The Yankees Thread

[Lex]

If I was at the Stadium and saw Stanton strike out 5 times I wouldn't be happy about it but I wouldn't boo either. Last year Judge went through a bad patch and figured things out. So will Stanton.

[Lex]

If I was at the Stadium and saw Stanton strike out 5 times I wouldn't be happy about it but I wouldn't boo either. Last year Judge went through a bad patch and figured things out. So will Stanton.

 

I did learn something new over the past week. When Keith Hernandez is doing games and a player strikes out 4 times he refers to it as the "golden sombrero." Sportswriters are now calling Stanton's 5 S.O games as a "platinum sombrero."

 

All jokes aside, Stanton will be fine in the long run.

[Wilfrid]

Yeah. Your hero A-Rod went through it. It's a tradition.

[Steve R.]

A-Rod & I are finally in agreement on something. I too wish he went to the Mets instead of the Yankees.

[joethefoodie]

This is what happens when people post while actually watching the games.

[hollywood]

$4 billion! http://www.realclearlife.com/sports/the-4-billion-bronx-bombers-yankees-up-8-in-value-since-last-year/

[Wilfrid]

Baseball is back at last. "Who won?" I was asked in the bar. "The fight or the game?"

[StephanieL]

And the Yanks reach into their deep pockets to snag Gerrit Cole.  Let's see if it does them any good in the playoffs.

[hollywood]

Jeter!  Jeter!  Jeter!

[Wilfrid]

I am not surprised he was a first ballot pick, but also not surprised it wasn't unanimous. If anything, it was surprising that it was so close to unanimous.

[StephanieL]

HBO is currently running a documentary about CC Sabathia.  I had no idea how bad his drinking problem was, to the point of him needing to be benched when he was supposed to start key games.

[joethefoodie]

13 hours ago, StephanieL said:

HBO is currently running a documentary about CC Sabathia.  I had no idea how bad his drinking problem was, to the point of him needing to be benched when he was supposed to start key games.

He was simply maintaining a tradition of some of the great Yankees.

[Evelyn]

A Rod came and spoke to the Alabama Football team last week. 

Here's a quick clip of the speech to the team

And here is the long (25 minutes) casual discussion with 4 Bama players who will (barring serious injury) be drafted into the NFL in the next few years (Bryce Young, Slade Bolden, Will Anderson and John Metchie)

 

 

[joethefoodie]

Not a bad motivational speaker; probably better at that than his job on ESPN or wherever he is, though maybe he's better now?

And he dropped the name of my favorite football player of all time, at least of all time I can remember watching football - Jerry Rice. Known to be an insane practicer and worker-outer, I consider myself pretty lucky that I got watch almost every game he played as a 49er.

When I see the celebrating and the posing that goes on today, in almost all pro sports (here comes golf, you watch), I remember what Jerry said about scoring TDs and his lack of showing up the other team...act like you've been there before.

Different time, different place for sure. And actually, some of the posing and stuff these days (especially in baseball) is pretty funny. But when a defensive lineman starts dancing around and flexing his muscles, etc. etc. because he sacked the QB, and meanwhile his team is losing like 30-7, is that really the time to be doing a dance?

This has nothing to do with the above, but someone on the Mets broadcast team (maybe Keith) was mentioning strikeouts and today's game. Two players in particular he was referencing were Stan Musial and Hank Aaron. Aaron played 23 seasons and struck out an average of 60 times a year; never over 100 in season, while hitting 755 home runs.  And while Stan wasn't the power hitter Hank was (only 475 HRs), in about the same number of season (they both played around 22-23 years and over 3,000 games), the guy never struck out more than 50 times in A SEASON. 696 strikeouts for his whole fucking career - guys do that today in like 4 seasons. In a few hundred fewer games than either Stan or Hank, ARod hit a lot of homers - 696 to be exact, and struck out almost 2,300 times.  Are the pitchers that much better now?

[Anthony Bonner]

Yes? Pitchers are better and also focused on generating more strikeouts, but also the stats folks have decided Home Runs are even more valuable than previously thought.   So you get a dynamic of Pitchers more focused on striking out batters (Rather than eating innings) and Batters even more focused on hitting the ball really really hard.

Musial and Aaron were playing in a time where it was common for Pitchers to throw complete games, and you can only do that by getting outs on balls hit in play. But the stats folks would say a ball hit in play is just a risk of a base hit. 

The game has just changed and its not really useful to compare statistics from 60 years ago.  But I also think its fair to say its changed in a way that makes it less enjoyable. Certainly I think thats the case with the NBA.

 

ETA: I love the emotion and the trash talking. If you think that didn't happen in 80's you are kidding yourself. Some of the Larry Bird trash talk stories are incredible.