Quote:
Originally Posted by Gom
Quote:
Originally Posted by jacksonianmarch
Hughes is having difficulty with the lights at night. He may be getting fitted with neon glasses for his next night game
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This has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous.
It couldn't possibly be because he sucks, could it? Nah, just go read the press clippings and the Yankees scouting reports. Silly me. My bad. |
In jacksonianmarch's defense, my parents always told me that if I was too much of a cockpumper that I'd start to go blind. I don't think that we have either the stats or the game films to rule out that possibility regarding Hughes's struggles in 2008.
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Bring on Rasner and Igawa. The Yankees would probably be in first place if we had Igawa and Rasner in the rotation instead of Hughes and Kennedy.
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Wow, Gom. That's a sentence I never thought that I'd see you write.
Here's my take: Boston and New York are still the two best teams in a strong AL East. Nothing is guaranteed; nobody is yet close to elimination.
BP has several methods of assessing teams' performance. One of my favorites is their ELO ranking system, similar to that used in World Cup soccer to assess teams' quality. Here are the top five AL teams, ranked by ELO, using the chance of reaching the ALDS as the metric:
LA Angels 67%
Boston 62%
Athletics 43%
Indians 42%
Yankees 42%
Other AL East teams:
Rays 16%
Blue Jays 12%
Orioles 12%
That looks just about right to my perspective. The Yankees are down three Hall of Famers, one All Star and two uber-prospects, but they're still putting four All Stars onto the field, they have three All Star pitchers still in their rotation, and they have Joba and Mo as their set-up/closer duo. The Red Sox, right now, are better than the Yankees right now. The Yankees of June probably won't be the Yankees of right now, though, because health issues will be resolved and Cashman will buy some more talent. The second-half Yankees will be very good, and it's going to be a great AL East race this year.
And when the Yankees make their comeback, unless Rasner and Igawa channel the spirits guiding Small and Chacon in 2005 those two guys will not be the heroes.