Results tagged ‘ CC Sabathia ’
Quick thought on AL Cy Young race
Unlike last season in which the Cy Young race in the American League was pretty much decided by the 1st of August, this season the race has been pretty compelling to watch considering the fact that three dominant pitchers have pitch well enough to win the award. These three pitchers have double digit wins, and ERA’s under 3. But which of these pitchers is likely to win the Award? Looking at their stats, right now, it is pretty hard to say. The current AL and MLB leader in wins is CC Sabathia once again. Just as he did last season, Sabathia has been brilliant before and since the All-Star break. Last night Sabathia continued his superb pitching, tossing 8 innings to earn his league leading 16th victory. Although Sabathia’s ERA went up to 2.55, it’s still better than the 3.14 ERA he posted at this same time last season.
Then there is Justin Verlander. He has been on a role pretty much since the beginning of the season. He has already thrown a no-hitter and remarkably enough has flirted with several since. Verlander’s last win came on Sunday against the California-Lis Angeles-Angels of Santa Cruz-Mission Viejo-Anaheim. In that game, Verlander was within four outs of throwing his second no-hitter of the season. Unfortunately he lost the no hit bid when he surrendered an RBI single to Maicer Izturis. Just the fact that he was away from throwing another no-hitter, speaks volumes of the stuff Verlander possess, as he gets stronger as the game progresses. His 178 strikeouts leads the league and his 2.24 ERA is third best in the AL.
And last, there’s Jered Weaver. Although outpitched by Verlander on Sunday, Weaver’s season has been so good that he is also among the top AL Cy Young contenders. Weaver leads the American League with a ridiculous 1.88 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, and his 14 wins are third best. Weaver started the season on a hot streak, winning his first 6 starts, before struggling in the month of May. But since then, Weaver has found his stuff and has been a pretty dominating pitcher. He is fifth in the American league with 142 strikeouts.
Looking at the production of all three this season has therefore made it difficult to pick out a clear frontrunner. As a Yankees fan, I would hope that Sabathia would win the award. But looking at his numbers objectively compared to what Verlander has done, it would be hard for me–if I had a vote–to consider Sabathia as the best pitcher in the AL.
But statistics aside, I think what will ultimately decide the Award this season will be how these pitchers perform in the next two months. Unlike last season the top AL Cy Young contenders are pitching for contending clubs, and given the parity in the divisions this year, all three are likely to make the difference between their teams winning their divisions or losing out on a playoff spot. But one thing is sure, if Weaver, Verlander and Sabathia continue their pitching mastery in the last two months of the season, the baseball writers will have a pretty interesting decision to make in November when they vote for the Award winner. That will be fun to wait for.
The second guessing of Girardi…
I know that last night’s Yankee loss to the Twins was a bit shocking to some Yankees fans considering the fact that the bullpen’s strong 8th inning pitcher had a meltdown on the mound. Usually a tough reliever, Rafael Soriano came in with a 4 nothing lead and left the game after giving up one run and loading the bases. After Soriano left the game, Robertson came in to try and clean up the mess, but by the time the inning was over, the Twins comeback was nearly complete. In the end, the Twins did what they had to do to win the game in a place that is nothing but a house of horrors for Ron Gardenhire’s team.
But in reality, there is no need to be shocked by what happened last night. Rafael Soriano–no matter how good he is–will have a bad game once in a while. Last night, Soriano didn’t get the job done. While I recognize and I agree with Girardi that bringing in Soriano was the right thing to do, there are always the second guessers out there–the sofa managers–who think they know better than the actual manager of the club. Listening to sports radio all day, it seems that Girardi committed a cardinal sin by not bringing in Rivera for a four out save and by taking Sabathia out of the game and bringing in Soriano (the 8th inning set up man) in the 8th. There are fans out there that actually believe that Sabathia should have stayed and thrown over 125 pitches.
I don’t blame them. Afterall Sabathia was dominant and would have pretty much finished the game if it was the middle of June. But since it’s just April, with cool tempetures and with over 158 games left in the year, Girardi made the right move in not overworking Sabathia and preferring to use his 8th inning set up man. The fact is, Girardi was right and his moves should not be second guess. What happened last night comes down to the simple that Soriano just didn’t have it. Yankee fans, get use to it, because there will be nights in which Soriano will not have his best stuff.
As for Sabathia..
As tough as it was to see the bullpen throw away a great outing by Sabathia, I can look at this game in a different way and be extremely pleased with the way he pitched last night. Sabathia usually struggles in the cool month of April before finding his dominant stuff in the warm months of the season. If Sabathia is locked in this early in the year he is prime to have a big year for the Yanks, a team that really needs its starters to step up this year if they want to compete against Red Sox, clearly the best team in the AL East.
CC’s start…
CC Sabathia had a solid six innings, gave up 3 runs, two of which were earned. Not bad for opening day. This year CC had a much better opening day than he did in his previous two years. He did run into a bases loaded no outs jam in the second inning, but battled through it just giving up one run.
King Felix reigns!
Congratulations to King Felix Hernandez the 2010 American League Cy Young Award winner and clearly, the BEST pitcher in the AL last season. I know that it seems strange that a Yankees fan would be happy that a Mariners pitcher with only 13 victories this season beat the Yankees ace CC Sabathia, who had 21 victories. But as I argued in this post, this year the Baseball Writers had to beyond the conventional stats to determine this years award. Looking at Win-Loss record, ERA, strikeouts and innings pitch is a very narrow method of in deciding which pitcher was effective during the year. Even though CC Sabathia had 21 victories, any Yankee fan knows that his wins was the result of overwhelming run support Sabathia received. Many times during the year, Sabathia struggled throughout his starts, but was fortunate enough to be in a good team that had the ability to bail him out when ever he got in trouble. Sabathia was in no way the dominant pitcher he was last year, or in 2007 with the Cleveland Indians, when he won the Cy Young Award.
On the other hand, King Felix was dominant in most of his starts, especially the ones he lost because of the lack of run support. In 32 starts, Hernandez pitched six innings or more, but unfortunately his team provided him with only meager offensive support. If Hernandez could have traded places with Sabathia, there is a good possibility that Hernandez could have won 25 games this year. Looking just two sabermetric stats, his VORP and WHIP, Hernandez was ahead of Sabathia in both statistics, which proves over the long run that Hernandez would have been the most valuable starter in any rotation over Sabathia.
As a Yankees fan, I love Sabathia, but as baseball fan first and foremost, I can’t ignore the work of Felix Hernandez, as he was incredible this season. Once again, a big congratulations to Felix Hernandez for winning the 2010 Cy Young Award.
AL Cy Young Award: Will Sabermetrics finally win?
Tomorrow the AL Cy Young Award will be awarded to the American League’s top pitcher, and if the Baseball Writers Association of America follow their time honor tradition of awarding the Cy Young Award to American League’s best pitcher based archaic statistics like wins or strike outs, then C.C Sabathia should win the award again. However, if there is a miracle and the Writers somehow give more weight to sabermetric statistics like BABIP and DIPS, etc, then this year’s choice for the AL Cy Young Award should clearly be Felix Hernandez. No one is even close, Sabathia included, to the type of pitching production Hernandez gave his team. More importantly, if Hernandez wins, Sabermetric stats will once and for all prove that there is indeed a more objective way at analyzing a players production without relying on conventional and subjective statistics. Even though sabermetrics has been accepted by many fans (including yours truly), it seems that the Baseball Writers Association of America tends to rely on conventional statistics as a way to determine awards, like the Cy Young.
Conventional Stats v Sabermetrics..
We know which are the conventional stats usually considered by the Baseball Writers in determining who is worthy of the Cy Young Award. Wins, ERA, Strikeouts and possibly innings pitch. If wins is a determinant factor, then CC Sabathia should easily win. His 21 victories this season lead the American League and was tied for best in the Majors with Roy Halladay, the NL Cy Young Award winner. Winning 21 games is a big deal in a league in which winning just 16 games is considered a very good year. But if wins aren’t enough, ERA should also be considered. In this case, Felix Hernandez should be the winner of the Award. Hernandez’s 2.27 ERA lead the both leagues this past season. But with only 13 victories (12 losses), I don’t think King Felix’s ERA would be enough to merit the award by the conventional stats method.
But following just two simple sabermetric statistics, Felix Hernandez clearly out performs CC Sabathia. For example, Hernandez had a WHIP (Walks Hits Innings Pitched) of 1.06 which was second best in the AL. Sabathia on the other hand had a WHIP of 1.19 which was ninth best in the League. Of course WHIP alone won’t be a determining factor; what else were the Writers able to use to determine who was the best pitcher in the AL? How about VORP (Value Over Replacement Player). For a pitcher, VORP would basically mean the amount of runs prevented that a replacement player would have allowed. In this case, CC Sabathia 51.3 runs; runs a replacement pitcher would have allowed. In Felix Hernandez’s case, King Felix prevented 70.2 runs. Hernandez therefore prevented more runs this year than Sabathia did, even though the latter won 21 games.
These two statistics (out of many more) prove the quality of Hernandez’s production on the mound over Sabathia. What is even more impressive is that Hernandez did this in a poor Mariners team.
If Not Sabermetrics how about Quality Starts
Of course, there are a ton of other Sabermetric stats that shows Hernandez’s pitching dominance over Sabathia, but stats which are too complicated for the traditional Baseball Writers to accept. But if these few stats aren’t convincing, the one true statistic that should matter is the amount of quality starts. In 34 game starts, Sabathia gave the Yankees 29 quality starts of 6.0 innings or more. While in the same amount of game starts, Hernandez gave the Mariners 32 quality starts, including an impressive 17 in a row. In a better team, Hernandez could have won 23 games two games better than Sabathia and Roy Halladay.
There can be no doubt that Hernandez was the best pitcher in the American League. What now remains to be seen is if the Baseball Writers agreed with the fans and more importantly, the stats that prove King Felix was a pitcher this year. Sabermetric stats proves the type of value Felix Hernandez gave to a poor team. If King Felix was able to put those same statistics on a much better team, he would not only be considered Cy Young Award contender, but a league MVP material as well. Second, it’s about time that Sabermetric stats are given more weight in determining off-season awards.
Yankees season comes down to one game…at a time(2)
If the Yankees hope to win their 41st American League pennant and advance to the World Series where the winner of the Phillies/Giants series will await, then yesterday’s game was but just one step to that goal. In a must win situation, the Yankees turned again to their ace, and this time, Sabathia earned a solid victory for himself and his team facing elimination at home. Although not dominant by any stretch of the imagination, Sabathia pitched like an ace, getting into trouble and then making a pitch or two that got him out of trouble. Ron Washington said it best about CC: “he bent, but didn’t break.” And in a series in which Yankees starters have not only bent, but broke, CC’s valiant effort is the boost the Yankees need to propel them forward.
It wasn’t as if the Rangers weren’t getting to CC. As Washington said, he bent. In 6 innings of work, CC gave up 11 hits, most of which were line drive ropes that either found the ground instead of a fielder’s glove. Yet most of Texas’s hits came with no runners on base. When there were runners on base, the Rangers couldn’t get consecutive hits. In the 6th however, the Rangers did manage to load the bases, but Sabathia had enough to retire the side. In that inning, Mitch Moreland put on a great at-bat against CC and somehow someway, Sabathia was able to strike him out with a slow curveball in the inside corner. That bases loaded jam was the closest the Rangers came from putting pressure on the Yankees.
But decent a performance CC had on the mound, he couldn’t do it alone and he needed the support from his offense, support he has gotten throughout his Yankee career. Yesterday was no different, as the Yankees busted out of the gate and put 3 runs on the board in the bottom of the 3rd, 2 in the fourth, and 2 more in the latter innings. The hitting star of the day was Robinson Cano who continues his hot hitting in the LCS. Cano’s homerun was the fourth of this series and now he joins Josh Hamilton as one of many who have hit four homeruns in LCS history. But preceding Cano’s homerun’s was Nick Swisher’s solo job to left. Swisher who is having yet another dreadful post-season, needed that homerun to get off the schnied and extend the Yankees lead to four. His homerun set the tables for what was the Yankees first good offensive game of the series.
Looking Ahead…
Phil Hughes, with normal rest, should be able to pitch better in Texas than he did last Saturday afternoon, and hopefully he will give the Yankees what they need to extend this series to a final seventh game. Hughes, who has had a decent year, with rough starts here and there, could give the Yankees another post season quality start, with the hopes that he would receive the same kind of run support he has been accustomed to this season. The Yankees also need to bust out of the gate early again, and chase a suspect Colby Lewis, who is a pitcher that can pitch well, but can also pitch poorly. Putting pressure on early and scoring often and getting into a very suspect Texas bullpen is what the Bombers need. Of course, that is easier said that done. Lewis did outpitch Hughes in game 2.
Yankees season down to one game…at a time.
After another crushing defeat at the hands of the Texas Rangers, the Yankees season comes down to the strength of CC Sabathia’s arm later on this afternoon. Out of options, the Yankees now need to take it one game at a time if they hope to continue playing this season, and ultimately hope that Sabathia would come out and pitch like the ace he has been for the Bombers since 09. Otherwise, another bad start by Sabathia and the season ends….no more baseball until March for the Yanks. So CC’s job today is simple; pitch 8 innings of shut out dominant baseball, and hope the offense wakes up and figures out CJ Wilson. Take this series back to Texas and hope for the best.
What happened?
Even though I don’t make predictions before the beginning of a playoff series, and I specially do not make predictions when the team I root for is involved, I did however write before game 1 that if the Yankees have trouble with their situational hitting, they would lose this series. So far the Yankees have not only struggled with their situational hitting, but have struck out an unreal 39 times. A team that is built on power, as the Yankees are, will not win many games if they are undisciplined at the plate. Putting aside game 3, their inability to put pressure on two suspect Rangers starters in Hunter and Lewis will be the reason why this team will lose this series. Pitching wise, the Yankees starters, other than Pettitte and for five innings, Burnett, haven’t pitched to their level. Sabathia, as has been noted, was horrible in both his post season starts, not pitching to the level of an ace the Yankees have become accustomed to. Hughes had a very good start in the ALDS, but unfortunately pitched poorly in game two of this series. In those two games, the Yankees gave up 13 runs and if not for a miraculous comeback in the 8th inning of game one, would have been outscored 13-1. On top of that, the Yankees will now be forced to be without Mark Teixeira who hurt his hamstring in last night’s debacle. Although Teixeira wasn’t having a good series, his glove in the field will be missed. Lance Berkman is a decent defensive first baseman, but he isn’t Mark Teixeira.
The Rangers on the other hand have done everything right. They have not ony pitched well, but are hitting in the clutch, getting big hits when needed. Last night, the big clutch hit came off the bat of Bengie Molina, who once again hits another clutch playoff homerun against the Yankees. This time, the three run job, gave the Rangers a 2 run lead to basically put the game away. Now all the Rangers have to do is win one more game. If they lose today and in Friday night’s game, they have literally nothing to worry about, as the Magnificent Lee will take the mound in game 7 and possibly send the Texas Rangers to their first World Series in franchise history.
NLCS Update..
The Giants take a 2-1 series lead over the heavily favored Philadelphia Phillies and are now on the drivers seat ready to take control of this series later on this afternoon. Before the series began, I questioned Matt Cain’s ability to out pitch Cole Hamels and wonder if the moment would be too big for Cain and the young Giants pitching staff. Well, I guess Cain answered my questions by outpitching Cole Hamels and continuing his good pitching in the post season. In 13 innings so far, I don’t believe Matt Cain has allowed a run to score. Moreover, the Giants are suddenly hitting in clutch situations. Cody Ross delivered a key RBI single with two outs in the 4th and two runners on, to give the Giants a one to nothing lead. After Ross’s single, Pat Burrell hurts his former team and drives in the second run of the inning. The Giants tagged another run in the bottom of the 5th thanks to an error by Chase Utley (who just had a bad game) to put the game away. All that is left for the Giants to do is win Lincecum’s start in game 5 and hope Matt Cain repeats his performance in game 7.
The Phillies on the other hand have nothing to worry about, but I would pitch Roy Halladay today instead of Joe Blanton and have him ready for game 7. Of course, I think the Phillies will win this series (and the World Series), they are just too good, but a bad start by Blanton could be devestating as the Giants would be one brilliant Lincecum start away from wrapping up the series. I’ll be watching (darn cablevision and news corp) tonight.
Rays take season series.
Everytime CC Sabathia takes the mound I feel that the Yankees have a 99.9 chance of winning. Afterall CC has been a work horse his entire career and with the Yankees he has definately earned every penny of that contract he signed almost two years ago, as he has definately become the Yankees most dominant starter. So heading into last night’s game, I had a good feeling the Yankees would tie the season series with the Rays negating any tie breaker advantage the Rays could’ve gained. And during the first five innings of the game, even though CC wasn’t as sharp as he was last week, he still did a good job protecting a one run lead. Unfortunately in the top of the 6, CC not only lost the plate but his control and the Rays took advantage by putting up a huge 7 spot to put the game and the season series away.
The AL East race will go down to the wire, and the Rays right now have the upper hand as they will face weak teams the rest of the way, while the Yankees will face their hated rivals for six games and the pesky Toronto Blue Jays. But if the Yankees fail to win the division, I think Yankee fans can look back at this game as the reason why the Rays will enter the post season as AL East champs.
But not to worry…
There is no doubt that the Yankees will make the playoffs this year, whether they win the East or get into the post season as a wild card. And in October, I expect this team to play much better than what they have shown in August and September. But even though I’m not worried, there are question marks surrounding the Yankees. Will Boone Logan be the effective lefty specialist that Demaso Marte was last post season? Can the Yankees have the same success as last year with only three effective pitchers? And after last night’s debacle, where does Javier Vazquez fit in (I know one thing, Vazquez won’t be coming back next year, thank God). These are obviously huge question marks, but by the time the post season starts, the Yankees should be ready to defend their crown, so I have no worries.
CC today..
The Yankees need at least 10 CC’s of strikeouts, doubles, singles, homeruns, and at least 1CC win. Sabathia, who has not looked sharp in his last 4 starts will go on the bubble today hoping to turn things around for the Yankees, who have lost 5 out of their last 7 games. More importantly, if the Yankees once again start out with a 2-0 lead thanks to a two run homerun, they better play well behind Sabathia so this lead could stick throughout the game. During the Yankees struggles this week, they have amazingly started their game by hitting two run homeruns in the first inning. It started last week at Tampa and continued last night when Teixeira connected on a two run bomb.
A great pitching matchup?
Today’s game between the Red Sox and Yankees looks like a promising entertaining pitching matchup between Lackey and Sabathia. On paper at least. Knowing the history between these two teams, this game could degenerate into a slug fest 6 hour 9 inning game.
Since CC is pitching today, I think this would be a great time for me to wear my Sabathia spring training jersey. Maybe this piece of clothing wear will bring much needed luck to Mr. Sabathia who needs to have a good game to get the Yankees jump started in the month of August.
All Stars snubs..
Now that the 2010 All Stars for both the National and American leagues have been announced, too much was made about the players that were snubbed. Personally, I don’t pay attention to the All Star game, but when baseball writers and commentators talk about players that were snubbed then the All Star game gets my full attention.
Frankly speaking, nothing perks up my interests than a little controversy; and since the All Star game is hardly a place where controversy is found, the list of snubs by both the AL and NL has me wondering if this year, of all the years since the last meaningful All Star game in 1994.
So, lets see if players were indeed snubbed.
AL Snubbs…
Kevin Youkilis: Yes he was snubbed. Joe Girardi as AL Manager decided to take one of his own players to the game, therefore he chose Alex Rodriguez. As a Yankee fan I agree with the move, why take a Red Sox player over a Yankee player? It would be blasphemous for a Yankee manager, who is managing the All Star game, not to pick one of his own guys for a Red Sox player. However, as an objective baseball fan, A-Rod doesn’t deserve a parking pass at Anaheim this year, since Youkilis was more deserving of a roster spot. Lets just look at the numbers. Youkilis this season is batting .299, with 17 homeruns and 54 RBI’s. He has an OBP of .416 and a slugging percentage of .584, which gives him an impressive 1.000 OPS. Youkilis has accumulated 160 total bases, has walked 50 times, and has scored 65 runs. To put all those stats into perspective, Youkilis is a player that helps the Red Sox create runs, which is no wonder why the Red Sox are one of the teams that leads the majors in runs scored.
Alex Rodriguez on the other hand is batting .276, with 12 homeruns and 62 RBI’s. A-Rod’s has posted a slugging percentage of .486 and an OBP of .349. That gives A-Rod an OPS of .835, which is .165 points lower than Youkilis’s OPS. A-Rod has been struggling for the most part this year, even though the Yankees haven’t missed a beat. Even though he has more RBI’s than Youkilis, that is probably because there are more runners on base when A-Rod bats than when Youkilis bats.
However, Youkilis carried the Red Sox offensively until Big Sloppy woke up and started to hit homeruns again. Without Youkilis in the lineup early this season, the Red Sox could be 5 games back of the Yankees instead of being 1.5 games behind. Yeah, I think Youkilis was clearly snubbed.
Andy Pettitte: He wasn’t snubbed, he was robbed of a deserving spot. The fact is, Andy Pettitte has been the only consistent starter in the Yankees rotation this season than All Star pick CC Sabathia. It took until the middle of June for CC Sabathia to settledown as a consistent started. Moreover, AJ Burnett has been consistently inconcistent, while Javier Vazquez has looked lost on the mound for the most part this season. That brings me to the other Yankee pitcher that made the All Star game, Phil Hughes. Hughes had a very strong start to the year, posting an ERA under 2.00 in his first seven starts, but since May 17, Hughes has an ERA over 3.00. In his last two starts in particular, Hughes surrendered 6 homeruns and frankly, has looked anything but sharp.
Pettitte on the other hand has been a consistent pitcher all year. There are times when he gets in trouble, but finds a way to fight and get out of it. It has been the ability to get out of trouble that has earned him 10 wins this season and his best start to a season during his career.
Paul Konerko: Possibly snubbed. Konerko has carried the White Sox offensively, and is second in the league to Jose Bautista in homeruns with 20. Again, Girardi had to make a choice, but we know that he will always pick one of his players than one from another team.
NL Snub
Joey Votto: In my humble opinion, Votto was the clearly snubbed. When a player like Omar Infante makes the All Star team, instead of a player that is putting MVP numbers you know something is wrong. Votto is batting .320, with 19 homeruns and 53 RBI’s. He has been the most important offensive player for the Reds this season, and their success so far this year is because of Votto’s offensive production. Votto is definately more deserving of an All Star selection than Omar Infante.
David Veloz
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