Shelley Duncan should be on the team right now and especially tonight.

Duncan, Shelley (RH): 84 G 23 HR 72 RBI .289/.369/.569/.938

And Duncan is SLG .615 against LHP.

I don't think anyone has ever proven me right more completely and consistently than Gary Sheffield has. I love the man; he's the gift that just keeps on giving.

Not too shabby I'd say :)

Where is everyone? Bantering about A-Rod in the previous thread?

Bring a firearm:)

So, Karstens and Hughes in two weeks?

Very funny. New Orleans 2007. Its like staying at the Stratosphere, or heading to London in the fall. Stay in the hotel and stay on the path.

We had momentum going into this game, but just like we did before the ASB, Joe pulls Abreu and goes all willy nilly with the lineup. I'm sorry, but if there is anyone out there who still thiinks this guy should be managing a MLB club and not a PR firm, please stand up.

I think its a tad punctilious and lacks supporting evidence. However, it is something, and at least they have some reason for doing it, no matter how spurious it may be.

No, in fact I appreciate it.

But it would be nice to see the Yankees hit even one fly ball.

Umm. Ahh. It's so sad, but even Wiggington is having a better year than Damon.

So, Damon, Cash, and Farny, and Cash for Mark Texiera. Come on? No? It looks awfully good to me? It gets us out from under just one of the many bad Cashman deals, and hopefully gets us a long term power threat at 1B. Otherwise, next year, Giambi is our only HR hitter!

But at this rate we'll see the bullpen after after two more innings.

Farny pitches to get to Gange. Damon moves to 1B, and we pick up quite a bit of his contract. Contrary to public perception, we do not have the prospects to go after Mark Texiera. Although we will have the cash to pay him at season's end. I just don't want to wait that long. Not to mention that Damon really has no place on this team if he doesn't move to 1B next season. No?

.232 .327 .389 .716 (110 PA)

65 I certainly beg to differ that we don't have the prospects. The pitching starved Rangers would LOVE to get their hands on Chamberlain, Kennedy, Bettences etc, but I don't think they are available

They have the prospects to get Tex. Just depends on which of the 52 pitching prospects they can agree on.

.275 .372 .392 .764

Fine! Even after all my praise of your objective analysis:)

I guess we can agree to disagree there. Either way, it makes sense to make a run at him. He's young, a good defensive 1B, and his numbers speak for themselves. Otherwise, do we have a plan at 1B next year? It doesn't appear that they are going to prepare Damon. For that matter, if Damon is going to hit .260 the next two seasons, do we even want him? I would personally start Giambi at 1B when he gets back and hope for the best, but that is just me.

73 The joy that is Damon has just begun. Have I thanked Cashman yet?

Right. It hurts so terribly to have been so right about Damon. God I wish we were wrong about that signing.

So if the plan isn't to start Giambi, what is the plan? Hope we can sign Tex in the off-season? Why not get him now, sign him, and lock up some offense to replace Damon and Arod.

No, but Omar Minaya has. I heard he bought him a Hummer with a full jacuzzi.

Right. But we won't be paying Arod, so it doesnt matter how much it costs. Isn't cost the reason we passed on Beltran and signed Damon in the first place?

The future doesn't look as terrible insofar as salary is concerned. We will soon be out from underneath Arod's, Giambi's and Pavano's contracts. Might as well pay Texiera. If not for this season, could Cashman get off his ass and make a deal for Dunn already?

Isn't that the reasoning that got them into the trap of the current contracts?

I know not chaging my oil will destroy my car, but I dont not change it, and pass on a good deal for a better car. There was and is no excuse for making that deal and passing on Beltran, for what now looks like a steal. Just wait until he hits his 5th HR and steals his 5th base of the post-season come October.

Now, it is up to the owner to decide if the reason the team did not deserve reinforcements was A] Players underperforming (players' fault), B] Injuries (no one's fault), or C] poor team construction (GM's fault).

No. First, that Giambi deal was for way too many years, and I said so at the time. Especially for an obviously juiced slugger. Arod's deal is expensive, but not out of line. Jeter's is too big, but well, he's Jeter. Matui is fairly paid, and so is Posada, as is Mo. Abreu's contract was negotiated by the Phillies.

It's moronic deals like signing Damon, Pavano, Farnsworth, and Randy Johnson that got us into this predicament. Texiera is not Damon, Johnson, or Farny. He's a 27 year old clean slugger that hits for average and plays a good 1B.

I disagree. I was worried about our pitching on day one. Bullpen and starters. That is not a team that does not deserve reinforcements. That is a team that was poorly constructed, and as the thread beat to death the other day, Cashman is as good at saying the thing that keeps him his job, as he is at convincing us its not his fault.

The jury is still out on Beltran and I have no problem with them passing on him. I do wish the team would have been a little more creative with a stop gap measure, rather than getting Damon.

I was speaking merely of the deal in total, not the Yankees portion of it. Sorry for the confusion. In NY, 25-27 Mil. for this kind of performance the past three years, isn't out of line. I guess that was my point. And Cashman wasnt some sort of genius, the Rangers didn't have any other takers who were offering anything worth taking. Just look at the garbage Boston offered.

95 Hiscareer OPS+ is only 128--very good, but not that great for a 1B--but his reputation is going to bag him a seven-year, fat contract. Moreover, at age 27, we may be looking at his peak season this year, and it's not THAT good considering his home park.

Don't be seduced by the siren's song--this will be a very dangerous signing.

I agree. But we can afford it for that production. I guess my position is that when deciding on who to sign, I'd rather pay him, than pay some scrub like Damon 14 mil. to be a number 7 hitter at best.

Dude, its St. Pete. Have you been there:)

Well, I guess I would like him to at least get him up and warming.

Come on Joe. Give the kid a shot. Its not like we are going to score.

Well, Navarro sucks, strike him out and then get Wilson and maybe we can start beating up on the bullpen...

I realize not all Clemens fault, but...

I only use my powers for good. As my mom always says, "everything in moderation."

Kaz is good, but we have to start hitting w/RISP.

; )

Yea, confusing the two. Who is he Mr. Sheffield, Joe Torre?

Joe Torre, ummm, ahh, Fuck YOU!

I would rather Proctor throw a good curveball every so often. I would like to see him and Farny not walk every other batter. I would rather see Myers face righties, as he seems to be getting them out while lefties are batting over .300.

But since they both suck my balls, why not give the kid a shot?

Maybe now Joe will realize that no one in that bullpen is worth a shit and give Britton and Edwar a chance. Wait, now I'm running around in circles and babbling like Homer Simpson. Joe Torre, take a chance on a kid, Joe Torre, not have the shortest hook in MLB history, Joe Torre, manage any club other than the Yankees to a +.500 record, Ummm, NO!

What Proctor should have burned on the track, was his contract.

Ummm, no.

Well, not a total loss. The game might be tied if Joe and Cash had any clue who should be coming out of that bullpen.

We are obviously going to lose because of his misuse of the bullpen. Makes perfect sense to me.

Umm, I think he has too short a hook, but its not his overuse, but rather he and Cash's misuse of the resources at their disposal. But hey, why use young guys when you have Villone, Myers, Proctor, and Vizcaiao. Why bother with Britton, Edwar, Henn, and others?

It's amazing that they can't break that .500 ceiling....and take advantage of the Sawx losses.

You can't win that way.

It's a way of assuring that each player is performing to the best of their abilities.

In the end, the rates of success will vary according to talent, but it allows you to guage where there's room for improvement.

Cairo I think does tend towards having quality at-bats, meaning he doesn't get himself out so much as the pitchers get him out.

With Cano, he often gets himself out, as he did in the ninth.

Are you suggesting that the phrase "quality at-bat" is without merit, or in some way akin to voodoo?

I'm with you all the way. Good post.

And for the record, JOhn Flaherty or Joe Girardi could out-manage Joe Torre in any game, in any league, in any sport, at any time. Dealing with myriad high priced self absorbed narcicists is another thing. However when it comes to managing, Joe isn't even in the top 20, and the Yankees are sending him to the Hall of Fame. Maybe he should start managing like it.

Maybe in 2007, the age of the ego and the need to assuage it, teams should hire two managers. One to manage the game, and another to hold player's hands and bake them pies, and rub their heads and scratch their backs, and read them bed time stories. Every one of these clowns is in the top 5% of wage earners in the United States, whether they make league minimum or 27 mil., and maybe they should all begin a course structuted to beat that fact into their heads.

God I miss Frank Robinson managing. Say what you will about him, but no horse shit with this guy. You cant throw strikes in a 10-1 game, get the fuck out. You dont like the inside pitch, you sit tomorrow. Grow some balls for God's sake.

On the heels of the Sheff-Sharpton comments today. Where is Sheff's Tawana Brawley? This from me, a freakin Civil Rights Attorney. Frank Robinson, this is what the Yankees should strive to be:

"I don't see anyone playing in the major leagues today who combines both the talent and the intensity that I had. I always tried to do the best. I knew I couldn't always be the best, but I tried to be."

and:

"Pitchers did me a favor when they knocked me down. It made me more determined. I wouldn't let that pitcher get me out. They say you can't hit if you're on your back, but I didn't hit on my back. I got up."

If there were only two players on this club that are half the man he is, just two might get it done. If you're bothered by distarction, you shouldnt be making 100,000, let alone 20,000,000. Roger Maris' fucking hair was falling out of his head and he hit 61 HR. Christ almighty I love this game, but cannot tolerate 90% of its participants. Get off your asses and play with the talent and intensity you have. Its not rocket science. Hell, it isn't even a bad day at the accounting office, or a tough night tending bar.

Pride, Power, Pedestrian.

I'm not sure I see the difference here. Maybe Cano (or whoever) doesn't "get himself out" so much as plays to the level of his talent. In other words, maybe it's his aggressiveness and (even) recklessness with the strike zone that allows him to hit well when he's on, but also leads to the him making out when he's off.

And what good is the whole "quality AB" if you always make out? Cairo has an OPS+ of 72 this year, after 59 and 64 the last two years. Is it really a sign that he consistently has "quality ABs" or "forces" the pitcher to get him out, when the end result is so consistently bad?

This all strikes me as moralizing more than analysis.

The problem is not the single loss to TB last night, but the win-one-lose-one .500 level of play over the whole season, leaving the team 10 games out in the division and about as far for the WC.

Hmmmm... I wonder how ballplayers tolerate folk in your profession.

Many of your comments, aside from being shortsignted, are extremely rude.

Torre May not be the greatest manager in the world, but he does have some 35 years of MLB experience, both as an MVP catcher and a manager. My guess is, he took a shit this morning that knew more about baseball then you do. But stay up there on your perch buddy, and continue to criticize everyone around you.

It's not something you can quantify or measure in objective terms, I guess.

I understand your point about Cano, and maybe it's correct.

You're right, though, I do believe in the idea of "giving away at-bats" and I suppose this is pretty moralizing.

Still doesn't mean it's not a real phenomenon, though.

"And what good is the whole "quality AB" if you always make out? Cairo has an OPS+ of 72 this year, after 59 and 64 the last two years. Is it really a sign that he consistently has "quality ABs" or "forces" the pitcher to get him out, when the end result is so consistently bad?"

Again, I think the use of looking for quality at-bats is that it allows you to see who's playing at the top of their game and who isn't. When a guy makes an out after having what I deem to be a quality at-bat, I shrug my shoulders and thank that player for trying.

I can feel frustrated or annoyed, but I appreciate the player's effort.

I did not feel that way after Cano's at-bat.

Not in the least. I was exasperated by the ease with which the opposing pitcher retired him.

In the end an out is an out, to be sure, but the at-bat's where all the action is, so it matters to me whether it's a good one or a bad one.

If a guy has a terrible at-bat, flailing around but then gets lucky and the pitcher grooves him a cookie which he hits out of the park, I'm happy about the run on the board, but I'm still not left feeling enthusiastic that the hitter's skills will serve him next time at the bat.

I don't know. I guess it means that if I were a coach, I would see my job as getting the best possible at-bat out of each player the highest percentage of the time. That means pitch selection and approach.

You pick the best possible pitch to hit PLUS you put the best swing on it for the pitch. Go the other way, up the middle, fight it off, whatever.

Ok, I've rambled on enough about this. Maybe I've made some sense.

Your evidence/analysis has no bearing on the point I'm trying to make.

I'm talking about the concept of a quality at-bat, not Miguel Cairo per se, let alone how his routine plays in the field are interpreted by the commentators.

This isn't about Miguel Cairo, nor is it about career OPS. It's about looking at one at-bat, in a vacuum, and rating it according to how much of a chance the batter gave himself to do something to help the team.

The problem with invoking career anything in discussions like this is that a career's worth of performance has little bearing on any given at-bat, or even any given string of at-bats over a period that statisticians refer to as "small sample size."

Apples and oranges, I think.

Robinson Cano is a more talented baseball player than Miguel Cairo.

No one's disputing that.

The point is that if Cano can be as successful as he is with so many poor at-bats, imagine how good he'd be if each at-bat was as good as, say a typical Jeter at-bat.

Fouling off pitches does make for a quality at-bat because each time you do that, you allow yourself another opportunity to hit a pitch you can handle. You might end up getting that pitch and still not handle it, but at least you've maximized your chances of getting a hit.

It means you're playing to the limits of your ability, such as it is.

I'm not sure if I'm being clear here, but I am sure that you're fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of the point I (and probably Flaherty) am trying to make.

Have I made any sense?

But then somehow Cano gets held to higher standard, where he can't simply be evaluated for the good things he does at the plate. Instead, he is criticized for not doing more because he is more talented. But he IS already doing more than lesser players, which is how we have come to deem him as more talented.

Meanwhile, Caior (for example) is bad, but somehow gets extra bonus points for 'quality ABs' because he somehow gives the impression that he's trying harder, or working at the maximum (or in excess) of his talent.

This type of evaluation always struck me as circular, or something (I'm not sure). I'm not saying you're wrong--maybe Cano really is a big slacker and doesn't maximize his natural ability. Maybe Cairo really does work erder than anyone. All I go on is the final results, and in that regard, Cano is Cano and Cairo is Cairo. One is better and one one is worse. They are both predictable within certain parameters, based on their past performance. Whether they are trying harder or not, in this heurmaneutic, is simply impossible to evaluate.

What I love about baseball is that everyone usually gets enough ABs or pitches to show what their capable of - whether it's in MLB or A+. The problem is folks try to read too much into those results rather than let them speak for themselves.

Every AB is a mini-experiment (for batter, pitcher, and sometimes fielder). Add all those up and we know much more about a player than through any other method.

But when he said that Cairo "always seems to have quality at-bats," it sounded like one of those phrases announcers and managers use when they want to pretend that a bad player isn't so bad. He gets timely hits. He's a pesky hitter. He frames the ball well. He's got a belly full of guts. Every once in a while he can pop one out.

Sure, a bad hitter who can work out a few extra pitches is better than a bad hitter who beats the first pitch into the ground. But it shouldn't suggest that he's anything but bad.

What I am saying is that I can watch his at-bats and point to some very clear ways he could improve, commensurate with his ability.

With Cairo, I don't see much room for improvement because he seems to my eyes to have already maximized the lesser potential he has.

If I were the Yankees' hitting coach, I'm really not sure there's much I could tell Cairo to do differently.

Cano, though, is a diamond in the rough, running hot and cold (to mix metaphors), so of course he gets held to a higher standard, as he should.

So again, I'm not so much talking about effort as I am potential.

The reason Cano's at-bat bothers me so much is because he had not one, but two very good pitches to hit and he failed to offer at either of them.

If he hits one of those pitches hard but makes an out, fine, you hold your head high and say "We'll get 'em next time."

You look at results (i.e., whether a guy makes an out or not) whereas I look at process and form (i.e., how fundamentally sound a guy's at-bat is).

Melky, for instance, made an out too on that flare he hit out to leftfield, but at least such a ball could, by dumb luck, fall in. Cano's ball had no chance except, I guess, as a swinging bunt.

(Sorry if I'm being inarticulate again, it's not easy constructing a model that's both clear and reasonably objective to account for what my eyes tell me. I'm trying, though...)

"Any AB which results in the batter reaching base or making an out after the pitcher throws at least six pitches."

We can bicker about the exact definition--how many pitches? should 'productive outs' be included? should reaching base via an error not be included?--but at least then we could have meaningful starting point for talking about QABs (see, we already have an abbreviation!) without having to resort to empty platitudes or moralizing.

First, if I read you correctly, you were putting the primary responsibility for last night's loss on the offense - specifically, their inability to do more damage against the TB bullpen. I agree. I'd put Clemens's poor performance next on the list. I thought Torre left Proctor in too long, but I didn't think that was the biggest problem by a long shot.

Second, some were complaining about sitting Abreu against Kazmir. But sitting a lefty against a tough lefty isn't unusual, and you really do want to be careful with Abreu, since a bad game seems to lead to a bad month.

No, the problem was that when he decided to sit Abreu down, the best alternative he had was Kevin Thompson, who's not a major leaguer. He's not even a major league scrub. It seems to me that the GENERAL MANAGER should be able to provide something better than that just by trolling the waiver wires. Isn't that the whole concept of the "replacement player?"

This is the key difference in our approach (which you rightly note is a contrast in result v. performance). I just don't know how we can know if a player such as Cano can really imporve clearly and significantly versus his ability. So, for example, when you say:

"The reason Cano's at-bat bothers me so much is because he had not one, but two very good pitches to hit and he failed to offer at either of them."

Maybe this is how he hits. Maybe for every "good pitch" he fails to offer at, he smacks a "bad pitch" hard. Maybe he was just foooled twice; maybe ultimately he's a guess hitter. It seems so easy for us to say "dammit Cano, how can let that pitch go by you; you're so good you should hit it." I just don't know how we measure that.

It's much easier to do what I do--tally up Cano's successes and failures, be they on supposedly "easy" pitches or not.

Kevin Thompson:

mL career:
to 2006 - .275 .367 .436 - 2477 AB
2007 - .282 .385 .423 - 156 AB

At 27 yo, if he played enough now, that's what he'd produce in MLB.

Um, isn't Kevin Thompson basically a replacement level player?

In other news, Shelley Duncan is listed as an OF for SWB--apparently he has played some corner OF, though his defense is pretty much brutal. I wonder what he would have done against the LHP.

Just as pitchers make mistakes, failing to place the ball where they want to, and then agonize about the one bad pitch after their start, so should hitters agonize about the pitches they didn't swing at but should have, or the pitch they tried to pull that really they should have taken the other way, etc.

So I wouldn't want to define a quality at-bat in the kind of objective way you suggest, because it fails to account for the actual pitches the pitcher threw in the at-bat.

A pitcher can strike someone out on three pitches yet the batter can still have had a quality at-bat.

He swings through the first fastball over the dish, but it's 95mph and he just misses it.

Fine.

The second pitch is a nasty breaking ball that falls in for a called strike, fine.

The third pitch is another 95mph fastball that the hitter again simply misses.

The batter simply got beat, because he was overmatched. He doesn't have to think about the one that got away or the weak hack he took at a pitch in the dirt. His approach was fundamentally sound.

I guess I'm saying that to me, a quality at-bat really is evaluated on a case-by-case basis, but the key question is: in retrospect, what could the hitter have done differently to get a better result? If the answer is "not much," then fine, tip your hat to the pitcher.

So basically, I guess I'm saying it's really not objectifiable, but I know it when I see it.

I use this example a lot, but here it is again:

Jeter, in that game against California in 2002, had a huge at-bat against Percival.

It was clear to Derek that he wasn't going to catch up to Percival's fastball, so he went right into defensive mode, fouling off tough pitches and hoping for a walk.

He went down with the bat on his shoulder on a nasty fastball on the inside corner.

That's a quality at-bat. He sized up the situation and realized his best chance for success was to draw a walk. In the end, he just got beaten by Percival. I was frustrated that the ump called the pitch a strike, but I realized Jeter maximized his chances of success in that at-bat.

That's the kind of thing I admire.

That's a quality at-bat.

You know what I mean?

Basically what you're saying, if I understand it, is that 1] you want batters to swing at strikes in the zone and lay off pitches out of the zone, and 2] players that fail to do this in an AB should be disappointed and work harder in the future not to miss hitable pitches and not to be fooled.

No argument here.

You're right, mp. Maybe it does all even out in the wash, but I don't see it.

Nick Johnson used to exasperate me by taking pitches right down the middle at really odd times, apparently without rhyme or reason.

But I was able to live with it (just barely) because walking was a big part of his game.
It's harder for me to excuse a relatively aggressive hitter like Cano failing to swing at two good fastballs with the game on the line. That just doesn't cut it, is all I'm saying. Letting one pitch go by, fine. But two?

And if we consider results (as you do), isn't it clear that the result of that ab was piss-poor?

Not because he made an out, but because he forced himself into a position where he had to swing at a pitcher's pitch.

That's basically the key to good hitting, isn't it?--minimizing the number of pitcher's pitches you're forced to swing at?

And that against a pitcher who (as far as I can tell) is far from dominating. I don't know, it just doesn't bode well.

But when you describe Derek Jeter's value as a hitter, you don't start with "he always seems to have quality at-bats." He does, and that's part of why he's good, and it shows up in his batting average. If it doesn't show up in real-life results often enough, then it's not very useful.

It's very much like the "productive out." I think everyone would agree that a productive out is at least a little better than a non-productive out. At the same time, of course, if the best you can say about a player is that he makes a lot of productive outs, he's still making a lot of outs. A 7-pitch out may be a bit better than a 2-pitch out - but a 2-pitch hit beats the 7-pitch out every time.

Melky's little flare to end the game, for instance. IIRC, he was basically fighting off a tough pitch and hit it weakly to the outfield. I'm not sure there's much more he could have done with that, and with a little luck, it might have fallen in.

But Cano's swing was ill-suited to the pitch, so he didn't even give himself a chance to inside-out the ball a la Jeter.

It has something to do with how adept a hitter is at making adjustments in the course of one at-bat, I think.

Of course, but we don't need to go beyond that. There is already a metric to dfine a poor AB--it's called an "out."

Now, we can disect any given out, and in this case you would come up with: he made an outin large part because he missed two hittable pitches. Sure enough. And we can say: Cano, you really should work on not missing hittable pitches. Fair enough. But in the end, all we can really measure are the outs and hits.

The better players presumably hit more hittable pitches (and probably a good many less hittable pitches), and they are fooled by fewer unhittable pitches, and when they make contact they hit the ball harder, and when they miss they tend to do so by less. The end result is more hits for better players and more outs for lesser players. And that's all that really matters.

I understand your point, JL, but the real question is: useful to what end?

I think it's useful in establishing what a player's ceiling might be, and in establishing what kind of consistency you might expect from them.

For argument's sake, let's say that Cairo really does have more quality at-bats then, say, Bobby Abreu, yet his average/production is still lower because of his inferior talent.

If that were true, it would suggest that when Abreu gets hot, he gets super hot. When he gets cold, he gets super cold.

Miggy, meanwhile (again, for argument's sake) ploughs along, a steady 1-4.

It means he's mastered his mechanics/approach/whatever enough that you know what you're going to get in any given at-bat. In that case, if Abreu's clearly in a slump (i.e., manifestly having poor at-bats, waving at pitches in the dirt or whatever), I'd feel better about Cairo coming up with men on than Abreu, despite their respective track records.

I'm digressing here, but I think my main point is that looking for quality at-bats can be useful because it can tell you about a player's projected value.

Cano is a compelling case because he's at a point where no one knows what kind of player he'll be. The reason for that is because there's tremendous room for improvement.

He's like Reyes, who miraculously (with Rickey's help) managed to find that next level of performance.

Cano hasn't figured out how to hit (i.e., maximize his potential) and Cairo has.

I don't know, maybe it's not useful, but I find it compelling and dramatic.

KT has had a grand total of 47 ABs in his two year MLB career (during which he hit a commendable .255/.364/.426, right in line with his mL numbers).

The process is a fascinating thing, but sometimes you seem to value the process over the result. It's as if you're saying: Derek Jeter is a good hitter; we know he's a good hitter because he's a smart, disciplined hitter who has quality at-bats; and if we look further, we can see that the result is a lot of hits.

I say: Derek Jeter is a good hitter; we know he's a good hitter because he gets a lot of hits; one of the reasons he's good is that he's a smart, disciplined etc.

On the other hand, Vladimir Guererro is a phenomenal hitter - and we know that because he gets hits, and home runs, by the bushel. But he probably hasn't had 12 "quality at-bats" all year. He isn't a smart or disciplined hitter in any usual sense of the words; instead, he has the ability to see and hit any pitch within two feet of the strike zone, and hit it with authority.

Cairo is a bad hitter. It's all well and good that he has quality at-bats, but he's still a bad hitter because he doesn't get enough hits.

Cano would probably be a better hitter if he were a smarter one. OTOH, it's possible that the approach that leads to frustrating outs sometimes might, at other times, lead to more hits. He is the player he is, and it works. could he be better? Of course. I suspect that Cano will end up as a good player, even a very good one, but not a great one. I can live with that. If he can continue to learn, that will be wonderful. If not, he's the player he is, and that's not half bad.

There's an old story about Yogi Berra, a notorious bad-ball hitter. Stengel tried to improve his approach - presumably so he'd have more "quality at-bats" - and told Yogi that he should think more when he was up at bat. Next time up Yogi struck out miserably. When he came back to the dugout he asked Casey, "How do you expect me to think and hit at the same time?"

I'm just frustrated by the bench, as usual. Substitute "Wil Nieves" for "Kevin Thompson" and I have a much stronger case. Pretend that's what I said to begin with.

I say: Derek Jeter is a good hitter; we know he's a good hitter because he gets a lot of hits; one of the reasons he's good is that he's a smart, disciplined etc.?"

I think this is a very lucid contrast. And you're probably right, deep down I probably do value process over result, and I can see how that might cloud my judgment.

Vlad is a very interesting case. I've not seen him for long enough stretches to have a keen opinion of him as a hitter, but yes, I do love to see him lace bad balls around.

Any definition of a "quality at-bat" would indeed have to account for someone like Vlad.

Is he prone to slumping?

As to Cano, I just can't accept that he's not capable of repeating his performance last year. His swing was so beautiful I just can't stand the thought that it's lost forever.

He looked so good, you know?

wtf!

I don't know what "our" record is v. the division. That's not the point. Nor was my point that "we" are a good team.

My point was that a single loss to a very bad team is no reason to lose hope or to evaluate the season as a whole. Even the best teams (which the Yankees, er.. excuse me, "we" are not) lose games to bad teams.

Rather, the more serious concern is that nearly 90 games into teh season "we" are playing .500 ball, :we" trail by 10 games, and "we" lose pretty regularly to to teams both good and bad. There is little objective evidence to suggest that "we" will get any better, and certainly not better enough to make the playoffs.