This is one of the few decisions dictated by salary considerations.
The best relievers command the highest salaries, and the favored stat for effectiveness in a relief pitcher is the total number of saves, which go only to the man who finishes the game. So if you put your best reliever in in the 8th inning, he’s going to be unhappy, either because you’re making him pitch more innings (and thus risking injury or tiredness in his arm) or because you’re sometimes going to replace him before the end of the game, thus costing him saves. You’re also expressing a lack of confidence in your set-up guy. I hate “roles” for pitchers.
Another consideration is the safety of the move–no one wll blame the mamanger for using a closer in the 9th inning. If he uses the closer in any non-standard spot, and anything at all goes wrong, it’s the manager’s fault.
So why pay all the outrageous money for people batting .325 and then consider those batting .270 “journeymen” or “serviceable.” What’s the standard deviation here? How often is that one hit PER WEEK going to effect a game’s outcome. Nothing like your .325 hitter singling up the middle only to have the next guy ground out to short. THAT’S what you wasted $10 million on? That one extra hit?
The single best indicator that someone is a .325 hitter is tht he has hit .325 at some recent point in the past. If you load up on people who have proven that they’re .270 hitters, you will lose, year after year, so you go for the guys who’ve proven that they can hit better than the average MLB hitter, on the chance that you will then win.
This argument applies to most stats in sports. What’s the difference between an MVP QB and a second stringer? A pass completion per week? An extra two yards per pass attempt? Something small, in any case. It’s a spectacularly dumb argument, the astute Crash Davis notwithstanding.
Because when it started coaches and managers were likely an actual part of the playing team as well as their other role. In the beginning ‘player-manager’ and ‘player coach’ was the norm, not the exception.
Because the other team is doing something else I don’t understand, by vacating the entire left side of the infield, and daring big Papi not to attempt the bunt (or even slap it the other way).
Why the Texas Rangers play their Sunday home games at night for most the year. Yes, it is hot during the day in the summer. It is also hot in a lot of other cities. If every other team can play a Sunday day game, the Rangers should be able to as well.
Why the Arizona Diamondbacks decided to copy their uniforms from the Washington Nationals!
It’s not something you ever see the Japan League players doing, but any time there’s an MLB game on TV, in nearly every shot somebody’s spraying something out of his mouth. It’s kind of embarrassing to watch because inevitably one of my Japanese co-workers (or family members) will ask, “why do American players do that?”
Let’s look at the numbers starting with 2000, their last championship.
2000 NYY $92m LA $90m
2001 NYY $112 BOS $109
2002 NYY $125 BOS $108
2003 NYY $152 NYM $117
2004 NYY $184 BOS $127
2005 NYY $208 BOS $123
2006 NYY $194 BOS $120
2007 NYY $189 BOS $143
2008 NYY $209 NYM $137
The Yankees had as much as a 69% (I’m expecting a greater discrepancy in '09)higher payroll than the next highest team over that stretch, where as in 2000 they were nearly equal. If that’s not “throwing money at their problems”, then I don’t know what is. You really think I’d aspire to have a virtually unlimited payroll and yet still manage to fail year after year? With that kind of advantage and those results, that’s failure. That’s a team I could never imagine getting behind. That team is a joke and you know it.
I don’t get why the AL and NL are matched up like it really needs to matter. The game was played for almost a century where the arguments about whether the Cubs could beat the Yankees were more important than the actual game. Back in the day, the All-Star game meant something. It meant you may see your favorite NL pitcher facing the hottest bat in the AL. Now playing in the All-Star game means you have a commercial shoot for durex brand condom, (the one that lets you hit a home run in less than an inning.)
So there was meaning added to the game, make it mean that the winning league will have home field advantage in the World Series. Is it just me, or was the World Series meant to be an exhibition Series between the two Pennant winners? If it meant more to anyone, why? Especially now in the day of the DH. It isn’t even the same game. How is this for a comparison, the team that wins the Super Bowl has to play the winner of the Grey Cup of the CFL. If the Super Bowl winning team wins the game, the league that the Super Bowl winner played for gets Home Field, if not, then the other league gets home field advantage. Any football fans like this plan?
Are any true baseball fans still in favor of inter league play and an All-Star game with meaning?
Sunflower seeds. They’re spitting out the shells. Baseball players used to be dedicated tobacco chewers (now that was some quality spitting), but now it’s sunflower seeds.
The thing I don’t like about inter league is the advantage that the AL has with their full time, highly paid (usually) slugger DH versus the NL’s utility infielder batting for the pitcher. I realize it’s only when in the AL park, but it’s an unfair advantage, and the only real way to make it perfectly equal is to not have the pitcher bat, nor have the DH. Same goes for the World Series.
The All Star game having meaning means nothing to me.
It still doesn’t explain why they can’t adjust the rule. Player-manager/coach hasn’t been the norm for decades, and it is trivial to require playing uniforms for people who are on the active roster, like a player-manager would be.
I don’t like the advantage the NL has with pitchers who actually get to bat regularly versus the AL’s pitchers who have to stick guys in the lineup who haven’t held a bat since Spring Training.
I think the logical hole here is that you’re defining “Not winning the World Series” as “Failure,” which is just not a reasonable position to take. It’s crazy to say the Yankees have just failed since 2001; they’re made the playoffs every year but one and the one year they didn’t still won plenty of games in a very tough division. Playoff success is extremely based on luck; that they did so well in the playoffs from 1996-2000 and then not as well in 2001-2007 is primarily random chance.
I don’t like them buying their success, either, but the fact is that they have been successful. If you’re the GM of the Yankees, buying your success is, in fact, the logical thing to do; they have lots and lots of money, so the economic, logical thing to do is to exchange what they have lots of (money) to address their weaknesses (starting pitchers) and so it makes perfect sense for the Yankees to spend big bucks on C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett. Wouldn’t it be kind of stupid of them to leave money in the budget unspent while the starting rotation blows games?
Remember, it’s winning that keeps Yankee fans coming to the ballpark. Unlike fans in some venues, Yankee attendance is very sensitive to the likelihood of the team making the postseason; inthe early 90s when the team was pretty bad, attendance was shockingly low given the size of the market. In 1991 and 1992 they were 11th in the AL in attendance each year and did not draw as many fans in both years combined as the #1 team, Toronto, did in either season. In 1993 the team got better, finishing second, and attendance jumped 40%.
It may indicate a problem with baseball’s economic system, but the Yankees are NOT stupid to spend lots of money; in their current position it is the logical thing to do. They have lots of money, and so it makes sense to exchange it for talent, since the acquisition of talent pays off in increased revenue more in New York than anywhere else.
I like inter league play. We’re not going to jump into a time machine and bring back the mystique of the AL and NL only facing each other during the All Star game and the World Series. With the advent of satellite packages and online broadcasts, we can see every major league team any time we want. The All Star game used to be special because we’d see players that we’d only know from baseball cards or the sports pages. I don’t like the 'it means something" rule. I’d be in favor of ending the game after 9 innings even if it is tied. That way, the managers can get all the players into the game. Then again, I’ve never understood why exhibition pre-season games go into extra innings as well.
Sometimes the World Series isn’t a good matchup between the AL and NL. But, that’s true in any sport. Many years the conference championship games in the NFL have been far better than the Super Bowl. How many lopsided Super Bowls did we have in the 1990s? Quite a few.
Frankly, what I don’t understand is why Ortiz doesn’t bunt more. With less than two outs, a 90% chance at a single has to be worth more than a … [checking stats] at least 62% chance of getting out, even with the chance of a home run. I mean, taking the (assumed) 90% chance at a single gives you an OPS of 1.800 which is double his career average.
I thought the Red Sox had all these sabremetricians working for them. I don’t understand why any of them can’t do the math and get Ortiz to punish the shift more.
Agreed. The argument that no one cares about a Pirates vs Royals game is silly, because no one cares about a Pirates vs Reds game either. I do wish they wouldn’t focus on the rivalry part of it so much though, and made it more balanced. Mets and Yankees playing 6 times a year is overkill.
