January 31, 200620 yr Yankees, they're the team best built for the short-haul. 2007 and 2008 could be messy though. That rotation is shaky at best. Johnson is old and losing it, Mussina is getting up there in age and not what he used to be, Pavano is looking like a monumental bust, and Wang reminds me a lot of Jae Seo (not a good thing). Chacon is their best pitcher and he's certainly not the most reliable pitcher. The offense can more than make up for it though. If they do make they playoffs, they'll get smoked in the first round. That said, they're still better (or, less flawed) than the other 2 teams that have post-season dreams in the AL East. :lol I won't get into this yet, though.
January 31, 200620 yr Yankees, they're the team best built for the short-haul. 2007 and 2008 could be messy though. That rotation is shaky at best. Johnson is old and losing it, Mussina is getting up there in age and not what he used to be, Pavano is looking like a monumental bust, and Wang reminds me a lot of Jae Seo (not a good thing). Chacon is their best pitcher and he's certainly not the most reliable pitcher. The offense can more than make up for it though. If they do make they playoffs, they'll get smoked in the first round. That said, they're still better (or, less flawed) than the other 2 teams that have post-season dreams in the AL East. :lol I won't get into this yet, though. :lol Just like last year when you claimed again and again the Sox were going to win the AL East? Hm... The Yankees will win the AL East, the Red Sox/Blue Jays will win the Wild Card. The Yankees are built to win a ton of games over the regular season, the Red Sox will be fighting with the Jays to get the Wild Card. Dominant offenses win games in the regular season, dominant pitching staffs win games in the playoffs. Whether or not they have anything close to the latter relies on Johnson being what he was before last year, Mussina being what he was at the end of last year, Pavano/Chacon/Wright/Wang being solid, and Rivera being Rivera. The Yankees made the playoffs last year just on offense and Mariana Rivera. If Johnson, Mussina, Wang, Chacon and Pavano can just be what they're supposed to be, perform up to their past history - the Yankees are scarily good, and by far the best team in baseball (but, again, the Yankees pitching has never performed up to standards, and always greatly underperforms). 1.Damon 2.Jeter 3.Sheffield 4.Rodriguez 5.Giambi 6.Matsui 7.Cano 8.Jorge Posada 9.Bernie Williams Expensive it may be, but when healthy, the Yankees are BY FAR the best offensive team we will see for a very long time, and built to win in the regular season. Anything after September however, is left to be determined.
January 31, 200620 yr guess... With that said - I'll be keeping my eye on the Tribe. They came on strong last year with a lot of young talent. It will be interesting to see how they perform with some experience under their belt. If Chicago can keep their form, I wouldn't be surprised if the WC came out of the AL Central next season.
January 31, 200620 yr Yankees, they're the team best built for the short-haul. 2007 and 2008 could be messy though. That rotation is shaky at best. Johnson is old and losing it, Mussina is getting up there in age and not what he used to be, Pavano is looking like a monumental bust, and Wang reminds me a lot of Jae Seo (not a good thing). Chacon is their best pitcher and he's certainly not the most reliable pitcher. The offense can more than make up for it though. If they do make they playoffs, they'll get smoked in the first round. That said, they're still better (or, less flawed) than the other 2 teams that have post-season dreams in the AL East. :lol I won't get into this yet, though. :lol Just like last year when you claimed again and again the Sox were going to win the AL East? Hm... The Yankees will win the AL East, the Red Sox/Blue Jays will win the Wild Card. The Yankees are built to win a ton of games over the regular season, the Red Sox will be fighting with the Jays to get the Wild Card. Dominant offenses win games in the regular season, dominant pitching staffs win games in the playoffs. Whether or not they have anything close to the latter relies on Johnson being what he was before last year, Mussina being what he was at the end of last year, Pavano/Chacon/Wright/Wang being solid, and Rivera being Rivera. The Yankees made the playoffs last year just on offense and Mariana Rivera. If Johnson, Mussina, Wang, Chacon and Pavano can just be what they're supposed to be, perform up to their past history - the Yankees are scarily good, and by far the best team in baseball (but, again, the Yankees pitching has never performed up to standards, and always greatly underperforms). 1.Damon 2.Jeter 3.Sheffield 4.Rodriguez 5.Giambi 6.Matsui 7.Cano 8.Jorge Posada 9.Bernie Williams Expensive it may be, but when healthy, the Yankees are BY FAR the best offensive team we will see for a very long time, and built to win in the regular season. Anything after September however, is left to be determined. Yep, you won the division last year despite having the same record as we were without an ace or a closer throughout the whole season (along with pitiful offensive output from second and first). Im-press-ive. You guys probably have one of the worst starting rotations in the AL and you did little to improve your weak bullpen. Your offense is very good, no doubt about that. But the 7-9 in that lineup is very weak and despite the claim that Damon will be a Yankee savior I could definitely see a decline in his stats (it's already happening) and his defense is going down as will, he has basically become Bernie 2 in center. To me you guys may actually not be as good as last year. I would also like to congratulate your Yankees on shifting their focus and their 200 million it seems from World Series championships to division titles. :thumbup
January 31, 200620 yr I say the Red Sox take the East. If their starting pitchers can stay healthy, I don't care how good of an offense the Yankees have. That saying (Good pitching defeats good hitting) is very true. Schilling, Beckett, Arroyo, Wakefield, and Clement is a very solid rotation. I'm not sure if that's the actual starting five, but my guess is that how it stands right now. The Yankees problem will be pitching, as it was last year. The Rangers have shown us for years and years that you can have all the offense you want, but without pitching, you're not going anywhere. The Sox still have a solid offense, but have drastically improved their defense with Lowell, A-Gon, Snow (albeit a part-time player), and Crisp.
February 1, 200620 yr I give the Red Sox an edge because of pitching. The age of the Yankees' pitching staff and bullpen is going to continue to drag them down. Their players, from Sheffield, to Bernie, to Giambi, to Posada, are all getting older. If the Sox had traded Manny Ramirez, and not had any replacements for Damon and Renteria, I would not have chosen them.
February 4, 200620 yr Blue Jays. Adding Glaus and Overbay was just as important as AJ Burnett and Ryan. Vernon Wells will return with a vengeance with protection in the line-up. 1. Toronto 2. Boston 3. Yankees 4. Tampa Bay 5. Baltimore
February 4, 200620 yr Got to agree, with chum, both the Yanks (age) and Boston's (injuries) rotations are real question marks.
February 5, 200620 yr Yankees, they're the team best built for the short-haul. 2007 and 2008 could be messy though. That rotation is shaky at best. Johnson is old and losing it, Mussina is getting up there in age and not what he used to be, Pavano is looking like a monumental bust, and Wang reminds me a lot of Jae Seo (not a good thing). Chacon is their best pitcher and he's certainly not the most reliable pitcher. The offense can more than make up for it though. If they do make they playoffs, they'll get smoked in the first round. That said, they're still better (or, less flawed) than the other 2 teams that have post-season dreams in the AL East. :lol I won't get into this yet, though. :lol Just like last year when you claimed again and again the Sox were going to win the AL East? Hm... The Yankees will win the AL East, the Red Sox/Blue Jays will win the Wild Card. The Yankees are built to win a ton of games over the regular season, the Red Sox will be fighting with the Jays to get the Wild Card. Dominant offenses win games in the regular season, dominant pitching staffs win games in the playoffs. Whether or not they have anything close to the latter relies on Johnson being what he was before last year, Mussina being what he was at the end of last year, Pavano/Chacon/Wright/Wang being solid, and Rivera being Rivera. The Yankees made the playoffs last year just on offense and Mariana Rivera. If Johnson, Mussina, Wang, Chacon and Pavano can just be what they're supposed to be, perform up to their past history - the Yankees are scarily good, and by far the best team in baseball (but, again, the Yankees pitching has never performed up to standards, and always greatly underperforms). 1.Damon 2.Jeter 3.Sheffield 4.Rodriguez 5.Giambi 6.Matsui 7.Cano 8.Jorge Posada 9.Bernie Williams Expensive it may be, but when healthy, the Yankees are BY FAR the best offensive team we will see for a very long time, and built to win in the regular season. Anything after September however, is left to be determined. Yep, you won the division last year despite having the same record as we were without an ace or a closer throughout the whole season (along with pitiful offensive output from second and first). Im-press-ive. You guys probably have one of the worst starting rotations in the AL and you did little to improve your weak bullpen. Your offense is very good, no doubt about that. But the 7-9 in that lineup is very weak and despite the claim that Damon will be a Yankee savior I could definitely see a decline in his stats (it's already happening) and his defense is going down as will, he has basically become Bernie 2 in center. To me you guys may actually not be as good as last year. I would also like to congratulate your Yankees on shifting their focus and their 200 million it seems from World Series championships to division titles. :thumbup While you're still throwing yourself a pity party about all your horrible injuries to your rotation (also known as two), you may like to know that the Yankees had the most injured rotation in baseball last year. Don't give me that crap about your two measley injuries...Randy Johnson, Mike Mussina, Jaret Wright, Carl Pavano, and Chien-Mien Wang were all injured for significant amounts of time and in the case of Wright, Mussina, Wang and Johnson all felt lingering effects to those injuries. Don't use the injury excuse, the Yankees were ruined by injuries last year. As far as the "weak" bullpen... Mop up/Long Relief: Aaron Small (3.20 ERA) LHRP: Ron Villone (4.08 ERA) LHRP: Mike Myers (3.13 ERA; .158 LBAA) RHRP: Octavio Dotel (3.52 ERA) RHRP: Shawn Chacon (3.44 ERA) RHRP: Kyle Farsworth (2.19 ERA) Closer: Mariano Rivera (1.38 ERA; The best closer in baseball) Yes I agree, that bullpen is FREAKING TERRIBLE. Now...take off your rose-colored glasses and jump back into reality, that is one of the best bullpens in baseball. Now let us move onto the "VERY WEAK" 7-9 in the lineup... 7.Robinson Cano (.297 17 HRADJ) 8.Jorge Posada (.262 22 HRADJ) 9.Bernie Williams (.249 14 HRADJ) A second baseman, a catcher. Two notoriously bad hitting positions. Those are two of the best hitting players at their position, and yet they find themselves in the "very weak" 7-9 in the Yankee lineup. The number 9 hole however is agreeably weak, though Bernie Williams remains to be one of the most clutch players in baseball. I can't say it with certainty, because I haven't looked, but I doubt there are better 7-8 hitters than Cano and Posada. I can't argue with you about the very questionable, and what could be a bad starting rotation. But as the Yankees proved last year, an overwhelming offense wins over 162 games, and I am far from claiming that the Yankees are a winning PLAYOFF team. "I would also like to congratulate your Yankees on shifting their focus and their 200 million it seems from World Series championships to division titles. :thumbup " Id also like to congratulate you on winning one title in over 87 years, and now proceeding to have any sort of cocky attitude towards a team who has won over 20 times more than you have in that same span. Enjoy the Yankees rear-view mirror, it must suck to always get stuck in second place, eh?
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