Post by Fish Troll on Oct 17, 2007 23:26:11 GMT -5
The New York Yankees fired Joe Torre today, replacing the veteran manager with a robot programmed to fill a lineup card with high-priced, All-Star-caliber players.
“We were actually thinking of bringing Joe back, but then out of nowhere I came upon the robot idea,” said Yankees general manager Brian Cashman. “We paid Joe an average of $6.4 million over the past three seasons. We can build a robot that writes player names on a lineup card for less than a million and then pay it nothing forever. Financially, it just made sense.”
But while the move will save the Yankees money, they don’t expect it to make a negative impact on the field.
“We ran several tests with a prototype robot and every time it did exactly what we wanted,” said Cashman. “The first time it filled a lineup card with Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter, Bobby Abreu, Alex Rodriguez, Jorge Posada, Hideki Matsui, Jason Giambi, Robinson Cano and Melky Cabrera. Actually, it did that every time it filled out the card. It’s amazing how smart robots are these days.”
Cashman says the robot the Yankees build will also be programmed to make more subtle baseball moves.
“Thankfully we play in the American League, so a good portion of the strategy you might get from a real human is unnecessary,” he said. “But we will program it to give our starters a day off every week or so. And then as far as pitching, our starters will be programmed to pitch every fifth day. If we need a reliever, the robot will put one of our middle relievers in based using a program that weighs left-right match-up, career success against the batter, and the reliever’s freshness. And then in the 9th inning it will give the ball to Mariano Rivera. Really, it’s pretty simple. I can’t believe we didn’t think of this sooner.”
The Yankees also think the new robot will help relieve stress among management.
“The robot will be coated in military-quality armor. It will be indestructible,” said Cashman. “Mr. Steinbrenner will be able to come in after losses and kick it and punch it and take out all of his aggression. It will keep him much more sane.”
“We were actually thinking of bringing Joe back, but then out of nowhere I came upon the robot idea,” said Yankees general manager Brian Cashman. “We paid Joe an average of $6.4 million over the past three seasons. We can build a robot that writes player names on a lineup card for less than a million and then pay it nothing forever. Financially, it just made sense.”
But while the move will save the Yankees money, they don’t expect it to make a negative impact on the field.
“We ran several tests with a prototype robot and every time it did exactly what we wanted,” said Cashman. “The first time it filled a lineup card with Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter, Bobby Abreu, Alex Rodriguez, Jorge Posada, Hideki Matsui, Jason Giambi, Robinson Cano and Melky Cabrera. Actually, it did that every time it filled out the card. It’s amazing how smart robots are these days.”
Cashman says the robot the Yankees build will also be programmed to make more subtle baseball moves.
“Thankfully we play in the American League, so a good portion of the strategy you might get from a real human is unnecessary,” he said. “But we will program it to give our starters a day off every week or so. And then as far as pitching, our starters will be programmed to pitch every fifth day. If we need a reliever, the robot will put one of our middle relievers in based using a program that weighs left-right match-up, career success against the batter, and the reliever’s freshness. And then in the 9th inning it will give the ball to Mariano Rivera. Really, it’s pretty simple. I can’t believe we didn’t think of this sooner.”
The Yankees also think the new robot will help relieve stress among management.
“The robot will be coated in military-quality armor. It will be indestructible,” said Cashman. “Mr. Steinbrenner will be able to come in after losses and kick it and punch it and take out all of his aggression. It will keep him much more sane.”
sportspickle.com/features/volume6/2...1010-torre.html
