Out of Left Field

Just a friendly reminder that “Out of Left Field” is an occasional post about matters that may not need 1,000 words of deep dive analysis, but should be addressed anyway. There’s no need to recap what happened on the field this weekend in Denver, but I still can rant…uh, sorry…” discuss” some tangentially related items. In no particular order…

One of the tropes about hitting philosophy often espoused by Yankees fans and media is that the “HR or bust!” mentality might work in the regular season but doesn’t work in the playoffs, and that successful playoff teams “make more contact and put it in play”. This was almost verbatim what new Yankees hitting coach Sean Casey said upon his hire – that power teams beat up on bad pitching but against good pitching it’s the contact and high average guys that win.

As previously covered ad nauseam, that is factually untrue. But for funsies, let’s look at the logic.

Postseason teams, among other things, also have very good fielders. The “just put it in play and good things happen” i.e., hit weak groundballs and humpback liners strategy – against teams who can field groundballs and successfully throw the ball to first base – is a very bad strategy.

The Yankees batters, who had a higher batting average and struck out fewer times in both losses this weekend, only had moderate* success because Colorado’s defense…is…awful. Just putting it in play against a team that overthrows cutoff men, forgets to cover bases, fields grounders with their forearms and consistently throws the ball at the fans down the right field line might work. I promise you that if you do that against Tampa Bay, Houston, or Texas, you will get shut out.

(*“Moderate” is being generous. 13 non ghost runner runs over three games against horrible pitching, worse defense, in the easiest park in MLB to score runs is pathetic.)

If you draw walks and hit the ball hard, you win. If you don’t do those things, you lose. Period.

Speaking of continuing nonsensical discussions…

“Fire Boone” was trending again last night. Again, the silliness of this has been discussed ad nauseam, so let’s attack it from a different angle:

If you’re so inclined, look at the rosters of San Diego and the Mets. They are both loaded and have been largely healthy this season. It’s almost impossible to argue the Yankees have as good of a roster as either team, and it’s literally impossible to say the Yanks haven’t been affected more by injuries.

Yet as we stand here today, the Yankees are six games better than both the Padres and the Mets, and remarkably both Buck Showalter and Bob Melvin somehow still have good reputations. Certainly good enough that calls for their firing aren’t trending – despite with 42 combined seasons at the helm, they have the same number of World Series appearances as Aaron Boone.

Somewhat related, Houston has gotten 89 games combined from Yordan and Altuve, and massive underachievement from Pena, Abreu and Bregman – and they’re only two games behind one of the best teams in baseball in the AL West. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – Dusty Baker is the best MLB manager in any of our lifetimes.

By the power of Tony LaRussa’s 40 year grift on MLB, I command you: Stop giving credit to managers who win with loaded rosters and stop harping on managers who overachieve with problematic rosters, because that’s a heck of a lot harder to do.

One more thing, while I’m being overly officious…

 I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Ignoring sports radio was the best thing I’ve ever done for my baseball mental health. Getting MLB.tv is the second best. Given the current climate with the Yankees, seeing games with teams who play good baseball, that you aren’t emotionally invested in is a wonderful reminder of how great the game is. Highly recommended, especially this time of the year when it’s highly discounted.

Did I miss something? Let me know. Leave a comment below or yell at me @mybaseballpage1 on Twitter and/or the “My Baseball Page” on Facebook.