If Duke shoots well, they win. If the Yankees hit well, they win. Both have an excellent chance of repeating their championships!
Predictions, discussions, comments go here.
Let me get you started --
1) The Yankees are toast. They simply do not have the starters to compete and their offense is getting really, really old. Still, the Twins have a long history of rolling over and playing dead against the Yankees. The series will turn on game one. If the Twins lose, they will not come back.
2) After a long layoff from meaningful games, are the Rangers ready for an offensive explosion? Is Josh Hamilton really back? Afte a woeful August, is Cliff Lee dominant again?
3) The Rays rule, even if the have no fans. Everyone knows the team is being blown up in the offseason and will soon be moving out of Tampa. Can the team ignore all that and just play great baseball?
--Jason "not sure I agree with all that, but it should get the conversation started" Evans
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
If Duke shoots well, they win. If the Yankees hit well, they win. Both have an excellent chance of repeating their championships!
Ozzie, your paradigm of optimism!
Go To Hell carolina, Go To Hell!
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If the yankees don't have the starters to compete, which may indeed be the case, why would the series turn on game 1, when the yankees have their lone starter who can unquestionably compete? If anything, your first point would suggest that game 1 is the only game the Twins can afford to lose. And I suppose I'm curious why the age of the yankees' offense is more important than the fact that they led the majors in runs (though they did have a relatively weak offensive september).
Demented and sad, but social, right?
The Yankees post-season hinges so much on Andy Pettitte. If he returns to the form he had earlier in the season then they will end up playing the Phillies for the World Series (again). If he struggles they could be out in the 1st round. Personally I think he will do well enough to keep them in his games.
I'm not too concerned about the late-season slump. The Yankees rarely had their full lineup going. I think calling them "toast" is a huge stretch. They have the best lineup, the best starter and the best closer of any team left. Do they have more question marks than usual? Yes. Are they still the favorites to come out of the AL? Also yes.
Who would you rather have? Halladay? They put up comparable numbers (when you take into account the AL/NL differences). CC has post-season experience and will take the ball every 4th day which I think gives him the edge over Halladay right now.
Cliff Lee? Maybe last year but his 2nd half wasn't quite up to his usual standards.
David Price? Young guy, no post-season experience.
I think everyone would love to have Felix Hernandez but he's not in the discussion right now.
Not quite true. No postseason starts, but he's pitched in a World Series.
I would have said "Wait, what?" to your last assertion, rather than the one re: Sabathia, actually. I'm not sure I, for one, see the Yankees as the "favorites to come out of the AL." Hard to say that about anyone that has to play two series on the road, and has a mess at the back of the rotation right now. I see them as essentially equals in terms of overall quality with Tampa, but Tampa would get 4 at the Trop if they reach the ALCS, and IMHO they have an easier first round than the Yankees (yes, I'm a blindly optimistic Twins fan), so I'd have to slot the Rays in as the "favorite."
Mystery factor in Twins/Yankees series not getting much discussion: Andy Petitte. He symbolizes the one franchise's bizarre mastery over the other the last decade; he absolutely owns us. His health/effectiveness might be the key to the series - if he loses that grip he has on the Twins, games against Sabathia become less important for Minnesota and moreso for New York.
This. I think CC will be strong and Hughes will be competent. A good game from Hughes could be enough to overcome a bad game from Pettitte in the first round (or not), but certainly not in the second when you have to assume they go to a 4th starter, who provides the promise of nothing but massive sucktitude. Andy will be hugely important.
Demented and sad, but social, right?
Up through 2004, you could have substituted "Red Sox" for "Twins" in that sentence.Still, the Twins have a long history of rolling over and playing dead against the Yankees. The series will turn on game one. If the Twins lose, they will not come back.
I do think the Twins have a good chance of finally breaking through this year. Just a hunch, but they did finish strong. OTOH I'm getting Bobby Cox vibes from the Yankees, ie, going into the postseason without a lot of motivation/purpose.
If you want to compare the season Halladay is having to the season Sabathia is having then you have to factor in the AL/NL difference. There's a reason that like 75% of the top ERA pitchers all come from the NL. Sabathia's only time spent in the NL he had a 1.65 ERA (for half a season). They're both great pitchers but one of them has led a team to a World Series title and the other hasn't thrown an inning of post-season baseball.
They lost 8 of their last 10, both their team obp and slg were the lowest in sept/oct of any month of the season (for an ops 70 points below their season long figure), and their era was the highest of any month (about 0.4 above their season figure). Liriano and Pavano both had multiple bad starts in the closing weeks of the season and Duensing had probably his 3 worst starts of the year to end the season. They're hardly alone in that regard (the yanks lost 8 of their last 11) and after all, they were playing out the string with the division handily wrapped up. Their finish isn't exactly damming, but I wouldn't call it strong.
Demented and sad, but social, right?
Just be you. You is enough. - K, 4/5/10, 0:13.8 to play, 60-59 Duke.
You're all jealous hypocrites. - Titus on Laettner
You see those guys? Animals. They're animals. - SIU Coach Chris Lowery, on Duke
I take exception to the suggestion that the Yanks are "toast." C'mon, Jason, that's a bit over the top and I think you're just trying to be provocative.
That said, I do think the Yankees-Twins series is a tossup. The Twins do have a mental hump to get over, but it is possible to get over such humps as the Red Sopx proved in 2004.
I do agree with Jason that a lot will turn on Game 1 -- Sabathia is easily the Yankee ace and he's the only guy we can count on for a well-pitched game. But Liriano is really good too.
The tough thing for me to swallow would be in Pavano shuts us down in game 2. We paid the guy a fortune and he was unable to pitch while on our payroll. Then the minute he leaves NY, his ailing arm recovers and he's suddenly effective again.
I just don't know what to expect for Pettite. I know he didn't win in his three late-season starts and his ERA in those three outings wasn't good, but if you actually watched him in those games, I thought his performance was encouraging ... I thought he was treating the games almost like rehab starts.
Pettite is one of the great postseason pitchers in baseball history -- 40 postseason starts, 18-9 record with a 3.90 ERA (4-0 in 2009 postseason). He's pitched more deciding game victories than any player in postseason history.
That's one of the most interesting things I'll be watchiong for -- can the Yankees' old dogs turn it on when the lights come on. Will Derek Jeter be Derek Jeter or will he be the inferior replica we've seen most of this season. Will Pettite and Rivera and Posada summon up their legendary postseason skill level ... or will they finally surrender to age?
I honestly don't know. As I said, I think it's 50-50 against the Twins ... and it will be 50-50 against the Rays or the Rangers. It won't be until (and if) we meet the Phillies in the World Series that I'll feel like the Yankees are real underdogs.
Underdogs ... but even then, I wouldn't call them "toast".
So you don't like the word toast. How about bruschetta?
Fair enough ... legendary might be a bit strong.
But so is pedestrian. Just by comparison, Posada's postseason OPS (.736) is better than Yankee catchers Bill Dickey (.709) and Elston Howard (.692). It's right in the middle of the great Yankee catchers -- behind Berra (.811) and Munson (.874).
I guess we can stop worrying about Halladay's lack of postseason experience.