Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports has a new piece up, looking at all the playoff teams and what their rotations may be. The good news is that all of the AL playoff teams have pitching issues, the bad news is that includes the Yankees. Here’s what he said about the Yanks:
Believe it or not, they have issues.
The Yankees will face two major decisions — whether to start left-hander Andy Pettitte or righty A.J. Burnett in Game 2, and whether to opt for the series with the extra off day. The AL team with the best overall record is the only qualifier that gets such a choice.
The advantage to the longer series for the Yankees is that it would enable them to skip righty Joba Chamberlain, going with lefty CC Sabathia on normal rest in Game 4 and Pettitte or Burnett on rest in Game 5.
The disadvantage for the Yankees is that it would enable the Tigers to start righties Justin Verlander and Edwin Jackson in four of the five games.
First, lets look at this from the Yankee pitching perspective. While lefties have traditionally held an advantage in the old Yankee Stadium, Andy Pettitte has not fared as well in the new ballpark. His ERA is over a full run higher in the new facility than it is on the road, and opponents are batting 58 points higher against him. Much of that is due to the fact he’s had trouble with the long ball at home, allowing 14 at home while just 5 on the road.
| Home | 4.69 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 15 | 0 | 94.0 | 104 | 50 | 49 | 14 | 35 | 70 | .283 |
| Away | 3.52 | 8 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 14 | 0 | 84.1 | 71 | 41 | 33 | 5 | 32 | 70 | .225 |
There’s also a dearth of recent head to head match ups for Andy facing the Detroit Tigers. He’s only had one career start in Comerica Park in the past 3 years, where he allowed 13 baserunners in 6 1/3 innings and 5 Runs, but only 2 of them Earned. It’s only one outing, but it wasn’t pretty.
| Comerica Park | 2.84 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 6.1 | 10 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 3 | .345 |
Now, on to Allan James Burnett. He has fared much better at the new Yankee Stadium than he has on the road, pitching to an ERA that is almost a full 1 1/2 runs lower at home than it is on the road.
| Home | 3.65 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 15 | 0 | 98.2 | 85 | 40 | 40 | 13 | 49 | 96 | .235 |
| Away | 5.12 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 14 | 1 | 84.1 | 84 | 52 | 48 | 11 | 38 | 71 | .258 |
However, in his head to head matchups against the Tigers, the numbers get very ugly. Here’s his 3 year splits against the Tigers:
| vs. DET | 8.03 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 24.2 | 29 | 22 | 22 | 4 | 14 | 25 | .287 |
It doesn’t get any better in Comerica Park:
| Comerica Park | 9.42 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 14.1 | 18 | 15 | 15 | 3 | 7 | 16 | .305 |
Now, when a good pitcher like AJ Burnett has numbers that bad against a certain team in a limited number of starts (6), my first thought is that there may have been 1-2 clunkers that are skewing the numbers, and that’s the case with AJ. He pitched a game on April 4th of 2007 where he allowed 6 Runs and was knocked out in the 2nd inning (sound familiar?). But even if you want to ignore that start as an anomaly, in his other starts against the Tigers he allowed 19 Runs (all of them earned) in 28 2/3 IP, so in those other starts he pitched to a 5.96 ERA. The only outing that would be considered a ‘quality start’ was the one he had on July 17th of this year at Yankee Stadium.
So the Yanks vs Tigers has 3 potential rotations for the playoffs, which are as follows:
#1) CC Sabathia (vs Verlander)-AJ Burnett (vs Jackson)-Andy Pettitte (vs Porcello)-CC Sabathia (vs Verlander)-AJ Burnett (vs Jackson)
#2) CC Sabathia (vs Verlander)-Andy Pettitte (vs Jackson)-AJ Burnett (vs Porcello)-CC Sabathia (vs Verlander)-Andy Pettitte (vs Jackson)
#3) CC Sabathia (vs Verlander)-AJ Burnett (vs Jackson)-Andy Pettitte (vs Porcello)-Joba Chamberlain (vs Washburn)-CC Sabathia (vs Verlander)
I’ll assume Porcello is their 3rd starter since Washburn has been bad for them. But even if Leyland goes with Washburn, it doesn’t change anything for me. In looking at the Yankee pitching situation, I would opt for #3 and the short schedule. That avoids having to face Edwin Jackson twice, plus has AJ pitching at home and Andy on the road. It also splits up your lefties, which is preferable. If I am Joe Girardi, I’m trying to get Joba Chamberlain on track and will roll the dice with him (facing Washburn/Porcello) before I go CC-AJ twice or CC-Pettitte (at home) twice. I’d prefer to throw AJ at home and Pettitte on the road, and the last thing I want is to pitch AJ Burnett twice in this series or have him on the mound for a crucial Game 5, even with it being a home game. I trust Andy more than AJ for the often pivotal Game #3 and I want my ace on the mound in Game 5, and that’s CC.
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0 Responses to Rosenthal looks at the upcoming playoff rotations
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I don’t know. I get the Game 5 reasoning, but Edwin Jackson has had a rough second half, with his last 7 starts being almost as bad as AJ’s. I think I might prefer AJ twice over Joba once, if only because Jackson does not scare me. But AJ struggling has made this a much tougher decision than it looked to be initially.
I’m less concerned about AJs recent struggles than I am about his head to head match up with the Tigers, which are ugly. Also, I want AJ at home and Andy on the road.
That actually does not bother me at all- such a small sample, and there is no real reason that he should match up poorly against Detroit. In fact, he probably should matchup well against that free swinging group.
Facing non division opponents small samples are all we have, but 6 starts is a decent amount of info. All but one of them have been anywhere from bad to hideous, and even the one decent start was 6 innings and 3 ER. He’s never dominated them in any start, so I can’t expect him to in the playoffs.
6 starts over a 3 year period is really not that substantial. That one decent start was this season, and I’m not sure how indicative previous seasons are when the Tigers have their worst offense in a while in 2009.
Fine, but 6 starts is 6 more than you have to argue the opposite, that he will be worthy of 2 starts and/or the Game 5 slot. There is zero evidence that he will be on top of his game, and some evidence that he will anywhere from OK (at best) to bad (more likely). If AJ was to pitch badly twice, everyone would be screaming about how all the evidence pointed in one direction, and the ‘small sample size’ argument would seem impractical.
I may have limited evidence, but the opposing view has none. It’s arguing nothing against something. Something which may not be conclusive, but is still something.
No, that is not how SSS works. The assumption is that he should pitch to his career numbers, or something like it. When you take a segment out of that data, it needs to be a large enough sample to suggest that we should expect something different. Essentially, what I have to argue the opposite is his entire body of work, which suggests a quality start is more likely than a non-quality start. To suggest that this should be different, you need a larger sample of recent data. We have one decent start this season. This is not the same offensive team in Detroit as in previous years.
No, I gave you his career numbers vs a specific opponent. Pitchers aren’t machines that pump out the same numbers vs every opponent if they pitch against them often enough. There are such things as bad matchups, teams that own certain pitchers, and they could pitch every game of the year against them and the results would be the same.
You’re taking the general concept of SSS and applying it too broadly. If we were talking about a tiny handful of starts, then any number of things could skew the data. But I even removed the one awful start and the numbers were still unacceptable. 6 starts approaches a trend, and its a bad one for the Yanks.
Long story short, I don’t know how you could trust the guy after having watched him pitch all year, plus this info on top of that.
Not if it is over 3 seasons in the free agency era, where it is not the same offensive team. You keep glossing over that point. Have you seen the numbers this year on Guillen, Ordonez, and Polanco?
I actually have a post going up about this in about a half hour. AJ has more quality starts than CC, and 2 less than Verlander in one less start. He is just as likely to keep the Yankees in a game as those guys. Even during this awful stretch, he has kept them in 5 of the 9 games he started.
Glad to see that I inspired you, but I still disagree. Looking forward to seeing your counter argument.
I like your #3 option, because I can’t see AJ, Andy or Joba pitching as bad as they have been. Real competitors step up when it is play-off time. I don’t care who is pitching against the Yankees, they are going to get hit. Unless the starters for Detroit go 9 innings, we will be into their BP by the 6/7th.