Are the Yankees Relying Too Much on the Home Run?

A familiar face stared down at the Yankees on Monday night, only this time it had some scruff on it's chin. Brett Tomko, of the recently DFA'd former Yankee Brett Tomkos, took the mound for the Oakland A's and pitched five innings of shutout ball against his former team.  It was Tomko's first start since May of 2008, a season in which he compiled a 6.17 ERA as a starter with 67 hits allowed in 54 innings. Brett's subsequent 2009 campaign in the pinstripe bullpen wasn't much of an improvement: 5.23 ERA, 5 home runs allowed in 20.2 innings, a .481 SLG against.  Around mid-July, the Yankees let him go. In truth, there was some question as to why Tomko had remained a part of the Yankee bullpen for so long.  He was brought to spring training as a veteran stand-in, maybe holding hope that he could harness some control and be helpful.  It was never apparent that Tomko offered anything more than any of the younger arms in the system. It came as a surprise to many when Tomko earned the five inning win against his former team Monday night.  Outrage might be a better description.  The Yankees offensive effort was described as sleepy, lazy, unmotivated, trying to hit a three run home run and/or waiting for the home run. I find reactions like this amusing, if not a little strange. I wasn't happy that the Yankees got shutout last night by their former pitcher, especially one that I didn't feel had much business being on their roster as a reliever, nevermind a starter.  But that's how baseball works. If Tomko was a complete waste of pitching talent, it's doubtful he would have ever set foot on a major league mound.  Is it completely unreasonable to think that he could pitch well?  It is what he does for a living, afterall. Fans live and die by the game.  Maybe we take a greater frustration in losses like last night because we're invested differently into the game than players are.  If you're a player, especially a pitcher, you have a different perspective on the ups and downs of playing. We look at the numbers of players and place certain expectations on their performance.  When they don't meet or exceed that performance, we get mad.  But numbers are averages which contain both high and low extremes.  We rejoice and recoil in the extremes while expecting that every player will perform like their averages on a consistent basis. That's not how it works, not for players and not for teams.  The Washington Nationals are currently 43-75, the worst record in the league.  Yet from August 2nd through August 9th, those same Nationals rattled off eight wins in a row. Were you expecting that?  I wasn't.  But it happened. The Yankees are 12-4 in August for a .750 winning percentage.  That's not going to last forever and at times they're not going to hit.  Last night was one of those times. The other argument I heard is that this team sits around and waits for the three run home run instead of playing the coveted small ball that everyone attributes to the 1998 team. With runners on base, the 2009 Yankees hit .271/.359/.448, about .025 below their season average OPS. They also have a .292 BAbip (batting average on balls in play), which is a bit unlucky.  They've hit 187 home runs to date. With runners on base, the 1998 Yankees hit .296/.371/.462, .007 above their season average OPS.  They also had a .324 BAbip, which is pretty lucky and makes up some of the difference between them and the 2009 team.  They hit 150 home runs at this point in the season (119 games). Even with the increased luck on the part of the 1998 Yankees, there's a bit more here.  Looking at bases occupied from Baseball Reference, we see that Yankee batters in 1998 came to the plate with runners on 3080 times.  The data doesn't spell out exactly how many baserunners were on during those 3080 plate appearances, but working out the runners comes to 3728 (this counting each runner on base for each PA.  If a runner did not score and another batter came to the plate, that runner is counted again because it it another opportunity).  From there, we'll get a percentage of runs scored based on those baserunner opportunities. The 1998 team scored 847 of those 3728 baserunner opportunities.  Subtract the 89 home runs hit and you're left with 758 runs scored.  That means that 22.33 percent of the 1998 team's baserunners scored after eliminating home runs from the equation. The 2009 team through 119 games has  scored 542 of 2447 baserunner opportunities.  Subtract the 67 home runs and you're left with 475 runs scored.  That means that 19.41 percent of the baserunners have scored for the 2009 Yankees after eliminating home runs from the equation. That 2.92 percent is significant over the course of 3000+ baserunner opportunities.  Applying that percentage to the 2009 Yankees baserunners, we come up with 71.5 less runners scored than if they hit at the 1998 teams pace.  Interestingly, the 1998 Yankees after 119 games scored 69 more runs than the current 2009 squad. We can't assume that this difference in runs scored is directly attributable to "reliance on the home run."  The big factor here is the 1998 team's very lucky .324 BAbip. Taking a simple ratio of their .324 BAbip and 847 runs scored and applying the 2009 team's .292 BAbip drops the '98 team down to 763 runs, about 82 less (not the most scientific of methods but quick and dirty).  Also, the difference in BAbip (.032) and difference in baserunners scored (2.92 percent) are too close to be ignored. Call that difference in BAbip clutch hitting if you must.  It's more luck than anything else and the basic difference between the two teams.  Accounting for that luck, even compared to one of the better offensive teams of our era, the homer happy 2009 Yankees don't appear to be relying on just the home run to score.