New York Yankees Surge: A Different Take
You can’t argue against winning, but is the New York Yankees recent surge really a good thing for the team and the organization?
For the first time this season, the New York Yankees are more than two games above .500. CC Sabathia bounced back with a good showing on Tuesday, Mark Teixeira‘s bat is showing signs of life and Carlos Beltran’s batting average remains on an ever-increasing rise. All is well in Yankeeland these days. Hold on, not so fast.
It’s hard to argue against winning, but here’s the problem.
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The Yankees’ recent surge can be likened to a blackjack player who is down a significant sum to the house.
But he doubles down a couple of times and scores big on four consecutive hands. Living large, he’s feeling like he has the house right where he wants them. Only to find that three hours later, he’s still down as he walks away from the table.
When he managed the Yankees, Joe Torre used to count ’em in fives. Five over, ten over, and so on. He also didn’t buy into winning streaks. Instead, he measured his team’s success by their ability to win series. Take two out of three as often as you can, and you are bound to find yourself with a .600 winning percentage and in the fight to make it to the playoffs and beyond.
Torre’s take on winning teams boils down to consistency over the long haul of a 162-game season.
In 2016, the Yankees have managed only to be consistently mediocre. Now, while it looks like there may be some hope, the climb uphill becomes daunting especially when you realize 11 games over .500 means going 8-2 over your next 10 games.
To put it another way, if you really want to get depressed—the Yankees would have to go 38-22 in their remaining games to reach the 90-win plateau. Impossible? Of course not. Unlikely? Probably, because again it’s all about consistency.
But even beyond all this is the distinct possibility that management and Hal Steinbrenner will use this mini-surge as an excuse to stand pat over the next few days essentially saying to fans, “See, we told you we had the makings of a good team here, and now we’re showing it to you.”
Except, this “new” team is the same as the old team that limped through the first half of the season. You still have the same set of problems. The team still has aging stars, and they are still draining the payroll.
You still have all those empty expensive seats that YES can’t hide. Although, you can be sure they have their engineers working overtime to find a way to do it.
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It’s almost like the Yankees have US right where they want us. And they’re putting on a little show hoping that it whets our appetite, and we stand down stopping the cry for them to make some real changes on the team.
And later, if it turns out to only have been a mirage…oh well, it’s too late to do anything about it now. Monday, when the trade deadline is upon us, that could very well be where the Yankees stand.