| 01 April 2009
To anyone who knows or talks sports with me, the one thing I’ve been saying since the middle of this off-season is that the New York Yankees are simply not the juggernaut that everyone is making them out to be.
Despite having the games highest payroll by a mile, it is still a group that is old and injury prone, and doesn’t nearly play the defense it used to.
With the news that Alex Rodriguez will be out for the first month of the season, the pressure is still on in New York, heightened of course by the off-season signings of C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Mark Teixeira.
Mark Teixeira is the new face of the Yankees
A. The Yankees are not an “aging,” team, but just a flat-out old one:
To me aging implies that you’ve got some guys on your roster who are a bit older, and may have lost a step. The Yankees passed that threshold years ago, with several players seemingly being held together by athletic tape and old chewing gum.
The starting line-up features a catcher who’s 37, a 34 year-old shortstop, a third baseman who’s 33 and currently on the disabled list for essentially the first time in his career, and a right fielder who’s 35. Not to mention a closer who’s 39 and a 34-year-old former outfielder masquerading as a designated hitter.
When Jorge Posada, Hideki Matsui and Chien-Ming Wang missed time with injuries last year, all I heard was complaining from Yankees fans claiming that if they had a full line-up they’d be atop of the AL East.
The problem was, the Red Sox and Rays had similar injury problems, but were younger, had more depth and resiliency and were able to get through them.
Remember the Red Sox did not have a healthy or vintage Josh Beckett and David Ortiz was no where near 100 percent. Tampa Bay missed significant time in the first half from Scott Kazmir and in the second half from Carlos Pena and Evan Longoria. B.J. Upton never really got going. But each team found a way to get into the playoffs.
The bottom line is, while Boston and Tampa Bay have been able to stay young and competitive, the Yankees are still trying to do it with the same core they’ve had for years.
Look back to the team that had a collapse in the 2004 ALCS. This current roster features the same starting catcher (Posada), shortstop (Derek Jeter), third baseman (A-Rod) and Matsui who at the time was an outfielder and now a DH. Rivera closed back then, and may still be closing when I have kids.
Meanwhile, the Red Sox team that beat the Yankees has just three significant players left from that team: David Ortiz who is strictly a DH at this point in his career, Jason Varitek who is no longer considered an offensive threat at all, but kept around for his defensive prowess and the ageless Tim Wakefield on the mound.
Everyone else on the roster was replaced, and the Red Sox have brought in young players (Jon Lester, Jonathan Papelbon, Dustin Pedroia and Jacoby Ellsbury), who will continue to carry the torch after this group of veterans is gone.
The bottom line is, the Yankees are aging, and if last year was any indication, prone to injuries.
B. Speaking of injury prone, please don’t count on major innings from A.J. Burnett:
One thing that has flat out stumped me this off-season is when did Burnett become some kind of modern day Cy Young?
Because that’s how fans are embracing a guy who’s only won more than 12 games once in his career.
Not to mention that he’s only made 30 or more starts twice during his time in the major leagues (2005 and 2008, which coincidentally both happened to be contract years), and only thrown over 200 innings in one other year- 2002, when he was 25.
Yes, Burnett is having a good spring, and his “stuff,” is indisputably good. But what has Yankees fans so convinced that he’s going to consistently take the ball every fifth day and be an innings eater through the dog days of summer?
I’m by no means saying he’ll be Carl Pavano. But he won’t be the stud that’s being envisioned either.
C. And what about Joba Chamberlain’s pitch count:
Chamberlain has firmly established himself as the fifth starter, but for how long?
During this spring, manager Joe Girardi has limited the big right-handers workload, trying to keep his pitch count low so he can continue to be a factor late into the season.
But here’s my question.
Girardi and Yankees management want to limit Chamberlain’s innings pitched, so not to burn him out.
However, what happens if the Yankees are in the thick of a playoff race in late August and early September. Do you simply work Joba out of the rotation for a start or two? Do you limit him to five or six innings even if he’s throwing lights out.?
I understand why you’re trying to cap Chamberlain’s pitch counts and innings totals. He is one of the truly elite young players in the game.
But baseball is a very uncertain sport, and over 162 games a lot of things happen. The “Joba Rules,” are all well and good when you have a 15 game cushion in your division.
But when push comes to shove late in the season, and your bullpen is tired and you need innings from the big guy, are you going to pull him, just because he’s reached 100 pitches? Are you going to skip his spot in the rotation because he’s closing in on 150 or 175 innings for the season?
Or is there the possibility that you just move him to the bullpen all together.
Chamberlain iss one of the elite talents in the game, but at some point the training wheels have to come off, and you need to cut the kid loose.
We will see how Girardi handles the situation. To me it may be one of the biggest factors as to whether or not the Yanks win the division.
D. Pitchers need good defense behind them
Teixeira is a huge upgrade at first over the handful of guys used there last year. And when Rodriguez returns, he’s still better in the hot corner than basically any one in the game.
The concern however is up the middle. When Tampa Bay went on to win the American League last year, it was because their core- catcher Dioner Navarro, second baseman Akinori Iwamura (a converted third baseman) shortstop Jason Bartlett and outfielder B.J. Upton were phenomenal
I’m not quite sold on the core of the Yankees. While I do think Brett Gardner will be excellent patrolling center field (now all he’s got to do is hit a little), what about the rest of the defense up the middle? Derek Jeter just won a Gold Glove a few years ago, but his defense is undoubtedly declining, especially to balls hit to his glove side. Robinson Cano seems absolutely indifferent to playing defense, to the point that Girardi finally had to pull him from a few late season games for his poor play.
And while Posada may have been one of the premiere defensive catchers in his prime, his knees are not what they once were, and he will using a surgically repaired right shoulder to try and throw out potential base runners.
While the pitching staff is vastly improved, balls will still be put into play, and plays will still need to be made.
Forgive me if I’m not getting the warm and fuzzies.
D. The Yankees line-up is full of notoriously slow starters
Teixeira opted not to play in the World Baseball Classic, and it seems to have paid off, as he is batting over .400 this spring.
But he is also only a career .256 hitter in the first month of the season, and didn’t bat above .300 in any month until July last year.
With Rodriguez out, the pressure will be on early for Teixeira to get hits and drive in runs, something he doesn’t traditionally do early.
And what about the previously mentioned Cano? No player in baseball is more notorious for lagging through the early months than the Yankees second baseman.
It’s hard to believe, but Cano bats close to 50 points better in the second half than the first half (.327 compared to .280). And last year those splits were even more disparaging, as he battled just .246 before the All-Star break, and needed a sizzling second half start to get him to .271 for the season.
E. How will this juggernaut respond if they don’t come out guns blazing?
Having lived in the Northeast my whole life, I can say that the expectations for this team haven’t been this high since the franchise was consistently winning World Series’ in the late ‘90’s.
A lot of money was invested in the off-season, at a time when thousands of people in the tri-state area lost their jobs.
And with the new stadium, fans are paying premium prices to see a premium ball club, with many of the biggest stars never having faced the day-to-day scrutiny that comes with being the biggest story, in the sports biggest market.
The Yankees better start winning early, and continue to do so.
Otherwise just a few weeks into the season, the Bronx might literally be burning.
Photo Credit: http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0cY46Os24zaMZ/610x.jpg
