Quick Intro / Yankee Thoughts

Quick Intro: I'm Big. I'll be writing this blog with Crazy. We're both Mikes, hence the name of the blog. This blog will be about our various areas of interests, which often intersect. They include movies, TV, sports, videogames, comics... I know, pretty generic. We share a fascination with pop culture that goes a little bit further and in a little bit of a different (read: geeky) direction than the typical person. Think non-emo Seth Cohen. Without further ado...

I thought I'd kick this blog off with a Kevin Millar quote, which would have been somwhat ironic since I'm a diehard Yankee fan. Can't find it. But the gist of it was, Millar was asked during the Yankee pre-game show the other night (since YES needs to fill up a full hour before games with whatever they can get their hands on) what he thought about the Yankees transitioning Joba Chamberlain to the starting rotation, and specifically how they would fill the void in the 8th inning. His response to the latter question was rather smart for a baseball player: Who cares?

As if the specialization of bullpens wasn't bad enough, it's now gotten so bad that the "Set-up Man" gets a designated spot on the Depth Chart along with the "Closer". With this increased specialization, baseball people have forgotten a number of important truths. 1) Relief pitchers are usually in the bullpen for a reason: they're not good enough to start. 2) On average, the last 6 outs of a game are no tougher than the first 21. 3) No matter how great a relief pitcher is, he can never be as important to a winning team as a good (or even average) healthy starter.

I read Money Ball and am a frequent reader of ESPN's Rob Neyer. I'm aware of some SABR metrics such as VORP, WARP, PERA, etc., but no expert on them. I have been completely sold on the merits of statistical analysis in baseball, and try to understand some of these newer stats as best I can. I have come to understand that many traditional statistics, such as batting average and RBI, are often not very good and sometimes even downright deceptive measures of a player's worth. Some of the traditional stats are still pretty good, and there's one very simple one that the New York beat writers and radio hosts (I'm talking to you Chris Russo and Mike Francesa) can't seem to wrap their heads around. And that's Innings Pitched.

The more innings a player plays for a team, the more good or harm he can do. Common sense, right? This is why pitchers almost never win MVP's. They can win 20 games and post ERA's in the low 2's, but that doesn't change the fact that they only participate in 1/5 of their team's games. Relief pitchers contribute an even smaller fraction to their team's success (or failure). Joba Chamberlain has been a starter his whole life until being called up to the bigs. He's got 4 pitches, including a 95+ mph heater and a devasting slider. He's dominated at the major league level. The Yankees should be trying to maximize his playing time (without jeopardizing his health, of course) not minimize it. Because the bottom line is, that means more wins. As for who pitches the 8th inning, Kevin Millar had it right. Who cares? It's one inning. The Yankees will no longer get the same quality pitching in the 8th, and might frustratingly blow a few more late leads. But it's only 1 inning out of 9. Those losses will be more than made up for by the wins that Joba will bring as a starter.