Category: Baseball (Page 1 of 5)

Once again, we’ll return to the 50-Game Rule to see how things are going in the baseball season. So, how are the Yankees doing after 50 games?

The short answer: they’re doing fine, but not as well as last year.

The longer answer is that they’re doing better than I’d have expected. Yes, they’re only 30-20. But that’s good enough for a 5 game lead in the AL East and second best in the entire American League. Once you account for the fact that ace pitcher Gerrit Cole is sitting out the season with an injury and intended closer Devin Williams has struggled mightily, this is pretty remarkable.

Granted, a major reason why the Yankees are so far ahead in the division is that the rest of the AL East has struggled. The Orioles are inexplicably terrible, and the other three teams are playing .500 ball.

But the Yankees have plenty of merits to highlight. Obviously Aaron Judge is putting up yet another MVP season – one arguably even better than his 2024 season! That’s nothing short of remarkable. But it’s not only Judge. Max Fried has put together a Cy Young worthy season so far, and Luke Weaver stepped into the closer role without problems.

But the pleasant surprise of the season thus far, for me, has been Trent Grisham. The once light hitting Padres center fielder is putting up Juan Soto level numbers in the Bronx. I don’t know if that can last all season, but he has certainly filled the gap left by Soto so far.

Can the Yankees keep it up and compete as one of the best AL teams? The evidence so far suggests they can.

Image Source

When I started this blog, I listed baseball among the topics it would cover. I even included a tag for baseball on the side. But why baseball, on a politics blog?

Really, though, why not?

Sure, this is a blog about politics. But it’s also my blog. And baseball means a lot to me.

For one, baseball means childhood for me. It means the joys and struggles of childhood. I played competitive baseball in some form from about age 5 into my teenage years. It took up a key part of my summer from kindergarten until high school. And, of course, I spent much of that time watching a distant relative play on TV.

Baseball meant triumph and heartbreak. I put all my time into playing, and yet, at times, I shied away from it. Notoriously I would take myself out of games when the pressure became too great or I didn’t feel like I was playing at my best. But I always worked hard to be the best pitcher I could be.

I put in the work to win, but I always feared losing. Or embarrassing myself, or even getting struck by the ball when I stepped up to the plate as a hitter.

Finally, baseball means, to me, childhood in all its complexity and wonder. The facets of the game – the rules, the plays and possibilities, the stats, and the mental battle between pitcher and batter – all appealing to me.

Even today, baseball is the game for me. It’s the only sport that ever felt like mine. I watched many sports as a kid. But baseball was my sport.

I have to admit that, at times, I still imagine myself out there playing.

Image Source

Long time readers probably know about my 50-Game Rule. For anyone else, the rule says not to evaluate your favorite team until they’ve played 50 games. And it even has decent scientific support.

But we’re 50 games in already, so it’s time to say a word about the Yankees. And how are they doing?

In short, they look great so far! They’re playing without their staff ace, 2023 Cy Young winner Gerrit Cole. And they made fewer roster improvements over the off season than many of us would’ve liked to see.

But the players stepped up. The starting rotation has coalesced around a few Cole alternatives and guys having rebound years (Clarke Schmidt, Carlos Rodón). Juan Soto has brought a big bat to the lineup, especially with Aaron Judge hitting behind him. And, more than anything, the bullpen has consistently met and exceeded expectations.

Could things go wrong? Sure. To my eye, the team still pitches better than it hits. A hitting power outage down the stretch remains a risk. But so far, it’s hard not to really like this 33-17 team.

Image Source

An old baseball proverb says you shouldn’t check the MLB standings before Memorial Day. In my own version of this, I call it the 50-Game Rule. And while one might formulate it in a nuanced way, we can summarize it quickly. Don’t check the standings before your team plays 50 games!

Conveniently, that happens sometime around Memorial Day. And I use it every season to evaluate the Yankees.

However, I recently read the book Extra Innings, published by Baseball Prospectus. It covers stats-based answers to many of the common questions baseball fans and analysts ask. Among other questions, they asked how many games a team needs to play for us to predict its final record.

The answer: only 17 games! After 17 games, you can predict a team’s final record better than chance. But in order to get much more in-depth predictive value – in order to predict a team’s final record more accurately than looking at its past couple of seasons – the team needs to play 48 games.

Notably that hits very close to the 50-Game Rule. And so, the rule still works. More or less. And, of course, as a Yankees fan, I’m not interested only in predicting their final record. I want to know whether they’re a World Series contender. Surely that requires a larger number of games.

Image Source