NY Times: Kepner: Yankees Suddenly Seem Short of the Long Ball

But they Hit Too Many Home Runs last year. So this has to be better. They will do the opposite.

George: Why did it all turn out like this for me? I had so much promise. I was personable, I was bright. Oh, maybe not academically speaking, but ... I was perceptive. I always know when someone's uncomfortable at a party. It became very clear to me sitting out there today, that every decision I've ever made, in my entire life, has been wrong. My life is the opposite of everything I want it to be. Every instinct I have, in every of life, be it something to wear, something to eat ... It's all been wrong.

Waitress: Tuna on toast, coleslaw, cup of coffee.

George: Yeah. No, no, no, wait a minute, I always have tuna on toast. Nothing's ever worked out for me with tuna on toast. I want the complete opposite of on toast. Chicken salad, on rye, untoasted ... and a cup of tea. Eh-huh!

Elaine: Well, there's no telling what can happen from this.

Jerry: You know chicken salad is not the opposite of tuna; salmon is the opposite of tuna, 'cos salmon swim against the current [motioning], and the tuna swim with it.

Elaine: Ah, George, you know, that woman just looked at you.

George: So what? What am I supposed to do?

Elaine: Go talk to her.

George: Elaine, bald men, with no jobs, and no money, who live with their parents, don't approach strange women.

Jerry: Well here's your chance to try the opposite. Instead of tuna salad and being intimidated by women, chicken salad and going right up to them.

George: Yeah, I should do the opposite, I should.

Jerry: If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.

Jerry: If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.

If only they could teach this Brave New World Yankee team the instinct of striking out.

The Yankees led the American league in HR by 31 in 2012. It seems pretty hard to believe they should have any serious concern over falling out of the top 5

But maybe I'm failing to take into account the "Curtis Granderson strikes out an awful lot" factor

The Yankees led the American league in HR by 31 in 2012. It seems pretty hard to believe they should have any serious concern over falling out of the top 5

- They're replacing 21 HRs by Russell Martin with maybe 1 HR from Chris Stewart or Francisco Cervelli.
- They're replacing 24 HRs by Nick Swisher with maybe 5 HRs from Ichiro
- They're replacing 19 HRs by Raul Ibanez with maybe 5 HRs from Brett Gardner
- They're replacing 14 HRs by Andruw Jones with less from Juan Rivera and/or Matt Diaz

I think there is legitimate reason to think they won't be in the top 5 in HRs this year.

They've lost almost 100 from players leaving, and Granderson and ARod account for another 60. That's a lot of HRs to make up for.

You guys don't think they'll get 5-10 from the C position? You don't think Ichiro might split time in RF? Juan Rivera has the ability to hit 14 HR in 150 games, and he'll probably split time anyway. I really don't think the power dropoff will be quite so dire as, for instance, post 5 has it, wherein C, RF and LF will account for 11 HR in 2013. Come on now.

I totally forgot about Granderson's injury, though. That's substantial. It seems I may have egg on my face, here.

You guys don't think they'll get 5-10 from the C position?

Nope.

You don't think Ichiro might split time in RF?

Nope.

Juan Rivera has the ability to hit 14 HR in 150 games, and he'll probably split time anyway.

If Juan Rivera plays 150 games this year, the lack of homers won't be the biggest problem this team is facing.

I guess I should really have Hafner replacing Jones or Ibanez. I'm sure they'll hit a good amount of homers given their stadium, but I don't think they'll be leading the league this year.

I have to walk back my "optimism" (not like I want the Damned Yankees to succeed) due to my omission of the loss of Granderson, but I'd be really interested to see how many teams in the last ten years have failed to get 20 HR from the corner OF + C.

Hell, they could lose 50 HR this year and still be on the fringes of the top 5. That might be what they're looking at, but I doubt they'll fail to get their licks. They'll get 5-10 HR at catcher because if they don't, they'll find a catcher who can hit 5-10 HR in the 2nd half of the season. If they're not hitting enough HR, they'll find someone who can hit 10-15 HR in the corner OF. Juan Rivera and whoever he splits time with is not a great situation, but they'll equal Jones's HR output. It's the Yankees. If they're not hitting 200 HR, baseball isn't being played.

i think ichiro will hit ~15 hr this year

i think ichiro will hit ~15 hr this year

He could hit 30 if he wants to.

i think ichiro will hit ~15 hr this year

Has he mentioned anything about wanting to hit homers?

A-Rod/Chavez combined for a little over 800 PA and 34 homers, filling the 3B position and part of the DH duties.

Youkilis/Hafner could match that, but it's not a given.

#2 - Doesn't George snidely say "good for the tuna" after Jerry's line about salmon and tuna? And why do I remember this but almost nothing important?

Speaking of Seinfeld, I disocvered It's Like, You Know... the other day, created by Seinfeld veteran Peter Mehlman. Somehow I had never heard of it, despite the fact that at that time (1999) I was a 15 year old kid who watched a lot of TV. I suppose maybe it was just a bit after my peak in that regard.

Now, don't get me wrong, it's a pretty bad show. But it's got some things going for it. Jennifer Grey of Dirty Dancing, Red Dawn, Ferris Bueller fame plays herself as a washed up actress endlessly frustrated because no one recognizes her anymore. Plus it's got Chris Eigeman (which is how I stumbled across it. I watched Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco and then was sad because there didn't seem to be any more Whit Stillman/Chris Eigeman out there. Well, Metropolitan...but I'm not that desperate yet).

Doesn't George snidely say "good for the tuna" after Jerry's line about salmon and tuna? And why do I remember this but almost nothing important?

Because it's a great moment.

. It seems I may have egg on my face, here.

Quite often ones finds someone here thrashing around in an industrial vat of eggs, so I wouldn't worry about a dining miscue.

Juan Rivera has the ability to hit 14 HR in 150 games

Juan Rivera no longer has the ability to hit.

Maybe if he'd never gotten hurt ... but over the last 6 years, Rivera has 1.1 WAR and that's thanks to 3.5 WAR in 2009. He's 10 runs below average with the bat despite a slightly friendly platoon advantage. He hits into a lot of DP and is poor defensively. Sure, he's on the Yanks now and will have his Shane Spencer month for that reason but he's barely hanging on.

I watched Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco and then was sad because there didn't seem to be any more Whit Stillman/Chris Eigeman out there. Well, Metropolitan...but I'm not that desperate yet

A. Metropolitan is good, though perhaps not as good as Barcelona. It's better than Last Days of Disco, I think.
B. Damsels in Distress came out in 2012. It is excellent. Many people did not like it, though all of those people are idiots. No Eigeman, but still, Stillman only has the 4 movies, so you might as well see them all.

B. Damsels in Distress came out in 2012. It is excellent. Many people did not like it, though all of those people are idiots. No Eigeman, but still, Stillman only has the 4 movies, so you might as well see them all.

I should have added, I watched that one this weekend as well. What had Stillman been doing the past 10+ years?

I really like his writing. Very stylistic dialogue that only every now and then falls a bit flat. And so much deadpan!

Granderson is going to be available for 80% of the season, and A-Rod should be back some time after the All-Star break. The Yankees could still have more than enough power if everyone gets healthy and the pitching keeps them in the race.

[20] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/magazine/whit-stillman-and-the-wasps.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Without sighing too heavily, he took up the topic of the hiatus in his film career. After “The Last Days of Disco,” he moved from New York to Paris in August 1998, with his wife, Irene Pérez-Porro, and their two daughters, Ann and Isabel. (Ann, now 25, is a lawyer in Dublin; Isabel, 20, is studying pre-med at Columbia University.) He published a “novelization” of his “Disco” script, “The Last Days of Disco With Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards.” In 2002, he and his wife separated; Stillman found an apartment in the same building on the Île Saint-Louis and saw his daughters regularly. He wrote several original scripts, including one set in Jamaica in the 1960s, which he still hopes to make, and he was involved in a bunch of projects that didn’t work out. As he recently told an interviewer at the Toronto Film Festival, he lost track of his “destiny as a self-produced filmmaker.”

Stillman had been making notes on “Damsels” for years before he mentioned the idea, in 2006, to Liz Glotzer and Martin Shafer at Castle Rock Entertainment, which had financed his last two movies. “Whit said, ‘I want to write a movie about four girls in a dorm who are trying to keep things civil in an uncivil world,’ ” Shafer said. “It took him a year to write 23 pages. Six months later, a few more dribbled in. He just doesn’t work very fast. Finally we had a draft. When we started production he said, ‘I think 12 years is the right amount of time between movies.’ ”

Everything has to go exactly right for the Yankees to win 90+ games, IMHO. No more major injuries, no down years from from Cano or Tex, pitching has to be at least as good as last year with no significant upgrades, old players coming off serious injuries must produce. I think this is the year we see serious cracks in the edifice. They won't make the playoffs.

A. Metropolitan is good, though perhaps not as good as Barcelona. It's better than Last Days of Disco, I think.
B. Damsels in Distress came out in 2012. It is excellent. Many people did not like it, though all of those people are idiots. No Eigeman, but still, Stillman only has the 4 movies, so you might as well see them all.

What, no love for Taylor Nichols?

Quite often ones finds someone here thrashing around in an industrial vat of eggs, so I wouldn't worry about a dining miscue.

Human Omelets?

Everything has to go exactly right for the Yankees to win 90+ games, IMHO. No more major injuries, no down years from from Cano or Tex, pitching has to be at least as good as last year with no significant upgrades, old players coming off serious injuries must produce. I think this is the year we see serious cracks in the edifice. They won't make the playoffs.

Depending on how you look at it, their projected starting lineup has 1 home run (by Cano) in 83 ABs so far this Spring. This is going to be the worst Yankee team since Steinbrenner's suspension, and it's going to take a major miracle for it to come out any other way.