Today’s news is powered by our fearless leader’s predictions for the Yankees in 2009, as part of a “New York Baseball Today” segment:
- Baseball Prospectus’ Will Carroll, on the status of our favorite celebrity/third baseman:
The Yankees are saying that Alex Rodriguez will return on May 15; sources tell me that he’s “way in front of that.”
- Tonya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan and A-Rod. No, its not some cross-sport menage-a-trois. Its some of the names that come up in David Pinto’s preview of the Yanks, specifically:
Be on the lookout for a Nancy Kerrigan-like recovery for Alex Rodriguez. Back in 1994, skater Kerrigan was whacked in the knee by the boyfriend of her rival skater, Tonya Harding. Kerrigan was force to rehabilitate her knee to get ready for the Olympics, and the therapy made her stronger, leading to the best performance of her life. A-Rod is going through that kind of training right now, possibly increasing his strength beyond what a normal spring training would bring. I could imagine him coming back and posting six months worth of number in five. (Of course, he’ll complain about Jeter’s makeup and everyone will hate him again.)
- John Perrotto takes a peek at the 2009 Yankees:
Though this is one franchise that determines the success of a season by whether or not it won the World Series (something it hasn’t done since 2000), the Yankees weren’t exactly awful last season. They went 89-73, and they weren’t as dominant as usual, finishing a mediocre 13th in the majors in team Equivalent Average*with a .262 mark while scoring an average of 4.9 per game, 14th in runs allowed with a 4.5 average, and 25th in defensive efficiency. This year, Teixeira should bolster the offense, and Sabathia should provide a lift to the pitching staff as they are among the game’s premier players. Teixeira’s combined .328 EqA with the Braves and Angels last season ranked fifth in the majors, and Sabathia’s combined 8.7 SNLVAR** with the Indians and Brewers ranked first. Burnett was 32nd in SNLVAR with 5.3 for the Blue Jays, and is not considered as safe a bet as Teixeira and Sabathia because of his injury history and his often prickly personality.
“There is pressure on me, and all three of us, but I can tell you that nobody has greater expectations of me than I do,” Sabathia said. “It was that way when I was a rookie back in 2001 making the minimum salary, and that’s the way it is now that I’ve signed this contract. I want to the best pitcher I can be, get to the World Series, and win it. I know the fans expect me to come here and be that missing piece, the guy who takes the Yankees to the World Series. That’s great. I want them to feel that way, because that’s my goal, too.”
Sabathia also believes that Teixeira and Burnett will handle the high expectations. “They’re veterans and exceptional players,” said Sabathia. “You don’t reach the level they’ve reached in this game if you’re not confident and mentally strong. We’re all in the same boat. We’re new here. But we’re also here to lean on each other, and that’s going to help all three of us.”
- Newsday’s Wallace Matthews wants Joba Chamberlain back in the bullpen:
Greater baseball minds than mine have analyzed this situation at great length and determined that Joba for the first six innings every five days is better than Joba out of the bullpen five times a week.
. . . Joba can finish. He was a great setup man, and someday he’ll be a great closer. Those commodities are a lot scarcer on the market than starting pitchers.
And the Yankees, of all teams, should know it. In 1996, they wrote the book on the art of shortening the game. The nightly relay team – starting pitcher to Rivera to John Wetteland – was more reliable than Tinker to Evers to Chance. It forced every one of their opponents into the hurry-up offense, every night.
If you didn’t get those Yankees within six innings, you weren’t getting them at all, and the numbers bear it out – the record of the 1996 world champions was 70-3 in games they led after six.
- When you walk into the new Stadium, you’ll be walking into Lonn Trost’s baby:
In the several years since, Trost has been consumed with the stadium project and, in an interview only weeks before its grand opening, his tone is almost fatherly when he talks about its idiosyncrasies and creative touches; it is as if he is speaking about a child he has raised.
“We don’t even refer to it as ‘new Yankee Stadium,’ ” he says, proudly ticking off some of its similarities to the franchise’s first park, which stood from 1923-73 and was replaced by the “remodeled” ballpark, which was the team’s home from 1976 until last year. “This is Yankee Stadium. It’s more like Yankee Stadium than the building we just left.”
In many ways, Trost was the perfect choice to oversee a project that required constant attention: His last vacation was so long ago (1996) that when asked where he went, he pauses for a moment. “A cruise with my family,” he says, “but … I don’t even remember where.”
“His role in the planning and building of the new Yankee Stadium has been especially valuable,” says general partner Hal Steinbrenner, “and his devotion and loyalty to the Yankees is something he demonstrates every day in the way he approaches his job.”
- How much juice will it take to power the new Stadium?:
Con Edison expects the new Yankee Stadium to use about nine megawatts of electricity during peak times, enough to power about 9,000 homes or the Metropolitan Museum of Art. . . .
Madison Square Garden, by contrast, uses five megawatts. . . .
The Yankees’ new home will have 56 private suites, up from 19 in the old stadium, and nearly twice as much space devoted to team stores. Hungry fans can go to the Legends Club, the Hard Rock Cafe or NYY Steak.
To prepare, Con Edison installed new transformers and enough cable to circle the bases at Yankee Stadium 388 times. . . .
- The Times has an article on the aesthetics of the new Stadium:
Eager to evoke their rich history, the Yankees preserved all the oddities of their old stadium in the new one. The field will have the same dimensions as the old Yankee Stadium across the street, with short foul lines and a cavernous left-center field. The only change is the 21 fewer feet between home plate and the backstop, to accommodate $2,500 seats. . . .
“Everything is the same — the short porch, the field dimensions, the direction it faces — so it should play exactly the way the old Yankee Stadium plays,” said Randy Levine, the Yankees’ president. “But you never know until you play it.”
- “The Metro-North train to Yankee Stadium, originally scheduled to arrive on April 16th, will now arrive on May 23rd. We are sorry for this inconvenience, and appreciate your cooperation. Thank you for riding Metro-North.”:
The Metro-North Railroad stop at Yankee Stadium will open May 23 – and the new, wider walkway connecting the stadium with the parking areas west of the tracks will be open for this weekend’s games, the railroad announced today.
The new Yankees-E. 153rd Street Station features platforms up to 25 feet wide, twice as wide as the typical station. Operating 365 days a year, it will serve as a regular Hudson Line stop as well as a new way for Westchester residents and others from the suburbs to reach ball games.
Poll time!
[poll id=”27″]
- Jon Lieber turns 39 today. Lieber was a reclamation project for the 2004 Yanks, who signed him after he underwent TJ surgery after the 2002 season. Lieber went 14-8 in 27 starts for the Bombers in ’04, despite giving up 216 hits in 176.7 innings (walking a mere 18 batters will help keep the ERA manageable). Fun fact: Lieber has had three different seasons in which he has pitched 100+ innings while giving up more homers than walks.
- Pete Incaviglia, who passed through the Yankees’ doors (16 ABs in ’97) during a 12-year career, turns 45 today.
- Happy 54th birthday to MLB Network’s Billy Sample. Sample spent one year with the Yanks (1985).
- Will you still need him, will you still feed him . . . now that Mike Kekich is turning 64? Kekich of course is famous for swapping his family with teammate Fritz Peterson back in 1972. The Yanks didn’t take kindly to this publicity, and dealt Kekich away early in the ’73 season.
- On this date in 2001, Roger Clemens becomes the all-time American League career strikeout leader passing Walter Johnson. Kansas City Royals infielder Joe Randa is his 3,509 Junior Circuit victim. Passing Johnson, Clemens takes over the seventh spot in Major League history.
- On this date in 2003, Todd Zeile hits a home run in his first at-bat for the New York Yankees, becoming the only major leaguer to hit a home run for ten different teams. In addition to homering with the Yankees, Zeile had also gone deep for the Cardinals, Cubs, Phillies, Orioles, Dodgers, Marlins, Rangers, Mets, and Rockies.
[My take: That’s a question that would stump a lot of trivia buffs.]
Notes:
* – Equivalent Average: A measure of total offensive value per out, with corrections for league offensive level, home park, and team pitching. EQA considers batting as well as baserunning, but not the value of a position player’s defense. The scale is deliberately set to approximate that of batting average. League average EqA is always equal to .260. EqA is derived from Raw EqA, which is (H + TB + 1.5*(BB + HBP + SB) + SH + SF) divided by (AB + BB + HBP + SH + SF + CS + SB). REqA is then normalized to account for league difficulty and scale to create EqA.
** – SNLVAR: wins above average added by the pitcher’s performance, compared to replacement level pitcher and adjusted for performance of each batter faced
[0] Ah, Wallace Matthews...
So now the Joba-to-BP folks are taking a somewhat different tact: six innings once every five days v. closing out games "five days a week." This is a clever way to try to defray the innings argument for making him a starter (200 INN of starting v. far fewer as a reliever), by making it look like the difference is potentially very small (6 innings v. 5 innings in a week). Now, leaving aside the mathematical incongruity (one week v. five days), does Matthews really think that Joba, or any closer, would be available five days a week?
Good try, though.
[0] "...with short foul lines and a cavernous left-center field."
Yes, cavernous LCF at a ruthian 399 feet. Oh, how many legends have seen their numbers affected by that distance fence since the Yankees fixed it thus in 1988? Surely it kept Jack Clark out of the Hall of Fame.
Check out Philip Bondy's article in today's 'News' about Selig, the $18 million man - it's a good read! Baseball would be much better off without Selig and Fehr/Orza.
[1] Oh yes, of course they used the same dimensions as the original 1923 park. Sheesh.
The orientation of the park is also slightly different than before, right? So that means the wind patterns and the sun should be a bit different too, which may lead to the park playing differently. Or not. I think its hard to know until they play enough games there - a couple of years' worth, IIRC, is the right sample.
However - I remember how much of a change on the wind patterns simply removing the old .406 club from Fenway had, so I wonder if the eventual removal of the old stadium will affect the wind patterns in the new one. That would stink because it means we wouldn't know for sure how the new park really plays until a couple of years after the old stadium is finally taken down.
[3] it means we wouldn’t know for sure how the new park really plays until a couple of years after the old stadium is finally taken down.
And by then, it will be time for another new stadium!
Five times a week. Yeah. The season is 26 weeks, so Joba would take the mound 130 times. He's not Scott Proctor, you know!
I think Kenny Lofton tied Ziele's 10 team with a HR record in 2007.
Cleveland, Atlanta, Chisox, San Fran, Pittsburgh, Cubbies, Yankees, Philly, LA Dodgers, Texas. Yup...10.
All I know is times are tough for good copy when the 15 year-old soap opera that was Kerrigan/Harding in Figure Skating is brought up in an article about Alex. You're kidding, right? While his theory might be sound, with a reach that Yao Ming would envy, evoking those names doesn't even occur in Figure Skating coverage any more! Somebody take a pipe to David Pinto's hands please so he can't type for "a while" if that's the "best" he can do these days...
;)
[7]
I wonder if Pinto would be better served comparing it to TJ surgery, where there are reports that some pitchers come back able to throw harder.
Another one of the reasons I love Banter ... you guys/gals know how to see through lame reporting/analysis!
[8] Thank you for those kind words, Diane! However, even your TJ reference is sort of outdated and inappropriate I'm afraid. How about something a bit more applicable and current... say Tiger Woods, maybe?
If we can crucify players for bad performances, it only stands to reason that we are obligated to call out sports writers when they fail to deliver the goods, as well...
;)
Oh, BTW .... I somehow left off Arizona from the poll. Resubmit your vote (you'll have to delete the Banter "cookie" to do so). Maybe I'll just rerun it tomorrow. :-)
Nevermind .... I redid the poll for today. :-)
7. Do we then eliminate all references to the past? These kinds of comments are at best petty IMHO. Pinto's blog is likely the best baseball blog for stats out there and if he ain't a hep cat like our friend Alex that's no biggie. He's got about 20 years on AB anyway.
[3] There was also speculation that the wind around Fenway was slightly altered by a new high-rise luxury condo building that went up a block or two away at the same time as the .406 Club's renovation. I remember an article blaming that construction being blamed for Ortiz's HR totals dipping.
[12] I'm very sorry, but to me that seemed as though he either dropped those two names for hits, or pulled them out of his arse, or both. The similarities between Kerrigan/Harding and Alex Rodriguez are an empty plate. "Likely the best baseball blog for stats out there" should be better than that or stick to stats.
"Of course not!" is my answer to your question. But nevertheless, my sports intelligence is insulted by such comparisons. I require more than tabloid journalism out of my baseball reading and study or else I'm wasting my time. Maybe you should too, since you morph a sophomoric attempt at sports journalism, and my calling it out as ridiculous, into the possibility of eliminating all references to the past here.
Pinto is simply going to have to do better than name-dropping Kerrigan/Harding when writing about Alex's rehab, or I'll take him to task again. Unless of course the Yankees 3B is attacked and injured in a conspiracy!
I'm just sayin'...
[14] I personally am in favor of any Tonya Harding news..but you are right of course. The article does stink of the Dolphin "Family Guy" writers from South Park..
[7] and [8] Pinto has a quirky style of writing but his analysis is second to none, and he's really the godfather of baseball blogs, plus he's never been mean spirited or petty in his editorial, something that some other baseball bloggers could learn a lot from. So this just seems like immature piling on for no reason. Especially when some of the commenters on this topic pile on A-rod like dogs on fresh meat for no rational reason.
Bronx Banter is really starting to smell of immaturity lately, I hope that once the games start to count that smell dissipates a bit.