VOTE: The psychology of the Yankees fan
Monday, August 2, 2010 at 12:00 pm by SJK
In light of trading Mark Melancon to the Astros, as well as the team's recent trading history, we ask...
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21 Responses to “VOTE: The psychology of the Yankees fan”
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I voted no. I’m not a Yankee fan but I do converse with many of them online. From what I can tell they’re generally good at evaluating players and trades. Seem knowledgable about the farm too. Of course there is every now and then a blind homer fan. Unfortunately those are the kind with the loudest mouths!
One day I’m being hailed as the heir to DiMaggio, Mantle and Williams. The next day they’re calling me Austin “K-Man” Jackson.
great question, and I would like to think Chris is right. While I’m not sobbing over the loss of Melancon, the garbage heap he is being referred to as on other yankees sites is ridiculous. He went from the heir to Mo, to a solid set up prospect, to someone the Yankees couldn’t get rid of fast enough. Come on now.
And if Montero is traded, I can’t even imagine the amount of bullshit we’ll see.
I wasn’t ready to give up on Melancon just yet.
LOVE ME, PLEASE LOVE ME… SOMEONE… ANYONE? I was the heir to Mariano. Now I get to hang out with Wandy Rodriguez. *SIGH*
Melancon will undoubtedly be an effective big-league reliever, but it’s very unlikely his potential would have been realized in a Yankees uniform. The franchise clearly didn’t believe in him, so it’s better that they trade him for some value rather than burying him in Triple-A.
And I think it’s more that Yankees fans talk themselves into best-case scenarios for prospects when they’re in the Yankees system, and become more realistic once they leave.
Yes, but in reality Melancon was never going to be anything more than a middle reliever and the Yankee fan who believes otherwise is kidding himself.
The Dilemma has it nailed. The biggest problem is that the Yankees have players in their farm system who can’t help them but who can help other teams. You could make an entire NL West rotation with players traded from the Yankees (and I think they were worried the D-Backs were going to do that.) IPK had no value to the Yanks major league team anymore when they flipped him- that doesn’t mean he was never going to be a decent major league pitcher.
You could make a rotation of IPK, Joba, Nova, Karstens, and McCutchen. It wouldn’t work for the Yankees, but it would work for the Royals or the Pirates or the D-Backs, etc. If we had traded Joba to Arizona, there is no doubt in my mind he would have developed into a decent starter (if that’s what they wanted him to do.)
NY Prospects get overly-built up, often don’t have a real chance to showcase themselves in NY, and then end up being servicable talent on lesser clubs. What are we supposed to make of that?
Depends on the prospect. The best prospects the Yankees have recently traded were Tabata, Vizcaino, and AJax. I don’t remember anyone ganging up on those guys after we traded them. What I generally read was that all three were too young to make an impact on the Yankees in the foreseeable future, and AJax was being flipped for a guy who represented a best-case scenario for his development.
With Melancon, there’s more shit being talked because a lot of people remember his terrible MLB performances. But I don’t think it’s typical for Yankee fans to bash prospects who have no MLB experience.
Definitely an interesting question to pose. I tend to think along the lines of Rich M.
Come on, guys. You’re better than boston in this regard, right?
I think reaction varies from case to case. I definitely did that with AJax (and justifiably so, I think), and I can come up with a pretty good explanation for why it was smart to deal Melancon. But if Montero had been traded for a Cliff Lee rental, I think the reaction would have been almost universally negative, save for the initial give-us-the-trophy-now sentiment.
Actually, I’m gonna completely backtrack on that previous comment. With A-level prospects especially, there’s a tendency to diminish their value to soften the blow of a trade that sacrifices the future for wins right now.
Personally, I come somewhere in between those two reactions: I try to weigh the pros and the cons and ultimately, in most cases, put my faith in Ca$hmoney and the people making the decisions.
We’ve all seen it before with the Yankees farm system a guy is highly regarded, a monster in the minors, gets called up to see what he can do and then is a huge busts in the bigs, he then gets traded and becomes an above average to all star player. Just because someone isn’t good enough for the Yankees now, doesn’t mean they won’t be good enough for baseball. Remember the Yankees are a win now team not win in the future. Although I am happy as of late they are holding onto some of these prospects to give them a fair shake in the Boogie Down. If this was the later half of the 90s we wouldn’t have Gardner, he’d be burning up the base pathes on some other team while a weak armed, weak kneed veteran would be out there.
Though I can’t generalize and say fans are universally the same, I really don’t feel that fans excessively justify these trades.
If you go back to trades where Phil Hughes name was being tossed around, very few fans were supportive of such deals. It has to do with the level of the prospect. Hughes had an aura of savior surrounding him. Montero appears to be more of a DH luxury then a vital piece of a potential dynasty. How much more productive might Montero be than say Adam Dunn over the next four or five years. I’m willing to bet it will be a push, with Montero crushing him on the back end of that time frame.
I think most of the justifications come with good reason.
Hey guys I took a walk to my mailbox this morning. I may even try to put my sneakers on and do some light stretching tomorrow. I’ll keep you posted.
Russ, the Yankees have traded a lot of prospects away over the years, but I can’t think of anyone who has really come back to haunt us. In fact I think we’ve been very lucky in that respect.
I am going to backtrack again and say I love penises.
Depends on the player. Some guys I want to deal, for example I really want ZMac, Laird, and Noesi dealt by the start of next year for something good. I feel that they don’t have much of a future with the organization and that their value is just going to go downhill. Melancon I still had some faith in, but I didn’t really think he was going to be anything more than a good middle reliever. I root against Arodys, but I still recognize that he’s a great player to have in the system.
I gotta say “no”. First of all, the vast majority of Yankee (and baseball) fans don’t pay much attention to the prospects, so they don’t care that they are traded away. Secondly, those that DO pay attention tend to get overly attached – look how many are crying over King BABIP Jackson. Hell, I’m still hearing people whine over Tabata.