A Year Without the Yankees?
Could 2008 Find the New York Yankees Watching the Playoffs?
Every year, they show up. Every year. Like the obnoxious relative who shows up annually to your Thanksgiving dinner, here they come again. And again. The New York Yankees are my Cousin Frank.
The New York Yankees have been to baseball's post-season every year since 1995. For some very young fans, they've never known a post-season without the Big Bullies from The Bronx.
Now, if you are a Yankees fan, this streak is a source of pride- and rightfully so. Even with the game's largest payroll, it is no small feat to reach baseball's Elite Eight every year for nearly a decade-and-a-half. A 162-game season is fraught with many perils. The Yankees have weathered many a storm and adapted their team on the fly many times. Their streak is one to be admired.
Can it end? Is this the year Cousin Frank doesn't show up for Thanksgiving? Think it can't happen?
Well, all empires eventually fall and if there was any year for The Evil Empire to be a spectator for the post-season, 2008 might be it. The Yankees will be counting on significant pitching contributions from youngsters Ian Kennedy, Joba Chamberlain, and Phil Hughes. New York has tremendous faith in the abilities of these three players- so much so that they told the Minnesota Twins "Fuhgeddaboudit!" when the Twinkies were discussing the Yankee youngsters in trade scenarios with the Yankees for ex-Twins ace Johan Santana.
Still, young pitchers- even those who eventually blossom into All-Stars- almost inevitably struggle before truly hitting their stride. Can Kennedy, Chamberlain, and Hughes all hit the ground running and be big time contributors for the Yankees in '08? It's possible but would you bet on it?
Should the Young Guns falter, the Yankees will be relying on the well-traveled right arm of Mike Mussina, who near the end of '07, had the velocity of your average beer league softball pitcher, and Andy Pettitte, who both struggled and flourished during 2007.
Meanwhile, the Yankees bullpen looks as weak as it has in more than a decade. Beyond Mariano Rivera, who looked positively mortal for stretches of 2007, there just isn't much "there" there. Kyle Farnsworth has been a major disappointment since arriving in the Bronx via free agency in 2006, with a tendency to give a big hit at exactly the wrong time and a puzzling inability to pitch effectively on consecutive days. The big bullpen acquisition for 2008, LaTroy Hawkins, brings a decent arm but also a reputation of spitting the bit when the spotlight shines its brightest- hardly the recipe for success on baseball's biggest stage. The rest of the bullpen is a collection of cast offs, reclamation projects, and inexperienced kids. New Yankee manager Joe Girardi better find the right mix of arms real quick or the bullpen could be a major Achilles heel for the Yanks all year.
Of course, with Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, and Co., the Yankees will score plenty of runs. Will they score enough to mask potentially dicey pitching? Stay tuned.
True, this picture could change in an instant. The Yankees, well known for huge in-season trades, could transform their ballclub with one or two big deals. Heaven knows they've done it before. Still, with an increasing amount of age on their roster and a positively loaded field of American League playoff contenders, don't be shocked if the lights of Yankee Stadium are dark come October. And Cousin Frank misses Thanksgiving dinner.
Published by Bill Forant
I left the sun and smog of Southern California for the quiet pastures of Spokane, WA View profile
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7 Comments
Post a CommentThey just won their season opener. There's no stopping the best, the Yankees.
You do realize that even The Great Greg Maddux was hammered in his first full year in the Bigs, right? Try a 5.61 ERA and a 1.64 WHIP on for size over the course of 30 appearances (27 starts). Even Greg Maddux wasn't Greg Maddux in his first year. Look, I'm not saying Ian Kennedy doesn't have an excellent chance of becoming a very good pitcher. He obviously has great potential. While it certainly is possible he becomes a top-flight starter right off the bat, the odds certainly don't favor it. Even great pitchers have experienced struggles in the early stages of their careers and 19 Major League innings is far too small a sample size from which to draw any serious conclusions.
From ESPN:
"Kennedy is drawing Greg Maddux comparisons...Kennedy has both the minor league and (emphasis in original not shown here) major league track record to be worth a look (for drafting in fantasy baseball)." http://sports.espn.go.com/fantasy/baseball/flb/story?page=MLB30qnyy
Kennedy's exemplary, proven track record in the minors has shown he's ready for the show; minor league performance correlates quite well with major league performance.
So Rivera and Chamberlain are all the Yankees will need out of the pen? They won't have to rely on significant innings from Hawkins, Farnsworth, and others?
If you are comfortable extrapolating 19 Major League innings into a full year of success, you're a bolder man than I. 19 good innings are certainly better than 19 bad innings but to think Ian Kennedy will maintain anything close to a 1.89 ERA over the course of 25-30 Major League starts is rather myopic.
And I'm half-baked?
The last sentence of my comment apparently was left out:
The Yankees will probably lead the league again in runs scored while giving up fewer with an improved pitching staff, albeit with three young pitchers.
I think that it's a safe bet that the Yankees young pitching will do well this year despite your half-baked assertion. Joba Chamberlain already has Major League experience and in 19 appearances last year he racked up an ERA of .38 coming out of the bullpen. That's also where he'll be starting this year as the set-up man for Mariano Rivera, a point conveniently left out when you discussed the Yanks' bullpen. Ian Kennedy also has Major League experience with over 19 innings earning an ERA of 1.89, well below the league's average of 4.47. He also had an absolutely ridiculous ERA of 1.87 in the minors over 26 starts. Phil Hughes has been groomed to be the future ace for the Yankees having spent the past three years in the minors with an incredible 2.09 ERA over 53 starts. The former first-rounder hit a groove over his last seven games last year (including two against the Cleveland Indians in the playoffs) going 4-0 while compiling an ERA of 2.56. The Yankees will probably lead the league a
Great article, Bill. Since I am a diehard Yankees hater (I'm a Sox fan), I rather love it when Cousin Frank don't show up for Thanksgiving. In fact, I haven't had a decent Thanksgiving since the mid-90's. Seriously, though, you could be right. An aging roster and increased parity in the league among the frontrunners could see Steinbrenner firing a few people.