ALDS: Detroit Tigers vs. New York Yankees

[The Man in Blak 0]

And A-Rod is a very good player, but he isn't exactly setting the world on fire in these situations. You can't start the game striking out on three pitches in the 1st inning with the bases loaded. I don't care how many MVPs you've won, come through sometime (and I know he has, but not many times).

 

Have you even seen that first at-bat that you're criticizing him for?

[Brett Favre 0]

Too many times, throughout the year.

[Bruiser Chong 0]

I hope we don't see Zumaya again. Has anyone ever gotten a hit off this guy? Geez.

He's had quite a few outings where he's been lit up pretty good. It hinges on his command. If it's good, he's unhittable. If not, it's not impossible to put up a crooked number against him.

[The Man in Blak 0]

Too many times, throughout the year.

 

Look, I'm not going to argue that Rodriguez hasn't struggled in these situations, because the statistics, in general, seem to bear that out. I'm just talking about this specific at-bat, though; it seems like a lot of people are more than willing to portray ARod as "choking as always", but is it realistic to imagine that anybody (let alone ARod) was going to do anything with that sequence of pitches? At some point, you just have to tip your cap to the other pitcher and, twice today, Rodriguez ran into a situation where the other pitcher was just dealing with all sorts of unholy stuff.

[Brett Favre 0]

How many of these pitchers are going to keep dealing unholy stuff on him before he comes through? I'm not saying Verlander is some scrub, but it's gotten to the point where you'd be surprised if he doesn't strike out in less than four pitches in those situations, no matter how good or bad the pitcher is.

[naiwf 0]

They just showed it on SC. Even Christ Jeter would have K'ed in those two spots.

[Brett Favre 0]

You could woulda with anyone on the team, but usually thats not the case.

[Guest Paul]

Zumaya was a GOD today people...

 

His command was ON. They weren't hitting him.

 

On viewing some of the photos, I got some shots of Abreu/Melky arrriving together, Moose arriving, Rivera arriving and Reggie Jackson arriving in a cab, with a whole lot of shit, and nobody to help him.

[Annabelle 0]

zumaya was painting the corners will 103 heat. like bruiser said, he can lack command. plus people cna catch up with him. it was nice to see him switch it up a bit more today. his slider is progressing nicely. i am sorta scared about all of the attention he's getting. just a bad vibe from it all. cross my heart.

 

 

fernando rodney is also dangerous from the pen. he doesn't have heat like zumaya but its high 90's. he's actually usually the set up man for jones, not zumaya. so he's real good too. the tigers have a really great bullpen, its about putting up the offense & having the starters get them into a spot for it.

[MFer 0]

Well after strking out 170+ times this year, Grandy has come to play this series. JV was straight up nasty and Zoom was Zoom. I kinda wish Bonderman was going in Game 3 but maybe Kenny can take advantage of that huge outfield at Comerica and pull out a good performance. I think this win definitely shows that they belong in the playoffs.

[Guest Felonies!]

Anybody else just hate this Chevy commercial? THIS IS OUUUUURR COUNTRYYYYYYYY

 

Yeah. What gets me is the shot of the twin lights from Ground Zero. Most commercials that breathlessly spout false patriotism are usually a lot more subtle than that.

Oh, apparently this is a new song from Mellancamp, but I swear, I've heard "this is ooooouur coooooountrrryyyy" long before this odious new ad campaign.

[TheShooter 0]

The Yankees are the laughing stock of baseball. If they win the World Series it means nothing because they have a payroll of like $900 billion, so they just bought it. If they don't win the World Series it's just fucking pathetic because if you can't win it with a $900 billion payroll then what the fuck is the matter with you?

 

I'd be more embarrassed to be a Yankee fan than a Devil Rays fan.

[Brett Favre 0]

Ok.

[Guest Felonies!]

How much did the Red Sox pay to finish third, Luke?

 

The Cubs paid $95MM to finish last, and I feel appropriately ashamed about the whole thing.

[TheShooter 0]

How much did the Red Sox pay to finish third, Luke?

 

The Cubs paid $95MM to finish last, and I feel appropriately ashamed about the whole thing.

 

Although the Red Sox have the second highest payroll in baseball, it is still dwarfed by the Yankees'.

[naiwf 0]

Interesting couple of stats brought up on Mike & The Mad Dog just now.

 

First of all, the Yankees are 2-8 in their last 10 postseason games (4 straight losses to Boston in '04, went 1-3 against the Angels last year and are 1-1 this season).

 

Secondly, in those games A-Rod is 4 for 35 w/12 K's.

[Slayer 0]

They went 2-3 against Anaheim last year

[naiwf 0]

So, they're 3-8 in their last 11. Either WFAN interns aren't the greatest when it comes to statistical accuracy or Mike & The Mad Dog can't add properly.

[Bruiser Chong 0]

I don't buy into the theory that you can just buy a championship. If that were the case, the Yankees would be looking for their seventh or eighth straight championship.

 

It obviously helps to have a roster full of superstars, but just because you plunk down millions doesn't mean you're going to win. Look at the Mets a couple years back. Or the Cubs this year. Or the Red Sox this year. Or the Cubs last year. Or the Red Sox last year. Or the Cubs in 2004. Or...

[Guest Princess Leena]

But it doesn't hurt when you can eliminate half the teams in the league because you can buy any decent player from them.

[tominator89 0]

And those teams who receive millions from the luxury tax can thank the Yankees later.

[Guest Princess Leena]

But, I believe the Yankees found some loophole out of the luxury tax by paying for their new stadium.

[tominator89 0]

Also, the last year the Yankees won the World series (2000) their opening day salary started at $92.5 million. Their salaries have more than doubled since then and they haven't won a World Series. If money buys a championship, then why haven't they won since 2000 when teams such as the Marlins have?

[The Man in Blak 0]

If we're going to examine performance with such an arbitrary set of endpoints, let's take a look at the other Yankee regulars through that time period:

 

2004 ALCS vs. Boston, Games 4-7

Jeter - 4/19, 1 R, 5 RBI, 2/1 K/BB

Rodriguez - 2/17, 1 R, 1 HR, 2 RBI, 5/3 K/BB

Sheffield - 1/17, 6/4 K/BB

Matsui - 5/19, 2 R, 2/2 K/BB

Posada - 4/17, 2 R, 1/4 K/BB

 

2005 ALDS vs. Anaheim

Jeter - 7/21, 4 R, 2 HR, 5 RBI, 5/1 K/BB

Rodriguez - 2/15, 2 R, 5/6 K/BB

Sheffield - 6/21, 1 R, 2 RBI, 2/1 K/BB

Matsui - 4/20, 4 R, 1 HR, 1 RBI, 3/2 K/BB

Posada - 3/13, 3 R, 1 HR, 2 RBI, 2/6 K/BB

 

2006 ALDS vs. Detroit, Games 1-2

Jeter - 6/9, 3 R, 1 HR, 1 RBI, 1 K

Rodriguez - 1/8, 4 K

Sheffield - 1/8, 1 R, 1 RBI, 2 K

Matsui - 3/8, 1 R

Posada - 3/6, 1 R, 1/2 K/BB

 

Total Stats Over Last 11 Playoff Games

Jeter: 17/49, 8 R, 3 HR, 11 RBI, 8/2 K/BB

Rodriguez: 5/40, 3 R, 1 HR, 2 RBI, 14/9 K/BB

Sheffield: 8/46, 2 R, 0 HR, 3 RBI, 10/5 K/BB

Matsui: 12/47, 7 R, 1 HR, 1 RBI, 5/4 K/BB

Posada: 10/36, 6 R, 1 HR, 2 RBI, 4/12 K/BB

 

Couple of observations:

 

1. Everybody did a fairly remarkable job of tanking the final four games in the Boston series, Sheffield worst of all. Posada is the only one with that can even claim even a mediocre line, due to his insane ability to draw walks in the playoffs (roughly one in every four plate appearances over this span).

 

2. Virtually everybody has seen a marked decline in power (with the exception of Jeter). In Jeter's case, this seems to match with observations that he's much more of a pull hitter in the postseason. For everybody else, this could just be a function of facing tougher pitchers in the postseason (which is a given).

 

3. Sheffield is virtually at A-Rod's level through this time, hitting below .200 with virtually no power.

 

4. The HR and RBIs that A-Rod has in this span are all from Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS. He has not driven in a run in the last ten games. (God dammit, ESPN just scooped me on that.)

[naiwf 0]

Nevermind, some idiot was trying to be funny.

[bob_barron 0]

Sheffield tank in the playoffs? Get out of town!

[TheShooter 0]

I agree that money can't buy a championship, but the perception among fans of every other team is that the Yankees try (and usually fail) to do that every year. I think it also goes to show that George Steinbrenner is an idiot. Perhaps if he took the strategy of attempting to foster at least some home grown talent instead of plucking Superstar A to play 3rd base, Superstar B to play right field, Superstar C to play center field, etc, etc, he'd actually end up w/ a team that had some chemistry and might not melt in the postseason. If they did fail, at least it would be a much less expensive failure.

[naiwf 0]

The Yankees may not be able to buy championships regularly but it sure as hell doesn't hurt when you can waste about $50 million on Pavano & Wright and still go out and pick up guys like Abreu & Lidle because you can eat Abreu's contract. If nothing else they buy a 1 in 8 chance of winning titles every year because they'll outspend the rest of the league on new superstars every offseason.

[The Man in Blak 0]

I don't buy into the theory that you can just buy a championship. If that were the case, the Yankees would be looking for their seventh or eighth straight championship.

 

They are looking at their twelfth straight playoff appearance, though, and they have traditionally had one of the highest (if not the highest) payrolls over that period.

 

Payroll doesn't guarantee you a championship, but it reduces risk. Everybody always wants to point at the lower market teams like Oakland and Minnesota as a counter-example to payroll, but even they don't have a sustained level of success like the Yankees do, simply because they can't really recover when injuries strikes or other things go badly (see last year as an example of this).

 

Even though the Yankees don't necessarily apply this financial advantage in the most efficient way, they still wield it in a way that can single-handedly knock other teams out of the running. Outside of Boston (who also outspends the competition by a remarkable amount), how many other teams were even considered possibilities for A-Rod or Abreu when trade offers came around? Could Kansas City or Tampa Bay have even made a run at Jason Giambi when he hit the free agent market?

 

Of course, payroll isn't everything for the Yankees either, as there are other clever moves that the Yankees have made that haven't involved payroll (Brian Bruney, Shawn Chacon, Craig Wilson, etc.). But the problem is that, though everybody can make those moves, the Yankees have more than enough resources to compensate for their mistakes. Bonehead contracts like Pavano and Wright, which would cripple a team like the Twins, are laughers for the Yankees. The St. Louis Cardinals (who aren't even a small market team, mind you) can make plenty of savvy pickups of high caliber talent like Jim Edmonds or Scott Rolen but, once they screw up and give a marginal guy like Isringhausen an expensive contract extension, the purse strings tighten and the ability to improve through the free agent market signficantly declines (see the last offseason as an example).

 

The free agent market is a perfect example of this. There was a study done in one of the BPros, I believe, that demonstrate that the most valuable free agents are on the extreme ends of the payroll spectrum - the upper-tier talent that you pay a premium for, or the low money deals that can turn into a major value bargain. Middle-tier free agents, like Kris Benson, are the worst bang for the buck, as the premium you pay for "reliability" isn't worth the overall mediocrity that you get (which can typically be found in much cheaper alternatives.) Small market teams may have enough money to make a run for a middle tier guy, if they're lucky, but the Yankees will have the first pick of anybody that they want, just by virtue of the fact that they can virtually outbid anybody in that upper tier, as well as have their share of the "lesser signings."

 

Sure, they can't sign everybody and just because they sign an upper tier free agent doesn't mean it's the best available choice (Sheffield over Vladdy, a few years ago). But, as I mentioned before, those mistakes don't kill them - in fact, they have so little impact on the Yankees that they're still able to absorb payroll by taking on other team's costly contractual mistakes in salary dumps.

 

It's not the Yankees fault that they can leverage a payroll advantage in this way - MLB essentially encourages teams to pocket money with revenue sharing and the lack of a salary cap/floor structure. But let's not say that there's no advantage there at all.

[Guest Paul]

Buy a championship? Man...even when a series is tied 1-1, all you fucks do is hate.

 

Since their budget has been rising, they have stopped winning. No titles since 2000. I'm not saying that's a LONG time...it's certainly not. If the post 2001 Yankees have shown you anything, it's that you can't buy chemistry. & they refuse to do anything major about pitching.

 

If they win the WS this year, it's because they're the best team in baseball. Period.

 

If they don't...oh well. There's always next year (TM, RSN).