I apologize for the delay of this post. I was going to write this entry yesterday, but since I make enough from this site a week to only buy a meal at McDonalds (no way I could even super size it) I have to do the 9-5 gig. That being said...lets move on to some baseball news (might be the last of MLB news you'll hear in a while).
The Red Sox are your 2007 World Series Champions by performing a 4-0 sweep over the seemingly unbeatable Rockies. Before entering this series I wasn't going to touch any predictions with a 10 foot poll. How would you predict this? The Rockies have won 20 out of their last 21 games (correct me if I'm wrong..it might be 21 out of 22) and swept both the Phillies and the Diamondabacks coming into the World Series. The Red Sox are Red Hot winning 3 straight against a good Indians team after being down 3-1. While I'm surprised that the Red Sox swept, I'm not really surprised that they won big.
The bats of the Sox had been absolutely dominant prior to the series and there was no way that the Rockies hitters would have been able to stack up against them. Matt Holliday wasn't performing amazingly (although he did hit a few homers). The Rockies pitching had been phenominal in the playoffs, but it hadn't been phenominal during the season. Red Sox pitching had been consistently good however. The only exception for the Rockies pitching was Francis who had been good throughout the season. However, he's facing off against Beckett and even though the Rockies had beaten him during the season there was no way they were going to beat him during the playoffs. Lets not forget the 2nd part of the 1-2 punch with Papelbon who just can't blow a save if he tried. They needed to hope for wins off of Schilling, Dice-K (their best bet in my opinion) and Lester and they couldn't even pull off one.
I forgot to mention that at the beginning of hte year I made a bet with my friend that if the Mets won the World Series he'd have to give me $100 and if the Sox won I'd have to give him $100 (another reason I have to do the 9-5 gig!)
Lets move on to the Yanks. I smell a late 80s slide coming. Their team is on the brink of falling apart (it already has to a certain extent). Steinbrenner (both of them) don't realize how important of an asset Torre was to the Yankees. He was the glue holding everything together and now that he's gone, the Yankees are slowly coming apart. Money bags A-Rod opted out of his rockstar quality contract because he's uncertain of the direction the team is heading in (especially whether or not the players are staying). When a player says that you know other players are leaving (he's just obviously not allowed to say anything). A-Rod leaving is enough to damage the Yankees but it's not going to stop there. There is a high probabily that he will go to an AL team (most likely the Tigers) that is a playoff contender and you know that unless he pulls a Griffey, his bat is not going to be stopped.
Then you got the rest of the team. Between Pettite, Rivera, and Posada I guarantee at least one of them leaves. For the Yanks sake they better pray that it is Pettite. While a big part of the team, he can easily be replaced with another great pitcher. Rivera did slump a little last season, but he is still a solid closer and he plays the role as the unofficial coach of the Yanks. The Yanks need Rivera on their team. Lastly, Posada is arguably the best catcher in the league and is irreplacable. I don't think the Yankees would want to start Molina and whoever they would aquire wouldn't stack up to Jorge.
I didn't even mention Girardi, but that won't really make a difference. He's a great coach who will do what he can, but the team won't be as good. Yes I'm sure Cashman will aquire some great big named players, but the team chemistry will be off. The players won't look up to Girardi like they did Torre. The players won't have A-Rod, the probable AL MVP, and they are likely to lose even more players. The Red Sox on the other hand are a solid team who will be solid next year. They really built a great team and will easily win the division. Now the Yankees would have to pray for a wildcard because thats the only thing they'd get and between the Indians and Tigers it won't look probable. This is true especially if A-Rod goes to the Tigers. Think about that team. A-Rod, Ordonez, Polanco, Granderson.....holy shit.
Then again...the Yankees always find a way to pull it off so we'll see what happens.
