The Yankees are sinking under their own weight
Most people think the Yankees’ poor start is a fluke. I don’t think so. This could be the year they don’t make the playoffs. The offense is still great (though not the best in baseball), but the pitching is terrible. Of the starting five, Randy Johnson is excellent but injured; Carl Pavano is pretty good; Mike Mussina is on the decline, and Kevin Brown and Jaret Wright are train wrecks. I don’t know how those two are making eight million dollars each. The bullpen isn’t what it used to be. The Red Sox have broken Mariano Rivera’s mystique. No one else in the bullpen scares me, either. They’re all thirty-something and on the downside.
Usually, Steinbrenner and Cashman would address these issues by poaching stars from poor teams, but it looks like they’ve run out of prospects to trade, and the high salaries are starting to weigh them down. (They couldn’t afford to sign the players they wanted this summer, which is very unlike them.) My team, the Orioles, also has questionable pitching, but our hurlers are young and hungry, at least, and they’ll learn on the job. Our offense is better than New York’s, as well. I feel great about our chances. At the very least, the pennant race will be fun this year; New York and Boston won’t be beating everyone up all the time.
What strikes me about the Yankees is how many people left their former homes, where they were much needed and beloved, because they wanted to thought they had to be in New York to win – Randy Johnson, Mike Mussina, and Alex Rodriguez, for example. The teams they left are now better than the team for which they play. Major League Baseball doesn’t give the trophy to the team with the most celebrities; the team has to earn it. Karl Malone and Gary Payton took pay cuts to play in win a championship with the L. A. Lakers, and that didn’t work out, either. I’m glad it didn’t. I have much more respect for Reggie Miller, who elected to stay in a small market and to create his own legacy. He’d rather lose on their own merits than win on someone else’s. I don’t care that Reggie hasn’t won any rings. It doesn’t diminish all the incredible things he has done. He made my childhood twice as good, and I’ll never forget that.
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