Girardi's Damages Credibility With Choice Of Konerko

On Wednesday, Justin Morneau suffered a concussion after taking a knee to the head trying to break up a double play against the Blue Jays. The Twins' slugger has a history of concussions and as a result, he hasn't played since, so the injury opened up a slot at first base on the All-Star team. In this situation, the manger of the American League squad is responsible for picking a player to replace the injured one. And Joe Girardi chose Paul Konerko over Kevin Youkilis, who just barely lost to Nick Swisher in the Final Vote.

The first reaction that many have had is that the Yankees skipper didn't want to take a player from the enemy Red Sox. Girardi's justification? The numbers:

I’m looking at the numbers, the numbers are close and one guy’s numbers are a little bit better. I took the guy whose numbers are a little bit better.

But did he?

Konerko has a slight lead in the three most popular (and flawed) metrics - batting average, homers and RBIs - but Youk has him beat by a mile in on-base percentage and has outslugged him by a fair bit as well. And this is before you account for fielding, which isn't even a contest between the two - Konerko is marginal at best while Youk is one of the better defenders at first base in the league and is capable of playing third base as well.

I'm not going to shed any tears over Youk not being named an All-Star this year and I don't think that Girardi avoided picking him because he's on the Red Sox. As Joe Posnanski put it:

Now, look, Joe Girardi is not some 12-year-old looking at the back of 1978 baseball cards. He’s the manager of the New York Yankees, the defending World Series champion, the $200 million super team and the biggest brand in American sports. And you’re telling me he really looks at the numbers of Paul Konerko and Kevin Youkilis’ numbers and thinks Konerko’s are “a little bit better?” This is beyond ludicrous.

Later in that same article, Poz also points out that one of these guys is a complete creation of the home park they play in, and it's not Youkilis.

Joe Girardi, Northwestern Grad, Man of Many Binders, Certified Mananger By The Numbers®

either didn't bother to or can't do some extremely basic and fundamental comparative analysis. Seriously?

You don't have to get into WAR and wOBA to see that Youk is having a better year than Konerko - just look at their on-base percentages. Plus, Girardi sees Youk on a fairly regular basis, so you'd think he'd have more respect for how tough of an out he is and what he is capable of defensively.

It's not up for debate. If you know anything about objective baseball analysis, you can determine within about 30 seconds at either B-Ref or FanGraphs, conclusively, that Paul Konerko is not having as good of a year as Kevin Youkilis.

Lots of times, when Girardi makes a pitching change late in the game or calls for a maneuver that I disagree with, I'll think to myself "Okay, maybe he just has more (and better) information than I do. Perhaps he knows something that I don't". Well, in this case at least, it's the other way around.

The Merits Of A Pitcher's Stats Against One Team

Mike from The Yankeeist has some strong words for the way media built up the return of Roy Halladay last night:

The problem wasn't the hype itself, but how it was justified. There should be pregame excitement anytime the Yankees face a pitcher who is having the kind of season Doc is having. But the game was sold to fans on the basis of Halladay's career numbers against the Yankees. This kind of sloppy journalism is prevalent in the baseball media, and should be criticized.

I think not citing Halladay's career numbers would have been a far more egregious error. It's a valid storyline. He'd pitched more than a full season's worth against the Yankees in his career and had great results. How do you not bring that up?

Of course, as Mike goes on to explain, even though Doc had thrown a ton of innings to the Yanks, the numbers he compiled don't really mean anything:

The baseball media frequently cites a player's career performance against a given team to provide insight into how that player should do right now against that same team. This makes no sense. Sticking with the current example, Roy Halladay has been logging time in the AL East since 1998. How, exactly, do his numbers against Scott Brosius or Jason Giambi help understand what he can be expected to do when he faces the Yankees in 2010? The answer, of course, is that they can't, but baseball struggles to grasp this.

In addition to the Yankee lineup fluctuating, the defense behind Halladay has constantly shifted, the turf underneath him in Toronto has changed, he's thrown to tons of different catchers and most importantly, he's evolved as a pitcher. Essentially, what you are looking at when you try to analyze Halladay's career stats against the Yankees (or any pitcher's line against a certain team) are a bunch of very small samples, recorded over a very long time, and smushed together to look like one big one. And, by the way, looking at his career numbers against the Yankees tells you the same thing that looking at his overall numbers tell you - Roy Halladay is like, really awesome at pitching.

But there's two parts to this - the validity of the stats and how they are being used. Mike calls it "sloppy journalism", but that strikes me as a sort of hollow, straw man argument. Its' not like it's factually incorrect. Halladay has owned the Yankees and you can bet that the players in the clubhouse are keenly aware of it. Why then shouldn't the media talk about it? It doesn't have predictive value, but no one I care to read was trying to predict what the outcome of the game would be anyway. It was one of things that was ubiquitously noted because, well, it was worth noting.

Did anyone guarantee that Halladay was going to turn in a great game? I'm not aware of such a proclamation. I think most Yankee fans sort of braced for impact (like Mike's co-author at the Yankeeist, Larry did) simply because after seeing it happen so many times, it's a natural reaction.

So why do we fans have the desire read about games before they happen? Why do we bother to write a preview for all 162 of them here? It's rare that something your read beforehand will manifest itself in the game in a meaningful way, isn't it?

In general, we are all probably a little anxious for the game to start and reading about it helps pass the time. We love the team and find that harnessing some of that anticipation and reading up on an impending game helps us look forward to it.

More specifically, when I write a preview or read one that someone else has written, it's because I want to have an understanding of any trends and storylines coming in and try to develop some sort of a framework that will make what's unfolding on the field a little more coherent and interesting to me. Some of those things might be statistical, but the personalities and rivalries and the who-owns-who are compelling in their own way, even if they don't pass the statistical smell test.

Keeping Score On The Lake

As the Yankees try to recapture the magic of their team-building outing last year, Joe Girardi doesn't have many activities to choose from if he wants to go a different route than a pool tournament. Finding something that sixty guys could compete in that doesn't involve significant injury risk is no easy task. As Matt conveyed before, that narrows it down to stuff like lawn games, shuffle board and laser tag. What else? Go-karts? Golf? Curling? Darts? A poker tournament? Fishing...?

It wasn't an official outing, but last year during Spring Training A.J. Burnett took a few teammates fishing with him in his boat. Having played in Florida for six years before leaving for Toronto and been an avid fisherman, it would be safe to assume that Burnett knows a couple of decent spots. If David Robertson were in change, that's what he'd do.

Joe Girardi probably wouldn't pick angling as the team's activity due to the cost, liability and logistics of it all, but if he did, they'd have a good way to keep score. Dale Bowman of the Chicago Sun-Times recently proposed some simple sabermetric-style stats that could be used for fishing (h/t BBTF):

Think of fishing by the numbers in the tradition of the 1977 Baseball Abstract, Bill James' 68-page spark to the sabermetrics revolution in baseball.

A similar method should work to compare performances of competitive fishermen.

Numbers are the measuring stick of baseball across time. James just took it past the basics of wins and losses, strikeouts, batting average, ERA and homers.

We already have the basic statistics of fishing (equivalent of average, ERA) with tournament victories, career earnings and Classic titles. But we can dig deeper to compare fishermen.

Bowman goes on to explain some intuitive metrics that place the weight of the catch and money earned in the context of the tournament they were recorded in. Not all competitions would benefit from increased statistical analysis, but pro fishing seems like it would be one of them. Tournaments held in different areas and under varying conditions can yield drastically different overall catches, similar to how certain eras in baseball have been characterized by higher or lower run scoring environments.

Analyzing the fisherman's results would be useful, but even more interesting would be the data on the fish. If there was a way to easily capture basic info about the circumstances a fish was caught under, a big enough sample might yield some interesting trends. Things like the depth of the strike, water and air temperature, type and color of lure, amount of sunlight, barometric pressure, time of year, etc., would lend valuable insight into fish behavior. Having that data available would close the gap between those who have been figuring things out via trial and error over long periods of time and those who have much less experience. That would be bad news for fish, but good for the casual fisherman.

Of course, this is impractical for a few reasons. First, you'd need a universal form to record the data and distributing them would be tough. Secondly, pro fisherman are notoriously reluctant to give away their tactics, lest they tip off their opponents and lose their competitive advantage. Consequently, you'd have to enlist average anglers to gather data, most of whom probably don't want (or are too drunk) to waste their time writing a bunch of numbers after they flip a largemouth bass or rainbow trout over the side of their boat or onto the bank.

However, while it wouldn't be practical on a wide level, perhaps individual fishing guides could distinguish themselves by diligently recording results and analyzing them over a long period of time. It's possible, but I think that fishing is probably stuck in a place where baseball was for a long time, where common knowledge, conventional wisdom, intuition and superstition go relatively unchallenged as the main sources of strategy.

'Tis The Season For Analysis And Reason

Good morning Fackers. One of the positive things about the slow news cycle that we are going through in the baseball world at the moment is that it gives some very smart writers the chance to do long-form pieces that don't get done when the offseason news is reaching its peak. While some may yearn for the heat of the hot stove, a whole lot of writing and thought gets expended on the the same signings and trade with a relatively small amount getting added to the discussion. Without many rumors flying, some have been using their time well and posting tremendously interesting analytical pieces that have in some cases taken on a life of their own.

Joe Posnanski recently cranked out 5,000 words comparing the Baseball Hall of Fame with the Baseball Think Factory Hall of Merit. Larry from Wezen-ball explored the illogical nature of the voting process for Cooperstown. There was an interesting discussion yesterday about putting a third team in New York which began with a piece on SI.com by Tim Marchman, and was picked up by Craig Calcaterra of Circling the Bases and Kevin Kaduk of Big League Stew (among others) before Marchman responded to the responses. Dave Cameron of FanGraphs discussed the diminishing value of a marginal win for the Yankees which was further explored by River Ave. Blues and Rob Neyer. Cameron's colleague R.J. Anderson used a quote from Peter Gammons to explain the Time Value of Money as it relates to Jason Bay's contract.

Perhaps the best example of this analytical collaboration are the Mike Silva Chronicles that Tom Tango is currently posting over at The Book Blog. Silva is notoriously suspicious of advanced statistics while Tango is responsible for creating a great many of them and inspiring still more. Recently, Silva compared the necessity for the newly-created stat wRC+ (just like OPS+ but based on wOBA) from FanGraphs to "Cool Ranch Doritos, New Coke, or a colorful cover for the iPod". Tango replied in the comment section, "As I keep saying on my blog time and time again, summary opinion without evidence is the very definition of bullsh!t. And Mike’s statement here is pure bullsh!t."

What might have spiraled into a war of words has instead turned into something productive. Tango agreed to answer ten of Silva's questions about advanced metrics, ranging from the accuracy and utility of UZR to the concepts of replacement level and win shares, pulling back the curtain a bit in attempt assuage some of the doubts that many have about newer stats.

Although these two guys are coming from ends of the statistical spectrum, they are meeting at an important common ground. One of the reasons old school baseball thinkers like Silva distrust advanced metrics is because they doubt their accuracy. The people who understand these measures the best understand their limits because they created them. It could be argued that the people who use UZR and WAR without understanding their blindspots are just as bad as those who refuse to acknowledge their utility at all.

Even if you aren't a stathead, I'd recommend stopping by The Book Blog and taking a look at Silva's questions and Tango's responses. They did five questions yesterday and I believe the next 5 should be coming soon. Although the names of some of the newer stats make them seem vague and complex, I think you'll find that hearing someone explain what they are and why they were created while simultaneously acknowledging their limitations to be quite interesting.

Mitch Williams Is An Idiot

You probably knew that already anyway. If you don't recall as such from his playing days, perhaps you've listened to him trip over his own tongue repeatedly on the MLB Network this year. If not, simply refer to the picture below.

"I cut the sleeves off because it looks awesome, now get your head in the game!"

Last night, after finishing the recap, I checked a few other Yankee sites and had MLBN on in the background. I was only half listening. I noticed that recently DFA'd former Yankee and all-around good guy Tony Clark had joined the studio team - good for him. Combined with Sean Casey, last night's panel had two of the most well-liked Big Leaguers of the past twenty years or so.

But for all the goodwill that The Mayor and Tony the former Tiger can generate, one meandering argument from The Wild Thing ruined it all for me.

I'm not even quite sure what point Williams was trying to make. Maybe that's because I wasn't dedicating my full attention, or maybe it's because Williams hasn't made a lucid argument in his entire time with the fledgling network.

Regardless, the conversation started with the increasingly tiresome AL MVP debate. Williams stated that Mauer is at a disadvantage because he's a catcher and his legs are going to go on him at some point before the season's over. Except then Mitch said that Mauer is at an advantage because he missed the first month of the season, so he's fresher than he would be. Ok, advantage: push.

Then Derek Jeter came up. And Mitch made some point about batting average being an overvalued statistic. "Wow," I thought, "Mitch Williams is making a salient point."

Then Mitch took a turn for the inane. For some reason, Williams started comparing Jeter to Jimmy Rollins, who while a shortstop, plays in an entirely different league - so I'm not quite sure what any of it had to do with the AL MVP discussion.

That said, Williams, again emphasizing that batting average is an overvalued statistic, illustrated this by pointing out that despite a cavernous gap between them in batting average, Jimmy Rollins has 10 more doubles than Derek Jeter and has a fielding percentage that is superior by .007. End of story.

Well that's just great Mitch. Now let's finish the discussion. A .007 advantage in fielding percentage is nearly meaningless. The average Major League shortstop last year fielded 728 chances. A .007 difference in fielding percentage means that over the course of a season Rollins would turn roughly five more chances into outs. Five. That's less than one per month over the course of the season.

Of course, since Mitch is so plugged in to which stats are overvalued, he probably knows that fielding percentage is not a very accurate method of measuring a player's defensive value. A more advanced metric would be UZR/150. Now there's no denying that over the course of their respective careers, Jimmy Rollins has been a much, much, much better defensive player than Derek Jeter, holding a career edge in UZR/150 of 10.2 runs. However, this year, Derek Jeter's UZR/150 is 6.8 as opposed to Rollins' 5.9. So for 2009 at least, advantage Jeter.

How about offense? Well yes Mitch, Rollins does have a whopping 10 double lead. How about the other three types of hits a batter can get? 2009 slugging percentage Jimmy Rollins: .415. 2009 slugging percentage Derek Jeter: .482. And before anyone mentions a word about the new Yankee Stadium, let's remember that Citizens Bank Park is also very hitter friendly. Its one year park factors (102/101) are only slightly less offensive than Yankee Stadium's (103/103), and its multiyear factors (103/102) are nearly identical to how the Stadium has played in its brief history.

But, offense is more than just doubles. As Mitch knows, batting average is overrated. On base percentage is probably the best single measure of offensive value. 2009 OBP Rollins: .290. 2009 OBP Jeter: .398. Huge, huge, huge advantage Jeter. Both men bat leadoff. Over the course of a full season, Jeter will be on base roughly 83 more times based on their current OBPs. Jimmy Rollins' OBP is the absolute lowest of any Major Leaguer with at least 450 plate appearances this year. There are but six American Leaguers with a better OBP than Jeter.

How about something really advanced and all-encompassing: 2009 Wins Above Replacement Rollins: 1.8. 2009 Wins Above Replacement Jeter: 5.9. Once again, huge advantage Jeter. He's been worth more than three times as much to his team this year.

I'm not trying to bag on Jimmy Rollins. I'm not trying to suggest that Jeter is or isn't the AL MVP. But I am absolutely stupefied as to what point Mitch Williams was trying to make. That Joe Mauer has legs? That Jeter's not the MVP? That Jeter hits for average and that's all he's good for? That Jimmy Rollins isn't having an absolutely abysmal season? I don't know. I'm not sure Mitch knows. But, by virtue of his employment at MLBN, the guy is supposed to be a national authority on the sport. Whatever point he was trying to make, it was poorly, poorly constructed and its delivery was even worse.

In summary:
Joe Mauer's legs = a blessing and a curse, he may want to hedge his bets and cut one off
Batting average = overrated
Doubles = underrated
Fielding percentage = just right
UZR/150, OBP, WAR = non-existent
Mitch Williams = rivaling John Kruk for dumbest '93 Phillie turned analyst

A Few Lines On Coke

I have to admit, it wasn't until all the Twitter feeds came pouring into yesterday's live chat that I realized just how bad Phil Coke has been of late: 17 ER over his last 15.1 IP. His ERA has ballooned from 2.97 to 5.05 in that stretch.

Some may want to blame this on his over-use, as his 59 appearances are the most on the team by a good margin (Rivera is next with 52), and his 51.2 IP in relief is third behind Alfredo Aceves (61) and Rivera (53). And maybe that has something to do with it, but not very much.

Most of what's happened to Coke over these last 20 outings is just good old statistical correction. As I've stated before, particularly when evaluating relievers, I prefer to look at Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) rather than ERA. As you may recall, FIP is dependent upon the three things pitchers can control: strikeouts, walks, and home runs, and is then is adjusted to an ERA-like scale.

Unfortunately, I can't find game-by-game logs of Coke's FIP, nor do I have the free time to calculate it at the moment. However, at every point this season that I looked at his numbers, his ERA was outperforming his FIP - by a lot. These past twenty outings have served to correct that gap, so much so that after yesterday, Coke's ERA (5.05) is now worse than his FIP (4.86).

So what's the good news/bad news here? The good news is that the numbers seem to indicate that Coke has at worst leveled off, at best is due for a small improvement. The bad news is that where those numbers stand right are not all that good. The good news is the Coke's strikeout (7.14 per 9) and walk (3.14 per 9) rates are slightly better than the league averages. The bad news is his home run rate (1.57 per 9) is a half home run worse than the league average, and that's what is killing both his FIP and his ERA.

Another number to look at is Coke's batting average on balls in play (BABIP). Evidence has shown that a pitcher has little control over balls in play (which is why FIP is a valuable statistic) and that most pitchers end up having a BABIP close to the league average. Currently, Coke is at .234, far better than the league average of .304. This could suggest that we haven't seen the bottom for Coke yet; if his BABIP regresses to the mean over the final five weeks he could be in for a few more rough outings.

However, given Coke's K and HR rates, I would expect his BABIP to be a bit low. His K rate is higher than the league average, meaning there are fewer balls in play against him. Furthermore, 6.1% of batted balls off Coke are home runs, as opposed to 4.0% for the league. As such, hitters are making contact less against him compared to the league, but when they do, the ball is traveling over the fence far more often. While the latter certainly isn't a good thing, I do think that indicates that Coke's BABIP likely won't get close to the league average by season's end. Besides, any BABIP regression to the mean may be a good thing for Coke, as it could indicate that his gigantic HR rate is dropping off a bit.

So what does it all mean? Phil Coke isn't as good as he appeared to be through most of the summer and isn't as bad as he appears to be right now. He gives up way too many home runs, and Yankee Stadium may have something to do with that (18.2 AB/HR at home, 25 on the road). If he can get his home runs down, his K and BB rates suggest he is a relatively effective pitcher.

Relievers are highly volatile due to the relatively small number of innings the pitch. One or two bad outings, like yesterday or Coke's 0.1 IP 6 ER disaster in Chicago on 8/1, can have a major impact on a reliever's statistics. Despite being a former starter with a decent arsenal of pitches, and despite his numbers being good against right handed batters for most of the season, Joe Girardi has insisted upon using Coke as a match-up lefty for most of the year, with 30 of his 59 appearances lasting less than an inning.

Coke has been pretty high up in the bullpen pecking order for most of the season. He'll need to show some improvement over these last five weeks to justify keeping that status in October. If he can keep the ball in the ballpark more often, he has a good chance at making those improvements.

The Search For Mo's Best Streak

As I noted in last night's recap, Mariano Rivera converted his 32nd consecutive save opportunity last night dating back to April 29th, a set a new career high. This streak includes 43 appearances, during which he had a ERA of 1.85 and a K/BB ratio of 46/8. However, this span also included two losses (both to the Rays) one in which he gave up two homers and the other where he allowed 4 runs (3 earned).

As we all know, the save is an arbitrary and flawed statistic, so I was curious find out how this stretch stacked up with others in his career and what his finest streak really was. Using Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Streak Finder (you can subscribe to the PI for $5/month or $30/year), I started running some queries.

It turns out that Mo has had eerily similar runs starting sometime in April and running to various points throughout August in four out of the last 5 years.

In the months of May, June and July over the past 5 years he's blown ONE SAVE, on June 17th, 2006 against the Nationals. Chew on that for a second. 15 months of baseball, one blown save. 133 save chances, 132 saves. It's sort of cherry picking months of the season, and he's had some difficulties in non-save situations over that span, but he has been incomparable at locking down wins once he hits his stride in the season. And he was 35 years old in 2005.

Every year, he has some rough patches in April, when he's still finding his grove which cause people to get panicky. And he hits a couple of bumps in the road in August when the 40 something appearances he's accrued start to catch up with his arm, which cause others to wonder if there's something wrong with him, but there never is. You could set your watch to the guy. He's a man-chine.

If you look at those streaks, it's clear that the one in 2005, which he just "surpassed" in terms of saves, was the best. He had a 0.71 ERA, allowed just 31 hits and 8 walks in 50 2/3 IP (0.769 WHIP) and struck out 56. The 2008 version was also slightly better since he pitched more innings to a lower ERA.

It all depends on how you want to slice it. He had a streak of 88 games from April of '97 to July of '98 where he didn't give up more than more earned run in any appearance and had a 1.40 ERA. He did blow 9 saves and take 3 losses, but never both in the same game. During 71 outings from June 2003 to May 2004, he also didn't give up more than one ER at a time over that stretch and had only 5 blown saves and two losses.

There was one other streak without a blown save which spanned two seasons, which didn't fit in with the April/August iterations above, and it actually turns out to be the best of them all.

During this one, he went 44 appearances and 52 1/3 IP without a blown save or a loss, including the 12 1/3 IP in the postseason. As part of that run, from July 22nd, 1999 through the sweep of the Braves in the World Series, over 36 games and 43 IP, he didn't allow a single run. It's also worth noting that the current streak only includes 32 saves while this one has 33.

I believe that's the winner, folks. I'm guessing there has never been another streak like it, which included a scoreless postseason and World Series victory, but you're more than welcome to pony up the $5 to B-R, pull up the Streak Finder and try to prove me wrong.

11-11

The Yanks have merely a .500 record (11-11) in games which CC Sabathia starts. How is that possible, you might ask, when their record is 14-6 when A.J. Burnett is on the hill and he has thrown 20 fewer innings and his ERA is only a 1/3 of a run lower?

Despite what PeteAbe might want you to think, a 3.83 ERA is simply not "pedestrian". It's well above league average (115 ERA+) and coupled with the fact that he's second in the AL in innings pitched and single-handedly accounts for all of the Yankees complete games, it's pretty impressive.

The reason that the team has a better record in Burnett's appearances is that he is 3rd in the Major Leagues in run support among pitchers with more than 100 IP. Sabathia, on the other hand is 35th, which is pretty bad considering the Yankees are first in runs scored. Joba actually checks in at 2nd on that list while Andy Pettitte is at 21st, and the team's record when they start are 13-6 and 13-7, respectively.

Sabathia hasn't been perfect, but he's also had some tough luck. He lost on Opening Day at the New Stadium after throwing 5 2/3 IP of one run ball to Cleveland, pitched a complete game loss in Detroit, and held the Phillies to 3 runs over 8 innings and took the "L". Last night, he was sabotaged by terrible defense and the offense only put up two runs to boot.

He's only had four plate appearances this year, so I don't think you can really fault him for the team's offensive output when he pitches. The guy has been a horse and if he continues to pitch the way he has so far this year, they're going to win way more than half of the games he starts over the long haul.

Game 77: In Bloom

After putting together six straight victories, the Yankees are a season-high 12 games over 500. It's already their second longest winning streak of the year, behind only the 9 game streak that ended on May 21st. In the month or so between those two streaks, the Yanks went 14-15, winning three straight games only once. They held the division lead once, but were sitting five games out heading into the series in Atlanta.

Then something clicked. Over the last six games they have averaged 7.5 runs per game while holding their opponents to just over 3.

It's certainly not a coincidence that over this run, A-Rod has gotten on base 18 times in 29 plate appearances (.621 OBP), hit three homers and driven in 8 runs. Like Tyler Kepner said very early this morning, "as A-Rod goes, so go the Yankees". He won't get one of his perscribed days off tonight, but Alex will be DH'ing as Cody Ransom holds down third base. Apparently Joel Sherman was right about Eric Hinkse. The only other option would have been Ramiro Pena, but he was officially optioned to Scranton today.

Looking to keep this winning streak blossoming tonight will be Andy Pettitte. The offense and the bullpen both saved his bacon after giving up 6 runs in 3 2/3 against the Braves, and the Yanks won 11-7 in spite of Pettitte's dud. Before that, he threw seven innings of one run ball in Florida, so who knows what to expect. His ERA is exactly league average and he's coming up with a run of the mill season so far; some solid performances mixed in with some shabby efforts.

Creating the second half of the lefty-lefty match up for Seattle is Jarrod Washburn. His name always comes up in trade talks because his salary is a bloated $10.35M this year and although the Mariners are only 3.5 games back at the moment, they aren't expected to truly contend for a playoff spot with the Angels and Rangers. Shedding salary always seems to be high on their priority list.

Washburn is off to an excellent start this year, so far compiling a 3.22 ERA in 89 1/3 innings, even though the Mariners lackluster offense has only allowed for a 4-5 record. In his career, Washburn has a 2.56 ERA against the Yanks over 81 innings, but the Mariners have lost nine straight games as guests of the Yanks in the Bronx.

Which one of those woefully incomplete statistics will turn out to be prophetic? Tune in and find out.

The Erroneous Streak

Errors might be the most flawed statistic in baseball. Wins and batting average don't paint nearly the complete picture they are given credit for, saves are arbitrarily defined, RBIs are greatly influenced by a hitters place in the line-up and a catcher's caught stealing percentage is badly skewed by the pitcher who is throwing to him. Still, I think errors tell you the least of any popular metric about what happens on the field.

Bill James famously broke down the difference between a good and bad defensive shortstop for John Dewan's Fielding Bible and his analysis purposefully removed errors from the equation. An error only measures when a player makes a mistake on a ball that they got to. It can't take into account the difference in range, which is the most important overall defensive factor. 

Your baseball career wouldn't last very long if you did this, but a shortstop could theoretically stand in the same place for the entire game and as long as they caught every ball within their reach, they would never be docked with an E6. 

It's great that the Yankees just set the Major League record for most consecutive games without an error. It means that everyone has performed their position somewhat competently over that stretch. At least that's what you would assume, right?

Just as one example, take Brett Gardner's play during the fifth inning of Sunday's game on Asdrubal Cabrera's line drive. It was a ball that he easily could have caught, had he read the ball correctly off the bat. Instead he misjudged it, took a step forward, then retreated and reached towards the ball as it sailed past him for a double. Ironically, had he been slightly closer to making the play, and it tipped off his glove, it would have been scored an error. While not an error in official baseball scoring, it still made the game recaps and highlight reels and was cast as an obvious mistake. 

Since defensive statistics are relatively new and difficult to quantify, we can't go back and see what the best 18 game streak of defensive play in the history of the MLB was. Dewan's plus/minus system has only been around since 2004. UZR only goes back to '04 as well. I did a pretty entensive search for a study looking into the best fielding teams of all times and came up empty aside from straight sorts based on fielding percentage. The nature of batted balls and the dimensions of parks have changed throughout the years, making it even more difficult to quantify. 

If you had a Retrosheet Database, it would be easier, and more to the point to find the lowest amount of runs allowed by a pitching staff over that same time period and adjust for era. During the last 18 games, the Yankees pitchers have allowed only 3 1/3 runs per outing, a feat which I find far more remarkable.