Why would anyone even consider getting rid of Cashman? It's more about whether or not he gets another pay raise, portion of the team etc. Boone, ehh.. I would have to see more. But Cashman is a hof quality GM who is still doing it at an elite level. (yes I get money helps, but as we have seen, winning just through payroll isn't as easy as it looks... and constantly winning like the Yankees do, is not something that any other franchise has been able to do, even the elite Braves)

The Wilpon Network with the Yankees scoop!

Is it too late to sell the Yankees back to CBS?

The Yankees haven't had a losing season in 30 years. They've finished first or second and made the postseason in seven of the last eight seasons. It's almost impossible for them to do any better than they have. I hope they fire everyone, and make "doing worse" a more likely possibility.

Hal never wants to change anything - for better and for worse - and he cares more about the bottom line than his father did.

unless the luxury suite owners tell him otherwise by voting with their feet, Cashman and Boone have lifetime contracts.

It's almost impossible for them to do any better than they have.

well, as noted on the other thread, 15 of the other 29 teams have been to the World Series/won pennants since the last time the Yankees made it/did it. so maybe they could do a "little" better.

Between 1995 and 2022, the Yankees were in the playoffs 34 times. Assuming for simplicity's sake a neutral, pure-chance expectation of 1 championship per 8 playoff appearances, they would be expected to have reached the World Series 8 times, and to have won the World Series 4 times. They in fact have reached the World Series 7 times, and won it 5 times. The statistical clustering of 1996-2000 aside (because it's irrelevant), this is perfectly consistent with the hypothesis that the playoffs are functionally random. (Granting that with a sample this tiny, had they won it 8 times or 2 times it would do nothing to disprove that hypothesis, or any hypothesis for that matter.)

If you want to argue that the Yankees were usually better than the other teams in the playoffs, okay, but not by enough to move the needle by--at most--one expected championship. Most of the teams they play against are nearly as good as they are, and some are better.

Firing anybody on the basis of playoff results, in baseball, would be insane.

The Astros have about a 60% chance to win the World Series in a couple weeks. Whether or not they do probably will determine whether or not Dusty Baker will be elected to the Hall of Fame. This, too, is insane.

hey #6--start your analysis in 2001

Your hypothesis is that the results will be more meaningful if we make the sample size smaller?

Firing anybody on the basis of playoff results, in baseball, would be insane.

The Braves from 1991 through 2005, with the exception of the incomplete/no World Series 1994, finished in first every season. They won just one World Series. Were people calling for Bobby Cox's dismissal? What has a little time done for his legacy as a manager? Or the Braves franchise of that period?

1991: Lost WS
1992: Lost WS
1993: Lost NLCS
1994:
1995: Won WS
1996: Lost WS
1997: Lost NLCS
1998: Lost NLCS
1999: Lost WS
2000: Lost NLDS
2001: Lost NLCS
2002: Lost NLDS
2003: Lost NLDS
2004: Lost NLDS
2005: Lost NLDS

The Astros have about a 60% chance to win the World Series in a couple weeks. Whether or not they do probably will determine whether or not Dusty Baker will be elected to the Hall of Fame. This, too, is insane.

I think his ticket is already punched now, it's a matter of getting him on the right ballot.

well, as noted on the other thread, 15 of the other 29 teams have been to the World Series/won pennants since the last time the Yankees made it/did it. so maybe they could do a "little" better.

Mighty as they are, even the Yankees can't keep a National League team from advancing to the World Series.

Why did baseball end without a World Series this year? Why can't they move the Series up? How hard can this be ?

Re 6

Yankees have so much money they can warp time and space!

If the Yankees refuse to engage either in a generational rebuild or commit to spending above and beyond all of the other franchises, why should anyone expect multiple titles this decade or early next?

The Astros have about a 60% chance to win the World Series in a couple weeks. Whether or not they do probably will determine whether or not Dusty Baker will be elected to the Hall of Fame. This, too, is insane.

I think his ticket is already punched now, it's a matter of getting him on the right ballot.

He was going in after last year's pennant.

Re 6

Yankees have so much money they can warp time and space!

LOL, touché. Lucky for me, my inability to reliably do arithmetic only strengthens my point in this case: the Yankees are still well ahead of their 1-in-8 allotment of championships with 5 in 24 playoff appearances.

Okay, one of my points. The one about the Yankees still being right whereahead of the championship pace random chance would give them. Their having won 5 times instead of only 3 could be construed as counter-evidence to my other point, that the playoffs are functionally random, if we pretended the sample size was anywhere near big enough to matter.

These articles and hand wringing only occur because people are living in the past. Hey NY, the 30's, 40's and 50's ain't coming back!

Sure it's possible, but it's totally unrealistic with the division of talent and resources, to expect any team to win the WS 5 times in 10 years type of thing(I'm still amazed NY won it 4 out of 5 years, 20 odd years ago)

I love that the Red Sox have won this thing 4 times this century, but they have had some pretty sh*t years in between. NY, they just keep on keeping on. Winning boatloads of games and making the playoffs every darn year, it's d*mn impressive in this day and age.

Boone, ehh.. I would have to see more.

I don’t think Boone is a particularly good manager. He’s not Maury Wills out there but I think he doesn’t handle adversity well. I can’t pinpoint it but it seems like both on an individual level (e.g. Gary Sanchez) and a team level they don’t seem to bounce back the way they should be expected too. Just looking at the series with the Astros, he was shuffling the lineup all over the place and while they weren’t hitting I feel like he created a bit of an atmosphere of panic. As good as the Yankees have been the last five years I don’t think any other manager wouldn’t have been able to do just as easily.

If the Yankees refuse to engage either in a generational rebuild or commit to spending above and beyond all of the other franchises, why should anyone expect multiple titles this decade or early next?

I expect zero titles, and zero pennants. Cashman's methods are stale, and Boone is mediocre. They can't seem develop meaningful talent except relief pitchers. They've accepted their rut.

The Yankees haven't had a losing season in 30 years. They've finished first or second and made the postseason in seven of the last eight seasons. It's almost impossible for them to do any better than they have. I hope they fire everyone, and make "doing worse" a more likely possibility.

They probably need to do worse to do better. Their approach is stale. It's almost impossible to imagine the current team going deep in the playoffs unless they raise the payroll over $300M. Time to rebuild.

well, as noted on the other thread, 15 of the other 29 teams have been to the World Series/won pennants since the last time the Yankees made it/did it. so maybe they could do a "little" better.

Exactly. Yankee fans don't care at all about non-pennant seasons. Quite frankly an LDS elimination and a 79 win season are exactly the same to me. Don't care, won't remember the season at all. Rather they'd have saved my time in July-October that I wasted paying attention. An LCS elimination where you go deep, has some merit. A painful loss like 2001 or 2004, and I'd rather they have won 60 games.

Mighty as they are, even the Yankees can't keep a National League team from advancing to the World Series.

Rob Manfred is considering it.

Anyway, 25 years for Cashman is pretty amazing in any day and age but especially this one.

They can't seem develop meaningful talent except relief pitchers.

Well, there's that Aaron Judge guy but who's counting? Also Severino. Oh yeah, Montgomery and Cortes. Urshela and Sanchez. Torres was 19 and in A ball when they got him. And they currently have the #5 and 3 more top 100 prospects at mlb.com, which doesn't include Cabrera. But other than those and a nearly fanatical devotion to the Pope ...

If anybody expects me to keep Oswaldo Cabrera and Oswald Peraza straight, they are dreaming.

It's almost impossible to imagine the current team going deep in the playoffs....

From 2021 to 2022, only two of NY's nine positions were manned by the same primary person, Stanton at DH and Rizzo at 1B. So I'm not certain why anyone would imagine this team going anywhere when it won't be this team—all teams change dramatically from year to year.

unless the luxury suite owners tell him otherwise by voting with their feet

Bingo, Howie.

George cared about the fans and the media. That alone doesn't win you titles (ask Jerry Jones) but it sure doesn't hurt.

Hal doesn't care about either constituency and can ONLY be influenced by the folks in the luxury suites. That crowd cares mainly about their clients having a good time, which means a team that wins a lot of regular season games with little regard for how they perform in the postseason.

From Hal's perspective, Cashman and Boone are doing exactly what he wants - why wouldn't he retain both of them?

one note I learned decades ago that still surely applies:

arena and stadium owners stagger the luxury suites/expensive club seats renewals by 3 to 5 to 10 years.

so if you win a title, you don't get to have a virtual 100 percent renewal rate.

but you've also hedged your bets effectively - if you have a rare bad year, the percentage of revenue at stake is far, far lower. and you have a couple of years to right the ship.

Because of the expanded playoff format in virtually every sport compared to a generation or more ago, it is going to be generally:

1) Easier to make the postseason consistently than it used to be, and
2) Harder to win the whole thing than it used to be.

The NFL changed the playoff format recently in the same way. It used to be that the top 2 teams got byes in the first round, then got a home game in the divisional round. Now? Only the top seed gets a bye.

As a Patriots fan, I know how much this matters. In the 18 years Brady and Belichick were together, they made nine Super Bowls. They got the bye in all nine of those seasons. In the nine years where they did not make the SB, they did not have a bye in 7 of those 9 years. It was just so big an advantage, added to the fact that if you are one of the top two regular season teams, you are already a good team. Then you get the home game, etc.

In the NBA, home court is sufficiently important that it is tough for a team not in the top two seeds to win the whole thing - a #3 or lower seed has to win too many road games to survive four rounds. In the NFL, not having the bye means winning four games, including multiple road games.

But, in MLB, the home field advantage just isn't as big a deal. Add to that the whole starting pitcher variable (imagine having five different starting QBs), and I think baseball's move towards making the playoffs more of a "free-for-all tournament" really makes teams' priority less about building a "superteam", and more about building a franchise that consistently wins 88+ games, and makes the playoffs more often than not.

They probably need to do worse to do better. Their approach is stale. It's almost impossible to imagine the current team going deep in the playoffs unless they raise the payroll over $300M. Time to rebuild.

So you do agree then that it's either rebuild or hike the payroll.

Re: #26

Home field matters more in the NFL since it's only a one game playoff, and the week of rest is also a pretty big deal (whatever talking heads banging on about ~momentum~ may say). That helps keep the randomness of the playoffs down.

In the other sports, the home advantage is very small, because you only actually get it in one out of five or seven games. The randomness or lack thereof of the other sports' playoffs have a lot more to do with the nature of the sport than with home advantage. Basketball is extremely deterministic--the top teams almost always win the title not because they have a tiny home court advantage, but because the better team usually wins any basketball game. Basketball's on one end of that spectrum; baseball is on the other.

Basketball's on one end of that spectrum; baseball is on the other.

I agree, but I would say hockey is even more "random" than baseball. Not that I bothered to look at the numbers or anything.

Not that I bothered to look at the numbers or anything.

So... just like in OT-P? (smile)

Well, there's that Aaron Judge guy but who's counting? Also Severino. Oh yeah, Montgomery and Cortes. Urshela and Sanchez. Torres was 19 and in A ball when they got him. And they currently have the #5 and 3 more top 100 prospects at mlb.com, which doesn't include Cabrera. But other than those and a nearly fanatical devotion to the Pope ...


Urshela was purchased from the Jays and is 31. Judge is 30, Montgomery 29, Severino 28. Torres is the only one under 28. Cortes they liked so much they traded to Seattle for nothing, after previously exposing him in the Rule 5.

Most of these guys debuted 6 or 7 years ago. What have they produced since? They also completely failed to develop Sanchez and Torres after great starts.

We can also add that every SP they acquire gets worse, often catastrophically. Let's hope Frankie Montas escapes like Sonny Gray did.

Basketball is extremely deterministic--the top teams almost always win the title not because they have a tiny home court advantage, but because the better team usually wins any basketball game.

I agree with this. And as NBA teams shift into load management vs. win every game mentality, we may see the top teams winning less frequently (3 seeds have won the last two titles).

In basketball, the regular season and playoffs are diverging into almost different sports. It is weird how different they are in terms of play and strategy from the regular season, way more than the other sports IMO.

I agree, but I would say hockey is even more "random" than baseball. Not that I bothered to look at the numbers or anything.

Hockey's playoff outcomes are quite a bit less random than baseball's, pretty similar to football's. Going into the playoffs in any given season, you can pick four or five teams out of the field and say with a lot of confidence that one of these teams will win the Stanley Cup. It's not so in baseball; any team from the 12 team field might win the World Series.

A unique thing about hockey is that any team might catch an ungodly hot streak from its goaltender and ride him all the way to the conference final or Cup final--but low seeds riding hot goalies never actually win the Cup. If they reach the Final they lose. I don't know why this is. It might be a random cluster, but it's pretty much always been the case. It might be a simple matter of there being a limit on just how long a time a player can play above his skill level, and the clock runs out before you can win 16 games from better teams.

And as NBA teams shift into load management vs. win every game mentality, we may see the top teams winning less frequently (3 seeds have won the last two titles).

Definitely true. Basketball fans know who the best teams really are. No one was shocked that the Bucks or Warriors won.

A unique thing about hockey is that any team might catch an ungodly hot streak from its goaltender and ride him all the way to the conference final or Cup final--but low seeds riding hot goalies never actually win the Cup.

This kind of affirms my point. My statement was about the entire playoffs, not just winning the championship. You see underdogs winning playoff series a ton in hockey, way more than Football or Basketball. Both baseball and hockey have the hot hand (goalie and pitcher). But in total which is more random hockey or baseball? Determining that is more work than I care to put in.

I haven't studied it deeply, but I don't think you need to. I've looked into it: baseball is the more random, significantly so.

If you were to plot playoff randomness on a spectrum with the NBA at 1 (least random) and MLB at 10 (most random), the NFL would be at about 6, the NHL at about 7. The NFL is closer in randomness to the NHL than to the NBA, at least over the last 20 years. The NBA is the outlier.

The subject is worth a deeper study than I've given it, though. I never took the trouble to weight the results, that is, a .520 team beating a .670 team is a "more random" (if I may abuse the terminology somewhat) result than a .560 team beating a .590 team. All I've done is add up how many times the lower seeded team won, or how many times the top regular season teams lost in the playoffs.

A unique thing about hockey is that any team might catch an ungodly hot streak from its goaltender and ride him all the way to the conference final or Cup final--but low seeds riding hot goalies never actually win the Cup. If they reach the Final they lose. I don't know why this is. It might be a random cluster, but it's pretty much always been the case. It might be a simple matter of there being a limit on just how long a time a player can play above his skill level, and the clock runs out before you can win 16 games from better teams.

I think an additional part of the reason series upsets occur in the NHL playoffs are based upon the game is played and strategized different than regular season matchups. Example: Toronto is 30 points ahead of let's say ummm. Montreal in the final standings. They also beat them 5 out of 6 times in the regular season. But when Montreal plays Toronto in the regular season they play them one night and move on to another opponent. Strategy and game planning is designed in a generic sense to compete in the regular season against multiple opponents with the purpose of attaining points in the standings. Now Montreal and Toronto face each other game after game in a do or die situation. The strategy and game planning are designed for one opponent only. Focus on exploiting an opponent's weakness or design a specific plan to shut down an opponent's strength or star player. Practices are designed around this planning. Teams can adjust within in the series to the changes but sometimes it may not matter or be too late....and Montreal moves on to the next round.

And while they may not go all the way they open the door for another team in their conference....example Montreal winning Cup in 1993. Buffalo upsets Bruins. Isles upset Penguins. Dale Hunter eliminates Isles top player. Upsets galore in the Campbell Conference and Chicago is nowhere near the finals as an opponent.

lol

@martinonyc
I didn’t report this

can someone here pls explained to me how boone "didn't learn from his yankee mistakes?"

yeah it turned out that he pulled cole "too early" although he was up to 96 pitches but if cole had given up more hits then it would be - why didn't he pull him after 96 pitches when he had relievers ready

blahblahblah

it is not HIS fault that judge hit like a singles hitter in a slump. it is not his fault that donaldson turned into a, um, fan-ny. not HIS fault that didn't nobody hit in games 1,2,3. Not his fault guys made stupid fielding errors at their usual positions

not getting the Blame Boone thingy - not like the Ys had their butts handed to them by the pirates or something because boone decided to call up some A ball guy to be a starting pitcher or something. The Ys had their butts handed to them by the Astros all year long

not getting the Blame Boone thingy - not like the Ys had their butts handed to them by the pirates or something because boone decided to call up some A ball guy to be a starting pitcher or something. The Ys had their butts handed to them by the Astros all year long

The first time they met, at Yankee Stadium in the 4th week of June, the Yankees were 52-18 and 12 games ahead in the AL East, 8.5 games better than the Astros. If it hadn't been for late inning comebacks in the first and last games of that series, the Astros would've swept it. In the entire series, the Yankees never led for a single at bat prior to those two walkoff hits by Judge, and for the 4 games they got all of 15 hits and 40 strikeouts. Take away those two walkoffs and the series wasn't all that different from what we just saw a few days ago.

Boone is 0 for 5 in World Series appearances.
2 first place finishes.
3 2nd place finishes.

That ain't success in New York per the official Yankees charter.

I haven't studied it deeply, but I don't think you need to. I've looked into it: baseball is the more random, significantly so.

Just so we are clear, we are talking post season, right? Not regular season and not just championships, but the postseason.

They've accepted their rut.

If a team's rut includes having the MVP set the all-time league HR record, and then coming just short of going to the world series, that's a rut I'd happily take.

As for randomness of outcomes: does it have something to do with average scores? A playing hitting a random 3 pointer doesn't often change the outcome of a basketball game, but a random home run makes a big difference to the outcome of a baseball game. (If this is right, you'd expect soccer, with its 1-0 scores, to be the most random of all.)

So you do agree then that it's either rebuild or hike the payroll.

The payroll increase will likely come from re-signing Aaron Judge, but I wouldn’t expect that much change to the non-Judge payroll. The Yankees aren’t going into rebuild mode - they are actually in pretty good shape, and with better health from LeMahieu, Benintendi & 4 relief pitchers might have done better in the playoffs. The farm system is in pretty good shape, too, although you don’t really know until those guys make the Majors.

The Yankees will probably re-sign Judge, try to improve in LF & SS, and keep Stanton healthy by mostly limiting him to DH, then roll the dice on a better 2023 result.

As for randomness of outcomes: does it have something to do with average scores? A playing hitting a random 3 pointer doesn't often change the outcome of a basketball game, but a random home run makes a big difference to the outcome of a baseball game. (If this is right, you'd expect soccer, with its 1-0 scores, to be the most random of all.)

This is - I suspect - one reason that the NBA is not very random. There are enough "scoring events" that a single fluke doesn't change the game that much. Of course, based on that I would think football would be more random, especially since we are talking single games and not series like the other sports, but football seems to defy that for some reason.

So yes, we agree, but it is only a guess on my part.

The payroll increase will likely come from re-signing Aaron Judge, but I wouldn’t expect that much change to the non-Judge payroll. The Yankees aren’t going into rebuild mode - they are actually in pretty good shape, and with better health from LeMahieu, Benintendi & 4 relief pitchers might have done better in the playoffs. The farm system is in pretty good shape, too, although you don’t really know until those guys make the Majors.


LeMahieu is 34 and got more than 500 PA, how much better health can you expect? Benintendi is FA, as is Rizzo and Taillon. Right now the lineup is:

C - Trevino/Higashioka
1B - LeMahieu
2B - Torres
3B - Donaldson
SS - Kiner-Falefa
LF - O. Cabrera
CF - Hicks
RF - ????
DH - Stanton

That's an awful team, even with Judge.

#34 I can think of exceptions, but they go back decades (and fewer rounds). 1971 for instance. Ken Dryden certainly stole the Boston series and significantly outplayed Tony Esposito (who was very good) in the final.

The series in between was a formality. And maybe that helps support your thesis. Dryden pretty much cruised through the second round. Wasn't burned out by the time he reached the finals.

C - Trevino/Higashioka
1B - LeMahieu
2B - Torres
3B - Donaldson
SS - Kiner-Falefa
LF - O. Cabrera
CF - Hicks
RF - ????
DH - Stanton

Never mind your overall lineup, which is obviously subject to changes, why are you slating Hicks in CF instead of Bader?

Just so we are clear, we are talking post season, right? Not regular season and not just championships, but the postseason.

Yeah. When I looked at it I just added up the results of every postseason series (or in the NFL, game). Sorry to say I no longer have the data, it's a simple enough thing to do, maybe I'll do it again one of these days. But upsets (team with significantly worse regular season record winning the series/game) were least common in basketball by far, most common in baseball, and slightly more common in hockey than in football.

I hasten to add once again that the sample sizes are too small to be significant, except to say with some confidence that upsets are naturally least common in the NBA. But that is what I believe, that the playoffs in baseball are functionally random and baseball is unique among sports in that respect, and such data as we have tend to support that hypothesis.

#49 - Thanks for the info.

Never mind your overall lineup, which is obviously subject to changes, why are you slating Hicks in CF instead of Bader?

Brain cramp.

https://theathletic.com/3733669/2022/10/26/hal-steinbrenner-aaron-boone-yankees?source=user-shared-article

Confirmed

#49 When I looked at it, I found regular season record had weak signal in the playoffs. Been a while since I looked at it.

To be clear, the signal is weak enough that it doesn't invalidate the "functionally random" comment. I tried to identify factors and the best model I could build was terrible.

In basketball, the regular season and playoffs are diverging into almost different sports. It is weird how different they are in terms of play and strategy from the regular season, way more than the other sports IMO.

All sports (well, the major US ones) are different in the playoffs, primarily in terms of playing time distribution. As we know in baseball, you see a team's top 3-4 SPs, their top 3-4 relievers and their top 10 batters. In the 2017 ALCS, Verlander/Keuchel/McCullers/Mortonn pitched 46.1 of the Astros' 60 innings (including a relief stint for McCullers) with Giles, Mchugh and Peacock taking 9.1 of the 13.2 relief innings. With worse SP, the Yanks went the other way, getting just 36 IP over 7 starts which was not something we saw in the regular season yet. That led to 17.2 IP out of Green, Kahnle, Robertson. Those are the functional equivalent of Gretzky playing 45 minutes, LeBron getting 45 minutes. I guess football doesn't really change the PT substantially (other than injury) but there you have 1-2 weeks to design opponent-specific strategies.

Soccer is a sport where the outcomes seem less random than they should be. Scoring is so rare and the top teams are often closely matched. Games often come down to a penalty, a mistake, an offsides call or lack of it.Even when badly outgunned, employing a bunker hoping to end up in a shootout or get a cheap penalty in the box is a reasonably easy, effective approach. Maybe I'm wrong and there are more upsets in soccer than I think but it seems to me you never see, say, Mexico or the US much less Cameroon win against Germany.

I think NFL football regular season play and post season play is pretty much the same game. Maybe a tad less risk taking in the post season, but fundamentally it's the same game. NHL though is a completely different game, as much due to reasons mentioned earlier (being able to game plan for an entire series instead of one game) safety/low risk taking, and the referee's refusing to call anything.(that last part could be said in the NFL also).

Baseball is different, but mostly just because the regular season is such a grind that teams have to play their bench players a lot more than in the other sports in the regular season. In the playoffs, the backup catcher never sees a start(or almost never) So in baseball you get the best version of the team most of the time. It still doesn't change the randomness of the results though, although it might make high win teams to be less successful in the post season than you would think their record indicates because they have lost the advantage of depth that they more than likely enjoyed in the regular season.

“I believe he is a very good manager," Steinbrenner said Wednesday as he left the Yankees player development complex. "I don’t see a change there.”

New York Post
@nypost
Mariano Rivera would fire Aaron Boone as Yankees manager https://trib.al/UvPPiSY

In this century, the Yankees are still ahead of their 20th century pace when it comes to pennants and WS titles. :)

Maybe I'm wrong and there are more upsets in soccer than I think but it seems to me you never see, say, Mexico or the US much less Cameroon win against Germany.

Well Greece won the Euro in 2004 beating France, the Czech republic and Portugal along the way. And that was after beating Portugal in the round robin; I think upsets happen all the time.

In the EPL just this week Liverpool lost to Nottingham Forest(who are last and haven't really been good since the 70's)

But sure, in football you can put all 11 guys in the box and try to hit the better team on the counter and come away with a win.

In NBA there are around 100 offensive plays per team per game, and you can expect the best two players having a significant role in a majority of them.
In NFL there are some 60 offensive plays per team per game, QB is involved in most of them, and best players are involved more often than not.
In NHL there are some 60 total shots per team per game (shots, blocked shots and missed shots), the best players are involved more, but the best forwards play around 1/3 of the game, and the best defensmen around 40%.
In MLB there are some 40 PA per team per game, and the best players have 1 more PA than the worst.

On D, NHL goalie can influence the game the most (but even the best, hottest goalie needs a good play by the other 5 players on ice). MLB starter pitches just 1 in 4 postseason games.

The number of discrete events modified by the difference in talent (how often are the best players involved) drives predictability of the results.

In football there are not many shots, but the number of offensive actions (includes crosses and through passes which don't connect, dribbles which fail) is high. And the best players are much more often involved. Not to mention that talent difference in football is probably the highest (it should be, NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB are leagues which collect the best players in 30 - 32 teams, there are very few players outside of those leagues who are significantly better than some of the worst players in these leagues. In football, the best players are mostly in five best leagues, and plenty of clubs outside of those leagues have some players who could play in an average or better club in those leagues.

Another thing is that the best manager vs. the merely competent one means very little in MLB, and means the most in football and in NFL (I think) - in MLB it all boils down to one on one, in NBA and NHL to five on five, and in NFL and football to eleven on eleven.

Mariano Rivera would fire Aaron Boone as Yankees manager https://trib.al/UvPPiSY

“If I’m the owner, Aaron Boone wouldn’t stay,” Rivera said Wednesday at the Sports Forum of the Panamanian Association of Business Executives. “When things don’t come out the way we want them to all of the fault goes on the manager and somebody has to pay the price and we won’t put that on the players…”

Yes, I guess Torre should've been fired after Mo blew the 2001 World Series. (smile)