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In honor of the New York Yankees 27 World Series championships, here is every Yankees Sports Illustrated cover:
Bud Selig created the Hank Aaron Award to honor the best hitter in each league, with the hopes that it would someday hold the same status as the Cy Young and MVP awards. By allowing fans to vote on the award, Selig has ensured that it never will hold that kind of status. Derek Jeter was named as the AL recipient this season, despite the fact that he’s not even the best hitter on the Yankees.
I love Jeets, but he hit 18 home runs this season, less than 27 doubles, and 1 triple. That’s 46 total extra base hits. Yes, his average was great, but it wasn’t best in the league. It wasn’t even second best. Joe Mauer has Jeter beat in batting average by 30 points, and in on-base percentage by even more than that. And Mauer has better power numbers to go with it! Tex also had a fine season at the plate after a miserable April. His batting average was well below Jeter’s, but his power numbers were more than enough to make him the more feared run-producer.
It may seem sacrilegious to criticize an award given to The Captain, but an award that is clearly not earned will only blemish Jeter’s reputation and feed fuel to the “overrated” hecklers.
As the Yankees get set to play in yet another World Series tonight, I think it’s appropriate to honor a great Yankee who never got that opportunity. Here’s a video highlighting the magnificent career of Donald Arthur Mattingly (just ooh and ahh at Mattingly’s beautiful swing):
Joe Girardi blew another ALCS game last night by making the wrong moves at the wrong time. His first mistake was the move he didn’t make: after the Yankees scored 6 runs in the top half of the 7th inning to take a 2 run lead, he should have pulled Burnett. There’s no reason to put Burnett back out there after he’d been sitting in the dugout for 30 minutes letting his arm get cold, especially with the bullpen the Yankees have. Instead, Burnett goes back out there, immediately gets into trouble, and then Girardi decides to bring Joba in to clean it up, which he fails to do. I know we all like to watch Joba pitch, but we need to face the fact that he hasn’t been very good under pressure in the postseason. He would have been much better off if he could have started the inning with nobody on base.
Another mistake I think Girardi made was pinch running for ARod in the 9th with Guzman. I understand that Guzman is fast and Girardi wanted the possibility of tying the game with a double, but ARod isn’t exactly Hideki Matsui on the basepaths either. The guy can still run, and he’s been the majors longer and has better baserunning instincts that Guzman, who has just 20 stolen bases in the majors. So now we’ve got ARod out of the game, and Guzman on 1st. If Guzman is so fast, why doesn’t he steal here? We’re a couple of hits away from tying the game with him on 1st, and just 1 hit away from tying the game if he’s on 2nd. Fuentes is a lefty pitcher, but he doesn’t have a great move to first and he’s slow to the plate. I’d say Guzman’s success rate in that situation is around 80-85% given his speed, which is a chance worth taking. Having him sit at first just doesn’t make any sense. Is it worth removing ARod from the game on the off-chance the batter hits a double that can score Guzman from 1st? If the Yankees tie the game there they would have been much weaker in extra innings without ARod in the lineup or in the field.
Now that it appears that the Yankees will be returning to the World Series for the first time in 6 years, here’s a list of reasons the Yankees were great again in 2009:
10. Wang sent to the DL/minors
This one might get me in trouble with some Yankee fans. Chien-Ming Wang was our most reliable starter in 2008, but that was also a season where the Yankees didn’t make the playoffs. Wang started off 2009 horribly. He was awful. His season was eventually riddled with injuries that no one really believed and “rehab” stints in the minors. Basically, he got the Dontrelle Willis treatment. He wasn’t pitching well, so they figured something must be wrong with him. They figured right, the Yankees were much better off without him in the second half.
9. The new stadium means no more “urine tunnel”
You all know what I’m talking about.
8. Mo is Mr. Reliable
Mariano Rivera is washed up? HA, that’ll be the day. Mo wasn’t just good this year, he was great. He’ll get some Cy Young votes, and he’d probably be in the top 5 if that late-season home run to Ichiro weren’t so fresh in the voters memories.
7. Jeter got hot late in the season
The Yankees needed a solid knockout punch to get rid of the Red Sox, and they got it from Derek Jeter. Nobody was hotter in August and September than Jeter, and if it weren’t for a catcher in Minnesota having a historical year he’d win his first MVP award.
6. Nick Swisher saves April
The Yankees were pretty terrible in April. Well, everyone but Nick Swisher. This guy came out of nowhere and was hitting a big home run every other night. He was so hot in April, they invited him to open the stock exchange on Wall Street, hoping some of his success would rub off on the markets. Here’s a video from his pitching debut:
5. George steps down
George Steinbrenner has been the leader of the Yankees organization for decades. He’s also really old. Steinbrenner just didn’t seem to “get” the new way of building a franchise and making a winning ballclub. He constantly seemed to throw aside the Sabermetrics and preferred gut feelings on a handful of players that ended up doing nothing more than rob his bank account. The 2009 Yankees cut payroll while increasing talent over 2008. We had some good times, Georgie, but giving up the reins was the right move. Here’s an interview George gave back before the glory days of the 90’s that I think explains why George was able to let go:
4. Angel Berroa finally designated for assignment
With ARod out much of the first half, we ended up with journeyman (and former ROY award winner) Angel Berroa starting in our infield. Needless to say, he didn’t give us much production, and the broadcasters mocked him endlessly for playing like an old man. I have no idea why.
This is an actual picture of Angel Berroa
3. ARod comes back, Cody Ransom out
Cody Ransom was brought in to play 3rd base while Alex Rodriguez was out. He was terrible. If it wasn’t a strikeout at the plate, it was an error in the field. I think we would have been better off just leaving 3rd base open and taking an out every time ARod’s spot in the lineup came up. At least now Cody Ransom has more time to work on his second career: jumping on to 60 inch high objects
2. CC, AJ, Tex
The Yankees made some big moves in the offseason, and they paid off well. CC Sabathia started rough but settled down and became a 19 game winner. Teixeira was literally the worst player in baseball in the month of April, but recovered so well he’ll probably finish in the top 5 in MVP voting. A.J. Burnett pitched well all season and was also great in the clubhouse. He also made it a tradition to “pie” any player responsible for a walk-off win.
1. Taking out the trash
More important than the Yankees new signees are the players they got rid of after 2008. Carl Pavano, Jason Giambi, and Wilson Betemit were all just taking up space on the Yankees roster. Pavano found some success with the Indians and Twins this season, but who cares? He’ll still be remember as one of the most costly Yankee failures of all time. He’s been referred to as the Hangnail of the Yankees. The Yankees found success by letting go of the past (remnants of the George era, see #5 above) and looking towards the future, which just happens to be now.
The Yankees had game 3 in the bag and were well on their way to a 3-0 series lead over the Angels, but then manager Joe Girardi decided to mix things up. Girardi’s attempt to appear like a competent manager backfired over and over again as the Angels came back from a 3-0 deficit to defeat the Yankees 5-4 on Monday night.
It almost felt like Girardi was starved for attention last night. At any tense moment in the game, like Vladimir Guerrero stepping up to the plate as the tying run, Girardi had to come out to the mound to talk to his pitchers — or to just be seen on TV, I’m not really sure. The pitcher at that moment was Andy Pettitte, a veteran who doesn’t need Joe Girardi, a former teammate, to tell him Vladdy is a good hitter. That break in the rhythm didn’t help the Yankees, as Pettitte dished up a pitch that caught a little too much of the plate and Guerrero crushed it for the tying home run.
With the game tied, Girardi’s moves became even more bizarre. He ended up using nearly all of the Yankees bullpen during the 11 inning game, including Joba, Hughes, Mo, Coke, Marte, Robertson and Aceves, the eventual loser. He put Brett Gardner in to run for Hideki Matsui at one point, only to have Jerry Hairston, Jr. bat for Gardner when his spot came up in the lineup again. When the Angels got the potential winning run to 3rd base in the bottom of the 10th, Girardi put Hairston Jr. in center field, taking out Johnny Damon and his notoriously weak arm. That seemed to make sense, but it also meant that the Yankees lost the DH spot because that’s where Hairston had been. Mariano Rivera got out of the inning (masterfully as always, of course), but he was due up 3rd in the top of the 11th. The Yankees’ first two batters went down in order, and most managers probably would have sent Rivera up to the plate with 2 outs and nobody on. It’s not like a pinch hitter is likely to do much damage in that scenario anyway, and the Yankees needed Rivera to pitch the bottom half of the inning. Instead, Girardi pinch hit for Rivera with Francisco Cervelli, a decent average hitter with little power (1 HR on the season in 94 AB) who hadn’t had a plate appearance in 2 weeks. He struck out quickly, something Rivera probably could have done just as well.
With Rivera now out of the game, Girardi put right-handed David Robertson on the mound. He recorded the first two outs in the bottom of the 11th in order and the game seemed like it was headed for the 12th. Instead, Girardi decided to pull Robertson and put in Alfredo Aceves, another right handed pitcher who actually had a worse history against the hitter coming to the plate, Howie Kendrick. Kendrick promptly singled, and Jeff Mathis smoked a double into the left-center field gap to drive in the winning run. I still have no idea why Girardi took out Robertson, who seemed to be in a groove, in favor of Aceves. For that matter, I don’t know why he didn’t just give up on scoring in the top half of the 11th and leave Rivera in the game. He seemed to be shaking things up just for the sake of shaking things up.
I’ve only got one more note to make about the managing in Monday’s game. As I wrote above, Brett Gardner pinch ran for Matsui late in the game. It was obvious he was going to steal at some point during Posada’s at bat. Angels manager Mike Scioscia predicted which pitch it would be on and called for a pitch out. He guessed right, and Gardner was caught stealing. Posada went on to homer in the at bat, tying the game but also leaving some to wonder what might have been if Gardner was still on base. It may have just been bad luck on Girardi’s part, but Scioscia certainly looked like the better manager there.
I know the weather was a little colder than we usually expect for a baseball game in New York this weekend, but did you know the Yankees didn’t sell out either of their ALCS home games? I think this is really disappointing, and it shows how far out of touch ticket prices are considering the slumping economy. The luxury seats made for the new stadium have been a total flop, with major reductions necessary in order to avoid having large swaths of empty seats visible right behind home plate. The prices on the “blue collar” seats are also too high, and the stagnant or mildly decreasing price changes for next season are not enough to make them available to New Yorkers who have had their work hours cut or who have been laid off and had to take on work at a lower paying job.
I know baseball is a business, but the Yankees should never have a playoff game that doesn’t sell out. Our fans should be hardy enough to withstand the cold weather and make it out to support the team in their most important games of the season. I would hope World Series tickets sell out within the first hour or so after they go on sale in a few days (after the Yankees complete their sweep). This could very well be a historical run for the Yankees, who are attempting to become the first team since the introduction of the divisional playoffs to have a perfect 11-0 postseason.
As if being up 2-0 on the Angels in the ALCS isn’t good enough, Newsday is reporting that Matt Holliday has said he would prefer to play in New York next season, with the Yankees being his #1 choice. That means we’ve already got a leg up on the competition in the free agency market, which will open as soon as the Yankees beat the Phillies in the World Series at the end of the month.
Here’s a nice video (until MLB lawyers have it removed) of that Joe Mauer hit down the line in game 2. Phil Cuzzi is the umpire making the “great” call. I think this call is right up there with the Jeffrey Maier play on the list of all-time ALDS umpiring mistakes that helped us win the game.
I’m sure by now every Yankees fan knows the Bronx Bombers were 7-0 against the Twins during the regular season. What some may not realize is only one of those games was decided by more than 2 runs. If you take away the July 7th 10-2 blowout, you’re looking at a Yankees team that went 6-0 against the Twins but only outscored them 31 to 23 in those 6 games. They’ve played very close baseball games against this team, which is a little scary come playoff time. One bad bounce or one ball lost in that Metrodome roof and we could suddenly find ourselves in a hole.
One thing we have going in our favor is that the Twins depleted their bullpen in their successful effort to take down the Tigers. The 12-inning affair last night is going to mean fewer relievers available for game 1 at 6:00 tonight. If Joe Nathan does get the opportunity to pitch, he’ll probably be tired and more likely to leave a meatball out over the plate. I’m not saying to expect typical Yankee heroics if this game is close, I’m just saying… alright, yeah, you can expect some Yankee heroics.
We’ve got home field advantage in this series (and throughout the postseason, should we move on), which will probably have a bigger impact than in the ALCS or World Series. As much as Yankee Stadium is a benefit to this team, the Metrodome is a detriment. I’ve been there, and it’s a different place in the postseason. It’s absolute hell for an opposing team. The crowd noise and the vibrations in that dome create a seismic event unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in the Bronx or in any other baseball stadium. If it’s a close game in the late innings and the Twins are rallying, you’ll experience crowd noise so horrifying in that place you’ll think the whole structure is going to be swallowed up by the earth. The Yankees are lucky they might get away with only having to play 1 game there, although they’ll have to win that game to ensure they don’t have to play a second.
- November 2009 (2)
- October 2009 (10)
- September 2009 (4)
- June 2009 (7)
- May 2009 (10)
- April 2009 (19)
- March 2009 (1)
