Yanks and Angels: ALCS Thoughts

I've been debating a full blown breakdown of the Yanks and Angels American League Championship Series that starts Friday, but there are so many great resources (including River Ave Blues very detailed breakdown) that I don't think I'll be adding much insight to the blogosphere. So instead, we're just going to tackle a few of the outstanding issues leading into the series.

Matt over at Fack Youk sheds some light on the Bobby Abreu love that has poured out over the last few months.  Indeed, reports of Abreu's resurgence have been greatly exaggerated.  Also consider that, while Abreu's .390 OBP sure is nice, his .435 slugging percentage is less so.  Where his defense looked like it might have actually improved the first half of the year, his UZR has dropped down into the -4s. Last season's UZR of -25.3 might have been a fluke, although Dewan's +/- had Abreu at -12 runs and -10 this year.

As Matt points out, don't believe the hype (or tripe) FOX spits at you during the ALCS:

In this post yesterday, Rob Neyer, vamping on Tyler Kepner's piece in The Times, pointed out that the Angels walked 66 more times this year than last, boosting their walk rate from 7.8% to 8.7% and rising from 11th in the AL in OBP back to third, where they had finished in 2007. Yet Neyer also notes that the difference can be entirely attributed to the performance of Abreu alone, who had 65 more walks than the man he replaced - Garrett Anderson, a notorious free swinger whose career high in walks is a whopping 38. In addition to Abreu, Chone Figgins walked 39 more times this year than in 2008. So outside of Figgins and swapping Anderson for Abreu, the rest of the Angels walked 38 fewer times than they did in 2008.

Joba appears to be back in the bullpen for the remainder of the postseason and that's the right decision.  It's been left up in the air whether Gaudin or Joba could possibly start game four but that seems more like a courtesy to Joba than an actual decision.  Joba has shown a little bit of fire coming out of the pen and has stated that mentally, it is easier for him, which may be the best thing the Yankees have heard in awhile.  The starter experiment with him and Hughes will still continue in 2010, but for now, Joba gives the Yankees a pretty good bullpen.

Johnny Damon probably won't give up any starts to Brett Gardner, at least, not in game one.  Damon had a terrible ALDS and didn't look particularly good in the field.  That doesn't mean Brett Gardner is ready for the playoffs, or that the Yankees should feature Brett Gardner and Melky Cabrera in the same lineup.  That makes very little sense.  Damon has looked bad before but the Yankees are better off taking their chances with Damon at the top of the lineup than dropping Gardner or Swisher in the number two hole.  It got the Yankees this far; there's no reason to over think the situation.

It's almost a lock that Jose Molina will catch AJ Burnett again. It's not the greatest decision in the world and we've discussed why here before.  If Girardi was open to second guessing the first time, doing a 180 after Burnett's success (albeit lucky success with his five walks) in game two would really look like a flip-flop.  I don't know if Girardi cares about such criticism, but the results of game two legitimized his decision, at least for him, leaving little room to change.

All this talk about CC Sabathia pitching game four on three days rest is a bit premature.  Obviously, the weather can play a huge factor in how this series plays out with a rain-out eliminating any chances of CC pitching three times this series.

CC has pitched on three days rest five times in his career, the first coming in 2001 for the Indians.  The next four came in 2008 when the Brewers rode CC's back all the way to the playoffs, where he finally collapsed in the NLDS game 2 allowing 5 runs and 4 walks in 3.2 innings.

What's interesting is looking at those three regular season games for the Brewers:

Gtm	Date	Opp	Rslt	Rest	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	Pit	Str	StL	StS
155	20-Sep	CIN	L,3-4	3	5.2	7	4	1	1	3	0	105	70	14	10
158	24-Sep	PIT	W,4-2	3	7	4	1	1	2	11	0	108	70	18	14
162	28-Sep	CHC	W,3-1	3	9	4	1	0	1	7	0	122	81	17	20

You can't put a lot of emphasis on one game, but the worst of the three came on CC's first start on three days rest against an anemic Cincinnati Reds offense.  After that, CC found his stride until falling apart in the NLCS.

BrooksBaseball.net has all of the PitchFX data from these starts so I thought it would be interesting to take a look, starting with his last start on four days rest:

Cubs - 9/16/2008
Pitch Statistics
Pitch Type	Avg Spd	Max Spd	Avg H-Break	Avg V-Break	Count	Strikes / %
FA (Fastball)	93.78	95.8	5.22	8.42	45	34 / 75.56%
CH (Changeup)	86.06	86.9	8.28	6.67	30	21 / 70.00%
SL (Slider)	80.26	81.1	-7.97	-2.14	12	9 / 75.00%
CU (Curveball)	78.94	80.6	-6.85	-1.67	12	6 / 50.00%

Results:

IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	Pit	Str	StL	StS
7	9	4	4	0	5	1	99	70	12	15

Reds - 9/20/2008
Pitch Statistics
Pitch Type	Avg Spd	Max Spd	Avg H-Break	Avg V-Break	Count	Strikes / %
FA (Fastball)	94.48	96.6	7.51	7.83	64	45 / 70.31%
CH (Changeup)	85.8	87.2	10.07	6.12	22	12 / 54.55%
SL (Slider)	79.9	80.6	-6.36	-1.24	6	3 / 50.00%
CU (Curveball)	78.8	80.4	-5.47	-2.88	13	10 / 76.92%

Results:

IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	Pit	Str	StL	StS
5	7	4	1	1	3	0	105	70	14	10

Pirates - 9/24/2008
Pitch Statistics
Pitch Type	Avg Spd	Max Spd	Avg H-Break	Avg V-Break	Count	Strikes / %
FA (Fastball)	93.63	96.2	5.58	7.27	56	35 / 62.50%
CH (Changeup)	86.09	86.9	7.42	5.46	14	9 / 64.29%
SL (Slider)	80.5	82.4	-7.25	-2.41	27	18 / 66.67%
CU (Curveball)	79	79.6	-7.16	-3.02	3	2 / 66.67%

Results:

IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	Pit	Str	StL	StS
7	4	1	1	2	11	0	108	70	18	14

Cubs - 9/28/2008
Pitch Statistics
Pitch Type	Avg Spd	Max Spd	Avg H-Break	Avg V-Break	Count	Strikes / %
FA (Fastball)	93.96	96.4	6.27	7.47	59	35 / 59.32%
CH (Changeup)	85.81	87.5	7.89	6.42	39	28 / 71.79%
SL (Slider)	80.44	85.2	-7.68	-1.47	24	18 / 75.00%

Results:

IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	Pit	Str	StL	StS
9	4	1	0	1	7	0	122	81	17	20

Phillies - 10/2/2008
Pitch Statistics
Pitch Type	Avg Spd	Max Spd	Avg H-Break	Avg V-Break	Count	Strikes / %
FA (Fastball)	94.39	97.4	6.62	9.04	50	31 / 62.00%
CH (Changeup)	86.53	87.5	8.99	7.72	20	11 / 55.00%
SL (Slider)	80.51	82.5	-8.45	-0.43	22	12 / 54.55%
CU (Curveball)	80.5	80.9	-8.49	0.67	2	1 / 50.00%

Results:

IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	Pit	Str	StL	StS
3.2	6	5	5	4	5	1	98	55	11	14

Lots of info here to digest.  Probably too much but what the heck... Interesting that CC completely dropped his curveball during his third start on short rest. There certainly is no decline in fastball velocity, at least nothing exaggerated.  What we do see is a change in movement on the fastball, which is more consistent vertically than horizontally.  He did lose some command of his fastball as the starts wore on, rebounding a bit (maybe too much) in his NLCS start on 10/2/08. In CC's first start on three days rest (9/20), his release point went up a little bit higher.  As a result, even though he was throwing a decent amount of strikes, he only struck out three batters.  This was the Reds, mind you, who were about league average as far as batter's strike outs.  CC's next two starts brought his release point lower and lower still and the results were very good. Finally, after throwing 122 pitches on three days rest in the last regular season game, CC's release point raised up again and he was beat up by the Phillies in the NLCS.  The four balls way off the chart are the result of an intentional base on balls. It's interesting to look across these starts and see if there are any hints to Sabathia wearing down.  If anything, it looks as though he settles into the rest after the first start.  It's also worth noting, however, that two of these starts came against the Reds and the Pirates, along with the usual National League offense caveats. Could CC handle a start on short rest?  I'm inclined to think he could, although only three strikeouts against the Reds that first game scare me a bit.  His pitch/strikes ratio was pretty good but his release point suggests he was a little tired, which is reasonable. My big concern with CC is what the effect would be the following start.  On three days rest in the above example, he bounced back nicely.  Can we expect the same?  Who knows. The argument by most will be that he's the big money pitcher and he needs to step up.  That's a nice way of looking at it but is it fair to expect someone to change their workload all of a sudden?  Is that simplifying Girardi's decision by just laying it on CC, as if his role is to play Superman because Joba floundered in the second half? A lot of the decision will be based on the weather and where the Yankees are in the series.  If they find themselves in a 2-1 series, whether in their favor or not, it may be worth taking the risk.  One has to figure that CC on three days rest would be more effective than Chad Gaudin, who has not pitched in a game since October 3rd.