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.

The Best Fans In The World?

That's what Mike Lupica is calling Yankees fans this morning:

There aren't fans better than this anywhere in the world. This isn't about whether or not you love the Yankees. This is about Yankee fans.

There are other baseball fans in other cities, of course, Mets fans in this one. There are fans who come out strong for teams who haven't won the way the Yankees won, who don't make the playoffs just about every year the way the Yankees have since Joe Torre first came to town 13 years ago and the winning came back to the Yankees and the Bronx.

But no fans have ever supported a baseball team, the most famous team in this world, the way Yankee fans support theirs.

We constantly hear this praise heaped upon us. Derek Jeter said it in his final speech at the Old Stadium. Michael Kay would like you to believe that Yankee fans are the only ones in baseball that cheer in anticipation of anything. I know I've heard John Sterling say that Yankee fans are the best in the world on the radio broadcast as well. But all of those guys have great reason to pander to fan base, and along with fans themselves trying to compare themselves to followers of other teams, that's all these declarations ever come down to.

It's pretty much impossible to compare fan bases, just as it would be to compare other groups which contain millions of people to each other. Are people from Vermont more laid back then people from New Hampshire? Are Baptists more religious than Evangelists? Are BMW drivers more alert than those who own an Audi? Are people who drink Bud Light cooler than those who drink Coors? (Trick question, they both suck!) The only way to deal with groups that big is to look at them with sweeping generalizations or compare them anecdotally.

The Yankees have some great fans, no doubt, but they also have their fair share of supporters who expect everything and are ready to jump ship two losses into the season. We might have some of the best fans in baseball right now, but that's largely because the ownership and players have given us ample compensation in return for our support. The Yanks only regained their place atop MLB attendance in 2003. There are plenty of factors contributing to how many fans the Yanks draw to games like the logistics of trying to go to a game after work in NYC and price of parking once you get there, but let's not pretend that the Stadium have been selling out through thick and thin.

I'll give you one measure that I find to be interesting, however. There are far more blogs about the Yankees' than any other team. We've got a decent amount linked up over on our Blogshelf, but check out this post by Ross at New Stadium Insider or run down the sidebar at LoHud. There are a huge amount of people that feel compelled to write about the Yankees (most of them for free) and I think that tells us something.

Maybe that something is that the Yankees have been more successful and compelling over the last 15 years than any other team in baseball. And maybe the fact that Yankees fans are so dedicated to the team isn't a function of how great we are as fans, but how successful the team has been over that time. Following the Yankees is easy. The people who follow teams like the Royals, Reds or Pirates through thick and thin are the best fans in baseball, in my opinion.

Postseason Tickets Aren't Selling For Face Value?!?!?

Ken Belson of the NYT Bats Blog seems genuinely surprised, if not appalled that you won't be able to buy Yankees playoff tickets for $5.

The Yankees made a big deal out of their decision to hold ticket prices steady for the first round of the playoffs. That’s right, even those $5 seats in the center-field bleachers with obstructed views of the field would remain $5 when the Yankees play either the Detroit Tigers or the Minnesota Twins next week.

But unless you are a season ticket-holder, forget about that $5 price. Fans selling those bleacher seats on line are charging no less than $98 each for a chance to see about two-thirds of the field, according to FanSnap, a Web site that scans dozens of ticket resellers.

Raise your hand if you were counting on purchasing a Yankees playoff ticket for $5. Okay, now keep it in the air, clench your fingers into a fist and punch yourself in the face.

The Yankees made a big deal of the pricing structure for the P.R. boost after all the negative press over their ticket pricing for the regular season. This year, as has been the case ever since the Yanks went on their dynastic run, there only a precious few postseason tickets available to the general public. A few weeks back, Ross from New Stadium Insider did some quick calculations and estimated the amount of available tickets for each round of the postseason to be:

ALDS: 4,735
ALCS: 3,235
WS: 735

It doesn't take a mathematician to decipher that, unless you are a season ticket holder, you are going to be paying through to nose to observe some playoff baseball in the Bronx.

Yanks Slash Prices On Most Expensive Seats For Playoffs

On Monday the Yankees send out a press release announcing their ticket prices for the postseason. It garnered a good amount of positive press based on the fact that the prices are going to be lower than they were in 2007, which is fairly remarkable considering that took place across the street at the Old Stadium.

Without getting into specifics, almost all of the prices for the ALDS are equivalent to the regular season norms, and it escalates from there as it gets deeper into October.

Well it's nice that the Yankees have made their ticket prices for the playoffs more affordable, although you could probably argue that since they haven't registered a sellout since Opening Day, it might be more of a necessity than a courtesy. But when the playoffs roll around guess who gets the real break... the people with the most expensive seats. From the press release (emphasis and numbering mine):

Regular season ticket prices for full-season ticket licensees (non-Suites) will be replicated for the 2009 American League Division Series (i.e., a Main Level ticket that costs a full season ticket licensee $60 in the 2009 regular season will cost the same licensee $60 for the ALDS), (1) however, full-season ticket licensees (non-Suites) of $325 Field Level seats may purchase their seats for the ALDS at the lower price of $275 each.

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(2) Full-season Suite licensees in the Legends Suite, Delta Sky360 Suite and Jim Beam Suite, have all already paid their Suite license fees. Accordingly, they will only be required to purchase their Suite tickets, which will range from $65-$275 per Suite ticket for the ALDS, $115-$350 per Suite ticket for the ALCS, and $150-$425 per Suite ticket for the World Series.

What that boils down to is that (1) the very best non-Legends seats are going to be less expensive for the people with the seat licenses and (2) the (mainly corporate) Suite ticket holders don't have to pay their license fee at all.

Now, considering the fact that the first bunch paid $325 for their seats all year, it doesn't make a ton of sense to suddenly drop the price for by far the most desirable games of the season. I guess that's the Yankees' way of throwing them a bone after ripping them off all this time.

As for the Legends and other Suites, their license fees make up a giant portion of the ticket price. For instance, the seats I sat in back in June had a $250 seat license and just a $150 face value, meaning that they would only cost the latter amount for the ALDS. (The ~$100 food and beverage fee would still apply, but that's optional).

We've discussed the concept and execution of the Legends Seats multiple times here and an underlying theme throughout those posts was a distaste for the way that the Yankees have bent over backwards to cater to the their richest customers, while taking for granted their core fans.

This would seem to be another example of that, but the upshot is that it's highly unlikely the seats that so often sat unoccupied early in the year will be similarly vacant when October rolls around. Furthermore, if the Yanks sell out all their seats, it might trigger the release of the supposed standing room only seats which would make playoff tickets easier to come by for non-season ticket holders. In that scenario, everyone wins.

Another intersting offshoot (for me at least) is whether or not the Yanks will lower the prices for the Legends seats next year. It would be tough to do because some of the companies signed multi-year contracts at the original prices. Something to keep an eye on this offseason...

(Full disclosure: This post in the NYT Bats Blog noticed the same policy in the press release and came to some of the same conclusions, but I had this post written before that one was published. I didn't really feel the need to go back and retroactively insert it into my post.)

Game 128: Late

The Yankees have lost two series since the All-Star break, the one that concluded last night against the Rangers and before that, one against the White Sox that spanned the end of July and the beginning of August. It was too late to salvage a halve in the series out in Chicago, but the Yanks avoided a sweep as CC Sabathia worked around one bad inning and the offense touched up Buehrle for 7 runs in 4 1/3.

The same lefty-lefty match up will be replicated in the Bronx. The big fella wasn't perfect his last time out against the Red Sox on Sunday Night baseball, but the 4 runs he allowed over 6 2/3 were good enough to get him the win. He's won his last five starts and is looking to go a perfect 6 for 6 in August with a victory tonight.

In his career, Buehrle hasn't had much luck against Sabathia or the Yankees. In 9 starts against the Bombers, the lefty is just 1-6 with a 6.84 ERA and CC has owned him, going 6-0 in 10 career head to head starts. These numbers make for decent storylines, but don't mean a whole lot. The Yankees have been in a continuous state of flux since Buehrle first faced them back in 2001 as El Duque started against him and the only two players who appeared in the game and are still on the team are Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada. Clearly the offenses involved have played a major factor in that 6-0 head-to-head record against Sabathia and those have changed quite a bit as well.

More relevantly, Buehrle hasn't been great as of late, either. Since his perfect game, he's gone 0-4 in six starts with a 6.16 ERA, even though one of those consisted of 8 innings of shutout ball against the Mariners. During that span, he's struck out just 12 in 38 innings and walked 7 while giving up 54 hits.

The weather in the NYC area this evening may not be conducive for a baseballing contest and as Ross from New Stadium Insider notes, there aren't many chances for make up dates with only a little more than month left in the season. Expect the Yanks to do all they can to get the games this weekend in, which could lead to a late one tonight.

I'll be late for that, I can't wait for that,
I think I was made for that,
So I'm comin' in when I feel like,
To turn this mo'fucka up only if it feels right.

Game 95: Got To Get Better In A Little While

This will be CC Sabathia's second start against the A's wearing Pinstripes, and the last one wasn't particularly pretty. It took place on April 22nd and was a sloppy back and forth affair that took 14 innings and nearly 5 hours to complete. CC went 6 2/3 innings but allowed 7 runs (6 earned) and only struck out two. His opponent that day was Brett Anderson, a rookie from Midland, Texas making his first start against the Yanks. The Yanks got to Anderson as well (5ER in 5 2/3IP), but neither factored into the decision for obvious reasons.

Tonight, another rookie will make his debut against the Yankees in the Bronx, although this one might be a little more familiar with the area. Vin Mazzaro was born in Hackensack and attended Rutherford High School from which he was drafted by Oakland in the 3rd round of the 2005 draft. He started out in low A-Ball in 2006 with less than impressive results. He started 24 games for the Kane County Cougars, averaged fewer than 5 innings per appearance and had an ERA of 5.05. He was promoted in 2007 anyway to High A Ball in Stockon, CA where he produced similar results: a 5.35 ERA and a 1.62 K/BB ratio.

He received another promotion in 2008 (to AA) and took a gigantic leap forward in his age 21 season. Scouts credit his improvement to increases in velocity and swapping a nasty slider for what had been a relatively ineffective curveball. He was promoted to AAA before the conclusion of the year but struggled there, posting an ERA of 6.15 over 33 2/3 innings. His 2009 season began in AAA but picked up where he left off in AA performance-wise, compiling a 2.38 ERA in 9 starts and one relief appearance. He was called up to the Major League club in late May this year, and hit the ground running. He didn't allow a run over his first two starts, totalling 13 2/3 innings, but his ERA has risen steadily ever since. It's now at 4.09 following 5 consective losing outings and his record sits at 2-6.

Sabathia, on the other hand, has been alternating gems and clunkers over his past 5 starts, going 3-2. He's given up only 2 runs in the 1st, 3rd & 5th of those outings while surrendering 11 in the 2nd and 4th. He came back from the All-Star break on a high note with 7 shutout innings against the Tigers and looks to keep that momentum going tonight. As was the case in the Detroit game, Jorge Posada will do the catching.

It might be a little while before the game starts up tonight as rain is already falling on the NYC area. It looks like it's going to pass, but not for a while. Ross from New Stadium Insider's personal Weather connection tells us that the game probably won't start until about 8:30. Check back with him for more updates or stop by Yankees Weather on Twitter.

Hang in there, this rain won't last forever.

Still one thing that you can do;
Fall down on your knees and pray.

It's got to get better in a little while...

The Undoucheification Of The New Stadium Has Begun

Via our pal Ross from New Stadium Insider, who was at the game last night, comes the news that the Peter Max Art Gallery has been removed from the Field Level of the New Yankee Stadium in favor of a New York Yankees Women's Team Store. Soooo, people don't buy art work when they go to baseball games? Could a store that caters to the ladies with enough disposable income to be sitting in seats that cost hundreds of dollars might be a little more profitable? Shocking!

I wrote a post earlier on in the season about the divide between the Field Level and the rest of the Stadium and dropped a photo of the Peter Max gallery to illustrate how far over the top it the Yanks have gone.

It's good news that they've responded so quickly to their obvious misstep and hopefully they'll be willing to change some other unpopular things that don't have such a direct connection to the bottom line.

Lonn Trost Does Not Acknowledge The Third Ammendment

Notice the all of the white-covered Navy hats populating the Legends seats. Sam Borden acknowledged that the Yankees were giving these tickets away for Fleet Week from Thursday through today. I have absolutely no problem with the Yankees opening up these seats for members of the armed forces, children's hospitals, in exchange for donations to charity, to people who volunteer in their community, etc... I'm not asking for one. 

But that is the reason you shouldn't say something like "Well, if you purchase a suite, do you want somebody in your suite? If you purchase a home, do you want somebody in your home?", Lonn Trost. Of all the dumb shit that has been said about the Stadium, I think that quote really stands out like a sore middle finger. So now you are quartering soldiers in people's homes, Lonn? 

By trying to preserve those seats as exclusive and Legendary (TM), even when the Yankees are trying to do something good, they open themselves up for bad PR. If everyone in the Yanks' front office was like Felix Lopez, who has acknowledged that there are things wrong with the Stadium, I wouldn't take nearly as much perverse pleasure in pointing out when they are off-base.

The building itself is beautiful. The only things wrong with it are fixable - the ticket prices, the exclusionary policies, the on-field dimensions, (the urinal dividers). If you agree with this and you aren't already, start reading New Stadium Insider. Ross and the guys over there have done a great job of keeping the Yankees honest and actually trying to get them to change some of their flawed policies. It's a blog, so it doesn't get acknowledged nearly as much as it should, but NSI has certainly been the first to publicly point out many of the now-familiar gripes with the new joint.
 

Secondary Ticket Prices Down From Last Year

Neil Best has a blog post up today (following up on his column on Monday) discussing the secondary market for Mets and Yankees tickets. Ross from New Stadium Insider was well ahead of the curve on this issue, but Neil adds a very surprising bit of information:

StubHub spokesman Sean Pate said as of last week, the average resale price of a Yankees ticket was $79, down from $84 at this time last year despite the increase in face values. 

So despite the fact that the prices of Yankees tickets had been uniformly increased (the best seats exponentially so), and it's a brand New Stadium with fewer seats, the resale price is down. 

Does this mean the Yankees are actually making less money this year? Do the inflated prices on the tickets which are already sold counteract the fact that there are empty seats? During last season, you could have counted me among those who assumed that every seat to every game this year would have been sold. Aside from Opening Day, it hasn't even been close to that... What's going to happen if/when the New Stadium appeal wears out and Yanks continue to flounder?

Being A-Rod > Being Jeremy Guthrie

I'm usually all over crowd-related Yankees screengrabbery, however I must turn to two good friends of the blog for this one: The Sports Hernia and New Stadium Insider. 

Exhibit A: A supremely hot blonde wearing a tight pinstriped tank top skips down the steps right behind the dugout to get a glance at A-Rod after his home run. She then has an obvious eyegasm upon first sight. 

Exhibit B: Jeremy Guthrie has a woman in the stands creepily miminc every portion of his pre-game warm-up routine.

Game 25: Fool In The Rain

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this game probably isn't going to be played anytime soon. As of 11:58AM:

New Stadium Insider has a more detailed forcast (with updated radar images) from their guy Steve DiMartino which concludes that it's unlikely the game will be played today. 

PeteAbe thinks they will stick around for a while before calling it, because this is the Angels' last time in town this year. 

-----

While we wait, here is my absolute favorite Led Zeppelin song, Fool In The Rain. The lyrics tell the story of a guy who is supposed to meet a woman for a date and stands out in the rain waiting for her. He is beginning to come to the conclusion that he's been stood up when he realizes that he was waiting on the wrong block. He sprints to where they were supposed to meet, but of course, she has already left. The lyrics are amazingly evocative and the music beneath them is equally gripping. It's of those songs that so perfectly captures a moment and an emotion that I don't think I'll ever get sick of listening to it.

Interesting fact: It was never performed in concert because they thought it needed both piano and bass, but John Paul Jones could only play one or the other when the band was live on stage. 

Now I will stand in the rain on the corner,
I'll watch the people go shuffling downtown,
Another ten minutes no longer,
And then I'm turning around.

The clock on the walls moving slower,
My heart it sinks to the ground,
And the storm that I thought would blow over,
Clouds the light of the love that I found.

Now my body is starting to quiver,
And the palms of my hands getting wet,
I've got no reason to doubt you baby,
It's all a terrible mess.

I'll run in the rain 'til I'm breathless,
When I'm breathless I'll run 'til I drop, hey,
The thoughts of a fools kind of careless,
I'm just a fool waiting on the wrong block...

Obstructed Views? WHAT???

In the New York Times today, Ken Belson has some startling revlations about the New Yankee Stadium and Citi Field... THEY MIGHT HAVE OBSTRUCTED VIEWS!!1!!1!1:

The Mets and the Yankees together have spent more than $2 billion on new stadiums partly to bring fans much closer to the action. But that access comes at a cost. For the best views, fans will have to pay eye-popping prices to sit on the field level and in the decks behind home plate in seats angled toward the infield.

Fans on tighter budgets, though, will have to settle for seats in far-off sections, some of which have obstructed views of the field.

Old news, Ken, old news. New Stadium Insider has been all over this. Even we wrote a post about it.

Here is the part that kills me though (emphasis mine):

Mets fans learned this the hard way on Sunday, when St. John’s and Georgetown played the first game at Citi Field. Steven Gottesman, who has a 15-game ticket plan, went to see his four seats in Section 533, Row 15, near the top of the upper deck down the left-field line. To his “shock and horror,” he could not see the warning track or about 20 feet of the outfield from the left-field line to center field.

Dude, Steven. You bought tickets in Section 533, "near the top of the upper deck". What the fuck did you expect? Have you even been to a ballpark before? A lot of the seats in the upper deck in every park have slightly obstructed views. "Shock and horror" is what you feel when you find a dead body checking into your hotel room, not when the seats for your 15 game package IN SECTION 533 don't have a view of 20 feet of the fucking outfield.

“In other words, I will only know if a home run is hit if I am listening to a radio at the game or I wait to see the sign from the umpire,” Gottesman, 45, said in an e-mail message.

Wow, this guy really has never been to a baseball game before. Steve, if you are unsure if a home run was just hit, ask yourself a few simple questions:

1. How is the crowd reacting?
2. A roaring cheer?
3. A collective sigh?
4. Okay, what team is batting?
5. Is the batter rounding the bases?
6. Did the outfielder throw the ball back into the infield?
7. Are fans of either team high-fiving each other nearby?
8. Does the pitcher look like he just got punched in the stomach?
9. How have I not figured this out by now?
10. Will I ever get this eight precious seconds of my life back?

Gottesman added: “If Endy Chávez made his catch in this new stadium and I had been there, I would not have seen it.”

No, you might not have theoretically seen it (leaving aside the fact that this is a different park), but you would have experienced the rest of Shea Stadium going absolutley out of their minds. You know where you could have viewed it perfectly? At home on your HDTV.

You don't go to a game to see every single thing that happens, Steve. You go to take in the atmopshere, and to say that you were there when it occurred. I was at a game in 2005 where Bernie Williams hit a walk off 2 run HR in the bottom 11th inning into the short porch in right. I was in the right field upper deck and couldnt see it acutally leave the park, but I knew about two thirds of a second after it happened. If you were at Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS and had your view obscured, do you really think you'd be bitching about the fact that you couldn't see that one play?

Steve, if you are reading (doubtful), stop being a douche and sell your tickets to someone who might actually appreciate being at the game. I'm not even a Mets fan and I'd buy a few.

Wow, It's Been A Long Offseason

It has literally been a long offseason; at least a week longer than the thirteen previous ones. It wasn't just that the Yankees didn't make the postseason, they were pretty much dead to rights when they fell 12.5 games back of the Rays and 7 games back of the Red Sox on August 31st. They hadn't even been within 5 games of the division lead since July 31st. The didn't lead the division at any point during the year.

I was lucky enough to attend each of the last three games at the Old Stadium, but by then it was completely apparent that the Yanks weren't going to the playoffs although they hadn't been mathematically eliminated quite yet. It was a great spectacale to behold, but on the field, they were dead men walking.

Despite the fact that missing the playoffs represented a monstrous failure to the organization, the outlook on September 29th was pretty rosy. Dropping Giambi, Mussina, Pavano and Abreu represented a huge amount of payroll relief and the New Stadium was set to bring in a massive influx of new revenue. Sure enough, the Yanks reeled in the top three free agents on the market and significantly upgraded their roster by Christmas.

Since then, we started this blog (and have written over 400 posts), we started our Countdown to Spring Training, Joe Torre's book came out, Andy Pettitte came back, Selena Roberts dropped the bomb, Peter Gammons interviewed A-Rod, A-Rod paused for 27 seconds before saying "thanks", we tried to start another countdown, A-Rod had surgery, the Yankees were outed as a Ponzi scheme, and then the Details magazine article came out.

All this drama has made the chasm between meaningful baseball games pretty excruciating for us Fackers. We don't want to be reduced to talking about bullshit gossipy topics like Jeter's house or A-Rod's revolting taste in women, but unfortunatley those were the most compelling things at the time. I don't think it's a whole lot better to get wrapped up in the ups and downs of Spring Training.

Is anyone else just ready for some baseball that actually matters?