Why I Hate the Yankees
When Matsui and Sheffield (with Gary rumored to be playing 1st base) return from injuries and Robinson Cano almost back, a potential lineup for the Yankees could look like:
CF Johnny Damon (bats left)
SS Derek Jeter (bats right)
1B Gary Sheffield (bats right)
3B Alex Rodriguez (bats right)
DH Jason Giambi (bats left)
LF Hideki Matsui (bats left)
RF Bobby Abreu (bats left)
C Jorge Posada (switch hitter)
2B Robinson Cano (bats left)
I'm sure that Joe Torre won't use that particular line-up as he'll choose to break up the lefties. But to be honest my lineup above is the one that pulls to all of these hitters strengths. You don't need a Posada up high in the lineup, you put Cano with his speed and ability to get on base for Damon at the bottom of the lineup. You put Giambi as a left-handed power-with-a-nice-OBP after A.Rod to set things up for Matsui who can hit mean line drives. Abreu will frustrate pitchers as he walks a lot. You could probably interchange Sheffield and A.Rod and not do much worse or better.
But their bench will be an even bigger strength with proven veterans and decent versatility:
OF Bernie Williams (switch hitter, proven post-season veteran), OF Melky Cabrera (young stud with speed and a great bat and underrated fielding skills), INF Miguel Cairo (can play all INF positions), 1B/OF Craig Wilson (two seasons removed from a 29 homer season who does strike out a lot), OF Bubba Crosby (replacement level player only but decent fielding skills), 1B Andy Phillips, and INF Nick Green. The latter two are replacement level players only though Phillips has some power and Green occasionally seems to play with something to prove (yeah it's called you're not going to play unless you can hit ya loser).
Their pitching staff however, I'm convinced will tire and will (hopefully) be their undoing. I'm really thinking that Mike Mussina is going to fade as the dog days of August are upon us and Randy Johnson will continue to be inconsistent. So who does that leave you with?
Chien-Ming Wang who doesn't walk too many guys but you gotta figure that batters will eventually figure out his mid-to-higher-grade stuff out. He doesn't overpower you but just tries to dazzle you with breaking stuff.
Jaret Wright who is performing slightly better than his career numbers. He has a career ERA of 5.00 and boasts a whomping 4.57 right now. And with 56 strikeouts in 90 some innings, he isn't throwing over-powering stuff at all. He had basically one good year in Atlanta and New York overpaid for this back-of-the-rotation guy.
Cory Lidle, speaking of back-of-the-rotation. He's going to be another of the should-have-stayed-in-the-weaker-NL variety. Which is funny since he only had about a 4.50 ERA in the years he spent in Philly and Cincinnati. He had two good years in Oakland back in '01 and '02 and then signed a nice contract with Toronto and looked like dog crap in a bag. This year he has 98 strikeouts in 125 innings, which ain't too shabby but let's see what happens when he has to face the DH and not a lowly hitting pitcher for a couple more at-bats each outing. I think it will be disasterous.
So again, for the Yankees it'll be hit, hit, hit, don't screw up too bad in the field, and convince everyone that Jeter should have played shortstop this whole time as A.Rod struggles with his great range that makes him look oh-so-bad when he makes mistakes.
But since the Red Sox made no splash in the trade waters--which could have been a good thing, noting the injury to Nixon (Wily Mo Pena will be a superb 24-year old power stud hitter in his place). But the Varitek injury is going to kill them, in two ways--one they'll miss his bat (even if he was hitting .240 or so, Mirabelli's bat is a big step back), but two the starting staff will miss his pitch calling. And don't count on Huckaby being any kind of standout replacement. There's a reason that the only bright spot on his career is when he injured Derek Jeter accidentally a year or so ago.
Yeah, so the Yankees suck! My Braves are terribly band-aided together and the Royals are well, the Royals.