The goal is to score more runs than you allow. Hitting, pitching, defense and baserunning are all factors in this run scoring/prevention balance. The Yankees had the 2nd best run differential in baseball this season and they did it without the benefit of great pitching or above average defense. Home runs are not evil and pitching alone does not win championships.

Can't argue with that.

The pitchers used in the playoffs by the Yankees were a subset of those used in the regular season. I believe I read that something like 84% of the innings in the playoffs were pitched by their three starters, if we add Mariano it comes to around 90%. During the regular season those four pitchers probably pitched around 45% of the teams innings. The Yankees probably had one of the bigger gaps between the top three pitchers and the rest of the staff. Sergio Mitre, and Chien-Ming Wang certainly contributed to the regular season ranking.

In summary the regular season pitching ranking was not directly relevant to the playoff pitching.

If Hitler were an offensive play he'd be a laser shot into left-center.

So think about that.

The pitchers used in the playoffs by the Yankees were a subset of those used in the regular season. I believe I read that something like 84% of the innings in the playoffs were pitched by their three starters, if we add Mariano it comes to around 90%. During the regular season those four pitchers probably pitched around 45% of the teams innings. The Yankees probably had one of the bigger gaps between the top three pitchers and the rest of the staff. Sergio Mitre, and Chien-Ming Wang certainly contributed to the regular season ranking.

Textbook example of why the best team in the regular season won't necessarily be the best team in the postseason. Depth is significantly more important in the regular season than the postseason.

In summary the regular season pitching ranking was not directly relevant to the playoff pitching.

And anyway, the overall pitching was much improved in the second half of the season. The starters' ERA went from 4.76 to 4.14, and the relievers went from 4.19 to 3.57. And don't forget that a certain amount of that first half number can be attributed to 42 innings of Chien-Ming Wang, not to mention a fair number of other pitchers who weren't a part of the final roster. By the end of the year, this was a pretty damn good staff.

And of the four key pitchers who were the ones most used in the postseason, here are their 1st half / second half splits:

Sabathia 3.86 / 2.74

Burnett 3.77 / 4.33

Pettitte 4.85 / 3.31

Rivera 2.43 / 0.92

Critical as I was of Girardi's reliance on nothing but those 4 pitchers in the last 3 games of the World Series, I should have paid more attention to the way he rested them in the second half. Pettitte went from 107 innings down to 87 in the second half, Sabathia dropped from 128 to 101, and Burnett went from 107 to 99. And Rivera pitched but 29 innings after the break, down from 37.

That 11th in MLB ERA was also 3rd in the AL, which is hardly a terrible finish.

In the World Series, the Yankees threw a total of 53 innings. Innings not thrown by CC, AJ, Pettite or Mo:

Joba: 3
Marte: 2.2
Robertson: 2.1
Aceves: 2
Hughes: 1.2
Coke: 1.1
Bruney: 0.1

So that's roughly 25% of the innings. Of course, if we start discussing meaningful innings, it's a lot smaller percentage since none of Coke, Bruney, Aceves or Robertson pitched with the Yankees closer than four runs down.

EDIT: And Marte's innings were almost exclusively to lefties

Andy, if you got those numbers from BB-Ref we do pre/post AS game totals, and that is about 90 to 72 games.

Good to know that, Sean, but then why don't you just say pre/post AS game rather than 1st half/2nd half? You'd even save a bit of space that way.

But though that does affect those innings totals, it doesn't affect the rate stats. No matter where you place the line, the Yankees' second "half" pitching was a big improvement over the first "half" of the season, which means that you have to take those full season totals with a grain of salt.

I think that when guys say that Pitching, Speed and Defense Win Championships, what they really mean is that hitting is more obvious than the other three.

Textbook example of why the best team in the regular season won't necessarily be the best team in the postseason. Depth is significantly more important in the regular season than the postseason.

True, but... remind me again which was the best team in the regular season?

Yes, as somebody noted, team rankings should be based on the league (not all MLB teams) because of the DH and differences in league run environment. And the narrative story for this passage changes a bit if you do that.

This is an odd time to try to make this point. In this World Series, the team which pitched substantially better (Yankees ERA 4.58 vs. Phillies at 5.37) defeated the team which had the higher OPS and more HRs (Phillies .782 and 11 vs. Yankees .725 and 6). The defense seemed about even in the series. The stolen bases were fairly even in the series (5 for Phillies and 4 for Yankees).

Andy there is a note above the table.

Thanks again, Sean, but why not just say that in the box itself, as in "Pre-ASG" and "Post-ASG"? When you're trying to focus on one apparently self-explanatory stat (yeah, I take words like "half" too literally), your eyes don't always look around for the sidebar qualifiers.

It's Bud's fault for scheduling the ASG when he does. (Oddly, I don't think I ever read the note above the table but always assumed that the "halves" were keyed to the ASG, not the midpoint in games played. Hasn't it always been thus in baseball (at least in my lifetime)?

Hasn't it always been thus in baseball (at least in my lifetime)?

That's what I thought. Even though it's never exactly at the 81 game mark, as far as I can remember, people have always used the All Star break to separate the first and second half.

(Oddly, I don't think I ever read the note above the table but always assumed that the "halves" were keyed to the ASG, not the midpoint in games played. Hasn't it always been thus in baseball (at least in my lifetime)?

I think so. There has always been more "first half" than "second half."

You do have the one day where your team has played 81 games and you can mentally double all of their stats to get their full-season pace, but other than that, when anyone in baseball talks about the "second half" they are talking about less than 50% of the games.

...as far as I can remember, people have always used the All Star break to separate the first and second half.

People may have used that to separate it, but (as Sean points out) it has rarely if ever been an exact halfway point, so to suggest that Girardi "rested" his most effective pitchers in the "second half" is clearly incorrect.

Actually, it <u>isn't</u> Bud's fault that the ASG happens when it does. It's been that way for much longer than he's been Commissar.

I think Sean had to make his "nomenclature decision" based on what would be the "customary usage." This is kind of a no-win situation for him, because whichever way he goes, there will be some criticism.

As for the "fancy" stats in the article: I think good old OPS+ and ERA+ tell us the same story. 119 OPS+ is a darned good hittin' team; 104 ERA+ is a decently better than average (but no better) pitching staff. Clearly the Yanks tightened things up and made a tremendous stretch run, and they deserve tons of credit for that.

In their case, "depth" did enter into it--hitting depth. All those guys at >+ 120 OPS+ made it impossible for even post-season opponents to stop them. A guy like Matsui, far less heralded than most of his teammates, and seen in some quarters as a "disappointment" given the hoopla that surrounded his original acquisition, steps up in what might be his last game as a Yankee with a huge night. That's a great story, no matter for whom you're rooting.

I think so. There has always been more "first half" than "second half."

it's because a true halfway point is probably around July 4th

But that's very good defense for being the Yankees of the last decade or so, both the UZR and PADE.

Pitching, Speed and Defense Win Championships, Right?

A bottomless bank account doesn't hurt either.

(Oddly, I don't think I ever read the note above the table but always assumed that the "halves" were keyed to the ASG, not the midpoint in games played. Hasn't it always been thus in baseball (at least in my lifetime)?

Yes and no. I guess I should have (a) checked the top of the table, and (b) not been so literal minded. But in fact the traditional demarcation point was not the All-Star break but July 4th, as in the old chestnut that "teams that are in first place on the 4th of July nearly always go on to win the pennant," which was a standard feature of newspaper columns for many decades. I probably still have some of that old reflex embedded in my subconscious.

But anyway, now that I've been grabbed by the collar and shown the error of my ways, I won't be so literal minded the next time.

And we get splits starting in 1954, well after the start of the All-Star Game. During the dual All-Star Game period, the split corresponds with the first game (early to mid July) rather than the second (late July to early August). Reasonable, as usual, Chairman Forman.

Don't teams with historically great pitching staffs tend to do poorly in the postseason? I seem to remember Bill James pointing this out once. I know people like to say "Good pitching beats good hitting," but I've never really understood why they say that. Seems more accurate to say "Good pitching beats good hitting. Unless it doesn't."