Thaaaaaaa Yaaaaaaaaaankeeeeeees w- ... wait, really?

Thaaaaaaa Yaaaaaaaaaankeeeeeees w- ... wait, really?

The numbers are baffling.

Johnny Damon
.308, 15 HR, 66 RBIs
Derek Jeter
.306, 11 HR, 69 RBIs
Bobby Abreu
.299, 19 HR, 95 RBIs
Alex Rodriguez
.304, 35 HR, 105 RBIs
Jason Giambi
.248, 31 HR, 93 RBIs
Robinson Cano
.264, 13 HR, 61 RBIs

The middle three in the Yankees lineup will end the season with or around 100 RBIs (by the way, it is RBIs, singular acronyms are pluralized — who says you don’t learn anything from bloggers?)

The top four hitters in the Yankees lineup will finished at or around .300. I’m excluding Xavier Nady, most of his stats were compiled in the NL.

They say the backs of the baseball cards tell the tales of every player. And it’s usually true. Most players can be expected to put up the same numbers year in, year out. Alex Rodriguez, for example, has 35 HRs and 100 RBIs (plus and plus) in each of the last 10 seasons. Derek Jeter, barring injury, will collect at least 180 hits, usually 200+ in a season. You pile that up and expect to win.

The 2003 Red Sox clubbed their way to the playoffs and pitched their way to ignominuos defeat. The 2004 Sox swapped hitting for more, better pitching and look where it got them, twice.

Mike Mussina has 18 wins. Andy Pettitte has 13, but 14 losses. Sydney Ponson, another guy off the scrap heap, has 8 wins, 4 of which, I believe, he picked up with the Rangers. The next guy in line, Chien-Ming Wang, who also has 8 wins, and has been injured since forever. From there, it’s a smattering of 4s and 5s. Mussina, Pettitte, Ponson and Darrell Rasner have made a few more than 100 start between them, 9 Ponson starts were with Texas. The team has 82 wins with 9 to play.

Conversely, in 1998, Andy Pettitte (16 wins), David Cone (20 wins), David Wells (18 wins), Hideki Irabu (13 wins) and Orlando Hernandez (12 wins) made 142 starts. The Yankees won 125 (11 playoff games). Ramiro Mendoza (10 wins), the long-relief hero of the era made 14 starts. That leaves two starts by guys no one heard of or from since. That’s 89 wins, 79 percent of the wins that season.

I won’t bore or sicken you with this year’s stats, but I’m sure if you go back 2003, you’ll see a similar trend. An inconsistent pitching staff, especially among the starters, has led to the Yankees steady decline and ultimate failures in the playoffs.

It’s clear the Yankees will pursue pitching this offseason, CC Sabathia, Ben Sheets come to mind. They may try to keep Mussina and obviously Wang and Joba Chamberlain, possibly Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy will be in the mix. But whoever forms the rotation has to start 25 to 30 games if the Yankees are going to do anything but tread water, maybe make the playoffs and then bow out quickly and shamefully.