Jun
28
Fan Confidence Poll: June 28th, 2010
ByRecord Last Week: 4-2 (33 RS, 34 RA)
Season Record: 47-28 (409 RS, 309 RA, 48-27 Pythag. record), two games up
Schedule This Week: Monday OFF, vs. Mariners (three games, Tues. to Thurs.), vs. Blue Jays (three games, Fri. to Sun.)
Top stories from last week:
- After their cross country flight, the Yankees were rudely welcomed to Arizona when the Diamondbacks played homerun derby with A.J. Burnett. The Yanks returned the favor the next night, then finished off an ugly series win when Mariano Rivera pitched out of a huge jam.
- Up next? A date with Joe Torre and the Dodgers. The final interleague series of 2010 started with Alex Rodriguez and CC Sabathia combining to beat L.A., but Burnett got smacked around again on Saturday. A dramatic comeback gave the Yankees the series win yesterday.
- The Yankees used Thursday’s off day to skip Phil Hughes‘ spot in the rotation as part of the plan to control his innings.
- Injury Zone: Brett Gardner left Sunday’s game with a bruised right forearm after getting hit by a pitch. Colin Curtis was recalled to deepen the Yanks’ bench during interleague play.
- Austin Romine and Hector Noesi will represent the Yankees at the Futures Game. Andrew Brackman has been promoted to Double-A Trenton.
- Pitching coach Dave Eiland will return from his personal leave of absence on Tuesday.
- The Mariners have been scouting the Yanks’ farm system, but the Yankees aren’t focusing on Cliff Lee right now.
- Derek Jeter was named USA WEEKEND’s 2010 Most Caring Athlete.
- Parks have begun opening in the Bronx in the wake of the New Yankee Stadium.
Please take a second to answer the poll below and give us an idea of how confident you are in the team. You can view the Fan Confidence Graph anytime via the nav bar above, or by clicking here. Thanks in advance for voting.
Given the team's current roster construction, farm system, management, etc., how confident are you in the Yankees' overall future?
- 10 (very confident)
- 9
- 8
- 7
- 6
- 5
- 4
- 3
- 2
- 1 (no confidence)
54 Comments»
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a million.
I give them a 0.4% chance of winning anything this year.
icwudt.
Injury Zone: Brett Gardner left Sunday’s game with a bruised right forearm after getting hit by a pitch.
They kept saying he was hit on the wrist and it was a wrist injury last night on ESPN. A bruised forearm is significantly better news…
up 1 from an 8 to a 9.
riding a high after last nite’s come from behind win and our top prospects had very good weeks.
Should your confidence be swayed by oppenents’ state of affairs? I mean the Sox have injuries, and the Rays have in-fighting.
I don’t see why not. If we were in a different division, confidence would be 11 every week.
The recent Sox injuries are very pleasing, in a “this is war!” sort of way.
We’ve certainly dealt with enough; now it’s their turn.
Staying at 7. Middle relief needs to improve and I’m not sold on Joba as the answer in the 8th. And then there’s Burnett-hopefully Eiland can get in his head and straighten him out,=.
Been 8 for a while. They’re winning games but a lot of them still haven’t rounded the bend so you have to wonder when that’s going to happen.
Pitching has been great. Sabathia has done a great job and even though he’s been a well known ace for a while now…his accomplishments thus far have taken a back seat to Pettitte and Hughes. AJ and Vazquez have been nothing more than forgettable thus far. And Burnett will go down in Yankee history as having the worst month ever (for a starting pitcher) in the history of the franchise.
AJ Burnett in June 2010
0-5, 23 IP, 11.35 ERA, 2.26 WHIP, 35 hits, 17 BB, 9 HR
To put just how bad this line is into perspective…
Chien-Ming Wang in June 2009
1-3, 22.2 IP, 6.35 ERA, 1.67 WHIP, 28 hits, 10 BB, 3 HR
And then having this display in the same season from another highly paid professional pitcher:
Javier Vazquez in April 2010
1-3, 20 IP, 9.00 ERA, 1.80 WHIP, 25 hits, 11 BB, 5 HR
Just awful. Pure awful.
But like I said, we’re stilling winning games…which is all that matters in the end.
David Cone in April 1998
27.2 IP, 7.16 ERA, 1.59 WHIP, 34 hits, 10 BB
Andy Pettitte in May 1998
35.1 IP, 7.64 ERA, 2.01 WHIP, 49 hits, 22 BB
Verdict: Who cares?
Those aren’t nearly as bad as Javy and AJ’s haha…I’m not harping on them but they’re pretty awful nonetheless.
I mean I still voted an 8. With those 2 awful months from 2 entirely separate pitchers, we’re still the best team in baseball.
Yeah, I’m just saying not even one of the best teams of all time had everyone at 100% efficiency all season. Shit happens, we’ll get over it.
AJ was historically awful in June. Like, nobody ever pitched a month that bad for the Yankees ever apparently. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with pointing out that he was very very bad and/or being concerned about him going forward.
Chien Ming Wang was much worse in April last year. Sure he probably didn’t meet an inning requirement, but he would’ve almost had to throw two perfect games to get his numbers down to AJ’s.
I’m not saying there’s nothing to be worried about, it just doesn’t help AJ’s case that this horrific 3 game stretch of 10.1 IP/19 ER finishes off a month with 2 bad, but not horrific starts (12.2 IP/10 ER). It’s bad but I don’t think it should detract all that much from how successful the team has been.
after 2 bad*, not with 2 bad
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with pointing out that he was very very bad and/or being concerned about him going forward.
Yes and no. Yes, you should point out how historically bad he’s been. No, you don’t need to be concerned about him going forward.
Even though he personally has never been this bad before, either he or the Yankee braintrust will figure out what he’s doing differently (if anything) and he’ll be back to his old mercurial, unpredictable, CG Shutout one day/3 inning stinkbomb the next AJ Burnett he’s always been.
Also, David Cone was 3-1 with those horrible numbers and Pettitte was 2-3.
That just proves how dumb wins are.
So what you’re saying is…AJ lacks tRA+
In middle school, as a pitcher, my ERA was regularly in the double digits. But you know what? I never lost a game.
WINS!
Nice going, guys. All three of us with the TP.
JMK for CYA!
It was a different era.
No way to compare it.
AJ and Vazquez have been nothing more than forgettable thus far.
Have you not been paying attention since like April or something?
AJ and Vazquez have been nothing more than forgettable thus far.
This isn’t an attack on you specifically, but a lot of people write stuff like this and I feel like commenting on it (for some reason).
If they were forgettable, wouldn’t you not know there stats/how poorly they pitched? They’ve pitched poorly, which is not forgettable. Forgettable is likely pitching average or slightly below something that has no reason to be memorable. Pitching horribly (or very good) is something you would (or at least I would) remember.
End rant.
It’s an expression. If it weren’t an expression…nobody would say anything is forgettable ever for the same kidns of reasons you’ve explained.
He knows it’s an expression. He’s saying you’re using it wrong.
The worst pitcher we’ve had in the past half decade, Sidney Ponson, he’s not forgettable; we remember him because he’s the worst. We forget the utility infielder who barely made a dent because he didn’t play much and wasn’t particularly good or particularly bad.
20 years from now, you’ll still probably remember Sidney Ponson more than you remember Alberto Gonzalez. Ponson is LESS forgettable because he was so bad (as Javy and AJ have been for monthlong stretches this season).
Bad ≠ forgettable
No, bad doesn’t equal forgettable…but it is much closer in relationship than good is to forgettable. You can say forgettable as an expression to “I’d like to forget about this…” due to whatever circumstances there are. I don’t know why anybody would say they would like to forget something good that happened.
Kind of like the opposite of saying “What an unforgettable night!” you could say “AJ Burnett and Javier Vazquez performances are forgettable thus far”. Not meaning “I definitely will be forgetting these performances”…but more of a “I would certainly like to forget these…” Because in the same breath, that unforgettable night could very well become forgotten somewhere down the line.
You can say forgettable as an expression to “I’d like to forget about this…”
No, you can’t. Because the unsaid second clause that come after the ellipsis in your quote is:
“I’d like to forget about this… but I can’t.”
Things that you’d like to forget aren’t “forgettable”, they’re unforgettable. You’d like to forget them but you aren’t able to, so they’re the exact opposite of unforgettable.
It’s all about the ability to forget the event. Notably good or notably bad events are less forgettable than events that fall in the middle, average, typical, normal range. That’s the way the human mind works.
In fact, your own comment betrays you.
Javier Vazquez pitched horribly in April. He’s not pitching horribly now. Do you know why you remember Javy’s awful April, enough to mention it in your comment?
Because you couldn’t forget it. It wasn’t forgettable. If it was forgettable, you would have forgotten it.
So when and if somebody says “What an unforgettable night!” would you patiently wait for the point that they might actually forget that night or would you tell them how they’re wrong right away? haha
“The grass is always greener on the other side” is an expression as well…but (literally) the grass isn’t always greener on the other side…so not only is it not always but it may in fact be less green as well…making this famous expression even worse I guess lol
Yeah, it’s cool. I know what you mean and knew what you meant (and actually didn’t notice it until I read it as a quote from bexarama’s reply). I know I’ve made the same mistake. For some reason, I was annoyed enough (misuse of stuff like this annoys me often) to comment on people using expression when there were probably more accurate ways to describe something.
No it’s understandable. It was confusing. I admit it.
My first ever 9, up from an 8. The Yankees continue to win in spite of sub-par season from the corners and AJ. Brackman & Laird are chewing up the minors and Montero starting to warm up. The Yankee’s overall future is rosy.
I’m excited for this Seattle series. Lee and Felix, bring it.
10, As always. Right now, even though the minor league system looks like this, it is operational.
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/P.....ij/ds2.jpg
Soon though, it will will look like this.
http://almostnot.files.wordpre.....thstar.jpg
All too easy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcL6DwSufMI
(the hole is Carmen Angelini)
…while rebuilding the economy in the process.
I own that t-shirt.
9 – have always been confident as to the big league team, but reading these DOTF’s and seeing some of those chips really starting to fall into place makes me even happier.
1000/10
8.6 – though sometimes they really do look like the worst team ever to have a two game lead in a division. But results are results and they are in first place by 2 games.
though sometimes they really do look like the worst team ever to have a two game lead in a division.
I get what you’re saying but wow. Remember when the 2006 Cardinals won the World Series?
Not every season can be as pretty (or easy, in the end) as 2009. As long as the results are there, I don’t care if the Yanks look a bit raggedy.
And let’s not pretend 2009 was 1998 either. It took until after the break, really, for the Yankees to get their crap together.
Not trying to discredit the 2009 team, they ruled. Just saying.
though sometimes they really do look like the worst team ever to have a two game lead in a division.
List of teams who have held a two-game lead in their division that have sometimes looked like the worst team to ever have a two game lead in a division:
All of them
[end of list]
That’s baseball, Susan.
For the present I am an 8.
However, when I think about Jesus being part of the lineup next year (whether to begin the season or later on), this confidence goes up to 11.
Also happened last week–A-rod hit three home runs
But teh hip! Teh steroids! Teh power outage!