(Something about the Yankee bullpen pitching five scoreless innings, the grittiness of Brett Gardner’s sliding into first base starting that five run eighth inning rally, and why you should never hang “Mission Accomplished” banners)

(Nolan’s only sad because Swisher decided to bunt.)

(Or what happens when you use so many pitchers in the bottom of the eighth and your best one never makes an appearance!)

Images via Fangraphs and Reuters. A more serious post in the morning. Maybe.

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After I woke up this afternoon this morning, I did what I usually do and hopped on Twitter, just to find that once again the MSM was playing on familiar stereotypes of the Yankees and their fans, and that got me thinking I wonder why all the Yankee fans I know are Yankee fans in the first place? I posed the question, and got many following responses, of which one theme predominates: Blood. Being a Yankee fan is as much in our blood as anything else familial…

Here are the responses; feel free to add your own in the comments.

@mong82191: Yankee fan since 1991

@firstheart42: I’m a Yankee fan because my grandma is a Yankee fan.

@jwcole22: Same reason [as me]. And I’m from Jersey. Plus, Donnie Baseball is still my freakin’ hero.

@5States: I’m a Yankee fan because my dad was. My dad was because his dad was. He was because PAYROLL PAYROLL MONEY MONEY MONEY!!

@stacegotsu: My bronx bred dad =)

@rebexarama: I’m a Yankee fan because my mom is, and we’re from near the Bronx.

@Joshua_Nubz: I’m a Yankee fan because my grandpa isss.

@kelsodonnell: My Dad took me to my first Yankee game in 1998. I was sold after that.

@storm2k: I kind of fell into it on my own.

@Yankeemeginphl : My whole family is from the Bronx. All Yankee fans. It’s in the blood.

@Cardbandits: My dad is a Yankee fan because of me. As an immigrant to this country he didn’t pay much attention to sports.

@sgreen3: Dad

@Yankees626: I’m a fan because of my dad. Oh and because I’ve lived in NY my whole life and they’re the hometown team.

@angie_d21 : Never watched baseball till ’96 (I was 8). My dad was watching WS and I got really into it. He took me to get my first Jeter shirt and the rest is history.

@monbud: My grandpa saw DiMaggio, my dad saw Mantle, and I saw Jeter.

@greggferrara: Watching Mattingly and crew on PIX when I was 6 and I was hooked. Still remember the bat into the hat.

@mdelcorso: I’m a Yankee fan because the Yankees were on free cable and the Mets weren’t…grandparents were/are Dodgers (then Mets) fans.

@rebel_u: It’s all Catfish Hunter’s fault! Not in my blood, only Yankee fan in the family. *shrugs*

@nerfsqueezer: I came out of the womb a Yankees fan.

@gmat2: 4th generation for my brother and I.

@apollo22237: My dad was a huge fan, he always tells me stories about games he was at like the Reggie Jackson 3 hr game.

@flipflopflying: Because the Yankees, not Mets, were at home when I asked a work colleague in NY to take me to a baseball game.

@metsgrrl: and I’m *not* a Yankee fan because my father was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan & to this day will not set foot in Yankee Stadium.

@nyyeric: Gator and Bucky Dent made me a Yankee fan. The rest is history.

@ayschneck: My dad wasn’t a baseball fan. I’m not even sure how I became a Yankee fan, it’s just always been that way since I can remember.

@britslo: I’m a Yankee fan cause my dad, uncles and grandfather are. My dog was named “Donnie Baseball”. It’s nothing but a family thing.

@roo370: Yankee fan for 55 years. My mom taught me baseball. She was a Twins fan. Since I was 7 Mickey Mantle is still my favorite.

@nyylovelyheidy7: I’m a Yankee fan because of my cousin @nyyfan1

@yankthemike: Believe it or not, Woody Allen movies made me a Yankee fan (Manhattan in particular).

@jerzdevil2000: Raised as a Yankee fan, born weeks before Chambliss hit the home run against the Royals.

@simplysmoov: Yankees helped me recover from Ewing’s finger roll in ’95.

@steeeeveo: I’m a Yankee fan because my brother in law is a huge Yankee fan, who is ~20 years older than me.

@yankeesgalaxy: I was destined to be a Yankee fan, they’re my kind of team.

@jay_jaffe: When I moved here in the mid 90s, Joe Torre showed class while Dallas Green was an asshat. Also, Yankee Stadium II >>> Shea.

@mekiromohamm: Grew up in the south, but my dad & youngest brother passed on the history and love of the organization! My older brother too!

@kanetakerfan4: My Mom’s a Yankee fan. Grew up in the Bronx, loved Reggie Jackson.

@woainidepigu: NYY fan because my dad used to watch. NYY big in Taiwan, even before CMW arrival. I started following when Irabu arrived.

@nestofrobins: I come from a long line of Dodgers & Mets fans. Yankees because cause my aunt’s husband loves the Yankees.

@riffraff513: I’m a Yankee fan because of Andy Pettitte. He came up and instantly I just loved watching him pitch, how he played the game.

So, how about you?

***

Come back for an ALCS Preview Livechat at 8 pm eastern tonight.

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At my parents’ home, in what’s now my nephew’s nursery, next to all kinds of awards and plaques, there was once a photograph. There was my grandfather, a long time family friend, and in the middle between them, a middle-aged, slightly overweight (or was it the clothes?) blond-haired man. Smiling brilliantly, with beaming eyes, this man was not just the focus of the photograph, but also indelibly a performer–a man who knew that the photo was being taken just because he was in it.

For most of my childhood, the picture was there, and I never questioned it. Never asked who the man was in the center, and instead concentrated more of my attention on my grandfather, who died when I was not quite three, and was thus a man I never really knew.

At some point, though–and I can’t mention exactly when because I do not remember–I learned that the man in the center of the picture was none other than Mickey Mantle.

I was incredulous–this man in the picture could not have possibly been the same man that I’d seen in those black and white photographs of #7, in those grainy video clips of half a century ago–and yet, it was. My memory was thus irrevocably altered.

So, in her new book The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the end of America’s Childhood, Jane Leavy argues that our memories, individual and collective, are corrupted by the Mantle we wish to know–there’s the heroic Mantle, the baseball player that hit the façade, the one that hit the baseball out of Griffith Stadium, there’s the Mantle with the blown-out knee, the Mantle that drank himself more or less to death–and thus the real Mantle, the one who was all of these things, a god in public and something of a failed Odysseus in private, is the one that constantly eludes us.

Leavy’s biography is not written as a traditional biography might be, as she prefers instead to examine different turning points, as one might call them, in Mantle’s life and career, using these to jump off into discussions about the different topics that arise when one discusses Mantle. While this approach means that Leavy can do away with much of the filler that can bog down a traditional biography, it also means that there is an assumption that the reader already knows the basics of Mantle: the boy from Commerce, OK, the devastating injury his rookie year, the descent into alcoholism, etc.

At certain points, having never before read a biography of Mantle, I wondered if what I was reading was in fact common knowledge, or if it was instead something that had never before been made public. Take this bit, for example, from page 333

[Mantle] told her that when Mutt and Lovell went out to a Friday-night barn dance, her teenage daughter, Anna Bea, babysat for her half-siblings. He was four or five years old when she began molesting him, pulling down his pants and fondling him while her friends, “teenagers and older” giggled and smirked.

Allegations of the sexual abuse of one of New York’s golden boys could not in today’s media go unreported, and yet there is no mention of this on Mantle’s Wikipedia page, nor among any of my fellow friends’ recollections. Have I missed something, or has Leavy come up with something entirely new? I feel almost as though I need to visit the library just to do further research on the matter.

Leavy’s approach enables her to cast an exceptionally wide net, one that allowed her to write about the physics and kinetics of one particular home run as much as Mantle’s medical history or more-or-less arranged marriage to Merlyn at the insistence of his domineering father. Some will enjoy this, but no doubt there will be others that wish Leavy had focused more on one aspect or another. The overall effect is to create a balanced portrait, one that tries not so much to judge Mantle as it is one in which she tries to reconcile her perceptions of Mantle with what actually occurred.

I found myself most captivated by Leavy’s description of Mantle’s infamous knee injury, suffered after he caught a drain at the old Yankee Stadium. Her description of the actual injury is quite graphic, so I won’t quote it here, but you can find it on pp 103-121. It’s not just the extent of the knee injury that fascinates–if you watch a clip of any other athlete tearing their ACL, they usually end up in clearly visible agony–but that even given the medical techniques available at the time (ie, no arthroscopic anything), Mantle was still able to play season after season.

Indeed, a cursorary b-ref search shows just one season after his rookie year in which he failed to play at least 100 games, that of 1963. For someone whose father died shy of 40 because of a cancer likely spurred on by appalling mining conditions, and whose own late life would require a liver transplant, Mantle in his prime must have been something akin to a Greek god to withstand both the kind of pain he must have endured as well as putting up the numbers he did.

In the latter half of her biography, Leavy does not shy away from Mantle’s troubled private life, from his infidelities that ultimately took their toll on Merlyn, to his own sons’ issues with alcohol and drug abuse, a scathing reminder of that biblical verse which promises that the sins of the fathers will be visited upon the sons. Mantle emerges like a boy, not a man: someone who has been so shielded from reality during his playing days, by the media, team and public that was all too willing to give him a free pass, that he couldn’t comprehend the damage his absence was doing to his family. Like a child, Mantle does not acknowledge the consequences of his actions until it is too late, and the results are disastrous.

In the end, Leavy’s book makes you feel for Mantle, for the boundless potential that could never quite be reached after that injury–think about that for a second, that Mantle, great as he was, could have been even better–, for the lack of guidance from the right places when he needed it most, for the boy who was so much and the man who needed so much more.

Legalese: As you probably figured out, I received a review copy of the book from the publisher. Now don’t fine me, FTC.

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That’s the 2010 ALDS Game 3 Final Out. Apologies for the low quality, forgot to adjust the camera.

You can view the entire set of (much better) photographs at http://flickr.com/firerosearien

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The baseball playoffs are just three days old, but already there seem to be certain things that we’ve, if not necessarily learned anew, then have had reinforced to the point where it’s almost comical.

1) What postseason jitters?

In their first career postseason starts, Roy Halladay, Tim Lincecum and CJ Wilson were all fantastic–of course, Halladay’s no-hitter and Lincecum’s 14-strike out game, with game scores of 94 and 96 respectively, exist on a different level entirely.

In fact, it’s going to be a fun question to ponder–which pitcher had the better game?

Lincecum’s bevy of strikeouts argues that he had better pure swing-and-miss stuff (and he had a lot of those, swings and misses, 31 total), but the Reds never came close to hitting Halladay–their hardest hit baseball came off the bat of their pitcher, Travis Wood.

Halladay’s stuff was so good, that by the fifth inning the tweets were telling everyone to call friends and neighbors, that the one walk seemed an unfortunate aberration more than anything else.

You also have to consider that the Reds offense is invariably considered better than the Braves’, and that AT&T Park plays bigger than Citizens Bank Ballpark.

Then again, when you’re striking out fourteen batters, you could be pitching in a silo and it still wouldn’t matter.

There’s also that the Giants won that game 1-0, the lone run scoring after the umpire botched a call at second base, which brings me to point number two

2) The umpires are not very good.

Yesterday, in the River Ave Blues chat, RAB writer Mike Axisa mentioned that umpires are loathe to toss managers from postseason games, and yet yesterday two managers were so ejected.

No one is blaming the managers.

So far we have egregious strike zones in the Rays/Rangers and Yankees/Twins series, Greg Golson’s should-have-ended-the-game catch, Posey’s-steal-but-he-was-out of second that eventually scored last night’s only run, a nice summation of Hunter Wendelstedt’s inconsistent zone last night, Carlos Peña’s hbp-but-was-he-really, so on and so fourth.

There are six umpires assigned to postseason series.

Get it right, or go get robots.

3) The Yankees own the Twins in postseason play.

I’ve been over the tropes in my recaps, but when Minnesota’s scored first in eight straight games and lost all eight, you kind of have to start to wonder if maybe the Twins are hoping that just once the Yankees score first, or something.

Like the games last season (with the exception of last year’s ALDS game one), these games have been close and decided in the seventh inning on, where the Minnesota bullpen simply has no match for the Yankees’ relievers, even the ones not named Mariano Rivera.

You almost hate to give credit to the idea that the Yankees’ are in the Twins head, but barring a spectacular collapse on the part of the Yankees, you almost have to wonder if maybe the Yankees played down for the Wild Card…okay, it’s unlikely, but it’s hard to argue that thus far the Twins in round one has made for a much better outcome than the Rangers in round one may have been.

4) The Rays are not infallible. Much was made that the winner of the AL East was arguably the best team in the American League, but not only have the Rays lost the first two games of their ALDS matchup, you can argue that they’ve hardly even competed.

Part of this is no doubt due to the stellar pitching of Cliff Lee and CJ Wilson, but Tampa’s first two starters, David Price and James Shields, haven’t held onto their end of the bargain, allowing Texas to stake to large leads early, giving the Rangers’ pitchers all they need to get their job done.

Yankee fans are no doubt rooting for the Rays to win the next two games and thus force a game five, and thus hopes of “tiring out” their potential ALCS opponent (assuming the Yankees hold up their end of the bargain), but now it’s the Rangers that have the benefit of heading home, and all the confidence in the world…

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(Minnesota vs Yankees tropes checklist: 1) Minnesota scores first, check. 2) Yankees come back and score more, check. 3) Yankee bullpen is better than the Twins bullpen, check. 4) Umpires do something stupid, check.)

Since all the important tropes are checked and this is in every way the exact kind of Twins-Yankees game that gets played in the postseason, let’s talk about these things three: Andy Pettitte, Curtis Granderson, Lance Berkman.

Andy Pettitte: Seven innings, five hit, two run ball. Easily his best pitching performance since returning from the DL and a vintage Pettitte postseason start. Not perfect, but filled with double plays, gettings-of-clutch-outs, makings-of-pitches and nerves (and stares) of steel.

Okay, seriously: Pettitte looked fantastic. Any qualms about whether he or Hughes should have started game two seem to have been fully set aside, because now if Minnesota wins games three and four (possible, though, it would seem unlikely), the Yankees can rest assured that their vaunted postseason lefthander is healthy and ready to take the mound game five.

The Hudson home run was a bad pitch, but almost everything else worked flawlessly, especially after the second inning when he escaped a jam giving up just one run.

Curtis Granderson: Look, I know giving hitting coaches lifetime contracts is ill-advised, but in this case I’d be willing to make an exception.

Since his mid-August Long-ian retreat, Granderson has been on fire and shows no signs of abating now. He came up with one of, if not the biggest hits of the game last night, and tonight hit the double that eventually scored the Yankees’ first run.

The only blemish was a bunt that may not have needed to be made in tonight’s game, as he otherwise went three-for-four, and is now batting .500/.500/.875 in the postseason. Yeah, two games is a small sample size and ultimately insignificant, but he has been phenomenal in the first two games.

Lance Berkman: The Big Puma, in his first postseason game in pinstripes, hit a home run that gave the Yankees their first lead tonight and then the RBI double that gave them their second and final lead.

Want to know what’s crazy about how deep the Yankees’ line up is this postseason? Berkman, a formal All-Star, and the offensive hero of tonight’s game, was hitting eighth.

Eighth.

Oh, and while we’re on the theme of Cashman’s 2010 acquisitions striking gold tonight, how utterly dominant was Kerry Wood in the eighth inning?

Yikes!

Now the Yankees head back home, up two-games-to-none, and can potentially clinch a spot in the LCS on Saturday.

Only one team has ever come back from losing the first two LDS games at home to win the series. You may remember–it was the 2001 Yankees that did it.

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Let’s go over the tropes, shall we?

+ Minnesota takes the early lead

–In every ALDS game last season, Minnesota scored first.
—Minnesota scored first today, jumping out to a 3-0 lead, which looked unbreakable as long as Francisco Liriano was on his game. In the first couple innings, Liriano looked downright unhittable. So the Yankees did what the famed Yankee teams of the late 90s and early 00s would do, they waited, working the pitch count until Liriano was over 100 pitches in the sixth inning, and then took advantage of his tired arm.

+ Yankee bullpen comes up big, Minnesota’s does not.

–Game two of last year’s ALDS comes to mind, the eleven inning affair the Yankees eventually won after heroics from David Robertson and other bullpen members. Tonight, after a mediocre kept-them-in-the-game-for-six performance from Sabathia, Boone Logan, David Robertson, Kerry Wood and Mariano Rivera combined to keep the Twins scoreless in a two run game. On the flip side, Jesse Crain surrendered a two run home run to Mark Teixeira that proved to be the difference–last year, in game two, Joe Nathan first allowed Alex Rodriguez to tie the game in the ninth inning, and then Jose Mijares served up Teixeira’s down-the-line game winner.

+ The Yankee offense is the Yankee offense.

–Every Yankee starter except Gardner and Thames had a hit tonight, and those two reached via a walk each. The Yankees didn’t score till the sixth inning, but when they broke through, the crowd at Target Field went so quiet that when Granderson tripled and Teixeira homered you could have been excused if you had thought those clutch hits were instead outs. The Twins have legitimate hitters that can compete with anyone, a franchise player in Mauer and future Hall of Famer in Thome, but the Yankees led the Majors in runs scored this season, and showed why tonight.

+ Umpiring controversy

–Last year it was a foul ball that was fair, this year a fly ball caught on a shoe-string grab by Greg Golson that was ruled a trap instead of a catch. Had it been correctly called a catch it would have ended the game; since it was a trap it meant that Mariano Rivera, who’d already thrown twenty pitches for the four out save attempt, had to now pitch to Jim Thome with a runner on first.

Fortunately, for Yankee fans, Thome popped up on the first pitch and a crisis was averted…

+ Minnesota can’t win in Minnesota.

–The Twins are now 0-6 vs the Yankees in the postseason at Minnesota.

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Josh Norris covers the Yankees’ AA affiliate, the Trenton Thunder for the Trentonian. He was kind enough to agree to an interview here; you can read his “Minors Matters” blog here.

Which position player impressed you the most and why?

This is easy. It has to be Brandon Laird. Based on his impressive work in the Arizona Fall League, I figured Laird would be a solid little ballplayer, but I never expected this.

I can’t really stress enough how difficult it is to hit a home run at Waterfront Park. He not only managed to do that consistently, but nearly all of his homers were soaring, majestic bombs that made me fear for my windshield.

He was one of the three players I’ve seen with the ability to make the stadium look small. The others were Jesus Montero (perhaps you’ve heard of him) and Jorge Vazquez.

He played a nice third base with a solid arm, but, as most of you know, will be transitioning to the outfield to maximize his potential.

I’m not sure if he has a place with the Yankees, simply because of their current outfield situation. Gardner and Swisher probably aren’t going anywhere for a while, so the only way I see him getting to New York is if Granderson leaves and Gardner moves to center (where he belongs). Other than that, he could be trade bait this offseason.

Which pitcher impressed you the most?

 I think the most impressive pitcher was Brackman, based on the absolutely rock-bottom expectations he had coming into the season. It would have been perfectly reasonable to see him spend all of 2010 Tampa, but he didn’t. He moved to Trenton and, after a brief adjustment period, dominated.

He topped at 98 with the heater and flashed a hook that, even from the elevated press box, looked really, really dirty. In his final game, in relief of Andy Pettitte, he held the Altoona Curve (the eventual league champions) to just a hit and a walk over five shutout frames.

The coup de grace came in the eighth, when an error put the winning run at second base with nobody out. With help from a one-out intentional walk, Brackman loaded the bags with just one down.

Earlier in the season, this would surely have led to a crooked number. This time, however, Brackman buckled down and coaxed an inning-ending double to keep alive his team’s chances in what wound up being the team’s final win.

The stuff was clearly there from day one, but his mental toughness grew by leaps and bounds as his Thunder tenure grew. That showed me a lot. He’s still got a bit to work on, but I think the Yankees may have scratched off the right lottery ticket with Andrew Brackman.

Of the Killer B’s (Brackman-Betances-Banuelos), which looks most polished/advanced?

I’m going to go with Banuelos, because of the extreme poise he showed as a 19-year-old in the playoffs. The game against New Hampshire really sealed it for me. Here he was, in a game with the potential for a clinch, against the best hitting team in the league, and he comes up nails.

He coupled high-90s heat with low-80s change-ups in his first start with the 80-pitch count removed, and in the process more than lived up to all the praise that was lavished on him during the offseason.
Moreover, his command of the English language was impressive, and his maturity with the media was very, very good. You don’t always see that out of prospects, particularly ones facing a real media contingent for the first time.

Romine started hot and then kind of fizzled. Still an elite prospect? What impact does Montero/Sanchez have on the way we percieve Romine?

At this point, I think Romine is a B+ prospect rather than an A. I wouldn’t be at all shocked to see him return to Trenton to begin the season. He has too much work to do as a hitter and a receiver, plus I think Montero will probably begin 2011 at Scranton for more work with the glove.

Romine did make excellent strides as a game-caller this year, and I still believe he will eventually take over for Posada down the road. That said, he will be 22 once next year opens, and that means there is PLENTY of time for him to develop. If that means Cervelli or Montero has to serve as a buffer for a year.

Ever thought Cervelli would stick in the majors as long as he has?

5. Absolutely not. He really hasn’t lit the world on fire with his bat, and I didn’t even give him that much credit when he left. He hit a blistering .190 during his brief time with Trenton, and seemingly got the promotion solely because of his spot on the 40-man. That he could have two World Series rings by the end of the year is an absolute shocker.

Which prospects heading to winter ball intrigue you the most? What about those listed with an unusual position, like Laird as an outfielder?

Because I really don’t know all of the names heading to the various winter leagues, I’ll stick to the AFL. The most intriguing, I think, is Craig Heyer. At 24, he was far too old for High-A. Still, he put up some pretty damn good numbers. In 92 innings, Heyer walked an astonishing six hitters and allowed one home run.

He doesn’t have overpowering stuff, but it will pretty interesting to see how his arsenal plays against some of baseball’s top talent. He could be a nice addition to the Trenton bullpen next year.

Which players are you most looking forward to seeing play next season? Which departed ones do you imagine you will miss most?

 Of the guys I didn’t see in Double-A last year, I am really looking forward to watching Graham Stoneburner. He is one of my absolute favorite players in the system, and really knocked my socks off when I saw him against Lakewood in early May.

That day, albeit against a very young, swing-happy BlueClaws team, he struck out 11 over seven two-hit innings. He allowed just two outs in the air all day long, and hit 95 miles per hour on his 95th and final pitch of the afternoon. He also displayed a tight slider that he could either bury or drop in for a strike.
He also flat-out dominated in Tampa throughout the rest of the season, and compiled a WHIP under 1.00, as well as a batting average against of just .209. He’s just another of the Yankees power arms, and Brett Marshall’s probably due for a taste of the upper levels toward the end of 2011 as well.

As far as hitters go, Melky Mesa and Brad Suttle are the obvious choices. Mesa, the T-Yanks’ center fielder and the Florida State League Player of the Year, displayed dynamic talent all year long. He placed in the top five in the organization in home runs (19), RBIs (74) and stolen bases (31). He does strike out a bit (129 in 121 games), which could hurt him when the pitching gets better.

As for Suttle, he appears to be fully back from shoulder surgery, and he showed it in the second half. After the All-Star break, Tampa’s third baseman hit a stellar .293/.369/.839 with nine of his 10 bombs. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him break out.

Of the ones who depart, obviously Brackman, because of his skill and because he is a genuinely nice guy. Aside from the obvious, I hope I’ll miss Josh Schmidt. He’s a great kid who has no business pitching another inning in Double-A.

Any plans to go to spring training and scout out the players at the minor league complex?

I sure hope so. I had a great time at spring training this year, but I really didn’t know what I was doing. I had never been there as a journalist or as a fan, and it certainly was an eye-opening experience. Pretty much every minor leaguer from Charleston to Scranton are scattered across four fields, with games and drills going on constantly.

I remember one of your colleagues once telling me that sabermetrics aren’t their choice when it comes to evaluating prospects. Where do you fall on the scout vs sabr spectrum?

When it comes to scouts vs. sabermetrics, I really don’t think you can go with one or the other. Scouts and stats are like peanut butter and jelly: Taken individually, both are good. Together however, they are so much better.

Let’s use Stoneburner as an example: Without seeing him, I could have told you he struck out 137 hitters last season and put up stellar statistics. When you sit behind the plate and really watch, however, you can see the way he places his fastball and the way his slider breaks. Numbers alone simply won’t tell you that.

That said, it’s always better to have more information at your disposal. Give me WHIP, give me FIP, give me WAR, give me WARP, give me VORP, I’ll take it all and use whichever metric I feel is most valid.

As for traditional metrics, let me just say this: Manny Banuelos fanned 85 men in 64 2/3 innings that spanned 15 regular-season starts. His record? 0-4.

Of course, they really don’t keep the really sabermetric stats for the minor leagues, so it’s kind of a moot point.

Biggest thing you learned this season?

I didn’t really learn it this year, but the Thunder’s season really reinforced just how important it is for a team to spend on player development. From David Phelps and D.J. Mitchell and Hector Noesi to Manny Banuelos, Dellin Betances, Andrew Brackman and Adam Warren, the Trenton rotation was a testament to the smart people the Yankees have spanning the globe for top-notch talent

Yes, the unlimited payroll is a pretty big advantage, but without spending some of it on the draft and international free agency, there’s no question the return on the investment would be significantly smaller.

Lastly, any parting words of wisdom for our readers?

Remember, it’s only a game.

******

Many thanks to Josh for taking the time to do this; come back for a playoff preview live chat, eight PM eastern time this evening.

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