A Team of Graig Nettleses

Obviously, when you score seven runs and lose, when you're averaging 5.5 runs and just playing .500 ball, your main problem is pitching. We'll deal with that anon (Probably Pedro Anon, now 1-1 with a 5.49 ERA for the Twins' Double-A club.).

But beyond that, the trouble is that we have assembled a roster full of Graig Nettleses.

Don't get me wrong.  Graig Nettles was a fine, fine ballplayer, especially for us.

After a slow start in his first couple of years as a Yankee, he became one of our most beloved players, and rightly so.

Five All-Star games, a couple Gold Gloves. Finished high on the MVP list in 1977-78. A slugger for his time, he led the AL in homers once, and hit 37 in another year.

Terrific player.

But all Nettles did at the plate, really, was try to hit home runs. He wasn't a big strikeout guy, but he also didn't draw that many walks, and his batting average in 11 seasons as a Yankee was .253.

Which, again, was fine, particularly with what he gave us in the field.

But as a result, Nettles usually batted seventh, which was what you generally did with one-dimensional sluggers back in those days. Nobody thought of him as a regular number 4 hitter—much less a number 2 hitter.

Now, in these times when Analytics stalk the land, crushing all who dare to make a noise, we have nothing but Nettles. Good ballplayers, most of them—but a bunch of seven-hole sluggers, almost to the man, who can't figure out how to plate the tying run even when the pitcher can't find the strike zone or field his position.

This is one reason why various statistical models had the Yanks winning 8-10 games fewer than they should have last year: because their total runs scored made them look like a world beater (The other reasons were named Chris Carter and Tyler Clippard, but never mind.).

The truth was, all too often they couldn't bring across the one run they needed. They still can't, and I can easily see us running up a healthy 900 runs on the season, to go with our 71 wins.

And why do I fear we'll still be saying this as Stanton's 11-year contract comes to a close?

Despite a couple of pieces on soccer teams in Manchester, the Yankees travails have led the delighted Times staff to cover them in depth.

Our total for the year:  Soccer 53, Yankees 49.  A whole season of this sort of play, and the Times will start running special sections on the Bronx team.