Baseball: Playoff Team Prognosticating

6:14 PM
I: Bad news. Very bad news. Something occured to me today while grading an essay on the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution...

The New York Yankees are going to win the World Series.

Yeah, it totally sucks. It's bad for baseball, especially when they beat the New York Mets to do it. But it's going to happen. I will now chug a bottle of rubbing alcohol.


6:59 PM
S: Try mouthwash, it goes down easier. Before we go listing all the "rational baseball arguments" you can make for the Yankees winning the World Series this season, and for some darn reason there are a lot of them, let us not forget the incredible force with which we hate them. I hate them more than I hate bee stings. I hate them more than I hate really really cold weather. I hate them more than I hate JAY LENO. And I really hate Jay Leno.

That being said, when they win the World Series after scoring 80 runs in five games against the sacrificial NL pennant winner I will refuse to believe that it happened. Fucking cheaters.


7:35 PM
I don't think the baseball community realizes what's going, especially New Englanders. For most in our region, the baseball season ended with Boston Massacre III. It was football season even before the Bills came to Gilette.

The American League is, without question, the dominant league. The only NL team that could beat an American League lineup are the pitching rich Houston Astros, and they're not making it. This is why we stay in the AL when discussing World Series contenders. There are five remaining survivors in the AL. The Yanks and the A's have clinched. The Tigers, Twins, and White Sox will battle it out in the AL Central for the division and wild card. Here is the division with 13 games to play:

Al Central
Detroit
Minnesota (1 back)
Chicago (5 back)

And Chicago and Detroit open up a 3 game series tonight. Therefore, barring a complete collapse by Minnesota, the Twins will get in the playoffs. Either Detroit wins the series, effectively eliminating Chicago, or Chicago wins the series giving Minnesota the inside track to the division title.

So Minnesota is in. The problem is, they got to this point riding the stalwart pitching of Johan Santana and Francisco Liriano. Liriano is done for the year, making the Twins a MUCH weaker team. So weak that they aren't playoff quality. (If Liriano was healthy, this would be my World Series pick. But Santana can't carry them by himself. This is a first round knockout waiting to happen. Now they're only good. Before they were great.)

And let's face it, the odds are Chicago isn't getting in. Five games back with thirteen to play are long odds. This is the only team still alive that can possible topple the Yanks, so keep an eye on them to run off a winning streak. They probably have to go 10-3 to have a shot.

Recent playoff history shows only a couple AL teams can play with the Yankees, especially in the playoffs: Boston and The Los Angeles California Angels of Anaheim California. They are the only two teams that have stood up to them in the American league since 1997. They are the only two teams not afraid of them and not afraid of Rivera.

Oakland has buckled to the Yanks in the playoffs, multiple times. Ditto on Minnesota. And Detroit? They had a double digit lead in their division and are now only a game up, not to mention this is their first taste of meaningful fall baseball. Can those young, inexperience players really hang with New York? Can those pitchers get through the highest paid lineup in the history of the game? No and no.

See? It's decided. The New York Yankees are going to the World Series. If they don't, with that payroll, with that lineup, with no Boston, Chicago, or Anaheim in their way, they're an absolute joke.

And who will they see in the World Series? They'll see some National League team who will get run over like Billy Joel's mailbox. The Mets are the class of the National League, almost like they don't belong in it. In the American League, they're probably behind the Yankees, Boston, Detroit, Minnesota, Chicago, Oakland, and Anaheim. But they could at least hang with those guys. The Mets in the NL instead of the AL is like Danny Almonte in Little League instead of Senior League. They're still good, but nowhere near special.

Agreements? Disagreements?