Pitching Built For Postseason

The past couple months I've been worried about the Yankees pitching. Despite the big names at the front of the rotation and the two headed monster at the back of the bullpen, the staff has put up some unusually high FIP's. Here's how the Yankees' top four rate in handy bullet form.

• C.C. Sabathia- 3.57
• A.J. Burnett- 4.49
• Andy Pettitte- 4.08
• Joba Chamberlain- 4.74

The team ranks 16th in all of baseball in FIP and when you consider the old adage, "Pitching wins championships," its something to be a little worried about come playoff time. While they're ahead of most of the AL teams competing for a playoff spot, they still trail the Red Sox, White Sox, and a number of competitive NL teams.

What's interesting though, is the way they're doing this. FIP is a quick and easy way to measure how a pitcher performs skills that aren't reliant on the defense. Its based on walks, home runs, and strikeouts. These three stats correlate relatively well with regular season ERA, however, only one appears to correlate with playoff success. In this excerpt from Baseball Prospectus' excelent book, Baseball Between the Numbers, Nate Silver and Dayn Perry explain that strikeout rate is one of the few things that remain consistent when the calendar turns to October. High walk totals and a tendency to give up home runs can be overcome, however, failing to rack up K's is an unforgiveable sin.

Guess how the Yankees rank in the three categories:

• Strikeouts- 2nd
• Walks- 18th
• Home Runs- 24th

Note that these figures are not adjusted for the ballpark they play in.

So, in the area considered most critical for pitching success in the postseason, the Yankees are second best in baseball. They trail only the Giants who are four games out of the wild card race and are seven behind the Dodgers for the division. Kudos to Cashman for going after big power pitchers that can strike guys out, because it looks like the Yankees' pitching has what it takes to go deep into the postseason, despite the middle of the road FIP.

With the division looking like its all but locked up, I'm thinking about making posts on some of the other areas that are important to playoff success. Let me know what you think about this post and other's of the sort.