30 Teams in 30 Days: New York Yankees

30 Teams in 30 Days is a preseason feature to highlight the significant changes to each of the major league teams. It's meant to get everyone up to speed before our pre-season predictions in mid-March.

Last year the New York Yankees discovered that just cruising into the playoffs was a thing of the past in the AL East. A lack of pitching, streaky hitting, and a rash of injuries left the perennial power house watching the playoffs from home (boy, wasn't it a thing of beauty.) The departures of Jason Giambi, Mike Mussina, Bobby Abreu, Pudge Rodriguez, and Carl Pavano gave the Yankees plenty of money to spend in the off-season. I wonder if they made any meaningful moves?

C- Jorge Posada
1B- Mark Teixiera
2B- Robinson Cano
SS- Derek Jeter
3B- Alex Rodriguez
OF- Xavier Nady
OF- Johnny Damon
OF- Nick Swisher
DH- Hideki Matsui

SP- C.C. Sabathia
SP- A.J. Burnett
SP- Chien-Ming Wang
SP- Andy Pettitte
SP- Joba Chamberlain/Phil Hughes/Ian Kennedy
CL- Mariano Rivera

The Yankees have the best team on paper, but are Posada, Matsui, and Wang fully recovered? Can Nicky the Swish and Cano have bounce back years? And is A.J. Burnett the second coming of Carl Pavano? Let's all hope the answers to these questions go something like no, no, and please god yes!

Joe Torre Rips Yankees. Becomes Favorite Son of ISP.

The New York Post and Daily News are reporting today that Dodgers manager Joe Torre rips the New York Yankees in his new book "The Yankee Years." Not surprisingly, Torre reveals that many of Alex Rodriguez's teammates often mocked him by calling him "A-fraud." I first came across this delicious piece of news at the always good Big League Stew.

The most entertaining part of the post is, of course, the comments.

thats awesome. yankees suck. keep spending all that money for another losing season you idiots. A rod is over rated. cant wait to see him go 0-4 every other game just like last year. -Go Boston

Because that .302 avg, .392 OBP, 35 homers, and 102 rbi's in 138 games is just complete horseshit! Fuck, if Mike Lowell would have played in 138 games he would have put up much better numbers!

[profane] dodgers and [profane] every1 yankes own ass nd if u say they dont get ur head out of ur ass and look how many world series they won dumasses- Peter N

Peter sure is doing Yankee nation proud by lowering their collective IQ by 10 points and helping us all remember the Yankees haven't won a World Series in almost a decade.

Who cares the Twins are the only team that matters. -fuseigniter

Since when the fuck do the Twins have fans?

I think joe torres should shut up is big mouth with big nose A -rod is the best player there is in history of baseball,better than any yankees player theres was, ppl should stop hating on him. he is gettin pay alot of money because he is that good or prolly ppl are hating cuz he aint a type of skin color that they want him to b. -Mar

We should definitely make this a racial thing. First opinion up on this- Ozzie Guillen.