I’d prolly go:
- Phillies
- Nationals
- Tigers
- Giants
5/6 Rays or Jays
7 Dodgers - A’s
I hate the WBC. I used to like it, but now I just think it ruins players for the season. Can’t wait for Bud Selig to die or retire. I don’t care which. The base ball season is just to long for that shit.
Yankees will still win the AL East, a healthy Brett Gardener revitalized Ichiro, a solid Starting Staff and excellent bullpen will have them winning 90 games this year
[quote]MattyXL wrote:
revitalized Ichiror[/quote]
I lol’d heartily at this
You know you’re in trouble when you’re dependent upon a 39 year old former star who is in great decline.
Outside of cano and sabbathia everywhere else is a question mark
As usual you wont be loling while your looking up at us in the standings. Don’t geto excited about your team theres a reason why all those players were available they either underperformed or cant possibly do any better.
[quote]MattyXL wrote:
As usual you wont be loling while your looking up at us in the standings. Don’t geto excited about your team theres a reason why all those players were available they either underperformed or cant possibly do any better. [/quote]
LMAO, very true.
You’re right. The reigning NL Cy Young winner probably won’t get any better and neither will Reyes =(
Heck I bet Melky won’t hit .346 this year either! I just wish my team had Ichiro post-revitalization. Yankees are going to be even more stacked soon, I hear they might sign Vlad Guerrero too.
Clearly your points are well thought out and rock solid.
The reality is, the only way the yanks best the jays or rays is if the other 2 sustain key injuries while Jeter and the Yankees pitching staff perform out of their skulls. I have a hard time seeing it any other way. If you want to see the Jays fall - pray Reyes injures his lower half again, Josh Johnson’s arm troubles resurface, Bautista’s wrist injury from last year continues to plague him, Melky regresses to his Yankee days, Lawrie doesn’t improve upon last year etc. etc.
Furthermore, Your teams lineup is missing a ton power it had least year come opening day. The stat I heard on the radio was: the yanks hit 234 HRs last year, 175 of those were from players now missing from the 2013 starting lineup.
Basically the Jays need an average year from their players while the Yanks need an extraordinary one from theirs. I won’t count the Yanks out but I’m much more worried about the Rays than anyone else. I could see the Yanks sneaking into the WC but winning the AL East? No fucking way.
Hey DB are you going to the WBC final at AT&T park?
[quote]therajraj wrote:
Hey DB are you going to the WBC final at AT&T park?[/quote]
Probably not. It’s on a Tuesday night and I have to work that day and the following morning. And I live about 150 miles from the ballpark. The traffic will probably add another hour to the normal trip length. Besides, I could care less about watching Japan play Korea or whatever. In a few months I’ll be moving to Korea and I can watch all those Charlies play over there whenever I want. I don’t want to watch a bunch of slopes sully the home ballpark of the defending World Series Champions.
Well rajraj, clearly your super sad faces and super sarcastic post shows how confident you are!
I would rather have an ancient Ichiro then a post performance enhancing dose of TRT Melky, but hey enjoy your 260 with 11 homers!
No contract year, HEY NO PROBLEM! enjoy his pedestrian year like he had last year with the fish. In fact I believe other than possibly batting average Brett Gardner will have a very similar year.
Josh Johnson - Great pitcher…when healthy, I wonder how many stints on the DL he will have this year.
RA Dickey - you really see him having a repeat performance of last year in the AL?
I honestly dont see how your Lineup and pitching are clearly better than my ancient yankees.
I love how most people are picking the yankees to finish 4th…
[quote]MattyXL wrote:
Well rajraj, clearly your super sad faces and super sarcastic post shows how confident you are!
I would rather have an ancient Ichiro then a post performance enhancing dose of TRT Melky, but hey enjoy your 260 with 11 homers!
No contract year, HEY NO PROBLEM! enjoy his pedestrian year like he had last year with the fish. In fact I believe other than possibly batting average Brett Gardner will have a very similar year.
Josh Johnson - Great pitcher…when healthy, I wonder how many stints on the DL he will have this year.
RA Dickey - you really see him having a repeat performance of last year in the AL?
I honestly dont see how your Lineup and pitching are clearly better than my ancient yankees.
I love how most people are picking the yankees to finish 4th…[/quote]
I don’t know if the Yankees will finish fourth or not, but they sure as shit aren’t going to the playoffs this year. The Rays will probably dominate that division if they stay healthy and Matt Moore pitches the way he’s capable of. I think the Red Sox and the Yankees will probably both be battling for 3rd place this year, with the Blue Jays a slight step above them and a distance step behind the Rays.
Care to wager an avatar on the Yankees’ season? If the Yankees make the postseason I’ll sport an avatar of your choice for the entire postseason, through the Series. If they don’t make it, you sport one of my choice. And whoever loses has to use the winner’s avatar as soon as the Yankees either clinch a postseason berth or are officially eliminated. We aren’t waiting around for the actual playoffs to begin.
Personally, I think if you take that bet with me you’ll be using an extremely homoerotic avatar by about mid-September. The Yankees are old as the East RIver and stink about as badly. Beyond Sabathia, they don’t have much in the way of starting pitching. Pettite was underwhelming last year and I don’t expect anything else this year. Nova is decent but doesn’t look capable of taking it to the next level at all. Hughes? Eh, whatever.
Chamberlain is the most overly-hyped joke in the majors and Rivera might be back, but I would be absolutely shocked if a 40+ year old athlete coming off a major knee injury were any good this year. We’ll see how well he sits and drives off that right leg of his. I think the control will be there, but expect his velocity to dip by at least 2mph and I doubt he’ll be available for multiple-inning stints or on back-to-back nights for most of the year.
The lineup is still pretty solid, but pitching and defense is 2/3 of the game and they simply don’t have it. And their lineup is nowhere near being solid enough to overcome shitty pitching and suspect defense at half the positions. Who plays third when Youkilis joins A-Rod on the DL? How long are the Yankees going to stick with Gardner in left if he keeps hitting about .220? What about Ichiro? The guy is close to 40 and he’s hemorrhaging speed. Jeter? He fields his position about as poorly as any SS in the game today.
Half the lineup has a history of injuries and players with injury histories rarely, if ever, play a full season once that history establishes itself, let alone play a full EFFECTIVE season. Fuck, the more I think about it, the more I think that this team is one or two key injuries from finishing dead last.
I don’t think the Rays are better than the Jays, they lost both upton and shields. I doubt Myers will make an impact in his rookie season that will come anywhere close to replacing that production.
Rays will be much better next year once Myers and Moore have some big league experience.
as for Dickey in the AL i suspect he’ll be fine. Wind from outdoor stadiums tends to flatten out knuckle balls. Closing the done will increase its deception. RA said that when the wind is blowing toward home plate it pushes the ball quicker to the plate before the last minute break.
Also as a Yankee fan, the last thing you should be complaining about is a rival team member using TRT
Bautista’s wrist looks fine watching spring training.
He just hit a monster shot with heavy wind knocking the ball down
[quote]therajraj wrote:
Also as a Yankee fan, the last thing you should be complaining about is a rival team member using TRT[/quote]
Um…who the fuck is complaining? I said he will go back to his 260 with 11 homeruns because he is lacking his performance enhancing dose of TRT.
Maybe the Jays should play a few games together before you and everyone else starts crowning them champs.
As a yankee fan I fear the rays much more than the jays
And DB…
No problem with the bet, I have an idea you have gotten too used to homoerotic avatars so when I win it wont be a gay theme (well maybe it will)
As far as the East River, part of it will become a superfund site, so it will become a little bit less stinky.
Joba Chamberlain is an afterthought at this point, he is not what the their BP is all about, Mo will be fine, and other pitchers like Phelps, Logan and especially Robertson is what makes the yankees pen a strong point.
Ivan Nova, a fave of mine, was horrible last year especiallyin the second half, when healthy Petitte was very effective last year. A starting 5 of CC, Petite, Kuroda, Hughes and Nova is solid. Pineda is slated to be back by June.
While the yanks lost power, they added guys who take pitches in Gardener, Youklis, Hafner and Ichiro. This yankee lineup may not be as powerful as in years before, but it may be better than last years. To say that Ichiro may be revitalized playing with a team that has a chance to make the playoffs is not a stretch. You also have Cano who is in a contract year which should provide for an excellent year
The weakness of the yanks is age obviously and their bench which is very weak.
My prediction is they will be in the hunt for the division lead by the trade deadline and get some reinforcements for the stretch run.
They will win 91 games this year and win the division.
I’m a big Brett Gardner fan, elite defender, plus speed on the base paths, great weapon when used correctly.
I also think Mo will be fine, age to me isn’t a big factor for him. He also a relief pitcher, can probably fight through any short term discomfort
The main thing for me is their starting lineup. As I said they need Jeter to be a monster this year. I mean who’s their starting C this year? I dont even know I’d have to look it up.
If they had their usual elite lineup + mediocre pitching I wouldn’t doubt they’d be in competition. But this year it’s mediocre hitting + mediocre pitching + good bullpen + solid defense.
It’s also seems the Steinbrenner brothers aren’t as much about winning as they are about bottom line. It looks like they’re goal is largely to cut payroll.
[quote]MattyXL wrote:
And DB…
No problem with the bet, I have an idea you have gotten too used to homoerotic avatars so when I win it wont be a gay theme (well maybe it will)
As far as the East River, part of it will become a superfund site, so it will become a little bit less stinky.
Joba Chamberlain is an afterthought at this point, he is not what the their BP is all about, Mo will be fine, and other pitchers like Phelps, Logan and especially Robertson is what makes the yankees pen a strong point.
Ivan Nova, a fave of mine, was horrible last year especiallyin the second half, when healthy Petitte was very effective last year. A starting 5 of CC, Petite, Kuroda, Hughes and Nova is solid. Pineda is slated to be back by June.
While the yanks lost power, they added guys who take pitches in Gardener, Youklis, Hafner and Ichiro. This yankee lineup may not be as powerful as in years before, but it may be better than last years. To say that Ichiro may be revitalized playing with a team that has a chance to make the playoffs is not a stretch. You also have Cano who is in a contract year which should provide for an excellent year
The weakness of the yanks is age obviously and their bench which is very weak.
My prediction is they will be in the hunt for the division lead by the trade deadline and get some reinforcements for the stretch run.
They will win 91 games this year and win the division.
[/quote]
We have a bet then. And you’re right, the homoerotic shit doesn’t bother me at all. Why would it? I stare at my own dick for an inordinate amount of time every day. Why would having to quickly glance past some gay dude whose dick is covered up bother me?
Oh boy, apparently Cano, A-Rod, Granderson and Braun are all about to be suspended.
FYI this is the same guy who identified Melky a month before he was.
http://daps.tv/source-robinson-cano-alex-rodriguez-ryan-braun-and-curtis-granderson-to-be-suspended/