Number Two Is Right

On the eve of Opening Day, a great day where hundreds of people gather to watch a summer game in the snow, I have some concerns about my beloved Yankees.

The first regards The Captain, Derek Jeter. All I've been hearing all training camp is about how he has removed the slide step from his hitting style in an attempt to play catch up to the fastball. What I haven't been hearing is how he has been tearing the cover off the ball this spring. All that can mean is that last year wasn't a fluke. When a 36 year old decides to start tinkering with his mechanics to hit the most common pitch in the game, it just screams "I'm washed up!" Changing positions isn't going to help either if he can't hit anymore.

Speaking of bad mechanics and being washed up, A.J. Burnett has now gone 34 consecutive years of life looking for a way to get a consistent delivery and release point. I guess he has adjusted his leg kick in an effort to keep his pitches from randomly turning into BP balls in the middle of games. Shouldn't a pitcher who has made it to the bigs ironed out the delivery for about a decade now? How many examples do we have of a pitcher changing his windup, then skyrocketing off to success? All the talk about the rotation has been about the 4 & 5 spots but we all do realize what it means to have AJ as the two right? He needs to win at least 16 games and have a sub 4 ERA for the Yanks to be competitive for the playoffs. I'm not sure you can count on 18 from Hughes again and the Nova/Garcia/Colon/Milwood pupu platter probably has the over/under set at about 25 wins and I'm not sure I would go with the over on that one.

I realize that being overly nervous is a Yankee tradition but how good should anyone feel when two key cogs to the machine have decided to redo the mechanics of the job? I would also point out that any bullpen that has both Joba and Pedro Feliciano in it is ripe for destruction.

Having said all that, I do think the Yanks take the wildcard. The Red Sox are not going to be near as good as people think they will be. A lot of what Crawford is good at is negated by the goofy dimensions of that ballpark and Dice-K, Beckett and Lackey are just about done. The real reason the Yanks should still be in the playoffs is that the Rays are significantly worse. No Soriano and the everyday lineup features Johnny Damon and ManRam. Plus, they think Kyle Farnsworth can close. I guess every team in the league has to make that mistake once.