Location: Bronx, N.Y. | Ballpark: The New Yankee Stadium (52,325) | Spring Training: Tampa, Fla. Owner: George M. Steinbrenner | GM: Brian Cashman | Manager: Joe Girardi | World Championships: 27
Industry-leading LIVE scoring + tons of other great features. Get notified when Fantasy Baseball is launched in 2010!
POWER RANKINGS
Power Rankings
Date
Ranking
Previous
10/06/2009
1
1
Season in seven words:: "Bravehearted children of destiny succeed once anew." ... Hero: Derek Jeter, who somehow overcame the dearth of talent around him and a socially crippling fade haircut ... Loserhead: Is Chien-Ming Wang still alive? ... Key need: A hitter to replace the maybe-soon-to-depart Johnny Damon and totally-gone-thanks-for-the-memories Hideki Matsui, preferably one whose outfield arm is superior to Damon's shotput ... Prognosis: It's all good, unless they're not playing come next Wednesday.
09/29/2009
1
1
They answered plenty of questions over the last seven days, including "do the Angels have their number?" (not this week!), "if Joba Chamberlain throws a single good six-inning start, can he be pronounced 100-percent cured beyond all semblance of a doubt?" (absolutely!) and "if we media folk write glittery odes about how long it's been since the team last tasted playoff nectar, will Yankee fans get the sarcasm?" (nope) ... Fine, Girardi, we hear you. You think Robinson Cano should win a Gold Glove after he made the leap from indifference to sporadic competence? Duly noted ... When you start reading playoff previews, ignore the noise about how there are two key differences (Brett Gardner's speed and Phil Hughes' eighth-inning brio) between this Yankees team and the ones of recent seasons past. Here's why this year's model is better: it added $948 million worth of Mark Teixeira and C.C. Sabathia, each of whom performed up to expectations, and got fine bounce-back seasons from Derek Jeter, Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui. Hughes and Gardner, while more useful than Torre bench catnip like Ruben Sierra and Luis Sojo, are role players, not season-definers.
09/22/2009
1
1
They hold the top spot because they have an elite résumé -– best record in the big-boy league, majestic run differential, etc. -– but they've looked wobbly of late. They're also the only one of the eight likely postseason participants that can't answer the question "who's your second starter?" ... The newly revised Joba Rules go something like this: Remove him from the game after he allows seven runs in three innings, then pretend nothing is wrong. ... When John Q. Catcher incites a riot by elbowing an opposing player, he's a heartless reprobate who should be relegated to a life of indentured servitude. When Jorge Posada does the same thing, he's "passionate." Double standards entertain me.
09/15/2009
1
1
So, who's the second starter? I'll give you a few minutes to think that one over ... This just in: the Yankees will open AND close against the Red Sox in 2010. Marketers, it's not too early to book your ad space in the special commemorative limited collectors' edition supplement of the local rag. ... Twins fans continued their worship of Kirby Puckett even after it was revealed that he might not have been the world's nicest fellow. Padres fans did the same for Tony Gwynn, even though his inattention to physical conditioning rendered him a defensive and base-running liability during the last few years of his career. But Yankee fans can't celebrate Derek Jeter? Just because it doesn't matter to you doesn't mean that it doesn't matter to somebody. Either blame the media, or just let it go already.
09/08/2009
1
1
There's not much to add here from past weeks. Many of the regulars will end the season with 25 dingers, 80 runs and 80 RBI. Phil Hughes is untouchable in front of Señor Untouchablo himself, Mariano Rivera. Half of Alex Rodriguez's RBI have either tied the game or put the Yankees ahead, which means that he is rampagingly, beatifically clutch. So I'll just end by presenting a Joe Girardi quote about Rivera without giving relevant context: "I'm going to ask him every day how his groin is. That's what I'm going to do."
09/01/2009
1
1
The team's biggest headaches right now are figuring out which situational lefty will handle the important late-inning at-bats and how to line up starters two through four for the playoffs. By contrast, the Royals' biggest headaches right now are finding somebody to pay more than $12 for their TV and radio rights, motivating a suicidal fan base to buy tickets and caps, and acquiring legit major-leaguers to play second, short, third, left, right and catcher. ... Speaking of which, the Joba Rules, with their provisions for inning limits, pitch counts, weather and mound conditions and counseling sessions with hard-headed catchers, are only slightly more intelligible than a user's manual for a nuclear reactor. ... Owing to his smart usage of the bullpen and bigger-picture perspective (e.g., giving the stars regular rest, which his predecessor never did), Joe Girardi is the AL Manager of the Year in a walk. He'll still cost the Yankees a game that matters owing to his infatuation with the sacrifice bunt. To repeat: You only have three outs. Giving one away is dumber than dumb, unless the person at the plate is, like, me.
08/25/2009
1
1
The 15 contests between the Yankees and Red Sox in 2009 have elapsed in 56 hours, which amounts to a 3:44 clip. These games are the baseball equivalent of community service. ... We jumped all over the story that Jorge Posada and A.J. Burnett had communication problems –- pitchers are from Mars, catchers are from Venus, etc. -– during Saturday's annihilation. Of course, amid the invent-a-crisis hysteria, it would have been didactic to note that, in 10 previous starts throwing to Posada, Burnett won eight games, with a sub-3.00 ERA and a BAA of .240 or so. ... Here's another difference between the Yankees of 2009 and those of previous years: they're smart, with coaches who do more than play Hearts with Joe Torre on plane flights. Take the strategy employed against Josh Beckett on Sunday night. Noticing how he had previously stymied them with first-pitch fastballs and two-strike curves, the Yankees put their hitters on high alert for both and proceeded to whack the crap out of the guy. Happily, the coaching staff is no longer composed of ex-jocks like Ron Guidry, who believed the primary responsibility of a pitching coach was to sit around and regale his charges with tales about catfish (the fish) and Catfish (Hunter).
08/18/2009
1
1
How about a little love for Joe Girardi? After spending his first year in the Bronx lying to beat reporters about injuries and ridding the locker room of Tootsie Rolls, he's mellowed out considerably. He now goes a full three days between buzzcuts, for instance. More importantly, Girardi has melded a bunch of raw arms into a highly functional bullpen. All a baseball manager needs to do is define each player's role, resist the temptation to ask hitters not surnamed Izturis to bunt, and get out of the way; Girardi has done all three exceedingly well in 2009. ... Speaking of that bullpen, I direct your attention to one David Robertson, who has been a quiet revelation of late: 50 K's and a 3.15 ERA in 34 innings. How many contenders have as many legit eighth-inning options as the Yankees do about now? None, that's how many.
08/11/2009
1
4
In case you're monitoring at home, the following players earned "true Yankee" status during last weekend's Boston sweep: Mark Teixeira (big hits vs. Red Sox), CC Sabathia (great start vs. Red Sox) and A.J. Burnett (great start vs. Red Sox). Alex Rodriguez (big hits vs. Red Sox, domination of 2004 ALDS vs. Twins, two MVP awards and a .967 OPS in five-plus seasons with team, six exquisitely staged press conferences) received only conditional "true Yankee" status, because there is a slim possibility that he will, in the indeterminate future, make an out when the Yankees need a hit ... They're 18-6 since the All-Star break and 31-11 in their last 42 games. In the last nine days, they've come out ahead in games started by Roy Halladay, Mark Buehrle, Josh Beckett and Jon Lester. That's kinda good.
08/04/2009
4
3
What a sloppy week. The next time a Yankee outfielder throws the ball to the correct base, it'll be the first ... One underrated aspect of this year's Yankees model: they have a semifunctional bench for the first time in a decade, with versatile spare parts (Jerry Hairston Jr., Cody Ransom, Brett Gardner) replacing the useless slowpokes whose primary purpose was to keep Joe Torre company (Ruben Sierra, Luis Sojo et al) ... You have to figure a trade for one of the pitchers that didn't get moved before the deadline -- perhaps an AZ starter not surnamed Haren -- will go down before too long. There's as much of a chance of Sergio Mitre sticking in the fifth-starter role as there is of the YES broadcasters engaging in critical thought.
Preseason Power Rankings
Date
Ranking
Previous
02/16/2009
2
-
Say what you will about the game's economic inequities and how the Yankees practically spit in the face of socialism by exploiting them. They got a lot better this offseason in the rotation and on defense. For the first time in years, the Yankees might actually be able to retrieve balls put into play. ... Jorge Posada's health is the key to the season. If he's right, they'll be a machine. ... Some friends and I were speculating what the Yankees could do to make spring training more of a zoo than it already projects to be. Our best answer: sign Barry Bonds; "accidentally" publish A-Rod's cell phone number; let fans roam on the playing field before and after games; announce a plan to have Joba Chamberlain start on odd-numbered days and relieve on even-numbered ones; and hustle Jennifer Aniston into camp to watch her "good friend" Derek Jeter take batting practice. If they did all this, the New York Post might relocate to Tampa.
CBS Sports Store
New York Yankees National Windshirt $79.99Shop Now!
