• First, to get warmed up, check out what a psychologist has to say about parents who teach their kids to hate the Yankees. I found the article last night, and Jay provided the appropriate commentary. My personal favorite: “If all else fails, remind your kids that the Phillies won the World Series in 2008 and that the Yankees have not won a championship since 2000.” On another note, I kind of like that everyone hates the Yankees. So please, parents, continue as you were.
• There’s been plenty of talk about Chase Utley’s prospects of winning the World Series MVP even if his team loses. It sounds wrong, but it’s not without precedent. Bobby Richardson won the MVP in 1960 even though the Yankees lost to the Pirates. Jay examines the case of Richardson and why he won the MVP. Turns out it might have been a procedural glitch that doesn’t exist any more. If the Yankees win, I expect a Yankees MVP.
• Finally, for the main event, Jay schools Mike Lupica in the art of hindsight. Lupica, like most sportswriters, often falls victim to the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Someone needs to call him out on it. Unfortunately, I refuse to read a word the man writes, so I’m glad Jay took care of it.

Is it 7:57 yet?

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Some pregame reading material you might enjoy

• In Baseball Prospectus’ World Series preview, Will Carroll says that David Robertson’s “shoulder would have him on a surgeon’s table if his team weren’t in the World Series.” Keep in mind that K-Rob missed time with an elbow injury in September, not shoulder. Also, shoulder injuries result in decreased velocity, and in his last outing Robertson sat 92.97-93.9 mph with the fastball, hitting the high end of that range on his final pitch of the day. Besides, I don’t think the Yankees would be foolish enough to carry an injured reliever on their World Series roster.
• Joe took a look at how the core of the Yanks’ roster was constructed last week, but John Sickels did a more thorough job over the weekend. Sorry, Joe. Sickels also compared the Yanks roster construction with that of the Phillies’.  For a team that doesn’t produce any players, the Yanks sure do have a lot of homegrown players on their roster, no? Weird.
• In case you missed it, here’s Keith Law’s keys to the World Series (Insider only). He picks the Yanks in six, because of “a big bullpen advantage and a stronger offense.”
• Michael Lichtman at FanGraphs has a really long take on sacrifice bunts, particularly the ones the Yanks tried in the 8th inning the other day when the Angels botched some routine plays. RAB regulars know I’m not a fan of the sac bunt, but in that spot I was more than fine with it. They already had the lead; the bottom of the order was due up; and with Mo on the mound, one more run would have sealed the deal.
• Here’s an Indians fan’s take on tonight’s CC Sabathia-Cliff Lee matchup. It’s long, but I’ll cut to the chase: He’s pissed.
• Make sure you check out Visual Baseball. How can you not love baseball infographics?
• Finally, Ben is still blogging about the Yankees for USA Today’s team face-off site. You can find the blog right here. In his most recent post, he presents the results from yesterday’s RAB World Series prediction poll. Check it out.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Linkage: Robertson, Rosters, KLaw, Bunts

• As you’ve probably heard by now, Cuban defector Aroldis Chapman is in New York to visit with several GM’s. Both the Yankees and Mets are expected to meet with him,  and the Red Sox definitely will. Speculation is that he’ll get $40-50M, but I bet he ends with closer to $15M. In the end, he’s still just a minor league pitcher that’s a year or two away from the big leagues.
• In other amateur lefthanded pitcher news, Japanese teenager Yusei Kikuchi may announce his intentions to either stay in Japan or come to the States in the coming days. Ben wrote a bunch more about Kikuchi and the Yanks over the weekend.
• Who do you think is a better Hall of Fame candidate: Johnny Damon, or Bobby Abreu? Rob Neyer thinks it’s Damon, I’m going with Bobby. There’s only 40 players in the history of the game that have reached base 4,000 times in their career, and 38 of those players are in the HOF, or will be soon. Abreu should reach that total within three years.
• This isn’t Yankee related, but it’s a great piece on Cardinals assistant GM John Abbamondi, who discusses the place of advanced analysis in baseball. Nick Steiner at THT highlights part of the article where Abbamondi talks about how they use PitchFX data to supplement the evaluations of their scouts. Fascinating stuff.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Linkage: Chapman, Kikuchi, HOF, PitchFX

• Edgar Sandoval and Samuel Goldsmith at The Daily News have a story about 16-month old Jeter Villacis, who received a lifesaving heart transplant during Game 2 of the ALDS after six weeks of waiting. You get three guesses who the kid’s named after, but I think you’ll only need one.
• Ben wanted to put together a post comparing Nick Swisher’s 2009 season to Bobby Abreu’s, but Jay at Fack Youk beat him to it. The results may surprise you, despite talk of Abreu’s rumored resurgence.
• Greg Fertel at Pending Pinstripes, my old stomping grounds, used PitchFX to compare 2008 Ian Kennedy to 2009 Ian Kennedy. I do wonder if the difference in release points could be caused by different PFX cameras in different stadiums, but the other differences are pretty drastic.
• Here’s video of all 15 walk-offs this season in under 7 minutes. It’s awesome. Thanks to Peter for the tip.
• Here’s your minor league offensive leaderboard, courtesy of Baseball America. Shelley Duncan’s 30 homers were fifth most in all of minor league baseball last year, while Melky Mesa’s 168 strikeouts were 8th most. He’s a hitter, so that’s bad.
• And finally, mgl at Inside The Book took a look at why manager’s make bad decisions, while Jonah Lehrer at ScienceBlogs did something similar with football coaches. Nerd math, finally applied to football. John Madden is rolling over in his bus.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Linkage: Jeter, Swisher, Kennedy, Walk-offs

• Alex Eisenberg at Baseball Intellect took a look at Joba Chamberlain’s mechanics (with .gif’s!), hoping to find what’s wrong with his command and velocity. He determines that Joba has a bit of a timing issue, and essentially it’s causing his arm to drag a bit. Eisenberg advises Joba to “sit down a little more, keep your hands low, [and] aggressively step-over into foot plant” to solve the problem. What he said.
• Scott Ham at The Bronx View took a look at all this Jorge Posada-Jose Molina nonsense, showing that it may have been “a rash decision on Girardi’s part” to stop letting Posada catch AJ Burnett after the rough patch late in the year. I wrote something similar back in August. This backup catcher in the playoffs stuff isn’t unprecedented. Paul Bako was Greg Maddux’s personal catcher in 2000, and started behind the plate in Game One of the NLDS over Javy Lopez, who hit .287-.337-.484 with 24 homers that year. The result? Maddux gave up six runs in the first and Bako was pinch hit for in the second inning. Then there was the whole John Flaherty-Randy Johnson mess in 2005.
• The Legacy of Derek Jeter, in picture form.
• Remember all that noise about Andy Oliver winning his case against the NCAA, essentially eliminating the “no agent rule” for amateurs? Well, the two sides reached a settlement that a) sends $750,000 of the NCAA’s money to Oliver, and b) reinstates the “no agent rule.” So much for that. Apparently kids fresh out of high school are supposed to negotiate multi-million contracts on their own. Oliver was the Tigers’ second round pick (#58 overall) last year and signed for a well-over-slot $1.495M bonus.
• This isn’t Yankee related, but it’s a great read from a very, very frustrated Royals fan.
• Finally, via Ed Price on Twitter, Dr. Marc Philippon does not believe A-Rod will need a second surgery on his hip this off-season. The original procedure in March was supposed to be a stop-gap, but A-Rod has responded very well to the treatment. We’ll have more on this over the weekend, but it is definitely good news.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Link Dump: Joba, Posada, Jeter, Oliver, A-Rod

First, if you’re not already checking him out, make sure to make your way to Mark Feinsand’s blog, Blogging the Bombers. I’ve always been a fan of Mark. He either puts a lot of thought into his posts and articles, or else he’s so smart that he doesn’t need the extra thought. Either way he’s a good guy and a good read. Plus, the man knows what he’s doing. Since PeteAbe announced his departure, Mark has stepped up the blogging effort. It’s just one more outlet for Yanks fans to keep up with the team.

(Another bit in praise of Mark: He’s had the blog for a while, but he’s never tried to make it like Pete’s blog…until Pete was no longer in the game. I think it’s a fine strategic move. There’s no reason to put all your effort into something if you don’t stand to gain significantly. Mark kept up his blog presence, and when the opportunity arose he changed strategy. I respect that.)

Next up is It’s About the Money, Stupid. Earlier in the season, I said that Jason was going places: “Just wait until he has two, three years of this under his belt. He and Craig from Shysterball should have a real future with this gig.” Jason gets his first audition this month, as IIATMS is moving to the SweetSpot Blog Network. SweetSpot is Rob Neyer’s blog, and he’s taking a number of playoff team bloggers into the network. Should be good times.

I can’t point you to the blog yet, because it’s not live until Monday. Once that happens, we’ll get you there some way or another. Again, congratulations to Jason. He does a fine job over there, and has made constant strides to improve the site.

Finally, we have the Yankeeist. Remember Save Phil Hughes? If you’re a long-time reader of RAB you probably do. We linked to him frequently — Phil Hughes is, after all, a favorite of the blog. Larry retired that project a while ago, but he’s back in the game with Yankeeist. So stop by, say hello, and enjoy what he’s got there. It’s a nice complement to RAB.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Shout Outs: Feinsand, IIATMS, Yankeeist

• Major League Baseball officially declared Chapman a free agent over the weekend, so he could technically sign with any team today, if he wanted.
• Back in July when he originally defected, I asked Keith Law what he thought about him during one of his ESPN chats. Here’s what he said: “I talked to a longtime scout – I mean, been at this 40 years – in the spring who said he was the best young LHP he’d ever seen. On good days he’ll touch 100 with a slider in the upper 80s, but he hasn’t been that guy every time out – I talked to another scout who saw him last year, I believe in Beijing, who had him topping out around 90 – and there are all kinds of rumors as to why. The upside probably puts him into $40-50 million territory, if not more …”
• Here’s the PitchFX data for Chapman’s start against Japan in this year’s World Baseball Classic. As you can see, he topped out at 100.2 mph, but it looks like he tired because his velo dropped after 40 pitches or so. That’s not a really big concern, no one’s in tip-top shape in March.
• Clay Davenport at Baseball Prospectus used some historical data translate Chapman’s stats in Cuba to the low levels of the minors here, and while the 9.3 K/9 is pretty, the 2.5 HR/9 and 7.4 BB/9 are awful. However, four of his closest statistical comps (Brian Fuentes, Mike Gonzalez, Scott Linebrink, and Oliver Perez) have gone on to have varying degrees of big league success.
• Chapman would probably rank as one of the top 25 prospects in the game according to Baseball America’s Jim Callis, although he wouldn’t supplant Jesus Montero as the Yanks’ top farmhand. No one tops the Jesus.
• And last, but certainly not least, here’s a clip of the kid in action.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Link Dump: Aroldis Chapman Edition

Justice Sotomayor to throw out first pitch Saturday

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, recently sworn in as the 111th Supreme Court Justice, will throw out the first pitch on Saturday when the Yankees face the Red Sox. Raised in the Bronx, Sotomayor is famous in baseball circles because “she issued an order that helped end the Major League Baseball strike of 1994-95.” Want to impress us, Justice? Throw a strike from the mound.

Chad Gaudin like Will Smith?

When I saw the juxtaposition of Chad Gaudin in Will Smith in the headline of Marc Carig’s article, I didn’t know what to expect. He makes it clear early on: Gaudin was having trouble in San Diego, so the Padres sent him to live with his auntie and uncle in New York. It’s a great look at Gaudin, who has impressed the Yankees enough during his tenure to earn a rotation spot.

AAA outfielders, 2009 and 2010

Chad Jennings lines up reviews of the six primary outfielders for Scranton Wilkes-Barre this season (plus one who got two at bats). He then takes a look at the names for next year. There doesn’t appear to be much turnover, but there are some variables there. Most notably, Shelley Duncan, who could be a minor league free agent if removed from the 40-man roster, and Colin Curtis, Rule 5 eligible, could head elsewhere.

Who has the best fastball?

In an awesome bit on The Baseball Analysts, Chris Moore look at the top 20 fastballs from 2007 and August 2009, rated by control, velocity, and movement. Only one Yankee appears on the list (guess who), and Roy Halladay appears twice in the top 7. Yeah, that guy’s just a little good. The guy who ranks No. 1 is pretty good too, I hear.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Link Dump: Sotomayor, Fresh Prince, AAA, fastballs

Will Gehrig’s accomplishments fade with time?

Keith Olbermann chimed in over the weekend with some concern that with modern players putting up bigger numbers than their older counterparts, some players may fade into distant memory. As he says, it’s just “a reminder of the remarkable quality of Gehrig’s, and that as time guarantees that his name will become harder and harder to find in the record books, he should never be forgotten.”

He should not be forgotten, and I don’t have serious worries that he will be. Dave Pinto puts it well: “Keith is worried that Lou Gehrig will be forgotten. Fortunately for Lou, due to his tragedy, due to his unforgettable speech in the face of death, and due to the enormous hold of the Yankees on the world of baseball, that isn’t going to happen.”

Pettitte still undecided about next year

If that sounds like a ridiculous premise for news, well, you’re right. As Jon Heyman admits, Pettitte has said basically the same thing for the past two years. His decision of Yankees or bust came a bit later last year, and given how it played out last winter I doubt he says anything similar this time around. But if he wants another go-round, I think the Yanks could find a place for him in 2010.

Doc Gooden goes to work for the Bears

The Newark Bears aren’t doing so bad in the standings. They’re four games back of Somerset in the Freedom Division, though there are only 14 games left, so there’s not much time left to catch up. Unfortunately, the team is seventh out of the eight teams in attendance, which can be death for an independent league team. One measure they’re taking to help matters: hiring Doc Gooden as senior vice president. Gooden will “be an ambassador and assist in youth camps and with Little League development in Newark.” He’s not the only former Yank working with the Bears; Tim Rains managers the team.

ESPN Classic could be downgraded

ESPN Classic is included in most basic cable packages, but that might not last too much longer. The station wants to focus more on its younger viewers, and they are more easily captured with the programming on ESPNU, ESPN360, and ESPN Deportes. That might mean a downgrade for ESPN Classic, meaning you might not be able to watch black and white boxing matches for much longer. There’s no definitive word on what ESPN will do with it, but it looks like fewer people will receive the channel.

Tales from the first Japanese MLB pitcher

If asked who was the first Japanese MLB pitcher, many might answer Hideo Nomo. While Nomo did start the recent surge of Japanese talent in the the majors, he was not the first. That would be Masanori Murakami, whom the Nankai Hawks lent to the San Francisco Giants in 1964. He pitched 89.1 innings in 54 appearances over two years, and was eventually called back by his home club. Only 30 years later did Nomo come over.

I found this article mainly because I thought it was about this guy, an author I admire. (Seriously, read The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. It’s a winner.) It turned out to be an interesting read, a bit about the Japanese talent filtering to America, partly about Murakami’s career, and partly about the death threats Giants manager Herman Franks received for using Murakami. The FBI had him under protection for a week. If nothing else, it’s an interesting take on how times have changed over the past 45 years.

Sean Henn to the Orioles

Former Yank Sean Henn is headed to his fifth destination. After stints with the Yanks, Padres, and Twins, he’ll now be part of the Orioles system. The southpaw had 45 strikeouts to 16 walks in 38.2 AAA innings this season.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Link dump: Gehrig, Murakami, ESPN Classic, Pettitte, Doc

Ian Kennedy throws first BP session since April

Working his way back from an aneurysm, Yankee prospect Ian Kennedy threw his first bullpen session today since April. The right-hander threw 30 pitches from the mound and said he felt good. “It was fun to finally get some competitive juices flowing and to see some hitters,” he said to the AP reporter who stakes out the Yanks’ complex in Tampa. “I’m surprised I wasn’t tired at the end.”

Kennedy will throw another BP session on Saturday before getting in some tosses during a simulated game on Tuesday. He will join an instructional league team later this month and pitch in the Arizona Fall League in October. If all goes well, he should factor into the Yanks’ plans for 2010. Lost amidst this injury was the fact that Kennedy had a better start to his AAA season this year than Phil Hughes did.

In other injury news, Brett Gardner is set to join AAA Scranton tomorrow for a rehab assignment. He’ll be back some time next week.

Steinbrenner Yankeeography to debut tonight

At 11 p.m. or following the completion of the Yankees-Orioles game, the YES Network will debut the George Steinbrenner edition of their acclaimed Yankeeography series. Marc Carig offered up his take:

After seeing the clips, I wanted to keep watching, which I suppose is the point. The producers do a good job of capturing Steinbrenner’s many sides and interests. A bit about the Boss and his family life is particularly touching. Looking back, it’s easy to gain an appreciation for what Steinbrenner did to turn the ailing franchise around when he bought the team.

Carig notes that the YES-produced bio is a bit light on the criticism, and The Post echoed those sentiments today. It doesn’t delve much into the history of George’s legal troubles or his run-ins with baseball’s Powers-That-Be.

Yom Kippur game moved to 1 p.m.

Displaying a bit of religious sensitivity, Major League Baseball has agreed to move the Sunday, September 27 game between the Red Sox and the Yankees to 1 p.m. Originally slated as an afternoon game, MLB moved it to 8 p.m. a few weeks ago at the request of ESPN. Sunset on Sunday though marks the start of Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. At the request of Jewish leaders and Congressman Anthony Weiner, baseball has agreed to move the game back to its original 1 p.m. start time, and my parents, ticketholders for the day, are happy to hear it.

Some self-promotion

I stopped by the YES studios last week to film a short web appearance on Pinstriped Weekly. While the video isn’t as timely today as it was last week, check it out right here.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Quick Hits: IPK, the Boss and Yom Kippur baseball