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Game Five of the World Series was about players. In a postseason where we’ve spent endless amounts of time talking about the managers and the umpires, we finally got a game in which the players took total control. From Chase Utley‘s three-run homer in the first inning through Ryan Madson inducing a game-saving double play in the ninth, there was example after example of players making plays, a dearth of mistakes by the non-playing personnel, and when it was over, at least one more game to play.

The drama snuck up on all of us last night. After the Phillies chased A.J. Burnett out in the third inning, giving Cliff Lee a five-run lead, there was an air of inevitability to the proceedings. After he pitched out of a first-and-third, one-out spot in the fifth, allowing just a single run, Lee banged out the next two innings in just 27 pitches, cutting off the path to a Yankee comeback that entailed the Phillies needing to get a lot of outs from their shaky bullpen. When Utley and Raul Ibañez buried Phil Coke even deeper in the Yankee pen with solo homers in the bottom of the seventh, you could hear America flipping to the fourth quarter of the Saints/Falcons game.

The Yankees, though, had a bit more in them. They’d been making better contact against Lee then they did in Game One, and when Lee was let down a bit by his defense in the eighth-Jimmy Rollins was unable to gun down Johnny Damon on a playable grounder-that greater hittability led to two quick runs and his own exit. Lee’s performance might not have worked on a different night-he gave up a number of hard-hit gappers-but with the eight runs in his pocket, it got the job done. He’d gotten the Phillies to the six-out mark, which is about as much as you can ever hope for.

In the spot where they’d been failing, the Phillies pen came up big. Chan Ho Park cleaned up Lee’s mess, getting three outs-including a sacrifice fly-on 11 quick pitches. The extra run set up a save situation and 15 minutes of “who’s coming in?” discussions, ones that only ended when Charlie Manuel summoned Ryan Madson, not Brad Lidge, for the ninth. The decision to get his best reliever into the game was laudable, and perhaps foreseeable after the choice of Park to pitch the eighth. But then Madson fell behind the first three batters he faced, allowing a double to Jorge Posada, a single to Hideki Matsui, and going to 2-0 on Derek Jeter.

The Phillies are still a significant underdog to win this World Series, maybe as high as 7-1. If they do, though, there will be any number of heroes, any number of moments to remember. The 2-0 pitch to Jeter may end up forgotten, but it shouldn’t be. Madson was a bad pitch away from turning what had been a blowout into a game the Phillies would be fortunate to win. If Jeter reaches, the Yankees have their 2-3-4 hitters up with no one out and the tying run on base. The Phillies had their best reliever in the game and their second-best one toweling off. There was nowhere else to go.

Madson threw a 94 mph fastball down the middle, a cripple pitch if there ever was one. Jeter took it, which is proper procedure for facing a pitcher in that spot. He wants to get on base, wants to let the pressure build on Madson, wants to make him work into a tough situation. Now, at 2-1, Jeter had given a little ground, and that ground would cost him. Madson’s next pitch was also a fastball, this a bit better located, in on the hands, and Jeter chopped it towards shortstop. The single biggest hole in Jeter’s exceptional offensive game is that he’s a right-handed ground-ball hitter, and as such, is someone prone to hitting into double plays. The only thing that he can’t do in that spot is hit into a double play, as it would wipe out the tying run at the plate.

Madson beat Jeter. He threw a strike on 2-0 and then a better strike on 2-1, and seconds later, the Phillies were off the ledge, as well as off the potential Lidge. Johnny Damon would add some drama by working back from 0-2 to knock a single on the seventh pitch he saw-reminiscent of his at-bat against Lidge Sunday night-but Madson got ahead quickly on Mark Teixeira and ended the game with his best pitch, a changeup.

The Yankees had gone from dead to damn near a favorite to win the game, and in two pitches, Madson put them away again and gave the Phillies a chance, not a great one, but a chance to win the World Series. When you start the night down 3-1, that’s all you can hope for.

  • A.J. Burnett didn’t allow six runs in two innings because the Yankees started him on three days’ rest. He allowed six runs in two innings because he’s A.J. Burnett, and he sometimes shows up with nothing, and the Phillies will kill you if you show up with nothing. Burnett couldn’t put Jimmy Rollins away to start the game, eventually giving up a single after two 1-2 foul balls. Two pitches later-a hit batsman and a home run-the game was 3-1. Shane Victorino may have bunted at the pitch that hit him, and he may have been in the strike zone when he was hit, but there was enough disagreement on both points that you have to let it go. Burnett wasn’t able to get ahead of hitters to the extent that he did last Thursday, and he wasn’t getting as many swing-and-misses or called strikes. None of these things are necessarily related to his being used on short rest, and the rush to declare starting him a mistake-and to project Burnett’s failure onto Andy Pettitte‘s expected start-is hasty. The surprise isn’t that the Phillies smacked Burnett around; it’s that he pitched so well against them last week.

  • Chase Utley can play a little bit. He now has five homers in five World Series games, and will get at least one more game to break the tie for the record. John Perrotto has more on Utley today; I’ll just note that maybe it’s time for the baseball world to recognize that he, and not the MVP Award winners on either side of him, is the best player in the Phillies’ infield.

  • Alex Rodriguez did it again, driving in the game’s first run and then two more during the team’s abortive comeback in the seventh. Had Jeter managed to make just one out, or Teixeira found his way down to first base, he would have been batting with a chance to tie the game or even to win the World Series, and it’s a measure of how far the story on him has come that every fan in the park knew exactly when he was coming up, and was terrified about the prospect of facing him with their season on the line. Utley may end up as the World Series MVP no matter what happens, but Rodriguez is the Yankees’ top candidate at the moment.

  • Derek Jeter is a truly great player who has had an amazing career, but that was a devastating swing of the bat last night, and it’s not that unusual for him. Jeter hit into a huge double play that killed a rally in Game Two of the ALCS, two in the first three innings of Game Three of the 2007 Division Series (in a game the Yankees won) and another in the shutout loss that ended that series. Many of my memories of Jeter are of him making two outs with one swing, but somehow getting praised because he did so with high effort. That DP last night was worse than just about any strikeout you can imagine.

  • Phil Coke’s four-batter, two-homer outing was critical in retrospect, and it served to justify Joe Girardi‘s decision to elevate Damaso Marte into high-leverage roles this October. However, Coke was the right choice last night at that spot in the lineup and with the Yankees down by four runs; he simply didn’t get the job done in a very loud, very costly fashion. The Yankees may not need him the rest of the Series-Marte and Mariano Rivera will be used to get Ryan Howard in any game-relevant situation.

Thank you for reading

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Richie
11/03
You BPers would make good network announcers. You don't let facts stand in the way of your pre-set beliefs.

Rodriguez will not win Series MVP hitting .222. Even by the 'good' measurements, Damon, Jeter, CC and Mo are better candidates.

The "3 days' rest" stats your interns came up with last week were pretty bad. If either AJ or CC had tossed a gem on 3 days' rest, you'd be crowing about that. AJ's start doesn't prove anything, but why pretend it's not the clearly bad single data point that it is?
BDesrochers
11/03
World Series WPA through Five Games:

1. Cliff Lee (.593)
2. Alex Rodriguez (.345)
3. Chase Utley (.302)
4. Hideki Matsui (.300)
5. Johnny Damon (.298)

7. Mariano Rivera (.232)

9. CC Sabathia (.132)

35. Derek Jeter (-.084)

Derek Jeter is really a better candidate for MVP?

These figures are based on how a players good and bad plays at the plate or on the mound actually contributed to his team's likelihood of winning (available at Fangraphs). Are they perfect? No (defense isn't included for one), but only someone suffering from myopia could possibly claim that Derek Jeter has been more valuable to the Yankees in the World Series than Alex Rodriguez, just because of his empty batting average.
mattymatty2000
11/04
Your points would be much more palatable if you weren't so rude and condescending.
mattymatty2000
11/04
Just to be clear, that comment was directed at Richie.
Arrian
11/03
I sat on my couch, begging Jeter through my TV not to GIDP. I knew it was a distinct possibility. Please get it in the air, I thought. I even wondered how the defense was playing and if it made sense to bunt for a hit. That's how worried I was about a DP ball. Sure enough...

Of course, Jeter's down on the goat list behind Burnett and Coke.

Utley should probably end up the MVP even if the Yankees win the series. He's been a one man wrecking crew.
Jetson
11/03
Joe, as much as I enjoy reading your stuff, your incessant badmouthing of AJ Burnett for, oh, about the last 6 years, is getting old.

He's not Bob Gibson. We all get that. He's also a pretty darn sight above average for his career. So while I can buy your notion that he stunk "because he's AJ Burnett", thought it is debatable, the notion that we should be so surprised he pitched well in game 2 is one that holds no water. Maybe it's also because "he's AJ Burnett," however.
tooci4
11/03
And of course, there's a logical fallacy in dismissing the importance of short rest while at the same time accepting the decision by Charlie Manuel to cut out a Cliff Lee start in order to make sure he pitches on full rest.
RayDiPerna
11/03
Not at all. The cost for going full rest with AJ/Pettitte is Chad Gaudin. The cost for doing so with Lee was Joe Blanton. Not the same thing.
DrDave
11/03
I think you're mistaking mean for variance. Joe's not saying Burnett is bad; he's saying he's highly variable. That's not necessarily a bad thing -- but the point is valid that looking for proximal 'causes' of Burnett's bad outing is a fool's errand. The flakiness is the cause, not the other way around.
tanthalas37
11/03
A. J. Burnett TRIED to pitch the same way he did in Game 2... and in a way, he was successful. He spent Game 2 throwing a breaking ball (a slider maybe?) away to left-handers about 4 inches off the plate and home plate umpire Jeff Nelson was calling it for strikes. No need to give in to the hitters if throws it there all game (which he did, for the most part). Lefties couldn't do anything with that pitch. Burnett was hitting that spot early in the game last night and Dana DeMuth was (correctly) not giving it to him. So he was forced to throw the ball over the plate, the Phillies knew it and hit him hard. I think THAT was the biggest difference between his two starts.
mglick0718
11/03
Joe, love your stuff, but: "A.J. Burnett didn't allow six runs in two innings because the Yankees started him on three days' rest. He allowed six runs in two innings because he's A.J. Burnett, and he sometimes shows up with nothing.." 1) You, nor anyone else, knows if this is true; 2) since AJ Burnett sometimes shows up with nothing, it was dumb to increase the chances of that happening by pitching him on short rest. I wrote yesterday it is, in my opinion, a bad decision for Girardi not to adjust his defenisble pre-series rotation strategy (top 3 guys on short rest) with his team needing to maximize their chances of avoiding a 3-game losing streak. Going with Gaudin last night ensures that you've got your best chances of winning game 6 or 7, and I'm not so convinced that Gaudin gave the Yankees a worse shot at winning last night v. Lee than Burnett on short rest.

Last night's performance by Burnett hardly proves that my opinion is the correct one. But I think Girardi's strategy takes a big risk where conservatism was called for and maximizes the chances of the Phillies delivering a knockout punch while they're behind on every judge's card.
RayDiPerna
11/03
Joe: "The Phillies are still a significant underdog to win this World Series, maybe as high as 7-1."

I think this is overly pessimistic, from the Phillies' standpoint.
Jetson
11/03
I think he's got it about right or at least in the ballpark. On the road, no Cliff Lee. I'd figure they're 45% to win the game 6 matchup, 35% to win game 7.

Granted those figures come out of midair, but if valid, it would show Philly to have a 15.75% chance of winning two in a row. More like 6-ish to one, but distant.
RayDiPerna
11/04
35% to win a Game 7? That seems low.
jsheehan
11/04
It'd be 3-1 if it were two coin flips, and I mentally adjusted for HFA, better team and the pitching matchups. If it's not 7-1, it's not far from it.

If I'm wrong, it's because the number's high.
jsheehan
11/04
Pinnacle has +604/-750. So 6-1.
Jetson
11/04
Sabathia vs. Happ or the current state of Hamels in NY?

I think 35% is not low under the circumstances.
swartzm
11/04
What exactly is the "current state" of Hamels? The one who put up a 5.8% BB/PA 21.4% K/PA and 41.1% GB/BIP in 2008 or the one with a 5.3% BB/PA 20.6% K/PA and 43.6% GB/BIP in 2009? Is he having mental problems that only affect his BABIP? Or does he not have the guts to ever succeed in the playoffs?

Hamels on full rest is a mid-level ace, just like he was when his BABIP tricked people into thinking he was the cool-as-ice best pitcher in baseball, and just like he was when his BABIP tricked people into thinking he was the mentally distant mid-rotation guy.
Jetson
11/04
9 homers in his last 36 innings if I recall correctly. That's the current state. Maybe he's unlucky that those balls weren't caught.
swartzm
11/04
The rate of home runs per outfield flyball is not a stat with persistence. Outfield flyball rate is a skill stat, but home runs per outfield flyball is a luck stat.
Oleoay
11/04
The rate of home runs per outfield flyball is not a stat with persistence? I'd love to see some numbers on that. My understanding is that the three things pitchers have an influence on is BB/9, K/9 and HR/9. Also, that would imply that there's little difference, HR/9-wise between a batting practice pitcher used in a home run derby and a major league pitcher who was teeing up pitches for a hitter. Is that also true?
swartzm
11/04
Year to year correlation of park-adjusted HR/OFFB is around .10, just like team-adjusted BABIP is around .10. Year-to-year correlation of GB% is something like .50-.70 or somewhere in there (I don't remember the exact number). The result is that HR/9 has about a year to year correlation of .15 or so (adjusting for park, I think) but that's only because of the fact that Derek Lowe doesn't let many balls get into the air and Oliver Perez does.

The original BB, K, HR as the only DIPS hypothesis by McCracken has been revised to show BB, K, GB vs. FB as the only DIPS. Pitchers control batted ball rates (though not really line drive rate I have found).
Jetson
11/04
Looking at this in some cosmic "stats across the years" scope ignores the issue, which is obvious to the plain eye as it is to the stats, that Hamels is a flyball pitcher putting too many balls over the heart of the plate.

And while it may or may not be true that HR/FB is a sustainable and therefore reliable stat over short bursts, it is absolutely true that a power hitter will hit more homers per FB than a non-power hitter. The Yankees are a lineup made up almost exclusively of power hitters or at least guys with power. The statistical leveling that comes from Jack Wilson's fly balls isn't in the mix here.

So net-net, you have a flyball pithcer who hasn't had location command going up against a power hitting lineup. I'm as big a SABR afficionado as anybody but you do at some point need to take your head out of the stats book and look at what's right in front of your eyes.
Jetson
11/04
BTW I'm rooting hard for the Phils and hope Hamels finds his magic if he does go - I'd love to be wrong. But as analysts often say, the fact that something works out ok doesn't mean it was the right decision.
swartzm
11/04
You're reverse-engineering the problem from your frustration, a mistake.

I've been researching the Hamels issue ad nauseum for a while, and as I may do another article on it, I don't want to spill the beans here but basically-- the location issue is just WRONG. He's leaving as many balls over the plate as before, he's missing the strike zone as much as before.

Hamels is not a flyball pitcher. His GB% is 43.6% this year; league average is 45%. Of course, that's GB per Ball In Play and NOT per batter. His above average K-rate means he actually allows LESS balls into the air than the average pitcher does per nine innings. Average flyball rate, low ball in play rate-- not a flyball pitcher. That's a good thing too, because the Yankees and Yankee Stadium certainly combined to allow more away pitchers' flyballs into the seats.

I'm watching the games just like you are. My nose is not in any stat book while the World Series is on-- trust me! I see bloopers landing for hits in 2009 and saw line drives landing in gloves in 2008. And I also watch the game enough to know that most balls over the heart of the plate are fouled off are missed anyway. More of them are hit hard than balls on the corners certainly, but try keeping gameday open while the game is going on and check the location of every pitch, not just the pitches that were hit hard. You'll see how many "opportunities" are not taken even by the best hitters.
Jetson
11/04
Your first line is unwarranted snark. Guess what, I'm a Pirates fan and my frustrations lie elsewhere.

Your basic premise is that "nothing has changed". That's wrong and the answer's right there in your numbers. 43% GB ratio overall, but 37% since September 1. I didn't do the math but obviously that means it was higher than 43 before September 1. That's not immaterial. If anything, the anomaly isn't that Hamel's has been touched often in postseason, rather it's that he somehow avoided the longball much of September when his FB rate spiked (and has thus far stayed there).

Nothing can happen to prove you or me right at this point. But rather than me "reverse engineering," I'd instead argue that you're hardwired into your conclusions at this point and are doing exactly that.
swartzm
11/04
That is not a statistically significant drop in GB% given the sample size, and if you are including playoffs, it is likely attributable to playing superior talent.

I'm not hardwired into any conclusions. I use the same rules in analyzing pitchers. I look at strikeouts, walks, and batted ball rates except that I regress line drive rate drastically because it has no year-to-year correlation in my testing. I check for large discrepancies in HR/OFFB and BABIP if there are large differences between peripheral based ERAs and actual ERAs, as well as large discrepancies in pitching with men on and with bases empty, to see if any of those large discrepancies hold in large sample sizes and consider whether there is something reasonable to explain it (i.e. Tim Wakefield is a knuckleballer, his BABIP should be low). For Hamels, you can check my previous article from two weeks ago and see that I also checked a variety of other things.

Hamels has not been all that good in the postseason this year, but it is not a large sample size. His velocity is not down, and his walk rate has not spiked dramatically. There is no reason to assume that the Cole Hamels' line that you would get on November 5, 2009 would look so much more like the numbers he put up during October 2009 as it would look like the average of number he has put up during 2007-2009, the period during which he has put up similar peripheral statistics.
Oleoay
11/04
How does the movement on Hamels pitches compare between this year and last year? Maybe he's tired and, while still throwing hard, throwing flatter pitches. I do buy the argument, though, that he's facing superior lineups in the postseason.
swartzm
11/04
I'm not an expert in analyzing this stuff, but Fangraphs reports the following horizontal movement (X) and vertical movement (Z) on his Fastball (FA) and Changeup (CH) for 2007-2009.

FA-X

2007: 3.4
2008: 1.9
2009: 3.5

FA-Z

2007: 12.3
2008: 12.0
2009: 12.5

CH-X

2007: 7.5
2008: 6.2
2009: 7.5

CH-Z

2007: 7.7
2008: 7.9
2009: 8.2

CU-X

2007: 0.3
2008: -1.7
2009: -0.3

CU-Z

2007: -2.9
2008: -4.0
2009: -3.8

They all look like similar numbers to me, but I have no idea what the variance is on these numbers to know if it's significant. I will say this, though-- if his pitches had less movement, hitters would swing and miss at them less (they have not whiffed less in 2009, slightly more actually) or hit more home runs against them (they hit fewer in the regular season) or hit them into the ground less (they have not). The primary difference in Hamels 2008 and 2009 statistics is singles on line drives and flyballs to the outfield in 2009 rather than line outs to outfielders and flyouts to outfielders in 2008. The same percent (or slightly fewer) balls contacted have even reached the outfield.
Oleoay
11/04
At a rough glance, those number suggest Hamels had a less horizontal movement on his fastball and changeup and more horizontal movement on his curveball in 2008 (as opposed to 2007 or 2009). I'm not sure that tells me anything, though, except his curveball now looks like a 12-to-6 curveball with relatively little horizontal movement. I wonder if that might be the pitch that people are hitting well against.

While I understand less movement would suggest swinging and missing less, less movement would also suggest that batters could hit the ball more squarely.
Jetson
11/04
The sample size is over 60 IP (i.e. more the the number of innings Brad Lidge threw this year, if you know what I mean) - and the FB rate was actually higher during September.
swartzm
11/04
For a 6 percent difference, you would need 270 balls in play to call it just barely statistically significant, even if you did not adjust for opponents' talent level. There were 237 balls in play. And that's not adjusting for the fact that he's not facing equal talent. And it's even less likely that his groundball rate was really 43.6% in the first place, because his career rate is closer to 40-41%.
eighteen
11/03
Does anyone else wonder why Manuel had Lee pitch to Rodriguez in the 8th? Why not walk him to set up the DP, and bring in Park to pitch to Swisher? Rodriguez has shown he has no trouble hitting Lee (or anyone else), and Swisher's been brutal. Why pitch to Rodriguez in that situation?
Jetson
11/03
Not sure if this had anything to do with it, but Lee's not a DP pitcher.
jsheehan
11/04
Nor is Park, nor is Swisher a DP batter, especially if you spot him the left-handed batter's box.

I don't know how many GIDPs we've seen in this series, but I know they've been rare. Two K/FB teams, across the board.
tooci4
11/04
I think you guys are over-thinking this point. 8th inning, up by 6 with 2 on...the tying run is sitting in the dugout, you don't walk a hitter intentionally and bring him closer.

They weren't quite in an area where a walk was as bad as a homer (i.e. the 9th inning), but it was pretty close.