Sunday, May 6, 2018

Trending Upward

All right, with one-fifth of the season completed on Friday, it's time to revisit our frightening pitching numbers from that frightening, first tenth of the season.

If you'll recall, after the first 16 games of the season, we were on a trend to get only 833 innings out of our top five starters—a far cry from the minimum of 937 innings we got from the top five in any of our last four championship seasons:

1998: 1,036
1999:    984.2
2000:    946.2
2009:    937

At the same time, our top five relievers were on track to throw a pen-breaking 383 innings, with the top six headed for 456 innings.  Again, this didn't compare well:

1998: 260.1 (311.2)
1999: 316.2 (366)
2000: 329.2 (354.2)
2009: 301.2 (340.2)

Nor was the relief very effective. We were on a pace for only 20 saves, as compared to:

1998: 48
1999: 50
2000: 40
2009: 51

Not good!

So what are the trends looking like now, after another tenth of the season has gone by?

Well, things are looking up, if they're not yet at a championship level.

Our top five starters have picked it up, and are now on course to pitch a total of 875 innings over the whole season. We'd like to see them break that 900 mark, but that's still a solid, five percent improvement.

Meanwhile, the top five in the pen are down to a projected 370 innings, with the top six at 430. Still too high, but moving decidedly in the right direction.

AND...the projected number of saves has now doubled, from 20 to 40, which would match the total from 2000.

In other words, all looking good—but not there yet. We'll check back in at the one-third mark of the season.






13 comments:

Anonymous said...

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TheWinWarblist said...

Sign my taint.

Leinstery said...

1. Betances is useless. How can you be a big league pitcher if you completely implode the moment someone is on base?
2. I'm really not liking this habit they've developed the past 10 games in which they get no hits through the first 5 innings and hope the pitching holds up. Judge looks horrible. Didi is no longer hot. Stanton...go back to the Marlins. Sanchez can only only hit 1 homerun every third game, no dice on making contact outside of that. Tyler Austin, surprisingly can't hit when he has to take every other day off. And Gardner, jeez I love Gardy but it might be time to take him out back.
3. Remember the great debate last October about sacrifice bunting? Boy do I wish Andujar bunted instead of flailing into a rally killing double play.

JM said...

Betances, head case.

Gardner, clutch hit when he had to hit one. Hicks, comes through. Neil Walker hits in the cluth. Neil Walker.

Torres, just amazing.

Just fucking amazing.

JM said...

Clutch hitting in the late innings. That's something good to see.

Neil Walker?

Torres is an all-star out of the gate.

Local Bargain Jerk said...


With the exception of Betances, who cost young Domingo German a nice, fat, well-deserved "W", that was a fine, fine Yankee win.

Leinstery said...

I wrote that in the throws of Jonathan Holder on the mound, I would have bet on a 20 run inning sooner than a comeback win.

And nobody was happier for Gardy than me, but he has been terrible this year outside of the past two days.

Neil Walker has been the spark for every rally this week. Whether it's an 8 pitch walk or a clutch hit, he's been in the middle of everything.

TheWinWarblist said...

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TheWinWarblist said...

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HoraceClarke66 said...

Just for the record, Domingo was not robbed of a win. It was 0-0 when Betances gave up that run.

Anonymous said...

HC66 imagines that he's doing significant baseball analysis when he takes small samples and multiplies them out to a full-season equivalent. This is just statistical noise, and a pretext for the ever-voluble HC66 to hear himself burble once again.

Local Bargain Jerk said...


Just for the record, Domingo was not robbed of a win. It was 0-0 when Betances gave up that run.

HC66:

Ugh, thanks for pointing that out. In my spray of Bellances-induced vitriol, I failed to see the obvious.

I enjoy your posts, like most others around here.

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