He’s a 6’10″ lefty and I can only think of one other player that fits that description. But imagine getting him BEFORE his prime, not 3 years after the fact.

“Cano sees an average of 3.01 pitches per plate appearance. There have been 368 players in the majors this year who have had at least 125 plate appearances. Three-hundred and sixty-seven of them have looked at more pitches per plate appearance than has Cano. He is dead last.”

And please don’t tell me that “Cano’s slumping because Ruben’s in Tampa.”

I expect we’ll be in a race down to the wire and whoever’s up will start game 1. That said, I’d imagine Torre would try to shade things so Chacon would happen to be the guy up – or anyway I would. Though if Moose gets it together (not unlikely) or RJ does (seems unlikely) that would change. Chacon is still riding a small sample size.

Season Stats:
Javier Vazquez
10-12 4.67ERA 148K 34BB 1.26 WHIP
Brad Halsey
8-10 4.39ERA 79K 34BB 1.46WHIP
Randy Johnson
11-8 4.34ERA 167K 34BB 1.22WHIP

I remember in the beginning of the season there were alot of people saying, “Look at the game Halsey is pitching…”, “Look at how good Vazquez has been…” Every post seem to bring down the notion that Johnson wasn’t worth it. Did we really make a worthwhile trade?

Well, if you look at the numbers recently vazquez/halsey’s seasons seem mediocure after all. Vasquez seems to have reverted back to his last year self with his poor second half, and Halsey is proving everyday he is a project with his inconsistency. The diamondbacks pitchers are in the weakest division in baseball while the yankee pitchers are battling it out in one of the toughests divisions. Dont give me the old line that “their young, johnson is old, they will develop” because vazquez and halsey have seen the big lights in NY and now the little lights in Arizona and nothing has seemed to changed in my mind. They seem like the frail pitchers we have seen all along. Let’s just admit they will always be projects while Johnson will always be the show!

Yes, Johnson has had one horrible inning coupled with a few bad pitches thrown at the wrong time. Yes, he has shown this season that he has been sub par from his previous years. But one thing I am glad about is that we have him going into september where it matters most. Just knowing he can shutdown a team anytime is good enough for me. Just knowing he is taking the mound against the sox later this season will get me hyped. Just knowing that he is a winner will let me keep on believing. The stats may not reflect that this year, but I just have a gut feeling he is not going out like that. Johnson will prove that stats do not define a season but moments. He is due for a big moment. The unit is on the hill tonite. Shut the critics up and give ‘em hell!

The crime against pitching for which Stottlemyre is continually retried is Dwight Gooden. Stottlemyre’s big sin was excessive concern with Gooden’s ability to hold baserunners, but he didn’t notice that there weren’t any. It led to a noticeable change in Gooden’s mechanics. As with everything, however, a confluence of factors affected Gooden: workload, immaturity, drug use, and, yes, Stottlemyre. At the time, nearly nobody in baseball worried about babying the arms of young pitchers. Who except for Weaver believed that the best way to develop starters by making them into long relievers first? Sabermetricians were starting to count pitches because they hadn’t been counted before, but nobody truly knew what do do with the information.

Without consulting any reference sources, these are players developed by the Yankees over the past ten years:

Derek Jeter
Jorge Posada
Andy Pettitte
Mariano Rivera
Nick Johnson
Eric Milton
Alfonso Soriano
Brad Halsey
Brandon Claussen
D’Angelo Jimenez
Robinson Cano
Dioner Navarro
Yhency Brazoban

With a few exceptions, the noteworthy thing about the list is how good the Yankees have been at identifying the best players in the bunch to keep for themselves.

First, I refuse to believe that Torre has been a plus this year. His calming influence has been negated by too many enigmatic and ill-conceived on-field moves (starting Womack so frequently, his poor use of the pen, et. al.).

Secondly, I really have no idea how much influence Mel has on his pitching staffs – good, bad, or indiferent. Still, I’ve always been alarmed at the number of former Yankee pitchers who go on to post significant improvements elsewhere, away from Mel and NY (Contreras, Javy, Claussen, Halsey, Clemens, Lilly, Marte, Weaver, and on, and on…). And, I don’t know if this is commonplace, but what does it say when some of your top pitchers get tutelage from outside sources (Kerrigan with Johnson and Pettite’s dad with Pettite)?

At this point, for the playoffs, is Chacon the #1 starter?

I like sabermetrics so much because it lets me look at the information and made the conclusions on my own. When people discuss Mel, here and elsewhere, too often we’re told the conclusion first – he sucks – and then the evidence is stacked to support that conclusion. I’d rather just get the objective evidence of both good and bad, and figure it out for myself.

Jay Jaffe and Steven Goldman were supposed to do something like that – at least the Pinstriped Bible/Blog said so once – but then it never happened. Maybe this offseason?

Mel is an easy target, Clemens and Pettite thought the world of him, but like Nick from the Heights said, the naysayers
always put themselves in a pretty favorable position to knock him down and diminish what he’s done.

Would there be anything sweeter than officially eliminating those punks from postseason contention in their own park the last series of the year?

(Yeah, I put the cart before the horse. So what!)

Suppose I think that Wang is a young pitcher that did very well under Mel’s tutelage. Well, Mel’s critics have set up a sure-fire way to discredit that argument. It was the way his minor league pitching coach dealt with him that contributed to his success. What about the wonder that has been Mariano’s healthy career? Well, Mariano is Mariano. He’s basically a diety and he didn’t need help. And Aaron Small’s performance against major league hitters? Well, that’s his minor league coach again. Mel hasn’t even spoken to him since he got to the Big Show.

Al Leiter in Newsday Aug 8: “I get amped up. I rush and I don’t allow my arm to get up to a decent release point,” he said. “But I worked with Mel on being a little more deliberate. I feel comfortable with Mel. I told him, if you see anything wrong, tell me. It won’t hurt my feelings.”

From the Aug 9th Star Ledger: Sturtze got some help from pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre, who worked with the pitcher on his mechanics before the game.

“It was great that Joe called on me, because I wanted to get back out there,” Sturtze said. “Toronto was so awful, and I wanted to get that taste out of my mouth.”

You can read all about people working w/Mel on their mechanics-try looking for it…

I think he’s positioned more to the right.

Although, I have to admit, I don’t know the “rate” stat Cliff and Dan-el quote. Jeter’s Zone Rating hasn’t changed much (.789-.855 over his career), he’s at .818 this year, which makes sense. He’s not getting to more batted balls, just more of the ones to the right, leaving some of those to the left to ARod.