The Yankees Are The Favorites...But They Have Big Issues

Every spring when the baseball season is about to begin the same question is always asked: Who do you have winning the World Series, the Yankees or anyone else? More often than not the answer is going to be New York. It is easy to see why, they spend the most money, they have the most talent on paper, they have as much depth as anyone, they will acquire whatever they have to in order to fill a need at some point during the year.

However, there is something about this year’s team that looks more and more like the 2008 team that missed the playoffs as opposed to the 2009 team that won the 27^th championship in franchise history. I’m not saying that they won’t make the playoffs. That would be crazy. I am saying that they appear a bit more vulnerable now than they were at any point last year.

Let’s start with the lineup: Derek Jeter is having his worst season ever, A-Rod is having a mediocre year, Posada is not a threat with the bat and his defense is not good, the outfield (with the exception of Swisher) is horribly mediocre. That’s five of the nine spots in the lineup that are not performing, or at least not performing as they once did.

The starting rotation consists of CC Sabathia who is winning a lot of games but his numbers are starting to take a dive (his K/BB ratio is a little over 2:1), AJ Burnett has the stuff to be great but his command and make-up leave a lot to be desired, Andy Pettitte had great numbers before he got hurt but he also benefited from a lot of luck (his Defense Independent ERA is 3.97, which is still decent) plus he’s 38. Phil Hughes started great but he has been regressing the last month and has never pitched this much. Javier Vazquez can’t break 90 on a radar gun and is suffering from what’s being called “dead arm.”

The bullpen, with the exception of Mariano Rivera, has been mediocre all year. Joba Chamberlain has never been able to recapture his 2007 magic (though the Yankees could be to blame for that given how much they shifted him back & forth and constantly babied him). Kerry Wood has only given up one run in his 6 1/3 innings but he still puts too many guys on base and is unlikely to continue without at least one implosion in October.

All of this is likely just nitpicking and it is stuff that every other team has to deal with. The Yankees are going to be the favorites going into October and they should be. But before we go and crown them champions, we need to realize that for $206 million dollars the Yankees still have all the same problems that everyone else does.