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Graphically charting the Yanks’ rotation

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Courtesy of Craig Robinson/Flip Flop Fly Ball

Earlier this week, Craig Robinson at Flip Flop Fly Ball posted a chart of the Mariners’ 2010 rotation, and I fell in love. The Flip Flop Fly Ball artist broke out the months of baseball schedule into five-calendar-day rows, and he used color coding to show when each pitcher had the ball. He also produced a similar chart for the 1971 Orioles’ four-man rotation.

In one sense, the idea behind the chart is simple: If a team maximizes its best pitchers, their color should show up once per row. So if the 2010 Mariners wanted to get the most of Felix Hernandez and, in the early going, Cliff Lee, the light blue and dark purple would appear every week.

Click to enlarge.

I asked Craig to do the same for the Yankees last year, and he produced the chart excerpted above. You can view the entire thing by clicking on the image at right. I find this chart to be mesmerizing, and from it, we can draw a guarded conclusions. Had the Yankees stuck with a strict rest schedule for CC Sabathia, they could have coaxed three additional starts out of their ace last year. Because of off days and the desire to keep every other pitcher on target, CC “missed” his starts during the five days beginning May 24, August 2 and October 1.

Of course, that raises another question: Should the Yankees disrupt their other pitchers to make sure their ace gets as many innings as possible? On the one hand, I’m tempted to say yes. After all, Sabathia is that much better than the other Yankee hurlers, and he’s a workhorse. He can shoulder the innings, and he’s happy to take the ball. The AL East last year came down to one game, and it’s not a stretch to say that an additional three Sabathia starts could have given the Yanks the division crown.

On the other hand, these players need their rest. Sabathia could have made a total of 37 starts last year, but in today’s age of pitch counts and innings caps, that is probably an excessive number. If the Yankees want him fresh for the playoffs, they’re willing to give him a few extra days as the schedule dictates. That’s just the way the game is played.

Anyway, I found this chart to be a wonderful way to understand the way the pitching rotation shakes down over the course of the year. After Opening Day and before the playoffs, labeling pitchers based on their spots in the rotation is largely meaningless. When you’re done pouring over this one, check out Craig’s site. His infographics will soon be available as a book, and I’m looking forward to getting my hands on that one.

What a difference a year makes

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Through 82 games last year, the 2009 Yankees were 48-34, one game back of the Boston Red Sox in the Al East. This year’s squad is three games better in every sense. Overall, the team is 51-31, a three-game improvement over last season, and the Yanks have a two-game lead, also a three-game improvement over last season. Yet, the two clubs are nearly diametrically opposite in most ways.

As last night’s win over the A’s showed, the 2010 iteration of the Yanks relies extensively on starting pitcher. Facing a struggling Ben Sheets, the Yanks couldn’t do much offensively, but Javier Vazquez shined. His outing and the bullpen work from Joba Chamberlain and Mariano Rivera brought the team’s ERA down to 3.95 and its FIP to 4.08. Last year’s team had a 4.45 ERA and a 4.49 FIP. Just imagine now if the non-Mariano pieces in the pen were any good.

So how are the pitchers getting it done? As expected, they’re doing so by limiting the number of men on base and the number of home runs while keeping the strike out totals relatively high. The team’s overall K/BB ratio is 2.23 this year, and it was 2.05 last year. Pitchers have allowed 20 fewer home runs this year in six fewer innings. The runs just melt away as the balls stay in the park.

Offensively, though, the Yanks are, as Mike noted in his midseason status report, struggling a bit. The team’s .271/.354/.434 batting line pales in comparison with last year’s .276/.358/.472. The .038 point drop in team OPS comes directly from a Yankee power outage. Last year’s club had hit 167 doubles, 13 triples and 125 home runs through 82 games. This year’s team has 126 doubles, 20 triples and just 91 home runs. Even still, the Yanks’ 439 runs scored are second only to Boston amongst all Major League teams.

So what’s the difference? We know that Derek Jeter is having a down season, and we hear rumors of a Mark Teixeira revival even as his triple slash remains below his career norms. It took Teixeira until yesterday, after all, to out-slug Brett Gardner. A-Rod’s power is down significantly as well. The unspoken areas of concern though have been the Yanks’ center field spot, something Joe touched upon last week, and the designated hitter. Yanks’ DHs have so far put up a .769 OPS whereas Hideki Matsui and his supporting cast sported an .858 mark in 2009.

The Yanks have a few solutions on hand that could start to address these problems. Juan Miranda, recently returned from the DL, has gone on a hitting tear. He’s OPSing over .875 vs. right-handed pitching at AAA and could help fill a DH platoon with Marcus Thames on the days Jorge catches. Kevin Russo is, at this point, dead weight on the active roster, and giving Miranda a shot could be worth it. Jettisoning Chad Gaudin and Chan Ho Park for some combination of Romulo Sanchez, Jonathan Albaladejo, Mark Melancon or, when healthy, Sergio Mitre could bolster the pen as well.

Ultimately, though, the team should be happy with its play through 82 games. A.J. Burnett will be better than his season averages say he is; Javier Vazquez has a 3.05 ERA over his last 65 innings; and CC Sabathia has a 2.00 ERA over his last 45 innings. The offense is showing signs of life, and the team has a two-game lead. The 2009 Yankees went 55-25 over their remaining 80 games, and while we shouldn’t expect the Yanks to play .688 between now and October, duplicating their first half will be enough to guarantee a playoff berth. Still with the trade deadline looming, the Yankees in 28 days will look much better than the team does today.

Amidst some uninspired games, a tie for first place

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The standings say first place, but do the results?

After beating Roy Halladay on Tuesday night, I figured the Yankees would have an easy go of it against the Phillies. Yet, the team’s offense could not oblige. The A.J. Burnett/Jamie Moyer mismatch came out the wrong way, and although Andy Pettitte threw seven strong innings, Kyle Kendrick made himself out to be an NL Cy Young award contender. By all accounts, it was a trap series.

As the usual post-game reaction unfolded on Twitter, Mark Feinsand of the Daily News let slip an interesting comment. Constrained by the medium’s 140-character limit, he said, “Tampa Bay has lost, so the Yankees will remain in a first-place tie if they lose. Not that they deserve it – or that it matters on June 17.” It seemed to be an overreaction at first by someone in the media who knows that the Yanks are under pressure to steamroll their way to the AL crown ever year, and the fans grew defensive. Yet, after some back-and-forth with Feinsand, I began to understand what he’s saying.

In essence, no team has played “deserving” baseball yet this year. Through that phrase, Feinsand didn’t mean that the Yankees were a bad team; he simply meant that they’ve not been an impressive team yet. They haven’t made a statement against teams they will need to beat to reach the World Series. With the best record in baseball, they’re not a bad club, but they haven’t shown the ability to dominate as the club did during its second-half run in 2009.

The Yanks have seemingly reached first with the highest win total by beating up on the little guys. In their 25 games against teams currently under .500, the Yanks are a whopping 20-5. As the Mets learned last weekend, it’s good to play the Orioles. Against teams that are currently over .500, the Yankees are just 21-20. Comparatively, the Tampa Bay Rays, co-leaders of the AL East, are 17-13 against teams currently over .500 and just 24-12 against teams under .500. The good teams will, as the Yanks have done, beat up the bad teams, but the great teams should also beat up the good teams.

But the question isn’t actually one about deserving first place. Rather, the question is a little more meta than that. Should we, on June 18th, care that the Yankees aren’t playing particularly well against good teams? Perhaps not surprisingly, the answer is no. Last year’s World Series championship Yankees went 51-24 against teams under .500 and an impressive 52-35 against teams that finished over .500. Getting there was the hard part.

As Joe detailed in a post on a similar topic in mid-August, the Yankees were just 24-29 against teams that were, at that point, over .500 and 40-13 vs. teams under .500. (Some of the teams that were over .500 in August ended the season below .500, and thus, the team’s total losses vs. .500 teams actually declined from August to October.) Joe noted that of the nine previous World Series winners, only four had winning regular season records against .500 teams. The Wall Street Journal had inspired Joe’s post, and the relevant piece of information remains so today: “The typical profile of a World Series champion in recent times is a club that cleans up on the weak and breaks even against everyone else.”

Right now, the 2010 Yankees fit that profile to a tee. They’re playing .512 baseball against the good teams and .800 baseball against the bottom-feeders. If those trends keep up, the Yankees should have a date with the dance in October, and at that point, as we know, all bets are off. The current club may suffer from bullpen problems, and it may have a weak bench. But today, they deserve a share of first place.

Forbes: Yanks now worth $1.6 billion

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The Yankees, baseball’s World Champions, are now worth nearly twice as much as the next most valuable franchise, according to Forbes Magazine. In its annual Business of Baseball report, released last night, Forbes pegged the value of the New York Yankees at a cool $1.6 billion, and more surprisingly, the business mag claims the team turned a profit of nearly $25 million in 2009 after six straight seasons of operating in the red.

Hot on the heels of the franchises’ 27th World Series title and with a new stadium raking in the bucks, the Yanks saw their value increase by more than seven percent over 2009. The Red Sox, at $870 million, are ranked number two, and the Mets ($858 million), Dodgers ($727 million) and Cubs ($726 million) round out the top five. The Pirates and A’s, both valued are under $300 million, are MLB’s two cheapest clubs right now.

According to Forbes, the Yanks’ valuation breakdown is as follows: The Yanks’ sport value — that aspect attributable to revenue shared among all teams — is $146 million. The team’s position as New York’s leading franchise lends it $839 million in value. The new stadium contributes $287 million, and brand management — that famous interlocking NY — is worth $328 million on paper. The team, wrote Forbes, also “boast[s] the richest cable deal in baseball and have begun to make money from their new concession business, Legends Hospitality Management, a partnership with the Dallas Cowboys and Goldman Sachs.”

On the revenue side, the Yanks enjoyed great success at their new home. With player obligations, according to Forbes, totaling $240 million, the team enjoyed $319 million in gate receipts and $440 million in overall stadium revenue used for debt payments. The team’s reported profit before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization checks in at a healthy $24 million, good for tenth in the game. Overall, the Marlins again led the field with a profit in excess of $46 million, and the Red Sox were second at $40 million.

For the Yankees, this report paints a rosy picture. The team had been operating at significant deficits for much of the luxury tax era in the 2000s, but with a new stadium and more success, the franchise has managed to turn a profit. There is however a cloud to this silver lining: The team’s debt/value ratio is 89 percent, second only to the debt-riddled Texas Rangers. The Yankees owe debt on stadium construction bonds and on previous years’ revenue outcomes.

So as we delve into these numbers, it’s worth revisiting the Yanks’ claims of a budget for 2010. For much of the winter, we heard talk about the Yanks’ attention to the bottom line. Brian Cashman adhered to the budget set by the team’s Front Office, and with an eye toward flexibility closer to the July trade deadline, the team was unwilling to stretch that budget.

With a profit, it is possible that the Yanks could have invested more in the team this winter, but at the same time, the franchise owes payment on a significant chunk of debt. As baseball is definitely a business, the team has to keep an eye on both the product on the field and its balance sheet. With the information from Forbes, we have a snapshot of the Yankees as they play out the start of the 2010 season and a better understanding of the economics behind it. The team has never been more valuable, and you can bet that the rest of baseball is well aware of this economic reality.

Open Thread: The 2010 New York Yankees

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Here’s the 25-man Opening Day roster…

Catchers
Jorge Posada
Frankie Cervelli

Infielders
Mark Teixeira
Robinson Cano
Derek Jeter
Alex Rodriguez
Nick Johnson
Ramiro Pena

Outfielders
Brett Gardner
Curtis Granderson
Nick Swisher
Randy Winn
Marcus Thames

Starting Pitchers
CC Sabathia
A.J. Burnett
Andy Pettitte
Javy Vazquez
Phil Hughes

Relievers
Mariano Rivera
Joba Chamberlain
Damaso Marte
Sergio Mitre
Al Aceves
David Robertson
Chan Ho Park

The exhibition season is over, the team is heading up to Boston, and tomorrow night the grind begins. I can’t wait.

* * *

Here’s the open thread for the night. The Islanders already won, but the Devils, Rangers, and Nets are all in action. That Rangers’ game is another one with major playoff implications. Talk about whatever you want, but make it count, this is the last open thread of the 2009-2010 offseason.

Talking more Yankees baseball with The Times

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Yesterday afternoon, I linked to Part 1 of The Times’ Bats blog Yankees preview featuring yours truly with Cliff Corcoran and Steve Lombardi. Today, Justin Sablich posted Part 2 of his Q-and-A with the three of us. In this installment, we talk about the media circus that is A-Rod, the players on the Yanks generating the most buzz, the looming AL East showdown with the Red Sox and the Yanks’ chances at repeating. Check it out.

Talking Yankees baseball with The Times

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For the second year in a row, Justin Sablich of The New York Times invited me to participate in a blogger roundtable previewing the Yanks’ upcoming 2010 campaign. He emailed me, Cliff Corcoran from Bronx Banter and Steve Lombardi from Was Watching a series of questions, and we happily obliged him with answers. The first part is available right here on the Bats blog. In it, we talk about the moves the Yankees didn’t make this winter, the team’s outfield situation, the Great Joba Debate and the aging Yankees’ health concerns. Check it out. Part Two drops tomorrow.

Update 6:10 p.m.: I forgot to mention this originally, but there’s still time. I’ll be on Blog Talk Radio’s Flushing to the Bronx at 6:15 for a 15-minute chat about the Yankees’ upcoming season. You can listen live right here.