Ichiro resigns with Seattle

Dr. Giganto

C'mon, that's ridiculous...Do you really think the Yankees are a bad destination for somebody who wants to win a championship?

are the Marlins, Diamondbacks, or White Sox a better choice? They've all won the World Series since 2000...

One down year for a team that's made the playoffs 12 straight years (and had the best record in the AL in the strike year), has the second-best offense in MLB (as measured by runs scored) and has an assload of young pitching prospects coming up soon to address the pitching issues, and now all of a sudden they're no longer "winners"? That's ridiculous

Blitzkrieg

Administrator

Well.. if you look at their playoff results since 2000 the Yankees have lost to a number of teams like the Marlins, Tigers, and Angels twice.. all who they should have beaten with the talent they have.

They aren't winning a championship this year and with this whole A-Rod contract situation, a number of bad contracts (Giambi, Abreu, Damon) and their pitchers being old enough to collect social security.. I see no reason why I should favor the Yankees to win a championship anytime within the next two or three years.

Course.. with thier money, I suppose anything is possible, but I could have said that for the last 7 years and all they've done is sign the wrong people time after time.

I'm not saying Seattle is a much better fit and I'm not saying they are going to win a championship.. I'm saying it's not out of the realm of possibility like some on here have implied..

Joe Cool

Administrator

Well I can speak from experience that most people who move here, stay here. The Inland Northwest is a very inviting place to live so I agree with Jay and Mike.

We could speculate until the cows home about why he wants to stay but honestly, Seattle is not that bad of a team from what i've seen as some of you make them out to be.

They may not be championship caliber but they're not the bottom of the barrel.

Danny Diamond

Founder/Admin

Isn't it fair to say that the heavy Japanese influence in Seattle had alot to do with it?

I think he is just comfortable there and wanted to feel the love from the city and team. Nothing wrong with that.

I am glad he is staying there.

Also, Tom. I have some good news and bad news.

The bad news is that the Yankees are a MESS and wont be getting any better anytime soon.

The good news is the same as the bad news if you live in Boston.

Joe Cool

Administrator

It's true there are a lot of Asian folks in the Northwest.

My wife loves it here because of the sheer number of people she can talk to from her country.

JsnakeJ

that inside the park home run at the all star game was awesome.

Dr. Giganto

And in that time, they've also beaten the Twins twice, the Red Sox once, a 102-win A's team, and a 116-win Mariners team. You cant expect a team to beat ridiculously good teams every time out. Especially in a 5-game series, where it's very easy for a better team to lose, because the series is so short. I value results over a 162-game period more highly than results over a 5-game series. You should understand that, as a Braves fan who has to listen to a bunch of nonsense downplaying the achievements of your team.

Perhaps because they consistently have one of the best offenses in baseball year after year, and they have a good group of young pitchers, like Wang and Phil Hughes (the #1 pitching prospect in all of baseball coming into this season), that will likely help solve the woes of the team's pitching staff the last few years.

Not to mention the numerous other highly-touted minor league pitchers they have accumulated in the past few years, including Humberto Sanchez, Tyler Clippard, Matt DeSalvo, Joba Chamberlain, Ian Kennedy, Ross Ohlendorf, and a possible replacement to Mariano Rivera in Edwar Ramirez (0.67 ERA this season, 47 Ks, 9 BBs in 27 innings...struck out the side in his major league debut against Twins, including Justin Morneau).

If even one of those starters pans out, that's three good young pitchers that should be with the team for years to come.

Now, I'm not saying the Yankees should be the odds-on-favorite to win the World Series every year. But they certainly have a very good chance every year for the near future.

As for this year, the Yankees have won 8 of their last 11, their deficits in both the division and the wild card are not insurmountable (9 and 8, respectively), and they've outscored their opponents by 76 runs this season, which implies that they're not as bad as their record indicates.

As for next season, the Red Sox had a down year last year, and they seem to be doing alright this year...so dont count out the Yankees just because they've stumbled in the early part of this year...

Freak

That's the first thing that popped into my head reading this thread.

Blitzkrieg

Administrator

That's an unfair comparison though. The Braves never lost to teams that they were heavily favored against except maybe the Padres and I'll also agree that they should have beaten the Yanks in '96 after they had them down 2-0.

The series they did win was against an Indians squad who everyone though would win it all that year.

The Braves lost to stacked teams such as the '92 Jays, '97 Marlins, '99 Yankees and so on and they never had a closer like Rivera until recent times with Smoltz for a few years..

Speaking of Atlanta, they are in a horrible financial situation right now, nobody wants to spend money on the team, and guess what? They are still right there with the Mets who have spent a crapload of money to put this current team together.

The Yankees should never ever be at .500 and playing the way they have been all year for spending over $200M on the team..

Yankee fans also want to have it both ways.. They want us to bow to their greatness because of all the world series they've accumulated but do not want to acknowledge that when they won most of those there were no playoffs, there were no wild card team and 5 and 7-game series to go through..

But now.. when they are supposed to win every year all of a sudden I can't expect them to win it all because of how many rounds there are.

Dr. Giganto

But, every other team in baseball had the same limitations on them, and they still didnt win nearly as many timea s the Yankees did. It's not like every other team had to go through three playoff series and the Yankees only had to go through one. They were all on equal footing and the Yankees won more than any other team. So your "criticism" makes no sense whatsoever.

Also, you could argue that it makes the Yankees history even greater, because you could only play in the World Series if you were the absolute best team in the league over 162 games, not because you barely squeaked into the playoffs with the 13th best record in baseball, and then played well in a few short series (like the 2006 Cardinals, or to be fair, the 2000 Yankees)

You're letting your experiences with Yankee fans influence your ability to judge and assess the team, and as a result, you're making statements that should be objective, but they're subjective and biased instead