Joba's Troubles Concerning

The Yankees, as of September 5th 2009, do not have a lot of concerns.

They have the best record in baseball by a decent margin and have had quite a few win streaks of seven games or more. Losses are rare; the team has lost only two series entirely since the All Star Break.

Life, as a Yankees fan, is pretty darned good.

It is not, however, perfect.

There are concerns, and right now there is probably none looming as large as Joba Chamberlain.

It's true that AJ Burnett hasn't won in a month, but some of those non-decisions and losses have more to do with the Yankees giving him no run support than they do Burnett pitching poorly.

Chamberlain, on the other hand, has not pitched well since before that first Boston game of that four-game sweep we remember so fondly.

Since that game, Chamberlain has pitched to an ERA of 7.96, which, even considering ERA's inaccuracies, is really, really bad. Like, Sergio Mitre in that time has been almost twice as good.

Seriously.

Chamberlain's 20-17 strikeouts to walks is nearly identical, which is not something you'd want even from your number five starter, let alone someone that's going to start games for your team in the playoffs.

Opponents are OPSing .923 against Chamberlain--that's better than Mark Teixeira.

Then there's also the fact that Joba is fast (okay, maybe not so fast) approaching the 150 innings gray area, in which the Yankees will begin to risk his long-term health if he keeps going out there.

In short, Joba has about four weeks to show some massive improvement, or else the Yankees might seriously consider starting Mitre, because if the Yankees are in the ALCS, fans will remember easily that a game four win actually matters. At least Mitre can get the occasional out.

Yankees in First a Good Thing for the Economy

From an article sent to me this morning:

Yankees in First Shows Winning Plan Without Bonds: Chart of Day
2009-08-12 04:00:47.1 GMT

By Mason Levinson and Jeff Kearns

Aug. 12 (Bloomberg) -- The New York Yankees' front-running
status might lead to some joyous months in the Bronx and
profitable ones on Wall Street.'

The CHART OF THE DAY compares the historical performance of
the S&P 500 Index, the benchmark index for American equities,
from Aug. 12 to year's end when the Yankees are in first place,
as they are today, to when they trail.

During the 33 years since 1928 that the Major League
Baseball team led its division on Aug. 12, the S&P 500 had
average gains of 3.3 percent for the remainder of the year.
That's five times higher than the 0.64 percent average gains the
index had during the 48 seasons the Yankees weren't in first
place.

"As a Yankees fan I can tell you why that happens: because
the Yankees are always in the lead and the market goes up two-
thirds of the time," said Richard Bernstein, chief investment
officer of New York-based Richard Bernstein Capital Management
LLC and former chief investment strategist of Merrill Lynch &
Co. "You can put it up there with such other notable buy
signals as who wins the Super Bowl.

"One shouldn't underestimate the strength of spurious
correlations."

The Yankees, following a four-game sweep of division rival
Boston last weekend, led the Red Sox by 5 1/2 games through
Aug. 10 in the American League East.

Of the Bronx, New York , team's 26 World Series titles, 22
came after holding a first-place lead on Aug. 12.

--With assistance from Rodney Yap in Los Angeles .
Editors: Michael Sillup, Jay Beberman

Kind of cool, eh? Support the Yankees, support the economy and all is right in the world!

This is a Blasphemous Post

Yesterday, on our three hour ride back from the postponed Scranton doubleheader, Brent and I got into an argument about Alfredo Aceves.

I maintained that the best comparison for what he's done this season is Ramiro Mendoza.

Brent suggested the 1996 version of Mariano Rivera.

As you might imagined, I laughed it off completely.

And then Brent got me the stats.


In 1996, Mariano had a 2.06 ERA. A WHIP of .994, 6.1 h/9, an ERA+ of 239 (!!!) 2.8 walks per nine, 10.9 K's per nine and 3.82 K/BB. Mo stats

In 2009, Aceves has an ERA of 2.02, a WHIP of .925, 6.8 h/9, an ERA+ of 216 (!!), 1.6 walks per nine, 7.7 K's per nine and 4.86 K/BB. Ace stats



Now, there is of course the caveat that Ace's 40 innings pitched do not equal Mo's 100+ innings pitched, but at the halfway point of the season the 40 IP is not a horrendously small sample size.



Of course, the major difference between Mo and Aceves is that Mo is, well, Mo with the CUTTER OF DOOM, but he didn't develop the cutter until 1997, while playing catch with Ramiro Mendoza (you see, in baseball things come full circle).


So in 1996 Mo had yet to discover the pitch that would set him apart, and yet many who remember would say Mo was an invaluable resource as to why the Yankees won that world series.

Now look at 2009 and what Aceves is doing--outperforming Mo (even if only by a little) in ERA, WHIP, BB/9 and K/BB.


Aceves won't turn into Mo, because what Mo has done over his career is un-matchable, unless Mo wants to teach Ace that cutter, but...

...I don't know what the Yankees expected when they signed Aceves.

I don't think it was this.