Sir Sidney had nothing and was torched by the Blue Jays' hitters tonight and they weren't done. They had 21 hits in all and the score was 14-3 when the fireworks was over.
perhaps a few years younger but for me it was watching the Brady Bunch on channel 5 then the Jeffersons on Ch. 11...
any guesses on Cashman? he staying or going?
I'll be honest. The season is over. I'm now watching this year purely for my own enjoyment. I want to see Jeter pass Ruth. I want to see Mussina win 20.
And God damnit, I want to see Carl Pavano get obliterated on Saturday. I will get such a bizarre, unbridled joy watching that man give up eight runs in three innings.
5 Sometimes I didn't want the game to return. I especially loved when they'd show the Bill White narrated "Return to Glory", which was a 30-minute highlight show of the 1977 season (I used to own the Rizzuto-narrated LP version). I used to relish those glimpses of the Yankees championship (recent) past. Before the internet, anything like that was mana.
All tournament, I've been following the USA baseball team live on the NBCOlympics.com website. The feed has no announcer, so all you hear is the natural noise at the game. It's an interesting way to watch a game, especially because the crowd reacts to every pitch. Sometimes I have it minimized while actually doing work, when a loud cheer will cause me to ALT-TAB back to the game. Usually, the commotion is over something like a pop-up.
In any event, I wish the U.S. could send a better team to the Olympics (which is moot now anyway because this is the last year baseball will be part of the games).
Carl Pavano? Are you kiddin me? I have to keep following the Yankees because I am a fan, first, and because I have tickets to the season ending Boston series. I wonder who will be on the field. Don't think the anger will be at Fenway. People up here don't know baseball. Then again, the Yankees front office who put this bunch of sandlotters together don't either.
4
I don't want to see Pavano get lit up. I wanna see him win his 1st 3 starts, then be in the 9th inning of a perfect game on the last day of the season, and walk off the mound with some combination of pinkeye, hysterical pregnancy, whooping cough, and scurvy.
I am as disappointed as anyone, but it's not fair to call this a shitty team. They are not. They just PLAYED shitty. They have plenty of flaws, but this should have easily been a PS team. They are not too old either. Wang, IPK and Hughes were injured and IPK and Hughes underperformed. Cano and Melky underferformed. Those guys aren't too old. Moose, Mo, Pettitte and Giambi, our oldest guys (aside from Po) did just fine and were NOT injured (not even Jason).
Even with Wang, Joba, Bruney and Hughes out, our pitching was better then last year's PS team. But many, many things went wrong, and the bottom line is that the team, as a whole, underperformed GROSSLY on offense. Last year, our team slumped offensively for an entire half. This year, unexplicable, for the entire year. And 2 guys that did well, Alex and Giambi, were unbelieveably bad with RISP. Even with the injuries, had our guys played to their baseball cards, we would be fine.
And, as usual, our defense turned a number of potential Wins into loses.
It's a shame we cen't really celebrate really unexpectedly good years from Rasner, Giambi, JD, a number of kids in the BP, and especially Moose.
We can be fatalistic, but there is no real explaination for how badly we played this year considering the talent we had on the field. While we underperformed terribly, TB and the Halo's, while both having very solid teams, overperformed to the max. Check out their pathag and their lineups.
Our lost year was due:
60% to lack of RISP. This one factor alone, has killed us. If ARod's and Giambi's RISP are the same as their OPS, we easily have 5 more Wins. My guess is more.
15% underperformance by Cano, Melky and 75% of the year for Jeter. NOW Jeter gets hot! And by Hughes and IPK when they weren't injured.
10% Defense. I guestimate that 4 or 5 games were lost purely on poor to terrible defense.
15% Injuries, especially Po and Wang. This offense needed Po's bat and red-ass energy badly. Not having Wang must have cost us 3-4 games. (Truth is as shitty as the names Rasner and Ponson are, they pitched a number of games like a #1-#2).
Hitting with RISP is not a repeatable skill. Aging hitters decline and when they decline they don't hit as well. The reason the Yankees didn't hit well with RISP was because they didn't hit well overall. If it's luck you're talking about, then of course, it sucks, but if Robbie's liners found holes, people wouldn't be bitching about his "lost" season and wanting to trade him.
The Yankees relied on 7 of 9 position players older than 34 to not decline precipitously and/or not get injured. Of those, A-Rod, Giambi, and Damon got the job done. That leaves four ZOMG All-Stars that didn't contribute what was expected of them because of age-related decline or injury. Add in a horrendous April by Cano followed by an up-down rest of the season, Melky's black hole on offense and it leaves the team with an offense of three hitter and league-worst D.
The rookie pitchers imploded (save Joba) and the coup d' grace was losing Wang for the season. Still cobbled together with spare parts and Mike Mussina's swan song, the Yankee pitching staff wasn't all that bad.
Because the Yankees have so historically good hitters on their team, their decline is still above average for the most part, but that's not good enough for post-season play combined with a developing pitching staff.
I guess you didn't read my post. My whole point was IF, IF ARod and Giambi had the same RISP and close&Late as they did OPS, I'm guessing we are 6-8 wins better.
I don't know how much overlap there is in the RISP and CLOSE&LATE figures, but between the 2 players, that is 347 (max) ABs. So repeatable or not, unlucky or not, these 2 guys sucked at those 2 important situations. Situations that directly impacted winning (or not).
And your generalization about age does NOT apply to the 2008 Yankees. The older guys (in general) had excllent years, the younger (position player) guys had poor years.
A .900 OPS is a good thing. Doesn't matter if you are 18 or 38.
Comment status: comments have been closed. Baseball Toaster is now out of business.
Man, I miss the days when a brutal Yankee loss could be soothed by watching the Odd Couple and Honeymooners on WPIX.
I forget what triggered it, but I just stopped and marveled over what an incredible show that was. A genuine classic.
And then Star Trek, of course.
Dose, were da days!
Goils were goils and men were mennn!
any guesses on Cashman? he staying or going?
And God damnit, I want to see Carl Pavano get obliterated on Saturday. I will get such a bizarre, unbridled joy watching that man give up eight runs in three innings.
All tournament, I've been following the USA baseball team live on the NBCOlympics.com website. The feed has no announcer, so all you hear is the natural noise at the game. It's an interesting way to watch a game, especially because the crowd reacts to every pitch. Sometimes I have it minimized while actually doing work, when a loud cheer will cause me to ALT-TAB back to the game. Usually, the commotion is over something like a pop-up.
In any event, I wish the U.S. could send a better team to the Olympics (which is moot now anyway because this is the last year baseball will be part of the games).
I predict Pavano goes 5 innings, giving up 4 runs (only 3 earned).
Crappy defense behind a guy with a 1.50 Whip going against one of the few truly dominant starters in the AL.
Meh.
It's state fair time in Syracuse, though.
I don't want to see Pavano get lit up. I wanna see him win his 1st 3 starts, then be in the 9th inning of a perfect game on the last day of the season, and walk off the mound with some combination of pinkeye, hysterical pregnancy, whooping cough, and scurvy.
Even with Wang, Joba, Bruney and Hughes out, our pitching was better then last year's PS team. But many, many things went wrong, and the bottom line is that the team, as a whole, underperformed GROSSLY on offense. Last year, our team slumped offensively for an entire half. This year, unexplicable, for the entire year. And 2 guys that did well, Alex and Giambi, were unbelieveably bad with RISP. Even with the injuries, had our guys played to their baseball cards, we would be fine.
And, as usual, our defense turned a number of potential Wins into loses.
It's a shame we cen't really celebrate really unexpectedly good years from Rasner, Giambi, JD, a number of kids in the BP, and especially Moose.
We can be fatalistic, but there is no real explaination for how badly we played this year considering the talent we had on the field. While we underperformed terribly, TB and the Halo's, while both having very solid teams, overperformed to the max. Check out their pathag and their lineups.
Our lost year was due:
60% to lack of RISP. This one factor alone, has killed us. If ARod's and Giambi's RISP are the same as their OPS, we easily have 5 more Wins. My guess is more.
15% underperformance by Cano, Melky and 75% of the year for Jeter. NOW Jeter gets hot! And by Hughes and IPK when they weren't injured.
10% Defense. I guestimate that 4 or 5 games were lost purely on poor to terrible defense.
15% Injuries, especially Po and Wang. This offense needed Po's bat and red-ass energy badly. Not having Wang must have cost us 3-4 games. (Truth is as shitty as the names Rasner and Ponson are, they pitched a number of games like a #1-#2).
The Yankees relied on 7 of 9 position players older than 34 to not decline precipitously and/or not get injured. Of those, A-Rod, Giambi, and Damon got the job done. That leaves four ZOMG All-Stars that didn't contribute what was expected of them because of age-related decline or injury. Add in a horrendous April by Cano followed by an up-down rest of the season, Melky's black hole on offense and it leaves the team with an offense of three hitter and league-worst D.
The rookie pitchers imploded (save Joba) and the coup d' grace was losing Wang for the season. Still cobbled together with spare parts and Mike Mussina's swan song, the Yankee pitching staff wasn't all that bad.
Because the Yankees have so historically good hitters on their team, their decline is still above average for the most part, but that's not good enough for post-season play combined with a developing pitching staff.
And as to hitting with RISP, I'm not sure what you mean by "repeatable skill," but I'm not sure that what you're saying is so.
I'm sorry, but the facts say you're wrong. Our #4 and #5 guys, who saw a ton of runners on base in front of them.
Player .OPS RISP CL&L RDiff CDiff
A-Rod .983 .824 .787 -.159 -.196
Giambi .888 .673 .491 -.215 -.397
I guess you didn't read my post. My whole point was IF, IF ARod and Giambi had the same RISP and close&Late as they did OPS, I'm guessing we are 6-8 wins better.
I don't know how much overlap there is in the RISP and CLOSE&LATE figures, but between the 2 players, that is 347 (max) ABs. So repeatable or not, unlucky or not, these 2 guys sucked at those 2 important situations. Situations that directly impacted winning (or not).
And your generalization about age does NOT apply to the 2008 Yankees. The older guys (in general) had excllent years, the younger (position player) guys had poor years.
A .900 OPS is a good thing. Doesn't matter if you are 18 or 38.
Comment status: comments have been closed. Baseball Toaster is now out of business.