The 2005 Yankees Experiment Nearly Broke Baseball 

I love how Mo casually had a 308 era+

Those Yankees Red Sox games during this period were INSANE ! Long , tense , full of storylines . I miss the rivalry being like that

I remember this team. Always hitting homers and dropping the ball.

I'm a die hard orioles fan and my best friend is a die hard Yankee fan. His joke is... "how do you know it's April? The orioles are in 1st place. How do you know it's September? The Yankees are in 1st place."

I had this idea on my original list before I made my first video, you def executed it better than I would’ve then 😂

I miss these days. Giambi is my all time favorite player. Got to see him hit a homer in person during his last season in pinstripes and the last season in the House that Ruth Built in 2008. Moments like that make you a baseball fan for life.

There seems to be a lot of parallel between a lot of what Steinbrenner did and what Cohen is doing now lol.

That's Aaron "10-0" Small, to you

Bernie deserves being mentioned with the core 4. He was honestly the best player of the bunch for a lot of those 90s chips

I was the bullpen catcher for the Newark Bears in '09 maybe '08. Keith Faulk was the closer. He said after that game 7 in 2004, almost every player was in tears. Every time he told the story the whole locker room was dead quiet.

great vid from SportStorm, man is cranking out high-quality content!

Good video, a trooper for going through all this research. Baseball in the 2000’s was a special time. Glad this era got me into the game. Might have to check out some more videos.

Loved these teams so much. Grew up with them

Jaret Wright was also the reason Pedro Martinez didn't become an Indian. Before the 98 season, Cleveland and Montreal were in talks to do a trade of Pedro for Wright and Bartolo Colon. But Cleveland got cold feet after Wright had an excellent 97 postseason (including a strong game 7 start on the world series).

I feel like those 2005-2008 Yanks have the same story. The team really was missing pieces every season. Somebody seemed to come up short.

I did enjoy th vid yep you brought a lot to light in this

the 04' Red Sox didn't actually win a championship with a defense that bad, most of those numbers get accumulated from the first half of the season.. they knew they couldn't win a title with that kind of defense and traded Nomar at the trade deadline and acquired three gold glove level defenders at 1st base, SS, and OF. That was the thing that turned their season around.

Great video, I remember these declining years after those great late 90s teams so well. It also shows, that for most of the 21st century, the Yankees have consistently played poor defense in clutch situations in the post-season. 2009 being the outlier, of course, at least as far as RESULTS go.

That team was so up and down it's like having a mood swing in a rollercoaster.

This brings back childhood memories!

Those mid 00s Yankees used to be so stacked, veteran potential HOF hitters all across the lineup and sometimes the bench too.

Yankees got the YES Network starting in the 2002 season, so Steinbreiner wanted to sign stars, trade for stars, have all the press, all the ratings. And then even more once they got the new stadium starting in 2009 From 2002-2009, Yankees spending habits were sensational to say the least

People always forget Bernie Williams when speaking about these teams. Just because he was called up a few years early does not make him different from the core four.

Great video.

Clemons leaving for Houston in 2004 didn't kill the Yankees but big game Andy Pettitte following him wrought havoc on the rotation. From 1996 on during the dynasty years Andy and David Cone were the backbone and foundation of the staff. Guys like Jimmy Key, David Wells and finally the Rocket added to the core and Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez sealed the deal for dynasty. With Andy the Bombers don't run out of starters in that 2004 ALCS and the rotation doesn't cost them for three straight seasons.

Im a huge Red Sox fan and growin up I always remembered the Yankees bringing up these random minor league pitchers because their staff was terrible. Yankees also had one of the worst farm leagues in all the bigs becaue they just threw most their money to free agents instead of their youth. The fact that between 2005-2008 they only missed the playoffs once and won the DIvision twice goes to show how great this offense was. Even Joe Torre has admitted that he was shocked that the Yankees made the playoffs in 2007 because they got off to a terrible start and hardly made any significant move throughout the season.

I think the lesson to be learned is that the offense over the course of the year proved to be much more important than defense. Losing a 5 game series isn't indicative of an experiment gone totally wrong. New age stats wildly overrate defense, especially now when there are so many less balls in play. As the Phillies proved this year, defense is given too much weight in comparison to hitting and pitching. I also think there is a far greater correlation with better hitting teams being able to overcome their defensive inefficiencies than a great defensive team being able to overcome its offensive inefficiencies.

I think I subconsciously repressed the memory of Bubba and Sheff crashing into one another until this moment. Those 2005-2008 early playoff exits were incredibly frustrating, but I think that one takes the cake as the MOST infuriating of them all. Truly emblematic of that era.

Haven't the Yankees been breaking it since 1996? Joking aside, thanks for the vid SportStorm!

Great Video 👍

Just like most other Yankees teams post-2001, they padded their stats against bad pitching during the regular season and then the bats went cold against playoff-caliber pitchers. The late 90s dynasty scored big but was also super clutch.

Interestingly I just ran a quick regression - there’s no discernible correlation between DRS and being series champion to a 95% CI. Being a cincinnati native, I can speak to this anecdotally given 2011 the reds were studs with the glove leading the mlb in DRS but dog shit still 4 fans under 500 trailing a brewers team 30 games in the green. Meanwhile the eventual champions Cards had a negative DRS

This was the year I stopped watching baseball. I didn’t get back in until 2019 when the Nationals took a wild card game down 1-3 in the 8th with 2 outs all the way to a championship.

The thumbnail is crazy wild

Could you do a video on the 2021 Giants? I feel like their story should be told more often

Great video

How did the 2005 Yankees nearly break baseball? The video didn't explore that, only that they had a high payroll and poor pitching and defence.

Oh my haven’t seen/heard Tony Womacks name in a while! Also totally forgot the Yanks picked up Randy Johnson 😂

It's wild how bad defensively those Yankees teams were. IIRC the pitching staffs weren't full of high strikeout pitchers that couldn't mitigate against the bad defense, Aaron Small and Chien Ming Wang aside... While Gene Michael gets a lot of credit for the dynasty Yankees, Harding Petersen's role is overlooked. With the exception of Jeter, selected while Michaels was in charge, the rest of the Core Four, and Bernie Williams was already in the system.

You should make a video on the dbacks going from 69-93 in 2016, to 93-69 in 2017, only to have their playoff hopes ruined by zack greinke failing to go deep in the wild card game, forcing us to burn Robbie ray, and mess up our rotation against the dodgers next series. Specific I know lol

I've always felt the 2000s were arguably the most criminally underrated decade in Yankees history. During that decade(2000-2009), the Yankees had 10 consecutive winning seasons in which they averaged over 96 wins. Those years include four 100+ win campaigns, eight divisional titles and nine postseason appearances. The biggest knock on those clubs seems to be their performance in the October, but this too seems unfair. They were able to win four pennants and two World Series titles in the 2000s(That's more then some franchises team histories). This includes winning 45 postseason games and 11 postseason series. It should be pointed out that they were never swept and won at least one postseason game every year they made the postseason during that time. Truthfully, these numbers compare very favorably with the great Reds teams of the 70s, the Braves of the 90s and the Astros of the 2010s. Lastly, with regards to this video's point about defensive zone ratings, it should be pointed out that they never fielded a good defensive team based on sabremetrics(One of their better ones was 2008, the only year they missed the postseason) in the 2000s. This kind of takes the air out UZR, DZR and all the other defensive analytics mentioned by Sportstorm.

12:55 Let's just marvel at Mariano's insane 308 ERA+

Ok. Well as a lifelong braves fan… braves had incredible pitching

The Astros of the last few years are very similar to the late 90s Yankees era, in terms of homegrown talent & success. If the Yankees decided to change it up & go the Gene Michael route again, it would easily be another dynasty, but they're not willing, the fans & the media would prevent it from happening.

Defense is absolutely killing the Phillies right now.. they're pretty absent minded on the base paths too. They're a smarter team than they're showing, and I feel like that focus will come through if they make the playoffs, but that's a HUGE if.

gene michaels also brought in joe torre and scouted bernie williams

As a Yankee fan it frustrated me how they went from winning with building from their farm system and adding wise additions to changing approach by trying to win by out spending other teams.

That thumbnail tho 😮

The 2005 Yankees payroll equates to about $240 million in todays dollars, which is no where near first anymore.🙄

They didn't win in those mid 2000s years but damn they were fun to watch

even with zero defense to speak of i feel this team could have fallen ass backwards into a WS appearance if the pitching staff wasn't old as dirt

Giambi's second half was absolutely insane.

12:35 I'm sure this won't be a running gag for the next few years.

George Steinbrenner proving that he shouldn’t be in control once again.

A division leader is NOT a failed roster construction. By any other teams standard they were successful. Only the Yankees are champs or bust but if you aren’t a fan you don’t get to say that because your team would be ecstatic with the Yankees results.

I feel like the 06 Yankees were a better choice for this subject video…..A Rod batting 8th in the playoffs

It makes me wonder, would it have been better if Jeter played third and A-Rod at short? Jeter had very poor range for a shortstop, and Rodriguez seemed to field better before moving to third.

Wang was our best pitcher for yearssss...... N thats fucking sad

Um, how exactly did this “experiment” nearly break Baseball? All it did was remind everyone that the World Series cannot be bought so easily, as the highest payroll in the game is no guarantee of success.

What did in the Yankees from 04-the present, pitching. They never have enough pitching anymore.

If the actual wild card format was implemented in 2005 Yankees and redsox will both enter the playoffs but advanced to the wild card

Also I love the hot take that your defense is atrocious so pitchers have no faith in the people behind them so any failure must be the pitchers fault. Not that the defense can’t make any play outside of a routine play 😂

IN THOSE YEAR ANGELS HAD A GREAT TEAM , AND THE ANGEL GOT TO BEAT THE YANKEES OFTEN

The Yankees team had a mental breakdown the following year cus the red Sox destroyed the mental after being up 0-3!

That's what was so special about that 2004 Red Sox World Series team they were the lovable idiots who weren't supposed to win the World Series an finally broke the Curse of the Great Bambino aka Babe Ruth!

Quietly one of the biggest mistakes the Yankees made in this era was trading Robin Ventura in mid-2003.

Giambi started 78 games at 1B...

that thumbnail picture is disrespectful lmfaooooo

I remember 2005 well, the White Sox broke their curse to sweep the World Series a year after Boston broke their own Championship curse.

Basically that yankees team did what the 2004 lakers team dis thinking all these old veteran legends we're gonna come in to one of the most winning franchises in cash in for a championship last minute

04 Red Sox were dead in the water until they traded Nomar Garciaparra for Orlando Cabrera n Dougie mientkiewicz to sure up the defense. They didn’t make the WS with a bad Drating

That's so tragic one huge mistake killed their meme

The 2006 Yankees experiment was even crazier, but they fell to the underdog Detroit Tigers after getting outpitched.

It might have been a good idea for the Yankees to take the greatest defensive shortstop in history of the game and actually play him at the shortstop, instead of keeping one of the worst shortstops in the history of the game at the position.

In a couple years, you can Find+Replace 2005 Yankees for 2023 Cardinals

It's not like anybody's going to feel bad for that yankees team they just came off winning so many World Series they were bound to have some failure eventually

Shawn Chacon and Aaron Small saved that season

2:53 Me thinking about this in 2023😪

Ironically, would have massively improved the defense to move ARod to short instead of Jeter and just have Jeter hit since his glove was trash

So when are you making an Astros video

thumbnail moment

Baseball has been broken for a while now

Yankees should have swept the Angels. They 100% gave that series away.

You lost some points by not including bernie in that "core"

The card 2011 are clearly the outlier here I don’t think they played bad defense in 2011 better then in 2013 and Phillies 22 and Yankees 09

The Phillies weren't some brilliantly designed team. The playoffs are a total crapshoot and it took a rule change for them to even make the playoffs in the first place with a shit record. Even if harper was healthy all year that's not some great team.

I could be wrong, but didn’t moneyball teach us 20 years ago that defense was next to meaningless?

The current Yankees are the opposite - great D and pitching but no quality bats outside of Judge, and it's not gonna get better.. there's no Robinson Cano coming, as neither Volpe or Peraza are even close to Cano offensively.

My favorite yankee teams 98-01 06-08 09-11 The yankees i hated the most 2005

Hal is not George's biological son

The moment they moved A-Rod to 3B to make Jeter happy, they were doomed.

The highest paid team ever is struggling early? that’s alright just call up Robinson cano 😂 team was loaded

More owners need to follow George’s example and stop being stingy with their money

So you're basically saying the team was a failure bc they lost one game by 2 runs?

This team was fun as hell to watch tho, just murdering baseballs

Just shows in reality defense in baseball doesn’t matter

People always forget to mention Bernie Williams who was better than Jeter and Posada

How exactly was baseball almost broken?

2004-2006 Yankees were good but underachieving.

Yup. Hate the Yankees all you want, their 90s teams were home grown and blue collar. The players on those teams are fan favorites to this day, and what every Yankees fan would rather see the ball club look like. If you hate the Yankees for all of their money, you’re just telling on yourself