Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
September 25, 2007
Do the Yankees Want to Win the East?

Cleveland leads the race for best record in the American League, and as far as the Yankees are concerned, they lead Anaheim by one game, two in the loss column. If the season ends like this, as the Wild Card the Yankees draw Cleveland, but if they win the division, New York ends up playing LAnaheim. Although I'm sure they'll say publicly they don't care, the Yankees likely prefer facing the Indians. That doesn't give them a lot of incentive to finish tied or ahead of Boston. The Yankees are 6-0 against Cleveland this year, 3-6 against LAnaheim, and the Yankees have lost the two times they played the Angels in the post season.


Posted by David Pinto at 12:44 PM | Division Races | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Don't the Indians and Angels both have 92 wins at this moment? I know that the Tribe plays two more games than LA, but, can you assume they win those?

Posted by: Steve Lombardi at September 25, 2007 01:02 PM

No, and that's the danger. However, the games are against Seattle and KC, so if the Indians try I bet they can win 4 of the 7. And I believe Cleveland has the tie breaker with LAnaheim.

Posted by: David Pinto at September 25, 2007 01:09 PM

Well, given that the Tribe did win their division and are going to the playoffs, you'd have to think the odds favoring them winning at least one of those extra games, no Steve?

Over at Nomaas.org they make the added point that not winning the division will give the Yanks a better pick in next year's draft than the Sawx, and they point out that that could be big given the similar drafting philosophies of both teams -- high-ceiling talent that might otherwise have gone earlier in the first round if not for signability/$ issues (though in the Sawx case character issues can be involved as well, cough, Buchholz, cough laptops).

A perfect example of the significance of draft position is the case of Rick Porcello this season. The Tigers nosedive to the wildcard last season allowed them to snag him ahead of the Yanks.

Posted by: Yankee Fan in Chicago at September 25, 2007 01:14 PM

It is important to remember that the Yankees have only faced Carmona once and have not faced Sabathia at all this year. I can't imagine though that the Yankees are anxious to face Anaheim again though.

Posted by: Tom at September 25, 2007 02:44 PM

Yeah, but the Indians are 27-10 since they last played the Yankees. I think they'll be a tougher series than anyone thinks.

Posted by: Devon Young at September 25, 2007 04:09 PM

Yankees are merely above average against lefties this year. Against RHers, they are dominent. So I'm guessing that they'd prefer not to face Sabathia twice in a five game series.

Posted by: Paul at September 25, 2007 07:11 PM
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