November 7, 2009
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Ranking Yankee World Champions (3)
Twins strike for J.J. Hardy (1) Both sides come out ahead in Teahen swap (9) Rays get something for nothing in Iwamura trade (6) So, just how good was Damon’s steal? (12) 
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Friday, November 06, 2009Ranking Yankee World Championsby Chris JaffeToday, all the cool kids are ranking Yankee title winners, so I thought I would, too. Since it's being done by others, there's no sense in making it a full article, so I'll just dump it in THT Live. I use league strength as a secondary factor, which is arguably the least honest way of looking at it overall. It's more important than I'm letting on, but I'm mostly interested in how teams dominated their actual opponents. When it's similar, which is frequent, I'll look at league strength to some extent. Some will disagree, but it's just a fun exercise anyway. Actual record, with pythag wins in (). Here are my rankings, based on 10 minutes worth of thought: 1. 1998 114-48 (108). If you account for league strength at all, they have to be #1 2. 1927 110-44 (109). A then-league record in wins and a pythag record nearly as good? DANG! 3. 1939 106-56 (111). I know they're pythag is better, but real wins matter, too. 4. 1932 107-47 (99). Might belong lower, but the real key is that there's three teams way above everyone else. 5. 1953 99-52 (101). Not only Stengel's winningest champion, but did so despite being his only one in the five-peat to play less than 154 games. 6. 1937 102-52 (103). Those McCarthy teams were just good. 7. 1936 102-51 (102). I really can't tell the difference between 1937 and 1936. 8. 1961 109-53 (103). A one-dimensional team not nearly as good as their record. But did'ya notice their record? 9. 2009 103-59 (95). Random fact: only six Yankee teams have ever won more than 103 games in a season (and one was the 1964 squad that lost the World Series. 10. 1977 100-62 (99). The team that made Reggie a candy bar. 11. 1978 100-63 (99). The 1977-78 Yanks sure were consistent. 12. 1999 98-64 (96). Not nearly as good as the team the year before, but still damn good. 13. 1941 101-53 (96). The might belong a bit lower, but it had one of the most famous Yankee feats: DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak. 14. 1947 97-57 (100). From 1923 until the mid-1960s, the Yanks never went longer than three full seasons without a world championship. This ended one of those painfully long droughts. 15. 1956 97-57 (98). Mickey Mantle won a triple crown that year, not that anyone thinks of that when they see this team. They're famous for Don Larsen's perfecto. 16. 1950 98-56 (96). Stengel's teams really don't rank that high overall, which might seem odd at first, but makes sense if you think about it. He didn't have better talent than any of the other managers, he just had the knack or good fortune to produce titles from teams anyway. 17. 1951 98-56 (94). The first four years of the five-peat under Stengel produced teams that were all about the same as each other . They won 95-98 games every year, with 94-96 pythag wins each season. Good luck separating that bunch! 18. 1949 97-57 (95). See what I mean? 19. 1952 95-59 (95). They had the fewest wins of any Stengel champion. 20. 1938 99-53 (97). This might be better than the Stengel five-peat, but I felt obligated to put those last four teams in one solid block because they feel similar, and I didn't want to put this squad above them all. 21. 1928 101-53 (95). Worst 100-game winning Yankee title winner ever. Man, what bums. 22. 1923 98-54 (95). The first Yankee world champs. While we always think of the Yanks as a heavy hitting team, aside from Ruth their offense was pretty pedestrian. (Yeah, I know that's a big thing to aside, but still - their offensive wasn't as good as you might guess). 23. 1996 92-70 (88). They're .568 winning percentage is the 62nd best in franchise history. In other words, it was a below average regular season for them. Jeebus. 24. 1962 96-66 (94). They struggled to win as many games as a Stengel-era team despite playing 8 more times. Lucky for them so many of the fast-integrating teams were in the NL. 25. 1943 98-56 (92). With WWII, they had "only" two Hall of Famers in the starting lineup: a 36-year-old Bill Dickey (who played half the season) and Joe Gordon. 26. 2000 87-74 (85). On the bright side, their pythag record was better than the 2006 Cardinal world champs. On the down side, that's the bright side. 27. 1958 97-62 (96). Here's a controversial pick, for which my explanation comes in a column I once wrote for THT. Short version: they were great early in the year, but then their pitching went kaput. They were an average team (in the lesser league) the next two months. The pitching problem wasn't a fluke - it remained an issue all of 1959, causing them to barely finish .500. They didn't improve until 1960, when a new crop of pitchers developed. At the time of the 1958 World Series, this was just plain and simple not a good team, in the inferior league. The other teams that won were at least good compared to their competition, but in October 1958 I'm not sure I can say that about these Yanks. Twins strike for J.J. Hardyby Evan BrunellIn this just-started offseason, Akinori Iwamura, Mark Teahen and Jeremy Hermida have headlined trades. Now, J.J. Hardy makes four. Hardy, acquired by the Minnesota Twins in exchange for Carlos Gomez, leaves Milwaukee after five seasons. Debuting as a 22-year old, Hardy had quickly established himself as a top-tier shortstop in quick order until 2009 brought in a caving of his offensive numbers. As soon as a year ago, the Hardy/Gomez swap would have been unthinkable: Hardy was coming off a .283/.343/.478 line with 24 home runs. Defensively, he was one of the strongest shortstops in the bigs, and the sky seemed the limit. Click for more... In the backwater swirlingby Brandon IsleibAs I was reading through old Baseball Digests on Google Books for an upcoming article series, I found this quote: "There's an American League joke which has a gag line: 'Switch to the National League and add five years to your career.'" Although it could describe modern baseball well enough, the quote is from May 1947. Apparently, there is something that will never change. Thursday, November 05, 2009Both sides come out ahead in Teahen swapby Evan BrunellThe Chicago White Sox and Kansas City Royals hooked up for an intradivision trade the day after the World Series ended, agreeing to send 3B/RF Mark Teahen to the south side of Chicago in exchange for 2B Chris Getz and 3B Josh Fields. This trade is certainly no blockbuster, but the trade appears to be very telling on how each general manager is approaching the offseason and construction of its roster. Click for more... Wednesday, November 04, 2009Liveblog World Series Game 6by Mike FastAnother round of chatting about the World Series during the game. Rays get something for nothing in Iwamura tradeby Evan BrunellI have to say, I'm pretty impressed by Tampa Bay's ability to turn Akinori Iwamura into a young, cost-controllable fireballing reliever. It was essentially a done deal that Iwamura would become a free agent so Tampa could move to Ben Zobrist as a full-time second baseman (with Sean Rodriguez knocking on the door for playing time). As time was going on, I was beginning to wonder if other teams would just wait out the Rays and bid on Iwamura as a free agent. While Iwamura is a valuable second baseman, he's definitely overpaid given his $4.25 salary in 2010. The bidding to have Iwamura join a team didn't seem enough to get a deal done. But it did, and the Pirates were the surprise victors. Iwamura instantly becomes the Pirates' highest-paid player (which is a whole separate post in and of itself.) The Rays parlayed someone clearly overpaid -- yes, valuable, but overpaid -- into Jesse Chavez. The 25-year old just came off a season in which he posted a 4.01 ERA in 67.1 games along with a 1.35 WHIP and 6.3 K/9, a low number given his average velocity off his fastball: 94.5 mph. The Rays Party goes into an extremely in-depth look at Chavez, so I'll point you there instead of fumbling my way through it using his data. Even though Chavez is one of roughly a million live-arm middle relievers to pass through Major League Baseball and has yet to fully prove he belongs in the majors, I'm choosing to look at this glass half-full: the Rays got something for nothing. Iwamura isn't a zero, but from the Rays' perspective, he was. That alone makes it a great trade for Tampa. THT Live Roundtable: WS Editionby Dan NovickI was very tempted to write a different title for this post, but I didn't want to scare away any readers. This edition is a strange one by our usual standards. Why is that? Because Carson Cistulli chimed in saying he'd like to take part. I mean that in the most positive way possible, Carson. It's been a long season, and tonight is either the last day of baseball, or the eve of the last day of baseball. So let's have a moment of silent reflection [pause]....and then go on to the roundtable. Question #1: Brad Lidge's postseason struggles; are they 'real' or just a matter of perception? Evan Brunell: Perception. It's okay to blow a game here and there in the postseason. Papelbon has done it. Rivera has done it. Heck, Lidge was nails this postseason until that three-run debacle in Game 4. Pedro Feliz juiced a game-tying home run, and the momentum had swung. Lidge choked, but a major, major part of that choke had to do with the dying quail (and what can you do about those?) off Damon's bat and the collective team choke of not covering third, which took away Lidge's dirt-burying slider. Click for more... On Mike Lupicaby Dan NovickI don't have anything of value—in terms of insight or comedy—to add to what's already been said about this ridiculous Mike Lupica article from today's NY Daily News. Craig already talked about it at NBC during his morning in exile from his You have to be a special kind of stupid to wait until the team is one win away from their first World Series in 9 years to start complaining about their lack of a #4 starter. It's entertaining to say the least. Tuesday, November 03, 2009When down 3 games to 2 in the World Series . . .by Chris JaffeWell, the Phillies staved off elimination, giving us our first World Series to reach Game Six in a half-dozen years. The question now is: what does history tell us of teams in this situation? Well, there have been 57 previous best-of-seven World Series that reached a Game Six. In the sixth contest*, the trailing has amassed an impressive record of 35-22. Not too shabby. Actually, it was achieved in a very odd manner. The first two dozen such games were split evenly 12-12 between leaders and trailers. The most recent 18 games have been likewise split down the middle, 50% each. However, from 1955 to 1975, 15 World Series reached Game Six - and the trailing team went 14-1 in those games. Only in 1959 did the Series end in the sixth contest. Weird. Anyhow, that's only half the battle. After going 35-22 in Game Six, the survivors went 17-18 in Game Seven. Overall then, teams trailing 3 games to 2 in a best of seven World Series go 17-40 in their quest for the World Championship, so odds are a bit over one-third. Since I have the list with me, here's the roll call of the comebackers (grouped into fives for readability): 1924 WAS 1925 PIT 1926 STL 1934 STL 1940 CIN 1946 STL 1952 NYY 1958 NYY 1968 DET 1973 OAK 1979 PIT 1985 KCR 1986 NYM 1997 MIN 1991 MIN 2001 ARI 2001 ANA Only the 1926 Cards and 2001 D-backs did it against the Yanks. There's a wrinkle, though. Philly has to go on the road. Of the above 17 teams, only six did it on the road. They are: the 1979 Pirates, 1968 Tigers, 1958 Yankees, 1952 Yankees, 1934 Cardinals, and 1926 Cardinals. Interestingly, half of those teams came back from 3-to-1 deficits. * Note: for purposes of this research, the tie in the 1912 World Series never happened. Thus Game Eight is considered Game Seven, and so on down the line). Monday, November 02, 2009So, just how good was Damon’s steal?by Nick SteinerAs I'm sure you all have heard, Johnny Damon took advantage of the shift to advance an extra base on a steal of second last night. It was 2 outs in the ninth, and after a walk to Texeira, next batter A-Rod hit a walkoff double. As you can expect, Damon's steal was given a lot of credit for impacting the outcome of game. However, while it was a very heads up and exciting play, it simply didn't make that much of a difference. As Jeff Sullivan of Lookout Landing notes: # Advancing to third base with two outs provides a boost, but a small one, as runners will generally score from second on any hit. The win probability added of the first steal was +4%, as Damon got himself into scoring position. The win probability added of the second steal was +1.6%. The steal of third did not dramatically improve the Yankees' odds of winning. However, that fact didn't stop the steal from becoming mainstream media fodder. Yes, Damon's daring steal of second and third, after a memorable nine-pitch at-bat against Brad Lidge in the ninth inning, was as unique as it was brilliant. The bottom line was the Phillies went to sleep on the play, forgetting that third base was wide open because of the shift they had on Mark Teixeira, but it was Damon who saw the potential for how it could change the game dramatically. So while advancing on the steal didn't actually improve the Yankees odds of winning that much, Damon argues that the added pressure it put on Lidge was significant in itself. The main justification behind that is that being on third instead of second forces pitchers to thrown fewer offspeed pitches than they normally would, for fear of throwing one in the dirt. Is that claim verifiable? Well, let's check it out. Using Pitch f/x data from 2007-2009, we can see that with a runner on 3rd base, pitchers threw breaking balls 29% of the time. When there was no runner on third, pitchers threw breaking balls 25% of the time. Amazingly, we see that the opposite is true! Pitchers actually throw more offspeed pitches when their is a runner on third base. The reason for this is likely that pitchers are trying to strike out more hitters when they have a runner on third, as most contact will score a run, and the improvement in strikeout odds overrides the risk of throwing a wild pitch. For Lidge, the same pattern holds true. Over the past 3 years, with a runner on third base, he's thrown his slider 54% of the time compared to 49% of the time in all other situations. Now, it's still possible that Damon on third improved A-Rod's odds of getting a hit in that at bat; however, that would already be included in the Win Expectancy figures. So while it was a very heads up play, let's not pretend that it had much of an effect on the outcome of the game. Damon's single, and A-Rod's double were much, much more important. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||