Today, we sit three back of the Fenway Fratboys with four games to play. Clearly, we're headed to the Wild Card. But in a strange way, the worst thing that could happen would be if Boston messes up, forcing us to play them in a one-game AL East pre-Wild Card Playoff... to then decide who must play in the one-game AL Wild Card. Even Joe Girardi's binders don't like the idea. Last night, he told the Gray Lady:
“If you do play in that game, you’re somewhat at a disadvantage in the wild-card game if you lose that game, because you might have to use your relievers and have to rely on them heavily and they may not be as effective the next day.”
Good thinking, Joe. The fact is, the Yankees beat Boston during the regular season. If the two teams were to end up tied, New York should have the advantage. (If Boston won the season, it would be theirs.) This is fair. Everyone would know this, and when we played Boston several weeks ago, the seasonal rivalry would have been another thing on the line. To hold yet another round of one-game playoffs - especially those that effectively punish both teams - only appeals to one group: The owners who sell TV rights.
Listen: We've entered the Twilight Zone. Hugh Hefner is dead, Anthony Weiner is going to jail, Bob Dylan is the reigning Nobel Laureate in literature, Kim Kardashian is the new face of motherhood, the world's newest Bond villain is known as "Little Rocket Man," and suddenly Puerto Rico is in the middle of a vast ocean. And we're supposed to care about chasing down Boston for a one-game divisional playoff... to then see who must play in the one-game wild card? Sorry, Charlie, Starkist only takes the best tuna.
Yeah, it's fun to imagine Boston collapsing into the sea, but let's not waste our juju ejaculations. We are about to hit the one-game year with only two regulars - Jacoby Ellsbury and Matt Holliday - battle-tested from past post-seasons. (Okay, CC and El Chapo maybe, but if CC pitches, we're in big trouble, and all bets are off on Chapman.) Our "grizzled vets" - Chase Headley, Starlin Castro, Brett Gardner - have for the most part played entire careers on shit teams. You can argue that Minnesota is a cast of newborn babes, but here's where everything gets scary: Their one playoff-tested mercenary is named Ervin Santana. The more I look at Tuesday, the more I shudder to think of the catcalls we could be hearing Wednesday morning from Redsock fans. And we won't even have Hef to commiserate with.
Posts
55 comments:
I start my day most days by reading El Duque's latest. And I almost feel the need to say this every morning: We are very lucky that you are driven to do this. The paragraph beginning....
Listen: We've entered the Twilight Zone. Hugh Hefner is dead...etc.
....was a real treat.
Thanks as always for doing this. So much fun.
Aw, shucks, thanks, LBJ.
Fact is, and Alphonso could verify this, I've been unleashing daily rants on the Yankees since there was email - which puts us, what, the 1980s? Going back to college, I cannot remember a time when my first cup of coffee each day wasn't consumed over the ever-changing fate of this franchise. Crazy, huh?
What I don't get is that it USED to be that way.
2005, Yanks and Sox finished with identical records, 95-67.
Yanks won up in Fenway on the next-to-last day of the season—a rare, big win for us from The Big Unit, soon to pineapple bigly in the ALDS—and we were declared the winners of the AL East by virtue of having won 10 of the 18 regular-season games thus far against the Whiners in the North.
The season finale, we played mostly scrubeenies, and lost 10-1. I remember visiting in-laws in Massachusetts and LMAO because we went to the movies Saturday night and saw that they had reserved entire theatres for a live showing of the final game on Sunday afternoon. Guess that didn't come off.
For very good and obvious reasons, there was no playoff game held to decide who would be the wild card.
I guess that's changed because of the new wild card playoff game. But it's still ridiculous. Depending on what the match-ups were, you could have a play-in playoff where both teams are trying their best to lose.
Another Selig Solution, brought to you by the Car Salesmen Association of Greater Milwaukee.
MY MORNING RITUAL.....
WAKE UP....
GO TO MY COMPUTER...
GO TO IIHIIFIIC......
READ EL DUQUE'S THOUGHTS OF THE DAY.....
THANKS MAN......
I too will join in on heaping a mountain of praise upon El Duque, THANK YOU SIR, for always being here!
I, too, am consistently amazed, amused, and sometimes agog at the great writing and wide-ranging cultural references that flow from the keyboard of Duque. I thank my usually-not-so-lucky stars that I stumbled on this blog several years back.
Thank you for your continuing service, sir.
And since you brought up Charlie the Tuna, I would like to remind everyone that Charlie was voiced by "Peter Gunn" favorite, Herschel Bernardi. Which brings up one more question I've never seen the answer to: Did Craig Stevens sound so much like Cary Grant because he was trying to? Or did he really talk like that naturally?
One of the great mysteries of life, along with why anyone ever thinks Selig was good for baseball.
Hyping the virtue of "battle-tested veterans" after having spent the past decade pining for a youth movement is only one of the many self-contradictions that pockmark el duque's rabid tergiversations--amusing and entertaining as confessions of one fan's bottomless anguish, but mostly incoherent, antiquarian, and useless as baseball analysis. Does ed really think that turkeys like Ellsbury and Holliday are going to morph into superheroes on Tuesday, miraculously bursting forth from thick layers of accumulated aging and mediocrity, just because they've played in some previous postseason games? This is tantamount--to return to the good earth of reason and fact--to believing that Joe Hardy can transmogrify from a bitter old man into a combination of Babe Ruth and Adonis. Players either have the physical skills or they don't. To suppose that a game will turn on some subterranean current of "character" and "guts" rather than physical ability and talent is to emulate the worst of the cliche-ridden cud-chewing of the "Gammonites" that ed so mercilessly skewers while unwittingly echoing every time he ventures into something that presumes to rise to some sort of actual analysis. He excels as a humorist, but as a baseball analyst--he's a great humorist.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that (SABR)Anonymous doesn't get laid too often.
To the anonymous critic, above: Away with you & your sophistry, Sirrah!! A pox on your house, if you don't realize the obvious:
1) Experience IS a quality that can matter - - bigly, as your supposed Favorite Fearless Leader, would have put it.
2) Physical skills are basic, but physical STRENGTH - - at the right moment - - counts, as well. You try to make it into a black & white issue: either the player has the physical skill - - and will thus employ it in the proper situation - - or they DON'T have it; this argument is absurd & spurious, and it makes you sound like Fatty Huckabee Sanders.
3) So many stats today are so subjective - - i.e., dependent upon some 400-pound guy, sitting in his mother's basement, figuring out what "should" have happened - - GIVE ME OLD-FASHIONED YEARS OF ACTUALLY OBSERVING one team, its managers, players, and owners, and being able to see things through eyes which value what ACTUALLY happened...that, coupled with a sharp mind, such as El Duque's - - or any one of the other such brilliant observers/writers we are fortunate to have on this website - - which compels me to say to you, Sirrah: If you don't like it, LEAVE it; having said that, if you chosse to stay and spar, I wish you good luck - - and, unlike the Orange Orangutan Hisownself, I believe in the First Amendment - - all of it - - and will defend your right to come on here, and show your crooked little boner, anytime you wish.
My best advice is, though: Get thee to a nunnery - - preferably, a Gammonite nunnery - - such as Five Thirty-Eight - - which I'm sure you will enjoy much more - - they have odds on every game, ahead of time - - such as, a couple of nights ago, we were favored with 51.6 percent odds to actually WIN a game...with odds like this, why even BOTHER to watch a game?? You can spend more time with your beloved Donkey Kong!! LB (No J)
LBJ--I'm going out on a limb and guessing that you think that smart people--or even people whose sports reading extends beyond this blog and the Daily News--are nerds who don't get laid. Actually, it's the reverse--it's dumbasses like you who post from their Mommy's basement and think that people with a literacy level above the fifth grade are all queers. What other stereotypes can you scrape up out of the bottom of your trash bin of Trump Troglodyte stupidity? You think people who take the knee during the national anthem are all Commies? That Mexicans are coming to rape your Mommy and sister? That the black people shot by cops got what's coming to them? That Trump is a genius? Wait--I bet Trump gets laid PLENTY, right? That's all we need to know about him--and all the commmie queer nerds can STFU, right LBJ?
And the commie queers include all the baseball GMs who get paid millions per year and yet guide all their decision based on analytics rather than the gutbucket imbecility of illiterate basement studs like LBJ.
Sirrah? All caps for emphasis? What is this, Woody Allen's Village Idiot's convention from "Love and Death," reassembled for a baseball chat? Now take a valium and LISTEN for a second, you slavering cur: three decades' worth of statistical analysis PROVES that there is no such thing as "clutch" hitter. When "clutch" situations are taken at a sufficient sample size, the overall offensive numbers tend to be no different from the players' overall offensive numbers. There are ZERO exceptions to this rule. ZERO--with a large enough sample size to be meaningful. And perhaps you'll explain to us how, after expending a small universe's worth of verbiage over the folly of Cashman acquiring aging, washed-up, overpriced veteran rejects from other teams like Holliday and Ellsbury, we are now told that just these stiffs are to be venerated for their "experience"? Self-contradiction may add up to logic for you, but to the rest of the world it's a sign of one of the following: sloppiness, stupidity, and/or insanity. In your case I'm guessing it's all three.
This debate is brilliant on all sides.
WTF IS GOING ON HERE?
I LEAVE FOR THE DAY, THANKING EL DUQUE FOR THIS SITE, AND THIS SHIT STORM BREAKS OUT?
ARE YOU KIDDING ME???
TERGIVERSATIONS?
TRANSMOGRIFY?
ANTIQUARIAN?
TROGLODYTE?
HAHAHA!
GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE...LOL!
HEY ALL CAPS--THANKS FOR VERIFYING YOUR STATUS AS A MORON. NO NEED FOR ANY FURTHER UPDATES. WE WILL ALL STIPULATE TO THIS HENCEFORTH.
Slavering cur, eh?? Good one!! I'll give you two pineapples for that one. It's YOU, Sirrah, who are conflating in error: I don't recall ANY of the regulars on this site insisting that we do not want ANY veteran players on the team: most of us would like to test what the young players can do, but they do and will need guidance; Aaron Judge, for instance, claims to be learning from Matt Holliday, and inspired by him...on the face of it, it does look as if he has been playing better when Holliday has been with the team, and not re-habbing.
You are attacking LBJ for being a Trump-loving, queer-hating troglodyte?? Man, that just shows that you don't read this site with any regularity. Case closed on that.
Yes, we bitch about Ellsbury's over-priced contract, for instance, but we are still all Yankee-fans, and we are thrilled that he has been motivated of late to make a rather dramatic turn-around to a season that was shaping up to be another sad waste of money. More power to him - - he doesn't appear to have lost any of his speed, if this past month is any indication.
ZERO exceptions, eh?? All-caps for emphasis, eh?? Well, who would you rather see up at the plate with the bases loaded and two outs - - someone who is 0-for-20 in that situation, or someone who is batting .340, lifetime?? Or perhaps your fWAR, or your bWAR, or your Babip will tell you otherwise. Meantime, you seem to have missed a key word in your own quote: TEND to be no different...that doesn't jibe with your ZERO (tsk, tsk, you use all-caps in about the same way that Trump uses "Believe Me" - - i.e., when he's about to say something your had better check into, and not take his word for being truth.
People have been calling me a "nerd" since my college days, fifty years back - - probably because I have read and written a few million more words than they have. I wore that badge proudly until recently, when I hear the term used for Paul Ryan (that's right, the Granny-Starving, Lyin' Ryan, the self-same pseudo-intellectual)...now, I'm not so sure I want to be in that company.
As far as I am concerned, every team needs a careful mixture of youthful enthusiasm and strength with one of experience and baseball minds at their sharpest, in order to be on track to succeed.
Looks to me like you are oh-fer, on yer' guesses and assumptions on this posting, Sirrah (If it was good enough for Shakespeare, it'g good enough for this writer).
LB (No J) (i.e., the slavering cur)
ANON--HOW DARE YOU CALL ME A MORON? THE REASON I TYPE IN ALL CAPS IS THAT I NEVER LEARNED THE RULES FOR WHICH WORDS TO CAPITALIZE, SO I JUST CAPITALIZE THEM ALL JUST TO BE ON THE SAFE SIDE. PLUS, I NEVER LEARNED TO USE A DICTIONARY--THAT'S WHY MY READING AND WRITING SKILLS ARE ABOUT AT A SIXTH-GRADE LEVEL--JUST LIKE DONALD TRUMP! AND LOOK--HE'S PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, SO NOT BAD, HUH! ANYWAY--THAT'S WHY I DON'T KNOW THE MEANING OF ALL THOSE WORDS I LISTED. WHAT LANGUAGE ARE THEY FROM? ANCIENT BRAZILIAN OR SOMETHING? LOL! SO, TO SUM UP, ALL THAT MAKES ME CLOSER TO AN IMBECILE THAN A MORON. SO IF YOU'RE GOING TO LOWER YOURSELF TO NAME-CALLING, AT LEAST BE ACCURATE ABOUT IT.
I'd want an AL East playoff game if it gives us a new Bucky Dent moment. The guy that hits the homerun would 100% be Torreyes. Anything else is too risky. Anyways, Sonny Gray is a penis head. I don't enjoy it when he pitches.
Hey other anon--the slavering cur idiot (not the all caps idiot--there are so many of them swarming over this thread)--get back to us when you have mastered the concept of sample size, which was at the core of my explanation of the nonexistence of clutch.
Just to make the point unmistakable even to you, slavering cur: when a player's lifetime offensive stats in "clutch" situations reaches a meaningful size--say, a season's worth of plate appearances--there is no example of someone with appreciably higher numbers in clutch situations than in overall situations--clutch, nonclutch, Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, got laid that morning or not. You cite oh-for-20, demonstrating that the whole business of sample size went right over your flat head. Plus, there is no one with a large sample size who is batting .340 in clutch situations when he lifetime batting average is .280 overall (same for slugging, OPS, etc.). That player does not exist--and has never existed. At a large enough sample size, the numbers tend to converge.
Moron! Nothing but morons on this thread! My kingdom for a non-moron!
OK, so I failed to stipulate that I meant FOR THAT PARTICULAR SEASON - - I wasn't talking lifetime (players age, and they mature, as well); no, your sample-size bit didn't escape me - - it just didn't particularly impress me - - as most of you statisticians don't. Of course, the larger the sample-size, the closer the numbers tend to come together.
...so, since we're all morons (except all-caps, who is a self-styled imbecile), why don't your just take your sorry lil' ass and go somewhere else?? I don't think you are a Yankee-fan, nor does it appear that you care if you missed back-to-back HRs to open the Yank's first inning - - you're too busy bitching and whining about those of us who frequent this site. So, OK go to hell, along with Trump.
Also - - in re: all-caps: we all know his politics, and virtually none of us here agree with him, on that issue. I had an epic tussle with him on politics - - lasted for a couple of weeks - - last year. We agreed to disagree without being disagreeable - - a concept that seems to have escaped you - - and furthermore, even though I don't share any of all-caps' political views, I have come to respect his baseball acumen - - particularly with regard to the Yankees - - considerably.
btw, I like "slavering cur" - - that's as Shakespearean as Sirrah (and for that matter, aroint thee hence) - - so why don't you take your little pointy head, and trot of home?? I think I hear your Mommy calling you. LB (No J) (aka, flat-headed slavering cur)
Wait ... Puerto Rico is an ISLAND??? With, like, water around it and everything? Wow. Who knew?
I'd just like to thank El Duque for providing the forum for the various participants. Not since watching William F. Buckley debate Gore Vidal (or maybe it was the movie) have I been so enraptured by the use of language. I feel as though my IQ and my potential SAT scores, should I ever decide to back to school, have been elevated by the level of discourse. So thank you all.
Perhaps I can help us find a middle ground a "terrain d'entente" so to speak, something we can all agree upon. Something that those of us who ironically use the ALL CAPS button, people with strong preferences for how they like their nut butter sandwiches, people who are trolls and hide behind their anonymity, those who like to duel with the saber (metrics wise) and those who feel the truthiness of who is clutch in their gut... All of us I would hope would agree with this one simple, shining, truth... Boston Sucks.
BTW if we finish one game back and it's because of the series the Sox stole by cheating I am going to be royally pissed.
Doug K.
Sonny Gray is so bad. Duque break out the pictures of everyone declaring the trade to be a great win for the Yankees.
"Oh they don't score for him." Every time they do he gives up 6 runs. Garcia is obviously the worst, but Gray is the most frustrating and unwatchable.
Hey slaverying cur--reality doesn't impress you? Significant sample sizes are a representation of reality. Your posts are representations of stupidity. They both convey information--such as that you never advanced beyond eight-grade arithmetic, nor did you take a course in empirical evidence in history or formal logic in philosophy. You just babble on unto stupefaction and exhaustion. Go stick your head in a toilet--maybe that will rouse you from your waking slumbers.
Fuck this team. I remember now why Jonathon Holder got sent down. Fucking bum.
He's back! Awesome. Guy can write up an angry storm. Keeps one from getting complacent.
http://johnsterling.blogspot.com/2017/07/shocker-yankee-owned-media-and.html
But let's examine Girardi's decision to bring in Holder in an important game. Why wasn't Green brought in during an obvious spot for him? Because the binders told Joe to waste him yesterday with a 5 run lead. If terry Collins wasn't such a fool Joe would be crucified nightly by the media.
Why'd I say nightly instead of daily? Must be the binders.
Reality?? Really...I began my college career in electrical engineering - - got out of it, not because I couldn't understand it, but because I kept falling asleep because it was so damned dry...man, what a relief it was, when I went back into the Humanities, studying something that wasn't boring: people. God, I felt like a yoke was lifted from around my neck. Never been sorry I chose the less-remunerative path.
I have a good friend who has a PhD in Philosophy from a top-10-ranked university; tell HIM I don't know a thing about philosophy, or formal logic. We have spent many an entire night, until the dawn, debating various topics - - and, yes - - following the rules of formal logic while doing so.
You only seem to understand the language of insult - - methinks you could use an anger-management course, or two... LB (No J)
Ruh-roh. It looks like I've touched one of little (SABR)Anonymous' nerves.
Since (SABR)Anonymous has been kind enough to provide such a wealth of material, let me take this point by point.
LBJ--I'm going out on a limb and guessing that you think that smart people--or even people whose sports reading extends beyond this blog and the Daily News--are nerds who don't get laid.
Because I've observed the behavior of a sufficiently large sample size of tone-deaf sabermetric nerds such as yourself, yes, the numbers are tending to converge on you being a douche bag who seldom gets laid.
Actually, it's the reverse--it's dumbasses like you who post from their Mommy's basement and think that people with a literacy level above the fifth grade are all queers.
I'm not sure I see your point.
What other stereotypes can you scrape up out of the bottom of your trash bin of Trump Troglodyte stupidity?
Gee, I dunno. That's a toughie. (scratches head)
Where should I start scraping? Should I make jokes about the stereotypical tone-deaf actuary who drowned in a raging river because his numbers "proved" the average depth of the water was one inch? And, just before he drowned, that he was heard screaming, "I seldom get laid! I seldom get laid! Waaaah! The boys who don't read newspapers are being mean to me! (glug, glug, glug)
Or should I make jokes about the stereotypical C+ student in high school, who seldom got laid, who, when he got older, began sucking Baseball References's tailpipe and blowing a lot of hot exhaust at anyone who would listen? All while he lamented his existence as a photocopier repair person?
Are those good enough stereotypes or were you looking for something else? Right now, that’s all I can come up with because my confidence interval for the regression slope just can't do any better than that.
I'm sorry I've failed you.
(continued in part 2)
Continued…
You think people who take the knee during the national anthem are all Commies?
Now that's not fair. I'm pretty sure that not all of them are Commies. I'm guessing that at least one or two of them are a little confused. They're just "finding their way", so to speak.
And besides, the sample size of knee-takers is just too small to come to any firm conclusion regarding whether 97% of them are Commies or a full 99%. I mean, it would be irresponsible to say anything else. To get the definitive answer, I’m sure you’ll agree we’ll need to use a t-distribution because the population standard deviation can’t be known. Well, at least it can’t be known within thee standard deviations. So lay off, will ya?
That Mexicans are coming to rape your Mommy and sister?
I once heard a guy on a construction crew refer to a shovel as a "Mexican Backhoe". That guy got laid a lot. Or at least that's what he went around saying.
That the black people shot by cops got what's coming to them?
A black guy walked into a bar with a parrot on his shoulder. He began spouting off a bunch of statistical hoo-hah, became insufferably condescending, and was generally a bother. The other bar patrons began raising their fists and yelling at him. They shouted, "We're not going to beat you up because you're black! We're going to beat you up because you're being an asshole! The black guy started screaming that he was making influential observations vs. being an outlier and that they we all cliché-ridden chewers of cud. I'm not sure I remember what happened to him after that but let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. But I don’t think I addressed your thoughtful question. What were you saying?
That Trump is a genius?
Now that's just dumb. Even for you.
Wait--I bet Trump gets laid PLENTY, right?
Well, they said the other day on “Ellen” that when the pickin's get slim, our Prez has been known to grab some pussy. Now that there's a real live American may-un, I guaran-damn-tee ya.
That's all we need to know about him--and all the commmie queer nerds can STFU, right LBJ?
Yes, both commie queer nerds should feel free to STFU. Please be sure to pass this message to the other one.
And the commie queers include all the baseball GMs who get paid millions per year and yet guide all their decision based on analytics
Hmmm. I'm trying to think this through. Sometimes thinking gives me my "spells", but I'm willing to keep trying because I think you might be on to something.
“All” the baseball GMs, you say? As I’m sure you’d be the first to point out, a sample size of 30 individuals is way, way too small but, in this case, I think you've hit the nail on the head! You're SABR-brilliant! All GMs who get paid millions and guide all their decisions based on analytics ARE commie queers! This is a major breakthrough! Will you Tweet it or should I?
rather than the gutbucket imbecility of illiterate basement studs like LBJ.
That's a nice turn of the phrase and comes quite close to true iambic pentameter. I think if you put down the steaming Hot Pocket your Mom just made for you and polished up the words a little, you might turn it into a bumper sticker that you can slap on your Prius. Won't all the guys at the SABRMetrics convention be surprised!
One last observation: (SABR)Anonymous doesn’t seem to be equipped to appreciate the irony that using the word "tergiversations" is itself a tergiversation.
He probably also doesn’t get laid a lot.
Q.E.D.
El Duque is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.
HEY (SABR)DOUCHE ANONYMOUS!
YOU CAN USE THE WORDS TERGIVERSATIONS, TRANSMOGRIFY, AND TROGLODYTE ALL YOU WANT ON THIS BLOG ABOUT THE YANKEES.
DOESN'T MATTER.
MY DICK IS STILL BIGGER THAN YOURS.
(ONLY MY 2ND POST IN THIS RIDICULOUS CHAIN).
LBJ, Dammit, you just caused me to choke on my Diet Coke and do a spit-take, all over my big, beautiful portrait-monitor. Now I have to go on a paper-towel run.
I sincerely hope that those even more advanced in age than I didn't fill their Depends when reading your ripostes. In any event, they made me dizzy.
Girardi has such firm control of this game, think I'll go watch the Packers/Bears, when the lightning subsides - - should be a muddy mess. Go Pack!!
At any rate, can't stop ROFL, LBJ. Bravo (or is it Beav-o??) LB (No J)
......AND THIS GAME TURNING AROUND TO OUR DETRIMENT HAS ME IN A FOUL MOOD.
SO FOUL, THAT IF I MET THIS (SABR)DOUCHE ANONYMOUS IN PERSON, I WOULD PELT HIM ON HIS FOREHEAD WITH MY ELONGATED SCHLONG.
KNOCK HIM SENSELESS....
(3RD POST)
Nothing is as much fun as turning our favorite sport into statistical probabilities. I think I remember something about lies, damned lies, and statistics, a line often attributed to Sam Clemens who popularized it but didn't originate it. Nobody is sure who did. It was found in a binder during an archeological dig.
Troglodyte was, of course, the hit 1972 song by the Jimmy Castor Bunch. The original 45 of which I'd rather have than Gray, Holder, or Garcia. They do, of course, have great stuff.
I realize it's a small sample size, but I hope Monty is our #4 if we get past the Selig Bowl.
Is Saber Anon related to or the same person as the Anon who used to darken our towels a few years ago? I only ask because they both resemble that puckered sphinctoral diagram Vonnegut drew in "Breakfast of Champions."
I think the most important thing that I learned tonight is the LB no J) and LBJ are not the same person.
Doug K.
The thing about statistics is they are useless.
The Master has told us time and time again that you can't predict baseball, you can throw all the stats out the window. Since John's word is law I think the argument can now be put to rest.
I lost faith in statistics when some stat guys said that Girardi is one of the best and most efficient managers when it comes to the bullpen. On what planet could that ever be true? How many OCD decisions to put a struggling Betances in the 8th or Chapman in the 9th ended up biting them in the ass? If even half of those blown games went the Yanks way they'd have the division clinched and wouldn't be rolling the die against a team that has to beat them eventually.
Sure--statistics are meaningless--so sings the chorus of the Village Idiots convention here assembled to register its collective immunity from reality. Ted Williams had a lifetime batting average of.344. Jerry Lumpe had a lifetime batting average of .268. But I SAW Lumpe with my own two eyes. He had such a sweet swing. You're not going to bamboozle me with all those fancy numbers--I say Lumpe was the better hitter.
Same with sacrifice bunts--run-expectancy tables have shown that a SUCCESFUL sacrifice bunt reduces your chances of scoring in an inning. But I once saw a successful sacrifice bunt followed by a single that scored the run--so you can't befuddle me with your fancy numbers. I don't care what the computations from every game in major league history show about this. Numbers are just numbers. Sacrifice bunts are great! I like them! They're more fun than the Cyclone at Coney Island! So sez me--and try to prove I'm wrong.
We could go on like this all night--but there's no penetrating the skulls of the Village Idiots convention on this thread. Numbers are meaningless. Life is meaningless. Nothing matters except what one illiterate asshole--or a whole clutch of them--assert without evidence or logic. That's all that counts.
Oh--something else counts: serial demented abuse from a frustrated loser like LBJ, who summons all the force of his shriveled testicles to stir up a firestorm of ad hominem invective, spraying spittle like a writhing junkie on a meth jag, in a desperate attempt to diguise his ugly penchant for vulgar taunts as a substitute for reasoned discourse, his crude stereotyping of people he disagrees with. He can't summon a rational argument about anything--he just twists himself ever tighter into knots of impotent rage to fire up an increasingly deranged distraction from his stupidity and ignorance. He feels that proving his depravity of character will compensate for his paucity of intellect--a proposition that will appeal only to his his fellow Village Idiots, who, like him, obviously never passed a course involving any kind of numbers or logic past the eighth grade.
el duque--it's about time that you instituted two filters for this group: an IQ test and a psychological screening. But that would leave only you, echoing to yourself in an empty blog. You bear some responsibility for encouraging this kind of debased discourse in your pages. You get the kind of readers and commenters you deserve and encourage.
Meanwhile, let us bless the Village Idiots. They, of course, know much more about baseball than the analytics-guided GMs who are paid millions of dollars per year to make critical decisions about payrolls running into the hundreds of millions. Four jackasses on this blog who have never read anything about this sport aside from the daily newspaper of course are MUCH savvier about such things, just as Rush Limbaugh knows more about climate science than the tens of thousands of PhDs who have spent their whole careers in exacting study of it. Just as Dr. Phil knows more about the human soul than Pascal. Just as Don Lemon or Sean Hannity know more about journalism than I. F. Stone or Edward R. Murrow. Just as Stephen King is a greater writer than Balzac. Right, duque? That's the level of the posse you have recruited here. Quite proud of yourself?
That's the state of this culture, and that's the state of this blog--and you bear direct responsibility for it, el duque, because you sit back and encourage it.
Finally, there's no doubt in my mind that Jerry Lumpe is a better hitter than Ted Williams, because I SAW it with my own eyes. I saw him get many hits on many occasions. Don't bullshit me with your numbers or your logic or your facts.
Now . . . the open discussion period of The Village Idiots convention is back in session.
ALL-CAPS, I feel much the same as you do. I take a night off to go to Long Island, get back, and see this thread.
Leinstery, I think you had the key point here. Why were Holder and Shreve in this game when it was still winnable?
This became all the more annoying when I read of Girardi regretting that they didn't pick up a game on the Sox tonight. WTF??!!!
If you're really still trying to win the division, then why do you have your no. 7-8 relievers in at key moment in a still winnable game? What are you doing? Trying to win? Trying to get a look at some guys? WHAT? DECIDE!
This is the kind of thing that drives me crazy about Joe G.
'I don't understand why we didn't hit tonight, though I did sell off all the team's bats at a charity auction.' 'Our fielding was awful tonight, even though I ordered everyone to play without gloves. Inexplicable.'
The guy who drives me even crazier than Girardi is...Sonny Gray. I've really come to dislike this individual. He has this deer-in-the-headlights look all the time, or like a third grader just waiting for the junior high kids to steal his lunch money.
He actually annoys me even more than Jaime "Complete Games Are My Goal" Garcia. Garcia just is what he is, and you can't expect anymore.
Sonny Gray? He would have been quite content to going through his whole career pitching meaningless September games in Oakland's Thunderdome Park, while all the analysts asked about how talented he is, and what a shame he never got to see the postseason.
But nooooo....Cashman had to drag him across the country to be our "ace."
Pah! I guarantee you the Gray plague will never win a playoff game for us.
There are plenty of sites out there to satisfy brother Anonymous' cravings for Big Baseball Data. There are no other sites out there that mock Big Baseball's Biggest Team with such style, humor and, frankly, love. This site is unique. It's a treasure. Oh, yes, and one other thing: I.F. Stone was a commie.
(SABR)Anonymous:
Two things:
1) It fills me with a kind of perverse pride to have been singled out for your special attention.
2) The toner in the photocopier is low. Would you please look into that?
Thanks on both.
To answer a question - skillfully asked, I should note - yes, I am proud of this discussion. It's the neatest, craziest, most bizarrely advanced Yankee conversation on the planet... or, at least, the internet. (Not sure how they're doing it in North Korea.)
Hey Local Bargain Jerk--I singled you out? HA! Good one, douchebag. You wrote two interminable posts of about a thousand words devoted to pouring bucketsful of your boiling bile over an otherwise entertaining blog, which no doubt exhausted every reserve of your meager supply of brain cells. You've got nothing but your scumbag taunts. You're a vulgar moron, a crude attack dog. Fuck off, asshole. You think you're hot stuff, hurling your tiny-weenie taunts at strangers on the Internet, behind a veil of anonymity, just because you're bitter about your ignorance of any baseball literature other than The Daily News? OK, tough guy--just convey your phone number and address to Hart Seely any time you want, toughy guy. I'll be glad to arrange to meet you to shove your teeth down your throat. Let's see what you've got in person.
Anonymous, this has gotten ridiculous. We are all fans who happen to share an obsession over the Yankees. It's good that we argue, that we disagree, that we foam and rage - about the Yankees. Not about each other. Good grief, we've got a Wild Card to win.
el duque--you're about a half dozen LBJ messages too late in posting this admonition. You should have spoken up as soon as that asshole started barking about people getting laid in response to a perfectly reasonable post about run expectancy tables and sacrifice bunts. You extend a very long leash to your emotionally damaged friends, but get nervous when they get called out. That's a double standard. I hope you'll be more consistent and vigilant in the future.
From the annals of Hand Me the Barf Bag: "There are no other sites out there that mock Big Baseball's Biggest Team with such style, humor and, frankly, love."
To the bitter individual currently trolling our site: No, Sirrah, YOU have it backwards: your whining about being attacked after your two "perfectly reasonable" posts, re: run expectancy after bunting is just plain OFF - - those posts were from the day before - - and, as far as I can tell, absolutely NOBODY responded to those, at all...what some of us regulars took exception to was your first post from yesterday - - which, however literate, was insulting, condescending, and, frankly, somewhat hostile and insulting, right from the get-go; I seriously doubt most of our posters even had a clue that you were the one who so condescendingly sent duque a probability chart, re: bunting, with the admonition that he should study it closely, the DAY BEFORE. YOU came back last night with a large chip on your shoulder - - why?? - - because you received no support for your "brilliant" sabre-statistical analysis??
I'm sorry you do seem to share even most of my political views, because you appear to have a problem - - a HUMANITY problem - - not to mention a tendency toward turgid, over-the-top writing. I think you need to see someone about that - - or get out and mingle more often.
If you look back, you should clearly see the LBJ's response was not in response to your posts, re: bunting, but in response to your more recent - - and more hostile - - post.
Anyway, Foul Fiend, Flibbertigibbet - - Get thee hence. LB (No J)
Hey Sirrah--are you seriously unaware of what a risible pompous ass you are? You are a subliterate herd animal, panting with the ardor of an emotionally damaged sixth grader who yearns to be one of the "regulars." And someone who perpetrates hilarious monstrosities like " and, unlike the Orange Orangutan Hisownself, I believe in the First Amendment - - all of it - - and will defend your right to come on here, and show your crooked little boner, anytime you wish," fancies himself an expert on prose style?
And your account of the chronology is just a fucking lie, as anyone with scrolling skills can discern from this thread.
You're a dishonest little prick, a frustrated little creep who thinks that orotund verbosity equals wit. You're a fucking embarrassment. At least you provide some comic relief, though. What occupation do you write on your tax return? Fool? How well does that pay?
Look, Bozo, how else can I put it that might actually reach you?? If you're so damned superior as to deserve to sit in judgment of the rest of us, then why the hell does it bother you so bloody much to be criticized?? Shouldn't it just bounce right off, like the ball does off certain players' chests??
As for the phrase you quoted above, I was just echoing something I had just come upon on Twitter, directed toward none other than the Orange Orangutan, Hissownself. Like el duque, I like to reference current events & quotations which are currently getting attention, and, generally, juxtapose them to a possible use in our baseball discussions.
Having said that, you are SOOOO mistaken if you think we automatically equate your cowardly, sorry little anonymous ass with the stat-master you claim to be - - what you are is obvious: someone with way too much time on his hands, or you wouldn't be leaping on here, breathing hard through your mouth, and showing us how NO ONE - - can get the best of you?? You've got it wrong, though - - maybe you might end up getting the last word - - but you haven't gotten the best of any of us; you have just earned the contempt of almost everyone on this blog, with your vitriol-soaked verbiage. Can't wait to see with what you will come up next! Keep it up, Baby - - for you surely ARE a baby; that much is plain. LB (No J)
Bozo? Is that your best shot? LOL! Way too much time on my hands? Do you want me to calculate the number of words you have typed in a frenzy to ply your obsession with me? I think you're gay and want to date me. YUCK It's not working--go back to Internet porn. This is only leading you to madness and public humiliation.
Dear Girly-Man (He, She, or IT),
Wrong, on all counts, once again; IF you were a regular reader of this blog, you might have recalled that I have a fetish for red-headed ladies (especially Celtic ones); it came up several times during that IBS Lady period. 'Fraid your Gay-Dar flunks - - and too bad for you...why don't you go try to hit on Chris Christie?? He's more your speed - - and I bet you could pry him away from Jerry Jones with your - - um - - substantial charms...
Ply my "obsession" with you - - man, you're way too narcissistic to even think that.
I have this to say, as well: when I call anyone "queer", I mean they are "odd" - - NOT gay. I try to give every human being the same respect as a benefit of the doubt - - although I could be persuaded to make an exception in your sorry case.
I suggest you go the NY Times (not the Daily News - - no - - not the NY Post - - hell, no - - and try to read Bret Stephens' Op-Ed, re: civility owed to the opposite viewpoint. Prepare to be tested on it, afterwards.
Stat Boy, Stay Boy, Stupid Little Bat-Boy... LB (No J)
'Stay' has a typo - - I meant, of course, 'Stat'. LB (No J)
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