Friday, June 19, 2015

Voodoo Yankeenomics: The sickly, anemic Yankees are second in MLB in overall runs scored per game

Numbers can't lie, right?

No lie: The Yankees are 4th in MLB in runs scored, and second in runs-per-game.

So where are the Yankees stashing all these runs? Do they have an offshore account in the Cayman Islands? Are they moving them late at night into underground silos, and shuffling them onto Superfund cleanup sites? WHERE ARE THEY KEEPING THEIR RUNS?

Aside from mighty Toronto, which leads the pack in practically every offensive category, the Yankees are well above the MLB norm. (And fans who think the entire Kansas City lineup should play in the All Star game:  please 'splain this.) So... how do we, as Yankee diehards, explain the overwhelming perception that the team has a dead offense?

I have two theories. (And welcome yours)

1. It is our natural Yankee fan pessimism, and why we are universally despised and refused entry to many nations. It was best described by Mustang this way: The Yankees can be leading 18-1 in the seventh, but if Jorge Posada grounds into a DP with the bases loaded, the night is a disaster. We are what we are. Nobody on a current Yankee team can ever measure up to the legends of our past... until they win a championship.

2. We pile it on, and we don't utilize the runs we produce. Consider the last four games against Miami. We lost 2-1, squandering another great start by Masahiro Tanaka. We then get bashed 12-2, and then win 2-1. Five runs in three games. Then, last night, we erupts for 9. This team has had two 14-run games, one 13-run game, and an 11-run game. (The opposing teams scored 14 overall in those games.) We score runs, but they don't always matter.

Stats don't lie. But only one counts: We are currently in second place.

2 comments:

JM said...

I have it on good authority by someone who is close to the situation (thanks, Mom!) that a number of Yankees runs are, indeed, being shipped to Schenectady and used in the effort to clean up the century of toxic waste at the site of the new Mohawk Harbor and Casino. This, like a lot of the Casino process, is being done on the sly, since using the runs openly would require further review by the Army Corps of Engineers in terms of how those runs might ultimately affect the flood plain and site runoff. The Schenectady city government and the developer (the Galesi Group, which basically can do whatever they want in the town and get tax and other breaks for doing it) want to move ahead with extreme haste, before more people and higher powers catch on to just what it is they've been up to.

It's a little like "Chinatown," but with Yankees runs and -- at least to my knowledge -- a lack of incest, though you could argue that in a metaphorical sense.

Alphonso said...

Someone wake Mustang up. Jorge Posada?