This Is A Problem
Tampa Bay just became a much, much tougher opponent last night. One of the worst things about a Tampa-Boston ALCS was that the Yankees were going to have to open 2009 knowing they were playing in the same division as the AL champ. In many ways, it would have been much better if it had been Boston again. The Red Sox know they are good, they have won some titiles recently and another trip to the World Series would not have done that much to change them.
Tampa on the other hand is a bunch of young guys who had no idea how good they were. Now they absolutley know. They survived on of the biggest in-game collpases in playoff history and now they are headed to the World Series. I don't know what will happen there (again, go Phillies) but they will open 2009 a confident team. And, they will be a young team. Longoria, Upton, Garza, Shields, Kazmir...not one of those guys is even 27 yet. Carl Crawford just turned 27, Carlos Pena is all of 30.
The point is Tampa has a young and now experienced team. The kind of team that can cause problems for the Yankees for years to come. They were clearly better than New York in 2008 and unless something radical and I mean really radical changes they will be, at least on paper, heading into 2009. If the Yankees had any doubts about having to get younger, I hope last night finally squashed them. The future is in Tampa and not the part where the Yankees train.
Comments
Tampa does not need any pscyhological advantage to beat the Yankees -- they absolutely ate their lunch starting in spring training and continuing throughout the year.
As for repeating, well you have four very good teams in the East: Tampa, Boston, NYY, and Toronto. No one is going to lock up the East the way the Yankees did for a decade.
I think the Yanks are getting a lot younger in the pitching department: Joba, Wang, Hughes, Robertson, Coke, Kennedy are all young. They are an old team when it comes to position players. But if you drop Giambi and Abreu; demote Damon to LF; and go with speed like Gardner, that will help.
The Yanks will be competitive. They just won't be back in the postseason unless they get very lucky and add some more front line pitching.
Posted by: corey | October 20, 2008 10:44 AM |