Archive for Yankees

Like most non-Yankees fans, I typically change the channel when the 9th inning rolls around and Mariano Rivera is trotting to the mound. Why bother watching when the outcome is near-foretold? Especially now that “Ni Hao Kai Lan” is on streaming Netflix? I have better uses of my time, dear Yankees closer.

In 2011, I have found this ignore-the-Yankees-ninth tradition has extended now into the 8th inning. As a Rays fan, I know well how Soriano can and will close down many a late inning affair. So, when Rafael Soriano took the bump last night, I considered my evening of baseball complete and retired to my chambers. I imagine a number of Yankees fans woke like me — quite surprised at the night’s result: A 5-4 New York loss.

Soriano ended with a line of 0.2 IP and 4 ER against him, leading to the eventual Yankees loss. The occasionally-injured reliever did not have his typical command last night, missing the catcher’s target on nearly every pitch. But what does this mean for the New York Yankees bullpen in the long term? Probably not much.

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A number of months ago I rolled out “the most popular player feature”. It’s basically which players were viewed the most on FanGraphs in the past 24 hour period. Over our spring training trip, it was mentioned to me several times that Rafael Soriano is always in the top five and that the list must be broken.

It’s certainly possible that the list is broken, but after combing through the code, I couldn’t find anything particularly egregious. I’m inclined to believe one of the following: the system is being gamed (maybe it can be if you do something like this), there’s a group of people who everyday can’t help but fawn over Rafael Soriano’s stats (there are a lot of Yankees fans), or he really is just that popular (I’m skeptical).

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Whenever I watch Major League action, I typically watch the games with the same intent in which I watch games I’m scouting in person.  When evaluating a hitting prospect, I’m interested in finding out how the pitchers are attacking him.  Where are his holes?  How easily are pitchers exploiting those holes?  Is there one spot or type of pitch you can get him out with or does it take a variation of approaches to get him out?

Things like this can be seen in big league games as well, except the holes are smaller, the weaknesses are more difficult to exploit, and the pitchers are better.  Even baseball’s great hitters like Robinson Cano have holes that pitchers and advance scouting departments are constantly searching for ways to exploit.  One of the ways teams might try to get Cano out in 2011 showed up on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. 

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