Yankees Chick

Tim Lincecum wins 2009 NL Cy Young Award.

2009-11-19T19:38:30Z

A hearty congrats goes out to Tim Lincecum for winning his second straight Cy Young Award. What's fascinating is that Adam Wainwright actually received more 1st place votes than Tim did, and the last NL pitcher to win the CYA without the most 1st place votes was 1998 when Tom Glavine bested Trevor Hoffman.

Tim is also the first NL pitcher since Randy Johnson to win consecutive Cy Young Awards. Johnson won the CYA each year from 1999-2002. An AL pitcher hasn't won consecutive awards since Pedro Martinez did it in '99 and '00.

Edit: Thanks again to Mark and the MLBlogs team for featuring my blog on the front page!
This is the second time now that I've gotten on the front page for my posts about recent MLBawards, and I'm quite thankful for each one. I've noticed, thanks to my visitor tracker, that some of my recent patrons have come as a result of seeing my blog on the front page - that's great!

Mike Scioscia and Jim Tracy named Managers of the Year.

2009-11-18T19:39:41Z

Sorry, but I don't agree with the decision for the AL Manager of the Year. I don't think he did anything all that interesting or special. Joe Girardi took a team from not in the playoff one year to World Series Champs with the best record in baseball the next. He did this with a sh!t-ton of pressure, three new expensive free agents and a whole lot of eyes on him.

What I've read so far is that because the Angels had to deal with the death of Nick Adenhart, suddenly that means their manager "overcame adversity". They lost a player who'd been on the team for about 3 weeks, they didn't lose Torii Hunter or someone very integral to the day-to-day running of the team. I am so sick and tired of that young kid's death being pimped out and used to explain EVERYTHING surrounding that damn team. They won the AL West for Nick Adenhart. They finally beat the Red Sox in the playoffs because of Nick Adenhart. They lost in the ALCS because the pain in their hearts over the death of Nick Adenhart was too great and they battled as hard as they could, blah blah blah. Now Mike Scioscia won Manager of the Year because of the death of Nick Adenhart. If I was in that young man's family, I'd be insulted.

Jim Tracy though, I think he deserved it. He came in after the previous manager had been fired and he took them to a franchise-high 92 wins and Wild Card berth. So congrats to Jim Tracy and nerts to you, Mr. Rally Monkey Man.

Zack Greinke wins AL Cy Young Award.

2009-11-17T19:22:03Z

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4663979

Congrats to Zack! He posted amazing numbers and while the Yankees fan in me would have loved to see CC win the award, he's already got one and I'm sure he'll get another at some point in his career with us.

"His record for the 2009 season was 16-8, and he posted an ERA of 2.16, the lowest in MLB. On October 21st, 2009 Greinke was named American League Pitcher of the Year from The Sporting News^[6], his first award for overall regular season performance. On October 28, 2009 Zack was awarded the MLBPA Players Choice AL Pitcher of the Year winner which was announced during Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPN Radio. This award was based on vote by major league baseball players."

Yankees Chick gets featured again.

2009-11-16T22:50:57Z

Imagine my surprise when I go to the main page and see that not only was my blog featured there, but that it was the main headline! Thanks to Mark and everyone at MLBlogs for giving my blog the advertising. I appreciate it. :-)

Congrats to our 2009 Rookies of the Year!

2009-11-16T19:25:12Z

AL Rookie of the Year:

Andrew Bailey

6-3 / 1.84 ERA / 26 SV / 24 BB / 91K

"He made the Athletics Opening Day 25-man roster for the 2009 season as a long shot. Bailey was selected to represent the Athletics in the 2009 MLB All-Star Game in St. Louis. Bailey broke the Athletics rookie save record on September 12 against the Minnesota Twins with his 24th save of the season."

NL Rookie of the Year:

Chris Coghlan

.321 BA / .390 OBP / .460 SLG / .850 OPS / 9 HR / 47 RBI

"Coghlan made his major league debut on May 8, 2009.

On August 9, 2009, he set the Marlins team record for consecutive multi-hit games at 8.

Chris Coghlan has 47 hits in August 2009, the most for a rookie since Todd Helton hit 45 in the month of August as a rookie. Chris put up 50 hits in September/October 2009, the first rookie with Back to Back 47+ Hit Months, and the first player to do so since Ichiro in 2004."

The All-Time Yankees World Champion Championship - Championship Round

2009-11-16T00:35:37Z

So here we are. All the marbles. Last team standing wins. It's been fun doing this competition the last few days and I hope that everyone who has been reading this blog has been enjoying it as well. Maybe I'll start running sims for different teams....we could make a master list of all-time match-ups we'd love to see. However that's for the future and right now, we have a Super-Supreme World Series Champion to crown.

So who will it be, folks? Joltin' Joe and the '39 squad or Crooked Cap and his band of merry champs?

And the winner is....................................

2009!!!!!

It was a very close game, with the 2009 Yankees winning by a score 2-1. Click the score to see the box score and game notes. Click here to see the finished bracket. The '39 Yanks gave us their best, with Red Ruffing going 6.1 innings in a losing effort. CC shined, pitching 8 very solid innings and Mo of course, picked up the save. He's Mo, even in fake simulated games, he's being very Mo-like.

Now it's time for the MVP awards, and I thought I'd give out one for hitting and one for pitching, because you can't win consistently without either.

Our first MVP Award of the night goes out to CC Sabathia for a great pitching performance all the way through. He went 2-0 (Hughes got a couple wins in relief, but CC was more dominant), compiling a 1.59 ERA over that time span. There's no doubt he's the REAL team's pitching MVP, but not to forget....Mo picked up 2 saves in these contests as well.

Our MVP for offense is none other than Alex Rodriguez, who garnered Game MVP honors twice during this run. He went 5-19 with 7 RBI and 3 BB. At least he got a WS MVP from someone, right?

Congrats to the 2009 Yankees on being crowned the best of the best. :-)

The All-Time Yankees World Champion Championship - Round 4

2009-11-15T01:37:33Z

That was a thrilling but as you know.....only two teams could advance. Who would they be? The vaunted 1939 team, starring Joltin' Joe? Maybe two of the dynasty teams? Potentially even the current group of champions, led by Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez. Well..........the winners are:

Away Team

2009

New York Yankees

103 - 59 (0.636)

Starter (ERA):

1	Derek Jeter	SS
2	Johnny Damon	LF
3	Mark Teixeira	1B
4	Alex Rodriguez	3B
5	Jorge Posada	C
6	Robinson Cano	2B
7	Nick Swisher	RF
8	Melky Cabrera	CF

Home Team

1939

New York Yankees

106 - 45 (0.702)

Starter (ERA):

1	Joe Gordon	2B
2	Charlie Keller	RF
3	Joe Dimaggio	CF
4	George Selkirk	LF
5	Bill Dickey	C
6	Red Rolfe	3B
7	Babe Dahlgren	1B
8	Frankie Crosetti	SS

Updated bracket and scores

And now, the box scores:

1939 vs. 2000

1998 vs. 2009

Some highlights of the above game: In the 2nd game of the round, Alex went 1-5 with 3 RBI and Melky got the game-winning hit in the 11th inning after hitting a single with the bases loaded. Paulie nailed Robbie Cano at the plate though, so we only managed 1 run out of that. Mo ended up getting the save, after CC went 8 IP, giving up 3 ER on 4 H while striking out 6. He didn't get the win though, that went to Phil Hughes.

In the 1st game, Rocket didn't have such a good start - usually when the opposing team tags a 10-run 3rd on you, that's not a good day at the office. The 4-5-6 of the 1939 lineup went 5-10 with 9 RBI. Now that's production.

So it looks like it's shaping up to be a very, very, VERY good game tomorrow night.

The All-Time Yankees World Champion Championship - Round 3

2009-11-14T00:56:19Z

We have our Final Four ready to move on:

1939
1998
2000
2009

You can check out the bracket here and see how each team did. As a treat, here are the 3rd round box scores:

1939 vs. 1936

1932 vs. 2000

2009 vs. 1950

1998 vs. 1961

The first year is the higher ranked team and therefore the home team, so having the DH really helped us out. It's my dream to see CC Sabathia pitching to Joe DiMaggio, at least hypothetically, so let's hope 2009 and 1939 advance!

I hope to get some more feedback on this, I put a lot of work into setting this all up.

The All-Time Yankees World Champion Championship - Round 2

2009-11-13T01:19:04Z

HOLY CRAP, DID WE HAVE AN UPSET TONIGHT.

I wouldn't have believed it either, but our #2 seed is gone baby gone.

Round 2 Bracket and Results

Here's the box score of the improbable defeat. That's right, the 1927 Yankees LOST. Oh the horror. The 2009 Yankees advanced though, beating the 1956 Yankees 5-1. Here's the box score to that game as well. CC pitched very well, and his work will be cut out for him, he's facing the 1950 Yankees in the next round. And do remember, Round 3 is tomorrow night, so be sure to check in and see how the boys do.

The Yankees haul in more hardware.

2009-11-12T23:53:48Z

More congrats are in order, as the Yankees have a couple more awards to end to their end-of-the-year trophy case.

Mark Teixeira and Derek Jeter are recipients of this year's Silver Slugger Awards for 1B and SS, respectively. This was Mark's 3rd SS award and Derek's 4th. The Yankees are the only team aside from the Dodgers (Ethier, Kemp) to have more than one selection. This is Derek's 5th award now; Gold Glove, Silver Slugger, Roberto Clemente Award, Hank Aaron Award and of course....World Series trophy.

In news that is completely NOT surprising, Albert Pujols won his 5th SS. Gee, you think?

We have the Yankees.

2009-11-12T18:11:45Z

I'm not even a New Yorker, and I get this. I totally get this. And I think you will too. Thanks to Ryan for sharing this with me.

National League Gold Glove winners!

2009-11-12T03:15:12Z

Two Cardinals, a pair of Dodgers and a couple Phillies. I'm actually shocked Pujols didn't get one, but I don't know much about the NL, I'm afraid to say.

We also had four 1st time winners, so congrats to them. The next awards due to be announced are the Silver Slugger Awards tomorrow, the AL/NL Rookie of the Year on the 16th and the AL Cy Young Award on the 17th.

The All-Time Yankees World Champion Championship - Round 1

2009-11-11T20:27:00Z

Alright folks, it's time for the tournament to begin! I decided to take Jason's advice and restructure the seedings a little bit, so you won't see the strongest teams taking on the weakest teams each and every time - I have a few instances of two WS losing teams facing off, and a couple more teams from the middle of the pack facing off. I wanted it to be almost like the NHL playoffs where #1 would face #8 and so on until you had #4 playing #5. However with so many teams in this particular playoff, I realized that it would be more difficult to keep parity that way. The bracket will be linked below and you can see which team advanced and what the score was. If there were any surprise upsets, I'll post them below the link when all the simulations are finished. Round 2 will be tomorrow night!!

Edit: Round 1 results

Some shockers there, I think. Both the '96 and '99 teams did not advance, but the '09 team did. The '27, '39 and '98 teams all advanced as expected however neither of the 70s championship teams did.

As a lark, here is the box score for the current team's game against the '58 Yankees. CC didn't have the best start of his career, but Aceves, Coke and Hughes saved our bacon. If you would like to see box scores of some of the other match-ups, I can supply those for you. :-)

The Yankees begin hauling in the hardware.

2009-11-11T00:53:01Z

Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira win AL Gold Gloves

Congrats! This was Mark's 3rd GG and Derek's 4th. I would have liked to see Robbie and/or Alex get one as well, because I thought their defense was pretty damn good this year but Polanco and Longoria were no less deserving. I'd love to see some more Yankees pull in some awards this year - Derek already has the Roberto Clemente & Hank Aaron awards to add to this GG and his WS trophy.

For those who are curious, here are the rest of the MLB Awards and their release schedule:

The All-Time Yankees World Champion Championship! Brackets and Rules

2009-11-10T21:25:19Z

For starters, here are the rules:

1. Obviously there are more than 27 teams represented here. Because I needed 32 teams to make everything even out, I added five Yankees teams that LOST the World Series to the overall list. I placed them at the bottom of the bracket, as they lost and therefore shouldn't rank as high as teams who won, even if they had better records than said winning team. They are marked with asterisks so that you know which ones they are.

2. The lower ranked team is the "away" team. This is designed so that the better team will have "home-field advantage", much like in the current playoff system.

3. Starting pitchers for each team will be selected based on who was the best pitcher on the staff that year. The winning pitcher will automatically carry over to the next round. For example, should the 2009 Yankees win their match-up, CC Sabathia will pitch their next "game". I will also keep notes on top performers for both offense and pitching and we'll have a mock MVP Award presentation at the end of the tournament.

4. I won't re-run the simulations more than once. What you see is what you get. If after the tournament is over you'd like to know how such-and-such pitcher would have fared against X team, I can run that.

5. You're free to post here and make predictions about who you think will win specific match-ups. One thing to bear in mind, though. Before 1973 there was no Designated Hitter, so there may be instances when post-DH teams will be playing by pre-DH rules....or basically playing by current National League rules.

And here is the bracket: All-Time Yankees World Champions Championship!

First round of competition starts tomorrow night, and I will manually input the scores and select the winning team. When the bracket is updated, I will post the link to it and you can make predictions for the next round....so forth and so on. I hope everyone enjoys!