Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Washington Post: Tom Boswell: Yankees Are Monuments To Baseball Success
(www.washingtonpost.com)
posted 1 day ago by The Yankee Clapper to aging, great baseball players, injuries, pennant race, veteran leadership, yankees
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15 comment(s)
Boz pays homage to the gritty, gutsy, scrappy, first place 2013 underdog Yankees:
Read More...Perhaps for the first time in their history, the Yankees now epitomize exactly the kind of team that always used to try to beat them: a group of inspired-by-adversity, too-old-or-too-young, one-last-chance players who band together to prove that baseball is a team game, not just an aggregation of talent and fat contracts.
Put a few all-star seasons, such as Cano’s 31 RBI, Kiroda’s 1.99 ERA and Rivera’s 16 ...
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1 2 >With an assist from Boone Logan.
Cano had a good game though!
The lineup made no sense either. Cano is the DH, and so Jayson Nix ends up playing second base and goes o-for-4. It's ridiculous that he's still resting players with the division and a playoff spot on the line. The time for rest is over; resting is for July and August.
Balfour is killing me. He must get paid by the pitch or something.
Let's go Mariners!
Out of the way, dude!
I thought just the opposite. He should have started the 7th with the bullpen, because Hughes is a disaster waiting to happen.
Oh, and Brandon Moss...we were playing community softball, an opposing guy hit a ball to right field, and our right fielder Matt <somebody> just watched it go over his head and turned around and stood there. So I know the feeling. GAH!
Thanks, yes, it's the hesitation that does it: Moss is dancing off the bag in line with is lead, waiting to see whether the fly is caught; Kinsler goes straight toward third on the hard grounder.
It still looks weird that Beltre seems so surprised to find a runner coming toward him, but the A's won, so, whatever.
Mariners end up with 20 strikeouts.
And Albert ... the one thing that gave me pause in all my bold predictions about Albert's future this past offseason was that weird drop in his BB rate last year. I know a lot of it is the drop in the IBB due to reduced power but I can't recall any other good, much less great, hitter whose walk rate collapsed at this age.
But they are still in the drivers seat for the wild card. It is getting harder to be optimistic about a team that just went 1-3 against four of the worst starting pitchers in the major leagues.
But you're never as bad as you look when you lose, right? Just win tonight, take the Red Sox series, and then knock Tampa out of it in game 1 of that series, and finish out the division clinch with a sweep.
Tigers back in a tie for first!
That was more what DD had in mind when he traded for Anibal Sanchez. He threw a gem last nite.
I was thinking the exact same thing today. I just happened to be looking at FA outfielders and was surprised to see his triple slash and OPS+ looking so robust.
Looking a little closer just now, his bb/k rate is his worst since 2002 and his power has declined...his XBH % and XB/H % are the lowest of any full season of his career. But thanks to his .380 ! babip he has that nice BA, and it keeps his OBP and SLG up.
Don't get me wrong, his 5+ WAR season at age 36 is really impressive to me. In fact, for his age 30-36 seasons he's averaged nearly 4 WAR and a 120 OPS+.
But I think someone is going to get burned by being fooled by his 2011 triple slash and overpay a guy who the bottom is about to fall out of. I can see Tori dropping all the way to .250-.260 with barely 15 HR next year.
A Jayson Stark article explains:
If these three teams end up deadlocked, the Angels would get to pick whether to play one road game or two home games. That's because they had the best head-to-head record among those three. We're guessing they'd opt to play just once. But they might want to reconsider, unless they want to risk another frequent-flier-mile extravaganza.
If they choose the one road game, then there's an A's-Orioles game Thursday, in Oakland. But if the Orioles win that one, it means (theoretically) that both the Angels and Orioles would have to fly to Baltimore for the wild-card game THE NEXT DAY. So would the Angels choose two home games over one road game? Interesting question.
And, further, I think that 54% to win the second game is way too optimistic. A depleted team which just won a one-and-done playoff is going to be at a disadvantage for personnel against a team that just took a day off.
All of which is the long way of saying they really, really need to win today.
So is Stark. Of course they take the one game.
That seems unfair, given that the A's won the season series against both the Angels (10-9) and Orioles (5-4).
Stark seems to be saying the prospect of cross-country travel makes it a more difficult choice for the Angels. That ignores the fact that the travel schedule is probably a net benefit, as the O's would have to make their second cross-country trip in as many days.
Unless the Giants sign him, which would guarantee that he'll be so egregiously productive that many BTFers are frustrated by another Sabean move that shouldn't have worked out.
I think of this as more the Cardinals M.O., but I don't follow the NL all that closely.
Thanks for taking one win off the Yanks, Twinkies.
I know that this doesn't come into the real equation, but I'm curious.
Yep, but that is the way that the rule is written, and the Angels owned the Orioles this year (7-2).
-- MWE
But even if they win they're probably losing the division anyway, so how important is it really?
Jim Thome MLB debut: September 4, 1991
Manny Machado DOB: July 6, 1992
I never thought I would say this for many reasons, but Coco Crisp needs to get over his freaking pink eye and get back on the field.
It's all about setting expectations appropriately. For me, whenever Tyson Ross doesn't get in the game, I consider that a success from a personnel usage standpoint.
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