What's Really Wrong with the 2008 Yankees

Thirteen straight postseasons and now this. Two games against the Sox for our fast-departing lives. The LAST two games against the Sox in The House That He of the Expired Curse Built (Seriously, what have you done for us lately, Mr. Sultan?), and its US, the New York freaking Yankees, on the ropes. That is, to borrow a phrase from Jules Winnfield, "some f***ed-up, repugnant s***."

Where did it go wrong? How can it get right? Everybody's pointing to injured pitchers, Robbie Cano, and -- shockingly -- a certain PR-inept third baseman who can't seem to stay out of his own way. But the Bombers have actually patched their injury holes surprisingly well (say what you want about Ponson, but they're a .600 team when he starts), gotten yet another HOF-caliber regular season out of the Rod, and, as for the disappointing year from Cano -- I mean, a .263 batting average from an eighth-hitting second baseman isn't enough to single-handedly doom a team.

So what's the malfunction? Here are some issues that I think have flown under the radar:

1) The absence of an over-achiever: It's not so much that anyone's having a terrible year. The bigger problem is that, by my count, the Yankees have exactly one (1) player whose performance has vastly exceeded expectations: Mike Mussina. That's it. Jeter's been a little worse than usual, A-Rod's a little worse than last year, Cano is substantially down, Damon is a little bit up, Abreu and Giambi are about where you would expect, and Posada and Matsui haven't been able to stay on the field.

On the hill, Pettitte's been a slightly worse version of his normal self, Ponson and Rasner have given moderately less than we expected to get from Hughes and Kennedy, and Wang has been MIA since he was last asked to run 90 feet. None of those downgrades are damning when taken individually, but with nothing except a 16-7 record from a 38-year-old righty to balance out the considerable amount of slightly sub-par seasons, you get mediocrity. And nothing says mediocre like 70-61, 6 games out of the Wild Card.

2) Where have you gone Joe Dimaggio (and Yogi Berra, Joe Gordon, and the real Derek Jeter)?: The post Ruth and Gehrig Yankees have been built -- to an incredibly skewed degree -- on talent up the middle. Joe Dimaggio(3), Yogi Berra (3), Mickey Mantle (3), Joe Gordon, Phil Rizzuto, Elston Howard, and Thurman Munson have all won MVP awards as catchers, center fielders, or middle infielders.

Not only are the Yankees the only team that has garnered an MVP at each middle position (The Tigers (Cobb, Gehringer, Cochrane) are missing a shortstop, the Reds (Bench, Larkin, Morgan) and Dodgers (Robinson, Wills, Campanella) each lack a center fielder), but the thirteen Yankee MVPs at ONLY these positions surpass the total MVPs won by any other franchise besides the Cardinals, Giants, and A's.

And daunting as that statistic is, it says nothing of the contributions of Bill Dickey, Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Mickey Rivers, Roy White, Alfonso Soriano, Robinson Cano, or Jorge Posada. All the offense that the Yankees have traditionally gotten out of positions that are not typically known for run production have afforded them a considerable head start over their opponents for the past 70 years.

This year? Jeter and Cano haven't been themselves. Jose Molina, Chad Moeller, and the Artist Formerly Known as Pudge have split time behind the plate. Melky Cabrera's evil -- and less-talented -- twin brother took a giant dump on the legacies of those who preceded him in center, before mercifully being banished to the minors. The Yankees have been reduced to a team that only gets offensive production from the corner positions. That doesn't make them terrible, it just makes them similar to roughly three quarters of every other team in baseball history. And roughly three quarters of the league doesn't make the playoffs.

3) The Arizona Cardinals Corollary: One of the darkest days in the history of the New York Football Giants came when the NFL announced it would be realigning its divisions and moving the Phoenix Punching Bags out West, where they probably should have been all along. Every fan of the Big Blue saw two annual wins disappear before their very eyes. The (Devil) Rays didn't get moved to the AL West, but this was the year they put an end to their role as the Yankees personal stress ball. And, while nobody was looking, The Toronto Blue Jays shot up to a +50 run differential and the Orioles upgraded from "an absolute disgrace" to "still, pretty bad." The Bombers were 46-28 in division 2 years ago, 39-33 last year en route to th Wild Card, and are just 27-25 this year. A lot of that's on their own shoulders, but not all of it.

4) Just wait 'til next year...no, seriously...we mean it: No....I mean seriously. When they said "We're not gonna keep worrying about this year at the expense of our future," that wasn't a joke. This is what a rebuilding year looks like or, more specifically, what a $200 million rebuilding year looks like, which is a whole lot better than what Royals fans watch. In fact, to illustrate this point further, check out...

5) The unflinching laws of probability: I mean, it had to happen eventually. Before you get too down on the Yanks, let's do some math:

Assume that a given baseball team goes into every game with a 60% probability of winning -- indisputably excellent by MLB standards. In an average year, that team goes 97-65 -- almost always good enough to make the playoffs. However, that same team has a 14% chance of winning 90 games or fewer in any given sample of 162 games and a 6% chance of winning 87 games or fewer. That is, once every seven years a team "good enough" to expect 97 wins should win less than 90 and, once every 16 years, that same team should win less than 87.

This year, the Yankees -- after 13 straight years in the playoffs (and 15 straight of winning or being on pace for at least 87 wins) -- are on pace to win exactly 86.5.

It hasn't been a fun ride -- no argument there. But it is very possible that what we're witnessing is a still-talented team whose current performance is at the bottom end of its standard range of expectations. In a month, a lot of money will free up to bring in new talent. Over the winter, a handful of young pitchers will have time to mature. We still could be looking at a monster next year.

For the time being, though, let's see if they can take the Sox down with them.