Yankees Defy Their Advancing Age – Bats Blog – NYTimes.com
Posted by Sean Forman on October 14, 2009
Yankees Defy Their Advancing Age - Bats Blog - NYTimes.com
My latest for the NYTimes.com.
Posted by Sean Forman on October 14, 2009
Yankees Defy Their Advancing Age - Bats Blog - NYTimes.com
My latest for the NYTimes.com.
October 14th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
It seems that the Yankees just can't get out from under these old players. Even saying goodbye to Jeter they are still old. Letting Damon and Matsui walk as free agents this off-season will help but they've still quite a share of old-timers, as your article describes.
It's interesting that the Red Sox seem to be in the same cycle as the Yankees, just a few years behind. In the late 1990s, the Yankees rose to prominence based on the emergence of young home-grown players (Jeter, Posada, Rivera, and Pettitte mainly), won a few World Series and were a contender every year, but then gradually got older as those players aged and they signed older high-priced free agents. The Red Sox rose to prominence in the early 2000s based on their own minor-leaguers (Garciaparra, Varitek, Lowe, Nixon, then Youkilis, Pedroia, Lester, and Papelbon.) They now seem to be on the verge of getting pretty old, though, saddled with Varitek (37) Lowell (35), (Ortiz, questionable 33), Drew (33), Wakefield (42, not that it matters), as well as Youkilis and Victor Martinez already turning 30. They are at a crossroads where they need to sweep out at least some of the older players and get younger.
October 14th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
has anyone else noticed that along with leading the AL with most HRs, the Yankee hitters were also second to last in strike outs?! in fact they only had one strike out more than Baltimore. Otherwise they would have led in most HRs and least Ks. How about that?
by the way, it isn't only athletes who start to decline at 30...chess players do too: http://www.latimes.com/features/puzzles/chess/la-ca-chess2-2009aug02,0,5390170.story
October 14th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
and actually, the yanks did lead in HR% and least SO%...and lead the AL in both SO/BB ratio (with a terrific 1.53, a full 0.17 ahead of the 2nd best AL team) *and* AB/HR. Is Kevin Long that good? Or is it Gene Monahan?
October 17th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Steroids.
Angels just took the lead
October 18th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
steroids can explain many statistical anomalies, but excessively few strike outs? that's a stretch.