Why it's Bad to Face Vlad

First off, few things make me happier than:
1) A Yankees sweep
2) Red Sox getting swept

Except of course:
1) A Yankees sweep in the ALDS
2) Red Sox getting swept in the ALDS

Oh and the Giants absolutely stomped all over the Raiders. But that was their game to win, just like Game 3 was the Sox's to win. In what may have been Terry Francona's Grady Little moment, the wheels completely came off in the ninth inning. So I'd just like to thank the Halos and the Boston manager for vanquishing the Sox in the ALDS.

With a one-run lead, two outs in the bottom of the ninth, and first base empty, Jonathon Papelbon intentionally walked Torii Hunter to face former MVP Vladmir Guerrero. I didn't think a team would ever choose to face Guerrero with the bases loaded but that is besides the point. Then again, this is by far the worst year in Vlad's career. He put up a line of .295/.334/.460 and a miserable 50 RBIs after 10 years of reliably putting up an OPS >.900 to go with 30 HRs and 100 RBIs.

Even in this terrible off-year, Guerrero and his .334 OBP would get the tying run in 1/3rd of the time. If he was performing at his career levels, he would get it in 38.6% of the time. With Ellsbury at normal depth, Vlad would've flown and the game would have ended then. But with the center fielder playing no-doubles defense in deep center field, Vlad hit a fastball over the middle of the plate right to shallow center, plating two runners and giving the Angels the lead. Fuentes got the save and the Angels advanced to the ALCS.

I'll never understand why the Red Sox would choose to face Guerrero or why they would play to prevent Vlad from getting to second instead of to first, since what base Vlad ends up at makes no difference in the total number of runs scored. Torii Hunter and his .366 OBP made an out in 63.4% of his plate appearances this season. Why face someone who makes an out in a lower percentage of his plate appearances over him? And it isn't a small difference, Vlad's career OBP is .386 compared to Hunter's .330. John Farrell and Terry Francona were certainly aware of this. For it to have been the correct move to walk Hunter, Boston must have believed that the likelihood of Vlad making an out with the bases loaded was significantly greater than Hunter making one with runners on 2nd and 3rd. If you look at their OBPs (and their comparative ability to drive in runs), it wasn't. It was a dumb decision and they paid the appropriate price.

Also, Papelbon's appearance also demonstrated the meaningless of ERA. When he came in the 8th, TBS noted that he hadn't been charged with an earned run in 26 postseason innings...and Papelbon promptly allowed two inherited runners to score before making an out, raising that streak to 27. And if Ellsbury had been playing at normal depth, that streak would've continued to 28. His ERA is by no means an accurate measure of his performance.

Great day for a New York fan. Looking forward to the ALCS with the Angels.

Leaving Posada Out

Much has been made over Girardi's decision to leave Posada out of the Game 2 lineup. After all, Posada has been a long time post-season presence on the Yankees and who is Burnett to whine his way into having his own personal catcher? Can't the guy just pitch? Well, as we saw during Game 1, poor catcher's defense can be costly and a strong performance from Yankees starting pitchers is necessary for the team's success. Pitching in the playoffs for the first time is already hard enough; why make it harder for Burnett by giving him a batterymate he was so uncomfortable with during the regular season (4.96 ERA in his 16 starts with Posada)? His ERA is 3.28 in 11 starts with Molina.

But what of Posada's offensive contributions? According to the Lineup Analysis tool on Baseball Musings, the Yankees lineup that Girardi used in Game 1 would be expected to score 6.377 runs. Note: the Yankees only averaged 5.648 runs per game during the regular season, due to not using this lineup in most games because of injuries and doing stuff like starting Cody Ransom. How many runs would the lineup used for Game 2 be expected to score? 5.955. But Molina was only going to get 2 or 3 at bats at most before leaving for a pinch-hitter, so really this lineup should be expected to score about six runs...basically giving it the same run expectancy as the lineup containing Posada.

So if you are Girardi, which would you prefer: the extra half-run that Posada is likely to give you if he starts in the six-hole, or saving the 1.7 runs that you get by putting Molina behind the plate with Burnett pitching?

New Blog and some ALDS thoughts

This is my first time blogging; I figure I might as well get a head start before I head to Korea. But first I want to talk about what is on my mind now, well really always on my mind: baseball.

Much has been made about how overly matched the Twins are in the 2009 ALDS. The chances of an upset are really low...so low that you'd have to bet $5 on the Yankees to win $4. They're 3/2 favorites to go to the World Series. But this a playoff series and flukey things happen.

That being said, I think the Vegas oddmakers have it close and the chances of an upset are probably even lower than they have it. And most "upsets" in the World Series have been by teams very close in talent level, based on the Wins Above Replacement (WAR) statistic. When there have been upsets, often parts of the teams' talents are the same. Let's look at some the biggest playoff upsets in recent memory:

The 2006 World Series that one sportswriter said would be "Tigers in 3":
Cardinals: 28.3 WAR
Tigers: 43 WAR
Difference of -14.7. But if you remove pitching from the equation, the Cards and their 21.5 WAR hitting beat the 22.1 WAR hitting Tigers. Good pitchers have off games, and the talent difference over a whole season can be neutralized with a short series. And it shouldn't be much of a surprise that Verlander posted a 5.82 ERA in the postseason, with a 5.73 ERA in the World Series after pitching 186 innings his rookie season.


2004 ALCS:
Red Sox: 55.9 WAR
Yankees: 44.1 WAR
Difference of +11.8 for the team doing the upset

The 2003 World Series:
Marlins: 42.3
Yankees: 57.2 (note: the Red Sox were 61 WAR, so the Yankees beating the Sox was a smaller upset)
Difference of -15. But Josh Beckett and his +3.9 wins got to make two starts, so again over a short series overall talent differences between the pitchers can be reduced. The Marins 22.4 WAR hitters were able to beat the Yanks 27.0 WAR hitters.

2001 World Series:
There is no WAR data for this year, but the Yankees had a team OPS+ of 100 and the Diamondbacks were 94. Yankees team ERA+ was 111 and the Diamondbacks 120 (with Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling posting 157 and 188 ERA+ seasons respectively). It looks like the D-Backs a slightly better team, especially when you factor in that Schilling and Johnson had two starts each. The real upset was the Yankees beating the A's in the ALDS, with their 106 OPS+ and 121 ERA+. Oh, and the A's were leading 2-0 in that series.

There's a clear trend here: when an inferior team beats a superior team, they are usually close in some way or they get lucky (2001).

The Yankees and Twins are not close at all in talent level: The 2009 Yankees fielded a team that is worth 57 WAR, the Twins a 38.2 WAR team. Over the course of a season that predicts a difference of around 19 wins, which is almost exactly what their final record reflects: 103 wins for the Yanks and 86 for the Twins (87 if you count their one game playoff). The Twins won't be able to close the gap with their pitching and the hitting is worse at every position, except of course catcher. But this talent gap is even greater when you consider that the Twins can't use their best pitcher, Scott Baker (+3.5 WAR), until game 4. By then the Yankees should have clinched at the Metrodome anyway. If the Twins beat the Yankees it will be one of the biggest upsets in recent playoffs history, if not the biggest.