Ya Got Trouble My Friends...

by jscape2000 on Aug 9, 2007 10:26 AM EDT in Events

The Yanks have been cranking up the intensity coming down the stretch. We all said they had to play well against the mediocre teams to get back in the race.

They're back.

And now comes the hard part.

Three on the road against the Indians. Then the Orioles come to the Stadium for three, followed by a four game set against the Tigers. Then it's straight to Anaheim for three, Detroit for four, wrapping up with three in New York against Boston.

I'm going to use a modified form of On-base+Slugging (details are here). Rather than simply adding OBP and SLG together, I'm giving OBP a 2.2 weight.

BoSox 1.233
Tigers 1.2274
Indians 1.1826
Angels 1.1716
O's 1.1494

Unfortunately, this does not bode well for the Yanks, who are 24-26 against teams with a mOPS above 1.145 and 29-17 against teams below that mark. They'll need to be better than their history to stay in contention.

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Well considering that they played

like crap at the start of the season, I would agree that if they revert to playing like crap, they won't make the playoffs. I'll go out on a limb here and say that for the Yanks to have any chance to make the playoffs, they are going to have to win some more games.

Everything looks nicer when you win. The girls are prettier. The cigars taste better. The trees are greener. --Billy Martin

by garp on Aug 9, 2007 10:51 AM EDT reply actions

yeah

less crappiness equals going to the playoffs, more means they don't. those are my stats.

by Greenfuzz on Aug 9, 2007 11:56 AM EDT up reply actions

Be careful with numbers

Unless you take out all the "noise" in averages, ya gotta be careful with this.

We have a different rotation/bull pen compared to earlier in the year...we were giving up more runs early and in the middle. Since ERA is half of winning/losing, we will be better going down the stretch against any teams.
Except for Jeter, Posada and ARod, we just did not hit in the first half. I personally don't think it was opposing pitching that stopped us. We just did not hit. Now with Cano, Matsui, Abreu and Melky hot we will be putting up more runs...the other half of winning/losing.
For a fair comparison of your mOPS, you also have to look at our RELATIVE numbers to the opposition: Sox, Tribe, Tigers, etc., WE could show a low number, but maybe Tigers are "as bad" as we are.
Its like a stock offering...past performance does not guarantee future results...Thats why we play the games.

In his chase for No. 500, ARod broke one of Mantle's records. He took one more at bat than Mickey to get there!

by mickey07 on Aug 9, 2007 12:37 PM EDT reply actions

True

You're right, I should have given the last month's totals in addition to the full season.
Give me a little bit and I'll round some up.

"Have faith in the Yankees, my son. Think of the great DiMaggio."

by jscape2000 on Aug 9, 2007 1:23 PM EDT up reply actions

Some relatives, and a better explaination

First off, I have to disagree with you about the 'noise' in averages. Pettitte, Wang, and Mussina have made 24, 21, and 19 starts for the team. There is far less noise there than in looking at the smaller sample size.
And while the pen is improved by the departure of Proctor, Myers and Bruney, I don't think that is a massive overhaul.
In your favor, Viz's improvement and Torre's dislike for Farnsworth are worth considering.

Anyways, here goes:

Yanks:
Last 30 Days- 1.4252 mOPS, 1.52 WHIP
Season-1.2692, 1.43

Indians
Last 30-1.0816, 1.30
Season- 1.191, 1.35

Tigers
Last 30- 1.1578, 1.50
Season- 1.2264, 1.45

Angels
Last 30- 1.2086, 1.47
Season- 1.1684, 1.36

BoSox
Last 30- 1.2562, 1.29
Season- 1.231, 1.28

Our pitching has scuffled (notably yesterday and Clemens start against the White Sox, but removing those two games brings our WHIP down to 1.46 in the last 30 days).

Our pitching is close to the worst among contenders. There are a lot of causes for that:
Early season injuries, our bullpen is terrifyingly mediocre, Wang gives up a lot of hits, the bullpen is bad, Pettitte and Clemens seem to always be working out of jams, and there's only 3 good arms in the 'pen and one of them is on limited duty. Did I mention the bullpen?

As we run up against the better offenses in the league, they are going to eat us alive if that bullpen gets exposed, and I don't think that our rotation can hold down those offenses for 6-7 innings night after night for the next month.

I hope I'm wrong though...

"Have faith in the Yankees, my son. Think of the great DiMaggio."

by jscape2000 on Aug 9, 2007 1:54 PM EDT up reply actions

They got trouble

Detroit right now looks like the Yankees of April and May. The Tigers are headed in the wrong direction. Hopefully they stay on that path for a few more weeks.

And when the Yanks were playing rotten earlier, they still beat Cleveland didn't they? I don't think the Tribe match up very well with the Yanks head to head.

As for the O's, avoiding Bedard again would be nice.

by matthaggs on Aug 9, 2007 12:49 PM EDT reply actions

As of right now...

the BAL rotation is aligned where the Yanks would face both Guthrie and Bedard in that series.

by anaconda on Aug 9, 2007 2:04 PM EDT up reply actions

We still have to play the games

Yankees are the hottest team in baseball since the all star break partly because we've played below average teams BUT

The Yankees of this spring would not have had a .700 winning percentage even against Tampa over a 30 game stretch

So they have been playing better - if they can carry the momentum through August greta - if not then lets moan about it lets trash Cashman, Torre, A-Rod maybe even Jeter, but now? Lets skip the doom and gloom and enjoy the fact that "we" are still in it...

A final note the Yankees up until the all star break featured

8 starts by Igawa
6 starts by Clippard
5 starts by DeSalvo
2 starts by Pavano
2 starts by Chase Wright

so we should be better going forward! Except...

We won 13 out of those 23 games and have a better winning percentage in those 23 starts than in the other 91 games (I know, I know those wins came at the expense of a tired bull penn, no, no no, I'm not saying I'd rather have those five than Pettite, Wang, mussina, Hughes and Clemens - just highlighting a funny fact)

by TLVP on Aug 9, 2007 1:21 PM EDT reply actions

I tend to agree

that glooming and dooming now is pointless. We've written them off several times this season. We've had the posts at various times(look at the archives) that said that even the WC was statistically out of reach.

To have survived the Igawa/Clippard etc era is a big deal right now. We've battled out way back to the front...we have about 48 games to play (I'm not sure how many). Let's not try to bury the season or convince ourself we'll clinch the division prematurely. It's fun to debate, but any attempt at true predictions are going to be pointless.

There's been A LOT of games this season that we've lost that I thought (going in) we would have won and a lot of games going in that we won that I thought we'd lose.

This season can be defined as the "Who knew?" season. I'm sure it's got lots more surprises in store.

"The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided." -Casey Stengel

by bxgrl1 on Aug 9, 2007 2:47 PM EDT up reply actions

Thanks Jscape/TLVP

For the updates/mods. I wonder if you could run the same numbers every two weeks. I can help if need be. We get into a more difficult part of the sched. and our roster should be stable, and I would like to see how we measure up along with wins/losses. TLVP brings up a good point. It is counter-intuitive to see that the long list of starters who are no longer on the team produced winning records for the team...despite their poor performance.

In his chase for No. 500, ARod broke one of Mantle's records. He took one more at bat than Mickey to get there!

by mickey07 on Aug 9, 2007 8:26 PM EDT reply actions