Storify: PITCH Talks: Yankees, Mets & Hall of Fame

Last night, I watched live as some of the best baseball writers in the country fielded questions from former Boston Globe coworker Pete Abraham and an audience of 300 other crazed baseball fans like me.

And yes, as I said I would, I tweeted my brains out. See below for some of the highlights of the 2-hour panel discussion.

NYC Event Tonight – PITCH: Talks on Baseball

While I'm no longer working directly in sports journalism as I was at the New York Daily News and the Boston Globe, I still pay attention to the scene and read various beats and writers daily.

An organization called PITCH: Talks On Baseball, a new speaker series about baseball, has planned what sounds like an awesome event that features some of the top baseball writers in the country: Pete Abraham, Buster Olney, Ken Rosenthal, Matthew Cerrone, Sweeny Murti, Adam Rubin, Tyler Kepner, and Jay Jaffe.

It's not very often an event with this caliber of writers comes along, so I will be in attendance tonight and, of course, tweeting my brains out.

Tickets are still available here.

Early 2015 Yankees Projections

It's been a long time since my last writing here but thought there'd be no better a time to return to the blog six years and a day after I started it.

Brian Cashman has made a slew of small moves this offseason that has made the the Yankees a younger team, acquiring a pair of 24-year-olds: Derek Jeter's replacement Didi Gregorius and starting pitcher Nathan Eovaldi. 

Not exactly the two huge names Yankees fans have become accustomed to welcoming.

But maybe that's just what the Yankees need after missing the playoffs for the second straight season. The Yankees are younger and projected to be a much better defensive team than they've been in years. Getting younger and better defensively are two key ingredients to winning, but in the end it's all about scoring and preventing runs. 

Using pure statistical analysis, FanGraphs projects the Yankees to have a +14 run differential in 2015, ranked 15th overall for an 83-79 record. Doesn't look like the Steinbrenner family can honestly expect a championship in 2015. But that's what faithful fans like me are here for – to attend games, cheer passionately, and not lose hope.

That being said, here's what the Yankees are working with in 2015.

Lineup	Rotation
C Brian McCann	RHP Masahiro Tanaka
1B Mark Teixeira	RHP Michael Pineda
2B Stephen Drew	LHP CC Sabathia
SS Didi Gregorius	RHP Nathan Eovaldi
3B Chase Headley	LHP Chris Capuano (eventually Ivan Nova)
LF Brett Gardner	Bullpen
CF Jacoby Ellsbury	RHP Dellin Betances
RF Carlos Beltran	LHP Andrew Miller
DH Alex Rodriguez	RHP Adam Warren
Bench	RHP David Carpenter
C John Ryan Murphy	LHP Justin Wilson
OF Chris Young	RHP Esmil Rodgers
INF Brendan Ryan	RHP Gonzalez Germen
OF/INF Garrett Jones

And here's what it will take for these Yankees to win it all.

Gatorade's "Made in New York ft. Derek Jeter" commercial is pretty awesome

Teams lucky enough to host the Yankees this season have presented Derek Jeter with farewell gifts, columnists have produced countless tributes to him, and so have his sponsors.

Now batting: Gatorade.

Unlike Jordan's #RE2PECT commercial, this Gatorade commercial doesn't seem staged at all. It captures natural fan reactions to Jeter walking to Yankee Stadium, and shows him interacting with fans too. It's a great 90-second spot and pulls on your heart strings, especially if meeting Jeter was your childhood dream.

Make sure to retweet the following tweet for a chance to win one of these sweet commemorative Jeter bottles. Gatorade gave me 10 to give away to my readers.

Jeter @Gatorade bottles giveaway! Just RT for chance 2 win & watch the touching commercial too http://t.co/hmblXwOY5Y pic.twitter.com/jOk6dgFt7o
— Lenny Neslin (@lenNYsYankees) September 18, 2014

Upgraded defense could be the difference for Yankees

Yankees fans love Billy Crystal just as Mets fans love Jerry Seinfeld. In this case, I love Seinfeld more than Crystal, but both are pure baseball guys at heart. Anyway, there's a great Q&A with Seinfeld on ESPN that I implore you to read, simply talking baseball. He touches on a variety of topics.

I've been doing this joke lately, because I turned 60 this year, and people around that age make a bucket list. I made a bucket list, turned the "b" to an "f" and was done with it. If you want to kite surf down the Amazon, go ahead. I'm going to crack open a beer and watch a ballgame. 

When I think of retirement, all I would think of is going to a baseball game every day.

Perfection. Couldn't agree more.

Later in the interview, he's asked about the evolution of statistics in baseball, to which he responds, "I love it. ... There's no such thing as too many stats."

Again, couldn't agree more. One area of statistics that I'm especially interested in as defensive metrics. For starters, it relates directly to my job (I help manage the Wilson Ball Glove social media accounts). 

But more important, the defensive stats currently being used (UZR/150, DRS, etc.) are hurting the game because they're so far off. Yes, hurting, because WAR, a metric that is now widely regarded as the best overall metric to rate a player, can be so heavily swayed by defensive metrics.

Eventually, I hope there will be statistics for each portion of defense (range, throwing power, throwing accuracy) that can then be used to form the most accurate overall metric by averaging those three stats properly weighted for each position.

Until that day comes, it's best to just ignore what's out there and stick with the eyeball test. And let me just say this: anybody with an eyeball can see that the Yankees' infield has taken a turn for the better since Brian Cashman brought in Chase Headley, Stephen Drew and Martin Prado to play third, short and second.

If you only caught the highlights of Sunday's game, you probably saw that Brett Gardner had the key two-run single to give the Yankees a lead. But it was really a win for the defense today. Headley and Prado each had at least a few hit-saving plays and Drew flashed the leather as well. These three are major, major upgrades to Yangervis Solarte, Derek Jeter and Brian Roberts.

They've always had great outfield defense with Brett Gardner and Jacoby Ellsbury supplying tremendous range, and we all know what Mark Teixeira can do at first, but now with an infield defense to match the Yankees are starting to win games with their defense.

The Yankees are seven games out of first place but just 3.5 games behind in the wild card race. It may be too early to place bets – if you're into that sort of thing you can do so at william hill online betting – but a few defensive victories could be the difference in playing in October or playing golf.