Batter's Box Interactive Magazine - 19 August: Yankees and Jays

The Yankees come to town for a three game set, with third place on the line.

Oh my.

Hideki Matsui returns to the New York lineup, although he'll probably be limited to DH duties for the foreseeable future. That means Johnny Damon has to play the field - centerfield on this evening, with Nady in left and Abreu in right. Brett Gardner goes to the bench.

Elsewhere, Greg Maddux moves up the California coast to join Manny Ramirez in Los Angeles. In 16 games as a Dodger, Ramirez has driven in 21 runs, scored 11, is slugging .780 and batting .424 - that may also be change you can believe in. Ian Kinsler may be done for the year, in which case he definitely won't be the AL MVP. Not that there was much chance of that happening anyway. Billy Wagner of the Mets is out indefinitely with a sore elbow, while the Mets cling to a 1.5 game lead over the Phillies. The latest Tampa injury involves closer Troy Percival, who for the moment is opting to avoid surgery and hopes to be back on the mound in two weeks. Josh Beckett is having problems with numbness in his pitching hand, which would certainly explain what happened the other day.

Posted by Magpie on Tuesday, August 19 2008 @ 06:14 PM EDT.

19 August: Yankees and Jays | 9 comments | Create New Account

The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.

Mylegacy - Tuesday, August 19 2008 @ 09:48 PM EDT (#190971) #

How about we all pitch in a few bucks to get Damon a new glove - you know, one without a big hole in the middle. I purely hate the Yanks- hehehehehe!

jsut - Tuesday, August 19 2008 @ 10:57 PM EDT (#190972) #

Personally, I'd rather he keep using that glove.

JustinD - Tuesday, August 19 2008 @ 11:32 PM EDT (#190973) #

Looks like in the Tampa - Angels game that Shields got the win while Shields took the loss. Is Jason Stark going to have a field day with that one or what?

jmoney - Wednesday, August 20 2008 @ 11:34 AM EDT (#190978) #

Its not the sound of the maple hitting the ball....

Oh sorry I sort of wandered off there.

That was some good pitching by "Cy" Rassner don't you think? I guess the Jays are getting hot because this would be the sort of game they lost a month or two ago. Burnett is going to get a nice big pay day. Rance and Jamie were talking about it like its a forgone conclusion that he'll be a free agent. Like there is any doubt.

Magpie - Wednesday, August 20 2008 @ 11:54 AM EDT (#190980) #

Hideki Matsui returns to the New York lineup, although he'll probably be limited to DH duties for the foreseeable future. That means Johnny Damon has to play the field

It's not like I was expecting what happened, but gosh!

Chuck - Wednesday, August 20 2008 @ 12:18 PM EDT (#190983) #

Rance and Jamie were talking about it like its a forgone conclusion that he'll be a free agent. Like there is any doubt.

But is there any doubt? Why on earth would Burnett not opt out? Salaries are only moving in one direction, and way out of pace with what we civilians think of as inflation. In a world where even Carlos Silva is good for a 4/44 contract, why would Burnett stick with the 2/24 he's get left on his? His agent has probably got visions of 5/80 dancing in his head.

John Northey - Wednesday, August 20 2008 @ 12:40 PM EDT (#190984) #

What is funny is AJ is the #5 starter in ERA+ (94 vs McGowan's 97, Litsch's 101, Marcum 126 and Halladay 161 - he does beat Purcey's 71 and Richmond's 84 but trails Parrish at 105).

In FIP AJ (3.69) is #2 behind Halladay (3.08). McGowan is 3.82, Marcum 4.56, Litsch 4.57, Purcey 6.39, while rarely used Richmond is at 2.91and Parrish at 4.14

Strange that AJ is #10 in FIP in the AL but waaaay down the list in ERA. The Jays have one of the best defenses around but for AJ they seem to field like a gang of Matt Stairs rather than themselves. AJ has the 7th largest negative spread among qualified pitchers (his ex-Marlin teammate Beckett is #4). Marcum is the 4th biggest positive spread at 1.21 while Halladay is #14 at 0.44. Another Boston pitcher, Dice-K, is #1 at +1.43 (FIP of 4.21 vs ERA of 2.77). Weird eh?

So, many teams who see this stuff might think AJ is unlucky and still winning thus a good sign. However, in the last 5 years AJ was hurt by his defense 4 times according to FIP. If you use xFIP (factors in more stuff - namely it normalized HR per fly ball) AJ has been hurt by his defense and had bad luck on HR all of the past 5 years. What does this mean? Don't know for sure, but given the Jays have been a strong defensive team I find it hard to imagine AJ has just been really unlucky all throughout that time.

Given AJ is 31 would I sign him to a 5 year deal today? Not at the rate he'll be demanding ($12 million per year to start, $15 per likely). Whoever wins the AJ sweepstakes might regret it.

Chuck - Wednesday, August 20 2008 @ 01:42 PM EDT (#190989) #

Burnett's 2008 BABIP: .328.
Blue Jay pitchers other than Burnett: .284

At a .284 BABIP, Burnett would have allowed about 133 hits, 39 fewer than he actually has. This goes a long way to explaining the FIP/ERA disparity.

Now, anecdotally, when Burnett is not going well, it seems that he suffers from bad innings where he just loses it, and that would cause his hit clustering to be other than random (i.e., disproportionately bunched in those bad innings). A proper study of this might very well disprove my subjective observation (and I certainly concede that I may be way off on all this). But if it is true that he is more prone to melt downs than the average pitcher, that could further help explain the chronic "bad luck" that Burnett seems to be enduring, suggesting that he, himself, would be the architect of at least a small part of his bad luck.

TamRa - Wednesday, August 20 2008 @ 07:36 PM EDT (#191002) #

I wonder, if one could isolate Burnett's 4 very bad outings from the rest of his year and find that in the other 24 (?) games he was pretty much in line with the rest of the team...?

19 August: Yankees and Jays | 9 comments | Create New Account

The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.