Zell's Pinstriped Blog, A New York Yankees Fan Blog

The first half of the season is over and the Yankees are right where we expected them: in first place in the brutal AL East with the best record in baseball. That they’ve accomplished this feat is nothing short of incredible, considering the tepid seasons so far from Mark Texeira and Curtis Granderson, and the non-seasons from Nick Johnson and the departed Randy Winn.

The reason the team has done so well is that the starting rotation has performed even better than most people anticipated. That’s saying quite a bit, as this was expected to be one of the five best rotations in the majors. But I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the majors-leading48 wins (against only 21 losses) is beyond all expectations. That the Yanks have three starting pitchers on this year’s all-star team is proof that other players and teams agree the Yanks rotation has been the best in baseball.

So why dominance beyond that expected of other outstanding rotations? Could the answer be that Dave Eiland is a modern-day pitching genius?

Um, actually…not so fast.

A case can be made that Eiland has been anything but a pitching genius. And that the rotation, while very good, has actually been pitching below what could have been expected of them. I realize that much was written about how Eiland’s return from a still unexplained leave of absence seems to have rejuvenated AJ Burnett. And undoubtedly, Burnett’s horrible June and July resurgence coincided with Eiland’s disappearing act. But, on the whole, the staff has pitched below what might be expected of them based on their career averages. Consider the chart below:

A real danger sign that a pitcher is getting better results than ought to be expected is when FIP is more than .2 runs higher than his ERA. Put another way, when FIP is significantly higher than ERA, it’s an indication that the defense is making a habit of bailing a pitcher out of trouble. Right now, as a staff, the rotation’s FIP is .36 runs better than their combined ERA. Three pitchers are, based on the numbers, getting more defensive support than should realistically be anticipated: Andy Pettite, CC Sabathia and Javier Vazquez. I wouldn’t be surprised to see their individual ERA’s rise to more closely resemble their FIP by the end of the season. Unless the offense gets untracked, the results will be a dismal second half performance in the W/L column. For Pettite especially, that would spell disaster – but the reality is, his FIP in 2010 is remarkably consistent with his career FIP, so figuring he gives up an additional run per game in the second half is not unreasonable.

[By the way, for those of you who aren’t part-time sabermatricians or are otherwise unfamiliar with the alphabet-soup of baseball statistics, FIP stands for “Fielding Independent Pitching.” It’s a measure of how well a pitcher controls the parts of the game that don’t rely on defense: walks, home runs allowed and strike-outs. ERA, or “Earned Run Average” measures the number of how many runs a pitcher has actually allowed per 9 innings pitched, after removing runs allowed because of a fielding error. When you compare the two, you get a sense of how well a pitcher’s defense has contributed to their success. For example, this year Andy Pettite has a FIP that is more than 1 run per game higher than his ERA – an indication that the Yankee D has bailed him out quite a bit. Were he pitching for a team with a more porous defense, Andy’s ERA would likely be significantly higher. A great primer FIP can be found here.]

The real reason I’m not about to anoint Eiland as a genius just yet, though, has to do with those career numbers. As a whole, the rotation is pitching to an ERA that is .23 rpg better than their career aggregate. But I have a feeling that number is about to get flipped: the FIP is .31 rpg worse than the career aggregate, with only one starter – Phil Hughes – pitching to a better FIP in 2010 than in his career. Equally disturbing, the FIP/ERA differential is upside down by .54 rpg from the aggregate career average. And you can’t put either of the career to season discrepancies on Burnett’s June implosion – if you took his numbers out of the rotation, they get worse: the FIP difference goes up to .56 rpg and the career FIP difference goes up to .34 rpg.

So, it seems fair to say that Dave Eiland is not the reason for the Yankees pitching prowess and may actually be doing something to mess things up. In fact, it seems that the real reason the Yanks have bolted out to the best record in baseball may be their defense. This starts to become even more evident when you take a close look at the peripherals: K/BB ratio is down, BB/9 are up and yet, overall WHIP is lower than the career numbers. That’s evidence that a lot of balls that used to find grass are being turned into outs.

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