Keeping Score On The Lake

As the Yankees try to recapture the magic of their team-building outing last year, Joe Girardi doesn't have many activities to choose from if he wants to go a different route than a pool tournament. Finding something that sixty guys could compete in that doesn't involve significant injury risk is no easy task. As Matt conveyed before, that narrows it down to stuff like lawn games, shuffle board and laser tag. What else? Go-karts? Golf? Curling? Darts? A poker tournament? Fishing...?

It wasn't an official outing, but last year during Spring Training A.J. Burnett took a few teammates fishing with him in his boat. Having played in Florida for six years before leaving for Toronto and been an avid fisherman, it would be safe to assume that Burnett knows a couple of decent spots. If David Robertson were in change, that's what he'd do.

Joe Girardi probably wouldn't pick angling as the team's activity due to the cost, liability and logistics of it all, but if he did, they'd have a good way to keep score. Dale Bowman of the Chicago Sun-Times recently proposed some simple sabermetric-style stats that could be used for fishing (h/t BBTF):

Think of fishing by the numbers in the tradition of the 1977 Baseball Abstract, Bill James' 68-page spark to the sabermetrics revolution in baseball.

A similar method should work to compare performances of competitive fishermen.

Numbers are the measuring stick of baseball across time. James just took it past the basics of wins and losses, strikeouts, batting average, ERA and homers.

We already have the basic statistics of fishing (equivalent of average, ERA) with tournament victories, career earnings and Classic titles. But we can dig deeper to compare fishermen.

Bowman goes on to explain some intuitive metrics that place the weight of the catch and money earned in the context of the tournament they were recorded in. Not all competitions would benefit from increased statistical analysis, but pro fishing seems like it would be one of them. Tournaments held in different areas and under varying conditions can yield drastically different overall catches, similar to how certain eras in baseball have been characterized by higher or lower run scoring environments.

Analyzing the fisherman's results would be useful, but even more interesting would be the data on the fish. If there was a way to easily capture basic info about the circumstances a fish was caught under, a big enough sample might yield some interesting trends. Things like the depth of the strike, water and air temperature, type and color of lure, amount of sunlight, barometric pressure, time of year, etc., would lend valuable insight into fish behavior. Having that data available would close the gap between those who have been figuring things out via trial and error over long periods of time and those who have much less experience. That would be bad news for fish, but good for the casual fisherman.

Of course, this is impractical for a few reasons. First, you'd need a universal form to record the data and distributing them would be tough. Secondly, pro fisherman are notoriously reluctant to give away their tactics, lest they tip off their opponents and lose their competitive advantage. Consequently, you'd have to enlist average anglers to gather data, most of whom probably don't want (or are too drunk) to waste their time writing a bunch of numbers after they flip a largemouth bass or rainbow trout over the side of their boat or onto the bank.

However, while it wouldn't be practical on a wide level, perhaps individual fishing guides could distinguish themselves by diligently recording results and analyzing them over a long period of time. It's possible, but I think that fishing is probably stuck in a place where baseball was for a long time, where common knowledge, conventional wisdom, intuition and superstition go relatively unchallenged as the main sources of strategy.

Q & A Round Up

When the flow of baseball news slows to a trickle over the offseason in the absence of game action, it becomes a challenge to maintain a stream of interesting content. After we baseball bloggers are done debating not whether the awards voting was poorly done but whether we should even care about it to begin with, we are left with a few means of filling content aside from playing whack-a-mole with an RSS reader until something intriguing finally materializes. One of those techniques is to keep hitting "refresh" over at MLBTR and pray the word "Yankees" appears (something we generally avoid), while another is to scroll through the newsblog over at BBTF and hope something strikes our fancy.

Of course, there's another common method of finding something to write about that doesn't require aggregators to deliver the typically baseless speculation of Ken Rosenthal or Jon Heyman, or the work of other columnists and bloggers. The more enterprising of us internet scribes go out and drum up interviews with well-respected writers and bloggers to carry us through the cold winter months.

Since we have yet to secure any interviews this offseason, we took the liberty of rounding up some of the better ones from around the baseball-related interwebz:

• We linked to Larry at the Yankeeist's interview with Alex and Cliff from Bronx Banter a while back and he has continued his efforts to interview the cream of the Yankee blogosphere by talking with all three guys from River Ave. Blues and SG from the Replacement Level Yankees Weblog. Larry has done an excellent job in these pieces and you won't be able to read them without finding out something new and interesting about their subjects.
  
  
• DRay's Bay has also done several excellent interviews this offseason. They talked to Jonah Keri (who is in the process of writing a book which culminates with the run of the 2008 Rays) about some of the economic realities present in the MLB and also some more specific topics about the AL East and the Rays' future plans. They also (digitally) sat down with Rob Neyer and picked his brain over the course of 16 questions.
  
  
• Our buddy Jason from IIATMS got to ask Darrell Rasner some questions about him time playing in Japan.
  
  
• Via Jason, Pete Toms from the Biz of Baseball has a great conversation with sports economist Roger Noll who is also a professor emeritus and Senior Fellow at Standford.
  
  
• Similarly, the Braves blog Chop-n-Change asks some questions of Sabernomics blogger J.C. Bradbury.

Counterpoint: Who Cares?

In the six months I've been writing here, rarely have Jay and I disagreed on any major points. We disagreed about a hypothetical recall of Austin Jackson in the wake of a potential Melky Cabrera injury, and we differ as to how the Yankees should approach Hideki Matsui this off-season. But in instances like these, I think we both can understand, if not agree with, the other viewpoint.

Today though, I think we may have an instance of us being distinctly on opposite sides of the coin. This morning, Jay parsed the AL MVP results and had some valid criticisms of the order of finish as well as some of the more obscure individual votes. Moshe Mandel at The Yankee Universe had something similar yesterday, and I've seen traces of the same sentiment elsewhere in the blogosphere. To which I say: who cares?

Perhaps this is hypocritical of me. Just last week I put up a post here essentially criticizing the "stats based community" for not calling out Tyler Kepner, Zack Greinke, and Brian Bannister for their misuse and misunderstanding of advanced metrics in the wake of Greinke's Cy Young Award victory. Though perhaps I didn't make the point as clearly as I wanted, my issue wasn't so much with the misuse and misunderstanding as it was that everyone was so happy that Greinke both won and acknowledged FIP in the process, that they withheld the usual cantankerousness and I'm-smarter-than-you responses that normally follow such a slip up. Now, when the reaction is a bit truer to character, once again it's me who's complaining about the complaining, just as last week I complained about the lack of complaining.

That said, I still think this is really, really unnecessary. Yes, by any worthy metric Derek Jeter was more valuable than Mark Teixeira. Yes, Ben Zobrist probably finished much lower than he deserved. Yes, there were several players who received individual votes that were higher than they deserved or not deserved at all. Yes, I'm surprised/disappointed that Jason Bartlett didn't receive a single vote. Yes, a first place vote for Miguel Cabrera is so patently stupid that it's probably a waste of energy to even explain why.

But still, do we really need to break down all the grave injustices that happened behind Joe Mauer's cavernous margin of victory? Should we even care what happened beyond Mauer taking the hardware? Isn't the whole point to get the winner right, not whoever comes after him? Don't we often preach about sample size, and isn't the point of casting 28 ballots with 10 slots each for a pool of over 400 players that the "most valuable" player will rise to the top? Sure there will be some oddball votes in there, but the right guy won, and he came within one vote and five points of doing so unanimously. Does any of the rest matter?

Please don't take for me anti-statistic. If you read here with any degree of regularity during the season you know that I often sigthed OPS+, wOBA, UZR, WAR, FIP, etc. That isn't the point. The point is how much is enough? We've seen the deservedly-maligned BBWAA get all four major awards "right", and three of the votes weren't particularly close. In doing so they've eschewed traditional biases that would have favored less deserving candidates in years past. Shouldn't this be enough to keep us content for now? Remember, this round of off-season awards represents the Battle of Saratoga, not the Treaty of Paris.

At their core, the MVP, the Cy Young Award, and even the Hall of Fame for that matter are subjective, loosely-defined awards that have little value beyond whatever worth we assign to them. I have a hard time understanding the utter outrage year after year as the awards season comes and goes. While we'd all like to believe that "objective journalists" are the stewards of these institutions, the fact of the matter is we're not talking about Edward R. Murrow or Walter Kronkite here. These are sportswriters. And while many may still exhibit signs of homerism or may be hopelessly clinging to archaic and ineffective means of measuring performance, I still think they're in a much better state today than they were in the days of Grantland Rice, or Ford C. Frick, or Jimmy Cannon. We're not seeing even the likes of Barry Bonds getting jobbed out of a deserved MVP because he's an asshole to the writers. Ask Ted Williams' frozen detached skull what he thinks about that.

So, with a plethora of better methods to assess value at our disposal, why do we even care who wins these things anymore, let alone who finishes second through tenth? If we want to know who is truly valuable, then why not just pull up the WAR leaderboard, or whichever future metric proves to be the most accurate means of assessing performance? Why do we care which pitcher is given an award named after the all-time wins leader, when we know wins are a misleading indicator of true performance, and we know that Cy Young was an inferior pitcher when compared to contemporaries like Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson? Do we even need the BBWAA to give the awards to the "right" players to validate what the metrics have already told us?

As Joe at RAB pointed out in the wake of the Cy Young voting, this isn't a culture war anymore. This is the true state of baseball these days, and it's an amalgamation of what were once two distinct schools of thought. As much as some seem to define themselves by it, this is no longer us vs. them, Moneyball vs. old-school, stats vs. scouts, RBI vs. WAR. The game - or more specifically how we look at the game - has changed, is changing, will continue to change, and will do so across the board. It's no longer just Bill James, a few forward thinking executives, a handful of enlightened websites. It's widespread; it's prevalent.

Few if any of GMs are traditional "baseball men"; nearly all have a business background in addition to their baseball experience. Every front office has some sort of statistical analysis taking place. Bill James, Voros McCracken, Tom Tango and others were or are employed by, or are consultants to, Major League clubs. David Cone's routinely referencing Fangraphs on Yankee telecasts. Keith Law, Will Carroll, and other Baseball Prospectus folks were given votes in the post-season awards process. High-profile national sportswriters like Rob Neyer and Joe Posnanski are at the forefront of the "statistical revolution", and if their work wasn't enough to force their colleagues to learn about advanced metrics it was at least enough to create a palpable buzz about the truly worthy candidates.

The times they are a changing folks. And while we might not yet be living in a sabermetric utopia, we've seen great strides made this past week. As we approach Thanksgiving and presumably stop to reflect upon what we are thankful for, shouldn't we at least be satisfied, if not grateful, that the most deserving candidates won both MVPs and both Cy Young Awards rather than griping about the idiot who voted Jason Kubel seventh? I think we should; what about you?

Does Zack Greinke Really Understand FIP?

Yesterday was a banner day for those who value advanced baseball statistics. Zack Greinke rightly won the American League Cy Young Award, and did so in convincing fashion, sparing us all a host of indignant rants about how the voters got it all wrong again for an award that the stats community clearly states doesn't matter anyway (see Gold Gloves and Rookie of the Year).

But whatever joy statheads derived from Greinke's victory pales in comparison to the giddyness and the sense of vindication that's spreading from a Greinke quote in this NYT piece from Tyler Kepner, emphasis mine:

“But I’m also a follower, since Brian Bannister’s on our team, of sabermetric stuff and going into details of stats about what you can control.”

Bannister, a right-handed starter, is known for his appreciation of modern pitching metrics, which emphasize the factors for which pitchers are essentially responsible: walks, strikeouts, home runs and hit batters. In Greinke, he found a like mind.

“He’s extremely bright, and he’s really picked up on using all the information out there to make his game better,” Bannister said by telephone. “He’s always had the talent. His confidence level, which is extremely high, combined with his knowledge of the numbers behind the game now, definitely makes him one of the best pitchers in the world.”

Bannister said Greinke has learned to adjust his pitching based on the advanced defensive statistics. Because of the size of the outfield at Kauffman Stadium and the strength of the Royals’ outfielders, relative to their infielders, it sometimes made more sense to induce fly balls.

“David DeJesus had our best zone rating,” Bannister said, referring to the Royals’ left fielder. “So a lot of times, Zack would pitch for a fly ball at our park instead of a ground ball, just because the zone rating was better in our outfield and it was a big park.”

To that end, Bannister introduced Greinke to FIP, or Fielding Independent Pitching, the statistic Greinke named Tuesday as his favorite. It is a formula that measures how well a pitcher performed, regardless of his fielders. According to fangraphs.com, Greinke had the best FIP in the majors.

“That’s pretty much how I pitch, to try to keep my FIP as low as possible,” Greinke said.

I've referenced FIP many times here over the course of the year. I think it's a telling, if imperfect, statistic that gives better insight into a pitcher's performance than traditional metrics like ERA. I'm glad that at least some players are aware of these new metrics, and not at all surprised that one of Bannister's teammates would be amongst those to pick up on them. That said, I think the items I highlighted are absolute hogwash, and fly in the face of what FIP is supposed to represent in the first place.

First of all, for Bannister to credit Greinke's knowledge of advanced metrics as an element of his success is misleading at best, dead wrong at worst. Greinke is successful because he's a tremendously talented pitcher who strikes out a ton of batters, doesn't walk very many, keeps the ball in the park, and strands a higher than usual percentage of baserunners on base. Whether or not he's cognizant of the value of these attributes is inconsequential. You or I or any number of other baseball loving Americans know that these factors are key to a pitcher's success, but without Zack Greinke's arsenal of pitches, that knowledge isn't going to turn any of us into a Major League pitcher, much a less a Cy Young Award winner.

The rest of it demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of what FIP is. It's Fielding Independent Pitching. As such, balls in play - line drives, groundballs, flyballs, whatever - have absolutely no impact on a pitcher's FIP. And while it might behoove a pitcher to pitch for flyballs if his team's outfield defense is superior to his team's infield defense, attempting to do so demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of how FIP works. No matter how bad of a shortstop Yuniesky Bettancourt is, 0% of groundballs result in home runs while approximately 8% of flyballs do. And since FIP values HRs four and a third times as much as BBs and six and a half times as much as Ks, allowing just one HR has a momentous impact upon a pitcher's FIP. Greinke's infield defense could give up basehits on a dozen seeing-eye singles a game; it won't make a bit of difference as far as FIP is concerned. But no matter how great David DeJesus's zone rating is, it doesn't extend any further than an arm's length beyond the left field fence. A single flyball extending an inch beyond that range has a major effect on Greinke's FIP.

Of course, of all that is predicated upon the assumption that a pitcher actually has control over the type of contact made against him. This is not a universally accepted principle in the stats community. In fact, the assumption that a pitcher has no control over such things is often cited as the reason that the vast majority of pitchers, irrespective of talent level, will finish the season with a BABIP against that's within 10 points or so of the league average. Any pitcher who doesn't is considered a statistical outlier rather than some sort of pitching prodigy capable of inducing favorable balls in play. That said, even if Greinke could actively select what type of contact is made against him, shifting groundballs to flyballs would have a favorable impact on his expected BABIP against, since groundballs generally result in hits more often than flyballs, but as described above, would actually have a negative impact on his FIP - which Greinke states he is actively trying to minimize.

Which brings me to last my last gripe. Whether Greinke knows what FIP is or not, isn't trying to keep it as low as possible the whole point of pitching? I mean, unless he's on the hill intentionally handing out HRs, or refusing to strike batters out, or continually plunking batters and issuing unintentional intentional walks, every pitcher - Greinke, Bannister, or the less enlightened - is attempting to keep his FIP as low as possible, consciously or not.

Don't get me wrong. Zack Greinke is a most deserving Cy Young Award winner, and I think it's a good thing that he and Bannister and others are embracing some of the more forward thinking ways of evaluating the game. But, I think Kepner's piece jumps to some conclusions that aren't quite evident. Performance is still predicated on talent level. Advanced metrics like FIP and zone rating are intended to illuminate quality performance in a better manner than their more archaic and generally accepted counterparts (ERA, fielding percentage). Greinke's awareness of these metrics doesn't make him any better, it just makes him smarter. And yet The Times article paints his knowledge as a hidden secret to his success despite the fact that many of the statements are in fact contrary to what the metrics are intending to measure. I wish more in the stats community would take a minute to look at that, rather than simply being happy their work was being acknowledged by the best pitcher in the game.

Are Throws To First A Waste Of Time?

You know the scene. The Yankees are on the road, it's late in the game and the opposing team puts a speedster on base. The pitcher throws over to first once, the runner retreats safely. He throws over again and it's not even close this time. The crowd starts to boo. And a third time. The boos get louder.

Even as a fan of the team throwing to first, I sometimes get annoyed with the process. It breaks up the flow of the game, it seemingly never works, and yet teams continually do it. Is it actually effective as a tactic or is it another practice in baseball that's done because it's always been done?

As of late June (can't find more recent stats), both Andy Pettitte and A.J. Burnett were near the top of the league in pick-off attempts. Burnett had a game this year against the Angels in which he threw to first base 24 times in 7 innings. They do get results though, as Pettitte is tied for the AL lead with 8 pickoffs this year while Burnett is not too far behind with 5. However, Burnett has more pickoffs where the runner was tagged out diving back to first base (4) than Pettite (3), probably because runners are more wary of Andy's move. Five of Pettitte's PO's were of the variety that CC Sabathia recorded against Jacoby Ellsbury last Sunday Night in which the runner was going on motion and got caught stealing.

We all know that pickoffs are pretty rare. Pettitte has allowed 178 runners to reach first base this year via single, walk or HBP and has nabbed less than 5% of them, or fewer than one every 3 starts. Much of the time the throws to the base are called from the bench and it's not especially close. You essentially never see a runner picked off the second time the pitches tosses over to first base.

But yet it's still done. Does it have a purpose even if they aren't catching the runners getting too greedy with their lead very often?

John Dewan says yes (h/t BBTF). When looking at data from 2002-2009, they've found that a runner's stolen base percentage actually does decrease when one throw to first base has been made. It goes down slightly with each throw after that, but not significantly. Check out his post for the numbers.

Runners steal at a 65% clip against Pettitte and Burnett which means the league is ineffective by sabermetric standards at swiping with them on the mound. Whether we like it or not, all those throws to to first base do serve a purpose (besides just slowing down the game).

The Stolen Base: Fallen From Grace

With the advent of the Juiced Era and an emphasis on sabermetrics by front offices around MLB, the stolen base has declined in use around the game.

One of the most telling disadvantages of stealing bases is measured by the run expectation stat. Below is the run expectation chart for the 2003 MLB season (thanks to writer Joe Sheehan at Baseball Prospectus).


Based on this chart, a runner on first with no one out is worth .9116 runs. A successful steal of second base with no one out would bump that to 1.1811 runs, a gain of .2695 expected runs. However, in the unfortunate event that a runner is caught stealing second base, the run expectation stat drops to .2783. This is a loss of nearly 2/3 of a run (2.3 times more than the gain).

Why would managers risk this chance for a run and give up one of 27 precious outs? Unless it is late in the game and there is a need for a tying run, the batter is a ground into double play threat, or there is next to little chance that the batter at the plate cannot drive the runner in from first (i.e. low slugging percentage), it is stupid.

Horrible times to steal bases include early in the game, when you need multiple runs (baserunners are important) and when a big slugger is at the plate.

In his article, Sheehan points out that the belief that running distracts defenses is misplaced or exaggerated. Sheehan correctly states that "a runner on first is more disruptive to a defense, with the first baseman holding and the second baseman cheating towards second for a double play, than a runner on second." He also points out the distraction that running has on the batter. How many times have we seen a batter give up an out by flailing at pitches in the dirt so that the runner can advance? If the batter strikes out and the runner is thrown out, the run expectation goes from .9100 to .1083 in an instant.

Sheehan concludes that break even rate for a stolen base is a 75% success rate. Thus, players with less than a 75% success rate should not even attempt to steal. In fact, if your speed is your only asset and you have less than or barely a 75% success rate, you shouldn't even be on a roster (ahem, Scott Podsednik).

Stealing bases also presents injury risks. Why risk the injury of high-salaried slugger such as an A-Rod, Vladimir Guerrero or Alfonso Soriano? The benefit that these players provide at the dish is immensely higher than their base stealing benefits.

With the decline in Performance Enhancing Drugs and subsequently the decline in the number of home runs, it will be interesting to see if the number of stolen bases returns to 1980s levels when Rickey Henderson, Vince Coleman and Rock Raines ran wild. Having a few .390+ OBP/85+% SB guys can make a team lethal so long as they are in front of a few power hitters. However, as evidenced by the teams mentioned in Sheehan's article, teams shouldn't run just to run.

Number of Days Until Spring Training: Yogi Berra (#8)

Nice to finally enter the single digits in the countdown.

Today, there are 8 days left until Pitchers and Catchers Report. The Yankees are lucky to have two #8's retired: Legendary catchers Bill Dickey and Lawrence Peter Berra. No disrespect to Dickey (who is currently is the only Yankee with a retired number not yet featured on the YES Network series Yankeeography), but Yogi will be the subject of my post.

Yogi Berra began his storied Yankee career as a callup in 1946. In 1947, he became a mainstay in the Yankee lineup until 15 years later.

Berra’s on-the-field accomplishments speak for themselves.

Yogi, a 15-time All-Star, appeared in fourteen World Series, won ten championships, both of which are records. Because Berra played during the Yankees' most dominant era, it enabled him to establish the major league records for World Series games (75), at-bats (259), hits (71), doubles (10), singles (49), games caught (63), and catcher putouts (457). He was one of only four players to be named the Most Valuable Player of the American League three times and one of only six managers to lead both American and National League teams to the World Series. In 1972, he was elected to the Hall of Fame along with Sandy Koufax and Early Wynn.

Between 1949 and 1955, on a team filled with offensive studs including Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio, it was Berra who led the Yankees in RBI for seven consecutive seasons. Not bad for a 5 foot, 8 inch catcher.

As a fielder, Berra was also tops at his position. He led all American League catchers eight times in games caught and in chances accepted, six times in double plays (a major league record), eight times in putouts, three times in assists, and once in fielding percentage. Berra left the game with the AL records for catcher putouts (8,723) and chances accepted (9,520). He was also one of only four catchers to ever field 1.000 for a season, playing 88 errorless games in 1958. Later in his career, he became a good defensive outfielder in Yankee Stadium's notoriously difficult left field.

In June 1962, at the age of 37, Berra showed his endurance by catching an entire 22-inning, seven-hour game against the Tigers. In today's day of pampered, high paid prima donnas, I think Cy Young's all-time wins record has a better chance of being broken. Nothing against manager Ralph Houk, but it is also stupid to let a star player play that long for 1 game in a 162 game season...

Yogi also caught the only perfect game in postseason history—catching Don Larsen in Game 5 of the 1956 Fall Classic against the crosstown Brooklyn Dodgers. On July 18, 1999, Larsen and Berra celebrated the feat with a ceremonial pitch for "Yogi Berra Day" at Yankee Stadium. Yankees pitcher David Cone then went on to throw his own 27 up, 27 down masterpiece against the Montreal Expos.

In 1999 he was named to The Sporting News list of Baseball's Greatest Players, ranking number 40, trailing Bench (16), Josh Gibson (18) and finishing ahead of Roy Campanella (50) and his mentor Bill Dickey (57).

Stats back up his greatness as well. According to the win shares formula developed by leading sabermetrician Bill James, Berra is the greatest catcher of all time and the 52nd greatest non-pitcher in major-league history.

Like Vladimir Guerrerro today, Berra was excellent at hitting poor pitches. Despite swinging at pitches in the dirt and those over his small frame, Berra had more home runs in a season than strikeouts. In 1950, Berra struck out only twelve times in 597 at-bats. When asked about swinging at "bad pitches", Berra was reported to say, "If I can hit it, it's a good pitch." [Note: A-Rod, how about adjusting to pitches in the postseason instead of guessing all the time?]

Yogi also served 2 stints as the manager of the Yankees, the first coming in 1964. Despite leading the Yanks to the World Series where they lost to his hometown St. Louis Cardinals in 7 (which began their slide that lasted until the mid-70s when George Steinbrenner bought the team), Berra was fired. According to insiders, Berra could not control his players.

In 1976, he rejoined the Yanks as a coach, and voila, the Yanks returned to their winning ways. The team won its first of three consecutive AL titles. This uncanny ability to bring about good luck was not unnoticed. Casey Stengel once said of him, "He'd fall in a sewer and come up with a gold watch." Berra was eventually elevated to Yankee manager before the 1984 season.

Berra agreed to stay in the job for 1985 after receiving assurances that he would not be fired. However, the notoriously impatient Steinbrenner fired him after the 16th game of the season. Instead of firing Yogi personally, Steinbrenner dispatched GM Clyde King to deliver the news for him. This caused a rift between the two men that would not be mended for almost 15 years. Yogi's replacement? If you guessed Billy Martin you may or may not be a baseball historian.

On August 22, 1988, Berra and his predecessor Dickey were honored with plaques to be hung in Monument Park at Yankee Stadium. Berra's plaque calls him "A Legendary Yankee" and cites his most frequent quote, "It ain't over till it's over." However, the honor was not enough to cure the relationship between Steinbrenner and Yogi. That would not happen until January of 1999 when Steinbrenner publicly apologized to Berra. According to Steinbrenner at the time, "It's the worst mistake I ever made in baseball.'' The power broker behind the meeting? Suzyn Waldman. Thankfully they made amends as I cannot imagine Yogi as not part of the Yankees today.

Yogi is a National Treasure. Despite having only an 8th Grade education, he is perhaps best known for his wisdom. Among his famous modisms are “It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over” and "It's like déjà vu all over again"—referring to Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris repeatedly hitting back to back home runs in the Yankees' seasons in the early 1960s. Yogi has been featured in advertisements for Yoohoo, AFLAC, Entenmann's, and Stovetop Stuffing. Nice to see an old-timer make some money.

Many wonder how Berra got his nickname “Yogi.” A friend of his said he resembled a Hindu holy man (yogi) they had seen in a movie, whenever Berra sat around with arms and legs crossed waiting to bat. Years later, the Hanna-Barbera cartoon character Yogi Bear was named after Berra, something Berra did not appreciate after he started being periodically addressed as "Yogi Bear." Can’t blame the guy.

Yogi's best friend on the Yankees was fellow 5-foot paesan Phil Rizzuto (R.I.P. Phil). The two bought and ran a bowling alley together in North Jersey to supplement their relatively small income that they received from the Yankees. This special friendship lasted beyond their days on the diamond. When Scooter's health began to decline, Yogi visited him every Wednesday at his home. According to Yogi, "When I first came up to the Yankees, he was like a big - actually small - brother to me." It seems to me that it is rare in sports for teammates to remain best buds after their playing careers are finished. Yogi made an appearance in the YES Broadcast Booth with the day Phil passed away because he thought it was what his long time friend would have wanted. Here is a pretty lengthy interview he gave with Joe Torre in the Yanks' dugout that same day.

Berra has 10 rings, but only wears his 1953 ring, in commemoration of the Yankees' record 5th consecutive World Championship. What a nice luxury to have...

Perhaps if Yogi had been able to manage past the 1964 season and past the 1985 season, the Yankees wouldn't only be going for World Championship #27. Is it a coincidence that the Yankees reached their lowest points after Berra was fired as manager? Maybe, maybe not.

Given his offense, defense and leadership, it can definitely be argued that Yogi is the most valuable Yankee ever.