SB Nation User Blog: DocBrown82

Edwar Ramirez...

DocBrown82 — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 03:13:40 -0000

... king of the bizarro stats.

Against the Angels in 2008:

59.40 ERA, 7.06 WHIP (no, these are not typos)

Against the rest of Major League Baseball:

3.16 ERA, 1.05 WHIP

Hot diggity damn, I hate the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of California of the United States of America of North America of the Western and Northern Hemispheres of the Earth of the Solar System of the Milky Way of the Universe.

not a Yankee photo, but sums up the season pretty well. 27 in '09!

DocBrown82 — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 03:32:44 -0000

not a Yankee photo, but sums up the season pretty well. 27 in '09!

More thoughts about Pudge and playoffs

DocBrown82 — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:37:51 -0000

A few days after noting the struggles our pitching staff is having with Pudge behind the plate and expressing second thoughts about the trade, I'm thinking I may have misinterpreted it.

The obvious interpretation of trading for a rental on a guy like Pudge Rodriguez is that the Yankees are in "go for it" mode and wanted to upgrade the offense at the catcher position. That is what I initially thought.

But then Girardi sat Damon yesterday, and caught a lot of flak for it. A lot of people said he did this because he's stupid, but come on, he has an engineering degree from Northwestern and he's a former Manager of the Year. Say what you want about him, but he's not stupid.

Then it dawned on me: the Yankees aren't in "go for it" mode. They're not trying to make a playoff run, they're trying to keep their team fresh and healthy for 2009, so they're giving all their players a day off every now and then. I can't blame them for this: even if they somehow capture the wild card, there's no way in hell this team beats the Angels in a five-game series. I know it, we all know it, and the Yankees know it. Personally I'd rather see them miss the playoffs than another first-round humiliation.

With this revelation, my thoughts turned back to the Pudge trade. Trading for an old, declining catcher who's sure to walk at the end of the season sounds like the ultimate short-term move. But it was actually all about the long term. The trade had nothing to do with Pudge's bat — it was about protecting Jose Molina from overuse and injury. With Posada a big question mark, they know they're going to need Molina healthy next year. They gained a draft pick out of the deal as well — also a long-term boon.

With that in mind, I expect we'll see Joba back sometime in September to get his innings up closer to where they should be, but I would imagine they'd use him very conservatively. He probably doesn't go into the 7th in any start, no matter how well he's throwing.

All this is to say that I'm resigned to the Yankees missing the playoffs this year, and I think the medium- and long-term health of the franchise will benefit from the Yanks not making an all-out run down the stretch.

Pudge

DocBrown82 — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 14:26:42 -0000

Wow. Just ... wow.

Opponents' BAA with Jose Molina catching: .250/.312/.373.

With Pudge Rodriguez catching: .318/.406/.554.

Anyone else having second thoughts about this trade?

And now they're making me add more words. And now they're making me add more words. And now they're making me add more words. And now they're making me add more words. And now they're making me add more words. And now they're making me add more words.

Is our bullpen really so bad?

DocBrown82 — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 04:10:15 -0000

I miss posting here regularly ... I no longer have a television in the same room as my computer, so I can't watch games and post at the same time.

After FOX pointed out that the Yankees are something like 35-1 when leading after the 6th inning, it made me wonder if the evidence of our bullpen's much-heralded suckitude is more circumstantial than real. So I went on baseball-reference.com and crunched some numbers.

Our bullpen's combined ERA is 2.62 when the starting pitcher makes a quality start (for those not familiar, that's 3 ER or fewer in at least 6 IP). It is 4.40 after a nonquality start. Now I realize a) that this is largely a function of the fact that better relievers are used in more important situations; and b) ERA is not the most useful statistic for relief pitchers. But it nonetheless suggests to me that, taken as a whole, our bullpen's biggest flaw is that when the starting pitcher has a bad day, they often let the game get even more out of control. The anecdotal evidence, such as the atrocity that was Game 1 of the Yanks-Mets doubleheader, suggests the same.

But when it comes to the far more important task of holding leads, our bullpen seems to be doing just fine — even without Joba. (I divided the games up by quality start as opposed to by whether the starter left with a lead simply because it was easier.)

The statistic I collected as a byproduct of this number crunching is the real reason the Yankees aren't where we'd like them to be halfway through the season: In 81 games, our rotation has only given us 40 quality starts. (Granted, this includes a couple of anomalies like that game Bruney started and the ones in which Joba was on a pitch count.) This all suggests to me that the Yankees would have been crazy NOT to move Joba into the rotation when they did, and that those who suggest otherwise are not thinking straight.

Let us hope that the second half of the season brings us more consistency from our starting pitchers. The offense looks to be in great shape after a slow start, and the bullpen is plenty good enough. I'm curious to hear people's thoughts on the best way to upgrade the starting-pitching situation in the extended absence of Chien-Ming Wang. What, realistically, would we have to give up for Sabathia? Better yet, what realistic trade options exist beyond Carsten Charles? Should we try and plug the holes internally and hope for the best? I don't have a strong opinion on the matter.