The Good: The Wang-Pettitte 1-2 punch has been pretty solid
for the Yankees (even though the Tigers did do a number on Pettitte). Mussina
hasn’t been too bad either, but the Yankees really needed both Wang and
Pettitte to be near their best in order to bring some stability to a rotation
that has many questions about it. The bullpen is another “Good”, I mean who
expected to see so many different faces actually do a pretty good job. We all
knew about Joba and Mariano, and LaTroy Hawkins is not going to make me forget
Jeff Nelson but Bruney, Traber, and even Farnsworth have been surprisingly
good. Let’s hope their arms don’t fall off by the time August rolls around.
Finally, the last “Good” is a “Good” because of how much I like him…my man,
Hideki Matsui, give it up for him. Last year he was past his prime,
ineffective, figured out by opposing pitchers, and almost traded. But he is conceivably
having a revival here. Last year was not a bad statistical year for him but
people talked about him being done, so seeing him come out like this has been
nothing short of awesome.
The Bad: Robinson Cano has just been horrible, he might have
to be bumped down to ugly is this continues. But the reason why he won’t be
bumped is because May should be a lot better. He started last April pretty bad
as well and recovered nicely. Hopefully, he can do that this year as well. To
win games you need good pitching and good hitting. Good hitting requires
scoring runs and scoring runs means hitting in those RISPs. The Yankees just
look bad at doing just that. If the bases are loaded with no outs I expect the
Yankees to get no more than 2 or 3 runs, not 6 or 7 that you would expect out
of this lineup but just 2-3 with one being walked-in. The last ‘Bad’ is run
differential, the Yankees are a -8. With THAT lineup? Its pretty sad,
considering the Yankees ended April with a 14-15 record, they should be pretty
happy to have that record with that run differential. A -8 is equivalent to
something like 3 games, so the Yankees should be 11-18.
The Ugly: The injuries are mounting. A-Rod, Posada before,
and now there is Hughes(not that big of a loss considering his struggles) and
Bruney. Not to mention Betemit. Those are a lot of bodies, the only positive is
that its only May. The Hughes-Kennedy experiment has looked pretty awful. The
only bright spot is that they are young and talented and will help the Yankees,
just not this year. Hughes is hurt, nothing major, and it might be a little
blessing to get him away from the mound a bit and get him refocused. These
young guns need to get their groove back because the alternatives aren’t that
much better. The last ugly is one that will not be saved or get better
regardless that ‘its only May’ and that is Hank. Can he please shut-up…please.
If the losing gets worse the Yankees season will go from bad to ugly with this
guy.
The way I see the Yankees season going is a 2nd
place finish in the AL East with a 92-70 record. I would like to see the
Yankees go in as a Wild Card but I am afraid that Cleveland
or Detroit will
fill that role with the other winning the AL Central. The main reason I feel
that the Yankees will fall sort of a playoff berth (and probably fall short by
only 2-3 games) is because of the reliance on Pettitte and Mussina pitching.
Pettitte I trust to pitch well, but I also trust Andy not too be healthy for
the whole season. And as far as Moose goes, he will have his brilliant moments,
but to me this smells like a Kevin Brown type year for him. All of which means
that Wang, Kennedy, and Hughes will probably have to shoulder more of the load
that they might not yet be experienced enough to do.
Hitting/Defense- The line-up should again lead the entire
league in runs scored. Should be over 900 runs again. A-Rod should have another
MVP-type season with around 50 hrs, 140 rbis, and an OBP of over .400. Helping
A-Rod would be the consistent Jeter, and Posada just coming off a career year
offensively. I expect Cano to take the next step and hit over 20 homeruns, with
over 100 rbis and runs each. Melky now going into his third full season can see
a nice spike with his offensive numbers. The five guys I just mentioned are
really going to be the horses to this offense, and each are good fielders
despite all the talk about how statistically Jeter is among the worst fielding
shortstops, he can still get the job done. But there are sore spots and I think
they belong to Giambi and Damon, and to some extent Matsui. Giambi’s bat is not
worth him playing first base he is horrible defensively. Damon did not look
right at all last year and really has lost a step or two in center, and Matsui
also shows some signs of slowing down even though I think he had a decent to
good offensive year last season and he was injured for most of last season. The
only question mark I have about the lineup is Abreu, I don’t what to make of
him other than he will provide some help offensively, probably around 20
homeruns, and over 100 rbis, but he will walk a bunch and stikeout and the
worst times, he is a stable outfielder though. I would really hope the Yankees
do go to the bench and play Duncan and Belemit more because I think they could
really produce despite the limited action.
Pitching- The pitching is where the biggest questions are.
Wang will hopefully get to 20 wins, as he has been the most consistent Yankees
pitcher the past two seasons. Pettitte did pitch well enough last year,
especially in September, really providing the Yankees an awesome boost. But
after those two, it seems pretty unpredictable to say what will happen. Hughes
and Kennedy are both young and inexperienced, I think this season will be more
about them learning how to pitch in the major leagues than becoming saviors,
that has to wait for a later time. As long as they look good and are not
pitching too many innings, I think they can really shine. Moose unfortunately
is going to have to prove himself despite having a pretty good resume. He was
just horrible last season and he is only a starter because the Yankees didn’t
pursue any one during the offseason and Joba is not in the rotation….yet. I can
only hope that Moose can have a better season than last, doesn’t have to be an
All-Star, Cy Young type season, and I won’t complain if it is. The bullpen
outside of Mariano and Joba seems shaky, like it has for the past 6-7 seasons.
But I do like the addition of Hawkins as long as he is not the closer for any
games with a cushion under 3 runs.
Overall: Great offense, a
decent defense (good if Giambi is not playing first and either Matsui or Damon
look like they did 2 seasons ago) keep the Yankees a competitive team fighting
for the postseason. But a pitching staff with youth, inexperience, two veterans
with plenty of concerns, and a bullpen that has the last two innings figured
out but will probably struggle with the middle relief will keep the Yankees
from making it in the postseason this time around.
This is the most excited I have been for a Yankees season in
some time. The reason is pretty simple: youth.
Finally the Yankees are following the same formula that helped build a
dynasty, even if that formula is being used slightly different this time
around.
In 1996, the Yankees had a 22 year old rookie
shortstop, a 24 year old 2nd year starting pitcher, and a 26 year old 2nd year
set-up man. In 1998, a 26 year old catcher who was in his first year as the
everyday starter, a 26 year old 3rd year pitcher that made 14 starts, and a
three bench players with the oldest being 26 had over 60 at bats each, made
their debut. From 1996, the year of the first of four World Series, to 2000,
the last, the average age of the Yankees starters was 30.25. From 2001, where
in my opinion the Yankees losing the World Series gave George the feeling he
just HAD to sign Jason Giambi which in turn started the trend of over-paying
for older past-their-prime players, to 2006, before the recommintment to youth
with Joba, Hughes, and Kennedy joining the team in 2007, the average age of the
starters was 31.91.
That doesn’t look like such a big deal but 2001’s average
age was still pretty low and that was still a very good team, and 2006’s
average age was almost identical to the average age of 1999 with Cano, Melky,
Wang becoming prominent starters and Bernie not being counted as a starter
helped the team’s average get younger. So from 2002, with Giambi now part of
the team, to 2005 that average age was 32.36, more than a full 2 years older
than the World Series teams. This does cause problems when you consider that
the biggest culprit in that spike in age was the pitching. The line-up at times
did feature older veterans like Sheffield, Tino (the second time around),
Giambi, Tony Womack, and Rueben Sierra, the Yankees did sprinkle in some youth
with Cano, Melky, and Andy Phillips who at 30 could be considered young
compared to the rest of the line-up. But the pitching had no such successful
infusion, with Kevin Brown, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens (second time around),
David Wells (ditto), Jon Leiber, and Al Leiter (for 10 games) part of the
rotation the Yankess tried to get some young arms in there like Javier Vasquez,
Jeff Weaver, Carl Pavano, and Shawn Chacon, none of them were really any good.
So now with a rotation that features three guys under 30 with Wang, Hughes, and
Kennedy, and another under-30 pitcher, Joba, possibly moved into the rotation
in the near future, the Yankees are injecting youth where they have failed to
do so for some time. They still need to produce but from what I have seen so
far, they all have the talent. This will be an exciting season because for the
first time in a long time I don’t have to worry about how old the team is.
Big time sports fanatic who bleeds loyalty to all the teams mentioned as my favorites. Even though most of my focus for each league is centered on my favorite teams, I love to talk sports in general, and really get a kick talking to fans of rival teams.
