March 27, 2007

Hope and Faith

How the New York Yankees Can Win the World Series

by Alex Belth

Will talks with Alex Belth about the Yankees' chances on Baseball Prospectus Radio. Click to download the mp3.

Imagine the Yankees winning it all this year. I know it’s a leap of faith, but go ahead and try. Okay, that didn’t take long now, did it? The truth is that the Yankees have been the favorites to win the World Series every season for more than a decade, so it’s no chore dreaming up a way for them to do it again. On the other hand, they haven’t actually won a championship since 2000, and there is plenty that can go wrong, even if they manage to make the playoffs again.

In New York, the post-2001 Yankees have largely been considered a disappointment, and that's in spite of the fact that they have averaged 99 wins a season over that stretch. In the Big Apple, sustained excellence is not enough. If the Yanks don’t win the World Series, chalk the season up as a bust. This attitude is partially a reaction to the phenomenal post-season success the Yankees enjoyed from 1996-01. George Steinbrenner always believed that if his team did not win it all they were failures, even embarrassments--he publicly apologized to the city of New York when his team lost to the Dodgers in 1981.

For years, it was easy to dismiss Steinbrenner’s crassness. When the Yankees won four titles in six years, Steinbrenner’s sense of entitlement was actualized, and this sensibility spread to the fans, particularly the younger ones.

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