Jimmy Sez

This post is part of a series that includes material originally written for  The New York Yankees All-Time All-Stars  but had to hit the cutting room floor prior to publication. For other posts in the series you can search for the label "Author's Cut" on this site. “He knew how to hold a ball club together. He was a master psychologist. I thought he was a very brilliant man in many ways. He’d leave one player alone. He’d get one mad. Like Yogi he’d leave alone, and me he’d get mad all the time.” – Billy Martin The New York Yankees were at a crossroads in 1949. They had enjoyed unthinkable success under Joe McCarthy in the 1930’s and early 1940’s, but in the five years from 1944 through 1948 they had won only one World Series and were underwhelmed by Bucky Harris’ two-year stint as manager. Instead they handed the keys over to Casey Stengel, who in nine years as a manger in the National League compiled a record that stood 161 games below .500 and never finished bett...

This post is part of a series that includes material originally written for  The New York Yankees All-Time All-Stars  but had to hit the cutting room floor prior to publication. For other posts in the series you can search for the label "Author's Cut" on this site. In the first   two  parts of this series the focus was on position players and how their value is translated into wins. Pitchers are up next as we conclude this primer on WAR. As mentioned in the previous two installments, if you want to dig even deeper into WAR, Baseball Reference's  WAR Explainer   is recommended reading. Runs Surrendered The total number of runs given up by the pitcher, whether they were deemed earned or not. Down the road this will be compared to the average expected runs surrendered by the pitcher to arrive at a wins total. Fielding Adjustment Astute observers probably noticed that unearned runs are included in the pitcher’s total from the outset and cried foul. Th...

Last month the Baseball Hall of Fame released their  2020 Modern Baseball Era ballot . The 10-man group includes three players that spent all, or at least a significant portion, of their careers with the Yankees. Tommy John, Don Mattingly, and Thurman Munson have all had their Hall of Fame candidacies thoroughly debated the conventional way by the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA). They each spent the maximum of 15 years on the writers' ballot without getting particularly close to the 75% of the vote required for election. Now, these three former Yanks will have their cases re-opened and examined by a special 16-member committee comprised of current Hall of Famers, MLB executives, and media members. If at least 12 of the committee members give the thumbs up on any player, they will be enshrined in Cooperstown next summer. Here we'll take a close look at the Hall of Fame resumé for each player to gauge their chances of election. To help give perspective, the JA...