Baseball Musings: Lucky and Good

October 12, 2004

Lucky and Good

This Yankees team is different from the recent run of champions. If you look at Boston and New York, the first thing that strikes you is that Boston is the better team. Aaron Gleeman provides the basic stats in his preview. The Red Sox scored more runs than the Yankees, allowed fewer runs than the Yankees, and should have finished seven games in front of the Yankees instead of three games behind. The Yankees were very good, but they were also very lucky.

Short series, however, can be dominated by a great player or two, and the Yankees core is better than the Red Sox core. The top three Yankees in terms of win shares this season were Sheffield (31), A-Rod (30) and Matsui (29). For the Red Sox, the top three were Manny (28), Damon (26) and Ortiz (25).

This comparison hit me last night. During the run of the late 90's the Yankees strength was concentrated up the middle in the players that had been developed by Michael and Showalter; Posada, Pettitte, Rivera, Jeter and Williams. Add to that Knoblauch, and you had a middle that towered over the rest of baseball. The strength here allowed the Yankees to add good but not great players at the corners. They could afford defense over offense at first and third, and could even put a defensive liability in left. As long as they had that great middle, they just had to hang competent players on the branches, and they were going to win.

But now the strength is in the branches. The core is still good, but it will get old soon. Williams is already in decline, and Jeter's season was below his normal expectations. Catcher wears on any offensive player. But by concentrating resources on the branches, the Yankees have made it more difficult to maintain the core. It's a story to watch in the future, but right now I see a club in decline; it just hasn't shown up in the won-lost record.

Back to the ALCS. The Red Sox are a better team overall, but the Yankees have a better concentration of talent, at least offensively. What the Red Sox have are two pitchers with high win shares who we know will pitch. Schilling has 22 WS, Pedro 16. The two highest values for Yankees hurlers are 16 for Rivera and 15 for Gordon. In other words, the Yankees can't be assured that the strength of their bullpen can be put to work for them. So when we look at S-A-M vs. R-D-O, the Red Sox advantage in starting pitching should negate the offensive advantage of the top three. Schilling and Pedro should do a better job of shutting down the big three than any of the Yankees starters against Boston's boppers.

Throw into that, of course, that Win Shares may be underestimating the actual value of the Yankees starters. If Mussina and Brown are healthy, they are nearly as good as Schilling and Martinez. And the recent evidence is that the Yankees starters are okay.

Boston was the better team this year. They should have won the AL East easily and didn't. They should win this series, but the more I look at NY, the more I think these two teams are evenly matched. So here's my prediction. The Yankees, with their strength at the end of the bullpen, will win the close ones. The Red Sox with their strength in the starters, will win the blow outs. (The Yankees were 23-16 in one run games, the Red Sox 16-17.) Think 1960, where the Pirates won four games by a margin of 7 runs, and the Yankees won three games by a margin of 35 runs. The question is, will game 7 be close?

Posted by David Pinto at 08:30 AM | League Championship Series | TrackBack (1)

Comments

I don't have the stats in front of me, but most of those 1 run losses by the Red Sox were before the trading deadline, this is a different team. A quick overview of the Sox' schedule from August 1st on shows a record of 9-6 in 1 run games, vastly different from the 16-17 record overall. The Yankees over the same timeframe are 7-5.

I included the ALDS games in the records.

Posted by: Dave at October 12, 2004 09:55 AM

When the Sox lost every game that mattered to the Yanks down the stretch all you could hear was the Yankees were the better team from just about every media outlet, no matter what the stats show. That stretch included two blowouts, one against Pedro. I guess a sweep against the worst team in the playoffs erases everyones memory.

Posted by: Adam at October 12, 2004 10:02 AM

What do S-A-M and R-D-O stand for?

Posted by: Devon at October 12, 2004 11:18 AM

Yeah, everyone keeps throwing Schilling and Martinez in the Yanks' faces, but from what I remember recently, we own Martinez. That leaves Schilling. I'll take my chances with the Yankees' starting pitching. Mussina has been on fire the past month, and Brown has finally come around and pitching like he's supposed to.

Posted by: sabernar at October 12, 2004 11:19 AM

S-A-M is Sheffield, ARod, Matsui
R-D-O is Ramirez, Damon, Ortiz

Posted by: ryan at October 12, 2004 11:52 AM

Sheffield, A-Rod, Matsui
Rameriz, Damon, Ortiz.
I'm still nervous about this series.

Posted by: Robert at October 12, 2004 11:53 AM

Here's some tooting of my own horn regarding baseball blogging. You can geek this series to death, but there are more important trends than just the SABREmetric numbers. See here for more.

Posted by: The Monk at October 12, 2004 01:18 PM

Seems likely that the Win Shares for the heart of the Yankees order would be higher than for the Sox order, given:

1) Win Shares are given based on number of actual wins in a season, rather than any sort of Pythagorean formula. So the luck that you mentioned also factors in here. Higher number of Yankee wins = higher number of Win Shares to give out.

2) The Sox lineup splits the good-offense players (Ortiz - presumably has near-zero defensive Win Shares since he's largely DHing) from the good-defense players (Cabrera?). The Yankees have a core of players that are both good-offense and good-defense (A-Rod) but a bench that's less deep.

So is a comparison of the core just by Win Shares valid? I'm not entirely convinced.

Posted by: Daryl at October 12, 2004 01:27 PM

WARP3 gives the Yankees an even bigger edge, saying that 5 of the 6 best players are Yankees.

Posted by: Larry Mahnken at October 12, 2004 01:51 PM

WARP3 also says that 2004 was Jeter's second best season ever, and more valuable than all Yankees this year not named Alex. He'd be a legitimate MVP candidate in a world (or league) without Miguel Tejada and Carlos Guillen.

Tejada 12.0 WARP3
Guillen 10.8 WARP3
Guerrero 10.4 WARP3
A. Rodriguez 10.4 WARP3
Suzuki 10.0 WARP3
Jeter 8.9 WARP3
Sheffield 8.8 WARP3
Kotsay 8.8 WARP3
Chavez 8.7 WARP3
Mora 8.5 WARP3
I. Rodriguez 8.5 WARP3
Damon 8.4 WARP3
Posada 8.2 WARP3
Ramirez 8.1 WARP3
Matsui 8.1 WARP3
J. Lopez 8.1 WARP3

Posted by: Jurgen at October 12, 2004 03:44 PM

Man, whose MVP ballot is going to include Kotsay and Chavez over Manny and Ortiz?

Posted by: Jurgen at October 12, 2004 03:50 PM

WARP3 also says that 2004 was Jeter's second best season ever

Especially striking considering the horrible April and May he had. To rebound like that is impressive and Jeter has been on all cylinders since September.

Posted by: ChrisS at October 12, 2004 03:57 PM

Jeter's second half numbers aren't that much better than his first half.

He had a great June (.396/.455/.725) and a nearly as good September (.372/.430/.628) to counter that horrible April, but in May, July, and August only posted a .700 OPS. So much of Jeter's over all value this year was due to his impressive performance in the field. (His EqA was the lowest it's been since '97.)

For Jeter in 2004, every day was the postseason. The Catch against the Red Sox was only the most high profile example.

Posted by: Jurgen at October 12, 2004 04:16 PM

Since the ASB, the top 4 regular Red Sox hitters (Ortiz, Millar, Varitek & Ramirez) have been just as good if not slightly better than the top 4 Yankees (Sheffield, Matsui, Rodrigruez, Jeter). Millar has been on fire the second half ever since he's opened his stance.

The next 4 regular hitters slightly favor the Sox (Mueller, Damon, Bellhorn & Cabrera) vs the Yankees (Posada, Williams, Olerud & Cairo).

A big variable will be Nixon vs. Sierra / Lofton -- is Nixon healthy and are his 84 ABs indicative?

They're a lot more even than most people think...

Posted by: DominicJD at October 12, 2004 04:20 PM

There is no way Matsui and A-Rod outperformed David Ortiz this season.

I think this series will come down to pitching. If Mussina and company can be decent, than the Yanks will win. If they struggle, than the Sox will crush them.

Posted by: Ryan at October 12, 2004 06:25 PM

There is no way Matsui and A-Rod outperformed David Ortiz this season.

Yes there is, Ryan.

Ortiz .301/.380/.603
Matsui .305/.401/.546
A-Rod .286/.375/.512

I know at first glance it looks like Ortiz has a clear advantage, but let me explain:

1) Fenway park favours hitters, thus Ortiz's numbers are somewhat inflated.

2) Yankee Stadium favours pitchers, thus A-Rod and Matsui's numbers are somewhat suppressed. (Yankee stadium is particularly tough on righties, thus A-Rod's numbers are pulled further down.)

3) Unlike the lumbering Ortiz, A-Rod in particular is a brilliant base-stealer.

4) Unlike Ortiz, A-Rod and Matsui get additional value by playing defense. (Both also happen to play their positions very well--or in A-Rod's case, very very well.) Think how many runs per game Ortiz would cost the Red Sox at 3B or even LF.

Ortiz's marginal advantage at the plate now no longer seems so impressive.

Posted by: Jurgen at October 13, 2004 03:25 AM

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