Well, you have to admire their consistency.

“The Yankees have been relentlessly mediocre this season, and the loss moved their record a game under .500, at 30-31. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the Yankees are just the third team to have a .500 record at least 20 times through the first 60 decisions of a season” from NY Times 6/7

Damn, that’s a depressing chart.

I’ll repost this from the last, very brief comment thread:

128 MLB batters have come to the plate at least 100 times with men on base.
What can we learn from this information, you ask?

In the interest of saving time, I’ve provided, for your reading pleasure, an abridged version of that list, ordered by OPS:

————————AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
128.  Robinson Cano 109 22 21 4 0 1 17 1 3 5 13 .193 .226 .257 .483

Only Abreu, on the Yanks, has more PA with RISP.
The MLB average for RISP is .267 .346 .414 .759

Now, it’s easy to cherry-pick a single stat, but wow—Cano’s performance has cost us a hell of a lot.  How many wins do we pick up replacing his spot in the lineup with an MLB-average performance?

Must bring back Larry Bowa

It’s never a good sign when your team’s yearly win percentage can be represented with a simple sine wave…

Looks to me more like it’s assymptotically approaching a (1/x)*sin(x)

That’s the 2nd time the word assymptotically has been used on this blog in two days.

Has it been misspelled both times?

I believe so.

I’d say the Yankees winning % represents a very critically damped system.

Hey, give me a break. I doubt you would know how to type portuguese anybetter.

cadre jiner poah

Ha, I just laughed at this:

  Mariano Rivera has been just about perfect in save situations and far from it otherwise. Closers are such creatures of habit that it almost throws them when there’s not a lead to protect.

Yes, I’m sure Mo was just disoriented because there wasn’t a lead to protect.  It’s such a bright and scary world in non-save situations.

I’d say the Yankees winning % represents a very critically damped system.

Sounds like someone just pulled in a B- in their Automatic Control Systems class! The beginning vaguely represents critical damping; there’s too much noise past about game 38. Plus, win/loss ratio could never really demonstrate critical damping. The team always has to win or lose a game, so they’re going to consistently fluctuate around the .500 line, but never come to complete rest on it. You big silly!

Lil’ David Eckstein just ended the Ms-Jays game in an extremely gritty, gutty, and possibly scrappy fashion.

He flew out with the bases loaded and his team down by one.

Anyone see Dontrelle Willis’ “start” today?  Wow, was that brutal.  He walked 5 guys and only got 2 outs!  Gave up two homes too!  Is there any reasonable explanation as to why Detroit gave him a 3 year extension? He wasn’t this bad before, but he wasn’t good to say the least.

Sorry, 4 outs.  I’m tired.

Congrats to Ken Griffey Jr. I don’t understand how someone couldn’t like this guy.

Wow, NoMaas is now trying to be FJM- and they suck at it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U2xkHOTvvw

could be cool

Time to rid this site of the Clay Bellinger line.

Time for some positive thinking as well on this website. Too much namby-pamby whining.

We’re Yankees fans!!!

We play today, we win.

In defense of Nomaas (which, I will say, I believe jumped the shark about a year ago), they posted a truly amazing bit about Pete Abe yesterday.  Man, he’s busted.

Pardon my dangling modifier.

(I’ll pardon yours.)

For anyone interested, there is a chat with Damon Oppenheimer at 2pm today.

This is a team of destiny….destined to finish 0.500.  We’ve waited two months for the offense to be whole, and now it is - recently averaging 6 runs/game. The weather is warmer, the schedule is easier. Yet they still find a way to lose 2 of 4 to KC at home. And in those two losses, the starting pitcher only allows 2 runs. It’s destiny I tell you.

Wow, NoMaas is now trying to be FJM- and they suck at it.

What is FJM?

Fire Joe Morgan baseball site/blog.  I think there’s a link to it off of the home-page.

Not only did the starter allow only two runs in the pair of games the Yanks lost to Kansas City, but both times they pitched EIGHT innings!  To waste two such pitching performances eats me alive.  Having said that, I’ll quietly return to my dissertation now.

And Ian O’Connor is truly a dunce.  This is the same man who claimed Cashman was “waving the white flag” by not trading for Eric Gagne last season.  Do any of these columnists ever admit their caterwauling was absolute nonsense after the fact?  My guess would be no.

Do any of these columnists ever admit their caterwauling was absolute nonsense after the fact?  My guess would be no.

Not sure if you think of John Sickels as “columnist”, but a couple of years ago he did the mea-culpa on Melky and Cano.  I think Neyer has in the past come out and admitted when he has been wrong about something like this.

It is, however, a rare thing.

Actually the graph looks line a patient in ICU about to flat line.

The fluctuations damp out because it gets harder to change your winning percentage the more games you’ve already played.  A .550 winning percentage (which is where some of the early high points hit) for the season would mean a shade under 90 wins and maybe the wild card. The Yanks could win the next 6 games and make serious inroads on the wild card race and still be under a .550 winning percentage.  Are they mediocre?  Sure, they’re at .500 but this kind of chart is designed to trend towards a flatter line for every team.  We just have to pray that the Yankees’ resting point is enough above .500 to make the playoffs.

Sure, they’re at .500 but this kind of chart is designed to trend towards a flatter line for every team.

I’d like to see a nice, gentle slope upwards towards .580 personally.

it’s like the heart beat graph of Yankee fans these days