April 17, 2007
Chasing Wins
I'm still on the road, but just got back to my hotel room to see the Yankees are leading the Indians 8-3. I missed Bill James' Q & A to the class since I got the time wrong, but saw a very nice presentation on the minor leagues by Andy Andres, Tony Massarotti and Ted Trey (owner of the Worcester Tornadoes). Afterward, a few of us were talking with Bill and he asked how many wins the Yankees would earn this year. I thought 90 to 95, but most thought I was over estimating based on the New York pitching. But tonight is a perfect example of my argument. The offense is so good, the pitching staff just needs a 4.50 ERA for a big season. Chase Wright comes up, gives them five innings, and allows three runs. Meanwhile, the offense just bombs Jake Westbrook, chasing him from the game after 1 2/3 innings. That score held up through seven innings so far. This staff just needs to be okay, and my opinion is they're good enough.
Posted by David Pinto at
09:46 PM
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I'm surprised that you got that (Yankees won't win 90 because of their pitching) from serious geeks. It sounds like something old school writers would say. I agree that a 4.5 ERA should mean a whole lot of wins for them. And, you didn't mention the Bronx Bullpen, which has been absolutely astounding so far (despite the Rivera hiccup). Their team ERA should be fairly good, even if the rotation is weak.
I think you're right. I just don't know if the Yanks pitching can get them to the World Series.
"Their team ERA should be fairly good, even if the rotation is weak."
Not gonna lie...as a Boston fan, the most important thing to me right now is how many innings that bullpen has to throw early in the season. They happy with a consistent 5 innings, 3 earned from whatever minor leaguer happens to be throwing that day? Good for them. W/L is fairly meaningless right now anyway, as long as things stay fairly close.
When Bruney, Vizcaino, and Proctor all have 40+ innings by the AS break...well, let's just say I'm not convinced their bullpen can do what it's been doing for an entire season. And if there's a manager in baseball more likely to destroy a guy's arm then Joe Torre, I haven't seen him.
Other Josh, I am worried about bullpen overuse, of course, but that has nothing to do with Torre's decisions. The problem has been simply that the starters haven't gone long enough. Torre's done a reasonably good job this year of dividing up the innings (unlike last year when Proctor got hauled out every freaking day).
I agree that the bullpen ERA will have to rise, that's obvious; by the same token the starters' ERA will drop.
Finally, yeah, I'm pretty happy with five innnings and three runs from a kid who had pitched a grand total of 14 innings in AA! One perfect inning, nine pitches, from Chris Britton. And three more perfect innings from Myers and Bruney. Our starters begin to return from the DL next week. Pitching's not looking bad at all...
(When I say that the starters are returning, I'm just taking it for granted that Pavano is out for the season.)
The Yanks are outscoring their opponents by a run-and-a-half a game. As David says, it's hard for the other guys to keep up with that offense. Right now they look like the wild card, with Boston winning the division thanks to That Rotation. The postseason, as always, is a crapshoot.
Of course, all this is easy to say after a dozen games. We'll check back at the end of May.
assuming that yankee pitchers will have an era of only 4.5 - league average???
where does THAT come from?
and that is just era, it doesn't count errors and unearned runs and with that cruddy defense i wouldn't be real too surprised if there is a lot of UER too.