Archive for Rants
When will Girardi have seen enough of Boone Logan?
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With this photo, I've already seen enough of Logan today. | Photo credit: Duane Burleson/AP
We haven’t seen much of Boone Logan this season. Recalled after the Yankees placed Chan Ho Park on the disabled list, Logan has appeared in just eight games and has faced 26 batters. Of those 20 have been in low-leverage situations. In other words, he’s something of a mop-up man who sometimes acts as a LOOGY. Either way, he hasn’t shown much in his short stint.
It seems like any time a manager has a lefty in the pen he uses him only against left-handed hitters — hence the term LOOGY (lefty one out guy). Joe Girardi has had Logan face 12 left-handed hitters this year, and the results are pretty disastrous. He has walked a quarter of the lefties he has faced. There is no way to rationalize that as acceptable in any way. Logan has never been a control guy, but at least in the past he’s avoid issuing too many free passes to same-handed batters.
To his credit, Logan had avoided the extra base hit until last night. Unfortunately, last night’s hurt a lot. It started with, guess what, a walk. He had actually walked Johnny Damon to start the inning, but erased him by inducing a ground ball off the bat of Magglio Ordonez. With a fresh slate and two outs he walked Miguel Cabrera. Then, facing lefty Brennan Boesch (shameless Brennan Boesch self-plug here) he laid a fastball right down the middle. That scored Cabrera and gave the Tigers a 5-2 lead. The Yankees would score two in the top of the next inning, but after the extra base hit it wasn’t enough to tie the game.
It might seem like Logan is getting a bit unlucky against lefties, since his BABIP against them is .355. That, however, is not the case. Of the six balls in play he has allowed off the bats of lefties, four have been line drives. Those are going to drop for hits more often than not. He has thrown only half of his 52 pitches to lefties for strikes. Apparently he’s made those count, laying them right over the plate. Lefties have gotten a good look at him, too, seeing 4.33 pitches per plate appearance. Righties have seen 3.64 pitches per PA.
Even if Logan reverts to his career numbers, he still won’t be a quality bullpen component. Against righties he’s an unmitigated disaster, a 5.69 FIP and 5.37 xFIP. Against lefties he’s a bit better, 3.91 FIP and 3.77 xFIP, but he still walks way too many of them and averages about a home run allowed every nine innings. That’s not impressive for a guy whose primary job is to retire lefties. He’s also terrible once men reach base, a 5.28 FIP and 5.15 xFIP. He’s also more prone to walk guys and less apt to strike them out.
This is mostly an emotional rant about the frustration I feel every time Logan enters the game. I understand that everything he has done falls under the short sample umbrella, and that he’s bound to do better against lefties as the season progresses. But, as I said, even his career numbers against lefties don’t represent anything special. The sooner he’s back in Scranton, the better.
Twelve games in, All Star balloting opens
Posted by: | CommentsIt never fails to amaze me that Major League Baseball’s All Star Game counts for something. Voting is but a popularity contest, and a glorified exhibition game determines home field advantage in the World Series. I shouldn’t complain because the AL has a dominant lock on the Mid-Summer Classic these days, but it rankles me nonetheless. To that end, it seems absurd that, on April 20, nine games into the season, we can now vote for the 2010 All Star team. Perhaps we should Scott Podsednik to the Small Sample Size All Star team for hitting .457 over 46 ABs or Vernon Wells for bashing six dingers in the early goings, but I don’t want either of them anywhere near the AL All Star team come mid-July.
Baseball does not move fast enough for Joe West
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Cowboy Joe has a problem: The glacial pace of Red Sox-Yankees games is getting under his skin, and the players just don’t respect him or the game.
“They’re the two clubs that don’t try to pick up the pace,” Joe West, umpire, crew chief at Fenway this week and sometimes singer/songwriter, said prior to last night’s game. “They’re two of the best teams in baseball. Why are they playing the slowest? It’s pathetic and embarrassing. They take too long to play.”
West’s rant came after players on both teams complained Tuesday night when they were denied time outs by home plate umpire Angel Hernandez. With reporters at the ready, West continued his tirade. “The commissioner of baseball says he wants the pace picked up. We try and still almost went four hours,” he said. “All of baseball looks to these two clubs to pick up the pace… The players aren’t working with us. This is embarrassing, a disgrace to baseball.”
A disgrace to baseball. Strong words coming from an umpire who once quit his job as a failed labor negotiation tactic.
The reaction to West has, unsurprisingly, been swift and somewhat critical. Rob Neyer supported West’s statements but wondered if the umpires should be at fault. Jason at It’s About The Money, Stupid highlighted West’s strike zone. Others have questioned West for speaking out in the first place. Umpires, many believe, should be seen and not heard.
But West has a point, and we’ll get to that in a minute. First, I’d like to address concerns about West’s strike zone as one reason for the game’s delay. The argument alleges that West doesn’t call low strikes, and thus, pitchers are throwing more pitches and the game takes longer. That is partially true, but if we take a look at the normalized strike zone, that argument breaks down. Via Brooks:
It’s true that Joe West doesn’t call a low strike, but he’s willing to extend the zone to his left a bit. By my count, he called nearly as many pitches that were strikes balls as he did pitches that were out of the zone strikes. That’s a spurious argument, and it detracts from West’s valid points.
The valid point is that Yankee-Red Sox games are very, very long. Sunday’s game took three hours and 46 minutes to play; Tuesday’s lasted three hours and 48 minutes. Even last night’s 10-inning affair went on for three hours and 21 minutes. According to figures from last year, an average major league game lasts around 2:52 while the Yankees play games that average 3:08 and the Sox 3:04. When the two teams play each other, they averaged nine innings in 3:30 last year, a good forty minutes slower than league average. Pick up the pace, indeed.
But, as always, the question remains: Does it matter? The Yankees and Red Sox both take more pitches than just about any other team in baseball, and the two teams were one and two in the AL in on-base percentage last year. As I said yesterday, the more pitches a team takes, the baserunners they have, the more runs they have, the more pitchers they see, the longer the game takes.
Meanwhile, from the money perspective, few fans care. In the New York area, YES Network enjoyed its second-highested rated regular season game ever on Opening Night, and NESN had its highest Opening Night ratings in its history. ESPN2, airing the game outside of the two major New England and New York media markets, scored a 2.4 rating, just a few thousand viewers behind the NCAA women’s championship game. The fans have repeated said they don’t mind the long games; they just want baseball.
In the end, I think Joe West’s claims are right. The Yankee/Red Sox games do take too long, and some of that is because the games are sometimes managed as though they are Game 7 ALCS chess matches and not just games one, two and three of the regular season. I think baseball should try to cut down on these lengthy games for the overall health of the sport. After all, we want to see game action and not David Ortiz spitting on his batting gloves for the fourth time in three pitches.
But Joe West is also wrong. It’s not his place to call baseball’s marquee teams an embarrassment. It’s not his place to yell at the players. Let Bob Watson spin his wheels arguing with teams over picking up the pace. The umpires just sound as though they’re whining in the face of baseball’s success, and that is what I find to be a disgrace to baseball.
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Update (5:09 p.m.): Mariano fires back
As Joe West’s comments reverberate throughout baseball, Mariano Rivera has slammed the umpire over his remarks. Brian Costello and George A. King III caught up with the Yankee closer who wasn’t too pleased to hear West complaining about having to do his job.
“It’s incredible,” Rivera said to the two Post reporters. “If he has places to go, let him do something else. What does he want us to do, swing at balls?”
Rivera, a player who has tremendous respect for the game and the umpires, didn’t hold back. “He has a job to do. He should do his job,” Rivera said. “We don’t want to play four-hour games but that’s what it takes. We respect and love the fans and do what we have to do and that’s play our game.”
On the one hand, it will, as Costello and King write, be interesting to see how West reacts the next time he’s behind the plate for a Mariano appearance. On the other hand, Rivera, the Yankees and the Red Sox should be insulted by West’s comments. As many have pointed out, West’s partiality is now in doubt, and Bud Selig should step in to calm this escalating situation.
On slow starts and small sample sizes
Posted by: | CommentsLast night, after he failed to record a hit, reporters pestered David Ortiz with questions about his slow start, and the embattled Red Sox DH erupted in the greatest example of Mad Libs ever. “You guys wait ’til [expletive] happens, then you can talk [expletive]. Two [expletive] games, and already you [expletives] are going crazy,” he said. “What’s up with that, man? [Expletive]. [Expletive] 160 games left. That’s a [expletive]. One of you [expletives] got to go ahead and hit for me.”
Earlier today, Fack Youk, in a post that fills in the graphic-language blanks, takes on the topic of small sample sizes and the early goings. We know that slow starts don’t mean much in the grand scheme of a 162-game season. We know that players will eventually regress to the means, get their hits, hit their home runs. We know that we can’t judge Ortiz on eight plate appearances and can’t proclaim the return of Joba based on two strike outs. Yet, so many people — from players to fans to reporters — do so. Anyway, check out what Matt had to say at Fack Youk, and remember that there are “[expletive] 160 games left.”
Sherman: Hughes will be the fifth starter
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Phil Hughes, says Joel Sherman today in the Post, will be the Yankees’ fifth starter out of Spring Training. The team isn’t ready to make an official announcement, but the move has been all but decided since February. The job, says Sherman, was Phil’s to lose this March, and although Sergio Mitre and Alfredo Aceves have pitched well during Grapefruit League action, Hughes, 23, has thrown as he needed to do in order to secure that final rotation spot.
Sherman offers up an extended take on the Yanks’ thinking:
But this was never a numbers contest. If so, Alfredo Aceves and Sergio Mitre, both of whom statistically have outpitched Hughes, would still be in the mix. This was more about projection. The Yanks like Mitre and, especially, Aceves. But they view both as back-end starters who already have reached their ceilings.
They envision Hughes as a No. 3 starter or better depending on his ability to keep the aggressiveness he showed last year out of the bullpen while honing what, until this point, had been an unappetizing changeup. Thus, Yankee officials were elated Monday despite the poor overall line by how far Hughes’ changeup had advanced, both in its deception and his trust in deploying it.
The homers they saw more as a function of the wind and Hughes’ still gaining arm strength. His fastball was mainly 89-91 mph, and the Yanks anticipate several mph more over the next few weeks. If that comes along with the changeup, the Yanks really may have a No. 3 starter in the No. 5 spot in 2010. But, just as vital, they also may have a No. 3 starter in the No. 3 spot in 2011 should Andy Pettitte retire and Javier Vazquez leave as a free agent.
Now, I’ve been turning the news in Sherman’s column over in my mind all day, and I can’t come to terms with it. I’m a Phil Hughes guy, and I truly think he needs to have a chance to start. But this leaves Joba dangling in the wind. It throws into the Yanks’ ability to develop pitchers and their patience with young arms into doubt, and it makes me wonder just what the team accomplished after three years of highly-publicized Joba Rules. It doesn’t make sense.
Joba, just 24, hasn’t been bad as a Major League starter. Over 43 starts, many of which were limited by the Yanks’ overly cautious approach, he has thrown 221.2 innings and has struck out 206. His 101 walks are on the high side, but as one of the younger starters in the league, he has done the job admirably enough.
The problem though has been in the way the Yanks have kept the kid gloves on. A full 17 of Joba’s Major League starts were shorter than 15 outs. In some of those outings, Joba was just bad; in one, he left after getting struck by the ball; but by and large, the Yankees pulled him due to an innings limit or a pitch limit or some kind of limit. They kept the leash on for a very, very long time.
Now, we hear that the Yankees are ready to end that experiment for now. Sherman sees Chamberlain in the eighth inning with Aceves and Mitre serving as the team’s sixth and seventh starters should the need arise. Just yesterday, I decried such a move. The Yanks should, if not going with Chamberlain in the rotation, have him log innings at AAA. The team has toyed with Joba for so long that he has finally escaped the innings limit, but now they’re going to take him out of the rotation entirely. Who’s steering this ship anyway?
Maybe Sherman is wrong. Maybe his reading of the tea leaves will have been for naught, and the Yankees will surprise all of the B-Jobber analysts who want Joba in the bullpen. Maybe the Yankees will wake up and determine that, after three years of experiments, Joba’s year to dazzle — or fail — without any sort of limit is 2010.
I’m not too optimistic though, and I have to wonder if the Yankees should begin to think about ways to maximize Joba’s value through other avenues. If they’re not willing to let him take his lumps in the rotation as a 24-year-old pitching behind four others good enough to be staff aces, then cut bait and trade him. As early as 2011, the Yankees will need starters who don’t have innings limits, and these constant bullpen/rotation back-and-forths need to end. Joba’s role in 2010 shouldn’t involve rooting for an injury to another starter or waiting for Hughes to reach an inevitable innings cap. He should be starting. Period.
The “leader” of the fifth starter competition
Posted by: | CommentsJust a week ago, Sergio Mitre apparently led the fifth starter competition. But then Al Aceves pitched well, so he was the story. Last night Phil Hughes pitched well, so Wednesday’s stories revolve around how he has stepped up in the fifth starter competition. That, and how this is Joba’s last chance — ever, according to many scribes — to audition for the rotation. The way we’ve seen this story portrayed makes the Yankees’ braintrust seem rather fickle.
I’m not really buying any of it. Maybe the team had a fifth starter picked out before they even came to camp. Maybe they’ve already made a decision based on what they’ve seen. I doubt, however, that they’re anxiously awaiting the results of exhibition games in order to determine the winner. These games are played under completely different circumstances than normal games, and I’m not sure the Yankees can make their decision based on those results.
That isn’t to say that the games are meaningless. The staff can observe the pitchers and see if they’re doing the right things — mixing pitches, throwing strikes, challenging hitters, etc. The results, though, shouldn’t much matter. As we’ve been saying all spring, there’s just too much going on.
Take Phil Hughes’s appearance last night for example. The results show that he pitched very well: 4 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K, 59 pitches. Yet he faced mostly substitutes. Not only substitutes, but substitutes from the NL’s worst offense. Can the Yankees really trust the results in this case? Of course not. But they can observe other aspects of Hughes during the start and make determinations. That, I think, is what this competition is based on — if it’s really a competition at all.
Today Joba starts against Philadelphia, the NL’s best offense. If he goes his four innings, but allows five hits, two runs, and walks one, will that really be judged as worse than Hughes’s outing? The discrepancy in talent there is immense, the reserves on a terrible offense against the starters on the best offense. In fact, if Joba pitches well we should all be encouraged, since he did it against tougher competition.
This is all a rant to say that these stories in the newspaper don’t necessarily reflect the actual decision-making process. They’re stories based on the results of the game and conversations with staff. Maybe they give us a little insight into the team’s thought process, but maybe they don’t. Again, maybe the team is keeping its true intentions under wraps. We don’t know. What we do know, though, is that trusting the straight results of these spring training appearances won’t help us better guess the competition. There are just too many variables involved.
Why sending Hughes to the minors is a waste
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One of the ongoing themes of Spring Training has been Phil Hughes and the possibility of being sent to the minors in 2010 to pile up innings. In his Chan Ho Park post earlier this morning, Ben wrote about just that, so allow me to excerpt…
For the Yanks, the best AAA candidate would seem to be Phil Hughes. He has an innings limit and should be working as a starter for as long as he can this year. If that means starting the year at AAA and being the first arm called up, that’s a risk I’d be willing to take. The Yanks could send Aceves down and keep Hughes in the 8th inning role, but this move reeks of short-term planning at the expense of long-term success. Last year, the Yanks’ pitchers enjoyed unexpected health. Can we expect them to do it again this year?
No, we can’t expect them to do it again this year, however keeping Hughes in the bullpen to start the year isn’t just a short-term move. If a starter were to go down, there’s Chad Gaudin, or Al Aceves, or Sergio Mitre, or Ivan Nova to fill in. There’s no shortage of candidates to make a spot start or three. However, if a starter were to go down for an extended period of time, well then you can stretch Hughes out to start. There’s no reason it can’t be done. Everyone’s all freaked out after Joba Chamberlain hurt his shoulder in 2008, but that’s one data point in a sea of them. There’s no evidence that moving back into the rotation caused Joba’s shoulder to bark. He’s a pitcher, it could have started acting up for a million reasons.
Just last year, we watched Bobby Parnell, Justin Masterson, J.A. Happ, and Scott Feldman start the season in the bullpen before moving to the rotation. Jonathan Sanchez, Carlos Zambrano, Johan Santana, Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt … all those guys make the transition during the season as well. It can be done. Pretty easily too. But I digress.
There’s several reasons the Yanks shouldn’t send Hughes down to the minors. First off, he’s one of the seven or eight best pitchers in the organization, top to bottom, and the best big league ready arms should always good north when the club breaks camp. Secondly, the single most important thing a young pitcher must learn how to do is get big leaguers out. That’s it. If he can’t get Major League hitters out, then he’s hurting the team. If Hughes’ spends the season in Triple-A Scranton getting stretched out in advance of filling a rotation spot in 2011, then what do you have? You have a guy who can give you 170 innings next year, but may or may not know how to pitch out of jams and what not.
Sure, it sounds fine. He’d just be the fifth starter after all. Those guys aren’t crucial. But what’s the alternative? Hughes spends the season in the bullpen, at worst, and next year you’re looking at a guy who can give you say, 130-140 innings that will probably be a bit better because he’s more experienced. Hughes has nothing to learn in the minors, at all. He can throw 35 changeups a game, but big deal. Throwing changeups to in big league situations is different than throwing them to minor leaguers. And there’s no rule against throwing changeups out of the bullpen. He can still work on it.
Look, I want Phil Hughes to be a starter for the long haul as much as the next guy. I just think that the minimal gain you get towards his future innings limit is completely negated by missing out on all of that experience against big leaguers. We know Hughes can go through a lineup three times, he’s done it his entire life in the minors. All he’s going to do in Triple-A is spin his wheels. You don’t learn anything from carving guys up, you learn from making mistakes and getting smacked around a bit. Keeping Hughes in the Majors to start the year puts the best team on the field and is the best thing for his development.
Frankly, I’m kind of astonished I had to write this post. There’s a lot of dumb ideas tossed around in Spring Training because there’s nothing else to talk about, and this is the perfect example of that.
Photo Credit: Kathy Willens, AP
The Early Season Grind
Posted by: | CommentsFor whatever reason, the Yankees haven’t been a very good team early in the season lately. Last year they went just 12-10 in April, but 91-49 the rest of the way. If you go back three years, the Yankees are 35-39 in April but 251-161 from May on. It’s frustrating, and no one can seem to figure it out what’s causing this. We’ve just come to accept it.
In his blog post today, Buster Olney examined each American League team’s schedule in the early going. The Yanks have the third toughest schedule in the early going (according to Buster), thanks to 12 straight games against teams that finished .500 or better last season to start the campaign. Just 19 of their first 41 games will be played in the Bronx, and given their recent historical suckiness in April, it’s really not all that hard to envision a scenario in which the Yanks are under .500 on May 1st.
Of course, there’s two sides to every coin. The rough April (and part of May) means that June through September will be much kinder. The Yanks will play just three games against a team that finished over .500 last year (the Phillies) from May 28th through June 25th of this season, and 11 of their first 17 games in September are against some perennial doormats. With fewer games against the better teams in the league in the second half, that means winning streaks stay alive longer, and losing streaks don’t last very long.
A good start is always nice, and yes games in April count just as much as games in August and September, but the Yanks are going to face a tough part of the schedule at some point, and I like that they’ll do it in April. More than likely, they would have stumbled to a .500 or so record in that month, but now it’ll come with the reassurance of knowing that they’ll have a chance to build some serious momentum in the second half and go on into the playoffs with the head of steam like last year. Oh sure, it’ll give the talking heads a lot to … uh … talk about.
“They’re complacent!”
“The starters are worn down from last year!”
“They miss Hideki Matsui and Johnny Damon!”
I can see all the headlines now, but it’ll just be the usual MSM gibberish. The important thing is that the toughest part of the schedule will be behind them, and they’ll have a chance to make the rest of the league pay once the team hits their stride. Now, just imagine if they get off to a hot start…
When Johnny went marching away again
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AP Photo/Rob Carr)
“I know where I want to be next year. I want to be here in New York.”
Maybe I let myself get suckered in by Johnny Damon last spring and summer. Maybe I listened to him speak in radio interviews and locker room chats in May, after games in August and on Sirius XM as recently as November and dared to believe he was telling the truth.
“This would definitely be the best place for me. I’d sure love to keep taking advantage of that right-field porch.”
It would have been simple for Damon to stay in New York City. All he had to do was tell that to his agent and urge Scott Boras to make one last contract work. After all, Damon will be playing his age 36 season in 2010, and with his defense slowing down, he’ll need to DH. With that short porch in right field, Yankee Stadium was perfectly suited to Damon’s bat, and while Brian Cashman has wisely improved the team’s defense, Damon would have had a role to play yet.
“I don’t know where else I would want to go to. Obviously, that’s not the right thing to say when you’re about ready to approach free agency, but I’m very happy with playing in New York, and my family’s happy I play for New York. There’s no bigger place to go.”
Yet, this past weekend just days before he had to report to training camp somewhere, Johnny Damon finally reached an agreement with the Detroit Tigers on a one-year deal rumored to be worth $8 million. He’ll inexplicably receive a no-trade clause, and even though his wife was reported to be unhappy with the move and even though the Yanks had extended him a multi-year offer, Damon will take his bat and glove to the pitcher’s park of Comerica and hope for the best.
In the Bronx, last week Brian Cashman sounded somewhere between a jilted lover and a shocked businessman — shocked at Scott Boras’ hubris and the way Damon and his agent seemingly misplayed this off-season. He offered the incumbent left fielder a two-year deal worth $14 million, and even though that money represented a significant pay cut for Damon, it would remain the best one Johnny had on the table all winter. At the time, Cashman too knew it would be the top offer Damon would get.
“The industry the last two free agent markets seems to be going downward and the player’s ages are going upward,” Cashman said. “It makes more sense to be patient. My attitude is if this is the place you want to be, you will make it happen. Johnny Damon professed his love for the Yankees, wanted to be here and was given every chance to be here. He’s not here anymore and I don’t feel that is the Yankees’ fault. They have to reconcile why they are not here, not me. If people want to be here and be a part of something, then find a way to work it out.”
Cashman was clearly irked at the way the negotiations went down. “Scott Boras said, ‘Bobby Abreu’s contract is $9 million a year right now on the table so why would we do that? So I expect to see a Bobby Abreu contract.’” the Yanks’ GM said. “I hope he does not sign for something less than our offer. That means he should have been a Yankee and that’s not our fault.”
At the same time, Ken Rosenthal wonders if Boras is to blame. The Fox Sports scribe believes Boras wanted to keep the Cardinals believing that the Yanks were interested in Matt Holliday and therefore never engaged the Yanks on Damon until it was far too late. From what we’ve heard in the past about Boras and from a business perspective, this conspiracy theory would make sense. After all, Holliday will make Boras far more money over the next eight or ten years than Damon will, and it just makes sense for Boras to push Damon to the side while focusing on his younger and more valuable clients.
Here we are, then, without Johnny Damon. I know my tone here sounds more annoyed than I actually am. I didn’t like Damon’s defense, and I can see his production completely falling off a cliff this year, especially away from his home run haven. Yet, something about Damon made me believe his sincerity. Today, though, I know how Red Sox fans felt after the 2005 season. Johnny Damon might talk the talk, but when it came time to walk the walk, money — and less than he could have gotten in the first place — ruled the day instead.
In which an owner talks about something he doesn’t understand
Posted by: | CommentsThe Yankees catch a lot of grief because of their payroll, and whether you think it’s fair or not is another discussion for another day. Most of those outside of the Tri-State Area will bitch and moan every time the Yankees sign a CC Sabathia or a Mark Teixeira, yet won’t give an iota of credit whenever the team makes a shrewd move like grabbing Nick Swisher as an ultra-buy low or finding a big league arm (Al Aceves) and a top pitching prospect (Manny Banuelos) in Mexico for the the total cost of a replacement level player ($400,000). It’s the way it is, and most don’t think twice when fans of other clubs complain.
However, when team owners start to run their mouth, especially when they aren’t even in the same sport, well then something’s not right. At a press conference yesterday, Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti took an unprovoked shot at GM Brian Cashman and our beloved Bombers…
“It certainly doesn’t show up in the standings,” Bisciotti said. “If I’m a Yankees fan, I’m upset we’re not winning 130 games with the roster that they have and the money that they pay out. I think it’s a disgrace they only beat the average team by 10 games in the standings with three times the money. I’d fire that GM. You don’t need a GM. All you have to do is buy the last Cy Young Award winner every year.”
Dare I say … Boversimplification?
I’m sure Mr. Bisciotti is a smart dude, you kind of have to be to make the kind of money needed to buy an NFL franchise. However, what the hell is he talking about that it doesn’t “show up in the standings?” The Yankees have won almost 100 more games than any other team in baseball over the last 14 years. They could have gone 0-162 in 1996, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2007, or 2008, and they still would have the best record in the game over that time. They’ve won the most World Championships in the last two decades, the most division titles, most pennants … how doesn’t it show up in the standings?
The goal isn’t to win 130 games in the regular season, at least not around these parts. The goal is to win 11 in the playoffs. If Bisciotti is going to talk trash about the Yankees not getting bang for their buck, then maybe he should look in a mirror first. The team he owns has missed the playoffs more times in the last five years than the Yankees have in the last 16. Something about throwing stones in glass houses seems appropriate here.
Anyway, thanks for the laugh Steve.
Just 5 days 'til pitchers and catchers report.
