Shorter Yanks vs. Sox Games This Year?

The most common complaint about Yankees vs. Red Sox games - especially from fans of other teams - is that they take too long to complete. Those folks have a point. The average MLB game lasted 2 hours and 52 minutes in 2009 while Yankees games clocked in at 3:08 and Red Sox contests at 3:04. When the teams got together, it took them an average of 3:20 to declare a winner.

Major League Baseball, and in particular Bob Watson who is responsible for standards and on-field operations, has tried to tighten the screws on the teams in an effort to make the games shorter. Watson recently told Business Week, “We’ve created a monster. Will we ever get this under control? I don’t know”. (Of course, he isn't looking to cut back on the amount of time sold to advertisers which necessitates that commercial breaks last about two minutes and thirty seconds each, but that's a different issue for another day).

Might the Yankees and Red Sox have done Watson a favor with some of their offseason moves? Is it possible that because the way the teams are constructed this year, the games might naturally be a little shorter?

The reasoning for the games being shorter this year goes something like this: Both teams improved their starting pitching and defense. Better starting pitchers allow fewer baserunners which lead to fewer plate appearances. Solid starters also go deeper into games, meaning that there should be fewer pitching changes, each of which - if executed mid-inning - takes several minutes (unless it's Jonathan Papelbon, in which case it takes several hours). Improved defenses also turn more balls in play into outs, thereby eliminating at bats and conserving starter's pitch counts.

Of course, there are two sides to the equation. As the article Business Week points out, the Yankees and Red Sox saw the most pitches in baseball last year, largely as a function of the fact that they scored the first and third most runs in the game, respectively. The Yankees also added Nick Johnson who saw 4.36 pitches per plate appearance last year, third most in the MLB.

What the article didn't mention was the fact that last year's slate of Yanks/Sox games included a 5 and a half hour, 15 inning marathon and 9 inning games with final scores of 20-11, 16-11, 14-1 and 13-6. The Yanks scored 99 runs in those 18 games and the Sox plated 101, so it's not just mound visits, crotch adjustments and "talking to the ball" as Watson claims, that are taking up everyone's time.

Additionally, these games often air on national networks and the additional commercials on ESPN and FOX slow them down. God Bless America probably adds a couple of minutes to each game played at Yankee Stadium as well.

Sunday night's 3:46 affair was not the best start for my half-baked theory, but I'm willing to bet that there will be some regression towards the mean in terms of the duration of the games. I'm not sure if they will come all the way down to the Yanks' average mark of 3:08 but it's a good bet that the average length will be lower than 3:20 by the time all 18 games are in the books.

The New Yankee Stadium Of Golf

[Photo]

Since Matt brought the topic up before, here is an interesting (albeit pretty one-sided) article I saw about the course they played the Barclays' Championship at, Liberty National:

If you haven't heard about Liberty National, it's the world's most expensive grassy view lot -- a former oil tank farm that had all the visual appeal of a collapsing tenement building, even the rats avoided it. But it was located just across the water from the southern tip of Manhattan, roughly 1,000 yards from the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

So a rich guy bought it and built a private golf course that has generated more conversation, commentary and criticism than a penal U.S. Open track. As one player sarcastically pointed out, it's probably no accident Lady Liberty faces the other direction.

What follows is a bunch of tour pros trashing the place, similar to what we heard from some players about the New Yankee Stadium. Similarly, Liberty National cost far more than other courses to construct ($250M) and demands a $500,000 membership initiation fee before annual dues are factored in, which I'm going to blindly guess are north of $50,000. However, it's only a short private shuttle-boat ride from downtown Manhattan which offers a level convenience which is unmatched in NYC area golf.

The owner, Paul Fireman freely admits that the course as a poor investment, and the designer Tom Kite readily acknowledges that due to the way the course was constructed, nothing is natural about it. For 30 years, they played the tournament at historic Westchester Country Club and no such kvetching was heard. Sound familiar?

Sure, most of the bitching from the players was unwarranted. And all of it was unnecessary, if you ask Vijay Singh:

"One who doesn't worry about what the golf course is, and just plays one shot at a time," Singh said. "You go out there and start criticizing the golf course, then you might as well not show up."

The great thing about golf, like baseball, is that everyone plays under the same conditions. So when it all shakes out, regardless of the difficulty or quirkiness of the place you are competing, the playing field is level.

Now That The Yankees Are Winning, Stop Rooting For Them!

Yesterday, Jeff Pearlman, who is a great writer but a marginal blogger (at best) wondered how anyone could be a Yankee fan:

This offseason, the Yankees purchased the two best pitchers on the market (C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett), then went out and bought Mark Texiera, the in-his-prime, top-of-the-league first baseman superdooper stud. In other words, how can anyone with a human head actually attend, say, a Yankees-Royals or Yankees-Orioles or Yankees-Rays or Yankees-A’s or Yankees-Mariners or Yankees-Rangers or Yankees-Twins or Yankees-Anybody Except The Red Sox or Mets game and truly, strongly, lovingly, audibly root for the Yankees to win?

Notice that he waits until now to say this. Not when they were 15-17 on May 12th. Not last year, when they had a higher payroll and missed the playoffs or in any of the previous three before that when they were bounced in the first round. But now, after some great offseason acquisitions, no one can be a fan? All of a sudden they are unlikable because they are playing up to their potential?

If the Yanks won 100 games every season and 8 out of the last 12 World Series, he might have a point. But the thing that's great and maddening about baseball at the same time is that you can stack the deck in your favor as much as you want but you won't necessarily come out on top.

Pearlman an "unabashed" fan of the Mets of all teams should know this. (Not a dig about journalistic integrity by any stretch, so I don't care if he claims not to be one anymore like every sports writer does.) The Mets had an Opening Day payroll of close to $150,000,000 and they'd have to get scorching hot to even sniff .500. This isn't basketball where, if one team got LeBron, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade next offseason they'd be a virtual lock for an NBA title.

I never thought I'd read Jeff Pearlman and Lou Merloni write about the same topic and agree with the latter, but here is a rare voice of reason from fackin' WEEI (h/t BBTF):

Isn’t it good to have the Yankees in the mix again? Did you have fun last year when you were more concerned with the Rays than the Yanks? I didn’t. I want to hate [the Yankees]. I want to fear them. It’s just more fun that way. You had to know that this year was going to be different for the boys from New York. [...] This year, yeah they spent some serious dollars, but they were spent wisely… for once.

That's coming from a guy who grew up in Framingham, Mass., went to Providence College and was drafted in to the Sox organization. You've gotta love Merloni's competitve spirit because the summer is a lot more interesting when both teams are in the race.

You're not going to stop the Yankees by whining about how much they spend in the offseaon. And I'm not going to stop Jeff Pearlman from whining about the Yankees by writing about it here. As you were.

No, Watching Al Leiter Pitch Was Boring

PeteAbe this morning on Joba Chamberlain:

Frankly, Joba has become boring. The Yankees are 10-5 in the games he starts but he has only six decisions. His ERA is 3.89, which is just OK. He has allowed 79 hits in 81 innings, pretty good. He has 73 strikeouts, not bad. The 40 walks are too much.

That's right, the Yankees most exciting pitching prospect in over a decade is boring because he only strikes out 8.1 guys per 9 innings, good for second best on team and eighth in the American League. Meh, not bad...

You know who's ERA is "just OK"? Andy Pettitte's at 4.38 and 100 ERA+. Does he put you to sleep too, Pete? At 3.89, Joba's is the second lowest on the team, behind only C.C. Sabathia and good for 19th among starter's in the AL. That is good enough to be the second best starter on any team in the AL besides Tampa Bay, Detriot, Seattle or Toronto and those teams either have great defenses or play in pitcher's parks.

He gives up fewer than a hit per inning, and only 22 other AL starters can say they do any better. His walk rate is the third highest in the league, but you know who is in 2nd place? A.J. Burnett. Is he boring too?

Joba might be inefficent and struggle to make it through the sixth inning more than any of us would like. He might throw too many breaking balls in counts where hitters don't even flinch at them. He certainly walks too many guys.

But for fuck's sake, he's not boring. If I'm going up to the Stadium to catch a game, I'd rather see Joba take the mound than anyone else except for maybe CC Sabathia. I accept his flaws because, he's, you know, 23 years old and young pitchers tend to have those problems. Like Brandon Morrow last night, and Rick Porcello earlier this year, and Hughes & Kennedy last season and the next young stud the Yanks try to work into the rotation whenever that happens.

Sorry he's not a great postgame quote, and his starts on average take a little bit longer, but you're not going to get a lot of sympathy from the people who read your blog, because most of them have 9-5 desk jobs that would make a start by Joba Chamerblain look like the last 10 minutes of The Departed by comparison.

The Sphere Of Influence Widens

The mainstream media is just riding in our wake, friends. Consider yourselves ahead of the curve.

PeteAbe, I'm not going to lie. I'm a little disappointed in you. You were kind enough to link to us last Tuesday with the headline "The Many Faces Of Alex Rodriguez". Last night's entry? "The Many Expressions Of Alex Rodriguez" See? Totally different.

Maybe the editors of Metro NY read Pete's blog? (Sorry about the tiny pic, but this is the only one I could find. If you know how to get a better one, email me.)

And also the editors at AM New York?
And.... aww what the fuck?

Sound familiar? Cause my post yesterday was entitled "You Knew What You What You Were Doing".

I know this is just pointless bitching, but it makes me feel better about the fact that we do this for free and beat all of them to the punch. The advantage of writing online is that you don't have to wait to fire up the presses in the morning to get your story out; newspapers can't exactly live blog.

The downside is that although newspaper advertising is seeing it's reach decline by the second, online advertising is already a complete and total black hole. I enjoy the bounty and free spirit of the internets as much as anyone, but at a certain point, someone is going to have to monetize this mofo. But until some genius programmer and a few media companies combine forces and create an amalgamation of Google Reader and iTunes that charges a nominal fee for RSS feeds, this is all just fun and games (with some futile lamenting).

If someone rips off that idea, I demand a cut.



Update 10:00AM: Forgot to check this earlier, but here you go...

Welcome to the party, ESPN. It started last Monday.