C’mon Tex!!!
Game One Spillover Thread
ZOMG CC is teh bust!11!! Keep the convo going here folks.
Game One: Play Ball!
It’s like Christmas, but better.
After six long and occasionally torturous months, the Yankees will finally return to paying meaningful games today. The weather looked threatening at one point, but it’s cleared up a bit and it now looks like we’ll have baseball down in Baltimore. Praise be to Mo.
Your Opening Day starting nine:
Derek Jeter, SS
Johnny Damon, LF
Mark Teixeira, 1B
Hideki Matsui, DH
Jorge Posada, C
Robbie Cano, 2B
Xavier Nady, RF
Cody Ransom, 3B
Brett Gardner, CF
And on the mound, weighing in at $170,000,000, CC Sabathia.
Notes: Expect Tex to get the bejesus booed out of him … you can find out 2009 Predictions thread here … please considered participating in The 2009 RAB Pledge Drive to benefit Joe Torre’s Safe At Home Foundation if you haven’t already …
Fan Confidence Poll: April 6th, 2009
Last week was a pretty uneventful one for the Yanks. Well, unless you count the opening of their new gazillion dollar palace. Derek Jeter hit the first ball out of the park in batting practice, and the team opened the place with a win over the Cubbies in an exhibition game. More good news about the New Stadium: you can actually drink in the bleachers now! It’s not all happy times though, because we might never The Voice of God again.
Aside from opening the New Stadium, the team finalized it’s two remaining roster questions, taking Jon Albaladejo as the seventh reliever and Ramiro Pena as the utility infielder. The Pena move is somewhat significant because it reinforces the front office’s dedication to getting younger, more athletic, and better defensively. Joba Chamberlain put together two strong starts to close out his spring, but more importantly Jorge Posada has seen the light. Brett Gardner was also named the best rookie in camp.
A-Rod’s rehab from hip surgery continues to go well, and it looks like he might even be able to return in late April. Reegie Corona was returned by the Mariners, and Phil Hughes’s strong spring continued in his latest Triple-A outing. All is good in Yankeeland these days.
Please take a second to answer the poll below and give us an idea of how confident you are in the team. At some point in the next few weeks I’ll create a permanent link to a graph showing the change in fan confidence over time, but for now this will have to hold you over. Don’t worry, I’ll pretty it up eventually. Thanks in advance.
Low-A Charleston roster announced
The Charleston River Dogs website has the 2009 roster up. The most interesting thing is that both Carmen Angelini and Garrison Lassiter – both shortstops by trade – made the team. Lassiter is listed as an IF (Angelini a SS), so he may end up playing some third base because third round pick David Adams will be manning second. We’ll have to see how this plays out.
The rotation looks pretty stacked, headed by Andrew Brackman. Brett Marshall, Manny Banuelos and David Phelps will join him, with one of Brandon Braboy, Casey Erickson and Cory Arbiso holding down the fifth spot. Pat Venditte & Brad Rulon will anchor the bullpen like they did for Short Season Staten Island last year. The outfield is pretty exciting with Dan Brewer, Abe Almonte and Taylor Grote on board. I don’t have anything definitive on the Triple-A Scranton, Double-A Trenton or High-A Tampa rosters yet, but as soon as we find out I’ll post them.
Open Thread: RAB on the airwaves
Forgive the shameless self-promotion, but I’ll be Mike Silva’s show tonight around 7:45 to tell him what I think about the New Stadium after checking the place out yesterday. You can listen via the NY Baseball Digest website or 1240 AM WGBB. Howard Megdel of SNY will be on as well, but I’m not sure if we’ll be on at the same time. Either way, make sure you give it a listen.
While I’m doing that, Ben will be appearing on Tyler Hissey’s Around the Majors Weekly show at 8:00pm. He’ll be previewing the Yanks’ season for about 25 minutes, and you’ll be able to listen here. Once you’re done listening to me blabbing about the New Stadium, head on over and listen to Ben talk about the actual team.
Meanwhile, baseball season starts tonight! The first of 2,430 games will take place in Philadelphia, as the World Champion Phillies send Brett Myers to the mound to take on Derek Lowe and the Braves. In one of the many quirks of baseball, the Dodgers and Giants played a cactus league game this afternoon. The Yanks don’t start their season until tomorrow afternoon, but right now the weather isn’t looking so great, so they might have to push back the opener until Tuesday. Eh, what’s another day at this point? I’m sure this would ignite another round of kneejerk “the season starts too late so push it back two weeks so the weather is better and play the World Series in November but when it’s cold in November complain that they start the season too late and they should start it earlier so they don’t have to play World Series games in November!” reactions. You know what I’m talking about.
Anyway, here’s your open thread for the night. Talk about the Phils-Braves, Knicks-Raptors, Sixers-Nets, whatever your heart desires. Just be nice.
Oh, and if you haven’t already pledged for our 2009 Pledge Drive benefitting Joe Torre’s Safe At Home foundation, please considering doing so. Put your feelings about Joe aside and think of the kids who are scared to be in their own home.
1998 New York Yankees wRAA
(click graph for a larger view)
The 1998 Yankees were just a beast. They scored 965 runs and allowed just 656, a ridiculous run differential of +309. +309! Their pythag record was 108-54, but they still managed to outperform that by six wins. Insane.
If you’re not familiar with wRAA, read this. Essentially it’s a weighted measure of how many runs above average a player is offensively. Some thoughts on the graph:
- Bernie Williams was (and still is) so underappreciated, it’s not even funny.
- Four up the middle players: +90.0 wRAA. Four corner players plus DH: +78.5 wRAA. That’s what you call a “recipe for winning.”
- If you discount 1998, Scott Brosius’ career wRAA is -45.7. Yikes.
- Derek Jeter (+31 wRAA) outperformed the DH, left fielder and first baseman combined (+30.5 wRAA).
- Tim Raines also received significant playing time in left and at DH, chipping in another +7.7 wRAA.
- Seriously, Bernie was great.
(inspired by this)