Back to the Yankees
Folks, as much as the fantasy league has and will grab our attention this season, it's worth remembering why I waste so much time on this lousy blog.Yankee Baseball 2006 begins in less than a week's time.
Any predictions on how the Yankees and their rivals will fare this season? Before ESPN gives their predictions on Sunday, let's give ours.
Swing away.
posted by Anthony at 11:39 PM
24 Comments:
I agree with the standings. And I like the White Sox in the Central and Anaheim in the West. Boston the Wild Card.
As for the Yankees, I think we'll have some problems. I think Bernie will show relatively early that he's not an everyday player anymore. I think Giambi will spend time on the DL and not match last year's numbers (On a side note, I completely missed that Sexson was available when I took Giambi in the draft). I think Mussina will be a .500 pitcher. As for Wang, Pavano, Wright, and Chacon, I couldn't even guess. All could go down with injury, all could implode. Who knows. What is certain is that the season really depends on three of those four guys being solid.
Nonetheless, I think our offense, bullpen, and Randy Johnson will be dominant, and we should still be able to win the division by a couple games.
Well, maybe not dominant in the pen, but very good. I think Fransworth, Myers, and Villone will all prove worthy acquisitions.
Dominant if Dotel comes back healthy.
Tony, thanks for passing up Sexson, his bat will crush puny little baseballs all season long.
This 2006 team will make the playoffs as per usual. But once we're there, I don't think we've retooled sufficiently to make this year any different than recent attempts since 2001.
Pitching: Our rotation has big question marks (especially by season's end- who's likely to be healthy other than Chacon and Muss?) and our bullpen is stronger (set-up guys, specialists and MO) but we are still trying to figure out if Sturtze is going to bouce back this year and if he does succeed that will make a tremendous diference for the season.
Hitting: We've improved. Moving our lineup down a spot to accomodate Damon is going to reap benefits. If TAJT orders a little more base-stealing and moves runners over more, we could have ourselvces a nice run-scoring machine for the whole season. Sadly, I cannot for the life of me understand what Don Mattingly does for our team (except maybe playing David Spade to Giambi's Tommy Boy schtick).
So, we'll get out of the ALDS but to go any further would have to depend on circumstances beyond our control. Basically, our opponents need to play below their potential.
I will repost that "Big Unit's Love Child" story later in the week. Tony is right, we gotta buckle down and focus on the team, not the Page 6 nonsense.
Courage.
I don't think it's as bad as all that. A few situational hits last season and we would have beaten LA. With our increased bullpen depth and offense, we're a better team right now than they are.
What about Boston? Well, they really got the last laugh on the Damon deal. They saved a ton of money and landed a better player (not without a price, since Marte is supposed to be a sure thing). And it looks as if their starting staff is healthy, evidenced by the Arroyo trade, which is scary. And if Foulke is healthy, their pen of Papelbon, Timlin, Tavarez, and Seanez is deeper than ours. For the first time in three or four seasons, we have the advantage in offense, but their pitching is certainly deeper and could be significantly better.
What about Chicago? Still the class of the league. If Jenks can get it done, that pitching staff is just great. Even if Vazquez is mediocre, he'll still be a fine fifth starter. Our offense is better, but if Thome comes back to form and Dye is healthy, it won't be by much.
One thing is for certain: There is a lot of parity throughout the league, and we probably won't survive another ice-cold start.
Tony, yet again we agree (without knowing it, perhaps).
You say a few situational hits could have put us last the Angels. Absolutely, but that's why I call for more small-ball. How many situations come to mind last season where we'll have two in scoring position and one or no out and we fail to bring a run home? I even saw it in the Spring Training game against Boston last week. We had bases loaded and one out and I think we only got one run out of that situation. With the hitters we have, that's inexcusable.
And yes, we're playoff-bound but like you said, there's a lot more parity out there this season, so mistakes will be costly. I read that to say we've improved our team but so have our competitors. If we had this year's team last season, there's a chance we could have gone further in the post-season. Of course, if A-Rod hit above .133 we wouldn't be second-guessing much of anything, would we?
And what about our starting rotation? Concerns? Let's air them out, gents.
My God, did you see the Breaking News plastered across cnn.com? I simply can't believe it. Casper Weinberger is dead. Kind of makes this whole blog thing feel insignificant, doesn't it?
I think Cap's dying words were "George P. Shultz Lives!"
What are you talking about, Mark? The Curse of the Moose? The Curse of the A-Rod? There's no whore's gold, and there sure as shit ain't no Curse! We don't manufacture runs, we depend on HRs to bail us out and we've got old SPs mixed with some younger, unknown commodities. Curse... my God, what's next, a goat?
P.S. I like that this article has a huge N-Y symbol. They should make a special character on the keyboard for that insignia. Quality.
Courage.
Haha. I like that keyboard idea.
I'm with Adam on this one. I don't think we had bad luck last season, just poor and predictable off-season signings and poor execution in the field. If anything, we had extraordinary good luck: Wang, Small, and Chacon? Who would have thunk it.
I don't, however, think this team is moving towards small ball. We're a team of sluggers, and teams like that have won championships before. We simply need some of those sluggers to get hits when it counts.
True, there was no mention of curse. But I don't think last season was a matter of bad luck. Is it personal bad luck for Jaret Wright that he was born with great talent but a fragile arm? Sure. But not for the Yankees. To quote an important film:
"They bought their tickets. They knew what they were getting into. I say...let'm crash."
I'm sorry, Mark. You're right, you never said "we're cursed!" Your fantasy team, however..
Mark, what do the White Sox good luck against LA or Derek Jeter's shoulder in 2003 have to do with the 2005 Yankees? If I were arguing that luck did not exist or didn't influence baseball, they might be relevant. But all I'm saying is that bad luck was not why we lost last season. It was poor planning and poor execution. That's my only claim.
Mark, if I had to apologize everytime I was a blow hard, I'd have to move my hands from one basin of hot water to another continually for each waking hour. Oh, wait, sorry. That's if I had to wash my hands everytime I masturbated.
Sorry guys, that's an oldie for Gus and Adam.
Zing! Now Dodort, please re-post the "Unit's Love Child" story, I think we could all use a good laugh.
This blog is slow today. Where is everybody? Outside watching the Brazilian solar eclipse?
I don't like the sound of this.
Posada is too old at the this point to catch every day. Having a day off when Johnson pitches is as good a solution as any.
I agree Posada will need days off now and then, but I don't like that in a big game--including the playoffs--you lose Posada's bat for Kelly Stinett's because Randy just isn't comfortable. I think that's silly, and I really hope Joe doesn't give Randy her very own personal catcher again. I hope he at least gets Jorge in there half the time when she's on the mound.
I'm not as worried about Posada's bat at this point. He's long past the days when he was a really good hitter. It's much more important that Randy be comfortable.
Ya know, Piazza and Unit would have gotten along real good. Too fucking bad.
I think Randy will be just fine with Posada if he doesn't have a choice. He's not going to implode at age 43. He simply doesn't have enough seasons left to waste one being a crybaby.
Posada had an off year last, but he's not the nearly automatic out that Flaherty was or Stinnett will likely be. We lose a lot replacing him with those guys, and against good teams it can be the difference.
You know what, Unit is suing the mother of his child for $75K while he rakes in $16 million per year. He is a crybaby.
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