The 2009 Yanks: A good time or a good ballclub?
ByAfter 168 games, we know a lot about the spirit of the Yankees. With Johnny Damon, Nick Swisher and A.J. Burnett around, they are a fun-loving club. Sure, the super-serious trio of Jorge Posada, Derek Jeter and, yes, Alex Rodriguez make up the core of their offensive club, but for the Yanks, the fun is why they’re winning. Or so goes the narrative.
At the end of last week, on the verge of the ALCS, the serious Wall Street Journal explored the Yanks’ fun side. The article is a bit incongruous; due to the Journal’s style guide leads to a whole bunch of references to Mr. Swisher and Mr Damon. But the point remains: It is because of the Yanks’ fun-loving ways that they are a good team. “Fun creates winning,” Swisher has said. “You’re looser when you’re having fun. Your true ability comes out, rather than being tense.”
Matthew Futterman and Austin Kelley explore this concept as it relates to the Yankees:
Since the 2003 World Series, the last one the Yankees appeared in, the team has gone about its business with the sober professionalism of a group of pall-bearers. In 2005, after the Yankees started the season 11-19, Mr. Torre told the New York Times, “There’s a lot of tension. One to 10, it’s probably an 8. You try to say things to loosen people up, you make jokes, and there’s required laughing. Nothing is spontaneous. This is our life.” To compound the pressure, there was always a chance that volcanic owner George Steinbrenner would threaten somebody’s livelihood.
Before this season, Mr. Girardi said he got the sense that this team might be different. “There was closeness that developed on the pitching staff,” Mr. Girardi said. Shortly after spring training began, Mr. Girardi noticed that Mr. Burnett was taking several of the other pitchers on outings in the afternoons and evenings. Mr. Sabathia was taking teammates to Orlando Magic games. “Just seeing these guys through the first couple weeks in the spring, I knew it was going to be a real laid-back and relaxed atmosphere,” he said.
As the season began, despite the pressure of christening the new Yankee Stadium—and the distraction of a steroids scandal involving Mr. Rodriguez—the light mood prevailed. On May 15, after beating the Twins with a two-out, walk-off single, Melky Cabrera was getting ready for a postgame TV interview when Mr. Burnett snuck up behind him and smeared a towel full of whipped cream on his face. Two days later, after three consecutive walk-off wins, that day’s hero, Johnny Damon, was so worried about getting a pie that Mr. Burnett had to sneak up on him by hiding behind a teammate. “A.J. has been a big part of the looseness of the clubhouse,” Mr. Girardi said. “His attitude is great. He brings a lot of energy every day.”
That’s all well and good, right? But when it comes down it, the Yankees won this year because they hit .283/.362/.478 with a franchise-record 244 home runs as their pitchers put up a 4.28 ERA and led the AL in strike outs. I’m often skeptical of the narrative that fun leads to winning. Generally, as I’ve learned from the teams I’ve been on, winning leads to fun and not the other way around. I’ve been on bad teams that have fun, but my teammates on the good ones always got along better.
What if, though, there is some truth to the theory that players perform better when they are more or less relaxed? The Journal reporters took a look at some of the sports psychology studies on the make up of athletes and found some support for the belief that players having fun perform better:
Research shows that heightened anxiety causes athletes’ muscles to tighten and decreases their mental focus. “The classic example is when someone freezes from stress,” said Daniel Gould, a sports-psychology professor at Michigan State and co-author of “Understanding Psychological Preparation for Sport: Theory and Practice of Elite Performers.” “In sports, you don’t see people freeze, but an athlete that’s a little tight might miss the plate by a hair.”
Not all athletes play their best when they’re relaxed. “It’s like each of us has our own temperature we perform best at,” Prof. Gould said, “and you have a thermostat. You learn to psych yourself up if you’re not up enough, and you learn how to cool off a little if you’re too hot.” But for the most part, psychologists say, professional athletes need to keep stress levels down. “Having a relaxed clubhouse is good,” Mr. Gould said.
So there you have it. Conclusive proof that some players perform better when relaxed and some do not. I enjoy seeing the Yankees have fun because I have more fun. We all love watching Burnett — Mr. Burnett — pie another teammate. In the end, though, the Yanks have won 108 games this year because they are a very good team, relaxed clubhouse or not.
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That’s all well and good, right? But when it comes down it, the Yankees won this year because they hit .283/.362/.478 with a franchise-record 244 home runs as their pitchers put up a 4.28 ERA and led the AL in strike outs. I’m often skeptical of the narrative that fun leads to winning. Generally, as I’ve learned from the teams I’ve been on, winning leads to fun and not the other way around.
As a physician and an undergrad psychology major, I believe it is not one or the other, it’s both. Positive attitudes promote success on the field, and success on the field promotes positive attitudes.
The skepticism towards the view that “chemistry” helps you win really puzzles me. As the referenced WSJ article points out, Girardi observed the positive attitude and chemistry before the regular season even began, before there was any “success” there to feed the good attitude. And didn’t they also describe the highly successful Yankee teams of seasons like 2005 as grim, robotic professionals, like “pall bearers?” Why didn’t the success of all those teams make them as happy-go-lucky as the 2009 team?
Just look at your own life, your own job, or your relationship with your family. If your husband or wife is really nice to you and compliments you, or gives you a gift, doesn’t that boost your mood and put you in a better frame of mind for work? If you are troubled by something happening in your family (an illness, a child struggling in school, etc.), isn’t it harder to work effectively? Doesn’t your attitude towards work, your enthusiasm, your focus vary from day to day, often in accordance with your mood?
If you are in a clubhouse where there is a positive attitude, where there is spontaneous laughter, a sense of comraderie, security, most people are going to respond favorably to that.
Can chemistry make up for lousy skills? Of course not. But maybe it can turn a 90 win team into a 100 win team, if it keeps everyone loose and focused more.
I think the major issue is the inability to quantify. These kinds of things vary from person to person, and team to team.
The ’77 & ’78 Yanks were at each others throats, along with those of management & ownership, yet they were quite successful.
Correct me if I’m wrong, anyone, but it seems that many common conceptions about baseball are simply false. Many observations are flawed and incomplete, yet opinions are based around them. *I saw with my eyes meme…*
This frustrates people that take the time to actually peruse statistics & consider data patterns that would otherwise be invisible, giving these folks a bit of a more sophisticated viewpoint from which to view the game.
Now I also see this heightened awareness cause contempt for those who don’t seek this extra level of comprehension, and extra for those who outright dismiss it based on some sort of dogmatic ignorance. *Stat-geeks in their mom’s basement can’t tell me…etc… meme*
Now, we’ve got all kinds of tools for quantifying the previously unquantifiable, so many “intangibles” are suddenly tangible. Exact data on pitch locations, velocities & movements I think are a prime example. Even the most keen-eyed pitching coach 50 years ago wouldn’t be able to make as informed decisions as the pitching coaches when video analysis came into play, who in turn couldn’t have the same informational edge as a pitching coach today who studies PitchF/X or the like.
But all this is to say…I think chemistry is an intangible, albeit an important one, and informed people are less likely to try & base their opinions off of intangibles than they used to be.
Just trying to offer my opinion on the skepticism. I agree with you though, it sure seems like they were having more fun than they have in years before the season, and well, it sure as hell has been the most fun season to watch in a while!
But all this is to say…I think chemistry is an intangible, albeit an important one, and informed people are less likely to try & base their opinions off of intangibles than they used to be.
I’d make a distinction between an “intangible” and something which by nature cannot be quantified. To me, what is often lumped as “intangible” in baseball are in fact tangible things, they simply require different or better methods of observation to discover. Basically, sabermetrics has debunked alot of old school thinking, including many “intangibles,” but has replaced them with more “tangibles.”
As you say, there can be little doubt that mood or emotion affects performance, but the relevant issue is the degree to which it matters. Most of us would agree, it won’t turn a 60 win team into a 90 win team. 90 wins to 95? Sure. But in between, it gets tougher to know.
But in my opinion, quantifying this phenomenon is not possible, because you can’t adequately quantify emotion, certainly not on a night by night basis for an entire baseball team or league.
I would agree with you that people are going to focus more on tangibles than intangibles, but something like the mood of a team and clubhouse chemistry I would call pretty significant. It may be #15 on a list, behind a number of tangible, performance-based things, but clubhouse mood means alot more than some sort of psycho-babble about a player who “knows how to win” or some similar crap.
Well, here’s hoping we get 2 more wins so we can have more fun with the celebration, which might help us for the WS.
I know there’s the book “The Secret” out there but there’s another one “Excuse Me Your Life Is Waiting” where it talks about in depth how positive energy breeds positive results…and vice versa…negative energy breeds negative results.
I know this is a little “out there” but it’s something to at least think about. I’m skeptical of it myself…but I’ve always been one to keep an open mind so who knows.
That being said…it’s always easier to have fun when you’re winning or ALREADY having fun or feeling good. If you get into a car accident on your birthday…it’s kind of hard to enjoy it. If you win an award at work on your birthday…you enjoy the party that much more…
The key to the whole thing is, you need to hit a walk off to WIN THE GAME, then you can pie people in the face and have a grand ol time.
You don’t pie a guy in the face right while he is in the on deck circle with the bases loaded and two out in the bottom of the ninth in order to loosen him up for the big at bat. You pie him after he gets the hit and wins.
In other words, no wins, no face pies, no fun.
You know I’d like to see that. AJ needs to go pie the on-deck guy if we’re feeling cocky. It might rattle the opposing pitcher.
If AJ pies Melky in the face in the on deck circle before his next big at-bat, and Melky then delivers a big hit, I will have to say that maybe pies in the face really are the answer.
According to Fangraphs, the pie led the league in WAR.
/noMaas’d
hahah
The point is not the pie in the face as a literal thing. It’s the fact that the team gets along with one another such that these symbolic gestures develop. It’s part of being in a group, a team….you create rituals and ceremonies to make things memorable, to show unity, etc. Can you see Randy Johnson running out and slapping Raul Mondesi with a towel full of shaving cream?
I think that liking the other guys on the team probably has a small impact. I think what has a much larger impact is acquiring better players. When everyone around you is talented and performing at a high level, it encourages you to do the same. Guys end up trying to one up each other, as opposed to David Wright this year, where everyone on the team was about minor league quality, and it is tough to keep up the mental toughness for an entire season. If you feel like you have to carry a talentless team, it can strain on you. When you have to worry about keeping your productivity up to your teammates level, it can drive you.
Most of it is just having a lot of good players.
I like your point about trying to keep up with your teammates production level. This is something psychological, and while you correctly distinguish it from something touchy-feely like “comraderie” or “man love,” it is still a mental-emotional thing, peer pressure, ego, whatever, as a motivation.
I may be misreading you, but you still seem skeptical of the idea that being happy can have an impact on performance. While you didn’t do this, many who believe as I think you do will often point to hard stats as part of their refutation of the “chemistry” argument. They’ll say “yeah, the .280/.340/.450 line will build lots of chemistry.” In other words, people put down the chemistry argument by exclusion.
Can ANYone offer something about the chemistry argument per se that refutes it, or weakens it, rather than just saying “the numbers are more important”?
I’d love to hear it, because one of the things I see as a sad development in baseball discussions in recent years is that the explosion of statistics has snuffed out or marginalized the discussion of anything non-quantitative.
I know you can’t give me a quantitative refutation of the concept of team chemistry. What I want is someone who thinks it’s silly or overrated to say why, not just dismiss it and point to something else. That the level of production of a team, coming from the quality of players, is the most important element of winning is not in dispute. What is interesting is to wonder how much the level of production of athletes might be changed by mental and emotional factors.
Let us take the Cleveland Cavaliers as an example. By all the same measures that the Yanks have been considered a great “chemistry” team, so have the Cleveland Cavaliers. The team celebrations, all the media attention they were getting for their chemistry, all the guys saying how much they loved each other, and even youtube shoe commercials together. But at the end of the day, they did not have anyone to guard Dwight Howard one on one, so they lost. And then the Lakers, with the universally reviled Kobe Bryant, won the championship. The Lakers had better team chemistry on the court, but they did not have a good time with each other and mess around like the Cavs.
The Cavs have now brought in Shaq. A risky chemistry move considered his outsized personality. But it was a move they had to make because they just needed better players.
Then you had all the Shaq, Kobe championships when they hated each other and Kobe and Phil Jackson hated each other.
So the Cavs are an example of a great chemistry team with maybe the best basketball player ever in LeBron James, but they lost because they just did not have good enough players around LeBron.
The Lakers hated each other and won despite that fact because they were the most talented team in the league.
And finally, (sorry about all the different response boxes), basketball is a sport where team chemistry would probably be considered more important than in an individual sport like baseball.
On an individual level. Do you think Michael Jordan needed to be friendly with his teammates to perform at his peak level? Does Kobe try less when his teammates don’t like him and he openly asks for guys like Andrew Bynum to be traded?
Did Hanley Ramirez struggle when Uggla called him out for only caring about his own stats? no
Brandon Marshall was almost kicked off the team, but instead of checking out, he came back and worked and is playing great right now. Then it is hugs all around.
TO hated every QB he has ever played with, and the QB’s hated him, yet he and his QB usually put up excellent stats, minus this year.
On May 15, after beating the Twins with a two-out, walk-off single, Melky Cabrera was getting ready for a postgame TV interview when Mr. Burnett snuck up behind him and smeared a towel full of whipped cream on his face.
Shouldn’t that be “Mr. Cabrera”?
mr. daytona is correct
/new york times style guide’d
My father is Mr. Daytona. Call me Sunny.
So someone named Andy is inside you?
…………
Minorities don’t get a Mr.
First name on first reference; title thereafter. So the next time he comes up, he’s Mr. Cabrera.
You are correct Mr. Kabak.
Right, who can forget that bunch of fun-loving misfits, the 1996-2000 Yankees. Full of lovable, gregarious characters like Roger Clemens and Bernie Williams. Clearly, the dynasty years were grounded in the players’ ability to have a good time.
I give up. Chemistry means nothing. Your statement proves it.
[Logic lesson: the fact that you win with a bunch of jerky guys, or that a team of fun loving clowns loses, does NOT prove that team chemistry doesn't matter.]
Chemistry might help a team win. I don’t know.
I just thought it funny that the greatest Yankee teams of my lifetime had no apparent chemistry. From the outside it was a bland group that let its play do the talking. Everyone just did their business and won, as exemplified by the “We Play Today, We Win Today, Das It” motto. There were no pies or Swisher types, yet they played great baseball.
Thanks. Sorry if I came off snarky and school teacher-ish. In response to your example, I’d suggest that there are different types of team chemistry that might be motivational. Maybe it depends on the dominant personalities in the clubhouse, the attitudes of the leaders. Chemistry as I’d define it would mean an atmosphere wherein the members of the team feel comfortable, at ease, and capable of playing their best. Maybe sometimes it’s quiet, other times noisy.
You know, I’ve thought about this since the season ended, even if the Yanks don’t make it to the series, or make it to the series and lose, I will still call this one of my all time favorite teams. As opposed to the last couple of years, it had been a lot of fun watching these guys play and I just hope they can keep it up next season.
i love this argument because it can never be answered one way or another
i lived in philadelphia from 1976-1981. the phillies made the playoffs in 76/77/78 and lost, they made the playoffs in 80 and won. they won in 80 because bob boone fisted (chip carey’d) a little nubber at precisely the spot where nolan ryan would bobble it instead of turning it into a double play and del unser hit a ground ball that hit a pepple and bounced over the first baseman’s head. that series was won by inches (literally) yet people in philadelphia still talk about the grit and heart of the 80 team in contrast to the country club chokers of 76-78.
mike schmidt said this after they won the series: “a couple of hits give us all that character”
a couple of hits GAVE us all that character
Sure, the super-serious trio of Jorge Posada, Derek Jeter and, yes, Alex Rodriguez
I would of loved it if you put super-serial.
Hmmm, Matsui in addition to those guys are the only ones having postseason success so far. They are all serious. All of those other loose guys (except Damon has just about come around) are struggling. So having fun creates losing.
/making nothing out of nothing
I think CC and AJ are having pretty good postseasons so far.
But for the most part, psychologists say, professional athletes need to keep stress levels down. “Having a relaxed clubhouse is good,” Mr. Gould said.
So there you have it. Conclusive proof that some players perform better when relaxed and some do not.
Interesting that these two lines follow each other. It would seem that there is conclusive proof that most athletes perform better when relaxed.
Personally I like this “Mister” business. I think all RAB articles should follow that style. Here’s hoping that Mr. Sabathia pitches a gem tonight, and is picked up by key hits delivered by Mr. Jeter, Mr. Rodriguez, and Mr. Matsui. And, of course, we are all looking for Mr. Sabathia’s fine performance to culminate with a save by Mr. Rivera.
Mr. Rivera = Mr. God? Once you call acknowledge someone is God, is it possible to show any more respect by throwing the title in front of it?
The Honorable Mr. God?
His Highness Mr. God?
Meanwhile…I think Nick Swisher just struck out again on another curveball.
Or was that Mark Teixeira? I can’t tell.
Could have been Melky.
I believe strongly that the effects of being relaxed are, while incalculable, at least palpable in relation to performance. I do not, however, believe that the “getting along with your teammates” factor breeds a higher level of performance, and certainly don’t believe that people who aren’t all chummy w/ their teammates can’t perform at their highest level.
For example: my senior year of H.S. I had pretty severe depression, that probably troughed during baseball season. Yet, baseball performance-wise, it was the best year of my life. Like I said, I had no problems with any of my teammates, but I certainly didn’t feel any comraderie. And it wasn’t like baseball was my “chance to get away from it all” or something like that – I absolutely HATED being there, even though I absolutely love baseball.
Maybe this is an outlier, but it just seems unlikely to me that anybody, regardless of how much fun they have off the field, is going to be affected while at the plate or on the mound.