The basketball season has not turned out well for my teams. The St. John's University Red Storm has in all likelihood failed to make the NCAA tournament. While I'll follow SJU in the NIT and still watch some of the NCAA's, the 2012-13 college hoops season has lost its usual hold on my attention. In the NBA, the Brooklyn Nets are improved over the New Jersey Nets who as recently as the 2009-10 season lost 70 of 82 games. However, the first profesional team to represent Brooklyn since the Dodgers left for L.A in 1958 has shown a consistent lack of ability to handle the good teams. I would be surprised if they don't get eliminated in the first round of the NBA playoffs. These developments have gotten me thinking about baseball more than I usually do during the exhibition season.
The New York Yankees look like they will be starting the 2013 season with a power outage. It's not just A-Rod. His return in 2013 at all is doubtful, and almost certainly not before August. Injuries to Curtis Granderson (43 HR's last year) and Mark Teixeria (24) will keep them out of the lineup probably til mid-May. In the interim, the makeshift lineup will hardly be in the Bronx Bombers tradition. Don't forget that missing from last year's team which produced 245 HR's is Nick Swisher's 24, Russell Martin's 21, Raul Ibanez's 19, Eric Chavez's 16 and Andruw Jones's 14 HR's.
Before I go any further let me unequivocally state that I'm not looking for sympathy. Back in the 1950's there was a saying going the rounds of anti-Yankeedom that "rooting for the Yankees was like rooting for U.S. Steel". (Today you could probably substitute the Koch brothers for U.S. Steel.) If I didn't grow up on Long Island rooting for the greatest baseball team ever, I would be among those wearing the t-shirts reading "I root for the (insert your city's team) and whoever plays the Yankees".
Back to the 2013 Yankees. Grandy's outfield mates, Brett Gardner and Ichiro Suzuki, are not likely to supply much power. Whether it's Eduardo Nunez, Juan Rivera or a rookie call-up filling in for Curtis, the outfield will have no punch 'til he returns. Hope the Grandy Man can cut down on his K's this year. He set the all-time Yankee record with 195 last year.
Kevin Youkilis may start the season at 1B and switch to 3B when Teixeria returns. Yankee Stadium is not as HR friendly to right-handed hitters as it is to lefties so I wouldn't expect more than 20 HR's from the former Red Sox. Jeter figures to be somewhere between 10 - 15 HR's and Jayson Nix or Nunez at 3B are also not known for the long ball. The catching corps will be lucky to hit 10 HR's between them.
Robinson Cano is the only legitimate power threat til Grandy and Teixeria return. In the last 4 years, Cano has hit 25, 28, 28 and 33 HR's. He could be drawing a lot of walks this year.
Left-handed DH Travis Hafner's career with the Cleveland Indians has been injury plagued since 2007, his last full season when in 525 AB's he produced 24 HR's and 100 RBI's. Last year in 219 AB's, he had 12 HR's and 34 RBI's to go with his .228 batting average. Shooting for the short right field porch in Yankee home games may help but my guess is that the Yankees will be lucky to get 20 HR's from old Travis. The right handed DH will probably be shared by giving periodic rests to old folks like Jeter, Youkilis and Juan Rivera.
Maybe the Yankees will be a running team if the speedy Nunez can get enough at bats to join Ichiro and Gardner on the basepaths. More later in the season.
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