Kevin Dame is a writer and visual designer who brings sports information to life in new and meaningful ways. Visit his website and follow him on Twitter @kevintdame.
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Kyle
13 years ago

Why is the “Average” scale based on OBP?

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Kevin Dame
13 years ago

Well, I wanted to use the language “average” to speak to the idea of hitting, but batting average as we know is an inadequate measure and most people feel like on base percentage is a better measure to look at.

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Riddering
13 years ago

Using FIP as the only marker for the Yanks’ pitching is an odd choice. Of course, I’m glad it’s not ERA but considering the variety of offensive stats it’s odd to see that be the the sole standard for the other side of the plate. FIP strips away too much to gauge an entire pitching staff’s season on its own.

However, it won’t be surprising to see the Yankees postseason pitching outshine their regular season stats without Vazquez, Moseley, Mitre, Nova making any starts and Burnett making few.

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carolinefenwaykennedy
13 years ago

nice graphic but the yankees are NOT going to make it this year.  Phillies wont let them.  Or if phillies do accidentally, Giants wont let them. THT, can you give us some stats to support those predictions??

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carolinefenwaykennedy
13 years ago

ha ha, oops.  if the RANGERS accidentally let, them, the giants wont let them.  Lets finish off the league championships first :p

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Coop!
13 years ago

Its a great start, but may I suggest that instead of a simple ordinal listing, that either spacing or font size be used to indicate the true differnce between the teams.

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Rob in CT
13 years ago

Of course, a team’s playoff roster != their regular season roster.

The 2009 Yankees were a significantly better team in the playoffs than they were in the regular season. 

The 2010 Yankees are too, though less so b/c it looks like they will have to use a 4th starter (Burnett, yikes).  But the general idea is similar.  They’ve made trades to shore up their lineup (Berkman, primarly) and bullpen (Wood), and they will not be using Javy Vazguez or the other dregs of the rotation (but for, as noted, Burnett).  That helps them.

This is true for most playoff teams, but I think it especially favors teams whose overall performance was really brought down by a few terrible performances (see: Wang, Chien-Ming, 2009 Yankees).  You can hide those guys int he playoffs and roll with your best.

Also, regarding defense… is that going by UZR?  I think it’s interesting that the team’s overall defensive efficiency was actually really good.  Their weaknesses are C and SS.

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