The Yankees

Are the Yankees (1-3) off to a slow start this year? No, I think they just suck, is all. I doubt it is temporary - by the time the other players get back, new guys will be injured. I saw Nunez went down now, and he was decent... who is really left? They don't get 95 wins just for being the Yankees, there has got to be some talent there.

It is not like Derek Jeter is going to return and just wave a magic wand over everything. They have a 3-4-5 of Youkilis, Hafner and Wells. That is not going to cut it. And there is no talent in the farm system, either. I guess the starting pitching is decent, but the whole thing just seems like a train wreck.

Well, I'm hoping the Bosox stay bad this year so I can pick up some affordable tickets and watch a game this year. Once the team stinks, the real fans can return to the park since they don't have to compete with posers who don't know squat about baseball.

The Twins fans on this board have been real quiet about The Yanks potential demise so far, but I'm sure that they are just sitting there sharpening their fangs. Of course, the Twinkies will have to do a little better themselves for the insults to have any salt, but nevertheless Pete and I won't be happy.

Girardi will be a miracle worker if he can get this team to .500.

You would think the Yankees would have learned their lesson about the farm system. When they dominate, most of their good players came from the farm. If you look at most successful teams, they have strong farm systems. The Twins have been like but a few years ago they decided that trading away their top prospects was a good idea.

Cashman preaches about the importance of the farm system, but they don't develop any players. Okay, there was Brett Gardner, Hughes and Cano, but those guys are vets now. There was the disastrous trade for Pineda, though he is young, let's face it - he is probably finished. Otherwise, they have a bunch of mediocre catching prospects, a few injured pitching prospects, maybe some outfielders, but overall it is a weak farm system.

They'll be waiting a year or two and then making some big FA signings, but it will then probably just be the same story - those guys will underperform for 25mn per year, they'll lose their draft picks, etc. I don't see how they make it back to the top anytime soon.

when they resigned arod, they had to go for the win now approach...there was no looking back. that means loading up on veterans and trading away prospects and picks. they made a couple deep runs, didn't win anything, and paying for it now on the tail end.

i'm actually surprised how quickly the decline came for texeira. this might be what the dodgers will be like in 4-5 years. the league seems to have alot of parity right now. you have teams that spent to get fa's but you also have the smaller clubs with good young prospects contributing. i love this time of year with 3 sports active and it's not just the NFL hogging up everything with its shield and juggernaut-ness.

Hard to know what happened to Teixeira, but my guess is that he just isn't cut out to perform in NYC. I know that his wife wanted him to sign with the Yanks, that was why he did. The Bosox wanted him badly and were pretty pissed.

The A-Rod deal was a massive head-scratcher. He saved them by opting out and then they just went right back to the deal, it was puzzling because there were no other bidders. To be locked in to a player for that long was crazy. Boras sold them a story about how ARod was going to chase the all-time HR record. They fell for it hook, line and sinker.

Yes, the decline is well underway for the Yanks. Teixeira hasn't hit well for a few years now (still a top notch glove though). He usually improves as the temperature rises in the summer months, but this year he won't have that spring warmup behind him.

I'm also thinking this is the year Sabathia's arm starts to show the mileage. He's been very good for a long time, but I think he's due. Clearly it's time to shed some of those big salaries and begin a rebuild, something similar to what the Sox did with the Agonz/Crawford/Beckett deal last year. Is that something Yankees fans could get behind? Or is Cashman just gonna drop another wad on another overpriced FA in the offseason?

Oh, there is joy in mudville, the mighty yanks suck!

Pineda was a terrible deal. Montero will be a solid catcher for a few years until Zunino gets seasoned. Actually haven't seen the Yanks make a good move in a couple years. Saddled with aging vets, and unreasonable contracts does not offer fans of the Evil Empire much hope on turning it around in even a couple years. If Girardi "loses less" than 95 it will be a miracle.

Ben, no one will take A-Rod's contract no matter what, and the Bosox did the smart thing, but there are no more teams out there who would do what the Dodgers did. The Yanks are stuck with Tex, A-Rod, etc. I'm not worried about C.C., and they did make a good signing last year with Kuroda, plus the decision to bring Pettitte back. Not all was horrible. But the team is decimated!

Montero is not a good enough defensive catcher to handle the $100mn pitching staff of the Yankees, which is why they dealt him. But they should have done their homework on Pineda, who hasn't pitched a single inning. Montero still could have been used as a DH/back-up C.

would be horrible news if pineda was damaged goods, although the sea park suppresses offense so who knows how good montero is. yankees need an amnesty clause cuz no one will take arod and tex w/o the yanks paying a big chunk of the salaries.

per jamie's gloom & doom prediction i picked up these two:

I acknowledge I'm a Yankee hater. I grew up in MD and went to grad school in Baltimore; it was inescapable. That said, there's no objective conclusion to reach other than: The Yankees are gonna stink this year. Do I like that? Sure, but if I truly believed they were gonna be good, I'd say so. I just honestly don't think so.

NYY '13 is, to me, the inevitable end-game of WAAC (Win At All Costs) ownership. There are 30 teams in the league. No one is gonna win every year. Yet the Yankees, by admission, have actively pursued that course. And frankly, they've been lucky. I thought the demise I see as unavoidable this season was coming about two years ago. They staved it off and kept making the playoffs; having players of Jeter's caliber around helps with that. This year, I just don't see their way out. Haffner is overachieving thus far, but there's no escaping their age and lack of speed, as well as the absence of imposing pitchers after CC. I don't see how they're gonna slow imposing AL offenses with poor defense and middling pitching, and I don't see how they're gonna generate runs with aging power and no small-ball capes.

But hey, they've proven me wrong since '09. Who says they won't do it again? Maybe Vernon Wells will resurrect his skills and have a career year, and Pettitte and Rivera will do things no pitcher should do at their age, and all the injured and aging stars will recover in ways that aging and injured stars do not typically recover. Anything is possible.

One quarter through the season and I'm already thinking about the best way to prepare crow. Girardi gets my preliminary vote for manager of the year.

pariah1107 wrote:One quarter through the season and I'm already thinking about the best way to prepare crow. Girardi gets my preliminary vote for manager of the year.

Agreed. They prove me wrong yet again. That's why they play/manage and I watch.

go yankees...go yankees...beat them o's!!!!

I'm still not completely sold on the Yanks. Still early. Happy to see them playing well, though.

ha ha...I'm afraid AROD and TEX...and maybe even JETER are going to come back and ruin it all!!!!!

What is going on with the Twins? L10... Last ten games, 0-10???

I thought this was the year the Twins were gonna overtake the Yankees!

They can't stand winning. They started the year flirting with .500. Every time they got a game over .500 they would go on a 3 or 4 game losing streak and climb back up. Now it's just a mad dash to see if they can be worse than Houston.

sabrjay wrote:They can't stand winning. They started the year flirting with .500. Every time they got a game over .500 they would go on a 3 or 4 game losing streak and climb back up. Now it's just a mad dash to see if they can be worse than Houston.

Sounds like a strange allergy for a baseball team to have. Quite a few have it, though. But I will say that the Twins have done very well in recent years, in spite of some playoff travails. It's all you can hope for out of a small market club. Many fare far worse than that.

sabrjay wrote:They can't stand winning. They started the year flirting with .500. Every time they got a game over .500 they would go on a 3 or 4 game losing streak and climb back up. Now it's just a mad dash to see if they can be worse than Houston.

Sounds familiar. M's take a series from the Yankees to climb within one game of .500, only to lose 6 straight. Three in the final AB vs. the Indians. Who, Terry Francona seems to have brought around.

Terry Francona's stock had dropped precipitously after one bad final month with the Bosox, although he was dealing with tons of injuries. He basically became the scapegoat for upper manager, but in reality he is a great manager.

YANKEE UPDATE!!!!!

lyle overbay in extras...the yanks continue their winning ways...poor Curtis G takes another one for the team!

Mid-summer classic was actually something approximating just that. The tribute to MO was great!

The question is: where is your favorite team positioned for the second half? The M's are a mess. Injuries to Morse and Guitierrez really hurt, but Morales is hitting nearly .400 w/RISP. Calling up a lot of prospects, of which Zunino, Miller, and Franklin seem to be solid. Nine games under .500 but swept the Angels entering the All-Star Break. As always Hernandez and Iwakuma are a great one-two. But, it looks like another season of staring up in the standings.

ur ballpark suck ty. none of their hitting prospects have really panned out. i thought the m's are owned by nintendo? can't they step up salary-wise and compete with the angels and texas? of course maybe when faced with those choices the grand poobahs fa's don't really want to plant roots in the pacific northwest.

anyways my dodgers have been on an uptick recently, but i feel it's kind of a mirage. imo puig is coming back down to earth and being exposed for the over-aggresive hitter that he is but w/o the contact prowress of vlad guerrero. hanley playing out of his mind, he's putting on a laser show every night and of course my mind goes to ped because we haven't seen this han-ram for a few years now. only stud on this team is kershaw and i love the eccentricity of greinke.

The Twins hung around .500 for awhile. Went on a long losing streak and have never really recovered. They are something like 5-22 since June 15. Not pretty. We may have the next Gary Pettis in CF.