Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
Tyler Kepner has a nice piece on tonight's starter, Mike Mussina, today in the Times:
The question now is what Mussina will do next season. He said he would wait until November to decide if he wanted to keep pitching, if he had the patience to deal with the struggles that might come up. Not knowing the answer, he said, is one reason he is having more fun than ever."Before, there was always some future in front of you," Mussina said. "At 39, I don't know what it's going to be. It's like being a senior in high school. You enjoy it because you don't know what the next year's going to bring."
Mussina is 22-6 lifetime against the Twins. With the Yanks desperate for a win, they'll need another strong outing from Moose tonight.
pre pregame prediction (more pres in there than oregon):
yanks 9, twins 0
8 strong for moose, 7 hits, all singles, 5 k 0 BB
Rotation could be:
Wang
Joba
Hughes? (I'm not high on IPK at the moment)
CC? (big bucks, but at least no need to spend on periods)
??? Moose/Pettitte/???
Speaking of the future, RIYank if you're out there, I will be in Pawtucket tonight to see Hughes pitch.
4 I'd like the rotation to be Wang, CC, Hughes, Chamberlain, Pettitte and Moose. With Joba and Phil still facing innings limits, Moose and Andy getting up there in age, Wang likely feeling his way back from an injury and C.C. coming off another 240+ innings year, six starters seems the way to go.
From a pitching standpoint, the staff has actually improved from last year and the pitching hasn't been the problem this year.
A team that was supposed to slug their way to a division title or the wild card cannot afford to have lousy production from 3 spots. Last year, they averaged 5.98 R/G, this year it's 4.78. Pitching wise, they averaged 4.8 R/G, this year it's 4.47
2008: 105 OPS+, 98 ERA+
2007: 118 OPS+, 99 ERA+
So indeed the problem is the offense this year, but to say the pitching has improved is not true at all. Relative to the league they are basically the same or slightly worse.
So at least on the reliever side, let's look at BP's WXRL. In 2007, the Yanks totaled 7.967 WXRL in 162 games. In 2008, in just 119 games, they are already at 6.92 WXRL. This suggests to me that the relief pitching at least has improved.
Last year's staff totaled 19.3 SNLVAR (support neutral lineup-adjusted value over replacement; basically what the pitcher, on his own, added in terms of wins, over replacement). This year's staff is at 12.5 through 119 games. Something tells me you can't be "on pace" with SNLVAR, so we'll have to wait until season's end to see what happens there.
VORP doesn't separate out starters and relievers, and I have no idea how to account for Joba's VORP as a starter vs as a reliever. Overall, however, last year's staff accounted for 184.9 VORP; this year's has 119.6 so far.
So while I think the bullpen has improved, the rotation has not . . . but it will next year. A full year of Joba, a full year of Wang, and Hughes can't possibly be as bad as he was (nor will IPK).
The indicators for next year, on the pitching side at least, continue to point in the right direction though.
14 It's 42; http://tinyurl.com/2hpxnp
16 What's the question?
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