Looking ahead to the postseason

Looking at Baseball Prospectus' Playoff Odds report, there are eight American League teams that stand at least a 10% chance of playing baseball in October this season.  Obviously, the Yankees are one of them, and as a playoff berth seems more and more likely, I began to look at how well the Yankees stack up against the competition. 

It occurred to me that certain stats are misleading as we look to the postseason.  For example, the Yankees rank sixth out of the eight teams in overall ERA, but should we really handicap their playoff chances just because Chien-Ming Wang and Anthony Clagget, neither of whom will be on the October roster, stunk this year?

Since teams generally don't rely much on their third string catcher or 12th pitcher in the postseason, I decided to focus on the meat the roster - the ten best hitters, the four best starting pitchers, the four best relievers, and the closer.  These are the guys who will get the bulk of at-bats and innings in October.  I threw defense into the mix as well, because this is important for October success too. 

I'll admit, there are probably a half dozen other ways you could do this comparison.  My system isn't foolproof; a team's four best starting pitchers by VORP may not necessarily start in the postseason.  Nonetheless, this gives you a pretty good idea of where each team's strengths and weaknesses lie.  As a side note, WXRL stands for Win Expectation above Replacement, Lineup adjusted, in other words, based on the quality of hitters being faced, how many games would the team expect to win with a particular reliever compared to a replacement level reliever (Jose Veras). 

Here we go....

Not only are the Yankees the most likely AL team to make the playoffs, they are also the most well-balanced, not ranking less than third in any category.

I think sometimes we forget how good this team is.  Yes, Chien-Ming Wang has been horrible, they haven't won a game against the Red Sox yet, and we like to worry about the bullpen, but this is probably the best team (on paper) that the Yankees have fielded in ten years.