Setting a new low of underachievment

Today of out the "WOW" file - anything that caused me to look like Tim Duncan after a foul call while reading it - has to do with the Yankees' record. I originally intended this post to rip the Yankees playoff hopes and criticize Joe Torre for using Roger Clemens in relief (I'll probably do at least one later in the post anyway).

The American League is really, really good. I came to this conclusion last week. Peter Gammons recently referred to the Detroit Tigers as the "best team in baseball", even though the Red Sox and Angels both have better records. Then there's Cleveland, who's only 2 games behind Detroit and are 5-2 against the Tigers thusfar. They've also played most of their games without the pitching of Cliff Lee and Jake Westbrook, who are just coming off the disabled list. Meanwhile Seattle, Oakland, and Minnesota are all above .500 and dangerous (I don't actually believe this to be true). Then there's Toronto, who have fought valiantly to a .500 record despite injuries to their entire 25 man roster, mascot, several fans, and hotel attendants. THEN there's the Yankees: 1 game under .500, 11.5 out of first place, and 6.5 out of the wild card.

This is where I was going to declare the Yankees doomed. But I took a look at their Expected Win-Loss, which is some fancy formula using run differentials and something about pythagoreus to calculate what a team's record should be. Their current record is 36-37. The Yankee's ExWL? 43-30.

43-30!!

With that record the Yankees would currently be 4.5 games behind the Red Sox and a half game ahead wild card leading Cleveland. Think of it this way: the Yankees are more games behind themselves (7) than they are in the wild card (6.5).

Now while these numbers are somewhat disturbing and actually shocking, ultimately they're meaningless. They just exemplify how bad/unlucky the Yankees have been so far (a 4-12 record in one run games doesn't help). You could blame this on players not producing, atrocious managing, poor hitting/pitching coaching, poor baserunning coaching, poor fielding, poor ownership, take your pick! It's a fun game.

And while the Yankees are really a much better team than they've been so far, they've dug their own grave. And if they want to catch any of the big 4 AL teams mentioned before, they're going to need to play to their expected record, and at this point that might need to be better than 43-30.

(I told you I'd get around to ripping the Yankees)