October 17, 2026

95 thoughts on “Yankees (91-67) vs. Rays (96-62), Thursday, September 24, 2026, 7:05 PM”

    2. MLB is typically the “official” take, and they have it as unearned. It SHOULD be unearned, since Diaz only went to second because of the error, and he wouldn’t have scored from first on the Caminero single otherwise.

    2. Makes sense to me — ERA is attempting to measure how well someone pitched, regardless of the fielding. Just because it’s the pitcher who made the error doesn’t change how well or how poorly he pitched.

  27. The logic on a pitcher’s error is that the second the ball leaves a pitcher’s hand he’s a fielder. It seems weird to me but that’s the stated reason.

  40. “In all seriousness, I think the logic on pitcher errors is that the pitcher obviously didn’t intentionally try to fuck himself to make the runs unearned, right? So why treat it as unlike any other fielder?”

    I think the logic is that ERA is supposed to measure PITCHING.
    And it’s not as though he gets off scott free and the error isn’t recorded – I mean, he does get the error. You can see how many errors he has and how many unearned runs scored on his watch. No reason for double jeopardy.

    1. With apologies to the economist George Box: All metrics are wrong. Some metrics are useful.
      ERA is an outcomes-based rate statistic that incorporates an attribution of responsibility for the runs that have been scored. It has its limitations – the propensity of relievers to allow inherited runners being one limitation that I recall you incisively noting a while back. But the main purpose of ERA is to ask, how many runs per nine innings has this pitcher been responsible for? And my contention is that it is impossible to separate a pitcher’s fielding from his pitching. Fielding is a part of a pitcher’s job, it always has been, and it always will be. (At least, until 2030 when Manfred will implement a “designated fielder” who takes over to field comebackers and throw to bases while the pitcher cowers behind an L-screen. This new position will be necessitated by the 2029 introduction of metal bats, which is intended to restore fan interest after the entire 2027 season is lost to lockout, but unfortunately results in an on-field tragedy and, in turn, manslaughter charges against Spencer Jones. But I digress.)
      Anyway, the question of earned vs unearned runs is a question of responsibility for the outcome. If you are asking whether a pitcher is responsible for the runs, you should not care whether the runs came on account of his errant pitch that caught too much of the plate and was sent over the fence, or his errant pitch that missed its receiver behind the plate and went to the backstop, or his errant throw that missed its receiver at second base and went into the outfield, or his balk, or his bobbled bunt. Those are all the pitcher’s fault, and it is not useful to confound the attribution of responsibility by saying “well, it wasn’t his pitching”. It was his responsibility and was not impacted by other defenders.
      If you are trying to measure fielding independent pitching, you may as well use Fielding Independent Pitching. (I happen personally to think that FIP is as much a misnomer as “Three True Outcomes”, that they represent drastic oversimplifications invented for abstract purposes of context-independent modeling of average players with average skill sets, and they neglect that baseball is a game of situations; if you’re going to strip the game of context, then you may as well eschew half-measures and go all the way to batted ball data – xFIP, xwOBA, etc.)
      Anyway – all this to say that, as UJD noted, it makes no sense to say that a pitcher is no longer a pitcher when he is fielding. After all, a pitcher who can field his position well gets extra credit to his ERA, which is a main statistic that people use to evaluate his (historical) performance. Why shouldn’t a pitcher who can’t field his position get a penalty?
      And re: your last point here, Pete, it’s not “double jeopardy” to count both the error against his fielding percentage and the resultant run against his ERA, because 1) the two statistics measure distinct outcomes and 2) nobody actually pays attention to a pitcher’s fielding percentage outside of Gold Glove voting. While errors can figure into defensive WAR, the value of the play would not be double-counted because pitching WAR does not rely on whether runs were earned or unearned. BRef WAR uses RA/9 instead of ERA, and Fangraphs WAR uses FIP.

    2. Yes, sure, and the FIP argument is particularly good.
      I can see arguing this either way.
      It’s not like the inherited runner problem, where the current approach is clearly wrong.

  42. Glad to see Lombard crushing it at the plate. I hope it’s because he’s made sustainable adjustments to major league pitching, the way he did a couple months into each level of the minor leagues; but my inner skeptic says it’s just because he’s facing replacement level pitchers.

    On that note, I can’t remember if we ever discussed the idea of an ELO-like rating system for hitters and/or pitchers? I’m sure it would take a large number of plate appearances to stabilize but I do think it would be quite interesting…

  43. Austin wells first 315 PAs this year = 19 RBI
    Last 69 PA =13 RBI

    He was putting up a good fight to have one of the least Yankee RBI producing seasons of all time but no longer.

    For seasons with 400+ PA I think 1960 Bobby Richardson is the lowest. Granted he batted leadoff. Though in 1961 hitting ahead of mantle and Maris with 700 PAs he only scored 80 runs! Just ugh.

  46. So apparently Jomboy heard Suzyn say that Giancarlo hit a big homer in his batting practice and will be on the playoff roster. Not sure I believe it, but if so, hear me out. This is the best time to test the theory that you don’t have to play defense if your pitchers strike everyone out. Just play your best lineup.

    Rice DH
    Garcia 1B
    Judge DH
    Bellinger LF-CF
    Stanton DH
    Jones CF-RF
    Ramos DH
    Lombard SS
    Wells C

    Plus maybe Grisham can be available as a PH/DH if needed.

    Game 1: Schlittler and Rodon piggyback.
    Game 2: Cole and Fried piggyback.
    Game 3 won’t be necessary.

    1. do we really need a catcher? maybe goldschmidt could just pick the ball off the backstop to toss it back in. he hits pretty well as long as he isn’t deployed more than twice a week.

    1. This is a great move, putting Volpe where even he, at his slumpiest, can hardly hit worse than the guy he’s replacing.

    2. As Teller might have said, the extinction of Yankees fandom will be Cashman’s failure to *emotionally* comprehend replacement level.

    2. Well’s suddenly fall was so ridiculously extreme that coming back to something like what he’s always been doesn’t seem all that pipe-dreamyish.

  50. The thing I liked most about Lombard’s slide was not the athleticism, it was the awareness. He was paying attention. Just like when he barehanded that bad hop at shortstop his first week, staying with the ball. And completely unlike that week where he made errors in six consecutive games – half of the errors were from taking his eyes off the ball.

  51. Stanton, Grisham, he’ll even Judge… I don’t care if you a “ready”. No thank you. I’ll keep what we’ve been using. MAYBE Judge if he can play RF, but honestly, I’m too worried he is going to blow out his Achilles. And DHing Judge with his limited production honestly creates more problems than it solves.

  53. Ryan Weathers’ velocity was up to 96 mph today, Aaron Boone said, though his control was “a little scattered.” Boone said Weathers would be a possibility “for sure” during the postseason, but not necessarily in the Wild Card Series.

  55. Sanchez doesn’t deserve a postseason roster spot. If Wells is really okay now, then the team is better off with literally anyone else from the 40-man instead of Sanchez, and Rice as the emergency BUC.

  57. Obviously don’t care too much about Beck, but it’s nice to see the offense taking every opportunity to whip itself into shape.
    Volpe at 3rd just changed everything.
    Or nothing, same diff…

    1. I don’t think a single ball has been hit to him there. So, our best third baseman all year.

    1. One of SO many areas in which this team could SO easily improve – without changing the roster or anything radical in their other practices.

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