Baseball in the Big Citi

The All Star Game is next week and this year it will be held at my home. New York City. Its been 5 years since the All Star Game was held it Yankee Stadium, this time the venue will be at the Mets' Citi Field.

Bryce "The Warrior" Harper and Chris "Crush" Davis

First the Home Run Derby will take place Monday, but Citi Field doesn't yield many home runs, so they will have to be blasted. The participants for the National League: David Wright, Carlos Gonzalez, Michael Cuddyer, and Bryce Harper. For the American League: Robinson Cano, Prince Fielder, Chris Davis, and Yoennis Cespedes. I predict Harper will win the Home Run Derby at Citi Field.

I know I'm not the only one hoping Gonzalez's injury will sideline him from the All Star Game and Giancarlo Stanton will have to be added to the Home Run Derby. That guy will hit them all the way to Brooklyn.

The actual All Star Game will be exciting as well. Matt Harvey will probably get the start for the National League, because it's his home ballpark, although Clayton Kershaw clearly deser
ves the start purely based on statistics. For the American League, I think Jim Leyland may go Felix Hernandez to start the game, and it almost certain Mariano Rivera will be pitching at some point. I predict the American League will win the All Star Game this year.

First time All Star Patrick Corbin will be returning to his home state and will be fun to watch pitch, for he has dominated the Major League this season. Manny Machado has been ripping doubles left and right and he is on track to break the record for most doubles in a single season. Marlins starter Jose Fernandez also made the roster for his stellar first half and is a huge promise for the future of their organization.

You can view the rest of the roster here http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130706&content_id=52391804&c_id=mlb

But there were some huge All Star Game Snubs. Grant Balfour, Evan Longoria, Matt Carpenter, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Mike Leake.

Vote in the poll for who you think was the biggest All Star Game snub.








Dont Forget to submit your vote for All Star Game Final vote. Vote Puig! and Vote Robertson!

Pitching Performance Value

How do you truly identify how well a pitcher performed? Looking at his ERA+, WHIP or his K/9 rate may be misleading. What if a set up man comes into the game and gets out 3 great hitters and then the closer comes in and gets out 3 mediocre hitters. Their performances look the same on paper, but they actually aren't. The set up man had to work harder to get the outs and those outs held more significance.

I would like to establish a statistic that shows this. This one is very simple: it is just a ratio of ERA to the average OPS of the hitters faced. It will look something like this: PPV = ERA/ AOPS.

On September 25, 2011 The Yankees played The Red Sox in a double header they lost in extra innings in one game and won the other. In the first game David Robertson pitched four outs and faced David Ortiz, Jacoby Ellsbury, Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez and Dustin Pedroia. He struck out Ellsbury, Ortiz, Gonzalez and Crawford flew out. Mariano Rivera pitched in the second game and he faced Jarrod Saltalamacchia, JD Drew, Marco Scutaro, Mike Aviles, and Adrian Gonzalez.   He got out Saltalamacchia, Drew and Aviles.

I chose September 25, 2011 because it was close to the end of the season and their stats were close to complete. The OPS of the opposing players should be taken on the day of the performance, because hot and cold streaks do exist. Although some people believe hot and cold streaks do not exist, they do. You need to know how well the batter was doing up to that day. A batter could hit 5 home runs in one week and then 0 for an entire month.

So Robertson got out Ellsbury (.928 OPS), Ortiz (.953 OPS), Gonzalez (.957 OPS), and Crawford (.694 OPS). Robertsons ERA was 1.08. So the stat would be set up as PPV = 1.08 / ((.928 + .953 + .957 + .694) / 4). That turns out to be 1.22. The lower the number the better. Marinao River had an ERA of 1.91 and he got out Saltalamacchia (.737 OPS), Drew (.617 OPS), and Aviles (.775 OPS). 1.91 / ((.737 + .617 + .775) / 3) =  2.69

Robertson performed better than Rivera on September 25, 2011.  I know they didn't pitch in the same game, but the batters they faced are the main reason. You can use this stat to evaluate a pitchers performance on any day, as long as you use the batters OPS for that day. It also works for starting pitchers, but there will be a lot more numbers to average.

The New York Yankees

The Yankees finished 2011 with a record of 97-65, but were eliminated in the ALDS by The Tigers. They made some changes this off season to make sure that doesn't happen again.

The major changes The Yankees made were changes to the starting rotation. They traded Jesus Montero for Michael Pineda. This was probably one of the most even trades of the year. Montero had 69 plate appearances with 4 home runs and 12 RBI's. It was a small sample size for the Yankees, but pitching was more important. The Yankees also signed Hiroki Kuroda to a 1 year $10 million contract. A very efficient deal. With these two acquisitions the Yankees' pitching rotation will probably be the following:



CC Sabathia: 19-8, 147 ERA+, 237 IP, 230 K.
Hiroki Kuroda: 13-16, 121 ERA+, 202 IP, 161 K.
Michael Pineda: 9-10, 103 ERA+, 171 IP, 173 K.
Ivan Nova: 16-4, 119 ERA+, 165 IP, 98 K.
Freddy Garcia: 12-8, 122 ERA+, 146 IP, 96 K.

By the way all their names end with "A." Can you think of a good name to call them. Like the Phillies had H2O in 2010.

The bullpen for the Yankees is also a strong point. They have the great Mariano Rivera, David Robertson, and Rafael Soriano. Rivera had a 1.91 ERA, 44 saves and 8.8 K/9 rate. Robertson had a 1.08 ERA, and 13.5 K/9 rate, As for Soriano, he had a rough season, part of it being injured. He had a 4.12 ERA in 2011, but he has a 2.86 ERA over his career. The combination of these three pitchers gives the Yankees the best 7th, 8th and 9th inning relief pitcher combination in baseball.

The Yankees also have one of the best lineups if not the best. The only two teams that compare to the compare to The Yankees' lineup are The Boston Red Sox and The Texas Rangers. Robinson Cano, Mark Teixeira, Nick Swisher, and Curtis Granderson all hit over 20 home runs. Nick Swisher, Robinson Cano, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, and Curtis Granderson all had an on base percentage of .350 or greater. Curtis Granderson, Robinson Cano and Mark Teixiera all drove in more than 100 RBI's. That's a quick summation of the power provided by The Yankees. In 2012 Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter will be back for the entire season. Also I predict that Brett Gardner will have a break out season.

The Yankees are currently working out a deal to trade AJ Burnett to the Pirates for salary relief and probably a couple of minor league players. As for Phil Hughes he may be fighting with Freddie Garcia for the 5th spot in the rotation or Hughes can be the 6th inning man in the bullpen. Also The Yankees are on the verge of signing or trading for a DH. They would prefer a left handed DH to face right handed pitching, because he will platoon with Andruw Jones, who will face left handed pitching.

Relief Pitcher's Clutch

We all know those really tough situations in the ball game. Bases loaded, no outs, and the opponents slugger is at bat. Who do you want to get you out of this jam? The guy in your bullpen with the most clutch. Up to now there hasn't been a reliable statistic to measure a pitchers clutch to my knowledge. Well I have developed one. I call this statistic RPC standing for Relief Pitcher's Clutch.

If your in a tough part of a game, you want a strike out, this is what relief pitchers are inevitably known for. In this statistic strikeouts will work at a pitchers advantage. Runs and an elevated whip (walks and hits per innings pitcher) will work at the pitcher's disadvantage. In an important game where the score is close and there are runners on base, you do not want runs to score, nor do you want to add additional runners on base.

To explain why the strikeout is important. If you get a strikeout you are obviously not getting a different kind of out, ground out, fly out, pop out etc. A 'contact out' may result in a run scoring and there is always a chance of the fielder dropping it or committing an error. This is why strikeouts would work at the relief pitcher's advantage in the statistic.

Finally to reveal the statistic: RPC = (Strikeouts / Runs) / (Walks and hits per innings pitched)
                                           RPC = (K/R) / (Whip)
                                           * The higher the number the better the pitcher's clutch

Now you check the math. What if the Runs or Whip is equal to 0. In the case of Runs be 0 the RPC is infinity. In the statistic for earned run average, if a pitcher gives up a run with 0 innings pitched, his ERA would be INF.  Getting back to RPC, if a pitcher's RPC is infinity he is currently 100% clutch, because he has not allowed a run to score. If the whip is 0 the player currently doesn't qualify for the statistic, because he could have given up a run without giving up a hit. If Both Whip and Runs are 0 then the RPC is infinity.

To look at some examples. David Robertson is notorious for getting out of big jams. He has 100 strikeouts, 9 runs, and a 1.125 whip. This gives him a 9.88 RPC. among the highest for 2011, earning him the name Houdini.

Dennis Eckersley's 1990 season 73 strikeouts, 9 runs, and a 0.614 whip giving him a  13.21 RPC, one of the best all time.

Now you may say RPC is directly proportional to ERA. Not always. Tyler Clippard of the Washington Nationals, and Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees have very similar ERA's 1.83 and 1.91, respectively. That is just a 0.08 point difference, barely anything, or noticeable, but Clippard's high amount of strikeouts (104) makes him much more clutch. Clippards RPC is 6.89 and Rivera's is 5.14. Rivera gets more of his outs from contact, making him less clutch in a tough situation.

I believe that the clutch rating may be the end of the closer, because if you have bases loaded jam with none out in the 7th inning, wouldn't you want your best pitcher to be in the game then and not close the door with the bases empty, just cruising by.