The Pink Floyd Soundtrack to Yankee Baseball

The part of the Olympic Ceremony set to the tune of Pink Floyd's Eclipse made me think of how various Floyd songs would make a perfect soundtrack for aspects of Yankee baseball:

• Interstellar Overdrive: Derek Jeter's normal mode of operation, as exemplified by the flip play, the dive into the stands, last night's great AB to set up Curtis Granderson's grand slam, etc., etc., etc.
• Brain Damage: Whenever Joe Girardi abuses platoon match-ups.
• Breathe: Something I have a hard time doing whenever Girardi has to pay the price for platoon match-ups by having to pull Clay Rapada and bringing in mediocre righty relievers such as Chad Qualls.
• Money: Whenever a Yankee employee or sportswriter argues that the Yankees and Hal Steinbrenner need to trim the payroll.
• Wish You Were Here: Andy Pettitte, Joba Chamberlain, A-Rod, Michael Pineda, Brett Gardner, and The Sandman.
• Pigs: Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, John Lackey and their collective lust for fried chicken. (Also, see Money, above.)
• Sheep: The small but vociferous pack of fools who boo A-Rod despite his MVP seasons, 2009 postseason heroics, hustle, baseball intelligence, and numerous other contributions. 
• Don't Leave Me Now. The impending free agency of the underrated and inimitable Nick Swisher.
• Comfortably Numb: How Andruw Jones looks in whenever he does not hustle. In other words, how Andruw Jones always looks, alas.
• The Show Must Go On. How Rafael Soriano has stepped it up in the wake of Mariano Rivera's crushing injury.
• Another Brick in the Wall: Bucky Dent making his contribution to the Red Sox' litany of woes.
• Run Like Hell: Something that Russell Martin's golden arm prevents opponents such as the Rays and Angels from doing.
• The Trial: The federal government's and media's persecution of Roger Clemens.
• In the Flesh?: The riotous scene from The Wall movie for some reason makes me think of Red Sox Nation's reaction to last season's rather improbable collapse. 

Girardi and His Stupid Binder Are Destroying My Stuff

Joe Girardi was hardly the only reason for today's Yankee loss to the A's. However, in a way it was the most blameworthy. What I mean is that I can accept players sometimes failing on the mound or at the bat or in the field; it is when managers make blatantly stupid decisions that I start expressing blame by throwing remote controls and other devices in anger.

My cell phone was almost a casualty of today's game. This is because Girardi took David Phelps out with 2 outs in the bottom of the 11th to bring in Clay Rapada as a match-up against lefty Seth Smith.

The reasons this was, in my opinion, poor in-game managing are as follows:

• It was a tie game - meaning that someone was going to have to pitch in the 12th inning, and perhaps beyond.
• Phelps was the best remaining arm in the bullpen, and had thrown only 19 pitches.
• Rapada is merely a LOOGY, meaning he was only going to face Smith and the first batter in the 12th, Eric Sogard.
• So while Girardi did gain an advantage against Smith, he was going to have to bring in Cody Eppley to pitch against switch-hitters such as Coco Crisp and Jemile Weeks; and then if the game proceeded, someone was going to have to pitch to Josh Reddick and Yoenis Cespedes.

In other words, the lefty-lefty match-up against Smith meant that the game was going to ride on Cody Eppley instead of David Phelps. While Eppley has been surprisingly effective in his 26-inning Yankee career, it is a no-brainer that Phelps is a much better pitcher. This move was a blunder; Girardi won the battle against Seth Smith, but ultimately lost the war.

Now certainly there are many good things one can say about Girardi's bullpen management. However, his penchant for micromanaging the game in terms of platoon match-ups is putting my stuff at risk. Since it appears Girardi is not going to outgrow his abuse of platoon match-ups, and since I unfortunately am not going to outgrow my idiotic tendency to throw stuff, I guess I am going to have to wrap up my remote control, my phone, and any other small objects that can be easily gripped in bubble wrap whenever watching a game.

Russell Martin's Weird Batting Statistics

Russell Martin's .182 batting average gets a lot of attention, and understandably so: we do not expect everyday players to below the Mendoza line 2/3 of the way into July.

However, what is weird - and I suspect should be encouraging to Yankee fans - is that his other batting stats have not declined, suggesting that Martin's low batting average may largely be due to bad luck.

The following table shows what I mean. The way to read this table is as follows:

1. The first row shows Martin's 2012 stats going into July 21, when he has 225 ABs.
2. The second row shows what Russell's stats would be if he had played to his pre-2012 career rates. For example, Russell's career D/AB ratio prior to 2012 was .048. If he hit to that rate in 2012, he would have 11 doubles - which matches his 2012 doubles.
3. The third row shows what Russell's stats would be if he had played to his 2011 rates. For example, Russell's career D/AB ratio in 2011 was .041. If he hit to that rate in 2012, he would have 9 doubles - slightly below his 2012 doubles.

	AB	H	Singles	D	T	HR	BB	K
2012 stats (actual)	225	41	20	11	0	10	32	50
Applying pre-2012 career rates	225	60	42	11	1	6	30	37
Applying 2011 season rates	225	53	34	9	0	10	27	44

Looking over these numbers, Russell Martin's power numbers are consistent with expectations, as is his ability to take walks. He has struck out somewhat more than his career rate (though only slightly more than his 2011 rate). The only stat that is noticeably anomalous is that he has hit less singles than he has hit either over his career or last year.

What might this mean for going forward? Russell's 2012 BABIP is an exceptionally low .188. So while it is possible that he has lost some mysterious ability to hit singles that is distinct from an ability to hit for power, most likely he has been hitting in some bad luck, and that given enough appearances his batting average will rise to a competent level. He may never hit in the .280+ range of his early career, but if he hits in the .230-.250 range and continues to hit for power and take walks, the Yankees will have a reasonable productive catcher hitting at the bottom of the batting order.

Now a .230 batting may not excite you. But consider last year, when he hit .237. Measured by wOBA, Martin was in the middle of the pack of catchers with at least 400 plate appearances.

Combine that with his excellent defensive skills - he's cat-like in blocking wild pitches, and his arm is a weapon against running-oriented opponents such as the Rays, Rangers, and Angels - and you can see why Brian Cashman said "We have our catching. I believe in Russell Martin, period."

Goose Gossage and Roger Clemens

Goose Gossage's recent comments on Roger Clemens and the Hall of Fame are ill-informed. Unfortunately they are emblematic of the mainstream baseball establishment, which has decided as an article of faith that Clemens is guilty, regardless of petty details such as evidence.

Here is what Goose said:

     "Are we going to reward these guys for cheating? Even though he [Clemens] was found innocent, it was because of the bad testimony. No one believed (Brian) McNamee...'"

Much as I like the Goose, this is irrational. The reason why is not complicated:

• The Mitchell Report's accusation that Roger Clemens took steroids is entirely based upon the accusations of Brian McNamee.
• McNamee's testimony indeed was "bad testimony." 
• This is because on the matter of Roger Clemens, McNamee has constantly contradicted himself in every appearance he has made, be it in court, in Congress, being interrogated by Congressional investigators, etc.
• The reason one cannot send Roger Clemens to a prison of either the penitentiary or baseball variety was beautifully described by one of the jurors:

          "His story should not have changed so many times,” said juror Joyce Robinson-Paul, a political activist in the District. "It kept vacillating, it kept changing. It was just incredible."

• Despite spending time and money, federal investigators could not unearth a single person - other than the comically dishonest McNamee - who claimed to have seen Roger Clemens taking a PED.

The fact that the jury got this and the baseball establishment does not make me think of travesties off justice such as the Rodney King beating or O.J. getting off. Rather, it merely makes me think that the Clemens jury should be make responsible for Hall of Fame voting.


There has been a variety of other exculpatory evidence that the media barely reported. My favorite was a story told by former catcher Charlie O'Brien which suggests Clemens was a rather straight arrow when it came to cheating:

     "The former catcher testified Wednesday he once approached Clemens on the mound during a game with a scuffed ball and said, 'This is a great ball to use.' He said Clemens responded, 'I don't need that.'"

I don't exactly think Whitey Ford or Catfish Hunter would have been above such trickery. Or Goose, judging from his refreshingly honest response to the question of whether he would have taken PEDs:

     "Gossage admitted he 'probably would have' taken performance-enhancing drugs if the circumstances and timing of his career and the steroid era had been different."

Who Is the Real Cory Wade?

One could say that Cory Wade's recent work has been abominable. However, that might reflect unfairly upon all the poor, hard-working Abominations who have not earned a demotion to AAA by giving up 16 runs in their last 11 innings of work.

Going into his May 28 appearance against the Angels, Wade was having a nice season, pitching to a 2.08 ERA in 21.2 innings. Then he coughed up a walk-off homer to Mike Trumbo to kick off the aforementioned 11-inning stretch, which leaves him with a 5.79 ERA.

Wade had good results last year, posting a 2.04 ERA in 39.2 innings. So who is the Real Cory Wade: the pitcher who began his Yankee career with a 2.05 ERA in 61.1 IP, or the pitcher who has spent the last month putting on an homage to Felix Heredia's Yankee career? Should we expect Wade to return to the major leagues as a useful contributor?

To help interpret the data we have on Wade's skills, I'll include the Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) stat in this analysis. FIP is I think especially useful for gauging relief pitchers; since relievers have a relatively small number of innings pitched in a season, their seasonal ERAs can be a misleading indicator of performance.

In Wade's 2011 season, he posted an FIP of 3.84, meaning that FIP considers him having a slightly above-league-average season. In other words, FIP indicates that Wade had a good season, but hardly the dominant season that the 2.04 ERA suggested.

Wade's 2012 FIP is 4.17. That is slightly below average; but this also suggests that Wade has not pitched nearly as badly as his 5.79 ERA suggests.

Overall in his Yankee career, Wade has had a 3.73 ERA and a 3.99 FIP; the combination of these 2 stats indicate Wade has performed in the range of league average to slightly above league average.

This is only over a small sample size of 72.1 IP, about 42% of Wade's MLB career, the rest of which was spent with the Dodgers. If we expand this analysis to Cory's entire career, he has the following stats:

• ERA: 3.41. Since 58% of Wade's career occurred in the relatively low run-scoring environment of the NL and Dodger stadium, it's useful to adjust for the 2 different environments. For this, we can use Baseball Reference's ERA+, since it adjusts for a player's ballpark and league. Wade's ERA+ OF 124 suggests overall he has been an above-league average pitcher.
• FIP: 3.91. This again suggests an above-league-average performance to date.

So the numbers suggest the real Cory Wade is not the relief ace that his 2.05 ERA in his first 61.1 Yankee innings suggested, nor the awful performer of the last month. Rather, a reasonable expectation based on his career to date is that Wade will pitch in the range of league average to slightly above league average, given enough innings.

Given the plethora of awful relievers in baseball, this means we should expect Wade to return to the major leagues at some point. Wade gives the Yankees some useful depth. Also, a corollary is that Wade has some value as a trading chip; he's not going to bring back a star player, but he could bring back a useful role player from a contender with a terrible bullpen.

Girardi Mix-and-Match Debacle

In last night's loss to the Rays, my head nearly exploded when Joe Girardi allowed Freddy Garcia to pitch to Carlos Pena in the 6th inning. Garcia had neared his pitch count limit for the game, lefty Clay Rapada was warming up, the Yanks were clinging to a 1-run lead, and Pena was by far the most dangerous lefty hitter in the Rays lineup; Pena's 12 13 home runs leads the Rays.

Furthermore, Pena's lefty-right splits for 2012 are:

• Hitting against righties: .218/.368/.388; 7 HRs in 173 ABs.
• Hitting against lefties: .170/.290/.302; 4 HRs in 107 ABs.

Pena's career splits further indicate that he is significantly weaker against lefties.

If ever there was a situation that called for a LOOGY, this was it. Instead, Girardi left Garcia in, Pena of course homered, and right after that Girardi pulled Garcia anyway.


Girardi's explanation for this decision-making is irrational:

   "If the first guy gets on, I was going to go to Rapada. But (Garcia)’s done a tremendous job in his career, and the last two years on Pena. When you look at what Freddy’s done to him, he’s still throwing the ball good, I said you know what, I’m going to leave him in."

Since Pena clearly is at a disadvantage against lefties, there are 2 reasons that make Girardi's reasoning ludicrous:

• Girardi's saying that if a man got on base, that somehow means Pena is more dangerous to the Yankees one-run lead than if the bases are empty.
• In the last 2 years, 2011-2012, Garcia had faced Pena 3 times prior to last night. Garcia then got Pena out twice more prior to the home run; so Girardi is essentially discarding a career's worth of evidence that Pena is much worse against lefties in favor of 5 plate appearances.

I could understand leaving Garcia in if Girardi's goal was to have the starting pitcher go deep into the game. But again, that was not the case: Girardi was going to pull Garcia soon for pitch count reasons and even had Rapada warming up.