Dear Mr. Steinbrenner,
I know that you are angry, that you are disappointed, and that you are ready to make a managerial change. But please consider… reconsidering. In the next few days you will hear a million different theories about why the Yankees have lost. You will hear that it is Joe Torre’s fault, that he no longer has “the Midas touch”, and that the game has “passed him by”. We will get a million more scapegoat stories about AROD, how he is a worthless “choker”, and how he is the reason why the Yankees lost. And finally, we will hear stories about the Yankee “chemistry” of yesteryear, stories about our past players as “winners”, and stories about the “grit”, “resolve”, and “character” of men named Martinez, Brosius, and O’Neil.
But the truth of the matter is so much simpler, much more basic, and very straight-forward. THE YANKEES NO LONGER HAVE PITCHING! That’s right. This is not my opinion. This is pure fact that can be statiproven b. All you have to do is analyze every single 1st round series dating back to 1996.
1st ROUND ANALYSIS:
FACT: Yankee offense has been BETTER in last 4 first round exits than in the 4 Championship Years!
· The championship Yankees of (1996; 1998-2000) only averaged only 4.1 runs per game in their first round series.
· In the last four first round exits (2002; 2005-2007), the Yankees have averaged 4.4 runs per game.
· The legendary Yankees of 1998, a 125 win team that many consider to be the best of all-time only averaged a paltry 3 runs per game in their sweep of the Texas Rangers.
FACT: The Yankees pitching has been atrocious the last four first round exits (2002; 2005-2007).
· During the 4 Yankee championship years, the pitching staff averaged a dominant 2.7 runs per game in the first round! (If you remove one single game – an 11-1 loss in 2000 – then the pitching staff averaged an unfathomable 2.1 runs per game!!!)
· During the last 4 first round exits the Yankees have given up more than 6 runs per game!!!
· Had the Yankees pitching staff of the last 4 first round exits pitched in ANY of the championship years, the Yankess would have lost EVERY SINGLE SERIES they played in the first round when compared to their offensive output.
The numbers are right there in black and white. We don’t need to fire Joe Torre, we don’t need to “let AROD go”, and we certainly don’t need to perpetuate nostalgic myths about “Yankee clubhouse character, mystique, and aura” of championships gone by. WE NEED PITCHING!!!!!!!!!!!! Guys like the David Cone, the old Andy Pettite, gamers like El Duque, and middle relievers like Jeff Nelson and Mike Stanton.
In conclusion, forget all the noise from justifiably angry fans, all the media hounds, and even your own frustration. Joe Torre can’t throw a slider, and Miller Huggins, Joe McCarthy, and Casey Stengel rolled up into one won’t win while giving up six runs per game. It is no more complicated than that. Let’s keep him on board, and give him back the kind of pitching that we used to have… and return to greatness.
Sincerely,
MODI, a loyal die-hard Yankee fan who wants them to win as much as you…
Sucks to be a Yankees fan
Check out the video of them losing:
http://the1opinion.blogspot.com/2007/10/yankees-lose-to-indians-joe-torre-out.html
NY Yankees are Kings of the F’n Hill despite the loss to the Cleveland baseball team. It never sucks to be a Yankees fan because the Yankees are top of the heap and leaders of the pack. They have 27 championships and will be back next year–competing always. I will support any coach they hire. I suffered through Joe Lefevre in right and Bobby Meacham at second. I have made it in NY and made it everywhere (most recently mussels in Brussels).
YFL
KFL
MODI,
I hear you. I’d be the first to tell you I’m not even very knowledgeable about baseball and yet I knew going into this season that if the Yankees had an Achilles heel, it was in the pitching department.
Sorry about the loss yesterday homie.
Right on point MODI–we need pitching. The feel good story with Rocket is over. Santana will be on the market–we need to get him. Bye bye Moose and thanks for the memories. Wanna coach in the bullpen? Farnsworth and Igawa for a decent middle rotation starter and long reliever. Bye bye Villone. What’s good with DWillis these days after that throw-away season?
YFL
Indeed, this year’s club overcame their biggest fear as of late — YOUTH in the bullpen, and made it to the playoffs. I was stunned, amazed, and thought Joe Torre had his best regular season ever. Steinbrenner is off his rocker for wanting to boot Joe, but for threatening his job right before a big game, The Boss doesn’t deserve to have Torre in his dugout for ’08.
Good to see fans finally didn’t boo the team last night. Too bad it got to this point — the sad realization the owner is crazy, deranged and the most dedicated owner to winning ever, and would kick the most loyal man or player to the curb if the ball club isn’t winning championships — to realize it. ARod to the Cubs, Torre to St. Louis. Girardi to New York. LaRussa to… a retirement home. I still can’t believe he didn’t catch more flak from his incident being drunk in his car earlier this year.
starburyfan– I appreciate the condolences
yes steady– johan all the way…
Tim, I’m right there with you about Larussa, and beside the incident I have always thought, his A’s and Cards championships not withstanding, that Larussa was an awful PLAYOFF manager. The fact that those A’s powerhouse teams only won one championship is amazing and I’ve witnessed him manage the Cards right out of the playoffs during many years often overusing his quick hook…
Indeed. Pitching is what matters. Andy Pettite’s game 2 performance was a throwback to the old dynasty, and that whole game was straight out of the “old” days of ’96, ’98.
The Yankees just need a Santana to be the ace, drop Wang into the #2 spot, keep Pettite around for one more year just for the playoffs, and keep developing future ace Phil Hughes. Slide Kennedy into the 5th slot to get experience, and keep Joba as the closer of the future (re-sign Mo! – he’s still got it, as he’s shown this season). The pieces are there, pitching-wise… they just need that big scary ace.
Secondly, the offense is fine – keep A-Rod, maybe keep Abreu, too. He’s strong defensively, solid power, solid speed, great eye (takes lots of pitches, walks). He’s perfect in the #3 role. And I think a four-year deal is all he’s going to get, anyway. As long as they don’t overpay for Abreu, I’m happy to have him back for another 2-3 seasons (the fourth is just bonus).
I like all your scenarios STOP. I think Moose can be a coach to bring along Ian Kennedy. Still, I don’t see Mike as a NY type. He’ll probably head to a place like North Dakota or Phoenix when it’s all said and done.
I think we should keep the catching corps as is though the farm system should be re-stocked somehow–college, DR? anywhere.
We should explore the market for Kyle and Igawa as well as looking into Dantrelle. Does he have the hutzpah for NYC. We’re King of the F’n hill remember.
YFL
SML, welcome back from your trip! But yes, we definitely need to keep Pettite. But we are missing that bonafide Ace ala Santana who we can throw out in games 1 and 4. i agree with your outline.
…Posada quietly had a kickass year…
“Had the Yankees pitching staff of the last 4 first round exits pitched in ANY of the championship years, the Yankess would have lost EVERY SINGLE SERIES they played in the first round when compared to their offensive output.”
Steingrabber knows it’s not Torre’s fault. Here’s the deal…George has seriously been done with the winning championships thing since the 1980′s. The team that BOB WATSON built in the 1990′s was much better than Yankee brass ever imagined they would be.
Torre was the 90th choice for team manager and was hired precisely because George only wanted to ensure enough big names to put fannies in seats. Well, those under-budget guys did some real magic in getting quality pitching and excellent complementary players – and damn it, to hell, if Joe Torre didn’t gum up the works with all those rings.
George’s ongoing obsession with headlines and being head honcho in the city (and in Tampa) drives him (I believe)…so since 2001 – when expectations peaked and the QUALITY pitchers began to age, George went for what he always does – NAMES, NAMES and more NAMES.
To hell with quality. The Yankees are a few short steps away from 1983…
Can you imagine the hit the Yankees would have taken at the gate over the past six years with unknown pitchers? The Yankees and Mets had just competed HEAD to HEAD in the WORLD SERIES…there was no way that George was going to do what was best for the future of that team by getting pitching. This experiment with Clemens and Pavano and Kevin Brown and Javier Vasquez and ecchhhh!!! (getting sick) brings back memories of Steve Kemp and the disastrous free agent moves of the 1980′s.
Perhaps the person who should remember all this most clearly is the guy who NEVER played in a World Series precisely because George would not invest in young pitchers and WAIT for their development: Don Mattingly.
Didn’t the Mets win the World Series in ???? 1986…and the Yankees had to have NAMES – and squandered the greatness of Rickey Henderson, Dave Winfield and Don Mattingly. They are doing the same thing today with Alex Rodriguez.
The myth of George as a lover of winning needs to die. Reggie Jackson wanted to win. He did it in Oakland and New York. Billy Martin was a winner (and a helluva drinker!!). But George? He’s an accidental champ. He’s been dragged kicking and screaming – ever step of the way!
Do you really think a guy wants to WIN when he FIRES a decent man for winning 103 games (Dick Howser)?
Does he really want to win when he turns the greatest job in professional sports into a revolving door?
Or fires Buck Showalter right when the team was about to take off – and hires one of the last guys in the world that anyone wanted to hire? Isn’t it funny that Torre is alot like Dick Howser?
Isn’t it possible that the only reason why the Yankees won before was because Billy Martin was SO OVER THE TOP that he precluded George from running so much BS on the team? And that Torre was BLESSED to inherit Mariano and Wetteland and simply could not have been fired?? –
And Torre wasn’t fired…he was low-balled and disrespected for being the bestestestest manager this franchise has had in fifty years. Steinbrenner is a con artist. Check the Yankee rosters and managerial merry go round. It’s been a sham since that guy with big bucks, big dreams and some boats coasted into town from Cleveland.
Now that he’s getting a new stadium and stealing public land from the poorest children in the wealthiest city, it’s high time for his ass to go.
Good Luck Joe! We will miss you. You and your hard work have been greatly appreciated by the fans. Thank you for 12 great years!!!
T3, many good points about Steinbrenner being an “accidental winner”. I will give Steinbrenner ONE thing though. He will spend the money to win and that means something. But after the money, it is all down hill. I believe that no baseball manager should be fired for reaching the playoffs. Unlike a sport like basketball, the dynamic of a 5 game first round series make winning so damn arbitrary.
– yup, Dick Howser got screwed too.
Yeah. I could be crazy about that – who knows. It’s just that after living in different towns and seeing fans suffer because they thought their teams were trying to win, it got me to thinking about teams that really don’t need to win.
I don’t think people believe the Cubs have really been trying to win all these years. The same holds for the Lions and the Jets in football. Some owners don’t care because the math doesn’t work for them. The added benefit of a championship is not sufficient to outweigh the benefts of reducing their taxable income.
Sports are almost always the 2nd or 3rd or 50th financial interest of the entity that owns the team. The very idea of a shipping magnate micro-managing a professional baseball man should be comical to just a few people. If the Yankees are viewed from the standpoint of building a brand while reducing taxable income, much of what George has done makes perfect sense. If you look at it from the standpoint of a passionate owner who simply wants to win, it’s tougher.
The Rockies have a $54M payroll. That includes a certain former UT football player clocking $16M. Is George’s spending about keeping the business community interested in day baseball and owning the back pages?
How do you explain the Yankees World Series loss to Florida in 2003? The NY series ERA was 2.13 compared with Florida’s 3.21, yet the Marlins won in six games! That come down directly to faulty managerial moves.
How about the 2004 ALCS against Boston? Again the NYY had a lower team ERA than did Boston, 5.17 to 5.87. Yet the NYY lost in seven games.
These losses speak directly to poor managerial decisions within the games during each series. How can your team’s ERA be a full run better than your opposition and you still lose a series? Bad luck? Bad managing?
If the Yankees win, it is said that, with Torre at the helm, the Yankees made their luck. If they lose, it is just bad luck…. and that goes for any winning and losing team where a favored skipper is managing a team (LaRussa is the perfect example).
——————-
Again, as we spoke about recently, the lack of recent pitching can be directly attributed to Torre’s unwillingness to bring up younger pitchers the last three to five years, as did the Tigers. By now, the “old ace” of the staff should have been Andy Pettitte. And he should have been surrounded by a host of live-armed youngsters. So, of course his ability to manage a game was limited this season; limited by his dwindling managerial skills.
True – 2003 was a DISASTER. What was up with Jeff Weaver.
As for the Sox, I believe in momentum and ground rule doubles.
“Again, as we spoke about recently, the lack of recent pitching can be directly attributed to Torre’s unwillingness to bring up younger pitchers the last three to five years, as did the Tigers.”
I put the blame for that on George – if that’s not his fault, then you have a very compelling argument. Do you have citations on that?
BTW – my theory (absent any manner of proof or substance) is not contingent on the idea that Torre is a good manager. In fact, I believe that you could demonstrate he’s a subpar manager, that would prove the point.
One could argue that the Yankees have had three or four sho’ nuff managers: Billy Martin, Lou Piniella, Howser (?), and Buck Showalter. You know what happened to them.
T3, dwil and I have had extended discussion on this issue and I asked the very same question about his “young pitcher” point on whether that was a function of Steinbrenner or Torre. While I naturally believed it to be Steinbrenner, dwil seems to have info that Torre has had significant input. Other points:
– I just don’t know if a) the Yankees had the same # of young arms to bring up as the Tigers; and b) Yankee fans are willing to wait for 3 young arms to develop at the same time. That is not a Yankee luxury.
– the Florida and Red Sox are very good ones and could have been won. One less Dave Roberts stolen base here and also one less David Wells pulled back there, and the Yanks may have two more rings. Torre has not been perfect, but perfection is quite a high standard. I thought Torre did a great job the last two years just to get the team into the playoffs.
– I would just say that given the dominance of pitching in the playoffs, that once post-season comes baseball, with the exception of hockey (see the hot galie), baseball has the most arbitrary nature to its conclusions… this factor should be given great weight
Maybe we’re all reading too much into this…if Jeter doesn’t make that flip play against Oakland and Jeffrey Maier doesn’t catch that ball and the Braves don’t collapse in ’96 and Piazza finds his manhood, this would all be moot anyway.
Conversely, if Big Tony’s flier catches the top of the wall or Gonzalez doesn’t hit his tapper and the Tigers don’t get a rain reprieve, Joe could have been going for Number 8 this season.
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