Finally Picking the Yankees

Two Things. First, I'm a pessimist. Some see the glass as half full, some see it as half empty. I say I don't care how full or empty the glass is, because it's probably filled with prune juice or some terrible Belgian beer and I'm not drinking it. Second, I'm a Yankee fan, always have been, always will be. I owe this to my grandmother (come to think of it, I probably owe that first thing to my grandmother too, some might say I got it from my mom, but where do you think she got? Did I just blow your mind a little? Hell yeah I did). Anyway, my grandmother started getting me on the Yankees, along with the Islanders and Celtics, before I can even remember. So, putting these two things together, I don't think I've ever actually said out loud that I was picking the Yankees to win the world series, until now.

Write it down, the Yankees are leaving with the big trophy this year. A couple of days ago I would have said they were going to beat the Cardinals for it, but the Cards seem to have gotten bogged down in LA. I guess the baseball gods have decided to give us the sports media apocalypse of a Yankees vs. Joe Torre world series, I'm so thrilled.

So why am I picking the Yankees? Two main reasons.

Reason number one, they put together a good team in a great off-season. A lot of people talk about Sabathia and Teixiera. Not interesting to me, the Yankees used their financial advantage to make the two most obvious signings, exactly what they should do with all that money, but not really worth talking about. Some people talk about Swisher, and I will a little bit. This guy plays at least 3 positions (none of them all that well, but whatever) and he hit 29 home runs. Brian Cashman stole him from Kenny Williams (a solid GM, by the way) for Wilson Betemit. Seriously, I'm not making that up. Swisher is good for 20+ home runs, high OPS and defensive flexibility, and they got him for Wilson Betemit. So that's sort of interesting, but that's not what I really want to highlight.

I'd like to talk about A.J. Burnett. Why? Because A.J. and the Yankees were the perfect fit. This was such a good signing for both sides. A.J. has ace stuff. He's a number one guy when he brings his A game, which he's usually happy to do about 6-8 times a year when he's healthy. Beyond that, you get 16-18 pretty average starts and 6-8 unmitigated disasters. Of course, it was the 6-8 dominant starts a year that he was looking to get paid for. So, he needed a team with the following qualities:
1) Enough money to pay number two starter money to a guy who is actually average or below average most of the time.
2) Enough offense to win most of his average starts.
3) Enough talent to overcome his disasters and still win enough games to make the playoffs.

Does that sound like a certain franchise with 26 world championships? I think it does.

Reason number two, this Yankee team has a different feel then the 2001-2008 teams did, and I think I know why. I watched all the walk-off celebrations, all the dugout goofing around, all the Nick Swisher hair styles, and I kept thinking the same thing. This isn't Jeter's team anymore. He's still the captain, and they still respect him, but something has changed in the leadership.

Before I move on, I should admit that I don't like Jeter nearly as much as I'm supposed to as a Yankee fan. I know he's a excellent player, and sometimes he'll do something (like the home run in the third inning of game one against the Twins) that I have to admit was pretty great. In general, though, I don't think he's everything Yankee fans and the baseball media make him out to be. I think if he played for the Texas Rangers, he'd be Michael Young. Baseball fans know what I'm talking about, people who don't really follow baseball have no idea who Michael Young is, and that's sort of my point.

This isn't Jeter's team anymore. It's almost like he's moved on to a higher position. They'll still look to him when they need something big, but the other guys are running the day to day now, Swisher and Teixiera, Sabathia and Burnett. Why is this good? This team isn't chasing the old dynasty anymore, they're starting a new one. Alex Rodriguez isn't the sullen outcast who can't measure up to the champions he plays with anymore, he's just one of boys. The young kids, like Cano and Cabrera and Joba are having fun without having to worry about getting a stern lecture about professionalism, because they're following the lead of veterans who are having fun.

Sure, when the series is over and they're mopping up the champagne, the Yankees players will talk about Jeter's leadership and how he was their MVP, and that'll be true. Maybe he'll even get his own trophy to prove it. But think about all those Yankee teams since 2000 that came up short. Didn't they look bored? They did their jobs with the same amount of joy as the guy who cleans the bathrooms at your office. You could blame some of this on Torre, but he wasn't there last year, and they looked worse than ever.

This team is having fun, it's because they brought in some new leadership, and it's why you can put the 27th world title in the bank.

Of course, now that I wrote this, it almost certainly won't happen. I'll spend the last week in October watching the Angels and the Dodgers play the least cared about world series in history. That's what I get for trying to be optimistic for once.