2011 New York Yankees Predictions
Despite Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada being past their prime, the New York Yankees led the bigs in runs scored last season. The Yankees’ offense, however, was not enough to overcome a starting pitching rotation that let them down in the playoffs.
Pitching: The Yankees made a big push this offseason to sign Cliff Lee, who helped the Texas Rangers defeat the Yanks in last year’s ALCS. New York, however, was not able to land the former Cy Young Award winner. This means it will try to win a World Series with a rotation that figures to be worse off after the retirement of Andy Pettitte. In comes new pitching coach Larry Rothschild to try to get the most out of New York’s current staff.
Sabathia is a legit ace. The big southpaw went 21-7 with an ERA of 3.18 in 2010. The Yanks also got a nice boost from Hughes, who won 18 games. He did trail off quite a bit in the second half of the season, however, posting a 5.14 ERA from the All-Star break through the end of the playoffs.
Rothschild’s biggest challenge is to bring A.J. Burnett back to respectability. The right-hander went 10-15 with an ERA of 5.26 last season. The fact that no Yankee in team history has had as high an ERA with as many innings pitched (186.2) puts his disappointing season in further perspective. Behind Burnett, Ivan Nova, Sergio Mitre, Freddy Garcia and Bartolo Colon are some of the pitchers in the mix for the final two rotation slots.
Led by the great Mariano Rivera, the Yankees’ pen ranked seventh in the majors with an ERA of 3.47. Rivera still holds the title of the game’s best closer. He boasted a 1.80 ERA in 2010 and added 33 saves to his astronomical career total. Dave Robertson and Joba Chamberlain have the stuff to be dominant setup men but both were inconsistent a year ago.
Lineup: The Yankees need a bounce back campaign from Jeter first and foremost. He hit just .270 in 2010 after five straight seasons of batting .300 or better. Big boppers Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira and Robinson Cano combine with Jeter to form one of the best hitting infields the game has ever seen.
Teixeira led the Yanks with 33 round trippers and batted in a total of 108 runs. A-Rod led the bombers in RBIs with 125 and slugged 30 home runs. Cano batted .319 with 29 jacks and 109 RBIs.
New York’s outfield doesn’t have the same star power as the infield, but it does included a nice cast of complementary pieces. Brett Gardner is among the fastest players in the game and put his speed to use with 47 swipes in 2010. Curtis Granderson proved to be a nice addition a season ago, chipping in 24 home runs and 67 RBIs. The switch-hitting Nick Swisher has the biggest stick in the outfield. He took 29 over the fence and wound up with 89 RBIs.
The addition of former Dodgers’ catcher Russell Martin allows Jorge Posada to play even more games in the DH slot.
Prediction – 2nd Place AL East: Unable to land Lee in the offseason, I don’t believe the Yankees have quite enough pitching to win the East. With that being said, this team has enough offense to win the AL Wild Card. Once in the playoffs, anything is possible if these bats are hot. Baseball odds makers have listed the Yankees at +190 to win the AL East.
