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May 19, 2007
Have the Mighty Fallen?
The Mets defeated the Yankees 3-2 Friday night on a two-run homer by Endy Chavez. The Yankees wasted another good pitching performance by Andy Pettitte. They're four games under .500, ten games behind the idle Red Sox. With 40 games played, one quarter of the season, we have to ask, is this still an elite team? The first thing to notice is that their record is way out of whack with their runs scored and runs allowed. They've plated 214 runs while allowing 188, which should be good for a .564 winnings percentage, 22 or 23 wins. But, the Yankees win a lot of games by wide margins. Twelve of their 18 wins came by scored of four runs or more, including their last six. They haven't won a close game, (2 runs or less) since May 3rd, when they defeated Texas 4-3. Since then they've lost four by two runs or less. More importantly, they've lost six in that time frame in which the opposition scored five runs or less, below the Yankees average of 5.35 runs per game. They're losing games this offense should win. Finally, they're losing to everyone. Against Cleveland, Minnesota and Texas the Yankees are 10-2. Those are the only three teams with a losing record against the Bronx Bombers. Tampa Bay won three out of four. Against the AL East the Yankees are 3-11! Early in the season, the pitching wasn't doing the job. Now, the pitching done well enough for this team to win, and the offense hasn't delivered.
The early problem was pitching, and the Yankees fixed that. Now they need to figure out how to fix the offense. The problem is the offense is supposed to be good. So do you wait for Abreu, Damon and Cano to come out of their overall slumps? Do you wait for A-Rod and Giambi come out of their power slumps? The easy move is to find a lumbering power hitter to play first base. Right now, all the Yankees can do is draw a walk, and a double play is more likely to follow than a home run. In most years, this is a team capable of winning their division, but bad luck due to bad timing put them in a deep hole. Maybe it's age catching up to the team. Abreu, Damon, Giambi, Jeter, Matsui, Posada and A-Rod are all at ages where we'd expect declines, after all. They're getting to the point, however, where Clemens might not be able to save them. Comments
Take a look at the Cubs differential, if you want to see out-of-wack records vs Pythag. Posted by: Santos Sorrow at May 19, 2007 12:11 PMis this still an elite team? The answer is obviously "no." Posted by: Steven Andrew Miller at May 19, 2007 12:56 PM11! is a truly large number of losses indeed. Posted by: rob at May 19, 2007 10:12 PMInteresting post Dave. The answer is Yes, they are an elite team and I define elite as having a realistic chance at a WS appearance/win. Their wins will come up if the offense stays potent but if they don't come around soon, they may be doomed to not make the playoffs. I don't think you can banish them to the second division just yet. Also, you raise two issues I am interested in, being a NYY fan. First, is Cano really as good as last year? his Major League stats are small and this year represents 13% of his career ABs - and this year stinks. Have pitchers adjusted to him and he hasn't adjusted back. And is Abreu's decline age-related or will this year ultimately bear out his career numbers? I have both on my fantasy team ( I traded for Abreu) and they are killin' me. I keep playing them - thinking when they correct for the slumps I get lots of points. But that hasn't happened yet. Posted by: Phil at May 19, 2007 10:28 PMCano came up at a young age and was good. That's usually a sign that the player is actually good. Most likely, it's just a slump. Abreu has been so consistent for so long that this slump is totally out of place. I wouldn't be surprised if age is catching up to him. Posted by: David Pinto at May 19, 2007 10:38 PM Cano's 06 season was one for the ages, if you want to see ALL players after WW2 that hit that high a average at that age, here's the list. the WOREST player on this list is Bill Goodman who had a career OPS+ of 99, and that was because he hit 19 HR in 15 year career Cano isn't a big power hitter, but he already hit more than 19 HR in his career , everyone else here is either HOF or near HOF player, it's going to take a lot longer of bad hitting before anyone should write Cano off. As for Abreu, I'm not sure, it is obviously possible that this year he simply fell off a cliff, but for a guy so incrediablly consistent, it's hard to imagin, though i suppose the 65 Yankees definately saw the same happen to them to Marris / Micky/ Ford all falling off at the same time. still though, A-rod / Posada/ Jeter are all still doing well. I'm not sure, at this stage, the Yankees are still clearly capapble of making a comeback, but it's getting hard. they need something to get them started, I had thought the near perfecto by Wang a week + back would have done the trick, but guess not. arragh. Still though, it's hard to figure this out, Phelps/Mink platoon havn't been good, but it's not exactly what's killing them either, the early pitching woe was a lot more of a by product of ridiculasly bad luck rather than actual lack of talent, hell, this team have 3 dead lock HOFer and half a dozen fringe HOF guys, how do you lack talent with this bunch? it's just hard to figure this out right now, i can't really fault Cashman for putting this team together, it made perfect sense on paper, i can't fault Torre by a lot either. i just can't figure this out. though my gut feeling is they'll explode sometime in the next couple of month and all this talk will be in the garbage bin soon enough. Posted by: RollingWave at May 19, 2007 11:58 PMI can hear Torre asking Clemens at the beginning of June, "Do you know what Old Hoss Radbourn did in 1884?" Posted by: Devon Young at May 20, 2007 04:14 PMPost a comment
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