Archive for Whimsy

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Watching the ninth inning unfold from the cozy confines of Section 420B last night was a surreal experience. Still smarting from Rafael Soriano‘s sub-par pitching, we watched Derek Jeter eke out a base hit, and the stadium turned alive. When Curtis Granderson, the team’s leading home run hitter, bunted, we all groaned, and after walks and pitching changes, Brent Lillibridge single-handedly saved the game for the White Sox twice.

After Lillibridge’s lucky diving catch of what I first assumed to be a game-winning double off the bat of Robinson Cano, I sat in my seat in stunned silence. For a regular season game in April, I was annoyed. No, I was mad. I was mad at Soriano for blowing yet another game in April for the Yanks. I was mad at Lillibridge, a guy who barely looks like he needs to shave, for making two great catches, and I was mad at the Yanks’ offense, suddenly quiet, for putting up no fight against Gavin Floyd and the White Sox.

As we all tend to do so in a one-run game lost on a dime, I wanted to blame someone. Rafael Soriano, of course, seemed like the natural scapegoat. Entrusted as the high-leverage Bridge to Mariano, Soriano needed to get three outs. The first one was a strike out, and it all unraveled from there. He hit Carlos Quentin, and then he gave up the world’s most obvious “here it comes” home run to Paul Konerko. Goat, I thought.

But it wasn’t just the home run that caused the Yanks to lose. After the ninth inning, Soriano still seemed to be the perfect scapegoat. Had he not hit Carlos Quentin, the White Sox would likely not have used Brent Lillibridge as a pinch runner, and Lillibridge, a middle infielder by trade, would not have been in a position to make those catches. With the fallacy of the predetermined outcome firmly in mind, I don’t think Quentin makes the catch one both of those bullets that should have won the game. Again, Soriano’s fault with a side of Lillibridge to blame. (But who can really blame someone for making those catches? Once the emotion settles, just tip your cap.)

So who was this Lillibridge punk that ruined what should have been a perfect inning capped with a Yankee comeback? He’s a 27-year-old middle infielder with a career 51 OPS+ in 317 plate appearances spanning part of four seasons. Tonight was his eighth appearance in right field, and after emerged as one of the Braves’ top prospects in 2008, he has yet to fulfill his potential. How he came to be on the White Sox will bring some mixture of joy and dread to Yankee fans’ hearts.

On December 4, 2008, Lillibridge, one season removed from being named Atlanta’s sixth best minor leaguer and a potential future lead-off hitter, found himself bound for Chicago in a multi-player deal. The youngster, along with Tyler Flowers and two minor leaguers went north in exchange for Boone Logan and Javier Vazquez. The rest, as we know, is history. The Braves traded Logan and Vazquez to the Yanks a year later in exchange for Michael Dunn, Melky Cabrera and Arodys Vizcaino, and Vazquez flamed out in New York.

Essentially, had Chicago not traded Vazquez to the Braves, Lillibridge wouldn’t have been on the White Sox. He wouldn’t have been in right field in the ninth inning, and he wouldn’t have robbed the Yanks of a pie-filled victory. It was simple: It was, as it always is, Javier Vazquez’s fault. While walking out of the stadium, I realized I could blame Javier Vazquez, and the loss seemed easier to take. I might have gone home an unhappy fan, but in the great game of finger-pointing, I was a satisfied camper. It was, is and always will be Javy’s fault.

Categories : Whimsy
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Apr
13

Fun With ESPN Player Headshots

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The Yankees were rained out tonight, and I don’t think anyone is the mood for in-depth analysis and what not at this hour of the night/early in the morning, so instead I give you this: The 25 Most Terribly Awesome ESPN Head Shots. That one of Henry Blanco is called the “your wife just filed for divorce and wants half your sh!t.” Fitting, ain’t it?

It’s not exactly the most politically correct or safe for work link, so click at your own risk. All 25 are equally hilarious though, just in case you need a laugh on this Yankees baseball-less night.

(h/t BtB)

Categories : Whimsy
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The beginning of the season is always a fun time for New York City real estate watchers. The Yanks and Mets bring in a brand new crop of transient millionaires who need places to live, and The Post’s Page 6 and the city’s real estate gossip blogs work overtime to find the latest and greatest pads for baseball players. We know that Derek Jeter recently took out a new apartment in his Trump building so that he could get a better night’s sleep, and this week we learn where Rafael Soriano is dropping his new-found millions.

The Yanks’ 8th Inning-only pitcher set-up man has set up shop at the RiversEdge in Weehawken, New Jersey. The luxury building is a 25-minute drive away from Yankee Stadium, and Soriano is dropping $15,000 a month on not one but four apartments. One of them is for him; another for his assistant; the third is for his trainer and chef; and the fourth is for his sister, who according to The Real Deal, often travels from the Dominican to see Soriano pitch.

Soriano, whose RiversEdge neighbors include one Boone Logan, has taken up shop in a 1500-square foot two-bedroom unit with views of the Manhattan skyline. My favorite part of the report though is the quote from Gershon Adjaye, Soriano’s broker. “Rafael was looking for a place with proximity to the stadium without being in the city,” Adjaye said, “and he wanted to be able to have enough space where his chef and assistant were nearby, but not living with him.” It must be nice to be paid that well, eh?

Categories : Asides, Whimsy
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With new Yankees on the team, one rite of spring involves John Sterling’s home run calls. We wait to hear what the announcer dubbed Pa Pinstripe can come up with, and invariably it will make us groan. We’ve heard “Russel has muscle” and “Andruw Jones makes his bones” already this year, and Eric Chavez has yet to homer. As part of The Sports Section’s coverage of Opening Week, New York Magazine writer Joe DeLessio explored the seven types of Sterling’s home run calls. It is, well, something.

I’m pretty sure DeLessio hit on the entire oeuvre. He talks rhymes, plays on players’ names, alliteration, foreign languages (that make little sense in English), the ever-popular Granderson cultural references, references to Babe Ruth and, of course, made-up words. At least it’s not Hawk Harrelson.

Categories : Asides, Whimsy
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The Yankees’ Great City Subway Race (sponsored by Subway) and I have a tenuous relationship. As a little kid growing up at the stadium, I loved the guy with his Noo Yawk accent broadcasting the race between what was then the 4, D and C trains. The video had live footage inside the subway system, and the race was a thrill for the little kids pulling for their favorite trains.

At some point over the past 15 years, after the B replaced the C in the Bronx, the race changed. It found a corporate sponsor and became all special effects. In early March, I explored how the subway race made no sense and how divorced from transit reality it was.

Today, the Yankees dropped a bombshell on us at Opening Day: The B, D and 4 trains are no more. Instead of using real New York City subway routes, the Yankees have taken the branding in house. The Road Gray and Midnight Blue trains have replaced the B and the D while the Pinstripes train — today’s winner — took over the East Side route for the 4. I am as speechless as you are.

The Yankees have replaced the B, D and 4 trains with their own subway colors. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)

I was able to snap the image above after picking my jaw off of the frozen tundra that was the floor underneath my seats this afternoon. How could the Yankees do such a thing to the iconic New York imagery and their long-term between-innings entertainment? Did the MTA force a change? Did the Yanks want the chance to sell pinstripe-branded subway cars? The questions were endless.

Right now, I don’t know the answers to these questions. I’ve reached out to the Yankees for an explanation, and I’ll do the same with the MTA. Trust me; I will get to the bottom of this. We deserve the answers. In the meantime, we’ll ponder the fates of the B, D and 4 trains and find a silver lining: At least the injustice of the B winning the Great City Subway Race will no longer drive us nuts.

After the jump, a shot I snapped of the trains in motion. It just looks…wrong. Read More→

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Mar
31

About that 2003 stuff…

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(AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Once the Yankees failed to sign Cliff Lee, they shifted into salvage mode and grabbed what they deemed to be useful players on the cheap. Among that group was fifth starter Freddy Garcia, long man Bartolo Colon, bench players Andruw Jones and Eric Chavez, and reliever Mark Prior. As each signing trickled in, a familiar wisecrack was bestowed from the masses: “they’d win if it was 2003!” The joke came in various forms, but the one constant was 2003 for whatever reason. People were fixated on that year. So, naturally, the question becomes: what’s so special about 2003 anyway?

2002
This is a convenient place to start since it’s Prior’s first (half) year in the bigs. He came up in late May and pitched to a 3.16 FIP in 116.2 IP, striking out 11.3 batters per nine. Colon was in the middle of a six-year stretch of 4-5 fWAR seasons, splitting a 3.73 FIP in 233.1 IP between the Indians and Expos. Sweaty Freddy was already a vet at age 25, with 87 big league starts to his credit. His second straight Opening Day assignment was followed by 223.2 IP of 4.01 FIP pitching. That’s a fine three-man pitching staff right there.

Jones’ .377 wOBA was the second highest of his career at the time, and the 15.6 runs he saved on defense (!) was then the lowest full season total of his career (!!) by eight runs (!!!). Chavez was a young buck just coming into his own at the time (24 years old), but his .364 wOBA was his third straight year in the .360′s. He also saved nine runs with the glove, down four from the year before.

(AP Photo/Rusty Kennedy)

2003
Prior zoomed right past Beast Mode and went straight into F*ck Sh*t Up Mode this season, giving the Cubbies 211.1 IP with a 2.47 FIP. Over the last eight years, there have been only five instances in which a pitcher has posted a FIP that low in a single season (min. 180 IP). He was, as they say, redonkulous. Garcia had one of the worst full seasons of his career with a 4.82 FIP in 201.1 IP, and Colon was rather ordinary with a 4.11 IP in a crazy 242 IP. That’s the sixth most innings thrown in a single season by a non-Roy Halladay pitcher over the last eight years. Jones had another phenomenal year (.361 wOBA, 18.4 runs saved) but Chavez slumped with the glove, costing his team 5.2 runs defensively. He did provide another .360-ish wOBA (.365 to be exact), the fourth straight year. This is the year everyone keeps referring too, though Prior and Jones were the only real standouts.

2004
Things started to go south for Prior in ’04, but he still managed a 3.53 FIP in 118.2 IP. Colon had the worst full season of his career (4.97 FIP in 208.1 IP), but Garcia had the second best of his career (3.67 FIP in 210 IP). Once again, Andruw was a monster, saving 24.3 runs defensively with a .351 wOBA. That’s his worst offensive performance in this here “study.” Chavez, meanwhile, had the best offensive season of his career thanks to a .383 wOBA, and he also saved eight-and-a-half runs at the hot corner. The Prior injury and Colon’s poor season really drag this group down.

Fatty vs. fatty. Fatty wins. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

2005
Jones stole the show this season, clubbing 51 homers and registered a .382 wOBA at age 28. He also saved 24.3 runs in center, resulting in an 8.3 fWAR effort that was second only to some guy named Alex among all position players. Colon won the Cy Young this year, but a 3.75 FIP in 222.2 IP is more really good than Cy worthy. Garcia (4.05 FIP in 228 IP) and Chavez (.342 wOBA, 7.1 runs saved) were solid but not brilliant. The ’05 season was Prior’s last hurrah, a 3.85 FIP in 166.2 IP. He made nine appearances in 2006 and hasn’t been back to the show since.

* * *

Now that we have an idea of what each player did during this completely arbitrary four year stretch, let’s recap it all using everyone’s favorite catch-all stat, fWAR…

While this fivesome did some fine work in 2003, the 2005 season is where it’s really at. Each player was worth at least three wins, and four topped at least 4.3 wins. The star-level performances aren’t there after Jones, but one star and four other above-average contributors is a recipe for success. So the next time someone says the Yankees would be doing great if it was 2003, make sure you point out that they’d be doing even better if it was 2005.

Categories : Whimsy
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The most athletic thing Bartolo did all month. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

A new season is upon us, and it will surely bring exciting moments as well heartbreak. We just have to hope to have a healthy number of the former and just a few of the latter. Heartbreaking moments are inevitable over the course of a 162-game season, and they aren’t an indication of some kind of fatal flaw in the team. Sometimes things just don’t break right, that’s baseball, and we move on.

Thanks to the internet, we all have a way to covey our idiotic knee-jerk reactions to the masses at the click of a mouse or the enter button on your phone. We’re all guilty of it. We feel better, but that’s pretty much all it does. That’s what this thread is for, to preemptively complain about the inevitable. Get it out of your system now and you’ll feel better later. Here’s a nice long list of unfortunate things that are sure to happen at some point (more than likely multiple times) in 2011, but if you have anything to add, stick it in the comments.

  • Derek Jeter will ground out weakly on the first pitch.
  • Brett Gardner will take a fastball right down the middle for strike three.
  • Mark Teixeira will swing over top of a changeup.
  • Curtis Granderson will strike out against the lefty.
  • Robbie Cano will swing at a pitch a foot over his head.
  • Gardner will reach base and not attempt to steal in a timely fashion.
  • Gardner will reach base and not attempt to steal. Period.
  • Nick Swisher will strike out three times in one game.
  • Alex Rodriguez won’t hit that game-winning homer.
  • Jesus Montero will make an out, probably in his first ever big league at-bat.
  • Mariano Rivera will blow a save. Might even be a walk-off loss.
  • Rafael Soriano will blow a save.
  • Soriano will blow a lead in the eighth.
  • Joba Chamberlain will blow a lead in the seventh.
  • Joba will blow a lead in the seventh, the Yankees will regain the lead the next inning, and then Soriano will blow it in the eighth.
  • The Yankees will strand a runner at third.
  • The Yankees will load the bases with no outs and fail to score a run.
  • Phil Hughes will give up a homerun.
  • A.J. Burnett will give up four runs in an inning.
  • Freddy Garcia will suck. In general.
  • Ivan Nova will stop looking like Cy Young once the lineup turns over.
  • CC Sabathia will fail to throw at least eight innings in a start.
  • CC will lose a game. Two in a row, in fact.
  • Some non-prospect will get called up and shut the Yankees down in his first start. Presumably left-handed.
  • Some team will steal Russell Martin blind.
  • Evan Longoria will make A-Rod look old.
  • Elvis Andrus will make Jeter look really old.
  • Andrus will get another friggin’ infield hit.
  • Adrian Gonzalez will take a Yankees’ pitcher deep.
  • Kyle Farnsworth will save a game. Against the Yankees, in the Bronx.
  • Tex will slump in April.
  • Pedro Feliciano won’t get that one lefty he was brought in to face out.
  • Someone on the staff will walk in a run. My money’s on David Robertson.
  • Bartolo Colon will pitch well out of the bullpen, then suck in the rotation.
  • One of the Killer B’s will get called up and not be awesome right away.
  • Andruw Jones‘ long swing will make him look like the worst player ever for a stretch of time.
  • Joe Girardi will make a weird pitching change.
  • Frankie Cervelli will start entirely too many games once he’s healthy.
  • Some Triple-A reliever won’t get called up when we all know he totally should have.
  • Some Triple-A reliever will get called when he should have, then he’ll suck.
  • Greg Golson won’t throw out every runner who tried to take an extra base.
  • Jose Bautista will hit a homer against the Yankees.
  • Some guy you never heard of will hit his first career homer against the Yankees.
  • Old Timer’s Day festivities will last entirely too long.
  • The Legends seats will be empty for a game.
  • A-Rod will wear those funny white cleats during the All-Star Game.
  • Some Yankee will get snubbed for the All-Star Game.
  • That guy the Yankees should have signed will pitch well against them.
  • Manny Ramirez is going to remind us of the old days, at least once.
  • Granderson will take a weird route on a ball hit in front of him.
  • Swish will make a boneheaded play in the outfield.
  • Swish will make a boneheaded play on the bases and get tagged out.
  • The Yankees won’t double steal with Gardner and Eduardo Nunez on base.
  • Girardi will call for a sac bunt.
  • Swisher will attempt to bunt.
  • Cano will square around to bunt.
  • Jeter won’t bunt when he should, then he’ll ground into a double play.
  • The Yankees won’t draft the guy Baseball America says they should have.
  • The Yankees won’t give that international free agent $4M.
  • Kevin Millwood will get a chance before your favorite pitching prospect.
  • Some pitcher the Yankees should acquire will get traded, just not to New York.
  • Ian Kennedy will throw a great game on the same day the Yankees’ fifth starter gets rocked.
  • Damaso Marte ain’t ever comin’ back.
  • Kei Igawa will still show up in DotF.

So that’s all I got. Like I said, add anything I missed in the comments.

Categories : Whimsy
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Mar
24

The Ruben Rivera Trade Tree

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On of my new favorite sites (or Tumblrs, I think that’s what they’re called) is MLB Trade Trees, which is exactly what you think it is. They’re graphics of MLB trades, like the one you see of Ruben Rivera above. Of course that one could be continued, since Robin Ventura turned into Bubba Crosby and Scott Proctor, then Scott Proctor turned into Wilson Betemit, then Betemit and two throw-in prospects turned into Nick Swisher. The Gary Sheffield tree is pretty cool too, amazing how much it impacted the Brewers. Anyone, I recommend adding the site to your bookmarks or RSS feed or whatever, this kind of stuff is always fun.

(Just a reminder: Craig Robinson of Flip Flop Fly Ball did a killer Swisher trade graphic for us not too long ago)

Categories : Whimsy
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Mark Teixeira wants to rock, and he wants Yankee fans to know that every single time he strides to the plate in Yankee Stadium this year. The Twisted Sister, in fact, has been filtering through the TV broadcasts during Spring Training as well. So I take comfort in knowing that in 2011, Mark Teixeira wants to rock just as much as he did in 2010 and 2009.

Teixeira isn’t so stuck in his ways. As he explained last year to ESPN, he has mixed it up with his tunes over the years. He used to play Jimi Hendrix’s version of “All Along the Watchtower” and added Pearl Jam’s “Alive” to his Bronx rotation in 2010. Even still, he always just wants to rock.

The Yanks’ first baseman though is a stalwart among changing tastes. As Mark Feinsand and the dear departed Fack Youk explored last May, the Yankee lineup featured an ever-changing mix of current hits and classic tracks. The Baseball Gods cursed Nick Johnson for his using Miley Cyrus during baseball games while Derek Jeter and A-Rod come to bat to their latest favorite. “This Is Why I’m Hot” gave way to “The Way I Live” for A-Rod one year. Or perhaps it was the other way around.

Inside the stadium, we used to be welcomed to the jungle by Axl Rose and Co. before every game. These days, Nelly reminds us that the Yanks have the heart of a champion, and the dulcet tones of Bobby Darin still remind us that it’s Sunday in New York. Those tracks are run by board operator Mike Bonner, but the players generally pick their own songs. It’s a process.

On Monday evening, Curtis Granderson — with some help from 12 Angry Mascots — let us into the process and showed us exactly what song we’ll be listening to this season as number 14 comes to bat. The, uh, fun is well worth the three minutes and three seconds.

Categories : Whimsy
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