As they do every Monday, River Ave Blues posted its Fan Confidence Poll yesterday. I didn’t get a chance to say much more than one comment in the thread, so I thought I’d do so here in a post.
For the immediate future–that is the rest of the season and the playoffs–I’m very confident. Despite some flaws–mostly the rotation at this point–the Yankees have the best record in baseball. Let’s break it down more specifically:
Starting with the back end, there’s the bullpen. As of right now, I’m supremely confident in the Yankees’ bullpen. Yeah, it’s never a good idea to be supremely confident in a bullpen considering how volatile relievers tend to be, but with Boone Logan pitching so well against lefties, as well as the three-headed eighth inning monster of Kerry Wood, Joba Chamberlain, and One who Wears High Socks, I’m very confident. And, of course, there’s Mariano effing Rivera. No matter who is at the plate, I’m confident that Mariano will get him out.
Then we move to the rotation and, like I said in my post at RAB, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t give me a least a small pause. CC Sabathia is being his usual self and that’s great, but the rest of the rotation–Ivan Nova, A.J. Burnett, Phil Hughes, and Javier Vazquez–has me worried. But, just like the relievers, starters can be volatile, too. At the end of this month when the playoffs are about to start, all five of these guys could be rolling and we’ll forget all about their struggles.
Phil Hughes hasn’t been terribly sharp of late; Javier Vazquez just can’t find that midseason groove; A.J. Burnett has improved in his last two starts, so hopefully that’s the start of something; Ivan Nova is still an unknown quantity; and, of course, we’re all holding our breaths on Andy Pettitte. We’ll all feel a lot better if/when he comes back and pitches, but until then, we’re cautiously optimistic.
The lineup also doesn’t give me much of a concern, because, well, it’s the Yankees and they know how to mash. Still, though, it’s frustrating to see Derek Jeter in the leadoff or two spot every single game. He’s OPSing around .630 since the start of July and this is no longer a slump: it’s a bad season. I’m not saying he should be platooned–because I do not want Ramiro Pena getting any more at bats than he should–but the Yankees should at least considering dropping Jeter against RHP. I’d propose these lineups:
VS. RHP:
1. Gardner
2. Swisher
3. Tex
4. Rodriguez
5. Cano
6. Posada
7. Berkman
8. Granderson
9. Jeter
VS LHP
1. Jeter (hard to GIDP out of the leadoff spot)
2. Gardner
3. Tex
4. Rodriguez
5. Cano
6. Swisher
7. Posada
8. Thames
9. Granderson
It would also be awesome for A-Rod to turn back into his normal self, and he has hit well in his two games back. Still, the Yankees have the most complete lineup in the game and I’d take it over any lineup in baseball at this point.
Basically, I think the 2010 Yankees are in very good shape. Whatever flaws they have are flaws shared by the the other 29 teams in Major League Baseball. This is something we need to remember. It is not a bad thing to point out the Yankees’ flaws and suggest things that need to be improved. But, we must do that with perspective. If the Yankees have a problem, chances are the other teams in baseball have it or had it at some point during the season. While we may be disappointed that we haven’t seen the 2010 Yankees click on all cylinders at the same time just yet, we should keep it in the back of our heads–or the front–that that fact means the Yankees could unleash their full potential on everyone else at any moment. I have faith they’ll do that during the playoffs.
Matt vs RHers Granderson behind cano, posada is too slow, also , jeter right now should bat ninth your right.but and a big but…maybe next year.. to traumatic to do it now in sept. rolling into the post season..hugh distraction, press would be a circus and jeter will be over come with pressure.. and the whole team also..that would be like changing the axis of the earth. bornwithpinstripes(Quote)
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T.O. Chris H Reply:
September 10th, 2010 at 7:35 pm
Having Granderson behind Cano leaves you vulnerable to a lefty out of the pen and you could be forced to pinch hit for Granderson in an important situation and lose his bat for later in the game that way.
I would actually move Granderson behind Posada so that you could have the 5-8 of your order be Lefty, Switch, Lefty, Switch this way you make another manager have to burn a lefty on 1 batter or leave in the lefty to face Posada from the right side and maybe pinch hit Berkman for Thames in that situation. T.O. Chris H(Quote)
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I think your a nut job if you think De-reck Jetahhh will be hitting 9th vs RHP. It will be a relapse of 07 when Torre hit A-Rod 8th, and we all now how that turned out. Now if Girardi doesn’t want to come back, then I can understand that, but damn! Even though he is doing that bad this season, I would rather give him the day off and give Nunez some AB’s Danny(Quote)
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T.O. Chris H Reply:
September 10th, 2010 at 7:29 pm
It’s nothing at all like dropping Alex to the 8 spot, Torre did that because he didn’t believe in Alex’s abiltity to get out of his own head and hit in the post season (ironically the exact opposite of what anyone managing in that situation should do) but there was never any question as to the physical abiltity of Arod on the field it was just his mental abiltity being called into question. With Derek you have the exact opposite, everyone knows how mentally tough Jeter is but right now he is showing very real signs of coming to the end of his career and it looks as though his bat has started slowing down to me. If this is the case he will never fully rebound back to being Derek Jeter and if that is what we are facing then he should be dropped in the lineup.
Jeter needs to be dropped and due to his skill sets (declining as they are) he is kind of stuck on places to hit in this lineup. It’s very clear he is no longer the type of player who can hit leadoff or 2nd in a lineup anymore, he doesn’t have the power to hit in the 3-5 spots and Posada is pretty much always a lock to hit 6th in our lineup since he still has enough power in his bat to protect the 5 spot. This only leaves Jeter with room in the bottom 3 of the lineup and it depends on who has the hand hand between whoever the DH is, Granderson and Jeter as to who is 7, 8 and 9. However even with all that said I don’t think it will happen, Jeter’s name still carries the vision of a younger Derek and because of that and his place in the organization and games history they will let him drag the lineup down as long as they possibly can hoping for a rebound when we all know if it was another player showing decline like this they would plummet down the batting order.
I brought this up not to long ago on here and I think next year it definitley needs to be done but as I said then it probably won’t happen. T.O. Chris H(Quote)
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