Since 2005, I’ve had the same exact reaction at the end of every Yankee season: “Man, they just couldn’t get a break this year.” The Yankees have faced a lot of adversity since they were humiliated by the Red Sox in 2004. That was the year the “Yankee Magic” fell apart, which really was the end of a tremendous string of good luck.
In 2005, the center field game plan broke down as Bernie Williams lost all offensive and defensive ability. Among starting pitchers, only Randy Johnson stayed healthy and effective all season. Tony Womack, predictably, gave way to Robinson Cano in May, but started playing in the outfield. Tom Gordon was overworked by Joe Torre in the bullpen, and the warn-down Yankee pitching staff was unable to survive the first round of the playoffs. The 2006 starting staff was pretty good, despite an ERA over 5.00 for Randy Johnson and a weak season from Jaret Wright. The bullpen, on the other hand, melted down, and needed Scott Proctor to pitch 102 innings. But that was nothing compared to their 2007 woes, as Roger Clemens had to be signed for over 20 million dollars over the summer to help fix Yankee pitching issues. Bloggers had to learn to spell Doug Mientkiewicz when Andy Phillips wasn’t playing first base. Alex Rodriguez’s 54 home runs were good enough for a wild card spot, but it wasn’t enough to hold up the team in the playoffs. Then we missed the playoffs in 2008 following injuries to Chien-Ming Wang and Phil Hughes.
Besides for Chien-Ming Wang’s saga, nothing went wrong for the Yankees in 2009. Once Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada returned to the lineup in June, no Yankee hitter missed time. Four starters made 31 starts or more, and (unlike past years) it never really seemed to hurt to send out a Sergio Mitre or Chad Gaudin every fifth day. This was because Phil Hughes, David Robertson, Phil Coke, and Alfredo Aceves formed the best bridge to Mariano Rivera in a long time, and C.C. Sabathia regularly went into the 8th inning or longer.
Derek Jeter started the season with serious questions being asked about his continued ability to hit and play defense. Today, Jeter is a leading candidate for the 2nd place spot in the Most Valuable Player award, and had his best defensive season in years. The Yankee infield hit a combined 112 home runs, and may yet be known as the best infield of all time. The rest of the hitters didn’t disappoint either: Posada, Damon, and Swisher had great years, and even Melky Cabrera was above average.
The Yankees cruised into the playoffs. So far, the plan has worked out flawlessly.
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12 Responses to 2009: The Season That Went According To Plan
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TIQ IQ
This season is sort of fairy tale in a couple of ways and nothing really seems more fairy tale than today’s game… I mean who would have thought that Alex Rodriguez could come into today with 28 HRs and 93 RBI and in one inning leave with 30 Hrs and 100 RBI after missing a month of the season and having to seat once a weak all while rehabbing surgically repaired hip and playing reasonable 3B. I said it early in the season I will say it again Alex Rodriguez is the Yankees MVP this year no matter where the voting puts him Jeter or Tex.
i second that statement. Arod is that dude.
It really bodes well for him carrying this type of performance into the post season, I mean he has to feel good about himself the first pitch of his season was a solo shot and the last pitch of his regular season was a grand slam it doesn’t get much better than that.
If anything, you could argue that things have gone BETTER than planned. Some bouncebacks were certainly expected, but I don’t think anyone expected Matsui to come back in that kind of form, Jeter to magically become an above average shortstop, Burnett to magically turn into a great clubhouse guy. The only real disappointment has been Joba and at least he’s stayed healthy and gotten his proper innings.
It really wasn’t a disappointment until the second half of the season after the 3 really good games he has, because up to that point he has a sub 4 ERA and although he wasn’t dominate he was holding runs back, you have to wonder if the lack of this later on is partly due to the innings stretch on his arm.
That’s ridiculous, you didn’t watch the games then.
I watched every game but 11 due to TV restrictions and unavoidable scheduling conflicts so I have watched as many games or more than you have and if you had watched the games you would see the spark Alex is for this team… Tex was hitting .180 the day Alex came back to the club and Derek Jeter was hitting .290 since then Tex finishes the year with a .292 I believe and Jeter finished with .332 and while a lot of it has to do with them actually hitting a lot of credit should be given to Arod.
Once Tex got the protection from Alex he needed he was able to relax and not feel like it was all on him and along with that came the fact that opposing pitchers had to attack Tex in order to not face Arod with men on so he started seeing more fastball as opposed to before Alex came back when Tex was seeing a majority of curveballs forcing him to swing at bad pitches or take walks (to his credit he did take those walks early on).
Rodriguez changes the whole face of this line up, he puts Matsui and Posada in position to come up with men on and do big things but they don’t have to be the focus of the line up and so their bats become more valuable as a result and when a pitcher finally does get to them they have had to battle to get there wearing the pitcher on the mound out before they come up to the plate.
If you don’t want to talk about on the field in production matters but simply emotion from one player he did that too, Alex was a driving force in the club house atmosphere and really did a great job in coming into a club house a month into the season and not making anything about himself but always deflecting questions toward team achievements and goals.
In all facets of the season Alex is the MVP with out him this team would be the Rays both in record and in position in the AL East, he gives us a bat that when healthy and on his game is the best bat in the AL and one of the best power hitters of all time and what he did not necessarily pure numbers wise but emotionally and being a leader and driving force for a winning attitude is priceless for this team.
You don’t have to agree but if you are going to disagree don’t respond with “you didn’t watch the games” because that is a slap in my face!
This is, without a doubt, a season of comebacks, perhaps moreso than the storied season of ’96.
Most obvious are the comeback wins – roughly half of the Yankees 103 victories were of the “come from behind” variety. I’d be surprised if that wasn’t some sort of record. You also have the fact that the team as a whole was looking to return to the post season after last year’s disappointments.
But look also at those wearing the pinstripes:
Joe Girardi – Fired after managing one season for the Marlins, the team missed the playoffs under his first year. The shadow of Torre loomed large (and in case you forgot, there was that book…).
Alex Rodriguez – Came off hip surgery and personal turmoil to finally win over the fans.
Derek Jeter – Proved a legion of naysayers wrong with his best season in years.
Robinson Cano- Huge rebound after a disappointing 2008 had fans ready to trade him away.
Jorge Posada – Coming off injury and making the case that he can catch until the end of his contract.
Mariano Rivera – Despite a great ’08 effort, his age and off season surgery had vultures circling.
Andy Pettite – Swallowed his pride to take a huge pay cut,and became our #2 pitcher (again).
Hideki Matsui – More knee surgery, he stayed healthy and came up big.
Phil Hughes – 2008 was a crushing disappointment, yet he arguably became the team MVP.
Melky Cabrera – Rebounded to become one of the team’s most clutch players.
Johnny Damon – The new stadium proved a godsend to his career.
Nick Swisher – Banished to the bench on the White Sox, he proved a valuable platoon player and a vital clubhouse component.
Everyone else on the team came in with something to prove, whether they were kids like Gardner, Coke and Aceves, or new acquisitions like CC, AJ and Tex.
Other than Wang, I can think of only 2 Yankees that did not have better seasons in ’09 – Joba and AJ, and I wouldn’t say either did poorly.
For once I’ll sort of agree with you – AVG aside ARod has been as important to this lineup as Tex or Jeet, and may have been more ‘clutch” than either. However, there are a number of factors that came into play in early May, And ARod’s gotten a little too much credit.
1. The pitching improved. That likely had more to do with CC catching fire (also 5/8) and Wang being sent down than ARod returning.
2. Aceves was called up, greatly strengthening the bullpen.
3. Tex always has slow Aprils, this time exacerbated by a strained forearm, and never needed Arod to get out of his slump before. Pitch analysis also showed he wasn’t getting any better pitches to hit after Arod returned.
FWIW -The yanks were stacked with hitters this year but razor thin on starting pitching. CC gets my vote for being the most indespensible player on the team.
1. I would agree but I would also say CC Sabathia had a lot of pressure on him early in the season especially when he hasn’t been Cy Young in the first month even though it should have been expected and he usually does have a second half turn around but wouldn’t you a least somewhat agree with the fact that when Alex came back into the picture CC wasn’t the highest paid guy in the club house anymore and the reporters were at least split with him and Tex and Alex over just him and Tex as it had been before Arod was even around the club house early on?
2. I agree and he should have been on the roster to start with.
3. Tex is a slow starter but he had also dug a pretty big hole, I made mention to the hard work and effort these guys had to put in for this to happen but you can’t say Arod wasn’t at least a factor at lifting some of the pressure on these guys in these scenarios. You also can’t deny that having Alex batting behind you is always going to give you some more opportunities to see fastballs early on in counts more often than breaking stuff so they don’t fall behind you and let Alex make them pay.
It’s obvious a lot of different factors came together and made this season what it has been, no one man can win a championship or Alex would have a house full of rings by now with his talent. All I am saying is that with Alex this team is a world series contender with the best right handed power hitter in the AL and one of the best switching bats in the AL and it’s a deadly line up, with out Alex you have a great hitter and a bunch of good hitters but no one to put behind Tex and be feared enough to make the pitcher think about him with Tex up. Alex does that, every time you face Tex in the back of your mind you know number 13 is up next and one mistake could snow ball and cost you the game, this is a huge physiological advantage to every one hitting above Arod and when he slumps you can see the decline in runs scored based on the fact that the big bat in the middle isn’t going. I would venture to say Alex is more important than CC because he is on the field close to every day and can affect the other players on the field and will them to win in moments that through no fault of his own CC just isn’t in the game.
I think we’re on the same page, here. This is too good a team to say any one player was the key factor, but ARod was as big a factor as anyone.
I would say this team is good enough to have several key factors as oppose to none, from my perspective you have to give Sabathia, Tex, Arod, Jeter, Swisher and Brunett most of the credit for losing the club house, leading by example and winning but out of those guys they have rankings on contribution and I think Alex leads that list.
Yankee MVPs in order
Alex- Alex gets my top vote because he allowed Tex and CC to not have all the focus on them as they had in the first month when they struggled, He brought real protection the Tex in the line up for the first time and he too away one of the biggest holes in the Yankees offense (3rd base production) and made it one of the biggest strengths of the club down the stretch.
Sabathia- Started his bid for Yankees MVP day one by bringing the club house together by having everyone support Alex at his press confrence, taking guys to basketball games and simply being a good team mate. Asside from that he was one of the top 3 pitchers in the AL this year and took all the pressure of the contract and playing in New York and had one of the best seasons ever for a firt year Yankee pitcher and he did it all as the staff Ace.
Jeter- He’s the captain, He’s Derek Jeter you don’t need to say much more than that but this year even more so he worked on his game, he came in healthy and with improved defense and a real mission in mind and helped keep this team on track all year as the lead off hitter.
Tex- Mark brought a great glove every single day and he never takes a play off, this guy hustles down to first up by 12 or down by 12 and his attitude is great in the club house but his production at 1B with the glove and bat is a really rare and important weapon to have, and having Tex be your second best hitter on the team is really something.
Swisher- Swisher is a little bit of everything he brings personality, a professional attitude daily and has productive at bats almost every time he is at the plate, he never throws away an at bat which is rare in today’s game. He probably would be higher on the list if he wasn’t competing with Jeter, Tex, Alex and Sabathia but what can you do.
Burnett- Falls to the bottom because he was the moist inconsistent but he pitched important innings, had some really incredible games and helped bring a change in the attitude of the club house… and he brought pie.