Damn Yankees! A Brit's baseball question

In My Humble Opinion
121

Why? They’re proven successes at what they do (well, Baker is). So why should they be gotten rid of - lack of fidelity to a quasi-religion that you happen to favor?

A team that only drafts college 7’s, Beane’s approach, will eventually get its lunch eaten by those who’ve drafted some HS 10’s. A successful business takes a range of risks with a range of rewards. Excess caution will kill you as surely as excess risktaking. The best approach in drafting as in any business is to take a mix, some low-risk-low-payoff, some high-risk-high-payoff, some in between. But having the money to buy free agents when you need them is now a far more important factor in winning than anything you do in the draft, anyway.

Depends on the runner, the batter, the pitcher, the catcher, the score, the inning, the positioning and quickness of the infielders … One’s odds of success vary greatly depending on the factors at hand. Reducing it to a single number is self-delusory.

Cite? If that’s true, it should be testable vs. the only number that matters, wins. Got any analysis that shows a correlation between reliance on stats vs. coaching and winning percentage? If you’re serious about what you say about examining numbers objectively, there ought to be one, right? If not, you’ve simply stated an article of faith.

[quote]
From Ruth deciding that home runs were a worthy goal to Gossage and Quisenberry and Fingers defining the ‘closers’ role we keep moving forward.

[QUOTE]
What the hell? It wasn’t Ruth’s decision to have homers considered significant; it was a marketing move by the owners to try to reinvigorate public interest after the Black Sox scandal, and supported by the writers. How did you think the dead-ball era was ended, anyway? The closer’s role also wasn’t decided upon to be newly-important by any players, but as a result of Chicago writer Jerome Holtzman’s lobbying on behalf of a recently-developed statistic he called “Saves”.

Raven, I originally typed “intelligentsia” and didn’t backspace enough when I changed it to “intellectuals”. Happy?

122

But you can’t count on him ever coming up is the issue.

Sure the situation you define is one of luxury but it’s still more likely for the college pitcher to contribute than the high school pitcher.

Actually, I have a bet on with a political reporter pal of mine. The A’s drafted all college pitchers in round 1-10 and his team (the Mets but I might be misremembering) drafted all high school pitchers. I’ve bet that in 4 years the college pitchers will be demonstratbly better in the majors that the high school guys.

123

No offense JC, but if was the Mets I really hope you lose the bet.

Could it have been when they drafted Scott Kasmir (10th overall I believe) out of HS last year? Supposably it was a no brainer for them to take him (based on all the scouting reports). The only reason he didn’t go higher in draft was because teams were afraid that they wouldn’t be able to sign him. The Mest did and at a considerably lower amount than anticipated.

On the other side of things, Aaron Heilman 18th overall in 2001 (completed 4 years at Notre Dame), was a bit of a disappointment (2-7 6.75 era) when called up during the past year. Granted he still needs some ML experience, but at 26 years old he isn’t a spring chicken anymore. I know Warren Spahn didn’t get his first win until he was 25 yo but that is an extreme exception.

Actually I hope they both develop into great pitchers so I hope both of you are right.

124

Challenging accepted dogma is necessary and great. I happen to agree that (in general) sacrifice bunting is overrated, and can score one run in an inning for at larger rally. Replacing is with stuff of your own just because it reflects your views? Not so great. The BoSox bullpen this year was entirely a SABRmetrics affair (both in terms of the players they got and when they should use them), and it flat-out SUCKED.

125

Very true, but there are certain teams that can take that risk confidently. And if it’s just one pitcher in the draft and we’re talking about a team not reliant on it’s farm system to produce top-notch talent regularly, then the high risk-high reward may be a worthwhile strategy.

126

** Jonathan**,

I'm not a member, but I've read some of their stuff. But didn't they claim the bunt hurt the TOTAL number of runs, but helped the FREQUENCY? That is, you are very slightly more likely to score, but you'll score 1 or 2, not a big inning? That would make the bunt at times a good play. For instance, bottom of the 9th, tie game. Leadoff guy gets on, say I have a 40% chance of scoring him. Maybe, had it been the third, I have a 10% chance of getting 3+. If I bunt, the odds of scoring HIM go to 42%, but 3+ drops to 3%. The overall runs scored is hurt by the bunt, but this situation it helps. (IIRC, the bunt is OK with 1st and second, no out)

Stover, I believe the idea is a large enough sample makes the variables here even out. I think it fits under the monkeys-typewriters-Shakespeare paradigm.

Neurotic,

I believe the point here is that some of those HS players do not develop - they tell you a lot of guys throwing 95 at 18 throw 88 at 22. They may have an intrinsic flaw that ends up hurting their arms later. Throwing overhand is not excatly a natural motion. Most men, throwing with their “off hand”, “throw like a girl” (hey, I didn’t invent the phrase). It doesn’t come naturally. And injury can build up in time - that’s why some guys who have surgery throw harder afterwards - long term damage they took for granted was repaired. The college guy has either burned out or been polished after a couple years. College weeds out a lot.

Elvis

Much is due to Ruth. Holding the bat low adds leverage. Ask any engineer (length of lever arm). Swinging hard, and not being afraid to strike out helps - many old-timers were ashamed to strike out - Ruth had the career record when he retired. Ruth decided to do those things. And his RBI totals seemed to show he was right. And the dead ball era died due to that, and the banning of the spitball for esthetics, and even because Carl Mays killed Ray Chapman - previously, balls were used over and over. They frequently were dirty, and thus harder to see. After the tragedy, they threw balls out of play more. A side effect of using new balls? They are harder, and bounce more. You hit them further. IIRC golf pros change their balls after every par 4 or 5.

Weird co-incidence - Mays was a teammate of Ruth when he hit Chapman. The replacement, Joe Sewell, later made the Hall of Fame, but what was he most noted for? Rarely striking out. His record in a year (500+ AB) is 3. He did that as a teammate of a man who felt no shame in striking out - Babe Ruth.

** NYR407**,

Remember why Spahn was so late - he enlisted in the Army in 1942 at 21 after a brief callup, fought in the Battle of the Bulge and was wounded (and got a battlefield commission). I think it safe to say he’d have been up earlier than 1946 otherwise.

127

I’m aware of what the point is. But my point is that some teams can afford to take a higher risk if it offers a higher ceiling than others. For instance, Yankees vs. Oakland. If the Yankees are less efficient in developing pitching than Oakland, it doesn’t hurt them so much because of their budget and ability to sign FAs. Oakland can’t risk not having a chunk of players not pan out, so they have to go the safe route. The Yankees can afford to be riskier for a higher ceiling.

128

** Neurotik,**

If you mean that some teams can afford to try for the riskier picks because they have the money to cover up their mistakes, that's true. But you said "no pressing needs" and "can afford the time to develop him properly". That implies that these HS 10s often fail due to them being rushed (Bonderman?, David Clyde, Van Poppel) rather than taking HS pitchers just being intrinsically risky.
129

Ah, I see. When I said no pressing needs, I was referring to the fact that it often takes them longer to reach the majors. So if I need pitching help soon I might still go after the college guy just because the ETA is faster.

And for developing him properly, I meant that he wouldn’t be rushed to log major innings or pitch counts before his arm developed properly. You can afford to stick him in the pen or limit his starts.

That’s all.

130

one interesting fact on the red sox is: due to the interesting build of fenway park, the team trad. has trouble on the road. esp. the longer the player is with the bosox. the green monster really creates havoc for the outfielder. sometimes you forget other parks don’t have “your back.” not to mention the interesting hills and dales on the field.

my thought should i ever be lucky enough to win the powerball and own the sox is to have a “home team” and an “away team.”

the math part of baseball makes mathletes drool. i had a math teacher use baseball to teach us percentages. no matter, i still can’t get anything other than 50%. on the other hand i know i guy who can make stats sing and dance the salsa, he is rainman.

131

Jonathan “I’ve bet that in 4 years the college pitchers will be demonstratbly better in the majors that the high school guys.” And he took the bet? In four years, the HS’ers will be about 22, and few players break in that young anyway. The collegians will be 26, and that’s an up-or-out age for a minor leaguer.

I’m still curious what evidence exists for a stat-obsessed approach to GM’ing and managing being superior to, or even nearly as successful as, human leadership and baseball instinct and experience. The prima facie results would seem to be the opposite.

Fearless prediction: That Alabama catcher in Moneyball is going to be in the Show in a year or two at most, no matter how ready he is. Beane could never admit such a failure so publicly, could he?

lurkernomore, Ruth didn’t make anyone care about homers. They were something a curiosity during the dead-ball era - which ended rather sharply at the start of the 1921 season, right after the Black Sox bannings, not over an extended period as you suggest. Chapman’s death helped eliminate the spitball, but the dead ball was already gone.

rocking chair, I have to disagree about the Wall’s effect on fielding. LF’s are not put out there by any team for their defense, but as a place to stash a big hitter. If Ramirez has trouble on the road with some balls, it’s because he isn’t that good defensively (although he made a real effort this year and it did pay off). More commonly, you’ll see ricochets off it misplayed by visiting players - that makes the difference between a Red Sox double and a visitors’ single or even out, and those do add up.

132

Check the dates: Ruth set the HR record in 1919, set it again in 1920. At the start of the 1921 season, when you end the dead-ball era, the single season HR record was already 54. This is essentially where it stayed until 1998 (rose about 11% to 60(1927), then in a longer season go to 61). 1920 was the highest slugging percentage year until Bonds, and Ruth’s best year in HR/At Bat. And the spitball was ALREADY illegal before Chapman’s death, though a certain amount of pitchers were grandfathered in. Mays wasn’t a spitballer, anway.

it wasn’t a prolonged space of time - these events happened all around the same time. Ruth was SOLELY a pitcher until 1918. In 1918 he split time, but still had 20 decisions - and tied for the HR title, though he played in only 95 games (they shortened the season for WWI). 1919, he set the HR record (and went 9-5 with 133 IP) in the last year he pitched to a large extent.

133

Him not being in the majors after a year or two in the minors would be a failure? Or you mean from a year or two after this season?

At the end of 2003 he ended up in AA Midland (Texas League). He hit .275/.388/.391, not great but not bad. He went out with a damaged thumb in July (caught a fastball with the wrong part of the glove) and it had to be put in a cast.

Fun fact, Brown was selected by the Sox the year before in 18th round, but didn’t go.

Anyway, if Brown isn’t good enough to make Oakland’s team he won’t be there. Beane’s not afraid to ditch his mistakes and try again.

134

Wow, this has drifted so far away from the original question. I guess that’s baseball for you. To try to introduce to my take on the Yankee success of the past 100 years:

  1. Prior to 1958 there were no West Coast teams. Travel was less strenuous for the New York clubs (and for all clubs generally). The teams farthest west were probably the St. Louis Browns and Cardinals. Since baseball began in New York City, it might be argued that the New York teams benefited by less travel and more rest – even the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers were able to muster up many competetive teams, though the Bums only once took the Series from the Yanks.

  2. After 1958 coast-to-coast travel came into play during the baseball season when the Giants and Dodgers moved to California. Arguably, the Yankees have a distinct benefit here as well (over someone like the Texas Rangers), because they are in a division with Boston, Baltimore, Toronto, and Tampa Bay – everything in the same time zone, less jet lag. This does not adequately explain why Boston, Tampa Bay, Baltimore and Toronto are less able to field competetive teams, however; they have the same benefit. :slight_smile:

  3. The Yankees didn’t begin to win consistently for the first few decades of the club’s existence. (Prior to Yankee Stadium they shared the Polo Grounds with the Giants.) Approximately at the time of Ruth and Yankee Stadium did they begin to enjoy the dynasty we now think of. Perhaps the Yankees with their larger metropolitan area are more consistently able to fill stands than other clubs, though I don’t have attendance figures from the last 100 years. It seems reasonable that 10,000,000 people can more easily fill a 60,000 seat stadium more regularly than 2,000,000 people can fill a 45,000 seat stadium. This adds to their ability to generate revenue and compete for desired players.

  4. Bigger radio and television market, more money to compete for desired players. Money isn’t everything, though. See final point.

  5. Prior to the organized high school drafts and the farm system introduced by Branch Rickey (of the… um… I forget which team, the Cardinals at the time?) the Yankees were one of few teams that enjoyed a big metropolitan area in which baseball talent developed. More area, more talent to draw from, stiffer competition?

  6. Greater fan base, more pressure to produce a quality product? This is hard to quantify and it’s in contradiction with (3). I would have to see statistics on the number of trades that get made, per year per team, or something. It seems, unscientifically, that the Yankees are always moving someone around.

  7. Three hours ahead in time zones. In the television era this means that when West Coast games are done, the New Yorkers are in bed. Given the US population distribution, it means most of the marketing opportunities (i.e., revenue-generating opportunities) are asleep at game time, whereas the Yankee fan can still follow his team easily from the West Coast. Perhaps this hurts west coast teams by hurting hat sales, t-shirt sales, etc. Possible lost revenue? Hard to quantify.

  8. New York City arguably has more wealthy independent owners who can bid over the team. I believe (again, unscientifically) that perhaps the Yanks have had a longer history with individual owners as opposed to conglomerates and boards and corporate bottom lines and (ahem) newspaper companies running teams. Who knows if this has had a net postive effect or not? Maybe it has.

  9. It has only been recently that free agency has been a factor in player selection, so the sample size is small (and there’s only been one major NYY owner since that time), but I venture to say that sheer money hasn’t been the only factor. The Yankees’ record from 1901-2002 has been 8895 wins, 6840 losses, for a winning percentage of 0.5647 and a post-season record of 38-26. (Only the Dodgers come close over a similar stretch of time, with a superior postseason percentage of 22-6 and an overall winning percentage of 0.524.) Prior to 1975, the Yanks had a winning percentage of .5658 (6245-4792) and after they won at a .5587 clip (2459-1942), or slightly worse than their prior efforts. Result: not a significant difference.

Oh, I guess I’ll throw one more out there. Does anybody have tryout figures for the Yanks? Fame is sort of self-fulfilling if all the best players want to try out for the winning team; maybe the Yanks get more looks during open tryouts than other teams do. In short, who knows?

FISH

135

**fish **

While the NYC area has more population, also recall most of the last century it had 3 teams. Teams like Detroit had more fans per player. NYC many years ago did not have triple Detroit’s population. I have heard (no cite) the Yankees had more farm teams than most as well. The first part of the Yankee history they were the third team in town - their first 15 years they outdrew the Giants once.

Also, I believe the Yawkey and Wrigley families held their teams far longer than the Yankee people. Didn’t help them. Or the O’Malleys in Brooklyn.

Also, you still got players from out of town in the early days - Ruth was from Baltimore, DiMaggio from SF, Berra from StL, Mantle from Oklahoma…

…and sometimes the tryouts end up on other teams. Berra lived across the street from Joe Garagiola. they tried out for the Cards. The Cards signed Joe, Rickey supposedly telling Yogi he’d never be a major leaguer. Rizzuto was recommended by someone who saw him try out for his favorite team, the Dodgers, who rejected him.

136

Oh, and you cite the Yankees winning percentage prior to 1975? Look short term.

90 win years - 1965-1975 - 1

90 win years - 1976-1986 - 7

137

All good points, lurkernomore. In the early part of Yankee history when they had more in-town competition, they didn’t win any World Series either; mostly it was John McGraw’s Giants. After the Yanks stopped sharing the Polo Grounds, they had some success. Cause and effect? Probably not, but interesting all the same. They were also part of the then-new American League. Another difference – who knows?

Your short-term analysis of a decade at a time can be misleading depending on which decades you pick, too; pick from 1950-1960 and you’ll find something like 9 Yankee WS titles. Part of the problem of analyzing one tiny effect like this over a season is that the nature of the Yankees dynasty is streaky. What causes the streak – a rule change, a single player, a new stadium, a war, a strike, an equipment upgrade, a steroid?

I was trying to look long-term because the dominance of the Yanks is not a short-term thing. Why have they single-handedly won more than 25 World Series in the past 100 years, and played in (and lost) a dozen more? That doesn’t really stand up to one-decade-at-a-time scrutiny. Short term ten year streaks may have smaller, more human causes; long 100-year streaks might have more lasting causes like geography, temperature, choice of ballpark, population, or whatever.

But like I said – and at least we’re back on topic! – who knows? Boston could be said to have many of the same benefits as the Yanks, and … well … look at 'em. :wink:

FISH

P.S. Thank you for returning to the OP and not arguing about Don Mattingly’s OBP. :slight_smile:

138

Well, recall WHY the Yanks left the Polo Grounds - once they got Ruth, they started to outdraw the Giants immediately. So their landlords kicked them out. The first year with Ruth, they were the first team to draw a million. They did that until 1930, except 1929 (start of the Depression) and 1925, when Ruth missed a third of the year with either gastroenteritis or gonorrhea, depending on your source. After that, with Ruth on the wane, they didn;t draw a million again until after WWII.

Still, in the 20s, 30s, etc, they were a high profile winner, and that DID draw fans and tryouts more than a bad team. Just in the free agent years they had a resurgence as soon as those FAs became available. back then winning fed on itself more than today.

Oh, and as for DM, James rated him 12th best 1B of all time in his historical abstracts. Everyone ahead of him who is eligible is in the HOF.

139

fish, some replies: The transcontinental travel argument is common but it doesn’t hold up. Teams today travel exclusively by chartered airplane, with large seats and FA service and all the trimmings, including porter and valet service (remember Clemens whining about carrying his own bags). The longest trip is 6 hours, and most are much less.

Until the late Fifties, travel was on commercial trains, with all the noise and vibration and dirt, interruptions from frequent stops, distractions from other passengers. The longest ride was a day and a half. A team could leave Boston on Sunday evening after a day game, ride all night and all the next day and all the following night, trying to sleep in Pullman berths, and arrive in St. Louis on Tuesday morning for a Tuesday night game. How could anyone claim a six-hour charter flight is more fatiguing?

The Yankees’ income is derived mostly from TV rights, local as well as national. I recall they just signed a deal for local rights worth $200M, more than covering their entire payroll cost, while the Expos by comparison get nothing.

Steinbrenner isn’t a New Yorker; he’s a Clevelander who lives in Tampa and simply visits NYC a lot.

The Yankees’ sudden vault to the top in the Twenties was due to more than Ruth. Virtually the entire Red Sox team that dominated the late Teens was sold down the river, not just him (although somehow Tris Speaker and Smokey Joe Wood wound up in Cleveland). The great 1921 Yankees essentially were the great 1918 Red Sox.

The Red Sox’ chronic failure to make full use of their revenue base has some other factors we haven’t gone into. Tom Yawkey has a reputation as a well-loved, deeply-involved owner, but that reputation was built by reporters who became his drinking buddies. His choices for managers and coaches were also made primarily on that basis, not on their baseball skill. An ugly part of that was bigotry - he cut the team off from a large part of the talent pool by simply refusing to hire black players. There was even a staged tryout for Jackie Robinson that ended when the Sox GM saw it and hollered “Get them n****rs off the field!” Even after he became the last owner to integrate the team (the immortal Pumpsie Green, 1962), he kept the team’s atmosphere hostile to nonwhites for the rest of his life. The effects are still there - about the only US black Red Sox player to become a major star and still stay here has been Jim Rice.

Neurotik, I meant a year or two from now. Brown isn’t just an ordinary mistake who can be quietly released if he doesn’t work out; Beane has hung his entire reputation (and that of his pet theories) on him with the book. If there were ever a golden boy in an organization, it’s Brown, right? You have more faith in Beane’s objectivity and humility than I think is warranted.

lurkernomore, you brought up spitballs, not I. Anyway, the only change traceable to Chapman’s death is the batting helmet rule. The enintroduction of the rabbit ball is better measured by league total HR’s anyway, not by a single (and certainly atypical) player, and even then you have to allow a period for other players to adjust to the new reality or be replaced by those who could. Even looking only at Ruth, you have to consider the Yankee Stadium RF porch (farcically close and low even today).

140

I did bring it in first, but you said:

When, except for a certain amount of grandfathered players, the spitball was already illegal. Chapman’s death had ZERO effect on the spitball.

I am, going to look up his home/away split. IIRC it isn’t very disparate. For one-sided HR totals, try Ott.