Thursday, April 8, 2010
The Replacement Level Yankees Weblog Has Moved!
Our new URL is: http://www.rlyw.net
Monday, January 25, 2010
Does Robinson Cano’s Approach Change With Men on Base?
Despite a career MLB line of .306/.339/.480, and despite having some very good overall years, Robinson Cano can really frustrate Yankee fans. In addition to what seems likes maddening inconsistency in general, Cano has hit worse with runners on base in almost every season of his career so far, with 2007 being the lone exception.
Here’s how Cano’s splits in this category have looked so far in his career.
(Click Comments to read more)Sunday, January 24, 2010
2010 CAIRO Projections v0.2
For anyone who's interested, the 2010 CAIRO projections have been updated and can be downloaded here.cairo_2010_v0.2.zip
There were a few projections that were screwed up so those have been fixed, but it's mostly been a case of updating player projections for roster changes and adding players who were not in the first build but were requested. For example, even though I have no faith in it, a Stephen Strasburg projection has been added, based on his college translations and his AFL performance with some regression towards the mean added in. Here's how it looks:
| % | W | L | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | RA | ERA | FIP | RSAR | WAR |
| 80% | 5 | 4 | 84 | 82 | 34 | 31 | 4 | 25 | 86 | 3.65 | 3.36 | 2.78 | 19.0 | 1.9 |
| 65% | 5 | 4 | 80 | 83 | 37 | 34 | 5 | 26 | 78 | 4.19 | 3.87 | 3.22 | 13.4 | 1.3 |
| Baseline | 4 | 5 | 76 | 84 | 40 | 37 | 6 | 28 | 70 | 4.77 | 4.42 | 3.67 | 7.8 | 0.8 |
| 35% | 3 | 4 | 68 | 79 | 39 | 36 | 7 | 27 | 59 | 5.15 | 4.78 | 4.11 | 4.2 | 0.4 |
| 20% | 3 | 4 | 61 | 74 | 37 | 35 | 7 | 26 | 49 | 5.52 | 5.15 | 4.55 | 1.2 | 0.1 |
RA: Runs allowed per nine innings
ERA: Earned runs allowed per nine innings
FIP: Fielding independent pitching
RSAR: Runs saved above replacement level
WAR: Wins above replacement level (RSAR divided by 10)
The big disparity between FIP and ERA is due to the way hits and other peripherals translate to MLEs. I wouldn't expect such a big disparity in real life, although it'd be because I'd expect his FIP to be closer to his ERA than vice versa, but like I said, I have no faith in this projection.
No Aroldis Chapman projection has been added, although I am working on one. Expect it to be ugly, but you never know.
I've also added a starter projection for Phil Hughes and a reliever projection for Joba Chamberlain since those were not in the original build but got requested.
I've also worked on fixing the mappings for all the players to their MLBAM ids, which is probably gibberish to 99% of you, but trust me, it was a pain in the ass.
There'll be further updates going forward once I have the teams projected in more detail, primarily to pitcher W-L and their stats based on the projected defenses behind them. I'm also hoping to add in something related to projected playing time if I can get to it. I'll also try and add pitcher saves at some point too. If there are any questions or further requests, ask away.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
One Of The Following Stories May or May Not Be True
CNNSI - Heyman: Yankees set deadline for Damon
Johnny Damon and the Yankees spoke again within the past few days, and Damon now has been given the weekend to decide whether he wants to come back on a bargain deal.
The chances he will accept a low-base contract for a few million dollars (probably no more than $5 million guaranteed) from the Yankees still appear slim, so Damon’s tenure with the team could officially end early next week.
Lohud - Jennings: Cashman denies Damon deadline
Yankees general manager Brian Cashman has refuted the idea the Yankees are waiting for Johnny Damon to make a decision before moving on to other outfield options.
“That’s not true,” Cashman said. “I have a certain amount of money, and when I decide to spend it, I’m going to spend it.”
While Cashman has repeatedly acknowledged that the Yankees remain in the market for an outfielder, he said the team has “had no discussions on Jermaine Dye” and is “not on Jim Edmonds at all.”
You decide.
Friday, January 22, 2010
RealGM Baseball: Yankees Among Teams Interested In Edmonds
St. Louis Globe-Democrat - The Yankees are among three or four teams interested in free-agent outfielder Jim Edmonds.
Edmonds told Cardinals manager Tony La Russa that he wants to play in St. Louis, but the team may not have a spot for him.
“I’m trying to figure out what to do,” Edmonds said on The Morning After program on 1380 AM The Team in St. Louis. “We’re just going to have to see how it goes.”
Edmonds didn’t reveal what teams, other than the Yankees, were interested.
Isn’t it funny how the Yankees are always mentioned as an interested team?
What Happened to Wang?
It’s looking more and more likely that Chien-Ming Wang’s time with the Yankees is over, with the St. Louis Cardinals currently rumored as the most likely landing place for the potentially former Yankee. Over at the Lohud Yankee blog last week, a guest post by Greg Mathews looked at Wang and laid out a theory that batters started to lay off Wang’s low sinker and that it was indicative of a trend that may mean his effectiveness will suffer unless he makes an adjustment. Trying to see if letting Wang go is a mistake and being on Pitch F/X kick lately I figured I’d look at the data to see if there was any truth to this theory.
Since Pitch F/X has only been around since 2007 and was not completely rolled out until 2008, we don’t have data from Wang’s best season of 2006, and 2007 data is incomplete, which kind of limits how much we can infer from the data we do have given his missed time in 2008 and his very abbreviated 2009, so keep that in mind when looking at the numbers that follow.
(Click Comments to read more)Thursday, January 21, 2010
NY Times - Glanville: Seeing is Disbelieving
But then Mark McGwire strolled into town, carrying the Cardinals and the future of M.L.B. on his back, as the bitterness of the 1994-1995 strike finally dissipated. The excitement about McGwire dwarfed even my enthusiasm for “Godzilla,” which was relegated to my “to do in the off-season” list. McGwire was streaking toward a seemingly unbreakable record, not by merely hitting balls over the fence but by scraping tops of stadiums as the ball left the atmosphere. Major league baseball players were reduced to little boys, tasting our childhood once again as we craned our necks to figure out when he would launch another impossible shot. Never in my experience had so many players who should have been stretching stopped everything just to watch an opponent take batting practice.
I rarely talk about PEDs here, because frankly, I don’t care about them at all. But this is a very interesting look at the McGwire thing from the perspective of a former player, who just so happens to also be a very intelligent person and very good writer.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Should Jesus Montero Be an Option for Left Field?
Since the question came up in the prior thread, let’s see if the Yankees should at least consider using Jesus Montero in the outfield.
Obviously, we should know that:
a) We don’t know how he’d look defensively in the outfield.
b) Offense from a catcher is far more valuable than similar offense from an outfielder.
c) Montero’s still really young, and although he’s a very good hitting prospect, he probably still doesn’t project all that well in general in 2010 because of where he is in his development.
d) There’s a fair amount of uncertainty that Montero will ever be a good enough defensive catcher to stay there in the majors, although his performance in 2009 was somewhat promising in that regard.
e) A catcher is simply not going to be able to play as frequently as someone at a less demanding position.
Here’s something that we may or may not know. According to research done by Tangotiger in the 2009 Hardball Times Annual, the average catcher will hit about 12% better when he’s not playing catcher. This is pretty significant, and goes above and beyond any typical positional adjustments made for catchers.
So what does this all mean for Jesus Montero? Let’s see…
(Click Comments to read more)MLB.com - Bauman: Yankees appear stronger
The bad news for the other 29 clubs is that in the offseason of 2009-‘10 the Yankees have not exactly become worse. In fact, the evidence suggests that they have become better. They are not without questions, but their questions are fewer and smaller than those of the vast majority of the competition.
The things that strike you about the Yankees’ work this winter is that they moved without sentiment, but also without spending $423.5 million. They made some necessary moves, but these moves did not include overwhelming free agents with offers that could not be refused.
WTF? The Yankees spent $423.5 million last offseason? Why hasn’t this been documented anywhere?
I do agree with Bauman’s overall point though. For all the consternation by a certain segment of the fanbase about the ‘gaping hole’ in LF, on paper this team is better than last year’s. How much better? Maybe four or five wins better by my estimates. Of course, that doesn’t mean they’ll win as many games,because a team’s season ending win total is subject to differ from their actual talent level for a multitude of reasons in both good and bad ways.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
TSBG Versus High and Low Fastballs
As suggested by Rich in the previous post, here's a look at how Brett Gardner's done against fastballs that I'm categorizing as high, middle or low.Here's what I did to determine whether a fastball was high or low.
Pitch FX defines the fields sz_top and sz_bot as the top and bottom of the strike zone for the specific batter. It's measured in feet, and for Gardner they were on average 3.19 and 1.4 respectively. So Gardner's strike zone is about 1.8 feet in Pitch FX. It also defines the fields px and pz as the location where the pitch crossed the front of the plate.
I don't really care about px here (inside or outside), so I'm focusing on pz. Any pitch defined as a fastball that had a pz higher than 2.7 feet is considered high. Any pitch that came in between 2.7 and 1.8 feet is defined as a middle of the zone fastball, and anything that came in lower than 1.8 feet is considered low. And here's how it split out.
| Type | # | max | min | avg | ball % | stkS% | foul% | stkC% | In play, out(s)% | In play, no out % | HBP % | wOBA |
| High Fastballs | 448 | 97.6 | 79.9 | 91.3 | 42.0% | 1.8% | 17.2% | 18.5% | 14.7% | 4.2% | 0.2% | .328 |
| Middle Fastballs | 485 | 96.9 | 78.7 | 90.8 | 13.2% | 1.9% | 15.9% | 46.0% | 13.8% | 5.6% | 0.0% | .320 |
| Low Fastballs | 185 | 96.9 | 79.5 | 91.0 | 66.5% | 2.2% | 2.7% | 16.8% | 8.1% | 2.7% | 0.0% | .341 |
| All Fastballs | 1118 | 97.6 | 78.7 | 91.1 | 33.5% | 1.9% | 14.2% | 30.1% | 13.2% | 4.6% | 0.1% | .327 |
#: number of times pitch was thrown as recorded in Pitch F/X
max: highest recorded starting velocity
min: lowest recorded starting velocity
avg: average recorded starting velocity
ball %: percentage of time pitch was taken for a ball
stkS%: percentage of time pitch was swung on and missed
foul%: percentage of time pitch was fouled off
stkC%: percentage of time pitch was taken for a called strike
In play, out(s)%: percentage of time pitch was hit into play for an out(s)
In play, no out%: percentage of time pitch was hit into play and not converted into an out
HBP%: percentage of time batter was hit by pitch
I don't see anything in this data that indicates Gardner has a problem with high fastballs versus any others.
TSBG and Major League Pitches
A few days back, Chad Jennings had a post about TSBG (The Speedy Brett Gardner) which touched on how he was preparing for the upcoming season. One thing that stuck out was this quote."Hitting ninth, the very last thing they're going to do is walk me," Gardner said. "So they're going to throw me a lot of fastballs, which I saw a lot last year...It's one of those things that I've got to get over the hump. I've got to get more aggressive. I can't fall behind.":So I was thinking it might be interesting to look at the Pitch F/X data against Gardner and see how he performed against different types of pitching. I'll present the same type of data that I presented when looking at Javier Vazquez's pitch selection, instead in this instance it'll be what the pitchers threw to Gardner.
(Click Comments to read more)
