New York Yankees 2006 Season and Off Season

The New Your Yankees 2006 season went fairly well. They once again won their division and making the playoffs. However, they played poorly in the playoffs and have not won a World Series since 2000. Changes will be made for the 2007 season.

The Yankees finished to 2006 season with a record of 97 and 65. Some good things that happened during the season were younger plays continuing to establish themselves and veteran players making comebacks. There was also some disappointments.

Second year player Robinson Cano followed up his stronger rookie year with a really good season. Cano raised his batting average from .297 in 2005 to .342 in 2006. He also hit 41 doubles, 15 home runs, and drove in 78 runs. Chien-Ming Wang became one of the top starting pitchers in the American League. In his first full season Wang, won 19 games while losing just 6. He posted an era of 3.63 in 218 innings pitched. Melky Cabrera had a good first season, playing for injured outfielders, batting .280 with 7 home runs, 50 runs batted in, and 12 stolen bases. after an injure plagued 2004, Jason Giambi followed up his 2005 performance with a good 2006. Giambi hit 37 home runs and drove in 113 runs.

On the disappointing side of things was the performance of ace Randy Johnson. Johnson stayed durable during the season but posted an era of 5.01 in 2006. It was the first time he finished a major league regular season with an era over 5 in his career. It was also the first time since 1990 that he failed to reach 200 strike outs in a season that he was not injured in. Thanks to the Yankees offense he still managed to post 17 wins.

Hideki Matsui was injured during most of the season. He played in just 50 games. Carl Pavano, in his second season with New York, failed to play at all. He was also injured during his first season with the Yankees. During 2005 he started just 17 games and throw only 100 innings. He is in the third year of a four year contract.

To try and return to glory in 2007 the Yankees made several moves to try and improve the team. They brought back Andy Pettitte after he pitched for Houston for the last three years. They also acquired Japanese pitched Kei Igawa to be one of their starters. Igawa and Pettitte will join Wang, Pavano, and Mike Mussina in the starting rotation.

They traded Randy Johnson back to the Arizona Diamondbacks. New York received three minor leaguers for Johnson. They also traded injured outfielder Gary Sheffield to the Detroit Tigers.

For the first time in several years the Yankees took a different approach by not signing the big name free agents. They have not won a World Series since they started signing all the big name guys to large contracts. Maybe they're going to get back to what got them the World Series titles, guys who play well together and know their roles. However, there is still several large egos on their team. 2007 should be another good season for the Yankees. The real question is what is going to happen in the playoffs.