The other day I emailed Salon sports columnist King Kaufman regarding his article on Roger Clemens and then wrote a whole blog entry around that email. Kaufman was not only kind enough to send me a reply, he also excerpted some of what I had to say while surveying the range of responses in his …
Stick a pair of chopsticks in me, because I’m done. We’re just past mid-July, and I may as well concede this year’s sushi bet to my pal Nick. Every so often, the two of us take up an impulsive sports-related wager, the prize being a sushi dinner at the East Village standby, Sandobe (or its …
So as I was saying before, I trekked out to East Brunswick, New Jersey to watch the All-Star Game at Steve Goldman’s pad, joining Will Carroll and Cliff Corcoran as well as Steve’s lovely wife Stephanie and adorable four-year-old daughter Sarah (apologies on the spellings of those fine ladies’ names, o pinstriped host). We had …
Continue reading ‘Launchpad Explosions and Other Rocket Rides’ »
Just back from a Midtown lunch with Will Carroll (in town for an appearance this morning on ESPN’s Cold Pizza) and my NY crew — Alex Belth, Alex Ciepley, Cliff Corcoran and Steven Goldman, a heady ninety minutes of baseball chatter that I wish I could do every day. The biggest topic of conversation was …
In Sunday’s New York Times, William Rhoden notes the rumors swirling along the Northeast Corridor regarding the possibility of two sure-thing Hall of Fame aces, Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson, being injected into baseball’s hottest rivarly. While the Yankees and the Red Sox represent two of the AL’s strongest teams, neither has a bulletproof rotation, …
From a study I’m doing involving Yankee prospects who were traded: Pitcher VORP Jake Westbrook 27.1 Ted Lilly 20.9 Zach Day 17.6 Eric Milton 11.3 Tony Armas, Jr. 3.9 TOTAL 80.8 Pitcher VORP Javier Vazquez 27.8 Kevin Brown 15.5 Jon Lieber 6.3 Mike Mussina 4.9 Jose Contreras -0.7 TOTAL 53.8 VORP is Value Over Replacement …
This entry is about a player with the following line: G AB H 2B 3B HR R RBI BB SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG 162 603 199 35 1 27 128 91 84 116 13 8 .330 .424 .526 A pretty special player, eh? Let’s put him in there with a few 2003 stat …
When the Yankees went into the season, the one position their mighty lineup lacked an All-Star-caliber player was second base. Aaron Boone’s basketball misadventures provoked the Soriano-for-Rodriguez trade, shifting the most glaring Yankee offensive weakness to the middle of the diamond. But despite expectations that George Steinbrenner would throw more cash at the problem to …
Continue reading ‘Tales from the Replacement Level: Yankees at Second Base’ »
No sooner had I dragged out the Yankees’ and Red Sox’s run differentials and expected (Pythagorean) winning percentages than the Yanks took a stumble back towards reality, being swept by the Mets in their three-game series at Shea Stadium. What little I saw of the series — about half of the second and third games …
As you might expect, plenty was written by the people who saw much more of Thursday night’s epic Yankee-Red Sox game than I did. Here are a few highlights from the pinstriped angle: • Derek Jacques, who was at the game: The hardest part of writing about this game is that it’s hard to identify …