My paper of choice, showing some progressive thinking.......

"Yet there was no reason for the Yankees’ victory to be so tight. Yankees Manager Joe Girardi, for all his emphasis on enlightened thinking, succumbed to two myths on Thursday in setting his lineup — that hitting streaks matter, and that pitchers perform better with certain catchers.

In switching Jerry Hairston Jr. for the slumping Nick Swisher, Girardi placed far too much weight on Swisher’s disappointing 38 postseason plate appearances so far — and not nearly enough on the fact that Swisher’s combined on-base and slugging percentages were 159 points higher than Hairston’s in 2009, and 117 points higher over their careers. Girardi chose to sit his powerful right fielder in favor of a player who barely hits enough to play shortstop. Similarly, concerned about Burnett’s supposedly poor synchronization with Jorge Posada, he swapped out his Hall of Fame-caliber catcher for Jose Molina, who has a decent claim to be the worst hitter in the major leagues.

The question of whether “streaks” have any predictive value — whether we should significantly adjust our forecast of a hitter’s performance because he has been “hot” or “cold” in the preceding few weeks — has been studied exhaustively, and analysts are all but unanimous in concluding that we should not."

Dan Rosenheck goes on to mention Tom Tango, Fangraphs and all sorts of other goodies before concluding,

"Swisher and Posada are both All-Star-caliber players, and they need to be in the lineup every day. The fact that the Yankees won with two of their most valuable assets on the bench may only embolden Girardi to consider them even more expendable for the rest of the series."

How about that?

Seriously though the whole article is must read, and the all too predictable first comment that follows is just.....perfect.

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