Checking Back with the Yankees

Way back in the dark days of March, I listed betting the New York Yankees to win fewer than 95 games this year as one of the more solid bets baseball had to offer. In a follow-up post I pegged the Yanks " ... as more of a high-80s team with 92- 93-win upside, maybe a 30-35% chance of getting to 95 ... ". With two thirds of the year in the rearview mirror, New York's 69-43 record puts the Pinstripes squarely on a 100-win pace. Baseball Prospectus's (sadly proprietary, but still hugely useful) PECOTA projections have the Yankees winning 99 games. BP now ranks the Yanks as the best team in the American League.

Assuming I was right about New York's having only a 30-35% chance of winning 95 or more games, where did I go wrong?

Again we will turn to PECOTA, which not only spits about projections for each major-league player, but does so with a useful feature lacking in other projection systems: Error bars. PECOTA assigns different levels of performance to each player. A "20th percentile" projection means that a player had, as seen by PECOTA, an 80% chance of reaching this level. His 90th percentile projection suggested the player had only a 10% chance of hitting this level of performance. Here's the Yankees' current lineup, compared to their expectations.

1B - Mark Teixeira: .935 OPS, close to 75th percentile projection of .952. 4th among regular AL first basemen.
2B - Robinson Cano: .858 OPS, above 90th percentile of .856, 1st among regular AL second basemen
SS - Derek Jeter: .828 OPS, above 75th percentile of .811, 3rd among AL shortstops
3B - Alex Rodriguez: .871 OPS below weighted mean of .921, but still 3rd among AL third basemen
LF - Johnny Damon: .875 OPS, 2nd among AL left-fielders and his highest in nine years, close to 90th percentile of .890
CF¹ - Melky Cabrera: .812 OPS, above 75th percentile of .786
CF² - Brett Gardner: .748 OPS, near 75th percentile of .759
CF overall - Yankees are fifth in the the league in center-field OPS at .781
RF - Nick Swisher: .828 OPS, above 60th percentile of .816. Overall New York is fourth in the AL in right-field OPS at .853
C - Jorge Posada: .885 OPS, second among AL catchers to only Mauer the Great in Minnesota's 1.080, close to 90th percentile projection of .902
DH - Hideki Matsui: .858 OPS, third among DHs, right at 75th percentile of .855

Of the eleven players manning the ten lineup spots only Alex Rodriguez, an inner-circle Hall of Famer whose illustrious past pushes his projections to sometimes-unreasonable heights, is playing to the lower end of his expected performance range and even he is still the third-best hitter in the league at his position. *Eight* of the eleven are near, at, or above their 75th percentiles, meaning that PECOTA, the most sophisticated and accurate publicly-available projection system the game has to offer saw only a 25% chance of these players hitting at their current levels. Put another way, relative to position norms, New York's third-worst hitter is Teixeira, whose OPS ranks "only" fourth among AL first-sackers but who just happens to lead the league (in a tie) in home runs, is third in runs batted in, and is carrying a .382 on-base average to boot.

And Another Dream is Realized

Chris Tillman, a six-foot-five, 200-pound, 21-year-old right-hander for the Baltimore Orioles will make his major-league debut tonight at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore against Kansas City. First pitch is set for 6:05 PM CST ... I hope I get to see it. It's great fun watching a young kid appear in his first major-league game, regardless of what my rooting interest might be. Watching the culmination of a dream, a life's work, is always special. Millions of boys across the world play baseball in any given summer, but fewer than a thousand can be on one of the thirty major-league teams' rosters in a season. Congratulations and best wishes to young Mr. Tillman, beater of thousands-to-one odds.

More on the Joy of Gambling

Before the season started I posited that betting against the Yankees' winning 96 or more games (Sportsbook.com soon after dropped the over/under from 95.5 to 94.5) was a good deal. A recent hot streak after a very mediocre start, though, has them on a pace to threaten that 96-win barrier. Their 31-21 record (through June 2) puts them on a 97-win pace. Baseball Prospectus's proprietary "PECOTA" projections currently have them looking at 97 wins as well.

So how are they doing it?

In a nutshell, offense. While New York's pitching staff is only 12th out of fourteen in earned-run average (all numbers per ESPN's Web site), it is tied for the AL in runs scored with 300, 46 total runs above the league average. They are second in batting average, second in home runs, and fourth in bases on balls, all leading to a number-one ranking in on-base average, that most important of batting stats, and a second-to-Texas rank in slugging average. Driving the train are Derek Jeter, who three weeks shy of his 35th birthday has arrested a two-year slide and is now hitting .319 with power; Johnny Damon (.301 with 10 home runs and a .536 SLG); and Hideki Matsui, whose .500 SLG is tied for third among DHs. For the most part, the Yankees' run production has been driven more by balance than anything else. The only position at which they to date have received below-average production has been third base, where they now have Hall of Famer Alex Rodriguez returning from injury.

I'm still pretty comfortable in picking them to fall below the standard. Jeter and Damon in particular are playing over their heads considering their advancing ages and the pitching staff has shown nothing to inspire real confidence. Plus the age- and durability-related injury risks remain.

Bringing the Badness

Oh, sweet baby jane are the Houston Astros going to be bad.

I know that they won yesterday, beating Chicago 3-2 in a ten-inning affair. I know that they have two of the game's brighter stars in Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt. I know that they have a successful recent history, with only two losing seasons in the past seventeen years. I know that an NL championship trophy from 2005 shines in their trophy case.

But oh, are they going to be bad.

Forget that they are trotting out as their third baseman 35-year-old Geoff Blum, whose .700 career OPS is about fifty points below the norm for his position. Forget that the starting pitching rotation was patched together with Elmer's glue. Focus on one thing: Houston has played two games in 2009, and in each manager Cecil Cooper has chosen to bat Pudge Rodriguez second.

Rodriguez is finishing off a remarkable career. He once possessed a breathtakingly broad skill set, highlighted by his legendary throwing arm a catlike quickness behind the plate. Even at his best, however, Pudge was a poor choice for the second spot in the batting order. His awful ratio of double plays to walks drawn was always better suited for the fifth or sixth hole, and that ratio has only grown uglier with time. That Cooper cannot see this is by itself evidence that he is incapable of effectively running a major-league team. Couple that level of boss's-chair incompetence with a roster that swamps its only two bright lights with flotsam, and even a .500 record is a pipe dream.

Astros fans, you are headed towards a bright light. That light is an onrushing train.

RIP, John Brittain, 1965-2009

We lost yesterday one of the funniest men to ever write about baseball, John Brittain. As of now, there are close to 600 comments on the Baseball Primer thread regarding his passing, probably ninety-five per cent of which are from people who never met him, yet feel a sense of loss and will for a while. If nothing else, that speaks to the power of the Internet's ability to bring together people (which has been remarked upon many multiples of millions of times) and to the wit and wisdom of John's writing (which cannot be remarked upon enough).

His last article was published on The Hardball Times site only last week. Fittingly, it covered John's favorite team, the Toronto Blue Jays.

The writing world is a little less full today.

RIP, John, you socially-unacceptable thing, you.

Because When I Speak, Vegas Listens

Last week I noted that betting even money on the Yankees to win fewer than 95 games was a license to steal money. The bookmakers have agreed: SportsBook.com now has New York's over/under down from 95.5 wins to 94.5 and the price has gone from even to -115 ($115 wager pays $100).

I graciously accept the title of most influential person in Las Vegas, and will wield my power wisely.

Yanks under 94.5 at -115 is still a decent bet, if not the print-money deal it was a week ago. There's some real risk in that lineup; Derek Jeter will be 35 in June, can no longer play anything more than a passible shortstop (if that), has lost his power (after belting 150-200 points of isolated slugging at his peak, he was at 108 last year), and is little more than an average player. They're paying A.J. Burnett for five seasons' worth of Cy Young-caliber pitching when he's really had only three good years in his whole career. They need C.C. Sabathia to not develop his own gravitational pull. Throw in the age in the outfield, their not having a decent backup behind Jorge Posada ... there's a lot of risk here. Plus the competition from the Red Sox and defending champion Rays will be just brutal, Toronto still has one of the better run-prevention teams in baseball, and Baltimore will be ushering in the Era of Matt Wieters, who will one day rule all he surveys. I see New York as more of a high-80s team with 92- 93-win upside, maybe a 30-35% chance of getting to 95 ... at -115 you need about a 53% probability to break even, so under-94.5 is still playable.

If gambling were legal, of course.

EDIT: 3/23/2009 - I mentioned at the top that "Yankees to win fewer than 95 games" was the original bet. The original bet was actually Yankees to win fewer than 96 games, since the over/under was 95.5 -- LCL

Make! Money!! Now!!!

The Dow has lost most of its gains from the past ten years. Jim Cramer is waving his arms on CNBC's Mad Money, saying that while there's always a bull market somewhere, he can't find it here. Many workers' 401(k) accounts have been wiped clean. And in the cruelest of fates, some people "were good friends" with Bernie Madoff. In such uncertain times, how does one grow wealth?

The award-winning^* staff at Diamonds & Emeralds is here to provide you with the answer. The surest way to make money in 2009 would be to bet on the New York Yankees' winning fewer than 96 games this year. Or it would be if gambling were not illegal.

Whatever.

Here are the MLB over/unders for regular season wins, as posted by SportsBook.com. The minus-sign number in parenthesis represents the amount needed to risk to win $100 (the rare plus-sign number denotes how much the better stands to win with a $100 bet)

Toronto Blue Jays
Over 79.5 (-105)
Under 79.5 (-125)

Texas Rangers
Over 73.5 (-130)
Under 73.5 (even)

Arizona Diamondbacks
Over 86.5 (-115)
Under 86.5 (-115)

Atlanta Braves
Over 84.5 (-115)
Under 84.5 (-115)

Baltimore Orioles
Over 72.5 (-105)
Under 72.5 (-125)

Boston Red Sox
Over 93.5 (-130)
Under 93.5 (even)

Chicago Cubs
Over 91.5 (-115)
Under 91.5 (-115)

Chicago White Sox
Over 78.5 (-115)
Under 78.5 (-115)

Cincinnati Reds
Over 80.5 (-115)
Under 80.5 (-115)

Cleveland Indians
Over 85.5 (-115)
Under 85.5 (-115)

Colorado Rockies
Over 77.5 (-115)
Under 77.5 (-115)

Detroit Tigers
Over 81.5 (-115)
Under 81.5 (-115)

Florida Marlins
Over 76.5 (-115)
Under 76.5 (-115)

Houston Astros
Over 73.5 (+105)
Under 73.5 (-135)

Kansas City Royals
Over 75.5 (-105)
Under 75.5 (-125)

Los Angeles Angels
Over 87.5 (-130)
Under 87.5 (even)

Los Angeles Dodgers
Over 82.5 (-150)
Under 82.5 (+120)

Milwaukee Brewers
Over 80.5 (-115)
Under 80.5 (-115)

Minnesota Twins
Over 83.5 (-115)
Under 83.5 (-115)

New York Mets
Over 89.5 (-115)
Under 89.5 (-115)

New York Yankees
Over 95.5 (-130)
Under 95.5 (even)

Oakland Athletics
Over 82.5 (-105)
Under 82.5 (-125)

Philadelphia Phillies
Over 88.5 (-115)
Under 88.5 (-115)

Pittsburgh Pirates
Over 69.5 (-115)
Under 69.5 (-115)

San Diego Padres
Over 71.5 (-115)
Under 71.5 (-115)

San Francisco Giants
Over 80.5 (-115)
Under 80.5 (-115)

Seattle Mariners
Over 72.5 (-115)
Under 72.5 (-115)

St Louis Cardinals
Over 82.5 (-115)
Under 82.5 (-115)

Tampa Bay Rays
Over 88.5 (-130)
Under 88.5 (even)

Washington Nationals
Over 73.5 (+105)
Under 73.5 (-135)

How on earth is Yankees over 95.5 (essentially betting that the Yankees will go 96-66 or better, a mark that would basically make them the the best team in baseball) such a heavily-favored bet? Minus-130? The idea that the Yanks will win 96 or more games is so popular with SportsBook's customers that the book forces you to accept only 79 cents on the dollar (a $130 bet pays $100) if you want a piece of it. At that price, Yankee-over betters need a 57% probability to have even a break-even chance of winning money, and, to my mind, a 70+% chance to make it a good value wager. Do the 2009 Yankees have a 70% shot at winning 96 games? Out of the 120 team-seasons over the last four years, only nine teams (7.5%, an average of 2.3 teams per year out of 30) have won 96+. So risking 130 to win 100 on Yankees over 95.5 means requires thinking that the Yankees have a 70% shot at being one of the top two teams in baseball. That's an awfully high standard. Much easier money stands to be made on the under (95 wins or fewer). They can be "only" one of the top five or six teams in the game and still not win 95, especially in a division as steel-cage-deathmatch tough as the AL East -- and that bet pays even money.

Detroit under 81.5 looks good, too. That's a club with some tasty implosion potential.

Pity we do not yet live in a free society. Maybe in 2362 (sigh).

^* Six-time winner of coveted "Darkest Office in the Building" award