| Andrew Perna. 24th July, 2009 - 6:33 pm
 It?s safe to say that this season?s incarnation of the Yankees is far better than the 2008 team that notoriously missed the playoffs.
That club won 89 games and played a painfully meaningless finale at the old Yankee Stadium, which was accustomed to hosting World Series tilts.
The Yankees aren?t without faults this season, but they are on pace to win 99 games. That would be their highest total since 2004, when they tallied 101 and finished off a three-year run of 100-plus victories.
They are also leading the AL East thanks to a seven-game win streak to begin the second half of the season. They stumbled into the All-Star break with three disheartening losses to the Angels, but all has been forgotten now that they have made up more than five games on the rival Red Sox in a week?s time.
Wins have come in a variety of forms, but they have been fairly consistent in 2009. Their run differential (+72) is fourth-best in the Major Leagues, trailing only the Dodgers, Red Sox and Rays.
According to Bill James? Pythagorean calculations, the Yankees have been a tad lucky. They were 58-37 heading into Friday?s action, and James? numbers indicate that they should be 54-41.
Joe Girardi?s bullpen has been criticized often. It?s certainly one of the team?s softer spots, but the unit hasn?t been nearly as bad as advertised. Mariano Rivera is pitching like a man much younger than 39 and Phil Hughes has been absolutely lights-out as a reliever.
The combination of CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Joba Chamberlain and Andy Pettitte has given the Yankees 42 quality starts this season. With Rivera, and now Hughes, those kinds of performances put the Yankees in great position to win.
However, the fifth spot in the rotation is in flux. Sergio Mitre was decent in his debut this week, but with Chien-Ming Wang?s shoulder issue looking more and more serious, the worry is that the Yankees will have to rely on Mitre and Alfredo Aceves for the next few months.
The most puzzling aspect of the season for the Yankees thus far, however, hasn?t been their quest for a reliable fifth starter, Nick Swisher?s amazing relief appearance or even the high rate of homers that are flying out of the new Yankee Stadium.
A team looking to play deep into October typically has a goal of winning two out of each three games ? basically each series they play. Doing so would put them around .600 for the season, which equates to 97 wins and likely a trip to the postseason.
New York?s .611 winning percentage through Thursday indicates that they are accomplishing the goal, but their propensity to streak has been astounding.
They endured four- and five-game losing skids earlier in the season ? in late April and early May, both thanks in part to the Red Sox ? but have been red-hot since.
They were 13-15 when they lost their fifth-straight game on May 7 to the Rays. It coincides with the return of Alex Rodriguez a few days later, but the Yankees are 45-22 since May 8.
In a little more than two months, the Bombers have recorded a pair of seven-game win streaks (one of which they are on currently) and a nine-game run that took place shortly after A-Rod?s return in mid-to-late May.
A good team should be able to get hot, and it bodes well for them should they make the postseason.
The 1996 Yankees, who won 92 games and captured the World Series crown, had four five-game winning streaks.
The 1998 Yankees, who won 118 games and won their second World Series in three years, had a season-high winning streak of 10 games from June to July. They also had runs of five, six, seven, eight (twice) and nine (twice) games that memorable season.
The next year, the Yanks won the World Series again. They won 98 games, which looked modest next to 118, and won a season-high seven games on three occasions. They also had streaks of five and six (twice).
In 2000, the last time the Yankees lifted the hardware, they had 87 wins and ran off a streak of eight in the first few weeks of the season. They compiled runs of five and six games later in the year, but this team was probably the weakest regular-season edition of the Torre title years.
To put things in perspective, the 2009 Yankees are already just as dangerous as the 1996 and 2000 teams that won the World Series. They also have more than two months to match the dominance of the 1999 and 1998 teams, although replicating the latter?s dominance is near impossible.
I?m sure the Yankees would just assume win two out of every three, but the ability to get red-hot and win in a number of different ways bodes well for their postseason hopes.
Andrew Perna is Deputy Editor of RealGM.com and co-host of RealGM's Radio Show. Please feel free to contact him with comments or questions via e-mail: Andrew.Perna@RealGM.com |
