The Art Neuro Weblog

Post Mortem Autopsies
In my day as a medical student, we used to have autopsies as part of pathology. Unlike anatomy where they just gave you pre-cut bodies to play with, you get to see the opening up of a recently deceased human being who donated their bodies to science. The thing about autopsies that you never get a sense of in crime shows it that they stink. When the pathologist opens up the abdomen, you get to smell the shit inside; and the smell immediately fills the lecture theatre. Pong! It doth bend your nose. The thing is, everybody stinks like shit when you open them up.

In that spirit, I've lined up some autopsy reports on the 2004 Yankee season.
Steven Goldman of the YES network's Pinstriped Bible is the first man for Yankee critiques:

(1) As the Yankees farm system has suffered from poor drafting and general
neglect, with resources that should have been devoted to domestic scouting spent on expensive international free agents like Jose Contreras and Hideki Matsui, the major league team was forced to turn to expensive, aged veterans to staff out the roster.

(2) When these players broke down, as in the case of Jason Giambi, or simply failed, like Jose Contreras, not only did the organization have few replacements in the minors (and those they did have suffered from the organization’s traditional distrust of its own products), the absence of those players limited their ability to trade for help (which, circularly, they might not have needed had the farm been better tended). The usual lubricant for imbalanced trades, the addition of cash or acceptance of a bad contract, was apparently not an option.

Well, I agree with the general thesis that the farm did let down the Yankee system; however, it's a bit rough to say that it was the major reason the Yanks couldn't get it done. I also disagree with using Matsui as an example of the sort of International Free Agent that hurt the system; it was Jose Contreras who cost more (and for longer), who was a bust in his 18 months as a Yankee. The Yankees overestimated the value of a Cuban Ace, based on their success with El Duque (there can be only one) and underestimated the amount of adjusting a Japanese slugger would need to be a premiere hitter in the majors. Matsui certianly didn't cost them the series.

Larry Mahnken over at The Hardball Times has this to say.

The myth of Derek Jeter's clutchness was shattered, or at least it should be if you were paying attention. Coming into this ALCS, Jeter had a career Gross Production Average (GPA) of .289, and a career postseason GPA of .290. That could be spun as being clutch, since overall postseason batting is lower than regular season batting. This is usually true, but not always -- the overall postseason OPS was higher than the regular season OPS in 2002 and so far this year. Jeter's career OPS+ (without park adjustments) is 110, his career postseason OPS+ is 116. That's certainly better, but it's in too small a sample and too small a difference to be indicative of a special skill.However, in the seven postseason series in which Jeter had done poorly in before the ALCS, the Yankees had won all but one, and in the one they lost, 2001, he had hit a game-winning home run which became the lasting memory of him in that series.

But in this ALCS, Jeter posted a .567 OPS, and batted only .200. He had a three-run double in Game 5, and an RBI single in Game 6, but for the most part he did nothing when he was needed. Throughout the series, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver talked about Jeter leaving his mark on the series -- well, his .567 OPS left a pretty deep
one.Jeter's a very good player, but there's nothing magical about him. Just like every player, he has bad streaks at inopportune times. That's just the way it is, and people should stop pretending it isn't.

Well, I did watch Jeter and I thought he was clutch. That double came at a time when the Yankees needed it. In past years, the Yankees would have made that 2-run lead in the 8th stick and there'd be no discussions right now. Yes, I know what the numbers say; I'm not denying it, but Derek's 'non-clutchness' in this series didn't lose it for the Yankees. It was Tom Gordon and his 'non-clutchness' in Games 4 and 5 that did in the Yankees. Okay, the bunt in the 8th inning of Game 5 was just unacceptable, but so thinks others such as Harvey Araton at the New York Times as well as the Futility Infielder, Jay Jaffe.

Harvey Araton thinks that Jeter shouldn't defer to an undeserving A-Rod.

Two innings earlier, Jeter had stepped in against a weakening Pedro Martínez with the bases loaded, two out and the Yankees trailing by a run. From the television in my New Jersey den came a prediction from Joe Buck or Tim McCarver - can't remember which - that Jeter, his average down around .200, was going to put his stamp on the series, sooner or later. And just like that, with an opposite-field stroke that has served him so well for all of his major league days, Jeter laced a drive down the right-field line, clearing the bases, giving the Yankees their two-run lead.
Jeter, the captain and still the indisputable heart of George Steinbrenner's $180 million masterpiece, one of the last remaining links to a Torre-managed team that defined the concept of clutch, stood at second, his fist characteristically clenched.

Of all the Yankees, in uniform and out, Jeter has most often acknowledged the drifting of time, four years and counting since the last triumphant World Series, and made the candid distinction between then and now. From his privileged, double-stall perch in the Yankees' clubhouse, he has witnessed the turnover of position players, the parade of pitchers, and been ever so reluctant to misidentify any for the compatriots with whom he won four rings.

Jay Jaffe puts the numbers down on the table and calls a bad bunt for what it is.

Likewise, seven division titles, six pennants and four rings do not buy Joe
Torre a free pass for his mismanagement over the last four games, particularly
with regards to his complacency toward lineup construction and laissez-faire attitude toward Jeter's bunting (I see the Yanks' chances having gone straight downhill after the Captain's Game Five eighth-innig bunt following Cairo's leadoff double -- it was their best chance to score in what turned out to be a stretch of 14 scoreless innings for the Yankee offense, a stretch that decided the series as much as Game Seven did). Those same credentials do not buy Mel Stottlemyre a free pass for failing to
iron out the flaws in too many pitchers who endured second-half collapses. And the myth that Torre, Jeter, and Rivera somehow possess innate, superhuman, Championship-winning qualities must now be laid to rest, along with -- it would appear -- the Curse of the Bambino.

It wasn't the bad bunt that did in the Yanks - it wasn't even the offense that spluttered in the last 4 games. It was the failure to hold the leads in game 4 and 5. Now that, brings me to this interesting account by Bob Klapisch at ESPN.

That 6-0 deficit indeed ruined the Yankees, who spent six innings demonstrating
just how wide the gulf was between them and the 1996-2000 core. Other than Derek Jeter, no Yankee got the ball out of the infield against Derek Lowe. Instead, the images of the Yankees' lack of heart were everywhere -- from Hideki Matsui leading off the second inning swinging at a borderline 2-0 pitch, despite being down by six runs; to A-Rod being booed by Yankees fans after his final at-bat of the season; to Tom Gordon, who, according to one team source, was so unnerved by October pressure that he was throwing up in the bullpen during Game 6.

Of course, Torre can also argue that he delivered the Yankees to the doorstep of a sweep. And he's right: Mariano Rivera was standing on the mound with a one-run lead in the ninth inning of Game 4. It's not Torre's fault that Rivera issued Kevin Millar a five-pitch walk that eventually tied the game and sent it into extra innings.

But in Game 5, Torre inexplicably allowed the shriveling Gordon to keep pitching in the eighth inning after David Ortiz's leadoff HR. Rivera, who was already warming up, remained in the bullpen as Gordon walked Millar and allowed Trot Nixon a hit- and-run single that put runners on first and third. Only then did Torre make a move, asking Rivera to accomplish a miracle -- keeping the Red Sox from tying the game, which he could not.

Tom Gordon found himself in October, wracked by the pressure. As Reggie Jackson once said, "They don't pay for the 100 wins in the regular season. They pay you for the 11 wins in October". Fear of Success, Fear of Failure. Whatever it was, Tom Gordon's mental failure killed the Yankees. No lead would be safe in the 8th inning. Nothing after Game5 could hold; the rest of it was irrelevant, just a coda to a roster that had one weak link; the mind of Tom Gordon.
If it's blame and flame, then I blame him, and the scouts who recommended Tom Gordon as the 8th innning set-up man for Mariano Rivera. Who said character didn't matter? The glare of October baseball found poor Tom Gordon wanting. Pity the man who found out he didn't have what Reggie Jackson had.
But then Reggie did make a famously bad bunt once too.

- Art Neuro