Comments on: Not Enough

By: slim

slim — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 23:38:01 +0000

Holy shit, that is some terrible music. Van Horrible.

By: cult of basebaal

cult of basebaal — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:02:13 +0000

this is good news

Yankees fans will soon be the first in baseball to buy games streamed on broadband to computers and wireless devices within the team’s local market, according to executives briefed on the pending deal but not authorized to speak publicly about it.

By: Horace Clarke Era

Horace Clarke Era — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:00:39 +0000

Before we go all panic button, remember a ‘decline’ is just that. It means ‘not utterly guaranteed’ … we end up living with what MOST good teams live with. Solid closers, who will blow some saves. Some are worse. Hell, look at Tampa Bay! Look at Detroit.

I’ll also agree that there’s a kind of long long doomwatch that is going on around Rivera, as if we ‘protect’ ourselves by seeing the end, or predicting it, at every sign of faltering. He’s going to have mini-slumps which do not necessarily mean The End is Nigh.

He is not going to start featuring an effective change at this point. Can’t see it. That’s something you start working on in off-season, not in 9th innings of pennant race games. Nor has Tampa Bay ‘figured him out’ … like Zobrist and Dillon took some ‘Decode Rivera’ course? This is random good hitting, and Zobrist, in fact, is having a remarkable season. They won’t miss Iwamura, it seems, except insofar as Zobrist was their bench depth.

By: cult of basebaal

cult of basebaal — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 15:56:36 +0000

[13] during a game within the last week or so, kay and leiter were talking about rivera’s repetoire and how he threw a changeup when he was a starter and the 1st year or so he was a reliever but then scrapped the pitch once he started throwing the cutter.

evidently, at least according to leiter (and his own pitching experience) the grips for the two pitches are not particularily compatible.

By: The Hawk

The Hawk — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 15:29:25 +0000

It would be ironic if the Yankees spent all that money for starting pitching in an effort to win now (quick before what’s left of the late 90s core breaks down completely!), only to have Mariano’s inevitable decline begin in earnest and louse up the entire endeavor. So close, yet so far.

I really really really want a win today. They must stop losing to the Rays and Boston.

By: seamus

seamus — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 15:01:31 +0000

mo mo! momo? [8] you got the right idea mr jazz, chill to some tunes. that is sweetness that heals all wounds. of course, give me a day in the woods and i’m a notch better off as well.

By: weeping for brunnhilde

weeping for brunnhilde — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 14:56:31 +0000

[11] I would love to see Mo incorporate the change. I’ve been calling for him to do that ever since he sported it in Tampa, what was it, two, three seasons ago?

By: The Mick536

The Mick536 — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 14:53:22 +0000

Bernard Barker died. Scumbag burgled Ellburg and Watergate. Gerald Scully died, also. His work describing the economic value of players, Koufax and Aaron for ex, led to the end of slavery in baseball. And, though I don’t have any sympathy for the white shoe lawyers who formerly sat in the good seats who have lost their jobs, as have I, due to the economic turmoil, who knew that George Case of White and Case invented the squeeze play while at Yale.

Good Times today.

By: ms october

ms october — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 13:14:51 +0000

good discussion on mo.
thanks for relaying the stats thelarmis – does show where some of the issues reside.
it’s always very hard to say if this is just a slighlty bad game, rough patch or if it is somethig else.

i don’t feel like looking this up, but it *seems* like mo hasn’t gotten regular work recently, which often coincides with his rough patches.

also, part of it could be the rays have “adjusted” to him the way it seemed the red sox did a few years ago.
although the notion that mo only has one pitch is exggerated, mo may need to throw the changeup or another pitch a bit more just to have hitters off balance if the cutter has lost a bit of velocity.

one thing that baseball statisticians don’t do enough is discuss wheteher the differences between 2 numbers are statistically significant and then perhaps “baseball” significant – how big of a deal are the drops in mo’s numbers?

By: Horace Clarke Era

Horace Clarke Era — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 12:46:57 +0000

This has been Mo-town for so long, it’d be very hard to adjust.

As I look at the stats t-mis (cute!) relays, one thing that mildly reassures is the shift in cutter movement, actually. I may be way off here, but that suggests a minor adjustment needed to me, not a grim decline. Speed drop, yes, you get older it drops (eventually). But movement feels to be more a matter of arm slot and release.

I was actually impressed we got the tying run to the plate, though I know that ‘almost’ is still an “L” on the board. We had, as Cliff says, a few gifts yesterday (including a horrific game by Navarro and a dropped pop to 3rd) so we can’t really say we let a deserved win get away.

Today feels important though (for June) as we have a near-ace going and I do agree that HOME is supposed to matter more! It starts to feel as if the new stadium is so new to everyone it slightly nullifies that, makes the Yankees visitors too, a bit.