Yankees on verge of signing Manny Ramirez?

[metsguy234]

If it's evident, prove it.

You really can't prove intangible things...

But let's use a hypothetical situation. You're doing very well at your job...one day you notice that a guy that you hate is quickly rising through the ranks and is aiming for your job...you start sucking at your job...isn't it because your cracking under pressure?

[HoustonGM]

You really can't prove intangible things...

But let's use a hypothetical situation. You're doing very well at your job...one day you notice that a guy that you hate is quickly rising through the ranks and is aiming for your job...you start sucking at your job...isn't it because your cracking under pressure?

Maybe. I don't know. It depends entirely on the individual in the situation, plus many other factors such as experience with the job, experience in other pressure situations, etc.

As I said, I won't deny that individual players may be affected negatively by pressure enough to affect on-field performance (although I won't for a second claim that I have the ability to actually identify which players they are), but a situation of one person being pressured at his job is not really applicable to a situation of an entire team of 25 professional baseball players being pressured at the same time.

I just went through those final 4 games which were supposedly lost because the Yankees are a bunch of pussies that can't play under pressure, and all I found was a bunch of crappy players doing crappy and good players doing good. If you're going to claim that pressure is what caused the losses, at least do some work and provide some evidence to back it up. I've provided plenty of evidence to back up my claim (and I've even revised my original claim).

[Wassit3]

if true, where would manny play? That would be my concern, although having two of the best power hitters hitting back to back would be scary good

dh

[defense]

Back to the original point to this thread, Brain Cashman denies the rumor

[ohms_law]

Everyone should just keep in mind that all of this talk right now, about Manny, Tex, CC, etc... it's all just that. Talk. Rumors. A lot of it is public posturing, by both teams and players.
It can be fund but if you're looking for real information then just wait and see.

[actionjackson]

Those of you that believe in "choking", "intangibles", and even "clutch" would be well advised to pick up "The Book" by Tom Tango, Mitchel Lichtman, and Andrew Dolphin, which picks apart various baseball "truisms" in the area of strategy and long held beliefs in myths such as clutchiness and since the opposite of clutchiness is chokiness and chokers fail to possess those fabled intangibles that make them succeed, it deals with those indirectly as well. Optimal batting lineup, bunting, hot and cold streaks (which are extremely relevant to short playoff series), clutch performance, when to use the intentional walk, platoon strategies, and what to make of those batter/pitcher matchups that are endlessly regurgitated. It is a fabulously detailed, objective piece of baseball research.

Were the Boston Red Sox chokers in the first 3 games of that infamous series and then the New York Yankees broke into their clubhouse and stole their bad mojo for the next 4? Or, did the Yankees just win the first 3 games and Boston won the last 4? Like Houston says many times during any regular season, teams will win at least 3 in a row and when the streak ends lose at least 4 in a row. It happens all the time. Why shouldn't it happen in the playoffs? But, it had never happened before except in the NHL in the 1940's. That's because the odds are so heavily stacked against the team that's down 3-0, but it can still happen and it did. Also factor in how many 3-0 leads there have been in history and I think you'll still be looking at an extremely small (and therefore not all that worthwhile) sample size.

Our memories are incredibly selective. We are told Derek Jeter is "Captain Clutch" and so everytime we see him come through in the clutch yet again, we say there he goes again, while forgetting all the times he doesn't come through in the clutch because they don't confirm our belief that he always comes through in the clutch. Same thing in reverse for Alex Rodriguez, that "world class choker". We only remember all the strikeouts with ducks on the pond in big situations, but we forget how often he comes through because that falls outside of our belief system.

See the attached text file for a breakdown of their numbers as I can't seem to figure out how to make it appear within a nice little box within this post. As you can see A-Rod outperforms Jeter by OPS in each of the seven situations. Yes, A-Rod's numbers in 2 out RISP and Late and Close situations fall off from his other categories, but he's still around .900 in both situations, which hardly justifies the label "choker". Jeter also (interestingly enough) falls off in Late and Close situations, and beats his overall OPS by 21 points in 2 out RISP situations, which hardly justifies the "Captain Clutch" label bestowed upon him by ignorant media and parroted by "knowledgeable" baseball fans everywhere. Knowledge, one would hope is based on some sort of objective evidence.

Well, what about the playoffs? Yes, A-Rod falls quite a bit off his regular season overall numbers with an .844 OPS in 147 AB. Jeter has nearly the same OPS as his regular season overall one at .846 in 495 AB. So, do you mean to tell me that 2 points of OPS is the difference between "Captain Clutch" and the "Choker"? Between the "True Yankee" and the pretend one? Wow, stunning what the myth makers can make you believe eh?

The final case would be the case of Barry Lamar Bonds in the postseason. Early in his career with the Pirates, he flat out stunk up the joint in the playoffs. Then, 2002 came. Yes, I know he was doing all that flaxseed oil, but flaxseed oil alone cannot explain 8 HR in 45 AB and even with the magic of the oil, you've got to put the bat on the ball, which of course chokers never do when it matters. Can clutchiness explain it? This guy was a playoff bum prior to that, always choking when it mattered. Well then, what can? I think we're left with only one answer: he hit a hot streak during the playoffs.

Those of you that want to believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, clutch, chokers, and intangibles are welcome to. Just don't ask me or apparently Houston to go along for the ride - there's just way too much evidence that debunks these myths and fables, no matter how comforting they are to believe in. Forgive if this is dragging the Man-Ram thread off course again, but others have put their 2 cents in - this is mine. Bah, humbug!

[ragecage]

Well call me old school, but if a team comes out as favorites in the beginning of the season to win the world series, and they do not while having a payroll that is enourmous compared to other teams. Im sorry its a choke. I think any other argument, is just to argue.

To answer your question Houston, New York has been favored just about every season prior to and including 2004 when Boston won the WS.

[HoustonGM]

Well call me old school, but if a team comes out as favorites in the beginning of the season to win the world series, and they do not while having a payroll that is enourmous compared to other teams. Im sorry its a choke. I think any other argument, is just to argue.

With a 162 game season, 30 team league, 8 team/3 round playoff, the preseason favorite to win the World Series rarely ever wins the World Series. (Not to mention the part about the payroll is largely irrelevant, as the amount of money spent gives no indication of the quality of the team. See: Seattle Mariners).

Hell, the favorite to win the World Series amongst the 8 playoff teams rarely actually winds up winning. This is because of the very nature of the playoff system which is NOT designed to find the actual best team amongst its participants (and there is no way for a playoff system to actually be designed to do that, due simply to the short length which allows for a higher variance of outcomes).

To quote a paragraph or two from this year's Hardball Times Annual:

The coda to all this - and I say this knowing that I am invoking the wrath of Phillies Phanatics who waited nearly 30 years for a championship - is that the best team quite obviously did not win the World Series. By almost any non-superficial measure, the best team in the majors in October 2008 was almost certainly the Boston Red Sox.

But it's not an injustice that the Red Sox didn't win the championship, nor is it an indictment of the 2008 World Champion Phillies. It's a validation of a playoff process which was not designed to make the best team the prohibitive favorite. It's a validation of the playoff process - the one all 30 teams agreed upon - that favors tension, uncertainty and clutch performance. Philadelphia won when it counted. It didn't make the Phillies the best team, it made them World Champions. If you're a fan, why would you care about anything else?

Given all this information, I certainly do think that applying a "choker" label to any "favorite" that doesn't end up fulfilling the predictions of people that were made prior even to the first game of a 162 game season being played is too harsh and does not accurately describe what took place (unless "to choke" no longer means "to crack under pressure").

And sorry, I'm not taking this stance in the argument "just to argue."

[ragecage]

I see what your saying, maybe its just the word choke. Lets just say with all that money shelled out, the players didnt do what they are suppose to do.

[HoustonGM]

I see what your saying, maybe its just the word choke. Lets just say with all that money shelled out, the players didnt do what they are suppose to do.

I can buy that, but I still might disagree, for various reasons including but not limited to age, injuries, the fact that salary doesn't always coincide with quality, etc.

And still, prior to 2008, the Yankees had made the playoffs every year, and from there, it really is just a crapshoot, especially when it comes to the payrolls of the playoff participants. Even in 2008, the Yankees won 89 games in the league's best division, which can hardly be described as a failure (using any reasonable definition of "failure". I don't think that Steinbrenner's definition of "Anything less than a World Series victiory" is a reasonable definition).

[ragecage]

For sure, I can see that they were an older team, not as good as other teams. But on the other hand, why would you spend that much to not get the results you want? I know this can start a slew of different answers. But this is why its such a great topic, the Yankees.

[actionjackson]

ragecage, do you have devices that measure the degree of performance anxiety that every MLB player experiences? Stupid question, of course you don't. You can say they didn't perform up to expectations, which in the Bronx are ridiculously unrealistic, but you can't definitively, objectively say they choked. Who favoured them? Those fallible human beings who call themselves "experts". Could they not see the cracks, make that gaping wounds, after the 2003 season in the pitching staff that was decimated by a mass exodus of quality experienced starting pitching (Wells, Clemens, Pettitte)? Somehow they overlooked that and declared the Yankees favourites. That endorsement and the ridiculous expectations of Yankee fans and management alike, not to mention the bloated payroll led to this gross inflation of completely unrealistic expectations. Having a behemoth offense and suspect pitching can get you through the regular season in good shape, but the playoffs are a different story because you're facing the best pitchers on the best teams and your suspect pitching can get exposed. Give me one foot in the old school - they don't play the games on paper, and one foot in the new school - where the concept of clutch, choking, and intangibles are words people use to describe the luck that happens every time a round bat strikes (or doesn't) a round ball.

[gRYFYN1]

The coda to all this - and I say this knowing that I am invoking the wrath of Phillies Phanatics who waited nearly 30 years for a championship - is that the best team quite obviously did not win the World Series. By almost any non-superficial measure, the best team in the majors in October 2008 was almost certainly the Boston Red Sox.

Id be rather interested on why he thought the Red Sox were the best team in October?

Their pitching was Poor . with a 4.65 ERA . far worse than the other playoff teams - and the hitting had a lower OPS than the others - and they were abysmal with runners in scoring position vs Tampa

[actionjackson]

Maybe, they mean going into the playoffs, by any non-superficial measure the Boston Red Sox were the best team. Either way it's either poorly worded or plain wrong.

[HoustonGM]

Id be rather interested on why he thought the Red Sox were the best team in October?

Their pitching was Poor . with a 4.65 ERA . far worse than the other playoff teams - and the hitting had a lower OPS than the others - and they were abysmal with runners in scoring position vs Tampa

He means the best team overall, not the team that performed the best in October.