One of the things that makes me really crazy, as a Yankees fan, is when the newspaper media writes/says absolutely ridiculous and the rest of the baseball world attributes it to “all Yankee fans”. Judging by my non-media twitter friends (join/follow me here!), most of them are at serious odds with many brand-name newspaper writers. Not the guys like Feinsand or Hoch or Carig, but the longtime newspaper guys (who may or may not be at at newspaper any longer). You know their names.
Which brings me to Kevin Kernan’s NY Post article today. [Here's the thing: I like Kernan personally. He's one of the more accessible newspaper guys out there in the twitterverse; most don't even consider engaging in a twitter debate/discussion.] Kernan’s claim is that the entire Yankee team is focused on ARod’s #600 rather than the pennant chase. To me, that is patently absurd:
The Yankees have fallen into the A-Rod trap. And they can’t get out.
There’s been so much attention given to the 600 home run chase, the Yankees have forgotten they’re in a pennant race. The first-place Rays haven’t. They are 10-1 over the last 11 games while the second-place Yankees are 5-6 over that span and the Red Sox remain within striking distance.
The night started with Alex Rodriguez forgetting to show up for the team photo. It ended with the Yankees forgetting to show up for the game as the Blue Jays pounded four home runs to crush the Yankees 8-2 at the Stadium before 46,480 frustrated fans.
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The milestone has become a millstone around the neck of A-Rod and the Yankees.
Oh bunk. The team is absolutely struggling right now whereas the Rays are playing great ball. In otherwords, the opposite of what happened when the Yanks leapt past the Rays. Just two months ago to the day, the Rays stood two games ahead of the Yanks while Boston and Toronto were 4.5 games out.
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Much like Monday’s game, the Yankees leapt out to a quick start against the Toronto Blue Jays, only to have them battle back and hand New York another loss. Dustin Moseley was adequate, limiting his pitches and going into the eighth inning, but the Yankee hitters had no answers for Ricky Romero, who tossed a complete game against the Pinstripes. In the end, the Yankees picked up an ugly 8-2 loss and fell to second place in the AL East as the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Twins.
Derek Jeter worked a walk to start the bottom of the first and Mark Teixeira hit a two-run homer to give the Yankees the lead. The Blue Jays struck back quickly as Adam Lind hit a ground-rule double with one out in the second. John Buck followed with a single to right, scoring Lind and putting the score at 2-1 in the Yankees’ favor.
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With a Tampa Bay victory against the Twins, the Yankees needed a win to stay in sole possession of first place Monday night. Unfortunately, A.J. Burnett, who had been very good his last few outings, lost it in the fifth inning, giving up seven runs to the Toronto Blue Jays who held on to defeat the New York Yankees 8-6.
The Yankees leapt out to an early lead, with Derek Jeter hitting a single to right field to lead off the bottom of the first. Brandon Morrow, the Jays starter, came back and got Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez and Robinson Cano in order to end the inning. A solo homer by Vernon Wells got the Blue Jays off to a good start in the second inning. Lyle Overbay followed with a walk and Aaron Hill singled to left, but Burnett recovered and held onto the 2-1 Yankee lead.
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July 31st is an exciting time in the baseball season. It’s like Christmas, and the players traded are the presents under the tree. Sometimes you get a Playstation3 (Cliff Lee), and sometimes you get socks (Joe Saunders). It happens, but it’s exciting nonetheless. After we open the presents, we are prone to judge them. I’m advocating that we switch up how we grade them.
The idea for this sprung from an interesting article by Steven Goldman at Baseball Prospectus wherein he criticizes selling teams. He argues that it generally doesn’t work out for selling teams because the prospects never work out. It’s an interesting argument, but it is one I would like to tweak.
First thing’s first. It’s not the theory that’s wrong. It’s the practice. Or maybe, I should say that the theory isn’t complete, but completing it further can only help, right? As of now, the theory is simple. If your team is losing, not going to make the playoffs, and probably not going to make it next year, you’re supposed to sell off your expensive veterans for cheap, controllable players or prospects to teams that are willing to take on the contracts. In theory, that turns one player into several while giving a team payroll flexibility. In practice as Goldman notes, the selling team gets screwed. So what needs to change?
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Well, not exactly Michael Jackson, but something “like” Michael Jackson:
You ever see the pictures of people who get plastic surgery and then can’t stop, and keep feeling they have to touch up a chin here or nose there and they end up grotesque? In a lot of ways that happened to the Yankees of the 1980s; they had the money and every time they perceived a weakness they would touch up here, add there and they often ended up with a disjointed, monstrosity of a roster.
What the Yankees did at this deadline was not the exact equivalent, since you could see the reasoning behind each move. But it did feel a bit like the rampant plastic surgery: The Yankees reconstructed the face of their roster because they had the money and the compulsion to do so; in a lot of ways they cannot help themselves from constantly trying to fix what, in this case, was the team with the majors’ best record.
What then, Joel, did you want the Yanks to do? Do nothing? I don’t understand this complaint. The Yanks added Berkman, who Sherman quickly denigrates, and two others in Wood and Kearns who provide bench depth, something Cashman told us he was looking to do. They missed on Haren and Lee. Dunn wasn’t traded; neither was Soria. After those guys, who else could the Yanks have gotten that would have appeased Sherman? Anyone?
To me, this is griping just for the sake of griping. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
h/t to Craig at HBT, who adds his take on Sherman/Berkman here
What the smart folks are seeing:
To put it as simply as possible, A-Rod’s bat speed is not the same, and neither is his ability to consistently generate powerful swings. Rather than debate about what caused this, let’s dig into what the problem exactly is. Mechanically speaking, the questions are where has that bat speed gone and why is he not generating the same levels of power. Essentially, it all comes down to his lower half. When he’s right, no hitter has the balance and strength in the lower half that he does.
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Without creating that coiled spring effect before he releases his hands and with less drive of the hips toward the baseball, bat speed is going to suffer. And while there is no official measurement of actual bat speed available, we’ve seen Rodriguez get beat more often by the fastball without that powerful base from which to hit. It’s just not possible to produce the same bat speed.
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If you’re an optimistic person, and expect the Rodriguez of old to return, what you’ll see is a smaller, abbreviated leg kick where he has very little movement in his lower half before he drives his hips at the ball. You’ll also see his head stay much more centered over the middle of his body and far less upper body involvement. If he can accomplish all that, we’ll see his bat speed return and the more prolific home run numbers will follow.
Frankie Piliere’s a smart guy and I’ll try to watch for these clues. Let’s hope that ARod and Kevin Long are working on all of this, too!
The trade deadline may have picked up most of the baseball headlines this weekend, but the Yankees also found themselves in a crucial series against the Tampa Bay Rays. As it was an important (and exciting!) series, it only seems right to look back on the entire series and not just the last game.
The Yankees landed in Tampa with a two game lead over the Rays for first place in the AL East, meaning a successful series could by them some breathing room as we head into August. Conversely, a series sweep by the Rays would have propelled them back into first. Instead, the Rays took two out of three from the Bombers, who head back to the Bronx with a one game lead and six weeks until they meet Tampa again. Meanwhile, the Red Sox are still within striking distance, particularly if they can get healthy, leading to what could be a very exciting September in the AL East.
Game 102:
The Yankees started the first game of the series with a bang. Derek Jeter hit a lead off single and was followed by a two-run homer by Nick Swisher, giving the Yankees a quick 2-0 lead. Phil Hughes kept the Rays guessing through most of the game, limiting them to just two hits over the first five innings, however, the Rays struck back in the sixth. John Jaso lead off the inning with a single and moved to second on a wild pitch. Hughes walked Evan Longoria who was called out at second when Carlos Pena hit a grounder to Robinson Cano. With two outs and two on Hughes threw a 93 mph cutter up in the zone that Matt Joyce crushed to right field, putting the Rays up 3-2.
Joba Chamberlain relieved Hughes in the seventh and pitched two solid innings of scoreless and hitless baseball. Unfortunately, the Yankees’ offense did not have any comeback magic with them Friday night as they went down in order in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings. The lack of offense made Hughes one mistake overshadow his otherwise very strong outing, giving the Rays a 3-2 victory.
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If you were watching today’s game and saw Kerry Wood’s debut, you might have been asking yourself the same question: What happened to Kerry Wood? (and leave the performance out of it for the moment!)
Since when is he built like Jeff Weaver? Two pictures below, one from today and the other from a 2003 SI cover. I can’t believe what I saw. The goatee doesn’t add 25 lbs, does it?
