Book Review: The Stark Truth, by Jayson Stark

The Stark Truth: The Most Overrated and Underrated Players in Baseball History
by Jayson Stark
C. 2007, Triumph Books, Chicago, IL
206 p., $24.50 US/$32.50 Canadian

Jayson Stark has won me over.

Not that he's necessarily convinced me that he's right about some of the things he thinks, and not that I automatically believe that anything he says is gospel. But I've decided that I like him, faults and all, if only for the simple fact that he's willing to discuss and defend his position, even with the likes of, well, me. It's that trait that separates Stark from the myriad of journalists who pontificate from their positions of power, safely protected by their editors, publishers, and the fact that they don't have a publicly known email address, spewing whatever they like without thought of reaction, retribution or repurcussions. Stark's very willingness to discuss his views, to debate and disagree without taking (or giving) any of it personally, makes him a fun guy to read and respond to, whether you think he's full of crap or not.

It is in this spirit, the spirit of debate and discussion, that Jayson Stark has written his first book, The Stark Truth: The Most Overrated and Underrated Players in Baseball History. It's a fun little book, easily read in a few sittings over the course of a week or two, if you want, and provides an excellent source for stirring up (what else?) debate. It's not likely to become a classic, like Boys of Summer or Ball Four, but it is a landmark book in that nobody's really ever written something quite like it before. (Christopher "Mad Dog" Russo, of WFAN in NY, wrote a book entitled "The Mad Dog 100: The Hundred Greatest Sports Arguments of All-Time" a few years ago, which was similarly designed to spur debate, but it of course focused on all kinds of arguments in various sports.) Stark's work, focusing on overratedness and underratedness in baseball, makes it unique.

I do wish that he had chosen a title for the book that didn't have his own name in it. It comes off a little presumptuous, but it also starts a dangerous precedent. I mean, how many book titles can you come up with that have "Stark" in the title? Stark Raving Mad, Stark Contrasts, Battle Stark Gallactica...the list soon gets pretty thin. Still, it's tough to come up with something pithy and clever when the subject of the book does not lend itself to being explained in any sort of clever or pithy fashion.

The book seeks to explore and describe, position by position, the most overrated and underrated players of all time. He looks at right- and left-handed starting pitchers, relief pitchers (without regard to handedness), designated hitters, and then each position around the field. Each position is examined first for overratedness, then underratedness, with the #1 player of each type at each position getting three or four pages of type, whereas the #2 through #5 playersgetting only a half page to full page synopsis. The players' key stats are listed for reference, and much of Jayson's writing goes into some of the more in-depth analytical tools, like RSAA, WARP, offensive winning percentage, etc. to help make his points that the players in question are really more or less valuable than general public perception would suggest.

This is where Jayson does very well. He uses these stats, and even introduces of them to the unitiated, to show that he grasps the fact that the traditional stats, like batting average, RBIs, and stolen bases, don't always show a clear picture of a player's value and skill. He makes use of the new-fangled stats to support his points, but for seam-heads and sabermetrics buffs, well, you're going to be disappointed. He doesn't have the room (or at least doesn't take the time) to go into the kind of depth you'd probably like to have to describe, for example, why Babe Ruth was a better pitcher than you probably know, or how it is that Steve Garvey was not nearly as good a firstbaseman as you may have heard. Just a taste of the more sophisticated metrics is all you get, and then it's on to the next player on the list. For most readers, though, that's enough, so you won't really find it a problem. Any more than a sampling of those kinds of numbers can get tedious, especially when you're talking about a book of a few hundred pages rather than a blog post or a 2,000-word column on ESPN.com, so Jayson does well to limit that sort of thing.

In the same vein, one of my issues with his book is that he writes it more or less exactly the way he writes his columns. He uses a lot of truncated, terse sentences, with irreverent little comments and such thrown in liberally. That's just his style. Whatever. But after several dozen pages of that, it get's a little old. In a column or especially a blog post, that kind of stream-of-consciousness writing seems fitting, but in a book, I personally expect a bit more eloquence. Another writing strategy you see a little too much is the use of parenthetical comments (something a good writer should not have to do) and while an occasional set of parentheses can be helpful (for colorvor clarification) having six or seven of them in a paragraph can get a bit annoying (as you can imagine) or at least choppy. Jayson is a good enough writer to compose a tome without such faults, and I hope that his next work will use them more sparingly.

Another aspect of the book that seems somewhat excessive is his feeling that, with every new chapter on the most overrated such-and-such, he needs to reiterate that just because he thinks a player is overrated does not mean that he thinks he sucks, just that he thinks that people may think a little more of him than he deserves. This is a helpful and important distinction to make, but I'm not sure he needed to make it a dozen times or more. I guess he's just a little overly sensitive because of all the belligerent e-mail he gets from easily-offended people who feel the need to CAPITALIZE EVERYTHING and can't spell porperly properly. Hard to blame him.

With that said, I am going to argue a little bit about some of his choices, or at least about some of his arguments on their behalf.

In naming Edgar Martinez the most underrated Designated hitter of all time, Stark has this to say:

"...if Edgar Martinez wasn't the greatest hitter alive during those 13 seasons [1991 to 2003], he was certainly the most dependable great hitter alive."

Well, that isn't remotely true. Barry Bonds racked up almost twice as many homers (575 to 284) and 211 more Win Shares than Edgar in those 13 years. Edgar finished a distant 4th in Win Shares, with 364, well behind Bonds, Jeff Bagwell (415), and Frank Thomas (414), and not much better than Rafael Palmiero (361) and Gary Sheffield (344). While Jayson does acknowledge the fact that certain players did have a few more doubles or a slightly higher OBP than Edgar, he entirely omits the fact that Martinez averaged fewer than 22 homers a year in that span, or that his total of 284 was exactly as many as Robin Ventura, good for only 25th place on that list. Edgar had a lot of hits, and a lot of doubles, but at a time when records for homers were being set everywhere you looked, Martinez somehow misplaced his invitation to that party. In addition, Frank Thomas gets nary a mention in the chapter on the DH, even though he's likely to own many of the career records as a DH by the time he retires. And as far as dependability is concerned, well, Edgar missed an average of almost 28 games per year in that span. Even accounting for the 70+ games lost to the strike of 1994-95, that's still about 360 games not played by "...the most dependable great hitter alive".

Anyway, enough on Edgar. Back to Jayson's book.

If you're a Yankee fan, you may not be pleased with many of Stark's choices, even though he goes out of his way (again, on several occasions) to make it clear that he has nothing against the Yankees in particular. His #1 overrated DH, secondbaseman, shortstop, thirdbaseman and right fielder are all players who played some significant portion of their careers in Yankee pinstripes, and many of those are most likey thought of as overrated because they were Yankees. Even so, you could do a lot worse than to start a team with Steve Sax, Phil Rizutto, Graig Nettles, and Dave Winfield, though I can definitely see his point on Ron Blomberg. In addition, among the #2 through #5 most overrated players in their respective roles we also see David Wells, Tommy John, Dave Righetti, Reggie Jackson, Steve Balboni, Cecil Fielder, Bobby Richardson, Bucky Dent, Mickey Rivers, Darryl Strawberry and Bobby Abreu, Yankees all, at least for a while. However, in fairness to Stark, he also calls several Yankees underrated, including the #1 catcher (Yogi Berra) and #1 reliever (Goose Gossage), and gives a little love to the likes of Chili Davis, Oscar Gamble, Joe Gordon, Tim Raines, Bobby Bonds, and even goes so far as to call Derek Jeter the second most underrated shortstop in history!

Personally, I'm a huge Yankee fan, and I almost crapped my pants when I read that! Derek Jeter? Underrated? Saying that people don't realize how good Jeter really is like saying that most people don't realize how crazy Tom Cruise is, or how hot Jessica Simpson looks coming out of a nightclub. Is it even possible for us to hear any more than we already do about Derek Jeter? I can't imagine how. Maybe if they started getting him to sell watches and perfume and peanut butter and giving him a chance to host SNL once in a while...wait a minuite, too late. OK, so what if he practically had his own personal announcer during Yankee broadcasts on national TV, who would, no matter what he does in the field, fawn over his every move? Oh, wait, Tim McCarver. Never mind.

Well, in spite of my vehement disagreement about this particular issue, I can see Jayson's points for most of the other players he names, and won't quibble with them beyond what I've already said. Stark knows his baseball history, and many of his Lamentations of Underratedness stem from the fact that the general populace has largely forgottten most of the men who played before 1990. Guys like Stan Musial, Yogi Berra and Warren Spahn were extremely well regarded in their day, but because they played so long ago, when thigs like the All-Century Team or the DHL Home-Town Heroes voting come around, they're not given the acclaim they deserve, and Jayson is right to point that out. Granted, the fact that the voting for those things is done mostly, if not entirely, on the InterWebs means that the average age of the voters is about 14, so it's hard to take those kinds of votes too seriously. Nevertheless, the results of those votes are very public events, held during the All-Star Game or the World Series, so maybe it's MLB that needs to re-evaluate how they do these promotions, not so much the average baseball fan who needs to reevaluate his opinions on the great players of the 1950's and 1960's.

Regardless of that, Jayson's book is a worthwhile read. It's just barely over 200 pages, and broken down into lots of easily managed chapters and sub-chapters, so you can find your place without much trouble again if you have to put it down for something. Like to have a fistfight with the guy who's trying to tell you that Nolan Ryan was the Greatest Pitcher Ever when in reality you know, like Jayson, how overrated he was. If you can, just enjoy the book, and the conversations it will generate, and try not to get beat up.

State of the Yankees: First Tri-Mester Report Cards

The Yankees won last night's contest against the Red Sox in typically dramatic fashion, with an A-Rod homer off closer John Papelbon in the 9th inning, to take two of three games in the Boston series. That's the Good News.

The Bad News will take a lot longer than that to describe.

Probably the most significantly bad aspect of yesterday's game was the fact that yet another Yankee starter failed to notch a Quality Start, and worse yet, went down with an injury. Andy Pettitte started the game and was cruising along through the first four innings, having allowed only two harmless singles and a walk in that span. But the fifth inning saw a very different Pettitte on the mound, as he emerged to protect the 4-0 lead to which he'd been staked by his teammates. He allowed three straight singles before finally retiring Julio Lugo on a strikeout, then allowed a three-run double and another single, one that got past RF Bobby Abreu and allowed another runner to score and lead-footed David Ortiz to reach third base. Ortiz eventually scored ona sacrifice fly, and an earned run was charged to Pettitte even though Ortiz is so sluggish that if Abreu had actually caught the one-hop single, he might have thrown out Big Fat Slow Papi at first base. Regardless, Pettitte was done after just 83 pitches, a victim of back spasms, though Joe Torre and others have indicated that they expect him to make his next scheduled start, on Friday against the lowly Pirates.

Though he did not play yesterday, news broke that Doug Mientkiewicz 's wrist broke, not to mention his slight concussion, suffered in a collision with Mike Lowell as he tried to field a bad throw from His Clutchness. Though it sounds mean to say it, this might not be such terrible news, as this injury should keep Minky's pinky-sized bat (.226/.292/.379) out of the lineup for 6-8 weeks as he heals. By then, the Yanks may have found someone who can both field AND hit, possibly even someone with three out of four working limbs, to play first base for them. Giambi, already relegated to DH-only duties, may also be lost for the year, and Johnny Damon, with exactly one game as a first baseman in his major league career, is not the answer.

Josh Phelps, to his credit, has managed not to embarass himself (yet), but if he continues his .281/.352/.406 hitting, he would almost exactly match what Mientkiewicz used to do when he was in his "prime", which was good enough to make him one of the worst-hitting regular firstbasemen in the major leagues.

There are, however, two possible answers, and neither of them rhymes with "Mark Teixiera".

One is Andy Phillips. I know, I know, he's had his chances, and you're right about that. Phillips, despite hitting better than .300/.380/.570 in AAA in 2004 and 2005, has a career line of .228/.266/.391 in the majors, which, on a scale of one-to-ten, is really lousy. He is, however, hitting .313/.383/.490 this year in Scranton/Wilkes Barre, and he's got some major league experience. A more intriguing option might be Scranton/WB firstbaseman Shelly Duncan, who's tearing up the International League this year, with a .307/.387/.625 line. His Slugging percentage leads the IL at the moment, and his 15 homers are one behind the league leader. Supposedly he made some adjustments in the offseason, and they hope he won't go back to hitting .250 and striking out once a game, which is the most likely eventual outcome, but the Yanks may be well-served to give him a shot while his bat is hot. (Baseball Prospectus, for all their wisdom and experience, did not see fit to even include him among the 1600+ players they analyzed for their 2007 book, after he hit only .256 with no patience at AA Trenton last season.) The Yankees can always send him back to the minors if he doesn't hit. Just ask Andy Phillips.

As for the Teixiera rumors, I hear those too. I also hear that Whitey Ford might come out of retirement to help shore up the bullpen, and that a crazy scientist has invented an invisible substance you could apply to a ball that would make it magically avoid your opponents' bats and/or gloves. Sure, those things sound nuts, but not as nuts at the possibility of the Rangers giving up one of the best hitting firstbasemen in the major leagues, in his prime, for something like Eric Duncan, Darrel Rasner, Melky Cabrera, some nameless pitcher and a bucket of used pine tar. The Yanks aren't going to surrender Phil Hughes for three months of Mark Teixiera, who's likely to sign with Baltimore in the off-season.

A more likely possibility is Todd Helton. The Rockies slugger's career stats have gotten a lot of help from the thin air in Denver, but make no mistake, the man can hit anywhere. His career line of .296/.395/.508 is about as good as Teixiera's overall numbers anyway, and that's with the 110-point OPS boost that Mark gets from Ameriquest Field. Helton's 33 instead of 27, and he's definitely not the hitter he once was, plus he has another five years and about $90 million owed to him with his current contract, so the Yankees, who can afford to overpay for someone like that, won't have to give up as much to get him. As a 10-and-5 player, he can veto any trade, but why wouldn't he want to go to the Yankees, where he might actually get a chance to win? As an excellent fielder and an excellent hitter, he could be a star in New York, at least for a year or two. Players with his skills (and in good physical condition) tend to age pretty well, so there's no reason he couldn't be a productive hitter into his mid to late 30's. The only question is what it will take to get him.

But whatever they do, they'd better do it soon. Already 24-30, 12.5 games out of first and seven games out of the Wild Card race, the Yankees are in dire need of a winning streak. It sure was nice to take 2 out of 3 games against Boston in separate series in the last two weeks, but losing five of the six games in between those two series got them into a hole from which they may not be able to climb.

For perspective, since it happens that the 54 games they've played make up exactly one-third of the schedule, so we can easily multiply some of the players' stats by three and see how they'd fare if they kept this up for the entire 162-game schedule.

Derek Jeter: Hitting .333, that means he’ll be hitting .999 by the end of the year! Wait a minute, I don’t think it really works that way. Actually, he’s on a pace for 219 hits and 102 runs, 12 homers and 15 steals, all of which are right in line with his usual performance, though the steals are a little low, and the 15-caught stealings pace would be a career high, as would the 33-error pace. Yikes.

Jorge Posada: Leading the AL with a .362 batting average, but last year was the first time in history that an American League catcher won the batting title, and the first time in 65 years that any catcher won a major league batting title, so somehow I doubt that he can keep this up. Ditto for the 57-doubles pace, but he’s having a fine year, by any measure.

Alex Rodriguez: On a pace for 60 homers, 141 RBIs, 147 runs, and three extra-marital affairs. All of those numbers seem readily achieveable.

Bobby Abreu: Hitting better of late, he’s actually on a pace for 27 doubles, 24 steals, and 105 runs. Unfortunately, he’s also on a pace to whiff 135 times and to hit .244 with so few homers that Antonio Alfonseca could count them on one hand. I guess $15 million doesn’t buy what it used to.

Johnny Damon: His gimpy legs have him somehow on a pace for only 18 doubles, but 27 steals (and zero CS!). The .251 batting average and nine homer pace would make this his worst year since 2001, which he spent in cavernous Oakland Coliseum.

Robby Cano: Also on a pace for 9 homers and 45 doubles, but also 27 walks against 117 strikeouts, and three steals in 15 attempts. Unfortunately, I think those numbers could all come to fruition.

Andy Pettitte: Assuming that his back is OK, Andy’s on a pace for a 2.96 ERA in 228 innings, with 27 Quality Starts, but only a 9-12 record, because the Yankees never hit when he’s on the mound. Hopefully that will change without the quality in his pitching dropping off.
Chien-Ming Wang: No other Yankee pitcher is on a pace to qualify for the ERA title (162 innings) but Wang is closest, at about 159.

Mike Mussina: Right now, he has two Quality Starts, or one less than Casey Fossum. Who sucks. A lot. He’s on a pace for a 6-9 record and a 6.25 ERA in 120 innings. His “fast”ball has been in the 81-84 mph range, but he doesn’t have the experience that Jamie Moyer has with surviving ijn that range, so he’s getting lit up. Stanford boy is smart enought to make adjustments…I just don’t know if it will matter, as the famous knuckle curve hasn’t exactly been fooling anyone either.

Roger Clemens: On a pace for a 0-0 record with 0 strikeouts, 0 Quality Starts and a 0.00 ERA. Oh, and about $18 million in salary. If his “fatigued groin” doesn’t heal soon, he may achieve all of those numbers.

Mike Myers: Normally a LOOGY, he’s been called upon to do long relief several times this season. He’s currently on a pace to make 81 appearances and to pitch almost 70 innings, which would be a career high, and nearly twice as much work as he’s typically gotten in his 12-year career. Given the workload and his age, 37, I think it’s fair to wonder whether the 3.06 ERA is likely to stay that low.

Righty relievers: Scott Proctor, Luis Vizcaino, and Brian Bruney are all on a pace to pitch about 80 innings or so, which is to be understood given how unreliable the starters have been.

Mariano Rivera: On a pace for 60 strikeouts in 57 innings, but also an ERA over 5.00 and only 15 saves. He should do better than that, but this will be the worst year of his career before it’s all over.

Yankees’ Division Dreams Dashed; but Playoffs Possible Still

Some things, you just know are not going to continue:

Barry Bonds not hitting home runs. (He went yard on Sunday for the first time in almost three weeks, his 12th of the season and 746th of his career.)

Gil Meche pitching like Bob Gibson. (Meche rattled off seven straight Quality Starts from April 12th to May 14th, after having strung together more than three QS only once before in his career, when he made four straight in August of 2004. Over his next two outings, Meche allowed 12 runs in 9.1 innings, losing both games. That's more like it.)

The Yankees being in last place.

Well, actually, we might want to get used to that last one. While they may not finish out the season in last place, at this point the Yankees have probably less than a 5% chance of making the playoffs, much less winning their division. Lemme 'splain...

As of today, the Yankees' record sits at 22-29, seven games under .500, and they are currently 13.5 games out of first place in the AL East. The Boston Red Sox have the best record in baseball, 36-16, but to be fair, they have not had much competition from anyone in their division. As the only team with a winning record in the AL East, their closest competition comes from the patently mediocre Baltimore Orioles, who currently sit a 27-27, 10 games out of first. The Sawx are 15-7 against their division rivals, and other than a 1-1 record against Oakland, they have a winning record against everyone they've played so far, including playoff contenders Detroit, Cleveland, Minnesota, and Atlanta, against whom they have a combined record of 12-4. Those facts alone do not bode well for the Yankees chances in 2007, but the news only gets worse from here.

The division title is clearly out of reach. As Jayson Stark recently pointed out, no team in history has ever come back from a 14.5 game deficit (which the Yankees had after losing five in a row this week) to win their division. Some of you staunch Yankee fans may be thinking about the 1978 Yankees, who famously came back from a 14 game deficit on July 19th to wrest the division from the cold, dead hands of the Boston Red Sox, and eventually take the World Series from the Dodgers.

That, however, was a different team, and a different time. Those Yankees, despite the huge hole they found themselves in around mid-July, were actually a pretty good team. For one thing, they had a winning record, albeit a modest one, at 48-42 at the time. They needed to kick it up a few notches after that, winning more than 70% of their games in both August and September, just to catch the Red Sox on the last day of the season and force a one-game playoff for the Division title. Add to this the fact that the Yankees got quite a lot of help from Don Zimmer, the Red Sox manager at the time, whose total lack of creativity and flexibility essentially rode his team into the ground. As Rob Neyer pointed out in his Big Book of Baseball Blunders, Zimmer's failure to effectively use his bench, and in doing so, to keep his players fresh for the pennant drive, turned a team that hit .283/.354/.461 before the All-Star Break into a team that hit .250/.316/.386 after it. The bats just wilted, and all at the same time.

So 1978 was a Red Sox loss as much as it was a Yankees win, and that just ain't gonna happen this year. These Red Sox are too well balanced. They're not playing over their heads like the 1978 team was. That .692 winning percentage is nice, and if they could keep it up all year, they'd win 112 games, but even if they only win 55% of their games from here on out, they'll still finish with 97 wins, and in 2007, that should be plenty to win the AL East. If anything, you can expect their bullpen to falter a bit. They're 7-1 with a 3.07 ERA and 19 saves in 21 chances, which has helped them to a sterling 8-3 record in 1-run games. That probably won't keep up, nor will the pitching staff's 3.23 ERA in road games, but even as those numbers regress to the mean, the Red Sox will remain a force to be reckoned with this year, and should easily hold onto the division.

However, as we have learned over the past 12 years, a team does not have to win its division to have a shot at the World Series. The Yanks are "only" seven games out in the Wild Card race right now, which, on the face of it, does not appear to be an insurmountable lead. Indeed, of the 12 teams that have won the World Series since 1995, the first year we had both a 3-division format and a World Series, seven of the 24 teams to play in the Series (29%) have been Wild Card teams, and three of the 12 (25%) victors have been Wild Card winners. Given that there are eight teams in the playoffs every year, Wild Card teams have been twice as successful as anyone else in the Fall Classic, winning once in four times instead of once in eight.

But does that even matter for the Yankees? As they currently sit in last place in their own division, and 7 games behind AL Wild-Card leader Detroit, is it reasonable to expect a resurgence that could see them get into the playoffs anyway?

Since the inception of the Wild Card in 1995, there have been MLB 96 playoff teams. Among those, 47 of the eventual 72 division winners (65%) were leading their divisions at the close of play on June 1st of that year, and 8 of the 24 eventual Wild Card winners (33%) were leading the pack in that race when the dust had settled on June 1st. In the American League, three of the 12 eventual Wild Card winners were actually leading their division on that date, though no Wild Card team from the Senior Circuit had that distinction. So statistically speaking, teams that are leading their divisions at this point are about as likely to maintain that position come October as teams that currently lead the Wild Card races are to lose that spot by the end of the year. Good news for Cleveland and Milwaukee; Bad news for the Detroits and Arizonas.

But if the news for the Tigers and D-Backs is bad, then it’s positively dreadful for the Yankees. Among the 96 playoff teams since 1995, only nine of them were as far as 7.5 games back of either their division or the Wild Card race at the close of play on June 1st, and of those nine, two were actually leading the Wild Card pack as they trailed their own division. So that leaves us only seven chances in 96 opportunities that a team with a deficit roughly half the size of the one the Yankees’s current hole could actually get into the playoffs, or about 7%. When you make the cut-off 10 games or more, there are only five teams left. Let’s look at these one-by-one and see if we can find any parallels with the 2007 Yankees.

1) The 2001 Oakland Athletics stood at 26-27 and trailed their division leader by 15(!) games on June 1st, which was to be expected, as the 2001 Seattle Mariners would eventually win 116 regular season games, but the A’s also trailed in the Wild card race by nine games at that point. Though they would go only 12-15 in June, they went an amazing 64-19 the rest of the way, with a 2.90 collective ERA from July 1st on. The offense also stepped up, though not quite as much, as the team’s collective OPS jumped about 100 points after the All-Star break. While the pitching staff of the 2006 Yankees doesn’t have a Hudson/Mulder/Zito combo like the 2001 A’s did, they should get a shot in the arm from Roger Clemens, slated to make his first start in pinstripes on Monday against Chicago. That, combined with Pettitte and the now-healthy Chien-Ming Wang and Mike Mussina, should give them all the pitching they need. And the offense, after leading the majors in run-scoring in April, should be able to bounce back from its recent struggles. Of course “able to” and “will” are two different things.

2) The 2002 Oaklands trailed their division by 8.0 games after June 1, but trailed the Wild Card race by 10.0 games, and eventually came back to win it. Only 26-28 after beating Tampa bay that day, Oakland went 77-31 the rest of the way, including a 20-game winning streak in August and September. This Oakland team, unlike the 2001 version, accomplished this almost entirely with pitching. The offense had a .764 OPS before the All-Star Break, and a .780 OPS thereafter, nearly identical. The pitchers however, lowered their collective ERA almost two whole runs, from 4.91 in April and May to 3.10 from June 1st on. Again, the 2007 Yankees have some pitching talent, but probably not that much talent.
For the record, both the 2001 and 2002 versions of the Oakland A’s lost in the first round of the playoffs.

3) The 2003 Florida Marlins, at 26-32, trailed the Atlanta Braves by 12 games on June 1st, and trailed Wild Card leader Montreal (remember when there was a team in Montreal?) by 7.5 games. Of course, the Expos were bound to falter, and they did, having been lucky to do as well as they had to that point. The Marlins had fired manager Jeff Torborg after 38 games, when the team was 16-22, and new manager Jack McKeon had improved the team to “mediocre”, getting them to go 10-10 over his first 20 games, though they would go 64-39 from there on out. They were never a great team, but their collective ERA improved by about 1/2 a run after the All-Star Break (to 3.78 from 4.23) and the offense maintained its pace, scoring 4.76 runs per game before the All-Star break, and 4.46 runs/game after.

The Marlins essentially rode the arms of Josh Beckett, Brad Penny and Carl Pavano (remember when there was a pitcher named Carl Pavano?) into the postseason, and their good pitching and even better fortune in clutch spots lasted just long enough for them to beat the Yankees in the World Series.

4) The 2005 Houston Astros were 20-32 on June 1st, 14 games behind St. Louis for the NL Central division and 9.5 games back in the Wild Card race. Of the teams that eventually went on to the postseason, this team had the worst record as the start of June, but they went 70-41 from June 1st to the end of the year. The offense (.724 OPS before the All-Star Break, .739 after) doesn’t get much of the credit for this team’s resurgence. The staff had a 4.36 ERA at the end of May, but compiled a 3.14 ERA thereafter. Andy Pettitte went 11-2 with a 1.69 ERA after the All-Star break, and several rookie pitchers also showed significant improvement.

This team represents another potentially encouraging note for Yankee fans, as Pettitte’s career numbers seem to show that he gets better as the season wears on (his career ERA is about 1/2 a run lower after the All-Star break). In addition, with all the rookies they’ve debuted this year, there’s a good chance that Tyler Clippard or Phil Hughes or Matt DeSalvo or Darrel Rasner or even (dare I say it?) Kei Igawa could give the Yanks’ pitching staff the kind of boost that the 2005 Astros got from Brandon Backe and Ezequiel Astacio in the second half.

5) The 2006 Minnesota Twins are the most recent example. They were 11.5 games out in the AL Central Division on 6/1, with a 24-29 record, and trailed not just Detroit, but also Cleveland and Chicago in the division, and a bunch of teams in the Wild Card race as well. The Twins had been outscored 281-246 at that point in the year, but they went 72-38 from June first on, outscoring their opponents 555-406 over those 110 games. Mostly, the pitching came together. They had a 6.28 ERA in March and April, to go with a 9-15 record, but after a 4.19 ERA in May, they nover posted another month with an ERA over 3.94. The team was 27-7 when Johan Santana pitched and 20-8 when rookie Francisco Liriano took the mound, and the bullpen was nearly impeccable.

Unfortunately the Yankees don’t have a Johan Santana, though Pettitte, the Yankees’ own lefty ace, has been pretty darn good so far this year (2.51 ERA despite a 3-4 record). For all the rookies that have taken the mound for New York this year, though, only Phil Hughes could be aptly termed a “phenom” and he won’t get much chance to phenominate if his hamstring doesn’t heal soon.

One other possible ray of hope for the Yankees is the fact that they have actually outscored their opponents to this point, 268-244, even though their record doesn’t reflect that. Four of the five teams above had been outscored to this point in the year, and the 2001 Oaklands had just barely outscored their competition after play ended on June 1st, 263-257. The 2007 Yankees need look no further than their 2-10 record in 1-run games. Just being slightly above .500 in that area would be worth six more wins at this point and would put them in a much better position for the wild card, with a 27-24 record, within one game of what you would expect from their Pythagenport projection based on runs scored and allowed. With some luck, and some regression to the mean, the Yankees should be able to improve on that record, but whether they can reverse the trend and make up all that ground is highly doubtful.

So, children, what have we learned today?

A) No team in history has ever come back from such a deep hole as the 2007 Yankees have dug for themselves to win a division.

2) That does’t really matter, because we might still win the Wild Card, which seems to offer as good a chance (or better) to win the World Series as winning the division would.

III) Travis sure knows how to search the data available at www.baseball-reference.com! Thanks to Sean Forman and his peoples for all they do.

iv) If the Yankees are going to win anything other than a crow-eating contest this year, they had better get their butts (and bats!) in gear…

A Petition to Stop Interleague Play? Why?

I got an email today form a concerned fan, asking me to sign a petition to end Interleague play. As a Yankee fan, I rather enjoy interleague play, at least when we play the Mets, but it's also cool to get a chnace to play Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and other teams we would not normally see. The petition, if anyone wants to sign it, is located here:

http://www.petitiononline.com/mlb2007/petition.html

The following is the text of the petition and my own responses to the arguments, most of which I felt were not particularly strong, though I'm open to other interpretations of the matter.

Petition:
We, the undersigned, believe regular-season interleague play is bad for baseball and should be abolished. We believe interleague play is wrong for any combination of the following reasons: 1. Regular-season interleague play detracts from the uniqueness of the World Series. For nearly a century, when two teams met in the World Series, they had no regular-season history. There was only speculation as to how the teams would match up. Interleague play has damaged the special magic of the fall classic.

You could use the World Series' declining ratings to support this argument, but I think that would be misguided. In reality, people watch the NFL and NBA and NHL finals (OK, so maybe not the NHL) despite the fact that the teams in them sometimes play each other during the regular seaosn, and nobody seems to mind. The issue is never even discussed. If you have good games and good teams (and especially, if those teams happen to play in big media markets) then people will watch. If not, they'll watch reruns of Seinfeld or something else. Consumers have too many choices these days to let themselves be tethered to a TV watching two teams that aren't that good, in which they have no specific rooting interest, duke it out for a week when they have better things to do.

The last few years, the fact that the teams have largely come from smaller markets (Houston, Detroit, Florida, St. Louis) has hurt the ratings of the World Series. In addition, there has been a general absence of "great" teams from the World Series, with at least one Wild Card winner in the Fall Classis every season since 2002, when both teams (San Francisco and the Los Anaheim Angeles of LAnafornia) failed to win their own divisions. Since 1997, eight of the 20 teams in the World Series have been Wild Card teams, and half of those have won it. In addition, teams like the 2000 Yankees and 2006 Cardinals won the Series only because of the Wild Card and the three-division format. They really weren't that good, but managed to get hot at the right time and take home the Commissioner's trophy. Those kinds of things tend to lead to some disenchantment by fans of the other 29 teams that don't think they deserved it. But that's the fault of the Wild Card, not Interleague play.

2. The schedule is too unbalanced. The accent on divisional play, combined with interleague play, means that teams rarely play certain other teams within their own league. In the American League, for example, East teams play only six games against each of teams in the Central division. Play within a team's own league should take priority over the novelty of interleague play.

With the exception of the geographic rivalries that dominate Interleague play, intra-league play does take priority over Interleague play. Teams play everyone in their own league at least six times, three at home and three away, though perhaps no more than that. Interleague games are only three-game series, and do not have a home/away complement unless they're the regional rivalries.


Read more thoughts on the merits (or lack thereof) of InterLeague play at The Pitch, on MVN.com...

Running Subway Series Blog: Yankees @ Mets, Game Two

This has been a weird year (or at least a weird month and a half) for the New York Yankees, so it seems only fitting that the first Interleague matchups between the Yanks and their cross-town rivals, the Mets, should be a little left of center as well.

After last night's pitching duel, a 3-2 win by the Mets, today's game looks like it's going to be a long one, with plenty of runs for both teams, perhaps.

First Inning: Tom Glavine and his 294 career wins in the major leagues toed the rubber against the Yankees in the first, but he has not looked sharp at all today. He walked Johnny Damon on five pitches to start the game (and to be fair, the one strike he got was a gift) and gave up a single to left to Hideki Matsui. In between those, he struck out Derek Jeter, but again, on some very questionable pitches. Jeter had been hitting .360 with two homers in 25 career at-bats against Glavine, so hopefully that was just a fluke.

Glavine then walked Alex Rodriguez as well, not a wise move given that A-Rod's been hitting only .242 with one homer in the month of May. Jorge Posada, surprisingly leading the American League with a .370 batting average as he entered the game, managed to drive in the game's first run on a fielder's choice to short. Bobby Abreu, hitting a dismal .211/.219/.296, with a sub-Neifi .515 OPS in May, flied out to end the threat.

Yankees starter Darrel Rasner cranked one all the way up to 84 (Jamie Moyer, eat your heart out) before he left the game in the first inning. Rasner was hit by a batted ball, off the bat of Endy Chavez, which broke his right index finger and ended his day. Broken fingers usually take 4-6 weeks to heal, so we wn't likely see him before July. For the second time in two weeks, the Yankees have called on LOOGY Mike Myers for long relief. (On May 4th, he made the longest appearance of his major league career, allowing one run in four innings of relief in that 15-11 slugfest against Seattle.)

Unfortunately, Mike Myers hasn't been much relief. In the first inning, with two on and nobody out, he gave up a sac fly to Carlos Beltran, no great sin there, and then struck out Carlos Delgado, exactly what a lefty specialist is supposed to do. But then he gave up a homer to 3B David Wright, making it 3-1, before getting Shawn Green to ground out to second. Unfortunately, Green was safe at first when Robinson Cano botched the grounder, throwing wide of first. Nevertheless, Myers got Paul LoDuca to fly out to right to end the inning.

Second inning: FOX is broadcasting, and they have a reputation for inflating thair radar gun readings to make the game more exciting, but if they’re doing that toda, you ca’t tell. Glavine hasn’t thrown a pitch above 81 mph through the second inning (as I’m writing this).

Cano did his best to appease the baseball gods for his defensive miscue by hitting Glavine’s first offering (a hanging curve) into the right field seats, making it 3-2. Glavine probably won’t be throwing many more curveballs.

Josh Phelps then singled, but was thrown out at second on a fielder’s choice when Myers (with one previous career at-bat, way back in 1999) tried to choke up and push one through the brought-in infield. Can’t blame him for trying.

Damon then singled, and Myers got to third when Jeter grounded to third base and Wright threw Damon out at second. But first and third with two outs was as close as the Yanks would get in the second. Matsui could not replicate hs success against Glavine in the first, and despite being 6 for 8 against Glavine in his career before that, he grounded out to first. Three grounders in the inning. I guess however fast he’s throwing, Glavine’s keeping the ball down.

In the Mets’ half of the second, Damian “You Know it Don’t Come” Easley singled and got pushed tosecond on a Glavine sacrifice. (Interesting sidenote: Tim McCarver pointed out that Glavine has more sacrifices than anyone in history. He was wrong of course, but then first, seventy ninth…who’s counting, right?)

Jose Reyes then reached on an error, Cano’s second of the game, and stole second (again) and wnet to third when Endy Chavez singled (again), scoring Easley. Fortunately, Jorge Posada nailed Chavez trying to steal second, and Myers got Beltran to fly out to deep left. Mets 4, Yankees 2.

Third Inning: Nothing doing for the Yankees, three up, three down, though Posada did get a single in the middle there. Abreu, not content to make only one out per plate appearance, made sure to ground into a double play this time up. Apparently Glavine doesn’t need to be able to throw harder than 81 mph, at least not to get the Yankees out.

Myers could do nithing right in the bottom of the third inning, allowing a leadoff single to Delgado, another homer to Wright, and a walk to Shawn Green. Green’s had something of a resurgence this year, hitting .324/.383/.514 coming into the game, after seeing his annual stats in those areas dropping for several years in a row. Of course, this is only six weeks worth of baseball we’re talking here, and just like I don’t think Abreu will keep hitting .230 all season, I don’t think Green will hit .320 all season either. In any case, hard-throwing righty Luis Vizcaino came in to relieve Myers, and got three straight outs to end the third.

Cano messed up a double play ball, which doesn’t show up in the boxscore because “you’re not allowed to anticipate the double play” (an archaic old rule that should have been changed years ago), but it was his third defensive screw up in three innings. Mets 6, Yankees 2.

Fourth Inning: Cano, again trying to make up for his error, singled to start the nnin, but was quickly erased on a DP grounder by Phelps. Luis Vizcaino, like Myers, with only on previous career at-bat in the majors, struck out to end the inning.

Back on the mound, Vizcaino managed to contain the Mets’ supposedly greatest threat by getting Jose Reyes to pop up, but then he surrendered the third hit of the game to Chavez, a single to Beltran, and an RBI double to Delgado. Wright was then intentionally walked (at least he didn’t hit his third homer of the game), setting up a force play at every base and potentially a double play. However, Green’s grounder to second (no error by Cano this time) led to only one out, which meant that Beltran scored. Fortunately, Luis got Paul LoDuca to ground to short and end the fourth. Mets 8, Yankees 2.

Fifth Inning: Glavine’s medium-ball continues to mow the Yankees batters down. Damon and Jeter grounded out to Glavine and Wright, respectively. Matsui hit one kinda hard, but right at Jose Reyes, who doesn’t seem to have the same aversion to catching baseballs that Cano does.

To start the Mets’ half of the fifth inning, the Yankees brought in Bergenfield’s Ron Villone, and the Jersey Lefty wasted no time in showing up his comrades in the bullpen. He got Easley, Glavine and Reyes to ground out to Second, short and third, respectively. Since there aren’t any other players on that side of the infield, I expect he’ll start by inducing a grounder to first in the next inning. Mets 8, Yankees 2.

Sixth Inning: A-Rod pops up, but then Posada and Abreu both single to give the Yanks two men on with only one out. Have no fear, Robby’s here! Cano grounds into a double play to end the top of the first. On the plus side, Abreu’s single was a clean, hard shot pulled through the right side, and may be a sign that he’s feeling a little better at the plate. He ad hit only .224 against Glavine in 67 career at-bats entering the game, so 1-for-3 is an improvement.

With their turns, it looked like the Mets might get to Villone like they got to Myers and Vizcaino, but in the end, Bergenfield’s Pride held his own. An automatic double (NOT a ground rule double, as Joe Buck called it) by Endy Chavez gave him the first four-hit game of his career, but a pop-up by Beltran and a fly-out by Delgado put a damper on that. David Wright was then walked intentionally for the second time in the game, and Villone got Shawn Green to line out. So I was wrong about Villone starting the sixth with a grounder t first, but I was righ that Green’s hot streak wouldn’t keep up. So there. Mets 8, Yankees 2.

Seventh Inning: Glavine comes out to start the seventh with almost 100 pitches already thrown, but he would throw only six more before leaving. Phelps reached on an infield single, and the Mets’ manager Willie RAndolph pulled a double switch, putting Chris Gomez in right field and substituting Scott Schoenweis for Glavine. Apparently the soft-tossing lefty thing was working pretty well, so they figured they’d stick with it. No secret to Glavine’s success: he leaves with a 13-3 ground ball/fly ball out ratio.

Schoenweis looks as good as Glavine had been, at first anyway, getting Doug Mientkiewicz (pinch-hitting for Villone) and Johnny Damon to ground out, but each of them moved Phelps up in the process. Derek Jeter, only 5-for-21 against Schoenweis in his career before today, singled to center, scoring Phelps, and getting the Yanks their first run since Cano’s leadoff homer in the second. Hideki Matsui hit another one hard, but right at a Mets infielder, this time David Wright, to end the top half of the seventh.

The Mets, who could do little with finesse lefty Ron Villone’s ifferings for two innings, found that they could do even less with he hard righty cheese in Brian Bruney’s arsenal. Bruney got LoDuca to fly out to center, then struck out Easley. He then walked Chris Gomez, but struck out Reyes to end the seventh. Mets 8, Yankees 3.

Eighth Inning: Whatever Schoenweis had in the sixth, he must have left it there, as Alex Rodriguez homered to deep left to lead off the inning, and then Jorge Posada hit one out to right center, an opposite field shot against the lefty pitcher. That was A-Rod’s first homer since May 8th, and only his second since April 23rd, a two-homer game against Tampa that tied him for the most April homers of anyone in history. Hopefully that means he’s feeling his oats at the plate a little more, too.

After walking Bobby Abreu, Schoenweis was relieved by lefty Pedro Feliciano. Pedro immediately demonstrated how he’s held lefties to a miniscule .205 batting average from 2004-06, getting Cano to ground out, though he did advance Abreu to second. Josh Phelps, a righty, got his third hit of the game, a double to left center, scoring Abreu. For reasons I do not understand, Joe Torre then pinch hit for Brian Bruney with Jason Giambi, who hit only .243 against lefties from 2004-06, and only .147 overall this month. That’s right: One-forty-seven.

Meanwhile, Miguel Cairo and Melky Cabrera, both of whom can hit right handed and neither of whom strikes out much, sat on the bench. Not surprisingly, Giambi grounded oout to the shifted-over firstbaseman, moving Phelps over to third. Feliciano then walked Johnny Damon, but reliever Aaron Heilmann got His Clutchness to ground out to end the inning. Nevertheless, some damage had been done, and the Yankees were within striking distance again. Mets 8, Yankees 6. But not for long…

Since Jason Giambi can’t even hit, much less pitch, Torre called upon Kyle Farnsworth to start the bottom of the eighth inning on the mound. Farnsworth, to his credit, did everything he could, but didn’t get much help. He got Endy Chavez to ground out to himself, the first Yankee pitcher to retire that pesky Met all day, but then he walked Carlos Beltran. He did get the other Carlos (Delgado) to ground out to second, which moved Beltran up a base. He then issued the third consecutive intentional walk to David Wright, which put things in place to get a double play, if possible, but the Mets executed a double steal to take that away. Then, with 239-year old Julio Franco pinch hitting for Heilmann, Cano made his third error of the day. Cano dove for a grounder to his right, but rather than holding onto the ball when he didn’t have a play, he tried to throw it while on his backside in the outfield grass, and it ricoheted off his right foot into right field, allowing both Beltran and Wright to score. Farnsworth then struck out LoDuca to end the inning, but not before the Yanks found themselves in a four-run hole once again. Mets 10, Yankees 6. But not for long…

Top of the Ninth: The Mets bring in Billy Wagner to pitch the ninth, despite the four-run lead and non-save situation. Just to give us Yankee fans a false sense of hope, McCarver and Buck remind us of Wagner’s melt-down last year when he came in to protect a four-run lead in the ninth against the Yankees and allowed the Yankees to tie the game.

That didn’t hapen today.

Hideki Matsui swung at the first pitch and flied out to center, but then A-Rod and Posada hit consecutive singles. Abreu grounded back to Wagner, which should have been the second out, but Billy made an ill-advised throw to home and it went wide, allowing A-Rod to score, Mets 10, Yanks 7.

First and third, only one out, and Robby Cano with a chance to redeem all those errors with one swing of the bat, right? Two words: Robby Canope. Strike three, sit down Robby. And take some extra infield practice tomorrow, too, will you?

Last and finally, Josh Phelps, who had gone 3-for-4 up to this point, struck out to end the game. At least he went down swinging.

Give credit to the Yankees for not giving up, even as yet another starting pitcher went down with an injury. They battled back and got to the Mets’ bullpen, giving themselves a chance to win, but Cano’s three errors, even though they didn’t directly lead to unearned runs, definitely had an impact on the game, and forced the pitchers frequently to get four or more outs in an inning, which isn’t particularly fair.

Tomorrow is Tyler Clippard’s major league debut, so don’t hold your breath about eeking one out and avoiding the sweep.

Game Review: Grand Slam Trivia - Yankees & Red Sox Editions

Grand Slam Trivia: Yankees and Red Sox Editions
Snap TV Games, Inc.
$24.95/each ($19.99 from Amazon)

Snap TV Games would like you to know about their new Yankees and Red Sox Editions of their Grand Slam Trivia games, available on DVD. I was able to review one of each of these editions in my home, and thought my readers might be interested to know about them.

Packaging: Each game is a DVD that comes in a normal-sized DVD case, and that comes within a board-game sized box. It's a bit more packaging than you probably need, but since you're buying it through the mail, it's probably just as well, to make sure the disc doesn't get damaged in transit. The packaging itself does look very nice, though, with slick looking graphics and Yankees or Red Sox insignias emblazoned on the box, the DVD case and the disc itself. There's nothing else in the box at all. No board, no instructions, no small pieces to lose. Just air, which means there's no reason to keep the box and packaging other than the DVD case afterthe first time you open it. Make sure you remember to recycle, kiddies.

Game Setup: Nice and easy. (New Yawk Translation: Fugghedaboudit!) You put the disc in the DVD player, it boots up and you can start playing right away (the "Grand Slam Trivia" option). The game also has an option for practice (the "Batting Cage"), and of course for the Rules, but nowhere are there any printed instructions to read, which means that the other players don't have to sit through listening to you reading the tedious list of rules, and you don't have to get annoyed if they don't listen. This was a particular bonus for me, as I hate it when people don't pay attentio...HEY! WAKE UP!!

Learn how to play the games, and whether you'll even want to, at The Bronx Block on MVN.com...

Don't Look Now...but Here Come the Yankees

On Thursday, April 19th, the Yankees beat the Cleveland Indians, 8-6, which raised the team's season record to, believe it or not, 8-6. A-Rod had hit his second, 2-out, 9th-inning, walk-off homer in less than two weeks. The Yankees had the best offense in baseball, and in Alex Rodriguez, perhaps best player in baseball having possibly the best month anyone had ever seen.

And then the wheels came off.

Sure, A-Rod, and the yankees, continued to hit, but both the starting pitching and the bullpen fell completely apart, and the Yanks lost seven straight, their longest losing streak since Y2K, when they lost their last seven games in a row.

The first series against Boston was a disaster. First, Andy Pettitte's solid performance was squandered when Mariano Rivera decided to remind us all that he is, in fact, only human, by blowing the game in the ninth. Then rookie Jeff Karstens reminded us that he simply doesn't belong in the major leagues, surrendering 7 runs in 4.1 innings. Then, not to be outdone, rookie Chase Wright made an indelible mark on the collective Yankee Fan Psyche by surrendering four straight homers, which, as you'll recall, got Chase Wright chased right back to Double-A Trenton.

Rookie Kei Igawa, just days after his first major league win, suffered his first major league loss, to the lowly Tampa Bay Devil Rays no less, giving up a Karstens-esque seven runs in 4.1 innings. Chien-Ming Wang, not as sharp as usual coming back from a hamstring injury, lost the next game, and then highly touted prospect Phil Hughes, in his first major league start, lasted only 4.1 innings himself, though in his case it was more because he hit his 90-pitch limit than because of the four runs he allowed. Unfortunately for him, the Yankee batters decided to take the night off, and the Bronx Bombers were unable to do anything with A.J. Burnett's 97-mph gas. The Yankees were shut out for the first time all year.

Finally, in the last game of the streak, Pettitte proved unable to repeat his performance of a week earlier, allowing five runs in less than five innings of work against Boston. Red Sox rookie Daisuke Matsuzaka was not terribly sharp either, allowing four runs in six, but the Yankee bullpen, especially the increasingly mortal-looking Mariano Rivera, gave up six runs in four innings to put the game well out of reach. That dropped the Yankees' record to 8-13, 6.5 games in back of Boston in the AL East, and set the New York sportswriters and radio talk show hosts into Panic Mode. Phil Hughes was going to be brought up ahead of schedule! George Steinbrenner was freaking out! Joe Torre was going to be fired! Carl Pavano was on the DL!!! (OK, so that part was business as usual.) Human sacrifice, cats and dogs, living together...MASS HYSTERIA!!!

Except that then a funny thing happened: The Yankees started winning again.

Maybe you haven't heard about it, but the Yanks have managed to stem the losing tide and have actually won eight of their last eleven games. And this, despite injuries to Karstens (broken leg, six weeks or more) and Phil Hughes (pulled hamstring, about 4 weeks) and the recent demotion of Kei Igawa to Single-A Tampa to work on his mechanics. Last week, Phil Hughes reeled off 6.1 no-hit innings before his hamstring accomplished what the Rangers' bats could not: getting him out of the game. Pettitte rebounded nicely the day after, and Mike Mussina pitched well in his first start since coming off the DL with a hamstring injury of his own. After an ugly loss to Seattle on Frriday night, Chien-Ming Wang flirted with immortality, pitching 7.1 perfect innings before surrendering a homer to Ben Broussard, and picked up his first win of the year. The next day, rookie Darrel Rasner helped to shut out the Mariners for his first win of the year.

A shocking loss followed on Monday when Mr. Automatic squandered Matt DeSalvo's impressive major league debut by giving up a game-winning homer to the struggling Adrian Beltre. Nevertheless, Mike Mussina (who's usually excellent against Texas) and Andy Pettitte (who's usually not), helped keep the Yankees' 2007 record against the Rangers perfect by beating them on Wednesday and Tuesday, respectively. Pettitte benefited from A-Rod's first homer in a dozen games, and five relievers helped hold onto the win for Moose.

And now, they're back at .500 for the first time in almost three weeks, with a chance (dare I write it?) to have a winning record if Wang can continue his success and help the Yankees sweep the Rangers in the season's series tonight.

Granted, they are still in second place, and still six games behind the Sawx, who have this frustrating habit of continuing to win, but the Bronx Bombers have started to look like the team we all thought they would be this year, a very good sign.

And speaking of signs, as you Red Sox make your drive for the pennant, keep an eye on that rear view mirror:

Those Yankees are closer than they appear.

Winner in 1977 Yankees World Series DVD Giveaway

Congratulations to Chris McDonald, who submitted the winning (read: only) entry for the 1977 New York Yankees World Championship DVD Set Contest!!!



We still have two sets to give away, so if you can submit some clever/funny lyrics for "Pomp and Circumstance" you still have a shot. Heck, even if your lyrics are boring and stupid, email them to me anyway. Even if I only get two entries, they will have to win.

And thanks again to Chris McDonald who proved that by

1) trolling the InterWebs, looking for stuff to win,
2) knowing how to use the "Print Screen" function on your computer and
3) having a valid email address...

Dreams can come true!!!

Yankees, Hughes Catch a Break...and a Pull, and a Strain, and a Tweak...

My initial thought, when I heard that the Yankees' top prospect, indeed the #1 pitching prospect in all of baseball, took a no-hitter into the seventh inning last night, was "Wow, now that's more like it!" Except that in the same breath, ESPN's Bob Pecose also announced that Hughes injured his hamstring and will miss 4-6 weeks, so all I actually got to think was "Wo-".

My next thought was, "Man, the Yankees just can't catch a break this year."

And then the irony hit me: They've already caught a break. It was Jeff Karstens' right fibula.

They've also caught four hamstring pulls (Hughes, Hideki Matsui, Chien-Ming Wang and Mike Mussina), three sore elbows (Karstens, RHP Jose Veras, and RHP Humberto Sanchez), a strained oblique (Bobby Abreu), a stiff forearm (Carl Pavano), a cracked nail (Wang), and most of Johnny Damon's body (calf, hammy, back...good thing he had his hair cut, or he'd have found a way to make that hurt, too). Meanwhile, with six errors in only 22 games played, "Gold Glove" Shortstop Derek Jeter can hardly catch a cold.

The interesting thing about the injuries, at least to me, is the frequency of hamstring problems. At some point or another, the Yankees have had five different players with some kind of hamstring injury, though to date Damon's demons have not sufficiently crippled him to justify a stint on the Disabled List. Mussina (38), Damon (33) and Matsui (32) are not young, but they're hardly old men either, and Wang (27) and Hughes (20) are still very youthful, and yet they've all suffered the same kinds of injuries.

Charles Euchner's book, The Last Nine Innings, discusses the physical trianing regimen that Steve Finley used to rejuvenate and extend his career, one that emphasizes flexibility and agility over strength, and is centered on the abdominal and trunk muscles, which helps to take the strain off the leg muscles. Someone like Will Carroll could probably do a better job of explaining why it seems to work than I can, but Finley related in the book how he was feeling his hamstrings start to tighten up, so he went to see his trainer. She was able to isolate his lower abs and pinpoint them (their weakness) as the problem. Strengthening the lower abdominal muscles took the pressure off his legs, especially the hamstrings, and he was able to keep playing. Say what you want about him being lousy these days, but the fact of the matter is that Finley's stuck around til age 42, while 20% of the Yankees' major league roster either is or has been on the DL with the same injury this year. OSmething tells me the new strength and conditioning coaches are asleep on the job.

The other problem plaguing the Yankees this year, particularly the pitching staff, is elbow trouble. Jose Veras was the closer in AA Trenton last year, and he had surgery in the off season to clean bone fragments out of his elbow, and it hasn't totally healed. So we'll give the Conditioning coaches a mulligan on that one. Humberto Sanchez, the top prospect from the Gary Sheffield trade, is reportedly going to be out all year after Tommy John surgery on his elbow. Karstens had a strained elbow as well, but was back from that only about a week before he got his leg broken by a batted ball. These are all young guys, and I don't know how much blame the coaches deserve for them, considering that they probably were not Veras' coach in Trenton Last year, or Karsten's coach in AAA Columbus, and they certainly could not have had anything to do with Sanchez, who was in AAA Toledo last year, in the Tigers' organization. Carl Pavano, with a strained forearm sustained in only his second start since June of 2005, has had all kinds of problems, this being the most recent, if not the most severe. One of the commenters on Peter Abraham's blog on LoHud.com had a different explanation for Pavano's scarcity in the Yankee rotation:

Cashman: Let me take you off the DL.

Carl: [with a small wave of his hand] You don’t need to take me off the DL.

Cashman: We don’t need to take him off the DL.

Carl: This isn’t the Pavano you are looking for.

Cashman: This isn’t the Pavano we are looking for.

Carl: He can go about his business.

Cashman: You can go about your business.

Carl: Send me my check

Cashman: Send his check… send it.

So maybe the midichloreans are the reason Pavano never pitches?

Rob Neyer makes the point that the Yankees can certainly come back from this and still succeed, even without their rookie phenom, though I'm sure that everyone who loves the Bronx Bombers hopes that he'll be back to phenominating as soon as possible. Heck, even if you hate the yankees, you can hardly begrudge Phil Hughes a chance to become a great pitcher. It's not his fault that they're the greatest team ever.

Neyer's right, of course. That's why he works for ESPN and you don't. The Yankees weren't counting on Phil Hughes before the season started, and they have enough talent that if those guys come back from their injuries (none of which is season-threatening) and play up to their capabilities, they should be able to overtake Boston in the AL East once again. But that's a big "if".

Regarding Hughes and his injury, Abrams makes the point that Hughes would not have gotten injured if he'd been in AAA last night. His reasoning is

The kid was pitching one hell of a game tonight. He was eight outs away from never having to buy another drink in his life. There’s Mark Teixeira 0-2 and waiting for the changeup that struck him out in the first inning. So Hughes was going to throw him the best curveball he had ever thrown.

Hughes told us [he] stepped too far in an attempt to really get on top of the pitch and throw it low. His momentum carried him downward, he got off balance and he tore his hamstring. Next time, and hopefully there is a next time, he will throw the pitch the right way.

Abrams then argues that since the pressure is lower in AAA Scranton, where Timo Perez hits #3 in the order for the bad-guys, Hughes would not have needed (or thought he needed) to do that. And Peter's probably right about that. But what he misses is that Hughes would likely have just gotten hurt whenever they called him up anyway, later in the season, and therefore closer to the postseason, when Hughes' skills would really be needed, assuming that the Yankees can actually make the postseason. If Hughes' injury was caused by an abandonment of his allegedly "perfect mechanics", the the first time he felt real pressure in a game, whether it was May in Texas, in June against the Mets, or September against the Red Sox, he was going to do the same thing, and he was, in all probability, going to pull that hamstring anyway. Perfect mechanics only help you if you remember to use them.

So, Yankee fans, be glad that Hughes hurt his hamstring last night, and that he can spend six weeks on the DL and still return before the All-Star Break, which was about as soon as the Yankees wanted to have to bring him up anyway. With some time off, and hopefull a lesosn learned at a very young age, Hughes should be as good as ever in late June or July, and with some (good) luck, the Yankees may even have a lead to protect in the AL East by then.

Yankees 1977 World Series DVD Giveaway!!!

Yankees 1977 World Series DVD Giveaway!!!

The DVD described in my last post is currently being sold on A&E's website, here. I will soon post a review of it as well.

But if you're not into buying stuff, then you can win one of three (3) free sets from Boy of Summer. You can win in one of three ways:

1) If you happen to be the visitor who arrives #60,000 on the counter on the right side of my blogspot site, email me with a screenshot, and you'll automatically win one. If you're close to #60,000, email me a screenshot anyway. If I don't get the exact number, I'll declare the winner to be whomever gets closest, either above or below the mark. If there's a tie (for example, both #59994 and #60006, then you BOTH win.

B) For those of you who rely more on creativity than luck, I will pick one winner from whomever submits the funniest or most clever lyrics for "Pomp and Circumstance", the song that Yankees' relief ace and 1977 American League Cy Young Award winner Sparky Lyle used to use when he would emerge from the bullpen. Email me your submissions, and I'll pick a winner. You can hear the tune here: Pomp and Circumstance audio file. Actual recordings of yourself singing the lyrics will get you bonus points, especially if you play the music, too.

iii) If there is no tie in option 1 above, then a third winner will be chosen from the Pomp and Circumstance submittals.

In all cases, the shipping will be paid by A&E so it won't cost you anything to enter. They will ship it right to you, so if you win, I'll notify you, and you'll just have to provide me with a name and address to send your DVD set to.

Press Release: THE NY YANKEES: 1977 WORLD SERIES COLLECTOR'S EDITION DVD SET

THE NY YANKEES: 1977 WORLD SERIES COLLECTOR'S EDITION DVD SET

Now, all of the heroics of Reggie Jackson, Thurman Munson, Willie Randolph, Lou Piniella, Sparky Lyle, Ron Guidry and the full roster of clutch performers from the 1977 champs are finally showcased and digitally preserved in their entirety.

This exquisite, fan-friendly collection definitively presents the indisputably classic showdown from the mid-70s era of big personalities and epic confrontations. These seven discs capture a perfect moment from a golden era of America’s Pastime. From every perspective, pundits and fans alike anticipated nothing less than an amazing championship World Series in 1977 as classic rivals the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers faced off for the ninth time in World Series history. By the time the Yankees’ Reggie Jackson had floated around the diamond after his third consecutive home run in Game 6, the baseball community and sports fans across the globe had witnessed an unparalleled performance and a remarkable feat for the ages.

Throughout the season the 1977 Bronx Bombers battled opponents – and often each other – with unprecedented ferocity and style. Squared off against the Dodgers in the World Series, the Yankees pulled out dramatic and precise wins to capture the Club's first World Series crown in 15 years.Yankees fans, Baseball fans, Sports fans: this is your chance to own a piece of sporting history, to experience it again and again, to celebrate the height of competition.

All the action of the stunning 1977 World Series packed into a brilliant 7-disc set.

Includes Game 5 ALCS Pennant clincher the and all six World Series Games.

Packaged with SleeveStats®, offering stats, trivia, and game summaries right on the case.

DVD Extra Features:
1977 World Series Clubhouse Victory Celebration.
1977 World Series Trophy Presentation.
Inside Moments: Reggie Jackson's 3 HR Game; The Reggie Jackson/Billy Martin confrontation in Fenway Park.
Rare Interviews with Reggie Jackson, Willie Randolph, Ron Guidry, Lou Piniella, George Steinbrenner, and many more.

MVN.com RoundTable Discussion, 30 April 2007

Question #1:
If you were starting a team from scratch and had to pick one player and one pitcher to build around, who would they be? There’s only one stipulation: No MVPs or Cy Young award winners are allowed.

There are lots of remarkably good players who have never won a Cy Young or an MVP award, so this should be easy, right? But we want a guy we can build a team around, which means that five or six years from now, we need him to still be very productive.

Derek Jeter should have won last year’s AL MVP Award, but Jeter’s going to be 33 years old in a few months, not exactly the kind of young player around which you can build a dynasty, at least not any more. Travis Hafner, an excellent hitter (with an excellent name!) is 30 years old, and doesn’t play defense anymore, so he’s not really the type we’re looking for here. Ditto for David Ortiz, who’s fat and slow, in addition to not being named Travis. Strike three, go sit down, Papi.

What we need is someone who excels at several phases of the game, hitting, fielding and baserunning, and who is young, probably not more than 25 or 26.

Miguel Cabrera is an incredible hitter, having raised his batting average, OBP and slugging percentages since he entered the NL at age 20, back in 2003. He’s only an adequate defensive third baseman, though, and doesn’t steal bases, so we’ll pass on him.

Grady Sizemore plays center field pretty well, hits for a decent average, and is improving his patience, power and base stealing technique, so you could do worse than to start with him. Joe Mauer and Brian McCann, the best young catchers in their leagues, seem like excellent players, but as catchers, are not likely to play more than 140 games a season very often. They may be natural choices for team captains, and good hitting catchers are tough to find, so I wouldn’t fault you if you took one of them, but I’m going to let them go too.

Most general managers would sell their own children into slavery if they could get just one young player who looks like the kind of building block we’re talking about here. The Mets have two. Jose Reyes, with blazing speed, a quick bat, improving patience and developing power despite his diminutive size, looks like a perennial All-Star, and if the Mets win another division title, he could very well win the NL MVP award this year.

Okay, so he’s a lousy defensive shortstop. But just a few feet to his right, we have David. David Wright, like Reyes, is only 24, plays on the left side of the Mets infield, and should be a perennial All-Star and MVP candidate. Unlike Reyes, however, Wright’s got the right stuff when it comes to defense, with FRAA numbers comfortably above average in each of the last two seasons. His batting average and slugging percentages have increased each of the three years he’s been in the majors, and his base stealing is getting better.

Furthermore, Wright seems to have the charisma to handle the New York Star Maker machine, the down-home country charm to win the hearts of fans and the bat and glove to quiet any nay-sayers. So, Wright’s my man.

As for pitching, that one’s easy. The best pitcher in the majors who’s never won a Cy Young Award is Roy Oswalt. He’s gone 101-48 in his career to this point, twice winning 20 games and once winning 19, with 220+ innings in four of the past five seasons, and has placed in the top five in the Cy Young race four times.

His win-loss record wasn’t quite as gaudy last year due to lousy bullpen support (he took the loss in five quality starts and got a no-decision in seven others), but in terms of meaningful statistics, he’s posted almost exactly the same season every year since 2004, and that season just happens to be excellent. He’s not terribly young, at 29, but aging patterns for pitchers aren’t as clear-cut as they are for hitters.

Most of the best pitchers are nearly as good at 34 as they were at 29, some better. I’ll take the next five years of whatever Roy Oswalt has to offer over anyone else in the majors who doesn’t already have some hardware on his mantle.
Question #2:
Is a 162-game schedule too long, too short or just right? If you were commissioner, how many games would each team play? Would you stick with the unbalanced schedule?

I may not be the best person to ask about this, as I would probably have the teams scheduled for doubleheaders every day from April to October if I got my way. I really like watching baseball. It's like pizza or sex: even when it's bad, it's good. With that said, though I think 162 games is about all the market (and the players) can really tolerate, so let's not mess with it.

There is no way to maintain a balanced schedule if you’re only going to do partial interleague play, and I don’t think anyone is advocating for complete interleague play, which would essentially dissolve the two leagues into one. However, the combination of interleague play and an unbalanced intraleague schedule creates several problems, especially with teams from different divisions vying for the same wild card berth, as they may have faced significantly different competition.

The Braves, for example, must have ticked off someone in the scheduling office, because in addition to having to fend off the reigning NL East Champion Mets, the upstart Marlins and the Phillies, they have three interleague games apiece against Minnesota, Detroit and Cleveland, plus six games against the Red Sox.

Meanwhile the Padres, in addition to padding their numbers in numerous games against the Rockies, D-Backs and what will probably be a pretty sub-par Giants team, find their interleague matchups to be much more attractive: Three games each against Tampa Bay, Baltimore and Boston, and six against Seattle. Among those, only the Red Sox had a winning record last year.

So while it’s impossible to eliminate the unbalanced schedule without also eliminating interleague play, there ought to be some more thought given to how these games are allotted, and how to keep sub-par teams from getting into the playoffs by padding their records against so many weak teams.

Read responses from other MVN.com writers...

Oasis Media Blitz

Spreading the word about a new worship service at First Presbyterian Church in Bethlehem, PA, starting on Arril 28th at 6PM. That's me doing the Chris Farley thing in the beginning and showing off the cards and posters, and my wife next to me, saying that we'll hand these out to "anyone we see". For the record, she promptly chickened out when faced with actual "anyone"s, but did very well at convincing shop owners to put the posters up in their windows in downtown Bethlehem.

Phil Hughes Major League Debut Tonight at Yankee Stadium

The New York Yankees’ #1 pitching prospect, in fact, the top pitching prospect in all of baseball according to Baseball America, Baseball Digest, MILB.com, and Baseball Prospectus, among others, will make his major league debut tonight against the Toronto Blue Jays. Hughes was the Yankees’ best prospect a year ago, and nothing has changed except that he showed that he could get both Single-A and AA batters out with remarkable aplomb. This year, he struggled a bit in the spring and at the beginning of the AAA season, giving up 7 runs in 10 innings over his first two starts, but then shut out
Syracuse for six innings, striking out ten, allowing only two hits and no walks.

With that said, it should be noted that the Yankees’ move has more to do with the desperation of the major league coaching staff to find somebody, anybody, who can keep the team in the game for more than five or six innings. Indeed, as a team, the Yankees rank dead-last in the major leagues with only five Quality Starts (6+ innings, 3 or fewer earned runs). The Colorado Rockies, that legendary model of pitching prowess, have 13. Granted, the Yankees did just get tricksy “ace” Chien-Ming Wang back, and Mike Mussina is slated to come back next week, assuming his AA rehab start goes well, but even when healthy, most of the starters haven’t exactly pitched well. Kei Igawa has only one Quality Start in four outings, and so far only Andy Pettitte has been reasonably reliable.

The Yankees had a plan. They intended to use Pettitte, Wang, Moose, Pavano and Igawa as their five starters, with Jeff Karstens as a back-up #5 starter, if Pavano broke down. Unfortunately, all of those except Pettitte, have either spent time on the DL this year, or are on it now, so they that plan isn’t working. And given that the AAA starter with the most “experience” in the majors is Darrel Rasner (4 starts, 7 relief appearances, 4.23 ERA in 27.2 total innings), the Yankee Brass figured that they might as well go with the guy who has the most upside. So while this is a move of desperation, it’s only desperate in that it’s a few months ahead of schedule, and not a year or two ahead of schedule, like Chase Wright was. As you may recall, with only two starts above High-A ball in his professional career, Chase Wright was called upon to pitch in the majors, and he won his first major league start. After that, however, he surrendered four consecutive homers to the Boston Red Sox, and Chase Wright was chased right back to Double-A
Trenton.

For his part, Phil Hughes looks like the real deal, though it should be noted that he is more handsome than Evander. He’s got excellent mechanics, throws a consistent 91-93 mph fastball that touches 96 on occasion and moves, plus a 12-to-6 curve and a slider, both considered above average, and a good change-up. Essentially, at age 20, he has the complete arsenal it takes many pitchers until age 27 or 28 to master, and most never do. Whether he can use them effectively against major league batters is another story, and Page One begins tonight at 7PM.

A-Rod’s Homer Surge Explained (no, really!)

I had an epiphany today.

Not to discredit Alex Rodriguez for his remarkable exploits with the bat this month, but maybe there's a reason he's done so well. Maybe the Yankees have just faced lousy teams and/or lousy pitchers, and so his incredible outburst isn't quite as incredible as we think. Fortunately, STATS, Inc and their customers keep batter-vs-pitcher stats for everybody in the game, so I could easily look up his numbers against various pitchers this season and see how he, and the pitchers, have done.

I found that there were 13 pitchers who served up his 14 homers (Curt Schilling gave up two), five relievers and eight starters. The five relievers were, in the order that you should know their names:

Chris Ray, Joe Borowski, Al "Gamma" Reyes, Tom "I Wanna Do the" Mastny, and "Good King" Juan Salas.

The Starters were Curt Schilling (2), Jake Westbrook, Casey "Playing" Fossum, Steve Trachsel, Boof Bonser, Joe Blanton, Eric Bedard and Sidney Ponson.

Sorry for the Bermanisms. I couldn't help myself.

Last year, those relievers combined to pitch 224 innings. They went a combined 11-10 with 77 saves (69 of those by Ray and Borowski), a 3.21 ERA and 1.19 WHIP. Pretty decent numbers. This year, in 46 innings, they're 4-3 with 21 saves, and a 4.50 ERA, a considerable drop off. Most of that, however, is fueled by Borowski's apparently desperate efforts to lose his job as the Cleveland Closer, allowing 10 runs in 9 innings. The rest of them have allowed only 13 runs in 35 innings, pretty respectable.

But the real story is the starters. Those eight guys combined for a 4.54 ERA and a 1.44 WHIP last year in almost 1300 total innings. Five of them "won" at least 15 games last year, but Trachsel (15-7) and Blanton (16-12) were below-average innings munchers (BAIM?) in 2006, with ERAs of almost 5.00.

This year, most of that group has dropped off considerably. They're now just 11-10 with a 6.06 ERA and a 1.46 WHIP in 180 innings. And in this case, unlike Borowski and the relievers, it's not just one guy skewing the sample. Bedard and Bonser both have ERAs over 6.00, Fossum's is almost 7.00, and Ponson and Westbrook have both allowed more than nine runs per nine innings! No wonder A-Rod can hit these guys...so can everyone else.

Lumping all 13 pitchers together, they've got a 5.74 ERA in 226 innings, which is plenty ugly, though skewed by A-Rod's abuse of them. But even if you remove his contributions, you've still got a 4.64 ERA and a 1.31 WHIP in 215 innings or so, not very good, especially considering that the AL composite ERA is 4.37.