Damn Yankees! A Brit's baseball question

In My Humble Opinion
61

I’m sure you do. For the others, the baseball draft only includes the US, Canada, and, I believe, Puerto Rico.

My point is, the Yankees aren’t really digging for their foreign imports. The days where they got a Riviera from Panama is gone. The buy the high-profile ones everyone’s heard of. Irabu, from Japan. El Duque, then return to Cuba for Contreras, national team players who had already faced major leaguers in a Camden Yards exhibition. Matsui, the MVP in Japan. They don’t get unknowns any more. The biggest unknown is some of their ages (El Duque, and that 3B from Cuba - Morales, was it?)

Heck, they’re paying an average of $4M or so to a guy who almost no one feels is gonna make the majors for more than a cup of coffee (Henson) and they signed a free agent they knew would miss the year (Leiber). Talk about stockpiling…

Is it illegal? No, but if the money didn’t give them a big advantage, why spend so much? As such, any championships they win, it can be questioned if it was just because of the money. When your payroll is 50% higher than the next guy, that is a valid question.

Of course, payroll can be badly misspent, (Mets, Dodgers, etc) but if you look at payroll/wins, the Yankees are right there with the Mets.

62

you buy the fried clams across the street from the park.

bibliovore, i have quite a few red sox books. i could send some across the pond to you if you are interested.

lurkernomore, i’m considering the “tripping over my own feet” move by the first baseman, this year’s how we lost story.

63

rocking chair, just out of curiosity, where does one get these fried clams? Nothing will make be abandon the traditional Beer Works (a must visit, pregame) and Sausage Guy, but clams could be added in to my normal pregame ritual.

64

wakimika,

         The argument that "if the current no salary cap system is a problem then baseball should fix it" is not as simple as that.  The players union won't let them fix it because they make more money that way.  I don't blame them, I'd feel the same way.  However, the Yankees winning another World Series, or even being in it again, does absolutely NOTHING for the average baseball fan OR for MLB in its fight to keep up with the NFL, NBA or even the NCAA and NHL in national popularity and TV ratings.  Parity is a necessity to keep fans interested in every single city that has a team.  Otherwise, the ratings go in the toilet just like they have been doing for MLB for the past 10 years.  There is no interest in this series and there has been very little interest in the World Series recently, at least compared to the big events like the SuperBowl, NCAA FInal Four, COllege football "championship", etc.  The Yankees deep pockets do indeed have a significant impact on the decline in popularity nationwide of the supposed "national pastime."  You can claim "Who cares" about all the other teams all you want, but the decline popularity of the game will continue.
65

Wow. Thanks for all the advice and the huge outpouring of welcome, guys. I’m a little overwhelmed (sniff!). It’s really nice to belong to a group of like-minded guys who understand the important things in life.

To answer some of your questions, I’m not a Manchester United fan. I’m not even a football (soccer) fan, but even if I was, I wouldn’t be a Manchester United fan, for exactly the same reasons that most of you aren’t Yankee fans. They’re just too big, too arrogant, too rich, and too dominant.

To be honest, I’m regarded as somewhat of an oddity amongst my friends and colleagues for not liking football. There’s something vaguely sacriligious or unpatriotic about my indifference to the “beautiful game” that unnerves them. I frankly couldn’y give a toss about it, and I know practically nothing about the intricaies of who’s been traded, who’s in trouble, etc, and nor do I want to. And yet, even despite my willful ignorance, you cannot live in England and not know something about football. Sheer cultural pressure forces it through the skin like some strange and horrible form of osmosis. So the one most important fact that I’ve learned is that Manchester United are to be reviled.

Many, Many thanks to those of you who’ve offered to buy me tickets, or to help me buy tickets. I’m so desperate to watch a live game, (any game), that I’d gladly watch the Phillies against the Expos, or the Brewers against the Royals. Anything as long as it’s for real. Watching the Cubbies in Wrigley Field would be great, even if I know what the outcome is going to be, but I don’t think I’ll be heading to Chicago just yet. boston and New york are top of my list, and then I check out the other cities, holiday permitting.

Thank you, rocking chair, for your offer of books, I really, really appreciate the kind thought. However, I wouldn’t dream of asking you to shell out on Trans-Atlantic shipping just to loan a complete stranger your prized Sox books. Perhaps I could just buy them myself from Amazon if you tell me the titles?

I didn’t realise Fenway Park would be so expensive or so decrepit, but nevertheless, I think the sheer thrill of being there would more tham make up for the hole in my wallet and the uncomfortable seat. Fried clams sound great, but who is this “Sausage Guy”, of which you speak?

Damn. I’m really hungry now.

66

Hmmm…

And just taking a look at events in the World Series at the moment, it looks like Rodriguez has hit the 13th walkoff homer in Series history.

So what’s a “walkoff homer”?

67

Er, sorry, that was Gonzalez, not Rodriguez

68

A home run that ends the game, so they “walk off” the field. It occurs when the home team hits the go-ahead run with a homer in the 9th inning or later.

69

Got it. Isn’t that the same thing Boone did to the Sox in the 11th inning of Game 7?

I’m still hurting from that one. Even across the Atlantic, I can feel your pain, guys…

70

Oh, this is crap. The numbers are clear that Beane has invented a new way to look at a season. Maximize the return and minimize the risk.

The post-season is a crapshoot and it always has been. Get used to it.

71 
You have to realize Fenway is the smallest big league park, and the second oldest (I think it was built in 1914 or so?), next to Wrigley (Chicago). The seats make you long for that luxurious airline seat (see Pit rant on economy class seats).

And you are learning the terms well, Grasshopper - Aaron Boone’s HR was indeed a walkoff.

72

Ok, but what about the sausages man?

Do you know how hard it is to find a halfway-decent beef frank in this country? Everything over here is pork, and if it isn’t pork, its lips and assholes. I’d kill for a proper ballpark dog, and I’d maim for a real pretzel.

Anyone got any ballpark food favorites, or anything unusual like the clams?

73

How many times do you have to shoot snake-eyes before you think it might not be random?

wakimika, the franchises compete on the field, but in business they’re partners. The business success of each depends upon the business success of the others, and business success is generally a result of competitive success. The Yankees need the Devil Rays. Most sports owners seem to grasp that they’re in a partnership, but Steinbrenner has never seemed to. To the credit of the others, including Selig (who, as commissioner, is a tool of the owners), they have made the first steps toward some financial equalization, like the other NA pro leagues have. The “luxury tax” is hardly sufficient, but it’s a start - only the Yankees pay it, and naturally they were the only franchise to vote against it.

bibliovore, a “proper ballpark dog” is lips and assholes. The Chicago-style dog will be so laden with vegetable matter that you won’t taste it, though. For a real pretzel, the big, soft ones with mustard, you have to go to Philadelphia. That’s the place for the true cheesesteak, too.

A further note of caution if you’re still considering joining Red Sox Nation: It’s become quite trendy, in recent years, among the self-proclaimed intelligectual community. Too many trees have given their lives to produce self-indulgent, nostalgic books and articles about the magic of Fenway, the spiritual significance of baseball, the mythical comparisons to Sisyphus, and even worse rot than that. You can co-exist with those people, but they come with the package.

74

I’d settle for more than once. But you better show me the dice, first. The numbers bear me out in showing that regardless of team record there’s only a slight trend in that controlling who wins the World Series.

Here’s the WS numbers since 1903. I put this together this morning from numbers available at www.baseball-reference.com because I figured that assertion would be challenged.

There appears to be a trend towards very good teams beating very bad teams (13-4) but if we remove those outliers the smart money is on the team that is WORSE in the regular season! (35-42)

If that doesn’t support my hypothesis that the playoffs are, in reality, about small sample sizes and therefore essentially random I’ll eat my hat.

Hell, I should write this up and see if BP will publish it.

75

Right. Because the NFL is currently sooooo boring right now, what with the constantly changing dominant teams, the ebb and flow of free agents v. developing talent and the massively high ratings/attendance. If only they could live up to the standards set by the Detroit Tigers, the NFL could really take off.

76

I have to agree with Munch. Continued, predictable dominance by any one team is boring. If a whole bunch of teams are in with a real chance and fighting for that ring, it makes for a much more interesting post-season.

If the Yankees win again this year, it’ll barely rate a raised eyebrow.

77

Uh-huh. A few things - first off, Beane didn’t invent anything. All his ideas come from other people, all he did was implement it.

Second, it’s interesting that Oakland has scored fewer runs every season Beane has been in charge, even though their payroll has increased. And his offense is anchored by two guys that Beane doesn’t like. Mr. Swings-at-everything Tejada who Beane trashed in the book, and Chavez who never went to college and so would never be drafted by Beane according to the book.

And, of course, Beane was the one who decided to draft Ariel Prieto instead of Helton. And who signed a crappy and unreliable Magnante (who he also trashed in the book) and lost a compensatory pick because of it. And, of course, there’s not much delving into why Beane forced the team to go with Zito instead of Sheets. It’s because Beane couldn’t get an affordable agreement with Sheets, so they went with their backup Zito, instead.

And of course, Jeremy Giambi (the OBP machine) who has pretty much sucked and will be lucky
And the post-season is a crapshoot, but it’s not THAT much of a crapshoot. And a lot of the time you make your own luck. Oakland has lost two postseason series because of fundamental mistakes on the basepaths and assorted other little defensive mistakes that have cost them. Part of that may be because Beane doesn’t pay much attention to defense and plugs guys in where he needs them based on their offense.

Look, Beane is a very good GM. And OBP is a very important stat. But the fact remains that a huge part of their success comes from guys that Beane didn’t draft and didn’t want and a superb pitching staff that has been extremely lucky injury-wise.

78

Superficial analysis. It ignores the fact that different teams in the World Series have played different schedules - especially during eras of the unbalanced schedule. Thus one team might seem to be better than another team if you just look at their record, but in reality be better.

Plus it ignores various factors that occur during the regular season. For instance, last season the Angels didn’t have the best record, but they did have the best run differential. So were the Angels really not as good as the Yankees or Oakland? The argument could be made either way. Similarly, it ignores trades during the season. A team could be get significantly better due to a trade or a key player coming off an injury, meaning the team might be better during the playoffs than they were at the start of the season. An example might be the Marlins getting Beckett back for the stretch run, bringing up Willis and Cabrera mid-season or changing the manager. The Marlins had the best record in baseball since the end of May, it’s just their crappy start brought their record down. That’s 4 months and 2/3 of the season being the best team in the majors. Were they really worse than the Cubs or Giants when the playoffs started?

You’re going to have to go a bit more in depth in your analysis than that.

79

I would have to agree Beane is much overrated. Oakland’s success has largely been due to its strong pitching staff. Beane didn’t invent Barry Zito, Tim Hudson, and Mark Mulder. He wasn’t even the guy who scouted them.

Having said that, it is simply not true that Beane has ignored defense. The A’s are a pitching and defense team; their defense is quite good. Ellis, Tejada and Chavez are all very strong defensive players. The YANKEES, by comparison, are a poor defensive team, one of the worst defensive teams to ever win a pennant; their infield blows it right out the ass and Bernie Williams isn’t very good in centre anymore. But they can rip the ball and they can pitch.

The A’s failure in the postseason isn’t that dramatic a data point; they’re 8-12. Shit happens. Granted, they seem to have some weird problem with baserunning; I have never seen a major league team lose a game because TWO players forgot to touch home plate, but the A’s managed to pull that off.

Remember, though, that this sort of thing is hardly unprecedented. The Royals and Phillies both lost the LCS three years in a row, in the same years (1976-1978.) The Houston Astros as a franchise have had a run of post-season incompetence unmatched by any other team - I think they’re up to six straight postseason losses now. And the Yankees are hardly the first team to roll up a bunch of playoff wins. Sometimes you don’t get the breaks and sometimes you do.

Or look at it another way; since their current run of playoff appearances began, the Yankees are

1995: 2-3
1996: 11-4
1997: 2-3
1998: 11-2
1999: 11-1
2000: 11-5
2001: 10-7
2002: 1-3
2003: 9-6, so far

Overall that’s a record of 68-34 - a fantastic record, but hardly supernatural, and in the last 3 years they’re a good but unspectacular 20-16.

80

Trouble is, the teams are coming out of different samples. They didn’t play the same teams during the regular season. If, say, the NL had been improving, getting better performance out of their players for a few years due to good drafts, but it happening leaguewide, their champ may be better than the AL champ, but have a worse record due to tougher, more even competition. Also, if a couple of teams are really bad, Detroit-Tiger bad, it inflates the record of everyone else around them.

Of course, the AL may then reverse the trend, get better drafts, and be dominant for a few…