lead is either going to be a 5 or 6 game deficit after today based on the tampa/boston outcome.

so the final, feeble, and less than 1% chance of vying for the division will be decided this week.

pitching matchups:

hughes vs. marcum
mussina vs. mcgowan
kennedy vs. burnett

pettite vs. dice-k
wang vs. beckett
hughes vs. schilling

yanks must go 5-1, and the only loss must come against toronto.

but with the yanks done vs. detroit and seattle, it looks like the wildcard is safe.

Posted by djsunyc:

lead is either going to be a 5 or 6 game deficit after today based on the tampa/boston outcome.

so the final, feeble, and less than 1% chance of vying for the division will be decided this week.

pitching matchups:

hughes vs. marcum
mussina vs. mcgowan
kennedy vs. burnett

pettite vs. dice-k
wang vs. beckett
hughes vs. schilling

yanks must go 5-1, and the only loss must come against toronto.

but with the yanks done vs. detroit and seattle, it looks like the wildcard is safe.

I don't know why but the year we lose the division to Boston, I'm even more confident against them. If they face each other in the ALCS, there's no doubt in my mind we get to the World Series.

Dice-K is shot and we handled him pretty well even when he was pitching well. The way he's pitching now, I'd be surprised if he pitched into the 5th inning on Friday.

Beckett still doesn't worry me and Schilling is done. I'd be more worried about facing Lester and Wakefield at this point.

dice-k = hideki irabu

arod is definitely the yanks mvp. he basically carried the offense before the all star break.

but what about wang? the yanks were 10+ games under .500, yet he was 9-4 the 1st half of the year. should he get some mvp of the yankees votes?

Posted by kam77:

How many starts did Wang miss in April... and does that help or hurt his case?

he missed 3+ weeks, so we're looking at about 4 starts.

Posted by kam77:

Hard to be an MVP if you missed a significant portion of the year. Thats what.. 10-12% of his total possible starts and possibly a major reason we got off to the slow start. And the slow start is why we're going to have to settle for the WC.

This year its gotta be Arod. Honorable mention out to Jorge Posada too.

posada = SHOW ME DA MONEY!!!

Posted by djsunyc:

Posted by kam77:

Hard to be an MVP if you missed a significant portion of the year. Thats what.. 10-12% of his total possible starts and possibly a major reason we got off to the slow start. And the slow start is why we're going to have to settle for the WC.

This year its gotta be Arod. Honorable mention out to Jorge Posada too.

i agree arod is the mvp BUT, if no wang, with his 3 ERA the 1st half of the year, that's 9 wins - we could've been down 5 more games.

i don't think pitchers should be mvp's since they only play once very 5 days but i would say he's 2nd on my yankee mvp voting.

I think Posada is just one small notch below A-Rod. The numbers he's putting up as a catcher are really AMAZING. If we didn't have A-Rod, we could still replace him with a .300 hitting 25 HR 3rd baseman. That is a huge downgrade from A-Rod. But if we didn't have Posada, most catchers hit around .240 with no power.

Posted by djsunyc:

Posted by Bonn1997:

Posted by djsunyc:

Posted by kam77:

Hard to be an MVP if you missed a significant portion of the year. Thats what.. 10-12% of his total possible starts and possibly a major reason we got off to the slow start. And the slow start is why we're going to have to settle for the WC.

This year its gotta be Arod. Honorable mention out to Jorge Posada too.

i agree arod is the mvp BUT, if no wang, with his 3 ERA the 1st half of the year, that's 9 wins - we could've been down 5 more games.

i don't think pitchers should be mvp's since they only play once very 5 days but i would say he's 2nd on my yankee mvp voting.

I think Posada is just one small notch below A-Rod. The numbers he's putting up as a catcher are really AMAZING. If we didn't have A-Rod, we could still replace him with a .300 hitting 25 HR 3rd baseman. That is a huge downgrade from A-Rod. But if we didn't have Posada, most catchers hit around .240 with no power.

it's a tough call but it seems that hitters benefit in the lineup from the guys in front and behind them (and the yankee lineup is probably the best in baseball 1 through 9). and a pitcher does benefit from his lineup but with an era in the 3's in th AL tells me he didn't need THAT much run support.

Yeah, I do put A-Rod ahead of Posada in importance but probably not by the margin most people do. I think Posada deserves much more praise. I mean, he is practically NEVER on ESPN highlights or any other show's highlights. A-Rod gets daily ESPN segments!

Posted by TMS:

ARod is unequivacobly the MVP this season... no if's and's or butt's about it.

come on, this is an historical season he's having & if not for him this team wouldn't even be sniffing a playoff berth this year... this is the first time in history that any player has ever hit 50+ HR's, driven in 140+ runs, scored 130+ runs & stolen 20+ bases... if that's not an MVP i don't know what is.

I don't think anybody is arguing that ARod isn't the MVP. I think people are just giving well deserved props to Wang and Posada. I think Pettitte deserves some props as well. He's been the money pitcher that he's always been for us. And Jeter has been Jeter and Mo has been Mo after a rough start due to inactivity. It's so easy taking those guys for granted.