Cashman Q & A – Why it matters so much

Peter Abraham, Yankeeland's very own buddha of suburbia, has showered us with his benevolence in the form of a reader's Q & A with Brian Cashman. This is a very interesting interview, though not because it gave us plebeians a chance, however remote, to poke and prod the team's chief's strategist. Instead, what's eye-opening is Cashman's candor about his evolution as a GM, particularly his greater willingness to accept statistic analysis in recent years.

His language is painfully vague and impossibly opaque, but Michael Fishman would be grinning were it not for his imprisonment in a solitary cell that keeps out prying journalists (but presumably allows wi-fi signals to penetrate). Read more

The running of the bullpen

It's been two days since the news was made public, but we'd be remiss if we failed to comment on Girardi's roster selection. The position player selectees were mostly innocuous, but the bullpen is where the mystifying criteria employed by our decision-makers begin to emerge.

Granted, the bullpen won't be terrible, and final two innings of every close game will fall to safe hands. But what is the argument for giving a shot to the backend triumvirate of Bruney, Ohlendorf, and Albaladejo over Britton, Patterson, and Ramirez? What have the former three done in the course of their careers, or even during the spring, to merit a shot over the latter trio? Read more

Lucky goes primetime

In a bit of bad news for those individuals who appreciate serious news programming, 60 minutes has announced that it will air a feature on the Red Sox and the success they've have had with sabremetric analysis.

We have mixed feelings on this here at SMF. On the one hand, Lucchino suggests that the Yankees are moving in the direction of statistical analysis, which, in light of Girardi's latest roster decisions, counts as news to us. But, even if we are to take Lucky's word for it, you can see the Steinbrenner's, in their capacious reserve of stubborn pride, move further away from statistical analysis to prove that they don't need to learn how to win from the Red Sox.

The baseball angle aside, how is the considered a story worthy of national attention in the first instance? Moneyball was published in 2003, the same year Bill James was hired by the Red Sox. Even the New Yorker, which is perpetually behind the curve in its sports coverage, ran a piece on this when it might have been considered newsworthy. And we can't fathom who CBS thinks its target audience will be. Baseball fans already aware of the Jamesian Revolution; and non-baseball fans will find the story tedious and unimportant.

If the promo is any indication, we can look forward to a bumbling Morley Safer reveal his complete ignorance about the sport, while Lucchino, Theo Epstein, and, lord help us, John Henry, try to forge a veneer of humility for a national audience. Read more

Strange Times

These are strange times to be a Yankee fan. Displaced on the throne of supremacy by our rival stepsister to the north, pinstripe aficionados from Passaic to Peekskill face another year fearing a certain opponent more than we are feared by them. Even if fans can muster a glint of consolation in snatching from Boston the moral high ground that comes with the territory of near misses and second-places finishes, an inflated payroll, and the equally inflated muscle mass of our players, makes any claim to underdog status ring hollow.

Where others might see darkness ahead, Searching for Michael Fishman see hopes. Hope not in Rodriguez's bat or Jeter's self-assured smile, but rather in a bespectacled office slave pouring over spreadsheets. Michael Fishman was hired by the Yankees to run their Statistical Research Department, a move greeted with cautious excitement by those who understand the the shortcomings of counting stats, and bemusement by those who believe Miguel Cairo was ever an adequate bench player. Since Cashman's blind leap into the hitherto unknown field of analytical research, an area previously considered anathema to the Yankee way, Fishman has not been seen or heard from. Prevented from speaking to the media by his secretive bosses, Fishman remains a spectre, a math messiah waiting to emerge.

And if the our recent signings are any indication -- the dependably VORP-free Mientkiewicz comes to mind -- Fishman remains not only invisible to the media but to his superiors as well. And yet we hope, we watch, we read Peter Abraham with an uncommon zeal, anything to keep at bay the creeping doubt that we may have lost the throne for good.

Strange times indeed. Read more