Sure there is. Chemistry. Like I said earlier, intangibles. There is a certain way the lineup learned to work together. It worked all year long. Sheff and Matsui were a monkey wrench. Plus, switching a fantastic defensive left-fielder for a sub-par one, and a sub-par defensive first baseman for a guy who learned the position a week earlier, you have to be at least a little slow on the uptake to think it's going to work out.
In any situation that it counted I would pintch hit Bosious for A-Rod. These are his numbers in games 4,5,6 and 7 against Boston in 04, each was a potential close out game for the Yankees. 1 for 5, 0 for 4, 1 for 4, 0 for 4. With A-Rod you have to throw out the stats and look at the situation. Clutch situations I would pinch hit Brosious every time. In game 3 which the Yankees won 19 to 8 he went 5 for 5.
yankees game plan is as follows: HIRE JOE GIRARDI AS A BENCH COACH look what this man did with the marlins this year...he's a yankee guy and a good manager...let torre coach one more year with girardi as his bench coach, and write it into girardi's contract that he automatically takes over for torre when torre leaves...the yankees need to lock this guy up before someone else grabs him
Why would Girardi accept a bench coach position if he's a manager of the year candidate and is being mentioned as a manager for the currently open positions?
Melky and Bernie were lousy for the last month of the season. It's not like he yanked guys that were playing well for some dinosaurs off the DL. As for the "chemistry" of the lineup having these guys back could only help as they're certainly more feared/respected then the guys they were replacing.
Do you think it's just a postseason thing with A-Rod? During the regular season his numbers with RISP and RISP/2 outs were better then his overall numbers. Or do most of these situations fall under the "up or down by alot" A-Rod rule?
When someone can actually explain what "clutchness" is to me then maybe I'll understand it. Matsui had been an excellent postseason player for the Yankees the last couple years and Melky is a 4th OFer. Claiming chemistry is a cop out as well, when Jeter is up at the plate do you think he cares who's playing in LF today?
I'm surprised...Number one Mike Lupica needs to be done afte reporting his bullshit... I'm glad I didn't buy into it 100%. I figured and thought he would be fired, but stayed quiet because their was nothing official... I guess Torre does deserve to finish out the final year of his contract...I just wanted a change.
Chemistry would matter in the clubhouse, not in the day to day lineup. Sheffield and Matsui were still part of the team and around when they were injured. Just inserting them in to the lineup doesn't drastically change the chemistry of the team.
I'm glad that they didn't make the move. I actually agreed with the decision to move in a different direction from Torre for change's sake (to try and stir something up in the Yankees stagnant and unmotivated clubouse) but I also didn't feel comfortable with Lou Piniella running the team. If I were a betting man I'd say that Torre will step aside after next season (championship or not) and the Yankees will promote Don Mattingly to manager. That's been Cashman's plan all along, and he clearly is being given even more control than we thought if he was able to talk Steinbrenner out of firing Torre.
Well now that he's staying on officially, you can't help but be very disappointed in Cashman. For all the good he has done with the organization as a whole, rebuilding the system, etc., he loses a ton of credit for convincing Steinbrenner to keep Torre. I still think Cashman is part of the solution, not the problem, but he really has to prove himself all over again this off-season to make up for one of the biggest mistakes of his GM career.
I'd like to hear how you rationalize keeping Torre as one of the biggest mistakes of Cashman's career? He makes some head scratching decisions with bullpen management, but other than that he has pulled together many Yankees teams falling out of the race and has been in the playoffs for 10 consecutive years. Without outstanding managing jobs, the Yankees would've missed the playoffs in each of the last 2 seasons. I can understand wanting a change from Torre, but I really can't see him as being actively detrimental to the team no matter how you slice it.
The team needed a change from top to bottom, and it started with the manager. Cashman was the main reason that didn't happen. He had the opportunity to start fresh, and "rebuild" the team, and he screwed it up. Now it's another year of hearing how great Torre did getting this team to the playoffs, and then having them shut down and embarass themselves in a first round exit. I do have to commend Cashman, because by doing this he now knows he has to totally reconstruct this team, and it will be a lot of hard work for him this off-season trying to Torre-proof this team.
If by "Torre-proof" you mean "turn into WS contenders," the only thing to do is the obvious move that has eluded Cashman for years--the Yanks need to overhaul their pitching staff from #1 starter through setup man. Proctor, Villone, Quantrill, Sturtze, Gordon--all of these guys are good pitchers, but they needed support. Too many innings for the bullpen has doomed us each of the past 3 seasons.
I see your point 10Pen10... if you're not moving forward then you're moving backwards. If Torre is a lame duck anyway you're just avoiding the inevitable.
Chemistry works during a game as well. Haven't you guys ever played team sports? I mean, this is not brand new state-of-the-art rocket science. Chemistry in-game comes from not just a balanced lineup, but more from the group playing as a solid unit. A big part of being comfortable in a lineup is knowing your place (as in responsibility) with your spot. Over the course of 162 games, a team gels into a unit. Let's take a hypothetical, but realistic example, using the Yankees. Jeter leads off an inning. He gets a base hit and is now on first. Abreu comes up, and Jeter knows that the pitcher needs to concentrate on him. Jeter, knowing Abreu will be patient at the plate waits until the count is 2-1, and takes off for second on the next pitch, knowing that Giambi is up next. Now, no matter what Abreu does in the at-bat, Jeter is almost surely going to wind up at third thanks to Giambi. Giambi always pulls the ball, and thanks to the shift, Jeter is on third, with at most, 2 out. Granted, that brings ARod to the plate in a situation he sucks in, but it's still a man on third. (Here is where ARod shows how much of a liability he really is.) Now if Sheffield is hitting after Abreu, Jeter probably never bothers to take that steal, since there will be no shift on for Sheff. Sure, it's a very rudimentary situation, but it is the type of thing you can use "baseball smarts" for. You spend all year learning how your guys react to situations, and you play to them. When you shake uo a lineup late, you risk just what happened. Lack of cohesiveness. Now had Sheff and Matsui been around all year, then yeah, they would have been unstoppable. They'd probably have walked away with the division before the end of July. But that's not what got them there. You don't change the formula with a week until the post-season.
It's not "changing the formula" it's putting the better player back in the lineup. You're telling me if Jeter got hurt for a good portion of the year and some minor league SS put up a .700 OPS in his abscence but the team won you wouldn't want Jeter back in the lineup for the postseason? I'm calling bullshit on this one. Everyone was crowing about how great the lineup was when Sheff and Matsui were back, this is all second guessing.
Not only do I play baseball, and have since I was 5 years old, I manage the team. The situation you gave has nothing to do with "chemistry", but with making a decent lineup. Chemistry isn't what would make Jeter steal, being an appropriate situation in which to steal is. You are vastly overrating chemistry in baseball. It might make a difference in the clubhouse, but on the field, baseball is about as individual a sport as you can get.
