An Article that really bothers me

I was scrolling through Buster Olney’s blog (must be an Insider to read complete blog) on ESPN.com, as I do every morning. Towards the end of his blog each day, he lists a number of links to interesting stories by baseball writers from around the country. There’s usually a few good reads in the bunch and today was no exception. I read a story about Matt LaPorta’s surgeries, how one writer thinks the Jays should sign Jason Bay and an article about the Mariner’s top draft pick, Dustin Ackley. Then, at the bottom of the page, I came across an article by Bud Shaw, of cleveland.com. The preview for the article on Olney’s blog was, “It’s hard to ignore the payroll of the Yankees’, writes Bud Shaw”. 

Now, I understand that as long as the Yankees spend money like they do, there will always be people that criticize them. However, my biggest pet peeve has always been the lack of intelligent thought that goes into most of these criticisms. You know what I’m talking about; the people that just bitch and moan about how “unfair” it is that the Yankees spend all the money and that the only reason they are any good this year is that they spent all that money on Sabathia, Burnett and Teixeira.
This brings us back to Mr. Smith. You can read his full article here, but I’m going to pick apart some of the most ridiculous aspects of his piece:

Joe Girardi is singing high praise of his Yankees as a Three Musketeers-style ball club, purring along in the American League playoffs on dedication, selflessness and hard work.

Yep. That’s them. Gutty overachievers.

So clearly this is sarcasm. How dare Girardi speak highly of his team when they just beat the poor Twins who don’t have as big of a payroll? There’s more…

The Yankees have managed to take everybody’s eyes off their prized payroll with the recent failures to win it all and especially with last year’s swing-and-miss. They’ve helped create the false perception that money really isn’t all that, that if you play your hearts out, you, too, can hold a ticker-tape parade.

Sure you can. Except you, Pittsburgh and Kansas City and . . .

So clearly the highest payroll in the game leads to a championship every year, no questions asked. Why even bother to play the games? I’ve got news for you, Pittsburgh and Kansas City have more problems than just how much money they can spend. There’s more…


Four of MLB’s top 10 payrolls are represented in the two league championship series, with the Yankees topping the list at more than $200 million. The Minnesota Twins, victimized by all that Yankee pluck and enthusiasm in the division series, spent $65.

Those poor Twins (that’s $65 million by the way). Too bad they aren’t owned by a super rich family who has more money than the Steinbrenner’s. Oh wait…they are? Well, maybe if the Yankees have so much money they could help out these small market teams so they can have more money to spend. Oh wait…they do (to the tune of $26.9 million luxury tax)?

(On a serious note, RIP Carl Pohlad. Though I do not agree with his reluctance to invest some of his riches into the Twins on-field product, I mean no disrespect to the late Twins owner.)
There’s more…



What the Yankees’ sweep really showed is that the talent gap was so grea
t, the Twins couldn’t overcome their mistakes. Think the margin for error may decrease even more when next time around they have to let either Joe Mauer or Justin Morneau go?

Maybe our friend Bud missed the baserunning clinic the Twins put on that cost them runs in Game 2 and Game 3? Or perhaps he is simply choosing to ignore that fact in favor of the ridiculous sentiment that the talent gap was far to large to have a competitive series? Although, given the fact that Minnesota led every game in the series at some point, I’m not sure I buy that. Let us also not forget that Nick Blackburn and Carl Pavano shut down the Yankee offense in their starts. It was the Twins bullpen that blew those games. And correct me if I’m wrong, but it was a fairly competitive series where the Yankees won (yes, because they had better players, I’m not in complete denial) because they pitched well, played good defense, got clutch hits and limited their mistakes. Poor Bud must have missed the actual games.
What if the Yankees had been the team that screwed up on the base paths? Think there would be any sympathy for them? No (and I wouldn’t want any). There would be a score of articles by people like Bud saying how $200 million can’t buy you the intangibles and that the Twins are a better “team”. The bottom line is the Twins didn’t play their best baseball. If they did, maybe they would have won at least one game. But they didn’t. And I know they would be the last one’s to make excuses about it.
Mr. Shaw presented no real facts or concepts in his article aside from the payroll numbers which can be googled in ten seconds. Opinion pieces are okay, but if you want anyone to take you seriously, give us a reason to share your opinion rather than reciting the same tired claims that every Yankee hater in the country has been screaming for the past decade.



Comparing the starting pitching for both teams

Much has been, and will continue to be made, about the starting pitching of the Yankees and Angels. Rightfully so as the starting pitching will most likely be the deciding factor of the series. The Yankees are coming off a great ALDS where (aside from the heroics of Alex Rodriguez), their starters were the reason they were able to sweep. The Angels are still riding high from an equally (some people believe more) impressive sweep of the Red Sox. John Lackey and Jered Weaver shut down a lifeless Boston offense in the first two games, and Kazmir kept them just close enough to win Game 3. So, the question is, who has the advantage?

The case for the Yankees begins with one Carston Charles Sabathia; he is the best starting pitcher on either team and could possibly be the single most important player in the series (with the possibility of him starting Games 1, 4, and 7). The robust left-hander is coming off 6.2 innings of 8 hit, 2 run (1 earned) playoff baseball. He struck out 8 and walked none is his handling of the Twins. I say handling because he was good, but by no means great. He did not command the strike zone well with his fastball and had to rely heavily on his devastating slider. To me, this makes what he did all the more impressive. The true test of a starting pitcher is what they can do on a night where everything isn’t right; the first game of the ALDS proved to Yankee fans what they already know: CC is a bona fide ace who can win a game without his best stuff. This is the kind of guy you want to lean on in a grueling seven game series.
The other two starters, AJ Burnett and Andy Pettitte, have been the subject of a fair amount of skepticism. Although CC had his postseason ghosts, the way he had been pitching really negated the question. However, AJ went through an awful stretch in August that raised many questions about the state of the Yankees pitching. Andy Pettitte hit a slight road bump with a tired shoulder, which prompted the obligatory, “Is he healthy,” questions. After watching the ALDS, I think much of the negativity surrounding these two has dissolved. Burnett went 6 innings giving up 3 hits, 1 run and striking out 6 while walking 5. Pettitte went 6 and a third giving up 1 run on 3 hits with 7 K’s and 1 walk. 
To me, the only questions about the Yankee starters are as follows: will the walks the Burnett is bound to hand out haunt the Yankees more against the Angels than they did against the Twins (I tend to think yes), and will they decide to screw the 4th starter and just go with their three best (I think yes again, it’s that time of year folks).
The Angels top two starters, Lackey and Weaver, impressed more with their ALDS performances, some say, because of who they did it against: the mighty Red Sox. The Sox were coming off, arguably, their best offensive month (Sept./Oct.) as a team, hitting 43 home runs, finishing with their highest batting average in any month (.286) and a season high in total bases (493). So it wasn’t that they were limping to the finish line, but the Sox sure seemed lifeless against the Angels. Sure, there is credit to be given to the Halos, but I think there’s more to this.
The first two games of the ALDS were of course played in Anaheim. The 2009 Red Sox finished 39-42 on the road, meaning they were the only playoff team without a winning record on the road. While they had an OPS of .806 in the regular season, good for second in the league behind the Yankees, their road OPS was a mere .753, similar to the season number for the Indians and the Marlins. The Red Sox are not the same team on the road. I do not think it is a coincidence that when the series came back to Fenway, the Sox finally showed some life on offense. While Lackey and Weaver certainly pitched well and Kazmir struggled, I think the Home vs. Road splits reared their ugly heads in that series.
So yes, I’m spinning this to make the Angels look less impressive than the Yankees even though the Yankees pitched to the wet noodles (minus Sir Mauer) bats of the Twins. Although I just took a stab at the Twins offense, they put together good at-bats, worked counts and came up with quite a few timely hits. I blame their offensive futility more on the bad baserunning than the lack of hitting. Bottom line is that both teams will be pitching to better offenses this series than in the ALDS, and that’s how it is supposed to be.
I give the edge to the Yankees because I’ll take best stuff any day. There are no doubts that CC has better stuff than Lackey, and that AJ has better stuff than Weaver. Lets be honest about that. Call the third game a toss up if you’d like, but who would you take in that game? The guy tied for the All-Time lead in postseason wins? Or Kazmir, who may have better stuff at this point in both of their careers? I take Pettitte 100 times out of 100. 
I’m really looking forward to this series as it should be excellent baseball played by, in my opinion, the two best teams in baseball.

Thinking about the Angels offense

The New York Yankees, owner of the Major League’s best record, and victor (by sweep) of the ALDS over the Minnesota Twins, are about to collide head on with the cream of the AL West crop, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (I think I got it all). There is no doubt that this is a marquee matchup, one which could only be usurped by a Yankees vs. Red Sox showdown. 

By record, they were the top two teams in baseball; the Yankees finishing the regular season at 103 up and 59 down and the Angels at 97-65. They were also, arguably, the top two offensive teams in the baseball. We all know about the Yankees offense, which is a ferocious combination of patience and power. But let’s take a closer look at the Angels attack.
The Angels can hit; they led the Major’s in batting average at a .285 clip and tied with the Yankees for the lead in hits at 1604. They also came in right behind the Yankees in runs scored at 883 as well as RBI at 841. The Angels do it a little differently than the Yankees, stealing 148 bases, good for second behind the Rays, and finishing near the middle of the pack in home runs. Bottom line is that they can score.
There are however some myths with this Los Angeles team that need to be addressed. The biggest one being that they don’t strike out. In reality, the Angels are middle of the pack in strikeouts. They struck out more than the Yankees on the year and they certainly are not the most patient team in the world, finishing, again, in the middle of the pack in walks taken. So, do not be fooled into thinking that this is a team who takes pitches, avoids strikeouts, and does anything to get on base. The Angels are a free swinging team who rely on and the Major League’s highest batting average on balls in play (BAIBP) at .326. This number means that when the Angels hit the ball in play, it resulted in a hit just over 32 percent of the time. While the lineup is certainly made up of good hitters, this number does suggest that luck was on their side more often than any other team in baseball.
The other myth that I want to address is that the Angels are an ultra-fast team that runs at will. Two players accounted for 48 percent of their total stolen bases; Chone Figgins with 42 and Bobby Abreu with 30. Now they do have four other players who stole ten or more bases, but the bottom line is that Figgins and Abreu are the real threats. This is not a team of players that cannot be thrown out. They were successful in stolen base attempts only 70 percent of the time, good for 21st in the bigs. The Angels score runs with their speed by being aggressive going from 1st to 3rd and getting down the line, not by stealing teams to death.
The fact is that the Angels are not as old-school and “small ball” as people like to think. They can certainly do the little things, but they were an offensive force because Kendry Morales spent 2009 hitting the ball out of the park, Torri Hunter enjoyed an excellent year and Abreu set a new tone of getting a good pitch to hit for the entire offense. And although Vladimir Guerrero is aging, when healthy he’s still dangerous, just ask Jonathon Papelbon.
So expect a difference in how these teams score runs, but not as big a difference as some people would like you to believe.
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