On the Yankees beat

There is a good article about the Yankees and the kids on Yahoo! Sports ... by Stan McNeal ... not too long but paints a nice portrait of the team ...

One question I have no one has answered is how do they all communicate with Japanese, Taiwanese, English and Spanish all going back and forth?

It would be interesting to find out. I know baseball has its own language of course, but beyond that. How can you have real esprit de corps if you can't talk?

But no matter, the team is really pulling together ... and that's great to see ...

I do feel bad for Mussina ... to seem him go into decline like this ...

I think
AL East: Red Sox
AL Central: Indians
AL West: Angels
AL Wild Card: Yankees

NL East: Mets
NL Central: Brewers
NL West: Diamondbacks
NL Wild Card: Phillies

World Series
Angels vs Mets

Champion
Angels

You heard it here first
Yankees east
Clev central
Angels west
Sea wild card

AL
East - Boston
Central - Tribe
West - Mousketeers
WC - "The Good Guys"

NL
East - Mets
Central - Cards (I like the Cubs)
West - Snakes
WC - Atlanta

ALCS - "The Good Guys"
NLCS - Mets

WS - "The Good Guys"

If you want "objectivity", go look at Steve Phillips picks!

He should jump into the Harlem River.
AND take Buster Olney with him!

Jerks!!!

My picks are-
WEST- SEATTLE
CENTRAL- CLEVELAND
EAST- R\SOX
W\C- YANKS
Even though Seattle has that slew of games in x number of days, they do have 7 left with the Angels. I believe Seattle will take 5 of the 7, and that will decide their division. The expanded roster will help Seattle squeek through the many, many games they have. As you see, the Angels and Tigers are the "odd men out". The Angels are trying to "rush" Bartolo Colon back, which shows how desperate they are for starting pitching. By mid Sept. it will be obvious that the "wild card" battle is between the Angels and Yanks. The Yankee offense will put them "over the top". The Yankees are in the bad position of playing a "wounded animal" in the Detroit Tigers this weekend. Even a "split" for Detroit would be bad, so they will be playing every game of this series like it is game 7 of the World Series. Detroit has never recovered from the loss of Zumaya. With Jones unable to go 2 innings, Detroit just couldn't find anyone to replace this dominant "bridge".

When the Gagne screwed up a few games for Bosox not long ago, I guess Sox were being punished for being another evil empire who just spent the money whenever they felt like to :) so my guess for the AL east is Yankees.......isn't that Yankees have been punished for enough time,they should get a pass this year...go yankees!

John G:

Going back to the previous thread, the Yanks began as the Baltimore Orioles from 1901-1902, then moved to NY as the Highlanders from 1903-1912, then became the NY Yankees in 1914.

I'll be munching on cheerios and brew before the first pitch tonight.

As to everyone's back and forth on Ian Kennedy, here's a tidbit on how we got him near the tail end of the draft. He had been outstanding in 2 years at USC, but then was hurt in his last year and was known to be seeking a big bonus. Joba was also injured during his last college season ('06) and fell to #46 overall. Similarly this year, Andrew Brackman fell to the end of round one because he is known to probably need Tommy John surgery. But he projects as a top-of-the-rotation pitcher.

Hello All,
If the Yanks don't start getting the starting pitching needed to hang with the Angels and Red Sox the playoffs are a pipedream. And even if they do make it, it will be another first round loss this year. That is my prediction and yes, I am a lifelong (more than 30 years) Yank fan.

Roy,
The Tigers activated Zumaya from the DL already, so the thought that they never recovered from his loss is irrelevant this weekend. I don't know if I am being pessimistic or realistic, but I don't believe the Yanks can handle their remaining schedule. Hitting has been good, they put up a lot of runs against a good pitching Angel team, however they gave up a whole lot more runs and even let Garrett Anderson drive in 10!!! C'mon, I could pitch better than that

John,

You have to stop listening to Buster Olney. He's just trying to cover his tracks along with the other imbiciles, Steve Phillips and John Kruk. All three of them said that the Yanks wouldn't make the playoffs.

Well, since the Yanks were 21-29 back on May 30th, they've gone 51-27, a .650 clip. Best record in the majors from that point.

Since the break, they're 29-13, a .690 clip.

They have some issues in the rotation true, but other than the occasional blowout, they've pitched fine.

They scored 23 runs against the 5th best staff in the AL, Anaheim. They've hit the Boston staff well also.

Let's just play out the final 35 games and see what happens.

Zander,

Cheerios and brews?

Too volatile for my stomach Bro. :-)

Yanks hold their own destiny with Seattle and it would appear that one of them is going to be the wild card. Big question is will the Yanks pitching wilt as they have had to play catchup over the last 45 days, this is very taxing and sooner or later you pay the price. If they can get into the playoffs the price gets paid in the first round. As much as everyone gets carried away with young pitching talent it becomes very meaningless in post-season. The Yanks will only win in post-season with the front line guys and they are all question marks, with exception of Pettite. So Wang, Pettite and Clemens will be the post-season starters. Will they have anything left in the gas tank as they will surely be pushed over the last 35 games. Though here is Boston wins the East, CLeve holds on in the Central, Angels win the west and it is a race to the finish between Yanks and M's for wild card. I'll give the nod to the Yanks as they will probably win several 9-8 games for the nod. Unfortunately they will not be able to play 9-8 post-season games and go anywhere. This team is incapable of winning 2-1 3-2 games that are a staple in post-season.

Ant Man,

I heard that the Yanks are developing a universal translator.

Newsday- Parents: Yanks should axe gang caps

[quote]
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/am-yanks0824,0,879606.story?coll=ny_home_rail_headlines

Baseball caps don't make thugs, what about the so called parents who raised them. These people of color will blame everything but themselves. Get re al Idiots.

Msg4Ever,

I beg do differ with you.

The Yanks have held teams to 3 runs or less quite a few times since the break.

I won't list them all here as you can go to the yanks' website and look at the schedule. They have the scores for the games that were played.

But as recently as 2 weeks ago in Cleveland, they held the Tribe to 6 runs total for the 3 game series. After the blowout in the first game, they held the Tigers to 6 runs in the final 3 games.

As I said, the staff has some issues, but i feel that they can win the close games. Their recent history isn't good as far as the post season goes, but I'll take my chances with this staff.

As far as the Angel series goes, the only bad game was the Moose game. They all stunk up the place in that one.

Hughes gave up 5 runs, but at the time that he was taken out of the game, he gave up 3. If Torre would have left him in to finish the 7th, maybe they don't get the 3 that scored. Vizcaino let the 2 inherited runners score.
Hughes didn't pitch greta, but he pitched okay.
We all know that Andy shut them down on Wednesday.

AL East:Yankees
AL West:Angels
AL Central:Tigers
AL WC:Red Sox

NL East:Mets
NL West:D-backs
NL Central:Cubs
NL WC:Phillies

World Series
Yankees v.s. Mets
Champions
Yankees in 7

Pettite, Wang, Clemens, Joba, Hughes...

Bring in Mussina/?/?/ as the bridge to Mo.

??

It would be nice to see the Cardinals and the Yankees in the Playoffs. Mets too. Arizona. Angels of course. Red Sox ... maybe Cleveland?

Anyway as I have said, no matter what, there is no team I fear anymore with the Yankees. We are young and good.

Other than Mussina and Farnsworth there are no weak links.

Giambi and Damon are doing okay ... not for the money ... Abreu will be gone, Mussina as well.

Can we sign Posada?

Omar will want him.

We can get Bard from SD, one of the best hitters in baseball with two outs and RISP!

May the Yankees continue to do well. Yes indeed, go Yankees! Woo Hoo.

PS John G.,

Yes they will need a universal translator. In the past 12 months I dealt with kids from Israel, Japan, China, Taiwan, Venezuela, France (Amor Fou!), Thailand, Bosnia ... thank God for English!

Ant Man,

Since you were an international correspondent, you must speak a few different languages.

I'm lucky that I speak English and with a Brooklyn accent to boot.

Wow 51 and 27 ... amazing. We are one of the best teams ...

Again if we'd had

Pavano
Lilly
No Igawa
No Farns
No Meyers

If Viz was good all year.

If Hughes had not been hurt

If Wang had paid attention

If Duncan and Joba were brought up a month earlier

We'd be in first place.

Still the starting pitching is a bit shakey.

Bring up Ian and see that he can do. If not, Horne or someone ... anyone ...

Mussina can't get hit like this. We might as well have kept Igawa.

Did you know Jeff Cirillo pitched a scoreless inning the other night. After waiting 14 years. He was a great pitcher at Southern California.

The University of Spoiled Children.

Not many people may know this but Jeff Cirillo's great-grandfather invented onion rings.

AL East: Red Sox
AL Central: Detroit
AL West: Seattle
AL Wild Card: California

NL East: Mets
NL Central: Chicago
NL West: Diamondbacks
NL Wild Card: Atlanta

Sorry Yankee fans: NO YANKEES IN PLAYOFFS THIS YEAR!!!!!!!!

World Series
Sox vs Mets

Sox in 4

Red Sox ride the wave of being the BEST TEAM in BASEBALL and get their revenge finally for 1986

Pedro loses it for them in the 4th game when Grady Little comes out as a guest coach and asks Pedro if he's okay.

Giambi and his steriods aren't there to 'Roid out 2 homeruns to win the game like in 2003. (Thank God Beckett, Lowell and the Marlins made the Yankees look like fools in that World Series!!!!! Justice (not David) did prevail)

Schilling & Johnson in 2001

The Angels in 2002

The Marlins in 2003

Of course the BIGGEST choke in all of sports history: The Red Sox in 2004

The Twins in 2005

The Tigers in 2006

Boy the 2000's so far have not been very good for the Yankees?

And you just get worse & worse each year moving forward.

So next year your young group of AAA and AA players will probably finish behind second place Baltimore.

2007 WS Champs prevail in 1st place next year of course.

Beckett, Dice-K, Lester, Paplebon & Buchholz + Okie & Gagne in the pen

John G.,

I can speak a fair about of Korean, (I was based there for 27 months) Spanish, a little Russian and some Afrikaans.

Still working on my English ...

It would be an interesting journalism article to see how the MLB players communicate thorugh their cultural and language gaps. Obviously the Latin players don't JUST speak Latin, they speak Spanish! And that's a fun language because so many things mean different things in different countries ... like the words for "straw" or even a "hot dog" (Chucho, Perro Caliente) ... you always need to learn more words ... you never arrive. I would be constantly badgering the Spanish speaking players to teach me this or that.

Japanese is very, very difficult. There are over 50 ways just to say "no."

I know one special word "Ooo-new-bow-ray" which means "hubris." (Or is that Chinese, I forget!)

And isn't there a song about "50 ways to leave your lover ..."

1.

Just pour out the Cheerios ... Scott Spezio

2.

Root for the Red Sox ... Mrs. Spock

3. - 50. (Ya'll fill in)

Predictions ...

I said get Gagne and Joe Kennedy ... I have learned you never know what will happen.

Catalanotto and Ankiel were ok picks.

I still wonder what happened to Jeremy Sowers.

I don't care who makes the Playoffs as long as the Yankees and Los Mets do.

AL EAST - Boston/Yankees

WC - Boston/Yankees

AL Central - Indians

Al West - Seattle

Pennant - Yankees

WS - Yankees

I know we all distrust the ESPN analysts and their supposed anti-Yankee bias. Here's an interesting antidote:

SI.com reports that Baseball Prospectus has calculated the probabilities of the AL teams to win their division, make the wild card, and to make the playoffs.

The basic model gives the Yanks 8.5 % to win the East and 50.1 % to get the wild card. Taken together that's a 58.6 % chance to make the playoffs.

For you stat-heads out there, the PECOTA-adjusted figure is 62.6 % and the ELO version comes out at 64.3 %.

John G... it's not just the Olney/Kruk/Phillips nexus that is going against the Yankees

Keep in mind they've gone on AMAZING runs at the end of June and after the All Star break, and still don't have a playoff spot as of this posting.

That being said, before everyone dog piles on me again for being a Red Sox fan, I DO think the Yankees are going to the playoffs as the Wild Card team because I don't have faith in the Mariners

Then again, they are tied with the Angels in the loss collumn

Let's just say it should be a kick a** September

Now if you will excuse me, I have to put the Red Sox game on the ticker while my kids watch Dora the Explorer

It's so funny living in a Non NY/Boston market

Everyone here lumps the Yanks and Red Sox together for everything:

Payroll
Media attention
ESPN bias

A guy was wailing on KNBR San Francisco yesterday about how sick he was of ESPN's fascination with the Red Sox and Yankees.

"I GOT IT!" He said. "You love the Red Sox and Yankees! We get it! You are rooting for them to win every game! We get it! "

It's interesting to observe the rivalry from a place that doesn't give a damn

Sully, you are a classy Red Sox fan. It is going to be a fun September.

Sully,

Does the link that I sent you work? If not, you probably have to turn off your popup blocker. I'm watching the game now while eating lunch.

Yeah, you're right in saying that we don't have a playoff spot as of now. We just dug a really, Really, REALLY deep hole. It's like we're about to get our fingers to grap the edge of the hole and pull ourselves out, but we still tend to slip a little.
As good as we've played since May 29th, we still may not get there.

We have 6 with you guys and 3 with Seattle so it's in our hands now.

First off, we have to play a very good but struggling Tiger team. Hopefully, we can take advantage of their problems and take the series.

We shall see.

I also live in a non NY/Boston market. They have a playoff team here and no one goes to the games.

When Boston was here in June, the place was full of Red Sox fans and the D'Backs were on a hot streak at the time. You'd think that their fans would come out in force.

As far as the SF market, their team stinks. If they can get it together and put a contending team on the field year after year, then we may all be talking Giants/Dodgers for a while.

Your boys are up 5-1 in the top of the 5th.

John G... the Giants contended every year from 1997 to 2004 with one exception (1999)

The A's were in the playoffs in 2000-2003 and 2006 and narrowly missed in 2004.

There has been a LOT of good baseball here.

But SF fans obsess over the 49ers and Oakland fans obsess over over the Raiders

Don't get me wrong, when the team is in the playoffs there is excitement here... but NOTHING is like the New York/Boston markets for baseball.

That's why ESPN obsesses over it

(Them being right smack dab inbetween Boston and New York might kinda sorta have something to do with it too)