I'm not complaining about October at all - I love it. The intensity is palpable. But I also think that baseball's regular season is uniquely demanding and challenging, and it's a shame that we basically wipe it all away and only care about the outcome of a postseason tournament, as great as it is.
Small sample size, but the Yankees have also played 6 more games at home where their winning percentage is about .060 higher.
That's why I try to enjoy all the challenges along the way. The two NY-Houston series were amazing. Boston and NY have split six games. They have 13 games left to determine their own fate inside the division. The trick is to beat up on the bad teams and then edge your fellow heavyweight. Boston's ability to flog Baltimore might give them the division.
I agree about the Astros. They're right up there with the Sox and Yankees now in terms of wins and winning percentage and I can't see them slowing down much unless something catastrophic happens. It's absolutely not a given that the best record is coming out of the East.
Yes. Thanks for clarifying.
I wouldn`t want to win the division if my players got a whole week off, or even 4 or 5 days. The hitters timing would be effected.
Xander has hit about 30% better over his career vs L compared to R (128 WRC+ vs 96).
You can call platoon splits a small sample size for each individual player this year, but cumulatively, the entire team is not a small sample size, and it's all recent vs. going back years like career numbers do. A journeyman like LeBlanc setting down 22 or whatever it was in a row (OK, one guy having a career type night, but still) was eye opening. CC was 4 and 0 with a 1.04 ERA vs. Boston last year. I hope Cora and staff are at least aware and are trying to figure out what is going on vs. lefties.
They had injuries to some of their hitters who hit lefties the best. Kinda simple.
Even with a decimated rotation in 2016, we saw how well that worked out for Boston facing off against them. Playoffs (esp the first round) are such a short sample, it really doesn't matter who you face. It mostly matters whether your own team gets hot.
Totally.
Who? Mookie’s numbers are still sensational against lefties (and righties). That’s not it. BTW, this is a subject for the lineup thread, not here. Maybe I’ll bring it up over there sometime.
Mookie, JD, and Xander all missed time (Xander and Mookie missed more), and those are the three best hitters they have against lefties. With all three in the lineup more often, as opposed to their not as great at hitting lefties replacements, the numbers overall against lefties should get better, wouldn't you think?
To balance that though, guys that don’t hit lefties as well, Moreland and Beni, for example, have been kept out sometimes against them. That hasn’t done much good. Maybe in the postseason, they’re not platooned for, so they better find a way.
Well the Mariners are a tier below. Talent-wise, they are definitely not on the same level, and they are outplaying their win expectancy by a full seven games at the moment, thanks to an absurd record of 23-10 in one run games. Their farm system is still bankrupt, so I'm not sure how they make any key additions. Now that Houston is waking up, I think we can regard them as a strong WC game favorite, and a team that won't be easy to dispatch in a single game, especially if it happens out here in Seattle.
They still have to play .700 ball in September to get to 110+ wins right? All I’m saying is playing at that level for an entire 162 game schedule is extremely difficult to do. Maybe New York is a historically great team team this year, maybe they are on an upswing in the normal ups and downs that even really good teams go through over the course of a long baseball season. We really don’t know yet. It’s still only June.
They just had to fly to DC in the middle of a homestand to play 1.5 games against one of the best teams in the NL on what was supposed to be an off day, then fly back and play three against Seattle. They also had an absolutely insane stretch earlier in the year where they played Boston, Cleveland, and Houston for 10 straight games. I don't think the schedule argument flies.
Yankees are also playing 3 games over their pythag. They are clearly a good team, but I agree historic (as in 110+ wins) is way premature. Lots of things can happen between now and October including trades, injuries, and plain ol' fashioned regression.
Yes they are playing well right now, and have been for a couple of months. The Red Sox were as well until they went cold at the plate. It happens to even really good teams. I’m just sick of the overall attitude of thinking around New England that every time the Yankees go on a hot streak, that means they are never going to lose again, but when the Red Sox only play .500 ball for a couple of weeks it means that they really aren’t that good no matter what they did in the previous two months. It’s like people around here (I’m talking about the Boston area and not SOSH, however I feel like it’s creeping into this site as well) have never watched an entire baseball season.
Who do we expect to regress? I guess Andujar and Torres, but I think we can expect Stanton, Sanchez, Hicks and Gregorious to start hitting better soon to negate them.
Comparing to Steamer projections, sorted by most PA so far this year, amount above/-below wRC+ projection:
I didn't necessarily mean regression from their lineup....but results. They've outperformed their pythag a bit, so that could regress (or it might not). We already knew they were a good team. But it usually takes a few extra breaks to win something like 110 games.
