Taxpayers will fund Yankees' VIP

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/giants/2008/01/03/2008-01-03_exgiants_out_to_boot_former_club-2.html


TAMPA - Nearly half a year later, Jerry Reese's comments still sting ex-Giant Luke Petitgout.

In many ways, the Giant GM's criticisms are more painful than the knee injury that ended the season for the Bucs' left tackle in Week 4.

"The way I went out there wasn't the way I thought it would be, so it sticks in there a little bit," Petitgout said Wednesday of being released by the Giants in the offseason after eight seasons with the club. "Things that were said regarding me by Jerry Reese on the eve of training camp certainly stick with me. Someday I'll get even. Just not this Sunday."

While Petitgout is on injured reserve, there are two other former Giants with something to prove to Giants management when the Bucs play the Giants on Sunday in the wild-card round.

Like Petitgout, wide receiver Ike Hilliard is a former first-round pick who spent eight seasons with the Giants before joining Tampa Bay as a free agent in 2005. And December's special teams player of the month, kicker Matt Bryant, would love nothing more than to beat the team that cut him in 2004 with a last-second field goal this weekend.

"There's definitely...anytime you get kicked out of a team, you got some hard feelings," Petitgout said. "They'll be using it as motivation, that is all you can do."

Petitgout has all the motivation he needs for the rest of his career after Reese reportedly called the left tackle "a marginal player for a long time" on the eve of training camp last summer.

Petitgout was released on Feb.12, 2007 by the Giants after he broke his left leg nine games into the 2006 season.

"People are so worried about left tackle ... I think that's so overrated," Reese reportedly said of Petitgout, who was replaced by David Diehl. "People act like Petitgout was the second coming. He never made the Pro Bowl, and I don't think he ever was a first alternate. Now all of a sudden he's the savior? That's ridiculous. I don't think we're that bad off without Luke Petitgout. He was not a star left tackle. He was a solid left tackle on some occasions and other times he wasn't."

If the Giants thought Hilliard's best days were behind him, the wide receiver has caught a team-high 62 balls for 722 yards and a touchdown this season.

"(The Giants) didn't want me to play with them anymore," said Hilliard, the seventh player taken in the 1997 draft. "I have been blessed to have found a home where I have a coach that actually believes I can play and trusted me with a lot of situations and I have been fortunate enough to make some plays."

Bryant, who is 28-for-33 this season, would love to kick the Giants into the offseason.

"It was definitely a rocky road from the get-go to the end," Bryant said of his two seasons with the Giants in which he made 37 of 46 field goals. "It's some series of unfortunate events that you hate to see happen, but sometimes it is not an organization, sometimes it is just people. I won't go into too much detail, but it would be fun to play this organization again.

https://yankeeslegends.forumotion.com/post.forum?mode=reply&t=89

TAMPA, Fla.: Defensive guru Monte Kiffin turned on tape of Eli Manning and shuddered at the thought of what the Tampa Bay Buccaneers need to do to beat the New York Giants in the opening round of the playoffs.

For all the talk about how the inconsistent Manning figures to be the key to his team's chances of winning Sunday's NFC wild-card game, the man responsible for devising a plan to shut down the fourth-year quarterback thinks the Bucs face an even more imposing challenge.

Stopping Brandon Jacobs.

"They're going to get off the bus running the football," Kiffin, Tampa Bay's long-time defensive coordinator, said. "And if we let them do it, it can be a long day."

At 6-foot-4, 264 pounds, Jacobs not only is one of the biggest running backs in the NFL, he's comparable in size to some of Tampa Bay's defensive linemen. He's strong enough to run over would-be tacklers and elusive enough to run around them.

Taking over for the retired Tiki Barber this season, the third-year pro overcame injuries that sidelined for him five games and part of two others to rush for 1,009 yards and four touchdowns.

When the Giants get him going, Manning's job becomes much easier.

"When they're running the football that makes him a very dangerous quarterback," Bucs linebacker Derrick Brooks said, adding that Manning has a knack for making plays at the end of games to make up for earlier mistakes.

"Whenever he has time to set his feet and make his throws, he's getting the job done. As the running game goes, so goes their offense."

Manning threw for 3,336 yards with 23 touchdowns and 20 interceptions this season. His 73.9 passer rating was 25th in the league, although Kiffin said statistics don't necessarily reflect what type of quarterback he's been.

The Giants are 7-1 on the road, and Manning is coming off a strong performances in a win over Buffalo that clinched a playoff berth and last Saturday's 38-35 loss to unbeaten New England.

"He's had his ups and downs this year, but it looks like he's on track right now," Kiffin said. "We're expecting we're going to get his best shot."

Brooks said the key to containing Jacobs and placing a heavier burden on Manning to carry the Giants' offense will be gang-tackling, hopefully before the big, bruising runner bursts into the secondary, where he's especially difficult to bring down.

"We're going to have to get two or three guys to the football. It's no different than the message we've been preaching all year long," Brooks said.

Manning passed for 251 yards and four touchdowns, and the Giants (10-6) scored more points against new England than any team this season.

Jacobs was productive with five receptions for 44 yards and a TD, as well as 67 yards rushing to go over 1,000 for the first time in his career.

"He makes some of the best 4- and 5-yard runs that you see. ... He is a load," Bucs coach Jon Gruden said. "He has the perimeter speed to get out on the edges. He has got maneuverability to cut back. He has good vision. And what can I say, he is as big of a back as I have ever seen. He is more than just a big back, he is a quick, elusive one at that."

Jacobs is confident the Giants can move the ball on the ground if they remain committed to the run and avoid turnovers.

The Bucs (9-7) yielded the second-fewest yards in the league overall, but were 17th in run defense.

"You get in and try to stick with it for a little bit, and hopefully they loosen up a little bit, and we will be able to run the ball," and create opportunities for the passing game and receivers Plaxico Burress and Amani Toomer, Jacobs said.

"Nothing is going to come easy. We will have to earn everything we get," added Manning, who's 0-2 in the playoffs. "It is just a matter of executing, and not making mistakes, and making the plays when they are there."

http://www.replacementlevel.com/index.php/RLYW/direct/the_wang_effect

If you're a baseball fan with at least some proclivity towards stats, you're probably familiar with Voros McCracken's DIPS theory. McCracken basically stated that a pitcher's ability to control what happens on balls in play is variable and volatile. Some overly extreme devotees to this theory take it to mean that a pitcher has zero control over a ball hit into play, but that's not really true. If it was, you wouldn't have groundball pitchers and fly ball pitchers. Also, selection bias would mean that anyone who reaches the majors may have a certain level of skill on balls in play that allowed them to get that far. I still think DIPS theory is useful in many ways, primarily because it taught me to look more closely at a pitcher's peripherals, but it's really just a fraction of any evaluating of pitching that I do.

One of the often-stated mantras about Chien-Ming Wang is that he generates easily fieldable ground balls, which means his success despite a low strikeout rate is not really that much of a fluke. It's possible this is true, at least in the regular season, but is there a way to quantify it?

I recorded zone rating daily throughout 2007 to see if I could use the day by day data to answer questions like this. Here's a look at what the numbers showed.

Split G GS Ch INN PO A E DP ZR PM Diff
Team Total 1307 1133 3054 10150 3211 1337 74 450 .830 2535 -18


G: Games
GS: Games started
Ch: Fieldable chances as defined by zone rating
INN: Defensive innings
PO: Putouts
A: Assists
E: Errors
ZR: Zone rating (PM/Ch)
PM: Plays made
Diff: Plays made compared to average

This is how the Yankees did as a team in 2007. Overall they made 18 plays fewer than average.

Here's a look at how the team did in the games Wang started. This does include all innings in those games including those not pitched by Wang, but I have no way to separate those out.

Split G GS Ch INN PO A E DP ZR PM Diff
Wang Total 248 215 591 1957.1 631 318 7 96 .853 504 10


Interesting, huh? In the games that Wang pitched, the team was 10 plays better than average.

Lastly, here's the team in games Wang did not start.

Split G GS Ch INN PO A E DP ZR PM Diff
Total - Wang 1059 918 2463 8192.9 2580 1019 67 354 .825 2031 -28


A few things to bear in mind about this data before we make too much of it.
1) It's only one year. Unfortunately no one I know of tracked daily zone rating before this season so sample size is an issue.
2) Like I said, this includes innings pitched by relievers and not just Wang. That muddies the numbers up a little.
3) BIP (ball in play) distribution. Perhaps Wang's balls in play just happened to find their way to the better fielders on the team? We can check that too.

Player Pos wG wINN wCh wPM wZR wDiff nwG nwINN nwCh nwPM nwZR nwDiff ZR Ratio
Phillips, Andy 1B 13 90 17 14 .824 0 44 341 73 62 .849 1 97.0%
Mientkiewicz, Doug 1B 13 79 16 13 .813 0 57 379 73 61 .836 0 97.2%
Cairo, Miguel 1B 4 33 13 9 .692 -2 18 123.1 29 23 .793 -1 87.3%
Phelps, Josh 1B 5 23 6 4 .667 -1 24 139.3 21 18 .857 0 77.8%
Betemit, Wilson 1B 3 21 1 0 .000 -1 11 53.1 17 14 .824 0 0.0%
Giambi, Jason 1B 4 21 7 4 .571 -2 14 100 19 17 .895 1 63.9%
Nieves, Wil 1B 1 6 1 1 1.000 0 0 -5 -1 -1 1.000 0 100.0%
Damon, Johnny 1B 1 6 2 2 1.000 0 4 2.1 -2 -2 1.000 0 100.0%
Cano, Robinson 2B 30 267 117 105 .897 9 129 1141 401 333 .830 3 108.1%
Rodriguez, Alex 3B 30 258 85 70 .824 5 124 1072 285 213 .747 -4 110.2%
Phillips, Andy 3B 2 10 2 2 1.000 0 7 7 0 0 .000 0 0.0%
Cairo, Miguel 3B 2 5 2 1 .500 -1 5 30 8 8 1.000 2 50.0%
Gonzalez, Alberto 3B 1 2 1 1 1.000 0 0 0 -1 -1 1.000 0 100.0%
Jeter, Derek SS 28 242 105 85 .810 -1 127 1076 372 280 .753 -25 107.6%
Betemit, Wilson SS 3 18 3 2 .667 0 5 21 6 6 1.000 1 66.7%
Cairo, Miguel SS 4 17 3 2 .667 0 12 35 26 22 .846 1 78.8%
Gonzalez, Alberto SS 2 10 5 4 .800 0 9 29.2 14 11 .786 0 101.8%
Matsui, Hideki LF 19 159 37 33 .892 1 93 821 212 172 .811 -11 109.9%
Damon, Johnny LF 10 87 15 14 .933 1 22 184 64 54 .844 -1 110.6%
Cabrera, Melky LF 2 17 5 5 1.000 1 16 125 29 26 .897 1 111.5%
Thompson, Kevin LF 3 12 1 1 1.000 0 2 10.2 6 5 .833 0 120.0%
Cairo, Miguel LF 1 8 9 8 .889 0 2 5 -6 -6 1.000 -1 88.9%
Cabrera, Melky CF 28 239 68 63 .926 3 103 833 312 280 .897 4 103.2%
Damon, Johnny CF 6 50 13 13 1.000 1 42 327 121 106 .876 -1 114.2%
Abreu, Bobby RF 30 262 53 44 .830 -2 127 1071 307 265 .863 -2 96.2%
Duncan, Shelley RF 2 12 3 3 1.000 0 6 31 9 8 .889 0 112.5%
Sardinha, Bronson RF 1 2 1 1 1.000 0 3 10 2 2 1.000 0 100.0%


Columns prefaced with a w are the stats in the games started by Wang, columns prefaced by an nw are the non-Wang games. The ZR ratio is the difference between each player's zone rating in Wang games and non-Wang games. A percentage less than 100 means they were worse in Wang's starts and a percentage greater than 100 means they were better in Wang's starts. I'm not looking at runs saved here, but plays made above/below average. Rough rule of thumb is .8 runs per play although it varies a bit by position

Again, I don't know how meaningful this is due to the sample size and non-Wang innings in the 30 Wang games but I think it's pretty cool to look at. Robinson Cano, Derek Jeter, and Alex Rodriguez all had better zone ratings in Wang's starts than in the other games. The first base collective did worse. (wil Nieves at first? WTF?). What's interesting to me is that even the OF saw a boost in games started by Wang, with the exception of RF and Bobby Abreu.

I don't think we can say with any absolute certainty that Wang does allow more easily fieldable balls in play than the typical pitcher, but there's at least circumstantial evidence that he may. It'll be something worth following going forward. It may also make us want to think a little bit more about DIPS theory and about how we assess defense. Just like pitching is partly-related to defense, perhaps defense is partly-related to pitching.

http://bronx-bomberz.blogspot.com/

Thanks to the Replacement Level Yankees Weblog, Chien Ming Wang's success despite a minuscule k/9 has been brought to the table as only sabermetrics can:

If you're a baseball fan with at least some proclivity towards stats, you're probably familiar with Voros McCracken's DIPS theory. McCracken basically stated that a pitcher's ability to control what happens on balls in play is variable and volatile. Some overly extreme devotees to this theory take it to mean that a pitcher has zero control over a ball hit into play, but that's not really true. If it was, you wouldn't have groundball pitchers and fly ball pitchers.

Also, selection bias would mean that anyone who reaches the majors may have a certain level of skill on balls in play that allowed them to get that far. I still think DIPS theory is useful in many ways, primarily because it taught me to look more closely at a pitcher's peripherals, but it's really just a fraction of any evaluating of pitching that I do.

One of the often-stated mantras about Chien-Ming Wang is that he generates easily fieldable ground balls, which means his success despite a low strikeout rate is not really that much of a fluke. It's possible this is true, at least in the regular season, but is there a way to quantify it?

1. Posted at 12:36:52 am on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by the Frog

Interesting stuff, SG. Most mainstream commentators/broadcasters like to say that fielders are better, more alert, and “not back on their heels” when they’re playing behind a pitcher who throws a lot of strikes and works quickly. I have never really given much credence to that, but hmm . . . . Offhand, I can’t recall if Wang is a quick worker but he throws a higher percentage of strikes than the average starter, doesn’t he? I wonder whether that’s showing up in your findings on the team’s glovework behind him.
2. Posted at 12:47:04 am on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by rilkefan

Cool study.

It might be interesting to look at other similar pitchers - maybe Brandon Webb? It would be impossible but fun to also look at Mariano, who seems to produce a lot of _hard_-to-field GBs.
3. Posted at 7:48:13 am on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by Mike K.

fielders are better, more alert, and “not back on their heels” when they’re playing behind a pitcher who throws a lot of strikes and works quickly

I think another one that goes right along with that, is that when there AREN’T a lot of balls in play, the fielders kinda fall asleep as well. The broadcasters are generally referring to walks when they talk about that, but I would suppose strike-outs fit into that as well. Wang definitely has a lot of BIP…

It’s going to be interesting with the rest of his career, if his K-rate doesn’t go up appreciably but he still puts up decent numbers. I can certainly see Wang being successful until like his age-35 season, and then one of the “pure” statisticians jumping up and saying, “see, he is a fluke!!!”.
4. Posted at 9:14:44 am on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by Wombat Pete

What this appears to suggest is that more difficult balls (harder shots?) are hit to the right side (first base and right field) off Wang than to any other areas of the field, right?
That suggests a few further things - that, if you take out right field & 1st base, the unusual nature of these numbers will even more obviously pronounced. And also, equally obviously, that defense at these positions acquires increased importance when he’s pitching.
On the other hand, there appear to be more balls hit to left and center (taken individually) than to right, and to every other infield position than to first. So… do balls hit close to the right field line represent Wang failures?
Very, very interesting stuff!
Incidentally - first time, long time!
5. Posted at 9:15:47 am on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by Wombat Pete

acquires -> acquire
6. Posted at 9:18:33 am on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by Wombat Pete

And that Wang should always be brought in to pitch to Sheffield.
7. Posted at 12:33:30 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by MC in VA

Just like pitching is partly-related to defense, perhaps defense is partly-related to pitching.

Perhaps?

“Much of what we think of as pitching is really defense, and much of what we think of as defense is really pitching.”—Bill James, about twenty years ago, IIRC.

Sometimes it seems as if half of Sabermetrics is the rediscovery of things that have always been obviously true to anyone who has ever seriously watched any significant amount of baseball. And the other half is stating these obvious things in ways that irritate half of the people who have always known them to be true. Present company excluded, of course. wink
8. Posted at 12:34:20 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by MC in VA

Oh, and Happy New Year, too.
9. Posted at 12:52:14 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by fgasparini

Frog--

I read an analysis of fast working pitchers versus slow working pitchers somewhere in the past year--probably Hardball Times. IIRC their conclusion was that no, there is NO negative effect on a defense behind a slow pitcher. Sort of what you’d expect given that every TV analyst says there is such an effect.

However, 1. My memory is faulty, and 2. Even if I DO remember correctly, the HT guys do a lot of “quick and dirty, food for thought” type stuff--not necessarily comprehensive analyses.

Here’s some interesting stuff for the baseball fan. Scroll down to the references, there’s a link to a story by Jim Kaat (!) in Popular Mechanics.

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mbaseballs.html
10. Posted at 1:12:05 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by SG

Offhand, I can’t recall if Wang is a quick worker but he throws a higher percentage of strikes than the average starter, doesn’t he? I wonder whether that’s showing up in your findings on the team’s glovework behind him.

I think Wang is an efficient worker (fewer pitchers per batter faced) and that could definitely have some impact.

It might be interesting to look at other similar pitchers - maybe Brandon Webb?

Yeah, Webb, Carmona and Halladay spring to mind as guys who it’d be interesting to look at.

What this appears to suggest is that more difficult balls (harder shots?) are hit to the right side (first base and right field) off Wang than to any other areas of the field, right?

At least in 2007 lefties hit Wang harder than righties, and that could definitely be what we’re seeing with the RF line effect.

Sometimes it seems as if half of Sabermetrics is the rediscovery of things that have always been obviously true to anyone who has ever seriously watched any significant amount of baseball.

No doubt, but it’s always cool to try and quantify conventional wisdom statistically.

And the other half is stating these obvious things in ways that irritate half of the people who have always known them to be true.

#### you.
11. Posted at 1:22:09 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by MC in VA

#### you.

Did you miss this part: Present company excluded, of course. wink? Or am I missing a hidden smiley of your own?
12. Posted at 1:28:11 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by SG

Or am I missing a hidden smiley of your own?

Yes.
13. Posted at 1:41:31 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by MC in VA

Good. So we’re back to Happy New Year then.
14. Posted at 1:44:34 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by yup

i am VERY interested to see what happens to Wang this year. there has been some talk this winter about signing Wang to a long term deal, but i don’t think the Yankees should think about that until next offseason.

he is probably the most unique pitcher in all of baseball, and i think the Yankees would be smart to collect all of the information they possibly can before committing long term.

there were just a few unanswered questions after the 2007 season, enough to give me a tiny bit of doubt going forward. i am a big Wang fan (heh), so i would love to see him answer those questions this year.
15. Posted at 2:04:41 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by SG

Good. So we’re back to Happy New Year then.

I prefer Merry New Year but I am willing to conform. Happy New Year to all.

he is probably the most unique pitcher in all of baseball, and i think the Yankees would be smart to collect all of the information they possibly can before committing long term.

I think you’re right. His statistical profile is so unique that there’s no way to know what he will do over the next five years. He’s a tick away from imploding, and a tick away from being one of the top pitchers in baseball, and the likelihood of either happening is probably just about the same.

There’s also the rotator cuff tear that’s lingering in the background. I think how the Yankees deal with Wang will depend a lot on Hughes/Joba/IPK and what they end up doing this year.
16. Posted at 4:12:46 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by Yatt

If the Holy Trinity develops as hoped, and the Yanks get a good season from Horne/Marquez and one of the TJ patients (Garcia), I could see the Yanks shipping Wang for a couple of younger position players. If Wang can win 20, or come close again, he could fetch a lot.

That said, I’d still like to keep him, no matter how well he does.

I think the Yanks will be able to move Horne and or McCutchen for any position player help they need. Both are older prospects who may not have a position in the lineup if all goes as planned. Better to trade them high than have them die on the vine, so to speak.
17. Posted at 5:31:25 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by EthanMichaels

I don’t think anyone argues that Wang causes players to put balls into play which are more easily fieldable. Wang causes lots of balls to be hit on the ground, where the fielders are more densely packed than in the outfield. So the ball is more likely to be hit in the vicinity of a fielder.

What you don’t account for however, is that because of Wang’s low strike out rates, he also allows more balls to be put into play when compared to the average pitcher. It’s well known that groundball pitchers typically have high hit rates because of this. But even though they allow more baserunners, they’re also able to get more double plays and limit the amount of extra base hits given up.

So since Wang allows more baserunners than the typical pitcher, his success doesn’t lie in causing batters to hit easily fieldable balls. Rather, it lies in his success to cause batters to hit easily fieldable balls when there are other runners on. Creating double plays is the only way in which Wang can combat the extra base runners he allows. And there is a certain degree of luck in how easily a double play can be made on a groundball. That’s why groundball pitchers are often unpredictable.
18. Posted at 5:36:57 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by Damn Pasqua

"What you don’t account for however, is that because of Wang’s low strike out rates, he also allows more balls to be put into play when compared to the average pitcher.”

Well, it’s pretty obvious to anyone with a brain that a pitcher who doesn’t strike people out allows more balls in play. I’m not sure why that needs to be spelled out.

“Creating double plays is the only way in which Wang can combat the extra base runners he allows. “

Player A WHIP: 1.294
Player B WHIP: 1.324

Player A is a guy who according to you is a ground ball pitcher who allows extra base runners. Player B is a strikeout/fly ball pitcher.

A = Wang
B = Matsuzaka

Basically what I’m saying is, what is your point?
19. Posted at 5:41:34 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by Jeteupthemiddle

What I would like to see, if at all possible, is this data split up for home and away games considering the huge ERA disparity between the two for Wang (although, FIP is surprisingly close in the split).
20. Posted at 6:35:31 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by MC in VA

Basically what I’m saying is, what is your point?

I don’t know. Maybe his point is that walks don’t count. Or maybe it’s that extreme groundball pitchers should be required to walk more guys to make things fair. Or something.

...groundball pitchers are often unpredictable.

And yet Wang has performed with remarkable consistency for over 500 major league innings. When is this unpredictability going to manifest itslef?
21. Posted at 6:46:23 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by yup

When is this unpredictability going to manifest itslef?

hopefully not in the 2007 ALDS!

ouch. just kidding. i am with you for the most part, but Wang is such a funny case that i wouldn’t bet either way on how he will fare next year.
22. Posted at 6:59:08 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by sleepyirv

"i am with you for the most part, but Wang is such a funny case that i wouldn’t bet either way on how he will fare next year.”

Wang might be funny, but in a highly predictable, good way.
23. Posted at 10:04:33 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by old thurman fan

Totally off topic as usual, the thought of 3 assholeios firing a slingshot at a tiger and having that brave act result in the evisceration of one and mauling of the other two, fills me with a warm feeling.
Sort of ,The What Comes Around Goes Around cliche in Hi Def. Or hi death.
Too bad they capped the angry feline ( if its true)
Woulda liked to be a Panda inna tree for that one.
This post is a perfect example of why I should never watch MSNBC.
24. Posted at 10:42:01 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by dannux

I didn’t read all 23 posts, but I don’t think anyone mentioned the key to Wang’s (and sinkerballers in general) success: ground balls are NEVER HOME RUNS. Wang allowed just 9 (!) home runs last year, just 12 the year before that and 9 in 2005. That is simply awesome. He has allowed only 31 home runs in his career. Beckett allowed 36 home runs in 2006 alone (100% the cause of his crappy season that year, since his peripherals were otherwise strong).

You guys can talk about all you want about fielders being on their toes or back on their heels and stuff like that, but the difference in BABIP and ERA between Wang and a flyball pitcher can mostly be attributed to the fact that home runs are never outs. Add 20 solo home runs to Wang’s total last year and his ERA goes to 4.70--before you even take into account what would happen if guys were ever on base when those balls theoretically left the yard.
It’s as basic as that. If Wang can maintain his home run rates, he will continue to succeed.
25. Posted at 11:32:56 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by yup

HRs and walks. but yeah, basically that’s it.
26. Posted at 11:49:06 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 by wexler

Isn’t this all tautological?

But wouldn’t any pitcher who had a successful year partly due to BABIP show the same boost in ZR w/ his fielders- whether it’s because of luck or skill? Isn’t the way to parse out skill from luck just to look at the BABIP over a much more meaningful sample size?

We already knew he has a low BABIP. What does looking at ZR add?
27. Posted at 12:51:19 am on Thursday, January 3, 2008 by Nate

I’d just like to second dannux’s point and basically say that rather than being an outlier, Wang is actually a perfect example of a pitcher’s DIPS versus performance. The three components to DIPS are strikeouts, walks, and homeruns. Wang doesn’t strike many guys out, but he rarely walks them and gives up very few homers. So he’s a good pitcher. I don’t think this is really a mystery.

Some people seem to think that without the strikeouts, there’s some “correcting factor” that will eventually manifest itself and will prove Wang isn’t that good. Well, that factor can’t be very large as long as Wang maintains his walk and home run rate, can it?
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http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/7631872

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) - The Oakland Athletics made their second major trade in three weeks, sending outfielder and fan favorite Nick Swisher to the Chicago White Sox for three minor leaguers on Thursday.

The A's — who dealt ace Dan Haren to Arizona on Dec. 14 — received left-hander Gio Gonzalez, right-hander Fautino De Los Santos and outfielder Ryan Sweeney.

Oakland general manager Billy Beane acknowledged last month that the A's are rebuilding and said he expects the club to take its lumps next season after the team missed the playoffs in 2007. The A's reached the AL championship series in 2006, but Oakland (76-86) had its streak of winning seasons end at eight and went 9-17 in September.

The 27-year-old Swisher, a switch-hitter and a popular presence in the clubhouse because of his high-energy, playful nature, had been one of few constants for Oakland in recent seasons — playing in the outfield and at first base while the team dealt with injuries at most every position. Also active in community service, he was Oakland's 16th selection in the first round of the 2002 draft. He will now live much closer to his offseason home in Parkersburg, W. Va.

He batted .262 with 22 homers and 78 RBIs in 150 games in 2007, his third full big league season. He also drew 100 walks, ranking him sixth in the AL, for a career-best .381 on-base percentage.

His 80 home runs were a franchise record by a switch-hitter, and Swisher also set his highs for batting average, walks and doubles (36).

The A's will have three more established minor leaguers to add to their farm system.

Gonzalez, 22, pitched for Double-A Birmingham last year and led minor league baseball with 185 strikeouts. He went 9-7 with a 3.18 ERA in 27 starts and was selected to the Southern League midseason and postseason All-Star teams. The White Sox acquired Gonzalez as a compensation pick — the 38th selection overall of the 2004 amateur draft.

The 21-year-old De Los Santos went 9-4 with a 2.40 ERA in 15 starts and six relief appearances for Class A Kannapolis in 2007. He was picked as the South Atlantic League's top prospect and was also a midseason and postseason All-Star.

In addition, he made five starts for Class-A Winston-Salem and had a combined record of 10-5 record with a 2.65 ERA.

Sweeney, a 22-year-old left hitter, was among Chicago's top prospects going into last season, when he batted .270 with 10 home runs and 47 RBIs in 105 games for Triple-A Charlotte. He also hit .200 with a home run and five RBIs in 15 games for the White Sox.