Yankees Update 06/10/09

So They Won The AL East

I’ve been off doing some writing and installing software on my new computer and all that. It has meant I’ve not blogged about the Yankees since early September, but truth be told, the spectacular August simply sealed the deal for the team, and blogging a team that was cruising on its way to 103 wins was not as compelling as the torrid August itself.

The 103 win actually represents somewhere about 7-8wins better than the projections system had them at the beginning of the season, and they really didn’t look like they were a 103win team on 10 May. It’s more than a little surprising. It boils down to a simple phenomenon that rarely happens in baseball: all the aging players had excellent bounce back seasons.

Jorge Posada, Derek Jeter, Hideki Matsui, Johnny Damon all had seasons where they posted over OPS+ 120. If you add in Robinson Cano and Nick Swisher as big bounce back players, the addition of Mark Teixeira, the Yankee lineup simply added a whole bunch of runs that were missing in 2008. The only player to decline was A-Rod.

The Pythagorean projection for this team is possibly a little distorted as well, due to Chien-Ming Wang’s disastrous outings where he clocked up  35.00 ERA. I can tell you it killed my Fantasy team, but it also added runs that perhaps were not reflective of the team’s capability. In any case, it’s been an interesting season for the pitchers as well. Joba Chamberlain got to 157.1 innings without sustaining an injury. Andy Pettitte and AJ Burnett were very serviceable with occasional stretches of ineffectiveness. Charles Carstens Sabathia was worth the money, while Mo and Phil Hughes kept the Bullpen steady.

The point is, it’s a rare team that gets just about everything is hoped for, breaking the right way, and the 2009 Yankees’ regular season was exactly that. You wouldn’t have guess it on 13 May when A-Rod came back.

Going Back To The Predictions

Back in April, I took a quick survey of the projections and there was one in particular that had me sceptical. AccuScore predicted a Boston, Tampa NY 1-2-3 finish, based on 20,000 sims. Ha.

I’m looking at it right now and I’m thinking, clearly it’s a case of garbage-in-garbage-out. The Diamond Mind Blowout with its 6000 simulated games placed the 1-2-3 in the AL East correctly. Professor Burkiet’s was the most bullish on the Yankees and his prediction of 99 wins came closest. It all sort of depends on how people saw the 2008 Yankees as they built their player projections into their simulations and formulae. Needless to say, nobody quite saw Posada come back so strong at his age, nor did they see Jeter bounce back to an MVP caliber season.

That being said, the AccuScore system also had the Twins finishing with 86 wins spot-on,  and coming out the winners of AL Central. (They still have a very good chance at that). So I shouldn’t really knock the AccuScore prediction too much. They did get Detroit wrong, who also finished with 86 wins – but they got the Pittsburgh Pirates right with 62-99.

The Post Season

Here we go again. Gotta love October. It’s the only month I feel like I’m  Steinbrenner. 🙂