Tag Archives: Mark Teixeira

February 9, 2025

Get Closer

Leave a reply

Tom Tango gives some insight into positioning in the batter’s box:

And:

Standing well behind the plate also increases the chance of reaching by catcher interference. There should be a negative trade-off of standing close to the edge in injuries from hit by pitches. This is why pitchers try to scare batters inside.

I’m often impressed at how the game evolves in the direction that analytics reveal are correct. Managers adjust their one-run strategies to the run environment. Pitchers and batters learn from positive and negative feedback that closer to the edge and farther back in the box is the optimal placement for a hitter.

This did not happen with shifting. Some overt shifting happened with very extreme players, like Ted Williams, but most was subtle. When I used to sit in the centerfield bleachers in Fenway, the outfielders would move with every hitter, but it was seldom more than a few steps in any direction. Some infielders would adjust left or right depending on the pitch that was about to be thrown. I understand that Cal Ripken would sit in on the pitcher-catcher meetings so he would know the approach against each opponent and he could adjust before hand.

At some point, most batters developed a singular swing. Instead of adjusting to the type of pitches thrown, or the tendencies of the pitcher, or the positioning of the fielders, or even the leverage of the situation, batters just swung hard to pull the ball. Mark Teixeira stands as a prime example of this. His BABIP fell off a cliff in 2010 as teams started shifting against him, but he just kept on pulling the ball.

In this case, the evolution of the game went down a boring dead end, which is a big reason MLB stepped in the change the rules. As we saw in 2024, defenses adjusted rather quickly to their limits, and batters still refuse to budge.

November 10, 2019

Underperforming Ozuna

Leave a reply

Mike Petriello at MLB.com does a nice job of dissecting why Marcell Ozuna underperforms his predicted hitting averages. A lot of it has to do with predictability on ground balls:

In his great year of 2017, he hit most of his shorter batted balls up the middle. That changed a little in ’18 — then in ’19, he started hitting a ton of these balls basically right at the shortstop. Not only that, fewer of the ground balls he hit this year were hit hard. If he’s being so predictable, then he might be making it a lot easier for teams to position against him. Put another way: In ’17, he pulled 37 percent of grounders, hit hard 36 percent of the time. In ’19, he pulled 55 percent of grounders, hit hard 33 percent of the time. That’s … worse.

Ozuna, for what it’s worth, saw a shift 12 percent of the time in 2019, up from under 4 percent in ’17.

MLB.com

Something similar happened to Mark Teixeira. After 2009, he started pulling the ball more, and when teams started shifting on him, he could not adjust.

This may be part of the aging process. As bats slow with age, the hitter needs to start swinging earlier, and early swings tend to pull the ball. Players who direct the ball (Tony Gwynn, Derek Jeter, e.g.) commit the bat late in the swing, so if the ball moves in an unexpected way, they can adjust and make contact. They will spray the ball around the field. The power hitters don’t wait for pitches, they see and swing. The earlier they swing, the more mistakes they will make. Instead of driving the ball up the middle, they pull to shortstop and make an out.

I remember Teixiera trying to go the other way with pitches, and he just could not do it. It wasn’t his style of hitting, and the same probably applies to Ozuna.

Ozuna heads into his age 29 season with a chance to correct this. He’s as old a Teixiera was in his last season up the middle. It took a long time for Teixeira to try to adjust. If Ozuna just tries to drive the ball up the middle more, he may see a lot more success.

August 5, 2016

Teixeira To Retire

1 Reply

Mark Teixeira announced the 2016 season would be his last:

A three-time All-Star first baseman whose career has been interrupted by injuries for much of the last five years, Teixeira announced during a tear-filled news conference Friday at Yankee Stadium that he plans to retire at the end of this season.

”I gave you everything I had,” he said to Yankees fans during the televised announcement, then stopping for 15 seconds to regain his composure. ”It wasn’t always enough.”

It’s good that Teixeira realizes his career is coming to an end. The Yankees got three good seasons from him and a World Championship before injuries took their toll. He at least got to return to form in 2015, playing 111 games before an injury ended his year. He’ll end his career with over 400 doubles and 400 home runs, not bad.

February 1, 2016

Broken Wing

1 Reply

Greg Bird required surgery on his shoulder and will miss the 2016 season:

When the season ended, though, Bird’s agent contacted the Yankees to let them know there had been some lingering discomfort. According to general manager Brian Cashman, the Yankees sent Bird for shoulder checkups with both Dr. Chris Ahmad and Dr. David Altchek in October. Both recommended no surgery at the time, just a strengthening and rehab protocol similar to what Bird had done with success in Trenton.

That might have been the end of it, but the problem began to flare up again last month.

“I would say a week ago; some time in the last 10 days,” Cashman said. “Once he started working out further and stronger in Tampa, he felt problems again.”

This does not impact the Yankees plan that much at the moment, since Mark Teixeira is expected to play first this year. Without Bird, however,the Yankees don’t have a great backup plan if the annual Teixeira injury occurs.

The good news is that Bird should be fine for the 2017 season, when the Yankees will need a new first baseman.

September 11, 2015

Fractured Fairy Tale

Leave a reply

Mark Teixeira is done for the season:

Mark Teixeira will miss the rest of the season after tests revealed the New York Yankees first baseman has a fractured right leg.

Teixeira fouled a ball off his shin Aug. 17 and has started only once since. He had trouble running in that game and was not improving much, so the Yankees sent him for a third round of tests Friday that finally showed a fracture.

A big question the Yankees faced this season was health. Alex Rodriguez and Teixeira proved healthy through most of the season, although CC Sabathia did not. The two offensive players having good seasons was enough to put the Yankees in a good position to make the playoffs.

This gives 22-year-old rookie Greg Bird a chance to show what he can do. So far he’s hit for power and got on base okay, so the Yankees may not be losing that much.

The Yankees are off to a poor start Friday night as Luis Severino gives up two two-run homers as the Blue Jays score five runs in the top of the first, and are still batting.

April 24, 2015

Good Pitching

Leave a reply

So far, the better pitching Mets are getting beat by the better hitting Yankees. The Yankees came into the game second in the majors in runs per game, the Mets second in the majors in runs allowed per game. Jacob deGrom, however, just allowed his third home run of the night, the second to Mark Teixeira, and the Yankees lead the Mets 5-0 in the bottom of the third.

June 26, 2013 June 18, 2013 June 16, 2013

Square One

2 Replies

Mark Teixeira is out of action with another wrist injury:

Teixeira exited the clubhouse before the game ended, bound for an appointment in New York with team doctor Chris Ahmad on Sunday. Back in March, when Teixeira first injured his wrist, Ahmad told general manager Brian Cashman there was a 30-percent chance Teixeira would need season-ending surgery if the strain failed to heal. For manager Joe Girardi, that threat never ceased, even after Teixeira returned from the disabled list on May 31.

“I’ve been concerned about it since he’s come back,” Girardi said. “Just because it was a tough injury, and you’re never sure if it’s going to hold up, or how it’s going to react.”

So the Yankees are back to their aged veteran replacements, who are no longer the wiz kids.

Hat tip to BBTF.

At the start of the season, I wrote for USA Today Sports Weekly about how the Yankees had returned to the 1980s, picking up once good players whose best days were behind them (print only):

Wells rWAR peaked at 6.0 in 2006, but he’s posted only one season above two since, a 3.6 rWAR in 2010. Lyle Overbay peaked at 2.9 rWAR in 2006. He posted negative numbers the last two seasons. Youkilis’s peak came late, 6.3 rWAR in 2009 at age 30. Of all the older players the Yankees acquired, Youk might be the most likely to post good numbers. He’s only played about three quarters of a season, however, in each of the last three years.

The Yankees batting age per PA stood at 33.0 years in 2012, the highest of the Steinbrenner ERA. The team went into the playoffs tired and hurt, and wore out in the ALCS. The additions of 2013 fail to make the team younger, and if the new veterans don’t live up to their best, the Yankees won’t get the chance to limp into the playoffs.

To my surprise, those veterans did live up to their best. Unfortunately, the stars were not able to stay on the roster, and that initial surge faded, and now the Yankees are in a bit of trouble.

June 3, 2013 May 31, 2013

Bats Return

Leave a reply

The Yankees activated Kevin Youkilis and Mark Teixeira off the disabled list. We’ll see if they last longer than Curtis Granderson.

Despite their recent slump, I’m very impressed the Yankees played so well with their stars on the disabled list. The replacements put the team in a very good position to win the division when and if they get healthy.

March 17, 2013

Teixeira Torn

Leave a reply

Mark Teixeira‘s injury is worst that previously known:

The injury that will keep New York Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira out of the lineup until May at the earliest is not a wrist strain, as originally reported, but a partially torn tendon sheath that could potentially require season-ending surgery.

Mark says it may be June before he joins the team, as rushing his return might tigger the surgery and would force him out for the season.

March 6, 2013

Falling Apart

7 Replies

The Yankees continue to hemorrhage stars as Mark Teixeira will be out eight to ten weeks due to his wrist injury:

Teixeira was evaluated on Wednesday by team physician Dr. Christopher Ahmad and specialist Dr. Melvin Rosenwasser. Teixeira has been advised to have four weeks of complete rest in New York and will not rejoin the Yankees in Florida this spring.

“It’s not what you want, but it’s what you’ve got to deal with,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “It’s life.”

Teixeira was diagnosed with an ECU tendon sprain, which is a similar injury to the one that Blue Jays slugger Jose Bautista suffered last season at Yankee Stadium. Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said that surgery will not be required.

The Yankees are without their stars at third, first, and center. Their shortstop is coming off a serious ankle break. They look pretty week at catcher. The pitching is going to have to be very good.

March 5, 2013 February 18, 2013

Faster Starting Teixeira

2 Replies

Mark Teixeira thinks playing in the World Baseball Classic will help him get off to a better start in April. Then again, if he is such a slow starter, does the US really want him playing in the WBC?

“I spend almost all offseason and all spring training lifting weights very hard, getting my body in shape for 162 (games),” Teixeira said. “Because of that, I think in April I’m a little tight, maybe a little sore. This year, I’ve cut back on that. I’m not really going to get any stronger as I get older. I just want to keep that strength, keep that flexibility, so I’ve cut back a little bit on the weightlifting already to make sure I’m not tight for the beginning of the season.”

I’ll buy the soreness but not the tightness. I’ve read of studies that show people do not get muscle bound, they just get stronger. If you watch video of players from the 1970s, they were mostly wiry. Ballplayers thought lifting weights would make them less flexible. In the 1980s they discovered lifting made them stronger and better players.

I think it just take Mark time to adjust to live pitching.

February 2, 2013

Teixeira on Value

7 Replies

Mark Teixeira mostly nails value in MLB:

“Agents are probably going to hate me for saying it. You’re not very valuable when you’re making $20 million. When you’re Mike Trout, making the minimum, you are crazy valuable. My first six years, before I was a free agent, I was very valuable. But there’s nothing you can do that can justify a $20 million contract.”

Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, and Albert Pujols come to mind as three players who at their peak were valuable at the $20 million level. Free agency makes up for all the residual value players don’t receive when they are subject to the reserve clause. That’s why the Cardinals were actually smart to let Pujols go; they made their money off him, and the big contract he required would just cause them to lose most of the gain from his younger years. I truly hope that some day players and teams figure out they are better off paying players what they are worth in the moment, rather than making up for previous value.

October 12, 2012

Teixeira Hits

Leave a reply

Mark Teixeira pulls a single over the shift, and the Yankees have their first hit and first base runner against Jason Hammel. With no out in the bottom of the fifth, the Yankees will now try to be the first team to score.

Teixeira gets a walking lead, and steals second. Mark is slow, but he wasn’t held and he took advantage of that.

Update: Raul Ibanez comes through again, this time with a seeing-eye single by the second baseman to drive in Teixeira. The Yankees lead 1-0. That was a non-conventional Yankees run.

Update: Swisher hits into a double play. Girardi could have benched a number of players, and Nick is one of them.

Update: With two out, Curtis Granderson singles and steals second. The Yankees have found a way to run on the Orioles.

Update: Russell Martin flies out to end the inning, but the Yankees lead 1-0. That may be all they get, and it may be all they need.

September 10, 2012 September 9, 2012 September 9, 2012

Another Reason not to Dive into First Base

3 Replies

Mark Teixeira complained about the bad call at first base that ended the Yankees/Orioles game Saturday night:

Sometimes you wonder if the umpires are just trying to get out of there. They don’t want you to make a comeback. They want to go home because those were terrible calls.

Teixeira assumes he’ll be fined for those comments. The Yankees might also want to fine him for sliding head first into first base. I’ve posted about bad plays being the result of pattern recognizers getting screwed up, especially on the A.J. Pierzynski play. When an ump make a call at first, he needs to simultaneously see the ball go into a glove and a foot hit the bag. My guess is that is somewhat difficult to do, so umpires probably use the position of the body of the batter running over the bag as an extra clue to help them. Teixeira didn’t give the umpire that extra clue. If Mark runs across the bad instead of diving into it, then the ump would have seen Mark’s body behind the first baseman when the ball was caught, and Mark would likely have been called safe. Instead, the ump had to look for a hand on the bag.

This is not to excuse the umpire. If the ball goes into the glove and a player’s body is half-way across the bag, then he’s probably safe. By diving, however, Mark took away a clue that might have helped get the call right.

Mark also injured his calf on the play, but that seemed to come more from his hard running than the dive. He was not supposed to run hard, but you can’t blame him with the game on the line.

Hat tip, The Big Lead.

September 8, 2012

Orioles Get a Gift

Leave a reply

With Yankees on first and third with one out in the top of the ninth, the Orioles leading 5-4, Mark Teixeira grounds a ball slowly to second. The Orioles go for the double play, which develops slowly. They get the out at second, but Teixeira busts his injured leg down the line and dives into first base and appears to be safe. The umpire calls him out, and Mark is extremely upset. The replay shows that it was indeed a bad call. It wasn’t even one of those calls that should be tough in real time. The ball was no where near Mark Reynolds glove when Mark made contact with first base. The Orioles get the win, instead of having to bat in the ninth.

The Orioles move back into a tie with the Yankees for first place in the AL East. The Rays lost 4-2 to Texas in ten innings, and they remain two games back.

July 30, 2012

Pulling Teixeira

Leave a reply

Mark Teixeira talks about returning to his pulling ways:

“Hey, listen, halfway through last season I was on pace for 50 home runs and 130 RBI,’’ he said, “and I had people telling me, ‘you need to hit the ball the other way.’ I probably shouldn’t have listened to them but I try to please the people that I work for, and it didn’t work out.’’

Asked if he felt he had a choice in the matter, Teixeira was emphatic: “I was told to do something so I tried it,’’ he said.

Since he and Kevin Long decided that Mark should be aggressive at the plate again, he’s hitting .274/.374/.573.

I also find this bit interesting:

Teixeira, who is now batting .258, says he doesn’t understand such fuss over his average, since he continued to put up big production numbers, hitting 39 home runs with 111 RBI last season.

“It’s all about producing runs,’’ he said. “I’d love to hit .300 every year. It would make everybody happy, but I’d much rather drive in 100 runs every year.”

The problem, in looking at his career stats, is that Teixeira suffered a drop in OBP starting in 2010. That drop came from his hits, not his walks, so addressing his batting average was a way of getting his OBP up. In general, Mark is right, people shouldn’t be fixated on BA, but in this case it was the appropriate weakness to address. While Mark’s home runs stayEd High, his doubles dropped with his batting average. So while Mark was producing 100 RBI, he was doing it at a much higher cost in outs and less power.

The good news is he seems to have found a sweet spot right now, where everything appears to be working.

Hat tip, BBTF.

July 8, 2012

I Find This Racial Labeling Very Confusing

11 Replies

Vincente Padilla and Mark Teixeira have a long term spat. I found this quote from Padilla interesting:

“The problem is he talks about all the wrong things that others have done, but the things he’s done — against the Latinos [on the Rangers] — he doesn’t open his mouth about,” Padilla said.

So Latinos don’t consider Teixeira Latino? He was born in Maryland, so I could understand that. I just wonder if the people who count these things count him as white or Latino. It’s not clear from their report how they decide in which group a player belongs. It seems to me that players like Nomar Garciaparra, Tino Martinez, and Teixeria are as European-American as I am. (American meaning the hemisphere, not the country).

This kind of thing forces me to take those diversity reports with a grain of salt.

June 7, 2012

Nervous Cough

2 Replies

Doctors found the reason for Mark Teixeira‘s persistent cough:

The mystery of Mark Teixeira’s persistent cough was solved on Thursday, as a specialist told the Yankees first baseman that he has suffered nerve damage to his vocal cords.

Teixeira was pleased to finally receive a definitive answer and a treatment plan. An early April illness started the coughing fits, which were severe enough to create a lasting issue.

“That’s actually really good news for me, because we think we found the reason for all of this,” Teixeira said. “She gave me some medicine that will hopefully help the nerve calm down. It’s good news for me. It puts my mind at ease.”

I’m impressed the figured that out.

May 26, 2012 May 14, 2012

A Win and a Loss

1 Reply

Mark Teixeira had a rare multi-hit game, going two for four against the Orioles with a double and a home run. He pushes his slugging percentage just above .400 as the Yankees win 8-5. Mark’s home run broke a 5-5 tie. Derek Jeter went one for five and passed Robin Yount on the all-time hit list.

The Yankees may lose Ivan Nova for a while:

Yankees starter Ivan Nova allowed five runs and seven hits in 5 1-3 innings before leaving with a bruised and sprained right foot. The right-hander took a line drive off the top of the same foot in the third inning, courtesy of Nick Markakis, but shook it off.

The conditions for the game were terrible, with a steady rain falling. The dirt on the infield actually looked slick at one point. I wonder if that contributed to the injury.

May 10, 2012

Breathing Problems

2 Replies

Mark Teixeira is having trouble breathing:

The Yankees first baseman visited a chest specialist at Columbia Presbyterian yesterday and was diagnosed with “severely inflamed bronchial airways” that have impacted his breathing.

“I was getting no air,” Teixeira said before the Yankees’ 4-1 loss to the Rays last night in The Bronx in which he went 0-for-4 with a strikeout to drop his average to .217. “I’ve never gotten over the cough I’ve had all year.”

They prescribed prednisone, a non-anabolic steroid. My mother suffered asthma, and this pretty much sounds like the kind of attack she would go through. They would give her prednisone, and while it allowed her to breathe, the side effects are tough to take. She would become “witchy” (her word). Once you are on the drug, it takes four weeks to come off it as the dose needs to be reduced slowly. I hope Teixeira comes through this okay.

Hat tip, Hardball Talk.

May 6, 2012

Staying Off

2 Replies

Does anyone else find it amazing that 62 players with at least 80 plate appearances this season own OBPs below .300? I’m not surprised Jeff Francoeur made the list, but there are some very good names making tons of outs. There are quite a few first basemen on the list; Ike Davis, Albert Pujols, Justin Smoak, Gaby Sanchez, Casey Kotchman, Mark Teixeira, Eric Hosmer, Adam Lind, James Loney. As position players whose primary responsibility is offense, they have no excuse.

Update: Maybe it’s not that unusual. There were about the same number of players last year.

March 30, 2012

Opposite Teixeira

2 Replies

Mark Teixeira successfully worked on going the other way in spring training. We’ll see how much he uses this weapon during the regular season.

I’ve been taking an online course in game theory from Stanford, and we’ve been learning this week about Nash equilibrium. I set up the following game between Teixeira and the defense. Mark is the row player, and the defense is the column player.

Teixeira/Defense Shift Straight
Pull .25,.75 .35,.65
Other way .9,.1 .3,.7

In each cell, the first number represents the payoff to Teixeira, the second the payoff to the defense. Note that this is a zero sum game, in that every cell sums to 1.0. The result is either positive for the player or for the defense.

These numbers make sense to me. Players tend to hit the ball harder when they pull, so Mark’s success should be higher when he pulls against a straight away defense than when he goes the other way. Likewise, the shift should reduce his success rate a great deal, since there is another infielder cutting down holes on that side of the diamond. His success rate against the shift should go way up, however, since no one is there to catch the ball! The occasional pop up or grounder back to the pitcher gets turned into an out, but those should be rare.

There is no pure strategy Nash equilibrium in this case. Each player wants to do the opposite of the other. There is a mixed strategy Nash equilibrium, however. The probability of the defense shifting should be about 0.07. The probability of Teixeira pulling should be about 6/7, or about 0.86. I think this result meshes nicely with Bill James and his criticism of shifting against David Ortiz. Always shifting is a poor strategy. Teams should save it for situations in which the hitter is very likely to pull the ball. For the batter, however, pulling the ball remains the best strategy, only needing to go the other way 1 out seven times to keep the defense honest.

February 25, 2012

Understanding the Currency of Outs

Leave a reply

Mark Teixeira talks about his potential bunting:

“If the situation calls for me to drive in runs or hit a home run, I am not going to bunt,’’ Teixeira said. “But if the pitcher is dealing and we need a baserunner … [a bunt single] is better than a line drive to the second baseman in right field.’’

One way to view offense is to think of it as avoiding outs. After all, if batters never make an out, they score an infinite number of runs, no matter how they reach base. That bunt single may not lead to anything at the moment, but it helps extend the offense, possibly giving the best hitters at the top of the order an extra chance to do damage.