Some Final Statistical Perspective On The Yankees' Season

The Yankees finished up their 2013 season with a series sweep of the god-awful Houston Astros this past weekend.  Those 3 wins gave them an 85-77 final record, expected when you consider where a lot of the preseason projections had them and somewhat surprising when you consider their -21 run differential.  That figure painted the Yankees as a sub-.500 team, 79-83 according to the Pythagorean W-L projections, and it's worth noting that the Yankees were the only team in MLB with a negative run differential that finished above .500 on the season.

There was no return of mystique and aura to carry this old, extremely flawed ballclub to the postseason.  There was no last magical run for Andy and Mo.  There was just a crummy baseball team that somehow slightly outperformed its mediocre statistical expectations.  If you need further proof of that, here it is in a nutshell.

Yankee Offense:

.301 wOBA- 26th in MLB
85 wRC+- 28th in MLB
144 HR- 22nd in MLB
7.7% BB rate- 16th in MLB
10.3 position player fWAR- 24th in MLB

Yankee Rotation*:

4.08 ERA- 18th in MLB
3.88 FIP- 11th in MLB
3.90 xFIP- 15th in MLB
18.4% K rate- 19th in MLB
10.4% HR rate- 11th in MLB

* (The rotation's tripleslash was 4.27/3.87/3.97 in the 2nd half, good for 22nd, 13th, and 17th respectively.)

Yankee Bullpen*:

3.66 ERA- 20th in MLB
3.91 FIP- 26th in MLB
3.41 xFIP- 3rd in MLB
23.7% K rate- 5th in MLB
13.9% HR rate- 30th in MLB

* (The 'pen's tripleslash was 4.16/4.53/3.92 in the 2nd half, 26th, 29th, and 23rd respectively.)

There you have it, folks.  A middle-of-the-pack-or-worse team in almost every important statistical category.  The high strikeout numbers from the bullpen look good, that is until you realize the Yankee bullpen gave up home runs at the highest rate in all of baseball and the 2nd most overall (64) behind only the lowly 'Stros.

The Yankees, for all intents and purposes, were a bad baseball team this year.  They didn't hit at all in the 1st or 2nd half of the year, and they didn't pitch nearly well enough to make up for that.  In fact, they pitched worse as the season went on, making the fact that they hung around in the playoff race as long as they did even more impressive.  Ultimately it was the Yankees' 2012 Orioles-like performance in 1-run games (MLB best 30-16) that did more to keep them in the hunt than anything else.  The numbers don't lie, and these numbers tell the true story of the 2013 Yankees.