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.

112 Plate Appearances Later...

The third incarnation of the matchup between A.J. Burnett and Josh Beckett finally delivered on it's pitcher's duel billing. They combined to allowed 16 earned runs the first time around and Burnett didn't hold up his end of the deal when they faced off almost exactly two months ago, getting bounced in the second inning.

This time, however, not only did Beckett and Burnett keep their competition at bay, every pitcher that was called in from the bullpen kept a scoreless tie alive into the bottom of the 15th inning. When Joe Girardi pulled Phil Hughes in favor of Mariano Rivera heading into the top of the 9th, Matt texed me and said "Now who is going to pitch the 10th?" It was only the tip of the iceberg.

The answer to that question was Alfredo Aceves, who also pitched the 11th and 12th, holding the Red Sox just one hit and one walk and striking out three. Brian Bruney added two scoreless innings of his own.

Junichi Tanzawa, who made his major league debut by facing Hideki Matsui in the bottom of the 14th, got him to line out to center and took a huge sigh of relief. He then allowed back to back singles by Jorge Posada and Robinson Cano, and Ramiro Pena was brought in to run for Jorgie. Eric Hinske ripped one to right field that appeared that it would end the game but J.D. Drew snared it with an impressive running catch to keep the Sox alive. Melky Cabrera was up next and during the course of his 8 pitch at bat ripped a 3-2 pitch down the rightfield line that was foul by no more than six inches before striking out swinging.

Phil Coke sat down the side in order in the top of the 15th and the Yanks got right back at it. Derek Jeter led off with a bloop single, bringing up Johnny Damon. For some incomprehensible reason, Damon, who has 13 home runs at Yankee Stadium alone this year, tried to bunt. After one unsuccessful attempt, his second popped up right towards Victor Martinez at first base and he made a diving catch. It looked like the game might be extended further when Mark Teixeira struck out swinging and A-Rod came up to the plate.

He worked the count to 2-1 and blasted a breaking ball in the the opposing bullpen to bring the game to an end after five hours and and thirty three minutes. There is a tendency to classify any curve ball that get hit for a home run as a "hanger" but this one was really not that bad. A-Rod just reached down and rocked it. The 73 at bat home run-less was ended at the best possible time.

It was hard tell whether it was a triumph of pitching or a failure of hitting. Obviously, to preserve a 0-0 tie for the better part of two full games the hurlers had to be doing something right. But there were 15 walks issued and the teams were a combined 0-19 with runners in scoring position. Just like Thursday night, it wasn't pretty. And just like I said after that game, we'll take what we can get.