Don't worry, folks. My Astros will win one more regular season game than the Yankees (both teams will win 100+ games), to get home field advantage in the ALCS. Then they'll beat them 4-3 in the ALCS, just like in 2017. A new rivalry is born.
I'd like to see a spray chart of where the home runs are going out in Yankee Stadium, and see if they'd be HR's in other parks..... And a properly done, impartial surveying of the outfield dimensions there....
Brief side note on the Innings Draft, and Mike's selection of the 18th, with his commentary that fans get loopy by that point. In 1995, I attended a scheduled double header between the Padres and Astros, at the Astrodome. Game 1 ended up going 17 innings (!!!). Our entire group was ready to leave... except for the one guy who drove. We ended up staying 7 innings into the second game - 24 innings of ball in one day. The box score from Game 1 is pretty crazy... Hoffman pitched three-and-a-third! https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/HOU/HOU199507081.shtml
Another crazy thing about that game... each team scored one run in the 1st... and then it was 0s all the way until the 16th, when each team again scored one run.
I don't know how to analyze for it, but obviously there is a selection bias here, just like in your take on Ron Gardenhire as a Twins manager a few years back. Twins fans thought he sucked because they could only see the mistakes, while you saw all the extra stuff he got out of his players.
Now you can only see the seemingly "magic" end results of these Yankees, while you ignore the fact that plenty of folks have come and gone and not made an impact in the Pinstripes.
As a Yankee fan, I'm certainly happy with the results this year, but I also notice a fair share of folks who have come through the Bronx, not worked out, and gone on to be good for someone else. Sonny Gray and Lance Lynn have 24 Wins between them and a 3.42 ERA in 315+ IP this year, for example, while the Yankees' starters not named for a day of the week have a collective ERA around 5.
Yes, a bunch of folks nobody ever heard of are contributing, and that's weird, but that's been necessitated by the Yankees having over $80M worth of 2019 salaries on the IL. Looking back it appears to be magic, but then, only the players who have actually been effective (Tauchmann, Urshela, Maybin, Ford) have stuck around while others have been jettisoned or sent down (Morales, Valera, Estrada, Frazier (sort of), and from last year's roster: Brandon Drury, Neil Walker, Tyler Austin, Billy McKinney, and others. It's not magic, it's persistence.
And probably the ability to spend more on scouting than anybody else.
Every team has had a parade of players come up for a few games and then go back down. The fact that the Yankees have found so many underrated and overlooked players who have contributed so much is either black magic, crazy luck, or some good work by Cashman, Boone, and their teams.
Mike Tauchman doesn't exist. I was at the Yankees/Twins game where former Twin Aaron Hicks made a 6 star catch to end a Twins rally in the bottom of the 9th with the final score 12 to 11. I saw his name on the board, face, (obviously fake) bio... nah, he's a hoax. Can't be real. But at least they're trying to fool us. Putting in the effort.
With Mike Ford they're just laughing at us. IVY LEAGUE STAR MIKE FORD. Why not just pretend he also was the most recent man to walk on the moon, Yankees? Get outta here. Uggghhhh...
I'm sorry, but in a season in which nearly every team is setting home run records, this stat about the Yankees is just not that impressive or interesting. If *nobody* was hitting a lot of home runs, then, yes, the Yankees' August would be a story.
But at least I got to read about that Torres/Chapman story for the fifth time this month.
Thinking about it a different way, you're essentially making Joe's point. The Yankees are about to set the all-time record for HR's in a month, driven primarily by a bunch of *nobodies!*
Just as a corollary: Anyone remember how the Yankees got Chapman in the first place? Because, as a Reds fan, I was looking for evidence that the Reds ever had him. And, well, looking up and down the current roster, I don't see any.
Just checking, HH: Do you mean the story of how the Yankees traded Aroldis Chapman to the Cubs in exchange for Gleyber Torres, then a few months later just went and resigned Chapman again? Because they're the worst?
No, he means how the Yankees originally traded for Chapman from the Reds in 2015 for 4 prospects, all of whom seemingly had some upside, but have essentially turned back into pumpkins since then. Two of them are out of pro ball entirely, one has been hurt all year and the other has just been terrible, mostly in AAA.
KC fans are the expert Yankee-haters. When the Blues were NYs AAA farm team, every fall call-up hurt their title hopes. Usually farm team fans pulled for the big club. I don't remember it being that way in KC in the 50s. Then the many sweetheart trades to NY from both the A's and early Royals. The cozy relationship infuriated us.
Joe, let me take this opportunity to politely ask that you please read your copy before you post. Or have someone else do it. I promise you that your readers (at least most of them) will appreciate the corrections of misspelled words and the misuse of words (or computer corrected words such as on for of). I love your columns but they could be read more easily.
If Joe were to ever write a book, maybe about something like Houdini coming out sometime like Oct 23, I would expect errorless writing. In the blog? Ill take volume over typo accuracy evry day of the seek.
#InvestigatetheYankees
Don't worry, folks. My Astros will win one more regular season game than the Yankees (both teams will win 100+ games), to get home field advantage in the ALCS. Then they'll beat them 4-3 in the ALCS, just like in 2017. A new rivalry is born.
I'd like to see a spray chart of where the home runs are going out in Yankee Stadium, and see if they'd be HR's in other parks..... And a properly done, impartial surveying of the outfield dimensions there....
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-yankee-stadium-effect/
Brief side note on the Innings Draft, and Mike's selection of the 18th, with his commentary that fans get loopy by that point. In 1995, I attended a scheduled double header between the Padres and Astros, at the Astrodome. Game 1 ended up going 17 innings (!!!). Our entire group was ready to leave... except for the one guy who drove. We ended up staying 7 innings into the second game - 24 innings of ball in one day. The box score from Game 1 is pretty crazy... Hoffman pitched three-and-a-third! https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/HOU/HOU199507081.shtml
Another crazy thing about that game... each team scored one run in the 1st... and then it was 0s all the way until the 16th, when each team again scored one run.
I don't know how to analyze for it, but obviously there is a selection bias here, just like in your take on Ron Gardenhire as a Twins manager a few years back. Twins fans thought he sucked because they could only see the mistakes, while you saw all the extra stuff he got out of his players.
Now you can only see the seemingly "magic" end results of these Yankees, while you ignore the fact that plenty of folks have come and gone and not made an impact in the Pinstripes.
As a Yankee fan, I'm certainly happy with the results this year, but I also notice a fair share of folks who have come through the Bronx, not worked out, and gone on to be good for someone else. Sonny Gray and Lance Lynn have 24 Wins between them and a 3.42 ERA in 315+ IP this year, for example, while the Yankees' starters not named for a day of the week have a collective ERA around 5.
Yes, a bunch of folks nobody ever heard of are contributing, and that's weird, but that's been necessitated by the Yankees having over $80M worth of 2019 salaries on the IL. Looking back it appears to be magic, but then, only the players who have actually been effective (Tauchmann, Urshela, Maybin, Ford) have stuck around while others have been jettisoned or sent down (Morales, Valera, Estrada, Frazier (sort of), and from last year's roster: Brandon Drury, Neil Walker, Tyler Austin, Billy McKinney, and others. It's not magic, it's persistence.
And probably the ability to spend more on scouting than anybody else.
chill out mr "obviously there is a selection bias here"
Every team has had a parade of players come up for a few games and then go back down. The fact that the Yankees have found so many underrated and overlooked players who have contributed so much is either black magic, crazy luck, or some good work by Cashman, Boone, and their teams.
Mike Tauchman doesn't exist. I was at the Yankees/Twins game where former Twin Aaron Hicks made a 6 star catch to end a Twins rally in the bottom of the 9th with the final score 12 to 11. I saw his name on the board, face, (obviously fake) bio... nah, he's a hoax. Can't be real. But at least they're trying to fool us. Putting in the effort.
With Mike Ford they're just laughing at us. IVY LEAGUE STAR MIKE FORD. Why not just pretend he also was the most recent man to walk on the moon, Yankees? Get outta here. Uggghhhh...
I'm sorry, but in a season in which nearly every team is setting home run records, this stat about the Yankees is just not that impressive or interesting. If *nobody* was hitting a lot of home runs, then, yes, the Yankees' August would be a story.
But at least I got to read about that Torres/Chapman story for the fifth time this month.
Thinking about it a different way, you're essentially making Joe's point. The Yankees are about to set the all-time record for HR's in a month, driven primarily by a bunch of *nobodies!*
Oh, and Gleyber Torres. How did they get him?
Just as a corollary: Anyone remember how the Yankees got Chapman in the first place? Because, as a Reds fan, I was looking for evidence that the Reds ever had him. And, well, looking up and down the current roster, I don't see any.
Just checking, HH: Do you mean the story of how the Yankees traded Aroldis Chapman to the Cubs in exchange for Gleyber Torres, then a few months later just went and resigned Chapman again? Because they're the worst?
No, he means how the Yankees originally traded for Chapman from the Reds in 2015 for 4 prospects, all of whom seemingly had some upside, but have essentially turned back into pumpkins since then. Two of them are out of pro ball entirely, one has been hurt all year and the other has just been terrible, mostly in AAA.
It gets better every time.
You've only seen it 5 times? Are you only reading Joe once a week or something??
KC fans are the expert Yankee-haters. When the Blues were NYs AAA farm team, every fall call-up hurt their title hopes. Usually farm team fans pulled for the big club. I don't remember it being that way in KC in the 50s. Then the many sweetheart trades to NY from both the A's and early Royals. The cozy relationship infuriated us.
Joe, let me take this opportunity to politely ask that you please read your copy before you post. Or have someone else do it. I promise you that your readers (at least most of them) will appreciate the corrections of misspelled words and the misuse of words (or computer corrected words such as on for of). I love your columns but they could be read more easily.
If Joe were to ever write a book, maybe about something like Houdini coming out sometime like Oct 23, I would expect errorless writing. In the blog? Ill take volume over typo accuracy evry day of the seek.
I have to agree with Steve. It is always jarring to come across those typos.
I only speak for myself, but I couldn't care less about this.
honestly, it's fine. i have trouble believing this is a real issue for anybody. plus, it's a blog!
Keep up the volume and I can look past typos!
How many of us here are both huge JoePos fans and Yankee fans? (Raises hand.)
And Yankee Stadium somehow registers as a pitcher's park.
Might be my all time favorite blog post. Thank you, Joe. And Let's Go Yankees! ;)
One thing I'm sure you just forgot- Gio Urshela came to the Yankees from, that's right, The Plum.
Thank you, Joe, for writing the nomination form for Brian Cashman as executive of the year and Aaron Boone as manager of the year.