WHERE ARE WE?

As the Yankees now seem assured of playing October ball and entering the playoffs as baseball's hottest team, I thought we might pause and look at the three problem areas this team has had for the past couple of years, to see if any improvement has been made.

Bullpen: JOBA, JOBA, JOBA. And frankly not much else. Vizcaino has been better the second half of the season, but Ramirez is unreliable at best, and really seems to have a weakness for the long ball. Farnsworth is so bad, I don't think they should even put him on the postseason roster. His is a uniquely flammable combination of ineffective wildness (he throws alot of 4 pitch walks) and grooved fastballs ripe for the hitting. I think Bruney and Britton are both better bets, and they are both pretty awful. Villone is adequate for a batter or two. Veras is either very good or dreadful--you know which right away; unfortunately Joe doesn't.

The real weakness in the bullpen is the starting pitching, which is either too old (Clemens), too contact averse (Mussina, Wang), or too wild (Hughes) to give the bullpen any kind of break. If the starters could consistently go 7-8, Joba, Vizcaino and Mo would make for a pretty awesome pen. But those other guys will have to pitch sometimes, and when they do we will probably lose. The relievers give even a good tactician a very narrow marign for error. Slow Joe can no more walk that line than Dumbo the Elephant can cross the big top on a suspended skein of dental floss.

Situational Hitting

There has been improvement here, both because of slight upticks in the performance of Damon and Matsui, a huge uptick in the performance of Mankiewitz and because Jason Giambi is one of the best pinchhitters in baseball right now. The last is not really that surprising: he was always willing to take alot of pitches, not fearing to wait for the one that would define his night, and that is a good mindset for a pinchhitter.If you combine this improvement with the implosion of Scot Shields, I think you actually have to give the Yankees a shot against the Angels this year.

Defense

Cabrera is the best defensive center fielder the Yankees have seen since Mickey Mantle, or at least Mickey Rivers. Mankiewicz has been hitting well enough to keep the first base job, which is a giant improvement over Giambi. Jeter's sliding back into the erratic play of the spring and Cano has regressed some at second, though he still turns a mean DP. Posada is not where he was last year in terms of nailing runners, but he's not too bad. Has had some butterfingers lately. We need Damon's coverage with Matsui's arm in left. Overall, you'd have to say this team is not going to win a WC with its defense, but it may have risen to a leveel of adequacy where it need not lose one either.


Torre

He still stinks.

I saw him interviewed yesterday and he was talking about how the season turned around when he started playing Melky. Hey Joe, that happened last year too, but you were too stupid to play him every day in April and May. If you had, the yankees would probably be up a game or two at this point instead of down two. Moreover, Torre's prejudice against youth continues and may well cost the Yankees the title. Quick, who on the available evidence is the best starter on this team. Right now it is probably Ian Kennedy. He's certainly no worse than 2, three at the outside. But Joe's misplaced sense of seniority is such that Kennedy's not even going to be in the rotation come the playoffs and probably slots in behind Hughes (whom he has outperformed) simply because he came up a few months later.
No Torre is still Torre. There's a difference between old school and old fool and he never learned it (which by the way is the definition of the latter).