Game 94: Flashing Lights

In the three years my two friends and I had our Yankees Saturday package, we were only in our seats one time when the first pitch was thrown. The trek typically began from my apartment on the Upper West Side and it's tough to get three hungover dudes up, showered, out the door, on the subway, through the turnstiles, up into the upper deck in time for a 1:00pm start. We never left before the game ended, we just had real issues with getting there on time.

But August 4th, 2007, we decided we absolutely had be seated in Section 7, Row M, seats 15-17 before Phil Hughes through his first pitch. We took it somewhat easy the night before, got up early, ate breakfast and hopped on the train by noon. We were milling around outside the stadium at 12:45 and were in line to get beers when the National Anthem came on. It was a balmy summer day, probably near 90, and I remember removing my hat and listening to the recording play as the line momentarily stood still.

Phil Hughes worked a 1-2-3 first inning and after Derek Jeter singled and Bobby Abreu drew a walk, Alex Rodriguez came to the plate looking for his 500th career home run. This was the one and only reason we had been anxious to get there early - the chance that he came to the plate in the first inning.

He had gone eight games since his last homer and each night, what stood out - as it did during Jeter's pursuit of Gehrig - were the countless camera flashes that would go off when he was at the plate. Although the electricity surrounding each at bat - both literally and figuratively - had diminished by that Saturday afternoon, there was still a palpable sense of anticipation in the stands.

It wasn't there for long, because on the first pitch off of Kyle Davies, he launched a high, hooking drive right down the left field line. A-Rod was leaning on his right side, staring at the ball through his sunglasses to see if it would stay fair, but from our perfectly positioned seats, it was already obvious that it was gone.

As Joe Posnanski beautifully detailed earlier today, the milestone home run numbers have lost much of their luster over the past 20 or so years, but it didn't feel like it to us at that point. Just by shear luck, that homer came on a Saturday home game and we had the chance to witness something that, even though it's less rare than it used to be, still doesn't happen very often.

Just under two years, ninety-nine homers and some image-shattering PED revelations later, A-Rod is on the cusp of another big, round number. He hit his first Major League homer against the Royals and his 499th, 500th and 599th against them too. He has three homers in 10 plate appearances (seven ABs) against tonight's starter, Brian Bannister. He will be facing Davies - the man who served up #500 - tomorrow and Anthony "career 2.6HR/9IP" Lerew on Sunday. Perhaps his search for 600 will drag on like the quest for 500 did, but it seems likely that he'll pull it off sometime this weekend. If he does it tonight, you can be sure it will happen under plenty of flashing lights.

As you recall, you know I love to show off,
But you never thought that I would take it this far,
What do you know? Flashing lights, lights,
What do you know? Flashing lights, lights.

Yankee Lineup:

Brett Gardner LF
Derek Jeter SS
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Jorge Posada DH
Curtis Granderson CF
Francisco Cervelli C
Colin Curtis RF

RHP A.J. Burnett

A.J. Burnett RHP

Thursday Afternoon Linkarooski

Like seemingly everyone on the Yankees, these links are day-to-day.

A recent calculation by Forbes determined that the Yankees have the most valuable brand of any sports franchise in the world. At least internationally, I think this has more to do with this association with New York than their history as a baseball team.

I'm sure others who have traveled abroad have had the similar experiences, but I've talked to a good amount of people in counties like China and South Africa who were wearing caps with the interlocking NY and had no idea what the Yankees even were. To them, the hat stands for New York City and not the Yankees as a baseball team.

On Monday, Curtis Granderson wrote about his road to recovery - which included a case of strep throat - at Big League Stew.

Thanks to everybody who sent this one in: the NC State baseball team's media guide had a fantastic misspelling of "Wolfpack" that us Fackers were all too happy to see.

Apparently Matt Garza hasn't stopped being a complete cock between last July and now.

Still down about last night's loss? The first comment on this page should cheer you up.

Both Larry from the Yankeeist and frequent commenter Jimmy suggested the same thing this morning: moving Derek Jeter out of the lead off spot. As Matt said in the comments, it wouldn't be worth the media backlash and given how many balls Jeter has hit on the ground, particularly to short, he would be on a record setting pace for double plays this year.

So it appears that Josh Beckett is really hurt, unless putting him on the 15 day DL is just another part of the Red Sox elaborate ruse.

The Yankees are purportedly interested in Yunesky Maya, a 28 year old, right handed Cuban pitcher who has recently been unblocked after defecting nine months ago.

Ross from NYYSI discovers the seedy underbelly of Yankee Stadium's Bat Day.

Here's a puff piece from USA Today about George Steinbrenner and his contributions to the city of Tampa.

Joe Posnanski wrote a post explaining his contention that it's "just barely above possible" that Derek Jeter will break Pete Rose's hit record and then made some more predictions about which career numbers players including A-Rod, CC Sabathia and Mariano Rivera will reach.

The WSJ says that Rivera is the best Yankee pitcher of all time. I don't agree with their methodology because Mo has a distinct advantage in categories like ERA and I'm not sure how they are isolating his "impact on attendance", but it's hard to argue with their conclusion. Mo is the man.

By now you know that Hanely Ramirez was benched for jogging after a ball that he booted into left field and was back in the lineup last night after apologizing to his team. Morgan Ensberg took him to task for it, David Ortiz told him to apologize, Bert Blyleven thinks how he dealt with it in the media was the real problem, and Posnanski mined some comments from his readers who imagined what Derek Jeter would have done in that situation, such as:

Jeter wouldn’t have chased the ball. The ball would have chased Jeter.

Plenty of words have been spilled about Ramriez think already, and it's basically over, but very quickly, I think it's kind of amazing amazing that we expect athletes to give maximum effort (or at least act like they are) on every single play, and for the most part, they do. We are imperfect as humans but we are capable of trying pretty damn hard.

Theo Epstein went to a Pearl Jam concert during a Red Sox game. Wearing a disguise. No big deal, Matt did the same thing when he saw them in Hartford. Gotta find a way to deflect all the attention from the roving hoards of Fack Youk Floozies, you know?

Ryan Wilkins explored what exactly the addition of historical WAR to Baseball-Reference.com means for the future of baseball history.

Angel Pagan hit and inside the park homer and started a triple play yesterday. And the Mets still lost.

Dave Cameron wonders why the respect for Ken Griffey Jr. is a one way street.

Ultimate Zone Rating just got a facelift. Over at FanGraphs, MGL lays out the updated primer and David Appelman announces the introduction of home/road splits for UZR (which unfortunately will be a small sample size minefield and probably only useful for outfielders).

Carson Cistulli's series at FanGraphs rolls on with Why Tommy Bennett Writes. It's both incredibly well-written and a veritable tour de force in one downsmanship. Here is Will Leitch's installment as well.

Bronx Native Randy Ruiz has been released by the Blue Jays and is heading straight for Japan.

Ben Jacobs from THT was at the game Stephen Strasburg started against the Rochester Red Wings last night and wrote about the phenom's performance.

Friday Grab Bag

Good morning, Fackers. I hope Brain Hoch is right and the Yankees are in fact picking up their bats when they come back to New York.

Ben Kabak from River Ave. Blues made an appearance on the Bloomberg Sports podcast to talk about the site, along with the minor league system, Austin Jackson, Joba's ceiling and more. It's about 15 minutes long and quite enjoyable. LISTEN TO IT.

Mike from The Yankeeist ties a bow around his trip to Detroit.

Is an article with effusive praise for Phil Hughes enough to get you to read Mike Lupica? Nah, probably not...

But over at the WSJ, Scott Cacciola wrote a nice feature on Hughes and some of the things that have helped him be successful this year. Greg Fertel from Pending Pinstripes gets more specific, looking at Hughes' fantastic fastball.

On the same day that Matt from TYU suggested another way to look at how effective pitchers are (runs per 100 pitches), Beyond the Box Score ranked the best pitchers of all time according to Wins Above Replacement per 200 innings pitched. Can you guess the best starter and reliever? Massive hint: both were in the World Series last year.

When you combine all five teams' records, the AL East is 16 games over .500 this year, best in the league by 7 games. Sean Forman at the Bats Blog looks at how the balance of power has shifted to different divisions in recent years.

Mike Ashmore, who does an excellent job of covering the Trenton Thunder, wrote an excellent piece about Alan Horne beginning to recover from the surgery that sought to repair an 80% tear in his rotator cuff. He's receiving Platelet-Rich Plasma treatments and hopes that they will help him heal more fully. Horne is 27 and no longer a prospect, but there are plenty of guys who don't make their Major League debut until they are in their late 20's or 30's and can still have good careers.

When they weren't totally nicking our hooks, Bronx Banter had two excellent interviews this week - one with Dayn Perry and one with Josh Wilker - about their upcoming books.

What do Jonah Keri and Marlo Stanfield have in common? Their names both ring out in the streets. Except I don't think Jonah had to hand out money for it to happen.

The 193 acre farm that contains the Field of Dreams is up for sale. Here are the particulars of the property.

The Sports Hernia comes up with a worthy sequel to my favorite SH post ever.

Craig Calcaterra doesn't use too many tags, but when he does, they are downright awesome.

I'm with Bengie Molina here and I think it's excellent that athletes can use blogging to defend themselves against other, larger forms of media. This is the first post of Molina's I've read and while he's not quite Morgan Ensberg on the keyboard, he did a great job of making his point and staying on the high road, something that's not easy to do if you feel you've been offended personally.

They ah makin' it hah-dah to pahk you-ah cah around Fenway Pahk. WHAT THE FACK!?1/!

I don't listen to WFAN so I had no idea about former New York Football Giant Brad Bensen's ridiculous radio ads until this post on Deadspin highlighted them.

Can someone tell Will Leitch to cinch up his tie?

Now that his daughters are watching the show religiously, Joe Posnanski breaks out a bunch of obscure facts about Gilligan's Island. The show was obviously way before my time but I used to get up early when I was in grade school and watch the reruns before the bus picked me up. The episodes are all pretty much self-contained and the only thing you have to know going is conveyed to you by the theme song. It's right up there with Scooby Doo and House as the most formulaic television show of all time, but when you're 9 years old that only serves to make it easier to understand and enjoy.

And finally, here is a video of an octopus killing a shark. To be fair, Spiny Dogfish Sharks aren't exactly the kings of the ocean and the Giant Pacific Octopus is rather massive, but it's still pretty crazy to watch. The narrator almost ruins it so I suggest that you mute it and skip to the 1:30 mark.

Remembering Ernie Harwell

Good morning Fackers. Pope Paul VI died on August 6, 1978. Phil Rizzuto was calling the Yankee game that night, and delivered the news as only he could: "Well, that kind of puts a damper on even a Yankee win".

I thought of that story last night for two reasons. First, because Rizzuto's sentiments about the passing of the pope 32 years ago are an apt expression of my feelings in the wake of Ernie Harwell's passing at 92 last night. And secondly, because Rizzuto, who we lost nearly three years ago now, was as beloved by Yankee fans as Harwell was by Tiger fans. Such announcers are literally a dying breed, and so long as the Yankees continue to employ the likes of Michael Kay and John Sterling as the voices of the team, we won't ever again have the luxury of such a beloved announcer.

I touched upon Harwell briefly last September, when he announced that he had inoperable bile duct cancer and just months to live. As a Yankee-centric baseball fan, I'm having a tough time putting my finger on why it is that the passing of Harwell, who had no ties to the Yankees, is registering with me. I have virtually no connection to him. I barely recall listening to him at all during his broadcasting days. I know I read one of his books when I was younger, and I remember liking it a lot, but not enough to remember which one of his works that it was.

But as the reactions to Harwell's passing pour in from around baseball and blogosphere, I suppose I'm not alone in my sentiments. There are several others out there, who like me, have little or no connection to Harwell, but who are nonetheless saddened by his passing. Harwell was as good an ambassador as the game has ever had, a humble and dignified man throughout his career, and over the past several months, in the face of his impending death, spent his time doing more to console those who would mourn him than he did thinking about himself.

As I thought about this last night, with the Yankees post-game show on in the background, Joe Girardi held his post-game session with the media. There, Kim Jones asked Girardi for some thoughts on Harwell. It was only then that Girardi found out the news, and he became somewhat emotional as he shared his limited memories of Harwell. I suppose that's as representative a reaction as any: someone with no specific ties to Harwell, but with ties to the game of baseball, understands that the game has suffered a significant loss.

Here are far more poignant remembrances of Harwell:

An extensive obituary by John Lowe of the Detroit Free Press

A remembrance by our friend Craig Calcaterra of Hardball Talk, who grew up in Michigan, falling asleep to the sound of Harwell's voice.

Joe Posnanski re-runs his Sports Illustrated piece on Harwell from last September

Rob Neyer met Harwell just once, just over ten years ago

Larry from Wezen-ball digs up an article that Harwell wrote for Baseball Digest about Ty Cobb and the manager who discovered him.

Tyler Kepner of the New York Times excerpts Harwell's famed Cooperstown speech from 1981, when he was given the Ford C. Frick Award.

CYC does Kepner one better, reprinting the speech in its entirety.

'Duk at Big League Stew says it best: Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Levi Stubbs, and Marvin Gaye can step aside. Harwell had Motown's sweetest voice.

Jason at IIATMS

Bleacher Report's Tim Cary recalls growing up to the voice of Harwell

Sam Walter Foss' "House By The Side of the Road", the poem that helped a young Harwell overcome his stuttering problem. He would later pepper his broadcasts with references to the poem, and the line that closes four of the poem's five stanzas seems to have been a mantra for Ernie:

Let me live in a house by the side of the road,
And be a friend to man.

We'll leave you with this video, from Harwell's night at Comerica Park last September.

Monday Afternoon Linkdown

Yesterday was International Penguin Day. Here are some fun facts on the fat, feathered fackers that you might not have been aware of.

On to our regularly scheduled linkification:

Happy 93rd birthday to the oldest living former Yankee, Virgil Trucks.

The numbers say that Andy Pettitte is off to the best start of his career.

On the day when the Yankees are scheduled for a visit to the White House, Lisa Swan at Subway Squawkers asks why the 1996 Yankees never made that trip.

Ryan Howard just got PAID to the tune of 5 years, $125M. The deal also contains a $23M option for 2017 with a $10M(!!) buyout. It's questionable whether Howard will be worth what he's making this year, let alone five or six years from now. But don't worry, Jon Heyman thinks it's a good deal. That sound you are hearing? Albert Puljos' stock entering the mesosphere.

Javier Vazquez ≠ Chien-Ming Wang. And making that comparison shows that you have an astonishingly short memory or a stunning lack of perspective. After three games in 2009, Chien-Ming Wang had given up 23 runs in 6 innings and had an ERA of 34.50. Opponents were hitting .622/.667/.1026 off of him. By contrast, through four starts, Vazquez has given up 20 runs in 20 innings and an opponents line of .309/.398/.580. Granted, that's pretty terrible, but it's not in the same multiverse of suckitude as Wang was last year.

EJ from TYU took a look at Yanks prospect Graham Stoneburner and attempted to establish some standard criteria by which we can evaluate minor league pitchers.

Christian Garcia underwent Tommy John Surgery and will be attempting to recover from it for the second time. As Matt said when the news of Garcia's injury first broke, the could be the final blow to his career, but if all goes well he should be back on the mound next May.

The Hardball Times started up a new Twitter feed for the sole purpose of linking to interesting baseball writing all over the web. I'm guessing it will be pretty similar to kind of stuff you can find in these link dumps.

Joe Posnanski wrote a characteristically thorough and interesting take on why it's easy for people to hate A-Rod.

Richard Sandomir writes explores the history of the theme songs of the Mets and the Yankees, Meet the Mets and Empire State of Mind. Oh, I'm sorry, is that not the Yankees official song?

This has been linked far and wide, but for posterity's sake, here is Flip Flop Fly Ball's graphical interpretation on A-Rod's spat with Dallas Braden.

A few current and former players have weighed the War of Rodriguez & Braden. Tim Hudson and Chipper Jones called it "silly" and "childish" while David Wells went in the opposite direction, calling A-Rod full of shit. Bronson Arroyo (of all people) said he "wouldn't think twice" about A-Rod running over the mound and Morgan Ensberg called Braden's tantrum a "full blown loss of mind". (h/t to Lisa for some of the links)

Speaking of Mr. Ensberg, he and Tom Tango had an interesting conversation about players' arbitration clocks and some of the differences between the way the NHL and MLB handle contract buyouts and service time (among other topics).

The Wall Street Journal used some of Larry's data and ganked his idea without linking back to him, but they did make the sweet graphic above, averaging the Yankees' home run trot times.

Greg Fertel explains why pinch hitting for Nick Johnson is not a good idea.

They're a bit outdated by now, but Kevin Dame at THT created some visuals illustrating the performance of the rotations of the AL East teams.

Consternation from Red Sox Nation. Is there a more enjoyable combination?

Harvey Araton wrote a piece for the NYT about the "elegance" of Marino Rivera that has no business being in the sports section because it focuses mostly on his role as a male model for Canali.

If you spent a good amount of the weekend listening to Gang Starr, you might want to check out the piece that Guru's brother - who happens to be a drama professor at Stanford - wrote about him for the Boston Globe. D.J. Premier also made a mix in memory of the man.

In addition to penning his L.A. Times obit and a piece that aired on NPR embedded below (click through if you are reading via RSS), Oliver Wang from Soul Sides put together an appreciation of Guru's work on his blog. Even if you aren't a fan, checking out any of these pieces should give you a healthy respect for the man's work.

That's it for us today. Catch you folks in the morning.

Off Day Linkaround

Make of the above picture what you will. Use your imagination. Create a caption if you'd like.

Now, from elsewhere in the intertubes:

How should Curtis Granderson reply to his first roll call when he takes the field tomorrow? Here's your chance to tell him yourself.

Greg at Pending Pinstripes took a numerical look at the Gardner and Thames platoon in left field. One of them came out slightly ahead but you're going to have to click through to find out who.

'Duk over at Big League Stew doesn't care for the Yankees' complaining about Evan Longoria's catwalk single yesterday. He says (somewhat tongue-in-cheek):

But if the Yankees really don't like the rule, then let them pay for the new Rays ballpark that St. Petersburg-area taxpayers don't seem interested in footing.

How about we let them play at lovely George M. Steinbrenner Field instead? Then they might actually sell some games out!

After he pretty much blew the game yesterday, DRays Bay defends the use of Randy Choate, citing his high groundball rates and the opportunity for a double play with Jorge Posada at the plate. Good idea, really bad execution.

Our buddy Ross discussed a few of the changes that have been made to the Stadium over the winter.

Joe Posnanski dove into the pace of play issue, and it turns out that Yanks/Sox battles are even longer than the article in Business Week said, averaging 3:39 last year. The post is packed with interesting numbers and other nuggets.

On Saturday, Ben from River Ave Blues explained how the City was able to save part of Gate 2. Also via Mr. Kabak, here are some pictures of the famous Joe DiMaggio quote on the outside of the Stadium crumbling to the ground. Ouch.

Bonus points to the person who can find the most factual errors in this post.

The Blue Jays (you know, the team we all picked to finish last in the AL East) are leading the division. If you need to be reminded why they doesn't matter, Joe Pawlikowski will set you straight at FanGraphs.

The hilarious DJ Gallo rounds up the best and worst MLB stadium giveaways of 2010. Was anyone at Citi Field on Saturday to snatch up a fabulous free Mets scarf??!?!

David Pinto notes that compared to the first week of the 2009 season, offense this year is slightly lower. The reason? Teams have hit 30 points lower with runners in scoring position.

Excellent news: FanGraphs now has John Dewan's +/- and the Hardball Times Revised Zone Ratings freely available on their site. Although they are all imperfect, the more defensive ratings we have, the closer we will be to accurately determining as player's defensive skill level.

At The Hardball Times, JT Jordan looks at the differences between UZR and +/- and there is considerable disagreement. Mark Teixeira is one of the players who scores high on Dewan's system but low on UZR. FanGraphs looks at the differentials, how else, graphically.

Also at THT, Matt Lentzner interviewed Morgan Ensberg about some of the finer points of hitting in the Big Leagues.

Torii Hunter gave Hideki Matsui a new nickname, which combines his old one dating back to Japan with the roundabout name of his new team.

Drunk Jays Fans put together a guide to attending Opening Day at the Rogers Centre. Even if you're not going to be there today, it's worth reading for A) DJF's usual vulgar levity and B) tips that you can use any day of the year.

That's about it for us today. We'll leave you with a smooth jazz adaptation of Mariano Rivera's entrance song. You won't know whether to be psyched or soothed.

Humpday Linkaround

This links came up a little short, kind of like Nick Johnson trying to leg out a double last night:

Ben from River Ave. Blues joined Cliff and Alex from Bronx Banter to do a video preview of the 2009 season. The first part (about pitching) is here, the second one (focusing on the offense) is here and the final installment (concerning the competition) is here.

Two of the characters from that series (Cliff and Ben) join Steve Lombardi from Was Watching and Justin Sablich of the New York Times for part one of a written preview over on their dot com.

Good news: Mark Teixeira is scheduled to take batting practice today.

Mike over at The Yankeeist has rounded up the Spring Training stats for both hitters and pitchers. Nothing to get worked up about - we'll have plenty of time to make a big deal out of small sample sizes when the regular season starts - just something interesting to scan over.

Joe from River Ave. Blues cranked out some excellent pieces yesterday including this one on the delicate balance the front office has to find between winning now, winning later and appeasing the media and this one that looks at the back up plans for each position.

The Yanks are set to spend 16 times more than the Blue Jays on their starting rotation this year. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, but that's like, a lot.

I should have done this a while ago, but if you'd like to thank Tom Tango for the excellent sabermetric work he's done over the years, head over here and fill out a playing time forecast for the Yanks. Somehow, they are pretty underrepresented at this point and it doesn't take long to do. If you feel like you are familiar enough with another team, do one for them too.

Add Mike Cameron to the list of Red Sox who is inahguably nawt appreciated for his true talents. When will the rest of the country finally acknowledge the players in Boston for their incredible production and work ethic? It's borderline criminal!

Joe Posnanski is asking for help in selecting players for the Bad Baseball Hall of Fame and the nominations are rolling in. The cut offs are 462 1/3 IP for pitchers and 843 PAs for hitters. Any Yankees come to mind?

Ross from NYY Stadium Insider has the scoop on an iPhone app called Venuing that will have features specially designed for sporting event and concert experiences. It will be live in Yankee Stadium, Fenway, Citi Field and Citizens Bank Park when each of them opens this season.

Time Warner is now offering a package that will allow you to watch all of the 127 games that YES carries on your computer, provided you are in the Yanks' market. I'm sure there are some select circumstances where this would be convenient (you don't have cable, but do have high speed internet, etc), but for most of us it doesn't apply. It does, however, illustrate why MLB.tv is blacked out within local areas - because cable companies want the opportunity to charge people themselves. If there was one price people could pay to watch any game, anywhere, these subscription services would be a lot more popular. Not that I'm going to hold my breath for it...

Will Leitch did an excellent review of the movie Fantasyland for New York Magazine's website. I hadn't heard much about the movie before but I definitely want to see it now.

Man, the Mariners have some good advertising and promohshonz.

Finally, I'm not sure if this guy is still taking emails, but if you left a briefcase with $78,383 on the Lower East Side the other day, you might want to claim that.

Maybe you could use some of it to buy a piece of Yankees/television memorabilia.

That's it for now. Our AL East Q&A's roll on at noon.

Posnanski Ponders Prospect Promotion

As consumers of sports writing, we are extremely lucky to be living during the Joe Posnanski era. At no other point during the history of athletic journalism has there been A) a professional sports writer willing to write thousands of words on top of their weekly quotas simply for the enjoyment of it and B) a way for the public to access those words for free. It's not just the volume at which he produces content, but Poz's posts are overflowing with interesting nuggets. To wit, here's a tangent that he went off on while talking about the Nationals' plan to start Stephen Strasburg in the minor leagues this year.

On the other hand — well, I haven’t thought out the following too deeply. But I do sometimes wonder if “not rushing top prospects” is kind of safe, conventional thinking, the same sort of safe, conventional thinking that causes football coaches to punt on fourth down and short. In other words, I sometimes wonder if people don’t rush great prospects like Strasburg because it SOUNDS safer rather than because it IS safer.

[...]

I do sometimes wonder if one way to think out of the box is to really push prospects, especially advanced prospects, much faster than teams are doing it now. Sure, every GM and scout around can tell you horror story after horror story about players who came up too soon and were ruined because of it. But we don’t really know if those players would have succeeded had they been treated more carefully … maybe they were just lacking the talent or the work ethic or whatever. We can't really know.

In between those two paragraphs, Posnanski gives the example of Bob Feller who, although he was thrust into the Majors at 17 years old and walked more than 6 batters per 9 innings during his first three seasons, eventually figured it out and went on to have a great career.

The transition from the minor leagues into the Majors is one of the more delicate dances performed in sports, in both directions. So the sayings go, you don't want to bring a guy up "before he's ready" and you don't want to send a guy down when he has "nothing left to prove". Of course, the decisions are clouded with enormous amounts of luck. We've seen marginal players burst onto the scene and future Hall of Famers stumble out of the gate (there are some managers mixed in to that list, but you get the idea).

Look at Ramiro Pena and Francisco Cervelli, neither of whom had played above AA before getting called up to the Yankees. Neither of them hit the cover off the ball with the MLB team, but they made representative efforts at the plate (Pena actually improved on his minor league numbers) and shined defensively. These are just anecdotal examples with small sample sizes, but it goes to show that calling up a player "too early" isn't necessarily destined to fail.

In other sports and at other times in life, we are told that we benefit from increased competition. Perhaps we are put on a project at our job that pushes the boundaries of what we thought we were capable of and do some of our best work on it. Personally, I tend to play better golf when I'm paired with three other guys who shoot in the 70's than when I'm out with a few of my buddies who only break 100 on a good day. Does your performance on the basketball court improve when facing better competition? Again, not perfect examples, but just some things to consider.

The problem is that there are no alternative universes in which we can test these theories. You either go with Plan A or Plan B and get judged by the results. You don't have multiple Joba Chamberlains, one of which you could have kept in AAA to work on his starting repertoire in 2007 and 2008 and the other you could have brought up to the Major League bullpen to help the team in '07.

No team wants to squander a top prospect by doing something that is perceived as risky like rushing him to the Majors. Oh, they'll risk putting him on the wrong path by doing something seemingly conservative like stashing him in the minors for too long, but that's a whole different story.

I think this line of decision making has become de rigueur in sports. Whether it truly makes sense or not, PR plays a large role in many of the decisions that a franchise makes. It's one thing to be wrong when your decisions agree with conventional wisdom, it's an entirely different beast to roll snake eyes when you are bucking the established trends.

The example Posnanski uses about punting on 4th and short is a great one. Coaches are willing to be slightly wrong all of the time instead of being really wrong once in a while and getting lambasted like Bill Belichick did when he went for it on 4th and 2 and failed.

As decision making in sports becomes more and more grounded in logic and analysis, teams have to look to get an edge by finding the places that conventional wisdom might not be correct. Or places that it's generally correct but can be unnecessarily cautious at times in the name of saving face.

Maybe Sky Kalkman's unconventional line up really is better than the usual ones we are used to seeing, but if Joe Girardi trots it out for the first week of the season and the Yanks score three runs a game, he's going to be tarred and feathered by the media. If that happens with a typical batting order, (most sane) people would just chalk it up to bad luck. It would be kind of stupid for Girardi to stick his neck out that far simply on a self-preservation level.

Sure, there are plenty of factors that might keep a great prospect in the minors, like the cost of starting their arbitration clock and finding the right place for them on the team, but I agree with Poz's hunch that teams might be wasting some quality production in the minors by being too conservative with the timing of their call ups. Maybe that seemingly premature call up is a springboard to a better career. Perhaps it ends in failure, frustration and a demotion back to AAA. But there's only one way to find out.

Starting Kyle Farnsworth

Everyone's least favorite former Yankee, Kyle Farnsworth, hasn't started a game since the second half of a double header on April 22, 2000. However, that's not stopping the coaching staff at Kansas City from giving him a shot at the rotation in spring training (h/t CTB Hardball Talk):

"Kyle Farnsworth is competing for a job in the rotation," pitching coach Bob McClure revealed Wednesday.

"We're going to lengthen him out and see how it goes," McClure said. "Because what he showed me last year was the ability to back off a little bit and not pitch with his hair on fire. And, to be a starter, you have to be able to just kind of go pitch-by-pitch. [...] Now he's throwing two types of fastballs [two-seam and four-seam], which I think is really going to help him, we had some comments from other teams going, 'When did he start doing that? He should have done that a long time ago.'"

The wisdom of taking advice from your rivals about your own pitchers aside, this seems like a pretty good idea for the Royals. Farnsworth came up through the minor leagues as a starting pitcher and made 26 starts with the Cubs to start his career. Granted, that was 10 years ago and the reason that he was transitioned into the bullpen was that he wasn't an effective starter, but he's at least demonstrated that he was capable of starting in the past.

Farnsworth made $4.5M last year and his ERA as a "set-up man" was 4.48. As Joe Posnanski pointed out last June, Krazy Kyle had a knack - like most of us believed when he was in New York - for giving up runs in crucial spots. We even saw it first hand.

I like the fact that the Royals are trying something that goes against conventional baseball thinking. You can question the level of risk involved with trying to make a 34 year old pitcher who has been relieving for 10 years into a starter, but there's no question Farnsworth has the potential to contribute more value to the team if he can become a member of the rotation.

Who knows if this is going to work out for them. Odds are it probably won't. But unless Farnsworth gets seriously hurt during his attempt to become a starter, what have they really lost? Best case scenario: he throws 100-something innings of league average ball as a starter. Worst case scenario: he gets hurt and can't sabatoge the Royals' bullpen anymore. Everybody wins!

Friday Morning Link Party

This has been by far the slowest week of the offseason around these parts with a slow drip of news and a heavy dose of manual labor keeping me away from my computer. Things will get better soon as we will be dusting off our Countdown to Spring Training via uniform number starting tomorrow morning and running every day through February 16th. The Yanks hurlers and backstops report on the 17th, giving us 26 days and counting until Spring Training begins.

For now, here are some links to propel you towards the weekend.

Our buddy Jason lays out an exhaustive rubric you can use to determine whether you are "new school" or "old school" in your tastes as a baseball fan. I'm somewhere in the middle because I have the most respect for the great players who aren't demonstrative but understand that amount of money that guys are making has changed a lot of aspects of the game.

Javier Vazquez told a Spanish language newspaper in his native Puerto Rico that he doesn't know how much longer he wants to play and might be willing to go year to year with his contracts a la Andy Pettitte. Or at least that's what I'm told. Me Espanol es muy mal. And before you go off the deep end like this guy about it, remember that Pettitte doesn't seem to have lost any of his "desire" over the past couple of years.

Minor league guru John Sickels has some very nice things to say about Jesus Montero. He released them in the hopes that they might get you to buy his book but that doesn't make them any less true. I hope.

The Royals signed Rick Ankiel for $3.25M with a $6M mutual option for next year. Stop it. It's not funny. Okay, it's pretty funny.

If you were wondering why Jason Bay didn't re-sign with the Red Sox, here's why.

Bruce Markusen from the Hardball Times (and Bronx Banter) lists off some of today's best baseball nicknames and then goes back in history position but position to find the all-time greats.

Patrick Sullivan at Baseball Analysts demonstrates to Murray Chass how someone's opinion can matter even if they don't have a Hall of Fame vote.

Beyond the Box Score is continuing their effort to honor the best in statistically-slanted baseball writing with the BtB Sabermetric Awards. There are seven categories to vote on which are sure to contain excellent pieces of analytical baseball thinking that you were not aware of.

Larry from Wezen-Ball earned himself a radio interview as a result of his widely acclaimed Charlie Brown baseball posts. His plot to take over the world continued yesterday with the official release of his iPhone/Android app.

In case you were wondering, Hideki Irabu still retired. For real this time.

And finally a bit of fun non-baseball reading. Joe Posnanski picks apart a bunch of infomercials for your entertainment.

We'll be back with more before the day is done.

Re: Yesterday

There was a lot of interesting discussion here and at Joe Posnanski's blog about Mark McGwire and A-Rod yesterday and since I was away from my computer for the better part of it, I wanted to address a couple of things before we move on.

First, thanks to Joe for responding my post. He's truly one of the good guys - humble and self-effacing in an business whose most successful participants are usually sorely lacking in both traits. There aren't very many writers who would take the time to answer criticism like that and do so with without taking it personally. People say "agree to disagree" often, but it's not easy to concede a point. Especially to someone you don't know over the internet.

While both Craig and Joe used the term "double standard" as a way to describe the difference between Joe's reaction to the two interviews, that was a length I purposely didn't go to in the post. I made sure to mention that I was taking him out of context before I compared the two quotes. Like commenter NaOH, I don't think it makes him hypocritical or duplicitous to have somewhat contradictory reactions to two things I thought were fairly similar. Joe thought they were quite different, which is totally understandable.

Life isn't neat and tidy. There is a whole lot of gray area, particularly when it comes to steroids in sports. People are distributed throughout the continuum in their opinions about how much PEDs help players and how much using them is a violation of the game. And each individual player carries their own set of circumstances. These issues all operate on sliding scales, not on/off switches.

As writers, we try hard to make points and gravitate towards unequivocal terms in doing so. Readers don't want to waste their time reading wishy-washy opinions and writers don't generally waste their time typing up their thoughts on issues that they don't feel strongly about. As a result, there are bound to be any number of contradictions in a person's body of work over the course of time. If anyone cared enough to rummage through my archives, I'm sure there would be plenty of them there as well.

Consistency is largely overrated. The world is in a constant state of flux and while it's popular for politicians to rip each other for waffling, I think we are all better off trying looking at each situation as inherently different instead of assuming everything fits into the same rubric.

The Man Responds

Joe Posnanski took the time to address my previous post about A-Rod & McGwire. Like everything else he writes, it's worth reading.

The Case For Raines

Good morning Fackers. For the most part, the backlash over last week's Hall of Fame voting results has cooled down and everyone has moved on to extracting their pound of flesh from Mark McGwire. But in running down the voting results last week, I made mention that the continued exclusion of Tim Raines and his overall poor showing in the results is the gravest injustice in the ballots. I further stated that the reasons why warranted its own post. This is that post.

Raines, like Bert Blyleven, has become something of rallying cause for the sabermetric community, as he was a tremendously valuable player, for a number of years, whose greatness isn't readily evident when measured by traditional metrics. I think this might be working against Raines. As far as we've come in our understanding of the game, there are still those amongst the voting ranks who have their heads buried in the sand, who are steadfastly against sabermetrics, the blogging community, and anything else that isn't a crusty old remnant of whenever they first cut their teeth in sports writing.

So rather than lay out a bunch of statistical analysis supporting Raines' cause - something that's been done far more eloquently by the likes of Joe Posnanski, Rob Neyer, Jonah Keri, and raines30.com - I'll try to put things in more of a general framework.

Simply put, Tim Raines, with the exception of Rickey Henderson, is the greatest leadoff hitter of all time. He was a machine at getting on base, he was historically successful at stealing bases (both in terms of quantity and success rate), and he scored runs by the boatload. Granted, if Raines was more of a power threat he would have been a three hitter rather than a leadoff hitter. But, batting leadoff is arguably the most important position in the batting order, as it will see the most plate appearances over the course of the season. And Raines' exceptional ability to avoid making outs made him extremely valuable in that role. Furthermore, Raines was not without power. While his home run totals are pedestrian at best, he spent his prime in Olympic Stadium, a very pitcher friendly park. Even so, Raines accumulated lots of doubles and triples - not to mention all the extra bases he stole - and his slugging percentage routinely outpaced the league average.

It's also very important to consider context in which Raines accomplished all of this. Baseball in the 1980s was markedly different than the game we watch today. Cookie-cutter astroturf ballparks permeated the game - particularly in Raines' National League. Power was down - the 49 home runs hit in 1987 both by recent electee Andre Dawson and recent confessor Mark McGwire were the most in baseball between George Foster's 52 in 1977 and Albert Belle's 50 in 1995 Cecil Fielder's 51 in 1990.

The game was built upon speed. Billy Martin's Oakland A's and Whitey Herzog's St. Louis Cardinals attempted steals at will. Herzog's teams, built on speed and defense, were arguably the team of decade, raking in four division titles, three pennants, and a World Series. The style of play permeated the game and players - Raines, Rickey Henderson, Vince Coleman, Willie McGee, Ozzie Smith - ran with reckless abandon.

And that was the problem with that style of play: it was reckless. Teams placed such a premium on speed that human out machines like Alfredo Griffin, Juan Samuel, and Mookie Wilson were given thousands of wasteful plate appearances in the leadoff spot strictly because they were fast. Traces of this philosophy still remain, as Dusty Baker's Reds have spent the last two years getting abyssmal OBP from the leadoff spot just because Corey Patterson and Willie Taveras are fast. When these players did manage to reach base, many of them were caught stealing so frequently that the bushels of stolen bases they accumulated were of little to no value thanks to all the extra outs they cost their teams. But with the right personnel, with the likes of Tim Raines getting on base at a .390 clip and swiping seventy plus bases a year at a jaw dropping 87% success rate, it was a successful and exciting style of play. The problem was, with the exception of Raines' Expos and Henderson's A's and Yankees, teams didn't have the right personnel to make that style of play work.

Baseball, as a game, has changed innumerable times in its 130+ year history. Our understanding of that game has changed and evolved over that time as well. The early Hall of Fame voters were able to understand that the players of the Deadball Era helped their teams win in different ways than the sluggers of the Ruth era. We understand now that top offensive contributions made in the mid to late sixties appear paltry compared to numbers that came before and after, but are no less outstanding when considering the context of the game at the time. We are starting to understand more and more the value of positional adjustments, and how a certain level of offensive production from a player capable of fielding a premium defensive position could be offer more value than a greater level of offensive production from a less important defensive position.

All of these factors come into play when considering Raines' case. Batting leadoff may not be the glamour batting position that the three or four spots are, but it's an extremely important spot. And virtually no one was better at batting in that spot than Tim Raines. Furthermore, he did his damage in an era where the game was placing more focus on the leadoff spot than it ever had before. With any luck, the BBWAA will realize this at some point in the next twelve years.

Hall Of Fame Day

Good morning Fackers. The Hall of Fame voting results will be announced at 1:30 this afternoon; prepare yourselves for tearing of garments, gnashing of teeth, righteous indignation, some variation of stats vs. scouts, and the like.

Much like post-season awards, I can't get too worked up about the Hall of Fame. I think there are people who are in who shouldn't be. I think there are people who aren't who should be. And I think several members of the BBWAA are morons. But it's a museum for all intents and purposes, and I can't get myself too angry over who is enshrined in a museum meant to honor baseball's history. That said, there is one player up for nomination this year who I believe absolutely should be in, and who I believe likely won't get in (again). And if he doesn't get in later today, I'll likely be compelled to share some thoughts on that.

In the meantime, Joe Posnanski published his ballot at Sports Illustrated yesterday, and I urge you to give it a read. Like virtually everything else he authors, the article is long, insightful, and well thought out. You don't have to agree with all of Joe Pos' decisions - I don't - but it's awfully, awfully hard to argue with him. He clearly put a ton of thought into his choices and he offers compelling arguments for or against all the candidates worth consideration. Have a look, and we'll be back when the results are announced.

'Tis The Season For Analysis And Reason

Good morning Fackers. One of the positive things about the slow news cycle that we are going through in the baseball world at the moment is that it gives some very smart writers the chance to do long-form pieces that don't get done when the offseason news is reaching its peak. While some may yearn for the heat of the hot stove, a whole lot of writing and thought gets expended on the the same signings and trade with a relatively small amount getting added to the discussion. Without many rumors flying, some have been using their time well and posting tremendously interesting analytical pieces that have in some cases taken on a life of their own.

Joe Posnanski recently cranked out 5,000 words comparing the Baseball Hall of Fame with the Baseball Think Factory Hall of Merit. Larry from Wezen-ball explored the illogical nature of the voting process for Cooperstown. There was an interesting discussion yesterday about putting a third team in New York which began with a piece on SI.com by Tim Marchman, and was picked up by Craig Calcaterra of Circling the Bases and Kevin Kaduk of Big League Stew (among others) before Marchman responded to the responses. Dave Cameron of FanGraphs discussed the diminishing value of a marginal win for the Yankees which was further explored by River Ave. Blues and Rob Neyer. Cameron's colleague R.J. Anderson used a quote from Peter Gammons to explain the Time Value of Money as it relates to Jason Bay's contract.

Perhaps the best example of this analytical collaboration are the Mike Silva Chronicles that Tom Tango is currently posting over at The Book Blog. Silva is notoriously suspicious of advanced statistics while Tango is responsible for creating a great many of them and inspiring still more. Recently, Silva compared the necessity for the newly-created stat wRC+ (just like OPS+ but based on wOBA) from FanGraphs to "Cool Ranch Doritos, New Coke, or a colorful cover for the iPod". Tango replied in the comment section, "As I keep saying on my blog time and time again, summary opinion without evidence is the very definition of bullsh!t. And Mike’s statement here is pure bullsh!t."

What might have spiraled into a war of words has instead turned into something productive. Tango agreed to answer ten of Silva's questions about advanced metrics, ranging from the accuracy and utility of UZR to the concepts of replacement level and win shares, pulling back the curtain a bit in attempt assuage some of the doubts that many have about newer stats.

Although these two guys are coming from ends of the statistical spectrum, they are meeting at an important common ground. One of the reasons old school baseball thinkers like Silva distrust advanced metrics is because they doubt their accuracy. The people who understand these measures the best understand their limits because they created them. It could be argued that the people who use UZR and WAR without understanding their blindspots are just as bad as those who refuse to acknowledge their utility at all.

Even if you aren't a stathead, I'd recommend stopping by The Book Blog and taking a look at Silva's questions and Tango's responses. They did five questions yesterday and I believe the next 5 should be coming soon. Although the names of some of the newer stats make them seem vague and complex, I think you'll find that hearing someone explain what they are and why they were created while simultaneously acknowledging their limitations to be quite interesting.

Vazquez Trade Reactions

We posted our initial take on the deal earlier this morning, but here is a collection of what else is being said around these here internets about the acquisition of Javier Vazquez:

Will from IIATMS looks at what this might mean for the Yankees' defense. Aaron Gleeman from Circling the Bases asks a similar question.

Ben from River Ave. Blues revisits Vazquez's last time in the Bronx.

Craig Calcaterra correctly guessed that it was Vazquez this morning, posted a quick reaction to the deal and as a Braves fan, explained why the deal wasn't so bad.

Joel Sherman was the first to name Vazquez as the target this morning and has an in-depth breakdown of the trade. He also explained that the Yankees valued a starting pitcher over a left fielder and are still looking to keep their payroll under $200M, meaning LF will likely be filled on the cheap. They are also planning to deal either Chad Gaudin or Sergio Mitre before spring training.

There are over 200 comments on the BBTF trade dedicated to the trade as well.

And some quick quotes, taken completely out of context:

Dave Cameron, FanGraphs: "The reaction to this deal on Twitter has not been kind to Atlanta, with most people concluding that the Yankees got Vazquez for peanuts. I’m not so sure."

Joe Posnanski: Sigh. The Yankees traded for Vazquez to be their NUMBER FOUR starter. And the Royals signed Jason Kendall to be their starting catcher.

Keith Law: "At this point, the Yankees now have a rotation close to that of the Red Sox, and they could very well enter 2010 a better team on paper than they were at the same time before 2009.

Peter Abraham, Boston Globe: "You knew this was coming. Once the Red Sox signed John Lackey, there was no way the Yankees would go into next season with a rotation of CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Andy Pettitte and two question marks."

Jonah Keri, via Twitter: "To be fair to the #Braves, any time you can acquire dryer lint for one of the best SP in baseball, you gotta do it.

Tyler Kepner, via Twitter: "Yanks use 6 prospects to get Granderson and Vazquez, yet keep Hughes, Joba, Montero, Melancon, Romine, McAllister. Not bad."

Ben Kabak, River Ave. Blues: "As much as it strengthens the team’s rotation, it also weakens their outfield. The leftfield situation currently looks like a Brett Gardner/Jamie Hoffmann platoon, which doesn’t exactly inspire confidence."

Rob Iracane, Walkoff Walk: "Let it be known that this guy (points to self) would rather have dismissed Nick Swisher, who cannot field his position, run the bases, or dress like a grown-up. But hey, Vazquez strikes out batters like it's his job (note: it is his job) so as a Yankees fan, I am pleased."

Satchel Price, Beyond the Box Score: "Considering what the Phillies landed for one year of Cliff Lee, arguably a superior pitcher, at a cheaper salary, I think that Atlanta got a pretty solid return for Vazquez, even if it doesn't include the impact bat that Atlanta sorely needs."

Kevin Kaduk, Big League Stew: "It's often been said that Vazquez is a pitcher that throws best when the expectations are low and his stats do back that up. "

Josh, Jorge Says No!: "Make no mistake about it though, if Vazquez can give the Yankees 200 IP with 190+ K's, and a 3.75 ERA, then there is no reason why he won't be able to win 15+ games with the Yankees the way this team is constructed."