https://elms-intiis01.elms.edu/TimeSheets/TimeSheetGenerator Baseball Musings: What's the Difference?
Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
January 26, 2009
What's the Difference?

Why I love Rob Neyer. On Joe Torre's reign with the Yankees:

Beginning in 1996, the Yankees won four World Series in five years. In those five years, they averaged 97 wins.

In the eight years since, of course, the Yankees have won zero World Series. Incidentally, in those same eight years they've averaged 97 wins.

There's no question that mistakes were made after 2000. Every franchise makes mistakes. There's also no question that they've picked up some prima donnas, some of whom didn't play much defense.

But until someone can explain to me why those same factors that produce 97 wins a season work so well from April through September but suddenly fall flat in October, I'm going to assume that the Yankees were (1) overly lucky from 1996 through 2000 and (2) overly unlucky from 2001 through 2007.


Posted by David Pinto at 10:34 PM | Team Evaluation | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Neyer remains the f'ing man. I'm so glad ESPN made his blog free again.

Posted by: Hey hey at January 27, 2009 02:25 AM

This reminds me of one of my favorite oddities: from 1949 to 1953, the Yankees won five straight World Series without ever winning 100 games in the regular season in any of those seasons. In 1954, they finally won more than 100 games with Stengel as their manager--but the Indians won 111. . .and promptly got crushed in four straight games by the Giants in the World Series. Go figure.

Posted by: M. Scott Eiland at January 27, 2009 04:28 AM

Someone should let Steve Lombardi (at www.waswatching.com) know.

Posted by: gurk at January 27, 2009 08:29 AM

There was a change in the Yankees' makeup between the late 90s and the early Aughts. The championship teams featured outstanding starting pitching -- Clemens, Cone, Wells, Pettitte, El Duque. They racked up a lot of innings and put relatively little burden on the bullpen. And they were helped by the Yanks' strong defense, as Torre points out.

The early 00s saw a shift toward something more like a slo-pitch softball team. Lots of hitting, lots of power, and too much dependence on questionable starting pitchers (Jeff Weaver, Javier Vasquez, Carl Pavano, Jose Contreras, etc). That team may have racked up as many wins as the championship squads, but (a) they put much more stress on the bullpen, and (b) they didn't have the dominant starting pitching that lends itself to long playoff runs.

Posted by: jvwalt at January 27, 2009 10:49 AM

jvw, I have two questions.
First, *why* would dominant starting pitching be more important in playoff runs while a stacked lineup is more important in the regular season? And second, is there any real evidence that it's so?

Posted by: James at January 27, 2009 12:34 PM

James,

I'm not sure if definitive studies have been done, but I think it has to do with who you are playing and which pitchers they are sending to the mound. Over 162 game season an offense heavy team can win a lot of games by beating up on pitching they won't see in the playoffs. A team can score close to a thousand runs in a season while still getting shut down in games started by the Santana's, Sabathia's, etc of the game. In the playoffs you won't face the 4th or 5th starter at all. In other words in a small sample size pitching is likely to come out on top, but because of lack of great pitching hitters will prevail a good deal over the course of a season.

Posted by: largebill at January 27, 2009 12:50 PM

A team with strong starting pitching would also probably play to Torre's strength as a manager as I don't think he's ever been known as a great in-game tactician.

Posted by: Tom at January 27, 2009 01:20 PM

Starting pitching wasn't enough for the Braves to win more than one WS ring in a longer run of division titles. There is unquestionably an element of luck in a short series. Sometimes it works for you, sometimes against. An unlikely homerun by Leyritz makes you a winner. A runner's failure to slide lets you advance. A flair by Luis Gonzalez makes you a loser.
Mac

Posted by: Bill McKinley at January 27, 2009 04:15 PM

In '02 NYY gets eliminated 3-1 by LAA - starters give up 20 ER in 17.2 IP. In '03 Beckett, Pavano, Penny give up 6 ER in 37.1 IP in WS. In '04 In the LCS NYY starts Kevin Brown twice he has a 21.6 ERA, Mussina twice at 4.26, Lieber twice at 3.14, El Duque 1 start at 5.4. In '05 DIV NYY starters go 28.2 IP and give up 16 runs. In '06 DIV NYY starters go 22 IP and give up 16 runs. In '07 DIV NYY starters go 14.1 IP and give up 15 runs. Maybe it's all bad timing but when you get dominated in a short series or you get rocked apparently you lose.

Posted by: bandit at January 28, 2009 09:57 PM
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