When Colon, Chamberlain, and Jeter went down with injuries it felt daunting. Add to that the knowledge that The Yankees had let a Red Sox team that started 2-10 take the AL East lead, and it feels like a lost season. I was ready to start trading for prospects.
Then, during Sunday night’s broadcast of the Yankees @ Cubs game it was mentioned that the Yankees had the 3rd best record in baseball. How could that be? Everything seems so bad. Jeter is garbage now (on top of being placed on the DL), A-rod has fallen back to humanity, Soriano was a bust (thanks a lot Hank), Swisher has struggled, Hughes has been out all year, Posada has had a dramatic decline, how could we have the 3rd best record in baseball?
After thanking Curtis Granderson and his league leading 21 homeruns for being the Yankees’ team MVP (and my fantasy team MVP), I wonder how this is possible. Are we really one of the three best teams in baseball? The more I look at it, the more I think so.
Losing Colon, Chamberlain, and Jeter stinks…but they kind of do too. Jeter has contributed very little, Chamberlain continues to amaze everyone with his ability to spin his head around and watch homeruns fly out without straining his neck, and Colon, as good as he’s been, only has 5 wins and he’s really been a bonus more than someone we rely on anyway.
It amazes me that the Yankees are able to do this every year. I thought eventually we’d have to totally rebuild. Our team is so old now. I expected a weak year (90 wins tops), no playoffs, and a focus on youth, but we continue to find at least mild success.
Yankees are now 6-1 (after tonight’s win at Cincinnati) without Derek Jeter. We seem to keep finding a way. I was going to end this blog post with the question: Will the Yankees eventually have to go through a tough rebuilding mode to return as an elite team, but since we’re a top 3 team in baseball I guess we remain an elite team. So I’ll just make a testy remark, The New York Yankees may be the most underrated team in baseball.
RyanKantor.com 
Boston actually only started 0-6 before taking 2 of 3 from the Yanks. Still, pretty impressive on their part. As for the Yankees, Granderson has been a huge part of their consistent winning, as has Mark Teixeira. Guys like Russell Martin and Brett Gardner have been very solid for the Yanks too, and despite the bullpen injuries, that’s definitely been a strength for this team.
With their resources, I doubt the Yankees will have to do a complete rebuild in the near future. They won’t be having a firesale or starting completely from scratch like other smaller market teams do. They’ll eventually have their struggles, but there’s enough revenue and talent to ensure that we’re probably quite a ways from a 90 loss season.