The Valente Principle
The first rule of ersatz knowledge, and this goes for politics as well as sports, is that the closer conventional wisdom comes to being universally accepted, the closer it comes to being proven bogus. Today's specimen is the idea, repeated ad nauseum on ESPN, NESN, YES, FOXSPORTS, local sports outlets etc. that this year the wild card is definitely coming out of the central division. As trhe Bosox preparfe to sweep Chicago and the Yanks prepare to sweep TB, the second place team in the east may trail the second place teram in the central by just three games in the loss column at the all star break. If you factor in the reality that the 3rd place team in the central, the Twins, is definitely for real, with Santana, Loriana, Radke, and Silva, while the Jays are pretenders at best, with no reliable, uninjured starting pitching past Halliday, then it looks like Chicago has a tougher road in the second half than the Yankees, especially when you consider that the 4th place team in the Central, Cleveland, is much better than their couterparts, the Orioles. In addition, Chicago is missing noone and doesn't look to get much better, whereas the return of Cano, the addition of Dotel, and the September return of Sheffield may improve the Yankees. all I'm saying at this opoint is that the wild card is categorically not what conventional wisdom says it is, a central division lock.
I hope Z remembers what I told him back in early May, that I wished the Yanks would replace Torre with Joe Girardi, because the latter would be an excellent manager. The Marlins are have in fact improved more dramatically over a shorter period than any team in memory.
In a very nice win tonight, it looked to me like AROD is backsliding. In the sixth, Torre lifted Giambi for a pinchrunner to gamble on small ball and a 1 run cushion. I salute his decision, the most creative he's made since he had Wang close against the Orioles. His idea was that with noone out, the faster Damon could advance to third on almost any kind of contact by AROD and go home on contact by Posada. The strikeout AROD delivered, his second of the game was particularly egregious because Torre's correct strategy had assigned his superstar such a limited task to perform properly and AROD failed in the most unproductive way. Fortunately, Torre was vindicated by Jorge's single up the middle with 1 out, a knock that scored Damon, but would never have scored the elephatine Giambi. Looking aty things more globally, the fact that the Yanks got 5 runs, with both Giambi (who reached on an error) and AROD taking the collar and Jeter and Jorge managing just 1 hit apiece, testifies to the tonic team chemistry generated by the small ball approach.No single player needs to contribute as big, but more need to contribute something. As a result their is a distribution and hence a diffusion of pressure while at the same timne there is a circulation, hence an enhancement of involvement, engagement, and attention. You absolutely need good starting pitching to pull it off though, and the Yankees are only 60% of the way there. When and if they hit 80%, they will have given themselves a chance, realistic but not assured, of making the playoffs, whether as division champs or as the wild card.
I hope Z remembers what I told him back in early May, that I wished the Yanks would replace Torre with Joe Girardi, because the latter would be an excellent manager. The Marlins are have in fact improved more dramatically over a shorter period than any team in memory.
In a very nice win tonight, it looked to me like AROD is backsliding. In the sixth, Torre lifted Giambi for a pinchrunner to gamble on small ball and a 1 run cushion. I salute his decision, the most creative he's made since he had Wang close against the Orioles. His idea was that with noone out, the faster Damon could advance to third on almost any kind of contact by AROD and go home on contact by Posada. The strikeout AROD delivered, his second of the game was particularly egregious because Torre's correct strategy had assigned his superstar such a limited task to perform properly and AROD failed in the most unproductive way. Fortunately, Torre was vindicated by Jorge's single up the middle with 1 out, a knock that scored Damon, but would never have scored the elephatine Giambi. Looking aty things more globally, the fact that the Yanks got 5 runs, with both Giambi (who reached on an error) and AROD taking the collar and Jeter and Jorge managing just 1 hit apiece, testifies to the tonic team chemistry generated by the small ball approach.No single player needs to contribute as big, but more need to contribute something. As a result their is a distribution and hence a diffusion of pressure while at the same timne there is a circulation, hence an enhancement of involvement, engagement, and attention. You absolutely need good starting pitching to pull it off though, and the Yankees are only 60% of the way there. When and if they hit 80%, they will have given themselves a chance, realistic but not assured, of making the playoffs, whether as division champs or as the wild card.
posted by joe valente | 11:28 PM
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