Anyone else watching the Yankees....

[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by Déjà Bru

That Judge is doing what he is doing in the midst of this lineup is truly remarkable. I am surprised that teams are not giving him a free pass four times a game. Yet.

This it why I don't think Judge is going to top 60 home runs this season. After he hit number 55 in the first game of yesterday's doubleheader, the Twins walked him five times including three intentionally.

The reason? Despite occasional offensive flashes from others in the current lineup, based on their OPS it's a very good bet to pitch around Judge.

Plus, what team and what pitcher wants to be the one to give up the record-breaker?

Still, Judge is a lock for AL MVP, IMO.

[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by Déjà Bru

Still, Judge is a lock for AL MVP, IMO.

When one talks about MVP, it's not just from a league perspective but in view of how valuable the player was to his team. Wrap your head around this:

As MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch tweeted before Game 1, since Aug. 1, Judge is hitting .317 with a 1.191 OPS and 12 homers in 136 plate appearances. The rest of the Yankees are batting .203 with a .577 OPS and 21 homers in 1,051 plate appearances.

Given the offensive failures and frailties of the rest of the team, it is fair to project that the Yankees would be struggling for a wild card spot, at best, without him.

[cephasjames]

Originally Posted by dsvitak

I should have qualified the first line for a single season. Clearly, unless he repeats this for at least 6 more seasons, he's not the best all time, career wise.

I'd still say no. There is no quantifiable way to determine how many homeruns Bonds, McGwire, or Sosa hit because of PED use versus how many they hit because they were good power hitters. And do we know with 100% certainty that Maris, or even Ruth, didn't use anything to aid them with their record-setting years?

Judge is doing something amazing this year, no doubt. And, since Ruth did it, 60 will forever be a milestone number for homeruns. It will be awesome if Judge hits 60 or more and ties or breaks the American League record. But 73 is the official MLB record.

[cephasjames]

Originally Posted by Déjà Bru

Given the offensive failures and frailties of the rest of the team, it is fair to project that the Yankees would be struggling for a wild card spot, at best, without him.

I haven't followed the Yanks closely this year so I was surprised to see how poorly the rest of the team is doing. Yikes.

[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by cephasjames

I haven't followed the Yanks closely this year so I was surprised to see how poorly the rest of the team is doing. Yikes.

If you missed it, take a look at the lineup that they used the other day which Westheim uploaded in post #797.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Déjà Bru

If you missed it, take a look at the lineup that they used the other day which Westheim uploaded in post #797.

Small sample size caveat, though. Peraza entered 0-for-7 or something and knocked out three hits eventually. And didn't make Guzman his season debut? But what the heck is he doing batting cleanup??

[Déjà Bru]

I detect signs of life ...

[Déjà Bru]

This, from a promotional e-mail message from the YES Network:

Aaron Judge remains six home runs away from tying Roger Maris' single-season Yankees and American League record of 61. The MLB leader in homers and RBI, Judge is also 12 points behind the batting leader in the A.L., Boston's Xander Bogaerts (.319). A big series by Judge and a quiet one by Bogaerts could put Judge in position to challenge for the Triple Crown on the Junior Circuit.

It's been a long time since I have thought of an MLB Batting Triple Crown. The list of them is not long; the last was 10 years ago, and before then, 45 years earler:



Check out some of those seasons. Plus, I was surprised to see that former House of Representatives Speaker Tip O'Neil played superior baseball in his youth! He looked great when he served as speaker, well over the age of 100!



[I'm joking, of course. ]

[Déjà Bru]

What a beautiful way to answer the morons who were chanting "Yankees s***!" with Judge's second home run of the game. Over the Green Monster and out of the ballpark. They immediately stopped chanting.

[Déjà Bru]

An oldie but goodie from an article about the Yankees' performance this year: "You’re never as good as you think you are when you’re winning or as bad as you think you are when you’re losing."

[Déjà Bru]

I'm not going to start a new thread, because this topic has been truly beaten to death. I will use this thread instead to record a subtle change in my mindset.

No, Aaron Judge won't be baseball's 'real' home run king if he gets to 62 this season

Judge might set a new AL record, but he won't get to Barry Bonds' mark of 73

This guy actually makes sense, much as it's distasteful to me.

There's a movement that if Judge hits his 62nd home run this season, it'll be the "real" home run record. It's just not true. The real record is 73. You might wish it didn't happen, but it did.

You think (or claim to know) Barry Bonds juiced. OK. The league wasn't testing for anything and many others were juicing, too. This isn't to justify it from a moral standpoint or anything, it just is what it is. There wasn't a testing program in place and we don't know who was doing what. We do know that Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs in 2001. That's a fact.

It was a bad era for baseball in the long run (but great for baseball in the short run, by the way) in the minds of many, but it happened. You don't get to just erase the history books.

If you wanted to get into erasing history, we'd have to keep going.

In 1961, Roger Maris hit 61 home runs. It was an expansion year, so the product was more watered down than in previous seasons. Also, the AL schedule expanded to 162 games (the NL stayed at 154 until 1962). With that context, do we need to ding Maris a bit? All the stars aligned pretty well for his career year to get him to exactly 61 home runs. Rather convenient, no?

If we did penalize Maris, even slightly, it's onto Babe Ruth and his 60 homers in 1927. Only the league wasn't integrated yet. Can we really say the "real" home run record came in a league that didn't allow players of color?

If we're gonna start throwing asterisks on numbers, every single 60-homer season in history has one.

So, okay. If Judge hits 62, I will take pleasure in it, much more than I ever did the accomplishments of those other guys, but I acknowledge that it will not be the record. Bonds is the recordholder and yes, I wish it never happened. But it did.

[Amazin69]

Schedule-quibbling is stupid. Maris played within the rules of the game at the time. The part where he had 8 extra games, but OTOH Ruth didn't have to fly out to (and back from) Los Angeles, Ruth didn't have to play night games, deal with the slider or face black pitchers (not that the 1961 AL was exactly integrated…), that makes for a debate, not a disqualfication.

OTOH. Bonds cheated. He got caught. Plus, just look at the pictures of 1991 Bonds v. 2001 Bonds. And he was wearing that goddamn ARMOR which enabled him to literally have his hands in the strike zone at the start of his swing, taking away the outer half of the plate. Since MLB had taken away the traditional remedy (the #1 behind the ear), Bonds had it about as easy as if he was playing Tee-ball.

(I would have had my catchers interfere with Cheating Barry every time he came to the plate; that way he gets his base and he doesn't soil Babe's Walks record, either. Except for his last AB of the series, where our pitcher tries to shatter 'Roid Boy's skull. "Ooops, it slipped." I loathed him so.)

So I do believe that Judge may very well set a record this year. However, due to the crimes of Bonds, McGwire, Sosa and the Yanks' own A-Roid, I no longer care about HR records in the slightest. JMO.

(After all, at this point, how do we know what Aaron is or isn't taking? Just because MLB isn't disciplining him doesn't mean anything; they didn't punish the others at the time, either. Thanks for ruining it for everyone, Bud Selig!)

[Déjà Bru]

Holy smokes. That 9th inning had to be one of the finest moments in Yankees history.

[Amazin69]

Well, it was against the very-beatable Pirates and it probably won't have much impact on the pennant race. (You're a lot safer than we are, let's just say.)

But yeah, as far as in-game dramatics, it didn't suck. I haven't checked the Win Probability graph (I'm sure B-Ref will have it up soon), but I'm guessing that was a pretty deep hole to climb out of. Congrats.

[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

I haven't checked the Win Probability graph (I'm sure B-Ref will have it up soon), but I'm guessing that was a pretty deep hole to climb out of. Congrats.

More like a pretty tall cliff for PIT to fall from.

[monkeyman576]

Love the Yankees announcer bragging about the Yankees being on the cusp of the fiftieth somthing playoff birth and 24 out of 28 seasons. Never mind that they haven't won since 2008 and that they are spending five times as much on payroll as some other clubs. Oh wait, is this a pro Yankees thread?

[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by monkeyman576

Love the Yankees announcer bragging about the Yankees being on the cusp of the fiftieth somthing playoff birth and 24 out of 28 seasons. Never mind that they haven't won since 2008 and that they are spending five times as much on payroll as some other clubs. Oh wait, is this a pro Yankees thread?

This is a Yankees thread, period. Pro or con. If you leaf through previous pages, you will find plenty of criticism from Yankee fans, so your commentary is welcome.

Regarding your stats (I'm not sure that you quoted them accurately, but the drift is there), I am most proud of, and grateful for, this:

Yankees Clinch Winning Record for 30th Straight Year

For me, the fact that the team is consistently competitive is more important than not having won a championship since 2009. Are there spoiled Yankees fans who expect the World Series every year? Sure, but all sports teams have their immature fans.

[monkeyman576]

Originally Posted by Déjà Bru

This is a Yankees thread, period. Pro or con. If you leaf through previous pages, you will find plenty of criticism from Yankee fans, so your commentary is welcome.

Regarding your stats (I'm not sure that you quoted them accurately, but the drift is there), I am most proud of, and grateful for, this:

Yankees Clinch Winning Record for 30th Straight Year

For me, the fact that the team is consistently competitive is more important than not having won a championship since 2009. Are there spoiled Yankees fans who expect the World Series every year? Sure, but all sports teams have their immature fans.

I think if I was a ballclub that used small market teams as their own personal farm system I would be expecting a world series or two but that's just me. Shrug.

[Déjà Bru]

Why Aaron Judge's home run-filled 2022 season is even more impressive than it seems

Judge is dominating his peer group like no one else

At this writing, Judge's 60-homer mark doesn't just lead the league, it lords over it. In second place is Kyle Schwarber of the Phillies with 40 home runs. If that margin holds up over the remainder of the regular season, then Judge will become the first slugger to lead the majors in home runs by a margin of 20 or more since Babe Ruth in 1928 paced the entire league by 23 homers.

Judge's 2022 season doesn't owe much to his home ballpark

Yankee Stadium is rightly known as an accommodating environment for sluggers. However, the tendencies of Judge's home ballpark in the Bronx haven't aided his home run tally all that much in 2022. First, he's a right-handed batter, and Yankee Stadium benefits left-handed home run hitters more than it does right-handed batters, thanks in large measure to that short porch in right field. There's also this:

* Judge's 2022 home runs at home: 30
* Judge's 2022 home runs on the road: 30

Judge is facing velocity no other 60-homer hitter experienced

Higher pitch velocities make things tougher on hitters, which is why moundsmen work so assiduously to maximize their ability to throw the ball hard. Speaking of which, what batters like Judge are facing in 2022 is unexampled throughout baseball history. This season, the average major-league fastball checks in at 93.6 mph, which is the highest figure on record. The average slider this year comes in at 84.5 mph, which lags only 2021 and 2019 (84.6 in both cases). Back in 2002 -- the first year of standardized and publicly available velocity data -- MLB fastballs averaged 89.0 mph, and sliders were at 80.4 mph. Given that sharp trendline and given that the other 60-homer seasons happened before 2002, it's safe to assume his peers faced nothing like the heat Judge faces on a daily basis. That goes double for Maris and Ruth.

Judge is also facing more pitchers

It's long been known that increasing familiarity between batter and pitcher accrues to the benefit of the batter. The more times a batter sees a given pitcher, the better he's likely to fare. On this front, Judge stands alone in his lack of familiarity. Regard the players on our list ranked by the number of different pitchers seen during the seasons of note:

* Judge, 2022: 244 different pitchers faced (and counting)
* Sosa, 1999: 215 different pitchers faced
* Sosa, 2001: 213 different pitchers faced
* Sosa, 1998: 211 different pitchers faced
* McGwire, 1998; Bonds, 2001: 201 different pitchers faced
* McGwire, 1999: 198 different pitchers faced
* Maris, 1961: 101 different pitchers faced
* Ruth, 1927: 64 different pitchers faced

Other considerations

But wait: That's not all! Finally, here's a hodgepodge of considerations that help put Judge's outputs this season in further context.

* He's the only member of the 60-homer club to play a premium position.

* Unlike Ruth, Judge didn't benefit from playing against artificially limited -- i.e., all white -- competition.
Unlike Maris, Judge didn't benefit from pitching staffs thinned out by expansion.

* McGwire, Sosa, and Bonds all profited from facing a league pool of pitching that was still compromised by dual rounds of expansion in 1993 and 1998.

[Westheim]

Red Sox-Yankees the only show in town at one eastern. How convenient