Strikeouts and Solo HRs: A New York Yankee Data Check

• Alex Rodriguez: .232 batting average and 23 strikeouts in 69 at-bats.
• Mark Teixeira: 2-for-19 with RISP.

The keys are: positioning, cadence, internal clock, and steroids.

Don't strain yourself.

"The Yankees bullpen is so good, it needs a nickname.

It certainly has proven to be a difference maker in April for the first-place Yankees — even after they let David Robertson walk away to the White Sox.

Perhaps Miller Time?"

Felz Stat of the Day

Andrew Miller 17.3 k per 9 IP.

Say the words "Chien-Ming Wang," because I want to see if you can say those words or if you have a mental block.

"You ask Brian Cashman what has surprised him about his baseball team in April, which has already seen the Yankees start 3-6 and then play the way they have since, and he says, 'A-Rod would be the surprise.' "

"Biggest surprise" is an odd compliment. He thought ARod was going to stink. So he's surprised that he's doing okay.


"He means A. Rodriguez, the designated hitter and occasionally fill-in infielder who has hit four home runs this month after spending last season in the penalty box for being the top star juicer of Biogenesis. Two of those home runs came last Friday night against the Rays, when the Yankees badly needed a win, not to turn a season around, just April."

Oh! He means Alex Rodriguez, the Yankee player.

I thought he literally meant "a rod." That is why I was confused. What is so surprising about a rod and why is he mentioning this to a sports writer?

But if you ask a dumb question, you might get a dumb answer.


"So Rodriguez, everybody’s All-America, is the biggest surprise to his general manager, at this time when the last nine games look so vastly different than the first nine, and when there is so much on the line, for Cashman and the Yankees and the people who own them. But there have been other surprises, as well, starting with Cashman’s starters."

I think Lupica is so unable to write favorably about a winning team, that his entire paradigm has shifted to chat up the underdog Yankees. After 20 years of derision, that took about two weeks.

I mean, the Yankees are 10-8.

ARod is hitting .250 and striking out once every three and a half at-bats.

The starting rotation is 7-6 with three good pitchers and two bad pitchers.


"This isn’t about who 'owns' the city in baseball or who rules it now that the Mets have started hot and look like they are going to be contenders, not just for this season but maybe for a long time. That is something for the stands and the media, unless you really think that Yankee players and Mets players feel they are engaged in some epic battle for the heavyweight baseball championship of New York City."

What??????????

What the hell did you just say???????

So after DECADES of pushing this nonsense about which baseball team "owns" New York, you've just swept aside your entire foundational premise in one paragraph.

I need a drink.


"Right now the Yankees — whose farm system hasn’t produced a star starter since Andy Pettitte — have four starters under the age of 27."

Chien-Ming Wang was a star until he got hurt. Almost won a Cy Young Award.


"If Tanaka’s arm holds up — and that’s an 'if' as big as Yankee Stadium — and if Sabathia’s legs don’t give out, this has a chance to be one of the best rotations in the American League, certainly the best in the AL East. Without Max Scherzer, who got his stupid contract from somebody else."


Well, there's your trouble.

You're relying on Sabathia. 0-4, 5.96 ERA, has not won a game in a calendar year, has been a liability for three seasons in a row.

Still, it's fascinating, if somewhat alarming, to see Lupica's sudden change of heart. Go Yankees! Mets are so last week.


"This has been the Mets’ April, hands down, however the rest of this weekend plays out at the Stadium. They have Harvey and they win an entire home stand and are putting noise and fun and life into Citi Field, really for the first time. But the Yankees have made some noise, too. The position players are still old. But in front of your eyes, the pitching has gotten younger. A lot younger. As young as the guys across town. You want the real baseball surprise in New York this April? There it is."

Tanaka and Pineda are not surprises. Eovaldi and Warren are hardly trustworthy in the long run. Nova will come back and hopefully regain some of his early form. Sabathia had one good game and a whole bunch of postgame excuses in his other games ... get used to hearing them.

The Yankee team ERA is pretty good, but a lot of that is the bullpen.

So Eovaldi is the only surprise so far. He has a horrible WHIP of 1.7 and has managed to keep his ERA in the low 3.00s ... for now. I wouldn't get too excited about him.

Besides, Lupica, the last thing this team needs is your curse. If an ignoramus like you praises a player, I'd sell that stock right away.

We have Tanaka and you don't. Na na na na na.

"A Yankees fan can say whatever he wants about the current state of the two teams. The Mets fans' retort is six simple words: 

'We have Harvey and you don't!' "

Where is the army of overly optimistic Yankee fans who are bragging about the current state of their team?

The Yankees are mediocre at best and everybody knows this.


"That didn't happen. Still, his 102nd pitch to Alex Rodriguez was a 98-mph fastball that the designated hitter — off to a much-trumpeted good start — swung right through. The Harvey-Rodriguez matchup was supposed to be the best thing since Clemens-Piazza in this rivalry, but A-Rod was a meek 0 for 4 with two Ks and two groundouts."

Again ... is there a human being anywhere in the world who knows anything about baseball in the year 2015 ... and this person thought that the Harvey/ARod matchup was comparable to Steroid Clemens vs. Steroid Piazza?

Honestly, it didn't even cross my mind as a compelling matchup.

I enjoyed ARod's little hot streak and am happy that he temporarily silenced the critics.

He's still a 39-year-old washed up DH and it's a bit embarrassing that he has been elevated to #3 in the lineup. (I wonder how a 39-year-old Matt Harvey would do facing a 26-year-old ARod.)

I can't think of anyone who's really a good matchup vs. Harvey, but ARod is a right-handed strikeout machine facing a right-handed strikeout machine.

Everyone knew ARod was going to strike out, which he did ... so maybe it's fun for Mets fans because ARod took steroids and is an arrogant prick? OK. Doesn't really sound like a compelling matchup so much as beating a horse that died a long time ago.



"So forget the nonsense that Harvey — a childhood Yankees fan, remember — would be lose his poise stepping to the mound in the Bronx for the first time. Harvey certainly wasn't going to do the nostalgia thing after the game, answering a question about his memories of coming to the old Yankee Stadium as a kid with a curt, 'I'm a New York Met.' "


I can't forget that nonsense because, like all other people, I never thought that in the first place.


"Maybe the Yankees will take the final game on Sunday night. It doesn't matter."

OK.

It doesn't matter.

That's good, because Mad Men is on at that time.

 
"As far as bragging rights go, the Mets fans will have the edge throughout the summer. They lead the Yankees in 1-0 in Harveys, and in the New York baseball right now, that's the ultimate trump card."

Bragging rights. 

Take them if you really want them.
 

26 years old. Coming back from injury. Team's hopes resting on his shoulders. Firing 97 mph fastballs after 100 pitches. Undefeated in 2015. 17 ks and 2 walks. Dominated in the Subway Series.

I just described Michael Pineda, by the way.



 

Maybe the short porch would ruin his swing.

"Minutes before the main event -- the first-ever Harvey/Alex Rodriguez matchup, of course -- Lucas Duda created a moment of his own, poking a line drive over the right field wall to make it 1-0 Mets in the top of the first. It left one to wonder how many home runs the big man would hit if he were a Yankee, playing 81 games in this lefty-friendly park. Forty? Fifty?"

You know, ballparks are important.

If Lucas Duda played 81 games at Yankee Stadium, he would not hit 50 HRs in one season.

If he was that powerful, he'd just get walked a lot.

Quick -- who is the most hated baseball player in New York?

Betcha didn't say Carlos Beltran:

"Carlos Beltran signed with the Yankees rather than the Diamondbacks or Royals because he believed the big city and the short right-field porch might enrich his Hall of Fame candidacy.

Instead, Beltran is in peril of putting himself in a more unusual category than those who reach Cooperstown — an enemy of both New York fan bases."

Enemy?


"Now, I always have been a Beltran defender."

Hey, everybody, guess what?

Purveyor of Taste, Joel Sherman, has always been a Beltran defender.



"I could never understand the Mets fans’ irrational distaste for the switch hitter. The overreaction to him taking a called third strike against Adam Wainwright in NLCS Game 7 in 2006 has been misplaced. He was great for the Mets in that season and that series, and Wainwright threw a hammer-from-hell curve that pretty much would have frozen every hitter in history from Aaron to Zobrist."

I think it's his aloof personality.

A lot of fans are dumb that way.

Intelligent fans realize that he played very well for the Mets (after a slow start) and he is one of the top postseason performers in baseball history.


"However, no matter the case for Beltran, there is a significant phalanx of Mets fans whose minds I am not changing. He kept the bat on his shoulders against Wainwright, and that’s that. Enemy of the Mets state."

That particular play was memorable, but I think Sherman simply doesn't understand why Beltran is disliked.

Beltran's aloof personality, like I said before, and he got off to a slow start. Intellectual laziness, intellectual inertia, cognitive dissonance. For many fans and writers, sports fandom has deteriorated into keeping score of opinions and predictions. So you form an opinion about Beltran after half a season -- "he's overpaid" or "he can't handle New York" -- and then that's that.


"It would be harder, at this point, to make a case for Yankees fans restraining their anger. Beltran was mostly injured — particularly his elbow — and ineffective last year in his Bronx debut. This season, he says he feels great, but the results so far have been even worse. He went 0-for-3 with a walk in the Yankees’ 6-1 triumph over the Mets in the Subway Series opener, dropping his season numbers to .173 without a homer."

Well, OK.

Your finger isn't really on the pulse of Yankees fans.

Beltran is a drop in an ocean of bad contracts. Beltran might prefer it if he was despised by Yankee fans because that would mean they're paying attention.

No more gluten for me.

Other notes:

•  NY baseball combined 22-10 prior to tonight's game, far better than I expected.
• Am I the only person who noticed the relatively sparse crowds? Maybe Mets fans will invade Yankee Stadium on Saturday for "Harvey Day," but I still just don't think the Subway Series is that big of a deal.

Last Friday was fun.

17 ks in 46 ABs.

The productivity isn't going to last long.

Barry Bonds case still in court.

"The government could ask the 11-judge panel to reconsider Wednesday’s decision or could request that all 29 judges on the 9th Circuit rehear the case. The full court has never sat on a case since it began using the 'limited en banc' panels in 1980.

Prosecutors also could petition the U.S. Supreme Court to review the decision."

That would be terrific.

This is Barry Bonds we're talking about.

The baseball player who took steroids and hit a lot of homers.

Manfred making his mark?

Is it even possible that he's trying to quickly one-up Selig?

Oddly enough, I think the Yankees have a legit point in their attempt to fleece one of their players.

"Oh sure, it's natural to want to see the chief offenders from the Steroids Era in baseball punished for their sins. Suspend them from the game. Drag them before Congress. Demand their apologies, and bar them from the Hall of Fame, and if that's not enough shame, paint a giant scarlet 'S' on the front of their uniforms."

Funny, I don't care about that really.


"Now the Yankees are taking that to the next logical level: They want their money back. Or more accurately, they don't want to pay Alex Rodriguez the $6 million bonuses he is owed for climbing up the all-time home run list — including the one he will earn in the coming days when he tops Willie Mays at 660."

I think the difference is actually quite important.

The Yankees already got quite a bit of their money back when ARod was suspended.

The bonus may not be legitimate because nobody cares anymore. In essence, the terms of the contract are voided.


"They're forgetting one not-so-minor point. Not only were the Yankees one of the chief beneficiaries from Alex Rodriguez's PED use (probably only second to the man himself), but they continue to benefit from all that illegal stuff he injected and swallowed."

Agreed.

Get to your cogent point.


"Don't buy that? Go ahead and give me three more compelling storylines around a Yankees team that is 6-6 heading into this series against Detroit and seems bound for 81-81. I'll wait."

Jeez.

Let's assume Politi is not generally a sportswriter, so he gets off the hook for the inability to come up with three compelling storylines.

For one thing, every game in sports is, in and of itself, a compelling storyline. For some of us, it's all we need. Every game has a time, a place, a background, a beginning, a middle, an end, conflict resolution, antagonists, protagonists, theses, antitheses, syntheses, drama, comedy, and, if you've ever seen CC Sabathia try to cover first base on a ground ball, dramedy.

But if you want three NYY storylines that are not ARod:

1. Tanaka.
2. Girardi.
3. Pineda.


"And the Yankees are kidding themselves if they don't think that'll be good for business. This is the unspoken truth about steroids and many baseball fans: They don't care. For all the hand wringing and manufactured outrage if Rodriguez approaches the great Ruth, you can bet that the closer he gets, the more tickets the Yankees will sell and the higher the ratings will be on the YES Network."

Agreed.

So why are we going to disagree?


"Are they going to ignore the milestone when Rodriguez becomes just the 29th player in Major League history to record 3,000 hits — he needs 51 more — after turning Jeter's ascension to that level into a Steiner Sports marketing orgy?"

Yes, they are going to ignore it.

No comparison to Jeter and I shouldn't have to explain why.


"It seems awfully petty, and besides that, it's bad business. Rodriguez's assault on the records books is not the happy little story it once was, but that doesn't mean it's not interesting. Because it's A-Rod, and because he's always been a human lightning rod, it might even get more attention because of the controversy."

I think $6 million is kind of petty, but I also think the Yankees are simply not able to monetize this as easily as Politi thinks.

I agree that a lot of fans don't really care about steroid use. But that doesn't mean ARod is a beloved figure in NY, in case you hadn't noticed.


"If he somehow chases down Bonds in the coming years, make no mistake, the Yankees will have gotten their $30 million's worth."

Getting wayyyyyyyyyyyyy ahead of yourself here.



The contract itself was stupid to begin with. It put individual goals stupidly ahead of team goals. It put a monetary value on unimportant milestones.

A steroid cheat is beating the dubious record of another steroid cheat? You really think this is still a big deal? I sure don't think so.

You've got to sell a heckuva lot of tee shirts to stupid fans if you are going to clear $30 million.


The Yankees shouldn't be able to void a contract simply because they were stupid enough to sign it. As Politi points out, the Yankees knew what they were getting into and they have profited from the services of ARod and other steroids cheats.

But, with regards to this specific clause of the contract -- the bonuses for setting career HR milestones -- ARod's PED suspension changes the circumstances. These milestones are no longer particularly marketable.

So maybe the Yankees will just fork over the $6 million and get some pointless satisfaction by denying ARod the pomp and ceremony.

But I think the Yankees have legit beef.

Yankees don't have much to crow about ...

... but one of their lesser-known washed-up batters has 4 HRs in 31 ABs.

Which makes me wonder if Bill Madden wants to adjust his preseason prediction of 9 for the whole year. Maybe he wouldn't adjust his prediction, citing injuries, age, and the strong possibility of an upcoming slump.

But ARod is the best hitter on the Yankees so far and is proving his critics wrong.

Preach

The Yankees could actually be winless. Instead, they are just 1-4 and have lost three straight. And their response to this early-season swoon is not very complicated.

“We have to play better,” Chase Headley said. “It’s as simple as that. We’re better than that. We have to get it cleared up.”

The Yankees committed three more errors in Saturday’s 8-4 loss to the Red Sox and also had a passed ball. They also saw a pair of catchable two-out fly balls go for doubles and result in four Boston runs. 

“It’s plays we’re not used to seeing,” Joe Girardi said. “We’re used to making those plays. For whatever reason this first week, we haven’t been.”

In fact, the defense has been the primary weakness, which is saying something for a team that has batted below .200 and, on Saturday, had 19 straight retired by Joe Kelly.

I know lots of Yankee fans. Zero of them are talking about Alex Rodriguez.

"We were reminded on Thursday afternoon in Washington, as we if we needed reminding, what we missed when the Mets lost Matt Harvey for more than a season and so did baseball.

We saw at the same time that he is the ace of the city and the biggest baseball star of the city, famous because of his surgically repaired right arm and his fastball and the breaking balls he drops on hitters as a different way of dropping a hammer on them."

Great pitcher who, like many great pitchers, throws both fastballs and breaking balls.


"The Yankees? Here is all you need to know about the Yankees and their own opening week to the baseball season: The big story for them was Alex Rodriguez, a soon-to-be-40 hitter who also missed last season, just for far different reasons than Matt Harvey did."

That is all you need to know, says the alleged reporter.

There is a lot more to know, by the way. Talk about the fielding ineptitude and RISP BA ineptitude.


"The guy Yankee fans are talking about after the first week of the season is a guy the people who run their team didn’t even want batting third by the fourth game."

Nobody is talking about ARod.

You are obsessed, but don't pin that obsession on the rest of us.

ARod is pretty much a washed-up DH. Fantasy leagues leave him undrafted.

The things Yankee fans are talking about? It's all ugly and bad.

ARod has likely been the Yankees' best hitter through five games, despite striking out half the time. This observation does not indicate that ARod has played particulary well, it simply illustrates how bad everyone else has been.


"This doesn’t mean that the Mets are going to be better than the Yankees, or that Harvey’s brilliance will be enough to carry his team through the summer. It doesn’t mean that Harvey really will turn out to be their Seaver, at least in the short run, and carry the Mets back to October for the first time since 2006, when they were as close as they were to not just making the World Series, but probably winning it that year."

I think the true NY Baseball Nightmare is coming true. At least for the first ten games. A combined 3-7 record, with the mediocre Mets technically "better" than the awful Yankees.

(The Mets were probably going top win the World Series in 2006, by the way. So, you know ... we might as well give them rings and throw a ticker tape parade. Because probably and almost.)


"A friend of mine, a Mets fans, asked the other day if I would trade the Mets’ starting rotation for Washington’s, which starts with Max Scherzer and is deep and talented and is supposed to take the Nationals all the way to the World Series this year. I said I would not. Because the Mets have Matt Harvey and, even with Strasburg, the Nationals do not."

I wouldn't trade Matt Harvey for all 25 players on the Yankees' roster.

I would keep Ellsbury, Gardner, Tanaka, Pineda, Miller, and Betances if I was allowed to. The other 19 players are garbage, and those 6 are replaceable enough ... maybe not Tanaka and Pineda. They're young enough and talented enough to hold on to. So it would be Harvey, Tanaka, Pineda, and 22 minor leaguers, and I'd take my chances.



"He is that kind of show. The Yankees, with the Red Sox in town, were a different kind of show on Friday night and into Saturday morning, playing 19 innings against the Red Sox, fighting back in the bottom of the ninth, and the bottom of the 16th, and the bottom of the 18th to tie the game three different times. They did not just show you a lot of fight in that game, they showed you a lot of arm. And their most important arm, Tanaka’s, will be on display on Sunday night."

Tanaka is something to talk about, something you need to know, that isn't Alex Rodriguez.


"It doesn’t mean they can’t compete in the AL East. But they better win it if they want to start making the playoffs again, because you have to believe that at least one wild card will come out of the AL Central again, and maybe two. They better be better than the Red Sox, who are never afraid to tear the thing down and start all over again, because now they have done it twice in the last five years."

I think there is a possibility that the Yankees will never be over .500 the entire season.

Yeah, more of the same, unfortunately.

Teixeira tied the game in the bottom of the 16th inning with a leadoff solo HR.

He carried the bat triumphantly for about 40 feet down the first base line and then flipped it to the ground as if the Yankees had just won the World Series.

I have no particular gripe abut that display of enthusiasm, but he looks like a fool.

Teixeira never gets hits with RISP. He is batting .188 overall with 2 HRs (both solo HRs, of course).

It's just four games, but I see no reason for optimism with this team:

"As they try to avoid a third straight season of missing the playoffs, Joe Girardi’s bunch played the Yankees’ longest home game ever Friday night into Saturday morning. That they lost the contest, 6-5 in 19 innings to the Red Sox in the inaugural rivalry game of the year, served as yet another negative indicator on a squad filled with them.

'It was one game that felt like it was about six,' Girardi said, displaying some gallows humor. The double-plus shift, which lasted six hours and 49 minutes (not counting a 16-minute delay when some lights went out), featured its share of encouraging signs for the Yankees, who wiped out one-run deficits in the ninth, 16th and 18th innings and enjoyed excellent bullpen work until losing pitcher Esmil Rogers clearly ran out of gas.

'We showed a lot of heart tonight,' Brett Gardner said. 'We didn’t win, but we played hard, and we played long.'

But the Yankees continued a young trend by going 2-for-12 with runners in scoring position, and that ultimately cost them, as did the recurring trend of base running ineptitude. Gardner got caught stealing second base in the eighth, and he got picked off first base in the 17th."

Bottom of the 12th, game-winning run on second base, 3-1 pitch to McCann. He fouls it off, count goes full, and he strikes out looking on the next (disputed) pitch.

My problem is the 3-1 pitch.

I just get the sense McCann is trying to hit another one of his patented 400-foot towering foul balls, instead of trying to with the game with an RBI single.

Which, frankly, may have gloved by a middle infielder and turned into an easy GIDP.

But these hitters are simply not smart enough to change their approach, and this season sure looks like more of the same. It's not working.

It's called free agency.

Don't be an intentional idiot:

"The Yankees need [Tanaka] to be a star, or Michael Pineda to be a star, because there isn’t one among their position players, unless you think Jacoby Ellsbury, paid like a baseball star, is going to stay healthy all year and put up numbers the way he did in his best seasons with the Red Sox; going to look like more than a slightly better version of Brett Gardner, who isn’t making nearly as much money as Ellsbury is."
 
I believe that unreasonably long sentence was intended as an insult to Jacoby Ellsbury. It is actually a compliment to Brett Gardner.


Who cares if Ellsbury makes a lot of money?

That's how free agency works.

It's the same reason Bartolo Colon will make 18x what Matt Harvey makes this season.

That means the Mets think Bartolo Colon is 18x better than Matt Harvey! What else could it possibly mean?

At least he put a number on it.

First place and 92 wins for the Mets.

I see no way of separating this optimistic prediction from the Daily News' endless cheer leading for the Mets ... but at least Madden is not being vague:

"As for the offense, obviously I’m banking on Lucas Duda, Juan Lagares and Travis d’Arnaud all building on their 2014 seasons and David Wright, his shoulder fully healed, regaining his 20-homer/100 RBI form — and possibly even Curtis Granderson benefiting from the pulled-in fences in right-center and the reunion with his favorite batting coach, Kevin Long, to have a year more befitting his $13M salary. I don’t think any of that is a reach."

I think it's a reach.

David Wright 20/100?

He has accomplished this one time since 2008. He came close in 2012, and 20 HRs is no big whoop.

But RBIs are a team stat. I think the same thing when I hear Teixeira talking about 100 RBIs. Like it just happens because, you know, it's a round number.

Tossing off 100 RBIs as if it was 1999, does Madden know how many NL players drove in 100 runs last year?

Three.


So David Wright is going to drive in 100, in the National League, in 2015 ... and Granderson and Lagares and Duda and D'Arnaud are also having good years.

Is this team going to score 800 runs?

Or is Wright going to be the only player ever to drive in 100 for a 600-run team? (No, I didn't research this.)


Maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe all this Mets optimism is warranted.

With no worthwhile analytic backup, though, it just sounds like wishful thinking.