The Yankers, a tale of two seasons

[Dove]

July 14 they were 54 and 33, the best record in da besbol.

Since then they went 41 and 44 but still finished with the best record in da besbol. But did anyone think they were anything but mediocre?

I've seen dog ticks put up more of fight.

 

[UConner]

Obviously, dog ticks draw blood... The Yanks not even a black and blue mark.

 

[mauconnfan]

Obviously, dog ticks draw blood... The Yanks not even a black and blue mark.

Guess it has to be more embarrassing not have an opportunity to draw blood or leave a bite........instead your guys are leaking blood.........not much baseball talk spewing from your moronic mouth all year until now?

That's embarrassing!!

 

[Danzz]

Guess it has to be more embarrassing not have an opportunity to draw blood or leave a bite........instead your guys are leaking blood.........not much baseball talk spewing from your moronic mouth all year until now?

That's embarrassing!!

The Sox season doesn't have anything to do with the Yankees slump. We have accepted our disaster.
The problem I see with the Yankees is age: Mariano, Jeter, Arod, Pettite. They have a lot of good hitters who have trouble driving in runs against good pitching.The middle of the lineup: Arod, Granderson, and Texiera can beat you but more often than not they get handled in key situations.
Depending upon who they resign the Yankees pitching should be very good again next season and they should be the favorite to win the AL East. They just have to figure out how to get younger.
The Sox have a lot more problems.

 

[Dogdeacon]

The Sox season doesn't have anything to do with the Yankees slump. We have accepted our disaster.
The problem I see with the Yankees is age: Mariano, Jeter, Arod, Pettite. They have a lot of good hitters who have trouble driving in runs against good pitching.The middle of the lineup: Arod, Granderson, and Texiera can beat you but more often than not they get handled in key situations.
Depending upon who they resign the Yankees pitching should be very good again next season and they should be the favorite to win the AL East. They just have to figure out how to get younger.
The Sox have a lot more problems.

Actually the aging roster and bloated contracts for same are immediate problems that all the big market teams face. MLB has officially exited the era where the Yankees and other big market teams dominate every year. Sox problems came crashing to a sudden and ugly result this year for a multitude of reasons, but the good news is they were able to dump the salaries and arguably immediately change their strategy. It'll be much harder for the Yankees to reset, but obviously they are a much better team right now. The game-changers are the salary cap at 189M,, the ability to completely reset luxury tax rate if you are below that in 2014 and the double dip draft position penalties if you exceed*. Yankees have the dough to pay way over the cap, but they'd be trapped in forever paying exorbidant contracts to aging starts (i.e. sign Josh Hamilton for millions which will be worthwhile initially but an ARod like albatross on the back-end). Its a little extreme, but there's an argument that this fall for the Yankees was equivalent to last fall for the Sox. Wishful thinking for Sox fans to hope for a 2013 Yankee disaster as I doubt the Yankees will fire Girardi and make a bad hire to exacerbate the situation.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/page/rumblings120113/why-yankees-red-sox-spending-big

* If teams spend more than their cap amount on signing bonuses (something the Yanks/Sox - big market teams have used to their advantage), the penalty is punitive to the point of being prohibitive: a 75 percent tax for exceeding the cap by 5 percent, up to a 100 percent tax and the loss of two future first-round picks for exceeding the bonus allotment by more than 15 percent.

 

[60'sfan]

The Sox season doesn't have anything to do with the Yankees slump. We have accepted our disaster.
The problem I see with the Yankees is age: Mariano, Jeter, Arod, Pettite. They have a lot of good hitters who have trouble driving in runs against good pitching.The middle of the lineup: Arod, Granderson, and Texiera can beat you but more often than not they get handled in key situations.
Depending upon who they resign the Yankees pitching should be very good again next season and they should be the favorite to win the AL East. They just have to figure out how to get younger.
The Sox have a lot more problems.

I agree with you Danzz. Here are changes that I think they need to make to be competitive again. First and foremost, fire Ben Cherrington. He was the biggest reason they collapsed this year. They had obvious needs last winter and he did nothing to address them. He made some bad trades and signed some over-hill-players who contributed almost nothing. Some will argue that he was ham-strung by Luchino and management but you should never take a job you cannot succeed at.
Next they need to find a good manager. They had one but he is with Cleveland now. The Sox attention is on Farrell but I would not give up any decent prospects or players to get him. He is a proven good pitching coach but that is it. His tenure in Toronto has been less than successful. I'd like to see them sign Ausmus or Pena.
Now for the players. All they need is two starting pitchers, one closer, a catcher, a first baseman, a short stop, a left fielder and a right fielder. Once they have these they will be a contender again. An oh, I like Fenway. Please don't change that.

 

[The Viking]

Keep in mind that over the final 2-3 weeks of the year when the Yankees were holding off the Orioles, they were playing a lot of awful teams, namely Boston, Toronto and Minnesota.
So to go from that easy schedule to all of a sudden facing legitimate playoff teams (and pitching staffs), well I think that was a big part of the reason they were never able to get going offensively.

 

[Dogdeacon]

Keep in mind that over the final 2-3 weeks of the year when the Yankees were holding off the Orioles, they were playing a lot of awful teams, namely Boston, Toronto and Minnesota.
So to go from that easy schedule to all of a sudden facing legitimate playoff teams (and pitching staffs), well I think that was a big part of the reason they were never able to get going offensively.

That is great! As awful as the Red Sox were this year you are the first one to blame the Yankees playoff loss on the Red Sox (among others, but c'mon). What do you think was a bigger factor - injuries to Rivera and Jeter or how playing the terrible Red Sox infected the otherwise virtouso Yankees?

 

[mauconnfan]

That is great! As awful as the Red Sox were this year you are the first one to blame the Yankees playoff loss on the Red Sox (among others, but c'mon). What do you think was a bigger factor - injuries to Rivera and Jeter or how playing the terrible Red Sox infected the otherwise virtouso Yankees?

Think Viking made a good point actually......everyone gets one in once in a while......but I think I talked about this real early. Not built at all for the playoffs and while their pitching was real good, their hitting made others pitching look real good. I mean why were all these guys with the orioles and tigers, excluding Verlander, 14-10, 13-10 and so on and so on...........they aren't that good but the Yankee hitting was atrocious. Hey they did make their run against crappy teams but let's not put these oriole and tigers pitchers that far up the totem pole.....Sanchez is a 4th or 5th starter at best and he looked like freakin Sandy Koufax vs that shi**y lineup!!