The LoHud Yankees Blog

January is traditionally a slow month for baseball news. So for the second year in a row, we will showcase other blogs with a series of pinch hitters.

Next up is Brian from In Mo We Trust.

Brian has been blogging since December of 2006 when he started Depressed Fan. He recently joined forces with Mike from Green Pinstripes and created In Mo We Trust. Brian grew up watching the Yankees in the 80′s, and says he still sheds a tear every time he sees the Don Mattingly Yankeeography, He also believes Mariano Rivera is the best baseball player he’ll ever have the pleasure of watching

Here’s his post:

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Over the past five years or so, Billy Beane has tried to exploit what he sees as a flaw in baseball’s valuation of players. His data reveals that saves are a meaningless stat and closers are generally over-valued. His method is to take a decent pitcher, make him a closer, drive up his value, then trade him. It’s a brilliant economic theory, and a strategy that has served him well. I agree, wholeheartedly, with Beane’s assessment of the closer market, as well as his thoughts on the value of a save. If you need convincing, check out K-Rod’s career stats. 2008 was his worst season, statistically, yet he accumulated a record 62 saves.

There is a distinction we need to draw, however. Just because saves are overrated, does not mean that closers, by definition, are as well. You have to look at the other stats to get a true measure of a pitcher’s value, and with closers it goes even deeper than that. For example, there are certain closers whose managers will only use them in save situations, other closers won’t come in unless they’re starting an inning. Then there’s my favorite, the closer who can only pitch the ninth inning.

The exquisite value of Mariano Rivera, throughout his career, has been that none of these silly rules have applied to him. No situation has ever been too dicey to bring Mo in, he’s never shied away from a six-out save. Rivera’s dominance hasn’t come under ridiculously controlled circumstances; he’s dominated in the most high-pressure situations possible in this game.

Which brings me to the reason why I believe Rivera has been the most important Yankee over the past 12 seasons. What happens on a baseball field can be sliced and diced into millions of statistical categories. On the field, however, the game remains largely psychological. Rivera looming in the bullpen forces opponents to change their approach.

Opposing teams know they have, at best, eight innings to get a lead. This means opposing managers will pinch hit earlier than they typically would. They’ll bunt to move runners into scoring position, they’ll send runners when they typically wouldn’t. The threat of Rivera forces teams into risky strategy, meaning Rivera’s influence affects not only the eighth and ninth innings of close games, but the sixth and seventh as well. Mo’s pressence looms even larger in the playoffs when runs are truly at a premium and the Yanks will stretch Rivera’s pitch count even further.

Think about that for a second. The widely held notion has always been that starting pitchers are more important, and more valuable, than closers because they pitch so many more innings. While that holds true in virtually all cases, has anyone really quantified the Rivera Effect properly? Over the past 12 seasons, Mo has either saved or won 550 out of 1,170 Yankee wins, 47% (not including the post season). It wouldn’t be outrageous to say that having Rivera in the bullpen has affected, either directly or indirectly, over 2,200 innings of play in those wins.

Honestly, I don’t think we’ve begun to scratch the surface of what Mariano Rivera has meant to this team, I don’t think we’ll fully understand until he’s gone.

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Thanks for the post, Brian. Personally, I think years from now it will be Rivera who will emerge as the greatest player of this generation of Yankees.

Coming tomorrow: Emma from Bronx Banter.

Just returned from the memorial service for Todd Drew. For those of you who didn’t know him, Todd was a long-time reader of this blog who later started his own site and eventually joined up with Alex Belth’s crew at Bronx Banter.

Todd passed away last week at 41.

I knew Todd was a season-ticket holder who loved to write about sports and had a real passion for classic sportswriting.

I didn’t know he raced motorcycles when he was young. Or that he loved the New York City Ballet, enjoyed a good cigar when the Yankees won and was a fan of boxing. I wasn’t surprised to learn he kept score at every game he attended. The best fans always do.

Todd worked for the ACLU and helped educate first-time voters about their rights. He had spent nearly half his life with his wife Marsha, who spoke eloquently about her best friend and husband. Alex also spoke and read aloud from one of Todd’s posts.

At the end, the large crowd sang Take Me Out To The Ballgame. Many wore their Yankee caps and smiled. If a man can be judged by the company he keeps and the memories he leaves, our friend Todd was a good man.

If you ever read Todd’s blog, you know he enjoyed capturing those moments that make New York so unique. I experienced one of those snatches of time on the subway headed uptown to the service.

A subway preacher stood up in the car next to where I was and launched into an impassioned sermon about the coming rapture and our need to repent. I turned up the volume on my iPod and tried to lose myself in The Hold Steady.

But this subway savior was persistent and he looked right at me. “What do you believe?” he asked. “What do you believe?”

That’s not a question you want to answer without some time to prepare. So I said the first thing that came to mind.

“I believe the Yankees should keep Robinson Cano,” I said.

A middle-aged guy with a beard and a Yankees cap was sitting a few seats away. “Amen, brother,” he said with a chuckle.

The train rumbled into the station and we all went on our way.

Had Todd been there, I think he would have gotten a kick out of it.

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Donations can be made in Todd’s memory to any of these organizations:

ACLU
125 Broad Street, 18th Floor,
New York, NY 10004

Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club Inc,
1930 Randall Avenue,
Bronx, NY 10473

The Doe Fund,
232 East 84th Street,
New York, NY 10028

January is traditionally a slow month for baseball news. So for the second year in a row, we will showcase other blogs with a series of pinch hitters.

Next up is Andrew from Scott Proctor’s Arm.

Andrew splits his time between New City, N.Y., and Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn., where he is a junior print journalism student. He has been blogging since May 2007 (when Mr. Proctor was still a Yankee) and has loved every minute of it.

Here’s his post:

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Last season was tough for all Yankees fans to handle. Under a new manager and in the final year of the old Yankee Stadium, the Yankees missed the playoffs. This marked the eighth straight season in which the team failed to meet expectations. Once again, they proved that having the highest payroll doesn’t mean much in October.

But for me, this season was even stranger. Being a 20-year-old, my earliest baseball memory was the 1996 World Series. I was 8 at the time, and didn’t fully grasp what exactly happened. Not until I saw signs reading “World Champions” did I finally understand how big this moment was. After that, Yankees would continue to reach the playoffs year after year. One could say that winning was my birthright.

The words “winning” and “Yankees” were synonymous for an impressionable young fan like me. I began to think this success was normal. Another year would pass and another championship would be celebrated. After five years of following baseball, the Yankees had won four World Series titles and no one seemed to get in their way. Life as a baseball fan couldn’t be better.

But the loss in the 2001 World Series immediately brought me back down to reality. While I was upset, I realized the world didn’t end and life would, eventually, go on.

And life continued to go on for the next six years, though 2004 was the hardest. Even the oldest Yankees fans had to be shaken by what transpired during those four games in mid-October. Sometimes I deny it even happened.

I have almost grown numb to these playoff “failures” over the last few years. The older, poorly-constructed pitching staffs were no match in a short series. When the Yankees tried to go younger last season, injuries and ineffectiveness derailed another highly-paid campaign. It happens, but around the Bronx over the last 15 years, we’re just not used to it, especially fans of my generation.

Seeing the Yankees out of the playoffs for the first time as a fan was definitely a weird experience for me, but a lack of a championship is something I’ve been able to handle as I’ve matured as a person and as a baseball fan. I’ve begun to realize that winning is a privilege and not a birthright.

I wish the same could be said about some Red Sox fans I’ve encountered at school. You see, Quinnipiac University is located right between Boston and New York, the epicenter of the rivalry. After the Red Sox won the 2007 World Series, one of my (former) roommates exclaimed, “It’s been three long years!” It’s amazing what a stretch of winning can do to a fan base. Needless to say, watching the Rays quiet this “dynasty” up at school was rather fulfilling.

The 2008 season was humbling for Yankees fans. It made me realize just how difficult and special it is to win just one World Series, let alone four in five years. Those teams of the late 90s were special indeed – I just wish I was a little bit older to fully appreciate them. We should all be grateful to have witnessed their performances on the field.

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Thanks, Andrew. I hope you don’t run into any Cubs fans at school. Coming tomorrow: Brian from In Mo We Trust.

January is traditionally a slow month for baseball news. So for the second year in a row, we will showcase other blogs with a series of pinch hitters.

Next up is Drew from My Pinstripes.

Drew just started his fourth year of writing his blog and will be unveiling a new look to coincide with the guest post. He has been a Yankees fan since the late 1960s and lives in New Jersey with his wife (and editor) and two beagles who who love the Yankees.

Here’s his post:

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If you were a fan of the Yankees in the 1970s, the name Marty Appel was synonymous with the team. He was the Yankees head of public relations from 1973-1977 … that’s right, the early George Steinbrenner years. He went on to work for Major League Baseball, became an accomplished author, and is very involved in today’s sports scene as head of the Marty Appel Public Relations agency.

He graciously consented to answering some questions recently in an e-mail interview. We talked about the Yankees past and present, Major League Baseball, and his career. Here’s what Marty had to say.

Q: You were born in Brooklyn. Were you a Dodgers fan growing up? Who were your sports idols as a kid?

A: My first awareness of baseball was the 1955 World Series. Mantle was my first favorite player, but I later joined the Bobby Richardson Fan Club (as listed in SPORT Magazine) because everyone liked the Mick and I sort of wanted “my own guy”. Bobby and I are friends to this day and we speak to each year the day after the World Series to do a (non-alcoholic) toast to his RBI record lasting another series.

Q: You majored in political science in college. How did you end up getting involved in sports?

A: I was also editor of the campus newspaper, so there was this journalism thing going on with me. I wrote a letter to the Yankees PR director, Bob Fishel, in 1967 and he hired me to answer Mantle’s fan mail because it was not getting answered and they needed someone to tackle it. Otherwise, lots of unhappy fans. What a break that was for me.

Q: What was it like taking care of Mickey Mantle’s fan mail? Did you interact much with him? Personally, I would have been starstruck.

A: I was starstruck, and really, still think about the fact that Mickey Mantle knew who I was. Unimaginable. But he liked me – he would give me all of his gift certificates when he’d do radio interviews. $10 off Thom McAn shoes. Imagine him not wanting that! We were good friends until he died, but the “awe” factor never fully went away. He was the Mick!

Q: You began your time as the Yankees’ publicist at the same time George Steinbrenner was taking over ownership of the ball club. What was your initial impression of him? How would you characterize your relationship with him during your time as PR Director?

A: I did spend five years with the Yankees when CBS still owned the team. It was a break for me that Mr. Steinbrenner came along. I think the top people for CBS would always have seen me as the “fan mail kid”, even though I had become assistant PR Director. When Bob Fishel left, Mr. Steinbrenner gave me the top job – the youngest ever in baseball – and I’ll be forever grateful to him. Not every day was sweetness and roses, there was a lot of pressure to work for him. But it made us all better. Or tougher. He wanted the whole front office to excel and thought that would represent the play on the field too. I earned that World Series ring, let me tell you.

Q: You ghost wrote a biography for/with Thurman Munson. How cooperative was he in the process?

A: He was cooperative to a point – talking about his career. Personal stuff was more difficult for him. He hadn’t had a perfect childhood. Now, (glad you asked), I’ve completed a full length biography which has everything about his youth, and of course, all the information about that awful accident. Doubleday is publishing it in July, near the 30th anniversary of his death.

Q: Bobby Murcer was my idol growing up and I was deeply touched by his death last year. What are some of your memories of him?

A: Bobby was as regular a guy as you could find in a baseball clubhouse. Let’s face it, even the nicest of players is still, in an understated way, “I’m a player and you’re not” and today, “I’m a millionaire and you’re not.” Bobby was always one of the regular people. His e-mails during his illness were not to celebrities, but just ordinary friends he made along the way. It was just awful that he died so young.

Q: What is your favorite memory of Yankee Stadium? Were you able to get any souvenirs of the place at the end of last season? Don’t worry I won’t tell.

A: I got my scoopful of dirt, but to me the real souvenirs were the ones from 1973 before the remodeling. I had seven seats – I have two now – and some cool things from the clubhouse. We didn’t think much of souvenirs back then. I was editor of the Yankees Yearbook each year and I took home one for myself. That’s it. I have one of each, even with my name on page one. And I think those are worth about $100 each now.

Q: You won an Emmy Award as executive producer of Yankees’ broadcasts for WPIX. What does the executive producer of a Yankees broadcast do?

A: It involves contracts with the announcers, hiring a director, coordinating technical preparations with the engineering department, interfacing with the team on their needs, sometimes accommodating sponsor needs, hiring production facilities on the road, maintaining a budget, planning special material like pre-game features, helping to develop opening animation, etc. Technically, I was Phil Rizzuto’s boss, but who’s kidding who – he ran everything and still left after six innings no matter how many times I told him not to!

Q: Which Yankees were your favorite to deal with? If you’re comfortable saying, who were one or two of your least favorite to deal with?

A: There really wasn’t anyone I didn’t like to deal with, and I’m not just being kind. Ballplayers are generally terrific people. Hey, Alex Johnson had a horrible media reputation when we got him and I really liked AJ! Munson could be rough with the press, but we were close friends. I loved Catfish Hunter, he was special because of the circumstances under which we got him. I loved Steve Hamilton, who could have solved all of baseball’s labor problems if they’d let him. Ron Blomberg and Roy White were at my wedding. Guys who just passed through briefly like Tippy Martinez and Fran Healy remain friends. But to pick one? I’d have to say all of those from my childhood who I spent a lot of time with were the most special – Mick, Whitey, Yogi, Bobby.

Q: What do you think of the Yankees’ recent spending spree? Is it good or bad for the game?

A: Hey, I’m still a Yankee fan. It may not be great for the game, but it’s been eight years since a world championship. Gotta shake things up. Go for it. After eight years, we’re due, doesn’t matter if it’s good for the game. Although the truth is, when the Yankees are strong, baseball is strong.

Q: How did you become involved with the Israel Baseball League? Do you think that the league will ever produce a major league-ready prospect?

A: I was asked to handle the PR through my company, Marty Appel Public Relations. I brought in Blomberg and Art Shamsky as managers. But the league was underfunded and didn’t get to a second season. There will be new attempts at it I think – a lot of good people would like to see it happen. As for major league prospects, the league was not made up entirely of Israeli players. It was an international league, and there were a lot of Dominican players, a few of whom were signed to pro contracts in the US.

Q: I appreciate your taking the time to answer my questions, Marty. One final topic: If there’s one thing that you could change about the game today, what would it be?

A: Oh, definitely the pace of the game. It continues to have too many slow moments. Did you see Larsen’s perfect game on the MLB Network? The batters never left the batter’s box between pitches. I’d love to see a return to those days, to 2:20 games. Oh and a ban on people sitting behind home plate waving to the cameras while they talk on their cellphones. Those people need to be ejected.

Drew: Thanks Marty, that was great!

Marty: It was fun, good questions.

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Great job, Drew. Coming tomorrow: Andrew from Scott Proctor’s Arm.

There have been two questions popping up on e-mail a lot lately:

What about Jon Garland? What about Ben Sheets?

So let’s try and answer them.

Garland: He was 14-8 with a 4.90 ERA for a playoff team last season and he’s only 29. Seems like a reasonable idea to sign him. But when you look a little more closely, you find that he allowed 237 hits and 59 walks over 196.2 innings along with hitting eight batters. A 1.51 WHIP is not pretty. Garland also a 5.99 ERA in the second half, 7.18 in September.

He struck out 4.12 over nine innings, the lowest rate of his career. Opponents had a .355 OBP against him. So while he may have won 14 games, he had a lousy season. It’s hard to picture him coming into the AL East and pitching well.

Sheets: This one is a little more simple. Sheets ended last season with a bad elbow. But word is that the MRI taken on his shoulder was a cause for major concern. Many teams believe that Sheets’ arm is not worth any sort of risk. He certainly must regret rejecting arbitration from Milwaukee given that no team is known to have made him an offer.

If any team — even the Yankees — is going to spend money at this point, they would want some cost certainty in terms of at least innings. Sheets doesn’t offer that.

For those interested, there will be a memorial service for Todd Drew on Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Riverside Memorial Chapel on 76th and Amsterdam Ave. in Manhattan.

Yesterday was the day for arbitration-eligible players to file. The two sides will exchange figures on Tuesday.

There were 111 players who filed including Brian Bruney, Melky Cabrera and Xavier Nady. There were 110 filers last season and only eight ended up in hearings.

It’s easy to see how Nady and the Yankees could have something to talk about. Maybe even Bruney. But what could the possible holdup be with Melky? He should be happy to get a free appetizer at the new Hard Rock Cafe after how he played last season.

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Policeman of the year Brian McNamee is reportedly in Washington today to testify before the grand jury trying to figure out whether Roger Clemens lied to Congress.

Boy, this is quite a puzzler. Golly, I wonder if he did? Roger wasn’t quite Frank Pentangeli when he was sworn in, but he came close.

So what are they going to do, throw him in the clink? Of course not. But it’s good that government prosecutors are spending time and money on such important matters like whether retired ballplayers took steroids. It’s not like banks swindled unknowing people into taking mortgages they could never afford and helped send the country into economic chaos.

Clemens has done a pretty complete job of ruining his life. The government doesn’t need to help.

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Not sure how much blogging I’ll get to today as I have a bunch of things to do. I leave for Tampa on Feb. 9 and won’t be back in New York until April 1. So all the things that need doing (taxes, getting the car inspected, dentist, etc.) need doing in the next few weeks.

I also want to spend time researching some stories that will run during spring training. But I’ll check back if something comes up.

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Tyler Kepner of the Times paid tribute to Todd Drew on his blog yesterday.

So did Curt Schilling. Good job by both of those guys.

January is traditionally a slow month for baseball news. So for the second year in a row, we will showcase other blogs with a series of pinch hitters.

Next up is Travis from Pinstripe Alley.

A Yankee fan living in Philly, Travis been writing for Pinstripe Alley since August. The World Series victory for the Phillies only made him want another title for the Yanks even more. The unabridged version of this article can be found on his blog.

Here is his post:

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Can the Yankees win with Alex Rodriguez? He’s been criticized as a “me-first” player who destroys team chemistry since he left Seattle for Texas in the 2000-01 offseason. The evidence often used is threefold: the Mariners won 25 more games the year after A-Rod left (2001); the Rangers won 18 more games the year after Arod left (2004); and after Arod joined the Yankees, they’ve ended each year progressively worse. In 2003 (one year before A-Rod), the Yankees won the pennant and lost the World Series in six games. The downward spiral began when he joined, starting with a seven-game loss to Boston in the League Championship Series, followed by a Division Series loss to Anaheim in five games, an LDS loss to Detroit in four games, an LDS loss to Cleveland in four games and then 2008, when the Yankees missed the playoffs entirely.

I went into this study not sure what to find. First, I looked at the lineups of each teams, to see who replaced A-Rod after he departed. The 2000 Mariners (A-Rod’s last year with Seattle) had a team OPS+ of 107.

The 2001 team had a considerably better 118 OPS+. What was the difference? The largest improvement was at second-base, where Bret Boone posted a 153 OPS+, replacing Mark McLemore’s 76. Not to be overlooked is the addition of Ichiro Suzuki, who won the Rookie of the Year and MVP awards. These differences improved Seattle from fourth in runs scored to first, despite moving to pitcher-friendly Safeco Field. The pitching also improved (negligibly) from second to first (in the AL).

A-Rod bolted from Seattle to Texas, and after his time there, he departed to the Yankees and the Rangers won 18 more games. How? Pitching. Texas’ ERA ranked dead last in 2003, but through signings, trades and the maturation of young players, posted the fifth-best ERA in 2004. In fact, they allowed 180 fewer runs. So while the offense was nearly identical after A-Rod departed (96 vs. 97 OPS+), the difference was drastically improved pitching.

The current Yankee ERA has resulted in a worse result each year. The 2003 Yankees were a very good all-around team, ranking third in runs scored and third in ERA. The ’04 Yanks took a step back in terms of pitching, dropping to sixth in ERA (and not one starter went over 200 innings while four topped it in ’03). The pitching declined even further in 2005, dropping to ninth. Including last year, the Yankees haven’t finished in the top five in ERA since 2003 (sixth, ninth, sixth, eighth and eighth respectively since then).

As for A-Rod being a ‘bad seed’, we know he doesn’t have sleepovers with Derek Jeter any more, but does that make him a bad teammate? Teams have won with far worse “seeds”, namely Reggie Jackson, Rickey Henderson, Manny Ramirez, Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson, just to name a few.

Final verdict: Alex Rodriguez is not at fault for the relative lack of success of his teams. Despite his prodigious offense, pitching is still crucial, and teams seem to forget that after acquiring A-Rod.

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Good post, Travis. But as Elaine once said of George, “Trust me. He’s a bad seed. He’s a horrible seed. He’s one of the worst seeds I’ve ever seen.”

Just kidding. Well, not so much.

Coming tomorrow: Drew from My Pinstripes.

Andrew Marchand of ESPN Radio reported today that Freddy Garcia is considering offers from the Mets, Yankees, Rangers and White Sox and could sign by the end of next week.

I would imagine it would be a minor-league contract.

Garcia rehabbed with the Tigers last season and got in three games. He hasn’t been a regular starter since 2006.

Garcia could be worth a shot. If the Yankees make a push and sign him, it could be another sign they’re moving on from Andy Pettitte.

One of the best — and strangest — things about the internet is that you can become pretty good friends with somebody you’ve never actually laid eyes on. I know that is the case with many people who comment on this blog.

That was how it was with Todd Drew and I.

When I started this blog nearly three years ago, Todd was one of the first readers. He posted thoughtful, polite comments and almost always followed up with an e-mail. He unconditionally loved the Yankees but he had a great appreciation for players on other teams and he liked hearing about the process of putting together a newspaper story.

Todd started his own blog to write about his favorite sport and the people he knew in the Bronx. Yankees For Justice was terrific and it led to Todd joining Alex Belth at Bronx Banter when that seminal Yankees blog signed up with SNY.

Todd wrote me an e-mail asking whether I thought it was a good idea a day before Alex wrote me asking my opinion of Todd. It was a good feeling knowing I had helped two writers I respected so much form a partnership.

Sadly, Todd passed away just after midnight today. He was only 41. Alex wrote about him today.

Todd’s last bit of baseball writing was about having cancer and his impending surgery. I wrote him a note wishing him a speedy recovery and we agreed to meet up at the Stadium this spring.

Please keep Todd and his family in your thoughts today. He was one of us.

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Here is the guest post Todd wrote for us about a year ago.