Keeping Score: In a Game 7, Lee Would Be No Sure Thing – NYTimes.com
Posted by Neil Paine on October 21, 2010
Keeping Score: In a Game 7, Lee Would Be No Sure Thing – NYTimes.com
Contrary to what you may have heard, the Yankees do have a fighting chance of beating Cliff Lee if they can force a Game 7 against the Rangers.
October 21st, 2010 at 1:48 pm
Lee has been notably weaker on 4 days' rest than 5 -- this season, since his breakout, and over his career.
October 21st, 2010 at 2:24 pm
Haha, of course this comes from the NY Times. They can continue to tell themselves whatever they want to make it easier to sleep at night. Anything can obviously happen in one game, but over two postseasons now Lee has shown no signs of being beatable.
October 21st, 2010 at 2:32 pm
@1 -- Interesting point re: Lee's amount of rest. What's curious is that, out of the 3 basic rate stats (SO/9, BB/9 and HR/9), the *only* one that's significantly different is the BB rate. With 5 days' rest, he's averaged 1.84 BB/9; with 4 days' rest, it's 2.38.
It doesn't seem like half a walk per 9 IP could account for the 0.90 difference in ERA. So I'm not putting a lot of faith into this particular split.
If it does go to game 7, I know where my (imaginary) money will be riding!
October 21st, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Topnotch post there.
October 21st, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Referring to Xander's, sorry.
October 21st, 2010 at 2:37 pm
John, his BABIP is also 19 points higher on 4 days' rest (and more than that over the past 3 seasons). I think that's probably significant.
October 21st, 2010 at 3:27 pm
Curious whether there is a general decrease in game score from first start to second start or if there is more of a regression to the mean in play here. Even without either we would expect some diminishment since we are only considering situation where the starter has thrown a very good game to begin with. Specifically it would be good to look at what type of performance is typical of a starting pitcher who had a GS in the mid-60's (Pettitte was 64 in game 3) when he appears for a second time in a series.
October 21st, 2010 at 4:20 pm
Why is there a Phillies and Yankees logo in the article?
October 21st, 2010 at 5:04 pm
How about the Yankees beat Colby Lewis in game 6 first before they starting thinking about Lee in game 7.
October 21st, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Don't we also need to look at what we can expect from Pettite in the game?
Obviously, the Yanks have a chance to win. There are no guarantees. And I don't mean, "Well, yea, they've got a 10% chance." I doubt any baseball team has better than a 60% chance of winning any game, though I'm just pulling that off the top of my head. However, I do think it's a bit misleading to look at just Lee and ignore everything else.
October 21st, 2010 at 7:06 pm
The article was smug.ok no sure thing. How about a best bet? Who do you send to the mound, lee or pettitte?
Hubris even as rome burns. Araton is an arrogant putz
October 21st, 2010 at 7:49 pm
To build on Rico's point, it seems to take the tact of, "It's not assuredly a bad thing, so it's actually a good thing!" Lee is no guarantee. But you still have to favor the Rangers in any game he's starting. And to pretend that chinks in his armor imply he has no armor is foolish.
October 21st, 2010 at 9:45 pm
In my experience, pros have a tendency to rise about their typical abilities when they reach the "Big Show". An example:
It is 1972, and as a loyal Reds fan, I was figuring that we had most to worry about with Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter or perhaps even Ken Holtzman or Bert Campaneris. Maybe even Epstein, Rudi, or Bando might give us a bit of worry. But who ever {at least at that point} could honestly predict that Gene Tenace would be the Reds nemesis? That this bench warmer would be the one feasting on Cincinnati go
October 21st, 2010 at 9:49 pm
I meant to say "Cincinnati gophers". Musta hit a wrong key there. Sorry.
October 21st, 2010 at 9:53 pm
Well as it turned out, Tenace was certainly no bench warmer. But obviously anyone can have a big hit at any time, doesn't mean they're necessarily clutch or rising above themselves.
October 21st, 2010 at 10:01 pm
I am predicting that, if Lee starts Game Seven, he will certainly rise to the occaision. I believe it as surely as I believed the blog, earlier this year, about the Phillies being finished {sorry, Andy; that just slipped out lol}.
October 21st, 2010 at 11:15 pm
Some people seem to think that Neil's article was no more than a Yankees fan whistling past the graveyard.
But it seems to me that he was just raising the question of what the odds really are in Lee's favor; are they something like 10:1, or are they more like 3:2?
I am reminded (as often happens) of another "sure thing" -- game 7 of the 1968 World Series. Bob Gibson was riding a 7-start WS win streak, all CG, with a 1.27 ERA and K-BB ratio of 75-13 in that span; he also had an historic regular season, with a 1.12 ERA. In the '68 WS opener, Gibson shut out Detroit with a record 17 Ks, and in game 4 he allowed just a solo HR while fanning 10 to put the Cards up 3-1 in the Series. Detroit came back to force game 7.
Now, the Tigers didn't exactly rough him up in the finale; the key "hit" in their 3-run 7th was a misjudged line drive that went for a 2-run triple, breaking a scoreless tie. In all, Gibson was charged with 4 runs on 8 hits, with 1 walk and 8 Ks. But the point is, Gibby was just hittable enough that day for one defensive misread to maybe cost him the game. The other point is that Mickey Lolich -- far from Gibson's equal at that point in his career -- pitched the game of his life on just 2 days' rest, blanking the Cards until a solo HR with 2 out in the 9th.
If they can get there, the Yankees will have Andy Pettitte working on normal rest in game 7. I'd still set the odds about 2:1 in Lee's favor in that game -- but if you're not surprised when a .333 hitter gets a hit, you should't be shocked if the Yankees win that game.
October 22nd, 2010 at 1:43 am
The funny part is, I'm a Red Sox fan who's (obviously) been rooting for Texas all series...
Anyway, John's right, it's more about the degree to which Lee and the Rangers should be favored in a potential Game 7, since most of the media coverage has been implying that the Yankees have almost no chance against Lee. If Lee has a 90 Game Score again, then I agree, the Yankees have a very small probability of beating him. However, the odds are that Lee won't be that good in Game 7 simply because of regression to the mean, and that means the Yankees still have a nontrivial chance of winning the series. Texas should still be favored in a 7th game, but their win probability would be like 65-70% instead of the 95% (or whatever) probability implied by the mainstream press when discussing Lee in an elimination game.
October 22nd, 2010 at 4:46 am
Neil-
I understood that that was your point, but I don't think it read that way. And considering you are writing for one of the Yankees home town papers, I think you need to be a bit clearer, just because of how fans (all fans) are naturally inclined to hear/read what they want. A simple conclusion saying exactly what you have at the end of your last post would have gone a long way, in my opinion.
October 22nd, 2010 at 8:55 am
Great post, Neil. I think there is an assumption on the part of most fans and a large portion on the news media that the any player's most recent performance is likely to carry over to the next outing or next season.
Thus Halladay and Lincecum were supposed to battle for nine scoreless innings in the NLCS opener. When Halladay was less-than stellar in the opener and Lincecum was dominant, it was obvious that the Phils had no chance Thursday night unless Halladay regained his no-hitter form, etc.
This is not confined to sports. People view stocks, housing prices, the popularity of political and entertainment figures in the same way.
It is "Tomorrow will be like today only more so" syndrome.
October 22nd, 2010 at 9:42 am
Seems that Pettitte is also due to throw a GS in the 40's. I agree, lets see if it even gets to Game 7 --for the sports fan in us, I'm sure most would like to see a Game 7 Lee/Pettitte matchup. I still say Rangers win. If Lee pitches the Rangers to a WS championship, I think it would also provide a major building block to any Hall chances since he's fairly old at 32 with only 102 wins and WAR of 22. Yes, Lincecum had his game, and Halladay pitched the no-no, but Lee's performance in the past two playoffs has been nothing short of epic. If he wins the WS this year he would still need to get his WAR up around 50 and wins 180-200+. He needs at least 5 more really good years without injury for that to happen.
October 22nd, 2010 at 10:48 am
Neil -- I just did a mini-study which may tends to support to your thesis.
Caveats: The situations I looked at are not exactly what Lee will face if game 7 is needed, and my data sample is small.
I looked at all series in which a pitcher made 3 starts, starting with 1969 (the advent of the LCS).
There have been 15 such pitcher-series (no repeats).
I was interested in the progression of results through their 3 starts.
The summary is no surprise: Performance was best in the 1st start and worst in the 3rd.
Of course, of the two main factors that are presumably reflected in these starts -- familiarity and fatigue -- only the former should be relevant to Lee in game 7.
The data:
(apologies if these tables don't post cleanly)
What stands out to me:
-- HRs rate is negligible in the 1st start, more normal in the others.
-- The increase in runs allowed from the 2nd to 3rd game is not fully explained by the underlying stats. HR rate is slightly higher in the 3rd game, but BB rate is actually much lower.
-- The high ERA in the 3rd game is somewhat deceptive due to fewer unearned runs. While the game 3 ERA is 100% higher than game 1, the total run average is only 64% higher.
October 22nd, 2010 at 10:49 am
[Sigh] The data tables didn't post cleanly, alas.
Someday I'll figure out how to do this....
October 22nd, 2010 at 10:58 am
Thanks, John -- and for future reference, if you add pre tags around the tables, the formatting should be preserved.
October 22nd, 2010 at 11:42 am
Neil, many thanks for fixing up my data tables.
At the risk of revealing my technical ignorance, could you tell me exactly what codes you used there?
Thanks again.
October 22nd, 2010 at 11:48 am
Sorry about that, here's a primer on pre tags:
http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_pre.asp
You just put them around preformatted text, and it appears in the intended format. We have the "pre" option on all of our data tables, btw:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/pedrodu01.shtml#batting_standard
October 28th, 2010 at 7:41 pm
Hey great article. I had a little difficulity viewing this article onOpera though, not sure why?