Wednesday, January 05, 2005
To be fair
OK, back before the break I did some rough calculations that suggested the Sox have gotten better this off-season. You can read it here.
So what about the competition, the Yankees? It probably depends what happens with Beltran or if they do end up getting another big bat, but where do they stand right now?
Here are the assumptions I made:
- The offense stays the same. Womack, Tino, and whatever filler the Yankees add, replace the runs created by Cairo and Enrique Wilson, Tony Clark, Travis Lee, and Olerud, and Kenny Lofton. I've also assumed that the Yanks re-sign Ruben Sierra, as it is reportedly close.
- The new pitchers Johnson, Wright, Pavano, Felix-Rod, and Stanton, replace the innings pitched by Vazquez, Lieber, Loaiza/Contreras, El Duque, and Nitkowski. This isn't completely fair, as you've got 2 relievers basically replacing 1 or 1.5, but it shouldn't matter too much, I'll explain why in a second.
- Using Runs saved against average, and matching them inning for inning, assume the newcomers will perform as they did last year (although combined they would pitch 19% fewer innings, or at least be taking innings from someone else).
Amazingly, this offseason, the Yankees have improved their pitching by 122 runs, or about 3 runs every 4 games. With the assumptions I've made, if anything they could improve even more, as everyone we have added in is helpful, while 5 of the 7 pitchers we removed were actually worse than average. Additionally, pitchers like Felix Rodriguez and Mike Stanton are just as much replacing innings from guys like Sturtze and overuse of guys like Quantrill as they are replacing Felix Heredia.
So if we assume the Yanks still score 897 runs, and allow a major league low 686, where does that put their Pythagorean win total? 102 Wins.
That's right, 1 game better than last year, and 1 game better than the Red Sox expected win total.
How can that be? How can 122 fewer runs only translate to 1 more win? Well, the Yankees outperformed their Pythagorean total by 10 or so wins last year, an unbelievable number. This resulted from a disproportionate number of close wins and/or blowout losses (remember the 22-0 loss to the Indians?)
If the Yankees repeat a similar pattern this year, their win total could be higher at 107 to 111.
Now we'll see if they sign Beltran or another first baseman, to destroy what are already flawed calculations.
So what about the competition, the Yankees? It probably depends what happens with Beltran or if they do end up getting another big bat, but where do they stand right now?
Here are the assumptions I made:
- The offense stays the same. Womack, Tino, and whatever filler the Yankees add, replace the runs created by Cairo and Enrique Wilson, Tony Clark, Travis Lee, and Olerud, and Kenny Lofton. I've also assumed that the Yanks re-sign Ruben Sierra, as it is reportedly close.
- The new pitchers Johnson, Wright, Pavano, Felix-Rod, and Stanton, replace the innings pitched by Vazquez, Lieber, Loaiza/Contreras, El Duque, and Nitkowski. This isn't completely fair, as you've got 2 relievers basically replacing 1 or 1.5, but it shouldn't matter too much, I'll explain why in a second.
- Using Runs saved against average, and matching them inning for inning, assume the newcomers will perform as they did last year (although combined they would pitch 19% fewer innings, or at least be taking innings from someone else).
Amazingly, this offseason, the Yankees have improved their pitching by 122 runs, or about 3 runs every 4 games. With the assumptions I've made, if anything they could improve even more, as everyone we have added in is helpful, while 5 of the 7 pitchers we removed were actually worse than average. Additionally, pitchers like Felix Rodriguez and Mike Stanton are just as much replacing innings from guys like Sturtze and overuse of guys like Quantrill as they are replacing Felix Heredia.
So if we assume the Yanks still score 897 runs, and allow a major league low 686, where does that put their Pythagorean win total? 102 Wins.
That's right, 1 game better than last year, and 1 game better than the Red Sox expected win total.
How can that be? How can 122 fewer runs only translate to 1 more win? Well, the Yankees outperformed their Pythagorean total by 10 or so wins last year, an unbelievable number. This resulted from a disproportionate number of close wins and/or blowout losses (remember the 22-0 loss to the Indians?)
If the Yankees repeat a similar pattern this year, their win total could be higher at 107 to 111.
Now we'll see if they sign Beltran or another first baseman, to destroy what are already flawed calculations.
# posted by Darlucky @ 2:52 PM 
