The Genius Maker 8-24-12

The below was written yesterday and all the way down I will write about last night’s game.

Our spiral downward started with yet another bonehead decision by our terrible 3^rd base coach.  Sending Cano home with the bases loaded and 2 out and getting thrown out by 20 feet shows he just doesn’t have good judgment.  The Yankees were winning that game at that point 3-0 and from that point on the Yanks have lost 3 in a row.  It doesn’t all correlate, but Thompson is terrible and this is not new…it has been going on since we lost Bowa (and I complained then).  It should also be noted that as a player I really did not like Bowa so he had to really turn me around, but I thought he was an excellent 3^rd base coach.

The only other comment I want to make surround my disappointment with Nova.  His stuff is really good and I am convinced he is tipping his pitches.  I think he is doing something in his glove or the transfer of the ball or maybe his facial expression that is tipping the hitter off.  Konerko hit a HR on a good fastball inside that he turned on really well.  It just doesn’t add up to only poor location to me.

Jeter has been on a tear and is getting his season at least closer to the “great season” people were saying. Maybe I should talk more about that to keep him hot.  His OPS is a solid .814 but including the last 2 poor years, his career OPS is .831 so he is having a below average Derek Jeter offensive year for perspective.  That being said, if you told me he would have an OPS of .780, I would have signed off on it so I am really happy.

Just for more perspective, while Jeter is leading the league in hits, he has more AB’s than any of the guys.  For example, Trout, has 108 less AB’s than Jeter, but has 15 more walks, 33 more SB’s and while he has 5 less doubles has 6 more triples and 11 more HR’s.  Ok maybe not fair comparing him to the guy who should get the MVP.

BTW, the next person who says, “well he didn’t play for a playoff team so he shouldn’t be MVP because how valuable could he be if they didn’t make the playoffs,” please kick them hard in their privates.  I mean this, this is one of the dumbest comments I hear many people make.  So he shouldn’t win the MVP because he has a lesser team around him?  What does that have to do with anything?  Anaheim is 2.5 games out of the WC race; where would they be without him?  FWIW, there is a stat called WAR, which is wins above replacement value and this tries to measure a players value taking everything into account.  There are issues I have with it, but it isn’t worthless.  For more detail click this link if you care… http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained.shtml   Jeter is 1.9 (3.6 for offense and a negative 1.3 for defense) and Trout is 8.9 (7 for offense and 1.9 for defense).  This states that Trout is worth 9 wins for his team so that would mean 9 losses were turned into wins.  Jeter has never had a WAR this high.  I didn’t look at everyone but looked to see what Barry Bonds had and he has 11.6 twice in 2001 and 2002 when his OPS was a ridiculous 1.381 and 1.379.  He actually had one year with a higher OPS and that was 1.422 when he walked 232 times…(Man what a strat-o-matic baseball card that would have been to play - only a few of you will get that)  The 232 walks in one year is nuts and for some more perspective, Cano has only walked 266 times in his 8 year career.

OK back to final meaningless comment…Seattle has won 8 games in a row…Cleveland has lost 8 in a row…anything but a sweep is not satisfactory.

The Friday night game.

The Yanks had a huge chance in the first two innings getting 2 doubles, 2 singles, 2 walks and a HBP and only scored 1 run.

Jeter was hit on the brim of the helmet on a pitch their pitcher was trying to come up and in.  No intent to hit as his control wasn’t good, but he was trying to stop Jeter from stepping toward the plate.  CC who was cruising with a perfect game through the first 10 batters retaliated by throwing at Cabrera’s butt, however, he threw behind him and the next pitch Cabrera homered to tie the game at 1.  The retaliation is always something I wonder about, but in this case we did it classy and I only wish his next pitch was better.

Swisher homered later to knock in all 3 of our runs.  Robertson came after CC gave us 7.1 innings of very good ball and did the job for his two outs.  The things that stood out to me was a pitch Robertson threw to get the 2^nd out.  Cabrera was up and after 3 straight cutters, he threw a changeup that fell outside and low of the strike zone and Cabrera missed it by a lot.  I don’t think I have seen that from Robertson and using it every once in a while is a great thing.

Soriano allowed 1^st and 3^rd with nobody out before some interesting pitching went on.  Laporta was up and he clearly struggles on the breaking ball so Soriano threw 5 straight before throwing a good fastball up to get the strike out.  The location was excellent even if it wasn’t where Martin’s glove was.

Martin was lazy on a breaking ball that allowed the tying run and also eliminate the DP as the runner moved up to 2nd.  It was one of those plays that bothered me as a catcher.

He then got a pop up before getting the 3^rd pinch hitter in a row to ground out to Tex after some good mixing of his slider and fastball.  It was a good battle and Soriano hit spots after getting into trouble.  He is getting the job done regardless of how non great the stuff is.