The inevitable question is asked of me with two days to go before the new Major League Baseball season begins, "Will the New York Yankees repeat?"
Mine answer is, "They're favorites for sure but that's not a given. So many things can happen -- an injury here and there, bad luck. Plus, other teams have made significant upgrades as well. But right now what does that come down to -- the Yanks, Bosox, Tampa Bay Devil Rays in the American League and the Philadelphia Phillies, St. Louis Cardinals, and LA Dodgers in the National League. But yes, they are one of the favorites to win it all."
It is not a given that just because NY picked up Randy Winn, Curtis Granderson, Javy Vasquez, Nick Johnson, Chan Ho Park etc that they are going to win. Remember that this is new York. Let's see how they perform under the bright lights. That's a disadvantage many have when they come to take their act and game to the Big Apple. Just ask Jeff Weaver, Randy Johnson, Kevin Brown etc. But if you noticed the names I mentioned are all pitchers. It's tougher on the pitcher than it is a field player. Gary Sheffield, Bobby Abreu, and Jason Giambi delivered too. It's just unfortunate that they couldn't bring the Yankees past the first round of the playoffs.
Let me say this though now that the outfield and the rotation is set.
Curtis Granderson is now playing center field. As the New York Post's Jay Greenberg so eloquently put it, "Center field at Yankee Stadium is the most prestigious piece of real estate in sports." he is the heir to Earle Combs, a .325 career hitter, lead-off specialist, and playing at a time when the distance from home plate to dead center was 420 feet. He is in the Hall of Fame.
And there are two others -- some guys by the name of Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle who held fast and firm and belted moonshots that took everyone's breath away. That same position was inherited by Rickey Henderson before Bernie Williams made it his own. The two of them should make Cooperstown easy.
No disrespect to Melky Cabrera who is now with the Atlanta Braves, but since Williams retired, center field has seen a revolving door of outfielders. But Cabrera has been a dutiful and quite productive utility player for New York and I think his loss might hurt the Yanks.
So Brett Gardner takes over Johnny Damon's old position at Left Field. I wish the Yankees kept him but such is the fate of any Scott Boras player ever since the problems with re-signing Alex Rodriguez several years ago. Damon played a great year after several poor seasons with the Yankees where he was injured and his interest wavered. Maybe Brian Cashman and Joe Girardi thought that they squeezed the best out of him. But I think that maybe Johnny's got another year left in that body of his. And if you ask me, it is Detroit's gain unless they've got a dysfunctional clubhouse there and the losing begins.
As for the returning Javier Vasquez and Nick Johnson, I thought New York gave up on them pretty early after a year. Them performing elsewhere means squat. It's how they do on Broadway.
Yet I look to Yankees history to see how this current team will fare.
In 1995, Stick Michaels and Buck Showalter ran New York (with the Boss banned from baseball). They had a young core from their farm system -- Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Mo Rivera, Jorge Posada, and Bernie Williams, and veterans like Darryl Strawberry at LF, Paul O'Niell at RF (Williams was at center), Don Mattingly at 1B, former Boston Red Sox great Wade Boggs at 3B, Tony Fernandez at SS, Jim Leyritz at catcher, and Pat Kelly at 2B (who came up from the system as well). That team lost to the Seattle Mariners in the first round.
That was Mattingly's last year and the heartbreak continued as the great DiMaggio passed away. Michaels and Showalter were replaced by Bob Watson and Joe Torre.
That year they added 1B Tino Martinez from Seattle, pitcher David Cone from the Toronto Blue Jays, Dwight Gooden from the New York Mets, 3B Charlie Hayes and 2B Mariano Duncan from the Philadelphia Phillies, LF Tim Raines from the Chicago White Sox, catcher Joe Girardi from the Colorado Rockies, and pitcher Kenny Rogers from the Texas Rangers.
For starting pitching they had Cone, Gooden, Rogers, Pettitte, Ramiro Mendoza, and Jimmy Key.
That team won the World Series after being down 0-2 and losing both games at Yankee Stadium. They marched into Fulton County Stadium and won three of three then finished off the shocked NL Champs in Game 6 at the Bronx.
Everything that Torre did was magic. And he would reprise that over the years as his team would play in the World Series six times and win four.
Flash forward to 2009 and the Yankees had another former Bosox great in Damon. In a move that reprised the trade for Tino Martinez, Mark Teixeira joined in at 1B, they took in Oakland's Nick Swisher (who has always been a favorite), and great pitchers in CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett. Girardi (who would win three titles as a player with New York), also reprised Torre's magic year in '96 by sprinkling pixie dust on his moves -- batting Jerry Hairston Jr. vs Pedro Martinez, having Brett Gardner run for Hairston, having Damaso Marte pitch against the hot-batting Chase Utley and home run threat Ryan Howard, saving Hideki Matsui as a pinch hitter, and having his top three pitchers pitch on three days rest.
The success of 1996 and 2009 although 13 years apart showed the blend of the new acquisitions and the veterans. In 2009, Jeter and company were now the veteran stars.
For 2010, yes, New York looks to have upgraded on paper. It is no longer the all-star team of that was the norm for the Yankees in the new millennium. Untested they may be but that suits everyone just fine. After all this is a team game and no one wins with papers line-ups.
Although this line-up can hit, it is not as good as what they had last year. Previously, anyone from the top to the bottom of the batting order could hit. There was no sure out for the opposing team. They were all grinders. If Gardner, Johnson (and his lifetime .420 OBP), and Granderson can hit that ball and Swish does not go into another slump they will be okay. I thought that the Yankees should have signed Roy Halladay who now went to Philadelphia. I hope that doesn't haunt them they way missing Curt Schilling in 2004 did. That season, the former Arizona pitcher was thinking he was on his way to New York but he was fleeced by the Bosox at the last moment. But NY wasn't too set on bringing him over to the Bronx. And we all know what happened that year. The funny thing is, New York countered by bringing in Randy Johnson who never was quite the pitcher he was when he and Schilling beat the Yankees in the 2001 World Series. So if this year's pitching does hold up and it is always the key to any World Series success, then they will win.
Thanks for the memories, Johnny Damon.
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