Written by Ryan Rummage
We’ve all heard the expression “Money can’t buy happiness.”
Well, after spending more than $420 million this past offseason, perhaps it does for the New York Yankees. Granted, the Yankees have the largest payroll in baseball for the umpteenth year in a row, including more than $90 million more in 2009 than the Philadelphia Phillies, but something must be said for actually performing under the stress of the money in New York.
The story has been the same since the last time the Yankees won the World Series back in 2000: buy big-time players, make the playoffs, struggle and lose. How many World Series did Randy Johnson win with the Yankees? Zero. Jason Giambi? Zero. A-Rod? Zero … until this year.
This year is different. With pitching that has been healthy and solid all year, an offense that produced the most runs in the MLB, and a never-say-die attitude resulting in 51 comeback wins, they’re the obvious favorites to win their 27th World Series, right?
Not so fast. The National League champion Phillies are the defending World champions. They took care of the Dodgers, the team with the best record in the N.L. with ease, but take a closer look, and you’ll see that they and the Yankees are strikingly similar.
In the postseason they’ve each won nine games, gone 7-2 over that stretch, lost both games by one run each and have 14 homers. Both teams have relied heavily on pitching. Is any three-man rotation better than Sabathia, Burnett and Pettitte? Perhaps. They’re named Lee, Martinez, and Hamels. Combined, Martinez and Lee have four starts and a 0.34 combined ERA. And how about the incredible Yankee offense that led the league in runs scored? In the regular season the Yankees had five starters hit over .280 while the Phillies only had two, yet through nine games this postseason, the Phillies are averaging almost a complete run more than the Yankees and have five guys hitting at least .280 to the Yankees’ three. Shane Victorino and Ryan Howard are both hitting over .350. Thus, the Phillies are the hotter team and should be the favorites to win, right?
Again, not so fast. There is something different about this Yankees team than those that we’ve seen in the last four or five years. They seem calm, laid-back, even as if they actually enjoy playing baseball again. New York is known to be a tough trial for players, but from the laid-back attitudes of Jeter and Sabathia to the pie throwing of A.J. Burnett, this team seems to have bonded better than any Yankee team since 2000.
They’ve stayed healthy throughout the end of the season, and the problem of injury-prone pitchers that has plagued the Yankees since 2000 is nonexistent.
However, probably the biggest factor in the Yankees’ success in the postseason this year is that no one has heard anything from A-Rod since his admission to steroid use before the season began. The highest-paid player in the league is finally playing up to his paycheck; he’s hitting .438 with five homers and not causing drama in the clubhouse. Surely all this is enough to be the favorites to win the World Series?
Two words to remember: defending champs. They did this last year. What is keeping them from doing it again this year?
Last year the Phillies won 92 games, beat the Dodgers in the NLCS in five games, and then beat the Rays in the World Series in five games. This season the Phillies won 93 games, beat the Dodgers in the NLCS in five games, and now we all see a pattern. Sure, before last season the Phillies hadn’t won the World Series since 1980, but they are primed to be the first back-to-back winners since the Yankees three-peat from 1998 to 2000.
To be fair, the only reason that the Phillies aren’t actually expected to win is that the media gives so much attention to the performance and expectations of the Yankees. Just like last season, the Phillies are hitting better and overall playing better than in the regular season. They’ve been here before, they’re experienced and they’re on an absolute roll; thus, they are clearly the favorites, right?
Wrong. While neither team is a pushover, and while neither team should technically be an underdog, at the end of the day, the Yankees are still the best team in baseball. Does that mean that they will win? Absolutely not. It’s playoff baseball, and anything can happen from a four-game sweep to a seven-game thriller.
Now I certainly realize that by the time that you are reading this, Games one and two have already been played, and I could be completely wrong. However, based on their performance in the regular season, their refusal to lose and the magic of the new Yankee stadium, the Yankees will win their first World Series in nine years. Yankees in seven.
