Many broadcasters and writers are correctly citing the improvement of the Yankees pitching as one of the big reasons behind their recent surge. Their team ERA heading into the Atlanta opener was 3.85, good for 6th in the AL.

This improvement, however, should come as no surprise to anyone, as those crazy/hot pocket-eating/mother’s basement stats saw this coming from a mile away.

Back on April 23rd, our zit-faced virgin sabermetrically-inclined analyst Vizzini wrote the following:

The broadcasters will tell you the Yankees pitching has been a problem. They look at the 4.36 ERA (21st) and see a struggling staff. You read NoMaas, so you know stats with greater predictive power and know the arms doing just fine.

The Yankees go into the last week of April with a 3.49 xFIP (5th). That looks even better when you compare them to the other teams in the more difficult American League — their team xFIP is 26% better than the AL average, 2nd only to the White Sox. Another very predictive metric is the ERA estimator SIERRA. The Yankees have the 3rd-best SIERRA at 3.22.

The good news should keep rolling in as hopefully Freddy Garcia is eventually replaced by Andy Pettitte. If Michael Pineda can get back on the field at some point this season, the Yankees are likely to be one of the most dominant pitching teams in MLB.

While Pineda obviously didn’t happen and might not ever happen, it was clear in April that the Yankees were pitching significantly better than their ERA indicated. We’ve seen notable improvements with Hughes and Nova especially, both of which were expected if you looked at those never-touched-a-female statistics.

So don’t fear the stats. Take a little time, develop a basic understanding, and add them to your arsenal. While a certain somebody may tell you otherwise, you CAN predict baseball.

“Jawn, can you predict what I’m going to do to you?! Oh my gawd!”