Sox and Pinstripes | Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees – The Greatest Rivalry in Baseball

The Case for Adam Dunn in Pinstripes

(Editor's Note: This post was written by Scooter Blake, one of our newer writer's from before renovation.)

With the trade deadline fast approaching, and in lieu of my (our) lingering disappointment about not getting Dan Haren or Cliff Lee, I want to quickly touch on the topic of a Mr. Adam Dunn for the Yankee fans out there.

For those of you unfamiliar with the man that, in my circle, is commonly referred to as The Masher, let me enlighten you.

He averages exactly 40 home runs and 98 RBI's a year. And though his .251 career batting average (to go along with over 150+ strikeouts a year) isn't fun to look at, I'll gladly take that trade off when he's getting on base at a .382 clip courtesy of 112 walks per year.

He's batting .275 in 2010, with an OPS of .915, while hitting in between the likes of Josh Willingham and Ryan Zimmerman. To put that into perspective, Alex Rodriguez is also batting exactly .275 this year, though his OPS sits at .836 even though he's sandwiched between a superior combo of 3-5 hitters in Robinson Cano and Mark Teixeira. Interesting.

Currently, the White Sox look to be the front runners in the Dunn sweepstakes, but may not want to part with Dan Hudson or Gordon Beckham to get The Masher. The Giants and the Angels have also been linked to Dunn but “insiders” believe that neither of the boys on the west coast are in on Dunn enough to involve their bigger chips in a deal with Washington. The Rays have also kicked the tires but apparently didn't like the asking price.

My case for Adam Dunn rests on a few different facts.

First, and probably most obvious when talking about a power hitter from the left side, the short porch in right field at Yankee Stadium. Dunn already has 23 home runs on the season to go with 27 doubles. Can you imagine the damage this cat could do at The Stadium? I can and it's scares me. There's no doubt that a handful of those doubles Dunn has been hitting would turn into homers if he comes to New York.

Secondly, Adam Dunn is slugging .589 off of right handed pitchers. That's better than Ryan Howard, Adrian Gonzalez, Robinson Cano AND Mark Teixeira. He'd also provide some serious protection to Robinson Cano who has already been intentionally walked 11 times this season. To put it simply, he's the ideal 6 hitter for us.

And last, but certainly not least, it would send yet another message to the rest of the contenders out there in the baseball world. We are here to defend our title. Lee and Haren slipped through our fingers but a premiere power hitter shall not.

I won't begin to try and examine who we'd send over to Washington, should a deal get done, because Brian Cashman's views on how he values Jesus Montero, Joba Chamberlain and Ivan Nova are beyond my knowledge. What I will do though is say that IF we do the right thing and bring Adam Dunn to the Bronx, we've GUARANTEED ourselves the comfort of knowing we will have the best offense in the game going down the stretch and into the playoffs. Bar none.

That fact alone is worth me losing sleep the next few nights, worrying if Cashman has something up his sleeve for The Masher. Let's cross our fingers.

From the Caves to "The Clinch"

When we left off the Yankees were finishing up a dominant run over the league’s most elite teams out of the gates. They were competing with Tampa for first place, the Red Sox were bumbling around with underachieving players and you were reading all about it on Sox and Pinstripes.

Now we’ve restarted. As part of our commitment, we are going to resume posting on the old site (.net not .com) and right here on Facebook. Once the new site is ready, we can all start anew. There will be Twitter, Facebook and blogging. Hopefully, the old staff will return in full as well. That’s the administrative side of things.

Baseball hasn’t changed a whole lot since we left off, at least not in the AL East. Sure the Yankees leapfrogged Tampa and are indisputably the best team in baseball at the moment. And it’s true the Sox lost half their team to injuries and other excuses. Regardless, the Yankees are in first, the Rays are the wildcard leaders and the Red Sox would have to do something never done before to win a division, and play to their complete potential to clinch a wildcard. Health has a funny way of bringing a team together, so it’s not impossible.

It’s an exciting time to return to the landscape. The trade deadline is at the end of the week and while the Yankees would love to add a starter like Ted Lilly (with Hughes’ innings limit, Burnett’s Borderline Personality Disorder, and Pettitte’s current injury presenting a need for depth), a reliever like Joakim Soria (with Joba’s ineffectiveness, Park’s desire to make me hate him more than any Yankee since Wilson Betemit and injuries to Aceves and Marte), or a bat off the bench like Ty Wigginton (with Pena’s specialty for defense, and the other player’s relative inexperience and lack of “pop”), none of these moves are necessities to make the playoffs or for a deep run into October.

New York has scored just three runs less than last season through 97 games when they had huge years from Damon and Matsui (how are they doing now, by the way?) and despite largely disappointing production from Granderson and Johnson (the predecessors). However, the Bombers have pitched significantly better leading to a run differential better than any team in baseball and superior to that of the ’09 effort to date.

Does that mean it’s smooth sailing from here on out? Certainly not. As I mentioned, without the removal of Chan Ho Park from Yankee Stadium, the Bronx, the tri-state and hopefully, America, New York is bound to lose some games it shouldn’t. If Granderson doesn’t remember how to swing and run, than the Yankees will have to hope Jeter, Teixiera and A-Rod don’t go through any dry spells in the second half. One more injury to the rotation and there will be panic mode, especially if that injury occurs after July 31st and Pettitte suffers a setback.

The Yankees are a complete team, but they are not invincible. They could use an arm in the bullpen and a role player. A bad break here and there and teams like the Rays can make it hurt in a hurry. Bringing a “B” game could make teams like Texas or LA relevant quickly, especially if they continue fleecing other west teams while Brian Cashman gets black-listed.

That’s why they play the games. Now S and P is out of the caves and back in time to watch “The Clinch”.

 

The Yankees have made the first statement of the season

When it's the start of the season and the schedule God's have created nine games against the toughest opponents in the entire league because of a U2 concert, you can and should expect a letdown. After all, the Yankees of the past decade were slow starters, generally older and more injury prone, and all the other teams seemed more focused in baseball's first  month.

Welcome to 2010. It could be a long year for everybody else.

I had my sights set on a 4-5 record and I would have been content. The Yankees would have avoided embarrassment and taken a series from either the Red Sox, Rays, or Angels. My money was on the Rays. When your team notoriously struggles in the same month every year, when your ace and arguably your best hitter are known to start off slowly, when your new acquisitions are major pieces to the lineup and New York demands an adjustment period, when your five-hitter hit .206 with runners in scoring position last year and is a terrible April hitter and when you're facing the three biggest rivals in the league, for six games on the road and then three at home against the only team with a winning record since 1996 looking for revenge after last year's ALCS; that's when every single variable is not in your favor as a team.

Yet the Yankees went 6-3. They didn't just finish better than .500; they beat all three teams in a best of three. That's an impressive run, regardless of what the calendar says. That's a statement, and it's the earliest one any team could make this season.

So why have the Yankees been so good?

Simple:

• After four errors in the first two games, they have not committed any since. That's defense.

• Despite Javier Vazquez losing both of his starts (we know he will turn it around) the rest of the Yankees' starters are undefeated (the bullpen is 6-1), with the only other loss coming from the bullpen on Opening Night. That's pitching.
• After that same Opening Night, the Yankees have not blown a lead and are yet to even play in a one run game. That's relief.
• Six different pitchers (three in relief, three starters) have recorded a win. That's pitching depth.
• After a season in which the Yankees saw over 25,000 pitches en route to winning the World Series, the lineup has already walked 48 times in nine games against some of the league's best pitching (Beckett, Lester, Lackey, Kazmir, Davis, Price, Shields, Weaver and Piniero). That's patience.
• The team has scored 48 runs in nine games (tops in the league so far) and surrendered just 38 (third least) making them a +14 (third best). That's dominance.

In other words, New York has outplayed the best in just about every category, even going 9 for 11 in stolen bases and hitting four triples in this young year. That's speed.

And on Jackie Robinson day? We saw everything we could expect. A big extra base hit from A-Rod, two triples from Granderson, a big walk from Nick Johnson, two home runs from Robinson Cano and a shot from the Captain. The Yankees are clicking early, and barring injuries, they will be clicking often.

Just wait for the competition to get easier and Teixeira and Johnson to start hitting, A-Rod to start hitting for power, and Vazquez to get comfortable. What more can we want? This team is lovable in every way. It was built to dominate and so far, for the first time since 1998, it's delivering in every way possible to the tune of scary potential.

Texas becomes an immediate additional test, but at home with Sabathia, Burnett and Pettitte pitching, it looks like another possible series win. The schedule is demanding, but the Yankees are delivering.

If you're the rest of the league at what point do you begin to panic?

The answer is probably way into the future, since again, injuries, underachievement and midges can happen.

But so far the Yankees have made the first statement of the season.

Did Joe West eat his brain?

Umpires tend to be fat, slow, unappealing, and most of all, wrong, to the common observer. Generally, I appreciate what umpires do and I recognize their job is a lot harder than it looks and it's thankless in that it's a lose-lose situation. The way sports are designed, plays can be left up to interpretation and everybody makes mistakes, sometimes in bigger spots than others, so fans will always be upset. Not just some fans; all fans.

I get that, and as a result, I don't often take it to heart when umpires are marginally off sometimes.

That said, I'm more concerned, Joe West, during one of what appears to be many frequent eating binges, might have eaten his brain by accident.

West looks like a Teletubby and constantly appears sad in nature, so I don't want to be too harsh on him because I'd prefer he not eat my house, too.

But I'm sorry to say he was way off base to complain like a little baby about the length of Red Sox and Yankees games last night.

Some of the highlights:

"They're the two clubs that don't try to pick up the pace," said West, the chief of the umpiring crew working the three-game series, according to the report. "They're two of the best teams in baseball. Why are they playing the slowest?"

"It's pathetic and embarrassing. They take too long to play"

"All of baseball looks to these two clubs to pick up the pace," West said, according to the report. "[Hernandez] did everything he could. The players aren't working with us."

Here's the thing. Joe West is a freaken veteran umpire of Major League Baseball. Hired and employed by MLB, and he gets honored with the best games as a result of being fat and behind a plate for so long.

So when he says things like this, I don't understand how he went from a guy on the "In" with years and years of experience, to a seven-year-old with ADHD who likes Lacrosse because you get to hit the other player without as much padding as football.

Sorry Joe, but baseball is not a contact sport. It's not a sport with a clock, and it has no timetable. That's sort of the whole basis of its entire existence. Coincidentally, the Yankees discovered  in the  mid 90's that not swinging at garbage pitches, not giving away at-bats and getting on base lots and lots of times, tends to lead to more runs than "speeding up the game because the fat guy wants to go home earlier". Eventually, a smart guy like Theo Epstein, caught onto this approach. In fact, you'll probably notice a team like the Angels used to play the "Joe West way", and then last year they made an adjustment and somehow returned to the ALCS for the first time since 2005 and touted the second best offense in baseball.

It's magic.

Two of the best teams in baseball. Why are they playing the slowest? Really? That's like eating a delicious cheeseburger and then proclaiming" I love Cheeseburgers, why is this one so delicious!?".

These two teams are two of the best in baseball for a lot of reasons. A very large one is they practice patience on offense. It's much like having a running game in football. Running plays aren't as sexy, but I'll be damned if you win an NFL game without them. Luckily for the NFL, that speeds up the game rather than slows it down. It's like having timeouts in basketball too. Why isn't Joe West complaining about free throws and team huddles? Oh right, because he doesn't have to be tortured with enormous pay checks being front and center for some of the best entertainment in America for free.

It's pathetic and embarrassing? Really? Umping two teams who won a combined 198 games last season and who have four world championships in the last 10 years is pathetic and embarrassing to you? Maybe every team should be that pathetic and embarrassing. Maybe every team should visit the mound that often to review strategy, the major backbone of baseball, and then maybe "magic" will happen for them too. They take too long to play, he says.

Too long to play in a sport with no clock. That's a new one on me.

Listen, I get that America's landscape has changed. I understand people want things to happen immediately, desire instant gratification and with later start times games can end way past the comfort times of the working class (trust me, I have to report to work by 7AM, I get it.)

But people who crave brute force, constant contact and hate to experience psychology in sports will never like baseball. It will never be their thing. Baseball is for the intelligent sports fan who can see what's happening without actually having to see a visual of it. Baseball is 99% anticipation, I just never thought a guy working a major part of the sport would fail to understand such a simple concept.

In football, you see all sorts of pretty plays, big muscles and hits, and tackles, and dances, and yet it's 11 minutes  of action. Most of it is huddles and half times and resets and changing sides of the field. With the exception of warming up between innings, baseball literally has something taking place at every second if you look for it. Joe West is too busy feeling like two of the "best teams" are pathetic to see that for himself.

The players aren't working for you? You're right, wanting to win, willing to put in overtime and busting their ass 18 times a year at their jobs for the sake of TV ratings and the sport's existence is being selfish and unwilling to work with the fat umpire who is taking orders from a complete idiot for a commissioner. Try implementing instant replay to speed up the games (so there is less confrontation and complaining), or hiring umpires capable of making calls more accurately, or, I don't know, not giving three years between playoff games, or cut down on times a pitcher glares in for 63 seconds before throwing a pitch.

I actually was in complete support of Angel Hernandez not granting time out last night. When pitcher's catch on and start getting free strikes out of the deal, that will speed up games. As will actually enforcing rules already in place, such as calling balls if the pitcher takes too long (I'm looking at you Betancourt). That will speed up a game.

But complaining because two of the best have a strategy and approach and utilize it in high risk games against each other? You're missing the point. You're embarrassing. You're pathetic.

Who ever thought this would lead me to nodding in agreement with Jonathan Papelbon on an issue?

"If you don't want to be there, don't be there. Go home. Why are you complaining. I'm not going to sit somewhere I don't want to be. If you go to a movie or any entertainment event and you like it, you're going to stay and watch and you're not going to want it to end. If you don't, then you won't. Why is it such a big deal?"

There's a reason he's a closer.

Case closed.

Breaking down the numbers from the first rivalry matchup of the season

We are three games into the season and I'm already floating on air and throwing sunshine laced with rainbows at everyone I see. Baseball is back and it has treated me to a focused Yankees' team in April. The feeling of April baseball for a Yankees' fan is something nobody understands. Granted, Royals, Pirates, Nationals and many other fan bases know what it feels like to watch teams play poorly often, to have its hopes up only to see failure in the end and have suffered through bad baseball. I'm not trying to take away from those fans or come off as spoiled and bratty.

But it's an entirely different feeling when the team you have rooted for all of your baseball-viewing life is the Yankees, is expected to win every year, has a target everywhere it plays and notoriously bites the big one in the same month of every season. Being as consistently good as the Yankees have been since I started following them full-time in the strike-shortened 1994 season, and yet always looking so bad to start the year is a feeling only Yankees fans my age can relate. We would never admit it, but I dread the beginning of the year because I know the Sox will be better, I know the Yankees will have countless hating articles about how this is the year they're terrible, how they're a waste of money and the ultimate panic to follow before they straighten out in May or June.

So you can imagine my feelings when I first found out New York was going to face Boston, Tampa and LA, arguably the three best teams besides the Yankees in the  league, to start the season. Furthermore, you can probably understand how I felt about starting the season in Fenway and having to play all the division games on the road during a time when the team is supposed to struggle anyway.

Now I've done a complete 180...But you've all been fairly warned, if Tampa sweeps New York or they take two out of three and then the Angels make the Yankees look bad, I'm subject to a 180 in the other direction. It comes with the territory of being skeptical about a team in a certain situation. Let it also be known, regardless of how the Yankees perform to open the year, it won't mean a damn thing come October.

New York and Boston have played relative to six quarters of a basketball season or 90 minutes of hockey, so the results, in terms of long-term, don't mean much.

Nevertheless, first impressions can be noteworthy and this opening series had a lot of them.

• By winning last night after being tied through seven innings, the Yankees are now 17 of their last 17 in games when tied after seven innings. That is a Major League Baseball modern day record (not done since 1906). Score one for the Yankees' bullpen, and obviously, Mariano Rivera. The relentless offense doesn't hurt either.
• Robinson Cano has now hit safely in 16 consecutive games against the Red Sox. For those keeping score at home, he was 5/12 with a home run and three RBI out of the five hole, which is roughly twice his entire 2009 production from that spot.
• Here's the frightening thing about Nick Swisher and especially Nick Johnson. Swisher was 4/11 with a clutch game-tying single against flamer, Daniel Bard, and obviously he has performed very well thus far. Nick Johnson was hitless in the entire series (as was Teixeira even though the Yankees scored 16 runs), yet managed a bases loaded walk and a .400 OBP. The most frightening stat of all? In three games the two combined to see 130 pitches (Johnson -66, Swisher -64). That's roughly 43 pitches per game just from two spots in the order and that's with no hitting production whatsoever from Johnson. There is a reason Yankees games take so long (we'll get to that a little later) and this is a big one. I stick by my prediction that less than 16 starters will pitch 7 innings or more against the Yankees this entire season.
• Curtis Granderson in his first three games as a Yankee? 4/12 with two home runs and two RBI.

• Marco Scutaro, Mike Cameron and Adrian Beltre combined? 10/31 with no home runs and three RBI.
• The Yankees are now 11-2 against the Red Sox (4-2 at Fenway) since August 6th, 2009, after starting that season 0-8.
• Just to measure the patience of the two teams:

Red Sox' relievers pitches per inning:

Bard: 14.4
Papelbon: 16.29
Atchinson: 16.00
Okajima: 27.6
Schoenweis: 13.8
Delcarmen: 20.00
Ramirez: 33.00

218 pitches in 12.1 innings, or 17.67 per inning as a bullpen.

Yankees' relievers pitches per inning:

Park: 15.82
Aceves: 11.50
Chamberlain: 21.00
Rivera: 13.50
Robertson: 15.00
Marte: 27.00

169 pitches in 10.2 innings, or 16.57 per inning as a bullpen.

• Does David Ortiz have to be beloved to be successful? It's a chicken and egg theory to me, but it seems like Ortiz only performs well if he's not facing any scrutiny. Did he get a clutch hit last night because he was due, the crowd was outwardly behind him in response to the media, or because the media pissed him off? Ortiz seems generally just moody by nature. When he was going good he was a solid ambassador and always smiling, when he struggled he's short and has a temper. You would think more players would be like this, but they tend to either be emotionless about their struggles (Jeter), never content (Youkilis) or always pissed off (someone like Paul O'Neill). It's weird to think about.
• This Yankees' bullpen has the potential to be the best in all of baseball.

It has thrown eight consecutive shutout innings since shaking the rust off on Opening Day, and Yankees' pitching overall surrendered just one run in the final 12 innings of the series (get used to the sudden power outages Red Sox fans, when Kevin Youkilis and Victor Martinez are the only guys anyone has the least hint of fear in out of your entire lineup when its in a hitter's park and at home, you're going to go through lulls).

But seriously?

If we saw the real Chan Ho Park last night than he seems to be a second Alfredo Aceves, or, a guy who can eat up wins in relief by pitching any number of innings in any number of situations. If Damaso Marte ever shows his playoff self in the regular season, the Yankees have one of the better lefty specialists in the game (and insurance in Boone Logan and Royce Ring in the minors). David Robertson would appear to be the mirror of Marte, a guy who can neutralize anybody, particularly righties, with a big strike out. Then there's Joba who will more than likely transform into the adrenaline junky with unhittable stuff in the eighth inning like he once was (he already was hitting 96 in his last appearance), and of course, the greatest closer to ever exist in Mariano Rivera at the end.

If Rivera isn't available. Joba can close. If Joba isn't available, Robertson can set up. If Robertson isn't available, Aceves or Park can pitch, if one of them is not available, the other  one can step in. The flexibility in this Yankees' bullpen is unmatched, and it doesn't even include the depth waiting for a chance in the minors (Logan and Melancon are MLB ready and simply could not find a spot out of Spring Training).  It's going to pose a  lot of problems for a lot of teams if this group can stay healthy, and none of that even included the upside of Sergio Mitre in his second year after a major surgery, coming off a solid spring.

Did you expect anything different?

If you figured the Yankees were going to walk into Fenway and come away with a series victory in early April, well, you expected something unexpected.

If you thought either team would show anything other than its offensive attributes, well, you were wrong.

This series is everything expected between the Yankees and the Red Sox in a season opening series.

Josh Beckett gave up bombs and couldn't locate his curveball. The Yankees were ready for him and he was brutalized.

CC Sabathia figured out it was April sometime in the fifth inning. His night was over shortly after.

Then there was the Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia tandem, along with clutch hitting from Victor Martinez. Consider they all love April and it came as no surprise.

The important thing I've noticed is that with all the runs, the close scores, the pitching changes and the fans, this series will end up teaching us nothing other than who finishes with a winning record through three games and who doesn't.

We know Beckett and Lester will be solid (with Lester ending up exceptional). We know Sabathia will be an ace, and we know Burnett, well, he may have been the only thing we saw. A pitcher with great stuff, unable to locate at times, dominant at other times.

Otherwise, the Yankees have a solid defense and haven't shown it. The Yankees have a deep bullpen, but it was uncomfortable in game one. The Sox are beating the Yankees in April in Fenway, and it means nothing.

But man, it feels great to have real games again. The stress, the suspense, the hatred, it all came rushing back as soon as Jorge Posada hit the foul pole and Kevin Youkilis hit the gap.

• Great deal by the Sox to lock up Beckett for four years. There's nothing wrong with his shoulder,that's a typical Sox Front Office tall tale to gain negotiation leverage, but this time it wasn't even necessary. Beckett was sensible with his last extension and just as sensible this time around. This deal is a million times smarter than signing a guy from the AL West who has demonstrated structural damage the last two seasons. No impossible to prove health language to force a 35 year old coming off injuries to pitch for the league minimum is going to change that. Beckett is a solid two starter and will be no worse than a middle-of-the-rotation arm by the end of his deal.
• If you think David Ortiz is going to ever be the Juiced up Ortiz we used to see, you're smoking straight crack. The dude won't hit 94 miles per hour unless it freezes in an alternate universe right before it crosses the plate.
• Was there ever a time both fan-bases could legitimately expect a well pitched game every day of the week?
• If I'm a Sox fan, I'm ecstatic about the potential of Adrian Beltre hitting in a pinball machine half the season. If I'm a Yankees' fan I'm ecstatic about the early showings of Brett Gardner deep in the order. This Yankees' lineup might allow less than 20 starts all season where the starting pitcher pitches seven or more complete innings.
• Sign number one the Yankees will be dominant later in the season head to  head: A lot of the damage has come from the amped up new Sox hitters, who will likely cool (ala Jason Bay) the more the Yankees become familiar with them (I'm looking at you, Marco and Cameron!).
• It wouldn't surprise me if Chamberlain took a solid month to become the dominant reliever we're used to. It wouldn't surprise me if Dice-K took longer, like, maybe, by August.
• Who is off the 25 man roster first, Damaso Marte or Chan Ho Park? I GUARANTEE both are not on the playoff roster and I'm optimistic about their potentials.
• You can call the Yankees' elitist, obnoxious, arrogant or whatever other synonym you would like, but let's get two things straight:

1. Randy Levine was absolutely right to tell the Brewer's owner to more or less shutup and stop whining about the Yankees' payroll. Not because it isn't valid for the Brewers to wish the franchise could double its own payroll, but more so because until smaller market teams demonstrate where their luxury tax and revenue sharing money is going, it's a non-issue. There are plenty of ways to win in baseball, and Milwaukee doesn't seem to have an issue with the Cubs payroll in their own division (or Matt Holliday in St. Louis), so really they have an issue with higher revenue teams in other leagues winning, and that only weakens the argument and makes you come off as unprofessional and misguided.

2. "Yankees Suck" is about as worn out, childish, and "elitist" as it gets. It's really at the pathetic level at this point that Sox fans A: Can't think of any intelligent way to insult the Yankees. B: Bicker more about the Yankees' "sucking" than rooting for the Red Sox and C: Chant it regardless of game situation, whether the Sox are trailing or not.

Honestly, use some of that quality public education in Massachusetts to broaden your vocabulary and to get a hint.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

A tale of two teams on Red Sox-Yankees Opening Night

Note: This article was written by Sox and Pinstripes newcomer, Scooter Blake.

I feel like I just got done watching the baseball version of a B-rate zombie flick from a George A. Romero wannabe. Why won't they just die?!

Our hero (dressed in pinstripes and fighting a horde of evil “red and Green Monsters”) is in the process of burying the dead when he is forced to deal with hands springing up from the loose soil around him (Dustin Pedroia home runs, Damaso Marte wild pitches etc.) before finally succumbing to the beasts in a painfully obvious and avoidable death. It was ridiculous.

In the same way that it's much too hard to ask our zombie movie victim to run ten steps without falling down or running into something, is it really too much for us to ask a bullpen to hold a lead?

Is it really too much to ask for a lefty specialist to hit his spots or for a future HOF catcher to squeeze a ball that hits his glove? Did we really just lose a game because we can't do the simple things like pitch and catch?

Sitting next to a Pedroia fanboy chirping in my ear all game was bad enough, but to have the Yankees lose a game and a lead that never should have been lost or given up is just unacceptable. Especially against Boston on Opening Night. My only solace comes in the fact that I clinched my first fantasy basketball championship tonight behind a solid game from Tim Duncan.

What is there to say really? We hit the ball pretty darned well and like it or not, CC gave us a chance. Even after the Youkilis triple. We just didn't have the bulldog mentality to put a team away that we normally show.

Let's talk about the good things that happened. Jorgey and Grandy going back-to-back in the second was about as sweet as it gets. Posada had a great game from the plate period, going 3-4 with a bomb, two RBI's and a walk. Brett Gardner showed up tonight. Gardy going 2-4, driving in a run and scoring one off of Martinez' throw was a stellar performance out of the 9-hole. Robinson Cano looked locked in at the plate but his casual attitude reared it's ugly head again on his wall-ball over JD Drew's glove in which Robbie only got a single out of.

I thought CC pitched a heck of a game up until that 6^th frame. He hit spots for the most part and let his defense work for him, only giving up one hit through the first four innings.

Where we lost it though, in my humble opinion, was on the mental side of the game.

The Sox had a swagger from the first inning through the ninth. We didn't. Teixeira looked cold and the only time we showed competitive life was when the momentum was in our favor. It was almost like a tale of two teams out there.

I don't understand why we weren't running with Randy Winn when Girardi pinched him for Johnson. Especially after Mark had two strikes on him. I don't understand why Joba was brought in in the 7^th as opposed to Aceves or Mitre. If Joba is our eighth inning guy then make him our eighth inning guy. Not our “when we're in a bind we'll go to Mr. Volatile for two” guy. It's a conundrum.

At the same time though we hit the ball hard and played pretty good defense behind our average pitching, minus Swisher's bad read on Youkilis' ball and Gardner's air-mail to the on deck circle.

 

And honestly, it's game 1 out of 162. We see Boston again on Tuesday and the sun will still rise in the east tomorrow.

 

I just wish it was rising after an Opening Night victory and I could enjoy my Wheaties to the tune of 1-0 on the year. Can't have everything I want apparently.

It's the "Space Mountain" time of the year

It's finally coming.

One week from today the baseball season will begin and though I will immediately be stressed out by the match ups and annoyed by the planning, the games will matter and I will begin to pay closer, unhealthy and loving attention.

Admittedly, I did not watch much spring training this season. In 2007 and 2008, I actually used to give daily reports on the games. By 2009 it was a weekly report every so often. Now I really, frankly and honestly, do not care about Spring Training except to monitor injuries or watch top prospects. Unfortunately, guys like Bronson Sardinha and other spring heroes who turned into flops have ruined my boyhood mentality of hoping a no-name can pop out of  nowhere and make a huge impact that  year.

Unfortunately, the spring isn't good for that. It's literally only entertaining because it's the first tangible step towards the regular season. The beginning of the spring is  like entering Disney World. Then you approach Space Mountain by March and now we're in line about to enter. It's the Space Mountain time of year in the final week of baseball's spring before we get on our roller coaster, and now I couldn't be happier.

Nick Johnson is going to be the two-hitter and the DH. Curtis Granderson will probably start in center field and Brett Gardner will probably start in left. Robbie Cano will likely hit fifth and will also likely hit better than .206 with runners in scoring position this season.

Derek Jeter will lead off, Curtis Granderson will play against lefties, Francisco Cervelli will backup Posada, Marcus Thames will make the team, Phil Hughes will start and Joba Chamberlain will help to create the best 7-9 inning pitchers in all of baseball when he joins Mariano Rivera, Damaso Marte and Dave Robertson.

Sergio Mitre will pitch long periods of time when CC struggles in April, Pettitte feels his age, Burnett can't locate, Vazquez readjusts to life where it matters and Phil Hughes tries to start again.

Likely, if Marte gets hurt this year, Royce Ring and Boone Logan will be ready in AAA. Alfredo Aceves and Chan Ho Park will be the swing guys. Both seem extremely ready for the season to begin.

The spring taught us all of that. And yet  it taught us nothing.

Now the Yankees are almost in full preparation to face the Red Sox in Fenway to start the season. This decision by Major League Baseball is stupid on so many levels it's confusing.

1. Why waste guaranteed sellouts on two teams who are also guaranteed sell outs?
2. Why play this early in the year in Fenway and in April, Boston weather?
3. Why force the Yankees to open the season against Boston, Tampa and Los Angeles? It will only waste paper from jumpy journalists who think the sky is falling.
4. Why open the season on a Sunday night and have a day off the next day followed by two week games between two premium teams?
5. Why start the season on Easter Sunday, my anniversary, AND when I will be coming back from Maine?

Is there any good reason to actually counter any of these points?

The Yankees and Red Sox should not play until the end of April. Not just because I know the Sox will win 80% of the time in April, but also because then it backs up the rest of the head to heads, and could make life harder and  more meaningful for both teams. If you want league parity, try little things like that.

Just as an aside, It's possible the Yankees' first nine games of the season will be against: Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, John Lackey, Jeff Niemann,Wade Davis, Joe Saunders, Scott Kazmir and Joel Piniero.

Thanks, MLB.

Maybe it's because the Knicks are a non-factor, the Rangers underachieved again and March Madness has been so unpredictable I've lost interest, or maybe it's because there is nothing quite like baseball, but it started with viewing "Field of Dreams" last night, it continues today and it will escalate from here. I am finally pumped to start watching the games.

Here's to a four home run game off Beckett, Lester's early season location problems and Lackey's elbow.

Baseball is back.

Spring pitching decisions take on a troubling angle in Yankees' camp

So there are five pitchers in an empty room with the chance to make an impact for the defending champions of baseball. One became perhaps the third most important reliever last season, and as a veteran presence without the service time who comes complete with a durable arm, good stuff and a can-do attitude, this pitcher has proven worth two years in a row as a versatile reliever who can pitch in any inning.

The next guy is a young arm without an innings cap. Despite coming up as a reliever to top off an innings limit used to protect his arm in order to eventually become a starter, this pitcher eventually was reconditioned to...Become a starter. Last season he was stretched to enough innings where he would not need any special rules for 2010, and though he seemed to run out of gas and once again finish the season in the bullpen, this pitcher not yet in his mid 20's is set for a 200 inning campaign three years in the works.

A third pitcher was acquired as an insurance policy two years ago. He underwent major surgery and returned last year not yet at his best. Before all of his health concerns, he showed promise as a groundball pitcher, albeit in another league in a pitcher's ballpark. There's a chance being fully removed from injury makes this pitcher a valuable sixth or seventh pitching option, but there is also a chance he will never cut it as better than a 5.00+ ERA arm.

A fourth pitcher is younger than the previous one. He has proven successful as both a reliever and a spot starter. He is more expensive, but also demonstrated more success in two months than the third pitcher has proven to date. He was certain to either be selected over the third pitcher or traded.

The final pitcher is a lot like pitcher two. He's a young guy with a huge ceiling. Like pitcher two, he was moved to the bullpen to fill a need and was also dominant in that role, as most starters with high ceilings would be. Unlike pitcher two, he has not pitched enough in a season to avoid innings concerns, and though he could be a very successful pitcher this season, regardless of what happens he would not be able to make the necessary 30+ starts. He could start the season as a starter and then be moved back into a dominating relief role sometime around the All-Star Break, but then another starter of rotation quality would have to take his place.

Who would you choose of these five pitchers to make the rotation and the bullpen knowing only four of the five will make the team and one will be a starter? Logic would point to pitcher's one, two, four and five as your best bets, and perhaps the young guy without an innings limit as the logical choice for a starter, right?

What if I said it seemed pitchers one, two, three and five were going to make the team and because of two million dollars, pitcher four was going to be traded?

What If I also added pitcher five was going to be the starter and not the already conditioned, almost the same age, same type of ceiling, more  logical choice of pitcher two?

If you guessed the pitchers were: Alfredo Aceves, Joba Chamberlain, Sergio Mitre, Chad Gaudin and Phil Hughes respectively, you would have guessed right.

And you should be equally as confused.

We know a few things for certain so far:

• Alfredo Aceves will be on the team, as will at  least one, if not both of Hughes and Chamberlain.
• Chad Gaudin was placed on waivers and will likely become a salary dump when he is inevitably claimed.
• Gaudin's dismissal, who is more or less being released so the Yankees can be relieved of salary, likely means Sergio Mitre makes the team in some way. 
• Phil Hughes is being considered the favorite to be the fifth starter.

As a result of these four truths we have a pretty good idea of how the solution to the biggest question of the Spring is going to pan out.

The relievers will be: Mariano Rivera with Joba Chamberlain as the setup man (I can't see him not only being rejected as a starter but then being shunned into the minors to top it off), Dave Robertson as the next best option after that, Alfredo Aceves as the versatile/long man, Damaso Marte as the primary lefty, and one of Royce Ring/Boon Logan (both having great springs), Mark Melancon or Sergio Mitre earning the final spot.

Mitre will probably be the long reliever allowing Aceves to take on a more seventh inning role, which means Ring and Logan will be lefty insurance, Melancon will be the best option left off the roster and first callup, and Albaladejo will be officially buried on the depth charts with a terrible spring,probably falling even behind Romulo Sanchez. In other words, the bullpen is very stacked and even with inevitable off years, it will  be stacked all season long.

Now let's look at the rotation:

CC Sabathia will start and will likely stay healthy as a pitcher in his prime without any history of injuries.

AJ Burnett will start and after two years of staying healthy and after explaining he changed his whole approach to pitching and after being tutored by Roy Halladay, it's safe to say he should stay healthy.

Andy Pettitte will start and after staying durable for almost his entire tenure in pinstripes, knowing how to prepare in the offseason, and having more experience than pretty much any active pitcher throwing deep into October the year before, Andy should stay healthy, though at his age there is always going to be a slight risk.

Javier Vazquez, though he likely won't repeat last year's performance with the Braves in the Bronx, and though he is a fly ball pitcher in a home run tempting park, offers a near guarantee of 200 innings as a veteran in his early 30's regardless of performance.

That leaves the fifth spot. An area where it looks like Phil Hughes will occupy the responsibility, while a stretched-out, equally talented pitcher, throws one or two inning a game, something the organization felt so strongly against they spent three years creating check points for his career growth. Now Hughes, who should also be a starter down the road, is going to be given the role based on 15 innings of marginal equality in the Spring?

Then, in case anything happens to him or the outside shot of anything happening to any of the  other pitchers, Joba will likely be conditioned to relieve, Aceves, if the bullpen is effective, could move to the rotation, but likely the best option would have been Chad Gaudin, who showed huge success as a 27 year old in the Bronx last season. Now he's going somewhere else so the Yankees can save two million dollars and it's likely Sergio Mitre will be the first option before guys like Ivan Nova, Aceves, Jason Hirsch, or anybody else gets a chance.

Don't get me wrong, I have said for close to a year that Mitre in 2010 is going to be better than 2009, and I still maintain he could be a serviceable spot-starter, which would fulfill his expectations here, but Gaudin was the sure thing and the the finished product in that role.

In the long run, the pitcher who probably doesn't see more than a handful of starts isn't very crucial, especially with a Yankees offense quick to forgive mistakes, but compile it with a questionable fifth starter race and it's forming a troubling pattern for New York.

Why take the more complicated road when you have seemingly two logical choices in front of you? Why risk it? If Hughes fails as a starter for whatever reason (like not having started in half a season), that's two bullets no longer in the chamber.

The Yankees have plenty of depth, but they don't seem to know how to handle it.

At least not yet.

Giving Chamberlain a chance and working out an actual trade for Gaudin would be two steps in the right direction.

What Stats Tell Us

(Editor's Note: This is the first post for Jordan Smedresman on Sox and Pinstripes)

Many of what are now called baseball’s “traditional statistics” were invented way back in the years following the Civil War. Henry Chadwick, a British writer and cricket reporter, developed most of them, as well as the box score as a way to succinctly report what happened in the game. For a long time, box scores were the only way people could follow baseball, so the statistics in them (home runs, hits, batting average, ERA) were the only basis people had to compare players to one another, and the traditional stats became the gold standard. However, these stats were developed to simply and concisely tell what happened on the field. They do that well, but they often fall short when people try to use them to compare players to one another. Does that pitcher have a low ERA because he is a good pitcher or because he has a fantastic defense behind him? The answer is probably some of both. “Modern statistics” try to strip away all aspects of the traditional stats that the player had no control over and spit out a number that represents a player’s intrinsic contribution to his team.

For my first series of posts here, I’m going to do a rundown of the Yankees and Red Sox hitters using wOBA/wRC+ as well as UZR, but before I do that, I feel I should explain what those stats are and why they are better than the measures most people might be more familiar with.

The Slash Stats

Every hitting line is represented as .XXX/.YYY/.ZZZ where the first number is batting average, the second on base percentage, and the third slugging percentage. Here is what those numbers tell us

Batting Average—H/AB. Hits per at bat. 2009 Major League average was .262 (.266 AL, .259 NL). In general, .300 is the standard for being a “good hitter”. AVG is a simple stat whose importance regularly gets blown way out of proportion. It tells how often a player gets a hit per plate appearance that doesn’t end in him walking, sacrificing, or getting hit. First things first, walking and getting hit puts runners on base and helps teams win, so why should they be excluded because they are less glamorous than a home run (or even a single)?  I find that an extreme example is often the best way to illustrate a stat’s failing. A player who gets a hit, specifically a single, exactly three times out of ten and never walks or gets hit would have a line of .300/.300/.300, which is terrible. Of the 155 players to qualify for the batting title in 2009, only five had OBPs below .300 and none slugged that low. Hitting .300 is nice, and it correlates well with being a good hitter, but correlation does not imply causation. The fact that it’s possible to hit .300 and still be an offensive black hole (see above) means it is a bad measure of a player’s ability as a hitter. Scott Podsednik (.304) had a much higher AVG in 2009 than Jason Bay (.267). Who would you rather have in left?

On Base Percentage—H+BB+HBP/PA. Hits plus walks plus hit batsmen per plate appearance. 2009 Major League average was .332 (.335 AL, .331 NL). In general, .330-.340 is average, under .300 is very bad, over .400 is very good. This is probably the best of the traditional stats. Baseball doesn’t have a clock, and the game is measured in outs. You have 27 of them and when those are done, whenever that may be, the team with more runs wins. It follows then that the best thing a player can do with a plate appearance is not use up one of those outs. OBP measures a player’s ability to not get out. Its one real failing is that it doesn’t distinguish the quality of hits. A walk counts the same as a home run counts the same as a single counts the same as a hit batsman when in reality those events are not equal in terms of helping a team win. Ichiro Suzuki and his 46 extra base hits had a higher OBP than Mark Teixeira and his 85.

Slugging Percentage—[1B + (2*2B) + (3*3B) + (4*HR)]/AB, or more concisely, TB/AB, total bases per at bat. 2009 Major League average was .416 (.426 AL, .408 NL). Under .400 is bad, under .300 is horrendous, over .500 is very good, over .600 is elite. SLG is often found as an analog of OBP because it specifically weighs the type of hits. Once again though, it doesn’t take walks into account and who made up that weighing system anyway? Is a double really worth exactly twice as much as a single and half as much as a home run? (Short answer—no) There isn’t really a simple example that can prove this, but SLG is a measure of a player’s ability to get extra base hits.

The Next Generation

On Base Plus Slugging (OPS)—this is exactly what it sounds like. 2009 Major League average was .748 (.760 AL, .739 NL) Over .800 is solid, over .900 is excellent, and over 1.000 is elite. This is probably the first “sabermetric” stat to go mainstream, and it is better than both OBP and SLG on their own, but it maintains the flaws that both of them have and introduces a new one of its own. Hits are double counted, since they go into both OBP and SLG, walks are only counted once, and the big flaw is that OBP and SLG are weighted equally. Someone with an OBP/SLG line of .300/.500 has the same OPS as a .400/.400 player, but the two are not equal.  I’ll take a guy with less power and a top-notch OBP over a guy with a miserable OBP and decent but not elite slugging any day of the week.

OPS+--not all OPSes are created equal. A player’s offensive output is highly influenced by his home park. Poor Adrian Gonzalez has to play half his games in Petco National Park and Wildlife Preserve, while Kevin Youkilis has a cozy left field wall that yields lots of home runs and doubles. OPS+ takes a player’s OPS, appropriately credits or penalizes a player for his home park and relates the OPS to the league average, which is defined as 100. An OPS+ of 94 is 6% below league average, and 106 is 6% above. Adrian Gonzalez’s OPS (.958)  was good for 7th in baseball, but after crediting him for playing in Petco, his 166 OPS+ was good for 4th overall whereas Youkilis and his 6th-best .961 OPS was dropped to an 11th-best 145 OPS+. This stat is good for comparing across eras, because it relates how good a player was to the average player in his league (extreme example—Todd Helton is 10th all time in career OPS with a ridiculous .994, but he drops down to 71st in OPS+ after being penalized for playing in pre-humidor Coors)

That brings us to wOBA and wRC+, the best offensive stats currently available. wOBA takes the idea behind SLG and rejiggers it to weigh each component part correctly, then scales it to OBP (there is no real need to do this, but the scales for the slash stats are so ingrained in us that the more a new stat conforms to them, the easier it will be for people to accept them. In wOBA’s case, a good OBP is a good wOBA). Thanks to decades and decades of data, we can figure out exactly how much (in fractions of runs) a home run is worth relative to a triple, double, single, walk, etc. and wOBA comes out of those weights as opposed to not using any weights (OBP) or using arbitrary ones (SLG). wRC+ is to wOBA as OPS+ is to OPS—a park-adjusted figure that relates the number to the league average, set at 100. Unlike OPS+, wRC+ factors in stolen bases such that Jacoby Ellsbury’s 2009 OPS+ of 97 converts to a wRC+ of 114, which more accurately reflects his offensive contribution.

Defense is much harder to quantify than offense. Errors and fielding percentage have their value, but that value lies in measuring an outfielder’s throwing accuracy, or the softness of an infielder’s hands. It says nothing about how good a fielder the player is—an outfielder with an incredibly accurate arm and soft hands who never moves from his spot in the field would have a perfect fielding percentage but be a terrible outfielder. UZR divides the field into zones and measures how many balls hit to a fielder he gets to in his zone, and how many he gets to out of his zone (and of course, how many he doesn’t get to) and the stat is expressed as runs saved above (or below) average, which is set at 0. That makes it very easy to tell what is good and what is bad—a positive number is a good, a negative number is bad. Anything more than +/- 10 is considered very good (or bad). The stat is generated by real people watching real games, so none of that “how could they possibly think Ellsbury is a bad center fielder, look at him!” The thing is, based on the number of chances a fielder will get in a game, the sample size required for accurate fielding stats is much larger than the one required for accurate hitting stats. Therefore I will try to bring in the largest sample I can whenever possible.