How Not To Conduct An Interview, By Mark Grace

On the Bats Blog at the New York Times, Richard Sandomir points out something that never ceases to annoy me about the postgame interviews conducted by network reporters:

Fox needs a question coach for Mark Grace. One of the failings of many sideline/stadium reporters is that they do not jot down good, solid, clear questions to ask the stars of a game.

There usually isn’t much time to prepare, but coming up with three pertinent thoughts to frame as questions, or as leading statements, shouldn’t be as hard as a nervous Grace made it when he interviewed Jimmy Rollins after the Phillies’ 8-6 win against the Yankees in Game 5 of the World Series on Monday.

Sandomir uses Grace as an example and transcribes some example from last night, but you could easily switch his name with Kim Jones, Ken Rosenthal or countless other reporters. (Here's a clip of the Rosenthal & Grace interviews from last night). It seems as though, in the cutthroat world of TV journalism, interviewers are constantly trying use their queries to display how smart they are as opposed to asking questions that lead to good responses.

Since the best baseball players - the ones most likely to be interview after the game - are interviewed so frequently during the season, they answer the questions - or in many cases weak leading statements - with relative ease. The player knows what the interviewer is getting at and usually obliges them with the type of vague and vapid answer they think they are looking for.

ESPN has actually tried to correct this problem by hiring an interview guru named John Sawatsky to conduct seminars on the proper way to interview (sort of like the "question coach" Sandomir suggested). Here is an 8 minute radio segment and accompanying article from NPR from back in 2006 on that very subject.

Sawatsky is a full time employee in Bristol and has his own office, complete with a giant question mark on the door. Max Kellerman used to talk about the "Sawatsky Technique" on his old radio show on 1050AM in New York, but would struggle to take the advice, like he did in his botched interview with Floyd Mayweather after the Juan Manuel Marquez fight.

In the seminars, Sawatsky uses interviewers like Barbara Walters and Larry King as examples of exactly what not to do. Don't ask long-winded questions (or worse, make long-winded statements) or pose inquiries that only demand a "yes" or "no" response. Ask only one question at a time. Try to learn, not validate your own opinion. Don't try to insert yourself into the interview, because the interview isn't about you:

The best questions, argues Sawatsky, are like clean windows. “A clean window gives a perfect view. When we ask a question, we want to get a window into the source. When you put values in your questions, it’s like putting dirt on the window. It obscures the view of the lake beyond. People shouldn’t notice the question in an interview, just like they shouldn’t notice the window. They should be looking at the lake.

Makes sense, doesn't it? No one wants to hear Ken Rosenthal or Kim Jones awkwardly attempt to interject their observations on what just happened. They want to hear what the player was thinking. Typically the athletes don't really have anything interesting to say either, but maybe if the people interviewing them could put some effort into crafting questions that would provoke some thoughtful responses, that wouldn't be the case.

We Didn't Think It Would Be That Easy, Did We?

Good morning, Fackers. That's not one of you on the left with your head down, is it? If it is, we'll just assume that the glass of white wine is there because your girlfriend got up to go to the bathroom. Either way, cheer up. It was a tough loss but let's just take a deep breath.

It's funny how no one picked the Yankees to sweep this series (well, except Iracane) but we still feel like they should win every time they play, isn't it?

The same thing happened against the Angels in the ALCS. We nodded along with all the predictions saying how the series could be "one for the ages" and knew the Halos were a formidable foe, but were still shocked when Vlad Guerrero hit that homer off of Andy Pettitte and when Nick Swisher popped out to end Game 5 (another miserable A.J. Burnett outing with an unlikely comeback) against Brian Fuentes. Similarly, we applauded the notion that the Fall Classic featured the two best teams in baseball and assumed it would be a great series. Unfortunately, for the series to be great, both teams have to lose some games.

Did anyone assume that we were going to take all three games in Philly? I highly doubt it, but after the Bombers took the first two, our expectations completely changed.

After the top half of the first inning, it was easy to imagine Cliff Lee finally realizing that he was human and A.J. Burnett pitching well enough to beat him. Even when Derek Jeter came to the plate in the 9th, it was hard not to picture him poking a hit through the infield and bringing the go-ahead run to the plate with no one out.

Unfortunately, both of those fantasies were squashed almost immediately by a homer off the bat of Chase Utley and a double play turned by he and Jimmy Rollins, respectively.

As for Burnett, he threw 56 pitches and exactly half of them were strikes. He faced 15 batters but retired only 6. He walked twice as many men (4) as he struck out (2). IIATMS ran down the gory details of his outing via pitch f/x. Judging by the charts, it becomes even more apparent that Burnett had all the accuracy and precision of a greased up fire hose.

There will surely be the temptation to point to the fact that he only had three days of rest as the reason his command was so poor but we've seen this plenty of times from Burnett on 4 and even 5 days of rest. In fact, we just saw it early in Game 5 in Anaheim. As much as we don't want to realize it, his dominant performance in Game 2 of the series was about as likely as his meltdown in Game 5.

But the Yankees knew what they signed up for when they inked Burnett to that $82.5M deal: Incredible stuff with so-so command. If they wanted a guy who they thought could be consistently average all the time, they would have went after Derek Lowe instead. So we take the good with the bad and move on.

Looking Back, Looking Forward

Am I the only one who thought that slogan for the Yankees on the YES Network was the best of the bunch? Why did they get rid of it? It pretty much perfectly describes what they do at the network with all Yankeeographies and such along with the live games and studio shows.

Anyway, let's take an afternoon climb across the interwebs and see what people are saying about last night, as well as tonight:

Joe Posnanski tries to understand what was going on in Johnny Damon's mind when he took of for third base last night. Also from Mr. Posnanski, it's about time someone did this.

Craig Calcaterra knows Damon's one man double steal was not unprecedented in baseball history but thinks it was pretty damn cool anyway.

River Ave. Blues reviews A.J. Burnett's (short) history of pitching on three days rest and examines the rise of Damaso Marte.

Joel Sherman compares Johnny Damon's at bat against Brad Lidge last night to Paul O'Neill's in Game 1 of the 2000 World Series. My buddy Joe texted me the same thing during the game last night, but unfortunately you can't link to that.

FanGraphs breaks down the impact (or lack thereof) of replacing Melky Cabrera with Brett Gardner in center. Unfortunately, the time to start Melky over Gardner would be a game like tonight with a dominant left handed starter on the mound. Whether or not Melky is only out for tonight remains to be seen.

Chris Jaffe at the Hardball Times takes a historical look at the teams that have faced a 3-1 hole in a best-of-seven World Series.

Big League Stew looks back at what things were like the last time the Yankees won a Fall Classic.

Also from The Stew: And you thought Jimmy Rollins was being presumptuous...

John Dewan handed out his Fielding Bible Awards today.

And finally, if you were watching FOX when the broadcast first started up last night around 8:00, you were treated to one of the most contrived promotions of all time. They showed a mash-up of highlights from the World Series alongside clips from Avatar, the new semi-animated James Cameron movie that doesn't come out until the middle of December.

I noticed this as it was happening and wondered why they thought it was a good idea to use a movie that no one had seen to promote a game. How could you miss the undeniable parallels between this epic movie and the compelling series that was taking place? Oh, probably because no one has fucking seen the movie yet. Nice job, FOX.

Odds & Ends From Last Night

Good morning, Fackers. There were some incredible moments in last night's game that ranged from brutal to ecstatic. We covered the latter in the recap focusing on the 9th inning last night early this morning, but still wanted to talk about some of the events that set the stage for the dramatic conclusion.

• If I didn't know any better, I'd say that Joe Blanton hit A-Rod on purpose in the first inning. Joe Blanton has hit just 26 batters in over 1000 career innings pitched. It just so happens he nails the Yanks' best hitter on the first pitch he throws to him? There certainly was an edge to be gained. The Phillies had gotten in CC Sabathia's head (not to mention A-Rod's) before the first half inning was over. One misplaced pitched and CC could have been done for the game. Joe Girardi told the media that the umps said they would use their judgment if someone was hit by a pitch, but home plate umpire Mike Everett's judgement left much to be desired last night.
  
  
• Everett's strike zone, especially early in the game, was inconsistent to say the least. In the first inning alone, he called 5 of CC Sabathia's pitches that were clearly inside the strike zone or very close, balls. He also extended the plate outside against left handed hitters a good six inches throughout the night. Joe Blanton struck out 7 Yankees, 4 of them looking. Enough said.
  
  
• In the fourth inning, Everett ruled Ryan Howard safe at home although he never touched the plate. It was a non-issue as he knocked the ball away from Jorge Posada and the Yankees never tagged him, but Everett was right on top of the play and had no excuse to miss it.
  
  
• Chase Utley made a costly mistake on defense in the 5th inning (but made up for it at the plate later). Going to a double play instead of a sure force out on a grounder up the middle by Melky Cabrera, Utley attempted to flip the ball to Jimmy Rollins, but instead threw it straight up in the air and the runners were safe. It was scored a single, but it was obvious that he had the out at second and was getting greedy.
  
  
• This brought up Sabathia with runners on first and second with no one out. Joe Girardi asked him to bunt. I'm guessing he was trying to stay out of the double play, which is semi-defensible, but Joe still had CC bunting with two strikes. With a pitcher who hits as well as Sabathia (and bunts as poorly) at the plate with the infield playing in, it was a very poor decision.
  
  
• In the bottom half of the 5th, CC gave up a single to Jimmy Rollins and a walk to Shane Victorino before recording an out. The heart of the Phillies' order was looming but Sabathia induced pop outs from Chase Utley and Ryan Howard and struck out Jayson Werth swinging to escape unscathed.
  
  
• Sabathia was awfully close to equaling the 7 innings of two run ball he threw in Game 1 when the Chase Utley stepped to the plate with two outs in the 7th. With an RBI double against CC earlier in the evening and two home runs off of him in Game 1, Utley again hurt the Big Fella. It was a 1-2 slider that hung up in the strike zone which Utley hammered to right field for a solo homer. As well as Utley had hit Sabathia and with Damaso Marte ready to go out of the 'pen, I think the only reason Girardi didn't pull Sabathia is because there was no one on base.
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• Melky Cabrera left the game with a strained hamstring after trying to beat out a groundball to first base. It's likely that Melky is done for the Series and the Yanks may make a roster move such as recalling Freddy Guzman to replace Brett Gardner as a pinch runner off the bench. Melky played pretty well this postseason and no one wants to see a player get injured, but if you had to pick a starting position player, he would be the easy choice.
  
  
• Joba Chamberlain was very nearly the goat of the game. After CC Sabathia and Damaso Marte finished off the 7th inning Joba struck out Jayson Werth and Raul Ibanez swinging. He had Pedro Feliz down 1-2, but let him back to 3-2, and on the payoff pitch Feliz belted a line drive home run to left field. For the second time in two innings the Yanks had the Phillies down to their last strike but gave up solo homers. It tied to game at the time at 4 and things looked grim for the Yanks. Joba came back to strikeout Carlos Ruiz to end the inning but was visibly torn up in the dugout. After the Yanks rallied in the 9th, the cameras showed him thanking his teammates.
  
  
• The crowd in Philly upheld it's sterling reputation by chanting at various times "Yankees suck", "Derek Jeter sucks", "CC Sucks" among others, typically at point when the Phillies were losing.
  
  
• Speaking of the crowd, Citizens Bank Park was just as quiet as Yankee Stadium at various times. Jimmy Rollins' contention that it would sound more like a World Series at the games in Philly is partially true, but when their team is losing a pivotal game in the World Series, fans aren't going to be very loud.
  
  
• Speaking of partially true things said by Jimmy Rollins, he might have predicted the series length correctly, he just had the wrong team.

Quotes From Last Night: Game 2 Edition

Presented without comment. Please react in the comments as you see fit:

Jerry Davis (in reference to Brian Gorman's call on Ryan Howard's play in the 7th): "The objective is to get it right, we asked each other what we had seen and the replay confirmed we got it right"

Ryan Howard: “Did I catch it? Well, they called him out. [winks]”

Dave Cameron: The first two Jeter bunt attempts will be criticized by members of the statistical community as part of the reflexive don’t-bunt-ever strategy that has gained too much popularity, but they were the right play. The two-strike bunt attempt really was a bad idea (the additional cost of a foul turning into an out reduces the odds enough to make swinging away more likely to produce a single run, which was the original goal), but the first two stabs at it, Jeter was making the right play.

Jimmy Rollins (via The Fightins): "I was expecting some of that [Philadelphia rowdiness] here, but it was very tame and civilized, really. "You only had one big cheer, and that was on home runs."

Rollins was asked if this feels "more like a World Series" than last year's Series with Tampa Bay.

"When we get to Philly, it will," he said. Because the atmosphere will be so different? "Exactly."

Ken Rosenthal: Is it too late to reopen the old Yankee Stadium one more time?

Pedro Martinez was in the house Thursday night — Pedro Martinez, the old Boston devil. The crowd of 50,181 mustered a few spontaneous, "Who's your daddy?" chants. But more often than not, the fans needed a prompt from the stadium organ to get going.

Bob Raissman: Wonder how they felt about Fox's Tim McCarver and Joe Buck basically saying the joint had all the audio ambiance of a morgue. The voices were not talking about the building's acoustics. During Game 2 of World Series Thursday night, they were talking about Yankee fans (at least the ones who can still afford a ticket) who checked their mouths at the door.

John Gonzalez, Philly Inquirer: Scariest looking guy in the entire park, though, was A.J. Burnett. When did he remember how to pitch?

I got a text from my buddy Fearce before the eighth inning that pretty much summed up what I was thinking: "I don't know what to do when I can't really complain about bad calls or the announcers hating Philly. Feels weird."

Charlie Manuel: "We can hit Rivera. We've proved that. He's good. He's one of the best closers in baseball, if not the best. He's very good. But I've seen our team handle good pitching, and we're definitely capable of scoring runs late in the game."

Pedro Martinez (via The 700 Level): "I didn't feel strong. I've been under the weather the last couple of days. That's not an excuse. I felt good enough to make pitches and that's what I told them and they trusted me. But I was going to take this start. When I chose this team it was to pitch in the World Series. I'm extremely happy to have had the opportunity."

Mitch Williams Is An Idiot

You probably knew that already anyway. If you don't recall as such from his playing days, perhaps you've listened to him trip over his own tongue repeatedly on the MLB Network this year. If not, simply refer to the picture below.

"I cut the sleeves off because it looks awesome, now get your head in the game!"

Last night, after finishing the recap, I checked a few other Yankee sites and had MLBN on in the background. I was only half listening. I noticed that recently DFA'd former Yankee and all-around good guy Tony Clark had joined the studio team - good for him. Combined with Sean Casey, last night's panel had two of the most well-liked Big Leaguers of the past twenty years or so.

But for all the goodwill that The Mayor and Tony the former Tiger can generate, one meandering argument from The Wild Thing ruined it all for me.

I'm not even quite sure what point Williams was trying to make. Maybe that's because I wasn't dedicating my full attention, or maybe it's because Williams hasn't made a lucid argument in his entire time with the fledgling network.

Regardless, the conversation started with the increasingly tiresome AL MVP debate. Williams stated that Mauer is at a disadvantage because he's a catcher and his legs are going to go on him at some point before the season's over. Except then Mitch said that Mauer is at an advantage because he missed the first month of the season, so he's fresher than he would be. Ok, advantage: push.

Then Derek Jeter came up. And Mitch made some point about batting average being an overvalued statistic. "Wow," I thought, "Mitch Williams is making a salient point."

Then Mitch took a turn for the inane. For some reason, Williams started comparing Jeter to Jimmy Rollins, who while a shortstop, plays in an entirely different league - so I'm not quite sure what any of it had to do with the AL MVP discussion.

That said, Williams, again emphasizing that batting average is an overvalued statistic, illustrated this by pointing out that despite a cavernous gap between them in batting average, Jimmy Rollins has 10 more doubles than Derek Jeter and has a fielding percentage that is superior by .007. End of story.

Well that's just great Mitch. Now let's finish the discussion. A .007 advantage in fielding percentage is nearly meaningless. The average Major League shortstop last year fielded 728 chances. A .007 difference in fielding percentage means that over the course of a season Rollins would turn roughly five more chances into outs. Five. That's less than one per month over the course of the season.

Of course, since Mitch is so plugged in to which stats are overvalued, he probably knows that fielding percentage is not a very accurate method of measuring a player's defensive value. A more advanced metric would be UZR/150. Now there's no denying that over the course of their respective careers, Jimmy Rollins has been a much, much, much better defensive player than Derek Jeter, holding a career edge in UZR/150 of 10.2 runs. However, this year, Derek Jeter's UZR/150 is 6.8 as opposed to Rollins' 5.9. So for 2009 at least, advantage Jeter.

How about offense? Well yes Mitch, Rollins does have a whopping 10 double lead. How about the other three types of hits a batter can get? 2009 slugging percentage Jimmy Rollins: .415. 2009 slugging percentage Derek Jeter: .482. And before anyone mentions a word about the new Yankee Stadium, let's remember that Citizens Bank Park is also very hitter friendly. Its one year park factors (102/101) are only slightly less offensive than Yankee Stadium's (103/103), and its multiyear factors (103/102) are nearly identical to how the Stadium has played in its brief history.

But, offense is more than just doubles. As Mitch knows, batting average is overrated. On base percentage is probably the best single measure of offensive value. 2009 OBP Rollins: .290. 2009 OBP Jeter: .398. Huge, huge, huge advantage Jeter. Both men bat leadoff. Over the course of a full season, Jeter will be on base roughly 83 more times based on their current OBPs. Jimmy Rollins' OBP is the absolute lowest of any Major Leaguer with at least 450 plate appearances this year. There are but six American Leaguers with a better OBP than Jeter.

How about something really advanced and all-encompassing: 2009 Wins Above Replacement Rollins: 1.8. 2009 Wins Above Replacement Jeter: 5.9. Once again, huge advantage Jeter. He's been worth more than three times as much to his team this year.

I'm not trying to bag on Jimmy Rollins. I'm not trying to suggest that Jeter is or isn't the AL MVP. But I am absolutely stupefied as to what point Mitch Williams was trying to make. That Joe Mauer has legs? That Jeter's not the MVP? That Jeter hits for average and that's all he's good for? That Jimmy Rollins isn't having an absolutely abysmal season? I don't know. I'm not sure Mitch knows. But, by virtue of his employment at MLBN, the guy is supposed to be a national authority on the sport. Whatever point he was trying to make, it was poorly, poorly constructed and its delivery was even worse.

In summary:
Joe Mauer's legs = a blessing and a curse, he may want to hedge his bets and cut one off
Batting average = overrated
Doubles = underrated
Fielding percentage = just right
UZR/150, OBP, WAR = non-existent
Mitch Williams = rivaling John Kruk for dumbest '93 Phillie turned analyst