A Look At The HoF Voting Results

Good morning Fackers. Yesterday we took a cursory look at the Hall of Fame voting results, noting Andre Dawson's election and the tantalizing near misses of Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar. The entire ballot spanned twenty six players who met the eligibility criteria. Here are some thoughts on those who weren't as lucky as The Hawk.

Byleven (74.2%) - He's a vitrual lock for next year after coming so close this year and seeing an 11.5% jump over last year. He has two more years of eligibility left and the next two classes aren't particularly strong.

Alomar (73.7%) - I'm not a big believer in drawing distinctions between a Hall of Famer and First Ballot Hall of Famer. Even so, I think Alomar's standing relative to the other men who have played his position make him worthy of first ballot induction. Obviously it will have to wait until next year. If waiting a year is Alomar's penance for the Hirschbeck spitting incident then so be it. I realize there are players in the Hall who have done worse, but waiting a year is a small price to pay for what's one of baseball's more despicable moments.

Jack Morris (52.3%) - Morris vs. Blyleven seems to be the next frontier of the old school vs. new school debate. Morris saw an 8.3% jump over last year, the second biggest gainer outside of Blyleven. He still ranks behind where Blyleven was in his 11th year of eligibility. It'll be interesting to see where this one goes in the year's to come. Does anyone remember when Morris nearly joined the '96 Yankees?

Barry Larkin (51.6%) - Larkin deserves enshrinement, but he clearly has a ways to go in the eyes of the voters. Still, it's encouraging to see him start out at 51.6%. For comparisons sake, Alan Trammell, a similar if inferior comparison, garnered just 15.7% of the vote in his first year of eligibility.

Lee Smith (47.3%) - Smith is the highest ranking former Yankee on the ballot. His continued languishing in the sub fifty percent range makes me wonder if the BBWAA is smarter than we give them credit for being. At the time of his retirement, Smith was the all-time leader in saves. He hasn't thrown a pitch in a dozen years, yet he's been passed only by Trevor Hoffman and Mariano Rivera. Normally, that's the sort of thing the writers would eat up: "This guy's the all-time saves leader, he's got to be a Hall of Famer!". Instead, Smith remains far from enshrinement, as he should. I'm just not sure it's because the writers realize the save is a relatively meaningless statistic. More likely, I think Smith serves as an example that the writer's aren't quite sure how to evaluate "closers". The relievers in the Hall - Wilhelm, Fingers, Sutter, Gossage - were "firemen", routinely accumulating 100+ IP per season. Smith accumulated 100 relief IP just twice, in his first two full seasons as a reliever. Smith was at the leading edge of the game-wide transition from firemen to closers. Dennis Eckersley is the only closer in the Hall, and Smith lacks both Eckersley's utter dominance as a closer as well as his years as a successful starter. Smith has seven more ballots for the writers to figure it out.

Edgar Martinez (36.2%) - If the voters don't know what to make of closers, then they have absolutely no idea what to do with designated hitters. The DH has been in existence for 37 seasons now, and it has evolved significantly in that time. What started as place to play the best bench player evolved as a spot to hide defensive liabilities, or to prolong the career of aging veterans, or to protect the health of those too fragile to handle the wear and tear of daily defense. While HoFers like Eddie Murray, George Brett, Rickey Henderson, Paul Molitor, Wade Boggs, Jim Rice, Dave Winfield, Carl Yastrzemski, and Dawson all spent significant time at DH, Martinez is an interesting case in that he's the first worthy candidate to have spent nearly his entire career as a DH. Offensively he has HoF numbers, and I think he's worthy of induction. I'll be interested to see how his candidacy is evaluated over the next several years.

Tim Raines (30.4%) - Far and away the gravest injustice in my opinion. Raines is worthy of his own post, and I hope to have that before the week is out.

Mark McGwire (23.7%) - After taking a slight dip in his percentage last year, McGwire's number returns to where it was in both of his first two years of eligibility - a long, long, long way from induction. Like Smith and Martinez, McGwire is an interesting test case. McGwire is probably the best pure power hitter in baseball history not named Babe Ruth (1st all time in AB/HR, 2nd all time in IsoP), but the problem is that he wasn't all that pure after all. I'm not sure yet how PED users should be judged, but McGwire's four years on the ballot don't bode well for Rafael Palmeiro next year or for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens in 2013.

Alan Trammell (22.4%) - This was Trammell's ninth year on the ballot and his best showing yet. He's still so far off that it's unlikely he'll ever be elected. As a shortstop, Trammell is Hall of Famer. He's comparable, if slightly inferior, to contemporaries and Hall of Famers Cal Ripken Jr, Robin Yount, and Ozzie Smith. I think the problem for Trammell is that he was overshadowed by those three for most of his career, and in the years since the likes of Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Nomar Garciaparra, Miguel Tejada, and Hanley Ramirez have completely changed the concept of what a shortstop could do. Had Trammell begun his career 20 or 30 years earlier he'd likely already be in Cooperstown. At this point the Veterans' Committee looks like his best bet.

Fred McGriff (21.5%) - One of the worst trades the Yankees ever made. McGriff was a great player for a long time. But as a first baseman, his numbers don't really separate him from his contemporaries. It doesn't appear that another 7 HR to get to 500 would have made the difference for him either.

Don Mattingly (16.1%) - This is the best showing for our beloved Donnie Baseball since his second year on the ballot back in 2002. But it's still well off from his career best of 28.2%. As much as we'd all like to see it, Mattingly's not going to the Hall nor should he - his career nose dived way too soon. But I hope he continues to get the requisite 5% to stay on the ballot until his 15 years run out.

Dave Parker (15.2%) - The induction of borderline guys Jim Rice and Andre Dawson in back-to-back years lends itself to slippery-slope style arguments. I don't think The Cobra was as good as either one of those guys, but he wasn't off by too much.

Dale Murphy (11.7%) - Much like Mattingly, Murphy went from amongst the best in baseball to done seemingly overnight. Murphy was a contemporary of Dawson, and like Dawson is considered and all-around class act and good guy. The two make for an interesting comparison. Dawson had a longer and better career, and voters seem to favor players who decline gradually, like Dawson, to players who fall off a cliff, like Murphy. But if you look at their primes, Murphy was arguably the better player. And if you look at their peaks, Murphy was clearly the better player.

Harold Baines (6.1%) - The last player that will still be on next year's ballot. With the arrival of Edgar Martinez, Baines is no longer the best DH eligible for enshrinement.

Andres Galarraga (4.1%) - I'm surprised he didn't get the 5% necessary to stay on the ballot. Certainly not a HoFer, but a pretty good player during a rather lengthy career. I wonder if Galarraga dropping off after one year gives any insight as to how the voters will view the Coors Field effect. It'll be interesting to keep in mind as Larry Walker becomes eligibile next year and Todd Helton no fewer than six years from now. At 43 years old and stuck on 398 career HRs, Galarraga signed a minor league deal with the Angels in 2004. He spent a month in AAA and was given a token September call up. In the 160th game of the season, Galarraga pinch hit in the ninth inning of a game the Angels led 9-0. He homered to get to 399, and celebrated waaaaay too much for a player of his stature, particularly considering he was just hanging on to pad his numbers and had just hit a meaningless home run in garbage time of a late season game. I remember seeing the highlight and thinking it was a little below him. The again, Galarraga lost a season to lymphoma during the most productive stretch of his career and had suffered a relapse earlier that same year that may have cost him additional service time, so maybe I'm just a jerk for begrudging him a little celebration.

Robin Ventura (1.3%) - The second lowest ranking former Yankee on the ballot (Todd Zeile didn't get a single vote). In 1999, Nolan Ryan received 98.79% of the vote, the second highest percentage of all time. He was six votes short of being the only unanimous selection in history. Perhaps he'll beat Ventura up again, steal his seven votes, and add them to his own total to give him 100.2% of the vote.

Michael "Mike" Jackson (0.0%) - Listed only to give me an excuse to link to this. It probably wasn't particularly funny then; now it's neither funny nor timely.

Congratulations Hawk

This could quite possibly be the final post ever at Fack Youk, as I'm afraid the furor over this afternoon's Hall of Fame voting results will cause the internet to explode some time later today.

Andre Dawson was the sole player elected by the BBWAA, being named on 420 of 539 ballots for 77.9% of the vote. He received just 15 votes more than the necessary 75%.

Even closer to that 75% cutoff were Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar. Unfortunately for them they were on the wrong side of 3/4, with Byleven falling an agonizing five votes shy (74.2%) and Alomar just eight votes short (73.7%). The good news for them is that no one has ever failed to be elected after gaining that much support.

In my opinion Blyleven and Alomar are without doubt Hall of Famers, so there will assuredly be some people angry that they're out and Dawson - a borderline candidate - is the one who got in. And that says nothing about other more deserving candidates: Tim Raines, Barry Larkin, Alan Trammell, Edgar Martinez, or even Hawk's comparable contemporaries like Dale Murphy and Dave Parker.

Personally, I don't have a huge problem with Dawson getting in. He's assuredly a borderline candidate, but he had a helluva a career: MVP, Rookie of the Year, 8 time All-Star, 8 Gold Gloves, 4 Silver Sluggers, and some impressive power numbers that have him in the company of baseball's all-time greats. He also spent his best years playing in relatively obscurity in Montreal, where the concrete-like turf punished his knees to the point that he first moved from CF to RF, and then eventually to DH.

On the flip side, Dawson's career OBP is just .323, lower than the league average over the course of his career. There's no way to sugarcoat that. Whether that's enough to outweigh the positive aspects of his career is for you to decide. The writers didn't think so - not this year at least. Your mileage may vary, and probably does.

For now though, congratulations to the Hawk on his induction. We'll have more later on the rest of the ballot, and I'm sure several others elsewhere will have plenty to say about all of this.

A Fitting Send-Off For The Big Unit

Randy Johnson's retirement announcement was originally supposed to take place today at some point. However, neither Randy nor any of his advisors realized that the Hall of Fame voting was also planned for this afternoon. As a result, they scrambled to rearrange the event for 7:00PM last night.

I happened to be watching the end of SportsCenter at that point and they directed people to ESPN News for the announcement, which I foolishly assumed would be some sort of a press conference. Instead, it was just a conference call. And a particularly disorganized one at that.

Randy came on just after 7:00 but in a moment of poetic justice, reporters kept joining the call, drowning out his official announcement with a series of beeps and at one point, a phone ringing in the background. They broke the call for a couple of minutes and then re-started it at about 7:05. He seemed all too happy to announce that this would be the last time he would take questions from MLB reporters and said that he didn't regret the way he treated other people during his career but did regret the way he was portrayed, as if those two weren't inextricably linked.

The horror stories about Johnson you'll hear from members of the media are numerous so it's sort of fitting that his aversion to them (holding a conference call) overshadowed what should have been a fairly significant announcement. Not many tears are shed over the way athletes treat reporters but the consensus is that Johnson was one of the worst.

Of course, Yankees fans don't have very fond memories of the Big Unit. Perhaps I was more naive about baseball back when they acquired following the 2004 season, but I expected him to be pretty awesome when he came to the Yankees. I think most people were in the same boat. The gap between the AL and NL didn't seem so large at that point and our view of aging players was badly skewed by steroids, even if we didn't fully realize it yet.

Johnson came to symbolize the worst of what the Yankees were about this decade - a guy who they acquired just past his prime who was still being paid like he was in the middle of it. Even with his flat sliders and surly temperment, Johnson wasn't that bad in 2005, picthing 225 innings to a 3.79 ERA. But he stumbled out of the gate a bit, giving up 15 runs in his first four starts, including 5 in a loss at Fenway Park. Although it probably wasn't fair, Yankees fans expected immediate dominance and instead they got mediocrity, starting off the relationship on the wrong foot.

The Big Unit finished out his '05 season with 5 consecutive wins but gave up 9 hits and 5 runs in 3 innings against the Angels in Game 3 of the ALDS. The following year started off better for Johnson but went downhill fast, a herniated disc in his back sapping his once legendary velocity and action and dragging his ERA down to an even 5.00. He made a start against the Tigers in the '06 ALDS but was tagged with the loss after allowing 5 runs in 5 2/3 innings.

Shortly thereafter, Johnson was headed back to the desert in exchange for Ross Olhendorf, Luis Vizcaino, Steven Jackson and Alberto Gonzalez, an impressive haul for a 42 year old pitcher with a back injury coming off a poor season.

Taking off the Pinstriped glasses, it's hard not to appreciate the uniqueness of Johnson's career. He has the most strikeouts per innings pitched of all-time among pitchers with 1000 IP and 100 decisions. Four consecutive Cy Young awards.

He was stiltishly tall and awkward, almost bird-like in his wingspan. By his 26th birthday he had accumulated all of 10 career wins but somehow managed to reach 300. He walked 416 batters from in the three years from 1990-1992 but only 978 in his final 16 seasons. He was a menacing presence -more feared than respected - but that's how he wanted it to be.

Hall Of Fame Day

Good morning Fackers. The Hall of Fame voting results will be announced at 1:30 this afternoon; prepare yourselves for tearing of garments, gnashing of teeth, righteous indignation, some variation of stats vs. scouts, and the like.

Much like post-season awards, I can't get too worked up about the Hall of Fame. I think there are people who are in who shouldn't be. I think there are people who aren't who should be. And I think several members of the BBWAA are morons. But it's a museum for all intents and purposes, and I can't get myself too angry over who is enshrined in a museum meant to honor baseball's history. That said, there is one player up for nomination this year who I believe absolutely should be in, and who I believe likely won't get in (again). And if he doesn't get in later today, I'll likely be compelled to share some thoughts on that.

In the meantime, Joe Posnanski published his ballot at Sports Illustrated yesterday, and I urge you to give it a read. Like virtually everything else he authors, the article is long, insightful, and well thought out. You don't have to agree with all of Joe Pos' decisions - I don't - but it's awfully, awfully hard to argue with him. He clearly put a ton of thought into his choices and he offers compelling arguments for or against all the candidates worth consideration. Have a look, and we'll be back when the results are announced.

Thrifty Red Sox Finally Land Another Third Baseman

In what can only be described as another brilliant bargain basement signing, the always-frugal Boston Red Sox signed Adrian Beltre to a one year, $9M contract with a $5M player option for 2011. The deal, which also includes a $1M buyout, comfortably lifts the scrappy small town underdogs over the luxury tax threshold.

Beltre apparently came down a bit from his initial contract demands of 5 years and $65M which was analogous to me applying for a job and asking for the corner office, a secretary and a wet bar. He settled for a temp job in a cubicle with easy access to the water cooler. However, what the deal sacrifices in luxury, it attempts to make up for in flexibility. It offers Beltre the chance to redeem himself coming off a miserable year in which he hit .265/.304/.379 and played in only 111 games, missing significant time due to a... um... well... how do I say this... an injury.

The Sox are banking on last year being an anomaly and Beltre's defensive abilities being all they are cracked up to be, which is to say pretty damn impressive. His average UZR/150 over the last 4 years has been 12.3, which makes up for the fact that his on-base percentage over that same time period has been .321.

While Beltre supposedly turned down longer deals worth more money from other teams let's wait and see how it turns out before declaring it a "steal" or anything of the sort like I sarcastically did in the first paragraph. Fire Brand of the American League lists his home/road splits over the last three years to show that his production was suppressed by playing in Seattle:

2007: (H) .264/.319/.426 (R) .288/.320/.538
2008: (H) .230/.303/.400 (R) .292/.349/.512
2009: (H) .250/.283/.364 (R) .279/.324/.393

But do you notice another trend? His slugging percentage has been declining over the past three years regardless of where he was hitting.

Oh, and there's also the small consideration of Mike Lowell's contract which the Sox will either have to eat or exchange him for a player equally as useless/overpaid. They could hold on to him but given that both he and Beltre are right handed, there's no platoon option. I suppose he could be a fall back DH if Ortiz struggles again, but that's a waste of a roster spot.

The signing of Beltre certainly makes the Sox better next year, but how many teams can afford to replace a player that was making $12M this coming season (and who should be able to play come opening day) with a guy who is making $9M?

The spendthrift ways of last season have been jettisoned in favor of big budget acquisitions in Boston this year. Apparently the items on the sale rack weren't all they were cracked up to be.

Happy Trails, Shelley Duncan

(Forearm bash to The Sports Hernia for the picture)

Shelley Duncan elected to become a free agent a while back and he signed a deal with the Indians yesterday, according to Chad Jennings. Jennings also wrote a great feature on him over the summer when he was still working for the Scranton Times-Tribune that you should check out. This is our send-off post to a guy who might have been over-appreciated by Yankee fans, but deserved it.

Shelley Duncan waited a long time to make his Major League debut. Six years and three days after being signed, to be exact. We wasn't much of a prospect of that point, but his big, looping swing produced some huge home runs (and some embarrassing strikeouts) for the big league club and his infectious enthusiasm endeared him to any Yankee fan who was paying attention.

Duncan came up on July 20th, 2007 and did his best Shane Spencer impression, emerging from the AAA and surprising people with bombs into the left field seats. He hit 5 HRs in his first 8 games as a Yankee. Those included two blasts in a 21-4 blowout of the Devil Rays and a pinch hit shot in a 16-3 victory over the White Sox in which seven Yankees went yard but A-Rod, who was stuck on #499, did not. It's not that he put the Yankees on his back by any stretch of the imagination. He just happened to be there when things started going right.

The Bombers were sitting at 49-46 when Duncan made his debut and they promptly began a six game winning streak one game later. Although none of his 5 home runs were game-changing and the league caught up to him after his hot start, he served as a sort of mascot for the revitalization of the Yankees that summer on their way to a Wild Card berth. He showed up at the right time, forearm bashing his way through the dugout with reckless abandon.

Maybe that's why Shelly Duncan attained such a cult following among Yankees fans. Because there isn't any other rational explanation why a fanbase would adore a guy who is pretty much the definition of replacement level.

It's not as unusual for a high school draft pick to spend six years in the minors, but if a college player is going to make it to the Majors, it usually occurs faster than that. Duncan might be the definition of the fabled "AAAA player" - a guy who can mash International League pitching but struggles as MLB learn his tendencies. He might be the perfect example of Yankees fans overrating their prospects. But if you were watching that team in 2007, he surely left an impression on you, and that's not an easy thing for an unheralded minor leaguer to do while wearing pinstripes.

As Jennings explained last night, the only two left fielders on the Indians' depth chart above Duncan have combined for 34 home runs in their minor league careers while Duncan hit 3o last year alone. Progressive Jacobs Field seems like it would be a good home park for Shelley as well, with a tall (19') but fairly close (325'-375') left field wall that might find itself in front of a few of his high fly balls.

Even with the semi-vacancy in left field the Yankees have at the moment, he still wasn't going factor into the equation, despite winning the International League MVP last season. Hopefully he'll get the shot he's earned with the Tribe.

The Indians visit the Bronx for a four game set starting May 28th. Hope to see you there, Shelley.

What About Paginski?

Here's an interesting thought experiment from the Orioles Blog Camden Crazies (via BBTF):

This idea came up when discussing the possibility of the Yankees signing Matt Holliday on Twitter:

Doesn’t make sense for NY to spend that money on him now. The could put me in LF and still maybe make the playoffs.

Which begs the question, just how many wins could I cost a team if I played a full season? Any guesses, before I try to figure it out?

Seems easy enough to figure out. Same procedure would be used as when evaluating any other player. Take a guess, and then let’s work it out.

First off, the stipulation was that I would get 600 plate appearances in left-field, but I think it’s the case that if I had to play in the field all the time I wouldn’t actually make it to 600 PA. So instead, I’ll go easy on myself and just DH for the season.

The author, Daniel Moroz, is very conservative in projecting his offensive contributions, giving himself a .050/.100/.050 line for the season. Much of that comes from the assumption that if you just kept your bat on your shoulder, you'd work the occasional walk.

Click through to find out just how many runs and wins below replacement a .150 OPS is and to see whether or not the Yankees could hypothetically make the playoffs with him at DH.

It also reminds me of the following classic New York State Lottery commercial:



"Paginski" in the commercial was only batting .027 and he was also costing him team lots of runs with his awful defense at third base, meaning the Designated (Anti-)Hitter Moroz probably isn't the worst player in imaginary baseball history.

The moral of the story is that even the worst major leaguers are several orders of magnitude better than the average person watching from the stands or their couch at home. Although Joe Schmo would probably walk more than Bengie Molina, Yuniesky Bentancourt or Jeff Francoeur.

Is Javier Vazquez Unclutch?

Throughout his career it has been intimated that Javier Vazquez has the stuff of an ace but the track record of a back of the rotation starter. He has excellent peripheral numbers (3.45 K/BB), a better than league average ERA (107 ERA+) and averages well over 200 innings per season. Above average performance and lots of innings should be a winning combination, but Vazquez has always seemed to underachieve when it comes to his won-lost record. His four postseason appearances haven't been pretty either.

Plenty of Yankee fans are worried that he doesn't have the make up to pitch in New York. Vazquez bombed in the second half of his only season with the Yankees and served up perhaps the most infamous home run in Yankee history. But all of that was more than 5 years ago and the latter was the result of one pitch. Ozzie Guillen ran him out of town in Chicago after calling him out for not being a big game pitcher, but Guillen was supposedly responsible for ousting Nick Swisher too and that worked out pretty well for the Yankees.

Does Javier Vazquez's performance get demonstrably worse under pressure, or has he been a victim of marginal teams and bad luck? Is his reputation as someone who shrinks as the expectations grow deserved, or is it the conflation of a few unrelated events?

As I attempt to take a deeper look into these questions, I'm going to go back to something Tom Tango said during his Q & A with Mike Silva last week. In the process of justifying FIP as a useful statistic, Tango pointed out that there is a strong correlation between the best pitchers in the league over a long period of time when ranked by FIP and ERA.

Those familiar with the two stats might take that for granted at this point, but it's fairly remarkable considering all the things that FIP totally disregards that factor into ERA: singles, doubles, triples, runs allowed, etc. What's more intriguing, he contends, is what the significant gaps between FIP and ERA over the long term can tell us:

Tom Glavine’s career FIP is about 0.50 runs worse than his career ERA. This signals that Glavine does something extra, either he can sequence his events better (leaves alot of runners on base for example), or he has better control on his balls in play. And Javy Vazquez’s ERA is about 0.30 runs worse than his FIP, which signals something different, that perhaps he gives up alot of doubles, or doesn’t sequence his events well, etc.

Overall, two-thirds of pitchers will have their FIP and ERA be within 0.20 runs of each other, and almost all will be within 0.40 runs of each other.

That’s the power of FIP: that it’s designed to tell you one specific thing, and it tells you a second, perhaps even more important, thing.

So what's that thing? That's the million dollar question.

One interesting fact is that Vazquez has been extremely consistent in under performing his FIP throughout his career. He's only had an ERA lower than his FIP twice in his 12 professional seasons and only then by the slimmest of margins.

Even in his career year with the Braves last season, his FIP was lower than his ERA (his low FIP was one of the reasons Keith Law included him on his Cy Young ballot). I think we can agree that this not just the result of random chance: there is something about the way that Vazquez pitches that causes him to have an FIP lower than his ERA.

So what is it about Vazquez's pitching that could be causing this? Let's look at the career FIP/ERA differentials for Vazquez, Glavine as well as Andy Pettitte:

Above, Tango says that almost all pitchers will have an FIP and ERA within .4 of each other, so keep in mind that we are looking at two outliers extreme outliers here in Vazquez and Glavine. This is the main reason I chose to include Pettitte, who is closer to the norm.

If you're a Yankee fan, I bet you're a little surprised that Pettitte's differential is closer to Vazquez's than Glavine's. Pettitte has the reputation of being able to bear down and pitch better when it matters and seems to induce a lot of double plays, both of which would lower his ERA but not FIP. But the numbers indicate that he's not as great at controlling his outcomes as many assume.

As Tango mentioned above, one thing that might inflate ERA independently of FIP is giving up a lot of doubles. (Numbers are normalized over 200 IP to account for different career lengths):

Vazquez and Pettitte give up more two-baggers than Glavine does, but four over the course of 200 innings doesn't seem like enough to account for a shift in 3/4 of a run in ERA. Furthermore, Vazquez and Pettitte give up doubles at a nearly identical rate, but the latter has an FIP significantly closer to his ERA. There's something else at work here.

The other possibility that is mentioned above is "sequencing". Maybe Vazquez gives up hits in a way that hurts him. For example, starting an inning with a walk before a double often results in a run scored and a man on second. Conversely, a double before a walk likely means men on first and second without a run scoring. Vazquez gives up his fair share of home runs as well, and they are obviously more harmful with men on base (something that doesn't show up in FIP but does in ERA).

A quick and dirty way of teasing this out of the data is to look at a pitcher's stats with men on base. The numbers below are shown in tOPS+, which compares a pitcher's performance in a given scenario to his performance in other situations. (A score of 100 means is a pitcher is average in that situation while anything lower means they were better and higher means they were worse)

One caveat: the bases loaded data is by far the smallest sample size of the bunch. Vazquez has faced 163 batters with the bases loaded while Glavine and Pettitte have 428 and 237, respectively. That said, there is a major difference between Vazquez and the other two (particularly Glavine) when it comes to their performance with men on base and especially with the bags packed. And those situations are the ones that separate FIP from ERA the most.

Now let's look at how each pitcher performed based on the score of the game, again using tOPS+:

The smallest sample size in this case is "> 4R", but even for Vazquez that includes 811 plate appearances. Pettitte has the most favorable distribution, pitching his best when the game is close and his worst when it is out of hand. Vazquez, however, is just about average in tight games but much better when the lead or deficit is greater than 4.

Now let's put the last two items together. Baseball-Reference's Leverage stats take into account the occupancy of the bases as well as the score of the game, as does FanGraphs Clutch stat:

This tells a slighty different story about Pettitte but affirms what's becoming a trend for Vazquez - he doesn't perform as well in high leverage situations as he does in lower ones.

Does WPA agree?

Yes. It appears that Vazquez has not given his team as good of a chance to win as either Pettitte over Glavine over the course of his career, but this is to be expected to a certain degree because WPA is tied more closely to ERA then FIP. In a sense, we already knew this.

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So what do we make of all this?

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It's tempting to use these stats to claim that Vazquez can't handle pitching in New York. His data seem to trend very uniformly (remarkably so) from good to poor as the leverage increases. However, why didn't he cripple under the weight of the New York media in the first half of 2004 when he had a 3.56 ERA in 118 2/3 IP and won 10 games?

To say that he can't handle New York not only gives too much weight to a small sample size but requires a jump that conflates the pressure of in-game situations to be analogous to the demands of pitching for one franchise or another. Does the weight of overall expectations have the same effect on performance that increases in in-game leverage do?

Well, maybe. As 'Duk from Big League Stew pointed out in September, Vazquez's best seasons in terms of ERA+ have come with teams that were out of contention and his worst years came with teams in playoff races:

Three of his top ERA+ years came in the anonymity of Montreal and one came for the 2007 White Sox, who went 72-90. This year's ERA+ of 139 equals his career-best with the 2003 Expos, but while the Braves stuck around as a potential contender for longer than expected, they didn't occupy striking distance space for long.

Meanwhile, Vazquez's worst ERA+ years — with the exception of his first two seasons — all came with contenders: the '04 Yankees, the '05 D'Backs and the '06 and '08 White Sox.

So what is he doing wrong? As we saw when trying to identify some differences between A.J. Burnett's good and bad starts last week, it's extremely difficult isolate any one underlying factor or find a specific reason that Vazquez's numbers go bad as the leverage of the game increases. Javy's K/BB ratio slips from 4.34 to 3.26 to 2.57 as the leverage rises from low to medium to high. His batting average, on-base and slugging percentages all ascend with the gravity of the situation as well.

Even if you grant that Vazquez gets worse under pressure and will pitch worse just by virtue of being a Yankee, he's still likely to be better than league average and throw more than 200 innings. It would be extremely difficult to do that and not add significant value to a team regardless of how his performance is distributed by leverage.

And of course, there's a big difference between "hasn't" and "can't". I'm willing to say that Vazquez certainly hasn't pitched well under pressure in his career, but not that he can't. He clearly had a great year in Atlanta and some of that has been attributed to an improved change up, giving him a second pitch to miss bats with in addition to his curveball. FanGraphs shows that his curveball was what stood out last year, but his change up looked to be improved as well.

It's certainly not impossible that Javy has a good year and surprises his doubters (and even some of his supporters). Vazquez might be frustrating to watch at times in 2010, but the beauty of the situation is that our expectations for him shouldn't be that high to begin with. Not too many teams have the luxury of acquiring a very good pitcher and hoping that he's just average.

Cone Done Gone?

(Unflattering screengrab via The Sports Hernia)

Good morning Fackers. Over the weekend, Bob Klapisch of the Bergen Record passed along a rather pessimistic update concerning David Cone's tenure as an analyst for the YES Network:

It appears Cone’s short but brilliant run in the YES broadcast booth may be over. Sources say Cone is out after a heated disagreement with network executives.

A spokesman confirmed via e-mail: “David’s contract is up. We’d love to have him back, but he’s in the process of evaluating his various options. … He may not be back based on what he decides.”

Cone’s skill and confidence grew appreciably in the past year. Like former-Met teammate Ron Darling, he had a graceful way of explaining baseball to casual fans, but also was immersed in cutting edge sabermetrics.

Michael Kay said, “I’d come into the booth five hours before a game and Coney would already be there, buried in the computer, looking up stats.”

Kay then added, "Ha. Stats..."

Of course, this isn't the first time a disagreement between Cone and the Yankees has prevented him from doing broadcasting work. He was a part of the YES Network when it first launched in 2002. However, when he attempted a comeback with the 2003 Mets instead of the Yanks, George Steinbrenner told him that he would not be welcome back with the organization. (Cone's 2003 lasted all of 18 innings and included 13 ER, so The Boss probably should have thanked him). Eventually a truce was reached and Cone replaced Joe Girardi when he made the jump from the press box to the dugout.

When Cone first reappeared on air back in 2008, I didn't really like his work. He doesn't have a great broadcasting voice and anytime there is a new person in the booth, it takes some time to appreciate their insights. However, I wholeheartedly agree with Klapisch's assertion that Cone was better this year.

Cone both cited advanced statistics and let his personality shine though in 2009. He frequently referenced FanGraphs.com (which most certainly endeared him to statistically-minded Yankees fans), spoke of his secondary education (which supposedly took place at an Irish Bar on the Lower East Side) and gave out his phone number on air.

If Cone does leave YES, odds are he'll end up at the MLB Network or ESPN. However, the most likely position for him there would be a studio analyst. If Cone wants to be in the booth, YES might still be his best option. For those who have come to appreciate the presence of the former hurler during Yanks games (including Matt and myself), there's still some hope that he could return for 2010. From what he's said on-air, it's clear that he loves New York and in talking to other fans, it seems like New York would love to have him back. Let's hope it all works out.

Happy Yankee Day!

(Picture via)

Over at the Replacement Level Yankees Weblog, Sean McNally continues a tradition he started over at Baseball Think Factory: declaring January 3rd "Yankee Day":

Why? Simple, the two most significant events in the history of the franchise are credited to have occurred that day. In 1973, George Steinbrenner paid CBS $10 million for the Yankees. Adjusted for inflation that’s roughly 2.1 million dollars* in 2008 funds. Just absurd.

Going back into history, Baseball Reference cites Jan. 3, 1920 as the day the transaction sending George Herman “Babe” Ruth to the Yankees was processed. I’ve since seen it elsewhere credited to dates in December, but since that doesn’t fit with my narrative, I choose to ignore it.

* I think he might have done the calculation backwards. If you go to the Government's CPI Inflation Calculator it gives the figure as $48.7M, which makes sense because $10M was worth more in 1973 than it is now.

The Yankees played their first game ever on April 26th, 1901 so I suppose that would be the franchise's birthday. I'm sure a few of their World Series victories have piled up on the same days in October, but it's unlikely that two more important (or at least symbolic) events share the same anniversary.

Curse or no curse, the acquisition of Babe Ruth changed the balance of power in the American League for years to come. In his 15 seasons with the Yankee, the team went to 7 World Series and won 4. He got on base in 48.4% of his plate appearances in Pinstripes and slugged 659 of his 714 career homers wearing them. Over that time, his OPS+ was 210. By comparison, A-Rod's best single season was 176. That tells you more about the offense production during the 20's and early 30's than it does about Ruth vs. Rodriguez, but the Babe was so far ahead of his peers that it's almost impossible than anyone will ever be better.

The Babe was probably the one thing most responsible for turning the Yankees into the preeminent franchise in all of sports initally, but it was the Boss who did the most to bring the Bombers back to glory.

Consider that Bud Selig had bought the Seattle Pilots - an ostensibly broke team on the fringes of the Major Leagues - just three years prior to George Steinbrenner's acquisition of the Yanks for $800,000 more. Selig wanted a team that he could move to Milwaukee, so it's not like he was in danger of buying the Yankees, but it goes to show that $10M was an incredible steal, even back then. While the Yankees have won both because and in spite of Steinbrenner and he certainly had his flaws as a person, it's hard to imagine the Yanks under the control of someone with a stronger desire to win than The Boss.

Almost everywhere else around the MLB and other professional sports leagues, owners are content to run their teams as if they were a business, considering profitability to be their number one concern. Even as the Boss has faded into the background, the organization has continued to put the emphasis on assembling the best team possible, even if it means spending hundreds of millions of dollars on blue chip free agents.

With a brand New Stadium and another World Series trophy, the Yankees aren't short on cash. But there are plenty of other teams who would have rested on their laurels this offseason instead of making aggressive trades and finding undervalued free agents with lots of upside. Although The Boss is no longer making the decisions, we have him to thank for the borderline irrational desire to win that makes the Yankees who they are today.

Happy Yankee Day, indeed!

Yankees Top Twenty Prospects

New Year's is a time to look ahead at what the next 365 days will hold. To that end, John Sickels released his Top Twenty Yankee Prospects list on New Year's Eve. I don't necessarily agree with all of it, but Sickels is pretty sharp when it comes to all of this, and different people value prospects in different ways.

Here's the list:

1. Jesus Montero
2. Austin Romine
3. Manny Banuelos
4. Zach McAllister
5. Slade Heathcott
6. Marc Melancon
7. Gary Sanchez
8. JR Murphy
9. Kevin De Leon
10. D.J. Mitchell
11. Wilkins De La Rosa
12. David Adams
13. Corban Joseph
14. Adam Warren
15. Neil Medchill
16. David Phelps
17. Andrew Brackman
18. Jose Ramirez
19. Jeremy Bleich
20. Bryan Mitchell

Not ranked, but receiving honorable mention, was Brandon Laird. Laird made other news last week, as he, his brother Gerald, and a third individual were all arrested following a fight at a Phoenix Suns game. Perhaps Laird will spend 2010 with Rick Vaughn playing in the Penal League.

College Football Friday: Bowl Game Edition

After a week plus of relatively mediocre bowl games, we're entering the homestretch for college football season. By this time next week the mythical National Champion will be crowned. The big time bowl games start in earnest today, with a day long slate of worthwhile match-ups to help you while your hangover away.

Outback Bowl: Northwestern vs. Auburn, 11 AM ESPN - Northwestern had a nice season for themselves at 8-4, but the Big Ten hasn't fared too well against the SEC in recent years. Either way, both these teams are probably better than the Sunday tenant of Raymond James Stadium.

Capital One Bowl: #12 LSU vs. #13 Penn State, 1 PM ABC - Probably the best non-BCS game remaining on the bowl slate. Joe Paterno ushers in his 86th New Year's Day on the face of the planet by taking on a very tough LSU team. And, just in case you're interested, Erin Andrews will be covering this game.

Gator Bowl: Florida State vs. #16 West Virginia, 1 PM CBS - Speaking of ancient football coaches, this will be the final game for FSU head coach Bobby Bowden. It's a shame that the legendary coach is being forced out in this way, but his time has clearly passed him by. As a consolation prize, FSU vaulted over more deserving teams (Clemson, BC, Miami, UNC), and received the Gator Bowl nod. Hopefully it'll be a nice send off for Bowden, as he gets to coach his final game in Florida and against the school where he spent ten years prior to getting the FSU job.

Rose Bowl: #8 Ohio State vs. #7 Oregon, 4:30 PM ABC - The Granddaddy of Them All. This one just isn't the same without Keith Jackson calling it. The Buckeye seniors have not won a bowl game in their collegiate careers. This is their final chance, but they'll have to beat a very good Oregon team that managed to take the wild wacky PAC-10.

Sugar Bowl: #3 Cincinnati vs. #5 Florida, 8:30 PM FOX - Does anyone want to coach this game? Cincy head coach Brian Kelly left to take the Notre Dame job last month. The Bearcats will be led by offensive coordinator Jeff Quinn, but this will be his last game on the Cincy sideline as he will be Buffalo's head coach next year. On the other sideline Urban Meyer resigned last Saturday, then un-resigned Sunday saying he would take a leave of absence instead - except no one knows how long that will last. In the interim, offensive coordinator Steve Addazio will lead the program. Addazio's last head coaching experience came more than 15 years ago at the Connecticut high school that Brad Ausmus and Brian Leetch once attended. Addazio got the nod by default, as Florida defensive coordinator Charlie Strong will depart to take the head coaching job at Louisville following the Sugar Bowl.

That aside, we get the treat of listening to Thom Brennaman call this one. As you may recall, Brennaman paid an inordinate amount of lip service to Tim Tebow during last year's BCS Championship Game. I can only imagine what he has in store for Tebow's final collegiate game.

Enjoy the games Fackers.

NHL Winter Classic

Good morning Fackers. And Happy New Year. Hope you're hangover isn't treating you too badly.

While the baseball news is dwindling down as we enter the dead period leading up to spring training, today is a day for laying on the couch and watching other sports. The NHL's third annual Winter Classic will take place at Fenway Park this afternoon as the Boston Bruins host the Philadelphia Flyers. The U.S. roster for next month's Winter Olympics will be announced before the game.

The Bruins goaltenders, Tim Thomas and Tuukka Rask, have had custom masks created for the classic. Yesterday, Puck Daddy linked to a picture of Rask's mask. In the event you're too comatose to click through today, the mask features a Bruin busting through Fenway's 406 Club, with remnants of a tattered Yankee jersey in its teeth. Didn't know that the Yankees played hockey, or that the Finnish Rask was such a hockey fan. Thomas is likely to start today, so it's unlikely the Rask Mask will see any action.

Puck Daddy also has an interesting look at how Fenway has been transformed into a hockey park for the Classic.

Puck drops at 1 PM on NBC. Be sure to give it a look; very cool to see an outdoor hockey game.