Recapping the Yankees' minor league affiliates' results from August 9th.
Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders: L 3-5vs. Columbus Clippers
CF Antoan Richardson 2-4, 3B, SB, PO 2B Rob Refsnyder 1-4, RBI LF Zoilo Almonte 1-4, RBI, K C John Ryan Murphy 0-2 Jose Gil 0-2, K DH Kyle Roller 0-3, BB, K RF Zelous Wheeler 0-3, BB, OF assist 1B Corban Joseph 1-4, 3B, K 3B Rob Segedin 1-2, RBI SS Carmen Angelini 0-3
Zach Nuding 5.0 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 49 of 81 pitches for strikes, 2 GO/4 FO, fielding error Pat Venditte 3.0 IP, 3 H, 3 ER, 2 K, 2 HR, 26 of 42 pitches for strikes, 2 GO/3 FO Edgmer Escalona 1.0 IP, 1 K, 5 of 6 pitches for strikes, 1 GO/0 FO
DH Jake Cave 2-5, 3B, K LF Ben Gamel 1-5, RBI C Gary Sanchez 1-5 1B Greg Bird 2-3, 2 BB, K RF Tyler Austin 3-5, K CF Mason Williams 1-4, K 3B Dante Bichette Jr 1-4, K 2B Casey Stevenson 1-4, 2B, 2 RBI, K SS Ali Castillo 0-3, BB, throwing error, fielding error - 13 this season
Daniel Camarena 3.2 IP, 7 H, 6 ER, 2 BB, 1 K, 1 HR, 44 of 76 pitches for strikes, 5 GO/3 FO Francisco Rondon 1.2 IP, 2 BB, 1 K, 17 of 30 pitches for strikes, 3 GO/1 FO Jacob Lindgren 1.2 IP, 1 BB, 11 of 20 pitches for strikes, 4 GO/0 FO Danny Burawa 1.0 IP, 2 K, 7 of 11 pitches for strikes James Pazos 1.0 IP, 1 H, 1 BB, 2 K, 11 of 24 pitches for strikes, 1 GO/0 FO
CF Mark Payton 1-3, 2B, 2 BB, K, CS SS Cito Culver 1-4, BB, SB 3B Eric Jagielo 2-4, RBI, BB RF Aaron Judge 0-4, BB, 3 K, fielding error (4) LF Ericson Leonora 1-4 2B Angelo Gumbs 0-4, 2 K DH Jose Rosario 1-4, 2B, K 1B Reymond Nunez 1-4, 2B, 2 K C Kyle Higashioka 0-4
Caleb Smith 0.0 IP, 1 H - left the game with a leg injury Kyle Haynes 3.0 IP, 2 H, 2 BB, 2 K, 3 GO/2 FO Ramon Benjamin 2.0 IP, 2 H, 1 K, 3 GO/2 FO Chris Smith 3.0 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 3 K, 1 HR, 4 GO/2 FO Cesar Vargas 1.0 IP, 1 H, 1 K
CF Michael O'Neill 3-5, SB - 35th of the season SS Tyler Wade 0-4, BB, 2 K RF Dustin Fowler 1-5, K 3B Miguel Andujar 1-5, 2B, 2 RBI, K DH Mike Ford 1-3, BB, K LF Yeicok Calderon 2-4, K 1B Kale Sumner 0-2, 2 BB 2B Gosuke Katoh 2-4, 2B, K, SB C Eduardo de Oleo 1-4, SB
Short Season-A Staten Island Yankees: L 6-11 vs. Mahoning Valley Scrappers
CF Devyn Bolasky 0-3, 2 BB, fielding error - first of the season SS Vicente Conde 1-5 2B Ty McFarland 1-5, K, fielding error, throwing error - 16th of the season C Isaias Tejeda 0-5, K RF Austin Aune 1-4, 1 HR, RBI, BB, K 1B Chris Breen 0-3, BB, 3 K DH Connor Spencer 4-4, 2 2B LF Nathan Mikolas 2-3, 2B, 3B, 4 RBI, BB 3B Renzo Martini 0-4, RBI, K
Jordan Foley 3.1 IP, 5 H, 5 ER, 3 BB, 1 K, 5 GO/3 FO Jordan Montgomery 1.2 IP, 2 H, 1 BB, 3 K Sam Agnew-Wieland 2.0 IP, 4 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 5 GO/2 FO Tim Giel 1.0 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 3 GO/0 FO
LF Jose Augusto Figueroa 3-4, BB, SB SS Graham Ramos 1-3, 2 BB, K, SB 1B Jake Hernandez 1-5, 2B DH Chris Gittens 0-2, BB, K R.J. Johnson 1-1, RBI, BB RF Wilmer Romero 0-2, RBI Frank Frias 0-1 Kevin Alexander 0-1, K 3B Jesus Aparicio 0-4, K, fielding error, throwing error C Rainiero Coa 1-4 2B Jake Anderson 2-3, 2B, BB, K CF Jordan Barnes 0-4, OF assist
Carlos Diaz 2.1 IP, 1 H, 2 ER, 5 BB, 2 K, 2 GO/1 FO, PO Eduardo Rivera 1.1 IP, 1 ER, 3 BB, K, 2 GO/0 FO Lee Casas 1.1 IP, K, 2 GO/1 FO Abel Mora 0.0 IP, 5 H, 4 ER Felix Santiago 2.0 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 2 GO/3 FO Mike Noteware 1.0 IP, 1 H, 0 GO/2 FO
Rooting for the home team would be ideal today. A series victory before heading down to face the Orioles would be pretty sweet.
Comment of the Game
Today is a very rare situation in which I am overriding authority and giving the COTG to Waffles. In the future, by which I mean starting Monday, these will be referred to as Honorable Mod Mentions (HMM) when one of the PSA staff does something so witty that it must be recognized!
Best GIF of the Recap
NYY1017 wins this, hands down. Perfect GIF for the day.
Best Comments of the Day
There really weren't any great comments of the day, because there really weren't many comments yesterday. Par for the course for the weekend. Sunday might yield the same results, unless someone is feeling witty!
Fun Questions
Least favorite "narrative" term in all of baseball?
No real reason for this. I was just thinking about driving around in GTA: Vice City. As always, link us your Song of the Day!
Today's rubber match between the Yankees and the Indians will see Hiroki Kuroda face off against Carlos Carrasco. Winning this series would be ideal, as the Yankees head down south to Birdland to face the first place Orioles on Monday.
Since 1968 there have only been six Yankee teams that failed to produce a .300 hitter. Will the 2014 Yankees become the seventh?
A couple months ago we examined the historical relevance that the Yankees' lack of power this year could have. Things have improved a bit since then, but this offense is still dangerously close to another dubious achievement. As of this writing, no Yankee getting regular playing time is particularly close to hitting .300. If that remains true, they will be only the seventh version of the franchise to finish the year without a .300 hitter since 1968. That year, later dubbed "the Year of the Pitcher", hits were so scarce that the only .300 hitter in the AL was Carl Yastrzemski, who won the batting crown with a .301 average. This sparked immediate rule changes that shrunk the strike zone and lowered the pitcher's mound for the 1969 season.
Those rule changes didn't appear to help the Yankees' putrid offense. In 1969, the only ones within striking distance of .300 were Roy White, who hit .290, and the poster boy of unsuccessful Yankee teams in the late '60s and early '70s, Horace Clarke, who hit .285. Just three years later in 1972 they again failed to trot out a .300 hitter everyday but the offense was much improved thanks to a trio of young players beginning to hit their stride in Thurman Munson, Bobby Murcer and Ron Blomberg. Murcer and Munson were the top two on the team in batting average at .292 and .280, respectively. Seven years later, the team came into the season feeling the highest of highs after back-to-back World Series championships but then felt the lowest of lows when Thurman Munson tragically died at just 32 on August 2nd. Nobody noticed or cared, and rightfully so, but while that 1979 lacked a .300 hitter, six of the nine regulars hit .280 or better. Lou Piniella and Reggie Jackson led the way as they each hit .297.
Throughout the 1980s, the Yankees offense remained high-powered despite their lack of playoff success. That came to a crashing halt in 1990, when Don Mattingly's debilitating back injury appeared to suck the life out of the team. With him sidelined, the only players that produced at least an average level were young phenom Kevin Maas, aging veteran Jesse Barfield, and Roberto Kelly, a man whose name you no doubt heard uttered earlier this weekend. Kelly led the team with a .285 average. By 1992, Mattingly had worked himself back to being a respectable hitter, but he was still a shell of his former self. The team around him was also getting better, but still not ready for prime time yet. Mattingly's .288 average was a team best.
The latest Yankees team to finish the year without a .300 hitter comes as a surprise. In 2004 they had a full arsenal of offensive weapons that hit 242 home runs, had an on-base percentage above .350, and scored nearly 900 runs. Despite all those accomplishments, nobody broke .300, although Hideki Matsui finished awfully close at .298 for the year. Let this serve as proof that in order to be great, an offense doesn't necessarily need .300 hitters. The ability to get on base and hit for power will always get the job done--just ask the ghost of Earl Weaver.
As the team currently stands in 2014, the offense isn't great for a number of reasons and their lack of .300 hitters is pretty low on the list. Still, unless Brett Gardner remains red hot for the balance of the year or Jacoby Ellsbury puts his bat into another gear, this team is likely to accomplish a rare feat that puts them in questionable company, for the most part.
On a lot of days, the main story of this game would be the struggles of Hiroki Kuroda. And yes, Kuroda was not great today. But he was vastly overshadowed by the suck that was the Yankees' offense. After shutting out the Yankees yesterday, the Indians nearly did it again today. It took until the bottom of the ninth for the Yankees to push a run across. By then, it was far too late and the Indians came away with a 4-1 win.
It didn't take long for the Indians to score the game's first run. Jason Kipnis led off the game with a bloop single. He was able to move to second on a Jose Ramirez ground out and go to third on a wild pitch. Michael Brantley would then punch through a single to score Kipnis.
Two innings later, the Indians added to their lead. This time, Kipnis led off the inning with a double. After Ramirez bunted him over to third, Kipnis scored on a sac fly by Brantley. That made it 2-0.
In the fifth, Kuroda got himself in some more trouble. He hit Ryan Raburn to start the inning. After Kipnis flew out, Ramirez singled. Brantley then grounded into a force out at second, but was quick enough to stay out of the double play. Kuroda then walked Carlos Santana to load the bases and walked Yan Gomes to bring in a run. That second walk was it for Kuroda. He went just 4.2 innings allowing three runs on five hits and four walks. David Huff came in and got Lonnie Chisenhall to ground out to end the inning.
In the top of the seventh, the Indians continued to add to their lead. With Huff still pitching, Kipnis again led off the inning with a single. After Ramirez again bunted him over to second, Kipnis stole third. Brantley wound up drawing a walk, prompting Girardi to go back to the bullpen and bring in Shawn Kelley. Kelley struck out Santana but allowed a single to Gomes, making it 4-0.
The top of the eighth saw Bryan Mitchell come in to make his major league debut. After allowing a lead-off walk, Mitchell got the next three outs to keep the score at 4-0. Mitchell pitched another scoreless inning in the ninth cementing a nice debut for him.
After recording just four hits in the first eight innings, the Yankees had one last chance to get something going in the ninth. After Brett Gardner and Derek Jeter went down in order, Jacoby Ellsbury hit a shutout-ending, face-saving home run. That would be the extent of the Yankees' offense as Indians' closer Cody Allen got Mark Teixeira to ground out on the next pitch. The Indians got the 4-1 win and the series win in the Bronx. Today (and yesterday), the Yankees' offense was a sad sack of potatoes.
The Yankees will now head out to Baltimore for a series against the Orioles starting tomorrow. The starting pitchers will be Chris Capuano and Bud Norris.
Don't worry, I'm not going to make this recap all about Derek Jeter, but allow me a paragraph:
Unless the Indians and Yankees play a tiebreaker for the second Wild Card spot, today marked the final time Jeter will face the Tribe. We should be happy about that, both because he hit really well against the Indians (a .364 average in 371 regular season at bats), and because it means we won't have to listen to announcers slobber all over the place in praise of Jeter. Most of that success came a long time ago, and in this decade, Jeter hit only .263 against the Indians, without a single home run in 80 at bats. He went out with a whimper today, going 0 for 4.
So long, Derek, I will not miss you!
Alright, now on to the Indians, the reason we're all here...
Carlos Carrasco only got the chance to start today because so many others have struggled in recent weeks. When I reversed course on him a few days ago, and called for Carrasco to be moved back into the starting rotation, it wasn't because I believed he'd figured something out and was going to be much better at it than he was before, it was because I'd grown desperate, and it longer seemed like it could hurt to see what happened.
Well, what happened was Carrasco pitched 5 shutout innings, allowing only a pair of singles, and not walking anybody. He was only pulled from the game so quickly because his arm is not stretched all the way out to handle the workload of 7 or 8 innings, but there's no way he doesn't get another couple starts after his performance today, and he ought to be able to throw a few more pitches each time he goes out there. Even in its brevity, it was maybe the best game by an Indians pitcher not named Corey Kluber since the All-Star break.
I'll need more than this to be full convinced, but today was a great step in the right direction.
Most of the tribe offense this afternoon was provided by three guys: Jason Kipnis, Michael Brantley, and Yan Gomes. Kipnis had 3 hits, including a double, only his second three-hit game in the last month. He also scored 3 of the team's 4 runs. Brantley drove in a run with a single and another with a sac fly, raising his RBI total for the year to 76, and putting him on pace for 104, which would be the most for an Indians hitter since Victor Martinez had 114 of them in 2007. Gomes had two singles, and drove in the other two runs. It was a good day for Tribe hitters who are signed for another five years or so.
The only run New York scored all day came on a home run with two outs in the 9th inning, only the 4th ling ball Cody Allen has allowed this season. The shutout would have been nice, but I'll gladly take a 4-1 win over the Yankees. Detroit lost in 19 innings today, so the Indians remain 5.5 games behind them in the Central. Kansas City won their 7th game in a row today, so the Indians remain 5 games behind them for the second Wild Card spot. Those results also mean the Royals are only half a game back of the Tigers, which is quite a surprise, given where things stood a week ago.
The Indians are only just on the edge of playoff contention, but they are still on that edge, something that seemed very much in question less than 48 hours ago.
The Yankees face the Orioles for a three game series. Winning the games is pretty important.
Comment of the Game
Blanky wins the COTG with both the appropriate comment and the GIF to match the current situation of the Yankees.
Best GIF of the Recap
This victory goes to Bryan-24, now known as Bryan Brunati of Pinstripe Alley. He gets the win before he officially can't due to joining the staff! Congratulations on both accounts
Honorable Mod Mention
Matt Ferenchick gets today's HMM as he was accurate and on point with the end of the game. Simply amazing.
Best Comments of the Day
Once again, there were no comments of the day simply due to the lack of comments in general. Understandable for a Sunday. Today will hopefully rectify this lack of great comments.
Fun Questions
Favorite "narrative" term in all of baseball?
What Fall TV show are you looking forward to the most?
It's Hulk Hogan's birthday today, so I thought this song would be appropriate. As always, link us your Song of the Day!
Chris Capuano takes the mound against Bud Norris tonight. I don't think I have to tell anyone of the importance of this series, but I will anyway. The Yankees are six games behind the Orioles. This series could either help bridge the gap or simply outright destroy it. Get it done, Yanks.
"The Warrior" was one of the most iconic Yankees of the late-'90s dynasty.
Paul O'Neill was the man--there's no doubt it among Yankees fans. Those who played and rooted against probably found his antics to be aggravating, but O'Neill was a classic case of "that guy you hate but secretly wish your team had." The right fielder gave the Yankees the best years of his career after general manager Gene Michael's masterstroke to bring him over from the Reds that Harlan wrote about a few days ago. He was a tremendous player for the Yankees during his nine years in the Bronx, and the fans' adoration for him is a big reason why he now owns a plaque in Monument Park. In tribute to Paulie, I made 21 GIFs that I feel best represent number 21's career.
1. Hometown Hero
A native of Ohio, it was O'Neill's childhood dream to play for the Cincinnati Reds, and with their fourth round pick in the 1981 draft, Cincinnati made that dream come true. O'Neill worked his way through the minors and played the first eight years of his career with the Reds, hitting .259/.336/.431 with 147 doubles, 96 homers, a 111 OPS+, and notching a respectable 12.2 rWAR. Although his best statistical year came in his All-Star '91 campaign, the highlight for him was no doubt winning the World Series in 1990, the Reds' last championship team. He didn't have a great Fall Classic, but O'Neill burst onto the national stage with a .471/.500/.824 NLCS against the Pirates, a series that included a crucial homer and this laser throw from right to nail Andy Van Slyke at third base.
2. The Kicker
Of course, Paulie's most famous moment as a Red probably came on a blooper reel play in which he bobbled a ball and then in frustration, somehow kicked a perfect relay to first baseman Todd Benzinger. How he aimed it so well, we'll never know.
3. Instant New York success
Frustrated by O'Neill's down year in '92, the Reds dealt him to the Yankees in exchange for All-Star outfielder Roberto Kelly, and few other trades in Yankees history have worked out as amazingly as this one did. He was an instant hit, as after hitting his first homer on the road in Cleveland, he went 4-for-4 in his Yankee Stadium debut, lining a pair of extra-base hits in a 4-1 win over future teammate David Cone and the Royals. It was the start of something great.
4. Three-homer night
The players' strike cut the '94 season short so despite O'Neill winning the AL batting title with a .359 average and the Yankees leading the AL East at the time of the strike, nothing sadly came of their '94 effort. Fortunately, the Yankees stormed down the stretch to win the AL Wild Card in '95, and one of the most memorable games from that 25-6 run was a career-best three-homer game by O'Neill against the California Angels on August 31st.
5. "Goodbye into the night of New York."
An inning after captain Don Mattingly's stadium-shaking go-ahead homer in Game 2 of the ALDS against his old Reds manager Lou Piniella's Mariners, Paul O'Neill smashed one of the most impressive homers of his career, unloading on a Norm Charlton pitch to tie the game again after the Mariners evened it up. Yankee Stadium was a fracas.
6. Dejection
Sadly, it was not meant to be in '95, as the Mariners stunned the Yankees by winning three games in a row at the Kingdome to eliminate them. Having played his heart out with three homers and a .333/.458/.833 series, O'Neill was just as devastated as any Yankees fan. Fortunately, Yankees playoff success was just on the horizon.
7. Wild run to World Series victory
The Yankees of course made it back to the playoffs in '96 and after falling two games behind to the defending champion Braves in the World Series, they won the next two in Atlanta to tie it up. In a tense 1-0 game, O'Neill clinched the Game 5 victory with a crazed run on hobbled legs at Luis Polonia's long fly to right-center that would have at least tied the game. O'Neill made several great defensive plays throughout his career, but this one was undoubtedly the most important.
8. Start spreadin' the news
A game later, the Yankees were champions at last and O'Neill celebrated with a roll over the top of the dogpile.
9. Hookslide
The Yankees didn't repeat as champions in '97, but it was not for a lack of effort by O'Neill. Trailing Cleveland in the ALDS and down to their last out, O'Neill sprinted for a double with a memorably painful-looking hookslide that really symbolized his determination as a player. He stayed in the game, though Bernie Williams unfortunately flew out to end it.
Now, a look at Paulie's equally unforgettable mannerisms on the field...
10. Water cooler smash
A Pinstripe Alley favorite for irritating losses.
11. SOON
In my mind, I'd like to think that O'Neill is also pretending to hit the umpire's head, not just the pitches to his bandmate Bernie.
12. Helmet throw
13. GTFO
Probably a useful utility GIF.
14. TV star
-Sure, well I promised you would hit him two home runs. -Say what? -You know, Klick!. A couple of dingers. -You promised a kid in the hospital that I would hit two home runs? -Yeah, well, no good? -No, it's no good! It's terrible! You don't hit home runs like that. It's hard to hit home runs. And where the heck did you get two from? -Two is better than one. -That, that's ridiculous. I'm not a home run hitter! -Well, Babe Ruth did it. -He did not! -Oh, do you say that Babe Ruth is a liar? -I'm not calling him a liar but he was not stupid enough to promise two! -Well, maybe I did overextend myself. -How the heck did you get in here anyway?
15. THIS MEANS WAR!
"Well all right, Gunny! We're goin' to war!"
16. Perfecto-saving catch
This first inning catch from David Cone's perfect game turned out to be the defensive play of the day, though no one knew it at the time.
17. Plate discipline
A very patient hitter, O'Neill's keen eye at the plate was never better than in the ninth inning of Game 1 of the 2000 World Series. Late in his career and not quite able to catch up to Mets closer/lol-causer Armando Benitez's fastballs, O'Neill took some close pitches and protected the plate with a few fouls. Ten pitches later, O'Neill ended up with a walk and the Yankees rallied to tie the game, then win it a few innings later. We can only wish that all hitters had O'Neill's plate discipline.
18. Paulie 2K
On May 2, 2001, O'Neill reached a career milestone in Minnesota with the 2,000th hit of his MLB career. In his Yankees career, he hit a commendable .303/.377/.492 with 1,426 hits, 304 doubles, 185 homers, a 125 OPS+, and 26.6 rWAR. Going beyond the fans' adoration, those are numbers certainly worthy of Monument Park. Beyond his Yankee career, the five-time All-Star would be a fine "Hall of Very Good" member, as he hit .288/.363/.470 in his career with 2,105 hits, 451 doubles, 281 homers, a 120 OPS+, and 38.8 rWAR. That's a mighty nice 17-year career.
19. Exhilaration
An understandable reaction to Tino Martinez's stunning game-tying homer in the ninth inning of Game 4 of the 2001 World Series, no?
20. "Don't need this anymore, I'm in Monument Park!"
21. Paul-ieeeeee
I still get chills thinking about the ovation O'Neill received in the ninth inning of his final home game during the 2001 World Series. Man, what a moment.
Here's to you, Paulie. Thanks for nine amazing years that helped restore the Yankees from their cellar-dwelling days of the early '90s and for your four World Series championship rings.
After winning back-to-back series against the other major-league teams with bird namesakes, the Orioles face the Yankees for three games at Camden Yards.
Norris's last start was a grind, as he only made it through 5.1 innings. He allowed two runs, striking out seven while walking two. Norris has faced the Yankees once this year, a five-inning, one-run outing.
Capuano began the year in Boston's bullpen before being released on July 1. The Rockies signed him to a minor-league deal, and after a few weeks, the Yankees traded for him to join their rotation. He's made three starts for New York so far and has pitched well, with a 2.84 ERA and 2.29 FIP over nineteen innings. The lefty is a sinker-slider pitcher against fellow southpaws, but brings out a changeup against righties, throwing it nearly as often as the sinker against them. All batters will occasionally get a first-pitch curveball.
Chen had a rough start in Toronto last week, allowing four runs over five innings. Some of that was just bad luck on that unlovely turf, though, as he struck out six while walking two in that game. Still, more starts like those against the Mariners would be preferable (2 GS, 15.1 IP, 1 ER, 11 K, 2 BB).
Greene has just six major-league starts under his belt, but one of those was a strong outing against Baltimore last month, in which he struck out nine Orioles over 7.1 IP. His success thus far is surprising, but rookies with less-than-stellar stuff seem to be one isotope of Oriole kryptonite. Greene throws three fastballs (four-seamer, sinker, and cutter), and his main offspeed offering is a slider. Regardless of batter handedness, the righty throws the sinker about 45% of the time, mostly early in the count, and the slider about 30%. The four-seamer is used as a strikeout pitch, especially against lefties, while the cutter sees more use against righties.
Tillman followed up seven scoreless innings against Seattle with a 6.2-IP, two-run outing versus St. Louis on Friday. It's nice to see him striking out a bunch of guys again; after striking out three or fewer batters in all but one start before July, he's struck out six or more in five of his last seven outings.
The Yankees claimed Rogers off of waivers on July 31. He's only made one start for them this season, a five-inning, one-run effort against Cleveland. Rogers has bounced between starting and relieving in his career, and he's never posted an ERA under 4.50. Like Greene, the righty throws three types of fastballs (four-seamer, sinker, and cutter); he also has a slider, curveball, and changeup. Also like Greene, he doesn't pitch righties and lefties much differently: all batters see mostly four-seamers and sliders, with a fair number of sinkers, some cutters and curves, and extremely rare changeups. Lefties get about 40% four-seamers and 30% sliders, while righties see the reverse.
The Orioles haven't posted a winning season against the Yankees since 1997. It's high time to change that, don't you think?
Orioles fans have reason to hate the Yankees and their fans. While the Yankees have spent most of the recent past beating up on the Orioles on the field, their fans have made themselves at home in our park to such an extent that many O's fans stopped attending games when they were in town.
You hear the term rivalry used by a lot of people around Baltimore in reference to the Orioles and Yankees, but for the most part that hasn't really been true. They are rivals in that they play in the same division, but any real rivalry has mostly been one sided. That tends to be the case when one team spends a long stretch being terrible while the other is successful. While the Orioles fans hate the Yankees, can't stand their fans, and want nothing more than to see them all miserable, the Orioles have spent the majority of the past 15 years not even being noticed by the Yankees or their fans.
A good example of the stark difference in the attitudes is my good friend Julia, who spent several years in the early-mid 2000s living in the Fairfax area after spending most of her life in Northern New Jersey. Far from her Yankees, Julia went to a number of Orioles games and happily cheered them on alongside me. She even got herself an Orioles t-shirt (I think it was Melvin Mora). It was easy for her to do, because she likes baseball and the Orioles had absolutely no impact on the Yankees' chances to get to the postseason. Can you even imagine such a thing happening if I had been the one displaced to her part of the country instead? Of course not.
In the last two-and-a-half seasons the Orioles have exorcised a lot of old demons. They ended both their losing streak and playoff drought at 14 seasons. They have seen a resurgence of fans at the ballpark, and are working on their third straight winning year and likely their second playoff appearance in the last three. But one thing that remains to be conquered is the New York Yankees.
After going 9-4 against the Yankees in 1997 (back before the implementation of the unbalanced schedule), the Orioles have posted a non-winning season against them for 16 straight years. From 1998-2013, the Orioles went 97-179 against New York. That doesn't include the 2012 ALDS, in which the Orioles fell to the Yankees 2-3. That would have been the biggest and best time to finally beat them, but it wasn't to be. So far in 2014 the Orioles have gone 6-3 against the Yankees with ten games left to play. Those ten games start tonight as the teams kick off a three-game series at Camden Yards.
Of course the Orioles don't need to post a winning season against the Yankees for both the team and its fans to take them seriously. Thanks to how well they've been playing the last three years, that is already the case. And the Orioles don't have to have a winning season against the Yankees to win the A.L. East or go to the playoffs. But I think you'd all agree that it would certainly be nice. Trouncing the Yankees over 19 games would be just another way for the Orioles to declare themselves as back from the dead. And making the Yankees fans hate the Orioles as much as Orioles fans hate the Yankees would be a beautiful thing.
To post a winning season against the Yankees in 2014 would finally put another demon to rest, not to mention give the Orioles a better chance to win the A.L. East and the Yankees a better chance to sit home once the regular season is over. The Orioles are well on their way to doing that this year, thanks largely in part to the fact that the Orioles are a better team. And who knows, winning the season series could kick off a time period when it's the Orioles fans who can't be bothered to concern themselves with the Yankees, instead of the other way around. Wouldn't that be grand?
Refsnyder won't be called up in 2014, but there are others who could be
When discussing September call ups, it's easy to see how the Yankees have a stronger supply of pitching than they do position players. They mainly have a smattering of quadruple-A talent that can be brought up and down at any time, but they lack the same excitement that the pitchers provide. A few of them have already been (or currently are) up this year:
Let's get him out of the way first, since he's already up in the majors now with Brian McCann going to the DL. Romine hasn't exactly had a strong offensive season this year, but he's been hitting well since July 1 with a .318/.362/.432 batting line. Other than the whole "hitting better" thing, another reason he was chosen over Murphy was the fact that he has experience playing first base, which could be useful with Mark Teixeira seemingly always hurting something. It's believed that McCann's concussion isn't too bad so he might only be gone for the minimum seven days and then Romine is back in the minors until September.
Murphy was passed over for a promotion and then the next day he was placed on the disabled list with what is believed to be a concussion, though the severity is not yet known. He could miss the rest of the season or he could be out for a week or so. Murphy hasn't really hit all year; he batted .286/.308/.365 in the majors and has now hit .244/.300/.378 since being optioned down to Triple-A. Despite his struggles, the Yankees could still use a third catcher and Murphy's defensive abilities could keep him in play if he's healthy.
Wheeler has already been up with the team and made good on his first trip to the majors. With Martin Prado, Chase Headley, and Stephen Drew here now, he likely won't get much playing time, but if there's an injury down the stretch he could be a useful piece to have off the bench.
Zoilo Almonte will surely grace us with his presence come September, but he likely won't play much of a role when he does. Despite beating up Triple-A pitching with a .278/.324/.484 batting line and 17 home runs, Almonte has only five hits in 36 plate appearances in the majors this year and doesn't offer a defensive upgrade in the outfield. He'll likely ride the bench through September, making the occasional start and appearing late in games.
Despite Pirela's success this season, the Yankees haven't really seen him as a major league option and it's possible they never will. Still, though, he's at least a possibility, considering they have a few open 40-man roster spots and he could at least provide some value off the bench. If he does get a shot it will likely come in the form of a few pinch hit opportunities and won't come with much playing time in the field.
Another player who could get a shot in September, despite him not being on the 40-man roster, is Adonis Garcia, who has had a monster season in Scranton. He's hit .322/.357/.481 in 2014 and has spent time at all three outfield positions and third base, making him an intriguing addition for the Yankees. Considering his age, this could be his last real chance to make the majors, but it's a real outside shot if one really exists.
No one game-changing, but some of them have their uses. Other players who might warrant call ups are first baseman Kyle Roller, to provide depth behind Mark Teixeira, and third baseman Rob Segedin, who has had a great season between Double-A and Triple-A. There is also Corban Joseph, who can play multiple positions, though hasn't had a very good year.
Ramon Flores could have actually been in the majors by now based on how he was hitting, but the outfielder hasn't been seen since the beginning of June when he suffered a gruesome ankle injury. It was initially said he'd only miss a month, but over two have gone by now and there's still no word about his status. And of course there is Rob Refsnyder, who continues to hit in Scranton, however the Yankees seem earnest about their desire to keep him in Triple-A to work on his defense. While he could definitely help the team, even if just as a September call up, it's highly unlikely they waste his service time when he won't get regular playing time.
Maybe hide the pine tar a little better next time, eh?
The Yankees have traveled to Baltimore for a three-game series against the division-leading Orioles after dropping two games to the Cleveland Indians over the weekend. Baltimore's offense has been on fire and the Yankees' has been, well, the opposite of that following a double digit outburst Friday night. New York will need to find a way to cool off those Orioles bats, and their pitchers have done a great job of limiting the damage against them as of late. Here's tonight's lineup:
#Yankees lineup for opener vs BAL: Gardner LF Jeter SS Ellsbury CF Teixeira 1B Beltran DH Headley 3B Drew 2B Prado RF Cervelli C Capuano P
Francisco Cervelli subbing in for the DL'd Brian McCann and batting ninth is really the only change in the lineup. Chris Capuano will try to build off a strong start his last time out.
Michael Pineda will return to the Yankees' rotation on Wednesday in his first game since the pine tar incident that got him suspended. He'll get a real test in his return, starting the series finale against the Orioles. That moves Esmil Rogers back to the bullpen for the time being. Hopefully Pineda is healthy and ready, as he could be a huge boost down the stretch if he performs like he did at the beginning of the season.
Manny Banuelos has also been promoted to Triple-A in his road back from Tommy John surgery. The left-hander pitched 49 innings with the Trenton Thunder, mainly on a pitch count so that the team could use him as an option in September if they felt he was ready. Bumping him up to the next level seems like a good test, even if it is only back to the level he was at pre-surgery.
Editor's Note: SB Nation's partner FanDuel is hosting a one-day $18,000 Fantasy Baseball league for tonight's MLB games. It's $2 to join and first prize is $2,000. Jump in now. Here's the FanDuel link.
The Orioles are going to bat without two of their regulars: J.J. Hardy is still feeling the effects of a strained thumb and Chris Davis isn't very good right now.
Just as the series last week with the Blue Jays, this has potential to be big for the A.L. East. A sweep by the Yankees and the Orioles' lead will be cut to just three games. A sweep by the Orioles and the Yankees will be nine games out with just 45 games to go. Let's root for that outcome, OK?
Chris Capuano will make his fourth start for the Yankees, where he's put up a 2.84 ERA and had two solid starts out of three. Capuano was released by the Red Sox earlier this year, so the only explanation for his success so far with the Yankees is Satan. Or small sample size. All you need to know about him is that he's a lefty with a 89 mph fastball. For more on the pitching matchup between Capuano and Bud Norris, check out Alex's series preview.
J.J. Hardy thought he'd be ready to play today, but he is still not ready. Keep your fingers crossed that his sprained thumb heals up really soon, because until then it's both Flaherty and Schoop in the lineup.
The young third baseman suffered an unfortunate injury at the plate against the Yankees.
Baltimore Orioles star Manny Machado left the game against the New York Yankees in the bottom of the third inning on Monday night after suffering an apparent leg injury. The injury appears to be to his right knee. Machado had surgery on his left knee last October to repair a torn ligament. The initial diagnosis is a sprain.
The first-place Orioles are among the best stories in baseball this season, entering the night with a 67-50 record. The 22-year-old Machado is hitting .278/.324/.431 with 12 home runs and 32 RBI.
Machado has lived up to the hype since becoming the third overall pick in the 2010 MLB Draft. The third baseman was an All-Star and a Gold Glove winner in 2013, and has established a reputation as one of the best doubles hitters in baseball. Last season, Machado's 51 doubles led the American League and placed second in all of baseball, behind only Cardinals slugger Matt Carpenter's 55.
The Yankees are currently third in the AL East, trailing Baltimore by six games entering the night.
Here is a video of the play in which Macahdo suffered the injury.
The Orioles smacked the Yankee bullpen around and the New York offense kept on making everybody sad.
It was the beginning of a crucial series at Camden Yards as the Yankees took on the first place Baltimore Orioles. The resurgent Chris Capuano looked to not get pummeled by the frightening O's offense. He would be opposed by Bud Norris. The pummeling was not to be avoided on this night.
Things started quickly for both offenses. Brett Gardner led off the game by driving a triple into center field. He scored on a Derek Jeter groundout. The O's countered in the bottom of the first thanks to a Manny Machado double and a wild pitch on a strikeout of Adam Jones that allowed Machado to advance and Jones to take first. With only one out instead of two, Machado was able to score on a Nelson Cruz flyout. Game evened up at 1-1.
The Yankees scored again in the second due to the Orioles attempting to make a blooper reel in the middle of the game. It started with a Carlos Beltran walk and a Chase Headley single that pushed him to third. After a Stephen Drew strikeout, Headley attempted to steal second and got caught in a rundown. Beltran tried to take this opportunity to head home but got caught in a rundown of his own. But when Machado tried to sling it home to nab Beltran the ball smacked Beltran in the back of the helmet and bounced away. Norris picked up the errant throw and just sort of rolled it back towards Caleb Joseph. Headley saw this and dashed towards the plate and scored a second run. It was 3-1 Yankees thanks to Baltimore's charitable ways. Most importantly, Beltran was credited with a steal of home. I don't think anyone predicted that occurring tonight.
In the bottom of the third the Orioles inched closer with a Jonathan Schoop leadoff single which became a run on An Adam Jones single. The score held at 3-2 until the fifth when with a runner on Chris Davis crushed a full count pitch from Capuano over the right field wall to make it 4-3 in favor of the Orioles. Capuano would make it through six before yielding to Adam Warren. That's when the wheels really fell off. A Nick Markakis double was followed by a double from Jones to make it 5-3 Orioles. Cruz came up next and hit one that may have landed on Mars to make the score 7-3 and pretty much put the game to rest. Warren has been a real liability over the last month and a demotion to the back of the 'pen might be in order. Things got even better when Chase Whitley made an appearance, allowing four runs in the eighth highlighted by a Schoop line drive home run. Enjoy some salt in that wound, everybody!
Capuano has been on a nice run but expecting a performance much better than four runs over six innings against that offense in that ballpark is a little rough. And while Warren and Whitley deserve plenty of blame for stinking out loud, it was another crummy performance by the offense that should take center stage. Even after being gifted two runs they couldn't muster a good showing tonight. Time to use those blunt wooden objects you carry around for their intended purpose, guys.
The teams will tango again tomorrow at 7 PM. Shane Greene and Wei-Yin Chen are your probables.
A double rundown gone wrong, Manny Machado exiting with a right knee sprain, and an offensive fireworks show started by Chris "I wasn't even supposed to be here tonight" Davis. Just another August night in Baltimore.
The Orioles won tonight, but the team suffered a big blow when Manny Machado sprained his right knee while batting in the bottom of the third inning. It wasn’t the surgically-repaired knee, but it’s still a big loss for the team. Machado had already missed a month, he plays great defense, and his bat was heating up. As of this writing the injury was diagnosed only as a right knee sprain, and he was set to be re-evaluated on Tuesday. No word yet on whether, or how long, he'll be out.
Bud Norris started and spent most of the evening trying to hit the low and away corner but couldn’t quite place the ball where he needed it. This resulted in a pretty high pitch count and an exit after five innings. Although he walked just one, he never quite seemed to get in a groove. But you can’t argue with the five strikeouts, zero home runs, and a 56.3% ground ball rate.
He was charged with three earned runs, the last two coming on a Scooby Doo-esque carnival show. In the top of the second, Carlos Beltran led off with a walk and moved to third on Chase Headley’s single. With Francisco Cervelli at the plate, Headley attempted to steal second. Caleb Joseph fired to second, but Headley stopped midway to second and slowly backed up to first base. Jonathan Schoop and Steve Pearce tried briefly to run him down, but Pearce noticed Beltran was caught in between two fielders down the third base line. He fired to Machado while Beltran broke for the plate. Manny threw home but the ball caromed off of Beltran’s helmet and shot along the wall behind home plate.
One run scored, but the play wasn’t over. Norris fielded the ball and tossed it underhand to Joseph, or at least in the general direction of Joseph, probably trying to end the play or at least thinking it was over already. But Joseph wasn’t paying attention, so the ball rolled untouched towards the third base dugout. Headley, who by this time had reached third base, saw this and broke for home plate. Norris realized his mistake and ran to field the ball, but Machado reached it first and flipped the ball to him. The throw/flip was actually in plenty of time to nail Headley, but the ball bounced out of Norris’s glove (or was never in it) and the second run scored.
If you didn’t get all that, just play some Yakety Sax and watch:
After that play, it was 3-1 Yankees. When Manny went down and was taken out in the bottom of the third, all hope seemed lost. That, plus the Little League defensive lapse in the second, made it feel like this game would be another frustrating loss. But the Orioles pulled together and rallied. Schoop, who’d singled to lead off the inning and moved to second on Manny’s groundout, scored one batter later when Adam Jones poked a single over the head of Derek Jeter. That made the score 3-2.
The Orioles took the lead in the fifth when Chris Davis, who was inserted into the lineup to replace Machado, launched a monster two-run shot off of Yankees starter Chris Capuano to make it 4-3. Two innings later, Nick Markakis scored on an Adam Jones double, and Jones himself scored when Nelson Cruz blasted his 31st dinger of the year. Just like that it was 7-3 Orioles.
But they weren’t done yet. They continued the barrage of home runs in the 8th when Schoop homered with two runners on to make it 10-3. But … no, the scoring still wasn’t done. Chris Davis singled, Adam Jones doubled him to third, and David Lough drove in the Orioles’ 11th run with an infield single that Headley couldn’t make a play on. Tommy Hunter set the Yankees down in order 1-2-3 in the ninth, and that was that.
Recapping the Yankees' minor league affiliates' results from August 11th.
Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders:L 4-8 vs. Louisville Bats
CF Antoan Richardson 0-5 LF Jose Pirela 0-5, K 2B Rob Refsnyder 1-4, HR, RBI, BB - hitting .283 over last 30 days RF Zoilo Almonte 2-5 DH Kyle Roller 2-4, HR, 2 RBI, K 3B Zelous Wheeler 2-4, 2B, K 1B Corban Joseph 1-4 C Francisco Arcia 2-4, K SS Carmen Angelini 0-2, RBI, BB, 2 K
Matt Tracy 5.0 IP, 6 H, 4 ER, BB, 2 K, HBP, 54 of 85 pitches for strikes, 9 GO/2 FO Jim Miller 2.0 IP, H, BB, K, HBP - 13 of 18 pitches for strikes, 3 GO/0 FO Matt Daley 1.0 IP, 4 H, 4 ER, BB, K, WP, HBP - 17 of 27 pitches for strikes, 2 GO/0 FO Diego Moreno 1.0 IP, K - 6 of 10 pitches for strikes, 2 GO/0 FO
CF Mark Payton 2-4, 2B, HR, RBI - .932 OPS on the season SS Cito Culver 0-4, K 3B Eric Jagielo 0-2, BB, K, HBP RF Aaron Judge BB, 3 K 1B Matt Snyder 1-3, K 2B Angelo Gumbs 1-3, K, SB C Trent Garrison 0-3 LF Ericson Leonora 0-1, BB, HBP DH Danny Oh 0-2, BB, K
Brett Gerritse 2.0 IP, 2 H, 2 ER, BB, 2 K - 2 GO/2 FO Conner Kendrick 2.0 IP, 2 H, ER, 2 BB, 3 K, HR - 3 GO/0 FO Philip Walby 2.0 IP, 0 ER, 2 BB, K, WP - 2 GO/1 FO
CF Mark Payton 1-4, 3B, K - first career triple SS Cito Culver 1-4, RBI, 2 K 3B Eric Jagielo 1-3, HR, RBI, BB RF Aaron Judge 2-4, HR, 2 RBI, K - hitting .292 over last 30 days DH Matt Snyder 1-3, 2 K 2B Jose Rosario 2-3, 2B, RBI - hitting .361 over last 30 days LF Anderson Feliz 0-3, 2 K 1B Reymond Nunez 1-3 C Kyle Higashioka 0-3, K, PB
Taylor Garrison 3.0 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, BB, 5 K, WP, HBP - 2 GO/2 FO Cesar Vargas 2.0 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, HR - 3 GO/1 FO Alex Smith 2.0 IP, 2 BB, 2 K - 4 GO/0 FO
Low-A Charleston RiverDogs:L 2-5 vs. Hickory Crawdads
DH Tyler Wade 1-4, 2B, RBI, BB, 2 K, 2 SB C Kale Sumner 0-3, BB, SB RF Dustin Fowler 2-4, 2B, K 3B Miguel Andujar 0-4 1B Mike Ford 0-4 LF Yeicok Calderon 2-4, RB, K, SB 2B Gosuke Katoh 1-3, BB SS Abiatal Avelino 2-4, HR, 3 RBI, K - first stateside home run CF Brandon Thomas 0-2, 2 BB, K, 2 SB
Gabriel Encinas 1.2 IP, 2 H, ER, 2 BB, 2 K - 25 of 44 pitches for strikes, 1 GO/1 FO Chaz Hebert 4.1 IP, 5 H, ER, 2 BB, 5 K, WP - 52 of 83 pitches for strikes, 3 GO/2 FO Giovanny Gallegos 2.2 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, BB, 2 K - 28 of 43 pitches for strikes, 2 GO/2 FO Stefan Lopez 0.1 IP, K
Fangraphs | Paul Mammino: Despite the success of their makeshift rotation, the Yankees likely don't have the pitching to make the playoffs if everyone begins to regress.
CBS Sports | Mike Axisa: The Yankees were one team who were hurt by the 1994 strike that prematurely ended the season.
Baseball Prospectus | Jeff Moore: A scouting report for Yankees outfield prospect Aaron Judge with a look at how he might turn out in a few years.
There is some confusion as to whether players born in the 1800s are better than their modern brethren. Some think that Honus Wagner's statistics make him a better player than Derek Jeter. He was, but only versus his literally dwarfish contemporaries. Otherwise, it's all the Captain -- whether you like him or not.
On Saturday, Derek Jeter recorded the 3,431st hit of his career, passing Hall of Fame shortstop Honus Wagner for sixth place on the all-time career hits list. This was deemed significant given that many would still deem Wagner, who last played nearly 100 years ago, the greatest shortstop of all time. They would be wrong, terribly, terribly wrong, but now we're back on familiar ground, wrestling with folks who don't believe in the inexorable force of progress.
When Derek Jeter announced his forthcoming retirement back in February, I compared him to some of the great shortstops in history. There were very quick, light takes -- the section on Ernie Banks was all of two-sentences long -- and you'd think that assessments in that vein would have provoked argument given that a conclusion without a fully explicated set of reasons by it is just an empty assertion. Yet, it was one of the entries wherein I went into some detail and attempted to explain what I was thinking, that on Honus Wagner, that provoked the most controversy:
Wagner was born 140 years ago this month, was 5'11, and shaped like Gumby; the game he played only superficially resembled ours. He was a .328/.391/.467 hitter, but that doesn't do him justice -- relative to his leagues he was Mickey Mantle, Barry Bonds, Mike Trout. Yes, it was a primitive league, but he towered so far above it that he likely would have been a great player in any era. What shape that greatness would have taken is almost impossible to say.
Jeter or Wagner? Jeter. Wagner was a wonderful player, apparently a good guy as well, a captivating storyteller and ambassador for the game into the 1950s. Still, it's impossible to separate him from the fact that he played during the Theodore Roosevelt administration against mediocre, white-only players who swung table legs instead of bats. Jeter wasn't as dominant on either side of the ball, but we have to give some deference to the uplift in American nutrition that in a few generations greatly altered the look of the American alpha-male athlete: Derek Jeter is 6'3". In Wagner's day there was exactly one established position player of that height, the catcher Larry McLean. McLean played 862 games; no one else played as many as 400. During Jeter's career, 80 players 6'3" or taller have exceeded McLean's total. To put it another way, many of the great players of yesteryear must have suffered at some point in their lives from what we would characterize as malnourishment.
In my naiveté, I thought this one would sail on by, but the gentle lambs of the Internet found many a novel variation on ways to call me stupid. This troubles me, not because sticks and stones will break my bones (the only thing that has broken my bones to date is baseball -- once a baserunner running into my glove hand, once a pitcher crossing me up and bouncing a hard curve off my shoe-top), but because this is one of those facts that seemed, as our Founding Fathers put it, self-evident. By "self-evident," they meant, "so obvious it can't be debated," which was (a) in their case not true, but (b) in the case of Wagner and Jeter totally and completely true -- or at least, it should be. It's important to revisit because if you don't understand this point, you also don't understand some key things about the history of baseball and even that of America itself.
In his own time, compared to his contemporaries, Wagner was a better player than Jeter. However, the point of the Jeter comparison exercise was to compare players across time, and there Wagner can and must finish not only second, but a very distant second. To believe Wagner was a better player than Jeter one must also concede that all the best baseball was played prior to 1930 or so and that Wagner, clearly an exceptional athlete, was playing against competition that tested his abilities in the same way that Jeter's contemporaries tested his. This is flatly impossible for reasons physically specific to the Americans of Wagner's day and ours as well as the increasing professionalization of baseball over that time.
Prologue: Antietam
Abraham Lincoln was known as a giant in his day. He was six-foot-four. Please pause to note that 221 players of that height or taller have already appeared in the majors this year, about 30 percent of them position players, who tend to be shorter than pitchers. Examine the photo below: Lincoln is surrounded by a bevy of his generals at the time. Note that he's not standing at his full height; it took a long time to set up a photograph back then, and the President is leaning on a chair, knee slightly bent. Nevertheless, he's a full head taller than almost everyone in the picture.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Derek Jeter is officially six-foot-three, one inch shorter than Mr. Lincoln. Last year, the median height of a ballplayer getting in at least 81 games in the majors was six-foot -one. The Yankees' shortstop is a big specimen, even in his day. In Wagner's time, when the median height floated around 5'9" to 5'10", Jeter would have been a scary mutant -- as noted above, there were no real regulars that large. Also, he probably wouldn't have been allowed to play, but we'll get back to that.
No doubt Lincoln appreciated the fist-bump at a tough time, but Jeter was perhaps a bit too enthusiastic about the outcome of the Battle of Antietam, grossly mismanaged by Union commander George McClellan. (Wikimedia Commons with an assist from Justin Bopp)
The Union men depicted above are, give or take, the fathers of Honus Wagner's generation. Both of Wagner's parents were born in 1838. The range of birthdates of the men around the President range from the 1820s to the 1830s. General Alexander Webb, fifth from left (looking right at the camera) was born in 1835. Captain George Custer (yes, the ill-fated Custer), photobombing the shot at far right, was born in 1839. General George McClellan, the extra-short dude staring defiantly at Lincoln, had his first children just a few years before Mama and Papa Wagner popped out their first child in 1869. The gene pool on display here, the stature that was to be inherited by the next generation, is in no way different from that Wagner had to work with, with the exception that Wagner's folks were immigrants from Prussia and so were drawing from a slightly different genetic stock.
There was no dramatic upward surge in the stature of Americans in the generations following the taking of this picture. In fact, they began to shrink.
The Incredible Shrinking Human of the Late 19th Century
As surprising at it may seem, back when the majority of Americans were still living off the land, they didn't eat very well, and this condition only got worse as they began to move into cities and work in factories. According to Revolution at the Table: The Transformation of the American Diet, a history by Harvey A. Levenstein, "This was reflected in the decreasing physical stature of Americans. After almost reaching modern levels in the later eighteenth century, around 1830 their mean stature began a prolonged decline which lasted until at least the 1870s, mainly as a result of the poor condition of many of the expanding working class."
Honus Wagner, 1911. Note the glove is not much larger than his actual hand. (Library of Congress)
Honus Wagner was born in 1874 to a Pennsylvania coal miner, and before baseball he went to work in the mines himself. "It was hard work, but good exercise," Wagner recalled. It is undoubtedly true that young Hans (and "Hans" or "HAN-nəs" is how Wagner's name was pronounced, not "HONE-us," just to get that straight) undoubtedly added some muscle this way, but it's important to keep in mind the difference between working in a mine and working out in a gym with specialized equipment under the supervision of a certified trainer.
This also tells us nothing about how Americans at the time were nourished. Diets were light on the kind of nutrients we get through fresh fruits and vegetables. According to Levenstein, "salted meats, potatoes, and cabbage were... ubiquitous features of the working-class diet." Whereas "there is no indication that many of even the poorest workers suffered from insufficient quantities of food" -- this would come later, during the Great Depression, something evidenced by the one-third of American men found unfit for service in World War II -- "the problem was in the quality and variety of what they ate."
While even the poorly paid could afford some fresh fruits -- particularly apples -- and vegetables during the summer and fall, the winter and spring saw affordable supplies dry up, forcing them back on the monotonous routine of potatoes, cabbage, and perhaps some turnips. These would be punctuated and enlivened by powerful doses of pickled condiments, but not in large enough quantities to overcome the absence of fresh fruits and vegetables. Milk prices also fluctuated markedly, and the poorer areas of the cities relied on "swill milk," a yellow brew made from the milk of scrawny cows fed on brewers' and distillers' wastes, often surreptitiously whitened with chalk or other additives.
"Other additives" brings to mind the description of milk in Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel of immigrant workers' lives, The Jungle:
How could they know that the pale-blue milk that they bought around the corner was watered, and doctored with formaldehyde besides? When the children were not well at home, Teta Elzbieta would gather herbs and cure them; now she was obliged to go to the drugstore and buy extracts -- and how was she to know that they were all adulterated? How could they find out that their tea and coffee, their sugar and flour, had been doctored; that their canned peas had been colored with copper salts, and their fruit jams with aniline dyes? And even if they had known it, what good would it have done them, since there was no place within miles of them where any other sort was to be had?
Lest you be tempted to think that Sinclair had embellished, look at the matters that obsessed, say, the District Health Officer of a city like Washington, D.C. as recently as the late 1920s. A scan of Washington Post headlines reveals prosecutions for the sale of decomposed meat, bad eggs, as well as watered-down milk, milk reconstituted from powder, and milk and ice cream (as well as other foods) contaminated with ground glass.
Johnny Evers, 1912 National League MVP, pictured in 1910. Does this man look healthy to you? (Library of Congress)
Conversely, "many rural folks... lived on diets more nutritionally deficient than those of the poorest urban workers... a belt of tragic poorly nourished ‘dirt eaters' stretched across the sand-barrens and pine woods from South Carolina to Mississippi. These yellow-skinned, pot-bellied unfortunates derived their names from the clay and resin they chewed to relieve the pain of the hookworms which infested them... their diet of processed corn meal and bolted flour likely led to many cases of pellagra, although that dietary-deficiency affliction did not come to public attention until the early 20th century." Also, they ate squirrels when they could catch ‘em -- Mmn, prions! -- and were chronically constipated. Imagine trying to leg out a triple under those conditions.
The point here is not that Honus Wagner had a poor diet prior to becoming a ballplayer; for all we know he ate like Orson Welles three meals a day. He was supposedly born bowlegged, so that visually arresting trait isn't in itself a suggestion of malnutrition (though that he remained that way may suggest a lack of vitamin D in his diet). In fact, the point here isn't about Wagner at all, but that whatever advantages or disadvantages he enjoyed, the vast majority of his contemporaries, whether they lived in the city or the country, were not raised in conditions that led to a class of super-athlete alpha-males. It led to the opposite, the incredible shrinking American.
Jacob Riis, "Children Sleeping in Mulberry Street" (1890) from How the Other Half Lives.
This was the competition against which Wagner played. There was no federal school lunch program (1946 under President Harry Truman) or Head Start (1965 under President Lyndon Johnson), or federal school breakfast program (1966, Johnson again, made permanent in 1975 under President Gerald Ford). If you were a kid at the turn of the 20th century, you were on your own. When the Great Depression came along, President Herbert Hoover offered, as kind of a lame excuse for government inaction, "No one has starved." They starved.
Before moving on, note we have not touched on one other aspect of modern life that today's athlete and indeed all Americans would be much changed without: antibiotics and other modern drugs. Think of the slugger Pete Browning, playing with chronic mastoiditis; pitcher Addie Joss dying of tuberculosis meningitis in 1911; pitcher Urban Shocker checking out as the result of some combination of pneumonia and heart disease in 1928, and his manager, Miller Huggins, dying of erysipelas, a simple skin infection, the next year. Those antibiotics not only have helped Americans evade early death and debilitating diseases, but has also likely accelerated our growth as well.
Four members of the 1912 World Series-winning Red Sox: Duffy Lewis (5'10"), Larry Gardner (5'8"), Tris Speaker (5'10"), and Heinie Wagner (no relation to Honus; 5'9"). (Library of Congress)
Jeter's competition is bigger, stronger, healthier, and -- again, let's just downplay this key factor here, though we'll return to it -- more racially diverse than it was in Wagner's day. We live in the day of giants. Wagner's accomplishments, while not meaningless, must be viewed with skepticism because he played in the day of the dwarfs.
Primitive Baseballs and Giant Bats
Prior to the major leagues invading California in the 1950s, the Pacific Coast League had a high enough standard of competition that could easily have led to its becoming a third major league had it possessed the necessary organization and leadership to do so. Many excellent players, who might have been solid or even star-level contributors in the majors preferred to stay there because both the crowds and compensation were superior than they would have found playing with, say, the St. Louis Browns. One of those was Buzz Arlett, a pitching and switch-hitter who starred primarily with the Oakland Oaks during a career that stretched from 1918 to 1937, averaging .330 and slugging .599. He also spent one year with the Phillies, when he was 32, and hit .313/.387/.538 in 121 games.
Wagner swings what may well be a sequoia, 1911. (Library of Congress)
Arlett, a big man for the day, swung a 44-ounce bat. There is a photo of Arlett with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. He makes them look small. Ruth seems to be looking skeptically at a bat, possibly Arlett's, though Ruth's were in the same general weight-class. According to his SABR biography, "the [Phillies'] supplier thought the 44-ounce designation was an error." About 15 years later, then-Oaks manager Casey Stengel gave his players one of Arlett's bats to try. They acted as if he had given them a tree trunk to play with. "Next to [Mickey] Mantle, he could ride a ball harder from both sides of the plate than any man that ever lived," Stengel would recall later. Players were using lighter bats by then, and Stengel thought that some of them might get better results from a heavier bat.
He was wrong. Today we know that bat speed is a more important characteristic in driving the ball than bat weight. In an ideal world, a player could swing Arlett's 44-ounce bat with the same speed at which he can whip today's more common 32-ounce bat and knock the ball over skyscrapers, but that's physically difficult, if not impossible. However, experimentation has shown that a hitter derives more benefit from giving up weight, and therefore some fraction of the power that Ruth and Arlett sought, because the lighter bat "would allow the hitter more time to see the pitch, would give him more bat control, and would enable him to make good contact more frequently. They suggest that the ideal weight would be one in which the player has good bat control and can wait longer before swinging... The swing speed would be much higher and therefore the frequency of well-struck balls would outweigh the slight dip in power."
Of the above, concentrate on this one phrase: can wait longer before swinging. The physics of driving a ball is fascinating, but the very weight of these bats suggest something we intuitively know is true, whether from looking at old film of pitchers' mechanics or the ever-rising level of batter strikeouts: with the possible exception of the odd Walter Johnson, Lefty Grove, or Bob Feller, pitchers did not throw as hard in the past as they do now. The sight of a Ruth trying to get a 40-ounce bat off of his shoulder in time to hit an Aroldis Chapman fastball would be laughable; he'd have to start his swing from the on-deck circle.
Home Run Baker grips his bat. (Library of Congress)
Theirs were by no means the heaviest bats. Frank "Home Run" Baker sometimes used a 52-ounce bat, and Edd Roush's bats pushed 50 ounces as well. Al Simmons used a bat that was 38 inches long and weighed 46 ounces. It was simply a different time in terms of pitcher velocity.
According to the biography Honus Wagner by Dennis DeValeria and Jeanne Burke DeValeria, Wagner liked bats that varied between 34.5 and 38 ounces. "For a pitcher who serves slow ones and uses his head I use a lighter bat," he said, "but when a pitcher relies mainly on speed I find a heavy bat more serviceable." This seems exactly backwards according to today's conventional wisdom, but it might have something to do with the differing goals of hitters at the time, which always included bunting high on the menu.
Baseball Magazine editor F.C. Lane recalled in his 1925 book Batting that Wagner, "swung from a crouched position, griping the bat in iron hands while the muscles stood out on his forearms like steel cables. The one word which would best describe the famous Dutchman at bat was ‘strength.'" [sic]
Wagner circa 1910. (Getty Images)
I cast no aspersions on the DeVelaria's research, especially since they are quoting directly from Wagner himself, but whatever Wagner is holding in the photo above seems more like a four-pound kielbasa than a 35-ounce bat. Even if it is the latter, however, note its shape, particularly the thickness of the handle. Today, hitters shave the handles of the bat so all the weight is at the head, concentrated at the point of contact. Compare the handle of Wagner's bat to that of Mike Trout's:
Mike Trout (Jared Wickerham)
Mike Trout wants to hold the bat at the end and whip the bat head through the zone to drive the ball as far as possible. With less handle to grip, he has less control over the bat, and that means a corresponding sacrifice of contact, but the modern hitter is willing to swing and miss if it means that once every 10-20 at-bats he's going to knock a ball over the wall.
Conversely, Wagner, with his thick-handled bat, is choking up quite a bit. Swinging away didn't help him because this was the Deadball era, and bat-control was the name of the game. Like Ty Cobb, he sometimes used a split-handed grip so that he could decide at the last minute whether to bunt or slide his top hand downwards to swing away. According to the DeValerias, although the split-handed grip is now associated mainly with Cobb, for years it was referred to as the "Cobb-Wagner" grip.
Ty Cobb shows off his split-handed grip. If swinging away, slide the top hand down. If bunting, stay as set. (Getty Images)
Bunting, Bunting, Bunting and fielding of bunts, bunts, bunts
In Kings of the Diamond, an early series of profiles of Hall of Famers, historian Lee Allen and sportswriter Tom Meany said of Wagner, "Honus did not go for homers but hit the ball where it was pitched, spanking it right-handed to all fields." Perhaps this was a necessary reminder for 1965 readers, but seems obvious now. Honus was into "spanking" because he had no choice about it. He played during the Deadball era, a time when the ball had the resilience of a ripe grapefruit and did not go far when struck. Further, teams used one ball per game (fans catching fouls were not-so-politely encouraged to return the ball), and players spit, stomped, rubbed, and ripped at it for nine innings. By the middle of the game, not only was the ball no longer a spheroid, but even if you set off a keg of dynamite under it, it wasn't going anywhere. As such, there was a lot of bunting.
We don't have a complete record of bunt attempts in Wagner's day, nor of players bunting for base hits, which was a constant feature of the game, but we do know that from, say, 1900 to 1909 there was one successful sacrifice bunt per about 40 plate appearances. During Derek Jeter's career in the DH-huggin' American League, those numbers were one successful sacrifice per 173 plate appearances.
There were also many outs made on the bases. Only two catchers this century have made 100 assists in a season, Paul Lo Duca with 100 in 2003 and Russell Martin last year with 103. In Wagner's day there were 10 different seasons in which catchers made over 200 throws, including the modern record of 214 set by Pat Moran of the Braves in 1903 (if we count the Federal League, then the record is 238, set by Bill Rariden in 1915). Of the top 300 assists totals compiled by catchers, 253 of them were made before 1920 and almost the entire remainder was made by the mid-1930s. In addition to the greater frequency of sacrifice bunts and bunts for base hits, from 1900-1909 there were 1.2 successful stolen bases per nine innings with a great many caught stealing (numbers are incomplete). During Jeter's career, that number was almost precisely half that, 0.6.
There have been 54 teams with 100 or more caught stealing since that statistic started being tracked. Forty-two of them rang up those totals between 1914 and 1925. No team had reached that threshold since the 1993 Angels. This year, the Rangers lead the majors with 47.
Between the soft ball and the differing batting tactics that it required, there can be little doubt that Wagner had to play shortstop in a different manner than any modern shortstop, including Jeter. He was fielding fewer hot smashes and doing more covering of the bases on bunt- and stolen-base attempts as batters made futile efforts to compensate for the ball's lack of resiliency. Dr. Seuss did a book for very young children called, Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? that encourages children to emulate amusing sounds. When it rains, Mr. Brown says (or as the book has it, "goes," "DIBBLE DIBBLE DIBBLE DOPP." Coincidentally, that is also the sound of Honus Wagner fielding a ball during the Deadball era -- not "crack," but "dibble dibble dopp" -- lowercase.
A Momentary Visit to the First World War
The estimated height of the average infantryman was 5-foot-5.
Members of the American Expeditionary Force on parade, 1917. (Getty Images)
A Momentary Visit to the Olympics
Oddly, all of the Olympic records set in 1912 have been broken by now. It is not because 102 years of East Germans were juicing, but good try.
Honus Wagner's 1910 basketball team. (Getty Images)
A more than momentary visit to Stephen Jay Gould and the world of Evolution
The late, much-missed paleontologist/evolutionary biologist and baseball fan Stephen Jay Gould wrote often on baseball. One of his best essays on the game, "The Extinction of the .400 Hitter," came in 1983. Gould proposed to answer the question of why there had not been a .400 hitter in baseball since Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941. Prior to Teddy Ballgame's big year, .400 averages were fairly common, with 12 such seasons (450 plate-appearance minimum) preceding Williams in the 30 years between 1901 and 1930. After Teddy not only did the .400 average disappear, but the .390 and .380 average largely did as well, with just four examples (two of each) taking place in the years since. Three of the four -- Tony Gwynn (.394 in 110 games, 1994), George Brett (.390 in 117 games, 1980), and Williams (.388 in 132 games, 1957) required shortened seasons to maintain their averages. Only 1977 MVP Rod Carew (.388) made it through something close to a complete season, playing in 155 games and coming to the plate nearly 700 times.
Rod Carew (Getty Images)
Gould said that several explanations had been offered for the disappearance of .400 averages. One, "naïve and moral, simply acknowledges with a sign that there were giants in the earth in those days. Something in us needs to castigate the present in the light of an unrealistically rosy past." Gould asserted a strong explanation based on the way new species initially experience chaotic mutation as they emerge before settling into their recognizable forms: "As systems regularize, their variation decreases." In other words:
"When baseball was young, styles of play had not become sufficiently regular to foil the antics of the very best. Wee Willie Keeler could ‘hit ‘em where they ain't' (and compile a .432 average in 1897) because fielders didn't yet know where they should be. Slowly, players moved toward optimal methods of positioning, fielding, pitching, and batting -- and variation inevitably declined. The Best now met an opposition too finely honed to its own perfection to permit the extremes of achievement that characterized a more causal age... The entire game sharpened its standards and narrowed its range of tolerance."
In other words, Wagner exploited a far more primitive game of baseball than anything Jeter has ever had to face. When did baseball change? It's difficult to pinpoint the moment. Certainly not until long after the color line was broken, and not until the last vestiges of it faded with the abandonment of unwritten, anti-meritocratic rules against playing a majority-African American or entirely African American lineup. This took decades. The true moment of modernity probably didn't take place until near the end of the 20th century, when not only had the racial barriers fully fallen, but national barriers began to fall as well. The answer to his question is inevitably subjective and imprecise, but if you want a moment on which to plant a flag, call it September 1, 1971, the day the Pittsburgh Pirates, Hans Wagner's Pirates, played the first all-minority lineup. That team went on to win the World Series for reasons having nothing to do with September 1, but it was an appropriate capper for a team that destroyed one of the last vestiges of 19th-century apartheid baseball.
And Everything Else
In the interest of not going book-length here, we can summarize all the other competitive differences in a table. In no particular order:
Then/Now
Wagner
Jeter
Competed against only white, largely domestic talent.
✓
Being of mixed race, Jeter would not have been allowed to play in Wagner's day. The color line was not broken until 30 years after Wagner's retirement. With players from around the world now in the major leagues, Jeter faces a higher and more meritocratic level of competition than Wagner ever did.
Competed against all talent regardless of race or country of origin.
Wagner did have one contemporary born in Australia and competed against the occasional white Cuban.
✓
Games officiated by professional umpires.
The NL turned over some of their umpiring crew every year, hiring amateurs in their places. This practice was in place until after Wagner retired.
✓
Games officiated by full umpiring crew.
The NL went to two umpires in 1910, the 14th year of Wagner's career. Three-umpire crews weren't used consistently until the ‘30s and four-man crews were standardized in 1952.
✓
Played mostly night games.
The first major league night game was played at Cincinnati on May 24, 1935. By 1948, all of the then-existent clubs except the Cubs were playing at least some night games. A simple majority of all games were not played at night until the mid-1960s. Hitting at night is harder than during the day.
✓
Players wore tiny gloves that were almost more suitable to going to the opera than fielding baseballs.
✓
When Wagner began his major league career in 1897 there were still a few players who did not wear gloves at all.
Played on uneven fields that allowed for bad-hop hits.
✓
And bad-hop homers. From 1909 to 1924, players who bounced a ball over the wall in right field were credited with a home run. There was also a watering trough for horses in play for awhile.
Played in giants ballparks that emphasized batting average at the expense of home runs.
✓
Wagner's first Pirates ballpark (through 1909) was 400 feet down the left-field line, 461 feet to the left-field power alley, and 515 feet to center field, 439 feet to right-center, and 380 feet down the right-field line. Exactly one ball was hit over the wall in the 20th century. (cf. Green Cathedrals). At Forbes From 1909 to 1924, players who bounced a ball over the wall in right field were credited with a home run. There was also a watering trough for horses in play for awhile.
Pitchers threw sliders and split-fingered fastballs.
The exact date that the slider first appeared and who perfected it is open to debate, but the two most promising candidates are George Uhle (1919-1936) or George Blaeholder (1925-1936). Either way, both played post-Wagner and the pitch didn't come into common usage until the postwar years, one of the reasons offense began to drop in that period. The split-fingered fastball is really a forkball variant -- which didn't come around until a few years after Wagner retired.
✓
Pitchers threw spitballs, emory balls, shine balls, and other doctored pitches.
✓
Baseball outlawed the spitball and its various performance-enhanced cousins in 1920, though a handful of pitchers who relied on these weapons were grandfathered in. The last of them, future Hall of Famer Burleigh Grimes, hung around until 1934. This is one aspect of competition where Wagner had it harder than Jeter does.
Teams had batting coaches.
"I believe it would pay every major league club to have a man do nothing but coach batters," said Ty Cobb in a book published in 1925. "A trained man who knows batting could help batters out of a slump." Cobb was a retrograde thinker in many ways, but here he was ahead of his time: teams sometimes employed hitting coaches during spring training, but full-time batting coaches didn't become a regular part of the game until the late 1950s.
✓
New talent sought out by a national network of professional scouts.
The first full-time major league scout wasn't hired until 1909. Future Hall of Fame executive Ed Barrow "discovered" Wagner -- who had been playing in the minors for a year already --in 1896 when he was tipped off in a bar. Barrow had heard of Hans, but thought older brother Al "Butts" Wagner the better prospect.
✓
Teams provided young players with professional instruction to bring them to major league standards.
The modern farm system was created by Branch Rickey in the 1920s.
✓
Faced the same pitcher all game long, even if he'd thrown 190 pitches.
✓
Such as in this classic from 1914, in which opposing starter Rube Marquard went 21 innings and faced 79 batters. One pitch-count estimator puts that at 178 pitches. Jeter played in 2570 games from 1996 to 2012. There were only 152 occasions when a pitcher threw more than 119 pitches at the Yankees. They haven't seen a 140-pitch start since 1998, and just one 130-pitch start since 2003. Wagner did a great deal of hitting against tired pitchers.
Faced a series of increasingly hard-throwing relievers every game.
On average, seventy percent of all starts resulted in complete games during Wagner's career. During Jeter's career, just four percent of starts resulted in complete games.
✓
Did not wear helmets and pitchers were free to throw inside, knock hitters down, or even hit them.
✓
Jeter plays a far safer game than Wagner did and can dig in at the plate or hang over the inside corner without fear of retribution.
Played in a small league in which only three-quarters of the teams were of major league quality at any time.
✓
Although there is a persistent idea that multiple expansions diluted the level of major league talent, this was more than offset by the simultaneous expansion of talent procurement, from the abolition of the color line to the expansion of Latin American scouting and so on. Conversely, major league teams in Wagner's time often acted as patsies for the rest of the league, filling out rosters with "talent" that would have made the 2013 Astros look like the 1927 Yankees. With a 154-game schedule, a 100-loss season equals a .351 winning percentage. From 1901 to 1917, 30 teams had records below that level. To come up with the last 30 such teams, you have to go back to 1955. During Wagner's career there were seven teams with winning percentages below .300. There have been three in the entire postwar era.
Access to professional training and equipment.
✓
Players spent the winter working out and staying in shape.
✓
Players spent the winter loading trucks, delivering mail, and digging graves so they could afford to eat.
✓
Wagner ran a sporting-goods store. It wasn't digging graves like Richie Hebner did, but it also wasn't hanging around a Florida mansion with a custom gym.
Finale: In which Honus, Bilbo, and Frodo sail into the West
Writing back in the 1990s, I posed the question of how the great 1906 Cubs (116-36) would have done if they had had a chance to play against a team composed of the likes of Mark McGwire. My hyperbolic supposition was that the question would have remained unanswered because their first reaction would have been to scream, "Agh! Giant!" and run like hell. The same goes for Jeter. As the title of Laurence Ritter's classic oral history of the Deadball era tells us, Wagner and his contemporaries were the glory of their times -- but that is all they were too small, too poorly trained, to ill-nourished, too untested by real competition to be the glory of ours.
Jeter is not the greatest shortstop of all time, but he is one of the greatest and that is enough for us to know that he was a better player than anyone born in the 19th century. Either that's true or all the greatest players in history played in the years before World War II, when a man could hit .424 out of his pure superiority to the puny .310 hitter of today.
That belief would mean that baseball history stopped some 70 or 80 years ago and that the game has only declined in the years since. You can believe that if you want to; Lord knows people have believed stranger things in our time, but if you do then you have my pity, for what a sad, pessimistic, and stultified world you live in. Honus Wagner was a great player in the days of William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson, a primordial great. Derek Jeter is better. It's not even his fault; it's just an accident of timing. To assert otherwise is to assert a false nostalgia and fail to see the great things that are happening before your own eyes.
- In light of the horribly sad news of Robin Williams' passing yesterday, Gabe Kapler wrote an oddly appropriate piece earlier in the day, shedding light on battling mental demons. Sending some love out to all of you today.
I'm no big fan of relievers, but Robertson is of a different breed.
It was completely understandable, to an extent, that the Yankees did not want to jump at re-signing David Robertson. The organization never particularly trusted him in the role--they even signed Rafael Soriano at a premium to fill the closer role in Mariano Rivera's stead--and they just weren't sure if he would thrive. At this point in the season, it's pretty clear that Robertson is unquestionably a Proven Closer, whatever that is. So, should the Yankees re-sign him after his walk year? Robertson made it clear in a recent interview that he would no longer re-sign for the hometown discount. You can pretty much consider him like any other free agent at this point.
I don't like relievers, and I'm not very shy about it. Proven Closers are no sure thing, and we see dominant closers come into and out of the game quicker than it takes for my phone battery to die. Remember when Keith Foulke was the Red Sox shutdown closer? Me neither. Remember when Eric Gagne posted an over 4.0 fWAR season and then vanished into the abyss? Nope. I can count the amount of excellent relievers of the past 15-20 years on one hand (and one finger) --Mariano Rivera, Trevor Hoffman, Joe Nathan, Billy Wagner, and Jonathan Papelbon. I'm not going to argue that Robertson is going to be one of these, but I can reasonably say that he can give them a run for their money.
In terms of durability, Robertson is practically the definition. Since his debut in 2008, he has only missed 105 days due to injury. That seems like a big number, but it's really not. That's only an average missed time of 15 games per year, or about a handful of relief appearances. The biggest predictor of future injuries is past injuries, and so far Robertson has not had one serious one.
In terms of track record, he is among the elite in the past fifteen years. There have only been 14 relievers that have had four or more 1.5 fWAR seasons from 2000-2013, and now Robertson is among them. He has a career K/9 of 12.02, FIP- of 63, and ERA- of 65. If you're going to spend strictly on performance, Robertson has clearly been one of the best relievers in baseball.
There's also an emotional appeal, one that I usually avoid. Robertson is a "homegrown Yankee", one that came up with the system, grew before our eyes into what we know him as now, and he won a Championship with the team. You could even consider him part of a core that made up the younger players of 2009-2012, and that's something I'm sure the Yankees would love to keep at a fair price. There's also the feeling that he is Mo's successor. We all knew what it felt like having him come out of the bullpen--almost a calming presence--and we can see that in Robertson.
I'm not just saying that I want the Yankees to re-sign Robertson because he is a True Yankee or because of some strange aura around homegrown players; the Yankees reasonably passed on Robinson Cano, and we all moved on. I'm willing to break my general rule on falling in love with relievers because I truly believe that Robertson is one of the better relievers of the past few years, and his track record does not suggest he will be anything other than that in the recent future. There's always the risk of bust--like with many relievers--but if you're going to take a risk, it might as well be on one of the best. Get it done, Brian Cashman.
