The Yankees are a notch below MLB’s elite

The Yankees are sitting at 37-27. That is 10 games above 500 and 2 games behind the AL East leading Boston Redsox. The Yankees are also leading the AL Wild Card race as of right now. They just took 2 out of 3 against the Mets and have won the first game against the Nationals. I am assuming they will either sweep or take 2 of 3 against the Nationals and do the same against the Marlins. Does that mean they are a World Series team? No. I think it is clear that they are far away from that.

I think there are a couple of “elite” teams in MLB right now. The Redsox, Phillies, and Dodgers are clearly up there. I think the Mets are also up there if they are healthy. The Met team that we played had some key players out such as Jose Reyes and Carlos Delgado. Keeping that in mind, the Yankees are 1-10 against these elite teams. I am not counting the Mets series because they weren’t at full strength. How can the Yankees be a World Series team if they can’t beat the elite teams?

Some might say that the Yankees are missing key players as well. Early on we didn’t have A-Rod and Wang. Guys like Posada were hurt as well and Tex was struggling. That is why our record against these elite teams is bad. So what. The Redsox were playing without Youkalis and Ortiz was struggling. If you watch these guys, you will see that the difference is not night and day between these teams. It is the little things that make the difference in a win and loss between these teams. They Yankees just can’t finish games against elite teams or can never come from behind. They find a way to lose. Out of the 11 games, more than half of them were winnable. However the Yankees found a way to lose.

So you might sit there and think the Yankees are not in bad shape and only 2 games behind the Redsox but you are missing the big picture. We don’t play the Redsox again until August and a lot can change between now and then. Who knows, the Yankees can be in first place by then. That will get us into the playoffs, but how far will we get? We will square off against an elite team in the playoffs and then what? Can the Yankees beat one of those teams?

The good thing is that we have a lot of time until the season is over. The Yankees have time to improve their flaws and that starts with the bullpen. There is definitely fight in this baseball team and we have seen it by all their come from behind teams. However lets get some against good teams. Until I see that, this Yankee team has a small chance of winning it all.

Written By: Ashwin | June 17th, 2009 | AL East, Analysis | 2 comments