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Thinking about the Yankees’ numbers
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As Spring Training nears, the Yankees’ numbers are slowly talking center stage. Now, I’m not talking about wOBA, UZR or other intriguing numbers. Rather, I’m talking about those numbers on the backs of all of the players’ jerseys. As the old concessionaire’s saying goes, you can’t tell the players without a scorecard, and the Yankees are seemingly running out of numbers.
On Monday afternoon, Ed Price on Tweeter noted how the Yankees are pushing it numerically this spring. With their 40-man roster and 20 invitees, the team will have 60 players in camp, and a whole slew of coaches who need uniform numbers too. Last year, with 64 players in camp, the highest number on the field in Tampa was Kanekoa Teixeira’s 94. This year, the Yanks will again push toward 90.
This problem of numbers — if we can call it a problem — is generally a March-only issue. In recent years, the Yanks have had just two players sport numbers in the 90s range. Brian Bruney donned 99 for a spell in an effort to find some numerically-inspired consistency while Alfredo Aceves has embraced number 91 to honor Dennis Rodman. In 1952, Charlie Keller wore 99 for a spell as well, but when the rosters are pared, most players break camp with numbers at 55 or lower.
Why then are the Yanks heading to Tampa ready to dole out numbers more fit for linebackers and offensive linemen than baseball players? For the Bombers, it is one of nostalgia and historical recognition mixed with some recent stubbornness on behalf of the team and its fans. The Yankees, as we know, have retired 15 numbers — including Jackie Robinson’s and eventually Mariano Rivera’s 42 — for historical and political purposes. Does Phil Rizzuto’s number 10 need to be shelved? What of Billy Martin’s 1? Ron Guidry’s 49, hung up in Monument Park to lure him back to the team as a pitching coach? Reggie Jackson’s 44?
And then, the Yankees have those numbers than sit in limbo. Joe Torre’s number 6 will remain reserved for a future reconciliation. Bernie Williams’ 51 has been unissued since Bernie didn’t retire after the 2006 season. And who could forget the uproar over the Yanks’ willingness to issue 21 to LaTroy Hawkins for a few weeks? O’Neill might have been the 41st Yankee to don that one, but in the collective mind of the fans, it belongs only to him.
Eventually, the Yankees will have to hang up a few more numbers. Rivera’s 42, already on ice due to the league-wide retirement of it, will earn a place in Monument Park. Derek Jeter’s number 2 will never see another player, and if we want to get overly sentimental Andy Pettitte’s 46, Jorge Posada’s 20 and maybe even A-Rod’s 13, depending upon his career accomplishments, might wind up unused forevermore.
So at some point, the Yankees will run out of single-digit numbers to hand out. They’ll have to break that triple-digit barrier unless they do what the White Sox have done and unretire some numbers. Omar Vizquel will wear Luis Aparacio’s number 11 with the Hall of Famer’s permission, and the Yanks, a team that has, in the Steinbrenner era, put its history on a golden pedestal, may need to unretire some respectable numbers. The fans too may have to let go or else we will be cheering on future greats wearing awkwardly large numbers on their uniforms.
Above: Bernie Williams’ 51 remains in limbo. (AP Photo/Ed Betz)
For your consideration: Gary Sheffield
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If the 2010 season were to start today, the Yankees’ bench would be thin on both power threats and right-handed hitters. Eric Hinske, a lefty, has departed for Atlanta, and the bench will feature some combination of Randy Winn, Francisco Cervelli, Ramiro Peña, Jamie Hoffmann and Brett Gardner. If Winn is the most feared bat off the bench, opposing pitchers will yearn to face those pinch hitters.
One player is still out there, though, who could give the Yanks some pop off the bench. As I was browsing MLB Trade Rumors’ unsigned All Star team post this morning, my eye wandered to the honorable mentions where Gary Sheffield’s name stuck out. Other than Johnny Damon, Sheffield is the biggest power threat among those still looking for a job, and I wonder if the Yanks would consider a reunion. It would behoove the team to do so.
For many, just a mention of Gary Sheffield’s name is enough to raise some eyebrows. The notoriously outspoken player left the Yankees in a huff when he was traded for not much of anything following the 2006 season. Although his teammates liked him, he and Joe Torre had a rocky relationship, and Sheffield seemed to think he always deserved more than he got. Yet, he could mash along with the rest of them. During his three seasons on the Yanks, he hit .291/.383/.515 with 76 home runs and 269 RBIs.
Yet, Sheffield put up those numbers nearly half a decade when he was obviously much younger than he is today. The upcoming 2010 season will be his age 41 year, and that lethal bat with that intimidating waggle has slowed down a bit. It hasn’t, however, slowed down as much as one might think. Last year, in part-time duty with the Mets, Sheffield hit .276/.372/.451. His wOBA was a very respectable .359, and he can still get on base and hit for power. Offering Sheffield a $1-$2 million take-it-or-leave-it deal wouldn’t be a waste of money, and landing him for a minor league deal with a Spring Training invite would be even better.
There are, of course, some red flags, and Steve at TYU addressed them a few weeks ago when he advocated for a Gardner/Sheffield outfield platoon. First, the idea that Sheffield should do anything other than pinch hit or DH should be off the table. His defense — never great in the first place — has been abysmal of late. In 46 games in left for the Mets, he had a -11.6 UZR. Second, as Steve noted, Sheffield wanted to be an every-day player last year. Would he embrace a bench role? At age 41, if he wants to stay healthy and keep playing, he has to.
For the 2010 Yankees as they are currently constructed, a dearth of right-handed bench threats remains one of the team’s last spots of weakness. Brian Cashman could do far worse than Sheffield if he’s looking to fill it. Whether both sides could overcome their past differences and work out a deal remains to be seen, but it’s worth a shot.
Above: Gary Sheffield waits to bat during his 2006 rehab assignment in Trenton. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Waiting for it to start
Posted by: | CommentsLater today, the Colts and Saints will stand around a coin as it spins through the air to determine who will receive and who will kick to start Super Bowl XLIV. Three and a half hours, the game will be over, and then, we wait. We wait for pitchers and catchers; we wait for position players; we wait for games; we wait for Opening Day.
For baseball fans, the month of February is something akin to torture. When the Super Bowl ends and all that the sports world has to offer are some mid-season NBA and NHL games with the promise of March Madness on the horizon, baseball fans idle away their hours waiting for something to happen. It’s a blissful day when pitchers and catchers report, but it also means a lull in news stories. The rumors are done flying, and team rosters are largely set. During those days, pitcher fielding practice is as compelling for fans as it is for pitchers.
Yet, Super Bowl Sunday for me has always been a ray of hope. It’s last gasp of winter before the promise of spring. We might have to wait for something to happen, but baseball is the next big thing for the sports world. The waiting is almost over.
This year, for the Yankees, Spring Training and the eventual regular season are a bit more exciting. The team, after all, is the cream of the crop, the king of the hill. They won the World Series and are the target of, well, everyone else. The AL has retooled with the Yanks in mind, and the Phillies are raring for a late-October rematch.
As the upcoming season unfolds, we’ll see the same milestones — Opening Day, Yankees-Red Sox games, the All Star Break, the trading deadline. But we’ll see some new ones too. We’ll see the Yankees get their rings, supposedly on April 13. We’ll see Joe Girardi take his team to Los Angeles for a reunion with another Joe who used to helm the club. We’ll see the new-look Mariners, the new-look Red Sox and the new-look Angels come to town. We’ll see old friends in new uniforms and new friends in pinstripes come to town. It is all the promise of a new season.
So today, we sit and wait for football. We’ll cheer on the Saints or the Colts, Drew Brees or Peyton Manning. We’ll watch a good game; we’ll check out the overhyped commercials; we’ll see the football season draw to a close. And then we’ll sit and wait for baseball. We’ll wait for Florida, for Arizona, for the first games of the spring, for the first pitch of the season. We’re almost there, and while this cold settles in to muzzle the East Coast and baseball seems far away, it’s just around the corner. I couldn’t be more ready.
To Babe on his 115th birthday
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For George Herman Ruth’s legend, the last few years have been trying ones. He lost his curse in 2004, and then he lost his home after the 2008 season. Even though few baseball fans alive today can remember watching Ruth play, he still looms large over baseball history, and his larger-than-life persona looms large over the game today.
Sitting here in 2010 when players routinely smack 40 or 50 home runs a year, it’s hard to appreciate what Ruth meant and did for the game in the 1920s. His stats, even today, are incredible. He hit .342/.474/.690. Only one player has trumped his career on-base percentage, and his career slugging record outpaces the field by nearly .060 points. Albert Pujols, the top of hitter of the modern day, has slugged .628 so far, and the Babe is far, far away.
What makes Ruth stand out, though, aren’t the impressive career numbers; it’s just how far above his peers he towered. His career adjusted OPS+ was 207. When he hit 54 home runs in 1920, no other team as a whole had more than 50. The list of accomplishments just goes on and on and on. Ruth redefined baseball. He became a superstar and an icon of the game in an era of small ball.
Ruth’s 1920 season — his .376/.533/.849 year with 54 home runs — couldn’t have come at a better time for the game. As the year unfolded, the 1919 White Sox were investigated for fixing the World Series, and the fallout rocked the baseball world. The following year’s trial was just as damaging but along came Ruth. For those two years, he single-handed wowed the baseball world, and few have approached what he’s done. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa may have helped drive fans back to baseball after the 1994 strike, but Ruth invented that game while driving a scandal from the headlines. A quick glance at The Times’ archives highlights the Ruthian love, and it’s clear how he acquired his sultanship over the land of Swat.
Beyond the hitting, though, was Ruth’s pitching. Today, we forget about Babe Ruth the left-handed pitcher, but he was a top pitcher too. From 1915-1918, he served the Red Sox primarily as a starter and went 78-40 with a 2.05 ERA. His strike out and walk rates were not impressive, but he served up 0.1 home runs per 9 innings pitched. That’s an inconceivably low number today. Even the great Mariano, the active leader in that category, has allowed 0.495 home runs per 9 IP.
And so today, we salute the Babe. One hundred fifteen years ago, George was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He was the best, the Great Bambino, the Sultan of Swat.
Sowing some pinstripes seeds in a far-off land
Posted by: | CommentsFor your Saturday morning reading pleasures: The Yankees go to China. Late last month, as part of baseball’s effort to penetrate the Chinese market and the Yanks’ effort to spread their franchise globally, team officials headed across the Pacific for a trip to the Far East, and Xiyun Yang of The Times’ China bureau tagged along for some of the trip. Her article is an interesting one because it captures China’s approach toward sports in a rather intriguing light. Despite the billions of people who live in China, only four million play the game there, and to most, it remains a mystery.
Still, Randy Levin and Brian Cashman dragged the World Series trophy with them to drum up interest in the sport and for good reason. As Yang notes, baseball is looking for its Yao Ming, its big Chinese superstar who will open up a very large and lucrative market. The team that finds this player will stand to benefit for years. Most of the youngsters Yang talked to seem to be rather mystified by the game, but all it will take is one person to tip the country. If that means a trip to a nation more focused on Ping Pong, badminton and the NBA than the every move of Johnny Damon, that’s just the price to be.
Hank speaketh and Derek benefiteth
Posted by: | CommentsSince Hank Steinbrenner outbid himself for the services of Alex Rodriguez, the Yanks’ General Partner has been generally silent. He hasn’t tried to erupt at the media, and his brother Hal has emerged as the public face of the franchise. Still, now and then, Hank speaks, and we cringe a bit. Yesterday, that’s exactly what happened.
In an interview with AP on Thursday, Hank spoke generally about the Yankees. He thinks the Yanks are going to repeat; he likes the additions of Nick Johnson and Javier Vazquez; yadda, yadda, yadda. They are the typical comments of a General Partner on the eve of Spring Training.
One thing that Hank said bears a little bit of scrutiny, though. When asked about Derek Jeter’s impossible-to-ignore pending free agency, Hank had a few words to share. “We’ll get into all of that eventually,” Steinbrenner told AP. “Jeter’s place in Yankee history is obvious, so I think you can pretty much assume from there.”
Ah, yes, let’s make some assumptions based upon what Derek Jeter has done over the course of his career. We knew this was coming, and Jeter probably deserves the payday that awaits him. However, it’s tough for the Yankees on a budget to justify this future expenditure to such an extreme degree.
Once or twice this winter, we’ve looked at Derek Jeter’s career and his contract status. We saw him win a fifth World Series ring, and we heard false rumors of an impending three-year extension. We know that Derek Jeter is a shortstop with a career OPS+ of 121 and a batting line of .317/.388/.459 who sits on the edge of 3000 hits. He will get paid.
When Johnny Damon and the Yankees seemingly finalized their divorce, Damon spoke about how he hopes the Yanks don’t treat Jeter the same way they treated him. Of course, that was a bit of hyperbole on Damon’s behalf because the Yanks were never attached to Damon the same way they are connected to Jeter. They won’t throw out Jeter with the bathwater as they did Damon. He will get his due.
The bigger question right now isn’t an “if”; it’s a “should.” The Yankees have millions of dollars committed to Alex Rodriguez, CC Sabathia, and Mark Teixeira. The latter two make up a core of players at the right age playing out their peak years with the Yankees, and A-Rod, while older than we’d like, is still a great player. Now they have to figure out how to approach the old guard as Jeter and Mariano Rivera will be without contracts in 10 months, with Jorge Posada following a year later.
We know that the Yankees will reward these players. We know the team will spend what it takes to keep them around. We know the trio will see the dollars flow their way when the time comes. But the Yankees, as with any other business, operate with a business and with a goal in mind. Does signing Derek Jeter to an above-market deal make sense in that regard? Probably not. Yet, he will get paid. After all, Hank said so.
FOX set to air seven Yankee games in ‘10
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The good folks at FOX have released their 2010 slate of baseball games, and for Yankee fans who have no desire to hear more of Tim McCarver and Joe Buck than is necessary, the news is not comforting. The Yankees will appear on FOX seven times this season, and two of those games will be dreaded Saturday night baseball games. I can think of few people with whom I would rather not spend my Saturday night than McCarver and Buck.
“We’ve been thinking about taking a few of our afternoon dates to prime time dates for quite some time now, and this season’s schedule is so strong that the time seemed right,” FOX Sports President Ed Goren said in a press release. “There is still no platform that has the reach of prime time broadcast television.”
I personally can’t stand Saturday night baseball games. Especially during the summer months, baseball is a game meant to be played during the day on weekends under the bright sun and a blue sky. Maybe that’s the romantic baseball nostalgia in me talking, but I’d rather spend my weekend days watching games and my weekend nights doing something else entirely. As always, baseball has put itself and its game start times at the mercy of its TV partners.
Anyway, mini-rant aside, these are your Yankees games set to appear on FOX this year. All games are on Saturdays and start at 4:05 p.m. unless otherwise noted: April 10 @ Tampa Bay (3:05 p.m.); April 24 @ Angels; May 8 at Boston (3:05 p.m.); May 22 @ Mets (7:05 p.m.); June 26 @ Dodgers (7:05 p.m.); July 17 vs. Tampa Bay; and August 7 vs. Boston. The full MLB on FOX schedule can be found right here.
An old storyline for a new season
Posted by: | CommentsIn two weeks, everything old will be new again. Pitchers and catchers will make their ways down to Tampa or Arizona. They’ll run; they’ll throw; they’ll have pitchers’ fielding practice; and everyone will champion the return of baseball for yet another year of America’s Pastime.
For many, Spring Training is the time to rehash old story lines. This player vows to have a better year. That player is in the best shape of his life. This team feels its their year. You know the drill. For the Yankees, Spring Training means … Joba Chamberlain Drama! Who would have guessed?
As we all know, Joba has been subjected to more hand-wringing over his development over the last three years than any pitcher should be. He come up to the Majors in 2007 when the Yankees were in desperate need of bullpen help, and because Joe Torre could not be trusted with his relievers, the Yanks instituted Joba Rules. Then, as they transitioned him into a starting role in 2008, they adjusted the Rules to fit an innings limit. Then, in 2009, when Joba still had to pitch to an innings limit and be ready for post-season service, the Yanks tried to cap his innings in August.
Throughout this approach, Joba’s numbers suffered. An ace starter in college and the Minors, he started out strong in 2007 and carried that through to August 2008 when he suffered a shoulder injury in Texas. For reasons never discussed — was he injured? did he change his mechanics? — Joba in 2009 never regained the velocity he had a starter in 2008. He struggled through a sub-par 2009, going 9-6 with a 4.75 ERA and just 133 strike outs in 157.1 innings pitched. His walks were up; his home run totals were; his effectiveness was down.
In the postseason, though, Joba seemingly rediscovered his form. He threw 6.1 innings over 10 games, struck out 7 and allowed just a pair of runs. He walked just one, and although opponents hit an ugly .333/.345/.630 against him in a very limited sample size, he seemed more aggressive on the mound. As many — including one who shall remain nameless — have assumed today, Joba isn’t guaranteed anything for 2010. He’ll face competition for the fifth starter spot, and many still would prefer to see the Yanks waste a live arm on some mythical game where the eighth inning is more important than the previous seven frames.
Joba, though, and the Yanks will have none of that for now. Chamberlain spoke yesterday with reporters and said all the right things. He won’t be on an innings limit in 2010, and he is set to fight for his starting job coming out of the gate. “It’s something that’s going to be a battle,” Chamberlain said. “The greatest part about it is it’s not only going to make guys fight for that No. 5 spot, but it’s going to make our team better. We’re going to push each other and continue to try to outwork each other. That’s the greatest part about this game; not only do you push one another to do better, but the team is going to be better for it. Whatever happens, happens. I hope they’re ready because I worked my tail off to get where I’m at and I hope they do the same.”
The Yanks’ brass have been committed to Joba as a starter, but the team is prepared to push him in Spring Training too. “We’ll put the best guy that we feel can fill that spot and give us the best chance to win,” Joe Girardi said. Does Sergio Mitre really fit that bill?
The Yanks will head to Tampa with Alfredo Aceves, Sergio Mitre and Chad Gaudin as possible starters, but Joba’s real competition is Phil Hughes. The Yanks’ other live arm emerged as the team’s primary set-up man last summer and would be all but guaranteed a rotation spot had the team not traded for Javier Vazquez. As it stands, one of those two will emerge as the front-runner for the spot, and as Hughes faces an innings limit, Joba has a leg up. Nothing is guaranteed, though, and Joba knows it. The loser of this fight will probably head to the pen until someone in the rotation gets hurt. For the Yankees, that’s a comforting luxury to have.
The illusion of parity
Posted by: | CommentsDid you know that, during the last decade, all but seven teams reached the playoffs? And did you further know, that during the 2000s, 19 of baseball’s 30 teams reached the playoffs more than once? Never mind the fact that eight of 30 teams make the playoffs every year; that’s parity!
Or at least it is if you’re ESPN’s Senior Editor David Schoenfield. In the companion piece to his crazy realignment scheme, Schoenfield spent yesterday’s Hot Stove U. column writing about parity in baseball. Schoenfield starts with the proposition that baseball has a competitive balance equal to or greater than that of the NFL, and then he finds some proof.
From the get-go, Schoenfield’s proof isn’t what we would call rigorous. Baseball enjoyed eight different World Series champs in the 00’s while football has seen six or maybe seven Super Bowl champions. “Baseball has more champions, nearly half of its 30 teams have reached the World Series, and more than two-thirds have played in a league championship series,” he writes. “The NFL totals are clearly similar.”
Schoenfield goes on and on about baseball’s maybe, not-quite-there competitive edge and even manages to talk about how money helps. He writes:
There is no denying that a correlation exists between payroll and success (good players, after all, generally cost more money). Check out the table below. Of the 10 teams that won the most games in the decade, six were in the top 10 in total payroll. Of course, payroll is not the sole determining factor in winning, as many pundits want you to believe. The Twins and A’s both made the playoffs five times in the decade, and the team that spent the smallest amount, the Marlins, won a World Series. And market size is not always a direct line to payroll. St. Louis plays in the 20th-largest market, smaller than Minneapolis, Denver, San Diego or Cleveland, and not much larger than Tampa or Pittsburgh. Of course, the Cardinals are often wrongly portrayed as a large-market franchise simply because they are successful.
Notice the number of times Schoenfield turns to the one-offs. Yes, the Marlins won the World Series, but they did so not with the lowest payroll but with the 20th lowest figure. They are an outlier and not even an unreasonable one at that. Media market size, meanwhile, doesn’t matter as much as Schoenfield would have you believe because baseball revenues are driven by in-stadium finances and reach. The Cardinals might play in the relatively small St. Louis, but their popularity and reach extend well beyond the borders of that Midwestern city.
Schoenfield is right about one thing here though: There is a correlation between money and winning. Take a look at this table reproduced from numbers the ESPN scribe provides:
The best-fit line returns an R-squared of 0.45. This suggests a fairly strong correlation, over the span of 10 years, between wins and money spent on payroll. It doesn’t imply causation, and money isn’t the only factor in winning. But in terms of an argument for parity, this graph one doesn’t help the cause. Outliers will win; small-market, low-payroll terms will get lucky now and then; but money will come out on top more often than not.
It’s easy, in the end, to link this to the Yankees. That mark in the upper right-hand corner — the one with more wins and more dollars spent than anyone else — represents the Yanks, and as the 2003 Marlins skew the data, so do the Yankees. Without them, the R-squared drops to 0.36, still a reasonably strong indication of correlation but one that definitely allows for other factors. Of course, with the Yanks making the playoffs nine out of ten times, that leaves just seven spots for the other 29 teams, and any edge can help.
So is there parity in baseball? I don’t think so, and I believe Schoenfield overstates his case. Money can still get you places. Whether that is a bad, though, is an entirely different question all together.
The visual analytical tools of Bloomberg Sports
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On a blustery, cold January day amidst a dry sports weekend, I spent my afternoon on the seventh floor of the Bloomberg News offices in midtown. With many familiar bloggers — the guys from Fack Youk, Jason from It’s All About the Money, numerous others — we were dazzled by the latest offering from the financial information giant. It is, as The Times reported a few months ago, a foray into the world of fantasy sports and baseball numbers.
The nitty-gritty is pretty straight forward. For $19.95, fantasy players can buy access to a pre-draft tool, and for $24.95, fans can access the in-season toolkit. For $31.95, a consumer gets both products, and all three options come with access to Bloomberg’s exclusive content headed by Jonah Keri and a team of writers to be announced later. But what are these tools?
For the most part, the subscription gives a fantasy baseball player access to a wealth of stats and rankings and a supposed leg up. The Bloomberg suits who spoke to us said they want this to become the “most compelling sports analysis tool around.”
The basic selling point is league integration along with statistical visualization. Take, for example, the image on the right. This chart takes Bloomberg’s typical demand vs. scarcity presentation and graphs it onto a chart showing MLB Tier vs. average draft position. For pre-draft analysis, information such as this is very helpful.
Beyond that, what we saw doesn’t offer up much original material right now. Bloomberg is using a proprietary B-Rank tool to establish player rankings, and it’s not yet clear how much this differs from anything Yahoo! Sports or ESPN put forward. The visuals look great, and the information — such as it appears this spider chart — is great for fantasy sports but lacking for other analytical abilities.
Where the product really excels, however, is in the pro version. David Appelman has photos from the presentation, and the spray charts, strike zone info and Pitch F/X analysis are where this tool emerges as something drool-worthy. On Fangraphs, take a look at the third photo of a pie chart. It’s Bloomberg’s traditional market returns chart grafted onto pitchers. The inner band features Chris Carpenter’s first pitch, and the outer bands show the progression of pitches. It enables us to see, for example, the odds of a slider after a first-pitch fastball.
Unfortunately, this pro tool — great for bloggers — is only available for teams. It’s part of the relationship between MLB.com and Bloomberg, and right now, Bloomberg is selling it so that only the 30 clubs can buy it. Authentication requires a Bloomberg terminal with the ability to read a biometric scanner. Maybe one day, the rest of us will have access to the parts that promise to be a gold mine of information.
In a few weeks, Joe and I will get our complimentary subscription to the fantasy tools, and we’ll have a more in-depth look at the offerings. For now, Bloomberg has developed a flashy — and Flash-based application — that can help fantasy owners in their drafts. If it can move beyond that initial offering to become the game-changer Dan Doctoroff and others told us about today, the financial giant stands to become a major player in the world of sports analysis. And, oh yeah, they give out sweet t-shirts.
For more images from the product, check out this gallery. I’m happy to answer any other questions about the screenshots anyone may have.
