OFFENSE
Going into last night’s game, the Yankees led the Major Leagues in wOBA with an impressive .365 mark. That’s ten points above the closest competitor, the Milwaukee Brewers (.355). The Yankees also lead the league in FanGraphs WAR at 10.6, mostly due to their 50 batting runs.
Speaking of WAR, Baseball Reference has added WAR to its player pages and I noticed last night that Alex Rodriguez has gone over the 100 WAR mark as I discussed way back in March.
DEFENSE
Right now, the Yankees are 10th in the Majors in UZR/150 (5.1). That’s a good mark, but it’s worth noting that the sample is still small and UZR for teams isn’t always as good as UZR for individual players. In terms of defensive efficiency, that is how good the Yankees are at turning batted balls into outs, they rank 4th in the Majors with a .719 mark. The Giants lead the league with a .726 mark.
RUN EXPECTANCY
This doesn’t speak to the Yankees per se, but more just baseball in general. To make a Yankee connection, go back to Tuesday night’s game when Francisco Cervelli bunted in the ninth, giving the Red Sox an extra out and moving a runner–the tying run–to third that never ended up scoring.
Looking at the run expectancy chart, we can see that there is literally no situation in which bunting a runner, or runners, over that will increase the amount of runs that a team could expect to score.
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6 Responses to Checking in on a Few Things
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TIQ IQ
Quick question – what’s the advantage to using UZR/150 over UZR? My understanding was that UZR/150 was subject to more of the vagaries of sample size.
Really? I’d never heard that. I use per 150 for the same reason we use stuff like K/9 and what not–it sets everyone and everything equal.
It may not be more inherently subject to sample size issues, using UZR at this point in the season is just as fluky I would imagine, but doesn’t extrapolating out a small sample of data out over 150 games further amplify whatever quirks are occurring?
I see what you’re getting at; great observation.
What’s the standard deviation on run expectancy? Maybe you’re less likely to score two but more likely to score one.
Bingo- Matt’s right and wrong at the same time. There is no bunt that increases your overall run expectancy, but Cervelli’s bunt was a perfect example of a bunt that increases your chance of scoring one run. With Thames, Miranda, Winn coming up, I play for one run there and try to win in extras. I would have been fine swinging away, and was fine with the bunt. Both pretty reasonable choices. Certainly didnt deserve the craziness that the decision received.