Cross-posted on Fat Clown.

[With the Detroit Tigers defeating the New York Yankees in the first round of the playoffs tonight, I thought it would be a good idea to reprise a post from last year when the Yankees lost to the Rangers and update it with the new stats. -Ed.]
 
In 2003, the Twins played their first postseason game against the Yankees.  They won.
Since that game they have gone 1-12 against the Yankees in postseason games, last winning Game One of the 2004 Division Series.  They have also gone 0-4 against the Yankees in postseason series during that time.
Since 2003, here is the list of teams that have beaten the Yankees in a postseason series:

Florida Marlins (2003 World Series)
Boston Red Sox (2004 ALCS)
Los Angeles Angels (2005 ALDS)
Detroit Tigers (2006 ALDS)
Cleveland Indians (2007 ALDS)
Texas Rangers (2010 ALCS)
Detroit Tigers (2011 ALDS)

That’s six different teams with the Tigers doing it twice.  Including their World Series championship in 2009, that makes the Yankees 4-6 in postseason series that do not involve the Twins.  Let me repeat that: 4-0 against the Twins, 4-6 against the rest of baseball.  In that time, only three other teams have faced the Yankees more than once in the postseason.  The Red Sox went 1-1 in those famous 2003 and 2004 ALCSs and the Angels also went 1-1.  The Tigers have beat the Yankees both times they've faced them.  That means the other three teams up there only had to face the Yankees once to beat them.

That’s series.  How about games?  As described above, the Twins are 2-12 against the Yankees since 2003, and that’s being generous since they’re 1-12 in their last 13 games and 0-9 in their last nine.  But, hell, the Twins need a break, so let’s be generous.  Here is a list of all the teams that have played the Yankees in the postseason since 2003 along with their overall record against them, sorted by the number of wins.

Boston (7-7)
Detroit Tigers (6-3)
Los Angeles (5-6)
Florida Marlins (4-2)
Texas Rangers (4-2)
Cleveland Indians (3-1)
Philadelphia Phillies (2-4)

Man, I can barely stand to do this analysis.  Must…forge…ahead….

Okay, so not including the Twins, seven other teams have played the Yankees in the postseason since the start of the 2003 season.  Only one other has a losing record in terms of series, with Philadelphia losing the only time they faced them.  After them, only one other team, the Angels has a losing record against them in games, and if we extend things back to 2002 the Angels improve to 8-7 against the Yankees while the Twins (and everybody else) stay where they are.

So the rest of baseball is 31-25 against the Yankees in the playoffs over a span of time in which the Twins are 2-12 (or 1-12 if you’re not feeling generous).  Since the Twins last won a playoff game against the Yankees, the rest of baseball is 24-19.

This is astounding.  I had no idea it would be so stark.  Against the rest of the MLB playoff teams, the Yankees are well under .500, and that includes their World Series championship in 2009.  Against the Twins, though, they’re like the Globetrotters playing the Washington Generals.

The Twins talk a lot about how the Yankees aren’t in their head and ya de ya de ya de, but I think it’s impossible to think otherwise.

It was ten years ago today Gary Anderson missed his only field goal of the season as the Falcons advanced to the Super Bowl against Denver.  I can still hear the deafening silence from me and my friends in my apartment that day, and I remember that the front page story on the Star Tribune on Tuesday was about how bad Monday sucked.  Easily the worst day I've spent as a sports fan.  Easily.

It's also the 21st anniversay of the day Darren Nelson dropped a pass in the end zone in the NFC championship vs. Washington.

Have a good one!

I'll put the totals for the season up here, with details of how things fell last weekend against Baltimore below the fold.

Ortiz - 31
Ramirez - 30
Youkilis - 23
Loretta - 17
Lowell - 17
Schilling - 14
Papelbon - 13
Nixon - 12
Varitek - 11
Crisp - 9
Gonzalez - 9
Pena - 8
Beckett - 6
Wakefield - 6
Cora - 6
Timlin - 6
Tavarez - 5
Mirabelli - 4
Kapler - 3
Lester - 3
Foulke - 3
Seanez - 2
Gabbard - 2
Lopez (P) - 2
Hinske - 2
Hansack - 1
Delcarmen - 1
Corey - 1
Snow - 1
Harris - 1
Riske - 1
Bard - 1
Wells - 1
Jarvis - 1
Lopez (C) - 1
Breslow - 1
Pedroia - 1

Continue reading this post »

Two guys picked up two win shares during the Minnesota series.  I'll give you one guess as to who they are.  Check your answer below the fold.

Update [2006-9-26 12:37:8 by KENtastic]:
There are a few, and only a few, more win shares to go around after the Toronto series. See how they got distributed below the fold. It's for real this time.

Update [2006-9-28 12:38:53 by KENtastic]:
Win shares from the split with Tampa Bay are now below the fold.

Continue reading this post »

Well, the Toronto series started well.  Maybe that's all we can hope for at this point.  Anyway, the win shares are below the fold.

Update [2006-9-7 0:29:43 by KENtastic]:
Updated win shares from the series against Chicago below the fold.

Update [2006-9-11 16:49:13 by KENtastic]:
Not a lot going on on these diary pages, but I'll still come around with the win share updates. The updates from the KC series are below the fold if you're interested.

Update [2006-9-18 21:56:12 by KENtastic]:
There are win shares updates from the Baltimore and Yankees series lumped together below the fold.

Continue reading this post »

By the time I updated my last diary with win shares from the Yankees series, it was bumped off the front page.  You can check it out here if you really want to.  Otherwise, happier Los Angeles win shares are below the fold.

Update [2006-8-28 1:23:25 by KENtastic]: Win shares updated after the Seattle series below the fold.

Update [2006-8-31 0:17:0 by KENtastic]:
Win shares updated from the Oakland series below the fold. If you must.

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It's been a while since I posted here.

But I'm back and I've got the latest on the Sox' 2006 short-form Win Shares below the fold.

Update [2006-8-14 3:17:13 by KENtastic]: New Win Shares from the Baltimore series below the fold.

Update [2006-8-17 0:31:0 by KENtastic]: New win shares from the Detroit series now available below the fold.

Update [2006-8-22 0:47:51 by KENtastic]: I'm the last diary on the first page, which means I'll be burying my update here. Seems appropriate.

Continue reading this post »

My last win shares diary for a while due to being gone for the next 2+ months.  I'm kind of surprised I made it this far...thanks for all the comments and feedback.  Hope you had as much fun with it as I did.

Win shares for the Toronto series and totals below the fold.

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Find out how the weekend's win shares against Seattle got distributed below the fold.

Update [2006-4-21 11:42:34 by KENtastic]: Tampa Bay series win shares added...

Update [2006-4-25 13:20:43 by KENtastic]: Toronto series win shares added...

Update [2006-4-28 11:37:6 by KENtastic]:
Cleveland series win shares added.

Update [2006-5-1 10:23:49 by KENtastic]: I struggle to explain the series in Tampa Bay in win shares below the fold.

Update [2006-5-3 0:43:23 by KENtastic]: Clearly Ortiz and Wake get a win share against the Yankees. Who else got or lost one? Find out below the fold.

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A weekend sweep means a lot more win shares to go around. Check out the list, some analysis, and the chart below the fold.

Update [2006-4-14 10:3:37 by KENtastic]: I don't want to push other diaries off the main page, so until mine gets pushed off the page I'll just update my diary. Check out how the win shares changed during the Toronto series below the fold.

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When I saw Nixon's two-run job in a game that then had three total runs, I was sure I'd be awarding him a win share today.  It wasn't to be, though, as these are your 2006 Red Sox with a win share apiece after three games, listed in descending order of unrounded win shares:

Schilling
Beckett
Papelbon
Ortiz

I talk about rounding, saves, the injustice to Nixon, and have a new poll below the fold....

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With the Sox losing last night, there are no more win shares to go around.  With a dominating performance by somebody last night, we may have seen  our rounding problem disappear from yesterday, but in fact it's been exacerbated.  Right now Schilling is the only player on the Sox with a rounded off Win Share, coming in at .86 unrounded WS.  I had a hunch that WS would kind of be a silly stat with a small number of games, and this confirms it.  When we get a few more wins under our belt we should see numbers that make a little more sense.

Below the jump I have the WS of those who are closest to getting rounded up to one WS.

Also, check out the poll where you can buck the system and let your voice be heard on you think is most responsible for the Sox' win.

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I thought it would be fun this year to track the Sox' win shares on a day-by-day basis.  I'm guessing that it will be interesting to see, not just how the players stack up in win shares at any given point in the season, but how each player has accumulated them  with each win.

To do it, I've used the short form method Bill James outlines on page 14 of his 2002 book, Win Shares.

If you're not familiar with win shares stat, it's basically a statistic that takes a look at a player's hitting, pitching, and fielding contribution relative to the rest of his team and the league.  Each team gets three win shares per win and those are divided up amongst the players.

After crunching the numbers for yesterday's game, Ortiz and Schilling both got one win share.  That would have been obvious to anybody watching the game or looking at the box score, of course, but if I'm going to do this for every game I've got to start somewhere.

The reason that there were only two win shares instead of three is due to rounding.  Since Schilling got 1.16 WS and Ortiz got .68, that left only 1.16 WS to get split among the rest of the players on the team, none of whom had .50 or more WS, so they all get rounded down to 0.  For the record, Gonzalez and Varitek were tied for third with 0.23 WS each.