No Unit No Cry

Read Joel Sherman on why the Yanks' empire hasn't crumbled merely because they did not get Randy Johnson in a trade.

This morning on Mike & Mike on ESPN Radio, Greenberg claimed that the 2002 Angels are an anomaly -- a team that did not win with pitching and defense in the playoffs but relied upon its offense and we're not likely to see that repeated this year or in the future. This assertion is rubbish.

Consider the following: (1) 1996 Yankees, team ERA 4.65, 5 quality starts in 15 playoff games (two in the WS), beats defending WS champion Atlanta despite 5 quality starts in 6 WS games; (2) 1997 Indians and Marlins face off in the WS, 'nuff said; (3) 2000 Yankees win World Series despite only two winning pitchers (Pettitte, Clemens) in starting rotation; (4) 2003 Marlins give up 42 runs in NLCS (6 per game) and win NL pennant by scoring 40 (blowout loss in game 2 skews the totals). That's just four recent examples.

Can the Yanks bang their way to a World Series? No. Even the '96 team had some good pitching from the starters (Pettitte, game 5 of ALCS, WS; Key, game 3 ALCS; Cone, game 3 WS); ditto the '02 Angels (most notably John Lackey in game 7). But the '97 Indians, '96 Yanks, '03 Marlins and '02 Angels all show that you can go one or more playoff series without decent starting pitching and win.

And another thing: Gammons yesterday on ESPN noted that the injuries to Brown and Moooooooooose could HELP the Yanks because those two won't have 33+ start seasons wearing on their arms in October. This is especially true of Brown, whose arm is ok to begin with.