If just for the sake of my writing, I set up a narrative for this series. The Tigers’ star power against the Athletics’ depth, speed, defense and bullpen. There have been a few asterisks so far, but surprisingly, the narrative has held. On Thursday, that narrative will meet Justin Verlander.
The big topic of discussion before yesterday’s Yankees-Orioles game was whether Joe Girardi should move Alex Rodriguez down in the order so that Robinson Cano could hit third in the line-up. Girardi declined to make that change, but did have Rodriguez DH instead of play third, which seems to suggest that having Ibanez pinch-hit for him late in the game was premeditated and not simply a reaction to Rodriguez’s in-game struggles. Ibanez, of course, made Girardi look like a genius. So, now, what do the Yankees do about their line-up going forward?
In reality, we probably won’t get that answer today. The Orioles decided to swap out Chris Tillman for Joe Saunders, so Girardi’s going to go with his anti-LHP line-up today, and Rodriguez is clearly going to be part of that effort. Starting either Ibanez or Eric Chavez against a lefty isn’t a great idea, and the team doesn’t have any good right-handed alternatives, which is why Eduardo Nunez started at DH against Wei-Yin Chen. With Derek Jeter fouling a ball off his foot in Game Three, he very well could end-up DH’ing in Game Four, with Jayson Nix getting the start at shortstop. In some ways, Buck Showalter did Girardi a favor by starting Saunders, giving him an easy way out of the decision over whether to put A-Rod back in the line-up the day after he pinch hit for him. Against a lefty, he doesn’t really have much of a choice.
If this series goes to Game 5, however, then Girardi’s going to have to make some decisions, and not just about Alex Rodriguez.
Ben and Sam discuss Game Three of the Yankees-Orioles ALDS, the decision to pinch-hit for Alex Rodriguez, and A-Rod’s future in New York, then talk about why the Stephen Strasburg debate won’t go away.
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On Monday, I took a look at how the new ball in Japan’s NPB league may be affecting the predictability of Japanese talent. The first signs are good: It looks like the new, standardized baseball in Japan — a ball which mimics the MLB design, starting in 2011 — may be resulting in more direct skill translations into the MLB. This means MLB franchises will be able to identify priority athletes better and extend more appropriate contracts and posting fees.
In the comments of that article, KJOK of Seamheads.com suggested — quite rightly — that the conversion conversation should go two ways:
…I think it is important to examine the players that went TO Japan since the new ball was introduced, and see how they also performed against expectations.
Let’s do just that.
Read the rest of this entry »
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.
1. Premature SCOUT Leaderboards: Arizona Fall League
2. Video: Brian Goodwin on Emergence
3. Today’s Playoff Games
Premature SCOUT Leaderboards: Arizona Fall League
Regarding What Happened Recently
Recently (which is to say, Tuesday), this year’s edition of the Arizona Fall League began.
Regarding What’s Happening Now
What happening right now is, is the author is publishing a pair of entirely premature SCOUT leaderboards — one for hitting, the other for pitching — including the data from the first two days of the AFL.
Regarding What Is SCOUT
SCOUT is a metric calculated using regressed defense-indepedent numbers (walks, strikeouts, and — for hitters — home runs). The offensive version is SCOUT+, where 100 is league average and above 100 is above average. Its pitching counterpart is SCOUT-, where 100 is league average and below 100 represents above-average run prevention. (Read more here, if you’re even interested.)
Regarding SCOUT, One of Its Benefits
A benefit of SCOUT is it allows one to compare the relative performances of players with markedly different sample sizes and/or batted-ball luck.
Given everything that happened later on Wednesday, you might have forgotten that, earlier on Wednesday, the Giants won another must-win game over the Reds in Cincinnati. The Giants won a game that was started by Barry Zito, which lately has not been unusual. Barry Zito himself was quite terrible, which lately has been more unusual. The Giants won mostly because they finally started to hit — they finished with 11 hits in 33 at-bats, eight of which went for extra bases. But another crucial contributor was one Tim Lincecum, pitching in long relief.
Lincecum was not the first guy Bruce Bochy went to out of the bullpen. After Zito discovered a way to walk Dioner Navarro with two outs in the third, Bochy called on George Kontos. Kontos began the fourth, and then was replaced by lefty Jose Mijares, to face lefty Joey Votto. Mijares struck Votto out for the second out of the frame, and after that bit of unplanned strategic genius, Bochy signaled for Lincecum. Lincecum got out of a jam by striking out Ryan Ludwick, and then Lincecum just kept on pitching through the eighth.
Raul Ibanez batted twice tonight. He hit a game tying home run in the ninth, then a game winning home run in the 12th. His WPA for the game: .827.
We only have postseason data going back to 2002, but from our records, this is the second best single game WPA in that stretch, trailing only David Freese’s amazing performance from Game 6 of the World Series last year. Freese’s performance was the single highest WPA in postseason history, so every other player in the history of the sport is also behind him.
Baseball-Reference’s Play Index goes back further, though, and so using that tool, we can see where Ibanez’s game will rank in postseason history. Per B-R, the current top five are:
David Freese, 2011 World Series, Game 6: .969
Kirk Gibson, 1988 World Series, Game 1: .870
Steve Garvey, 1984 NLCS, Game 4: .854
Lance Berkman, 2011 World Series Game 6: .832
Charlie Keller, 1941 World Series Game 4: .826
B-R uses slightly different numbers to calculate WPA than we do, so by their calculations, Ibanez might be slightly above or below .827, so he might not be #5 on the list when they update the numbers in the morning. But it’s going to be really close.
Not bad for a guy who didn’t hit until the 9th inning.