Don’t look now, but Phil Hughes had another bad outing last night. 5 runs allowed on 7 hits in 4.1 innings pitched, with 2 strikeouts. Through 3 starts, Hughes now has 3 total strikeouts. And his velocity? Still not there. On 46 four-seam fastballs Hughes averaged 89 MPH and maxed out at just a smidge below 91 MPH, according to Brooks. But if you’re looking for some slight rays of hope, they were there too.

For one thing, Hughes must read this site, because his curveball was actually pretty good. He threw the pitch eleven times and got eight strikes, including two swinging. Additionally, his control was pretty good as well, as he threw 51 of 70 total pitches for strikes and didn’t walk a single batter. Unfortunately, without the velocity on his fastball Hughes continues to have problems missing bats and is simply very hittable.

The cutter, in particular, is a major problem for Hughes right now. How bad is it? Well Hughes threw the pitch just seven times last night, yet the pitch still registered a linear weight of 2.75 according to Brooks. That’s so bad it’s almost impressive in its own way. I was watching the MASN broadcast of the game, and Jim Palmer had a very negative take on the pitch, implying that Hughes should scrap it all together until he finds his stuff. Frankly, I have a hard time disagreeing with that.

I don’t even know what to say about Hughes at this point. He’s obviously not pitching well, but there’s no obvious reason for it, outside of the velocity, and everyone maintains that he isn’t injured. Maybe he trained too hard in the offseason after his increased workload last year and he’s dealing with a bit of a dead-arm problem now. What I do know is that he’s not helping the Yankees win by any means right now, and the team absolutely cannot count on being able to overcome that every time he pitches.

Hughes does have an option remaining, and if he doesn’t show some real improvement in his next outing, I strongly suggest the Yankees exercise that to send him to Scranton to work out his issues. Because they can’t keep sending him out there to dig them into holes every 5th day while they have some actual alternatives.

It’s funny what gets a response from people. I say all sort of hilarious things on Twitter (I really do; follow me @Mark_L_Smith), and I get the occasional reply or retweet. But I make one comment about RBIs, and I get no less than 13 replies (that’s not a whole lot, I realize, so follow me @Mark_L_Smith; side note: Chip and I are campaigning to have me “trend” on Twitter, so you should follow me and help with that. I’m sure you’re racing through the tubes to do such) from people I don’t even know or e-know. Arguments over newer statistical analysis have raged over the last few years, and it never fails to ruffle a few feathers. And that’s fine. Passion, either way, shows that you care, and I’m fine with that. But it’s also another indication that there’s a linguistic disconnect between the two sides.

Here’s my tweet: “I like how we’ve mainly quashed the value of RBIs and yet we still celebrate Chipper getting 1500. Not judging or say it’s not impressive.” Admittedly, this was not my best moment in linguistic prowess, but that’s what happens when you’re on Twitter, limited to 140 characters, and trying to respond quickly. Not an excuse, but I had several good and interesting responses. Most of them stated that they believed RBIs still held sentimental value, and others stated that it still represents a positive contribution by the batter. True statements indeed, but let me explain what I meant before we tackle the major issue.

First of all, I love Chipper, and he’s been my favorite player since he broke in. It was about the time I started to pay attention to baseball, and we kind of grew up together. In other words, I was not out to say anything negative about Chipper. But what about RBIs? As we continue to delve further into advanced statistics, one of the main goals is to isolate performance, and in this instance, we want to isolate batter performance. RBIs are heavily context-driven. It helps to have runners on base and to hit third, fourth, or fifth. When it comes down to isolating batter performance, there’s too much “outside noise” when it comes to RBIs.

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The Yankees looked for the short series win on Thursday night, as New York squared off with Baltimore.  It was another frustrating start for Phil Hughes who continued to struggle, but Bartolo Colon did a solid job out of the bullpen and the Yankees offense came alive late in the game, leading to an exciting tenth inning walk-off win in the Bronx, as the Bombers won 6-5 and took sole possession of first place in the AL East.

Hughes looked okay in the first, pitching a 1-2-3 inning and gave up a hit in the second but held the Orioles scoreless, despite a couple deep fly balls.  In the top of the third, however, Hughes regressed.  He gave up a single to Cesar Izturis and served up a meatball to Nick Markakis who turned on it for a two-run homer and an early Baltimore lead.

Luke Scott started the top of the fourth with a double to right field.  He moved to third on a soft ground out by Adam Jones and scored on a deep sac fly by Mark Reynolds.  Meanwhile, the Yankees bats stayed cold, as Orioles starter Jake Arrieta held the Bombers hitless through four innings.

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The big news in the Bronx has been Pedro Feliciano’s shoulder with a probable season-ending surgery on the horizon, but the injury bug has hit some big names in the Yankees’ farm system as well.  Two of the three “Killer B’s” are landing on the DL, as Dellin Betances and Manny Banuelos each are suffering from “blister issues.”  While blisters sound like a pretty minor thing, Mike Ashmore described Banuelos’ injury, which is “on the back to side of his left thumb, below the fingernail.  Lots of exposed skin…it’s pretty gruesome looking.”  Betances’ right pointer finger is where his problematic blister is.  The good news is that blisters heal and they are not dealing with shoulder or elbow problems.  Still, it does seem strange that they both came down with blister issues at the same time.  Another injury for a big Yankee prospect also came to light today, as Gary Sanchez was put on the 7-day DL in Charleston.   No word on what the injury is as of yet, Sanchez did have heart surgery in February to cauterize an extra nerve but was cleared to play pretty quickly.  Hopefully this is unrelated and not serious.

Following last night’s win, the Yankees moved into a tie for first place in the A.L. East with the Orioles. With a win tonight, the Yankees will claim sole possession of the top spot, and to sweeten the deal the Red Sox will be in the cellar. Yeah yeah, it’s only April 14, but we can still savor the moment, can’t we?

Of course, the Bombers have to put the game away first, and that may be a tall task with Phil Hughes on the mound trying to right the ship. Hughes’ first two starts have been disastrous, but hopefully third time is the charm. If not, it might be time to get even more worried. So let’s all hope for the best.

Jake Arrieta will take the mound for the Orioles, and judging from some of the radio bits I heard this afternoon Orioles fans aren’t all that confident in him either following his last start against the Rangers. Suffice it to say, don’t be surprised if this one turns into a slug fest.

Full lineups after the jump.

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If you’re looking for something to be excited about ten games into the new season, A.J. Burnett‘s pitching should be right up there at the top of encouraging signs for the Yankees. After an off-season filled with plenty of worry about what the famously inconsistent and unpredictable Burnett would look like coming off a truly terrible 2010 campaign, Burnett has come out and pitched about as well as anyone could have hoped for in 2011.

What can we credit for that? I don’t really know, honestly. Maybe it’s the work Larry Rothschild put in with him since being hired as the Yankees’ new pitching coach. Maybe it’s his suddenly effective changeup. Maybe this is just a good series of starts that are deceiving us and Burnett will still have a bad year. Or maybe 2010 was the anomaly all along. Right now I’m just enjoying each one of A.J.’s starts.

The fact of the matter is that I’m rooting for Burnett harder than I can ever remember rooting for a player. Burnett is a pitcher who, when healthy, has always been above average, yet he’s rarely gotten recognition for that fact. He’s gotten a steady stream of crap from writers like Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman since joining the Yankees. People have claimed he has mental issues. And all of this just one season removed from a World Series championship he was a vital part of. Yet the guy’s never complained about any of it, he never begged out of a start in 2010, and by all accounts he worked his tail off this offseason trying to correct his issues from 2010.

Here’s hoping Burnett can continue pitching well in 2011 and be a key piece of another championship team. If anyone deserves that, it’s him.

Phil Hughes has had a rough start to the season. Actually, that’s an understatement. He has had a downright horrible start to the season. A lot of the focus has turned to Phil’s velocity, or lack thereof this season. There has been a lot of great analysis on this topic, but this leads to a second issue: Why can’t Phil succeed without a good fastball? Obviously, a decline in velocity hurts almost every pitcher out there. However, Phil, unlike most pitchers, has not had a second pitch to rely on during his early season struggles. This pitch should have been his curveball.

Baseball America had this to say about his curve when he was a hotshot prospect in the minors:

It’s a true power breaking ball that sits in the low 80s with 1-to-7 break. Club officials call it the best in the system because Hughes can throw it for quality strikes or bury it out of the zone, and because he uses the same arm slot and release point he uses for his fastball.

Sounds pretty nasty. Good velocity, good command, and an ability to disguise the pitch by throwing it the same way he throws his fastball. Somewhere along the way, Phil changed his curveball, perhaps mistakenly so. Today, Phil throws a big knuckle curve in the mid 70′s, and the pitch is much less effective than it was in the minors. His curve was so ineffective that in 2010, for every 100 curves he threw, he gave up 1.2 runs. For context, consider the fact that A.J. Burnett has saved 1.37 runs for every 100 curves he has thrown since 2002 (according to fangraphs). Batters are just not fooled by Phil’s curve. In 2010, the pitch resulted in a swing and miss just 5.8% of the time, a paltry figure compared to the league average of 11.6%. Batters seemed to recognize the pitch well, because in 2010 they swung at just 30% of his curves, compared to an average of 39.9%. When batters did swing, they hit his curve hard; the pitch had a batting average against of .381 and a slugging percentage on balls in play of .548*.  His curve turned opposing batters into batting champions.

To figure out why his curve is so ineffective, I have assessed the command, approach, raw stuff, and deception of his 2010 curves.

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Last week we took a long look at baseball’s Opening Day player payrolls. In Part One of this series, I examined the growth of player payrolls, and noted with surprise that the fastest growing payrolls belong to teams in the Midwest, like the Brewers, Tigers and Twins. In Part Two I commented on the shrinking gap between the Yankees’ payroll and that of other well-heeled baseball teams, like the Red Sox and Phillies.

Here in Part Three, I’ll begin to ask the critical question: why do we care about the size of baseball payrolls? The obvious answer is set forth in the title of our blog site. Most baseball fans believe that money buys the best baseball players, so teams with big payrolls will dominate teams forced to operate (relatively speaking) on a shoestring. I’ve had occasion to visit this topic many times: see for example here and here. I’ll need to revisit this question one more time before this series is through.

But before I get to the question of whether money matters, I’ll look here at how payroll money is distributed. We know (because it gets a lot of attention) that there’s a payroll imbalance in the American League East — the Yankees and Red Sox spend a lot more on payroll than the Blue Jays, Orioles and Rays. The imbalance in the American League East is so severe that some pundits (like Ken Rosenthal) propose that the leagues be realigned so that no team has to compete every year against the two bullies on the eastern seaboard.

But is it just the American League East that suffers from payroll imbalance? Let’s find out.

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After a day off and a day rained out, the Yankees looked more than ready to be back on the diamond Wednesday evening.  New York had a few players slumping, heading into the series against Baltimore, but they busted out of it in great fashion, hitting early and often on their way to a 7-4 win and first place in the AL East.

A.J. Burnett let Brian Roberts get on base to start the first, but got the next three batters in order.  Meanwhile, the Bombers got to business early. Brett Gardner led off with a single, but was caught stealing second. Derek Jeter followed with a nice single to right, while Mark Teixeira ended his slump with a single up the middle, putting two on with one out for Alex Rodriguez.  Rodriguez promptly deposited a three-run homer in the stands in right, giving the Yankees a 3-0 lead.

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After a scheduled day off and a rain-out left us without Yankees baseball for two consecutive days, the team will try to get a game in with the Baltimore Orioles tonight. Every indication is that the game will start on time, and you have to assume that the two teams will do everything they can to get a game in tonight. No one wants to play a double-header on getaway day.

The Orioles come in leading the A.L. East with a 6-3 record, but they’re still kinda the Orioles, and there’s a lot of statistical noise in that good start, and that includes starting pitcher Chris Tillman, who was very good in his first start against the Rays but struggled in his second start against the Tigers. A.J. Burnett will take the mound for the Yankees, looking to continue his own impressive start with another good outing. Full lineups after the jump.

Also, Alex Rodriguez is in the Yankees’ lineup after being scratched Sunday night due to an illness, so he’s apparently feeling better.

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It appears as thought the Twins’ bizarre hatred of striking out opposing hitters will continue for the foreseeable future:

Gardy on Liriano: “We understand that he can strike people out, but if he really wants to become a pitcher, pitch to contact…

I will never, ever, understand people who buy this “pitch to contact” stuff. It just makes no sense at all from a mechanical standpoint. You’re basically taking the approach of hoping that, rather than miss a pitch entirely, a hitter will make contact with the ball but avoid squaring it up and hitting it hard. Of course, how does this even work mechanically? Do you throw down the middle of the plate? Do you work around the edges? How exactly do you go about pitching so that the batter will neither square the ball up nor miss the pitch entirely?

But the really odd thing about this “strikeouts are overrated” philosophy is that approximately no one believes it if you apply it to hitters. If I said “well, at least he struck out and made the pitcher throw 3+ pitchers instead of grounding out” everyone would think I’m crazy, and rightly so. But there’s a level of cognitive dissonance here that has to be resolved. It seems that what people who espouse this philosophy are doing is conflating an ideal outcome (getting quick outs early in the at bat) for a pitcher with something the pitcher can control.

This situation is worth keeping an eye on, because the Twins clearly undervalue Francisco Liriano‘s abilities. In fact, I don’t know that I’ve seen a team with such a negative view of such a talented player on their roster since Nick Swisher was with the White Sox. And we all remember what happened with that situation.

Yesterday, Tom Verducci published an article on Trackman, the revolutionary technology that uses 3-D Doppler radar technology to track pitch spin, movements, release points, and other physical information related to the act of pitching. If successfully put into place, this could completely revolutionize the way pitchers are scouted. Be sure to give it a read if you haven’t already.

Also be sure to pick up my upcoming book on why this silly “technological advancement” junk is ruining baseball. Radar guns were good enough for Connie Mack and Casey Stengel, so by gawd they’re good enough for me too!

Some other links to help you through your baseball withdrawal after two straight days without a Yankee game:

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Word has broken that Hector Noesi has been called up to the Major League team to replace Luis Ayala in the bullpen. Ayala was placed on the disabled list yesterday. I’m a little bit surprised Noesi is being called up this soon, as he was starting at the AAA, but will now be called up to replace the last guy in the bullpen, but at the same time there isn’t really anyone else in a good position to be called up right now.

Also, this Marc Carig report (or at least the headline) on Freddy Garcia being skipped in the rotation again due to last night’s rain out seems to be causing some confusion this morning. To wit, the Yankees will play five straight games between tonight and Monday’s scheduled off-day, so barring another rain out, the Yankees will need their fifth starter to pitch sometime this weekend. Garcia is scheduled to pitch Friday as of now, and the Yankees could push that back to Saturday or Sunday if they want, but as the schedule currently stands, Garcia will have to pitch this weekend.