Interesting Yankees Observation

Azizal · #1 08-01-2007, 04:21 PM

I was thinking about the sexy young arms the Yankees have, and it occurred to me that it's been quite some time since the Yanks have had several young players burst onto the scene at the same time. Obviously, in the mid 90's there was that sick crop of dudes who won a few titles. Jeter, Posada, Bernie, Pettitte, Rivera et al were all home grown and arrived fairly near each other. Since that time, the Yanks stopped bringing up talent, preferring to ship it off for major league ready players to keep the machine rolling. Shipping off the young guys slowly was soon supplemented by throwing enormous sums of money at huge players like A-Rod (I realize he was traded for), Giambi, Mussina, Matsui, Damon, Sheffield etc. Most of these moves worked out, but a few did not. This morphed the Yankees from a ridiculous force into a regular old force (extra emphasis on old, couldn't resist).

Here's a thesis point: you need youth to win in the playoffs (preferably young hitting and old pitching, really). Young player skills are huge in a low run environment. This, imo is why the Yanks kept getting to the playoffs but no longer dominating them. They got beaten pretty squarely by the young Marlins, and tho the D'backs series was close, an established closer (instead of Kim) would've easily made that series 4-2 or 4-1.

Another interesting factor is this. The Yankees have run out of players to throw money at (I don't think this is a bad policy, I wish the Braves had that much money) Some of the guys they have are not worth the money they cost, and no one will take them in trade because of said massive contracts(Giambi, Damon) so the Yanks are stuck with them for now. There is a huge silver lining, which may or not be related: this has forced them, in a way, to hang onto their youth.

I think part of it is that the young guys the Yanks were routinely shipping off were not as good as the Hughes, Joba, EWar, Cano type guys, but I think my theory holds water despite this.

I'm sure there are people on this forum who know the Yankees much better than I, but I thought this was an interesting set of theories/dynamics and was curious what others think.

THAY3R · #2 08-01-2007, 04:27 PM

I think you are way undervaluing the amount of luck there is in the playoffs. In the 90's the Yankees were very very lucky to win the amount of titles they did, and in the 2000's they were very very unlucky to never win a title.

Although you do have a point about youth, teams need to have lots of young players, though not for the reason you stated. They need them for salary reasons. I know it doesn't effect the Yankees as much as every other team, but having alot of very good players at the minimum or extremely cheap allows you to go out and buy/over pay for other pieces that will be difference makers while keeping your payroll under control.

Azizal · #3 08-01-2007, 04:41 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I think you are way undervaluing the amount of luck there is in the playoffs. In the 90's the Yankees were very very lucky to win the amount of titles they did, and in the 2000's they were very very unlucky to never win a title.

Although you do have a point about youth, teams need to have lots of young players, though not for the reason you stated. They need them for salary reasons. I know it doesn't effect the Yankees as much as every other team, but having alot of very good players at the minimum or extremely cheap allows you to go out and buy/over pay for other pieces that will be difference makers while keeping your payroll under control.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't underestimate the amount of luck in the playoffs, but you're right that it was a factor and I should've mentioned it.

The Yankees certainly seemed to get a little bit lucky in '96 (*cry*). But they absolutely steamrolled '98, '99, and '00. Even for someone like me who appreciates the value of running hot in the playoffs, it's hard to call 12-1 in 13 straight world series games luck. That's like, serious domination or something. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] But even luck can account for that. I would claim that the best team won each of those three years, and that they were the better team when losing to the Marlins. I think the D'backs were the better team in '01, FWIW.

I agree that the salary/youth issue is a bigger factor than what I have presented, but us educated fans pretty much know that already. I was looking for other, less apparent reasons.

onlinebeginner · #4 08-02-2007, 12:19 AM

Azizal... it still takes some "luck" for the best team to win 3 in a row...

also why are young players better in low scoring games

I am one of the few on this site that think "small ball" is more of a factor in the postseason than the regular season due to the better pitching, and more low scoring games.... however even I don't think its THAT big of a deal

ALSO i still don't see what this has to do with youth.. young players are better at producing runs... just because of speed i guess???

i dunno as a whole i would say your post made no sense

owsley · #5 08-02-2007, 12:30 AM

I hate these discussions about the yankees. in the 4 games the yankees lost in 03 against the marlins, 2 were by 1 run and 2 were by 2 runs. A few tiny things turn out different and they win. If they capitalized on any number of things in 04, they would have gotten to play the weaker cardinals in the world series. if they win in either of those years, we would never be having this discussion. I dont even want to think about what the yankees odds of winning the 04 series were late in game 4 of the alcs with a lead up 3-0, but it was pretty high. They lose some coinflips and everyone starts going nuts bashing their construction and Arod. They win a coinflip, and this discussion never happens.