Thursday, October 11, 2012

Making Sense of What Happened



Yankees Raul Ibanez after his game-tying home run in the 9th inning of Orioles closer Jim Johnson



      After the Yankees Raul Ibanez’s improbable, unlikely, miraculous, heroic, herculean (can you tell I’m Impressed?) comeback against the Baltimore Orioles last night, like many, I tuned into the postgame press Conference to hear what Joe Girardi had to say regarding the gargantuan (can you also tell I read a thesaurus this morning?) intestinal fortitude it took to pinch-hit for Alex Rodriguez (and his 647 career home runs) in the 9th inning.


      Girardi, who always goes by his trusty binder (which by now has more pages than the Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”), decided to go against the grainand opted for Raul Ibanez. His reasoning for his decision was; “(Ibanez) being a great pinch hitter, and you’ve got a left-handed hitter who’s a low-ball hitter in a sense, and you’ve got a low-ball pitcher. I just kind of had a gut feeling.”

     Obviously Girardi was using code words that only the intelligent mind of yours truly could crack. What Joe really meant was “Even though Ibanez is a career .243 pinch hitter, he looks like a thin Buddha, so we rubbed his belly around the 6th inning. Plus, we’ve got a short porch in right and A-Rod is swinging so poorly right now he offered Granderson or Swisher $10,000 to look worse and I guess Grandy needed the money. Oh, and the gut feeling? It’s still the indigestion I get from drinking 6 months of the Andruw Jones Kool-aid.”

     All joking aside, the moves Girardi made in last night’s game were bold and put all possible ego’s to the back-burner. Each move was calculated based on the situation and what Girardi felt gave them the best chance to win. In a 20 minute span, he not only removed Alex Rodriguez for a pinch-hitter, but Derek Jeter as well! I don’t think there’s another manager in baseball that would’ve had the cojones (little Spanish lesson for you) to make those moves. Hell, I’m more surprised Jeter didn’t shank Girardi in the shower after the game for taking him out, than the Yankees actually winning.

     But, back to the postgame Press Conference about the toast of the town, Raul Ibanez; Girardi said that what Ibanez has done lately reminds him of Shane Spencer (which was in 1998, not 1996 Joe, get your facts right!) and the magic he had during that one legendary Autumn. That got me to thinking, is it remotely similar? The answer is….wait for it…..wait for it….NOPE!

     Shane Spencer was a flash in the pan, one hit wonder (a la Kevin Maas for all my older Millennial’s out there). What Spencer did during that September was amazing, but it pales in comparison to what Ibanez has done. Ibanez is a man who was so bad during Spring Training, the Yankees almost released him, but chose to hold onto him due to his veteran presence and hope that he would work things out. Good thing they did. Ibanez is also a man who was so bad during mid-August through mid-September (a 2 for 45 slump), people were begging for him to be designated for assignment and released (I admit, I was one of them). Good thing they didn’t.

     Shane Spencer hit 10 home runs and amassed 27 rbi during the month of September in 1998 (including a .286 average with 3 homers between the 7th and 9th innings) and then went on to bat .500 with 2 home runs during the ALDS against Texas. What’d Raul Ibanez do for the Yankees? Only come through in the clutch, what seems like every time he came to bat. The clutch numbers Ibanez has put up this season speak for themselves:

High Leverage Situations: .278 average, 7 home runs, 34 RBI
 “Late & Close” Situations: .286 average, 5 home runs, 17 RBI
During tie games: .311 average, 5 home runs, 17 RBI
Pinch hitting: .320 average, 2 home runs, 7 RBI



     Hitting in the clutch is what Raul Ibanez does! He did it against Oakland in that extra inning game when the Yankees came back from that huge deficit. He did it against Boston last week (twice in one game) and he did it again last night versus Baltimore (also twice in one game). In the 2009 World Series Raul Ibanez feasted on Yankee pitching batting over .300. This is why the Yankees signed him. To give a veteran player, who knows how to prepare, knows what it takes to win, and is the consummate teammate, a chance to shine for October glory.

      In a matter of 3 weeks, Raul Ibanez has replaced Raul Mondesi as the best player named Raul the Yankees have ever had. Did the Yankees ever expect Ibanez to have an impact like this? Of course not, nobody did, probably not even Raul (Mondesi and Ibanez). But, every Yankee player and fan alike are hoping the hits keep on coming. If Ibanez’s clutch hitting can somehow lead to the Yankees capturing a World Series Title, I’d expect his plaque to be erected in Monument Park on Opening Day next season and his number retired, never to be worn again. (I’m kidding, sort of)

     But tonight, or any other point during the 2012 Postseason, if the Yankees find themselves needing a big hit late in the game, Raul Ibanez is the man we hope is standing in the box.

     For 16 years, Derek Jeter was the individual you’d want up in that situation. Well, move over Captain Clutch. Colonel Clutch has arrived.

And we Salute you, Sir.



So does Nick Swisher.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

How Do You Replace Greatness?

     It is often said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Well, Rafael Soriano has spent 5 months flattering Mariano Rivera so much, his face is beginning to turn red with embarrassment.

    The Yankees are about to begin their 3rd game in unchartered territory. They haven’t played a post season in 31 years when Mariano Rivera wasn’t seated in the bullpen. When you become comfortable, it puts you at ease and becomes almost second nature; that’s what Mariano Rivera has been for the better part of nearly two decades worth of October baseball, comforting to the minds of Yankee fans knowing their pitchers only needed to record at most 21 outs, before the game was essentially over.

     That sense of comfort was ripped away in a heartbeat on the warning track in Kansas City on May 3rd when Rivera tore his ACL, ending his season. Before the collective tears of millions of Yankee fans could even dry, his replacement David Robertson was also placed on the disabled list. These events forced the Yankees to turn to their 7th inning reliever, Rafael Soriano to handle the closing duties.

     The transition wasn’t easy at first, change often never is. Fast forward five months and Yankee fans have embraced Rafael Soriano and his unusual routine of immediately pulling his shirt out from his uniform pants when finishing a game. That tendency has become sort of a pseudo rallying cry for Yankee fans after Soriano records a save; “time to un-tuck, the Yankees win” or #untuck for those of you from the world of twitter.

     So, did Rafael Soriano really replace Mariano Rivera over the last 5 months of the regular season? The initial gut reaction for many would be “no, no, no, NO!” Wrong, dead wrong. You, me, the drunk in section 237, all wrong. Rafael Soriano did replace Mariano Rivera and did a better job than anybody would have ever imagined.

     In only 5 months as the closer, Soriano rattled off an extraordinary season for a guy who had absolutely no expectations coming into this season and missed most of last year with injury:

2 – 1 record, 2.26 ERA, 69 games, 67.2 innings, 42 saves, 55 hits, 24 walks, 69ks, 1.167 WHIP

     That’s about as close to a Mariano Rivera type season you can get, without actually being Mariano Rivera. Don’t believe me?

 5-4 record, 2.21 ERA, 67 games, 78 innings, 39 saves, 60 hits, 18 walks, 72ks, 0.998 WHIP

     That is Mariano Rivera’s average season during his career. The numbers are eerily similar. While the Yankees (and fans) certainly felt the initial sting of losing Mariano Rivera 4 weeks into the season, the final results dismiss those feelings.

     While Rafael Soriano certainly did his very best Mariano Rivera imitation during the 2012 regular season, it will be a surreal experience if the Yankees are leading in the 9th inning and the stadium speakers don’t begin echoing the sounds of “Enter Sandman” in October.

     Unfortunately, this is when the Yankees will miss Rivera the most. While his regular season performance can be replaced (and was), you cannot replace what the man brings to the postseason. His aura, his reverence in baseball, the pictures from Center Field of Rivera jogging out to the mound, have all been cemented by what he’s done in October. He is the greatest relief pitcher in baseball history for a reason.

     If you need any added incentive to understand, I’ll give you 141 of them. 141 being the number of innings Rivera has thrown in his career in the playoffs. Nobody needs to discuss the numbers Rivera has accumulated in October during his career. Frankly, you can’t discuss it. You just stare at the numbers and bask in the greatness that has spent 18 years gracing our presence:

7 – 1 record, 0.70 ERA, 96 games, 141 innings, 42 saves

     Soriano’s track record in the playoffs is a much smaller sample. It stretches only 6 games in two postseasons. He’s never recorded a save, he’s never notched a win, though he does sport a lovely 4.70 ERA in 7.2 innings of work.

     If the Yankees have any hopes of hoisting the World Series trophy up for a 28th time, they will need Soriano to one up himself from the regular season and try to replicate the greatest of all time, once more, on the grandest stage of them all. It is certainly a tall task and one that will not come easy.

Then again, replacing greatness never is.

Sunday, October 7, 2012

An Ace Among Us



There is no denying that CC Sabathia has been an unbelievable workhorse logging at least 230 innings each of the past 5 seasons. But, could the consistency to which he's been utilized finally be causing Sabathia to pay the price?

Sabathia was on the disabled list twice this season, including once in August because of an elbow problem, the first time in his career he was on the DL for an arm-related issue. Despite coming back after an absence of a few weeks, the lingering question that remained with Sabathia was, “how much discomfort was he still feeling?” CC can say all the right things; that he's healthy, he feels fine, etc, but the way he was throwing and the swings teams had against him when he first came back certainly suggested trouble. 

In a six start span when he came off the disabled list with his elbow trouble, Sabathia allowed 23 runs and 38 hits in 43 innings, as the Yankees went 3 – 3 in those games. Although he's at a young enough age to still have many productive years left, is it more likely he'll spend those years as a very good pitcher, who's being paid to perform like an extraordinarily great pitcher? 

There's no denying that Sabathia wants the ball every 5 days (he'd probably take it every day if they let him) and is a gamer in every sense of the word. But, while he sees no drop in his velocity or his performance, everybody else does and the numbers back it up. In his first year wearing pinstripes, Sabathia's average fastball was clocked at 94.1mph, but by 2011 his average velocity was down to 93.9mph and at a career low 92.4mph this season. While most pitchers generally lose velocity as they age, Sabathia shouldn't see such a stark drop-off in performance this quickly. What could be the cause of this?

19,607: The number of pitches Sabathia has thrown (not including 2012), over the past 5 seasons. To put it simply, that’s more pitches than any human being has thrown in 5 years. Between 2007 and 2011, Sabathia started 185 games, logged 1,278 innings and threw nearly 20,000 pitches. That incredibly heavy workload is finally causing Sabathia to suffer the consequences. Recent history has shown that any pitcher with a heavy workload over a number of years begins to see a drop-off in results that likely lead to a serious injury.

Don’t believe me? Here are two prime examples: Johan Santana and Roy Halladay. In Santana’s case, in the 5 year span between 2006 – 2010, he logged 155 games started, 1,052 innings and threw 12,554 pitches. That’s considerably less than Sabathia, who logged an entire season’s worth of games, innings and pitches compared to his lefty counterpart in the Big Apple. But, much like Sabathia seems to be noticing now; Santana noticed a decline in performance and ended up missing the entire 2011 season after undergoing major reconstructive shoulder surgery, only to return this season, where he was shutdown in mid-August with a tired shoulder and a bad back (this could be attributed more to the 134 pitches he threw during his June no hitter; he was never the same pitcher after that game).

Roy Halladay, possibly the biggest workhorse in the National League threw a Sabathia-esque amount of pitches during the same 5 year span from 2007 – 2011. In those 5 seasons, Halladay started 167 games, accounting for 1,231 innings and 17,554 pitches. While he may have started fewer games in that span, Halladay managed nearly the same number of innings and threw 2,000 less pitches than Sabathia. In that same span, Halladay also managed to throw a perfect game and a no hitter in the same season. But, much like CC, Halladay paid the price for it this year, missing nearly 2 months with a shoulder injury, while starting the fewest games since 2005 and posting the worst ERA of his career (when throwing more than 100 innings). Is this the future Yankee fans can expect from the hefty lefty?

Perhaps, but it seems not quite yet. More recently, the results for Sabathia have been the best they have been all season. In his last 3 starts, he’s thrown 24 innings, allowed 13 hits, 2 runs and 4 walks, while tallying up 28 strikeouts. Although the numbers are impressive, the only game during which Sabathia faced a decent offense was his no decision against Oakland.

Much like a car that has logged 200,000 miles won't continue to run forever, Sabathia's time as front-end pitcher won't continue on forever. After now throwing more than 20,000 pitches in just over a five year span and logging nearly 1,500 innings in that same timeframe, it looks like the miles on the stoic frame of the husky left hander may finally be starting to catch up to him as he begins to sputter to the side of the road.

While Yankee fans are hoping Sabathia continues pitching like the true ace he is supposed to be, the Yankees find themselves in a familiar position; staring at the most crucial juncture of the season, fielding a 25 man roster of All-Star caliber talent and expecting their starting pitching to hold up. 

But, unlike the past few years, the Yankees hope they don’t find themselves all out of aces.