Ken Davidoff's baseball insider

How interesting was it that it was A-Rod who was the first player involve with the process. If that was anyone else its one thing, but the fact that its A-Rod makes it interesting.
The Yanks will win just enough games to finish ahead of the Jays.

Ken - Your end of season W-L scenario is the "product of an imagination gone wild."

Ken/RG/JE - I'm not anti-replay for home runs, but afraid of the slippery slope that it creates. Fair'/foul in play, plays at first, tag plays at bases, runners out of the baseline, did the runner leave too early on the tag..ball/strike?

The basic premise of "get it right" seems to be the most important argument for the review of HR calls. How can that not logically be applied to the list above, which happen regularly and change the game's potential outcome?

RG - no snark from me to you.

A friend e-mailed me overnight: "The replay wasn't to determine whether A-Rod's ball was fair and foul. It was to determine whether it was really the ninth inning!" ;-)

Ross Ohlendorf threw 6 innings (3ER, but 2 HR's) last night in a no decision vs. the Reds.

The Pittsburgh papers say that the Yankees took a guy who had the best fastball in the D-Backs system, turned him into a reliever and told him to stop throwing changeups - go with the split finger instead. He gets traded to Pittsburgh, is made a starter again and is back using his changeup.

Who in the Yanks organization switched Ohlendorf completely around?

as the sign says above Gene, it is a "new era"

That would pretty much have to be Nardi Contreras, Bob. I'll poke around.

Nardi makes all the pitching decisions for the Yankees.

When Ohlendorf was a reliever, he was a power-sinker/slider guy (his slider being his second-best pitcher after his 92-96 mph sinker). When he went back to AAA to start, they had him incorporate a split, in the hopes of improving his numbers against lefties. I can't say for sure they completely made him do away with his change (honestly I don't remember if he threw one while starting in Trenton), but one reason might be that they never intended for him to remain a starter and once he figured things out (mastering the split and getting lefties out) he was going back into the 'pen.

http://pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/pirates/s_586148.html

John Grupp at the P T-R

"When the Pirates acquired Ohlendorf from the Yankees in the Xavier Nady deal, they moved him to the same role he'd held as a Diamondbacks' farmhand from 2004-06.

The switch allowed Ohlendorf to rediscover the changeup the Yankees had asked him to abandon in favor of the split-finger fastball. The result was a 4-3 record with a 3.47 ERA in seven starts with Triple-A Indianapolis."

It used to be Billy Connors who was involve with all the pitching decisions, but now its Nardi Contreras.
A guy the Pirates pass up on that the Yanks kept, lefthander Phil Coke, has look good in 2 outings so far.

From a NYDN article by Mark Feisand...

"Karstens, who might have made the club out of spring training if not for a groin injury he suffered late in camp, is 3-1 with a 2.03 ERA in his last five Triple-A starts. Karstens has allowed 21 hits and walked just four in 31 innings, striking out 28.

His new weapon? A split-finger fastball that he picked up recently, having worked on the pitch with Nardi Contreras, the organization's pitching coordinator."

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So it is nothing tailored to the individual pitcher - the Yanks want every pitcher to throw a split finger as a swing and miss pitch.

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Tyler Kepner at the NYT...Contreras takes over and Connors fades with Steinbrenner's health and involvement..

"And it is Contreras who established the ground rules for how Torre will use Joba Chamberlain"

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Ah, the Joba rules..

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Have the Yankees developed a pitcher from their minor leagues to take a spot in the rotation and/or bullpen with this method? When I discussed coaching methods with Gorman Heimueller, the Phils. minor league co-ordinator, he said the Phils' take is to develop a different program for each of their pitchers, not play one size fits all which the Yanks seem to do to their detriment.

Their best developed player - Wang, a sinker ball pitcher who does not avoid contact.

I shudder to think what the Yanks would have done to Cole Hamels!!!

Sandy if you get on, I wrote to you on the other blog yesterday. I didn't realize you had meant TV. That is pretty pathetic. But it is a new team and the way I look at it is the same. I dont blame the fans, I blame the team and orginization for not making it a priority for the fans. Its like the season without Yes. It just showed how much Yes WASN'T needed.

Ken I was doing my fantasy football draft last night, but when I heard the Yanks score I got all excited. I was envisioning your blog with the picture I have already set up for such an occassion. But then I saw the bad news that Carl "Richie G.'s (Lynbrook) boy" Pavano only went 4 innings ;( Girardi is killing me!!!

I'm really surprised that the replay call only took 2 minutes. I wish we had the game on TV here for me to watch because that would have been the only way for me to get it considering it was a Tampa game and we don't have a station on radio here and an ESPN/Extra Innings blackout due to being Tampa territory. Oh yeah have I ever mentioned that the biggest cable system in Central Florida doesn't have Fox Sports Net because FSN wants to be basic cable and Bright House Networks wants it to be on he sports tier? Sound familiar? The biggest difference is this: down here there is no real public outcry to put FSN on the system even though the Magic for the first time last year had 35 games on FSN (taking those games off free TV). In NY, Time Warner and Cablevision would have law suits up the behind like they did when YES started.
Richie when i grew up the Yankees and Mets only had about 120 per season on free TV. That evolved to 162 games on TV, mostly on cable. Today fans are conditioned that they will have all their sports teams games on TV in many cities. So, when a team like the Yankees or Mets start their own network, it's sort of like extortion because they know their fan base wants it and expects it, plus they can deliver the game in the fashion they want it delivered and the info behind the team and game. In other words, biased.
Washington doesn't have much of a history supporting a baseball team, this being its third, but its possible if they ever get a winning team people would support. However, usually new stadiums cause upwards bumps in attendance and at the very most Washington has stayed the same as last year, maybe a tad better, but certainly nowhere near what they expected to get I bet.

Guys, Washington remains a Deadskin town. It should come as no surprise that I have passed lots of burgundy and gold on M Street today.

Still, the current apathy vis-a-vis the Nats has been disappointing. Aside from my complaints about the MASN-Comcast feud, a winning season will help matters considerably. Recognizable talent will also boost attendance and improve the TV ratings.

Bob, it's not one-size-fits-all with the Yankees. They take them individually. A lot depends on where the pitcher is when they get him. They didn't take away Joba's slider, even though they don't like their pitchers to throw sliders. They didn't change anything about Kennedy, because he came to them as a polished four-pitch pitcher. They took away Hughes' slider when he first arrived, because they wanted him to throw a curve (this is a standard procedure for them). They made Zack McAllister throw more four-seamers to get his K rate up.

They're not trying to make clones. They prefer fastball/curve/change, but only because sliders are so destructive.

But after that, it's really all individual.

B-walk - Thanks for the great note. I hope that the organization is as flexible as your comments state.

To tell a guy to drop his changeup is logical if they are to be a one inning relief pitcher, of which the Yanks are in a desperate need.

I am still curious about the split, which I maintain can promote poor arm action in pitchers and potential damage. It's not a pitch for younger players, but Karstens and Ross O are told to learn it.
Kennedy is such a pain he'd probably tell them to stuff it anway!

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As for the Nats, remember that the O's own 90% of the broadcast rights (MLB owns the other 10%) due to market definition negotiations. The nats' ownership gradually increases each year to a peak of 33% in the distant future.

Do you think Peter Angelos would actually promote Washington baseball? Hah!

JE, you must really hate the Redskins by calling them the Deadskin.
Angelos had to be compensated for allowing the Expos to move to Washington, D.C. So baseball throw Angelos a bone by allowing him to control MASN.

I was just reading in the Washington Post that the Nationals are reducing several areas of ticket prices for next season because attendance has been disappointing this year.
I think Washington and Baltimore still has Comcast Sports Net so if the Nationals hadn't wanted to do business with Angelos that network could have been used instead.
Dennis, more than throwing Angelos a bone, baseball threw politicians a bone by giving them a team to keep them off their backs with the anti-trust stuff and all. That is probably the only reason Washington has had 3 teams Federal Government intervention.

Now the big shocker -- if everyone goes back and looks very closely -- they will see that the first instant replay used in MLB- was wrong! I am even a supporter of it but I could not believe that it was not abvious to the umps -- At least on the MLB website clip the perspective was between Home and 1st. But what looked at first like a ball striking the foul apron to the right, was really the ball striking the catwalk in back of the foul poll and to the left clearly of the foul pole extension on the roof-- but the umps still made the final wrong call, based on an optical illusion