There's a Reason We're in Third Place

by jscape2000 on Aug 30, 2008 6:50 PM EDT in Game Recap

Girardi stuck with Rasner too long. I'll grant his pitch count wasn't high (83), and he'd been throwing strikes (61) but I don't let him face Zaun.

Cano nonchalanted the throw, contributing an error to the inning.

Does anyone expect Marte to be effective at this point? I know he had an injury that Girardi wouldn't talk about, but I would have stuck with Bruney at that point.

I know Arod grounded into a double play, but against BJ Ryan it's hard to be too critical. Blame this one on the pitching that allowed 7 runs, and on the (mis)management.

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Not pitching... hitting/defense is the problem...

I literally just got home from the game, and I’m sorry, but the offense just isn’t there. Sure, Marte has not been effective, but let’s not forget, the Jays don’t score the 3-runs in the 7th inning if Cano doesn’t boot the double play. Also, as you stated, we ALL know how effective B.J. Ryan is. My thought then, is why let A-Rod swing away? The game wasn’t tied. We needed 1-run. If Rodriguez puts a good bunt down, we have 2nd and 3rd, with one out. Sure enough, after the double play, Cody Ransom hit a fly ball to left that would’ve easily scored Jeter. I’m sorry, but the offense/defense let me down today.

——
Brian
briancapozzi.com

by Pooser7 on Aug 30, 2008 7:01 PM EDT 0 recs

I don't think you should ever

ask one of the top hitters in the game to bunt. Any idea when his last sac bunt was?

"Have faith in the Yankees, my son. Think of the great DiMaggio."

by jscape2000 on Aug 30, 2008 7:14 PM EDT up 0 recs

A-Rod should have bunted?

Okay, I admit – I haven’t watched the last few games because I’ve been really busy this week. But you know people are going mad when they suggest the future all-time home run king should have bunted.

I bet you can count on one hand how many times A-Rod has bunted since 2000.

by anaconda on Aug 30, 2008 7:18 PM EDT up 0 recs

Why not?

If A-Rod is the “superstar” he came to NY to be, he and the Yankees should know the little ball is what could have helped them win today. Everyone knows A-Rod is not known for his bunting skills, but come on… if he and the entire team want a World Series ring, he needs to sacrifice himself. It’s crap like that which is why the team is in the position it’s in, along with sub-par relief pitching.

by Pooser7 on Aug 31, 2008 12:18 AM EDT up 0 recs

C'mon....

that’s not even a reasonable argument.

How many times did Posada, Williams, O’Neill, or Martinez bunt during the dynasty years? The answer is never.

by anaconda on Aug 31, 2008 12:55 AM EDT up 0 recs

No bunting...but

he could try “go with the pitch” or “hit it where they ain’t”, I would respect him way more (as would most) if he did the little things well. Hit the ball crisply the other way, make the lazy fly sac to move the runners over. Basically be a team first player. That seems to be the biggest problem (to me) this season, a real lack of comradeship and self sacrifice for the great good of winning most call “heart”

by ilBrutto on Aug 30, 2008 8:30 PM EDT 0 recs

I blame A-Rod

He’s a cancer.

by BrianByron on Aug 30, 2008 11:16 PM EDT 0 recs

ARod is the best player on the team, pick on someone who doesn't produce

Even if you believe in the ability/inability to hit in the clutch, he’s still quite good. How about picking on…

Cano’s awful first two months.
Jeter’s below-average season.
Melky starting for 2/3 the season.
Abreu’s inability to play the field.
Posada’s, Hughes’, Wang’s and Matsui’s injuries.
Not finding a better option than Molina for too long.
Not having a better backup plan for the starting rotation when Hughes/Kennedy/Wang went down.
Not giving important innings to Edwar until half way through the season.
Signing Posada, an aging catcher, to a long-term deal with a decent backup option.

by Sky Kalkman on Aug 31, 2008 3:34 PM EDT up 0 recs

Double Play-Rod

And to think we have this loser for nine more years.

by SportsLifer on Aug 31, 2008 12:16 AM EDT 0 recs

I like

the new nickname.

by BrianByron on Aug 31, 2008 12:47 PM EDT up 0 recs

Frankly....

I’m embarrassed as a Yankee fan to witness how the fans have treated this guy. It’s idiotic.

He’ll come back next season and win another MVP and these same people will lay off him. It’s so predictable and pathetic, frankly.

by anaconda on Aug 31, 2008 12:59 AM EDT 1 recs

i agree

i judge the quality of a blog/discussion board by the percentage of posters who whine about ARod. this group has a ways to go.

by Sky Kalkman on Aug 31, 2008 3:35 PM EDT up 0 recs

the treatment has been wrong

you dont boo a guy who hustles, which Arod does. boo Cano if you want, bc he seems to lack hustle at times.

fyi, Arod hasn’t had a sac bunt/hit of any kind since 1999 (sac flies are separate). i’m not sure how a ‘sac hit’ is defined, but i believe it includes moving a runner from one base to the next while grounding out. if that’s so, how is it possible he hasn’t done that in 10 seasons? never mind bunting, maybe he could hit a grounder to the right side, although with his luck, it would still be a GDP.

pooser, i dont necessarily disagree with asking arod to bunt there, but he probably doesnt even know how. that blame should fall on Girardi. however, arod is on the Yankees to help them WIN, in whatever way possible. if that means bunting, do it. if that means stealing bases and hitting homers, that too. it’s all part of helping the TEAM win. in that game, a (successful) bunt would have been more productive than a GDP, but the odds are arod doesn’t even get one down. look at Cano’s pathetic attempts this year.

the ironic thing is that arod is actually being paid to HIT HRs, NOT necessarily to win games, and the blame for that falls on Hank, who gave him a ridiculous HR-incentive laden deal. why should he try for a measly single (or sac grounder), which gets him no closer to those bonuses, when a HR does?

but don’t worry, only 9 years and 1 month of this circus to go.

by Travis G on Aug 31, 2008 6:06 AM EDT 0 recs

I am not...

knockin’ him whatsoever. A-rod is an incredible player who has produced so much for the team over the past 4+ years; however you cannot compare the dynasty years to this year. We are 7 games out of the wild card with a month left in the season. Every win matters and you all know it. During the dynasty years, we had the AL East wrapped up by mid-September. Trust me… I would’ve loved to see him get the game winning hit, but he just didn’t get the job done and when you are considered successful when you get a hit 3 out of 10 times, that leaves a 70% chance you’ll fail. This is my opinion, and I can’t know A-rod, but Girardi and the managers need to realize wins are most important at this point.

by Pooser7 on Aug 31, 2008 11:11 AM EDT 0 recs

It has nothing to do with the standings

No manager is going to ask the guy with almost 550 home runs to bunt. Power hitters don’t do that.

Hell, there are a lot of times I wonder why Jeter bunts so often. The guy has 2,500+ career hits and will be a first ballot Hall of Famer, so he obviously knows what he’s doing with the bat.

Managers simply don’t ask players like A-Rod to bunt. And he shouldn’t.

by anaconda on Aug 31, 2008 11:49 AM EDT up 0 recs

I agree

You can’t bunt A-Rod there, or in any spot, really. He gets paid to drive in big runs in the clutch.

Which he has been terrible at this year. Hopefully, 2009 will look at lot more like 2007 for him instead of 2008 if we want to even think about sniffing the playoffs.

by BrianByron on Aug 31, 2008 12:46 PM EDT up 0 recs

i disagree

he should do whatever he can to help the Yankees win. Period. if that’s bunting, do it, if it’s getting clutch hits, do it. but with the ludicrous contract he has, he actually is LITERALLY paid to hit home runs. i cant even say he’s paid to help the Yankees win. he’s not. he’s paid to pad his career HR total, which in turn is supposed to bring fans (e.g. money) to the stadium.

by Travis G on Aug 31, 2008 1:43 PM EDT up 0 recs

Double Play-Rod's

contract will haunt the Yanks for a decade, I agree with that.

Worst. Signing. Evah.

If I recall correctly, the last time the Yanks locked up a guy for 10 years it was Mr. May, Dave Winfield, and they won … zero championships with him on the team. I hope we’re not reverting back to the organizational style of the 80s — big FA deals, few prospects coming up from the minors, no team chemistry, no championships.

by BrianByron on Aug 31, 2008 3:10 PM EDT 0 recs

the yankees have $200MM to blow on nine position players, five starters, and three important relievers

locking up one of the best few players in the game for $28MM per year is not a mistake. spending that money on other free agents might not even get the team as many wins and there are only so many spots to spend money on.

how about spending some money on players who aren’t coming off career years or that can actually play the field? how about spending some money on rotation and offensive depth. when a Yankee goes down, there’s never a decent option to plug in the hole. with $200MM, there needs to be an extra guy capable of starting hanging around.

by Sky Kalkman on Aug 31, 2008 3:38 PM EDT up 0 recs

It's not JUST the money,

it’s who Double Play-Rod is. Not clutch, can’t catch a pop-up, and a clubhouse cancer.

If you’re paid as the best player ever, and you perform like Double Play-Rod has every year since being a Yank save ’07, players are gonna hate you. And this makes it harder to win a championship.

I agree, though, that Cash Man leaves much to be desired in his personnel decisions overall. Bring back Stick Michael!

by BrianByron on Aug 31, 2008 3:58 PM EDT 0 recs

maybe players are idiots for hating ARod for "underproducing". maybe they should pay more attention to their own game.

do you honestly think that Yankee players would be performing better without ARod on the team? ARod’s worth about 5-7 wins more than an average player. does he really bring down others’ performances by that much? i highly doubt it.

by Sky Kalkman on Aug 31, 2008 4:18 PM EDT up 0 recs

Yes, I do

and my opinion is based on the numerous press reports about the discord A-Rod’s sown on every team he’s been on, plus the fact that he hasn’t won anything since High School.

It’s hard to measure the impact of his stats, too, because so many of them are compiled in meaningless situations.

by BrianByron on Aug 31, 2008 6:05 PM EDT up 0 recs

you can look at WPA to weight the high impact game situations more than the low impact situations

over at fangraphs.com — and Arod has definitely been unclutch this year. and 2006. but he was clutch in 2007. and regardless of how unclutch he’s been, he’s STILL provided quite a lot of value.

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1274&position=3B

by the way, WPA/LI takes WPA and takes out the importance of all the situations ARod batted in. i.e. if all situations were equally important, that’s how many wins he would have contributed to the Yankees. WPA takes into account the importance of situations. Clutch is simply WPA minus WPA/LI

what’s WPA? read about it here (older article, so some of the things about “hard to calculate” aren’t true anymore)

what’s LI? leverage index

—————

if ARod is killing team morale to the extent that other players’ performances are dropping by .050 points of OPS, then what’s up with Jeter’s leadership? doesn’t he have the ability to counter ARod’s negativity?

by Sky Kalkman on Aug 31, 2008 6:20 PM EDT up 0 recs

I agree

that 2007 is an aberrant year, the one where ARod was unlike himself. The problem is we paid him like he was going to repeat that year down the line, which, based on 2008, hasn’t happened. Hopefully, he’ll revert back going forward, but I personally don’t think he will, based on the fact that ’07 was such a spike, a statistical outlier.

I also agree with you that Jeter’s leadership has to take a hit this year. Especially with his DP partner Cano – if only to drill home the point of always hustling.

by BrianByron on Aug 31, 2008 10:39 PM EDT up 0 recs

i was being extremely sarcastic about Jeter's leadership

and my point about ARod is that yes, he’s probably overpaid. but where else would you have spent the money for this year? getting that much production out of one position is important. overpaying by $5MM or $10MM isn’t that important with a $200MM payroll. you couldn’t have found a better 3B. is there a 3B/SP combo that’s better?

for all the Santana trade rumors, he would have cost almost as much as ARod, isn’t quite as valuable on a yearly basis, is more risky since he’s a pitcher, and would have cost at least Phil Hughes, who should be quite good (and cheap) for a while.z

by Sky Kalkman on Aug 31, 2008 10:46 PM EDT up 0 recs

It's great that

those stats back up what I thought just based on watching games. But the stats are only part of it, they can only tell you so much. If Jeet is Captain Intangibles, Double Play-Rod has to be the opposite of that. If the guy ever wins a ring, and/or starts producing in October, I’ll be proven wrong.

Cash Man could have done a lot more with A-Rod’s money…and the point goes beyond this year. It’s a 10-yr deal to someone whose production will be declining as he ages, IMO. So, it becomes an albatross year after year, as Texas qucikly found out.

Jeet’s leadership is obviously overrated. Posada was the real leader, and his absence this year has hurt.

by BrianByron on Sep 1, 2008 2:52 PM EDT up 0 recs