"The Yankees bounced into six double plays in one game Friday. The Mariners have grounded into five all season. And before you start making snide comments about the Mariners' offense, you should know they've had many more hitters reach first base via a single or a walk (137) than the Yankees (112) this season."It wasn't even a product of slow runners either, as Jeter grounded into one, and was on base for two of them.
Looking at the Yankees RE24, here's the value destroyed by each of the 6 double plays:
1st inning - A-Rod - 1.01 RE24
3rd inning - Tex - .60 RE24
4th inning - Cano - .87 RE24
5th inning - Jeter - 1.01 RE24
7th inning - Jones - .87 RE24
8th inning - Swisher - .60 RE24
Unlike Win Probability Added, Run Expectancy ignores the current game's score, but is a good neutral indicator of a batter's contribution to the team. A player with a RE24 above 0 on average improves his teams ability to score runs with every at bat, while a player with a negative RE24 lowered his team's chances at scoring. A-Rod and Jeter's GIDPs costed more because they had 2 men on base with 1 out, Cano's and Jones' GIDPs came with 0 out, and the Tex/Swisher GIDPs came with 1 out.
In total, the 6 GIDPs cost the Yankees in a run neutral environment of 4.96 runs. While sitting in the stands, it felt like a heck of a lot more, especially given Matt Harrison's total inability to throw strikes (104 Pitches, 59 for strikes), but it still ended up being the difference in the game as NYY only lost 5-3. No pie for Russell yet.
I was away the rest of the weekend so I thankfully I never got tempted to go to either of the games Saturday and Sunday as they were played in particularly vicious weather. Both were great wins and its nice to see the Texas monkey get lifted off our backs early in the season, but with our next series against Tex coming in May, we will never see Josh Hamilton against the Yankees this season. Whether or not that comes into play in October is far too away to even start considering.
Tuesday we play just our 4th away game of the year, and while I won't admit that our series in Fenway should be an indicator for our team's road prowess this year, our Home record of 8-3 puts us on pace to win 59 home games this year, (NYY record is 65 home wins in 1961), so not a bad start to the season.
Finally, for you reference, here's the Yankees RE24 for the season so far. Brett Gardner at -8.34 RE24 is trumped by only one player, Phil Hughes, who has a -9.29 RE24 on the season. Brett Gardner is 2nd worst, behind Carl Crawford at -9.45 RE24, and Hughes is 6th worst, behind John Lackey at -10.31 RE24. Seeing him bumped to 9th was a good sign and will hopefully pull him out of his slump, but I still wouldn't mind seeing more playing time going to Andruw Jones.
No comments:
Post a Comment