Off Topic · Yankees Talk thread (page 366)

Game 1 Wednesday, Oct. 28, 7:57 p.m. at Yankee Stadium
Game 2 Thursday, Oct. 29, 7:57 p.m. at Yankee Stadium
Game 3 Saturday, Oct. 31, 7:57 p.m. at Citizens Bank Park
Game 4 Sunday, Nov. 1, 8:20 p.m. at Citizens Bank Park
Game 5 Monday, Nov. 2, 7:57 p.m. at Citizens Bank Park*
Game 6 Wednesday, Nov. 4, 7:57 p.m. at Yankee Stadium*
Game 7 Thursday, Nov. 5, 7:57 p.m. at Yankee Stadium*

this means all 3 of our pitchers will be throwing on 3 days' rest, unless i'm missing something here... not crazy about the idea of throwing Andy on 3 days' rest at his age... AJ is 4-0 with a 2.33 ERA on 3 days' rest over his career tho, so that's encouraging... already know CC does well on 3 days' rest so he's not a concern

http://www.baseball-reference.com/player...
http://www.baseball-reference.com/player...

Maybe Gaudin gets a start?

I doubt that. No way they give Gaudin a game 6 start.

What about Game 4?

this is how i would do it:

1 - cc
2 - burnett
3 - andy
4 - cc
5 - burnett + guadin
6 - andy + bullpen
7 - cc

this is it...final series of the season. aj + andy can suck it up for their last start.

hopefully we wont have to worry about a game 6, but personally i think this is going 7.

Very exciting night. Pettitte showed us why Girardi had faith in him and im glad they didnt take swisher out. a slump is a slump and swisher is bound to break out of it just as tex, damon and melky did. this should be a very fun world series.

Anyone get tickets to any of the games? PRices are steep as expected...

VDesai wrote:Anyone get tickets to any of the games? PRices are steep as expected...

nah man...i want to continue having 2 kidneys...

Allanfan20 wrote:Very exciting night. Pettitte showed us why Girardi had faith in him and im glad they didnt take swisher out. a slump is a slump and swisher is bound to break out of it just as tex, damon and melky did. this should be a very fun world series.

not to bust ur balls, but would u be singing the same tune if we lost the first couple games in the WS & Swisher was still slumping? unfortunately this isn't the regular season where guys can iron out their issues over the span of 162 games. we all know Swisher will work out his problems eventually, but there's no telling if that will happen in a 7 game series where every game is pivotal. obviously Joe's not gonna bench Teix anytime soon no matter how much he's struggling cuz he brings so much w/his glove alone... Melky & Damon's struggles only really lasted for 3 games during the ALDS.

lucky for us we won the ALCS so Swisher's struggles can be overlooked somewhat, & believe me i am rooting like crazy for Swisher to come through for us, i really like the guy & have liked him ever since we traded for him, but u can't just ignore the problem if it persists... Joe Torre was smart enough to realize this when he started Cecil Fielder & Charlie Hayes over Tino & Boggs for a couple games in the '96 WS, & Girardi shouldn't be afraid to do the same if Swisher continues to be an automatic out in our lineup... i would seriously consider giving Brett Gardner some AB's in YS against a righty pitcher if Swisher doesn't start hitting very soon.

VDesai wrote:Anyone get tickets to any of the games? PRices are steep as expected...

Not sure how you can unless you sell your house.

Pedro to start game 2 at YS

hoping they replace Guzman w/Hinske on the WS roster... we need a power bat on the bench, & he could get a few AB's in place of Swisher if he continues to struggle... Guzman was pretty useless during the ALCS.

TMS wrote:

Allanfan20 wrote:Very exciting night. Pettitte showed us why Girardi had faith in him and im glad they didnt take swisher out. a slump is a slump and swisher is bound to break out of it just as tex, damon and melky did. this should be a very fun world series.

not to bust ur balls, but would u be singing the same tune if we lost the first couple games in the WS & Swisher was still slumping? unfortunately this isn't the regular season where guys can iron out their issues over the span of 162 games. we all know Swisher will work out his problems eventually, but there's no telling if that will happen in a 7 game series where every game is pivotal. obviously Joe's not gonna bench Teix anytime soon no matter how much he's struggling cuz he brings so much w/his glove alone... Melky & Damon's struggles only really lasted for 3 games during the ALDS.

lucky for us we won the ALCS so Swisher's struggles can be overlooked somewhat, & believe me i am rooting like crazy for Swisher to come through for us, i really like the guy & have liked him ever since we traded for him, but u can't just ignore the problem if it persists... Joe Torre was smart enough to realize this when he started Cecil Fielder & Charlie Hayes over Tino & Boggs for a couple games in the '96 WS, & Girardi shouldn't be afraid to do the same if Swisher continues to be an automatic out in our lineup... i would seriously consider giving Brett Gardner some AB's in YS against a righty pitcher if Swisher doesn't start hitting very soon.

Yes I would have been singing the same song.

so how'd u feel about Torre sitting Tino & Boggs for Fielder & Hayes in '96?

http://www.nj.com/yankees/index.ssf/2009...

Jimmy Rollins predicts Philadelphia Phillies in five; NY Yankees react with yawns
By Steve Politi/The Star-Ledger
October 27, 2009, 2:07PM

It took nearly a full day, but we have our first bit of World Series trash talking. And it comes from -- who else? -- Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins.

Rollins, appearing on The Jay Leno Show on Monday night, was asked to give his prediction in the series and, of course, he couldn't resist.

"Of course, we're gonna win," Rollins told Leno. "If we're nice, we'll let it go six, but I'm thinking five, close it out at home."

News of the boast somehow failed to create much of a buzz in the morning tabloids, perhaps because nobody watches Leno any more. Still, the Yankees players were asked about the prediction during their media session.

The general response: Zzzzzz.

"I couldn't care less about what he says, basically, because that's not what's going to happen," closer Mariano Rivera said.

"What he says and what's going to happen is far from that. You know what I mean? I wouldn't expect nothing less coming from. We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens."

Rivera wasn't firing back. Just shrugging it off as a non-story -- which, giving Rollins' chatty history, is what it is.

"What do you think I'm going to say if I talk about my team?" he said. "That we're going to lose? No. But that doesn't mean it's going to happen."

The problem with the above reasoning is that most people inaccurately think streaks (whether hot or cold) are predictive of future performance without realizing that they're often just random statistical fluctuations from small samples. They tell you what's happened in the past but nothing about what will happen in the future. (Read about the "hot hand" in sports for example). If a guy is a .250 hitter, no matter what he's done recently, the best bet is that he's gonna go 1 for 4 in the next game. The one exception is that if a player is slumping because he's injured, the slump should be predictive of future performance until the injury goes away--but Swisher is a team first guy who I'd assume would admit if he were injured. Preseason and regular season are about finding out who you're best players are. Post-season is where you go with the guys who got you there rather than change the lineup every 5 games. If Torre changed the lineup in '96 purely out of a player *who was healthy* (which none of us know about) slumping, then I believe it was a mistake. No one said you can't make a mistake and still win though.

Bonn1997 wrote:The problem with the above reasoning is that most people inaccurately think streaks (whether hot or cold) are predictive of future performance without realizing that they're often just random statistical fluctuations from small samples. They tell you what's happened in the past but nothing about what will happen in the future. (Read about the "hot hand" in sports for example). If a guy is a .250 hitter, no matter what he's done recently, the best bet is that he's gonna go 1 for 4 in the next game. The one exception is that if a player is slumping because he's injured, the slump should be predictive of future performance until the injury goes away--but Swisher is a team first guy who I'd assume would admit if he were injured. Preseason and regular season are about finding out who you're best players are. Post-season is where you go with the guys who got you there rather than change the lineup every 5 games. If Torre changed the lineup in '96 purely out of a player *who was healthy* (which none of us know about) slumping, then I believe it was a mistake. No one said you can't make a mistake and still win though.

Here is the counter argument to this. A player's batting performance should not be predicted using statistics alone. Somebody who hits .250 has a one in four chance in most cases I agree with that. But a human being with a bat is not the same thing as throwing dice. People suffer from nerves and benefit from boosts in confidence both of which can significantly skew the short term outcome. If you are heading into a WS and one of your key players is suffering from low self confidence it can quickly become a self fulfilling prophecy for him to fail, even if he he averaged 0.350 in the post season for his career.

guys, baseball doesn't work that way... you can't really predict how a player will perform based on his past performance... sure if a player has a long track record of success in the majors then chances are he won't deviate too much from those numbers over the long haul, but there are always anomalies that occur with every player no matter who it is... we all saw that w/Robinson Cano's season last year, yet the same people arguing about stats now argued that he was just a .280 hitter before the 2009 season began... i believe he hit .320 this year if i'm not mistaken... this happens often with different hitters... if you're in a bad slump you can go 0-32 & then go on a hitting streak for a few games to average out your numbers, this happens often... anyone who knows baseball knows this... hitters aren't robots that are programmed to go 1 for 4 every game just because they're career .250 hitters... that's ridiculous logic... look at how ARod's performing right now in the postseason... dude is hitting in the .400's, which is well above his career numbers... he's on a hot streak... before that in the previous 4 postseasons he was horrendously bad... timing, swing mechanics, mental state of mind & approach at the plate, physical condition, status of your opponent in all those aspects as well... all these are factors that can play a role in determining when you perform well or not in sports... human error needs to be factored into the equation... taking a pure numbers approach to determining outcomes in sports is faulty logic.

Nick Swisher's in a bad slump right now, any idiot knows this... there's no telling when he'll pull out of it, & just giving him 10 more AB's don't mean he's gonna get 2+ hits when his timing & swing mechanics are off... he could go 4 for 4 in the next game, but the way he looks now you're a fool if you're not concerned about it... sometimes benching a player for a game or 2 can help get him out of a slump also... that's not necessarily a mistake move to make.

loweyecue wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:The problem with the above reasoning is that most people inaccurately think streaks (whether hot or cold) are predictive of future performance without realizing that they're often just random statistical fluctuations from small samples. They tell you what's happened in the past but nothing about what will happen in the future. (Read about the "hot hand" in sports for example). If a guy is a .250 hitter, no matter what he's done recently, the best bet is that he's gonna go 1 for 4 in the next game. The one exception is that if a player is slumping because he's injured, the slump should be predictive of future performance until the injury goes away--but Swisher is a team first guy who I'd assume would admit if he were injured. Preseason and regular season are about finding out who you're best players are. Post-season is where you go with the guys who got you there rather than change the lineup every 5 games. If Torre changed the lineup in '96 purely out of a player *who was healthy* (which none of us know about) slumping, then I believe it was a mistake. No one said you can't make a mistake and still win though.

Here is the counter argument to this. A player's batting performance should not be predicted using statistics alone. Somebody who hits .250 has a one in four chance in most cases I agree with that. But a human being with a bat is not the same thing as throwing dice. People suffer from nerves and benefit from boosts in confidence both of which can significantly skew the short term outcome. If you are heading into a WS and one of your key players is suffering from low self confidence it can quickly become a self fulfilling prophecy for him to fail, even if he he averaged 0.350 in the post season for his career.

That may be true or may be a misperception on our part--I suspect at times it's the former but more often the latter. You have to decide which appears to be the case. Swisher hit the ball hard a number of times (including some fouls) last game and also is a pretty calm guy from what I've heard. He doesn't seem scared or nervous up there. Your reasoning probably holds more validity for Phil Hughes, but even with his case that's something Girardi is in a much better position than we are to figure out.

Cano is a great example in support of the statistical argument. I argued all off-season he'd return to his career average at a little above an .800 OPS. He exceeded that by a little--probably due to the new Yankees' stadium, improved players hitting around him, and some random statistical fluctuation. I think we both agree "human error" needs to be taken into account but you'd have to define what you mean by the term first. I believe what you're calling human error is what I'm arguing is often just random statistical fluctuations that we over-analyze.