How are our Yankee Predictions Doing?

Pelle, Alex, Christian and I made 2012 season Yankee predictions for a number of different stats and figures in March. Let's take a mid/late season look at where they're at now. Actual number and projected number are below our picks.

Wins
Pelle: 98
Alex: 95
Christian: 96
Jesse: 102
Actual: 72/Projected: 95
Alex looks like the closest here, but Christian isn't far off. They'll need a 30-9 run for me to be right.

Andy Pettitte Wins
P: 9
A: 10
C: 8 
J: 11
Actual: 3/Projected: 4
Woof. Dandy Andy would have likely had at least 7-8 by now if not for his broken ankle. With a September return on the horizon, he's got no chance to make any of these numbers.

CC Sabathia Wins
P: 17
A: 18
C: 19
J: 21
Actual: 12/Projected: 16
CC spent a month on the DL during two stints but should have seven starts remaining beginning this Friday. No chance he gets to my number, doubtful he's at Christian's.

Phil Hughes Wins
P: 15
A:  11
C: 13
J: 15
Actual: 12/Projected: 16
Hughes, as he is wont to do, has been up and down this year. Looks like we were right in the neighborhood with his win total and Pelle and I have the best chance to nail it.

Mariano Rivera Saves
P: 41
A: 43
C: 39
J: 38
Actual: 5/Projected: 5
With his season over right around the same time the Knicks' was, Mo ended 2012 with 5 saves. His replacement, Rafael Soriano has done excellently this year, with 31 saves thus far, projecting for 41.

Mariano Rivera ERA of 1.50
P: over
A: over  
C: over
J: over
Actual: 2.16/Projected: 2.16
He gave up two runs in 8.1 innings. Looks like we were all correct, but the sample size was too small to accurately judge.

Brett Gardner Steals
P: 53
A: 44
C: 39
J: 46
Actual: 2/Projected: 2
Another Yankee out for the year. GGBG had 2 steals in 9 games before sustaining an injury. In that minuscule sample size, he would have been on pace for 43 if he kept it up.

A-Bombs (Alex Rodriguez home runs)
P: 28
A:  31
C: 33
J: 33
Actual: 15/Projected: 18
Woof, again. A-Rod is in the middle of a 4-6 week recovery for a broken wrist. Even while he was healthy, he looked old and didn't have much pop at all. No shot at getting anyone's prediction.

Derek Jeter batting average of .310
P: under
A: under
C: under
J: over
Actual: .324/Projected: .324
Jeter was on fire in April (.389), good in May, (.293), awful in June (.232) and scorching again in July (.346) and August (.386). If Mike Trout would just stick to being the future of baseball and not the present as well, Jeter would be competing for a batting title this year with Joe Mauer and Miguel Cabrera. Jeter's career September average is .324 on the nose, so he will look to finish right around where he's at now.

Yankee with most home runs
P: Cano
A: Granderson 
C: Granderson
J: Teixeira
Actual: Granderson/Projected: Granderson
The Grandy Man has 32 bombs this year. Cano is second on the club with 25 (after having just one through Cinco de Mayo). Teix is third with 23. Looks like Alex and Christian are spot on.

# of HR for Yankee leader
P: 41
A:  38
C: 39
J: 39
Actual: 32/Projected: 42
Grandy should hit the 40+ plateau for the second straight year if he has an average September. We were all right in the neighborhood but Pelle was the only one with the stones to guess 40+.

Yankee with most MVP votes
P: Cano (winner)
A: Cano  
C: Cano
J: Cano
Actual: N/A/ Projected: Cano
Cano leads the club and is third in the league in WAR with 4.3.

Three Gold Glove winners
P: push
A: push
C: push
J: under
Acutal: N/A/Projected: 3
Too early to tell, but a number of Yankees are in the top three of FanGraphs fielding rankings including Teixeira, Cano, Ichiro and CC.

# of All-Stars
P: seven
A: six 
C: seven
J: six
Actual: 4/Projected: 4
Whoops, looks like we were a little too confident. Granderson, Jeter and Cano started with CC also named to the team.

Yankees with 100+ RBI
P: three
A: four
C: four
J: four
Actual: 0/Projected: 1
Only Teixeira, who has 80 now, is on pace for triple digit RBIs. Granderson is close, pacing out to 96 with a current total of 73, but that's it. Cano (68) and Swisher (69) will have to catch fire to come close and may not even break 90.

Yankees with 100+ runs
P: three
A: four
C: four
J: four
Actual: 0/Projected: 3
Cano, Jeter and Granderson are all on pace for 100+ runs in 2012. Teix has just 64 and no chance to join the club. I'm going to act like FOX News on election night and declare Pelle an early winner of this category.

Yankees batting .300+
P: two
A: three 
C: one
J: two
Actual: 2/Projected: 2
Cano (.302) and Jeter (.324) should both be on the good side of .300 at the end of the season,  but no one else will be close. Ichiro is batting .312 in pinstripes but just .271 on the year. A-Rod is the next closest regular with a .276 average, but he'll need to RAKE to get to .300 in the few final weeks of the season once he returns. Pelle and I look smart here.

Numbers from my Trip to the Little League World Series

Michael on the field prior to Saturday's game vs. Indiana

This weekend, we went to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Penn. to watch my youngest cousin, Michael Ghiorzi, and his team from Fairfield American LL in Fairfield, Conn. compete. We left Saturday morning, heading north on I-71, then west on I-76 and I-80 to the small city in the middle of Pennsylvania. The team played in a pair of elimination games (after losing its opener vs. California, Thursday, August 16) while we were there, winning them both. Here are some stats, dollars and other figures from the trip.

50,000+- pins traded by kids and adults during any number of formal and informal pin trading sessions throughout our time there.

777- miles from Columbus to Williamsport, around town and back home.
28.1- MPG for the trip. Not terrible, but nothing to write home about...just blog about.

$32- price of the New England jersey I bought as soon as I got there.

$16.87- what I paid for a black velvet blazer at Kohl's originally priced at $225. Guess people from Williamsport don't have anywhere to wear such a thing so it was on mega sale.

12- runs Connecticut scored during the Saturday, August 18 game vs. Nebraska before it was stopped do to the mercy rule in the 5th inning.

11.5- estimated drive time round trip, in hours.

6'2"- height of Michael's older brother, my cousin Christian. Who we got to hang out with and learned that he's starting at FB for his HS Varsity team as a Sophomore.
6- Michael's uniform number.

4th- Fairfield's final ranking on the list of best teams in the country after losing vs. California (again, ugh) on Tuesday, August 21.

2B- position Michael plays.

1- nice person from Williamsport that we met in three days and two nights there. Mostly people were curt and just generally mean.

0- runs Connecticut gave up in the two games we saw.

0- hits allowed by Will Lucas in an elimination game vs. Indiana on Monday, August 20. The 49th no-hitter in LLWS history.

ConfessLINs [REMIX]

These are my confessLINs
Just when I thought I said all I could say
Knicks get dumber every single day
These are my confessLINs
Man I'm pissed and I dont know what to do
I guess I gotta give part 2 of my confessLINs
How we ever going to beat the Heat?
Darn near cried when I saw that last tweet
I'm so pissed and I don't know what to do
But to give you part 2 of my confessLINs

[Verse 1]
Now this gotta be the dumbest thing I think the Knicks ever do
Letting go of Jeremy Lin and signing a fat number 2
'bout that Knick on part 1 I told you who was our hero our hero
Jimmy Dolan just let him walk out the door for zero for zero
The first thing that came to mind was why?
Second thing was is a NBA team about to make me cry?
Third thing was me wishin' that I never caught Linsanity
And how I'm thinking about ending my Knicks relationship

[Chorus]

[Verse 2]
Looking at the roster, it's stupid, tryna figure out
A drunk point and one who can't stop shoving food in his mouth  
Said it ain't gon' be easy
To move on from LinsanityI gotta get over it
I'm going through my closet
Looking for your jersey
Talkin' to myself
Thinking how can I toss this outI pull out the hanger and I just want to put it on
Hold it close to me, I'll throw it out after this song

[Chorus]

[Breakdown]
This by far is the hardest thing I think I've ever had to do
To tell you, the Jeremy I love
That my favorite team just kicked you out the door because of spite
I hope you can accept the fact that Dolan is immature enough to do this
And hopefully I can still root for you in H-town
This ain't about your career
This ain't about your life
It's about James Dolan and his ego
Please

I just made this. I'm so upset with James Dolan and the New York Knicks organization. Also upset with the Miami University athletic department at how difficult it makes going to see my RedHawks in Columbus in seven weeks. But back to the Knicks... this is one of the pettiest things I've ever seen happen in athletics. It's been written a thousand places, so I won't bother retelling the story here, but it's heartbreaking to be reminded once again that your team is run by a child, hated both in the cable industry and the sports world.

Top 5 Meatballs of All Time

This blog started in fall 2008. Since then, we've had nearly 300 posts of varying length and interest. Some got a few clicks, others got thousands. These are the top five most viewed posts in our history, so read them now, before everyone else on Earth does.

1- Urinal Review, February 2009

2- Meatballs + Alex BBM Chat Transcript ALCS Game 6, October 2009

3- Our Nate Davis is Better than Your Nate Davis, November 2009

4- GUEST POST (Lube Tube), May 2009

5- What Your Dog Says About You, February 2009

So did we peak years ago OR have these blogs just been up long enough so good, older stories are going to get more hits? I think hope it's the latter.

Toronto Blue Jays Stadium Review

Indoor baseball in front of literally hundreds of Canadians!

C and I visited Toronto (SNOOOOOOZE) this weekend and one of the highlights of the trip was our visit to the Rogers Centre (Canadian spelling!) - not because it was great, just because it was baseball. Not close to my top five of favorite baseball arenas...of which I've now been to a baker's dozen.

Outside: The Rogers Centre - and most of downtown Toronto - looks like it was just jammed in an open city block. Something about the city just felt like it lacked urban planning and buildings were just put wherever there was some space with no care for how they looked or fit. It's a big white dome RIGHT next to the highway, pretty boring. The box office was very attractive though with all the windows connected, avoiding the window/concrete divider/repeat feel that most box offices have.

Inside: The whole time we're walking outside the dome, we know the roof isn't going to be open, we know we're walking inside, yet, when we walked in, it still feels weird. Something in me told me to expect an ice rink or basketball court when we got in, felt the warm temperature, smelled the indoor arena air. I told my brain we're in a baseball stadium, but when we walked to the top of the section behind home plate (pictured above), it was still shocking to see a baseball field. I want to say that indoor baseball is unAmerican, but of course it is, we were in Canada. It just feels dirty watching a baseball game inside, watching a pop fly reach its apex with a backdrop of scaffolding and catwalks is depressing.

Food: I had a foot long home run dog with beans, bacon, cheese and something else on it while C had a plain one. Pretty good, though the temperature left something to be desired. The garlic fries were not up to speed with their Yankee Stadium counterparts, but still pretty tasty. All in all, a pretty good range of items with a few Canadian staples like poutine.

Beer: Apparently it's not just at the ballpark, but in most of Toronto, where Coors Light, Bud Light, Bud, etc. are considered Domestic, while Molson and LaBatt are premium! What the what? Confusing, but fairly priced for a ballpark in a 'big' city/

Seats and Atmosphere: C came through with some great seats (front row in left center) for a decent price ($30) on the day of the event. This should have been a harbinger of the crowd at the game. Let me correct myself. It was pretty lean in there and only a crowd in the old definition of the word where two's a couple and three's a crowd. Pretty pathetic for a team (at the time) tied for 1st place in the best division in baseball on a Friday night with their ace on the mound. The fans behind us were drunk and annoying, but you'll have that anywhere. The dozens in attendance go nuts when Canadian Brett Lawrie bats, which was pretty fun to see. The ushers were normal looking girls in their 20s, which was a nice surprise to the normal surly or senile 80-year-old men working that job at most parks.

Overall: Not a place I'd have any interest in going back to, unless the roof was open and the Yankees were in town.

'

Looking Back at Yankees Trades

The Pelican texted this to me the other day. Would the Yankees be better served right now with Ian Kennedy, Austin Jackson and Jesus Montero or with Michael Pineda and Curtis Granderson?

The best hitter and the best overall player in this discussion is Curtis Granderson who won a Silver Slugger last season, hitting 40+ bombs and leading the AL in RBI. Ian Kennedy comes up right behind him with an excellent season in 2011 with 20+ wins and an ERA under 3.00, earning him 4th place in Cy Young voting. After that you're looking at a lot of youth and potential in Jackson (25), Montero (21) and Pineda (21). Jackson has been good in the leadoff role for Detroit with double digit triples and over 20 steals each full season to go with a TON of strikeouts. Montero caught fire last September in pinstripes before begin dealt for Pineda who was lights out in the first half of 2011 and eh in the second.

This season IPK and AJax are the class of this crop, with Kennedy going 2-0 with a 2.84 and almost a K per inning Jackson ripping the ball with four XBH, nine runs and an OBP of .536. Montero hasn't had any XBHs yet and Grandy just drove in his first runs with a bomb vs. Baltimore. Pineda is on the DL, expected to return in May.

IPK had a (kind of) chance to impress the Yankees and didn't so he was moved in the three-teamer that netted the Bombers Granderson. Grandy was decent in '10 and phenomenal in '11 and a great addition to the lineup and clubhouse. Kennedy is not winning 20 games (maybe he gets 12-13 W) in the AL East and AJax wouldn't have a place in the order with Jeter, Gardner likely better top of the order options than him. So for this part of the trade, the nod goes slightly to the Yankees, but you can bet that all three teams are very happy with their hauls.

The answer to Pelican's lies with Pineda. Montero is going to hit for average and power, but most likely out of the DH spot, catching 30-40 games a year, diminishing his value. If Pineda is first half Pineda for most of his time in pinstripes, this is a win for the NYY and I'd rather have the current pair of Yankees than the three amigos. However, if Pineda is oft-injured or more like second half Pineda, the Mariners stole this one and the Yankees look stupid for trading a masher for basically a high level pitching prospect when they already have two or three in the minors.