New York Yankees: Scratching the Surface of their Failure

The New York Yankees are, without question, one of the most historic and prestigious sports clubs in the entire professional world. Their accomplishments speak for themselves, and their legends have provided a pedestal for which the Yankees will forever be placed.

Unfortunately, this club has now come to a major crossroads in their history. Yes, they missed the playoffs for the first time since 1993, but that is not what is so alarming about the current situation.

The beginning of the season held with it expectations and hope—two very dangerous things for any professional sports club. "The Big Three," which included Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy, and the only one of the Big Three to see any success, Joba Chamberlain, devastatingly missed reaching the club and fan’s expectations, like the many walks they administered.

Chamberlain was the exception, providing 118 strikeouts in 42 appearances and posting a 2.60 ERA. Joba proved he could be effective in both the starting and relieving roles, putting up low two ERAs in each job.

Kennedy and Hughes, however, proved to crumble under the expectations. The two combined to go 0-8, with Kennedy showing an abysmal 8.17 ERA and Hughes trudging along just ahead of him with a 6.62. Come on now, 0-8!!!

The two highly-touted prospects could not win a single game; now that’s something to seriously worry about. Obviously, Hughes proved he had skill towards the end of the last two seasons. He’s got good stuff, with a low-to-mid-90s fastball and a batter-freezing curveball.

But his main problem has been inconsistency spotting the fastball. The fastball is the jab of pitching; it sets everything else up and is a key component to any pitcher’s game plan. His shaky command leaves hitters sitting on a hanging curveball, which they have found more often than not.

Kennedy has truly shown nothing to the fans and to the club. In the 2007 season, he started three games and ended up with a 1.90 ERA. Now, this may seem impressive to the less-than-casual fan, but most true fans see right through this. The majority of the time, when many major league opponents have not seen a pitcher, he possesses something I like to call the "surprise factor."

This "surprise factor" was evident in this past 2008 season in Darrell Rasner. In his first five starts, he had three games where he gave up less than three runs. After this early success, he casually became known to the Yankee’s media as "Five-Run Rasner."

It can also be seen with failed reliever David Robertson, who, like Rasner, started off strong and then completely fell off. The Yankees' reliance on their young and unproven pitchers was a major mistake and one of the reasons for their lack of presence this October.

Another major negative on the Yankees' season was their anemic offense. Before the season, the Yankees were projected to score 950-1,000 runs, a truly prodigious amount. Instead, like many other aspects of the team, they failed to meet expectations and ended up with 789, ranking only seventh in the American league.

The Yankees' biggest offensive woe was clutch/situational hitting. The late-inning miracles that became familiar to Yankee fans were completely nonexistent this year. The team batted just .260 with runners in scoring position, 17th among the 30 teams. In 2007, the team surged with a league leading 5.98 runs per game. Want to take a guess as to what it dropped to this season?...4.80.

The last time the Yanks had such a severe drop off in runs within one year was in 1922, when they were still playing at the Polo Grounds!

A-Rod’s RBI total dropped 55 from last season. Not only that, but he only had eight RBI after the seventh inning and hit a dreadful .236 with runners in scoring position.

If we had to pick just one factor that lead to the disappointing season, it would have to be their stagnant offense. The inconsistency simply killed the Yankees. The old saying, "good pitching always beats good hitting" is true in all sense of the words.

But in the Yankees' case, an inability to hit when it counts definitely helped in the destruction of a major-league superpower.

In the end, the Yankees have a lot of question marks going into the 2009 season. Once again they are relying heavily on free agency to fix most of their problems. If the Yankees handle things well in the coming months, a successful rebuilding process can begin to take place.

But if the wrong choices are made, such as many of the decisions made this season, than the Yankees could be looking at a long downward spiral for their once invincible team.