Archive for Rants
Knowing when to be a gracious runner-up
Posted by: | CommentsJimmy Rollins is not known for keeping his mouth in check. He has spent the past few seasons antagonizing Mets fans in Spring Training by proclaiming the Phillies better than the Mets and the team to beat in the NL East. With the Mets’ injury-inspired fade this year, Rollins was right, and he didn’t let discretion get the better part of him for the World Series.
In fact, prior to the Series, Rollins let his mouth do the talking again. Considering how he hit this Fall Classic, his mouth, in fact, was the only thing doing much talking. “Of course we’re going to win,” Rollins said before the Series started. “If we’re nice, we’ll let it go six. But I’m thinking five, close it out at home.”
Three games into it, and Rollins’ prediction couldn’t come true. After losing Game 1, the Yanks had beaten the Phillies in three straight, and in Rollins’ original clincher, the Phillies had to fight to force Game 6. After the Yankees won last night, Rollins was the only member of the team who managed to make their World Series loss about the Phillies.
“They were the better team this series,” Rollins said after the game. “Do I think we’re the better team? I really do. They just executed. I think we weren’t playing bad, but they were playing that much better. They got the hits, we didn’t. It’s that simple.”
Other Phillies acknowledged the Yankees’ run to a title. “We got beat,” Ryan Howard said. “They were the better team. They outplayed us. You have to tip your hat to them.”
Manager Charlie Manuel praised the Yanks as well. “We just didn’t play as good as we can, but at the same time, we also played a real good team who did a good job, and they’ve had a great season,” he said. “They definitely deserved to win.”
Since Game 2 of the ALDS, when David Robertson pitched out of a bases loaded, no out situation without allowing the run, the Yankees had that championship feel to them. They beat back a pesky Angels’ team and beat a very good Phillies team. After seven months and 114 wins, the Yankees are on top.
I can understand Rollins’ frustration. The Phillies out-hit the Yanks in this World Series, thanks to Chase Utley and Jayson Werth, but the rest of the team didn’t really show up. Rollins, the lead-off hitter, scored just three runs, and Ryan Howard struck out 13 times. His sixth-inning home run last night came too late to save the Phillies.
But Rollins, one of the game’s better ambassadors, should know when to tip his cap to the other team. I understand team pride; I understand riling up the fan base. But I also understand that the Yankees, a better team than the Phillies, won. After the beanings this week, the bad blood will flow between the Yankees and the Phillies in Spring Training. Maybe Jimmy Rollins should save the trash talking for then.
The Derek Jeter bunt
Posted by: | CommentsIn the bottom of the 7th of Game 2, the Yankees had the Phillies on the ropes. With two runs already in, the Yanks had no outs and the top of the order coming up. Although Johnny Damon’s umpire-assisted double play drew most of the attention, the batter before deserves a look.
We know what was going to happen when Derek Jeter came to the plate with no out and runners on first and second. We knew what was going to happen because we’ve seen it so many times this season. We’ve watched the Yankees’ all-time hitter — a guy with 2747 career hits, a .317 career batting average with a .388 on-base percentage, and someone who hits exceptional well in the playoffs — come to bat with runners on and take it upon himself to bunt.
What Derek did on Thursday night defies stupidity. He tried to bunt twice and missed both times. Then, with the count 0-2 against him, he bunted again. This one rolled foul, and the Yankees’ leadoff hitter had bunted his walk to a strike out. As the Yanks did not plate another run that inning, it could have proved costly.
Yesterday, Joe Posnanski took Jeter to task for the bunt. Because Posnanski has a way with words and images, take a read:
Jeter would later admit in his own understated way that it was dumb to try and bunt there (he bunted foul for strike three), but, of course, “dumb” doesn’t begin to cover the lunacy of that bunt attempt. It is dumb to send an insulting text message to the insult-target by mistake. It is dumb for the Coyote to keep buying his Road Runner hunting products from the Acme Corporation. It is dumb to pull on Superman’s cape, to spit in the wind, to tell Batman your villainous plan when you have him captured, to give Gilligan some sort of meaningful role the rescue mission. That bunt wasn’t dumb. It was closer to a nervous breakdown.
Posnanski goes on to question the Yanks’ belief in Jeter a bit. He believes that Girardi initially called the bunt but later called it off too. Jeter, then, tried to bunt for the third time on his own:
And undoubtedly, Jeter believes this himself. That’s the only possible reason he would have tried to bunt with two strikes, even after Girardi called it off. Jeter wants to sacrifice himself there, I think, because he believes sacrifice is a big part of what makes him great and different. Would A-Rod bunt there? Would Miggy Cabrera? Would Manny Ramirez? Would Albert Pujols? No (nor should they). They would not bunt … but Derek Jeter would. Because he is not just a great hitter. No, he’s a guy who would do anything to help the team win.
Trouble is — he IS a great hitter, and hitting is the best way he can help the team win — in that situation and in pretty much every other situation. He should know this. The Yankees should know this. But the Jeter mystique has been blown up to such proportions that it has become its own monster, and monsters need to be fed.
When I saw Derek Jeter foul bunt on strike three like some helpless pitcher, I immediately thought it was one of the five dumbest plays I had ever seen — and I know I would have felt that way had he gotten the bunt down.
He concludes: “After all these years, the Yankees still don’t seem to full understand or appreciate why Derek Jeter is one of the great players his generation. And what’s even stranger is that Jeter may not be entirely sure himself.”
I’m not sure I fully support his final argument. I’m sure the Yankees understand and appreciate Derek Jeter as one of the greatest players of his generation. What the Yankees do not seem to understand and what Derek definitely doesn’t understand is that bunting in that situation is sheer lunacy. It doesn’t increase the team’s chances of scoring multiple runs, and it gives the Phillies an extra out, that ever-important currency of a game that lasts just 27 outs. It took the bat out of the hands of one of October’s most prolific hitters and gave the Phillies in opportunity to escape the inning.
And you know what? Derek won’t bunt with two strikes again. But if faced with the same circumstances tonight, if he comes up with runners on first and second with no one out, Derek and the Yanks will do it all over again.
Rarely playing a game
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s a sunny day out in New York City. After last night’s deluge, the sky is perfectly blue, and the mercury is hovering around 63. It is the perfect day for a Sunday afternoon baseball game. Yet, because of the demands of television, we have to wait. We have to wait until 8:20 p.m. when temperatures will be in the low 50s. The ninth inning should arrive sometime around midnight with a chill in the air.
By now, the Yankees and the Angels must be used to this. The two teams have been playing in extremes — cold and rainy New York, warm and sunny Anaheim. The weather is, of course, just one aspect of postseason baseball. By the time mid-October arrives in the Northeast, it could be chilly and damp or it could be warm and sunny.
Baseball can’t control the weather, but they can control the calendar. It’s time to start rethinking the playoff schedule. When the Yankees and Angels take the field this evening, it will be just the ninth time in 21 days that these two teams play baseball. The Yanks have played games on back-to-back days twice since the regular season ended.
Today, The Times tackles this lack of baseball. The Angels’ manager doesn’t think too highly of this approach to scheduling. “Ridiculous,” Scioscia said. “I don’t know. Can I say it any clearer than that? We should have never had a day off last Wednesday. We should never have three days off after the season. You shouldn’t even have two days off after the season.”
In another piece, Joshua Robinson explores baseball’s reactions and excuses and examines why the World Series is going to end in November. My favorite quotation in that second article comes from Katy Feeney, baseball’s V.P. of scheduling. “If somebody can tell us which week in April or which week in November would be best, we’d be happy to schedule around those, but nobody seems able to quite do that yet,” Feeney said. “Weather people seem to be the only people that can keep their jobs and be wrong most of the time.”
That’s right; a Major League Baseball executive is blaming the meteorologists for baseball’s elongated October scheduling. The reality is much simpler. Baseball is being held hostage to its television deals. Because the networks pay billions of dollars for the TV rights, they want to maximize prime time coverage. Gone are the days when two games are on at once, and mostly gone are the days when two games are played on the same calendar day. With a crazy 2-2-1-2 format for the league championship series, FOX and TBS ensure that most days just feature one baseball game.
For the players, this change is tough. Starters are used to playing 162 games in around 190 days. They play every day every month for six months. And when October arrives, they play now and then.
For the fans, the stop-and-go pace of the postseason is excruciating. Fixing it, though, is easy. Baseball needs to assert a variable schedule about the Division Series. They should ensure that, outside of travel days, the unnecessary off days should be eliminated. The Yanks don’t need to take a day off in New York after Game 1 of the ALDS, and the Angels and Yanks didn’t need to sit around Anaheim on Wednesday while not playing.
Baseball should also start the League Championship Series sooner if the teams are ready. The Angels and Yanks wrapped up their division series on Sunday and didn’t play until Thursday. It would be easy for those two teams to play on Tuesday, and fans would manage.
In the end, this is about the money. Baseball fans wait as baseball and TV executives see the dollars flow in. At some point, it should change. It’s better for the game to let October play out smoothly instead of this as a stop-and-start postseason we are witnessing this year.
No additions to the playoffs, please
Posted by: | CommentsOn any given day, any one baseball team can beat any other. Over the course of the season we often see a basement dwelling team beat a first place powerhouse. Just this season the Washington Nationals took two of three from the Yankees. This is why the season is 162 games long. It helps weed out those anomalies. After such a large sample, double that of the next-closest major American sport, it’s fairly clear which team is the best.
In the past, this large sample was enough. The team with the best record in the AL would play the team with the best record in the NL. That was it — 154 or 162 games was deemed enough to determine the best of the leagues, and then the leagues, which didn’t face each other during the regular season, would face off in the World Series. It made perfect sense. Why throw out the results of so many games with a drawn-out playoff system?
Every September, as season’s end approaches, we hear baseball writers bemoan the current playoff structure. Baseball needs more playoff teams, they write. Recently, both Peter Gammons and Joel Sherman shared this opinion. One more Wild Card team, they argue, would really spice things up. That would not only add another team to the October mix, but would penalize teams for winning the Wild Card and not the division, since the WC teams would face off before the other teams start postseason play. While this would certainly create an incentive to win the division, it is far from the optimal solution.
Adding more playoff teams brings two consequences. First is that it makes the season longer. Even with Gammons’s suggestion, that they start the season early and then play the best of three series through what would have been the season’s final weekend, it would be a scheduling problem. It would also put the WC at such a disadvantage — having to play straight through a playoff round and then straight to the LDS — that even having a Wild Card would become questionable. I don’t like it, but it’s manageable, and is certainly the lesser of the consequences.
Teams get hot, teams get cold. Over the course of a162-game season, luck tends to even out. Adding another non-division-winning team would just add to the crapshoot nature of the playoffs. If the season ended today, Boston and Texas would be the AL Wild Cards. If Texas gets hot at the right time, they can upset Boston and then possibly their first round opponent (the Yankees in this scenario). Then they either continue their hot streak, or fall back to earth and become easy prey for the other LDS winner in the LCS.
This scheme works for fans who like the unpredictable nature of the playoffs. But it doesn’t work at all for those of us who like to see the best teams square off in the World Series. The only way to accomplish that is to abolish divisions and interleague play. It’s the AL vs. the NL, winner take all in each league in anticipation of a final showdown in the World Series. The teams that proved themselves best able to handle the baseball season would be rewarded for their hard work.
No one is going to adopt this, and I can imagine most people reading this would be opposed to such a scheme. For starters, it would probably mean mass contraction. Having fifteen teams in a league with no divisions would mete out the poor teams a bit quicker, and fans of those teams would probably lose interest early in the season. To this end, even going back to the two-division scheme would be an improvement. Then you have a manageable seven teams per division, maybe eight, and can still keep the playoffs short.
As currently constructed, the playoffs favor luck. More teams means a bigger chance of a lesser team getting hot and beating a better team. While I understand the thrill in that for some, it certainly doesn’t lend itself to a World Series pitting the best in the AL against the best in the NL. It’s the luckiest in the AL vs. the luckiest in the NL. Or, rather, the team best built for the playoffs, rather than the team best built for the regular season. If baseball isn’t going to reward the team that played the best over 162 games, then why even play that many?
Doubtless many of you will disagree, and I’d like to hear arguments other than the one I laid out — i.e., that the playoffs as currently constructed are unpredictable. I just think that if you’re playing 162 games, you should reward the teams that played the best in that span, not the teams that played third and fourth best in that span.
Despite blip, Yanks have matters well at hand
Posted by: | CommentsAre the Yankees on their way to a September collapse? Depending on who delivers your information, that might be the case. The Yankees are 4-6 in their last 10, and the Red Sox are 8-2. That’s allowed the latter to gain a few games, four since the end of play on September 9. The Yanks had a nine game lead at that point, and it division seemed wrapped up. Now with a five game lead, it might not seem as much of a lock.
This reeks of specious logic. From September 10 through September 21, the Red Sox gained four games. That’s 12 days. For the Red Sox to take the division, they’d have to play just as well and the Yankees would have to play just as poorly as they both are right now. While that’s a possibility, it’s far from probable. The Yankees have the best record in baseball. They even have a winning record in September — a convincingly winning one at that. Are we really to expect a full collapse?
The reason many people thought the Yankees had the division wrapped up on September 9 was because of the massive lead. Even if things didn’t go quite a well from there on out, they still had a huge margin of error. Some of that margin has slipped over the past few weeks, but there’s been another change: there are fewer games left in the season. So while the Red Sox have crept closer, the Yankees are actually closer to a division win: their magic number has gone from 14 on the ninth to eight today.
As the Yanks work through a small slump, the pundits are active. I’ve seen more than one comparison to the 2000 team lately, one which played particularly poorly in September. They entered the month with a 74-56 record, first in the AL East by five games, and went a paltry 13-18 over the season’s final 31 games. The Red Sox tried to play catch-up, but finished 85-77, 2.5 games back, after a 16-16 month. The difference, of course, is that Boston is playing quite a bit better this season than they were in 2000. So should the Yanks be scared?
Hardly. Even with the Yankees losing six of their last 10, they’re still 12-8 this month, and still have a five game edge on the Red Sox. The latter has gained some ground, and while four games is a significant margin in such a small time, it’s difficult to expect them to continue this pace. The Yankees have proven that they’re a good team, and we can expect them to shake this slump soon enough. With 11 games left and 13 for the Sox, the Yankees just need a combination of eight wins or Sox losses to wrap this up. It seems almost a certainty.
In fact, the Yankees might be slumping at just the right time. The last time they lost six of their last 10 was from June 12 through the 23 (or 13 through 24, but whatever), when they lost a few games to the Mets, Nationals, Marlins, and Braves. What did they do after that 4-6 stretch? They ripped off seven straight wins and 13 of their next 15.
These Yankees don’t slump for long. They’ve shown that they can win games, and it would seem a bit rash to think that a small slump, coming off a stretch where they were playing better than .750 ball in the second half, will alter that. Nothing is guaranteed in baseball — as our magic number says, it ain’t over ’til it’s over. But the Yankees have things pretty well in hand right now. It would take an uncharacteristic collapse for them to lose the division. I’m not sure why anyone would expect that.
On playing the Angels
Posted by: | CommentsWhenever the Yankees and Angels square off, the coverage focuses around the Yanks’ seemingly historic inability to beat Anaheim. In fact, since 2002, the Angels, 40-30 against New York, are the only American League team to have a winning record against the Yankees. We shouldn’t put much credence into this number though.
The Yanks’ troubles seemingly took off in 2002 when the two teams squared off in the ALDS. While the Yankees won 103 games that year, the Angels had won 99 and were not a bad team by any means. The Yanks won the first game but dropped the next three. While Steve Karsay threw in all four playoff games, Mariano Rivera was deployed once, and the Yankee pitching just couldn’t withstand the Angels.
Three years later, the two teams met again in the ALDS. In between post-season match-ups, the Yankees went 14-14 against the Angels in the regular season, and in 2005, Los Angeles was 6-4 against New York. Both teams had won 95 during the regular season, but the Angels emerged victorious. Mike Mussina couldn’t hold down the team in Game 5 of the ALDS, and Bubba Crosby and Gary Sheffield collided disastrously in the outfield. It was a rather forgettable series.
Since then, the Yankees have gone just 13-23 against the Angels. While the Yanks are 9-9 at home, the Angels are 14-4 against the Yanks in Angels Stadium. As the Yankees battle for home field advantage throughout the playoffs, the teams open up a somewhat pivotal three-game set tonight in Anaheim.
So should we care about the Yanks’ past performance? Do the Angels, as many are wont to say, get into the heads of the Yankees? Unless institutional memory is strong, it’s hard to see exactly how the Yanks allow previous years’ Angels losses to carry over.
The 2002 Angels were a team built on speed, pitching and Troy Glaus’ prodigious October power. There are just two players left them from that team on the Angels. John Lackey is still plugging away, and Chone Figgins had 12 ABs for the Angels that year. Just four Yankees — the so-called Old Guard of Andy Pettitte, Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera — remain from the 2002 team. None of those are are thought of as weak-willed. I doubt the Angels are in their heads.
From 2005, a few other new faces join the rivalry. Along with Lackey and Figgins, the Angels still Vladimir Guerrero, Robb Quinlan, Juan Rivera, Maicer Izturis, Jeff Mathis and Ervin Santana. How some of those players have stuck around for four more years, I do not know. The Yankee hold-overs now include A-Rod, Hideki Matsui, Robinson Cano and, to a lesser extent, Melky Cabrera and Chien-Ming Wang.
That leaves us generally with a nice narrative and little reason to believe it. The Yankees have struggled against the Angels over the last few years, but by going 3-4 and beating the Angels at their own game last week, the Yanks have shown improvement. Yet, just because they often lose to the same team does not mean that the Yankee pinstripes are afraid of or intimidated by the likes of Erick Aybar and Torii Hunter. It’s just a narrative.
The Angels play the Yankees hard because, well, the Angels are a good team. They are one of the winningest teams of the decade, and they are, depending upon the day, the second or third best team in the AL this season. Even the best teams will lose to other good teams, and that’s all there is to it.
Yanks have legit complaints against Marty Foster
Posted by: | CommentsDuring the 2009 season, the Yankees have had three separate incidents with veteran umpire Marty Foster. One incident can be written off in the normal course of baseball. Two incidents (especially when they come on back to back days) raises some eyebrows. But three incidents? That might suggest there’s something to this. After watching the Yankees for years, and trying diligently to keep up with as many other teams as possible, I can’t say I remember anything quite like this between team and umpire. Except with Angel Hernandez, of course. It seems like that guys tries to get on peoples nerves.
The most infamous incident came in early July, in a game against the Toronto Blue Jays. Derek Jeter walked to lead off the bottom of the firs, and then took second on a Ricky Romero balk. He tried to take third, but Rod Barajas’s throw had him by a good margin. Sliding head first, Jeter did a little swim move to avoid Scott Rolen’s glove. His hand hit the bag before the glove touched him, but Marty Foster punched him out anyway.
When Jeter complained, noting that Rolen did not tag him, Foster allegedly replied, “He didn’t have to. The ball beat you.” That incensed both Jeter and Joe Girardi, but to no avail. After the game, crew chief John Hirschbeck backed his umpire. Foster’s side is that he added “and I had him tagging you.” Such ended the incident. It was an easy out for Foster, who could have made up anything to tell Hirschbeck.
There was an incident the day before, though, one I think that many people forget. In the first inning, the Yankees were set up against Brett Cecil. A Jorge Posada single had loaded the bases, and Hideki Matsui strode to the plate. He didn’t do much, grounding one between first and second, but Lyle Overbay misplayed it. Mark Teixeira barreled around third and tried to score. Technically he did. The throw beat him, but catcher Raul Chavez tagged Tex with his glove while the ball was in his hand.
This couldn’t be more clear. I saw it when the play happened, and it was even clearer on replay. Yet Foster, calling balls and strikes that game, punched out Teixeira. How that happens I just don’t know. How the Yankees didn’t stampede onto the field to argue the call I understand even less. Teixeira was very clearly safe. This would fit completely with Foster’s statement the next day, that the throw only needs to beat a runner, tag or no tag.
Photo: William Perlman – The Star-Ledger
Yesterday’s incident is still fresh in our minds, so I need not repeat it. The pitch was outside. The replay showed it, and pitch f/x showed it. One can argue that it’s okay as long as Foster was calling that spot consistently, but it didn’t appear that any part of the zone was consistent yesterday. Even so, count me against the “as long as it’s consistent” crowd. The umpire is right on top of the plate. At least on inside-outside calls, he should be able to get it right. Not by some definition of his own. But by the definition that the strike zone is the width of home plate. If we’re not going to have a standard strike zone for every umpire, why even define it in the rule book?
This isn’t to say that Marty Foster is biased against the Yankees. It’s to say that perhaps MLB should look into these incidents before assigning him any postseason games. They need the very best out there, and after three run-ins with just the Yankees this season, it’s pretty clear that Foster shouldn’t meet the criteria. He was 100 percent, objectively wrong on the Teixeira call. Replay showed he was wrong on the Jeter play, though we can chalk that up to a poor eye for detail (hence, no playoffs, Marty).
On the A-Rod play he was wrong, but umpires get away with that kind of stuff all the time. No one will question Foster any further. He’ll file his report, and he’ll look like the good guy to the umpire’s union. But MLB should certainly step in and not allow Foster to umpire the most important games. If we’ve noticed three bad calls in only the Yankees games he’s umpired, imagine how many others he’s made throughout the season.
On criticism and Joba
Posted by: | CommentsYesterday, when Joba left the game after throwing just three innings and 35 pitches, the Internet was abuzz with criticism of the Yankees plan. Andrew Fletcher of Scott Proctor’s Arm called the move “utterly moronic” on his Twitter feed. Ross of New Stadium Insider commented that “the Joba rules keep on getting lamer and lamer” on his. Plenty more fans chimed in with similar comments. Apparently the Yankees decision to limit the workload of their prized young pitcher isn’t going over well with the fan base.
Many of these same people criticized the Yankees when the plan was to spread out Joba’s starts over the remainder of the season. This brings to the fore an apt question: what, then, are they supposed to do? If the Yankees aren’t going to shorten Joba’s starts or spread them out, then what options do they have?
1) Pitch Joba as normal and shut him down when he reaches his prescribed workload
2) Pitch him normally without regard to prior workload
As to the former: if people are complaining about Joba now, the noise would be louder than ever if the Yanks shut down Joba. It would relegate either Chad Gaudin or Sergio Mitre to the fourth starter slot in the playoffs, should the Yankees need one. It would also be denying the team a useful pitcher. While it would probably be the best thing for the future development of Joba Chamberlain, it just doesn’t fit well into the way 2009 is unfolding.
As to the latter, I’ve made my feelings known on the matter. That said, if you believe that Joba should throw as many innings as possible this year, there’s no way we’re going to see eye to eye. May I suggest, though, that you go out tomorrow and add 50 pounds to your bench presses and 3 miles to your daily run. Then see how you feel the next day.
The whole point of the “Joba Rules” is to make sure they’re not adding too much weight to the bar. By keeping the incremental increase in his workload under control, the Yankees hope to prevent Joba from succumbing to the injuries and bouts of ineffectiveness we’ve seen afflict so many young pitchers in recent years. The Yankees have invested millions of dollars in this pitcher, and could see millions more in production from him in the future. If they can keep him healthy, that is.
One thing I noticed in this argument is that many people do not favor the way the Yankees are going about this. Said Fletcher on his Twitter feed: “Treating August games like spring training games is not doing it right.” To that I ask: What is doing it right? He suggests they do it in the minors. Unfortunately, that’s not much of an option right now. The minor league season ends rather soon, and as we’ve argued many times, Joba might not learn much by pitching down there. He has the stuff to destroy minor leaguers. At least he’s being challenged in the majors.
The Yankees are afforded some luxuries because of their lead and their current level of play. It seems like the Red Sox are winning every day, but the Yanks still maintain their lead in the East by a sizable margin — and that margin grows with each passing game, because the season creeps closer to an end. One of those luxuries of which they’re taking advantage is the ability to curb Joba’s innings while pitching him regularly in the majors. This might not be the same story if it was the Yankees who trailed the Red Sox by six games and led the Wild Card race by a small margin.
This is not a necessary endorsement of the specific manner in which the Yankees are handling Joba. Maybe having him throw normal starts that are spread out further is the better plan. Maybe letting him get to 160 like normal and then shutting him down is the best for his long-term potential. I don’t know which is best, and neither does anyone else out there. We should understand by this point that just letting pitchers go out there and throw is a poor strategy. There need to be limits to ensure that young pitchers don’t vastly exceed their previous workloads.
Please, if you don’t agree with a move that the Yankees make, criticize them for it. However, when you choose to do so, make sure you have some substance to your argument. Why are the Yankees doing this wrong? What should they be doing instead? This is what makes for good arguments and conversations. Instead, thanks to media like Twitter, we’re getting a lot of noisy complaining with no substance to speak of. That won’t fly. If you don’t agree with the Yankees handling of Joba, tell me why, and what might work better. That’s the kind of talk we appreciate around these parts.
The amazing, disappearing Phil Hughes
Posted by: | CommentsYou remember Phil Hughes, right? That great young pitcher the Yankees have decided is more valuable out of the bullpen? Well, have you seen him lately? It seems that the team, or at least manager Joe Girardi, has decided that the best way to utilize the kid’s talent is by using him as infrequently as possible. People used to trash Joe Torre for overusing his Circle of Trust™ relievers, but now we have the exact opposite going on; they aren’t being used enough.
A few weeks ago I mentioned that even though he was going to work in relief the rest of the season, Hughes would be generally okay in terms of his innings count, but since that post 22 days ago, Hughes has thrown a grand total of 5.1 innings, or just one every four days or so. Just to put this underuse in even more perspective, let’s bullet point some more stats:
- In the month of August (remember, today’s the 28th), Hughes has thrown exactly 8 IP.
- Here are the American League relievers that have thrown fewer innings than Hughes this month: Randy Choate (LOOGY), Edgar Gonzalez (Oakland’s mop-up guy), Jess Todd (called up a week into August), and Jason Jennings (DFA’d). That’s it. There’s roughly 155 relief pitchers in the American League at any given moment, and just four have been used less this month.
- Over the last 14 days Hughes has made two appearances, throwing 2.1 IP and a grand total of 37 pitches. Two appearances in the last two weeks. That would be fine if he were, you know, a starter.
- Over the last 16 days, he’s thrown 4.2 IP and 81 pitches.
- Every other pitcher on the Yankees staff has thrown more innings this month, including Chad Gaudin, who didn’t join the team until August 9th.
I understand that relief pitchers have become more and more specialized (damn you, Tony LaRussa, damn you to hell) and that the 8th inning has somehow morphed into the most important inning in the history of New York baseball, but this is getting ridiculous. We’ve seen the last two times out that Hughes was battling rust, yet the solution seems to be use him … less.
Please, more Phil Hughes. You’ll be amazed by what you see.
The bunt that drove us all crazy
Posted by: | CommentsIf you want to read our indictment of Joba Chamberlain’s poor outing last night, head on down to Joe’s recap. I’m not here to talk about Ol’ Two-Out Run Joba. I want to talk about bunting and why it’s generally a very bad idea.
Baseball is a game played without a clock. Instead of 48 or 60 minutes, baseball teams get precious outs. Each side has 27 of them, and at the end of those 27 outs, whichever team has more runs wins. Just as teams don’t like to give up minutes in football, why should managers leading a team on offense ever opt to give up outs? Some will say it improves their chances of winning, but in reality it doesn’t.
In fact, it has been proven that at no point in the game does giving up an out in exchange for a base lead to a better chance at scoring runs — and runs, after all, represent the ultimate goal of a baseball game. Before we arrive at Nick Swisher, Joe Girardi and the bunt that made me want to punch a wall, take a look at Baseball Prospectus’ run matrix. This chart details how many runs a team at bat scores in any given situation. For example, with runners on 1st and 2nd with no one out, a team is expected to score 1.50766. With one out and runners on 2nd and 3rd, a team is expected to score 1.43489 runs.
There are two key points here. First, with that extra out and extra base, a team’s total runs scored decreases by around 0.07 runs. Is that by itself worth eschewing the bunt? Probably not. After all, a team with runners on 2nd and 3rd and 1 out still scores, on average, more than 1 run in that situation. There is, however, a need to consider who is batting.
And now, we return to the Yankees. According to Jack Curry, Joe Girardi, with two on and no one out, asked Nick Swisher to bunt. Now, Nick Swisher is a power hitter. On the season, he has a 123 OPS+ and has hit 123 career home runs. He also gets on base 37 percent of the time — and, by the way, a team with bases loaded and no one out scores, on average, over two runs in that situation.
So Girardi asks Nick Swisher to bunt. Coming into tonight’s game, Nick Swisher had 7 career bunts in 2978 career plate appearances. Three of those bunts came this year. Not so surprisingly, Nick Swisher popped out, and the runners did not advance.
In the end, last night’s game really annoyed me. Joba was really bad, and the Yanks couldn’t protect an early 4-0 lead. They nearly mounted a comeback, but Joe Girardi stupidly managed it away. They still have a six-game lead, but Girardi has been a slave to bad strategy all year. Had the slumping Melky been up with Jeter behind him, I could see why the team might want to bunt, but Nick Swisher is a hitter. He should never ever be bunting after the Yanks got six batters on and the tying run is already in scoring position with no one out. It just doesn’t make sense.
