Monday, January 16, 2012

The New York Yankees: The Song Remains the Same

So, the Yankees made some moves, and everyone is convinced that they've now punched their ticket into heaven, or whatever.

I'm less convinced.

These are good moves for the Yankaroos, of course. I think they're a better team for it, maybe the class of the League now. My problem is, over the last few years, being the best team in baseball has consistently proven to be quite a bit less than enough.

I mean, unless you missed my entire October and December, the St. Louis fucking Cardinals won the World Series. Before that, the San Francisco Giants, who, I'm pretty sure, were holding their bats by the barrel when they did it.

The MLB Playoffs are just too randomized. The game itself is too random- bad hops and blown calls and missed tags and lucky pokes and a hundred other things, but at least over a 162 game season, some rationality creeps in (not enough, though, which is why I advocate a 500 game season). In the playoffs, with 19 games AT MOST, that doesn't happen.

And I'm not bitching about that! That's what makes the playoffs exciting, anything can happen. If it doesn't help us determine who the academically "best" team is, well, who gives a shit? As I said before, arguing over that is what makes sports fun. It's not like any of this "really matters", so let's at least keep it exciting.

But to bring it back to what we're talking about, it means that the Yanker Sores should NOT, necessarily, be crowned already. Even if they've now become a better team than they were, even if they've now become a better team than everyone else, that doesn't mean they can win three out of five games against a team with "grit" and "heart" and "hustle" and "scrap" and a bunch of other euphemisms for "small slow white guys getting lucky".

They'll be good again. They'll make the playoffs again, and from there, they've essentially bought a lottery ticket. And this is different than every other year with the Yankees in no way.

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