The Weblog That Derek Built

Best Christmas Present. Ever.

2010-12-30T02:17:00.006-05:00

When you have kids, Christmas shifts. It's their holiday. You're in attendance, and get to have fun with the decorating and the music and the get-togethers, but Christmas morning belongs to them--even if, like my boys, they're too young to really understand what's going on. It's so much about them that the idea of exchanging gifts among adults starts to seem silly.

So everybody was under a tacit agreement to keep things low-key this year, which is why is was a huge surprise when La Chiquita sprung out a couple of tickets--good ones, no less--to Prince's Welcome 2 America concert as her Christmas present to me. I like a lot of different kinds of music, but Prince is the only performer where I have every one of his albums. For a while in the late 1990s, I made sure to catch him whenever he performed within an hour's drive of where I lived (even though I don't drive), still, I hadn't seen his live show in more than a decade--a combination of fan-alienating moves on his part and life getting in the way on my side had slackened my enthusiasm. Although I kept buying the Man's albums, only a few of them captured my imagination for more than a couple of spins (mainly, Musicology and 3121).

Regardless, I was overjoyed with the gift, and full of anticipation for the concert. We arrived a little late, having stopped by my brother's house to visit with my sister-in-law's family and with the newest addition to our clan. When we got there, the first opening number was already in progress. Sadly, neither of us had eaten, so securing food was a priority on arrival. I thought briefly that we were missing Maceo Parker, but it turned out the first opener was Mint Condition--a nice enough band, but not quite worth passing out at a concert over.

We took our seats in time for Janelle Monae's set. The introduction was strange because her albums apparently have a high-concept mythology to them--somehow masks, zombies, and androids are involved--which would've required a pamphlet or something for the uninitiated to understand, but her stage skills were old school in a good way: big voice, sharp dance moves, good presence. There's a lot of Prince in that young lady (perhaps the first time that phrase has been uttered without a truckload of innuendo being rightfully attached). Still, the audience's reaction was tepid--much of the crowd was getting $10 beers and/or watching the Islanders/Penguins game on the MSG TV monitors. It's a thankless job, opening for Prince.

After a looong break, during which the MSG monitors played clips from a late '60s/early '70s stadium concert (looked like the LA Coliseum), the Purple One finally took the stage. The stage was in the shape of the name symbol Prince used during his Artist Formerly Known As Prince period, with a purple baby grand piano set up on "mouthpiece" side of the horn that transects the symbol. Here's a really crappy iPhone photo, for instructional purposes:

Prince started on the piano, opening with the intro to The Beautiful Ones before leaving his seat to sing the ballad on top of the piano, and then leaving the piano to roam all over the stage. The Beautiful Ones is a really unusual song to lead off with--neither a chart-topper nor an uptempo number, but the song definitely showed that the Man's pipes are as powerful as ever. From there, it was on to the hits: Let's Go Crazy wrapped around a full version of Delirious, followed by certified crowd-pleasers 1999 and Little Red Corvette, and then a semi-medley of Uptown, Cream, and Raspberry Beret.

Every musician reacts differently to performing live. Most try to garner the crowd's favor, from seduction to outright sucking up. Prince is one of the guys who reverses the process--the audience has to earn his favor. Sure, he'll make sure you're happy--then again, in his mind, your satisfaction was never in doubt. The question is, will you, the audience, return the favor? Wednesday at Madison Square Garden, the crowd definitely seemed to have won the Purple One's approval, making a ton of noise, filling in verses unbidden, and being enthusiastic in call-and-response, as on Cool, one of The Time's signature cuts. After a segwey back to hitsville for U Got the Look, Prince went back off the beaten path, teasing the intro to Question of U (from Graffitti Bridge) but launching into a song I didn't recognize, that most people seem to be calling Gingerbread Man, and which I assume is new. [One reason it's taken me so long to post this review is because of how skeptical I am about this song's newness, but I can't find a reference to it anywhere and no one else seems to have ID'd it either. I'm sure some Internet Dickwad ($0.25, Gabe & Tycho) will step up with "That's not new, I heard him perform it in Tokyo in '96! I though you said you were a Prince fan!" or it'll turn out to be an obscure cover. So be it--it's new to me.] The song, a hip thrusting slow jam in the mode of Scandalous or Do Me Baby, found Prince in a carnal mode we haven't seen so much of since he got all Jehova's Witness-y on us.

After that, the songs all started to sound like finales. You had a full version of Purple Rain, then a break, then a slightly off-kilter version of Kiss, then a break, then She's Always In My Hair, which moved cleanly into If I Was Your Girlfriend. Monae joined him onstage for If I Was Your Girlfriend, putting on a bravura performance where the two singers tag-teamed a single mike, which they passed back and forth like a relay baton while dancing up a storm, and not tripping over an audience member who seemed to have been brought on stage purely for the purpose of upping the degree of difficulty.

After another break, Prince came back for his first official encore, taking to the piano with little or no band accompaniment for a medley of Do Me Baby, I Wanna Be Your Lover, and How Come You Don't Call Me Anymore, and a full version of Sometimes It Snows In April. The second encore was more perfunctory, an opportunity to invite a lot of people from the expensive seats up to dance onstage, and to get Cyndi Lauper vamping impressively while Prince played Jungle Love.

For two people who never leave the house, La Chiquita and I have had a good year in concerts: we saw one of my favorite jazz performances a couple of months back when Chucho Valdes was in town, and this concert made a great capper for 2010. The only criticisms I could see were that Prince's band, while competent, wasn't going to make anyone forget the Revolution or even the early versions of the NPG, and that (with the possible exception of that Gingerbread Man song) every song was at least 19 years old. Strange, given that one of my complaints when I last saw Prince in concert was that performing the hits left room for little else, but I didn't mind the greatest hits format of this concert, or the exclusion of his catalog after Diamonds & Pearls. More than a nostalgia-fest, the concert felt a bit like a time machine--Prince looked, sounded, and danced like someone 20 years younger, the only concessions to middle age I could see were several strategically-placed teleprompters, and a little less abandon in the way he threw his body around the stage. But with my hands still vibrating at the end of the concert from an evening of nearly non-stop applause, I couldn't have cared what year it was--it felt like I was a kid again.

A Night in Coney Island

2010-08-26T20:58:00.002-04:00

Last night I had the good fortune to get out to Coney Island to enjoy some minor league action with Joe Sheehan, Jay Jaffe, Emma Span, Geoff Silver, Matt Meyers and Jesse Spector, as the Mets' New York-Penn League team, the Brooklyn Cyclones, faced down the Baltimore Orioles short-season squad, the Aberdeen IronBirds. I had my camera with me, so enjoy this slideshow with a few notes from the game:

Cyclones 8-25-10

Game 89: Instant Classic?

2010-08-05T23:26:00.004-04:00

Game 89, the first game after this year's All-Star break, was just on YES (for anyone interested, it'll be replayed tomorrow at 9AM). YES has declared the game a Yankees Classic, because it was the Yanks' first game after the death of team owner George Steinbrenner, and their first home game since the death of longtime PA announcer Bob Sheppard. I was at the game, and took a bunch of pictures (but none, sadly, of the pre-game ceremony) which I didn't have time to post at the time. Here's a photo album of that game:

Game 89

Game 97: Sun, Rain, and Waiting on 600

2010-07-27T15:11:00.004-04:00

Yep, I'm blogging on a Wednesday about Sunday's game, but the rain delay really took the energy out of me Sunday night, and the pictures were just too good not to post. Seventy-plus hours after Game 97, the Yanks have added a win and a loss, and Swish and Granderson have added home runs, but Alex is still idling at 599 homers as the Yanks continue on a road trip that will take them from Cleveland to the Trop en route to their return to Yankee Stadium just after the trade deadline. The deadline looms large because, even though the Yanks have the best record in the majors, they don't look like the a complete enough team to stand pat on the trade market.

Back to Sunday's game. Mostly, I'll let the pictures do the talking here:

Phil Hughes, Sunday's starter, is either praying or communing with the rosin bag before throwing his first pitch. Either way, I hope he's asking the powers-that-be that he not turn out like Joba did.

Opposing Phil would be the Kansas City Royals, the miserable ruins of a once-proud franchise. Here's KC's catcher, the twice-washed-up Jason Kendall. He batted second in the lineup. Batting third? Wilson Betemit. Yes, that Wilson Betemit!

The bright point in the Royal's lineup was Scott Podsednik, another player who's had a few major league lives before winding up in KC. He had a career day, matching his high marks with two homers and 4 RBI. He would also make a spectacular catch in the eighth inning, which sadly I didn't catch on virtual film. Here, he's on base after his first-inning single, wearing some sort of sliding mitten on his left hand.

Royals pitchers focused on throwing inside all day. Here's newly-acquired Royal Sean O'Sullivan getting up close and personal with Derek Jeter in the first inning.

Of course, the big draw of the game was Alex Rodriguez's ongoing quest for his 600th career home run. Before each A-Rod at bat, we had the following scene of the ump trading in his regular set of balls for special marked balls, which could be used to verify the authenticity of homer number 600 should Alex manage to launch it in that at-bat.

During the game, Brother Jeff asked if the 600 milestone still meant anything. The answer is yes and no. It used to be that 600 homers meant you were closing in on Willie Mays--undisputed, authentic immortal, with only undisputed authentic immortals ahead of him. These days, it means you're closing in on Sammy Sosa and Ken Griffey Jr. No disrespect to those two, but that air is not so rarified as it once was. Same thing with 500--it used to mean inner-circle Hall of Famers, now it's joining a club that has kinda-greats like Eddie Murray, Gary Sheffield, Rafael Palmeiro, Jim Thome. Sure, some of that has to do with steroids, but a bit of it is just the normal dilution that happens to once-"unreachable" sporting achievements.

On the other hand, as we saw a few years back, even with Palmeiro and Thome et al, 500 still matters. On Sunday, 600 mattered: people were obviously there hoping to see history. Every time Alex came to bat, you could see flashes popping, even though the early innings were played in bright sunlight.

Down 2-0 in the third, the Yanks ripped out a four-run outburst, started by a Curtis Granderson homer and RBI doubles by Jeter and Rodriguez. The weirdest play of the inning was this little squibber off the bat of Mark Teixeira.

It was a weak little grounder, but the Teixeira shift and Jeter heading home from third combined to make this an RBI single. Of course, it didn't hurt that the Royals' infield was basically three utility guys (Chris Getz at third, Mike Aviles at second, and Betemit at first) and Yuniesky Betancourt. (Want to make a Royals fan angry? Bring up Yuniesky Betancourt.) All the infielders had a bit of Bad News Bears in them on Sunday--bad throws, bad catches, butterfingers moments.

But even with the lead, Phil Hughes didn't put much pressure on the Royals. He didn't walk anybody, but he did allow a second home run, a blast from ex-pitcher Rick Ankiel that looked like it might have damaged the third deck. Sure, the first homer he allowed was a cheap foul pole job to Podsednik, but all game long, it didn't look like Hughes had his good swing-and-miss stuff.

Luckily, Granderson responded to Ankiel's homer with a second dinger of his own. In the fifth, with the score 5-3 Yanks, Rodriguez came to the plate again, with the Captain on first and two outs. What followed was a pretty good demonstration of what pressing looks like. The ball was going everywhere but fair.

There were foul balls off the ankle guard...

...there was some falling down...

...there was an awkwardly rinky-dink foul nearly straight up that luckily went out of play. All while the crowd was waiting with bated breath to see history happen. On the 2-2 count, Jeter got bored and stole second. All this ended with a weak grounder to Betancourt.

By this time, clouds had been gathering all game long, and now the sky was steel gray.

Hughes got one batter into the sixth, and suddenly the wind kicked up, and the groundscrew leapt to roll out the tarp.

Luckily, the big rainstorm came on umbrella day at Yankee Stadium. J&R got big bang for their promotional dollar. There were no umbrellas for the grounds crew though, who had their hands full.

Sadly, during the rain delay, the Yankee Stadium screen's entertainment: (c) Failed miserably. Don't blame Swish, whose cooking segment was pretty decent, but it was sandwiched between obnoxious informercials for Yankee Stadium's various food stands and a freakin' documentary about Yankees fantasy camp. No one wants to watch scrubs with too much money play rec-league baseball--as Brother Jeff said, it's like watching watching someone's vacation photos, just you don't know them, and could give even less of a damn than you usually would. Did I mention, that as this was happening, Andre Dawson was at Cooperstown, being inducted to the Hall of Fame? Think a bunch of baseball fans would rather watch that, or a 48-year-old stock broker trying to turn two? Or any of the half-million documentaries in the YES network library? Three days later, I'm still steamed about this.

Two-plus hours later, the tarp came off. Only a small fraction of the crowd was still in the house, but those who stayed had one thought in mind: 600!

Before Rodriguez could get to the plate again, Brett Gardner worked some of his slappy opposite field magic to plate Robinson Cano in the sixth. Gardner, along with Cano and Swisher, has been key in picking up the slack left in the lineup by the Jeter, Teixeira, and Rodriguez's subpar performances. This season he's hit almost exactly what he hit in the minors; which was pretty much what he had to do to justify a regular place in the lineup.

The Yanks added what looked like an insurance run in the seventh, when Rodriguez hit a hard grounder to Aviles that spun the second baseman like a top, scoring Swisher. Sadly, the insurance would be necessary because the hollowed out shell of Joba Chamberlain came into the game in the 8th inning, and gave up a couple of runs on a long homer by Scott Podsednik. To give this some context, Podsednik's hit a homer about once every 100 plate appearances for his career. This is not a power hitter, but he raked Joba for a no-doubter into the right field stands. Aside from that, and walking the number nine hitter to set up that two-run shot, two of the three outs Chamberlain recorded were hard-hit.

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Just when it looked like the Yankees would have to summon Mariano Rivera to close things out, the Royals bullpen spit the bit. Improbably, reliever Blake Wood, with a healthy assist from his thirdbaseman and manager, brought A-Rod to the plate for one more shot at the milestone. With the bases loaded and one out, Rodriguez was swinging easier than he had in his previous at bats. The faithful who were still in the stands could taste milestone coming...

...but it was not to be. In a huge anticlimax, Woods came up and in to Rodriguez hitting him on the hand. Alex was down on the ground for a while, and the remaining crowd let Woods and the Royals feel the hate. Ultimately, the Yanks put up a five-spot, though, meaning that instead of Enter Sandman, we got Chan Ho Park.

Or as I like to call him, Exhibit B in why the Yanks can't stand pat coming to the trade deadline. Park only managed to give back one run of the lead--and he had a helping hand from Jorge Posada's face mask and Rule 7.05(d)--but the righthander showed no velocity and just plain refused to throw strikes. Dave Robertson can only throw so many of the non-Mariano innings, and unlike the situations with the Yankees DH spot, there just don't seem to be any reliable internal options to make up for the way Joba and Park have stunk this season.

Anyway, so that was the game. Here's hoping that Alex can get the monkey off his back against grounballista Fausto Carmona tonight.

Game 80: Blue Jays at Yanks

2010-07-05T02:08:00.018-04:00

Wow. It's been a while since we've spoken (a quarter-season, to be precise) and there's a lot of catching up to do. Unfortunately, this is not the time for a wide-ranging discussion of all things Bronx Bombers (that'll be later in the week). This is the time for...photoblog:

It's not Fourth of July without baseball, the Yankees, and Freddy.

The pitching matchup for George Steinbrenner's 80th birthday was geared more toward the future--Phil Hughes for the Yanks and Brandon Morrow for the Blue Jay could spend a lot of their time crossing swords in the AL East between now and the Boss's 90th birthday. They're both power pitchers who established themselves in the bullpen before taking regular rotation slots. Morrow's a harder thrower (getting up to 97 on the stadium gun) than Phil, but also more prone to wildness (5.3 BB/9 for his career).

Phil the Phenom, coiled to attack. Has he been Joba'd?

Sadly for the Yanks, Phil's been in a bit of a phunk since the Yankees skipped him in the rotation a couple of weeks ago, the latest manifestation of their continuing experiment in limiting wear-and-tear on young arms. In his first start after the layoff he looked like he was throwing batting practice to the Mariners, allowing a career-high 10 hits in less than seven innings. Today he started strong, striking out the game's first two batters, but later he was Big Fly Hughes, allowing Lyle Overbay a cannon blast to dead center in the third, an excuse-me popup off the right field foul pole to Dwayne Wise, and another scorcher to star underperformer Adam Lind. Hughes' struggles were particularly galling since he was facing a true Sunday lineup: backups starting at second, catcher (Jose Molina for John Buck), and center (Wise for Vernon Wells).

Teixeira achieving full extension for his 5th inning double.

Wise's three-run homer was in the top of the fifth, and it really took the wind out of the crowd, erasing what had been a 3-1 lead. It looked like the Yanks were storming back in the bottom of the frame. Nick Swisher, fresh off his "Vote for Swish" pitch on the Jumbotron, singled to lead off the inning, then Mark Teixeira unleashed a massively promising drive to center...and, I'll let the pictures tell the story.

"Vote for Swish!" heading home! A-Rod says slide!

Sliding didn't work out so well. JoMo stonewalls Swish!

Yankee fans can give great dissertations on Jose Molina's failings, but an inability to block the plate has never been among them. If you click on the above picture, you'll see that the entirety of the plate is safely underneath Molina's ample backside--so long as he holds on to the ball, Swish is dead meat. Now, that was a bummer, but we still have a man on third, just one out, and the cleanup hitter at bat. Feelin' good, right?

Then the whole thing happens again. A-Rod hits a fly to Wise in mid-center. Teixeira heads home to score on the sac fly. Dead at the plate, again. Two hits, only one batter makes an out, no runs. Devastating.

At this point, Dwayne Wise--a guy who's only known because he made a gorgeous play to save Mark Buehrle's no-no last year--has dominated the game. His dinky little foul-pole homer was the leading margin; with Molina's help, his sharp throwing killed the Yankee rally in the fifth. Then, with the score 5-3 Jays in the sixth, here comes Wise again. Two outs, the team's slowest runner on first, and Brett Gardner hits a fly to fairly deep center, but it hangs up and Wise is under it. Should be an easy play. Then he loses it in the bright July 4 sun, something you can't do with Gardner running the bases. Tie game.

Now, as far as I can recall, I've never seen a Yankee hit an inside-the-park homer in person. Despite what the official scorer said, I still haven't seen one. Most inside the park homers involve some sort of blunder on the part of the fielder, but this fly ball hit Wise on the glove. As Brother Joe said on Twitter (mas o menos): if that's not an error, then there is no such thing as an error.

Brett Gardner trots home on his game tying...big mistake by the other team's fielder?

In the seventh, the Yanks took the lead, with Jeter scoring on another Teixeira double. Again, the inning meets a premature end because of a baserunner kill at the plate. (And again, it's Swisher. This is not how you get us to Vote for Swish!) Wise wasn't involved in that play at the plate, but that doesn't mean he was done...

Usually, the opposing team sees this, it's time to make sure you have dinner reservations.

Ninth inning, Enter Sandman, and the folks who've been melting in bright sunshine start heading toward the exits and the shade. The Jays got a couple of ground singles wrapped around a Jose Molina whiff, but it looked like Rivera had gotten out of it when he got Fred Lewis to ground one to Ramiro Peña for what looked like the game-ending double play. Rather than flipping to Cano for the 6-4-3, Peña took a page out of the Jeter playbook, going to the bag so that he could make the throw to first. Interesting idea, but it looked like Peña had a hard time finding the bag, so instead of the game-ending DP, he was only able to record the force.

Even though Peña had scored and knocked in a run earlier, Brother J, my wingman at the game, was livid. Channeling Boss Steinbrenner on his birthday, he wanted Peña immediately pulled off the field and put on a bus to Scranton before the inning was over. Either way, that made it Wise time again, and the center fielder blooped a single to center to get his fourth RBI.

The way the Yanks have been rolling lately, extra innings was bad, bad news. Under very similar circumstances, Dave Roberts and Chan Ho Park collaborated to blow Friday night's game against the Jays, and the bullpen overall has not been one of the team's strong suits (they're ninth in the AL in WXRL). Roberts, pitching the tenth, immediately looked Chan Ho-riffic, putting the first two batters he faced on base. Luckily, he was bailed out by some heads-up defense by Alex Rodriguez, who turned Edwin Encarnacion's sac bunt into a 5-4-3 double play.

In the tenth, it looked like Joe Girardi might have super geniused himself out of a win. Lefty Dave Purcey walked Robinson Cano to lead off the inning, and Francisco Cervelli, who replaced Jorge Posada due to injury, was at the plate. I'm not a Cervelli believer--I like him, but not as much as everyone did when he had a .390 batting average in mid-May--but having him bunt, against the lefty with Granderson and Gardner coming up...I have my qualms. Granderson's brutal against lefties (.514 OPS), Gardner's much better (.742 OPS) but still not wonderful. Splendid chance to see a runner stranded in scoring position. Luckily for Girardi, after Curtis made his out, Gardner was able to work a walk against the lefty, which brought up newly-reactivated Marcus Thames, who, as we all can remember, loves pie as much as he hates fielding. Marcus sent us home happy.

Marcus Thames says "Mmmm, pie!"

Game 39: Red Sox at Yankees

2010-05-19T01:15:00.000-04:00

Oh. That hurts.

I met up with Jay Jaffe (of Futility Infielder and Baseball Prospectus fame), Ben Kabak (of River Avenue Blues and Second Avenue Sagas) and Emma Span (contributor to Bronx Banter and acclaimed author of 90% of the Game is Half Mental) over at the Dram Shop in Brooklyn to watch tonight’s game. The Yankees led 2-0 by the time I arrived, and shortly after I got my first scotch, Juan Miranda went yard with a solo shot. At that point, I remarked “Who’d have thought that in May, in a Red Sox game, we’d have Cervelli, Thames, Miranda and Winn in the lineup, and it wouldn’t be panic time.”

I blame the scotch. I spoke too damn soon.

Of course, the lower half of the lineup wasn’t to blame. They’d driven in three runs, and contributed two hits and two walks coming into the top of the eighth. CC Sabathia passed a 5-1 lead to Joba Chamberlain, which should have been enough. Sadly, keyed by a poor Alex Rodriguez throw that dragged Mark Teixeira off the bag, Joba coughed up the lead in the eighth. Another big error--this time by Marcus Thames, playing right field--doomed Mariano Rivera in the ninth, although the Sandman contributed by being less-than-dominant for a second straight appearance. And then it was back to that lower half of the lineup, with a shot to tie the game, in the bottom of the ninth against Papeldouche (hat tip to Mr. Jaffe).

That didn’t work out so well. With the score 7-6 and the tying run on second, Cervelli bunted, Thames walked, Miranda hit a hard grounder back to the freakishly small-mouthed Papelbon, and Randy WInn--really? there’s no pinch hitter for Randy Winn?--whiffed. Game over.

On the surface, this loss was about how the Yanks suffered immediately from the decision to send Greg Golson down. You can’t hide Marcus Thames on the field, which is pretty much what you have to do to have Tex and Miranda and Thames in the lineup all at the same time. Maybe if Girardi had had Golson on the roster, someone whose glove is not decorative is playing right field, and the gork that handcuffed Thames gets caught. But the real problem right now is a bullpen with no reliable parts, from the best closer ever on down. Still, it’s just a split, and it’s only three games behind the Rays, and it’s only May. Just an opportunity lost.

Still, with Curtis Granderson and Nick Johnson on the DL, and Javy Vazquez sporting an ERA north of eight, this isn’t a good moment for Brian Cashman’s offseason machinations.

2010, Game 14: Yankees at A's (postgame)

2010-04-22T11:10:00.003-04:00

I guess Phil Hughes doesn't really need that changeup, right?

This time--unlike CC's effort in Tampa a few weeks ago--I steadfastly refused to communicate with anyone about the no-hitter in progress. No email to the Baseball Prospectus mailing list, no Twitter, not even text messages to my brothers (on that last one, it helped that the Yanks were in Oakland--the first time I felt like sending out a warning, it was already 11:30 PM on the east coast). When Oakland finally broke through with a hit, I didn't feel as bad as I did during CC's bid--mainly, because I couldn't shout curses at the TV with la Chiquita, her mom, and my sons all fast asleep elsewhere in the apartment, but also because of the way Hughes's no-no ended. Onetime franchise player Eric Chavez hit a hard grounder back to the mound, which hit the heel of Hughes's glove and then his chest. The final result was all a matter of instinct. If Hughes looks down after the ball hits him, he would have had a pretty easy play at first. Feeling the ball kick off his glove, Hughes looked up, and had no chance of making a play. It was a bad break, but understandable; Phil the Phenom shook it off and struck out the next batter before issuing a walk and leaving the game.

Watching from 3,000 or so miles away, I saw no evidence of the Phil Hughes changeup--and neither did Pitch FX. A couple of pitches had an atypical downward motion, but the gun readings were too high to call them changes. It's early, but this just might be a myth that we don't see again until March 2011. Then again, if Hughes pitches like he did in Oakland--pounding the strike zone with his fastball, getting batters to fish for the curve, using the cutter to keep them honest, keeping his pitch count low enough to get into the eighth inning--then it'll hardly matter at all.

2010, Game 9: Rangers at Yankees (postgame)

2010-04-15T15:35:00.009-04:00

That was nice. I mean, Hughes wasn't as efficient as you'd want him to be--108 pitches didn't even get him a single out in the sixth--and the five walks were a downer, though it looked like the home plate ump was squeezing the strike zone a bit. Otherwise, his fastball had good life in the 92-94 MPH range that's his norm as a starter. The curve was gorgeous, the cutter effective.

But where was the changeup? Wasn't that all the hype coming out of Spring Training, Phil Hughes's new changeup? Al Leiter said he saw a couple of them; Pitch FX only identified one: the fourth pitch to Bobby Abreu in the third inning, a pitch well out of the strike zone.

The Spring Training changeup is often a phantasm. You always hear the stories out of the Cactus and Grapefruit Leagues of this or that guy who's been working on his change, and just you wait until this devastating new pitch is unleashed on the world in games that count! But when March turns into April, that's exactly what fans wind up doing: waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Maybe the new miracle pitch makes an isolated appearance during the first two weeks of the season, then is quietly shelved. Sometimes, it doesn't even get that much play.

Now, it takes cojones to incorporate the changeup in your repertoire mid-career. A misfired breaking pitch can be embarrassing, but a poorly-located changeup can make you look like an idiot, speeding up the opponent's bat and making a slap-hitting backup catcher look like Babe Ruth. You can understand why so many pitchers flirt with the pitch, and why many of those flirtations turn out to just be Spring flings.

I hope that Hughes's changeup is for real. With or without it, he's the key person in the Yankee starting rotation--the person from whom we're most likely to see upside. Pettitte and Burnett are long shots to improve on their 2009 performances, and might have a hard time matching them. CC could improve, but he was operating at a pretty high level to begin with. The number four starter...well, we'll talk about him in a second. There's a lot resting on Hughes's shoulders--if nothing else, he's the living indication of what, if anything, Dave Eiland and Co. learned from the Joba fiasco last year. Here's hoping the start against the Angels was something to build on.

****

So, eight games in, the Yanks have three losses, two attributable to Javy Vazquez. The first loss, in which Vazquez pitched three nice innings before giving up eight runs in Tampa, was greeted with panic; yesterday's loss, a more mundane four runs in five and a third innings against the Angels, inspired boos. Not the best way to re-introduce yourself to the fans after that whole 2004 season experience, where Javy went from coveted object of desire, to joyous acquisition, to All-Star, to not entirely trusted, and from there to ALCS Game 7 batting practice pitcher, and victim of a "let's forget this ever happened" trade, when he was passed along to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Randy Johnson.

[ASIDE: Off the top of my head, I can think of two other times that the Yankees immediately cut ties with an acquisition after one season, as if admitting that the whole thing had been a terrible mistake best forgotten. Dave Collins spent a fitful 1982 season with the club, after the Yankees had signed him to a three-year contract to play first base--even though he was an outfielder who'd only played ten games at first in his entire career. It was a bad, bad idea, based on an idiotic concept--that the Yankees should become a NL-style speed-and-average outfit. Collins was basically replaced Reggie Jackson on the roster--small shoes to fill, right?--and that turned out about as well as you'd think it would. After the season, the Yanks compounded their mistake by sending the two years remaining on Collins's contract, along with Mike Morgan and Fred Friggin' McGriff, to the Toronto Blue Jays for Dale Murray. Then, in 1988, Jack Clark was a Yankee for roughly ten months. Again, Clark was coming in without a position--he was a first baseman and so was Don Mattingly--but at least this time the Yankees were celebrating the end of collusion, and Clark was coming off a season where he led the NL in OBP and slugging percentage. He didn't have a horrible season, but he wasn't a good fit, either. Shortly after the World Series, the Yanks dealt Clark to the Padres, where he made Tony Gwynn's life miserable, and received a bunch of guys I dare anyone to name without looking it up. That's the company Javier Vazquez is in.]

It's early. Really early. No one should panic when a veteran pitcher has back-to-back bad starts, unless he's injured. But there's the Javy Vazquez history--that slide from arguably the ace of the staff to being kicked out of the starting rotation in the ALCS and you have to wonder. Vazquez was always regarded as a cerebral pitcher--when the Yanks first acquired him, he was considered Greg Maddux's heir--and you have to wonder if those failures are still in his head. That sounds like mainstream media drama-building, since he performed well enough once he was out of Dodge, and you have to hope that there's a mundane explanation, like he's still building arm strength. After all, last year, in his best season since he left Montreal, Vazquez's started his preparations early to pitch in the World Baseball Classic. So maybe once he gets some more innings under his belt, he'll improve.

Right now, however, the only reasonable thing to do is put him on the mound every fifth day, and hope that eventually he gives us reason not to boo.

Opening Day Photoblog: First Pitch

2010-04-15T14:48:00.005-04:00

Bernie Williams prepares to unleash a one-hopper to the plate. Not sure what Matsui's doing in the background, though the Angels were warming up in the outfield throughout the ring ceremony, something which seemed the tiniest bit bush.

Opening Day Photoblog: Hideki-San

2010-04-15T14:34:00.006-04:00

The best moment of the day was the team mobbing Hideki Matsui after he came out of the Angels dugout to get his ring. I'm pretty sure that's Jorge Posada quickly ducking out of the scrum with an "It's been real, H, but I've got a game to catch." Either that, or he took a loan from Matsui's video library last fall, and doesn't want Hideki bothering him about it now.

Opening Day Photoblog: Got Rings?

2010-04-15T14:25:00.005-04:00

CC, Mariano Rivera, and Derek Jeter stepping up to collect their World Series rings. Jeter naturally has to mug Yogi Berra when he gets to the table.

Opening Day Photoblog: Flags Fly Forever

2010-04-15T14:20:00.004-04:00

The newest championship pennant atop the frieze. With all the ceremony the Yankees like to bring to things, Brother J and I thought that raising the flag on Opening Day was going to be a thing. No such luck--we entered the Stadium well before game time to find that both this and the big championship flag had been raised ahead of time.

Opening Day Photoblog: This Used to Be My Playground

2010-04-15T14:07:00.004-04:00

The sight that greets people entering new Yankee Stadium is just plain ghoulish: what's left of the old Yankee Stadium (Yankee Stadium II, in Baseball-Reference.com parlance) looking like the victim of a scud attack. Much of last season, high scaffolds obscured our view of what the sports salvage & demolitions crew was doing to the Cathedral, but now it's out in the open for anyone to see. The new Stadium is nice and all, but this is just cruel. Why aren't they finished yet? Does Steiner still have more meat to pick off the Stadium's skeleton, or something?

Opening It Up

2010-04-13T08:23:00.001-04:00

Heading to the Stadium soon for a little Home Opener action. For me personally, 2010 at the Stadium begins much like 2009 ended--my last game in the Boogie Down Bronx was the deciding game of the ALCS, against the Angels, and now we open the place back up, and it’s the Angels again! Now the Los Angelenos de Anaheimo are carrying our old buddy, Hideki Matsui, who’ll receive his World Series ring and get great big ovation (from me and my brother, at the very least) today. Despite having received a huge bargain on good old Godzilla, the Angels are hurting a little bit from the loss of Chone Figgins and John Lackey to free agency.

Just a week into the season, the Yankees have given us a lot to think about. There was Curtis Granderson getting his revenge against Little Big Mouth Papelbon in the finale of Yanks/Red Sox. There was Javy Vazquez causing all sorts of panic getting shelled by the Devil Rays. There was CC carrying a no-no into the eighth inning against the Rays the following day...lots of good stuff. Still, the season doesn’t really feel official until the team gets home. I hope everyone’s taken a vacation day for this.

Anyway, below we have a few shots from last year’s opener--a couple of pre-game photos and the Captain’s first new Yankee Stadium at bat. Let’s go Yankees!

2010, Game 2: Yanks at Boston (Pregame)

2010-04-06T15:11:00.001-04:00

Not sure I’ll be able to stay awake until the end of the game (my sleep cycle is out of control, again), so I’ll do a pregame edition, with a short follow-up tomorrow morning.

Three questions coming into Game 2 of the 2010 season:

1. Jorge and AJ -- The question is whether this is a dance that will repeat over and over again for the duration of Burnett’s contract in the Bronx. Will we endlessly repeat this cycle where the starting catcher and putative #2 starter promise to make a commitment to each other, only to break up after the first non-quality start? I’ve always been wary of the personal catcher phenomenon--I mean, you can’t help it if an in-his-prime Steve Carlton wants to throw to Tim McCarver, but it’s harder to justify when a non-demigod wants you to compromise the lineup just to make him feel more comfortable on the mound. Then again, I’m sure Burnett was watching the leaden way Posada worked Sunday’s game and thinking, “Couldn’t I just throw to that nice Venezuelan kid instead? Why isn’t that OK?”

2. How long will it take Joe Girardi to figure out this bullpen? -- Bullpen management isn’t exactly Girardi’s strong suit, a feeling that was reinforced when the skipper went all pitching change happy in last year’s playoffs. Right now, he has two pitchers with real defined roles: Mariano Rivera is Mariano Rivera, and (until he gets injured and/or Boone Logan is brought up from the minors) Damaso Marte is The Lefty. The vast undifferentiated mass of righthanders in the pen, however, look to be a problem. Not sure if Girardi turned to Dave Robertson in the sixth on Sunday because he’s the sixth inning guy, or because he thought the team needed a strikeout with a runner on third. Not sure why Girardi turned to Chan Ho Park at all, other than curiosity. And not sure under what circumstances, if any, Girardi would have called Al Aceves’s number. Hopefully, Girardi will remember that Sergio Mitre is supposed to be the long relief/emergency starter/garbage time guy, but there’s no way to be sure. Remember that for a short while last season, he was quite taken with Brett Tomko as a late inning reliever.

3. How will the lefty lineup work? -- The 2009 Yankees had a nice record against lefties, largely on the strength of the three players who are now gone from their lineup: Johnny Damon was able to hang in there against southpaws, Melky Cabrera had surprisingly even performance from both sides of the plate, and Hideki Matsui was downright fantastic when opponents tried to exploit the platoon advantage (.282/.354/.618 vs LHP). The main players who replaced them are all lefthanded, and there are some issues. Nick Johnson has actually been a bit better against lefties than righties, but over his career Curtis Granderson loses 281 points of OPS against lefties, and despite 65 good PA against them last year, there are questions about Brett Gardner’s ability to be a full-time player. The solution would be one or more platoons with the fourth and fifth outfielders on the roster, Marcus Thames and Randy Winn. Problems here are that even though Thames is a power guy with a rep for mashing lefties, he’s got OBP problems and is an “outfielder” with quotes around it; meanwhile Winn’s a good corner outfield glove, but no one really knows if his bat any life left in it at all. Both guys had a lousy time in Spring Training, so there’s really no telling. Tonight we’re going to see a configuration that has Gardner and Winn on the bench, and Thames and Granderson hitting 8-9 in the lineup. I have a feeling we’ll see a number of lineup permutations against lefties before everything is said and done.

As I guess question 1 makes clear, I’m less than optimistic about tonight’s Burnett/Lester matchup. Then again, Burnett is so unpredictable that he’ll probably go out and throw a 2-hitter. Or give up 8 runs in the second inning. Not sure which of these two.

2010, Game 1: Yanks at Boston

2010-04-05T00:22:00.000-04:00

Boston 9, Yankees 7. Just a few thoughts:

This game was like one of those hazing rituals where you and another guy trade punches to the gut until someone says when (or vomits blood, whichever comes first). Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?
The Jeter/Gardner double steal was one of those moments that either breaks the opposing team’s back or just pisses them off. Personally, with the score at 5-1 I thought I heard some crunching noises when it happened, but it turns out that the Sox wiped the egg off their face and came back fighting. Hat tip to them for that. Didn’t help that the Yanks’ pitching turned to jelly, but you’ve got to be able to capitalize on those opportunities, and the Beantowners did.

Joba Chamberlain is depressing right now, because he went from being really special to pretty damn generic in record time. He was a huge fan favorite less than two weeks into his Yankee career, but 3 1/2 years later, he’s just a righty reliever with a straight low-to-mid 90s heater, and a slider that’s still nice but nowhere near as sharp as it used to be. I know it’s just April 5, but my expectations on Joba have started drifting from “they’re grooming a potential superstar” to “I hope they can salvage a useful major leaguer from this mess.”

The only comfort I find in the Joba situation is that he’s still using his gentler, cleaner mechanics the Yanks devised when he transitioned to the starting rotation. So there’s a little hope that the guy with the ungodly stuff we saw in 2007 is still in there, somewhere--that it’s not like his arm’s been damaged or something. I feel this statement requires a twitter hashtag like #thesearethethingsitellmyselftogetthroughtheday.

It now seems obvious that the goatee was what made Chan Ho Park a decent reliever. He should be able eligible for some sort of exemption on the facial hair policy.

Regardless of the results of Game One, I’m really happy that baseball’s back.

Sympathy for Bob Gutkowski

2010-01-29T10:21:00.004-05:00

or, Why Business Is Hard

As you may have read, a judge dismissed former Madison Square Garden exec Bob Gutkowski's suit alleging that the Yankees owed him money for his alleged role as "the architect of the YES Network." The YES Network, and the local media revenue it brings in, being the economic engine that drives the Yankees' financial empire, you'd think that whoever...architected? that engine would be swimming in giant vats of money, Scrooge McDuck-style. But Gutkowski wound up getting none of that filthy lucre--he just got a handful of consulting contracts from the new network, and, he says, a lot of promises that he'd get to build and/or run the network someday. And he got to do neither of those things. For this he sued, and now lost.

Because the law suit was dismissed, rather than going to trial, we have no basis to determine if Gutkowski's claims are true, or if they're more along the lines of those annoying "Windows 7 was my idea" commercials:

(By the way, this parody of those commercials was pretty funny, and only slightly NSFW.)

Anyway, after the YES Network case was dismissed, Gutkowski's attorney's comment to the New York Times was, “What’s interesting about the opinion is that the claims were dismissed on several legal technicalities, not because Steinbrenner didn’t take Gutkowski’s work product and make millions of dollars off it.” Most of those "legal technicalities" amounted to the fact that Gutkowski and Steinbrenner never had a contract, which is quite a troubling technicality when you're suing for breach of contract. The other technicality was that, even though Gutkowski allegedly first pitched the concept of a Yankees network in 1996, and the YES Network came online in 2002, Gutkowski waited until 2009 to sue, so his suit was late.

But beyond the legalities, should we feel bad for Bob Gutkowski? If what he claims is true, George Steinbrenner, a very, very, rich man, got much richer off his ideas and work, and didn't pay him what he was due. The fact that he's much less wealthy than Steinbrenner immediately makes him an object of sympathy, since the relationship was unequal. On the other hand, his claims also sound a bit like the outrage of a girl who's shocked--shocked!--that her date is trying to get to second base during the limo ride after the prom.

(Not a reference to personal events, by the way. It didn't help that my prom date had a boyfriend, and that a food allergy rendered me mute for most of the evening. Long story.)

This is how business works. Coming up with good ideas is not the hard part. This week's announcement of the iPad has experts coming out of the woodwork, all claiming that they could do Steve Jobs's job better than he did, by giving the device a better name, different features, whatever. The big difference, to them, is that Steve Jobs has Apple's considerable resources at his disposal, while they don't. How unlucky for Apple that that hack Jobs is still at the wheel!

Seriously, the hard part isn't getting the brilliant ideas, it's getting paid for them. People with brilliant ideas usually have to hook up with people with resources to make their idea a reality. From the point of view of the person with resources--if you've ever owned or created anything of value, you've probably experienced this--the world is full of people with bright ideas who want to share their ideas with you. Usually, their pitch amounts to some variation of "give me part/half/all of your money/assets/intellectual property, and with my knowhow and contacts, I'll make us a fortune!" These offers come with a differing levels of legitimacy--ranging from emails from a Nigerian prince to a phone call from Bill Gates's garage, circa 1976--and as the party risking more than their time and effort, the person with resources has to be very careful who they listen to. The flipside is also true. People with resources will often string people with ideas along with a lot of handshakes and "that sounds promising"s and vague promises, and if the idea people haven't taken steps to protect themselves, they'll find someone else executing (and, if it's good, profiting from) their idea.

That last scenario is what Bob Gutkowski's claims look like: he had a bright idea, an idea which, to work, required a resource he didn't have and couldn't buy (the Yankees). So he went to the Yankees' owner with his bright idea for a Yankees network, and in return he got a bucket of false promises and betrayals. Simple, right?

The part that makes it complicated is what, according to Gutkowski's complaint, happened in 1998. At that point, he formed a company to help the Yankees create their network, and they gave a presentation in which they laid out their whole strategy. They presented the Yankees with a contract, saying that to get started with their plan, it would take $25,000 a month, for a minimum of six months. The story Gutkowski tells is that Steinbrenner didn't sign, but directed them to go ahead with the plan anyway. He then paid only one month's worth of the contract, and nothing else.

So obviously, they took him to court over the $125,000 the Yankees owed, right? Apparently, no. Instead, Gutkowski signed a short-term consulting agreement with the Yankees, based, he says, on smooth talking and promises from the Boss himself. OK, so that sounds reasonable, kinda, but still: 125 grand!

Maybe that just wasn't enough money to go to war over, but surely things must've changed in 2002. That's when the Yankees started the YES Network, without Gutkowski's participation. According to him, they stole his idea! But did he sue? No, he signed another short-term consulting contract, and then another one in 2004. Why would someone hire on to work for a guy who stole his ideas, not once but multiple times? Again, the answer offered is that the Boss and his lackeys persuaded Gutkowski with false promises that never actually included concrete discussion of salary figures or percentages of ownership in the YES Network Gutkowski would get. In the complaint, it sounds like George Steinbrenner is the most persuasive person ever born, with near-magical powers of mesmerism to make Gutkowski keep playing Charlie Brown to his Lucy van Pelt.

(A quasi-theological corollary to this: if the Boss had magical persuasion powers, why wouldn't he have used them to talk the Red Sox out of winning the 2004 ALCS?)

Back to Gutkowski, given his admitted actions, it just doesn't make sense that he really thought that anyone had anything other than a moral obligation to do right by him. And sadly, in the worlds of business and law, moral obligations ain't worth much, probably much less than he netted from the consulting contracts he kept signing.

(Huge hat tip to Ben Kabak, whose post over at River Avenue Blues inspired this rant.)

Winter Meetings Notes

2009-12-09T11:54:00.008-05:00

Lots have happened since last we spoke. Indeed, it seems that if you don't show up at your Blogger office for more than a month, they set your page to show a random someone's Twitter feed. I got a guy from Connecticut. The page's Twitter feed will return if/when it's fixed--until then, if you want to follow me in 140-character doses, you can just go directly to www.twitter.com/derekbaseball .

Ain't It Grand?

The big baseball news, for the Yankees at least, was yesterday's three-way trade with the Tigers and Diamondbacks, which is reportedly done, pending physicals. The Yanks gave up Austin Jackson and Phil Coke to the Detroit, and Ian Kennedy to Arizona. In return, they got center fielder Curtis Granderson, and his sweetheart contract (3 more years, at under $28MM).

It's a hard deal to not like. Granderson's spent the last two years coming down from his career season in 2007, but he still shows decent patience (72 BB in 710 PA) and good pop in his bat (.204 isolated power). Depending on whose metrics you believe, he's either a good or very good center fielder. Either way, by pushing the Melky/Brett Gardner duo to left, he'll improve an outfield that featured Johnny Damon's diminished range and noodle arm. He puts the Yankees in a position where they could sign either Damon or Hideki Matsui--but not both--for the DH slot, or they could go another way entirely. With Granderson, they also have the option of sitting out the Jason Bay and Matt Holliday free agent auctions, if they prefer. It's a real Brian Cashman move.

Meanwhile, the package they gave up for Granderson is extremely fair for a former elite player who's had some of the shine taken off him by declining production (he's a bit like Nick Swisher that way). As Boston.com's Pete Abraham (dang, does it feel weird to say that) pointed out, Austin Jackson may be a nice prospect, but his best case scenario is to someday give a team pretty much what Granderson will give you in the here and now. Phil Coke was a fringe prospect two years ago, prior to his meteoric rise (why do we say that? meteors don't rise, they fall) to the majors. Despite his ascension to top lefty on the best team in baseball, Coke was limited by his gopherball issues (12 homers in 62 2/3 IP, counting the postseason). He had value, but let's not get carried away. And Ian Kennedy? I'm still convinced he's a major league pitcher, and the NL West will be a good place for him. But he was never going to establish himself with the Yankees. He just didn't have the kind of upside that would justify the frustrations the Yankees had with him, even before he lost much of last season to injury. Good luck to him.

Moves and Maneuvers

The lower-case news of the Yankees' Winter Meeting are a maintenance of the status quo--Andy Pettitte getting a one-year deal, worth just under $12 million--and Brian Bruney being cast down among the sodomites on the Washington Nationals roster. Pettitte showed last season there's stuff left in the tank--heck, he was stronger in the second half than the first. It's a good idea to have him back, and if the price is not making him sweat a bunch of incentives, that's just "Thank you for another World Championship." The general rule is that there's no such thing as a bad one-year deal, particularly when you have the Yankees' resources.

As for Bruney, in Game One of the World Series he reminded everyone of the old adage, "don't put anyone on the World Series roster you wouldn't want to use in a World Series game" (the Jeff Weaver Rule, as I like to call it). When Bruney came to the Yanks, he was a rare example of the team trying to acquire and develop low-cost talent, and to some extent, it worked. The Yankees turned a player with no value into a guy who's worth the first pick in the Rule 5 draft, and at times during his Yankee tenure he was worth more than that. Sadly, it turned out the conditioning issues that soured the D'Backs on Bruney in the first place weren't his only problems--you never knew what was jogging in from the bullpen when Bruney pitched. Sometimes, he'd be a beast in a high-leverage situation, blowing fastballs past the heart of the Red Sox order. Other times, he'd nibble, lose the strike zone, and generally pour gasoline on the fire. Like Kennedy--who basically stole a save opportunity from Bruney in the season's final days--you just got the feeling that Bruney was more trouble to the Yanks than he was worth. He joins the Nationals, where his personality quirks will seem mild by comparison to his fellow inmates.

Gammo's Gone (from Bristol)

The other Winter Meetings news from yesterday was first surprising, then not. In short order, it was announced that Jack Curry had accepted a buyout from the New York Times, and then that Peter Gammons was leaving ESPN, as of the end of the meetings. The Gammons story was open-ended and sudden, so it wasn't certain if he was leaving the Worldwide Leader for another opportunity, or just leaving. A short time later, surprise turned into, "Oh, that makes sense," when the MLB Network announced that Gammons would be joining their team.

The ESPN story on this was titled "Gammons Ends Hall of Fame Run with ESPN." The title is technically correct, as Gammons got the coveted Spink Award in 2005, while a member of the ESPN family. But to me, it felt a little like saying, in 1996, that Wade Boggs had "finished his Hall of Fame run with the Yankees." Gammons was a Hall of Famer before he first joined the Bristol crew in 1989.

He changed the game with his Sunday columns for the Boston Globe, which was basically a weekly report on the state of the game, with a mild-to-heavy Red Sox tilt. I remember going to the newsstand with Joe Sheehan in high school, to pick up Baseball America, which ran the column in an abbreviated form, a couple of weeks after it ran in the Globe. We'd get together with friends to play Strat-o-Matic baseball and the issue of BA would slowly make its way around the room, everyone opening the paper to Gammons's column--sometimes it was the only thing in BA worth reading, almost always it was the only thing in BA we would talk about. When I went to college in Boston, it was a shock to open up the Sunday Globe and find a baseball column that was almost twice as long as what would later appear in BA. I actually tore that page out of the paper (the column took up an entire page!) and mailed it to Brother Joe in California.

This was a big deal in the pre-Internet days. You didn't have every sports section in America at your fingertips 24/7 back then, so a guy who once a week could tell you about what was happening everywhere in baseball was an invaluable resource--and Gammons was the first and best at it. If Gammons had quit baseball in 1988, he still would have been one of the best baseball writers of his generation. Still, he continued to blaze trails with ESPN, particularly when his writing went exclusive to ESPN.com. He was--I think--the first major sportswriter to abandon print to work exclusively online. Between him and Rob Neyer there was a stretch when ESPN's baseball page was the online destination that you had to check every day, multiple times a day.

For me my appetite for Gammons's writing slacked off a bit when he went behind ESPN's pay wall. The tremendous quantity and quality of sports writing available online in the middle of this decade made one writer--even a great one--falling by the wayside less stunning than it would have been in the late 80s or early 90s. Competitors, like Ken Rosenthal, started outhustling him on the phones, breaking more news, real or rumored. In general, people became less tolerant of the Gammons-style reporting of rumors, now that the Internet's full of them.

Even if he's lost a bit off his fastball, Gammons is like Andy Pettitte--he can still bring it well enough that he's welcome on my team. Here's wishing him the best of luck on the MLB Network (and, to a much lesser extent, on Red Sox-owned NESN).

Hurricane Cliff Strikes the Bronx

2009-10-29T14:31:00.003-04:00

For those of you left homeless and/or hopeless by the devastation Hurricane Cliff caused last night, it's probably no consolation that the sun is shining today. No consolation that yes, the Series will go on, at least for a few days more. No consolation that there's still a chance to even up the Series, no consolation that last night might be the last time we see Brian Bruney in 2009.

All you can think about is the horror. The sight of the Yankees never really being in the game, all on account of a pitcher they used to kick around pretty regularly for most of his career. Suddenly, last year he went from fringy finesse lefty to combine harvester of doom (as a professor of mine used to say), and last night he was so locked in that everything--crowd, drizzle, batters, batted balls--was just a nuisance.

As I said on Twitter, it was a lousy feeling. It made me recall the last time I felt so bad about Game 1 of the World Series--back in 1996. Like this time, we were facing an NL team touted for its starting staff. Like last night, there was a player who looked like we wouldn't be able to get him out all series--that year Andruw Jones, this year Chase Utley--hitting a pair of dingers. And, I worry that, like the 1996 World Series, it may get worse before it gets better. AJ Burnett is going for the Yanks tonight, and unless the boys manage to show Pedro Martinez who his daddy is early and often, it'll be a night where I'm chowing down on antacids like they're tic tacs.

Still, the 1996 World Series turned out OK for Yankee fans. Keep the faith, and let's go Yankees.

****

Aside from Cliff Lee turning into an unstoppable creature from legend, the worst development last night was the continued downward spiral of Phil Hughes, whose postseason has been a completely different creature from his regular season in the pen. Hughes walked both batters he faced and barked at the umpire, even though he didn't come close to the plate with the majority of his offerings. Part of the problem, as Brother Joe notes today at Baseball Prospectus, is that Girardi changed the way he used Hughes, and it's not a fashion that complements Phil's style. Another issue is that Hughes looks like his mechanics are coming apart and his confidence is shot. They say George Steinbrenner was in the house last night, but I can't believe that's so. The George I grew up with would have gone to the clubhouse and fired Dave Eiland immediately after the game, if not earlier.

Not saying it would have been the right thing to do. Just saying that's what would've happened.

Last Minute World Series Preview*

2009-10-28T17:20:00.004-04:00

* weather permitting...

I was there on Sunday, the beneficiary of a friend feeling under the weather, when the Yanks clinched American League pennant #40. It was made all the tastier because of the measure of payback the Yanks got against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in California of the West Coast of the United States, who'd sent the Yanks to some early October golfing in 2002 and 2005. Andy Pettitte, who's pretty much been Good Andy full-time since mid-July (he's 8-3 with 12 quality starts in his last 17 games) was on the money once again. A Yankee rally in the fourth gave him the lead, and in the eighth, everyone was surprised to hear the opening notes of Enter Sandman as Girardi took no chances on the last six outs. There was some excitement that inning, because a gork and a Vlad Guerrero single shaved the lead down to one against Rivera. However, Angels deadline pickup Scott Kazmir literally threw that momentum away in the bottom of the inning, when he couldn't throw a strike to the plate or to the first baseman. Boogie down time in the Bronx.

But pennant number 40 means that now it's time to worry about what could be championship number 27--and it's going to be a grind. The Phils won 93 games to the Yanks' 103, playing in a weaker league and arguably weaker division, but that's all out the window right now. The Phils remind me a bit of the 2002 Yankees, a team that was built on big peak performances which were meant to cover for some soft spots in the lineup. However, the starting rotation matches or betters anything the Yankees have put out there since 1998. (Even though the Yanks and Phils were neck-and-neck in SNVAR this season, the mid-season acquisitions of Cliff Lee and Pedro Martinez, and the mid-season degradation of Joba Chamberlain, pushes the Pennsylvanians over the top.) The Yankees' bullpen is an off-setting advantage, so I see this as close to a 50/50 series as possible. The keys to this series:

Starting Pitcher: CC Sabathia and Cole Hamels -- These two aren't likely to hook up in any one game of this series, but each shoulders a great responsibility for his team's success. CC should start three games if this World Series goes the full seven, something we haven't seen since Curt Schilling against the Yanks in 2001. Again, this is what he got the big money from the Yanks for. Meanwhile, Hamels was the ace of last season's World Champions, and a big part of the Phils' rotation superiority is the idea that he can snap back to that form, which he showed intermittently this season. In three postseason starts, however, Hamels was nothing special, and seemed to push everyone's frustration threshold--he got pulled in the fifth inning of the NLCS clincher against the Dodgers. Good Cole versus Bad Cole is a big swing for the Phils.

Right Field: Jayson Werth and Nick Swisher -- With the Yanks possibly starting lefties in five of seven games, Werth is going to have to pick up whatever slack the power lefties in the Phils' lineup (Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Raul Ibanez) leave behind. In his first season as a full-timer, Werth was the righty counterpart to Howard, punishing lefties to the tune of a homer every 13.4 plate appearances. Meanwhile, in the Yankees' more balanced lineup, a functional Swisher is the difference between the Yankee lineup being a relentless on base machine that drives pitchers up the wall, or not.

Relief Pitcher: Mariano Rivera and Brad Lidge -- We've seen already in this postseason that Joe Girardi is going to lean on Mariano Rivera like there is no tomorrow--it's one of the few things Joe's done in the playoffs we approve of. The question is whether the Sandman, a month shy of his 40th birthday, can continue to answer the call if Girardi loses faith in Phil Hughes and needs him for extended appearances night after night. Meanwhile, Lidge's issues are well-documented (7.21 ERA this year!) but Charlie Manuel has staked a lot on trying to get him back on track. The Yanks have made a lot of their hay against bullpens this year, so it's unlikely that Lidge will go untested.

If I have to make a call, it's Yanks in six, but I think that overstates how close this series is, and is going to be. Happy baseball, everyone!

Joe Girardi: Super Genius

2009-10-20T18:19:00.007-04:00

Game 1, which I attended, was a pure delight--chilly and a bit wet, but damn near perfect. Game 2 was a test of endurance for all involved. With a healthy assist from Alex Rodriguez, and despite the fact that Joe Girardi managed himself into a Chad Gaudin-or-bust situation at the end of the game, things turned out well. Then there was Game 3, where Joba Chamberlain, Girardi, and the Yanks in general managed to spoil a Mariano Rivera performance for the ages. And it only got weirder from there.

To some extent, Yankee fans are going a little hard on Girardi. At worst, he can only claim partial credit for the many machinations that turned Joba Chamberlain from the Yanks' most promising young starter since Andy Pettitte* into...whatever the heck he is right now. The Master Plan of converting Joba from pen to starting rotation, now in its second year, was a top-down organizational decision. Since August, at the very least, it's had a whiff of fiasco to it, and in common-sense terms, it seems like something doomed to failure from the start: start his season in the starting rotation, then just when he seems to have gotten a rhythm going, make his rest between starts long and random, then put him on a strict five-day schedule, but shorten his appearances so that in September--when perhaps a starter should be building his endurance for the playoffs--he's making 3- and 4-inning starts. Then, in the last week of the season, put him in the bullpen as a short reliever. Finally, act surprised when Joba, who hasn't been consistent since all the experimentation started more than two months ago, craps the bed in a playoff game.

So, the whole organization gets to take a bow for Joba's debacle in the seventh inning of Game 3. The whole lineup--the 7-8-9 batters in particular--screwed the pooch, limiting the offense to just the runs that the Captain, A-Rod, Johnny Damon, and Jorge Posada could produce on solo homers. But Girardi gets sole credit for the Tony-LaRussa-on-crack way he's been overmanaging since the regular season ended. The game was lost in the bottom of the 11th inning--an inning which in which Dave Robertson took over for Rivera, got two outs, and was inexplicably replaced with Alfredo Aceves, who allowed a single to Howie Kendrick and a double to Jeff Mathis to blow the game.**

As Pete Abraham put it, it looks like Girardi's being paid by the pitching change, given the nutty and senseless way he's been playing matchups even in games that have no set end point. The Yanks have had three extra inning games (out of six total) in the postseason, and Girardi's managed to use seven relievers in each of those games. Of those 21 relief appearances, almost two-thirds (13) have featured a pitcher throwing less than a full inning.

The big problem is, this isn't the way that Girardi managed during the season. By my calculations, Joe's relievers had the eighth-highest ratio of innings pitched to games appeared (1.12 IP/G), which is an indication that you're not micromanaging and playing matchups. For the sake of comparison, Tony LaRussa's Cardinals relievers got the second-fewest innings pitched per game (0.91) after the Rays (0.90).

Now, it's true that you manage the playoffs differently from the regular season. Joe Torre was a master of this in his years with the Yanks--his bullpen became much, much smaller in October, and his usage of Mariano Rivera much more flexible. Girardi's kept the flexible and intelligent use of Rivera from the Joe Torre era, but turned the rest of his bench and bullpen usage into a showcase for his managerial "genius." After being a fairly laissez-faire tactical manager all season long (he found a good thing with Brett Gardner as a baserunning weapon, but otherwise he managed a fairly standard AL game), Girardi's decided to get showy. Given the deepest bench the Yankees have taken into the postseason since the 70s, Girardi's opted for a roster that gives him a non-hitting third catcher and a second pinch-runner/outfielder, rather than carrying Eric Hinske or Ramiro Pena. After using just one lefthander (Phil Coke) in the bullpen most of the year, he's now carrying two. And he seems to be choking under the weight of all these options.

You see, while it's true that you manage a bit differently in the playoffs, it's not really the time to completely re-make yourself as a manager, either. Joe Girardi won 103 games this season, managing with a much lighter touch than he's shown through five playoff wins. He was far from the perfect manager for those 103 wins, but he should trust the managing style that got him here.

****

The odd coda to all this is Mariano Rivera. He came into the game in the 10th inning, after Phil Hughes allowed a leadoff double to Angels catcher Jeff Mathis. He soon found himself in a first-and-third, no out situation, when he tried and failed to get the lead runner on a sac bunt. With the top of the Angels lineup due up, Rivera did some of the best pitching of his career, holding the Angels scoreless with the winning run 90 feet away. The fine job Rivera did in the tenth was largely forgotten after Aceves came in to lose the game the following inning. But then it was back in everyone's thoughts again...because some douchetards thought he was throwing a spitter.

Not the opposing team, mind you, or the umps, or anyone in attendance at the game. Some guys, who apparently think the name of Los Angeles of Anaheim's franchise is the "Angles," recorded and posted on YouTube a moment, apparently between pitches, where Rivera, while holding a baseball, spits. From the angle of the camera, it looks like he spits toward the baseball, but the camera cuts away so you can't see where the stream of spittle goes.

Now, when I saw this, I thought it was a joke. Folks like getting Yankee fans' goats, and crave the bit of attention that you can get by having Red Sox fans with time on their hands propagate the video around the Internet, and Yankee fans waste their time denouncing it. The joke stopped being funny when MLB had to issue a statement refuting the charges. Still some bloggers kept on acting like this was for real. Never mind that no one uses spit to load up the ball anymore. Never mind that if someone did, they wouldn't do it by spitting on the ball from nearly an arm's length away, in the open, with live cameras rolling, in front of the Angels team and some 45,000 of their fans. Never mind that some folks have made up things (like where the second base ump was or wasn't looking when the fateful loogy was spewed) to fit this idiotic claim.

Then again, just never mind. We have our dumbest subplot of the 2009 ALCS. And here I thought it would have something to do with the Rally Monkey.

****
ENDNOTES

* Yeah, I know that Chien Ming Wang was after Andy Pettitte, and was pretty darn good before he got hurt. But he wasn't heralded as a top prospect, a top of the rotation guy. I'm actually not sure that Pettitte had that kind of hype, either. I think maybe Al Leiter matches the Joba situation a little better--a guy with explosive stuff who looked like a real world beater. But thinking of that comparison makes me really depressed.

** Even if Al Aceves had gotten Kendrick out, Girardi would still have burned Robertson on 11 pitches, in a game which could've easily gone 16 innings. You'd have to think that Robertson facing Kendrick with two outs and the bases empty was certain death in order for that to make sense!

Pre ALCS Thoughts

2009-10-16T13:47:00.003-04:00

Wow, the ALDS flew by. The three Yankee victories were, by turn, expected, lucky, and surprising. In Game 1, CC did what he was given the big, huge contract to do, even though he didn't have his best stuff; in Game 2, late inning heroics combined with a lucky break from left field ump Phil Cuzzi, who had one job to do, and did it poorly. Game 3 featured "Can't Pitch" Carl Pavano showing the Yankees exactly the pitcher they thought they signed the week before Christmas in 2004. He was amazing. I was watching the online feed, the center field camera view. In that view, the camera stayed focused on the pitcher after each plate appearance and time and again, the view you'd see was Pavano turning his back to the plate, another strikeout notched, another batter disposed of. It was like that until the seventh, when, with the Twins leading 1-0, Alex Rodriguez went yard to the opposite field to tie the game. More on that in a moment. Two batters later, Jorge Posada did the same. Two guys, who we didn't know what exactly the Yankees would get from them coming into the season, swung everything in the other direction. It wasn't exactly smooth sailing from that point--the Twins helped Phil Hughes survive another unspectacular outing when scrappy piranha Nick Punto got sloppy on the basepaths, and the Captain made him pay for it--but the Yanks tacked on some insurance in the ninth and didn't look back.

Just like that, the Yankees closed out baseball at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, a place hailed alternately as a blight on the baseball landscape or the ultimate home field. Lost between Pavano's performance and another A-Rod postseason homer was Andy Pettitte's performance, which was in keeping with the strong work he did throughout the second half (6-3, 3.31 ERA and a drastic uptick in his strikeout rate). In his postgame interview, Pettitte seemed not only happy to have won and pitched well, but genuinely happy that his former teammate threw well, opposing him. It was a stark contrast to how most most Yankee fans feel about Pavano's post-Yankee life, which some of us hope will be just as full of quad pulls, buttocks contusions, and non-lethal late night car accidents as his Yankee tenure was. Still, the graceful approach was fully in keeping with the person Pettitte's shown himself to be throughout the years--from the early in his career when people thought he might be too nice to be a successful pitcher, right down to the way he comforted Jerry Hairston Jr. when Hairston's defensive lapses wrecked his perfect game back in August.

Alex and Fast Eddie

"I mean, how can I lose? 'Cause you were right, Bert: it's not enough to have talent, you got to have character, too. Yeah, I sure got character now."
--Fast Eddie Felson, The Hustler

One reason that Alex Rodriguez has been almost universally disliked in baseball is because he didn't have a good story. Good stories require drama, and drama usually requires a protagonist overcome (or struggle to overcome) adversity. From the start of his career, there wasn't much adversity to A-Rod's life in baseball. He always made things look easy: picked first in the draft, got to the majors early, established himself as a star quickly. Became the highest-paid athlete in sport. Traded to MLB's perennial payroll leader, a team that would give him every possible chance to win a championship or seven.

It was all too easy. When he finally did face adversity, in the 2004 ALCS, he wasn't cast as the hero, but rather the villain of someone else's success story. The following year, he won the MVP, but the Angels wanted no part of him in the ALDS--he walked six times in five games, good for a .435 OBP, but he only got two hits in the series, and no RBI. The next season featured the one of the worst episodes in recent Yankees history. Mid-season Rodriguez got into a bad funk. In a sharp departure from his usual methods of operation, Joe Torre decided that the way to shake him out of it was public shaming. The result was a mid-September Sports Illustrated article where Torre, Don Mattingly, and various teammates (particularly Jason Giambi) spoke openly about the various things they felt were A-Rod's problems. Ironically, the article came out just as it seemed that Rodriguez had gotten things back on track. Things degenerated from there until the point where Torre batted the previous year's MVP eighth in the lineup against the Tigers in the ALDS. Another giant fiasco for A-Rod, another loss for the Yankees.

As we talked about at the beginning of the ALDS, no one feels empathy, much less sympathy, for you when you're the richest, most talented guy in the room, and you don't achieve your goals. In 2007, after the Yanks lost the Midges Series against Cleveland--after another underwhelming offensive series by the third baseman--Rodriguez cemented that lack of empathy when his agent notoriously timed the declaration that Alex would be opting out of his contract--the richest contract in sports--during the World Series. Rodriguez was able to smooth things over, handling the negotiations personally to remain a Yankee, but that was hardly an altruistic act. It was closer to corporate damage control.

Then came this past off-season, Rodriguez's first in Yankee pinstripes that wasn't preceded by postseason humiliation. The big A-Rod scandal of 2008--the bust up of his marriage, with an apparent assist from Madonna--was just winding down when news of Selena Roberts's (anonymous sources) tell-all book hit the airwaves. Now Alex wasn't just a choker, he was a steroid cheat. Rodriguez's too-smooth apologia, full of explanations that were easily shot down and relatively devoid of emotion, only stoked the anger he faced.

Then came what looked like the coup de grace that would end Alex's season before it began--the discovery that he had a chronic hip injury. Surgery was expected to wipe out most, if not all, of his season, and some had to wonder if it wasn't for the best for Rodriguez to escape the spotlight in light of the season in light of the additional revelations promised in Roberts's book. However, Alex Rodriguez--in a move that wasn't in line with his perceived character--opted for a different surgery, a stopgap, instead. He'd still need a full surgical repair eventually, but the procedure was going to get him back on the field before the All Star break.

Still, I'd written A-Rod off for 2009, and I suspect I wasn't alone. The Yanks were stuck through 2016(?) with a contract for a guy with a bad hip. Even if he could play, there were the steroid distractions, and no access to the DH spot, since the team had a lot of guys headed that way coming into the season (remember, Posada was coming off his shoulder repair, and Matsui his recurring knee troubles), and no depth in the infield. One bad slide, one dive for a ball at third, and who knew what would happen to the jury-rigged hip?

But the injury wound up doing something interesting to Alex Rodriguez. It made him human. Finally, there was a reason for him to struggle. When he came back to the Yankees' lineup in May, he looked as if he'd been aged into his mid-40s. He couldn't run, his batting average was low, and he had a hard time catching up to good fastballs (according to Baseball Reference.com, he only hit .198/.343/.432 against power pitchers in 2009). Like many older ballplayers, he had to be more selective, draw walks, and wait for mistakes. Still, he provided the team an immediate boost--the team was 81-41 when Rodriguez started this season, 22-18 when he didn't.

He seemed more relaxed. This year, Alex had his best numbers when the team was within two runs of their opponent, and his effectiveness actually went down in blowouts either way. Alex had encountered adversity--divorce, the loss of his reputation with the steroids and other Selena Roberts accusations, the loss of his health--and seemed a changed man.

All of this made me think of Robert Rossen's 1962 black and white classic, The Hustler. In the film, Fast Eddie Felson (Paul Newman) travels cross-country to play the best straight pool player in the country, Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason). Eddie's young and extremely talented, and the first time he plays Fats he has the older man on the ropes, but he gets cocky, and drunk, and ultimately loses his shirt. At the end of the movie he plays Fats again, and the quote above is from that confrontation. In between the big pool matches, Fast Eddie is put through trials: He scuffles around trying to raise money for a rematch. He falls under the wing of a gambler who both teaches him some sports psychology and undermines his confidence at every turn. He gets injured while hustling pool, and he loses the woman he loves. The various pains and humiliations he faces along the way transform him, to the point that he's a completely different person than the guy who lost to Minnesota Fats before. As it turns out, now he can't lose, because he has nothing to lose--except his hard-earned character.

It's a classic story, one you've probably seen repeated in over a dozen sports films and at least half of Tom Cruise's filmography. Alex Rodriguez, returning to the ALCS for the first time since 2004, has a chance now to make that story his. He's eight wins, and a few more games like he had against the Twins, away. I wish him luck.

Other ALCS Notes:

With Joba remaining in the bullpen, the aim now is to use CC Sabathia the way aces were used in the 80s and early 90s--three starts in a seven game series, if needed. That puts a premium on the Yankees trying to beat the Angels early, since you can't pull that off two series in a row. Since I don't want to see any more of Chad Gaudin in the first inning in 2009, here's hoping the Yanks can win in five.

The Angels are a scary, scary team. The way they put the hurt on Papelbon at the end of their ALDS was just breathtaking. It's a team much like the Yanks of late 90s in that the lineup relies on depth more than any single peak performer.

I'm headed to fight the elements at the Stadium for tonight's Game One. I'll be in section 130. Updates via Twitter (@derekbaseball) as needed. Happy baseball!

Almost Game Time: ALDS Game 2

2009-10-09T16:07:00.004-04:00

Game One of Twins/Yankees provided the expected result (7-2 win), but not in the expected ways. As I noted on Twitter (@derekbaseball, if you're not following) CC was demonstrating the difference between command and control for much of the game. If you look at the box score, you'd see that see that the big lefty struck out eight and walked none, and figure that he must've really been on. Instead, it was clear throughout the game that CC wasn't hitting his spots amd was actually struggling a bit--think about how many times he crossed up Jorge Posada--even though he could still get the ball over the plate when he needed it to avoid walking anyone. The Twins did their part to help CC out, swinging early and often. It seemed like this approach could yield some fruit for Minnesota in the early innings--the Twinkies were fouling off so many pitches that Sabathia was burning 20 pitches per inning--but that same hacktasticalness also contributed to their eight Ks against CC.

There's a lesson for Game Two starter AJ Burnett here: the Twins will get themselves out. Be patient, stay around the plate, and the Twins will assist you by swinging away. In two starts against the Twins this season, Burnett gave them 10 walks in 13 1/3 innings, which is way too much to give a squad that's missing a large part of its power. If AJ can stay around the plate, hopefully it won't take 10 innings to put Minnesota down, this time. But as I said last time out, if he's too free with the free passes, this series could change in a hurry. Here's hoping stingy AJ gives us an enjoyable game.

NOTES:

Usually I frown on personal catchers, particularly when the performance gap with the bat is as profound as it is between Jose Molina and Jorge Posada. But the weird thing looking at Burnett the contrast between JoMo and Hip Hip Jorge catching Burnett is the way that Burnett's strikeouts disappear when Posada's behind the plate. This year Burnett struck out 18.2% of batters when Jorge's catching him, 25.2% when anyone else (Molina, Kevin Cash, Frisco Cervelli) is behind the plate. That's a big difference, and both samples are pretty substantial. Now, it's possible that Posada started when the Yanks and Burnett were facing better offenses, but it also seems likely that something about the pitcher/catcher rapport was off between Burnett and Posada, with real consequences. I just hope that Girardi has the good sense not to let Molina bury the offense if he comes up in a big spot.

Almost Game Time: ALDS Game 1

2009-10-07T17:45:00.001-04:00

When the dust settled after Game 163...I think Emma Span put it best (via Twitter):

What an absolutely amazing game. But how neurotic am I that I'm already picturing the scene if Pavano eliminates the Yanks at the Stadium?

Yes, it was a great game, but also a reminder that great games don't always come from great teams. One of the reasons that the game went on for twelve innings is because both teams flubbed opportunities to put the other away. The Twins, perennially praised for their fundamentals, were plagued by shoddy execution, with outfielders throwing to the wrong bases, guys doing a poor job of tagging up on fly balls, and so forth. Certified genius manager Jim Leyland struggled with the bullpen, pulling young starter Rick Porcello early, but being a bit slow with the hook for closer Fernando Rodney, who pitched his longest appearance in four years and was tagged with the loss. At the end, the winners come to the ALDS tired, having gone 12 innings and used 8 pitchers on Tuesday, only to arrive in New York after midnight, with a 6:00 PM start today. They arrive without their big power hitter, Justin Morneau, or their starting third baseman, Joe Crede. They arrive having lost 7 straight against the Yanks this year. They arrive having been bounced out of the playoffs in the Division Series on their last three tries, two of those against the 2003-4 Yanks.

So they come to New York as immense underdogs, an 87-win just-scraped-through division winner against 103-win juggernaut. And yet they could win. Like every other underdog in sports, they get to take a rock, sling it at Goliath's head, and hope for the best.

Despite the lofty win total, this isn't a great Yankee team. Great Yankee teams tend to know who their #4 starter is heading into the playoffs. I'll take the 2009 Yankees' lineup any day--it's beautifully balanced, all the regulars met or exceeded expectations, it's beautiful. CC's been great, and the 1-2 bullpen punch of Mariano Rivera and Phil Hughes has been a thing of beauty. But the starting rotation hinges on a notoriously inconsistent guy who alternates great starts with horrible ones (A.J. Burnett) and a guy who many thought was done coming into the season (Andy Pettitte). You could see A.J. turn in one of his craptastic allow-eight-runs-in-three-innings starts on Friday, and that, plus the hostile environment of the Metrodome, could change the entire complexion of the series.

That's the nightmare. A miraculously healthy Carl Pavano celebrating a Division Series win, perhaps even on the mound at Yankee Stadium. No one--regardless of how the Red Sox do against the Angels, or the fact that the Mets managed to lose ninety games in their inaugural Citifield season--letting Yankee fans live it down, ever. But that's the deal when you're the favorite. You don't get to fail, you get to be humiliated. And anything short of a parade down the Canyon of Heroes is considered failure.

For fans, it's important to remember that the Pavano nightmare is a pretty nice problem to have. Unlike fans of 22 other teams, we have postseason baseball. The team, while not without its problems, is probably better than any we've seen in the Bronx since 2003. So bring on the underdogs, and don't be afraid to root for Goliath. Enjoy the game.

Game Story: Sweep Dreams in the Bronx

2009-08-10T10:48:00.004-04:00

The Sunday plan landed me at Yankee Stadium last night, for the most comfortable Yanks/Sox game I've attended since 2002 or so. With the Pinstripers taking the first three games of the set in dramatic fashion, there was a "found money" quality to the game--a loss would sting, but it's still three out of four, right?--and the spacier environs of New Yankee Stadium made it a bit easier for Yanks and Sox partisans to make their respective ways to the beer and bathroom lines without tripping over each other. When people who hate you come into your house, it's definitely nice to have some elbow room.

I wasn't expecting much from the matchup. The MoLester has been sterling against the Yanks for his career--he only has one bad start against the team, and that came before his cancer diagnosis in 2006. Andy Pettitte's record against the Beantowners was much more mixed--15-8 against them for his career, but in the last few seasons it's been more Bad Andy than Good Andy.

Fortunately, it was all about Good Andy last night, running up another seven shutout innings to go with the combined effort shutouts on Friday and Saturday. The only players who really gave him trouble were JD Drew and Nick Green, although Andy avoided pitching to Mike Lowell as if he were the second coming of Albert Pujols.

It was 1-0 in the eighth (on an Alex Rodriguez line homer to center) when both managers tried to cough up the game. With Andy at 112 pitches, Joe Girardi called on Phil Coke to face the top of the order. It made sense to play a matchup against Jacoby Ellsbury, and the third batter of the inning, Victor Martinez, is marginally better against righties than lefties in his career, but then you have two more righthanded hitters, Bay and Youkilis. So while it wasn't a surprise to see Coke come into the game, it was a surprise that after he left the bullpen, no one else was warming up. Not Rivera in case a four out save is needed. Not Phil Hughes. Not even Brian Bruney "just in case." I like Coke and I'm all in favor of confidence, but this was just lousy planning--this is the same guy who gave up 6 runs in a third of an inning just last week. You give that guy a safety net, if you can. Coke gave up the lead on a 2-run V-Mart homer, and was fortunate to escape more damage when Jason Bay rapped into a double play.

After the game, Girardi defended his decision by saying that he wouldn't pitch Hughes in three straight games--the Phil Hughes Rules, anyone?--but if that was the case, why on earth did Girardi only get two outs (on nine friggin' pitches, total) out of Hughes in those appearances?

Anyway, in the bottom of the eighth, Tito Francona has his house much more in order. Josh Bard comes out of the bullpen to face the #9 spot, Derek Jeter, and Johnny Damon. As Bard comes in from the bullpen, we could see that both Hideki Okajima and Jon ("I prefer Jonathan") Papelbon are warming up, and not just soft-tossing, either. The stage is set for Bard to face a pinch-hitter and Jeter, Okajima to face Damon, and Papelbon to stretch out to four outs if either pitcher gets in trouble. I mean, that's the only way that having both pitchers warming up behind Bard makes sense, right?

As you probably saw last night, after Bard retired Hideki Matsui (pinch-hitting for Jerry Hairston) and Derek Jeter--making the Captain look bad in the process--Francona lets Bard face Damon. As I twittered at the time, Brother Joe, who's with me at the game, says "This is a risk. Damon could pop one in this park." He barely finishes saying it and Damon has lined a shot into the seats. Bard then faces Teixeira--a more defensible call, Tex kills lefties this year--and the big first baseman pops one so high in the air we never saw it come down. I'm told it was a fair ball. A couple of insurance runs later, we're off to never never land, and Boston was swept.

Some of the Red Sox fans in my section headed for the exits immediately after the Tex homer landed, when the Yanks had just a one-run lead. A couple of them had wrapped up their Boston regalia and tucked it under their arms, so as to hide that they were members of the RSN. It was an odd reaction, given Boston's recent history against the Yanks. You're up 8-4 on the season series! You lead the wild card, from whence you've won the World Series...twice!

This is ridiculous. The Red Sox are a good team. People are blaming Theo Epstein for not picking up Roy Halladay, oblivious of the fact that aside from John Smoltz's blowout Thursday, the Red Sox starters held the Yankees to four runs over three games, even while playing at Coors-on-the-Hudson Stadium. Things happen, and no one wins the pennant on August 10 anymore.

***

Overheard Outside Yankee Stadium--Man in Yanks paraphenalia talking to young woman of no visible affiliation, wearing a cardigan on a brutally humid night: "You covered up your tattoo? C'mon, show your tattoo. Why not? Show your tattoo. No one is gonna beat you up. Seriously, no one is gonna beat you up."

Who Do You Trust?

2009-07-31T12:00:00.002-04:00

I was going to break my blog-silence in a more official and positive fashion, but I wasn't quite done with that piece (which should run tomorrow) when the latest 2003 steroid test leaks came out (courtesy of the New York Times), and I had to say something.

You see, I've been waiting for this story a long time. Remember when the BALCO grand jury testimony leaked, and folks lined up to beat Jason Giambi like a piñata? Remember the folks who swung the sticks with just a little extra gusto, because he was a Yankee? Remember when the Mitchell Report came out, implicating Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte? To most baseball fans, it was a dark moment in the game's history; to a lucky few, it was a day of jubilee. A National holiday, if you would.

We're not even going to talk about the Alex Rodriguez revelations earlier this year. Each time the gloating started, each time people geared up to cheer "STEROIDS" when the Yanks came to Beantown, my reaction was the same. Wait. Just you wait.

Because you had to figure this day was coming. Those Red Sox fans who chose to act superior on this issue were throwing their stones while sitting in a glass ballpark. Did they think the Red Sox were the one team in baseball to "just say no" to performance enhancement? Didn't they ever look at the middle of their own lineup? I grew up in Washington Heights, so I can attest that Manny Ramirez was always a big guy. But he wasn't as big as he got when he arrived in Boston. Meanwhile, it was always surprising that the same people who self-righteously obsessed over Roger Clemens's hat size never seemed to have looked at David Ortiz's noggin, ever.

When Manny Ramirez caught a PED suspension earlier this year, it was a blow for the more sanctimonious members of the RSN, but they'd also dodged a bullet. Ramirez had already been repudiated by the Sox and most of their fans when he was suspended. The Red Sox wound up looking good for jettisoning Manny, headcase and now cheater, before he was caught.

What some people missed in Manny's suspension was that he pretty much admitted that he was one of the 104 players who'd flunked MLB's 2003 survey testing. At the time, the Players Association released a statement on Manny's behalf which included the following: "I do want to say one other thing; I've taken and passed about 15 drug tests over the past five seasons." That might sound like a strident declaration of innocence--but only if you didn't know that there were drug tests prior to the past five seasons. When you remembered that, it sounded more like a confession by omission.

Now, even if you accepted that Manny was a juicer, and that he likely was during his Sox tenure, it wasn't that big a black eye on the franchise, because you could just add it to the list of eccentricities known as "Manny being Manny." Heck, for most of his time in Boston, Ramirez was treated as if he was a child or mentally disabled--someone you couldn't hold responsible for his own actions. It's a different matter with David Ortiz, who's never been infantilized by baseball fans the way Manny or (to a lesser extent) Sammy Sosa were. Even Ortiz's nickname gives the impression of responsibility and adulthood; he's been one of the most respected players in the game. That's why this is big news.

Look, the point here isn't that I'm happy about this. I'm not. Even though he plays for the Red Sox, I've always admired Ortiz. As a Dominican-American, I'm not happy to see more Dominicans ensnared in this PED mess. Also, it's not like Ortiz and Ramirez's failings expiate Clemens, Pettitte, Giambi or A-Rod.

Furthermore, I can understand the pressure on Ortiz to get on the juice. You have to remember that at the time of the survey testing, Ortiz had washed out of the major leagues with the Twins. He had been non-tendered, and he was facing a battle for playing time with a number of other 1B/DH types with the Sox, including BALCO juicer Jeremy Giambi. At the same time the CBA basically created a "first positive test is free" environment that year. The disincentives against steroid use were as low as they would ever be (unless you predicted that law enforcement would intervene in the destruction of the survey tests and unscrupulous lawyers would leak names to the media).

The point isn't that Ortiz is a bad person, it's that it's pretty hard to know with certainty who the "good people" are in the Steroid Era. After Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's record, everyone looked to Alex Rodriguez; he would be the guy who erased Bonds from the record book, giving baseball a "clean" career home run leader. That lasted less than two years, until Selena Roberts got a few guys to spill the beans, under veil of anonymity, of course.

Even after A-Rod, everybody has someone they point to, claiming that this is the guy who did things "the right way" while everyone else was giving in to temptation. Until Thursday morning, some folks pointed to David Ortiz in that way. Others stake their reputations on Albert Pujols being clean, or on Junior Griffey or Ryan Howard or Jim Thome or Chipper Jones. But with due respect to all of those guys--none of whom has been implicated of anything, as far as I know--the simple fact is, you can't know that they're clean. You might think or believe they are. You can ask them, and you can take their word for it, and you can note that so-and-so's a straight shooter and what's-his-name's a good guy. You could still be wrong.

David Ortiz is, by all accounts, a good guy. So was Mark McGwire. So, I would think, are many of the 97 remaining players on the 2003 survey testing list whose identities have not, as yet, been revealed. Should the rest of those names come to light--and that seems inevitable, either in one lump sum by court order, or by dribs and drabs every March, July, and October, as pointed out by Brother Joe--we'll have more villains to point at and jeer and feel superior to, but will those not named be exonerated? Will we suddenly have confidence in the MLB testing program's efficacy, and declare the game clean?

Yesterday the Red Sox joined a group that includes, but is not limited to, the Yankees, Giants, and Dodgers on the list of clubs who've really lived under the shadow of PED--with a valued star who's still on the roster and whose exploits fans will still cheer marked as tainted. Now Red Sox fans get to discover things some of the fans of those teams have already gone through: the "maybe it was just that one time," the "maybe the test results were wrong," the "that reporter is an unethical scumbag," the potluck of rationalization, denial, recrimination, and acceptance. The loss of trust. Welcome to the club.

Still Here, Rock the Vote Edition

2008-11-03T13:25:00.002-05:00

Yeah, one post for the entirety of October was pretty lame. All I can say in my defense is that I'm working on a super-secret project that I keep on assuring my wife, La Chiquita, will be worth it. With the Phillies beating the Rays last week, the world's undivided attention turns to our national elections, tomorrow. For those of you who've been waiting until the end of the baseball season to pay attention, my BP colleague Nate Silver has set up a site, FiveThirtyEight.com, to catch you up. On the left side of this page you'll see the site's widget with its latest posts. It's politics done stathead style, so if you like the kind of baseball writing we (used to) sling around here, you'll love this.

Anyway, get informed and get to the polls. Regardless of who you vote for, get out there and vote.

Why I'm Rooting for the Rays

2008-10-15T11:11:00.005-04:00

I was talking to a fellow Yankee fan the other night, and we were discussing the ALCS. I mentioned that I was cheering for the Rays to win it all this year, and the answer I got back was "I hear you. I root for two teams: the Yankees and whoever is playing the Red Sox." It got me thinking, because that wasn't what I was feeling. The moment the Yankees were eliminated, my loyalties shifted to the Rays. It would have been that way if the Angels had beaten the Sox in the ALDS, and it'll continue to be that way if the Bostonians pull some of their 2004 voodoo to dig themselves out of the 3-1 hole they're in in this series. The Rays are the postseason for me now.

It's not that the other contenders to the crown don't have legitimate claims. The Phils have more history and longer-suffering fans. The Dodgers have Joe Torre, and all the warm feelings I have for him and his coaches, particularly (sigh) Donnie Baseball. The Red Sox have...well, my respect, at the very least. They're all good teams, and the Sox are possibly a great team. But my pick, for reasons more emotional than logical.

It's because they play in the toughest division in baseball. Because they've built their team intelligently, and a couple of my former Baseball Prospectus colleagues (Chaim Bloom and James Click) have helped them do it. Because their fans range from displaced Expos loyalists to Cubs fans who've been kicked in the cojones by their team a few too many times. Because, basically on a lark, I wrote an article in 2007 (which I mentioned in this space) about how the Rays could win it all, back when that prospect wasn't even a twinkle in PECOTA's eye. Now I want to see it become reality.

And because, with the Rays being a rising power in the AL East, the sooner they win it all, the sooner complacency and bad decision making will set in, hopefully derailing the whole venture before the Yanks spend the rest of the decade sucking their exhaust in the standings. Hey, just 'cause I'm on your side for one postseason, doesn't mean I'm not still a Yankee fan.

***

Sadly for Donnie Baseball, the Phils also hold a 3-1 lead in the NLCS against the Dodgers. Joe Torre's team had an excellent chance to even the series in Game Four, until Torre's uncertain management of the bullpen in the eighth inning opened the door for Charlie Manuel's squad. As manager of the Yankees, Torre was a good postseason bullpen manager, because he knew that he had one guy (Mariano Rivera) who was much better than everyone else in the 'pen, and possibly the whole staff. Torre was never afraid to extend Rivera to multiple innings, where needed, in pursuit of those World Series rings. In Monday's game, Torre had an opportunity where he probably should have used his closer Jonathan Broxton, the way he used Rivera back in the day. Instead, the Phils tied the game against setup man Cory Wade, and won the game on a two-run homer by the Power Hamster, Matt Stairs, against a closing-the-barn-door-after-the-horse-is-gone Broxton.

Again, while the Dodgers being in the playoffs while the Yanks cool their heels at home will invite comparisons between Torre and Joe Girardi, there should be caveats. Torre was always a better big picture manager than a strategic one: his big achievement as a Yankee was helping to professionalize the organization, so that things didn't degenerate into chaos the second that anyone experienced adversity. More importantly, the decision on who would manage the Yankees in 2008 was never really between Torre and Girardi. It was between Torre and Torre--whether to continue the then-current administration. Then, when the Yankees wouldn't come to terms with Torre, it was between Girardi and Mattingly (and a few other interviewees who never really seemed to be in the picture). So the question isn't whether Girardi is better than Torre--I doubt even Girardi himself would claim that to be the case--but whether Mattingly would have handled the Yankees better than Joe did. Given the personal problems that delayed the start of Donnie Baseball's coaching career with the Dodgers, the short-term answer was likely no. The long-term answer...I don't know. What do you think?

Mo' Cash, Less Problems

2008-09-30T23:08:00.003-04:00

A sizable bit of the expected drama for this off-season went away today, with Yanks GM Brian Cashman re-signing with the team for three more years at the helm of the front office. Cashman, who'd had "complete authority" under his last agreement with George Steinbrenner, apparently was willing to live with Hank Steinbrenner's vision of an "advisory board"--either that, or the New Boss's vision was just a negotiating point. Still, it's good that the Yankees aren't out there looking for someone new to run the shop, since it's hard to imagine anyone stepping into Cash's role without missing a beat. Cashman's return is also good news for the Yankees' young players, who likely won't be freely available to anyone who has a superannuated marquee name.

In other soothing news, Will Carroll has the lowdown on Mariano Rivera's shoulder surgery over on Unfiltered. The procedure--called a Mumford procedure--isn't as scary as what we usually expect when we hear the words "Yankees' best pitcher to have shoulder surgery."

Sweet and Sour

2008-09-29T06:58:00.002-04:00

The Yankees ended the 2008 season with a doubleheader at Fenway after Saturday's rainout. In the early game, Mike Mussina finally bagged his 20th win in a season, capping a campaign that would have been worthy of the Comeback Player of the Year award, in any season where Cliff Lee's body wasn't possessed by aliens. The late game was a little more like the Yankees' season as a whole: a desperate struggle to beat a Boston team that hardly seemed to be trying to win, marked by a tough time scoring runs and some bad pitching by Darrell Rasner. A win, and a season-ending sweep of a Red Sox team that was clearly in tune-up mode for the final series, would have allowed the Pinstripers to finish their season with 90 wins and given us a small psychological boost going into a long, hard winter. But this wasn't really a season for feel-good endings, so the Red Sox nabbed with a walk-off tenth inning victory, the immortal Jonathan Van Every knocking in Alex Cora for the win.

For the first time since 1993, the Yankees season ended with the Yanks on the outside looking in at the postseason. In 1993 I'd just graduated college, a cell phone you could barely fit in a coat pocket was a cutting-edge luxury, and next to nobody had heard of the Internet. It's been a long wild ride for the Bronx faithful, and I'm grateful that it lasted this long. Looking, ahead, 2009 promises big changes. Mike Mussina, Andy Pettitte and Bobby Abreu are free agents, Jason Giambi and Carl Pavano will be free agents if their options aren't picked up. In different ways, the Italian connection of Mussina, Giambi and Pavano have each been emblematic of the 21st Century Yanks. Mussina (like the Yanks) has been good but not great over the past eight years. Giambi has been simultaneously frustrating and underrated; despite all the steroid drama, there were only two real bad years out of the Giambino's seven in the Bronx. Pavano--well, he's been the symbol of how far the Yankees have fallen from the late 90s peak, an overpriced player whose name itself became a punchline.

We'll have October to watch everyone else play for the World Series title (can I hear a "Lets go Rays"? OK, maybe not...) and some months after to see how this particular Humpty Dumpty tries to put itself back together again. Will the Yanks stick with their homegrown players, despite a season that presented significant setbacks for each and every one of them? Should veteran warhorses like Mussina and Pettitte and Abreu return next season? Will CC Sabathia get fitted for a set of XXL pinstripes, and if so, will it be a mistake of Pavanoriffic proportions? Time will reveal all things, and we'll have time to discuss it, starting with September in Review tomorrow, and season reviews to follow.

Some odds and ends:

Schadenfreude is such a lonely word: For all the Lupica talk about how New York is now the Mets' town again, they finished with the exact same record as the Yankees, and they're now just as likely to win the World Series. I wasn't exactly rooting against the Flushing warriors, but given the way that Mets fans stunk up the joint during this year's Subway Series, I'm not exactly sad that the Phillies overtook them for the division title, again, and that the Brewers snuck past them to grab that Wild Card.

Joe vs. Joe: First of all, congratulations to Joe Torre, as well as his pinstripe alumni coaches--Don Mattingly, Larry Bowa, and Mariano Duncan--for making it to the playoffs in his first year managing the Dodgers. This is the type of news that's bound to set off all sorts of recriminations about how the Yankees would have been so much better if Torre, not Joe Girardi, had been at the helm for Yankee Stadium's final season. There's no way to tell, but let's get some perspective here, in the current Yankee manager's defense. First of all, the Dodgers won the weakest division in baseball, with a record five wins worse than the Yankees. Second, both managers had to deal with injuries--each lost his staff ace about 100 innings into the season--but the Dodgers got a historic second-half push from an extremely motivated Manny Ramirez, who hit almost .400 over the last two months of the season. Xavier Nady was nice, but not that nice. Third, Torre gave Juan Pierre 400 plate appearances, which is kind of as bad as giving Melky Cabrera 450 PA, just without the excuses of youth and defense. I wish Torre the best, and missed him (and Donnie Baseball) during the Stadium's swan song, but it really doesn't pay to look backwards.

Brief Political Digression: Friday's presidential debate looked like a draw from here--each candidate seemed to do best in the areas they were expected to have trouble. McCain managed to dominate the conversation during the section of the debate that was on the economy, dragging the discussion to comfortable terrain where he could talk more about earmarks and spending than market regulation. Obama didn't back down during the foreign policy section of the debate, despite McCain's constant digs at his lack of experience and supposed naivete. The absolute worst line of the entire debate, from McCain: "I think the lessons of Iraq are very clear that you cannot have a failed strategy that will then cause you to nearly lose a conflict." So the key to victory is avoiding failure? Thanks for the tip...

At BP: The Last of the Last

2008-09-23T10:21:00.007-04:00

Here's a taste from my article up at Baseball Prospectus on the final game at Yankee Stadium (sadly, it's a pay article on BP's system):

Another neat gimmick that fell short in the execution was the Yankee Stadium countdown clock, which I mentioned in my piece on the Yankee Stadium home opener. The idea was that in the fifth inning of each home game, once the game became "official" a special guest would turn a crank, and the number of games left at Yankee Stadium would be reduced by one on a special scoreboard. Throughout the season, people registered disappointment with this because the "special guests" were often not terribly special or particularly associated with Yankee baseball. Often the person turning the crank would be an obscure executive from Met Life, the promotion's sponsor. In the middle of the fifth inning of Yankee Stadium's last game, Yankees announcer Michael Kay shows up on the big screen, spouts some doubletalk about how there can be no final game at Yankee Stadium, because Yankee Stadium is forever, then he turns the crank, making the special countdown scoreboard go from one to—I kid you not—"Forever." Two observations on this come to mind: first, thanks for the season-long voyage toward innumeracy, you've managed to make us all dumber; and second, with the Stadium packed with VIPs, at least a half-dozen of them Hall of Famers, Michael frickin' Kay was the person selected to turn that crank? Really?

Also at BP (but this time, free), Brother Joe got to share some of his feelings about the closing of the Cathedral:

Of course, you cannot praise 85 years of baseball players in one sitting. It’s too much to handle, there are too many greats to name at once, especially given the franchise we’re talking about here. Even the video clips seemed to miss a handful of significant players, and there was only so much time and space to have Yankee greats be announced and trot out to their positions. It was left to us to fill in the gaps.

So you let loose for Hideki Matsui, and hope that Rickey Henderson can hear you yell. A chant of "Paul O’Neill" fills the air, and in your heart you want Dave Winfield to feel the love as well. The crowd goes wild for Derek Jeter, and you just know that Scooter is hearing the echo, tucking into a cannoli and smiling. You can’t cheer them all, so you cheer the one out loud and the rest in your heart, the ones who are there, the ones who live in your memory, and the ones who set the stage for your memories, the heroes you know by stat lines and stories and grainy black-and-white footage. You cheer, and when you try to chant, your voice catches and you realize this is all hitting you a little harder than you thought. The video board shows Chris Chambliss hitting a huge home run, and you realize this is the only chance you’ve had to cheer your first favorite player in more than 20 years, and you do just that, standing out among a crowd of people with no understanding of why the short guy is so excited.

As promised, some more pics:

Brother Joe wasn't sitting with us for the Stadium's swan song, but he did come by to visit during the pregame. After the game, we stood outside the Stadium (by the manure-smelling Gate 2) talking about the day, the game, the monolith next door, soon to be our team's new home. Joe (a brother from another mother) and my actual brother Jeff are the two living people most responsible for me taking my love of the Yankees above the level of casual fan, and it meant a lot to me that the three of us were outside the Stadium together as they closed the shutters on the public entrance. "If I had a press pass, I'd see day break in there," Joe said. Amen.

Brother J and I (he's on the left and I'm on the right) at the end of the game. After one of our fellow Sunday plan holders took the pic, I noticed that we were out of focus, but the Stadium wasn't (he'd wanted to make sure we got the scoreboard in the background). My brother and I agreed that, on this night in particular, the focus should be on the Stadium, so we decided not to re-take the shot. I think it puts things in perspective.

You can find more of my photos from in this Picasa album, which I'll be updating with more pics soon.

Zero Games Left: The End of Yankee Stadium

2008-09-22T06:24:00.005-04:00

My brother J and I saw off the Cathedral in style yesterday, spending about eleven hours there en route to the Yanks' 7-3 win over the Orioles, the last Yankee win on the plot of land they've called home since 1923.

It was a bittersweet day, more celebration than wake for the defunct arena. I'll have more thoughts on it later on today at Baseball Prospectus, and there will be more pictures and discussion here on the blog once I've gotten some rest. Until then, just know I feel very lucky to have spent a very special day at the Stadium.

18 and Over?

2008-09-18T23:08:00.002-04:00

The Yankees, having no real shot at the postseason themselves, tried to help out the Twins by taking three out of four from the AL Central-leading Chicago White Sox, but the Twinkies spit the bit by getting swept in Cleveland. Tonight's game featured good performances by two Yankees whose contracts are up when the season's over--Mike Mussina, who registered his 18th win of the season with a strong six-inning effort, and Bobby Abreu, who clouted a pair of big homers against former Yankee Javy Vazquez. Abreu wound up with six RBI, and Mussina cruised after escaping a big jam in the first inning, and allowing only one run on two hits and two walks. Moose's win keeps the possibility of his first 20-win season alive. It'll be a tough road to get here--he'd have to beat the Blue Jays and Red Sox, on the road--but at least it's a chance.

Meanwhile, the weather's been nice for Yankee Stadium's last week. Yesterday, I was in Riverside Park, where the local tweens were showing off their sk8er boi skillz. Hopefully, the good weather will hold up for the Yanks and Orioles to send out the Stadium in style this weekend. One way or another, I'll see you in the Bronx Sunday night.

Eight Games Left: Record-Setter

2008-09-15T01:48:00.005-04:00

I didn't get to Sunday's matchup with the Rays; my Brother J and his wife did, however, and they got to witness some history:

(Hat tip to J for the camera work. Click on the image for a larger view.)

Congrats to the Captain on his torrid 9-hit weekend, and for matching Lou Gehrig's all-time Yankee Stadium hits record. Jeter now has all week to better the mark, one that will be a permanent part of the record books with the Cathedral closing its doors. The record-matching hit was a majestic homer off the Rays phenom, lefty David Price. The game also featured a first-inning grand slam by A-Rod, additional fireworks by Jason Giambi, and some slick defense by Brett Gardner in center. Can't Pitch Carl pitched well enough for his third win of the season, although his high-eighties cheese doesn't really tempt anyone to pick up the option on his contract. After some shoddy work by Jose Veras with a four-run lead, Mariano Rivera got a one-out save in the ninth to step into a tie for second place on the all-time saves list.

On the other side of things, Robinson Cano got benched mid-game by Joe Girardi, for failing to hustle on a hit deflected off Giambi's glove. Some would say that the benching is a long time coming, in a season where Cano will be lucky to finish with a .300 OBP, and where the adjective most often applied to him has been "lackadaisical." That's not one of the good English words, Robbie.

Dead Team Walking

2008-09-08T07:10:00.000-04:00

No sooner do the Yanks show signs of life against one of the best teams in the majors, the Tampa Bay Rays, than they give those gains back against the worst team in the AL. You could excuse the Yanks poor performance against Brandon Morrow on Friday--the youngster, making his first major league start after spending a season and a half in the pen, was throwing bullets. But Sunday, the starter had a much lesser pedigree--Ryan Feierabend is no one's idea of a world beater, but he kept the Yanks to just two solo homers. Mike Mussina, going for win number 18, spit the bit with some longball action of his own, allowing Adrian Beltre and Jose Lopez to go deep against him. A second homer, against Jose Veras, gave Lopez a career day, and the Yanks are kicked into fourth place in the AL East.

Things aren't going to get easier, with the Yanks in Anaheim to play the team with the best record in baseball. Ugh.

***

By the way, I'm holding a chat over on the Baseball Prospectus web site at 1:00 PM, Eastern. Everyone's invited to join in and ask some questions. The link to the chat session is here. Hope to see you there.

Catching Up: The Fall of Melky Cabrera

2008-09-02T07:13:00.000-04:00

After a season in which Melky Cabrera brought numbers (.242/.296/.337) more appropriate to a 1970s shortstop than a 21st Century outfielder to the mix, the Melk-man was finally sent down to the minors, just four days after his 24th birthday. From June 8 to August 13, Melky had hit only .202/.256/.269, with just 8 extra base hits in 209 PA. Many have taken the opportunity to rewrite history, claiming that Cabrera never belonged in the majors, and saying they wouldn't be surprised if he never makes it back. Others have pointed to the celebrated friendship between Melky and another disappointing youngster, Robinson Cano, as an unhealthy situation that's made both players complacent and altogether too party-minded. Any which way, it's hard to tell if this demotion will just be an obstacle, or if it's the beginning of the end for a popular player.

Melky's demotion left a hole in the Yankee defense. For all his struggles with the bat, Cabrera's been an above-average fielder in center. Shifting Johnny Damon to center, and inserting Xavier Nady in left, is a huge net loss for the Yankee defense. Only days before he became a full-time center fielder again, Damon was bragging about how much he loved DHing--not a great sign, for a player the Yanks acquired for his flycatching ability. Nady, who I'd remembered as a decent defender from his time with the Mets, looks utterly unnatural in left field--his routes to balls make late-era Bernie Williams look efficient and instinctive, his arm is awful. Even though the Yankees could likely use him as a late-inning defensive replacement, if nothing else, the Yanks didn't recall Cabrera with the expanded rosters on September 1--a sign that the demotion may be punitive, as well as performance-related.

Month in Review: August 2008

2008-09-01T17:07:00.004-04:00

Record for the Month: 13-15, 135 RS, 148 RA
Overall: 72-64, 651 RS, 619 RA

Game of the Month: August 3, 2008--Yankees 14, Angels 9 Probably the wildest game of the year, with the Yanks digging a 5-0 hole for themselves early, clawing their way back against John Lackey and taking an 8-5 lead in the bottom of the seventh, thanks to some shabby defense by the Halos, then losing the lead on a Mark Texeira grand slam against Edwar Ramirez, then taking the lead again with a six-run, three error eighth inning. The whole game was just a tradeoff of haymakers between what looked like two of the best teams in the league. As the month wore on, the Yanks showed that they're not really in the Angels' class this year. Other candidates: the Yanks' comeback against the Red Sox to avert a sweep on Thursday was pretty big, but it was canceled out by the comeback loss to the Jays on Saturday. In some ways, both of those games were emblematic of the month as a whole.

Player of the Month: It's hard to give this to Mariano Rivera in a month where he had two losses and a blown save--although, otherwise, he was his normal, stellar self (6 Sv, 1.88 ERA in 14 1/3 innings). But who are the other candidates? Jason Giambi led the team in HR (8) and RBI (22) and had some clutch hits, but didn't hit or get on base too well overall (.232/.327/.524 for the month). Derek Jeter hit well for average last month but showed no power (.345/.382/.402), Bobby Abreu was better (.342/.405/.421) but not by too much. By default, the best offensive performance for August goes to Xavier Nady, who impressed with the bat (.308/.351/.523, 6 HR, 19 RBI), even if his glove has been suspect. With that in mind, the month's honors go Mike Mussina, (3-0, 2.93 in 6 starts). He's on pace for his most starts since 2001, and would be only 3 games away from the magic 20 game plateau if the bullpen hadn't blown the game in his start against the Twins. Pretty neat, considering that at this point last year he'd been booted from the rotation for Ian Kennedy, and most everyone (including me) thought there was a fork sticking out of him.

Dregs of the Month: In his first month in Pinstripes, Ivan Rodriguez (.196/.250/.321 in 56 AB) was almost outhit by the man he was putatively replacing as the Yankees' backstop, Jose Molina (.222/.239/.400 in 45 AB). That's some kind of awful. Speaking of awful, Melky Cabrera (.115/.148/.115) finally played his way off the Yankees' roster, losing his spot intermittently to Brett Gardner and Justin Christian prior to the Xavier Nady trade. I'll talk about this more in a Catching Up, but it speaks volumes that when the September 1 callups were announced, Melky was left in AAA to help Scranton in the International League playoffs. Even though Melky was hitting .333 in AAA, he showed absolutely no power, and between the two levels, in 83 at bats, Melky only had two extra base hits (both doubles) all month.

Speaking of the Nady trade, Damaso Marte has been almost as big a disappointment in August as Pudge has been, allowing a 7.71 ERA in the month (and perhaps being injured, per Pete Abe). Dave Robertson (8.81 ERA) also had a month to forget in the bullpen, and Edwar Ramirez returned to his Three True Outcomes ways (3 HR, 4 BB, 13 K in 11 2/3 innings, good for a 6.73 ERA). Girardi leaned pretty hard on the bullpen all month long.

Story of the Month: Since 1996, when the Yankees almost blew their division lead with a 13-17 month, August has been very good to the New York Yankees. They've had a winning record every year since, and with the exception of 2001--where the Yanks squeaked by with a 15-14 mark--the month has tended to be a difference maker--while their opponents hit the doldroms in the dog days, the Yanks surge ahead on the depth of talent a ginormous payroll can buy. The month's 13-15 finish in August 2008 is the result of the Yanks taking beatdowns from some of the best teams in the league (2-4 against the Angels, 1-2 against the Red Sox and Twins) while not making up the difference against some teams that weren't quite of that quality (2-2 against the Rangers, 2-4 against the Blue Jays). As I mentioned this morning, this isn't going to get any easier--the Yanks have 13 games against division-leading opponents in September, plus three games against the Red Sox.

Around Yankeeland, an eerie level of acceptance has set in: this just isn't our year. Much of this season has been a wait for the Pinstriped surge that never arrived--that 18-9 month that declares that your team's a contender, or at least a real threat if it came down to a short series. Indeed, every Yankee team since 1996 has had at least one month where they had single-digit losses. Even if the Yanks were to keep up that streak with a 17-9 September, the Red Sox would have to go 10-16 (and the Twins would have to go 12-13) for the Yankee Stadium's swan song to continue into October. People aren't even dreaming about that possibility. Some, like Hank Steinbrenner, have already started to look ahead to this winter's free agent market.

Looking Ahead: Derek Jeter comes into September needing 45 hits in 28 games to reach 200 for the season. The most hits Jeter has ever had in a month is 50, which took him 32 games in August 1998. The next most was 44 hits, which Jeter has managed twice in his career. The ten hits that he stands away from Lou Gerhig's all-time Yankee Stadium mark is much more manageable, given that there are 10 home games left. If the Yanks stay in rotation, Mike Mussina's remaining starts this season would fall against the Rays, Mariners, Rays, White Sox, Jays, and Red Sox, a pretty tough schedule. He needs wins in four of those starts to become a 20-game winner for the first time in his career.

Ten Games Left: Sun Baked

2008-09-01T09:05:00.005-04:00

The afternoon sun beat down mercilessly on the left field stands on Sunday, just as the unrelenting Roy Halladay beat down on the Yankees' batters. The rubber game of the series snapped the wrong way for the Yankees, leaving the team cooked as it goes on a ten-game road stand, seven games behind the Red Sox and two and a half games behind the Minnesota Twins, and leaving me with a nasty sunburn.

The day had a nostalgic tinge to it. Sunday afternoons have been my main experience of Yankee Stadium, ever since I got my first weekend ticket plan as a teenager. Rather than taking the train straight to the Stadium, I got off in Manhattan and walked across the Macombs Dam Bridge--one of my typical routes to and from the Stadium when I lived uptown and had all the time in the world.

As you can tell by the sign, the MDB is a draw bridge, which was a big curiosity for me when I was younger. I remember a number of times waiting to pass across, but I don't think I was ever actually on the span when the draw bridge bell started to ring.

Anyway, the walk to the park wasn't the only thing that brought back memories of the old days--the game itself did, as well. The Yanks needed Good Andy Pettitte to show up and counter Halladay pitch-for-pitch. But Bad Andy walked the first batter of the game, Marco Frickin' Scutaro. Scutaro came around to score, and before Halladay took the mound, the Yanks were down 3-0, thanks in part for Xavier Nady butchering a fly ball in left field. In the second inning, Scott Rolen--batting 8th against a lefty--roped a solo homer to make the score 4-0. Solo homers in the fourth and the sixth provided the tease, bringing it just close enough to make things frustrating, but again, the 7th inning brought things to a boil. Just like Saturday's game, Girardi tried to sneak one more inning out of his starter. Just like in Saturday's game, Pettitte stuck around too long, allowing three straight hits and another run. Finally, the score got to 6-2, Jays, where it would remain.

There are 26 games left in the season. Only 10 of those are home games, and their opponents' weighted winning percentage is .545. With no games left against the Twins and only three against the Red Sox, they don't just have to play out of their minds in September to make the playoffs, they need help from the opposition. It's a damn tall order.

Catching Up: Tell No One

2008-08-31T10:16:00.002-04:00

Yes, it's in French, and yes, it has subtitles. Don't let those things scare you away from Tell No One, a film that has at its heart a very American sensibility, as betrayed by its taut chase scenes and the English pop tunes that dot the soundtrack. The story, based on an American novel, is simple: a doctor (Francois Cluzet) and his wife go skinny dipping in a country lake; they are attacked and the wife dies. Years later, the doctor receives a mysterious email, featuring a video of a woman who looks like his wife. As the doctor's obsession with getting to the heart of the mystery grows, unknown forces fixate on him, and on the unidentified person who is sending the messages.

Cluzet, who bears an uncanny resemblance to a slightly younger Dustin Hoffman, sells us on the obsession without losing our sympathy. Kristin Scott Thomas and Gilles Lellouche stand out as two friends who stand by him even as it looks like he's going over the bend. Even though the story is a bit convoluted--OK, more than a bit--this is a fine opportunity to get credit for taking your date to a foreign arthouse film, that happens to be, in most respects, a commercial American film. A very good commercial American film. Highly recommended.

Movies: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

2008-08-31T07:14:00.002-04:00

If you read the Scott Tobias's interview with Woody Allen, you'll find out that Vicky Cristina Barcelona was basically a situation where the financing came in search of a project. He was asked if he would make a movie in Barcelona if someone else picked up the freight, and he said "sure." To fit the bill, he confected a fairly simple story of two American twentysomethings on holiday in an exotic European city. Vicky (Rebecca Hall) is the uptight one, who craves stability and is set to marry a dullish but moneyed man; Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) is the artistic one, who's a little more adventurous, but is never happy with her creations or her relationships. We know all this a few minutes in because an omniscient narrator tells us, which is a bit of a problem with the movie. We're sometimes told things we could easily have been shown, or worse, told things, then have those same things explained through dialog by the characters on screen, then--in addition--the same things are shown to us in flashback.

Vicky and Cristina meet Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), a painter whose explosive relationship with his ex-wife made waves in the Barcelona art scene years before. Bardem, who starts off playing a stock role of the tall dark stranger who challenges the Americans to live life to the fullest, reminds us that before he stole Pete Rose's haircut to play death incarnate in No Country for Old Men, he was considered more sexy than scary. In their first meeting, he propositions both Vicky and Cristina, simultaneously, to go away with him for a romantic getaway. He delivers his lines of seduction in such a way that even as we're rolling our eyes at the corniness, we understand why a girl would go with him.

Even with Bardem's considerable talents, the story to this point is pretty rote, and as the focus falls more on Cristina than Vicky, you might find yourself checking your watch. But then Penelope Cruz shows up as Juan Antonio's ex, Maria Elena, and saves Woody's movie. Cruz doesn't just give the best female performance I've seen all year, but Maria Elena may be the most interesting female character in any Woody Allen movie. She sweeps through her scenes, all rage and manic energy, buoyed by the twin qualities of being as mad as a hatter and of always being right. She's part muse, part oracle, part raving psychotic.

While not everything in the film rises to the level of Bardem and Cruz's strange relationship, the acting--with one exception--is extremely fine. Hall, who'd previously played Christian Bale's wife in The Prestige, is a discovery; she holds her own given the most Woody-like dialog, but also shows great ambiguity torn between exotic Barcelona and her not-so-exotic fiance (well played by Chris Messina). Patricia Clarkson and Kevin Dunn are great in small roles as Vicky and Cristina's hosts in Spain. Um, who does that leave?

Oh. Johansson. She might be the most beautiful woman in Hollywood, but her acting is weak enough that it's even commented on in the movie itself. This is the second time Woody has cast Scarlett as a less-than-convincing actress--maybe this is a clue? She's not as wooden here as she was in Match Point, but limits of her skills, plus a role that could best be described as the "vaguely dissatisfied girl" make her stick out in an outstanding cast. Regardless, this film rates a pretty strong recommended.

Game 135: Painful

2008-08-30T19:07:00.003-04:00

There are bad ways to lose; we've seen some of them this season. But I'm not sure that any loss so far has hurt as much as this one did. This was a game the Yanks needed, and had, and just let slip away.

The breakdown came with the Yankees up 6-2, and Joe Girardi trying to squeeze one last inning--the seventh--out of Darrell Rasner. With no outs and a man on first, Rasner got a double play ball to Robinson Cano, who tried an awkward lateral-flip move that skittered away from Derek Jeter. The runner wound up taking third, which was left empty when Alex Rodriguez came out to back up the play. The Blue Jays would score three times in the inning, then take the lead the following inning touching up three pitchers--Brian Bruney, who pitched well given bases loaded and no outs in the seventh; Damaso Marte, who may or may not still be hurt; and Edwar Ramirez, who's had a brutal August.

The Yanks had their chances to strike back, particularly when the Yanks got two men on in the ninth inning with no outs for Alex Rodriguez. Alex hit into a DP, keeping up the bizarre record that Brother Joe noted in his Friday column: A-Rod only has 3 RBI all season after the seventh inning. The box score would short Rodriguez some credit here--the ball was hit extremely hard down the third base line, and it took a great reaction play by Jose Bautista to turn a 5-unassisted-3 double killing. Still, an out's an out, and it's been a week of boo-birds for the highest paid man in the baseball business (well, the baseball-playing business, at least).

Anyway, I'll be in the crowd tomorrow to cheer the team in the rubber game of the series. It's my next-to-last ticket to the Stadium, and Brother Joe (that's Sheehan, for those of you who didn't check out the linked article) will be my guest in box 342. Hope to see some of you there.

****
NOTES

Hopefully, the "Catching Up" posts will continue tomorrow, along with the day's Game Story later on in the evening.

In other news, Jay Mariotti, of TV, radio, and, until recently, of the Chicago Sun-Times, has long been a mystery to me. I've never met anyone who would cop to being a fan of his, and every time I've read or heard his work, I've wondered how he could be so popular. Is it just that he doesn't write baseball well? Is he a crackerjack at other sports? Maybe people just like when a guy with a mullet condescends to them?

As a writer, his columns give off such powerful pretension, it's as if he can't believe he has to write about anything so trivial as sports. He tends to put himself at the center of the story, as when Ozzie Guillen hurled a sexual slur at him. Although Guillen's words were unacceptable, Mariotti's reaction was so over-the-top that it made you wonder if Guillen had outed him, rather than just insulting him (apparently, he hadn't).

Anyway, this comes up because of Roger Ebert's open letter to Mariotti, on the issue of his leaving the Sun-Times. It's great when a writer as good as Ebert takes the gloves off to take someone to the woodshed, and defend something he loves (in this case, the newspaper business).

Catching Up: Iron Man

2008-08-25T15:45:00.000-04:00

No, not Lou Gehrig or Cal Ripken, the movie. Had every reason to think it would suck: I was thoroughly unimpressed by the trailer; the director, while a nice enough actor, was no one's idea of an A-lister; and the character is, in terms of public recognition, a second-string type. Tony Stark doesn't command the mindshare that SpiderMan, or the Hulk, or the X-Men do. Still, it was a nice surprise, near perfect for its intended purpose. The film is accessible, brisk and fun, and Robert Downey Jr. does a great job of both having a good time with the role, and leveraging his own history as a troubled but extremely talented person to bring to life the genius inventor who builds a suit of armor with which to fight evil. Like his summer superhero competition, Bruce Wayne, Stark is a multimillionaire (billionaire?) crimefighter. But unlike Wayne, he isn't pretending to drink too much and womanize as a cover for his crimefighting activities--he's actually drinking and womanizing, as well as inventing things, running a Fortune 500 company, and, um, fighting crime. Oscar winner Gwynneth Paltrow and multiple-Oscar nominee Jeff Bridges do fine work as Stark's assistant/love interest and mentor/enemy; Terrence Howard (another Academy Award nominee) is a bit wasted in a rote "responsible best friend" role.

Catching Up: Bye-Bye Manny

2008-08-25T13:49:00.001-04:00

The Red Sox give up Manny Ramirez (OF) and cash to the Dodgers, get Jason Bay (OF), the Pirates get a refugee raft of prospects.

Beyond X, Marte, and Pudge, the good news of the July trade deadline was Manny Ramirez heading off to Joe Torre's Dodgers, and out of the Yankee's lives barring an extremely unlikely World Series confrontation. The Sox had a million reasons to make this trade: Ramirez had gone into a modified version of Derek Bell's Operation Shutdown, his demands were completely unreasonable, Bay's younger, a better defender, and under contract for next year at a bargain price. The trade made sense for them. But.

Bay, for all his good qualities, is closer to the JD Drew/Mike Lowell level of player than the David Ortiz/Manny Ramirez level. The former are really good players, who can hurt you in a tight spot. The latter were forces of nature who who filled Yankee fans with terror when the game went into the late innings. So I'm glad to see Manny being Manny in Chavez Ravine, rather than in the AL East, if only for the remainder of this season.

Catching Up: Pudge for Blockhead Kyle

2008-08-25T10:28:00.001-04:00

Yanks get Ivan Rodriguez (C), give Kyle Farnsworth (RHP) to the Tigers.

This trade was basically obligatory once Jorge Posada elected to have shoulder surgery, and Jose Molina (.581 OPS when the trade was made) made it abundantly clear that his bat wasn't ready for prime time. Cashman was basically waiting for two years for Farnsworth to have an effective six-week stretch so that he could send Blockhead Kyle away; he got it (Kyle had a 2.25 ERA and 18 Ks in 16 innings from June 11 to the date of the trade) and now Kyle's gone. Considering the number of times the club contemplated giving him away or releasing him, getting a major league player--much less one that fit the club's needs--in return was pure gravy. Could they have done better than Pudge Rodriguez behind the plate? He's basically a better version of Molina, not a complementary player. But you can't beat the price: any of the catchers who were better fits (guys like Greg Zaun or Jarrod Saltamacchia) would have cost the Yanks prospects, and meant that Kyle remained on the roster. We wouldn't want that, would we?

Catching Up: The Nady/Marte Trade

2008-08-25T07:06:00.002-04:00

Yanks give: Jose Tabata (OF), Ross Ohlendorf (RHP), Jeff Karstens (RHP), and Dan McCutchen (RHP). Yanks get: Xavier Nady (OF), Damaso Marte (LHP)

The Yankees dealt Jose Tabata at the rock-bottom of his value, after a bad season in AA and a host of disciplinary problems that had resulted in suspensions; the Pirates dealt Nady at the absolute top of his value (the X-man was leading the Pirates in EqA at the time of the trade). The fact that this trade comes out looking pretty even is a minor miracle--the Yanks had been in need of a righthanded outfielder and a lefty reliever for quite a while, and aside from Tabata, the Pittsburgh package is pretty low-ceiling. Folks love Ohlendorf's stuff, but it didn't translate to results this year or last. Karsten's looked pretty good over the past month in the steel city, but that's an illusion created by an incredibly low batting average on balls in play (.218 BABIP). The Yanks just need to keep Nady's career season in perspective--sure, he could be a Luis Gonzalez or Raul Ibanez-style late bloomer, but do you really want to bet on it?

Notes from a Baltimore Sweep

2008-08-24T18:27:00.003-04:00

The Can't Pitch Carl Experience--I had a bit of criticism to levy on the Yanks' broadcast team over on BP: Unfiltered this morning, over a bit of medical misinformation. Here's a taste:

I was watching last night’s Carl Pavano start–his third Major League start in the last three years–on replay, when, in the first inning, the YES Network broadcast team hit upon a huge pet peeve. They were explaining Tommy John surgery to the audience, and Ken Singleton claimed that pitchers throw harder after the elbow reconstruction surgery because “they use a tendon that is actually stronger than the ligament that was replaced.”
I don’t mean to single Singleton out–he’s a quality broadcaster, and often the voice of reason in the Yankees‘ booth–but the myth that Tommy John surgery turns pitchers into supermen is a bit dangerous. Technically, what Singleton said was right: the tendon is better than the ligament being replaced (or overlaid), but only because the ulnar collateral ligament that requires surgery as a result of being torn or ruptured, while the replacement tendon is intact.

As for the start itself, Pavano's pitching line (1 walk and 5 strikeouts in 5 innings) belied the lack of command he showed (2 hit batters, lots of deep counts). This is normal for guys coming back from Tommy John surgery, particularly those who come back relatively quickly (Pavano's surgery was about 14 months ago, if I recall correctly). Of course, if he's able to be effective past this first start, that just raises stakes as to when he'll get hurt again. Will it be tomorrow? The second inning of his next scheduled start, against the Blue Jays? How can you keep Can't Pitch Carl's fragile body protected from the cold, harsh world. Bubble wrap? Styrofoam packing peanuts?

On to Today's Game--It says a lot that after today's game, despite all the injury concerns and questions, Pavano's likely passed Darrell Rasner on the rotation depth chart. Since May, Rasner hasn't had any luck at all trying to string a pair of quality starts together. The wounded look on his face when Girardi pulled him in the fourth was brutal.

Pornstache Wars--What exactly is the mustache look that O's firstbaseman Kevin Millar is going for? Is it Oliver Hardy? Hitler?

Sometimes I Wonder if This is On the Up and Up--Yesterday's YES promos were touting Robinson Cano against the Orioles today. There didn't seem to be much reason for this: he doesn't hit particularly well at Camden Yards, or against the Orioles. Wasn't on a hot streak either. But in today's game, he clouts four hits, including two doubles and a go-ahead solo homer. Weird, huh?

Catching Up

2008-08-24T17:56:00.004-04:00

The season has been slipping away, both from me in terms of the blog and from the Yankees in terms of their hopes of sending the House that Ruth Built to its great slumber in October rather than in September. The former couldn't be helped--I have some seismic changes going on in my life that made regular posting pretty hard to manage. The latter? They say luck is the residue of design, and there's been a lot of criticism of the design Brian Cashman brought into this season. Everyone knew the path the Yanks chose--leaning on a trio of young pitchers and a lineup larded with elder statesmen--was risky, but it was also part of a larger plan by which the Yankees rebuild from within. Sadly, larger plans don't carry much weight in the Yankees' universe; at least, no one wants to hear the excuse that we can't win now because we want to set up to win in the future. In those terms, this season is likely a bust.

I haven't written the Yankees off--after seeing what the Rockies (and, conversely, the Mets) did last season, writing anyone with an over .500 record in August seems silly--but the hope that the Yanks will pass the Sox (both Red and White) and Twins for the Wild Card is coming out of my heart, not my head. My head sees the lower than 5% chance on the Playoff Odds Report and gives a shrug and a sigh.

In the meantime, as far as the blog goes, I'm relaunching things for the stretch run. We'll be fiddling with new looks for the WTDB, new links, and for the immediate future, very short entries (fewer than 200 words each) to catch us up on the various and sundry topics I missed over the last month.

Sometimes You Win and You Still Lose

2008-07-13T07:04:00.000-04:00

Bobby Murcer is dead.

I knew him as a voice, first and foremost. As a player, he occupied a strange ground in Yankee history. He was the best player on the team in the early seventies--a dubious distinction--then was traded for Bobby Bonds in '74 and missed the championship seasons of 1977 and '78. He returned in 1979, just weeks before the death of his best friend on the team, Thurman Munson. Munson's death provided the one game performance for which he's best remembered by Yankee fans, as the day of Munson's funeral the Yankees came back from Ohio to play the Orioles at Yankee Stadium, and Murcer led a comeback, knocking in all five of the Yankees' runs in a 5-4 victory.

Murcer made it to the playoffs with the Yankees in 1980 and '81, but by then he was more of a role player, and he only got 14 plate appearances in the two playoff series, with one hit, two walks, and no rings. When he retired in 1983, the organization quickly moved him to the Yankee broadcast booth, where he stayed for the most part until his health made it impossible to return. Murcer was diagnosed with brain cancer in late 2006, but was successfully treated and was back in the broadcast booth by the following Opening Day. We cheered Murcer's victory over cancer that day, but all triumphs over death are temporary. Sixteen months later, he's gone.

My condolences go out to his family, and to Yankee fans everywhere. We'll miss him very much.

34 Games Left: Sunday Night Lights

2008-07-07T06:18:00.006-04:00

During Friday's Independence Day game, at some point shortly after the the Sox took a 6-3 lead en route to a 6-4 victory, a friend emailed me with a one-sentence note:

Why are there so many Red Sox fans at this game?

There are many answers to this question. As I've complained before, a mind-boggling number of Yankee "fans" can think of nothing better to do with their tickets than to bring a Red Sox fan to the Stadium, to cheer against their team. Corporate ticketholders seem to love giving their tickets to fans of whichever opposing team is in town, and online services like StubHub have made scalping tickets safe and sanitary for any New Englander who wants to make the drive down I-95. Moreover, the Red Sox seem to have attracted a fan base with no connection whatsoever to New England, composed of Dominicans who come out to honor Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, and others who jumped on the bandwagon circa 2004, adopting the Boston "B" as their non-conformist symbol for hatred of the Yankees, and/or New York in general. All told, that makes for a lot of people in the stands to chant "Youuuuuk" when Boston's whiny firstbaseman comes to the plate.

The simpler answer to my friend's question is that the Red Sox fans, from wherever and however they got into the Stadium, came to preside over a funeral. A funeral for the Yankees. They'd come into town on Thursday like they owned the place--they absolutely beat down Andy Pettitte and Jon Lester held the Yankees lineup impotent--and on Friday, the roll continued behind Josh Beckett. The Yankees, losers of five of their last six, actually fell behind Baltimore into fourth place at the end of action on Friday.

Since Wang went down, I've been coming to terms with the thought that this isn't the Yankees' year. Not that I've given up, but the twists that it would take for the Yankees to overtake the Rays and Red Sox--much less perform well in the playoffs--seem to range toward the improbable. Everyone knew that this was a risky season, with the Yanks counting on their young players rather than making yet another move for a top-shelf talent like Johan Santana. That young talent has largely disappointed, with Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy on the shelf with injuries (and before they were injured, they were ineffective); Robinson Cano having a half-season to forget, and Melky Cabrera openly making some of us question whether he belongs in the major leagues.

So I was bracing myself for a Boston sweep, or three-out-of-four on the upside. Then, on Saturday, there was a nice surprise from Mike Mussina--he picked the Red Sox apart with precision pitching and chutzpah, and the Yankees barely survived some ninth-inning trouble for Mariano Rivera. Still, coming to the Stadium for last night's Joba Chamberlain-Tim Wakefield matchup, I wasn't optimistic--sure, Joba's probably the best thing the Yanks have going this season, but he hasn't faced an offense like Boston's as a starter.

Again, tonight proved a pleasant surprise. Joba pumping mid-90s heat at the opposition wasn't surprising, but the Red Sox pounding those balls into the ground was, a little (it shouldn't have been, given that Chamberlain recently induced 10 or more grounders against the Astros and Pirates as well). Chamberlain was excellent outside of the fifth inning, which went 38 pitches long and featured control trouble. I was glad that they let Joba pitch himself out of the mess, despite the fact that he looked fatigued as the inning wore on.

Robinson Cano's seventh-inning triple, which tied the game, was another pleasant surprise, and Kyle Farnsworth making it through the eighth inning without giving the Red Sox the lead was outright shocking. The biggest, and most surprising moment in the game came in the ninth. The Red Sox got a runner to third base with two outs, and Manny Ramirez, who'd spent the game on the bench, came to the plate to face Mariano Rivera. I expected an intentional walk, to face rookie Jacoby Ellsbury rather than the most dangerous batter on the team. Rivera had other ideas, and took down the dreadlocked slugger with a perfect, three-pitch strikeout. Ramirez never took the bat off his shoulder.

At that point, things stopped being surprising. There was a palpable feeling that the worm had turned. The crowd in the left field stands stayed on their feet for the bottom of the ninth, expecting that one of the trio of Alex Rodriguez, Jason Giambi, and Jorge Posada would send us home with a bang. It didn't happen, but then the top of the Red Sox lineup didn't find much to do with Rivera in his second inning of work. When Robinson Cano singled to start the inning, blood was in the water, a sac bunt and a Wilson Betemit whiff later, the game was in the hands of rookie Brett Gardner, who's concluding his first week in the majors. Against Jon Papelbon, the rookie hanged in there, fouling off Papelbon's big fastballs en route to a eight-pitch groundball single up the middle. Welcome to the Show, kid. Thanks for rescuing our week.

NOTES:

In the second inning, Alex Rodriguez tied Mickey Mantle on the All-Time home run list, thwacking a Wakefield knuckler down the left field line. Rodriguez had a hard week, with rumors of an affair with Madonna following rumors that his wife had fled to Paris, to be with Lenny Kravitz, in turn followed by the official announcement, tonight before the game, that his wife will seek a divorce.

I'm perplexed by Madonna's role as the catalyst that set this chain of events in motion. I remember Madonna at her peak, in the 80's: the photos of her published in Penthouse and Playboy were perhaps the most anticipated thing in the history of published nudity. She was attached or rumored to be attached to dozens of prominent figures of the day, from JFK, Jr. to Jose Canseco and Warren Beatty. But with over-exposure, her reputation as a sex symbol began to wear thin, and it outright died, in my opinion, with her performance in the Basic Instinct rip-off Body of Evidence. The movie cast her as a dangerous sexpot, in a cast that included quality performers like Willem DaFoe, Joe Mantegna, Frank Langella and Julianne Moore. She was hamstrung by an awful, awful script, but it was just shocking that Madonna couldn't manage to convince anyone that she was seductive, or even terribly desirable, in the role. Her coming back from motherhood and marriage to bust up A-Rod's marriage is a bit like if Don Mattingly came out of retirement today and went on to win the batting title.

Girardi got booted from the game in the sixth, for arguing balls and strikes right before the Gardner single that set up the Yankees' second run of the night. The guy in front of me remarked "He [Girardi] is the only one in that dugout with any fire." Tough judgment, given that Jeter and Posada are in that dugout, too, but I'm not sure I disagree.

Words of encouragement to Kyle Farnsworth: "Kyle! Pretend that Mike Lowell is a beautiful five-point buck. Or six points, whatever. Just take him out!"

Month in Review: June 2008

2008-07-05T14:55:00.000-04:00

Ed. Note: It's taken me a while to do this month-in-review, and no matter what happens today and tomorrow night, this has been a week to forget in Yankeeland. I'll put aside July for the moment, concentrate on June, and we'll talk about the current crisis shortly.

Record for the Month: 16-12, 137 RS, 114 RA
Overall: 44-39, 386 RS, 366 RA, 3rd Place 6.5 games behind the Rays

Game of the Month: June 27 at Mets. If you'd asked me the most unlikely combination to come through with a combined shutout in pinstripes this season, Sidney Ponson/Kyle FarnsworthJose Veras/Kei Igawa would have been pretty close to the top. Then consider the circumstances: at Shea in the nightcap of a two-borough doubleheader, after Carlos Delgado and the Mets creamolished them at the Stadium in the early game, and facing Pedro Martinez? Raise your hand if you called a Yankee shutout under those circumstances. I thought not.

Player of the Month: Mariano Rivera's numbers look close to getting him a third straight Player of the Month nod, but one loss, and another game where the offense bailed him out, means that we're not quite there. I'll be a bit of a hypocrite by giving Jose Veras part credit by posting 13 innings of 1.98 ERA in June--worse numbers than Rivera, but then, the expectations were much lower. I was kind of dumbfounded by Girardi's affection for Veras earlier in the season, but if he keeps on performing like this, we might just have the player the Yanks thought they were getting in Kyle Farnsworth. Joba Chamberlain made strides in his conversion project, leaving his amazing strikeout rate in the bullpen, but still keeping a 5 to 1 K/Walk ratio, and a 1.80 ERA for the month. Jason Giambi (.305/.430/.585) and Johnny Damon (.363/.425/.441) also get part credits--two players who came into this season on the brink, and are now the team's core performers. But the Player of the Month is Alex Rodriguez, who hit the ball a bit (.366/.455/.693, team-leading 9 HR, 24 Runs, 23 RBI) in his first healthy month of the season.

Dregs of the Month: Darrell Rasner's magical pixie dust ran out (1-5, 6.47 ERA in June), which is a shame, but also just the way the cookie crumbles. Freaky fluke Aaron Small seasons are freaky flukes for a reason: they very rarely happen. Before the season, if someone told you Rasner would have a 4.42 ERA at the end of June, you'd probably think that was about right, maybe a little low. Luckily for Rasner, his poor performance is completely blown away by Melky Cabrera's (.206/.289/.255). Melky's in the middle of the worst offensive stretch by a Yankee regular since Tony Womack back in 2005, he's posted a .565 OPS over the last two months. As Womack shows, there's only so long that you can perform at that level and keep your job. Melky's been fortunate as his slump continued, the Yankees' outfield depth took a hit with the loss of HIdeki Matsui. Otherwise, I can't imagine that the Yankees would let him work his issues out on the major league level, rather than setting him up with a restorative trip to Scranton, no matter how good his defense is.

Story of the Month: If there was one injury the Yankees couldn't afford this season, it would have to have been any injury to Chien Ming Wang. Wang's absence, plus that of Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy, puts a superhuman weight on the shoulders of the rotation's old warhorses, Mike Mussina and Andy Pettitte. Unless both pitchers perform to the top of their expectations, the Yanks have little hope of catching the Red Sox or Rays. The Matsui injury leaves the roster pretty thin--now Girardi has an excuse to carry three catchers, as he did for most of the month. I'm sure Chad Moeller's 12 PA last month were totally worth it.

42 Games Left: Sweep Aversion

2008-06-23T06:50:00.001-04:00

After rampaging through the Astros and Padres, it looked like a shot of interleague play was just what the doctor ordered for the Yanks. But the Cincinatti Reds, dead last in the NL Central, provided a roadblock, with potential All-Star Edinson Volquez breaking up the team's seven-game winning streak on Friday night--allowing only two runs in seven innings of work wasting a pretty decent Mike Mussina outing. Then Darryl Thompson did Volquez one better, leading a five-pitcher shutout of the Bombers on Saturday. Again, the Yankee offense--this time joined by a porous bullpen--helped waste Dan Giese's fine effort in his first start in Pinstripes.

So coming to the ballpark yesterday, the Yanks were in a tight spot, a fun romp through a weak NL schedule suddenly turning into a must-win situation to stop a three-game losing streak at home. Sunday's starter, Johnny Cueto, is someone I think will be better than Thompson or Volquez in the long term. Physically, he reminds me a little of a young Tom Gordon--short but long-armed--just with a better assortment of pitches.

True to that promise, Cueto was a surgeon against the Pinstripers for four innings yesterday, allowing just a couple of Bobby Abreu singles, and a hit by pitch against six strikeouts. He was hitting spots with a 95 MPH fastball and his breaking stuff was darting in and out of the strike zone. Fortunately, Andy Pettitte was just as fine for the Yanks, working his way out of a bases-loaded one-out jam in the fourth. It was a gutty performance, with the veteran lefty having a classic eight-pitch confrontation with one of the top rookies in the NL, BP's #1 prospect, Jay Bruce, to close out the inning.

The forecast had said thunderstorms, which kept some of the, shall we say, less intrepid elements from coming to the Stadium. My brother T, who signed on as my wingman on the late side, got to the ballpark extremely late--he missed Pettitte's fourth-inning drama, if I recall correctly. He also brought a dark and foreboding cloud to the ballpark with him: up until that point it had been pretty nice weather. Still, his timing was perfect. He arrived, the Yanks rallied to score a run off Cueto on a Jason Giambi single, a Hip-Hip-Jorge! double and a Robinson Cano sac fly. Pettitte worked a clean top of the sixth, interrupted a couple of times by huge dust clouds kicked up by the incoming high winds. Then the skies opened up in the most discrete and tidy rain delay I've ever experienced: maybe 20 minutes of hard rain and thunder--just enough time for a bathroom break and a short search for snacks among the Stadium's concession stands--then a short period of light rain, and about 20 minutes of cleanup. The crowd was oddly complacent, during the delay--someone asked me if the game was official, as if asking for permission to go home, and it did seem that the crowd was thinner after the tarp was removed from the field than it had been when it was put on.

When the game resumed, it was no longer fireballing Johnny Cueto on the mound for the Reds, but Gary Majewski, the centerpiece of the Austin Kearns trade a few years back, who almost immediately came up lame after joining the Cincy ballclub. The Yanks staged a second rally against Majewski and former Rockies reliever Jeremy Affeldt, capped by an opposite field double by Jason Giambi, and an RBI single for Posada that ran the score to 4-0.

At that time, I abandoned my perch in the left field Main boxes, to meet up with Jay Jaffe by his seats in the upper deck. Jay'd run into Rob Neyer and some friends during the rain delay, so he invited me to visit, now that the crowd had thinned out and his section had a fair number of empty seats in. It's from there that I watched the game to its conclusion, made a little bit too exciting by a couple of singles off of Mariano Rivera in the ninth. Good win for the Yanks to take on the road to Pittsburgh, en route to a rematch with the Willie Randolph-less Mets.
Even though both of these teams have struggled, to some extent, the Yankees would be well advised not to take either of them for granted--after all, they just lost 2 of 3 to the Reds.

***
NOTES

Two issues came up in discussion after I joined Jay's party in the upper deck, and I fear both made me look like a New York fanboy rube. First, talked about the "Tell Big Papi Where to Hit a Homer" at the Home Run Derby promotion. There's next to no chance that this promotion will come off, thanks to David Ortiz's wrist injury, but now that my credential application for the ASG has been rejected, can I just say that this was one of the dumbest ideas, ever? Maybe I'm mis-remembering (as Roger Clemens would put it) but I don't think that Major League Baseball built too many promotions around Yankees ballplayers the last time the All Star Game was at Fenway. No, as I remember it, that game was all about Red Sox history, Ted Williams coming out in his motorized scooter, that sort of stuff. Featuring a Red Sox player in the last All Star Game at Yankee Stadium is a bit like inviting your fiancee's ex-boyfriend to your wedding, then letting him have the first dance with the bride. I know MLB promotes the living daylights out of "the Rivalry" but seriously--is this where attention should be at this event? Does that make sense?

Regardless of my feelings about the promotion, I'm pretty sure that if I'm in attendance at David Ortiz's last game--or even just his last game at Yankee Stadium--I will cheer for him. The same goes Manny Ramirez, or Curt Schilling: regardless of their status as "enemies" who've killed the Pinstripers repeatedly over the years, at some point you've got to get beyond that and just be a baseball fan. And as a baseball fan, it'd be pretty damn small of one not to acknowledge the accomplishments that any those guys have had, the mark they've left on baseball history.

Just the same, the cheers caught in my throat when it was time to recognize Ken Griffey on what is likely to be his last game at Yankee Stadium. Junior likely ended his Stadium career yesterday with a homer, the six hundred and first of his career, and it came in a perfect spot (from a Yankees perspective): a solo shot in the late innings of a game in which the Yanks were comfortably ahead. But I just couldn't bring myself to cheer a guy who's spent so much of his career venting vitriol at the Yankees franchise and fans. I don't mind an opposing player beating the Yanks on the field--after all, that's their job--and Griffey certainly put the knife in the Yanks a few times, most notably in the 1995 ALDS. But for his entire career he's carried a chip on his shoulder against the franchise, apparently because Billy Martin yelled at him when he was a kid. Griffey may not have noticed, but Billy died quite a while ago--the same year that Junior made his major league debut, in fact. You'd think that the adult thing to do would be to let go of the insult at some point, but in interviews this weekend, Griffey was surprisingly graceless. Rather than fondly recall any of the 18 homers he'd hit in the Cathedral, his response to a question about his time spent at Yankee Stadium was "My favorite Yankee Stadium memory? It's leaving Yankee Stadium...For us [the Reds], it's a trip we have to make, not something to look forward to."

For most of his career, I found myself wishing that I liked Ken Griffey Jr. more--the same way some people wish they enjoyed classical music. After all, he was one of the most important players of the 90s. It looks like I'll have to go on wishing. I only managed a half-hearted golf clap for Griffey's homer, and if that makes me a bad fan, then so be it.

Scorched!

2008-06-08T06:30:00.003-04:00

I was cooped up in the New York Public Library today during the game, working on an upcoming project that has yet to be announced. I was happy to be indoors out of the heat, but sad to be missing the game--until I checked the score online, and saw the Yanks were down 10-6 in the seventh inning. That's life, these days, I guess. We saw on Friday--when the Yanks' late-inning comeback hopes were stifled by Joakim Soria--that the reason that comebacks like the one the Yankees engineered on Thursday are so special, is because they don't happen every day.

But can comebacks happen every other day? The next time I checked the scores, the Yanks had won the game 12-11. I excitedly clicked through to check out the game story at MLB.com, and I got this headline:

Pettitte, Yankees scorched by Royals

Had I misunderstood the score? The story was 350 or so words long, and started like so:

If the heat wasn't making the Yankees uncomfortable -- game-time temperatures soared into the 90s -- then the outcome certainly was. For most of Saturday afternoon's game against the Royals, the Yankees either possessed the lead or possessed a chance. But neither possession helped them to win.
Jose Guillen hit a tie-breaking grand slam off Andy Pettitte, and the Yankees fell, 10-8, to the Royals at Yankee Stadium. It was their fifth loss in seven games.

But no, the box score was pretty clear--the Yankees won. Johnny Damon had six hits, including the game winner. He had four RBI, and Jason Giambi, Alex Rodriguez, and Jorge Posada each hit homers. Obviously, someone had let an early version of Anthony DiComo's game story--before Damon tied the game at 10-10 in the eighth inning, before Mariano Rivera gave up the lead on a David DeJesus homer, and before Posada tied the game again with his homer, setting the stage for Damon's walk-off hit--get up on the front page. A couple of hours later, his real story was up on the site, talking about the "rather ugly maple bat" Damon used to match the Yankee record for most hits in a ballgame. The headline was amended to "Damon, Yankees Scorch Royals." It's a nice piece--check it out, just remember that it could have come out much differently.

Comeback: A Pornstache Story

2008-06-05T23:51:00.004-04:00

I've been running around like a lunatic the last few days, tending to a lot of real-life developments. So it wasn't surprising that I was walking through midtown today, and when I passed a bar I was completely clueless that the Yanks were playing an afternoon game. And losing, 7-6.

The score held until I could get to a bar myself, over on the far west side of what used to be known as Hell's Kitchen. It's been a while since I saw a game in a bar--fortunately, it's like riding a bike, you never really forget how. The patrons were really into it, which was mildly surprising for a weekday before 5PM. During the Yanks' tease of a rally in the eighth, there were audible gasps when Brad Wilkerson (Brad Wilkerson?) caught Johnny Damon's gapper. And the disappointment and restlessness were palpable when Blockhead Kyle pitched himself into trouble and put the team one more run in the hole in the top of the ninth.

But then our Co-Player of the Month of May, the master of the Pornstache himself, Jason Giambi, came up to the plate against B.J. Ryan (there's a certain Beavis and Butthead symmetry to the pornstache facing B.J. with the game on the line). As it turns out, Giambi abused Ryan for a three-run, walkoff upper deck shot. I said before the season that with his Yankees contract finally coming to an end, the Giambino would be motivated to perform in 2008, and (at least where the bat's concerned) that prediction seems to be bearing fruit.

Month in Review: May 2008

2008-06-03T14:16:00.003-04:00

Record for the Month: 14-12, RS: 124, RA: 119

Player of the Month: The bats came alive this month, none more than the one belonging to Jason Giambi. Giambi's porn-stache makes him look like some bizarre refugee from the 70s, but if he continues to hit like he did in May (.315/.446/.644, team-leading 6HR and 14 RBI), he can walk around wearing a feather boa for all that Yankee fans will care. Hideki Matsui followed up strong on his good April, hitting .350/.409/.480 last month with 13 RBI and a team-leading 21 runs scored; Bobby Abreu also got hot with the bat (.330/.407/.570, 14 exta-base hits), although his fielding this month has been ghastly.

Giambi, however, has to share player of the month honors with a couple of pitchers. Mariano Rivera repeats his player-of-the-month honors from April, with an 0.64 ERA and 7 saves, and Darrell Rasner (3-1, 1.80 ERA in May), who came out this month throwing his middling fastball and decent slider around as if he had the heat of Nolan Ryan and the breaking ball of Ron Guidry. Sadly for Rasner, the season didn't end May 31: he got raked in his first start of June. Honorable mentions on the pitching staff go out to Edwar Ramirez (one run allowed in 11 2/3 May innings) and Mike Mussina (5-1, 3.72 ERA).

Dregs of the Month: Three players--Chad Moeller, Morgan Ensberg, and Alberto Gonzalez--combined for 82 AB in May, without a single extra-base hit. That's how the Yanks are rolling for depth right now. Ensberg was DFA'd in June, likely meaning that the Yanks threw away $1.75 million on a guy who barely got a chance to play. Shelley Duncan (.163/.213/.256), Jose Molina (.207/.230/.276), and Melky Cabrera (.234/.270/.319) also contributed to the team's unbalanced "Stars 'n' Scrubs" lineup. On the pitching side, it was a bad month to be a young Yankee, not named Joba. Phil Hughes went on the DL, Ian Kennedy sucked a bunch (0-1, 6.27 ERA in 4 starts) and then joined him, and Ross Ohlendorf--a guy who could move up, seeing how the Yanks will now be relying on Blockhead Kyle and Latroy Hawkins to get them from the starters to Rivera--was all over the place (6.94 ERA on the month, with four good outings and three awful ones). Oh, and Kei Igawa's name might as well be Pavano, right now. What are the odds he'll make another start in Pinstripes?

Story of the Month: ...is actually happening this month. A down-in-the-mouth Yankees congregation turns its lonely eyes to Joba Chamberlain, tonight, hoping that the beginning of his career as a starter helps get us over the disappointments of this season. Ask Mets fans about how young starters can make your year (see 1986) or break your heart (see Generation K).

Don't Call It a Comeback

2008-05-28T06:13:00.002-04:00

Anyone who didn't think the Orioles would claw their way back for the win, the minute they saw LaTroy Hawkins on the mound, raise your hand. Anybody but Joe Girardi have their hands down? Didn't think so.

It was really looking better for the Yanks last week, but it only took two games for the Orioles to derail that optimism and send the Bombers back to the AL East cellar. The Yanks lost on Memorial Day despite Darrell Rasner continuing his Aaron Small impression, and again last night after the Yanks had 4-0 and 8-4 leads. Hawkins figured in both losses, though Ian Kennedy gets some partial credit for once again taxing the bullpen with a 3 inning start. Why was Joba Chamberlain paired in a tandem with Mike Mussina rather than Moose's shorter pitch-alike, Kennedy? The way Kennedy was seldom able to go even halfway into a regulation game, you think it would have been a natural situation to allow Joba to stretch out his arm in anticipation of becoming a starter again.

That's all academic now. Kennedy has joined Phil Hughes on the DL, and Joba may well wind up pitching in that slot, anyway. The season is frustrating again, just when things were starting to look up.

***

I got to catch Sunday's game in the Boogie Down Bronx with my Dad, the first game he's been to in a few years. Dad's largely a sports non-combatant--the only real reason he cares about baseball is because he knows that the game has a profound effect on me and my brothers' moods--but he enjoyed the Yanks' comeback greatly, and seemed to be having a pretty good time even before the Mariners' bullpen coughed the game up n the eighth inning.

Up until then, things looked pretty grim. Chien Ming Wang had a second straight start where his control was off, and the team's defense was spotty behind him as well. Jarrod Washburn, a guy who'd been as hard to hit as a tee-ball this season, provided six innings of really solid work--this was something we saw on occasion last season, as well, and it follows the pattern of the Yanks being unable to hit any starter that throws lefthanded (with the nine-run outburst against Erik Bedard on Friday perhaps serving as the exception that proves the rule). As was the case last week, the Yanks looked constantly on the verge of breaking out against Washburn, but they could never quite fire up the engines all at once.

Luckily for the Yanks, the Mariners are a brutally bad team. Their excellent bullpen performance last year, the one that gave them that nifty record in one-run games, hasn't held up this season. The Mariners pen--thanks in part to the trade that sent George Sherrill to the Orioles, and in part to the simple volatility of relief performance in general--is currently below replacement level in WXRL, and the pitching staff as a whole is below replacement level by VORP.

So the Mariners' eighth inning meltdown wasn't a surprise--except to the extent that seeing the Yankee offense perform is sometimes surprising, these days. Bobby Abreu's at bat against Arthur Rhodes reminded me of the Rhodes-David Justice matchup in a long ago ALCS, and JJ Putz's freak fall/bad throw later in the inning was just the kind of play that happens to a team when they're going bad. It's a fluke, but good teams hang in there to capitalize on those flukes.

The question is, are the 2008 Yankees a good team?

***

After I criticized Girardi for not coming out to argue the wrong side of the Subway Series Delgado home run call, the skipper seems to have gotten the memo that he should be a little more expressive in his support of the club. Last Thursday, he threw a classic, Piniella-style fit over a strikeout call on Jason Giambi, a good enough tantrum to earn him a suspension. In last night's game, he was all over the umpiring crew for continuing the game in the ninth, when it was raining so hard that Hideki Matsui was having all sorts of trouble seeing the ball and gripping the bat. Girardi was 1 for 2 on the arguments (wrong on Giambi, and right about the rain). But a little theatrics--specially if they're heartfelt--can really help keep your keister off the hot seat when the team is underperforming.

Abastonado!

2008-05-19T06:17:00.001-04:00

Well, I've certainly had better times at the Stadium. For three innings, it was a brilliant game. The Yanks were getting on base against Oliver Perez, working the count, driving the Little Unit (as Perez was once known) into high pitch counts and what should have been an early shower. The Yanks hadn't been able to capitalize on the baserunners, but it felt like they were on the verge of breaking through. Chien Ming Wang, Sunday night's starter, looked sharp, retiring the first nine in order, delivering first pitch strikes, and generally being as efficient as Oliver was wasteful. I know it was too damn early to start thinking this way, but I started to imagine the emails I'd send to the various people who stood me up for this game (citing the late start, rainy forecast, and other exigents as excuses not to come to the old ballpark) if Something Special happened.

Then it all fell apart so suddenly, it was like a slap to the face. Wang lost the strike zone, falling behind hitters early. Jose Reyes responded with the game's first hit, a double, but was erased on some poor baserunning and a heads-up play by Wang on a comebacker fielder's choice. But just when it looked like things were getting back to normal, the Yankee defense deserted Wang. Alberto Gonzalez, who'd already muffed a pop-up for an error, allowed a ball to go under his glove for a single. After a walk, Jason Giambi made a nice stop at first, but instead of making sure to get an out, he threw poorly to Jeter at second, drawing the Captain off the bag. Everybody safe. Then another single by Moises Alou, and the score was 3-0.

The Yanks caught a break when the umps reversed a really bad home run call (from my seats in Section 342, one thing you do get a pretty good view of is the left field foul pole--no way that was a homer), but the beating just continued, until the Mets had batted around and the Yanks were lucky it was only 4-0. Hideki Matsui cut that lead in half with a 2-run jack in the bottom half of the inning, and when the Yankees had a man on third and one out in the fifth, it looked like the game was still manageable. That runner--Jose Molina, who'd reached on a double--was stranded, and the Yankees wouldn't have another hit all night. The gap started growing again on a Ryan Church homer, and got completely out of hand with the Mets' 6-run eighth inning. Those of us who stayed past the eighth got treated to Mets fans acting like they owned our house, having fairly uncontested chants of "Lets Go Mets" all the way to the subways, and generally acting as if their team hadn't come into the Stadium with their manager on the verge of getting fired, or, for that matter, as if their team hadn't choked their way out of the playoffs last September despite a huge lead.

In the end, the Yanks were playing so lifelessly that there wasn't much to do other than grin and take it. It was a little bit easier to grin since the more obnoxious Mets fans are like the cast of misfits out of a Mad Max movie, and not terribly good at rubbing it in. Near my section, we had a tubby guy with a cowbell and a bunch of (poorly) handmade signs. His devastating witticisms included chanting "1986" (not a lot of bragging to remind us that the last time your team won a championship was over 21 years ago, and against our hated rivals), leading a chant for Endy Chavez, and then, chanting--for himself--"Cowbell Guy! Cowbell Guy!" Even a Mets fan seated behind me was disgusted: "This guy's a fake. I'm a season ticket holder at Shea, and I've never seen him before."

There was some entertainment value to be drawn from heckling their amateur hour attempts to make us feel bad. Another member of the Mets' freak show--an older lady who looked like a run-down, foul-mouthed Doris Kearns Goodwin--installed herself in our section late in the game, the better to talk smack. A quick reminder of the Mets' follies last September led her into a foaming-at-the-mouth rant against the Phillies: "The Phillies suck. Ryan Howard is a piece of s***, and Jimmy Rollins is a piece of s***."

"Well, that s*** beat you, didn't it?"

She moved away after that, to sit closer to Tubby Cowbell Guy. But despite the amusement that the Mets fans provided, this was a dispiriting loss. This Yankee team isn't right, not by a long stretch. They're completely hapless against lefties (4-9, .637 OPS against southpaws), and it didn't help that the Yanks started five lefties against Perez, who had a .459 OPS allowed to lefties this season. It didn't help that Shelly Duncan and Morgan Ensberg sat this game out, which begs the question: if they're not going to play against Oliver Perez, why are they on the team? It doesn't help that the Attorney General hasn't shown any of the glove magic that's supposed to make up for his weak bat. It doesn't help that after impressing with five homers in April, Melky Cabrera's come back with a .190/.230/.293 May. Mike Mussina is now the guy charged with ending the Yankee losing streak on Tuesday.

NOTES

Ryan Church's 9 homers would lead the Yankees.

The Yanks' latest "get fired up" montage is from the movie 300. The whole concept behind these montages is kinda cheesy--they should have stopped after the montage from Rocky II. Do these people know that the Greeks all die in that movie?

Maybe I just didn't catch it from my vantage point in left field main, but it didn't look like Joe Girardi came out to argue the fourth inning home run call. I understand that he's emulating Joe Torre, but it's strange that there's a call that could crack the game wide open, and he's letting his players argue with the umps, without his support.

Aggravating...

2008-05-17T16:46:00.003-04:00

Today, I go to my local coffee shop to buy tea--don't ask me why. Now, I'm more of a coffee guy than a tea guy, so I have no idea what I'm doing ordering loose tea--anything beyond packets of Twinings or Bigelow (like you get at the supermarket) is out of my league. The woman I'm dealing with at the counter is obviously a coffee person too, so I'm getting no help. I very tentatively ordered a quarter pound of Darjeeling something or other, and after she measures it out, she hands me off to a guy with tattoos at one of the registers.

"That'll be $5.88, champ," the tat guy says. It's a bit familiar of him to have a nickname for me--I don't come to this coffee shop that often, and I'm hardly a regular. I have singles, so I count out the bills to hand to him.

"Here's your change, champ." There's a definite sneer to the way he says it. I don't get it. Did I do something wrong? Was I rude? No. Maybe I made a stupid choice with the tea--mispronounced it, or it's some vile concoction that they've never found anyone fool enough to order?

I wave off a plastic bag for the tea, and walk out to my next errand. It's about two blocks later that I realize what the guy was going on about. The cap I'm wearing is the one with the "2000 World Champions" patch on the side. I actually don't like the look of the patch on the side of the head, but other fitted lid shrank a bit, and this one still fits like a charm.

So what was the tat man's deal? I tend to think Red Sox fan whenever someone is randomly rude to me--horrible prejudice, I know, but it seems to be the way that the demonstrative Sox fan living in New York City rolls. But then I remembered that it's Subway Series time again, and that maybe he was a disaffected Mets fan, still mourning the loss of the 2000 Series. Given the timing, he might have thought I was wearing the cap just to rub the rhubarb of any Mets fans I might meet. His reaction would be somewhat reasonable, even if it's still rude.

Win or lose this weekend's series, at least I know now what I'm wearing the next time I go to buy coffee.

******

Before the season, over at BP, I predicted that "the first Mets/Yankees game that Johan Santana starts" would be the season's game to watch. Santana now being a Met after spending much of the winter pursued by the Yankees--a decision the Yankee brass went back and forth on, very publicly--this wasn't exactly a courageous call. Little did I know that general timing (and a Friday rainout) would make this game even more momentous. We have a split on the players who were rumored to be headed to Minnie if Santana were coming to the Bronx: Melky's showing imroving power, but Phil Hughes is hurt and Ian Kennedy is ineffective. Both New York teams limped onto the Subway, and rumors were rampant coming into the series that Willie Randolph's job hangs by a thread in Flushing. And in the first inning, that thread was looking a bit frayed--the Captain took Johan deep with Damon on base to give the Pinstripers a 2-0 lead.

But that was as good as things would get on the day. The Mets got three runs in six innings off of Andy Pettitte, who again alternated an effective start with a bad one. The YES Network guys praised Kyle Farnsworth as he was coming into the game, which was a certain jinx, which drove things out of control. In the ninth, the Yanks brought the tying run to the plate without any outs--but it still didn't feel like the result of the game was in any doubt. 7-4 final.

The thing that killed me--that's been killing the Yanks all season, really--was the pair of six-pitch innings the Yanks handed Santana in the middle of the game. It seems like this team just isn't dedicated to working the count the way previous Yankees squads have. Part of that is just what happens when you replace Jorge Posada with the Moel-lina tandem, and A-Rod with some combination of Morgan Ensberg and the Attorney General. But those understudies only account for one of those innings, but what about the other one? Why is this All-Star offense puttering around?

It's only May, but it's getting late, early. Anyway, here's hoping tomorrow night's game doesn't get rained out.

Required Reading

2008-05-07T06:08:00.003-04:00

Anyone who's read this blog knows that I'm a huge fan of Bronx Banter. I was lucky enough to spend a bit of time with Alex Belth on Monday, as well as his fellow Banterer extraordinaire, Emma Span, my Baseball Prospectus friends Joe Sheehan, Jay Jaffe and Steve Goldman, and Kevin Baker, who is one of the contributors to the Anatomy of Baseball compilation.

It was a great joy being at a table where I was clearly the worst-read person there. At one point we basically became a baseball version of the McLoughlin Group, going around the table for opinions on books, the end of Yankee Stadium, Joe Girardi's shaky start as Yankee manager, Will Leitch (and sports blogging along with him) getting pilloried on Bob Costas Now.

Speaking of books (and Bronx Banter), I got to participate in Alex's Essential Baseball Books project, nominating my top ten books. I restricted myself to non-fiction works, and worked off the top of my head (sadly, my apartment doesn't have space for all my books, so there were a few favorites, like Ball Four, that I missed solely because they're in storage rather than on my bookshelf). You can find the Essentials series at these links: Part I, Part II, and Part III.

From Part III, here's my tardy list:

Bill James, Politics of Glory -- Wonderful exercise in applied sabermetrics: James takes a dash of numbers, a huge dollop of historical research, and systematically ticks off the problems with baseball's most revered institution.
Steve Goldman, Forging Genius -- Has all the things you'd expect in a bio--fun anecdotes, character sketches, historical details--and throws in a strong dose of logic on top of it, to explain how Casey Stengel became the guy that led the Yankees to all those pennants. I suspect it would be interesting to read this back-to-back with the next book, because the authors' styles are so different.

David Halberstam, Summer of '49 -- It's like the movie Apollo 13: even if you know exactly how the 1949 pennant race ended, you still probably won't be immune to the suspense that Halberstam builds up in this book. Essential read for Yankee fans.

Alan Schwarz, The Numbers Game -- Great history of the game, told through the eyes of statheads from era to era.

Bill James, Historical Baseball Abstract -- It's a bit like Disneyland, huge and easy to get lost in. There are maybe three great books' worth of work in there.

Baseball Prospectus, Baseball Between the Numbers -- Excellent primer on a broad range of stathead topics.

Michael Lewis, Moneyball -- Cliche? Maybe. A bit dated, just five years after it was published? Sure. Doesn't matter. Moneyball drags you into the collective mind of a MLB front office better than any book I've ever read.

Peter Gollenbock and Sparky Lyle, The Bronx Zoo -- Sentimental pick. I was still a kid with illusions to shatter when I read Gollenbock's story of what really happened with the 1978 World Champs. You never get your innocence back.

William Goldman and Mike Lupica, Wait Till Next Year -- Can you remember when Mike Lupica actually liked baseball? I think this book was the beginning of the end of that. The NFL and NBA, peek in here, but Goldman (of Princess Bride fame) and Lupica mainly focus on the 1987 Mets with a decent side helping of Yankees stories. The essential parts for baseball fans are Goldman's humor, and Lupica's glimpses into how sports journalism works.

Rob Neyer and Bill James, The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers -- Probably the most unique baseball reference book out there--I mean, how many times do you think of a pitcher, but can't quite remember all the pitches he threw, or what his best pitch was?

More book talk later, I hope

Month in Review: April

2008-05-04T12:34:00.002-04:00

Record for the Month: 14-15, RS: 125, RA: 133

Player of the Month: Hideki Matsui hit .322/.425/.511 in April, with 4 homers and 13 RBI, raising the question of whether this is a resurgence or just Hideki Matsui month come early. Melky Cabrera (.299/.370/.494) also impressed, specially with his 5 April homers, matching Jason Giambi for the team lead. A 20+ homer season would sure make the Yankees glad they didn't deal Melky to the Twins. But neither of the two outfielders (more like one-and-a-half--Matsui's fielding in left looked like he needed a seeing eye dog) aren't the Player of the Month. That distinction would go to the pitchers: Mariano Rivera (8 saves, no runs allowed and only four baserunners in 11 innings) and Chien Ming Wang (5 wins and 5 of 6 quality starts, 3.23 ERA for the month.

Dregs of the Month: You'd pretty much have to start with Robinson Cano--who got a big-money multi-year commitment from the team in the off-season--was been horrible, with a .151/.211/.236 month. But the bigger headache are the rotation youngsters, Phillip Hughes and Ian Kennedy, who combined for an 0-6 record and allowed 40 Earned Runs in 41 Innings Pitched. Their month was a fiasco, from start to finish. With two quality starts out of 11, the duo only completed six innings once time apiece. Hughes started May on the DL with a mysterious stress fracture of one of his ribs, and a diagnosis of nearsightedness. While the cliche is for me to declare that at least it's not an arm injury, I'm starting to worry that Hughes has more than a little Nick Johnson in him. As for Kennedy, he's walking almost a man per inning; something that's just befuddling for a guy who's hailed as a command-and-control type. Darrell Rasner is the first pitcher to come up from AAA to get a taste of the Yankee rotation--others like Steven White and Kei Igawa might follow. Unless Kennedy shapes up, fast, one of those guys might wind up in his rotation slot.

Story of the Month: Injuries. Brian Cashman spent April shuffling his roster like a blackjack dealer. The team only used 30 players in April, but it was a constant see-saw with players like Jonathan Alabadejo being sent down and then up, guys like Chad Moehler having their contracts picked up from the minors, getting designated for assignment, and getting signed again. There have been six DL moves (Andy Pettitte, Wilson Betemit, Brian Bruney, Jorge Posada, Hughes and Alex Rodriguez), one bereavement list stay (Joba Chamberlain) and several non-DL injuries (mainly Derek Jeter's quad but also aches and pains by Morgan Ensberg and Jose Molina). The biggest injury has been Posada's: just after signing a four-year deal, Jorge's got a torn labrum that will require surgery. He'll try to rehab the shoulder for the next few months, but there's no guarantee that he'll be able to throw well enough to handle behind-the-plate duty this season. That's a scary possibility, since catcher is a slot where, for years, the Yanks have had no depth. Even though Molina is the best backup that Posada's had in years, he only hit .231/.231/.365 in April. Let's hope that Hip-Hip-Jorge gets back in the saddle soon.

What's Cooking?

2008-04-18T14:12:00.006-04:00

It's been a long week. The Yanks haven't had a breather in the 17 days since Opening Day, and won't get one until after this weekend's series in Baltimore is over. Then it'll be another two weeks before their next scheduled day off. You'd think that someone would have sabotaged the sprinkler system at one of the ballfields by now.

I don't have much to say about the team right now, other than they might not have the guns to hang with the Red Sox all summer in the Stadium's final hurrah. The Yanks are 7th in the league in runs scored, and have scored three or fewer runs in 8 of their 17 games so far. Robbie Cano, Jason Giambi, and Johnny Damon have struggled so far, and the young starters have combined to allow 22 runs in 22 1/3 innings.

I've been quiet this week because my computer's hard drive gave up the ghost, just after its warranty ended. Like many, I don't back up nearly as often as I should (this is particularly galling, since I'd set up a Time Capsule to handle La Chiquita's backups, but hadn't found the time to set it up for my own), so I lost a month's worth of data.

Anyway, the unscheduled downtime has given me the opportunity to catch up on my DVR'd TV watching (La Chiquita and I splitting her computer so that we'd each work during the other's downtime). Which means--since the WGA strike turned this into the weakest TV season in memory--Top Chef is probably the best thing on the tube right now, outside of baseball. I'll be posting a review of that later today.

Joba's Dad, Reprise

2008-04-14T14:05:00.002-04:00

Sometimes life puts things in perspective, and it's not always a welcome thing. After all the artificial drama of this weekend's Yanks/Sox drama (buried t-shirts! injured Captain! struggling Papi! key rain delay!) news come out today that Harlan Chamberlain, Joba's dad, collapsed over the weekend and is in critical condition. His son has gone home to be with his dad, because--in a lesson we sometimes need to be reminded of--life is more important than baseball.

Our prayers are with Harlan Chamberlain for a swift and safe recovery.

Blame It On the Rain

2008-04-12T23:11:00.003-04:00

Saturday's game was winnable. It was winnable in the sixth inning, when the Yanks' 2-1 lead--by the way, when is this team gonna start scoring?--was blown on a tactical gamble. Mike Mussina, who was sterling in his last start (six two-hit innings against the Rays), was having a fine afternoon through five, marred only by a Manny Ramirez homer. In the sixth, a one-out single and double had put men on second and third for the struggling David Ortiz, and the Moose, showing some old-school stuff, struck Ortiz out on four pitches. And then, with Manny coming to the plate, Joe Girardi held a conference on the mound. The question, of course, was whether to walk Ramirez.

According to Pete Abraham, Mussina told Girardi that Ramirez was the matchup he wanted, and Girardi went with his pitcher's call. Moose's first pitch was waist-high and caught too much of the plate--Manny (being Manny) ripped it for a double, and the lead.

Now, coming into today's game, Manny was 17 for his last 44 against Mussina, with four homers--that covers the period from 2003-2007, postseason included. Yes, it's a small sample, but after Manny belted one halfway to the moon in the fourth inning, maybe Girardi should have considered the matchup between Mussina's cerebral stuff-challenged pitching style and Ramirez's, um, not-so-cerebral hitting style an advantage for the batter.

Yeah, I know Mussina has lots of experience. Yes, he'd just gotten a big out against the Sox's other big bopper. And no, I don't blame Mussina for thinking he could get Ramirez out. He's an athlete--he has to believe he can get Ramirez out. Girardi isn't obligated to listen to Mussina, much less agree with him. This was the manager's bad call.

The Moose apparently felt he'd rather face Manny Ramirez than Kevin Youkilis, and that's exactly the way it worked out. Just not in a good way. One bad turn followed another, as the pitcher brought in to replace Mussina was Brian Bruney, the, what, eleventh? Maybe even twelfth man to make the pitching staff out of Spring Training. Youkilis hit a single, and now it was 4-2.

The game was still winnable, though. The Yanks brought the score within one in the seventh inning. That rally stalled out when Jose Molina--who had to bat because the Yanks aren't carrying a third catcher and Jorge Posada is still injured--struck out against Manny DelCarmen with the tying run on second base. The Yanks rallied again in the eighth, against Hideki Okajima, when the Yanks got two men on with two outs, and Alex Rodriguez coming to the plate. This time, it was Terry Francona who seemed caught off-balance by the turn of events--the two baserunners came over the space of just five pitches--and closer Jon Papelbon was rushed into the game. The tide was turning...

...and then, as Papelbon warmed up to face A-Rod, the rain came. The umps made a judgment call to put the tarp on the field rather than let the inning go one more batter--a call that looked kind of stupid when the rain died down immediately after the tarp was rolled out, and seemed to stay okay for at least 15 minutes before the rain started in earnest, for matbe two hours. Maybe someone who was in Beantown can tell me that this was a monsoon, but it just didn't look that way on the tube.

Now, maybe the result would have been the same had Alex gotten to face Papelbon at 6:20, rather than 8:30. But because of the delay, Papelbon got to warm up again (a couple of times) in a leisurely fashion, rather than with the sense of urgency they had when he was first called into the game. Meanwhile, Rodriguez had to sit in what's reputedly the smallest, crappiest visitor's clubhouse in baseball, getting cold and thinking about the at-bat. When his opportunity finally did come, it was a three-pitch strikeout, and the epic poem "Alex Rodriguez Chokes in the Clutch" had a new verse or two.

Papelbon's pitches were nasty, but Alex has to get tired of saying "you just have to tip your cap to the pitcher..." Now Phil Hughes takes the mound tomorrow hoping to salvage a series win.

Crumbling Cornerstones

2008-04-09T16:43:00.002-04:00

We knew there would be times like these. Heck, I wrote a chapter in Bombers Broadside 2007 (and updated it for the 2008 edition) which pretty much said there would be times like these. Three of the Yankees' home-grown cornerstone players--two of whom they just re-signed to huge contracts this off-season--are getting up there in age. They're at the age when players, particularly those who play the more demanding up-the-middle positions, start to break down.

Right now, it looks like like Derek Jeter's might be going on the DL. Alberto Gonzalez (the one whom, to our knowledge, does not condone torture) was in Kansas City (per PeteAbe) in anticipation of getting called up, because of Jeter's high quadriceps strain. The injury's not considered serious, but as Will Carroll points out at BP, the fact that it's near the groin means it might linger like groin injuries tend to do.

The more serious injury could belong to Jorge Posada. Jorge's been laboring with a "stiff" shoulder for about a week; given a start behind the plate in yesterday's loss to the Royals (with Joey Gathright, KC is a bad place to be if you're a catcher who can't throw) Jorge had to exit the game after six. There's something unintentionally scary in the description Posada gave Kat O'Brien of how the shoulder feels "dead, like you've got no strength." On the worst-case scenario, that description sounds a little like the "my shoulder got the wind knocked out of it" feeling Jay Jaffe once described when he tore his labrum. If Posada were to have a SLAP tear, that's surgery and a whole lot of lost time, perhaps even a lost season. So if you're a Yankee fan, this is a good time to keep your fingers crossed, or do whatever else it is you do when you need good luck.

While Gonzalez isn't a good replacement for Jeter, the Yanks have options. Wilson Betemit can stand in at short for the time being, and if the Captain's absence were to be prolonged, Girardi could see if Alex Rodriguez still has what it takes to play short, while having Betemit and Morgan Ensberg share the hot corner. Losing Posada means more Jose Molina, which, looking at the backups over the previous half-dozen years, could definitely be worse. But then Molina's backup is Chad Moeller, who isn't anyone's idea of a good time.

Stay tuned.

The 21 Project/Non-Baseball Ramblings

2008-04-06T22:45:00.000-04:00

I'll admit, I haven't been too optimistic about the prospect of LaTroy Hawkins in pinstripes, and his performance Friday's game has me desperately hoping I'm wrong about him. Mini-Moose (and sadly, I don't mean that nickname in a good way right now) nibbled and got shelled (4 BB and 6 runs in 2 1/3 IP); then, after a four-run third inning rally and 4 2/3 sterling innings of relief by Jonathan Alabadejo, Ross Ohlendorf, and Billy Traber, the Hawk came in and coughed up six runs of his own, and couldn't even get out of the inning.

The extra bit of salt in the wounds was that Hawkins made this craptastic appearance wearing Paul O'Neill's old number, 21. No Yankee had worn the number since O'Neill retired, but Hawkins wanted it because it was Roberto Clemente's number. Supposedly, Hawkins can't comprehend why Yankee fans would mind him wearing O'Neill's number.

Now, the natural reaction from fans will be to help him comprehend by booing him whenever he takes the mound. If he keeps performing like this, that'll be an easy choice. But here's an idea: what if, instead of making Hawkins's life miserable, we just asked him nicely to pick a new number? I'm thinking of something on the level of Steve Lombardi's Project P46, just rather than trying to convince a beloved Yankee to return to the fold, we'd be asking a new Yankee to respect the 0ur feelings about about a team favorite, and give up his uniform number.

It's pretty easy. Get a card, postcard, or regular letter stationery. Write LaTroy a pleasant note, explaining what Paul O'Neill meant to you, and why you think no one else should wear that uniform number for the Yankees, ever again. Ask him nicely to give it up, and maybe even suggest another uni number he'd enjoy. Affix a stamp and mail your letter/card to:

LaTroy Hawkins
Yankee Stadium
161st Street and River Avenue
Bronx, NY 10451

If you want to get some extra credit, you can also try to ensure that no one else ever wears O'Neill's #21 on Yankee pinstripes again. You can do this by buying a couple of extra postcards and letting higher-up members of the Yankee organization know that you think the Yankees should retire uniform number 21, in honor of O'Neill and/or Clemente. While I think that Paulie O is enough reason all by himself for the number to be retired, the fact that it's also Clemente's number makes it an absolute no-brainer: retiring the number would be special not just to all those fans of the late-90s Yankees, but also to loads of Hispanic fans throughout baseball. Many forget that the same segregation that kept African Americans out of MLB until 1947 also kept dark-skinned Latinos from playing. Clemente was the Latino Jackie Robinson; and honoring him is a way that the Yankees could be ahead of the curve. Anyway, you can write a note explaining why you feel the Yanks should retire #21 to Brian Cashman, at the same address as Hawkins, above, or you can just send your complaint straight to the top:

Hank Steinbrenner
George M. Steinbrenner Field
1 Steinbrenner Drive
Tampa, FL 33614

I suspect that you could also address a letter to Hank's brother/co-managing partner Harold Steinbrenner at the same Tampa address. If you want to learn more about the overall effort to have Clemente's #21 retired throughout Major League Baseball, you can visit Retire21.org.

***

Speaking of 21, I hadn't previously mentioned here my experience sitting in for Joe Sheehan at the AL Tout Wars draft. Tout Wars is an expert fantasy baseball league, in which all the participants are pretty much fantasy baseball professionals. The AL Tout league had been the subject of a bestselling book called Fantasyland, and this year, was the subject of a documentary by the same name. If you want to know what the draft was like, you can read my column on it over at Baseball Prospectus. Just don't needle me too much on the fact that the player I spent 10% of Sheehan's budget on, Mariners reliever J.J. Putz, just got injured and is likely to miss close to two months of the season. I hear that often enough from Joe.

Anyway, after the draft, the participants and a few others went out to a restaurant to socialize, which was tremendous fun. I always enjoy hanging with a crowd that knows more about baseball than I do, and it was great to hear behind-the-scenes stuff about how MLB.com's Gamecast system works, and anecdotes about the Atlanta Braves, and that kind of cool stuff.

At one point in the evening, one of my fellow-drafters sheepishly confessed that he's a big devotee of blackjack, and that he counts cards in Vegas. Which was funny, since the guy was sitting about five feet away from perhaps the most famous card-counter in the country, Protrade founder Jeff Ma, who was going to participate in one of the other Tout Wars drafts the following day. Ma was the main subject of a bestselling book about an MIT card-counting team, Bringing Down the House, which had just been turned into a movie, 21. As of last weekend, 21 was the top movie in the country. Small world.

***

Now, despite the box office success, the reviews haven't been kind to 21. Not having seen it yet, I can't comment on whether they have the film pegged right or wrong. The one thing I will say is that the movie seems to have bothered the New York Times's Manohla Dargis enough that she invented a new term for her review:

Ben ogles the chintzy glamour and the chesty blondes spilling out of their dresses, and the movie does exactly the same. He particularly likes it when his skinny school crush, Jill, clambers aboard and offers him a lap job, for which I hope the young actress Kate Bosworth was well compensated. Like everything else in “21,” Jill can be bought for the right price, as of course can Ben and, by extension, us.

Now, Dargis is a great reviewer; but if you're going to be judgmental and snarky, you need to get your terminology right. If you google the term "lap job" you get a bunch of references to people overclocking computer processors. Since Bosworth's supposed to be playing an MIT genius/nerd, this might not be out of character. But that wouldn't explain Dargis's comment that Bosworth's character "can be bought." Obviously, Dargis thinks that a "lap job" is more than just trying to give the boy she likes a more efficient heat sink.

I've, um, heard of lap dances. As someone who tries to keep up with the language of perversity, I'm also familiar with various fine, intimate terms ending in --job, which I won't enumerate since this is a family blog. However, among what Padma Lakshmi would call the "Job Family of Products" I've never heard of the lap job. Is it new? The whole thing sounds like the scene in 40 Year Old Virgin where Steve Carrell tries, and fails, to describe what a woman's breast feels like.

Scoreboard!

2008-04-02T16:48:00.003-04:00

Opening Da--, erm, Night was all you could ask for in a ballgame and in a start to Joe Girardi's career as Yankee manager. I wrote the experience up for Baseball Prospectus (subscriber article); here's the requisite taste:

The big story of the night was the historic final Opening Day of the House That Ruth Built, one of a litany of lasts that will run at least through September 21 against the Orioles (the Yankees' final scheduled regular season home game) and perhaps be stretched even farther should the Bronx Bombers manage to make it to the playoffs for the 14th straight year. We can look forward to these "historic" markers growing increasingly absurd as the year wears on, with broadcasters encouraging fans to catch the historic final midweek series against the Rays in July, and in August alerting us to Carl Pavano's historic final trip to the Yankee Stadium Trainers' Room. (I can almost hear Suzyn Waldman reverently running down the historic implications of the latter event: "Should Pavano somehow stay with the Yankees next year, and need a cortisone shot, or a rub down, or a precautionary X-Ray, it will be at the new Yankee Stadium.")

Of course, there will be an audience for all the sentimentality that's being unleashed with the Stadium's send-off. In a sport that conscientiously markets itself on its past and its traditions, the Yankees trade most effectively in nostalgia. Possibly the greatest achievement of the Yankees' nostalgia machine is the perceived continuity between the building that Colonel Ruppert built in 1923 to house Babe Ruth's bat and the current Yankee Stadium. The 1976 "renovation" was more of a gut-and-rebuild job than a simple sprucing up of the structure. Just about every significant detail of the building--its dimensions, the playing field, the seats, the scoreboard--was altered, resulting in an arena that doesn't fit in with the great classic ballparks like Wrigley Field or Fenway Park, but doesn't quite have the plastic uniformity of the cookie-cutter parks of the '60s and '70s, either. Although many still admire its timeless look, Yankee Stadium II (as we sometimes like to call the post-1976 structure) shares little with the original other than its address.

Across the street, the new new Yankee Stadium looks a bit like the Death Star, circa Return of the Jedi, enough so that I half-expect it to sprout a laser cannon and vaporize the present stadium sometime after the last pitch of the 2008 season is thrown. Its still-under-construction exterior shell self-consciously recalls the original structure, but the ballpark within will be thoroughly modern and built from scratch-there's no longer any plausible deniability that this isn't a break with history. Talking to fans around the ballpark, the recurring theme was anxiety about the new ballpark. Will they be able to afford tickets? Will they be near the other regular ticket plan holders in their section? Will the new Stadium be the same kind of place the old one was?

I know some of the rest of you had to be there...after all, the place was packed. How do you feel about the the last Opening Day at the old ballpark?

Rainout Photoblog

2008-03-31T22:39:00.022-04:00

(Click on any of the pictures for a larger view.)

So, hearing a rumor that they'd be Opening the baseball season today (after opening it a couple of weeks ago in Japan, and again last night in the nation's capital) Brother J and I went up to the Bronx, in hopes that there would be a game going on...

Cool! Forewarned of the weather conditions, we were wrapped in many layers and sporting ponchos to keep the rain away. Anyway, as you approach the old ballpark in the Bronx these days, you can't help but have your eyes drawn to its replacement, across the street:

At the beginning of last season, this was nothing but an extremely organized set of girders. By October, it looked like an arena, albeit one covered with scaffolding. But now, much of the outer shell of the new Stadium (what you could actually call a facade) looks like a completed product.

Looking up, you can see the lights already installed, and perhaps a hint of the outfield wall frieze (what some incorrectly call the facade):

Perhaps the most interesting touch was the Derek Jeter billboard (actually, one of those cloth screens) that's been set up inside what will be the main entrance.

Having toured the outside, Brother J and I headed in, through what we call the veal fattening pens--the security corrals set up by the left field gate. No matter how I tried, I couldn't get this picture to load rightside-up.

After a lot of waiting, to get to an inconsistent concept of security (we were waved through, without a second look), we finally hit the inside of the House that Ruth Built:

As you can see, the tarp was out, umbrellas were in evidence, and folks other than ourselves were sporting ponchos. When we walked in, the precipitation was nothing more than a strong drizzle. Still, the word being bandied about by the PA announcer and by Yankees apparatchik Michael Kay and John Sterling was that the forecast was favorable, and that the game should start after an hour delay.

With nothing much to do, we went to the escalator area to peek into the new Stadium, where construction workers and random Parks Department folks with Department-issue umbrellas roamed the structure.

Meanwhile, the Yankee Faithful did everything in their power to stay dry and warm during the delay. For folks in the Upper Deck, that meant crowding the concourses up there. For the Bleacher Creatures (OK, faux creatures sitting in the left field bleachers for Opening Day) that meant taking to the slight bit of shelter offered by the bleacher's back wall:

Then, we got the ugly announcement:

Apparently, "evaluating our options" meant sending Joe Girardi, Brian Cashman, and a third man I'm 70% sure was Reggie Jackson out to tour the right field line:

The crowd pleaded with them to play the game. It was barely raining, and the field was definitely playable.

However, our pleas fell on deaf ears.

After the game was called, Roy Halladay went out to get his throwing in. Earlier, AJ Burnett and Scott Downs had done a little light throwing. There hadn't been much sign of any Yankees players on the field, at least not while we were waiting.

Halladay had a coach standing in as a batter while he threw from flat ground. The coach didn't mime a swing, but with his legs he made the same weight shift a batter would while waiting for a pitch.

And that was as close to baseball as we got today. Soon, Stadium security was asking us to get moving, tossing us out into the throng trying to make it to the Subway. See you guys tomorrow night!

Baseball Eve

2008-03-30T22:59:00.002-04:00

So, tomorrow it's all happening for real. Tomorrow, Yankee Stadium has its last Opening Day. Let's look at the squad that'll attend the beginning of the end at the House that Ruth Built:

Pitchers (12)

Starters (4)
Chien Ming Wang
Mike Mussina
Phil Hughes
Ian Kennedy

Wang gets tomorrow's start, which'll be a small-print bit in the history books. Seniority rather than outlook makes Mussina the Game Two starter. Having Mussina and Hughes back-to-back could be hard on the pitching staff, unless Hughes learns how to economize a little with his pitches, or Mussina gets effective enough to pitch deep into ballgames again. Pettitte starts the season off the roster, although MLB.com has him as the starter for Friday's matchup against the Rays, even before IPK gets his first start of the year.

Relievers (8)

Mariano Rivera
Joba Chamberlain
LaTroy Hawkins
Kyle Farnsworth
Jonathan Alabadejo
Billy Traber
Brian Bruney
Ross Ohlendorf

One of the few decisions of the spring was "Joba Chamberlain: starter or reliever?" In the short term, the answer has come out reliever, but the idea is still to make him a starter, perhaps as soon as later on this season. I worry that he'll get stuck in the bullpen, particularly if an injury put Mariano out of action for an extended period of time, he could wind up the Yankee closer, and find it hard not to get pigeonholed a bullpen role afterward. One of these guys is likely gone when Pettitte returns, and since I've stacked them in rough pecking order, I'd have to say that Bruney or Ohlendorf, the last two relievers to make the roster, are the likeliest cuts. Three games is not a long time to make an impression. With a new manager in town, Kyle Farnsworth has disclaimed that the limitations once placed on his usage were his idea. It'll be interesting to see if Farnsie finally pitches worth a damn now that he's in his walk year.

Catchers (2)

Jorge Posada
Jose Molina

No surprises here. The Yankees didn't have anyone in camp in a position to unseat Molina, or rather, Molina's 2-year contract. It may be impossible for Posada to match his 2007 performance--an A+ performance, in my view--but he's going to have to maintain his 2004-7 form to keep this offense moving.

Infielders (7)

Derek Jeter
Alex Rodriguez
Robinson Cano
Jason Giambi
Wilson Betemit
Shelley Duncan
Morgan Ensberg

The first three guys should, if healthy, play 150+ games each as the entrenched shortstop, third baseman, and second baseman, respectively. The last four will make a hash of playing first base, DHing, and backing up the infield and outfield. Ensberg was one of the other decisions of Spring Training, winning out over Jason Lane for the job of a second righthanded bat (after Duncan) to balance out this left-leaning lineup. Good job by the Yanks of going with longterm performance over Spring statistics in that decision (for much of the Grapefruit league, Lane was outhitting his former Astros teammate). Giambi, like Farnsworth, is playing for next season's payday. The ideal would be for him to start the majority of the games at first, some 100-120 games. We'll see about that.

Outfielders (4)
Johnny Damon
Melky Cabrera
Bobby Abreu
Hideki Matsui

Technically, Duncan's the fifth outfielder here. That works if you consider Damon a proper backup in center, I guess. Brett Gardner would probably have made the team if he was a righthanded hitter. We'll have to see how the newly-married Matsui adjusts to DHing regularly. That aside, everything here is a known quantity. The Yanks have to hope for continued growth from Cabrera and for Damon to perform the way he did in the second half last year.

Here's to a great season!

Enough a' Spring Already!

2008-03-18T19:09:00.003-04:00

I haven't written anything about Spring Training so far, and I have to admit, I've felt a little bit disconnected from the whole Grapefruit League scene this off-season. As the amazing Emma Span pointed out at Bronx Banter today, Spring exhibition baseball is only just good enough to take the edge off your baseball addiction--methadone to the season's black tar heroin. This off-season, the winter leagues kept my baseball jones from getting too powerful, so I have had a hard time getting all that excited about exhibitions. The few innings I've seen here or there have been nice--I've missed the Yankees, and it's good to see them--but I'm saving my energy for the April to October grind.

It doesn't help that the signal-to-noise ratio down in Tampa has been, perhaps, at a historic low. There aren't that many interesting positional battles. There aren't many new acquisitions, for us to wonder how they'll fit in. The pitching staff whiz kids are here, but that story already got much of its play last August, September, and October. The local media can't seem to decide if Andy Pettitte's a louse for using HGH or a hero for ratting out Roger Clemens--they'll have to wait to see how he pitches during the season to decide how to treat him. It's made for a lot of unengaging coverage.

The meme this Spring seems to be about the Yanks losing that classy sheen they had under Joe Torre. Over the last two weeks, a home plate collision, a spiking, and a halfway decent brawl were decried as the end of civilization in Tampa. This week, there have already been two articles worrying about the Yanks' "slide into crassness" with Larry Brooks in the Post complaining about Joe Girardi allowing a pending-trial Jim Leyritz into the clubhouse; and Richard Justice licking his chops at the prospect of a return to the Bronx Zoo, with Hank Steinbrenner and Girardi playing the George/Billy Martin roles (hat tips to BTF for both links).

(An aside: This is one of those I don't understand--even if he's writing for the Sporting News, does anyone consider Richard Justice a national columnist? Why the heck should a Houston/National League guy be excited about the prospect of Hank Steinbrenner turning into his dad? Even more important, why should anyone care if he's excited? I guess that's the price of being the Yankees: everyone's all up in your business, even if they're in the NL Central.)

Mind you, Justice admits that it's not the Bronx Zoo yet, and that Cashman is still running the joint in the "boring/classy" way, but that doesn't stop him from breathlessly proclaiming that "You can't make up the stuff that's happened to the Yankees in the past six months."

I guess Justice doesn't have much of an imagination. What happened in the last six months? Losing in the ALDS? That happened in 2006 and 2005; it's old hat. Joe Torre walking away rather than taking an insulting contract offer? Torre came to the Yanks when exactly that happened with Buck Showalter after the 1995 season. The Yanks not landing the big trade for a franchise pitcher? That was Curt Schilling back in 2003. Heck, it was Randy Johnson for half his career--and just look at how happy he made us when he finally got here. Nope, can't make any of that stuff up.

We're a week away from baseball's false start--the pair of Boston/Oakland games in Japan-- two Sundays away from ESPN's Opening Night, and just shy of two weeks away from the real deal, with the Yanks hosting the Blue Jays on Yankee Stadium's final Opening Day. One way or another--send the cathedral out on a winning or losing note--it figures to be a bittersweet season. And I can't wait for it to start.

How to Hail a Cab in New York, Part I

2008-03-12T23:08:00.004-04:00

I've been thinking about doing this for a while--cab etiquette is one of the great mysteries of New York, and I think the whole world could use a refresher--but the whole thing was catalyzed when I couldn't come up with a quick and easy mnemonic for my brother-in-law to explain how he was to know if a cab was available or not. Now, it was a joke--we'd just had a great meal at Prune in NoHo, and he was asking me to come up with something in meter that rhymed--but I figure that just 'cause I suck at poetry doesn't mean that I can't create a handy, dandy guide to hailing a cab in the Big Apple.

So I'll start with the first question: how do you know if a cab's available?

Let's start with the basics. As anyone who's seen an American movie in the last sixty or so years knows, New York taxis--at least the ones you can hail on the street--are yellow. Let's have a picture:

Modified from a photo by msspider66 on Flickr. Used under the Creative Commons License.

So here we have a good sample of the species. The red circle points out the part you'll want to pay attention to when you're hailing a cab on a rainy day in Manhattan. It's the rooflight, the thing that tells you whether or not the taxi's available. Taking a closer look:

Photo by mokolabs on Flickr. Used under the Creative Commons License.

You'll see the rooflight is split in three parts. In the middle, you'll have the cab's medallion number--four digits, mixing letters and numbers. On the sides, you have the off duty lights, helpfully marked "Off Duty." When the middle section is lit, the cab is empty; when it's dark--as it is on the rooflight above, the cab has a fare and is unavailable. Below, you'll see what a cab looks like when just that middle section is lit:

Photo by wallyg on Flickr. Used under the Creative Commons License.

From a distance, it looks like a short bar of light in the middle of the roof console. When you hail a cab like this, it should stop, pick you up, and take you wherever you want within the five boroughs. If it doesn't, it means that either the driver didn't see you, or you've been the victim of racial profiling. Man, I wish that was a joke.

However, don't rush to curse the cab driver as a racist just because a cab that had some lights on passed you by. If all the lights on the rooflight are on, you're not likely to get picked up, either. It looks like this:

Modified from a photo by magnus* on Flickr. Used under the Creative Commons License.

As you can see, the middle number is lit, but so are the "Off Duty" lights marked by the pointers. From a distance, this looks like a single, long bar of light, which can be hard to distinguish from the light of an on-duty unoccupied cab. When all the lights are on it means that even though there isn't a passenger in the cab, the driver isn't looking to pick up a fare, and they'll typically ignore anyone trying to hail them. This is usually because it's the end of the driver's shift, and they're headed home or back to the taxi company where another driver is waiting to start the next shift. When all the lights are on, the cab isn't supposed to be picking up passengers, but sometimes drivers will stop and roll down their window to ask you where you want to go--they're hoping to grab one last fare before ending their shift.

Depending on whether there are other available cabs around, this practice can be a great blessing or a big nuisance. Unlike when they're on duty, the cabbie isn't obligated to pick you up or take you anywhere, so if you're not going the cabbie's way (toward his home and/or base) or if he just doesn't like the look of you, the cab's doors will remain locked (to keep you out) and the cabbie will drive away. When that happens, all they've accomplished by stopping in front of you is to waste your time and block you off from on-duty taxis who would be obligated to take you where you want to go--it's very frustrating. But if you're making a short trip or headed in the right direction (Houston Street and Hell's Kitchen are popular destinations during shift changes, because there are taxi companies located there) an off-duty cab can be a godsend.

The final way you can find the rooflight signifies that a cab is occupied and off-duty. Then the two "Off-Duty" lights are on, but the middle section is dark. Looks like this:

Photo by faz the persian on Flickr. Used under the Creative Commons License.

This state is only relevant to you when you happen to be near a cab that's letting out its passengers. When an on-duty cab lets off its passengers near you, it's pretty much an invitation to take a ride--just remember that, no matter how ugly the weather is outside, you need to let the passengers get out before you enter the cab. (This sounds like common sense, but if you live in New York long enough, someone will eventually jump into the back seat while you're trying to calculate how much of a tip to leave, guaranteed.) But if a taxi's dropping off a fare and has its off-duty light on, it's almost impossible to change the driver's mind, no matter how persuasive you think you are.

So, as per my brother-in-law's challenge, I will try to reduce this to rhyming couplets:

Short light--you're good as gold;
No lights--you're stuck in the cold;
Long light--you'll have to beg and plead;
Two lights--you're screwed, indeed.

Hey! Stop that. I warned you I suck at poetry.

Good News, Links, and Tonight's Meetup

2008-03-06T12:56:00.003-05:00

It's already been an eventful spring down in Tampa , with all eyes watching the Yanks' pitching young 'uns like hawks. Protective mother hawks. But the best news of the spring has been the negative biopsy Bobby Murcer received this week, showing that what some thought could have been a recurrence of his brain cancer was actually scar tissue. Surviving cancer is a day-by-day thing, but I'm glad to hear that we'll have the chance to enjoy some more days with Bobby. You can't ask for much better than that.

Anyway, I'll be at the Barnes and Noble on Fifth Avenue tonight at 6:00 (150 Fifth Avenue, & 18th Street). Being on a panel with Joe Sheehan, Steve Goldman and Jay Jaffe means being guaranteed that no one will ask you a question, but I'll fight to get my cuts in anyway. The tour will also take us (minus Goldman) to Long Island on Saturday, with an appearance at the Border's Book Store in Westbury, located at 1260 Old Country Road. That'll be at 2:00 PM. Next week (the 15th), I'll be in Rockaway, New Jersey with Steve, I'll update you on the time and place later on.

A few quick hits:

The rap on Representative Anthony Weiner, like his political mentor, Chuck Shumer, is that it's very dangerous to get between him and a TV camera, ever. He's also one of the more partisan politicos you'll find, which is one reason I hope his plea to the Attorney General, not to waste further federal resources on Roger Clemens finds a sympathetic audience. I'm on the record saying that Congress had no justification trying to sort Clemens's and Brian McNamee's dirty laundry in the first place; the investigation requested by the Oversight Committee is pouring more money after the initial bad investment of time and funds.

For BP subscribers, a couple of fresh Yankees links: Will Carroll's Team Health Report, and Kevin Goldstein's Organizational Rankings, which lists the Pinstripers as the #6 organization in the game.

I also had a quick take on Moneyball and the retirement of Jeremy Brown for Prospectus Toolbox earlier this week. Here's a taste:

The news that Jeremy Brown was hanging up his spikes due to "personal issues" made more of a stir last week than you'd expect from the retirement of a 28-year-old catcher who's spent the last two years in Triple-A. Our prospects expert, Kevin Goldstein, gave Brown an extremely evenhanded send-off over on Unfiltered; others have been less charitable, invoking imaginary choruses of scouts cheering the end of Brown's career. At least, I hope the cheering is imaginary: it'd take a Grinch-sized heart to rejoice in the end of someone's big-league dreams, unless their name is, say, Ben Christensen. The reason that Brown is the focus of such attention and schadenfreude is because the A's drafted him in the first round of the 2002 draft—an overdraft which, by itself, wouldn't be that noteworthy—and because Michael Lewis wrote a best-selling book which hailed Brown's selection as the bellwether of a new way of doing business, which the author dubbed "Moneyball" in the book of the same name. Apparently, those celebrating Brown's retirement are marking the occasion as the death of Moneyball acumen—a festive wake, with dancing and ironic toasts.

Now, Brown never asked to be the Luke Skywalker of a sabermetric revolution. He was a guy who was already going to face a fair amount of hazing in the minors because his body was not quite one that Calvin Klein would put on a billboard. After Moneyball was published, not only was he much more famous than the average 35^th overall pick, the negative aspects of his physique were cataloged in the book for ease of heckling. Saddling him with the additional burden of representing the A's organizational philosophy—as interpreted by Lewis—was never particularly fair. However, five years removed from the book's initial release, it is a reasonable time to look back at the 2002 draft, and at the A's organization in general, and ask: is Moneyball really dead?

BP2K8 In My Dirty Little Mitts!

2008-02-23T14:37:00.005-05:00

I still remember the day I got my hands on the first edition of Baseball Prospectus. It was the day before Joe Sheehan's wedding, just a few, short hours before the second-most overwhelming drinking experience of my life. (The refrain: "Oh! Another drink? We're still going to dinner after this, right?" Yeah, sure.) Joe pulled it out of a cardboard box, and even though the cover was a plain white thing, barely thicker than the pages inside, it was, at the time, one of the most amazing treasures I'd ever seen. There was the initial shock of "someone I know made this" and then the many tasty nuggets of player and team commentary inside. A few samples, from that year's Yankees chapter:

On then-future Yankee skipper Joe Girardi:

When I spellchecked this document, one of the potential replacements for Girardi was "giardia", an infection often caused by the accidental ingestion of bacteria from beaver feces. But anyway...this organization has the chutzpah to lose Mike Stanley, one of the top two or three catchers in the AL, replace him with this out-with-a-pulse, and call it "an improvement behind the plate." On some level, you have to admire the gall. A truly execrable hitter. He'd have to save 50 runs a year over the average catcher to be worth the roster spot, much less the money. This man's agent should go into the Hall of Fame right now.

Agree or disagree, at least the author of the comment is telling us how they really feel. On faded phenom Kevin Maas:

A highly entertaining player to watch. Studied at the Dick Stuart school of infield defense, the Rob Deer school of hitting, and the Dudley Do-Right school of jawbone. Worse players have jobs.

On recently-praised-for-the-wrong-reasons-by-Congress Andy Pettitte:

Big Lefthanded Kid [tm] who has decent and improving control, is slowly improving his K rate, and hasn't been overworked at a young age. Good thing Dallas Green doesn't have control over this kid, or he'd be proving his manhood by throwing 180 pitches for a few starts, then licking a cheese grater real hard or something. This is a very good prospect, and he will probably become a multimillionaire in this game.

Twelve editions later, the Baseball Prospectus is essentially in the same format Joe laid out as editor for that first book. PECOTA has replaced VLAD as the projection system, the Fungoes section has been added for extended statistical essays, and the cover (as you can see above) is a whole hell of a lot prettier than the original, which just said "Baseball Prospectus '96" and the authors' names in an impact font. What I couldn't have dreamed when Joe pulled that book out of the box in 1996 was that in 2008 Baseball Prospectus would still be going strong, and that I'd not only be one of the writers on the book, but that I'd have responsibility for the Statistical Introduction (which was called the "Tools" section in BP '96)--writing alongside a group of people much smarter than me (Nate Silver, Clay Davenport, and Christina Kahrl)--as well as a team chapter (which isn't bylined, but is the same as last year) and a large handful of other player comments.

I went down to the publisher's office with Joe on Thursday to pick up my copy from BP's extremely clutch publicist, Mary Pomponio, plus an extra as the prize for a contest I ran in my column. I've received the book by mail from the publisher the past couple of years, but that usually happens just as it's hitting the shelves. This time, I think Joe and I had the final product in our hands even before the editors did. As with anything I'm involved with writing, there is the immediate scan through my own stuff to see how it came out (Adrian Beltre made it this time! As did Wladimir Balentien!), and the search for the inevitable first typo (Apologies, Bob ~~Ueker~~ ~~Eucker~~ ~~Youker~~ ~~Yucca~~ Uecker! You get to misspell my name--first or last, your call--whenever you like from now on). Even though I was involved in writing the book, it still holds surprises for me, such as Dan Fox's amazing outfield arms study (Yankee fact: one of the few centerfielders to have a worse arm than Bernie Williams, 2005-2007, was the man who replaced him, Johnny Damon) and Clay Davenport's work on pitchers' counts. The book should start appearing in bookstores and on doorsteps any minute now, and I hope everyone out there enjoys the book as much as I enjoyed working on it.

ODDS AND ENDS:

One reason why it took me a couple of days to get this post up is because I wanted a picture of the actual cover of the book to go with the post. The original cover--which was prepared by the publisher before we'd finished writing--featured one of my guys dead center on the cover, with a blurb that I expected would have hordes of his fans bringing tar and feathers to my doorstep, despite my much more supportive player comment. I like the new one better, even if the blurb under Clay Buchholz is "Better than Joba."

If any of you want to meet me, Joe Sheehan, Steve Goldman, Jay Jaffe, or any of the other folks involved with the book, we'll be hitting the bricks, starting in earnest a week from tomorrow, with an appearance at the Yogi Berra Museum in Montclair. I'm currently booked to be there, at our Manhattan bookstore appearance on March 6, and on Long Island on March 8; for details, you can check Prospectus's events page.

I belatedly completed the latest (can I hope, last, at least for a while?) of my Stupid Lawyer Tricks articles at BP on the Clemens/McNamee/Pettitte PED triangle. I don't know how much I have to stress that I could happily live the rest of my life without seeing Earl Ward, Rusty Hardin, or Richard Emery quoted in print again. Here's a taste of the wrap-up:

The final, bizarre note about the Congress's voyage into the Clemens/McNamee mess was Waxman's attempt to wash his hands of the whole deal, insisting the final hearing was only held at the request of Clemens's attorneys. It was a vicious cop-out that didn't acknowledge the wrong-headedness of the Committee's strategy, which from the very first put Clemens, Pettitte, and McNamee on a collision course in their hearing chamber. I can understand the arguments that the Committee's authority extends to drug testing in professional sports, but it's an entirely different matter for a legislative body—no matter how broad its oversight authority—getting involved in a rather basic dispute between private citizens, no matter how famous. In this case, the Committee would have been well served to remember the words of Rick Blaine: "It doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." Sometimes you've got to set aside the soap opera and keep your eyes on the bigger picture.

In case anyone wants to read the whole series, here are some links:

The Mitchell Report, Going to Court

Stupid Lawyer Tricks: Clemens vs. McNamee Mailbag

Stupid Lawyer Tricks: The Mitchell Report in Congress, Round I

Stupid Lawyer Tricks: Combing the Headlines

Stupid Lawyer Tricks: Clemens & McNamee Go to Congress

Stupid Lawyer Tricks: Clemens v. McNamee--After the Hearings

Caribbean Finale...or Not?

2008-02-07T15:41:00.000-05:00

I'm still down here in Santiago, Dominican Republic, working the Caribbean Series for Baseball Prospectus. Since the last time I posted here, I've cranked out quite a few words, including a couple of Unfiltered posts and a chat:

Caribbean Series 2008: Day Two

Caribbean Series '08: Extras (Unfiltered)

Caribbean Series 2008: Day Three

Baseball Prospectus Chat

Caribbean Series '08: Day Four (Unfiltered)

Caribbean Series 2008: Day Five

Some of those are subscriber-only features, but a good number of them (Day Five, the Extras, and the Chat for certain) are available to everyone.

As expected, it's come down to the two Dominican teams who face off tonight in a not-quite-winner-takes-all affair: if the capital's team, Licey, wins, they're the champions, if the host team, the Cibao Eagles, win, then we have two teams tied at 5-1, with a tiebreaker tomorrow. I love DR, and I love baseball, but it's really exhausting to cover a doubleheader a day, so I'm kind of hoping for a conclusion tonight, and only having to worry about filing my story tomorrow. I'll leave you with some pics, which might be my last update from here, since the Internet access at the hotel is pretty dicey.

This is Venezuela's Selwyn Langaigne, waiting for a pitch. I thought we might be looking at a racial incident when a fan near where I was taking the picture started yelling at Langaigne, "You look like a Haitian!" But apparently the man knew Langaigne and Timo Perez (who received the same heckling) so Langaigne didn't come into the stands to cave the guy's skull in.

There's been a lot of speculation about this group, the Mariachis of Jalisco, whom some suspect of not being mariachis at all. I'm sure that in Mexico there would be a test the authorities could give them, and lengthy prison terms if they were actually caught impersonating mariachis.

This is an as-yet unidentified Licey player warming up in the outfield. I'm crazy to figure out who this guy is, since I got lots of good shots of him. We share the press box with photographers and a number of others who aren't writers--actually, those in the "other" category outnumber us--and the biggest thing that the photographers are obsessed with is getting a roster with the correct numbers for all the players on it. Invariably, it takes days to generate this precious document, because the teams were effectively just put together and the guys are still choosing and switching numbers. Doesn't seem like a hard job to me, but documenting the number is always big trouble.

Gone South

2008-02-03T13:28:00.000-05:00

As you might have heard already, I'm in the Dominican Republic for the annual Caribbean Series. Right now we're in a rain delay at Estadio Cibao, but the forecast looks promising...
I've got updates up on the BP Web site, which I'll be linking below. Despite the occasional rain shower, the weather here is near-perfect for baseball. Warm (low 80s), a nice breeze, and a fully-stocked crowd of baseball-crazy fans.

The TV broadcasts may show empty seats, but it seems to be more the result of scalpers keeping the demand artificially high by holding tickets than a lack of enthusiasm by the fans.

Here are the links:

Caribbean Series: Round Robin Preview

Caribbean Series 2008: Day One

Movie Review: Cloverfield

2008-01-28T14:36:00.000-05:00

If you can get over the issue of the way the story is told, you'll likely enjoy Cloverfield. Cloverfield belongs to a genre, along with Blair Witch Project, of movies told in the first person, as video footage of "real" events captured by someone who just happened to have a camera at the ready. Typically, movies of this genre present two particular obstacles to the suspension of disbelief. First, the shaky camera movements can take you out of the cinematic experience by making it too hard--and sometimes too nauseating--to follow the action. Second, you have to believe that a person would be so dedicated to documenting their experience that they would keep the camera rolling, even in situations where they're in grave personal danger and it would make more sense to turn the thing off and just concentrate on running away.

If you can get over those two things--and for the most part I did--then there's nothing to keep you from enjoying an exciting disaster/horror flick, that, after a very slow beginning, is relentless and well-paced. Sure, there are other problems, but I tend to look at them more as features than flaws: the characters are fairly unsympathetic, and they make poor decisions, but you pretty much don't have any horror flicks these days without those elements being in place. In this case, the unsympathetic characters are yuppies who live in Tribeca, who've gathered together for a going-away party for their friend Rob, who's taken a Vice-President job with a company in Japan. If you've ever heard of the term "viral marketing," it's likely you already know that Rob's party will be disrupted by the arrival of something terrible enough to send the Statue of Liberty's head rolling down the street like a bowling ball, and that the rest of the evening will track a handful of the partygoers' struggle to survive the catastrophe.

The result is a lot like Titanic, with all the extraneous junk scraped away--the unbelievable love story, the awkward "eighty years later" framing device, the various clinical dissections of what went wrong and how--and everything is just pared down to people reacting to the danger of near-certain death, just of a more fantastic nature. The camcorder's-eye-view of Cloverfield traps you in the perspective of these characters, who have extremely limited information about what peril they're facing or what they should do about it. The story never cuts away to a briefing at the White House (a typical scene in this kind of film) to get a dose of exposition about the situation...and distance from our imperiled main characters.

Because of the lack of exposition, there really isn't much of a message to Cloverfield. Although the film appropriates some of the imagery of the September 11 attacks, it's not about our fear of terrorism; nor is it about Iraq (like last year's horrible 28 Weeks Later), ecology (The Host, The Day After Tomorrow, and the original Godzilla films), hubris (Towering Inferno, and many other similar disaster movies), racism (the original Night of the Living Dead), class warfare (Titanic), or man's inhumanity to man (28 Days Later, among many others). In Cloverfield's case, a monster is just a monster--and that's one of the things about it that worked for me. Recommended.

****

As an additional review, I'll fess up that I've been watching the clunkily-named weekly series, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles on FOX. The idea of the show is that, after the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the eponymous Ms. Connor and her savior-of-the-human-race teenage son, John, continue to have adventures while battling to keep the artificial intelligence known as Skynet from ever existing--even though at the end of T2 it was believed that Skynet had been retroactively destroyed, thereby creating a hopeless paradox (how can robots come from the future to kill you/save you if you've eliminated the system that created the robots?). The series pretends that the second Terminator sequel (2003's T3: Rise of the Machines)--(SPOILER ALERT)in which the paradox is essentially undone, and the robotic apocalypse occurs as scheduled (/spoiler)--never happened.

Maybe it's because I've spent the past few weeks acquainting myself on DVD with a show with similar man-against-robot issues, the SciFi version of Battlestar Galactica, but I'm unimpressed. Chronicles, for all the cachet of its heavy-duty license and expansive special effects budget, isn't terribly deep, so far. In its mythology, time travel is much more common than in the films--and while that discovery opens up possibilities, it also weakens the premise to the point of flimsiness. The cool thing about the earlier Terminator films was that the protagonists were left on their own, without hope of backup or relief. This development throws those elements out the window, and opens up the way for all sorts of Deus Ex Machina b.s.

For the second time in a TV season, a network has turned over its most-hyped property to a relatively obscure British actress. When NBC did it for the Bionic Woman, it was a fiasco--Michelle Ryan, an actress who sounds smart and confident using her own accent, was whiny and unfocused as a Californian twentysomething-turned superhero. Chronicles' leading Brit is Lena Headey, and although her accent is better than Ryan's, she's still not entirely right for the role she's playing. Linda Hamilton reimagined the role of Sarah Connor in Terminator 2, turning the disco-era waitress she played in the first film into a grim-faced warrior woman. She was buff, ruthless, and more than a little crazy. You were scared of this woman--she had no compunction about harming people if they endangered her son or simply got in her way.

Headey, on the other hand, isn't scaring anyone. Her Sarah Connor is a fairly generic action heroine. She looks athletic and is credible in the show's action scenes, but she isn't the physically imposing presence that Hamilton was in T2. Headey's take on the character talks like someone ruthless, but she's also emotionally fragile and conflicted--qualities that might make her character more sympathetic than Hamilton's Connor was, but they also make her less interesting. Summer Glau is more intriguing as the latest friendly Terminator model: the girl's become a science fiction fan favorite by being pretty and having a strange affect, and both of those qualities are still in evidence here. There's some promise in the relationship between Glau's Terminatrix and Thomas Dekker's savior-cum-teenage-whiner, John Connor; but the first three episodes haven't really placed the focus there.

If it weren't for the writer's strike, it's likely that I'd dismiss Chronicles off-hand as something that isn't, for the moment, worth the space it would occupy on my DVR. Right now, however, it doesn't have much competition in the scripted drama category, so I'll keep watching it until I lose interest or it gets superseded by better shows. Mildest possible recommendation, for now.

Odds and Ends

2008-01-23T06:47:00.000-05:00

Apparently, Don Mattingly won't be an on-the-field coach for the Dodgers, after all:

Mattingly Steps Down as Hitting Coach (MLB.com)

The Daily News is reporting that the reason Mattingly's stepping away from the job is because Mattingly and his wife of 28 years, Kim, have separated:

Mattingly Leaves Joe Torre's Side Because of Family Matters (McCarron, NY Daily News)

This is horrible news, and our thoughts and prayers go out to Don and his family. My most prominent memory of Kim Mattingly was courtesy of the really drunk guy behind me at Don Mattingly Day, who spent the entire ceremony yelling "Kiiiiim! Show us your legs! Kiiiiim!" This also happened to be the fellow for whom the expression "Say it, don't spray it," was coined.

****

Ex-Yank Chuck Knoblauch is being subpoenaed to testify before the House of Representatives in the Clemens-McNamee-Pettitte inquiry:

Feds Issue Subpoena for Knoblauch (Thompson & Red, NY Daily News)

The interesting point here is that Knoblauch blew off a deposition that'd been scheduled, which is why a subpoena was issued. Knoblauch has indicated that he no longer wants to be involved with baseball, but as Al Pacino once said, "I try to get out...but they keep pulling me back in!"

****

Given the choice of the Yankees giving up the farm for Johan Santana, the Red Sox lording Santana over the Yanks after acquiring him for a much weaker package, or the Demon Lefty of Minnesota nestling safely in the NL...um, let's go Mets?

Mets' Santana Offer Remains the Same (Cothran--Star Ledger)

Yeah, they're rivals too. But it would still be waaaaay less annoying.

****

Everybody has dreams, mine just happen to involve Tim Raines and Mediterranean sidewalk cafes:

Prospectus Toolbox: How to Write a Letter of Complaint (BP.com)

Quick quote from that column about the burgeoning Jim Rice crowd out there:

Be political: Like any election, that to the Hall of Fame election is a political process, so you might do well by co-opting some of the language and tactics of political discourse. Many of Jim Rice's Hall of Fame proponents have adopted a rhetorical stance that seems torn from the land of "job-killing taxes" and "Washington-insider special-interest lobbyists." Their campaign is no longer to get Rice inducted to Cooperstown, it's to keep his detractors from "excluding" him from the Hall of Fame. This "exclusion" language takes Rice's qualifications for induction as a foregone conclusion, and places the burden on his opponents to say why he doesn't belong. It also invites accusations that Rice's detractors are doing something wrong or harmful when they criticize his Hall-worthiness—they're accused of "attacking" Rice or "denigrating" his achievements. Regardless of whether you agree with the sentiment, the tactic seems to be working—Rice has gained votes each of the past five years—so a similar rhetorical stance could help you make the case for your favorite Hall-worthy candidate.

That kind of talk bugs me, as does political-speak in general. And to think, we're only in January of an election year! Aside from Hall of Fame commentary and useful advice, this week's column also features a contest, where the winner will get a free copy of the 2008 Baseball Prospectus annual--so feel free to enter!

I've also been paying attention to developments in the Dominican League Finals:

The Trials of Tejada (BP Unfiltered)

Colon-o-Scopy (BP Unfiltered)

Thanks to ESPN Deportes, I think I might have seen more baseball in January this year than I saw in May of last. I'll admit, I thought my team, Licey, was dead in the water when they lost the first three games. Luckily, the Dominican finals are a best-of-nine, so there's still time for them to recover after winning games 4 and 5.

Sabado Gigante!

2008-01-19T23:24:00.000-05:00

A quick breakdown of the Yankees' Arbitration asked/offered, and some notes. In reverse order of how interesting they are:

Brian Bruney: Asks: $845,000, Offered: $640,000

In the bigger scheme of things, $205,000 doesn't seem like a lot of money in Yankeeland, so this should settle. But, looked at another way, the Yankees are offering about 24% less than Bruney's asking--so in his world, this is pretty big. A bigger question is whether there's any room for Bruney in the Yankee bullpen, regardless of what pricepoint he receives.

Chien Ming Wang -- Asks: $4.6MM, Offered: $4MM

This settles. Has to. I'd think that the Yanks would be well-served to try to make a long-term deal here, but if not, they're still only $600,000 away on a bargain of a contract.

Robinson Cano -- Asks: $4.55MM, Offered: $3.2MM

Now, at $1.35 million, these folks are far enough apart that you don't just say "split the difference." The Yanks' figure seems criminally low for a player who might be the best-hitting second baseman in the AL, over the last two years; but it's important to remember that Cano, like Wang, is a "Super Two" arbitration-eligible player, who has less than 3 full years' playing time. As such, he's at a lower level of arbitration than a player with more playing time--still, it's hard to see the Yanks winning this arbitration, or the settlement turning out closer to their figure. Still, it's worth a second look.

NOTES:

Nice profile of Humberto Sanchez over at the MiLB.com site. Prospects tend to drop off the radar after they've had surgery, and the Yanks seem to have more pitching prospects recently under the knife than anyone else. Good to keep up.

Wilson Betemit is back with the club, with a $1.15MM contract. It's been a while since the team had a useful, legitimate four-position utility infielder, and Betemit gives them that. Like a number of other Yankees, he's vulnerable against lefthanded pitching--that's why the team is dishing out minor league contracts to guys like Jason Lane, and should consider approaching Chris Shelton, if he makes it through waivers.

This year, Time Warner Cable has finally given me my ESPN Deportes, which means that I'm mainlining winter league ball. Right now, my ancestral team, Licey, is getting rolled by their arch-rivals, las Agulas del Cibao, in the Dominican League finals. The Aguilas are up 3-0 in a best of nine, on the strength of an offensive explosion. Yankee Edwar Ramirez is with Licey and he took a whupping in the first game of the series; former Yankees playing in the series include Luis Polonia patrolling the outfield and Randy Choate coming out of the bullpen for the Aguilas, Wil Nieves playing behind the plate and D'Angelo Jimenez backing up in the infield for Licey. Check it out, if you have the chance.

Small World

2008-01-11T21:13:00.000-05:00

My parents aren't really baseball fans, except for by relation to me and my brothers. Still, having one casual fan and two stark-raving insane Yankee fans for offspring, they absorbed a lot of baseball by osmosis. The ballgames were always on the tube, or the radio. So when it comes to the national pastime, my parents know more than they think they know.

So it wasn't that weird when my dad brought up Bernie Williams last night, out of the blue. We were at dinner, and we'd been talking about my writing, and the whole Roger Clemens mess, and just at random Dad asks me about Bernie, as if he was one of my high school friends I still keep in touch with. So I filled my parents in as well as I could about the last year-plus: the un-vite (as Seinfeld would say) to Tampa for Spring Training, his kinda-sorta retirement, the speculation that he might be invited to camp with the Dodgers, his Jazz guitar work.

So that wasn't weird, but what happened today was. My parents were flying to Puerto Rico, and since they practically live on planes these days, they get upgraded to first class. Since these are the seats left over when first class isn't booked full, they often don't get to sit together, but you don't complain when you get bumped up. Anyway, my dad goes to take his seat, and who's he sitting next to? You guessed it, Bernie Williams.

Sometimes small doesn't even begin to describe the world.

****

Saw Michael Clayton last weekend, and it was phenomenal. It's a legal thriller that meanders a little bit on the way to where it's going, but the performances are so compelling you're unlikely to mind a few digressions. George Clooney plays the title character, a big-firm lawyer who doesn't fit the profile: he's a Fordham Law grad in a sea of Ivy League suits, a guy who's been with this giant legal machine for 15 years without making partner. He's the kind of guy who can't ever be a partner--you could say he's the lawyer in charge of non-legal solutions. When the law firm's top litigator goes crazy in a deposition, Clayton's the guy you send to smooth things over with the cops and the client. The litigator, Arthur (Tom Wilkinson) is off his meds and out of his mind, and his timing is lousy because the firm's representing a big corporate client in a billion-dollar class action suit.

How things play out with the suit is a bit predictable (what, you thought the big corporate client was going to be innocent?) but that's kind of beside the point. The point is how Wilkinson, clearly out of his mind, suddenly snaps back into clarity to explain why no one's going to successfully have him committed. It's how Tilda Swinton, as the big corporation's head lawyer, seems constantly on the edge of jumping out of her skin, even when she's in control of the situation. It's the honesty and seriousness with which Michael tells his son that he won't grow up to be a screwup like him.

Clooney's performance straddles the line between the deglamorized character he played in Syriana, and the typical, smooth, Clooney persona--streetsmart and cynical, but without the smug smile when he pulls one over on the powers-that-be. Wilkinson, a Brit whose American accent usually annoys and distracts me, is dead perfect in this role. The nasal drone of his accent works well with a character whose manic rants rarely give him a chance to breathe. If I were doing my Top Ten list now, Michael Clayton would make the top five--maybe the top three--and Wilkinson is neck-in-neck with Javier Bardem for the best supporting performance of the year. Very highly recommended.

Fame & Infamy, Part II

2008-01-09T12:47:00.000-05:00

A Goose Flies into Cooperstown...

...with 86% of the vote. That's a huge increase (130 votes more than he got two years ago) and it brings us to the point: what changed? The BBWAA didn't get fifty new voters, I don't think--some of these guys had to have changed their minds after years of not voting for Gossage. Same thing applies to Jim Rice--he's reached the 72% mark, just 16 votes shy of entry this year, and virtually a lock to make it next season on his 15th(!) try. Down the ballot, Bert Blyleven picked up 76 votes(!) a year after taking a step back. This is why Hall of Fame voting doesn't make much sense. Blyleven's been on the ballot for 11 years, and his vote total has quadrupled in that time, almost quintupled from its low point in 1999 (70 votes, 14%). He lost support last year, slipping under 50% after he'd broken into the majority in 2006, which made it look like his candidacy was stalled. Now that he's reached the point Gossage was at in the 2006 election, who knows? I swear, it feels like some of these guys are just throwing darts at the ballot.

And if that's the case, Tim Raines's name must have been at the bullseye, 'cause most of the voters couldn't hit it. Only 132 voters (24.3%, less than a third of what's required for election) checked his name on his first turn on the ballot. Fortunately for him, as we've seen, the voters are incredibly inconsistent from year to year, so this is far from the last word. Next year, a whole bunch of guys might just "discover" Raines, or offer some lame excuse about him not being a first ballot guy, blah, blah, blah. Or we might be in for a decade-long saga, like Rice and Blyleven. Mark McGwire's fans might also be in for a fifteen-year campaign, maybe hoping that by 2020, people will be so up in arms about gene doping and the use of bionic limbs that they'll get a massive surge of nostalgia for guys who "just" used steroids.

By the way, speaking of 'roids (and not at all to rain on Goose's well-deserved day) here's a question. Goose was a big guy, threw hard, had a long career, and appears to have been an endless reservoir of rage both on and off the field. Anyone else think that if he played today, he'd be one of the guys suspected of juicing?

Rocket Defense

A dozen years after Goose's career ended, other big, hard-throwing righties with on-the-mound anger issues don't seem to be getting the benefit of the doubt. Roger Clemens came out on 60 minutes and denied Brian McNamee's accusations against him as definitively as possible. The same day that interview aired, he sued McNamee, and on Monday he faced the press. Still, no one seems convinced, and it's unlikely they'll be swayed even if/when Clemens goes before Congress next week, and tells them the same thing. If Clemens tells the same story before next week's hearing of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, he'll have passed the point of no return. That means that if there's anyone out there that can corroborate McNamee's story, or link Clemens to steroids in any way, he'll likely face perjury charges--that's the risk he's taking by initiating this litigation and keeping this issue in the public eye.

I broke down the Clemens litigation over at Baseball Prospectus, and I think the final paragraph is instructive:

However, let me offer a final cautionary note for Clemens. When I was in practice, and someone threatened one of my clients with a defamation claim, the warning to the would-be litigant was often, "Remember Oscar Wilde." In 1895 Wilde brought a criminal defamation suit against the Marquis of Queensberry (the same one who promulgated the rules of boxing) because of an insult the Marquis made about Wilde's sexuality. At trial, the defense was able to produce witnesses to Wilde's lifestyle, who proved that the insult was actually truthful and not defamatory. As a result of the inquiry he initiated, Wilde wound up being convicted of "gross indecency" and sentenced to two years' hard labor. The lesson? If you sue for defamation, you better have the truth on your side—otherwise, it might be more than your reputation that gets hurt.

Unless he's clean, Roger's opening up a huge can of worms. I hope for his sake the risk is worth it.

Fame & Infamy, Part I

2008-01-06T14:08:00.000-05:00

We're just a few hours away from Roger Clemens and Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes, a couple of days away from the Baseball Hall of Fame's announcement of the BWAA class of 2008, a couple of weeks away from the Mitchell Report clown show going to Washington, and just over a month away from pitchers and catchers. So now looks like a decent time to take on a few topics of interest, starting with the Hall of Fame.

It's been a bad few years with me and the Hall of Fame, ranging from them accepting the Mark Ecko Asterisk Ball, to the failure to induct Buck O'Neill while he was alive to enjoy it (a mistake everyone seems willing to repeat with someone who's even more obviously qualified for induction, Marvin Miller), down to petty crap like the fiasco when the Hall's president canceled a 15th Anniversary presentation of Bull Durham in an attempt to muzzle Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins's views about the war in Iraq.

Don't get me wrong. The Hall of Fame is still a great institution. When you say "Hall of Fame", without any modifiers, people assume you're talking about the one in Cooperstown, New York (unlike other sports where you have to be very specific in your identifications, like the "Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio," which, I suppose, distinguishes it from the Flag Football Hall of Fame, in Mentor, Ohio). Unlike other sports, which sometimes induct ten people at a shot, the baseball Hall of Fame is pretty exclusive.

But I'm dreading the announcement of the Hall of Famers come Tuesday. I have the distinct feeling that it's going to be upsetting--there are four people on the ballot who are amply qualified to be in the Hall of Fame, and three of them are unlikely to get in for bad reasons. Saying that Bert Blyleven's a Hall of Famer is a trope by now, an argument that's been had over and over, and there's not much more to say. Mark McGwire's case hinged on a single bad day in his life, where the negotiated terms for his testifying before Congress were that he was "not there to talk about the past," an unfortunate lawyer-scripted phrase that's come to signify pathetic chumpitude nation-wide. Onetime Yankee Goose Gossage is the best reliever not currently in the Hall, and arguably better than the relievers who've already been inducted. And then there's the new guy, former Yankee Tim Raines, who's probably the third best left fielder I've seen play, behind Rickey Henderson and Barry Bonds.

All these men had long, distinguished careers. Each helped teams to championships, and were respected by their peers. But I don't think Raines, McGwire, or Blyleven have any chance of making the required 75% of BWAA votes to get inducted. For McGwire, the flames of indignation over the use of PEDs were fanned during the voters' prime time by the Mitchell Report. Even though Mitchell had nothing new to say about McGwire (indeed, precious little new information about anything) the Report politicizes Big Mac's induction possibilities beyond "we'll punish him by not making him a first-year inductee." The longer McGwire waits, the more alternate rationales--beyond the suspected-but-never-proven steroid use--for denying him the vote his detractors will conjure. It's a downward cycle. Blyleven's case was made by my fellow stat-heads; it's a compelling argument, but the movement already peaked without Blyleven getting in--there's no reason to think that he'll suddenly start to pick up support again. And Raines? He suffers by direct comparison to Rickey, since Henderson was the one with the MVP and stolen base records, while Raines fell short on both counts. When you get labeled the "poor man's version" of anything, it diminishes you--not enough people pay attention to the fact that Raines is the poor man's version of an inner circle Hall of Famer--what I like to call a member of the Broom Closet of the Immortals. The fact is, you can fall short of Immortal and still be Hall-worthy...but it's not expected that the BWAA will get that idea, either.

If I were a betting man, I'd think that the writers will elect a slate in honor of the 30th anniversary of the 1978 pennant race, inducting Gossage and fellow AL East antagonist, Jim Rice. At this point, Rice has been on the ballot almost as long (14 years) as he played in the major leagues (16 seasons). I can't fathom why it's a good idea to consider someone's candidacy for anything that long--sure, maybe it's not all love at first sight, but what, exactly, could have changed in the last 10 years that Rice has been eligible that wasn't so for the first four? The new thing that seems to be driving the Rice lobby is revisionism--a repackaging of Rice as the last "natural" slugger (a claim which is far more presumptive than anything else), and using the steroid controversy to retroactively boost his bona-fides. Sadly, nothing about current or recent steroid use changes the fact that those bona-fides, were simply not good for long enough to merit induction.

I could be wrong, but the election of a Goose/Rice slate would be bittersweet--a happy recognition of one of the most dominant pitchers of the last 40 years, but a decision that would leave a bad taste in the mouth both because of the many worthies who were excluded.

Top 10 Movies of 2007*

2008-01-03T09:27:00.000-05:00

* That I saw...

1. Once -- I'd expected that one of the Fall's heavy hitters would take this plucky Irish musical out of the top spot, but it persevered, and takes the crown as my best movie of 2007. I missed quite a few of the challengers--particularly There Will Be Blood, Michael Clayton, and Atonement--but I still feel comfortable with this pick.

2. The Wind that Shakes the Barley -- A savage tale of the Irish fighting for independence against the British, and once the British are gone, against each other. Cillian Murphy, starring here as a med student who decides to join his brother in the IRA, might actually be too good-looking to be a star in Hollywood, but he's definitely got the acting chops to go with the face. This film featured the single most heartbreaking scene I saw all year, although that might say more about me than about the movie.

3. No Country for Old Men -- This was the one that I expected to knock Once off its perch, and from that standpoint, I'm disappointed. Mind you, it was beautiful. Javier Bardem was mesmerizing as the villanous Anton Chigurh, Josh Brolin actually managed to make me forget his dad's married to Barbra Streisand, and Tommy Lee Jones gives a gut-punch of a performance as a Texas sheriff left to process the carnage in Chigurh's wake. But I guess I wasn't as blown away as everyone else was by the scene with the dog in the river, or by the plot, which doesn't go much farther than a simple (and not incredibly satisfying) chase film.

4. Ratatouille -- Brad Bird is the man. Who isn't leery about the idea of an animated movie about a French rat who hallucinates conversations with a great chef, and who lives his cullinary dreams by acting as a puppeteer to an unskilled kitchen apprentice? Just trust Brad Bird, the guy behind The Incredibles. More imaginatively directed than any other movie on the list.

5. The Lives of Others -- The first time I'd heard of this film, it'd just beaten Pan's Labyrinth for best foreign film, and I was indignant. I still don't think it's better than Guillermo del Toro's masterpiece, but it's another lively take on the death-throes of the Soviet Bloc, and the perils of a surveillance culture.

6. Breach -- We discussed this one when it first came out. I still don't think I've seen a lead performance as good as Chris Cooper's Robert Hanssen, except maybe Bardem's turn in No Country. Strange that Cooper's work here--much like Forrest Whitaker's in the Last King of Scotland and Denzel Washington's in Training Day--is considered a lead performance even though he's a villain and not the main character, but Bardem's being pushed as a supporting actor.

7. Hot Fuzz -- All told, the funniest movie I saw all year, although it took a while to pick up speed, spending much of its running time setting up jokes that pay off only in the last 15 or so minutes. A better film than Shaun of the Dead, but less accessible--unless you're well-versed in '80s and '90s American action films, much of what's on the screen won't register.

8. Helvetica -- A documentary about a typeface? That's right. The filmmakers managed to tap into a genius discovery: graphic designers, whose work straddles the line between art and the written word, often combine the eloquence of writers with the insane passion and conviction of artists (those of us who know Jay Jaffe already had an inkling of this). What that gives you is some very intelligent and off-beat discussions about how a font can affect your world. Don't think I've seen a documentary this good since Capturing the Friedmans or Fog of War.

9. The Bourne Ultimatum -- Another one discussed previously. Gets downgraded because of the veritable drinking game you can play by taking a shot whenever someone incredulously asks Matt Damon's Jason Bourne "You really don't remember, do you?" Still, it had to make the top 10--otherwise, I'd run afoul of "The Asset."

10. Waitress -- We start with a chick flick, we end with a chick flick...what's happened to this blog? It seems like 2007 was a pretty slim year for female performances--Keri Russell has the best female performance I saw last year, and I can't think of enough good lead performances to populate a decent top five.

Others from 2007: Darjeeling Limited didn't quite make the list--I enjoyed it, but didn't fall in love--and I'm not even sure I liked it more than its companion short film, Hotel Chevalier, which has many of Darjeeling's virtues, a 100% reduction in Luke Wilson playing his stock Wes Anderson character, and a nice helping of Natalie Portman in various states of undress. The Host just missed inclusion by much less than Darjeeling; it was my favorite horror film of the year, but the only competition was the annoying 28 Weeks Later.

Any thoughts? Suggestions about other films I should watch? Put 'em in the comments.

******

Now that the Holidays are over, and most of my big writing assignments are done, I should be able to get on more of a regular posting schedule. Back when I started this blog, four years ago today, I never imagined that I'd have to interrupt writing it to work on the Baseball Prospectus annual, or any of the other stuff that's been going on in my life. One of my resolutions for 2008 is to figure out if I can do my minimum of three posts per week here, or else consider shutting down shop...but that's talk for another time. In the meanwhile, Happy Birthday to the WTDB!

Waiting on Mr. Mitchell

2007-12-13T13:00:00.000-05:00

It's T-minus one hour before the George Mitchell steroid press conference. I swear, MLB must have scheduled this thing specifically to interfere with my writing schedule, since I'm on deadline for three different projects, two of them baseball. A few short-form reactions to recent news:

1) The Yanks Sign LaTroy Hawkins:

I'd have been much more psyched about this a few years ago than I am now. I'd always imagined LaTroy to be a strikeout guy, but if you look it up, he's pretty weak in that aspect, and getting worse. Still, with Joba in the rotation, Kyle Farnsworth being sucky and limited, and Luis Vizcaino leaving us for greener pastures, Joe Girardi is going to need a setup guy that he's comfortable going to in the eighth. I like the fact that this is only a one-year deal.

2) Carl Pavano asked to take a minor league deal:

This one was reported as a done deal over the weekend, before Can't Pitch Carl balked. The move would've allowed the Yanks to clear space on the 40-man, while somehow still getting insurance to pay for part of Pavano's salary, meanwhile Pavano would have had someplace to rehab. This made too much sense to ever happen. It would mean that Carl would have to do something that actually benefits the Yankees--can you imagine that? I swear, if this guy blew his brains out, the bullet would still manage to hit a vital member of the Yankees' team.

3) Yanks Say Good-bye to Andy Phillips, Darrell Rasner, Matt DeSalvo, T.J. Beam, and Bronson Sardinha:

Phillips was released just before the Rule 5 draft, to make room for Jose Molina. Rasner, Beam, DeSalvo, and Sardinha were non-tendered last night to make room for the Yanks' returning free agents. The only one of these that's a surprise is Sardinha, since it looked like the team was warming up to him last season, putting him on the playoff roster. The others were arms who'd been passed on the depth chart, and Phillips, who never showed the power he'd need to be a backup corner infield guy.

4) Kuhn to the Hall, Miller on the Outside Looking In

Marvin Miller should have gotten into the Hall of Fame when the Veteran's Committee vote was expanded to all living Hall-of-Famers a few years back. That group, dominated by the same veteran ballplayers who enjoyed big salaries and pensions as a result of Miller's advocacy on their behalf, couldn't get its act together to get the job done, one of the single greatest acts of ingratitude that you'll see, ever. This year, with the keys to the gates of Cooperstown given to baseball management types, Miller never stood a chance. That his nemesis, the late Commissioner Kuhn, was voted in while Miller was rejected was as direct a snub as you'll see.

Option B

2007-12-06T10:37:00.000-05:00

"Beeeeeware the Pavano!"

A ghostly voice woke me in the night. The radiator in the bedroom was going full-blast, and I woke up in a sweat, as if I had a fever. Carl Pavano? Where?

After looking around and making sure that Can't Pitch Carl wasn't in the bedroom, threatening myself and La Chiquita with grievous bodily harm. I settled back down for some rest. What the heck was that about?

"Beware the Paavaaaaanoooooo!"

I woke back up, peeved. What Pavano? And why did the ghostly voice think that moaning out a different word in the sentence would make me more likely to heed its call? I mean, for the first time in three years, I was finally over my Pavano issues--Carl had his Tommy John surgery in June, and it seemed like the timing of that was so that the Yankees could ensure he'd never again pitch in a Yankee uniform (since even people with normal healing times usually take more than 15 months to come back from ligament replacement). The Yanks would keep him on the roster, get back whatever they could in insurance money, and then we could put one of the worst free agent signings ever behind us, forever.

"Beware the..."

I swear, if I found that ghostly voice I was gonna bust him upside the head. What damn...

Oh! And then I got it: this was about the Johan Santana non-deal.

The Yankees now swear up and down that they won't pursue Santana. After Hank Steinbrenner's ultimatum--the kind of peevish complaint guaranteed to inspire rebellion, if not veiled accusations of tampering--the Yankees and Twins were unable to settle on a third prospect in the great Santana hunt of 2007. The Bronx Bombers' main rivals (in this and seemingly everything else), the Red Sox, seem to have also struck out in the short term. The Yanks are saying all the right thing about sticking with their youth movement on the mound. But even if the Melky and Hughes for Santana deal is off the table, there's still danger lurking in the weeds.

It's Option B, better known as Oakland A's pitcher Danny Haren. Or as my mind has been thinking about him since the ghostly visitation...the Pavano.

I know that's not quite a fair comparison. Haren's a really good pitcher, who's been extraordinarily resilient over the last three years:

YEAR NAME AGE W L IP SO9 RA+ SNLVAR
2005 Dan Haren 24 14 12 217 6.76 1.13 5.2
2006 Dan Haren 25 14 13 223 7.1 1.11 5.3
2007 Dan Haren 26 15 9 222.7 7.76 1.30 6.3

(Yes, I've written this blog for four years, and I still can't figure out how to make a table look good. Sorry.)

But then again, Pavano was also a pretty good pitcher in the couple of years before he ~~choked us under a veil of tears~~ joined the Yankees:

YEAR NAME AGE W L IP SO9 RA+ SNLVAR
2003 Carl Pavano 27 12 13 201 5.96 1.02 5.2
2004 Carl Pavano 28 18 8 222.3 5.63 1.42 7

He was really good. He just wasn't the best available. That year, the offseason after the 2004 ALCS disaster, the best starter available was Pedro Martinez, late of the Red Sox. The Mets picked him up, and the Yankees settled for the next best thing, Pavano. There were things to commend Pavano over Martinez. Martinez had known health issues, and was older. If you'd asked who was the safer bet to receive a four-year deal, Pavano from ages 29-32 or Pedro from ages 33-36, you'd probably answer, the young guy without arm trouble. Still, even if Pedro doesn't pitch another inning at Shea, you'd have to say that the Mets got more mileage out of the $53 million they gave Martinez than the Yanks got out of the $40 million they gave Pavano.

Back to Haren. Billy Beane is a smart guy. He has a very good young pitcher, Haren, signed to a nice, below-market contract ($9.5 MM over the next two years, $6.75 MM club option for 2010). Why would he want to trade away a guy like this?

It's because of the market that Johan Santana has created. Santana isn't just a good pitcher, he's the best pitcher. A lot of people have supposedly been scared off by Santana's reported contract demands, but there's a hunger for what he brings to the table. He's not just a #1 pitcher, he's the #1 pitcher. The ace of aces. Only a handful of hurlers can claim to be in his company--Josh Beckett, Jake Peavy, Brandon Webb, Roy Oswalt, C.C. Sabathia, maybe Justin Verlander--and none of those guys have his performance record. Haren isn't part of that group, he's in the next group, which includes young guys like Felix Hernandez, Erik Bedard, Chien Ming Wang, Cole Hamels, Scott Kazmir, and a few others,* who are close to that elite level but just fall short, or haven't yet proven they can do it consistently enough to be one of those "once in a generation" type pitchers. Like Martinez, Clemens, and Randy Johnson were in their respective primes. Like Santana is now.

When a pitcher like Santana is available, guys you've long considered untouchable become...touchable. If you have to surrender a Phil Hughes, or Jon Lester, or Clay Buchholz, or Clayton Kershaw, you grit your teeth and do it. Those guys may have the potential to become the next Santana or Peavy or Beckett, but there's value in knowing that you have someone who's already made it to that level, who's survived grind of operating at as an ace year in and year out.

So if Beane is making Haren available, it's because he hopes to let the Twins do the hard work, loosening GM's fingers off their best prospects as everyone vies to get the best pitcher in baseball. And then, once everyone's gotten used to the idea that Hughes isn't untouchable, that Lester or Jacoby Ellsbury can be had, then Beane can sweep in and market Haren, as the best pitcher available not named Santana. And it's not that hard to talk yourself into this idea: Haren's pretty good, and his contract is small-market friendly, and for all I know he's super-kind to children and animals. But he's not Johan Santana--he's just the next best thing.

Forget Pavano, which is pretty much a fighting word in any Yankee fan's vocabulary. Last year, the best pitcher available was Daisuke Matsuzaka. The Yanks were outbid, handily, on the posting fee for the best talent out there, but they settled for Option B--Kei Igawa. Last year, the Yanks paid about $30 million (the posting fee plus Igawa-san's salary) for Dr. Kei to pitch more innings in the minors (77 1/3) than in the majors (67 2/3). Sometimes the best move is not to make a move at all.

[* NOTE: Before anyone complains about that list of second-tier #1 pitchers, I'm not counting guys who are on the wrong side of 30. Many of them--John Smoltz, Tim Hudson, A.J. Burnett, Roy Halladay--can be just as good as any of the guys I've listed, but likely wouldn't have the same trade value.]

Emptying the Clip

2007-12-04T00:30:00.000-05:00

I've got a bad feeling about this. No, I haven't heard any news about Johan Santana, but I did hear about the trade that the Yanks made yesterday--Tyler Clippard gets dealt to the hyperactive Washington Nationals (seriously, can we get Jim Bowden a sedative, or else just keep him away from sugar?) for righthanded reliever Jonathan Albaladejo. I might be overreacting, but I wonder if this is the first domino falling in a cycle where the Yanks unload a good deal of their cache of young pitchers.

Not that Albaladejo's an old man. He just turned 25, which makes him about 2 1/2 years older than Clippard. He turned in a nice 14 or so inning stint with Washington, and I've seen a Nationals blogger (Jon at the Nationals Report) say he has an "electric fastball and a tough makeup." I saw him in the Caribbean Series in February and wasn't impressed by his heat or his poise. Here's what I wrote at the time:

Jonathan Albaladejo is not as advanced as Castro. At 23 [sic], he’s only gotten as high as AA in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization. He’s 6’5” with a big frame. Sunday night it didn’t look like his fastball was as big as he is (my kingdom for a radar gun!). He got ahead in the count well enough, but showed a tendency to nibble afterward.

Two on, none out in the bottom of the first: Miguel Tejada got to a one ball, two strike count and then had a batting helmet crisis. After trying on every helmet in the Dominican dugout, Tejada came back to fill the count, which provoked a conference on the mound. Albaladejo looked so serious and tentative it was like he was playing chess with Death. Death won, Tejada walked, and another conference on the mound ensued.

Now, I'm not a scout, and you absolutely, positively should never base an opinion on seeing a player just once. For all I know, that was the worst game of his career. The thing is, before last season Clippard was a top-five prospect with the Yanks; while Albaladejo was picked up as a minor league free agent out of the Pirates organization last season. So, in short, the Yanks have surrendered something of value for a guy they could have picked up for free less than twelve months earlier. I'll miss Clippard, and hope I'm wrong about Albaladejo.

In sunnier news, Project P46 turned out to be a rousing success. According to reports, Andy Pettitte is returning to the Bronx for one more go, and reportedly, the outpouring of fan support was one reason why. Thanks to Steve Lombardi for thinking it up, and thanks to everyone who participated.