BEST MATCHUP (Best combined records with both teams
being over .500): Texas Rangers @ New York Yankees (62-41)
Here’s a round-up of Wednesday’s 6-5 victory over the
Orioles in which the Yankees only had three hits, as
brought to you by PESN (Pidgin English Sports
Network):
Yanqui gat stick. Nogat paitim. Paitim kam tripela
taim. Wokabaut sikis taim. Gat plet sikis taim. Pisin
losim sikis – faipela.
Taking an all-time great from a team is no guarantee
of immediate success against that team in the ensuing
season. The Yankees lost two of three in their first
meeting with Texas this year in the wake of getting
Alex Rodriguez from the Rangers.
Hi. My name is Jim Baker and what follows is what I
will be doing at Baseball Prospectus. Twice a week,
I’ll select four games based on some very rigid
criteria and write about them or the teams involved.
Every Tuesday and Friday, you’ll see a Best Matchup, a
Worst Matchup, a Biggest Mismatchup and a Closest
Matchup. How do I know these games actually fit their
billing? Simple, I use the won-loss records of the teams
involved.
Is that scientific? Hell no!
But it gives me a platform to state a case about any
number of things both germane and tangential (not to
be confused with the Vaudeville act of the same name)
to the match-up at hand. I could make it more
scientific by only using the Pythagorean records of
the teams involved, but the key to enjoying this column
is not to get too caught up in the billing–or the
methodology of how the billings were conceived.
What are my credentials? For one thing, I am related
by blood to every single current member of Baseball
Prospectus, so my arrival here owes something to
nepotism. Apart from that, I was once Bill James’
assistant and contributed to the first edition of the
Historical Baseball Abstract. I’ve spent the past two
years writing for ESPN.com, primarily on the MLB
Insider page.
Enjoy.