Half Empty Or Half Full?

Good morning, Fackers. Do you want the good news or the bad news first? This is always a tough conundrum. Do you want to hear the good stuff, only to have it tainted by the expectation of the bad? Or do you want to get the bad out of the way first and hang your hopes on the good news being able to save the day? Since neither of these items are of great import, let's start out will the positive.

Over at FanGraphs, R.J. Anderson took a look at what Phil Hughes was able to do out of the bullpen in 2009. To some extent, I think Hughes' contributions to the team were overlooked last season. Since he began the year as a starter with marginal success, his overall numbers were solid but not eye-popping (3.03 ERA, 86 IP, 1.116 WHIP, 3.43 K/BB).

However, if you look solely at his performance as a reliever, it was highly impressive. He struck out over 12 batters per 9 innings, had an ERA of 1.40 and a FIP of 1.83 in 51.1 IP. The FIP was particularly impressive considering that only 32 relievers have had a sub-2.00 FIP (minimum 40 IP) since 1990. Perhaps most surprisingly, not one of those belongs to Mariano Rivera. As Anderson acknowledges, FIP probably underrates Rivera because it can't measure his ability to induce weak contact, but Hughes' '09 campaign was impressive nonetheless.

Perhaps Hughes' ultimate destination will be the starting rotation, but there is reason to hope that he can be a real weapon out of the 'pen if that's where he ends up.

And now for the negative. As many analysts have felt the need to point out during this offseason, Dayn Perry at FOX Sports would like to remind everyone that just because Yankees won 103 games and the World Series last season, doesn't mean that they are a lock to do it again. Not exactly a bold statement, but let's take a look at Perry's points.

1. The lower baseline
2. Age

3. A brutal division

4. The vagaries of the postseason

The only one of those that needs explaining is the first. Perry cites the fact that the Yanks' Pythagorean record predicted that they would win only 95 games last year instead of 103. Of course, that still would have comfortably earned them a playoff berth. Which leads us to his final point.

If the 2001-2009 era taught you nothing else as a Yankee fan, you should be keenly aware that it's really, really hard to win a championship. The postseason isn't a total crapshoot, but the best team clearly doesn't always win. It's not to say that the Yanks were the the most worthy squad in all of those seasons, but there were probably three, four or five times that they entered October as the odds-on favorite, only to get bounced before claiming #27. Thanks to our generous sponsors at Bodog, we know that you can take the Yankees at 11/4 to win the World Series right now. But, that of course factors in things that not relevant on the field of play like betting volume. The real world odds are probably significantly higher.

If this was pre-2004, you might have had to remind some Yankees fans that it's far from a given that the team will repeat in 2010. Before 2008, you might have had to remind them that a postseason appearance is not a birthright. But I think anyone who is reading this blog knows better than to make those kind of assumptions in March.

About Those Chickens...

Jay Jaffe of Baseball Prospectus did not heed Matt's advice from this morning when penning this column for New York Magazine, applying BP's "Secret Sauce" for postseason success to this year's Yankees. The formula, developed by Nate Silver and Dayn Perry, isolates three key variables that have predicted team's outcomes in the postseason more accurately than others over the past 30 years:

They found that age and postseason experience had no effect on a team’s chances; surprisingly, they also found no significant correlation between any measure of team offense (including bunting and stealing) and postseason success. What they did find important were three measures of pitching and defense, which they called the “Secret Sauce”.

The best predictors of October glory are a pitching staff with a high strikeout ratio, a strong team defense and a solid closer. Since scoring is depressed in the postseason, it's valuable to have a pitching staff that avoids bats, a defense that can save runs and a closer than can lock down victories. Jaffe does a great job of explaining in detail why these factors increase in importance in the playoffs and concludes (emphasis mine):

None of this is meant to knock the offense, which has helped make them a near-lock for the playoffs. But it’s the Secret Sauce that bodes well for their chances once they get there. The last time the team made such a drastic leap in the Sauce rankings was 1996—which, fans will remember, was the end of their last excruciatingly long World Series drought.

Since Jaffe is a BP guy, he's not concerned with jinxes and is speaking in no uncertain terms because their odds have the Yanks' odds of making the postseason are at 99.4%.

The leap he's talking about comes mainly from a jump from 26th to 3rd in Fielding Runs Above Average and a big boost in K/9. The increase in strikeouts is obviously driven by the acquisitions of CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett but the cosmic leap in defense is harder to explain. Even with Derek Jeter suddenly above average at short and Hideki Matsui, Jason Giambi, and Bobby Abreu out of the field all together it's hard to imagine the Yankees jumping 23 slots in that ranking.

Do I trust the rankings implicitly? No, but it certainly is encouraging to know that the Yanks have a team built for success not only in the regular season, but into October as well. Whether or not that translates into anything this year remains to be seen. Those are the chickens that Jaffe doesn't dare to count either.