Comments on: It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue

By: MichiganYankee

MichiganYankee — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:43:02 +0000

With A-Rod’s current home run rate, it looks quite likely that he will hit #600 in Seattle. That should be fun.

By: cult of basebaal

cult of basebaal — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:07:14 +0000

Goodness that might just have been the most satisfying win of the season.

Joe Torre so obviously pulling out the stops to win the last 2 games, bringing in Broxton in back-to-back non-save situations … then slagging his closer to the tune of 67 pitches in back-to-back games, with 48 pitches in last night’s game alone.

Ahhh, schadenfreude, you make me seem so childish, but you’re soooooo sweet and tasty!

It must really piss off serious Dodger fans that their stadium empties in the ninth inning like that.

Not really, serious Dodger fans appreciate the hell that is leaving Chavez Ravine after a game.

By: monkeypants

monkeypants — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:38:24 +0000

[12] Or, maybe he’s really, really lucky!

™

By: bp1

bp1 — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:30:31 +0000

[6] And I think I’m done w/ ESPN baseball. I just can’t handle their broadcast team. You’d think a network like ESPN could find the creme de la creme, but no. They make the games almost unwatchable. It’s a real shame, ’cause they always finagle to get good games.

Listening to them talk about Andy that first inning – man. Bad analysis. “Winning on reputation”. WTF?!?

(deep breathe – in and out – calm down – it’s gonna be ok)

By: bp1

bp1 — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:25:26 +0000

[6] Hey Cliff – yes I have had that same problem on YES broadcasts, more often when I flip the audio through a amp and decent speakers. When it’s just my crappy old TV, it’s not so bad. The stereo effects make it far more pronounced, and yeah sometimes I have trouble hearing the announcers over the crowd noise.

(not that that’s always a bad thing, lol)

By: RIYank

RIYank — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:06:27 +0000

[10] Right. The fact that balls hit into play against Mo are so often a batter fighting off a cutter on the wrists for a weak fly or an easy grounder gets lost in FIP. (His high K rate doesn’t, of course, but Broxton has that too.) As a general rule the thought is that a pitcher has no control over his BAABIP in the course of his whole career. Seems like Mo has to be an exception to this.

Or, maybe he’s really, really lucky!

By: Shaun P.

Shaun P. — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:56:12 +0000

[7] [8] Agreed all the way around – anything that relies on UZR/150 to figure out defensive value has got to be suspect (Fangraphs’ WAR calculation).

I don’t know enough about b-r.com’s WAR to comment on it positively or negatively.

I would say BP’s WXRL is still the best reliever metric (at least for closers; for middle relievers, one could argue that BP’s ARP is better, or at least more appropriate, as those guys often get called in the middle of an inning with men on base). Broxton is 8th overall in WXRL (2.214), while Mo is 13th (2.111).

Sadly I don’t think BP has a career WXRL stat sheet (they should!), but I bet Mo is way up there.

By: Jon DeRosa

Jon DeRosa — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:50:55 +0000

[7,8] What’s kind of funny is that FIP sees Mariano as lucky for his career, getting more help from his defense than could be reliably expected, on a team with consistently shitty defense, especially at SS, where these same systems kill Jeter’s career.

oh well, even the people who love WAR and FIP as be-all stats know that it doesn’t get Rivera, we’ll never have to wage this argument when he’s strolling into the HOF.

i just hope one day 50 years from now somebody digs into the numbers and tries to tell my grandkids how trevor hoffman was actually better than mariano, or some such revisionist crap.

By: Jon DeRosa

Jon DeRosa — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:45:45 +0000

[7] yeah, grains of salt required, fo sho.

By: RIYank

RIYank — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:41:04 +0000

Yeah, WAR is suspect — and as a matter of fact I had noticed that it’s a different stat on BR and Fangraphs (a couple of us were looking at Jeter’s WAR last week and saw the discrepancy). As Jon says, looking at FIP may be a better predictor, but it’s worse at gauging value. Broxton and Mo are tied in WPA, for whatever that’s worth (I don’t really like WPA, but as a measure of closer value it’s not bad).

By: Cliff Corcoran

Cliff Corcoran — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:24:54 +0000

[5] I have yet to find reason to use/trust Fangraphs’ stats. WAR especially is suspect in my opinion (and distinct from the “WAR” on Baseball-Reference, by the way). There is good info on that site, however, but grains of salt are required in many places.

By: Cliff Corcoran

Cliff Corcoran — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:20:39 +0000

Speaking of the ESPN announcers, was I the only one who had real difficulty hearing them over the crowd noise last night? I’ve had that problem on YES as well. It could be my crappy hearing, but it seems like the networks are mixing the crowd higher and higher lately and drowning out their own announcers (which I don’t entirely mind except it is a bit maddening to hear someone talk but not be able to make out what they’re saying)

By: Jon DeRosa

Jon DeRosa — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:15:18 +0000

[3] Nice find. I poked around on Fangraphs to see where Mariano ranked on the rleiever value list this year. Broxton’s first by a ton, Mariano’s 13th.

Broxton’s WAR is almost twice that of Mo’s. His FIP has him saving alost twice as many runs as Mariano this year in only 4 more innnings. FIP is a great tool, but it just doesn’t get Mo. And I don’t think WAR, which is a value stat should be based solely on runs saved derived from FIP, which is at best a predictive stat.

Broxton is awesome, deserving of the top spot, but Mariano’s season (career?) just doesn’t get the credit he deserves in this system.

By: The Mick536

The Mick536 — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:06:27 +0000

Need your opinions. Morgan did a bit on ESPN comparing A-Rod’s swing then and now. He says, despite the HR last night and Friday, that his hip problems somehow impede his swing. As a person with severe hip problems, Me and Phil Jackson have two replacements, I can see it when he goes down to meet the sliders in the dirt. He isn’t leaning into the outside balls and driving them consistently and confidently to right center.

By: RIYank

RIYank — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 11:56:09 +0000

For Fangraph aficionados, yesterday's graph is magnificent. For most of the game, the pinstripe chance was reduced to the tiny sliver of white space between the green line and the top of the image, and when Teix struck out in the ninth, that space was actually squeezed out by the width of the green line. (The Yankees' win probability at that point was .004, which means you can expect to win one game out of 250 in that situation.) And then the Dodger chances come whooshing down the roller coaster, with the little blip near the bottom when Loney singles, and then the ride ends. Awesome graph.

By: RIYank

RIYank — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 10:39:18 +0000

Funny, Cliff, I was thinking the same thing about the shot of Torre watching. I wanted to write a caption: “I CAN HAZ MO?”

It must really piss off serious Dodger fans that their stadium empties in the ninth inning like that. I’d go look at Dodger Thoughts, but that seems like bad form.

By: Mattpat11

Mattpat11 — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 08:35:34 +0000

I love that picture for some reason