Mo: Yanks Need To Stay Hungry
Via Kevin Kernan -
There are many lessons the Yankees must learn from this season.
Don’t rely too much on the kids. Understand that the games in April and May count as much as those in September. Injuries will happen. Realize that the Rays are only going to get better, not worse. Expect danger at any point, including when Chien-Ming Wang is running the bases.
Mariano Rivera, the longest running Yankee, offered one bit of important advice last night: Don’t forget about this year. Remember what happened and how it happened and come to spring training with a chip on your shoulder ready to work.
“A lot of things went on this year, it wasn’t just one thing,” Rivera told me on a night the Yankees slammed the White Sox, 9-2, at Yankee Stadium with their Tragic Number holding at three. “I wish we could point to one thing, but we can’t. It’s not one thing. There are so many things, injuries and so much more. It was a weird, weird, weird year.”
The Yankees should not forget how weird it was and there is only one way to overcome all this.
“The motivation is simple,” Rivera said. “Work hard and stay hungry.”
Check out Mo, going “Joe Santo” on us…but, he’s right. Just like how the Yankees used 1997 as motivation in 1998.
However, while the ALDS in 1997 was fuel for the 1998 Yankees, I’m not sure that trick will work again…at least with this current crop of Yankees…because there should be so many new faces next season…and the old faces, like A-Rod and Cano (if he’s still here) are not like some of those players who were on both the ’97 and ’98 Yankees.
I mean, the 2005 Yankees didn’t learn from the pain of the 2004 ALCS. And, the 2007 Yankees didn’t learn from being embarrassed in the 2006 ALDS. So, will the 2009 Yankees learn from 2008? I dunno…
How do you figure the 2005 and 2007 Yanks didn’t learn from their previous years? Because they didn’t go on to win the Series the next year? Or because they got off to slow starts?
I’m of the opinion that everyone on the field is always trying as hard as they can to win (occasional Cano lapse notwithstanding). When you’re winning, you look intense and like a team with good chemistry. When you’re losing, you look like you don’t give a crap. You can only swing a bat so hard, and run out a weak grounder to short so fast. It’s not a reflection of who they are as human beings, or of what they’ve “learned.” This is trying to add a narrative overlay to the game that, while fun, really doesn’t belong there.
Sometimes your team just doesn’t play well. Sometimes they just suck. It’s not because they didn’t learn a life lesson. This isn’t a movie.
Personally, I think the 1998 connection to 1997 was overblown.
1997: 5.50 (rs/g), 4.25 (ra/g), .684 (DefEff)
1998: 5.96 (rs/g), 4.05 (ra/g), .707 (DefEff)
1999: 5.56 (rs/g), 4.51 (ra/g), .695 (DefEff)
The 1997 ALDS was a tightly contested series, with the last two games having could have gone either way.
Whose who are into those sort of things, notice “Big Game Pitcher” Andy Pettitte going 0-2 in the series…
Personally, I think the 1998 connection to 1997 was overblown.
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Point being that if the 1998 team learned from the 1997 team, the 1999 team should’ve learned from the 1998 team…
I mean, the 2005 Yankees didn’t learn from the pain of the 2004 ALCS. And, the 2007 Yankees didn’t learn from being embarrassed in the 2006 ALDS.
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How do you figure? The fact that they lost in 2005, 2006, or 2007 doesn’t mean they weren’t trying.
Just don’t bring back a lot of the guys. No more Abreu, no more Giambi, no more Pettite, and no more Mussina.
Mussina had a very surprising season, but the old baseball saw is it’s better to trade a player a year early than a year late. No trade involved of course, just don’t give him a contract. I doubt Mussina will pitch anywhere near this well in 2009.
Back up the truck to the Stadium.
Nine more years of the A-Freud Circus to go.
Ask the members of the 1997 team that were then on the 1998 team. Most will say that losing the ALDS in ’97, one that they should have won, left them with a feeling that they never wanted to have again…and they used that to gain a killer-attitude for ’98.
That’s what I meant. Losing in 2004, in the way that they did, should have left that team with a feeling that they never wanted to experience again…and they should have been on a mission in 2005. But, they didn’t play 2005 like they did in 1998, etc….
Same deal with 2006 into 2007.
Maybe Torre had something to do with it? Having one ring, vs. four, maybe left them feeling fat…I dunno…
I just know that the 1998 Yankees learned from the pain of 1997. And, it doesn’t seem like another Yankees team has been able to take the pain from an embarrassing post-season and use it for motivation the following year…
Ask the members of the 1997 team that were then on the 1998 team. Most will say that losing the ALDS in ‘97, one that they should have won, left them with a feeling that they never wanted to have again…and they used that to gain a killer-attitude for ‘98.
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Just because players believe something (Carl Everett & Dinosaurs, Damon/Posada & Joba’s role to name a couple)does not make it true.
As for the numbers
2004: 5.54 (rs/g), 4.99 (ra/g), .684 (DefEff)
2005: 5.47 (rs/g), 4.87 (ra/g), .689 (DefEff)
2006: 5.74 (rs/g), 4.73 (ra/g), .695 (DefEff)
2007: 5.98 (rs/g), 4.80 (ra/g), .687 (DefEff)
2008: 4.83 (rs/g), 4.56 (ra/g), .681 (DefEff)
With the exception of the 2008′s team offense, it seems to me they’ve played about the same over the years.
Steve, I think you’re way off base here.
You really believe that the ’97 loss was so traumatic that they WILLED themselves to win 114 games on the way to taking the series?
Just because the 2005 team didn’t win doesn’t mean they didn’t take 2004 to heart or they weren’t on a mission. It says absolutely nothing about them as people. It just means they didn’t win. You’re using the fact that the team didn’t win to make assumptions about their character. They could have been hell-bent on winning like never before. They just. Didn’t. Win.
The ’98 squad didn’t use the experiences of ’97 to “gain a killer attitude,” that allowed them to will themselves to victory. They were the right combination of lucky and really effin’ good.
Again, I think you’re projecting a narrative onto the ballfield that doesn’t necessarily have any connection to reality.
IN 2005, the Yankees didn’t make the correct adjustments. Quite frankly, in a short time Theo and Co bulit a better ball team by adjusting what Duquette had created. After, 2003 Boston saw what they needed more than anything, a closer. Getting Shrilling helped too. As for the Yanks in 2005, Kevin Brown came back, Pavano was signed, Randy came on board and those were weak adjustments. Once again, blame Cashman!
That line about the Rays getting better is the scariest. If you thought that this year was tough, Price will be coming on board. If the Rays were still the Devil Rays( and played like them), the Yanks and the Jays would be in a dogfight to the end. BUT because of that factor, veteran players on the Yanks can be hungry as they want, a new powerhouse is in the division and the Rays are here to stay………
As for the Yanks in 2005, Kevin Brown came back, Pavano was signed, Randy came on board and those were weak adjustments.
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Adjustments were so weak, they won 95 games, second best record in the league behind the White Sox… And another division title.
That damn Cashman!