New AJ, Same As The Old AJ

Back on April 30th, A.J. Burnett was sporting a nifty 2.43 ERA and had picked up three wins in his first five starts. After a dominant outing against the Orioles he talked about learning to pitch to contact, so we asked if he had altered his approach:

Traditionally a guy with a propensity to both strikeout and walk a lot of batters, A.J. has seen both of those rates drop to roughly 2/3 of their career norms. At the same time, he's given up more hits, is throwing slightly more strikes and is getting more outs on the ground.

About 3/4 of the pitches Burnett has thrown in 2010 have been fastballs, a proportion that he hasn't approached since his days with the Marlins.

Despite discovering his curveball somewhere along the way and tossing 7 1/3 strong innings his next time out, in his nine starts since then, Burnett's ERA is 5.50 and his record is 3-5. He's had four starts in which he's surrendered more than six runs, while in his first five outings the most he allowed in any outing was four.

A.J.'s still throwing over 70% fastballs, about 60% of all his pitches for strikes, inducing ground balls and allowing line drives at roughly the same rates (just under 50% and around 17%, respectively). So what has the difference been? Let's take a look at his rate stats:

Burnett's strikeout and walk rates have unsurprisingly returned close to his career norms and a slightly higher BABIP has led to an increase in hits per nine. But even all of those things in conjunction shouldn't cause his ERA to more than double. The real culprits (highlighted in red on the chart) are his home run and strand rates.

In 31 1/3 innings at the beginning of the season, Burnett had allowed just one long ball. In the 54 innings he's pitched since then, he's given up nine of them. To put it another way, he gave up home runs almost six times more often during his last nine starts than he did in his first five.

The league average stand rate is 72%. Burnett was very fortunate in that department early in the season but has been rather unlucky since. Of course, the fact that runners have stolen 19 bases off him and only been caught three times certainly isn't helping in that department.

Clearly, Burnett hasn't pitched as well since the beginning of May as he did before that. Home runs involve a certain amount of luck but a six-fold increase tells us that Burnett has been leaving plenty more balls out over the plate and hitters have been capitalizing on his mistakes. His strand rate has also been dragged down by all those long balls as well.

At the risk of stating the obvious, Burnett caught a lot of breaks early in April and saw his luck even out in a major way in the past month and a half. His home run rate won't stay as high as it has been and his strand rate will regress towards league average as the season continues. If you look at his expected FIP (based on batted ball types allowed) on FanGraphs, it's just about the same during his great stretch as it is throughout his awful one.

It's boring to say, and again this is pretty self-evident, but the true A.J. Burnett lies somewhere between the Cy Young candidate that showed up in April and the replacement level scrub that has been serving up 'tater salad since then. If he can lean just a little towards the former from here on in, he and the Yankees will be just fine.

If It Wasn't For Bad Luck, D-Rob Wouldn't Have No Luck At All

Good morning Fackers. Entering play yesterday, the Yankees pitching was second in the AL at 3.56 R/G and third in ERA at 3.45. All that despite the well-documented problems with Javy Vazquez as well as some spotty relief work, particularly from David Robertson. In fact, as my friend and frequent commenter Gripp pointed out to me, Vazquez and DRob have combined to allow 38.9% of the Yankees earned runs while pitching just 12.5% of the innings.

There are any number of theories about Vazquez' troubles. Aside from speculation about his head and his guts, he's having noticeable mechanical issues. The numbers also suggest Vazquez has been a bit unlucky. Both his FIP (7.94) and xFIP (5.56) are ugly, but not nearly as ugly as his 9.78 ERA.

But Javy's bad luck has nothing on David Robertson. The New York Times' Bats Blog touched on it last week, and it's only gotten worse since then. Robertson has been knocked around in each of his last three appearances, allowing eight baserunners, two home runs, and six runs over just 1.2 IP. Opponents are hitting .545/.615/1.182 against him over that stretch. But it's not as bad as recent events would suggest.

On the season, Robertson sports a comical 14.21 ERA and 2.37 WHIP. His FIP is a still ugly 8.13, but his xFIP is a respectable 3.91. His peripherals are good. He's striking out 11.37 per 9, just a tick off from the 12.04 mark he posted through his first two seasons. He's walking 2.84 per 9, a major improvement on the 4.62 rate he had entering the year. His LD% is a career low 13.0%. So why have things gone so bad for DRob?

First, his HR/FB rate is currently at an unbelievable 33.3%, as three of the nine flyballs he's allowed have gone over the fence. When he's kept the ball in the yard he hasn't had much better luck, as his BABIP sits at a lofty .504. His strand rate is an absurdly low 50.9%. A third of his flyballs are leaving the park. Half of his balls in play are turning into hits. Half of the runners he allows to reach base come around to score. That's a recipe for disaster, and a disaster it has been. It's also a recipe for a big time regression to the mean, and with any luck that'll be coming very soon.

Compounding the problems for Robertson has been his sparing and sporadic use. Of his nine appearances this year, seven have lasted less than an inning, including his last four in a row. Three of them have been six pitches or fewer. Four of his appearances have come on three days rest. One came on a full week's rest. He hasn't been pitching often, and when he has, he hasn't stuck around for long. He's thrown just 2.1 innings in the last three weeks. Part of that is a function of his own ineffectiveness thus far, but much of it is due to the strong performance of the Yankee starters coupled with Joe Girardi's hair trigger tendencies with his middle relievers.

The good news is that Robertson's poor numbers have accumulated over just 6.1 IP. It's an extremely small sample size. His HR/FB rate, BABIP, and strand rate are beyond unsustainable. As they correct themselves and as Robertson accumulates more IP, the results will straighten themselves out. Further, his K rate remains amongst the best in baseball and he's made improvements in his walk rate and LD%. Of course these metrics are also subject to small sample size caveats, but whereas the bad numbers are so bad that they can't possibly last over time, the good numbers aren't so good as to be unbelievable.

Depending upon what the Yankees choose to do with the Jorge Posada and Andy Pettitte injuries, the team could find themselves in need of a roster spot in the coming days. Robertson is one of the few players who both has options and isn't too indispensable to consider sending down. That, combined with Robertson's poor performance thus far, could land Robertson on a bus to Scranton. While he would certainly benefit from regular use and perhaps from the confidence that would come with getting back on track, I don't think there's anything wrong with David Robertson that can't be worked out on the Major League level. I wish Joe Girardi would stop using him as a sporadic ROOGY; his results are overdue for a nice turnaround.

Game 17: Stranded On Death Row

Until last night, the Yanks hadn't lost more than one game in a row this year. Of their 5 defeats thus far, the only one they were defeated by more than two runs was the series opener against Tampa Bay. That explains how they have been winning at a 69% clip and still have a Pythagorean record that matches their actual won-lost results (11-5). Much of this can be attributed to their excellent starting pitching so far.

Javier Vazquez is the only Yankee starter with an ERA over 3.20 and doesn't have two wins to his name. As a rotation, they have allowed the fifth fewest runs in the American League and are tied for second in most innings per appearance.

Even amidst this great stretch for the Yankees' starters, in terms of results, Andy Pettitte has distinguished himself. In his three starts this year (including six shutout innings against the Angels), he has pitched 20 innings and given up only three runs and zero home runs and he's done this despite putting a lot of men on base (1.200 WHIP). Allowing baserunners is nothing new for Pettitte, but he's done so in an uncharacteristic fashion thus far, walking more than usual while giving up fewer hits. True to his reputation, Pettitte has been able to pitch out of jams, tallying a sky high strand rate of 88%. Saying that he's been getting by on smoke and mirrors would be a little too harsh, but Pettitte has been fortunate to give up as few runs as he has thus far.

Like Pettitte, Joel Pineiro isn't the Angels ace in name but is off to the best start of any of his fellow rotation mates. Pineiro dominated the Yankees ten days ago in the Bronx, holding them to one run over seven innings by blitzing the strikezone with sinking fastballs.

Aside from and the fact that they are both off to a great start and their names both begin with P there are a few more similarities between today's starting hurlers. Pineiro has pitched one-third of an inning more than Pettitte and allowed one more run. Pineiro's peripheral numbers also indicate that he's outperformed his traditional stat line this far as his FIP is a run higher than his ERA. He's allowed about a hit per inning and struck out just 6/9 IP but walked only three batters this year.

Pineiro has the same 88% strand rate as Pettitte and sabermetric principles tell us that those percentages are unsustainable. Either they are going to have to start allowing fewer baserunners or they can expect to see more of them eventually coming around to the plate. Don't take it from me, I brought some original gangstas from Compton to put it in your ear.

No prevention from this mention of sorts,
Your're a victim, from my driveby of thoughts,
No extensions, all attempts are to fail,
Blinded by the light, it's time you learn braile.

-Lineups-

No lineups today, neither Matt nor I will be at our computers when they are posted. Enjoy the game.