The Graduate: Andrew McCutchen, OF
McCutchen began the year in triple-A but he received his much-deserved promotion after his 49th game in the minors in ‘09. He went on to hit .286/.365/.471 with an ISO of .185 in 433 at-bats. The center fielder also stole 22 bases in 27 attempts. For a top-of-the-order-type hitter, McCutchen showed encouraging patience with a walk rate of 11.1%. He’s still learning to hit breaking balls, but he handles MLB fastballs with relative ease (1.47 wFB/C). Defensively, he struggled with his range but he still posted a 3.4 WAR thanks to his offensive contributions.

The Riser: Chase D’Arnaud, SS
D’Arnaud’s younger brother Travis (Philadelphia) was more highly regarded as an amateur, but the elder sibling has performed better than expected in pro ball. Originally considered a utility prospect, D’Arnaud now projects as a possible starter in the middle infield. He split ‘09 between low-A and high-A and hit .295/.402/.481 at the senior level. D’Arnaud also shows good patience at the plate (12.5 BB%) and his ISO jumped to .186 in high-A, although most of his strength is gap power right now. He also stole 31 bases in 39 attempts.

The Tumbler: Bryan Morris, RHP
This right-hander’s value has taken a big hit due to injuries and alleged attitude issues. A former top draft pick, Morris struggled with his consistency in ‘09 and posted a walk rate of 4.21 BB/9 and a strikeout rate of just 3.96 K/9 in 72.2 innings in high-A ball. He also allowed 87 hits, but gave up just two homers. At this point, the Pirates organization would probably be happy to see Morris make the Majors as a reliever. When he’s right, Morris has shown a plus curveball, change-up, slider and an 88-93 mph fastball.

The ‘10 Sleeper: Hunter Strickland, RHP
Obtained from Boston while the organization was dumping veteran contracts, Strickland is still raw as a pitcher but he has tons of potential. He displays plus control with a walk rate of just 1.38 BB/9 in low-A this season. The 21-year-old pitcher did allow a few too many hits (127 in 126.1 innings), and he has yet to develop his secondary pitches to the point where he can rack up a lot of strikeouts (5.51 with Boston, 4.81 with Pittsburgh). Overall, he features an 89-94 fastball, a slider and a change-up.

Bonus: Robinzon Diaz, C
Diaz was highlighted in the 2008 series as the sleeper prospect to watch for ‘09. The catcher, who was acquired in ‘08 from Toronto, benefited from an injury to starter Ryan Doumit this past season. Diaz hit .279/.307/.357 in 129 at-bats. He displays almost zero power (.078 ISO) and doesn’t walk (2.3 BB%), but he makes a lot of contact (89.7%, league average is 80.5%) and doesn’t strike out either (7.0%). He’s similar to Vlad Guerrero in the sense that he swings – and makes contact – with just about everything. Diaz has made huge strides in his catching over the past few seasons.

Lee has pitched in five games over three series and the Phillies have won each of those five games.

+-------+-----+----+----+----+----+----+
|       |  IP |  H |  R | HR | BB |  K |
+-------+-----+----+----+----+----+----+
|   NYA |   7 |  7 |  5 |  0 |  3 |  3 |
| @ NYA |   9 |  6 |  1 |  0 |  0 | 10 |
|   LAN |   8 |  3 |  0 |  0 |  0 | 10 |
| @ COL | 7.1 |  5 |  3 |  0 |  3 |  5 |
|   COL |   9 |  6 |  1 |  0 |  0 |  5 |
| Total |40.1 | 27 | 10 |  0 |  6 | 33 |
+-------+-----+----+----+----+----+----+

He pitched at least 7 innings in each game (and completed two of them). Overall, it works out to 40 innings of 1.56 ERA, 5 K/BB, 0 HR postseason baseball.

Dave C. noted after Lee’s first game against the Yankees that the Fox broadcast team was drooling over his curve, but his changeup was more impressive. Here I give a visual representation of this fact. I plotted the location of these two pitches over the course of the playoffs. As I often do, the full color dots represent pitches swung at and faded ones those taken. I encircle strikes (taken strikes are encircled faded dots, whiffs encircled full color), put triangles around balls in play that were outs, and Xs on top of hits. Solid color pitches with nothing around them were fouled off.

You can see that Lee is actually fairly comfortable mixing in his changeups to LHBs and got a nice number of called strikes on the outside edge of the plate. Overall, lefties only got one hit against his change and curve over the course of the playoffs.

Against RHBs his change is a huge part of his repertoire and he pounds it away and mostly up. Batters swung at it a lot, but didn’t have much luck mostly making outs or fouling it off. He got a fair number of called strikes on his change right down the middle of the plate.

The Phillies got just what they wanted in Lee with a mid-season trade. In the regular season he helped them keep their place comfortably atop the NL East, and now in the playoffs he has pitched in five of their wins (including their only two World Series wins), giving them 40 impressive, and bullpen-preserving, innings.

For many people, those two facts represent a causal relationship. Burnett struggled badly while going on short rest, so therefore, short rest caused the bad pitching. Unfortunately, life is never that simple.

The usual critique against bringing a pitcher back on short rest is that his stuff won’t be as crisp as it usually is. Burnett, however, was throwing his regular gas last night. His fastball averaged 94.2 MPH this season, and he sat at 93.8 MPH in his brilliant game two outing. Last night, his fastball averaged 94.5 MPH. Same deal with his curveball – 82.0 MPH on the season, 82.3 MPH last night.

In terms of velocity, Burnett had his usual arsenal. His fastball still had sink, and his curveball still had bite. The problem was that he couldn’t throw them for strikes. Here’s the strikezone plot, courtesy of Brooks Baseball:

There are 16 magenta colored squares on that plot representing Burnett’s curveball. Eight of them aren’t even close, and only four of them were in the strike zone. It doesn’t matter how much movement you have when you miss the plate by that much. Hitters aren’t going to swing, you’re going to fall behind in the count, and all that’s left to do is groove a fastball. Command, not a lack of stuff, was Burnett’s undoing.

Of course, there’s the possibility that Burnett’s inability to throw strikes was due in part to his altered schedule. However, that’s something we simply can’t know. Burnett is not exactly the model of consistency. In five different starts during the regular season, he gave up six or more runs. On April 19th, he walked seven batters, and he issued six free passes on two other occasions. And, of course, he got torched in the first inning by the Angels in the ALCS less than two weeks ago. He did all of that on regular four day rest. Consistent command of his pitches is never something Burnett has had, and he probably never will. He’s a guy with great stuff who doesn’t always pitch up to the level of his natural abilities.

How much did the loss of one rest day affect Burnett? We don’t have any idea. Historically, he’s performed well on three days of rest, and his stuff was as good as ever last night. While Burnett did pitch poorly last night, and he was pitching on short rest, we simply cannot conclude that the latter was the cause of the former. It may have been, and probably was, some kind of factor. How much of an effect it had, we simply cannot know.

The process of answering this question is quite simple. We need to look at what the gap in production between a Phillies team with a healthy Victorino and a Phillies team without him.

The obvious replacement is Ben Francisco, as there’s no way that Matt Stairs sees any time in the outfield. The first defensive alignment is to just put Francisco in CF, where he is a -15 UZR/150 in a tiny sample size, but that seems close to where his -2.2 UZR in LF would place him given positional adjustments, a 10 run difference between LF and CF.

The other alignment is to move Werth to CF and play Francisco in RF. Francisco does have experience in RF, and played at a similar level to in RF. Werth is a fantastic outfielder, and by all accounts, he could handle playing CF and play it very well. His +15.4 UZR/150 in RF translates to roughly a +5 UZR in CF. It’s not a perfect estimate, but it works for the exercise here.

So you’re either replacing a +5 CF in Victorino with another +5 CF in Werth and then losing roughly 20 runs between Werth and Francisco in RF, or you lose roughly 20 runs between Victorino and Francisco in CF. Either way, it’s a 20 run difference over 150 games, or .13 runs per game.

At the plate, the loss is much, much lower. Francisco has a career wOBA of .337, which lines up perfectly with his numbes from 2008 and 2009. Victorino has been in the .350-.355 range since 2007. His .354 wOBA from 2009 will serve as a good estimate. Then, over four PAs remaining in the game, the Phillies lose roughly .06 runs. Over five, they lose about .07. For the sake of argument, we’ll take the biggest difference here, .07. Then we have the switch from Victorino to Francisco as a .2 run difference in Game 6.

The question that we can’t answer is the impact that Victorino’s injury has on his performance. Seeing him throw gingerly in the outfield and shake his hand after a later at-bat makes me question if he was at 100%. Is he a .320 wOBA hitter after the injury? Lower? Does he lose a good chunk of his throwing ability? Of course, I can’t answer these questions. I do, however, think it’s fair to say that there’s uncertainty here. If his hand is really bothering him and keeping him from playing to the best of his ability, Victorino should help his team and take himself out, instead of valuing machismo over all else.

Upon seeing the finished product, I immediately came to the conclusion that UZR alone wasn’t good enough. After all, what was I trying to rank? My hope was to compile a list of the relative fielding performances of each player. The issue standing in the way is that UZR is position-adjusted. Yuniesky Betancourt has been a horrible, horrible shortstop the past few years, but he’s still a better defender than David Ortiz. So I added the positional adjustments back in and arrived at a result that I think does a good job at capturing the best and worst fielders overall.

Over the next week and change, I will be detailing the individuals that stand out on the list. For now, here’s a few who just didn’t quite make the cut.

On the good side was a flurry of infielders, as you might expect. Pedro Feliz, Jack Wilson, Brandon Phillips, Nick Punto and Jimmy Rollins all just fell outside the top five. Nyjer Morgan finished 12th overall and was one of only three outfielders to make it into the top 20. Carlos Gomez finished exactly 20th and the other (can you guess who?) cracked the top five.

On the negative side, we find a whole bunch of outfielders who really should not be playing anywhere. Congratulations to Bobby Abreu, Delmon Young, Jack Cust, Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder. You all narrowly avoided being singled out as one of the five worst fielders of the past three seasons. Manny Ramirez, Jason Kubel, Vladimir Guerrero, Jose Guillen and Mike Jacobs round out the next worst five and mark the edge of players that totaled more than 50 runs of negative value with their UZR and position.

Naturally de la Rosa started 23 games for the Rockies last year and posted a 4.21 xFIP. He topped those totals this year with a 3.81 xFIP in 185 innings. Unexpected results are sometimes the best, and for a guy with a previous career best xFIP just over 4.7, these two seasons came unpredicted and left unheralded.

Once dubbed the “Mexican John Rocker”¹ by Dan Duquette, de la Rosa is a lefty with a fastball that sits 92-94 and wildly effective secondary pitches. His slider and change-up each generated more than 20% whiffs while his curve fell just shy of 13%. Batters made contact on a more consistent basis with de la Rosa’s fastball which makes his other pitches a saving grace.

Outside of the sudden breakout, why is de la Rosa the least bit interesting? Because tRA and FIP have contrasting views on just how good of a pitcher he is. Part of this conflict has to do with an unadjusted home run rates – playing in Coors has that type of effect – but de la Rosa also has perennially high line drive rates against. He also seems to have some slight issues stranding runners. Whether this is the result of scorer error or actual line drives being hit is beyond me, but for now I’ll assume the truth is somewhere in between.

–
¹This was intended to be a compliment, although nowadays it wouldn’t be.
xFIP data from The Hardball Times

As an aside, I would like to bid Sky Kalkman farewell from Beyond the Boxscore. Sky is one of the kindest and smartest writers in the baseball community, but his Life% has surpassed his time to spend writing on baseball. Not that BTB is in poor hands now either. Tommy Bennett — one of the brightest new writers to buoy to the surface this season — is now running it. Best of luck to both of those gentlemen.

Let me start by addressing the issue of a “pitcher’s best pitch.” There is no such thing as a “pitcher’s best pitch!” I know that sounds like blasphemy and it sort of depends on what we mean by “best,” but it’s true. How can I say that? Because a pitcher’s goal against any given batter in any given situation is to throw all of his pitches in a certain proportion (for example, in situation A, I, the pitcher, might throw my fastball 60% of the time, my curveball 25% of the time, and my change up 15% of the time) such that the average result of each pitch (measured any way you want, but ideally in win expectancy) is the same, and such that it doesn’t matter what pitch or pitches the batter is “looking” for. Again, you’ll notice a lot of similarities between this and my sac bunt discussion from a few days ago. And, since a pitcher should in the long run (he doesn’t have to of course) face an unbiased sample of batters and game situations, the average value of all his pitches should be roughly equal. If the value of all a pitcher’s pitches are equal, how can he have a “best pitch?” He can’t – sort of.

How can that be when clearly one pitcher’s fastball is better than another’s, one pitcher’s slider is better than another’s, etc? Because the quality, as measured in the results, of each of a pitcher’s pitches depends on two things: One, the quality of that pitch in a vacuum, as in if we were scouting a pitcher and we said, “Let’s see your fastball,” and two, the percentage of time he throws that pitch in any given situation. The “better” the pitch in a vacuum, the more he throws that pitch, such that all of his pitches eventually have the same value in any given situation. Obviously, the “better” a certain pitch is (in a vacuum), the more he will throw it (depending also on how many other pitches he has).

So, if you define “best” or “good” as the quality of a pitch in a vacuum or if the batter knows that it’s coming (or he thinks that all pitches have an equal likelihood of coming), then yes, pitchers do have a “best” pitch. But, if we define the quality of a pitch as the value of its average result in a game situation, then all pitchers’ pitches are of the same “quality.”

Let me give you an example: Let’s say that Lidge has an average fastball but a very good slider, and that’s all he throws. And let’s say that we have another pitcher with a great fastball and only an average slider. You would be tempted to say that Lidge’s “best” pitch is his slider and that the other pitcher’s “best” pitch is his fastball. And if we put a batter at the plate and told him what was coming, Lidge’s slider would outperform the other guy’s slider and the other guy’s fastball would outperform Lidge’s fastball. Even if we didn’t tell the batter what was coming but he assumed an equal likelihood of receiving each pitch, the results would be the same.

But, in an actual game situation, Lidge is going to throw more sliders than the other guy and the other pitcher is going to throw more fastballs than Lidge (and batters will know that), such that the value of Lidge’s fastball and slider will be exactly the same – ditto for the other pitcher. Overall whose average pitch value will be the same is not self-evident. That depends on who is the better pitcher overall.

You may still be tempted to think that what I’m saying is impossible. Surely the value of Lidge’s slider is going to be better than the value of his fastball in any given situation or in some situations at least. That is actually slightly true (if something can be slightly true – like being partially pregnant). There may be situations where it is correct for Lidge to throw fastballs and nothing but fastballs (such as a 3-0 count to the opposing team’s pitcher). In that case, the value of the fastball would be greater than the value of the slider and thus it is correct to throw the fastball 100% of the time even though the batter knows it is coming 100% of the time. Less likely, it may be correct to throw a slider 100% of the time, in which case the value of the slider has to be greater than the value of the fastball even if the batter knows that the slider is coming. But, most of the time it is not correct to throw one pitch or another 100% of the time, in which case, by definition, the value of all the pitches you throw must be equal (again, given the batter and the game situation, including the count of course). If for example, you threw a fastball and slider each 50% of the time, but the value of the slider were greater than the value of the fastball, then you should be throwing the slider more than 50% of the time, right? Once you do that, the batter can anticipate the slider more often such that the value of the slider will go down and the value of the fastball will go up. You and the batter will keep doing this kind of “jockeying” until you reach an equilibrium such that the value of both pitches are exactly equal. In reality, this equilibrium (presumably) exists at all times without any jockeying, since these confrontations have been going on for over 100 years. This is called the “minimax theory” in statistical decision (game) theory and in fact there is an interesting academic paper on exactly what I am discussing by Kovash and Levitt (http://www.nber.org/papers/w15347.pdf).

So while the notion of whether a pitcher actually has a “best pitch” is one of semantics, the important thing to remember is that if a pitcher throws each pitch the optimal percentage of time, the value of each of those pitches, in any given situation, must be exactly the same (the authors of the above study found that that wasn’t the case and concluded that pitchers threw too many fastballs in general, which may or may not be true as there were numerous methodological problems with their study). The other important thing to remember is that in any given situation a pitcher must throw each pitch a certain percentage of time, from 0 to 100%, and that it is rare for that percentage to be 0 or 100% (like it might be on that 3-0 pitch to a pitcher). The reason of course is that if a batter knows that a certain pitch is coming 100% of the time, that pitch is not likely to be that effective and other pitches are going to be more effective. There obviously are exceptions to this rule.

Some pitchers, like Mariano Rivera, throw the same pitch almost all the time. But even he throws the occasional slider and he actually throws two different fastballs. As well, he throws his cutter in different locations, which is the equivalent of throwing different pitches. But, as I said, if a pitch is more effective than any other pitch even when the batter knows it is coming, you are forced to throw that pitch all the time. If Mariano were to throw a curveball (I assume that he can), its value would be less than that of his fastball/cutter even if the curveball were a complete surprise. That is why he doesn’t throw a curveball. If I were able to throw a 105 mph fastball it is likely that its value would be greater than any other pitch even you were looking for that fastball 100% of the time; therefore I would have to throw the fastball all the time.

Anyway, getting back to the title question, “Should Lidge have thrown more (some actually, since he threw none) sliders to Tex or A-Rod?” There is no way of knowing the answer to that. When a pitcher is taking his signs from the catcher there are generally several pitches that he can throw, depending on his repertoire, the batter, the count, and the game situation. And he must decide the optimal percentages, again, such that one, it doesn’t matter what the batter is looking for, and two, the value of all of those pitches is the same. Of course with Damon on third base, the value of the slider includes the chance of the wild pitch, so presumably he must throw fewer sliders than if Damon were not on third base. Also, it is possible that even if the batter knows (or thinks) that a fastball is coming 100% of the time that the value of the surprise slider is less than that of the value of the predictable fastball because of the threat of the wild pitch. That is unlikely, I think, but it is possible. If that were true than he would have to throw all fastballs.

But what if that were not true, which is probably correct (especially when the pitcher, like Lidge, has an excellent slider and not a great fastball)? Then he simply throws fewer sliders than he normally would (with no runner on third). Let’s say that he is supposed to throw 2/3 fastballs and 1/3 sliders to those batters in that situation. IOW, that those are the optimal percentages such that the value of each pitch is going to be exactly equal for each count (obviously those percentages will change with the count, but for now, we’ll assume that they don’t). Well, on the first pitch to A-Rod, Ruiz and Lidge flip a mental coin such that “heads” or “fastball” comes up 2/3 of the time, and “tails” or “slider” comes up 1/3 of the time. Say heads comes up. O.K. he throws a fastball. Remember that Lidge is operating perfectly optimally as long as he keeps flipping that mental coin. There is nothing he can or wants to do differently to improve his team’s chances of winning the game (other than executing those pitches of course). Keep in mind that location is part of the pitch repertoire, but we’ll ignore that as well. Now he gets ready to throw the next pitch so he flips another mental coin. It comes up heads again, so he throws another fastball. Again, he is doing exactly what he is supposed to be doing. Now he is about to throw pitch #3. Tim McCarver would probably say something like, “He surely has to throw a slider now after 2 straight fastballs.” No! If that were his thinking then the batter would know that a slider is likely coming and all of a sudden the slider would have less value than the fastball. Remember that we said that the slider and fastball have the same value when they are thrown in that 2-1 ration. He must continue to use that 2-1 ratio when making his pitch selection (again, in reality that ratio might change, but not so much because of the prior sequence but because of the count). In fact, if Lidge thought that A-Rod was thinking a little like McCarver, which is possible, he might even be more likely to throw another fastball – he might change that ratio from 2-1 to 70% fastball or something like that. Anyway, let’s say he flips another mental coin on that 3rd pitch and it comes up head again. Another fastball. The 4th pitch? Heads, another fastball.

So he has now thrown 4 fastballs in a row, but he is acting perfectly optimally. On each pitch he has a 2/3 chance of throwing a fastball (or whatever the actual ratio would be in a real situation). But sometimes heads can keep coming up. That is the way it is supposed to be. All possible permutations of coin flips must be possible otherwise the batter can gain an edge because the pitcher is being too predictable. If the pitcher is unwilling to throw a 4th fastball after 3 fastballs in a row, such as if McCarver were calling the game, the batter would know that a slider was likely on the next pitch, which would be bad news for Lidge. In fact, the chances of 4 fastballs in a row in that situation where fastballs should be thrown 2/3 of the time, is almost 20%. So 1/5 of the time, A-Rod is going to see 4 fastballs in a row even if Lidge is throwing optimally and plans on throwing a slider 1/3 of the time on every pitch. Yet it looks to the naked eye that Lidge is just throwing all fastballs and that he is NOT pitching optimally when in fact he is.

So how can we evaluate pitch selection from watching a small sample of a pitcher’s repertoire, say against one or two batters? I am afraid we can’t. We would have to do one of two things: One, find out from the pitcher and catcher what those percentages were on each and every pitch, or two, observe those percentages over a large sample of batters and situations and try and compare them to what we think is optimal.

So, did Lidge throw Tex and A-Rod too many fastballs? Unless you have not been paying attention, I have no idea and neither should you.

The Graduate: Mitch Maier, OF
I’ve been a big fan of Maier since his college days, so I was happy to see him finally get an extended opportunity in KC in ‘09. The former college catcher had a modest rookie season with a line of .243/.333/.331. He struggles to hit consistently because he expands the strike zone too much, but he has value to the club because of his versatility, willingness to walk and speed. Maier’s best position is center field, although he can play all three. He’s also played infield positions in the minors and can serve as a third-string catcher. As much as it pains me to say it, Maier will need to show improvement if he hopes to stick around the Majors with KC, especially with the likes of Jordan Parraz and Tim Smith on the way.

The Riser: Jordan Parraz, OF
The acquisitions of players like Parraz could very well help turn the organization around, more so than picking up the Mike Jacobs and Yuniesky Betancourts of the world. Grabbed from Houston prior to the ‘09 season, Parraz was a player with some intriguing abilities but things were just not clicking in the Astros system. The outfielder missed some time this past season due to injury, but he hit .358/.451/.553 in 226 double-A at-bats. He also earned a 13-game trial in triple-A. Parraz has the ability to hit a few homers and steal a few bases while getting on base at a respectable rate. Now 25, the Royals prospect has a shot at spending time in Kansas City in 2010, likely as a backup outfielder.

The Tumbler: Johnny Giavotella, 2B
Giavotella did not have a terrible season, but he failed to build on the success he had in his debut season in ‘08. The second baseman hit a modest .258/.351/.380 in 476 high-A at-bats… and he was victimized by a .281 BABIP. At 5′8” he won’t generate a ton of power, but he gets on base (12.2 BB%) and he doesn’t strike out much (1.22 BB/K). He needs to improve against right-handed pitchers after hitting just .243/.340/.344. Giavotella also has some speed with 26 steals in 35 attempts in ‘09. Defensively at second base, he made 21 errors and showed average range at best.

The ‘10 Sleeper: Tim Smith, OF
Smith was obtained late in the ‘09 season from Texas, along with Manny Pina, in exchange for disgruntled pitcher Danny Gutierrez. The Canadian outfielder swings a good stick, with a career batting average above .300. Despite battling injuries in ‘09, Smith hit .333/.413/.475 in 120 high-A at-bats, and .309/.380/.439 in 139 double-A at-bats. The left-handed hitter batted .279/.346/.397 against southpaws and .337/.409/.490 versus right-handers. He’s not a speed-burner but he’s good on the bases, having stolen 21 in ‘08 and 15 (in 17 attempts) in ‘09. Smith, 23, does not project to be a star, but he could be a modest everyday player, or a solid fourth outfielder.

Bonus: Jose Bonilla, C
Bonilla was highlighted in the ‘08 series as the Royals’ sleeper prospect for 2009. However, things did not go as hoped for the catcher in ‘09 as he struggled with the bat in his first taste of full-season ball. Bonilla’s averaged dropped from .357 in rookie ball to .217 in low-A ball, in part because his BABIP went from .412 to .280. The prospect has modest power (.094 ISO), but he struck out at a disappointing rate: 26.2 K%. On the plus side, Bonilla’s walk rate rose from 4.3 to 7.6 BB%. A right-handed hitter, he batted just .178/.219/.256 against southpaws. Defensively, he still allows too many passed balls and his success rate at throwing out runners dropped from 43% in ‘08 to 34% in ‘09.

1. I’ll give Charlie Manuel this – the man has cojones the size of the Liberty Bell. No matter how many times he had to watch Brad Lidge melt down on the mound this year, he remained convinced of his abilities to get critical outs in a high leverage situation. It doesn’t get much higher leverage than last night’s ninth inning, and Manuel put his trust in Lidge again. Lidge was one strike away from justifying Manuel’s confidence before it all fell apart. As bad as he’s been this year, I’m not sure the Phillies had a better option for that spot, which is one reason why the Yankees are planning a parade right now.

2. If there was one glaring lesson from last night’s game, it was how quickly a dominating pitcher can get humbled. Joba Chamberlain looked like he was at the top of his game, blowing away Jayson Werth and Raul Ibanez with 97 MPH fastballs. After getting ahead of Pedro Feliz with two swinging strikes, Phillies hitters had missed on the six of seven swings they had taken against Chamberlain that inning. And then Feliz hit one out of the park to tie the game.

Fast forward to the ninth inning, and Lidge had no problems dispatching Hideki Matsui and Derek Jeter. All three strikes to The Captain were of the swing-and-miss variety, as Lidge showed the stuff that caused Manuel to still believe in his closer. And then, after getting to within one pitch of ending the inning, he allowed the next four guys to reach base and lost the game.

Forget hindsight – at the moment of their failure, both Chamberlain and Lidge looked great. There was nothing to suggest that a problem was lurking. They were throwing the hell out of the ball, and then they got hit. Trying to predict the future is really hard.

3. Joe Girardi has made a lot of small mistakes in the playoffs, but he got one thing right that dwarfed all of those – the decision to use a three man rotation has given the Yankees a huge advantage. Just like in the ALCS, 84 percent of the innings thrown by Yankee pitchers have been handled by CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Andy Pettitte, and Mariano Rivera. Eighty-four percent. Expect the trend to continue tonight – Girardi knows who his horses are and he’s planning on riding them to a World Series title.

Gardner is a fan favorite in New York, and is especially noted for his speed. His speed score of 9.1 ranks as the best in the major leagues this year. We’ve also seen his speed on the bases translate to range in the field, as Gardner has posted a spectacular UZR of +17.1 in 114 DG in CF. According to Tom Tango’s Fan Scouting Report, he ranks as a well above average fielder as well.

Gardner is likely not a +23 UZR/150 fielder, but with positive marks from the fans, we can be reasonably certain that he is a solid amount above average. As a htiter, Gardner’s main value comes from his baserunning. His 83.8% stolen base rate in 31 attempts made him a viable threat every time he reached base, which he did in over 34% of plate appearances. His rise in walk rate was the main contributor to his .337 wOBA in 2009. Given his terrible 2008 and the small sample we are given, we have to assume right now that Gardner’s true talent lies near his career wOBA of .319.

Melky Cabrera in 2009 showed sustainable improvement off of his rookie campaign, as his BB% and ISO rose to career highs and his BABIP rose from his 2008 low of .273 to .291. His true talent probably falls somewhere between his wOBA from this year (.331) and 2007 (.316). Cabrera’s defense has also improved each year since 2007, but he’s still a far cry from a defensive wizard. Cabrera’s career has him as a -5 UZR/150 player, but giving weight to recent seasons suggests he’s closer to a -2 or -3 UZR/150 fielder.

What we see here is two similar hitters and one excellent fielder. Cabrera’s switch hitting makes him the better option against left-handed starting pitchers, but against righties, Gardner’s combination of fielding skill, on-base skill, and ability to wreak havoc as a runner makes him an excellent play. If Melky Cabrera is unable to go in the remainder of the series, expect to see Gardner take over in center field and the Yankees to not miss a beat.