Crazy Things Happen in Small Samples-1st edition

By On April 8, 2012 · 25 Comments · In General Musings

The Yanks are 0-2, and panic is setting in all across the Yankee blogosphere. Pineda’s on the DL, Kuroda was awful last night and the manager is a flaming idiot. It’s easy to think all the offseason moves are backfiring and that everything that could go wrong, will, at a time like this. But we need to separate the noise from the trend, and the trend from the big picture. To help us do that, I’m going to run this CTHSS series on Sundays for the next few weeks, or at least until we get enough data that I can start running my “Keeping up with the ex-Yanks” posts in May. Shall we proceed?

-Colby Lewis leads the AL with a 13.50 K/9 (career 7.62)

-Carlos Ruiz leads the NL in batting with a .667 average

-Kendrys Morales and Nick Markakis are tied for batting average in the AL at .714

-Morales and Markakis are tied atop the AL in WAR, and are each on pace to post 81 WAR seasons for 2012

-Gio Gonzalez has a 14.73 K/9 and a 9.82 ERA

-All glove, no bat Carlos Gomez has a .500 fielding percentage

-Mark Derosa has played every game for the Nats and has a fielding percentage of 0.00

-Josh Beckett’s ERA is 13.50 (15.87 FIP)

-While we’re on the topic of ERA, the bottom 8 in the AL are (in order) Hiroki Kuroda, Ricky Romero, CC Sabathia, Dan Haren, Jairo Asencio, James Shields, Francisco Liriano and Mr Beckett.

-Bruce Chen has an FIP of 1.25

-JJ Putz, Frank Francisco, David Hernandez, Alexi Ogando, Juan Cruz and Tyler Chatwood are tied with FIPs of -0.42. Yes, that says MINUS 0.42, so opposing teams will have to subtract half a run every time the make an appearance.

-The Mets are in 1st place, and Lucas Duda is on pace to hit 162 HRs this year

Does any of this drive home the point that you can’t overreact (or even react) to any 2 games in baseball without coming to really, really bad conclusions?

 

 

 
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25 Responses to Crazy Things Happen in Small Samples-1st edition

  1. Professor Longnose says:
    April 8, 2012 at 9:45 am

    Knock it off. We all know that two games don’t make a season. That doesn’t mean we can’t aggravate over lousy baseball as it happens.

    Reply
  2. roadrider says:
    April 8, 2012 at 9:45 am

    Your point about samples sizes is well taken but I’ve thought Joe Girardi was an idiot and a lousy manager for a long time now.

    Reply
    • Professor Longnose says:
      April 8, 2012 at 9:49 am

      He’s not a great in-game strategist, obviously, but the arguments about him handling the bullpen well have worn me down over time. He probably isn’t any worse than any other manager. Unfortunately, baseball now just isn’t concerned much with in-game strategy.

      Reply
    • Steve Sciacco says:
      April 8, 2012 at 10:00 am

      Then let me ask you, who do you think is a good manager?

      Reply
      • roadrider says:
        April 8, 2012 at 10:52 am

        I think most of them are overrated and usually do more harm than good. I find Maddon’s innovation and willingness to buck convention refreshing and he’s certainly gotten results with a low payroll so I give him good marks but if I really followed the Rays I’m sure there are things I would object to (like that suicide squeeze attempt the other day).

        Reply
        • Eric Schultz says:
          April 8, 2012 at 11:18 am

          For those who criticize Girardi as an “overmanager”, Maddon does a fair amount of that too (though I was impressed with his infield shifts, seemed to take a fair amount of hits away from the Yankees). It definitely was a rough 2 games for Girardi though.

          Reply
          • roadrider says:
            April 8, 2012 at 12:09 pm

            Well, there’s a difference between moves that are well considered and those that aren’t. Yeah, Maddon does quite a bit of intervention but it’s not like he has the all-star roster that Girardi does and he has to do more where Girardi should probably just let his guys play – like in the first inning on Friday.

            For example, I don’t think Girardi should bat Gardner cleanup against a RHP if he has a rough game against a lefty (assuming he actually gets to play against a lefty) like Maddon did with Joyce last night.

            To me, over-managing is when you unnecessarily intervene in a game for dubious reasons instead of trusting your guys to do their jobs. The IBB, the sac bunts, the ill-advised steal (and double-steal) attempts with big hitters at the plate that we’ve seem over the years with Girardi, in addition to some of the dumb bullpen moves (like last night with Rapada) are all red flags to me that Girardi does more harm than good and should most of the time just nail his butt to the bench and stop thinking so much.

            Reply
            • Steve Sciacco says:
              April 8, 2012 at 12:35 pm

              We discussed this yesterday, but creating a mismatch where you IBB a player that hits the pitcher hard in order to get to one who the pitcher owns isn’t ‘overmanaging’ that’s just managing. The thought process was fine, it just didn’t work out. Everyone gets to be a genius after the fact, I would bet many of those same folks who are killing Girardi would have argued FOR what he did had Rodriguez been the one who hit a 3 run jack with Pena due up. The thought process was solid, therefore it was a good move regardless of the result. It just didn’t work this particular time, if he does it again another 9 times CC will likely get him out all of them, and strike him out in most.

              To me, a manager’s job is to put his players in position to be successful. That’s exactly what he was doing there. The huge mismatch you create outweighs the smaller difference in Run Expectancy.

              Reply
              • Michael Eder says:
                April 8, 2012 at 12:49 pm

                I guess the real issue is the IBB walk itself. Unless we’re talking about bottom of the 9th where the runs on the base paths don’t matter, but a force play does, then fine, but giving a team extra base runners in the first inning does not make sense to me. It’s just principle, don’t give up free base runners.

              • Steve Sciacco says:
                April 8, 2012 at 12:56 pm

                That’s the run expectancy argument, and again I think its outweighed by the mismatch created.

                Pena was batting .100 for his career, and had struck out 5 of the past 6 times. You could close your eyes and produce better results. CC owned him, and this time he ran into one. Happens.

              • roadrider says:
                April 8, 2012 at 12:58 pm

                Well, your opinion on that seems to be in the minority. The thought process was not fine. You don’t need to manipulate situations with your #1 starter, one of the elite starting pitchers in MLB to put him “in position to be successful” – especially in the first inning of the first game of the season with two outs!. That is bad thinking and bad managing. You do that with rookies and less successful guys and probably not even then in that situation.

                And I disagree that Girardi’s move with the IBB put CC in a “position to succeed”. He put him in a tighter spot than he already was in and increased by one run the worst possible outcome and if you want advanced stats increased the Rays’ run expectancy.

              • Steve Sciacco says:
                April 8, 2012 at 1:03 pm

                People bitched about Girardi’s over-managing all year in 2009, and all the way through the playoffs. He won the division and 97 games last year with a team everyone picked for 2nd place, if not lower.

                Whatever he’s doing, I hope he keeps it up.

      • smurfy says:
        April 8, 2012 at 11:58 am

        I agree Joe G is a traditionalist in the tactics of the game, but obviously, he sees what the Rays have done these games, and started his engine.

        Good luck to those who short sell defense and aggressive baserunning, would rather never bunt, would always wait for the big pop.

        Leyland impressed me with his strong judgement calls on Verlander last fall and Cabrera this winter. Maddon seems wonderful, and I like Joe Girardi. The old southern man in Philly seems to have a good big picture kinda positive control.

        Reply
  3. smurfy says:
    April 8, 2012 at 11:28 am

    Hey, Steve – you got your FIP flipped, don’tcha? They have to spot the other team.

    And, how many bats are qualifying for the current title? Three, six? There has to be the odd bench-sitter who is 1 – 1.

    And Maddon did that squeeze play with a Defensive catcher. Should be able to bunt; maybe he can’t read signs, but that was a reasonable and exciting choice.

    Reply
  4. Brendan says:
    April 8, 2012 at 11:36 am

    It’s definitely a lousy start. I would say, though, that quite generally (with a few notable exceptions like the performances of Verlander, Fister, Lester and Santana), starting pitching has taken quite a licking in the first few games of this season.

    Reply
    • smurfy says:
      April 8, 2012 at 11:39 am

      yeah, the last week of ST, the Yank starters all were sloppy, prob the same for everybody. The hitters looked outrageous. Must be the beat of spring.

      Reply
  5. Steve Sciacco says:
    April 8, 2012 at 11:41 am

    Hiroki Kuroda, Ricky Romero, CC Sabathia, Dan Haren, Jairo Asencio, James Shields, Francisco Liriano and Mr Beckett

    Raise your hand if you’d LOVE to have some combination of those 8 worst pitchers in baseball as your starting 5 this year.

    Reply

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