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Playoffs? Can the New York Yankees Make It There?
The Yankees Have a Big Mountain to Climb to Reach the Playoffs
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By Ed Valentine | Yahoo! Contributor Network – <abbr title="2013-08-19T19:28:00Z">9 hours ago</abbr></cite>
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<meta content="2013-08-19T19:28:00Z" itemprop="datePublished"><meta content="Yahoo! Contributor Network" itemprop="provider"><meta content="Playoffs? Can the New York Yankees Make It There?" itemprop="headline"><meta content="Ed Valentine" itemprop="author"><meta content="COMMENTARY | As play begins Monday, the New York Yankees have 39 games remaining in the 2013 MLB season. They sit in fourth place in the American League East, 7.5 long games behind the front-running Boston Red Sox. They are 6 games out in the race for the second and final wild-card playoff berth." itemprop="description"><!-- google_ad_section_start -->COMMENTARY | As play begins Monday, the New York Yankees have 39 games remaining in the 2013 MLB season. They sit in fourth place in the American League East, 7.5 long games behind the front-running Boston Red Sox. They are 6 games out in the race for the second and final wild-card playoff berth.
Can the Yankees make the playoffs? Or, as I have previously contended, is it too late for the Bronx Bombers, Bronx Bummers for much of the season, to mount a late-season comeback?
Baseball Prospectus gives the Yankees a slim 5.4-percent chance to reach the postseason in its Playoff Odds Report. Cool Standings puts the Yankees' chances at 8.3 percent.
Let's do a little more math. And let's forget about winning the division. Let's focus on getting a wild-card berth and making it to the playoffs -- albeit the single-game win-or-go-home variety the wild-card now amounts to. What will it take?
At 70-52, the Tampa Bay Rays lead the wild-card chase and are on pace for 93 victories. The 70-53 Oakland Athletics hold the second wild-card spot and are on pace for 92 victories. So, for a baseline, let's figure it's going to take getting to at least 92 victories for the Yankees to make the playoffs.
To get there, the 64-59 Yankees would have to go 28-11 the rest of the way, a .717 winning percentage. Can they do that? Sure. Is it likely? Umm ... no.
Yes, the lineup manager Joe Girardi is able to field currently is more Yankee-like than any he has used this season. Alex Rodriguez is back, whether you think he should be or not, and is doing enough to be a threat in the middle of the lineup. Home-run-hitting outfielder Curtis Granderson is healthy again. Alfonso Soriano, acquired from the Chicago Cubs, has been on a record-setting RBI tear. Even the free-agent pickup of slugger Mark Reynolds helps. Shortstop Derek Jeter should be back at some point from his latest leg injury, providing another boost.
No more trying to win with Luis Cruz, Reid Brignac, Thomas Neal, David Adams and the like pretending to be Yankees.
The lineup looks better, but the bigger question is do the Yankees have the starting pitching to sustain a 29-11 finish to the season? Only Hiroki Kuroda has been dependable every time he has taken the ball, so that remains to be seen.
The other issue is simply the number of teams the Yankees have to leapfrog to get to the wild-card spot. In between the Yankees and the second wild-card playoff berth are the Athletics, the current holders of that spot, Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians and Kansas City Royals. That's a lot of teams to chase down.
Can the Yankees make it to the playoffs? Of course, they can. I hope it happens. Is it likely to happen? No.
The realist in me is braced for the probability that October baseball will not feature the Yankees in 2013. I do, however, hope to be pleasantly surprised.
Ed Valentine is editor of bigblueview.com, covering the New York Giants. He has written about the Yankees for several publications, and his work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post and a variety of other web sites.
Playoffs? Can the New York Yankees Make It There?
The Yankees Have a Big Mountain to Climb to Reach the Playoffs
<cite class="byline vcard">
By Ed Valentine | Yahoo! Contributor Network – <abbr title="2013-08-19T19:28:00Z">9 hours ago</abbr></cite>
<!-- START article --><center>
<noscript><img width=1 height=1 alt="" src="http://csc.beap.bc.yahoo.com/yi?bv=1.0.0&bs=(136bbpinq(gid$_MK7VwrHgj9HJHhsUhL14gCyQcf3ZlIS_SwAAzvf,st$1376976172221877,si$4457551,sp$2146242849,pv$0,v$2.0))&t=J_3-D_3&al=(as$12rklumqq,aid$lHKuYmKL4I0-,bi$1873605051,cr$3643581551,ct$25,at$H,eob$gd1_match_id=-1:ypos=SKY)"</noscript></center>
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<meta content="2013-08-19T19:28:00Z" itemprop="datePublished"><meta content="Yahoo! Contributor Network" itemprop="provider"><meta content="Playoffs? Can the New York Yankees Make It There?" itemprop="headline"><meta content="Ed Valentine" itemprop="author"><meta content="COMMENTARY | As play begins Monday, the New York Yankees have 39 games remaining in the 2013 MLB season. They sit in fourth place in the American League East, 7.5 long games behind the front-running Boston Red Sox. They are 6 games out in the race for the second and final wild-card playoff berth." itemprop="description"><!-- google_ad_section_start -->COMMENTARY | As play begins Monday, the New York Yankees have 39 games remaining in the 2013 MLB season. They sit in fourth place in the American League East, 7.5 long games behind the front-running Boston Red Sox. They are 6 games out in the race for the second and final wild-card playoff berth.
Can the Yankees make the playoffs? Or, as I have previously contended, is it too late for the Bronx Bombers, Bronx Bummers for much of the season, to mount a late-season comeback?
Baseball Prospectus gives the Yankees a slim 5.4-percent chance to reach the postseason in its Playoff Odds Report. Cool Standings puts the Yankees' chances at 8.3 percent.
Let's do a little more math. And let's forget about winning the division. Let's focus on getting a wild-card berth and making it to the playoffs -- albeit the single-game win-or-go-home variety the wild-card now amounts to. What will it take?
At 70-52, the Tampa Bay Rays lead the wild-card chase and are on pace for 93 victories. The 70-53 Oakland Athletics hold the second wild-card spot and are on pace for 92 victories. So, for a baseline, let's figure it's going to take getting to at least 92 victories for the Yankees to make the playoffs.
To get there, the 64-59 Yankees would have to go 28-11 the rest of the way, a .717 winning percentage. Can they do that? Sure. Is it likely? Umm ... no.
Yes, the lineup manager Joe Girardi is able to field currently is more Yankee-like than any he has used this season. Alex Rodriguez is back, whether you think he should be or not, and is doing enough to be a threat in the middle of the lineup. Home-run-hitting outfielder Curtis Granderson is healthy again. Alfonso Soriano, acquired from the Chicago Cubs, has been on a record-setting RBI tear. Even the free-agent pickup of slugger Mark Reynolds helps. Shortstop Derek Jeter should be back at some point from his latest leg injury, providing another boost.
No more trying to win with Luis Cruz, Reid Brignac, Thomas Neal, David Adams and the like pretending to be Yankees.
The lineup looks better, but the bigger question is do the Yankees have the starting pitching to sustain a 29-11 finish to the season? Only Hiroki Kuroda has been dependable every time he has taken the ball, so that remains to be seen.
The other issue is simply the number of teams the Yankees have to leapfrog to get to the wild-card spot. In between the Yankees and the second wild-card playoff berth are the Athletics, the current holders of that spot, Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians and Kansas City Royals. That's a lot of teams to chase down.
Can the Yankees make it to the playoffs? Of course, they can. I hope it happens. Is it likely to happen? No.
The realist in me is braced for the probability that October baseball will not feature the Yankees in 2013. I do, however, hope to be pleasantly surprised.
Ed Valentine is editor of bigblueview.com, covering the New York Giants. He has written about the Yankees for several publications, and his work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post and a variety of other web sites.
