Daily Archives: November 6, 2006

I turned to Emily late last week and said, “I miss baseball.”

“Me too. Things feel so empty without it.”

I’m fortunate enough to have a woman in my life who not only tolerates my passsion with baseball but who thoroughly enjoys it herself. (Is it any wonder we’re getting hitched?) Em usually catches the first part of the game on the radio during her drive home; if I come home late, nine times out of ten, she’ll be sitting there on the couch with the game on, waiting for me. You know the old Weaver saying: “This ain’t football, we do this every day.” Baseball is a lifestyle.

But now there’s nothing, and we’re adjusting to our winter routine–cooking shows, channel surfing, Netflix. We actually watch a lot of movies in the winter, and find oursevles spending evenings watching no TV at all (perish the thought, I know). I have only a casual interest in hoops at this stage in my life and I find pro football boring (I did catch portions of the Colts, Patriots game last night, however, and around all the penalities and instant replay challenges, thought it was an exciting game). One the one hand, the break is okay. We get to catch up on other things in life. I sleep better at night when there is no game to replay over and over in my head. The other day, I thought, “Wow, there is a lack of neurotic tension in my life during the off-season.” That can’t be all bad, right? Still, that’s part of the emptiness.

How many days ’til pitchers and catchers again?

Now that Joe Torre has (in an absurd bit of media-fueled theater) been officially not fired, the Tigers and Kenny Rogers have done to the A’s (and in the latter case the Cardinals) what they did to the Yankees in the Division Series, and Yankee senior vice president of media relations Rick Cerrone has been fired as a low-impact mia culpa to Alex Rodriguez over Tom Verducci’s now infamous Sports Illustrated article, the Queens of Hearts and Chicken Littles have finally quieted to the point that we can look back at the 2006 New York Yankees without having to shout above the din. As I did last year, I’ll take a player-by-player look at the 2006 Yankees over the course of my next several posts, but before I do, let’s kick things off with a quick look at how the team performed as a whole:

The 2006 New York Yankees finished the season with the American League’s best record (97-65, a game better than the surging Twins) and tied with the eventual pennant-winning Tigers for the league’s best Pythagorean record (95-67, two games better than the Twins). The primary reason for this success was that the Yankees boasted the major league’s best offense. The Bronx Bombers led majors in runs scored (930 total, 5.74 per game) thanks to a balanced attack that saw them finish second in the American League in both home runs (to the defending champion White Sox), and stolen bases (to the Angels, whose 72 percent success rate paled next to the Bombers’ 80 percent), while drawing just one less walk than the second-best A’s (Boston lead the league). In a season in which the average American Leaguer hit just .275/.339/.437, the Yankees as a team posted a .285/.363/.461 line, their team on-base percentage of .363 outdistancing the Red Sox’s second-best mark by twelve points.

On the other side of the ball, the Yankees finished second in the league (to the Tigers) in defensive efficiency, a huge turn around from last year’s tenth-place performance and one that surely had a great deal to do with their completely revamped (unintended though it might have been) outfield. Such an efficient defense also helps put into context the league average performance of their pitching staff (4.73 runs allowed per game and a 4.41 team ERA, which works out to a team ERA+ of 99). In front of an average defense (or worse yet, the iron-gloved 2005 Yankees), that lukewarm pitching performance just might have turned the blood cold. But with the everyday players contributing at an elite level on both sides of the ball, the Yankee pitching didn’t need to be better than average during the regular season. When the bats were cooled by the majors’ best pitching staff in October, however, the team’s shortcomings on the mound were thrown into sharp relief, resulting in a quick first-round exit at the hands of the eventual pennant-winning Tigers.

Still, the 2006 Yankees were a good team that avoided prolonged slumps (their longest losing streak was four games and their worst month was a .538 June) and only got better as the season progressed (first half-winning percentage: .581, August: .600, September .621). Of course, they were also the oldest and most expensive team in the major leagues, but bubbling up below the surface are a couple of young hurlers who could improve the team in their three trouble areas: age, price, and pitching. I’ll take a look at what the future could (and perhaps should) hold for the home nine in the coming weeks, but for now, let’s look back at the 2006 club. I’ll start today with the outfielders, as major injuries to the team’s starting corner outfielders and middle-of-the-order sluggers were central to the progression of the Yankees’ 2006 season.

(more…)