Yankee Elimination Day Comes Early

What did you get for YED? I always get the same thing: a simple moment of relief and peace as I realize that the rats with cocaine-like nature of Yankee Fan is being slowly but surely weaned into something more like, well, the rest of MLB fandom. Did you know that there are people who can use a restroom without assistance that have never known a Yankee championship year? That's change we can believe in, America!

Let us not let the corpse get cold. The finger pointing begins with...

> Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy winning fewer games than (many) middle relievers

> Robinson Cano's bad start that turned into a bad everything

> The usual bench woes that aren't defensible at any level for a team with this payroll (Morgan Ensberg! Wilson Betemit! Chad Moeller! The usual clown car parade of replacement starting pitchers!)

> A-Rod's injury in the early season, DP-filled August, and overall failure to walk on water while providing tabloid headlines (clearly, he needed the divorce to be spread out longer, as that was the only time this year that he was really raking)

> Derek Jeter being the most overrated player in MLB this year, and for much of the year, having a bad enough year that even the media noticed

> The Kyle Farnsworth for Ivan Rodriguez trade that wound up hurting both clubs

> Joba Chamberlain looking like an ace, then breaking down (really, the Fork Moment of the season)

But really, the single biggest thing that happened to the Yankees this year was that the doormats of the AL East got good. Tampa Bay might be the best story in baseball this year. Toronto was better. Even the Orioles were plucky for vast portions of the season, with an offense that was more like the Yankees' usual wrecking crew than the Bombers were. Add it up, and you've got a team that was, on some level, lucky to be in contention this long.

Will they be better in 2009? You'd have to think so, given that the new stadium isn't going to fill itself at the prices they're charging for it, and New Yorkers aren't likely to fill the place for years just because it's new. (That's more of a flyover country thing.) The starting 9 is liable to have huge turnover (Giambi, Posada, Cano and Cabrera being the primary targets), and what stays (Jeter, A-Rod, Nady, Damon) isn't getting any better at their ages.

As for the rotation, anyone that thinks the starting rotation has to be better with a more mature Hughes and Kennedy... well, they should realize that they are really not likely to get 19 wins from Mike Mussina again. Chen Ming-Wang should be a solid comeback candidate, but I would submit that a guy who puts a lot of balls in play with what usually is a bad defensive infield behind him really isn't something that you count on to be an ace.

There's also this: Tampa Bay isn't a one-year wonder. The Red Sox may have issues, but they've also got a farm system that gives them better than replacement level players, more often than not. Toronto and Baltimore don't look like utter doormats anymore. The new Stadium could (one would think have to) be less of a home-field advantage than what it's historically been. The new Stein is going to start flexing his muscles soon, and there's no reason to think that Joe Girardi will survive a second year out of the limelight; the resulting instability and opportunity to extend bizarre organizational politics into the manager's office could put them back in the bad old '80s days.

Add it all up, and you have a division where I think the Yanks are more likely to finish last in '09 than first. Which means we'll be celebrating Yankee Elimination Day earlier, which would be just peachy on many levels. Now, if we can only have them infect the Red Sox, too...