Phil Coke didn’t help, and that was it for the Yanks, despite an effort off Marlins closer Matt Lindstrom. Again, it’s hard to hold CC completely responsible. He did, after all, only pitch about as much as a typical reliever.
That’s five no-decisions, two in which he pitched well, two in which he pitched poorly, and one throw-away. So while the Yanks are just 15-11 in games Sabathia has started, it clearly wasn’t always his fault. Sometimes the luck breaks that way. All considered, CC has pitched very well for the Yankees, especially over his last four starts. Here’s hoping he emerges tonight as the league leader in wins.
Yanks back to normal in 7-2 win
Posted by: | Comments
Last night we saw from the Yankees what we’ve seen from them, for the most part, since the All-Star Break: solid pitching and a hit barrage. They slipped for a couple of days, but over a 162-game season, what team won’t? Seemingly unfazed by two straight losses, the Yanks came up with a big inning to complement CC Sabathia’s mostly dominant start and took the second game of the series, 7-2.
After said two straight losses, the first inning was not a welcome sight. After Vin Mazzaro beaned A-Rod and issued a five-pitch walk to Hideki Matsui, the Yanks had the bases loaded with two outs. Jorge Posada worked a 2-2 count, but struck out on a ball way out of the zone. It was another opportunity wasted, the second such by Posada in two nights — Monday night he went down looking with runners on first and second with two outs.
Still, the Yanks had to feel good with their ace on the hill. Things looked great through the first two batters: a strike out and a pop out. But when CC threw behind Kurt Suzuki — and considering CC’s command last night, it was pretty clearly in retaliation for the A-Rod beaning — the catcher responded like any hitters wants to, by homering. Same thing happened in the second, minus the purpose pitch. After striking out the first two batters of the inning, CC gave up a homer to Tommy Everidge. Of course, he then came back to strike out Ryan Sweeney to end the frame.
The A’s wouldn’t get anything off Sabathia the rest of the night. There was some trouble in the fourth when the A’s put runners on second and third with one out, but CC kept them off the board. Scott Hairston probably could have scored on Mark Ellis’s liner to Nick Swisher, but Swisher was charging, and a good throw would have nailed him. The actual throw was up the line, but unfortunately for Hairston human beings do not possess clairvoyant foresight.
After that point the A’s managed just one more baserunner off Sabathia. For some reason, he threw Ryan Sweeney a belt high fastball around the middle of the plate. The slider had been working so well against Sweeney, especially when combined with fastballs out of the zone. Still, if that’s the biggest complaint among his final four innings, well, then there’s nothing to complain about at all. CC turned in a mighty fine start, just what the Yanks needed to stop this mini skid.
One final line on Sabathia. He threw 94 pitches, 66 for strikes, but four balls were intentional. So, in terms of him actually squaring off with a batter, he threw 90 pitches, 66 strikes. That’s pretty insane.
On the offensive side, the Yanks chipped away. Down 1-0 in the second, Melky Cabrera doubled with two outs, and then scored when a Derek Jeter grounder scooted through Adam Kennedy’s legs. In the third A-Rod led off with a single, took second on a wild pitch, advanced to third on a grounder to third, and scored on Jorge’s ground rule double. Things were starting to look up after two games of general offensive futility.
Then, shades of Monday in the fourth. With the bases juiced and one out, Mark Teixeira stepped to the plate. Monday night it was Teixeira who walked on five pitches to load the bases with one out. Last night it was Damon. Monday night it was A-Rod who swung at the first pitch. Last night it was Teixeira. Same result: double play. It doesn’t get more frustrating for that.
Thankfully, their luck changed in the sixth when Vin Mazzaro left the game due to a high pitch count. It was old school Yankees. They don’t necessarily rack up the score against the starter, but they have good at bats and wear him down. Through five Mazzaro had thrown 103 pitches. The bullpen would have to pick him up, and it was apparent from the beginning that they would not.
It’s too bad that Robinson Cano swung at the first pitch he saw from Jay Marshall, because he ended up being quite wild. He threw 13 pitches, just six for strikes, and four of those strikes were balls in play. Damon knocked him out with a run-scoring double, leaving him with a line of 0.1 IP, 3 H, 4 ER, 1 HBP. Santiago Casilla didn’t help matters, walking Mark Teixeira on four pitches, and then the same to A-Rod, which scored a run.
The Yanks tacked on a couple more after that, all but sealing their victory. David Robertson made things a little interesting in the ninth, walking the first two batters on eight pitches. If only he’d done the same to Mark Ellis, we would have had a Harry Doyle moment. Instead he struck out the next two batters and got a fly out to end the game.
Rubber game tomorrow, Chad Gaudin against Brett Anderson. WIth Burnett and CC going eight innings on back to back nights, the pen is pretty well rested. They’ll have a day off on Thursday before a series in Boston, so I’d expect to see Hughes, Bruney, and Aceves get an inning tomorrow, regardless of score. Thankfully it’s the last 10:00 start for a few weeks.
Photo credit: Ben Margot/Associated Press
Are CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett being overworked?
Posted by: | Comments
Last night, Joe Girardi sent AJ Burnett back out to the mound for the seventh inning even though his pitch count was already over 100 pitches (104 to be exact), and it wasn’t the first time we’ve seen him extend his starting pitcher beyond a point we’re not used to seeing. We’re conditioned to accept that 100 pitches is the point where a pitcher loses effectiveness and is at greater risk for injury, and anytime we see one of the Yankees starters go beyond this point we all cringe a little.
As crazy as it sounds and as unexpected as it may be, Burnett has been an absolute horse for the Yanks this year. He’s failed to pitch into the sixth inning just twice in twenty starts this year, and has gone into the seventh twelve times, including six of his last seven starts. CC Sabathia has been even more of a workhorse, pitching into the sixth in 19 of his 21 starts and into the seventh a staggering 17 times. He’s failed to record at least 21 outs in a start just four times since the end of April.
As you would expect, both Sabathia and Burnett are up there in innings this year, checking in at 142.1 and 127.1 IP, respectively. While we’re conditioned to look at innings as a measure of workload, we should be paying attention to the number of pitches thrown. Both guys rank in the top ten in the league in pitches thrown, as CC checks in at 2,210 pitches (4th most) and AJ at 2,115 (10th). Sabathia has thrown at least 105 pitches in 15 starts this year, Burnett 11 times.
The crew at Baseball Prospectus developed a stat called Pitcher Abuse Points (PAP), which is intended to measure … well … pitcher abuse. You can read a ton more about PAP here, but it’s calculated by cubing each pitch a guy throws past 100 in a start, and just summing up the “points.” So if Sabathia throws 105 pitches in a start, his PAP is 125 (five pitches cubed, or 5 x 5 x 5). Justin Verlander is the far and away the most abused pitcher in the game this season, checking in at 85,763 PAP. CC ranks 8th with 45,585 PAP, while AJ’s 31,387 PAP is good for 17th. Here’s the full PAP leaderboard for your viewing pleasure.
Throwing lots and lots of pitches is generally understood to be a bad thing, which it is. You want your pitchers to throw as few pitches as possible to limit the wear and tear on their shoulders. However, some pitches are worse than others, specifically pitches in stressful situations. If Burnett throws 30 pitches in an inning because he’s allowed a couple of baserunners and the hitters have worked deep counts, it’s far more taxing on his arm than if he threw those same 30 pitches spread over two quick and uneventful innings.
On the season, Sabathia has averaged 15.5 pitches per inning and Burnett 16.6. American League starters are averaging 16.4 pitches per inning this year, so CC’s well short of that while AJ’s just a bit over. In 21 starts, Sabathia has averaged more than 16.4 P/IP just eight times. It’s not a coincidence that those are basically his eight worst and most stressful outings of the year, as he averaged 102.6 pitches thrown and just 5.5 innings in those starts.
As for Burnett, he also experienced eight games this year when he averaged more than 16.4 P/IP, but he’s made one fewer start than Sabathia, In those starts he averaged the same 5.5 innings thrown as CC, but he threw about three more pitches per game (105.38). Again, these were pretty much Burnett’s eight worst outings of the year, and they were his most stressful because he was stretched beyond his normal comfort zone in terms of pitches need to record three outs at a time.
So in both cases, Sabathia and Burnett were truly “abused” eight times each this season. It’s not a perfect analysis, but it shows how many times each pitcher was left in to throw a lot of pitches while not recording many outs, which is the kind of thing you want your starters to avoid. Thankfully, both guys have seen the number of pitches they’ve averaged per inning trend downward (slightly) this season, which you can see in this graph. Hopefully the Yanks don’t pay the price for price for all the work early in the season at an inopportune time later.
Update (1:38pm): Of course Tim Kurkjian posts this today.
Photo Credit: Flcikr user a200eric
Has CC been subpar?
Posted by: | Comments
Over the weekend Tom Boorstein of SNY penned a piece about CC Sabathia’s supposed dropoff, saying that he’s pitching more like a good number two than the ace the Yankees are paying him to be. It’s an interesting read and worth your time, far better than the usual drivel you’d expect to find on such a topic. Boorstein cites plenty of evidence that Sabathia’s performance has taken a step back, but also notes that the Yanks were never going to see the CC Sabathia from last year.
One of the main points of the article is that Sabathia’s walk rate has climbed while his strikeout rate has dropped this year. Over the last two seasons with Cleveland (not going to count his stats with the Brewers at all, different league all together) he struck out 8.22 batters and walked just 1.86 batters for every nine innings pitched. This year those totals have declined to 6.51 and 2.59, respectively, Sabathia’s worst totals in nearly five years. I’m sure some will point to the difference between the AL East and pretty much everyone else, but last year non-Cleveland AL Central clubs hit .270-.332-.424, and this year non-Yankee AL East teams are hitting .266-.338-.433, a difference of just 15 OPS points.
Other than the strikeout and walk rates, the only other significant statistical difference between Sabathia now and Sabathia as an Indian is the percentage of first pitch strikes he’s throwing. Last year he threw 64.3% first pitch strikes with Cleveland, but this year it’s just 58.2%, his lowest mark since 2004 (57.1%). Overall, CC’s putting almost exactly the same percentage of pitches in the strike zone and hitters are making almost exactly the same amount of contact off of him that they had over the first eight years of his career.
The most important thing is that Sabathia’s stuff is perfectly fine. His fastball velocity is still up there and is actually a tick higher than it has been the last few years. According to the Pitch F/X data he’s getting the same kind of movement on his pitches and throwing them in roughly the same proportions, so there should be no pitch selection issues. Hell, CC’s got a 3.61 FIP this year, and last year with the Indians it was 3.41. Steve, aka The Artist, notes that Sabathia has typically been better in the second half, something that should scare the rest of the American League.
Remember what we’re doing here. We’re trying to figure out why Sabathia has only been merely very, very good this year instead of amazingly great like he was in 2007 and 2008. He’s still one of the very best starters in the game and projects to be worth approximately 5.5 wins over the full season. Last year only eight pitchers in the game were that valuable, and it translates to about $24.7M in production. Would I like to see a few more strikeouts out of Sabathia? Sure, but that’s like picking on the Mona Lisa because of her smile.
Photo Credit: Flickr user zaner2
First Half Review: Starting Pitchers
Posted by: | CommentsAt 51-37, with the third best record in baseball, leading the Wild Card and just three games back in the AL East, the Yankees had a fine first half. Yet it was a tumultuous three months, wrought with streaks and injuries and strange trends, causing mass panic at times among Yankees fans. Over the extended All-Star Break, we’ll go over each position to see what went right, what went wrong, and how things look for the second half. First up: starting pitching.
The expectations
The Yankees went into the 2008-2009 off-season focussed on adding a couple of starters. They got their guys in CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett. After protracted negotiations they also brought back Andy Pettitte to anchor the back end of the rotation. Sabathia, Burnett, Wang, Pettitte, and Chamberlain looked as formidable as any rotation in the AL heading into the season. Plus, Phil Hughes waited in the wings as a viable backup plan. Fans could justifiably expect big things from these guys.
The results
The staff wasn’t quite as dominant as we’d hoped, with each starter hitting a rocky path with varying degrees of severity. It led to some ugly results. The Yankees starters have combined for a 4.76 ERA through 88 games, which ranks 12th in the AL, besting only Baltimore and Cleveland. They’ve averaged under six innings per start, which is bad, and lead the AL in walks, which is really bad. It’s safe to say that the rotation has not lived up to expectations so far.
Part of that rests on the shoulders of Chien-Ming Wang, whose first three starts were so historically bad that they skew the numbers of the staff overall. I won’t remove them here, since they did happen. Still, even if we did remove them, the Yanks would still be at or near the top of the league in walks, and still probably wouldn’t be at six innings per start. Wang’s ineffectiveness is no excuse for the whole staff.
There were some bright spots, of course, so we’ll hand out props and boos to each individual starter.
CC Sabathia
Signed as the ace, CC has mostly lived up to expectations. He got off to a rocky start, as seems to be his calling card. He did manage one gem among his April starts, but that was against the pathetic Kansas City Royals. He found his mojo in May, though, coinciding with the return of A-Rod. Since then he’s 7-3 with a 3.43 ERA, throwing 65 percent of his pitches for strikes and holding opposing hitters to a .218 batting average. If he keeps that up through the second half — and over his career this seems to be the case — he’ll continue to be the workhorse ace the Yankees signed him as.
A.J. Burnett
A.J. had his peaks and valleys early on, leading many to continue questioning the signing. Fans were especially vocal after he blew a game against the Red Sox in which the Yanks got out to an early lead against Josh Beckett. A.J. fanned the flames again when he couldn’t get out of the third inning in the repeat trip to Fenway. Since then, Burnett has been the best starter on the staff, going 4-1 with a 1.34 ERA in five starts. This is the Burnett the Yankees signed. Like Sabathia, Burnett has historically had slightly better second half numbers than first half. If he sticks to the trend, the Yanks will be set atop the rotation.
Chien-Ming Wang
It was tough to gauge how effective Chien-Ming Wang would be after suffering a lisfranc injury last June. He seemed fine, but not great, in Spring Training, leaving few worries as the season opened. But then he sputtered in his first start, surrendering seven runs to the Orioles. His next start was so short that the Yankees called on Nick Swisher to pitch an inning when the game was far out of hand. His third start led to the worst drubbing of the year. The Yankees then placed him on the DL, giving him a chance to recover more fully from his injury. Then they rushed him back, and had to put him in the rotation at the expense of Phil Hughes, who had just started to pitch well in that spot.
Wang currently resides on the 15-day DL with a shoulder strain, and the severity of the injury is unclear. He’ll work his way back, but it’s tough for any Yankees fans to have faith in Wanger this year. He’ll have to earn back trust not only from the fans — which is mostly meaningless — but of the front office and coaching staff.
Andy Pettitte
Heading into the season, Pettitte was viewed as the team’s fifth best starter. To this point, he’s mostly pitched like it. He’s had his good starts, and on those days it’s easy to forget his bad starts. But when he’s bad, he takes the team out of the game. Andy likes to blame the new Yankee Stadium for his woes, but his last clunker was on the road. Pettitte is another guy who has historically been better in the second half, but at age 37 one has to wonder whether he can continue that trend this year.
Yet another Yankee with ups and downs. He got lucky in some of his earlier starts, as he kept the team in the game while not throwing enough innings, not throwing enough strikes, and not throwing his pitches with the conviction we’ve seen in the past. He’s had starts that make us remember how he pitched as a starter last year, ramping up his fastball to that familiar 97 range, but for most of his starts he’s sat much slower on the gun. He’s turned himself into essentially a two-pitch pitcher, throwing either a fastball or a slider 87 percent of the time. He’ll need to work in his curveball and changeup more often to find success. Thankfully, even though he was bombed last time out, his fastball was up in the 94 mph range, which is probably where it should be as a starter.
Phil Hughes
In the second inning of Phil Hughes’s start against Baltimore on May 8, fans hung their heads and groaned, “not this again!” Hughes looked like he did last year, having trouble finding the plate and giving up hit after hit. He struggled through his next few starts before shutting down Texas for eight innings. It looked like he was finding his way, but after a rough subsequent outing against Cleveland the Yankees moved Hughes to the bullpen in favor of Chien-Ming Wang. He’s been lights out since the transition, which is a good sign, but it appears he’ll stay there for now even though the Yankees need another starter. We can only hope Hughes has learned a thing or two out there and that he’ll put it to work when he returns to the rotation next year (though hopefully this year).
Expectations for the second half
With so many pitchers on the staff who have historically pitched better in the second half, it’s tough to not have heightened expectations — especially considering how mediocre they were as a staff in the first half. They might not live up to those expectations, but we’re right to have them. The Yankees rotation has not been as good as advertised, and they’ll absolutely need to be in the second half if the team is to retake the division.
