Staturdays

Brian

  • Where is the Yankee offense?

    The fleeting emotions of Baseball are back for fans of America’s Pastime. As a baseball fan I have spent every November – February longing for the sport to return and March excitedly watching broadcasted Spring Training games. As a Yankee fan I can justify every poor Spring performance and exaggerate all the great ones. But as every fan knows, the when the lights come on in April – that means it is officially go time. Nothing about the pre-season hype matters when game 1 of 162 starts.

    Historically the first month of baseball is not indicative of how a team or player’s season is going to end up. Most recently, in 2019, the Washington Nationals famously started 19-31 through their first 50 games and ended up winning the World Series. Despite this uncorrelated history, overreactions from some of the more rabid fanbases are inevitable if not expected. Maybe the team’s rookie has a terrible 0-21 start at the plate to start the season and you are finding yourself concerned if he can ever get a big league hit. Maybe the huge contract power hitter has not hit a home run through the first two weeks of the season and you’re starting to convince yourself that last season must have been steroid related. Or maybe you’re me and you’ve watched the Yankees lead the league in errors, double plays and baserunning mistakes and it makes you want to pull your hair out.

    As I am writing this the Yankees have played 11 games and went 5-6 in them. It feels much worse, and I wanted to dive a little bit deeper into where the issues are on the offensive side of the ball. There is plenty to talk about when it comes to starting pitcher’s performance and length (outside of Gerrit Cole) and how that can deplete the bullpen sooner rather than later as well as defensive and baserunning issues; but that can be saved for another time watching Yankees games give me a mental breakdown. Regardless of the many issues, the biggest and most obvious Yankee issue right now is offense and there are three splits that help paint that picture.

    Split #1: Yankees score 6 runs per game in wins and 2.3 runs per game in losses. (4 runs per game)

    • 2.3 runs per game is not going to do it for you. 4 runs per game is likely not going to do it for you. Adjusted for some of the major outliers the runs per game could look very ugly. What is causing this? From my summation 2 things:
      • The Yankees are built on homeruns and are not getting any of them. There are 20 teams who have hit more homers than the Yanks (puts them in the bottom 33% of the league) but yet the Yankees STILL have struck out more than 18 teams (bottom 40% of the league). Strike outs and home runs typically are correlated in baseball. Being bottom 40% of both of those statistics are not going to lead to positive results.
      • The f$%#ing double plays. It has been 11 games and I am ready to pull my hair out if I see another double play hit. The Yankees lead the league with 14 double plays (tied with the 8-3 Padres) and it feels like pitchers can induce them from the Yankees at will. DJ LeMahieu has hit as many double plays this season as he did last season in a fifth of the games. Aaron Hicks, who is known for NOT hitting double plays and bats third because of it, has already hit more than his season average.

    Split #2: The Yankees OPS+* the first time facing the opposing Starting Pitcher is 46.

    • *So what does OPS+ mean? OPS+ is an all-encompassing offensive stat that includes a league and ballpark adjustment to determine how a team or player is doing offensively compared to the rest of the majors. The easiest way to understand it is that a perfectly average OPS+ is 100. An OPS+ of 101 or 99 would mean that player or team is doing 1% better or worse respectively than the rest of the league. It is not a perfect stat, but it is certainly helpful.
      • The Yankees are 54% worse than the rest of the league when it comes to seeing a starting pitcher for the first time. Even worse? The Yankees OPS+ in the first inning of games is 14! They are 86% worse than the average in the first innings of games.
      • In the first innings of games, they are batting 7 for 39 (all singles) with 3 walks and 19 strikeouts. No RBIs, no runs, nothing. The first time through the order the Yankees only have 3 RBIs total that are from a Gary Sanchez and Jay Bruce homerun. Gary’s homerun was in game 1.
    • In modern baseball teams cannot afford to allow their opponents 2-3 innings of time to get ahead while their offense does nothing. This gives the starting pitcher time to settle in, pitch more innings, and opens the door for higher leverage relievers to shut offenses down.

    Split #3: The heart of the order (3-6 batters) has an OPS+ of 24 and an OPS of .455*.

    • This stat makes my heart hurt. The four batters that typically are meant to do the most damage are 76% worse than AVERAGE players would be. This is where you see guys who are supposed to be good to great like Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Hicks and Gleyber Torres. (*The OPS (on base + slugging) for the league for the 3-6 batters is .749 – for the Yankees, its .455.)
    • The 1-2 hitters have an OPS+ of 103 (more or less average) but surprisingly, the 7-9 guys (typically the worst offensive players) have achieved an OPS+ of 222 or are 122% better than the average. If anyone is doing it for the Yankees right now, it is the bottom of the order doing their best to keep the ship afloat.

    These three splits bring us to the big question, what is actually going on here? To be totally fair to the Yankees, it is likely too early to draw any major conclusions and I am even more likely not smart or talented enough to figure it out. (though I do of course have a theory)

    Pitchers have so far been excellent against the Yankees at avoiding many elevated, “fly ball hittable” baseballs. Maybe this means they have been executing breaking pitches better, avoiding more elevated fastballs, and staying at the bottom third of the plate and lower. I can’t say for sure if this is happening, but it could explain why there have been a lack of homeruns and more than plenty double plays. With players like Judge, Stanton, and Sanchez who hit the ball harder than anyone in the league, pitching them low and working to induce ground balls seems like a decent (if executed correctly) way to reduce the damage they could do. This is my best guess, but either way I am confident the Yankees team and coaches will adjust to the ways they’ve been pitched to and revert closer (and hopefully well beyond) the average.

    Go Yanks.

  • What Went Wrong? 2020 Regular Season Recap

    Hello Nittany Nation, I am back with a little ‘regular season’ wrap up for this year’s Penn State football season. Things have been a bit busier this year for me, so I have not been able to do a deep dive into the games each week like I did last year – but I look forward to really doing that again in 2021. To the handful of you who do read these, I appreciate the patience.

    This has clearly been a rough season for Penn State and fans alike, suffering through a terrible 0-5 start and luckily finding a little bounce back to finish the regular season 3-5. Coming off a New Years Six Bowl win, having what was considered 2 first round NFL draft picks in Micah Parsons and Pat Freiermuth (with hope of a third with Jason Oweh), and a top 10 pre-season ranking – there was reason for real hope which led to very real disappointment.

    What unfolded was the worse case scenario for the Nittany Lions, losing half a dozen of their best players before or during the season including both aforementioned first round picks and the starting and backup RBs. A misplay and a controversial call against Indiana handed Penn State their first loss and for the next four games, Penn State never seemed able to bounce back.

    It is painful to recount the season, and there is no point in itemizing each disappointment during this dreadful year – but it is important to think about what went wrong so next year there can be improvement. Now through 8 games of logged statistics, those issues are bright and clear.

    A quick disclaimer, things may be skewed because of the unequal number of games played in the Big Ten, so keep that in mind.

    Red Zone Scoring: Penn State averaged 411 yards per game this season. For all things considered, that is fairly good. For reference, that is the exact same as the team that went 11-2 last year. This brings up one of the major issues in that Penn State was not able to score in the Red Zone. They were able to get into the Red Zone 31 times through 8 games, only scoring a TD 14 of those times. 45% Touchdown conversion ratio in the Red Zone. That, to put it bluntly, is abysmal. The culprit here is harder to determine. Could it be the fades to sub-6ft WRs nonstop? The inability to run in the Red Zone? Maybe QB play? This brings me to my next point.

    QB Play / Turnovers: I feel very bad for Sean Clifford. He is a good kid who loves Penn State and got the brunt of the social media fallout after losses this season. A lot of that is toxic sports fandom which needs to be eliminated from sports entirely, but that is besides the point. Clifford did throw 9 interceptions this year (and the team lost 6 fumbles) amounting to the most interceptions and turnovers in the entire Big Ten. That combined with the zero-yard runs up the middle really made this offense look frustrating game after game. Penn State giving up 15 turnovers when only forcing 7 (3 INT and 4 FR) is not a recipe for success. Something needs to be done on the offensive and defensive side of the ball. A lot of blame should and can be put on the Offensive and Defensive lines as well this year, possibly accounting for a lot of these issues.

    Lineman Play: The offensive line allowed 23 sacks, the most in the Big Ten. 2.88 sacks per game. Last year we allowed 2.46 sacks per game. As a Penn State fan, I am getting extremely tired of seeing this. It seems that it is year after year that the O-Line is incapable of playing up to the preseason hype. There was not much run blocking either with Penn State getting 3.8 yards per carry on the ground, a full yard less per carry than last season. Maybe (probably/likely) this has to do with the best RBs going down before the season started, but nonetheless  – not much to brag about in our offensive trenches. Defensively, 18 total sacks or 2.25 per game. Last year Penn State was averaging 3.5 sacks per game. Let me put this all together for you – Penn State in 2020 is giving up an extra half a sack per game, rushing a yard per carry less per game, and sacking the opponent one and a half times less per game. I bolded that last sentence because I think that is the most important part of what has gone wrong this year. This is Big Ten Football; games are won in the trenches – seasons are lost when your competitive edge goes null.

    Special Teams: Penn State hit 8 of 9 field goals from under 40 yards. Good. Penn State hit 3 of 8 field goals from over 40 yards. Bad. 64.7% field goal conversion rate in 2020. In 2019, it was 86.7%. This is an historically bad turnaround from just a year ago. Punting yards and Touchbacks per kick are about flat from a year ago. There has been improvement on this front as the second half of the season rolled through but that change needs to continue into next year. The combination of not scoring TDs in the red zone and the inability to hit longer field goals is not one that is going to score any team many points.

    Penalties: Penalty yards per game are down per game for the season which may come as a surprise to some. This was not the case the whole year. Penn State started the season averaging 52 penalty yards per game for the first half and brought that down to 26 yards per game in the second half. It has felt that some Penn State penalties have been poorly timed or unfair (IE Shaka Toney batting the ball??), which may account for why Penalties have felt like momentum killers this season. Still, it is good news that penalty yardage was halved as the season went on.

    —

    This was a lot of bad. There was good too, like younger stars at WR/RB/CB getting some playing time and showing out – but after a 3-8 season, I am going to harp on the bad more, hoping a lot of it can get corrected for the next season. Good news is I do have a lot of hope. I think another year (with no pandemic restrictions hopefully) under OC/QB Ciarrocca and OL coach Trautwein that there can be some impressive improvement from their respective units. I also hope that with younger players on defense showing out that there is real cause for excitement for years to come. I can also convince myself that the special teams is on an upward swing and will continue that way.

    What happens with the position coaching and QB situation for 2021 is out of our control, but there is reason to believe that in a non-pandemic year and understanding the mistakes of 2020, 2021 can be a solid bounce back year for the Nittany Lions and a return to the top of the rankings.

    Stay tuned for my ‘post-season’ recap and 2021 game previews/analysis coming up. We Are!

  • Bowl Watch Season

    Things are looking hopeful for the end of this Penn State Football season after Tuesday’s rankings sat the Nittany Lions at 10th in the nation following a tough loss against Ohio State. Penn State played this historically good OSU team better than anyone had in the nation to this point and that clearly sat well enough with the committee to keep them in the top 10.

    We have all now crossed over into bowl watching season since PSU’s chance at a playoff berth is dead. That doesn’t mean that Penn State can’t compete in an elite bowl, and with the recent rankings – their chances of doing just that have increased dramatically. Being ranked ahead of Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Oregon at this point in the season are huge indicators that a New Year’s Six bowl is on the horizon.

    NY6 bowl selection is a little complicated but this should help break it down. It is worth mentioning that bowl selection committees technically have their own private rankings but they have been very consistent with the CFP rankings so I am going to act like they are the same thing for the purpose of not confusing everyone.

    There are 6 elite-level bowl games in College Football and they are as such: Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Sugar Bowl, and Peach Bowl. These are what is known as the New Year’s Six and outside of the playoff, the most impressive landing destination for a football team after a season is over. Two of these bowl games every year (cycling randomly) are what makes up the playoff. 1v4 in one game and 2v3 in the other. The remaining 4 games are decided by conference tie-ins or at-large bids. Conference tie-ins mean the champion of the conference or the highest ranked team in said conference that isn’t in the playoff. Here are what those games look like when they are not part of the playoff:

    Rose Bowl: Best Big Ten vs Best PAC 12

    Sugar Bowl: Best SEC vs Best Big 12

    Orange Bowl: Best ACC vs Next Best Big 10, SEC, or Notre Dame

    Peach/Cotton/Fiesta Bowl: At-Large vs. At-Large

    This year the Fiesta and Peach Bowls will make up the playoff so that leaves the Rose, Sugar, Orange, and Cotton bowls to make up the remaining spots for teams to fill. The one other stipulation to remember is that the highest ranked Group of Five team (team not in a power 5 conference) gets an automatic bid to a NY6 bowl. This year the only non-conference tie-in bowl game with a possible spot for a Go5 team would be the Cotton Bowl. This leaves only one at large bid left to go to a NY6 game (the other team in the Cotton Bowl) and that would be the highest ranked team that doesn’t already have a NY6 slot.

    This leaves Penn State with three different possibilities for NY6 destinations (because the Sugar Bowl has SEC and B12 tie-in’s). Disclaimer – this is all assuming PSU handles Rutgers Saturday.

    Rose Bowl: For Penn State to go to this game they would need to be the B1G champion or be the highest ranked B1G team not in the playoff. The B1G Championship game is off the table so they would need to be the next highest ranked. For this to happen we would need a few games to go our way. First, Wisconsin would need to beat Minnesota and OSU would need to beat UM this Saturday. This would push UM further down in the rankings and Minnesota would drop below us. Regardless of the fact that Minnesota beat PSU head to head, the committee would still favor a 2-loss Penn State over a 2-loss Minnesota as seen when both teams had 1 loss. Wisconsin would propel ahead of PSU likely after a win at Minnesota and would head to Indianapolis to face OSU in the championship game. Here we would need OSU to beat Wisconsin, sending them back down in the rankings. If all that is the case, OSU would make the playoff and PSU would be the next best in the B1G. It is a possibility for sure, the biggest game to watch is Wisconsin v Minnesota because I expect OSU to handle their business regardless of their next two opponents.

    Orange Bowl: This bowl game goes to the second highest ranked B1G, SEC, or Notre Dame vs the best ACC team. Should PSU not go to the Rose Bowl and another B1G team is ranked ahead of us, this would be the next option. This game is why being placed ahead of Florida is such a big deal. For this game to be our destination, PSU fans would be rooting for two SEC teams to make the playoff. If not, because LSU/Georgia/Bama are all ranked ahead of PSU, one of those teams would make the Orange bowl ahead of us. One would make the playoff, one the Sugar, and one the Orange. For two SEC teams to get into the playoffs we would need either Georgia to beat LSU and the committee to put both in, or for the committee to put Bama as their 4th team if LSU takes down Georgia. The issue is #6 Utah and #7 OU have a chance to win their respective conferences and could hop Bama for that 4th spot.

    Cotton Bowl: If I had to take a guess, this is where I would think PSU will land. This game has one final spot for an at-large team – meaning the highest ranked team not already in a NY6 bowl game. Because we are currently ranked 10th, and don’t really have any real reason to assume we will drop below this, (Rutgers is bad) even if the Rose or Orange bowls don’t play out the way we would want them too, this would be the spot PSU would land assuming there isn’t chaos.

    Chaos: Michigan beats OSU and/or Wisconsin wins the B1G and/or VA Tech beats Clemson and so on and so forth. Nothing is set in stone yet but a lot of crazy things could happen over the next two weeks that could shake things up in the rankings in a major way and send PSU to likely the Outback Bowl in Tampa. A good game, but not an elite NY6 bowl.

    So, we know our bowl options and we know to root for OSU and Wisconsin next week. It is a bit of a nervous time but also exciting. There will be a much clearer vision of our bowl outlook Sunday morning but for now we can all get amped up for a crazy week of football ahead. And if you’re bored maybe check out the PSU v Rutgers game this week … should be a fun one. We Are.

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