Funny thing happened on the way to 1000 runs
I've mentioned this topic before. The Yankees are not going to score 1000 runs this year. Let me explain:
1. Their roster includes two players -- Sheffield and Giambi -- who everyone knows are steroid users. Sheffield is now having trouble recovering from his wrist injury. Tendons? Um, yeah. It was inevitable that at least one them would miss significant time due to injury.
2. Bernie Williams is embarassing himself and his legacy. Announcers can talk about the Yankees having an all-star at every position (and they do, occassionally), but being an All-Star in 2001 -- the last time Bernie was named -- doesn't mean anything in 2006. Here's some other players who were American League All-Stars in 2001:
Roberto Alomar. Bret Boone. Tony Clark. Juan Gonzales. Cristian Gusman. Edgar Martinez. Joe Mays. Eric Milton. Jeff Nelson. John Olerud. Magglio Ordonez. Cal Ripken. Mike Stanton. Mike Sweeney. Greg Vaughn.
3. Injuries happen. And not just David Wells or Carl Pavano or anyone else that we knew would get hurt if he wasn't already.
(a) Older players get injured more often. The Yankees have a very old roster. That's the chance you take when sign 32-year old Johnny Damons instead of finding younger talent.
(b) Every team loses someone to injury that they didn't see coming. So, while Matsui's loss is unfortunate (and may even apply to the older player risk that I mentioned above), you can't curse your bad luck when some important role player is lost for the year or at least a good chuck of the year. It happens to everyone. Well constructed team aren't devasted by this because they have some sort of replacement-level player to take over when their key cogs go down. The Yankees do not. So when the Yankees lose their B-pluses, they replaced them with nobodies. The Red Sox lost Coco Crisp and planned to replace him with a combination of Andy Stern, Dustin Mohr and Wily Mo Pena before Pena took off and did it all himself. The Yankees have traded away all their Andy Sterns and they don't have any Dustin Mohrs in Columbus.
4. Cleveland has a better offense, anyway.
1. Their roster includes two players -- Sheffield and Giambi -- who everyone knows are steroid users. Sheffield is now having trouble recovering from his wrist injury. Tendons? Um, yeah. It was inevitable that at least one them would miss significant time due to injury.
2. Bernie Williams is embarassing himself and his legacy. Announcers can talk about the Yankees having an all-star at every position (and they do, occassionally), but being an All-Star in 2001 -- the last time Bernie was named -- doesn't mean anything in 2006. Here's some other players who were American League All-Stars in 2001:
Roberto Alomar. Bret Boone. Tony Clark. Juan Gonzales. Cristian Gusman. Edgar Martinez. Joe Mays. Eric Milton. Jeff Nelson. John Olerud. Magglio Ordonez. Cal Ripken. Mike Stanton. Mike Sweeney. Greg Vaughn.
3. Injuries happen. And not just David Wells or Carl Pavano or anyone else that we knew would get hurt if he wasn't already.
(a) Older players get injured more often. The Yankees have a very old roster. That's the chance you take when sign 32-year old Johnny Damons instead of finding younger talent.
(b) Every team loses someone to injury that they didn't see coming. So, while Matsui's loss is unfortunate (and may even apply to the older player risk that I mentioned above), you can't curse your bad luck when some important role player is lost for the year or at least a good chuck of the year. It happens to everyone. Well constructed team aren't devasted by this because they have some sort of replacement-level player to take over when their key cogs go down. The Yankees do not. So when the Yankees lose their B-pluses, they replaced them with nobodies. The Red Sox lost Coco Crisp and planned to replace him with a combination of Andy Stern, Dustin Mohr and Wily Mo Pena before Pena took off and did it all himself. The Yankees have traded away all their Andy Sterns and they don't have any Dustin Mohrs in Columbus.
4. Cleveland has a better offense, anyway.
posted by Josh at
Friday, May 19, 2006
1 Comments:
The relevant point isn't was or is. It's the damage to his tendons (and, presumably, his testicles and liver) that steroids have done to Sheffield. He's not coming back.
By
Josh, at 2:20 PM
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